Damage Control

CHAPTER FIVE

At four-thirty, the food court outside the Cineplex in Tysons Corner Center in Vienna, Virginia looked more like a school cafeteria than a public eating place. Kids by the dozens crammed the tables, jamming their faces with the fried crap that passed for food these days, while talking way too loudly about triumphs and crises that mattered only to them. Perhaps if these urchins spent more time in school instead of enjoying three months of sanctioned truancy every summer, the future wouldn’t look so bleak.

Trevor Munro believed to his core that Hell must surely have a food court.

Munro wasn’t here for the food. He’d already had his meal for the day, lunch in Langley with the DCIA in the director’s private dining room on the sixth floor. It was becoming his regular dining venue now that his star had finally begun to rise again.

This one last thing-the business in Mexico-was the final detail that should earn him his own office on the sixth floor. Like so many triumphs, though, this one would come with its measure of indignity. Pausing at the top of the escalator, he adjusted his tie and patted the wings of his collar with a thumb and a finger, just to make sure that they lay straight. Image mattered.

He found Jerry Sjogren right where he said he’d be, near the movie ticket kiosk. Somewhere in his mid-fifties, Sjogren was thick of middle and mostly gray, with an aura about him that shifted between grandfatherly and predatory, depending on his audience. Munro knew the predatory persona to be the real one, because he understood what the man did for a living.

“You’re late,” Sjogren said when Munro came within earshot. If there was such a thing as a redneck New England accent, Sjogren had one. “Want to grab some lunch?”

“Your time is bought and paid for,” Munro said. Neither man offered to shake the other’s hand. “And no, I don’t want lunch. Let’s walk.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Sjogren joked. “If a restaurant doesn’t have crystal glasses and linen tablecloths, you won’t eat in it.”

Munro led the way to the elevator that would take them down to the first floor of the mall. They waited in silence for the car to arrive, and then for it to disgorge another gaggle of children. As two more kids-a boy and a girl, each maybe fifteen-tried to board with the men, Munro turned on them. “This elevator is closed,” he said. “Use the escalator.”

“Screw you,” the boy replied. Then he got Munro’s glare and he backed off. He and his girlfriend were already walking away when the doors closed.

“Way to keep a low profile there, Trev. Terrorizing children. Make you feel big?”

Sjogren knew damn well that Munro hated the diminutive form of any names-Billy, Bobby, Tommy- but that he particularly hated changes to his own. He chose to ignore the affront. “It’s not about feeling big, Sjogren. It’s about feeling fulfilled. And fulfillment for me comes when I hear a report from my very expensive contractors that they’ve completed the job that I hired them to do.”

The elevator doors opened again, and they stepped out to stroll the mall.

“Interesting you put it that way,” Sjogren said. “Normally, when people pay a lot of money for expensive contractors, they know enough to stay out of the contractor’s way so that he can do his job.”

Munro’s stomach flipped. “What are you telling me?”

Sjogren recoiled. “Holy shit, I thought you knew.” He laughed. “It was a cluster fuck of major proportions. Hostages dead, money gone, and your guys still alive and on the run.”

Munro’s emotional shield faltered. He pointed to the right, toward the door to the parking lot. The conversation had turned to one that demanded more privacy.

When they were outside, Munro opted to keep them walking, despite the thick humidity and blistering sun. “How is that possible? How did you let it go so wrong?”

“I didn’t let anything go wrong,” Sjogren said with a laugh. “You wanted me to find out who killed your friend, and I did that. I even got you names-Harris and Lerner, though I’d be shocked if that was their real names. You asked me to arrange a way to snare them, and I did that, too. I even found a church to play along-and I gotta tell you it’s scary how really frickin’ easy that was. Everything I touched went fine. If I’d had my way, Harris and Lerner would both be dead now, and the dear little darling kids would be home, or at least on their way.”

Sjogren paused. Munro knew he was waiting for a reaction, but he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. One of the problems with ceding wet work to contractors was the lack of respect. The better they were at their jobs, the worse the problem became.

Sjogren pressed his attack. “Things didn’t start coming apart until you had to go all Machiavellian and kill the kidnappers-who, by the way, worked for Felix Hernandez, about the most disturbed and disturbing asshole on the planet. I thought that’s the guy whose dick you were trying to suck in the first place.”

This time, Munro had to stop. It was just too much to process while walking. “Felix didn’t care about them. I had his blessing.”

Sjogren laughed again, causing Munro’s ears to burn. Everything was funny to this guy. People who laughed too much died early in Munro’s world

“Felix now, is it?” Sjogren mocked. “So you two really are butt buddies. I’d heard that, but I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think that even you Agency guys were stupid enough to go to bed with the likes of him.” He poked Munro with his elbow. “You know, Trev, friendships like that can be hard to survive.”

“None of the hostages survived?” Munro asked. It seemed impossible. “Have you verified that?”

“One or two might have,” Sjogren said. “My guy on the ground-an army captain named Palma-told me there were thirteen dead on the ground, including the kidnappers and two of Palma’s own guys, but a full count is complicated by the fact that we don’t really know what the starting numbers were. We know that your butt buddy’s goons killed a couple before the bus ever got to the jungle, but since you insisted that the goons die first, we don’t know who or how many. The only kid missing is a seventeen-year-old named Tristan Wagner. Stupid name, yeah, I know. The four chaperones are missing, too, but like I said, they might have been killed before. I haven’t looked it up in the dictionary, Trev, but I’m pretty sure this set the new definition for a cluster fuck.”

Profanity notwithstanding, Sjogren’s larger point was spot-on. But what seemed so shockingly simple to that beefy boor-getting the Crystal Palace to go along with the scheme-turned out in the end to require a great deal of heated last-minute negotiation.

The original plan had called for Hernandez to keep the ransom-three million dollars. Then, the right reverend Jackie Mitchell changed the rules at the last minute. She decided that for the kind of risk she was taking, her own three million was not enough. She needed the ransom, too, for a total of six mill. Any less, she said, and she’d go to the FBI. She’d take some heat, she reasoned, and might even face jail time, but she rolled the dice that it would all go harder on Munro than it would on her.

As with any good game of brinksmanship, it’s impossible to tell when the other party is bluffing. As a longtime veteran of such games, Munro sensed that she was serious. Given all the scandals she’d endured in the last year or so, she’d been coming from a very weird psychological starting point. Under the circumstances, such self-destructive behavior was well within the bounds of reason.

In the end, he’d had no choice but to blink.

Getting Hernandez to agree took some work, as well, but it turned out that settling the debt owed to him by Harris and Lerner-Munro was likewise willing to bet those weren’t their real names-was worth the three million dollars. Unfortunately, Felix’s largesse did not extend to the soldiers who’d done the kidnapping in return for a share of the payment. They would be angry when they found out that there’d be no payment for their efforts-angry enough to pose a security risk to Felix. Therefore, they had to die, too.

Now, after all that, Munro had nothing to show for all of his efforts but collateral damage. Worse, if Sjogren knew these details from his people on the ground, then Hernandez must know as well, and he’d be furious.

“What are you going to do to fix this?” Munro asked.

“What am I going to do?” Sjogren said, aghast. “I’m going to call it a day and watch the fireworks. The question is, what are you going to do? You screwed the pooch big-time on this. Not only are Harris and Lerner still out there-now they know they’re being hunted. You don’t have a clue who they are, but depending on who they might talk to, they’ll find out who you are. Or maybe they’ll just figure out how totally screwed up the Crystal Palace folks are. Oh, yeah, and let’s not forget what’s going to happen when all those big parishioners get wind of what you did with those little parishioners. Of course none of that will matter if Hernandez gets to you first.” Another laugh, this one heartier than the others. “Hell, Trev, I get nervous just standing next to you.”

“We can’t let them get back into the country,” Munro said, the barest outline of a plan forming in his mind.

“How’s that?”

“If we can keep them in Mexico, we can keep this contained. If they cross the border, it will be too late.”

“You don’t even know who you’re looking for. How are you gonna do that?”

“I’m going to trap them,” Munro said. Just like that, the plan became fully formed in his head. As he walked away from Sjogren, he said over his shoulder, “You’re still in this. Keep a phone nearby in case I need you.”

Mother Hen-a.k.a. Venice Alexander (it’s pronounced Ven-EE-chay, by the way)-sat in her office on the top floor of the converted firehouse in Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia, watching helplessly as the nightmare unfolded. Her official job title was something like director of operations for Security Solutions Inc., the private investigation firm that served as the cover for Jonathan Grave’s hostage rescue shenanigans. When the boys weren’t out saving lives, she in fact managed seven investigators, who each ran as many as eight different investigations simultaneously. The legitimate side of the business earned a fortune-not that Jonathan needed it-and numbered among its clients some of the biggest corporate names in the world. Few of the staff on the overt side of the business understood the covert side-or if they did, they had the good sense to keep their suspicions to themselves.

Routine investigations, though, could never hold Jonathan’s attention. He lived for the adrenaline rush of the rescue missions. When he was away on an op, it fell to Venice to manage whatever intel they could get, and to troubleshoot things when they went wrong.

Right now, things were going very, very wrong. And she’d sent for reinforcements.

When Gail Bonneville arrived in the War Room-the high-tech teak conference room that was decked out with every techno-toy imaginable-her hair was still wet from the shower that Venice’s call had interrupted. Even disheveled, Gail had an air of athletic grace about her that always thrummed a pang of jealousy in Venice, whose constant battle with the same thirty pounds had once again turned to a losing one.

“What’s wrong and how bad is it?” Gail asked as she helped herself to one of the ergonomic chairs that surrounded the massive table. As she spoke, she lifted a panel in the table to reveal a computer screen, slid out a keyboard, and logged in to her account.

“All the hostages but one are dead,” Venice said. She took a couple of minutes to fill in the rest of the story.

A former member of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, and a retired sheriff of a small community in Indiana, Gail Bonneville had a law degree and a PhD in criminology. After one particularly difficult op in West Virginia, she’d decided that extra-legal door crashing didn’t suit her, and she’d assumed official control of Security Solutions’s legitimate side. She kept her finger on the pulse of the covert side, but she no longer put herself in the position of perhaps having to shoot people whom she had no authority to kill.

As Gail listened to Venice fill in the details, the space between her eyebrows folded into deep furrows. “How’s Digger holding up? He’s never lost a hostage, has he?”

Venice gave a look that said, Are you kidding me? “You might have noticed that Dig doesn’t exactly bare his soul to me.”

“To anyone,” Gail acknowledged. She sat back in her seat and scowled even deeper. “I don’t understand how this is possible,” she said. “The entire population of people who knew about this is either in this room or in Mexico getting shot at. How could their plan have leaked out?”

“That’s why I called you in,” Venice said. “None of this adds up. I thought of Reverend Mitchell at the Crystal Palace and whoever is advising her, but that doesn’t make sense, either. Even if she had reason to betray us-and why would she when the mission is to rescue her parishioners?-Digger never divulges operational details to a client. To prevent this very scenario.”

“Like I said,” Gail concurred, “we’re witnessing the impossible. You and I haven’t leaked anything.” A pause. “Right?”

Venice’s ears turned hot. She’d known Jonathan since she was a little girl, and she’d been his right hand for nearly as long. Gail was the newcomer, and while she was Jonathan’s regular bed partner-who the heck knew where their relationship stood these days?-how dare she question-

“I’m sorry,” Gail said, clearly interpreting Venice’s glare for what it was. “Of course you didn’t. Boxers doesn’t say two hundred words a month about anything, and he’d cut out his tongue before he talked about an upcoming op, so he’s out, too.”

Venice didn’t like the remaining implication any better than the veiled accusation against her. “Are you saying that Digger sabotaged himself?”

Gail held up a hand. “I’m not suggesting that he did it on purpose, but you know how Jon can be when he gets into his gamesmanship mode. Remember how we first met?”

Gail had a point. Boxers often railed against the shortcuts Jonathan took in the area of opsec-operational security. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he’d let his tongue wag more than was prudent.

“It doesn’t matter,” Gail said, dismissing her own argument. “We’re where we are. How we got here matters less than fixing it. We need to find a way for them to get out of there.” She started typing. “Let’s start with the topo maps.”

While Gail typed some more, gaining access to the computer files Jonathan had used to plan the mission, Venice brought the giant wall screen to life. From there, they could monitor each other’s screens. Two seconds after the images appeared, Venice’s computer rang like an old-fashioned telephone.

Venice’s heart jumped, and as her hands flew to enter the right commands, Gail said, “What’s that?”

“Bad news,” Venice replied. “Always, always bad news.”

Boxers drove slowly-on these roads, slowly was about the best you could do-while Jonathan worked his GPS and map. They’d set a general course to the north, just to put distance between them and the bad guys. Outside, the scenery never changed: a wall of green wetness that smelled of rot. They kept the windows down and the air-conditioning off, both to give the engine a break, and to keep their sense of hearing intact.

“I wish we’d had a chance to collect intel,” Boxers said. “Maybe those guys had shit in their pockets that would give a clue who they are.”

“Woulda, coulda, shoulda,” Jonathan said without looking up. “I’m thinking that maybe when we get to the U.S. border, Wolverine will be able to talk us across. Without passports, that could be a problem.”

Boxers laughed. “Yeah, well, on the spectrum of our problems right now, let’s call that one minor.”

Jonathan looked over his shoulder again to check on their PC. Now that the shooting had stopped, he let the kid sit upright in his seat. “Hey, Tristan, did they let you keep your passport?” He wasn’t surprised that the answer was no, but it was worth checking, just to be sure.

“Why are they doing this?” Tristan asked. “What did I do to hurt them?”

Boxers smirked to his boss. Between the two of them, Jonathan was by far the more sensitive, and that was a very low bar. Jonathan hated the touchy-feely stuff. Back in his days with the Unit, they had psychologists to take care of that crap.

“You didn’t do anything, Tristan,” he said. “You can’t think of it that way. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes, it’s no more complicated than that.”

“But we were targeted,” Tristan said. “They knew exactly who they were coming for. They even had our pictures.”

A bell rang in Jonathan’s head, and he sat taller in his seat. The maps could wait for a minute. “You mean physical pictures?”

“Yes. Well, not on paper, but they had it on their iPhones.”

Jonathan cursed under his breath. Yeah, they should have gathered intel; but it would have been a ridiculous risk. “What did they tell you about why you were being taken?” Jonathan asked.

“Nothing,” Tristan said. “They just told us, you know, to stay in our seats and be quiet and stuff. They never said why.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Allison did,” Tristan said, “but that really pissed them off. They yelled really loud and hit her. Told her to shut up.” His voice caught at that last part. “After that, I guess nobody wanted to chance it again.”

The SUV hit a pothole that caused them to lurch hard to the left. Jonathan damn near lost control of his computer.

Boxers said, “Sorry about that. I’m lodging a complaint with the Department of Public Roads.”

Jonathan kept focus on Tristan. “Did they speak English or Spanish?” he asked.

“Both. They mostly spoke Spanish to each other, but they spoke English to us, even though most of us are pretty fluent.”

Jonathan was trying to picture the event in his mind. “So, during your days of captivity, did they forbid talking? Don’t speak unless spoken to?”

Tristan shook his head. “It wasn’t like that at all. They let us talk among ourselves, but they listened pretty carefully to what we were talking about. One of them was a big fan of pop music. He and Ray talked a lot about that.”

Jonathan was sensing the presence of training among the captors. Stockholm Syndrome was a very real factor in hostage situations, and smart hostage takers know how to build rapport with the victims they intend to kill. Done skillfully, that engineered sense of friendship will cause victims to take violent action against their rescuers.

“Four people were missing in the bus back there,” Boxers said. “All the adults. What happened to them?”

“Mr. Hall and Mrs. Charlton were killed in the beginning, when the terrorists first stormed the bus. They tried to stop them. The terrorists didn’t give a warning or anything. They just came in, shouting. Mr. Hall and Mrs. Charlton stood up-not really interfering, even-and they shot them down without a word. Just bang, bang.” Tristan’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know how many people were taken? How did you know my name?”

“Homework doesn’t stop when you graduate from school,” Jonathan said. “People who care about you hired us to rescue you.”

“People who care about me? Who’s that? What does that even mean?”

“Believe it or not, that’s none of your business,” Jonathan said. “Tell me about the executions.”

“I did. After they killed Mr. Hall and Mrs. Charlton, they just dragged the bodies out of the bus and dumped them on the…” The boy’s voice caught in his throat and he went quiet. A few seconds later, he cleared his throat. “They dragged them out onto the street and we drove off. The terrorists kept yelling at us to keep our heads down and to stay in our seats. While we drove through the streets, they made us change seats-nobody could sit with who they were sitting with-and then they passed out handcuffs and ankle cuffs, and made us chain ourselves to our seatmates.”

Jonathan admired the level of detail in Tristan’s storytelling.

“After a day or so, maybe two, that guy who was dead in the aisle made a speech about nobody caring enough to pay for our release, so he unlocked Mrs. Blazak’s handcuff and he let her ankles go and then he dragged her out of the bus by her hair. He took her right outside the bus and made her kneel down, and, you know, just put his rifle to her head.” His eyes reddened again. “She was a really, really nice lady and they just blew her head off.” He grew quiet.

Jonathan gave him a half minute or so to collect himself. “What happened after that?”

“He just left her there. Climbed back into the bus, and within an hour, he was trying to do small talk again. I hated that son of a bitch.”

Hate was good, Jonathan thought. As emotions went, that was one that tended to focus the mind.

“That leaves one more, right?” Jonathan asked. “Miss James?”

Tristan pushed filthy tendrils of blond hair out of his eyes. “We’d been held hostage for a couple of days, I think. The kidnappers said something about people not being fast enough. They took her outside and two of them…” His voice faltered again.

“Take your time,” Jonathan said.

“You have to understand that she was really a nice lady. She was like a thirty-year-old grandmother, you know? She was all about stopping the death of decorum. That’s what she called it.”

Jonathan just waited through the preamble, confident that the boy would get to the point.

Tristan struggled more with this story than he had with the others. “So, there were two of them, so they took her out just like they did Mrs. Blazak. They made her kneel on the ground, but then they made her give both of them a blowjob. In front of everybody. I tried not to watch, but…”

There was no reason for a seventeen-year-old boy to finish that sentence.

Tristan settled himself with a long, deep breath. “And after she’d done them both, they shot her in the face. A third one took videos of the whole thing.”

Jonathan inhaled forcefully through his nose and held the breath in for a few seconds. There were levels of cruelty that he just could not comprehend. He got the panicked shooting that happened in the bus after the assault started back there at the drop site. He didn’t endorse it, but he understood it as if I’m dying I’m taking you with me. But to humiliate someone in the most brutal way like that made no sense to him at all.

If nothing else went right with this mission, at least he could rest comfortably that he’d increased the population in Hell.

“Those are some pretty ugly pictures to have swimming in your head,” Jonathan said.

“Tell me about it.”

“I am,” Jonathan said. “When you get back to the World, people aren’t going to want to hear those stories, but you’re going to need to tell them. Make sure you find yourself a good shrink.”

Tristan seemed anxious to push that topic aside. “So, how long will it be before I’m home?”

“A day or two,” Jonathan said. It was a flat-out guess, but he’d have a plan soon, and when that happened-

His earbud popped. “Scorpion, Mother Hen.”

“Ten bucks says this isn’t good,” Boxers grumbled.

Tristan cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”

Jonathan pointed to his chest so that Tristan could see him press his transmit button. “Go ahead,” he said.

“I just got an alert from ICIS,” she announced. Jonathan knew that she was referring to the Interstate Crime Information System, pronounced EYE-sis, a post-9/11 invention that tracked criminal investigations in real time, in hopes of encouraging better communications between law enforcement agencies. “You know I always put tracers on your aliases and your real names whenever you go out on an op. If you blow your cover, then I want to be the first to know about it.”

Boxers grumbled, “Just once in her life, that woman is going to get straight to the point.”

“Well, that tracer just paid off. Leon Harris and Richard Lerner have both been accused of murder,” she said. Those were Jonathan’s and Boxers’ aliases, respectively. “It says here that the charges were filed by Mexican authorities as a result of thirteen murders you committed today. They even list the names of the victims. Names I don’t recognize-I assume they’re the terrorists-and the dead hostages, too.”

Boxers said on the air, “That’s not possible. The bodies are still warm.”

“I’m just reporting what I see, Big Guy,” Venice said. “Interpol is involved. The borders are closed to you. The FBI has pledged to do everything in their power to bring you in. You’ll need to switch to alternative identities.”

Jonathan and Boxers looked at each other, and in unison they said, “Shit.”

Jonathan keyed the mike. “That’s a problem, Mother Hen,” Jonathan said.

“You left them in the captured vehicles, didn’t you?” Venice was very good at connecting those kinds of dots.

“That’s affirm. We’ll need more to make the crossing.”

A long silence followed. In his mind, Jonathan could see the concern in her face, the eye creases that always appeared in her flawless chocolate-brown skin when she was worried. Jonathan gave her a lot of cause to worry. “This is really, really bad,” she said.

How artfully understated. “Thanks, Mother Hen,” he said. “I’ll get back to you. Keep us informed as things change, and find me a good forger in Mexico.”

“Who’s Mother Hen?” Tristan asked. He leaned forward in the backseat so that his head was closer to theirs.

“I need you to be quiet for a few minutes,” Jonathan said. To Boxers, he said, “This is a problem.”

“Yes, it is,” Boxers agreed. “And I have every confidence that you’ll devise the perfect plan.” He waited a beat. “Have I ever told you how much I enjoy our times together?”

Jonathan looked out his side window at the passing jungle, trying to force the pieces to fit. “Assuming all the names are correct, how did anybody know we were going to kill the guards?” he asked Boxers.

“Because they forced our hand,” Big Guy replied. Jonathan guessed that they’d been thinking the same thoughts-not an unusual occurrence after the number of years they’d worked side by side.

“That’s right,” Jonathan agreed. “By firing that first shot and killing the driver, they guaranteed that the guards would have to die. More to the point, they guaranteed that you and I would be the ones to kill them. You can’t pin the title of murderer on somebody without some bodies to point to.”

“You mean that wasn’t you who shot the driver?” Tristan asked.

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” Jonathan said, his patience thinning. As a rule, the precious cargo was not a part of strategy sessions.

“Then who?” Tristan pressed. He retreated, though, from whatever flashed behind Jonathan’s eyes.

“They haven’t even had time to find the bodies,” Boxers said. “This whole thing has been a setup.”

Jonathan closed a loop in his mind. “What do you bet that the second ambush-the one we didn’t walk into-was all about taking us into custody?”

“And how the hell did they know about Leon Harris and Richard Lerner?” Boxers pressed. He gave a bitter laugh. “I almost admire the guy who set it up. I’ll be sure to tell him when I blow his brains out.”

Jonathan didn’t respond to that. He wished sometimes that the Big Guy would be less harsh in the presence of others.

“What about the PC?” Boxers asked, tossing a glance back at Tristan. “We gonna drag him along to a forger? Seems like a lot of extra exposure.”

Jonathan winced. Big Guy had a point. The mission was to repatriate the hostage-the one who still lived-with his family. For whatever reason, it appeared that Mexico had declared war on Jonathan’s and Boxers’ aliases. The shortest distance between right now and repatriation couldn’t possibly include a side trip to some forger’s outfit.

“Maybe we can find a church somewhere,” Jonathan said. “With the ransom money, we can make a hell of a donation. Maybe big enough to handle the repatriation.”

But man, oh man, he didn’t like the thought of it. When the stakes were this high, delegation to others always felt like a mistake.

“I think you might want to think that through a little more thoroughly,” Big Guy said. Clearly, he didn’t delegate well, either.

“I’m not getting handed off to anybody,” Tristan said. “I’m only hearing a little bit of this stuff, but if I just heard something about handing me over to a church, I’ll tell you right now that that’s not happening.”

“Look, kid-” Boxers said.

“The name’s Tristan. T-R-I-S-T-A-N. And from this point on, I’m hanging with you guys-the people who have at least as many guns as the terrorists do. You just need to know that.”

Jonathan smiled. He admired attitude from people in general, and hearing it vented against Boxers was doubly entertaining. The kid-Tristan-felt exactly the way Jonathan would have if he’d been in that position.

“There are a lot of decisions that lie between here and there,” Jonathan said in an attempt to defuse things.

Where the hell had the authorities gotten ahold of their aliases? Add that to the fact that the bad guys had known exactly where the drop-off was going to be made, and it all became very perplexing.

Was it possible that Reverend Jackie Mitchell was somehow in on this? Was there any conceivable reason why she would jam him up? Could that even make sense? No, he decided, it couldn’t. Jonathan wasn’t so naïve as to think that members of the clergy were beyond heartless schemes to collect money or gather power-the Crusades, anyone?-but the risk to the children, and the deaths of the chaperones was beyond the pale, even for the worst. Even Jonathan’s cynicism had its limits.

If not the Crystal Palace, then who? If he hadn’t been betrayed by the good guys, then by process of elimination, he’d been betrayed by the bad guys. They were the only other people who knew the details of the ransom exchange. He still couldn’t imagine how they’d known his alias, but at least the location part was plausible. And the bad guys would certainly know the names of the hostage takers. Just as they would know the names of the hostages.

“Uh-oh,” he said aloud, drawing a look from Boxers.

He keyed his mike again and got Mother Hen’s attention. “Do you still have ICIS up?” he asked.

“Affirmative.”

“Do me a favor and run the names of our intended PCs.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Whatever pops up.”

It only took thirty seconds or so. “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “I ran your guy Tristan and he comes up as an accomplice to murder. Same victims.” A pause. “What’s happening here?”

“I’m thinking big-time conspiracy,” Boxers said. “Too many moving parts to be the work of some drug lord.”

Jonathan agreed, but only to a point. The way this operation was playing out-with lies planted about not just him and Boxers, but about Tristan, too-the police had to be a part of it. If not the police, then the people the police reported to, which would be the Mexican government. By extension, the Mexican government meant the controlling drug lords.

“Is Gunslinger there?” Jonathan asked over the radio.

Gail’s voice chirped in his ear. “It’s Lady Justice now, remember?”

Of course. She’d specifically rejected the handle Jonathan had assigned to her after that unpleasantness in West Virginia. She’d chosen the new nickname herself, and while Jonathan thought it sounded stupid, he wasn’t going to fight that battle.

Jonathan said, “I need you both to start asking the right people the right questions and see how we can undo this nonsense before it spins out of control.”

As if it weren’t out of control already.

He went on, “In case we can’t clear the record in time, we’re going to need papers for our PC, too, so the quicker you can find me a reliable craftsman, the better off we’re going to be. Advise when you have an answer. Meanwhile, have our Special Friend contact Wolverine and see what he can dig up.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the blood-spattered apparition that had once been a healthy, stable young man. Now, he had that faraway look that never meant good things. The kid needed a break, and with a thousand-mile slog lying ahead for them, they all needed rest.

“Set the craftsman for tomorrow,” Jonathan said. “For tonight, see if there’s not a town somewhere nearby with a church. We can hole up there, gather our wits, get a shower and a change of clothes for the PC.”

A pause. “Are you looking at the same map I am?” Venice asked. “Your location defines the middle of nowhere.” Another understatement. They were driving through endless jungle, somewhere near where the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero met each other-in an area where the prominent feature was a lack of prominent features. Jonathan had heard that people actually take vacations out here. Amazing.

A couple of minutes passed before Venice contacted him again. “All right, I think I’ve found a place for you to go to ground tonight. Let me know when you’re ready to copy map coordinates.”

The easiest way was to enter them into his handheld GPS. “Go ahead,” he said.

Venice slowly read off the minutes and seconds of longitude and latitude, enunciating carefully while Jonathan punched in the numbers. When he was done, it took a few seconds for the map to materialize, and when it did, he had to look carefully to see the village that lay camouflaged beneath the canopy of leaves.

Venice explained, “That large building on the far northeast corner of the village is a Catholic church, Santa Margarita. I crossed that with church records and I found there’s a priest attached to it, a Father Jaime Perón. Beyond that, I don’t know much of anything.”

Actually, considering how little time it had taken, that seemed like a lot.

Jonathan checked the stats. “I show twelve-point-one miles as the crow flies, nearly due north, but I don’t see any roads. Can you help out there?”

“That’s affirmative,” Venice said. From the smile in her voice, he suspected that she’d been waiting for him to ask. “Churches need to be built. I found directions for the construction materials. Let me plot the route and upload it to you. Give me ten minutes.”