Hostage

7

Sozinho had started to pull away the duct tape wrapped around Vaughan’s ankles so that she could get up and use the toilet, but his cell phone trilled before he could finish.

“I better get that,” he said.

“I need to go,” Vaughan said. “Bad.”

“You’ll just have to hold it for a few minutes.”

Sozinho walked back over to the table and answered the phone.

“You’re an idiot,” the man in the black leather jacket said.

“Excuse me?”

“I just heard from one of my contacts. A cop named Retro found your sock in front of the meat processing plant. Now he’s in there looking around.”

The sock.

Sozinho had been on the road driving toward his destination for a few minutes before he realized it was missing. He’d thought about going back, but he’d decided that it would be too risky, especially since he was driving a police car. Anyway, it was just a sock. One soaked in chloroform, but still just a sock. There was no way to trace it to anything.

“Sorry,” Sozinho said. “But I really don’t see how it could-”

“Ever hear of a little thing called DNA? Your skin cells are all over that fabric. In a few days, every police agency in the world will have access to your genetic profile.”

“It doesn’t matter. I have too many aliases, too many layers of protection. That information will be useless to them.”

“Unless they catch you in the act sometime in the future. Then that information will be very valuable. And if that happens-”

“It won’t,” Sozinho said.

There was a long pause, and then the man in the black leather jacket said, “I thought I was dealing with a professional, but it seems I was mistaken. Now I’m going to have to send someone else to keep Officer Vaughan company until Reacher gets to Colorado, someone I can trust to get the job done without making any mistakes. I should have known better than to give you another chance. As soon as I hang up, I’m going to reactivate the circuit implanted in your neck. At that time, you’ll have five minutes to live. I just called to let you know.”

Before Sozinho could say anything, the phone went dead.