Hostage

9

Caminha Sozinho figured he had about three more minutes to live. He hadn’t been keeping track of the seconds ticking by, but he figured that was about right. In three minutes or so the electronic circuit implanted in his neck would burn a hole in his right carotid artery. The blood supply to that side of his brain would trickle out and spread into the surrounding tissues, creating what would appear to be a massive bruise on his neck and chest and shoulder as he collapsed and died.

The man in the black leather jacket was the only person on the planet who could stop it from happening.

Sozinho punched in the number to call him.

No answer.

He tried again.

And again.

And again.

Finally, the man in the black leather jacket picked up.

“There’s nothing you can say to change my mind,” he said. “You might as well accept the fact that you’re going to die now.”

Before walking out onto Second Street with a can of spray paint and luring Officer Vaughan out of the diner to arrest him, Sozinho had soaked one of his socks in chloroform, a compound once commonly administered as an anesthetic for medical and dental procedures. His left foot was stinging now where the chemical had come in contact with his skin. If he’d been a little bit smarter, he would have wrapped his foot in plastic before slipping the sock on, thereby avoiding the skin irritation and the man in the black leather jacket’s concern about DNA being left on the fabric.

If he’d been a little smarter, he would have thought of that.

It hadn’t occurred to him at the time, but there was no reason he couldn’t try to convince the man in the black leather jacket that it had.

“The sock never touched my foot,” Sozinho said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I used a plastic grocery bag to protect my skin against the chloroform. I put the bag over my foot and trimmed off all the excess plastic, and then I put the sock over the bag. I wasn’t even thinking about DNA at the time, but of course-”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” the man in the black leather jacket said.

“It’s a little hard to think when someone is telling you that you only have five minutes to live.”

There was a long pause.

“My contact in Hope said that the officer found the sock,” the man in the black leather jacket said. “She didn’t mention anything about a plastic bag.”

“The wind probably picked it up and blew it away,” Sozinho said.

Silence.

Sozinho figured he probably had less than two minutes now. His heart was hammering in his chest. He reached up and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his free hand, looked over at Vaughan lying there on the floor by the bed with a pleading expression on her face. She needed to use the restroom, and Sozinho certainly wasn’t going to be able to help her if he was dead.

“I’m going to deactivate the circuit again,” the man in the black leather jacket said. “But don’t forget it’s there. I can switch it back on at any time.”

Sozinho let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” he said.

The man in the black leather jacket disconnected. Sozinho set the phone on the table, tucked the gun into his waistband, and went back over to where Vaughan was lying on the floor. He crouched down and started unwrapping the tape on her legs.

“What was that all about?” she said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. I won’t. But you need to worry about getting me to the bathroom, or there’s going to be a wet spot on the floor.”

Sozinho finished unwrapping the tape, and then he helped Vaughan get up.