Hostage Zero

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I’m setting up a breaching charge,” said Boxers’ voice in Jonathan’s ear.

The framed explosives that the big guy had brought along would make easy work of the security doors, but not without leaving an unholy mess. Jonathan wanted to say no, but things were looking grim. “Fine,” he said. “But don’t blow anything until I give the command.” They were here to free one prisoner, not a whole jail.

“What the hell is going on?” Jimmy Henry demanded. He looked terrified, fully ready to join the other side. “And who do you keep talking to?”

Jonathan ignored him. “Mother Hen, speak to me,” he said.

“It’s bad,” Venice said. He could hear the computer keys clacking in the background. “They figured out what we’re doing, and they’re trying to stop us. So far, they’re as locked in as you are, but that won’t last long. Once you’re out, you’re going to have to move fast.”

As if I were planning to dawdle, he didn’t say.

The lock buzzed, and Jonathan pushed Jimmy Henry ahead of him through the open door into the hallway. He pushed him to the left, toward the fire door, but as he glanced behind him, he saw a living mural of faces pressed against the reinforced glass of the central security station. He knew none of them, but there was no mistaking their desire to kill him.

Jonathan tried to move his precious cargo faster, but the shackles limited the kid to baby steps. They were five feet from the fire door when the security station door slammed open down the hall behind him and released a tidal wave of five pissed-off guards.

“You!” one of them shouted. “Stop!”

“They’re coming!” Jimmy shouted.

“I see that,” Jonathan growled. “Mother?”

“I’ve got it,” she said, and the fire-door lock buzzed.

“Don’t be stupid!” a guard yelled.

Jonathan threw open the door and hurled Jimmy Henry through the opening with enough force to send him sprawling on the linoleum. He slipped through, and pressed himself against the door till he heard the lock slide home, a heartbeat before the wave of guards slammed into it from the other side.

“Too close,” Jonathan said. But in the instant he dedicated to making eye contact with them, he noticed with great relief that none of them were armed with guns. He wasn’t surprised, given all the things that could go wrong by having a firearm in the presence of hardened criminals, but he was definitely relieved.

Now they were one-third of the way to freedom, trapped in a box in the middle of the cell block. All around them, inmates who’d been awakened by the commotion pressed against the rectangular windows in their cell doors, screaming profanity or words of encouragement. Just as Deputy George had predicted, the residents of the Basin Jail did not appreciate being awakened out of a sound sleep.

That’s why you have locks on the doors.

His own smartass comment returned to his mind without warning. “Holy shit,” he said. “Hey Mother, I have an idea.”

“Not now,” she snapped. Again, he heard the furious tapping of computer keys in the background.

“Unlock the doors,” he said. “All of them. Cell doors, too. It’ll give the guards more to do.”

He correctly interpreted the silence he got in return as her appalled response.

“They won’t all rush out together, but we only need one or two. Once the guards have someone else to occupy them, we’ll get a break.” Ahead of him, Jimmy Henry had already waddled to the next fire door.

“But I can’t-”

“Do it, goddammit.” He missed the days when people didn’t question his orders.

Granville sensed that he was winning. Whoever was on the other side of his computer system knew it, too. Why else did they keep locking all the doors simultaneously instead of opening the doors for their coconspirators? He’d just finished the last digit to open Fire Door C in the middle of A-Wing, and as he hit ENTER…

The annunciator for every friggin’ door in the jail went green.

The locks all buzzed at once just as Jonathan arrived at the second fire door. It opened easily, as did the one containing the guards, and for a moment Jonathan thought he’d miscalculated. As the plug of guards raced down the hall toward him, the inmates all remained behind their closed door.

“Y’all are free, goddammit!” he yelled.

The lead guard-a man only slightly smaller than Boxers, and mad as hell-was only ten feet away from Jonathan when the first cell door flew open and a mostly naked behemoth with long hair and complete sleeves of biker tats charged into the hallway.

If the guard saw him, he made no indication. He wanted Jonathan and Jimmy Henry. From the flame in his eyes, it was a safe bet that he wanted them dead, in fact. Jonathan squared away and braced himself for the fight that was on its way. If killing were an option, it would have been easy, but that was off the table, which meant that it would have to be about pain tolerance.

The guard had committed himself to a high-velocity takedown that would have torn Jonathan in half, but you could tell by his eyes that he wanted to take him out at the chest. At the last instant, Jonathan ducked at the waist and charged forward two steps to body block the big man and send him sprawling to the floor.

It was all the time Jonathan needed to dart through the fire door and swing it shut behind him. “Lock it!” he yelled. “Lock it, lock it!”

He heard the bolt slip closed, and then it buzzed again.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped at Venice.

“It’s not me,” she said. “They were anticipating. Hold it closed.”

Jonathan threw his shoulder into the door and braced his legs against the slick linoleum. On the other side, he heard the riot blossoming, but that didn’t stop somebody from launching an enormous blow against the door. It parted a couple of inches from the jamb, but it wasn’t enough to launch the door open all the way. If there was one more like that, or the guy on the other side got some help, this exercise was over.

A shadow approached from behind, and before Jonathan could react, two black hands planted themselves on either side of Jonathan’s hands, and he felt heavy breath on his neck. “Gotta press harder,” a voice said. “Otherwise, they’ll get through.”

Jonathan craned his head to get a look, and saw the owner of the voice and the hands: a young man-another weight-lifter, judging from his heavily muscled arms-and he was all business.

“He came from one of the cells,” Venice said, answering his question before he could ask it. “Okay, got it.”

The bolt slid home again. They had a little more time.

Boxers said, “Charges are in place, boss.”

“Stand by,” Jonathan said. “I’m still not ready to shoot.”

“Shoot who?” his new companion said. “Who the fuck you talkin’ to?”

“Never mind,” Jonathan said.

“The fucking door’s locked!” Jimmy yelled from the far end of the hall. He was one door away from freedom, and he could feel the pull. What he didn’t know was that if Boxers shot the door with him standing there, no one would ever find his pieces.

The inmate said, “The fuck you doin’ here?”

“We’re breakin’ out!” Jimmy called, and his words raised a hell of a ruckus behind the cell doors. They wanted out, too.

“That true?” the inmate asked Jonathan.

Jonathan nodded. “Afraid so, yes.” He started moving toward the final door.

The inmate followed. “Antoine Johnson,” he said, offering his hand.

Jonathan stifled an ironic chuckle and shook the hand as he continued to walk down the hall. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m coming with you,” Antoine said.

“No, you’re not.” Jonathan answered without eye contact.

Antoine grabbed him by the biceps and jerked him to a halt. “I don’t think you heard me.”

This time, Jonathan’s eyes burned through the man’s brain. “Take your hands off of me,” he growled. “I appreciate your help, so I don’t want to hurt you.”

Antoine seemed to surprise himself as he let go and took a small step back. “C’mon, man. I don’t belong here. I’m innocent.”

“I’m sure you are,” Jonathan said. “But I’m only here for him.” He indicated Jimmy with a toss of his head.

The lock on the final door buzzed, and Jimmy reached for it. “Freeze,” Jonathan commanded. “Don’t move until I tell you.” He looked back to Antoine. “Do not follow us,” he said.

“How you gonna stop me?” He seemed to grow an inch as he tried to look menacing.

Jonathan took a step closer and lowered his voice nearly to a whisper. “If I see you on the other side of that door, I’ll kill you. You helped over there, and I appreciate it. Don’t make me kill you, Antoine.”

The inmate took a step back. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

Jonathan shrugged. “Wait for your cell door to open again and go back home.”

“Scorpion, we gotta go,” Boxers said.

“I’m on it,” Jonathan replied. He held out his hand to Antoine. “Thank you,” he said. “And good luck to you.”

Antoine looked at the hand as if it were something poisonous.

“Trust me,” Jonathan said. “Within the next twelve hours, you’re going to get a big laugh out of this.”

“Digger!” Venice barked in his earbud.

Antoine cocked his head. “A laugh, huh?”

Jonathan smiled. “I promise.”

The inmate accepted his hand, and they shook. “You one crazy motherfucker.”

Jonathan ended the conversation with a quick flick of a nod, and then he disappeared out the door into the night. The lock slid home immediately.

Two steps into the fresh air, Jonathan and Boxers together grabbed Jimmy Henry by his arms, bent him low, and more carried than pushed him to the van that Boxers had staged on the far curb. It was exactly the same maneuver that the Secret Service would use if a protectee was under fire.

The back doors were open and waiting. When they closed to within a few yards, Boxers broke off to slide behind the steering wheel while Jonathan half tossed, half slid their precious cargo onto the steel deck of the stripped-down van. He hadn’t even stopped tumbling before the van was rolling. As they turned the first corner, Jonathan leaned out to close the back door.

“That was awesome, dude!” Jimmy laughed. “I mean, really fuckin’ awesome. I thought for sure we were-”

“Shut up,” Jonathan barked.

Jimmy was only a silhouette in the dark, but Jonathan saw him rear back. “Christ, dude, you don’t-”

Jonathan grabbed the ankle of Jimmy’s orange jumpsuit and pulled, sliding the kid flat onto his back. Before the inmate could react, Jonathan fired a savage punch to his testicles, and the response was instant. The kid retched and curled himself into a tight ball. He was still struggling to regain his breath when Jonathan started wrapping Jimmy’s eyes with duct tape.

“Dude, what the fuck-?”

Jonathan clamped his hand over the kid’s mouth hard enough to loosen a tooth and pressed his head into the floor of the van. “Shut up, punk,” he hissed. “Just shut up until I tell you to talk. And I swear to God, if you call me ‘dude’ one more time, I’m going to take a hammer to your nose.”

Jimmy was crying now, in agony from the blow to his groin, and clearly terrified. “I’ll do anything,” he whined. “Honest to God, I’m on your side, okay?”

“Don’t be so sure, kid,” Boxers called from the front.

“W-what are you going to do?”

Jonathan punched him in the balls again, harder this time. “What part of ‘shut up’ confuses you?” he growled.

The kid retched more, and when he vomited, Jonathan felt comfortable that he’d finally made his point. Jimmy wouldn’t risk another punch, so Jonathan wouldn’t have to fire another one. As sensitive as testicles are to pain, they’re actually fairly indestructible. Pound a guy in his nuts and you not only get his attention but you gain a huge psychological advantage. The younger the target, the more profound the advantage. It’s as if God had interrogators in mind when he designed the human body.

As for the vomiting, it was an unfortunate but predictable side effect-and the reason why Jonathan hadn’t taped his prisoner’s mouth. He didn’t need the kid choking to death before he gave them what they wanted.

They drove eight miles into the flat vastness of Virginia’s Northern Neck, past thousands of acres of farmland that was devoid of all but the occasional shade tree, the entire tableau dyed blue-black in the late-night darkness. Without the GPS preset on their navigation device, Jonathan doubted that Boxers would have seen the narrow driveway that marked their first turn.

They drove confidently in the darkened vehicle thanks to the night-vision goggles that Boxers and Jonathan had come to see as an extension to normal vision. As the van bounced along the rutted path, so did Jimmy on the metal floor. But beyond the occasional instinctive reaction to pain and fear, he kept his mouth shut.

Ahead, at the end of the long driveway, an open gate in a clapboard fence marked the way to a massive barn. The door had been propped open just as they’d arranged. The owner of this spread was a man named Horne, an old acquaintance of Jonathan’s, who knew better than to ask detailed questions but had made the appropriate assumptions about the nature of Jonathan’s business and didn’t mind cooperating one bit.

They drove into the barn and stopped. Jonathan waited quietly as he heard Boxers get out of the van, close the barn door, and then return to the van to open the double back doors.

“Listen to me, Jimmy,” Jonathan said. His tone was soft, almost soothing. “We’re going to move you now, and I want you to cooperate. Do you understand?”

Jimmy’s breathing rate doubled as panic set in. Blinded by the tape over his eyes and aching from his beating, the kid was terrified. That was the whole point.

Jonathan jerked his chin at Boxers, and the big man grabbed the cuffs of the kid’s pants and dragged him along the flatbed to the edge above the back bumper. When he let Jimmy’s legs drop, the kid naturally sat up, and Boxers dipped to get his shoulder low enough to lift him into a fireman’s carry. Another panic response made the kid squirm, but he caught himself right away and settled down.

“You’re doing good,” Jonathan encouraged. “The next part’s going to seem worse than it is, so don’t panic. Once my friend puts you down, just stand still. This will all make sense in a minute.”

In the dim light cast by a half dozen bare lightbulbs suspended from the twenty-foot ceiling, Boxers carried his charge to one of the twelve-by-twelve-inch hardwood columns that held the roof up. He rotated the kid off his shoulder into a standing position, and then held him tightly against the post by a massive hand pressed to the center of his chest.

“This is the scary part,” Jonathan soothed. “Just relax, and nothing will hurt.”

“Please don’t hurt me,” Jimmy begged. He couldn’t help himself.

Mr. Horne had driven an enormous nail into the center of the post, per Jonathan’s instructions, exactly six and a half feet off the floor. On it, he’d placed a thick leather dog’s collar, with a leash hanging from the built-in loop. Without saying a word, Boxers took the collar from the hook and looped it around the prisoner’s neck.

“We’re not going to choke you,” Jonathan said, getting ahead of the natural panic. “We’re not even going to cinch it tight. We just need you not to get away.”

The kid’s breathing rate doubled.

Boxers did just as Jonathan had promised, securing the collar with two fingers’ clearance around the skin of Jimmy’s neck. Then he secured the leash to the spike with enough slack to keep Jimmy from choking, but not so much that he might forget that he was helpless. They let him stand there for the better part of a minute, no one saying anything as Boxers returned to the van to retrieve his tools for the next stage.

Jonathan felt his own heart hammering as the big man leaned into the open doors and removed a heavy rubber truncheon. About the size and shape of a baseball bat, the weapon had enough flex that it wouldn’t break a bone, but enough heft that it would hurt like hell.

Boxers rolled his shoulders to loosen them up as he returned to his spot at the kid’s left and set his feet in a batter’s stance. He glanced to Jonathan for the final go-ahead, and when he saw his boss nod, he let loose with a homerun swing. The truncheon’s sweet spot connected squarely on Jimmy’s hip bone with a sound that reverberated through the barn like a muffled pistol shot.

Jimmy howled. It was a guttural, choking scream that was equal parts fear and agony. Blinded by the tape over his eyes, he couldn’t know what had caused the pain, and with his arms shackled and his neck secured, he couldn’t protect himself. “Please!” he shouted. “What do you want from me?”

Jonathan let ten seconds pass before he answered. He abhorred these kinds of interrogation techniques, but two children were missing, and he had neither the time nor the luxury to be subtle. By establishing a baseline for pain, he hoped that the one swat with the truncheon would suffice.

As he watched this nineteen-year-old sob for mercy, Jonathan felt sympathy for him. “Jimmy, I need you to listen to me,” Jonathan said softly. He made his voice sound gentle.

“Please don’t hit me again.”

“Don’t make me, and I won’t,” Jonathan said. “But you need to know that what you felt right then is only the opening act. We can keep that going all night long. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

Jimmy shook his head frantically. “I’ll do whatever you ask.”

“I hope so,” Jonathan said. “But I’ll be honest with you. My friend hopes just the opposite. He would like nothing better than to beat you till you’d spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair.” It was a classic good-cop, bad-cop banter, but in this case, it was a statement of fact.

“I swear to God, I’ll do whatever you ask.”

“All right, then. Let’s start with last night. When I know everything that you know, I’ll be out of your life.”

“All I did was drive,” Jimmy whined. “I never went inside. I had nothing to do with the shooting. I swear to God.”

“But you knew you were there to kidnap children,” Jonathan said.

Jimmy said nothing.

Jonathan figured he was looking for the right answer. “Lying to me will be a mistake,” he said. “Do we need to hit you again?”

“Yes,” Jimmy said. “I mean no! You don’t have to hit me again. Yes, I knew that we were going to be snatching kids.”

“For what reason?”

“They never told me.”

“Didn’t you ask?”

Jimmy shook his head. “I didn’t want to know. I didn’t need to know.”

“You must have heard names,” Jonathan prompted. “You must have heard who they were coming to get.”

“I knew there’d be two,” Jimmy said. He spoke emphatically, clearly anxious to prove that he was being truthful. “But I only heard one name. It was Evan something. An Irish name.”

“Guinn,” Jonathan said.

“That’s it. But then they came out and I heard they’d shot somebody. I was like, what the fuck?”

“So Evan Guinn is the only name you heard,” Jonathan recapped.

“I swear to God.” Despite the slack in his leash, he stood on tiptoes and kept his jaw extended.

“Why him and not the other one?” Jonathan asked.

Jimmy’s breathing quickened again. It was his tell for not having the answer he thought they wanted to hear. “I don’t know. I swear to God. I only know about Evan Guinn because I overheard the name.”

“Why did they take him?”

“They didn’t say.”

“You mean you didn’t ask.”

Jimmy hesitated. “Yeah, that, too. Look, all I know is that this guy paid me six hundred bucks to drive a car, okay?”

“You knew it was for kidnapping children,” Jonathan pressed, “but you never thought to ask why?”

Jimmy dared to bring his heels to the ground and lean against the column. “I figured it was obvious,” he said with a barely perceptible shrug. “I mean that place is an orphanage for criminals’ kids, right? I figure somebody pissed off somebody else, and they wanted to snatch their kid because of it.”

Before Jonathan could intervene, Boxers swung his rubber truncheon with everything he had into the heavy timber pillar, shaking the barn with an enormous boom. “And that seems all right to you?” he growled.

“Hey, I’m just telling you what happened!” Jimmy yelled, once again on his toes.

Jonathan held out a hand to settle Boxers and fired a glare that told him to back off. The vigilante that lived in Jonathan’s soul wanted to beat the kid to death, too. But they were professionals, and they had a job to do. There was no room for that kind of outburst.

“Everybody just calm down,” Jonathan soothed. “Take a deep breath, both of you. And I mean that literally.” He gave himself a few seconds to follow his own advice. “Jimmy, it’s hard for us to understand how someone can agree to kidnap a pair of children and not ask why.”

“If they wanted me to know why, they’d have told me why,” Jimmy said. “Plus, like I said, I figured I already knew. It’s about criminals doing what they do best.”

“Who hired you?” Jonathan asked.

“A guy named Sjogren. Jerry, I think. Or maybe George, I’m not sure. A J sound. But I’ve done a couple of things for him before.”

“Kidnappings?” Jonathan asked.

Jimmy shook his head vehemently. “No, nothing like that. One bank thing that didn’t turn out to be much, and a convenience store thing. Nothing where anybody got hurt.”

“But they could have,” Boxers suggested.

“They didn’t. ”

Jonathan shot another disapproving glare. Boxers knew better than this. For an interrogation to work, there had to be one contact, one focus. Boxers knew this as well as anyone, but he was pissed.

“What happened to that guy who was shot?” Jimmy asked.

“Why do you care?” Jonathan asked.

Jimmy blew a puff of air through his nose and shook his head. “I was the fucking driver, okay? I didn’t plan any of this shit. I’m not some fucking animal who snatches kids, but I also know that I’m fucked by the law because I was part of it. Doesn’t mean I want some guy to die.” His voice dropped in volume. “I was earning a living. I didn’t think it would go like this.”

Jonathan kept to the point. “This Sjogren guy. Is it S-HO-G-R-E-N?”

“I don’t know how he spells it. It’s not like we wrote letters back and forth.”

Jonathan conceded the point. “Was he with you at the school?”

Despite the fear and the discomfort, Jimmy was able to cough out a laugh. “Sjogren? Hell no. He never gets his hands dirty.”

“He’s just the middleman,” Jonathan helped.

“Exactly. People need help and they contact him.”

“Who were his customers?”

“The first jobs I did with him were about a thug named Sammy Bell. I don’t know if you know that name.”

Jonathan shot a knowing look at Boxers. Sammy Bell used to be an enforcer for the Slater crime family, whose interests often clashed with those of Jonathan’s father. When Old Man Slater kicked the bucket a dozen years or so ago, Sammy had stepped in to take over.

“This was Sammy Bell’s operation?” Jonathan asked.

“No, no, no, no. I didn’t say that. I said that’s how I first met Sjogren. I don’t know if Sammy Bell is involved.”

“Where can I find this Sjogren guy?” he asked.

The breathing tell kicked in again. “I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “I’ve never tried to find him. I don’t have to. He finds me when the time comes.”

“Is Sjogren his real name?”

“It’s all I’ve ever called him.”

“And what about the others?” Jonathan asked, moving on. “What did you call them?”

Frustration took root. “Jesus, you make it sound like we’re drinking buddies. I didn’t call them anything. Hell, I didn’t even want to talk to them.”

“Why’s that?”

“Scary, scary dudes. Like they were pissed at the world. They growled and snapped at each other like they were married or something.”

“How many of them were there?”

Jimmy hesitated long enough to verify the number in his head before answering. “Four,” he said. “Five, including me. Only, they all seemed to know each other, and they weren’t happy about me tagging along.”

The wording made Jonathan cock his head. He noticed Boxers doing the same. “What does that mean, ‘tagging along’?”

“Like when you have to take you little sister with you on a date.”

“I know what the phrase means,” Jonathan said. “It was an odd choice of words for you.”

“But that’s what it was like. I think something happened to their original driver. That’s why I was brought in.”

“Something happened like what?”

Jimmy’s frustration peaked and he shouted, “I don’t fucking know!”

The outburst brought another explosive but harmless blow from Boxers’ truncheon onto the heavy pillar.

“Go ahead!” Jimmy yelled. “Go ahead and hit me again, you stupid shits. But before you can beat information out of me, you’ve got to beat it into me first. I just don’t know this stuff you’re asking me.”

“Everybody settle down!” Jonathan commanded.

“Who are you people?” Jimmy asked.

Jonathan was shocked that it took him so long to ask. “Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to know,” he said. “Are you telling me that you never heard any names from these guys you were with? They must have called each other something.”

Jimmy steeled himself with an enormous breath. “A guy named Ponder seemed to be the guy in charge. He was the one who was pissed when shit started to fall apart.”

“How did your time with these people end? When did you last see your friends?” Boxers asked.

Jimmy drew another deep breath. “I dropped them off at a storage place in Kinsale,” Jimmy said. “It had some stupid name that used the letter U instead of the word ‘you.’ They off-loaded the kids and never looked back.”

“Why the storage place?”

“I guess they had stuff stored there,” Jimmy said. He quickly added, “I’m not being a smart-ass. They honest to Christ didn’t tell me about their plans.”

“What did you see?”

“As little as possible. I’m telling you, these are really scary dudes. You know how when you get mugged you don’t want to look the dude with the gun in the eye so he won’t have to kill you to keep you from testifying? It was like that with these guys.”

Jonathan had never felt that way himself, but he’d inflicted the feeling on others a time or two. “What did you see, then, when you were trying not to see anything?”

This time, Jimmy hesitated a long time-probably twenty seconds. That kind of internal debate usually portended something big.

“First promise you won’t kill me,” Jimmy said.

Jonathan shot a look to Boxers. This was an interrogation, not a negotiation. The rules prohibited any deals with the target. To maintain the command position, the book said you had to make your target feel utterly helpless.

Jonathan decided to trust his gut instead. “I’m not an assassin,” he said. “I wouldn’t shed a tear if you got hit by a truck, but as long as you continue to cooperate, I’m not going to kill you.”

Another pause. Another gut-check for Jimmy. “They had a helicopter in there,” he confessed. “It wasn’t very big, and the propellers or whatever the hell you call them were, like, folded back, but I could see the front of it.”

Jonathan’s stomach fell. “So they moved the children by helicopter.”

“I think so.” Jimmy’s tone turned whiny. “I saw that, and I knew I was in deep, deep shit. A chopper, for Christ’s sake. Who does that? Who’s got the money for that? I just boogied the hell out of there as fast as I could.”

Jonathan’s brain was stuck on the image of the chopper. Jimmy had asked all the right questions. Who the hell did have those kinds of resources? “Where did you boogie to?” he asked.

Jimmy managed a laugh. “To jail,” he said. “I was supposed to ditch the van at a McDonald’s parking lot in Montross, where there was supposed to be a Mustang waiting for me. Only, I got pulled over on the way.” He sighed. “I guess I got a little heavy-footed.”

Jonathan didn’t share with him the fact that his van had been spotted by a witness. If it hadn’t been for that one insomniac, Jimmy probably would have skated with nothing more than a speeding ticket.

He found himself out of questions. He looked to Boxers and got a shrug. The big guy was out of questions, too.