The Wrong Hostage

27

ENSENADA

SUNDAY, 4:20 P.M.

WHEN FAROE WALKED OUT of the hotel toward the restaurant, the wind was easing, but still strong enough to cover every sound but the constant blare of horns. Local custom insisted that brakes weren’t macho. Horns were.

A huge white cruise ship lay at anchor just inside the small harbor’s breakwater. Dinghies shuttled passengers ashore for an artificial foreign “adventure.” Faroe wondered why anyone bothered with a herd’s-eye view of anything.

But then, he’d never understood people who thought adventure could be safe.

Looking casual, even idle, he wandered over to the garden gate outside the restaurant. The gate was locked. Through the metal grille and iron ivy, he could see the two-by-three-foot flagstone the fake workmen had lifted. The sandy soil around it had been brushed to conceal any signs of their work.

If Faroe hadn’t seen them plant the claymore, he wouldn’t have suspected a thing.

He looked back over at the hotel and let his gaze travel up to the fourth floor. Grace was leaning against the balcony railing like a woman enjoying the view. The cell phone in his pocket was calm.

Faroe ambled around the corner of the wall to the service entrance the workmen had used. Locked.

They must have had a key. Inside job?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Hard to tell the players without a scorecard.

Grace held on to the railing and tried to look as relaxed as Faroe. While he casually tested the quality of the wrought iron, she looked at balconies and rooftops. Nobody seemed to be watching anything but the scenery.

He must have trusted the wrought iron, because in a matter of seconds he’d scaled the eight-foot gate and was out of sight behind the wall. If she’d sneezed, she would have missed it.

He turned and looked up at the roof of the hotel, a place Grace couldn’t see from the balcony. No glass glinted into the falling sun, revealing binoculars. No one but Grace seemed to be interested in him.

After a final quick search, he focused on the restaurant. It was deserted, but the cooks would start arriving soon to prepare for the 9:00 P.M. dinner rush. Quickly he walked around the corner of the building to the flagstone walkway. He checked the ground for trailing detonator wires.

Nothing.

That meant the standoff trigger had to be the cell phone he’d seen the men put into the trap.

Kneeling, he pushed his fingers under the flagstone. It weighed at least thirty pounds but rocked up easily on its side, revealing what was beneath.

For long, long seconds Faroe stared at the convex belly of a U.S. government-issue claymore mine. There was nothing elegant or high tech about this beast. Just a pound of C4 plastique and six hundred steel ball bearings that would explode in a directional, fan-shaped pattern of death. The mine was aimed straight into the air. It would blast ball bearings in a deadly half circle that began at ground level.

It would have killed dozens, maimed dozens more.

He stole a quick glance at Grace. She hadn’t moved. He went back to studying the bomb. The initiator on the claymore had been removed and replaced with a blasting cap. The cap was wired to the battery of a cheap Mexican cell phone.

So far, so good.

Very gently he moved the claymore aside to get a better look at the cell phone. On the back of the phone, someone had written seven numbers with a black marker. Again, nothing unexpected. A bomb maker assembled the device, then turned it over to others to use. Not rocket science. Simple instructions for simple men.

Faroe memorized the number. Then he slowly, tenderly turned the claymore over so that its belly was pointed into the sandy soil instead of into the air. Softly, gradually, he laid the heavy flagstone back in place.

Ninety seconds later he walked back into the hotel suite.

Grace ran across the room and threw herself into his arms. She was shaking.

“Breathe, amada,” he said. “Nothing happened.”

“But I could tell by the way you handled the thing that it was really dangerous.”

He inhaled the sweet scent of her hair. “It’s a decently made IED that would have turned Hector Rivas Osuna into a shocked eunuch for the microsecond before his asshole went through his skullcap.”

Grace let go of Faroe like he’d kicked her. She backed away, hugging herself instead of him.

Faroe told himself that it was a good thing. He really didn’t need the distraction of her fear for him, her breasts pressing against him as she trembled.

At least that’s what he told himself, but he didn’t believe it.

“The really interesting part is that somebody has access to what looks like U.S. Marine Corps hardware,” Faroe said. “I was tempted to get a serial number, but I’m not down here to police stolen gear. I’ll tell Steele, who will drop a word to someone who wears enough stars to make sure Camp Pendleton inventories its arsenal.”

“Did you disarm it?”

He shook his head.

“Then what are we going to do?” Grace asked. “Call the police?”

“Since Hector seems to have the federal cops sewed up, it probably was the local police bomb squad that planted the damn thing. Or maybe the state.” Faroe shrugged. “Either way, Hector is red graffiti sprayed on every wall in three blocks.”

“But you said Lane would be safer if Hector lived.”

“Yeah, he would. Dammit.”

Faroe pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and hit speed dial. The call was answered on the second ring in New York.

“It’s Faroe,” he said. “I need two things fast. First, the phone number at All Saints. It’s a private church school on the toll road south of Tijuana and north of Ensenada, both in Baja California, Mexico. There should be a listing in the Ensenada directory or at a web site.”

Grace handed him the notepad and pen he’d left on the bed.

He gave her the surprised look of a man used to working alone, smiled a silent thanks, and started writing.

“Got it,” he said after a moment. “Now work your magic on the Telmex cellular supplier for Ensenada. Try like hell on fire to find out who bought a cell phone, probably in the last day or two, that was assigned the following number.”

Faroe read back the number that had been written on the phone beneath the flagstone.

Even Grace heard the squawk from the other end of the line.

“I know, I know,” Faroe said impatiently. “It’s a lot to ask, but a boy’s life depends on it. Spend what you have to, but get the info. Yes, it’s on my tab. And call me back the instant you get lucky.”

Faroe cut off the call and punched in the number of Lane’s school.

Grace listened while he talked with Father Rafael Magon, coaxing and threatening by turn. Abruptly Faroe cut off the call, opened a cold beer, and sat on the balcony staring down at the restaurant with the single-minded focus of a predator watching prey.

Grace wanted to ask questions, a lot of them, but knew she wouldn’t get any answers. Not when Faroe was like this, consumed by whatever he was planning.

I paid for the best, so I should just shut up and let him work.

And I won’t think about how good it felt to be held by him again, if only for a few seconds.

The phone on the bedside table rang. Instantly Faroe was on his feet and standing next to the bed.

“It will be for me, but go ahead and answer,” he said.

Grace picked up the receiver on the third ring. A male voice demanded to speak with Faroe. She held out the phone. He took it but put his hand over the receiver.

“Hector?” he asked Grace.

She shook her head. “Some lackey.”

Faroe took his hand off the receiver and spoke curtly. “Bueno.”

The conversation went back and forth in fluent, colloquial Spanish. Faroe finally cut it off with a string of epithets and blunt threats.

Despite herself, Grace was impressed. She hadn’t heard language that specific and colorful in a long, long time. Intimidating, too.

There was a pause in the conversation.

Grace looked at Faroe.

He shrugged and waited. Then he started speaking English, a power move that only a diplomat or a judge could appreciate.

“No, Hector, you don’t know who I am,” Faroe said. “But you know a very good friend of mine, Judge Silva.”

At the other end of the call, Hector looked around the classy condo, just one of the several places he’d “borrowed” for his stay in Ensenada. Men and weapons were everywhere. One of his younger nephews worked over a rock of cocaine, shaving it down. Cigarette smoke was thick in the air. Dirty dishes were stacked in the kitchen. The curtains were drawn so tight that not even a slit of daylight made it in.

Except for this odd call, everything was perfectly normal.

“Si, I know her,” Hector said. “So?”

“Her business is my business.”

“Is she with you?” Hector asked, suddenly wary.

“Yes, she’s here, and no, she doesn’t have anything to say to you except that you should listen to me. We’re going to save your life.”

Hector drew hard on the burning cigarette his nephew handed him. “I listen.”

In the hotel, Faroe glanced at Grace, mouthed the words cell phone, and pointed to his pocket.

She hesitated only a moment before she put her hand into the deep pocket of his slacks. The first thing she found was hard, but it wasn’t a phone. She looked up at him, startled. His smile told her he’d been looking forward to this moment.

Obviously he could focus on more than one thing at a time.

So could she.

She removed the phone very slowly, dropping and retrieving it more than once, checking out the pocket very thoroughly.

Faroe’s breath came in and his eyelids lowered to half-mast. “You heard me, Hector. The judge and I can save your life.”

Grace handed him the phone with a feline smile. She might not be able to scale walls and play with bombs, but she knew how to bring Joe Faroe to attention.

He punched in a number on his cell phone but didn’t hit send.

“I am safe,” Hector said, unimpressed. “I need nothing from you.”

Faroe looked out over the balcony railing to the front of the restaurant. The building was dark. The grounds and the gardens were deserted.

“You’re going to a wedding party tonight at the Encantamar in Ensenada,” Faroe said. “Dinner at the Cancion.”

Hector straightened. “Who tell you this?”

“Listen very carefully.” Faroe held the receiver of the room phone toward the balcony door, then punched the send button on his cell phone.

Grace’s eyes widened. She would have run to the balcony, but Faroe dropped his cell phone and blocked her with his body, holding her close and hard, staying between her and the coming blast.

“One one-thousand, two one-thousand,” Faroe counted aloud. “Three-”

A hard white light burst from the restaurant garden, brighter than the sun. An instant later the air was ripped by a sharp, flat explosion. The concussion slapped off the walls of the hotel. Flocks of terrified pigeons exploded from the rooftops of adjacent buildings.

For a few seconds the world went silent, listening. Waiting.

The explosion echoed and re-echoed before it turned to shadow noise in Grace’s ears. Stunned, she watched a cloud of dust rise from the courtyard. In that instant she knew what war was like. She swallowed hard against fear and helplessness.

“Did you hear that?” Faroe asked Hector evenly.

“?Madre de Dios!”

“The mine was buried beneath the flagstone entrance to the Cancion. If you don’t believe me, send over some men to check it out.”

In the expensive condo, Hector was silent for a few seconds. He watched every man in the room with new eyes, wondering if one of them could be the traitor. With a curt command, he sent one man to check out the restaurant. Before the man left the room, his bodyguards’ cell phones started ringing. Thirty seconds later, he knew that the man on the telephone was telling the truth.

Whether that made the man friend or enemy didn’t matter. What mattered was that he’d had the ability to kill Hector and hadn’t.

Hector took a deep hit on his doctored cigarette. “What do you want from me?”

“Meet me tonight, in person. Name the place, name the time. If I get lucky, I’ll have the names of the men who laid the trap. If not, we still have a lot to talk about.”

In the hotel, Grace forced herself to breathe deeply, then do it again, and again, until her ears stopped ringing. She went to the window and stared down.

It looked like a war zone. Stucco had peeled off the front of the restaurant building. Smashed flagstone was scattered around. The wrought-iron gate had been blown off its hinges and lay in a twisted pile twenty feet away. The restaurant’s windows were gone. People were pouring out of the hotel and running to stare at the damage.

She turned to the man who had triggered the bomb.

“Okay, you’ve got a deal.” Faroe hung up and looked at Grace. “Ready?”

“You-I saw-” She tried again. “You just casually triggered that bomb!”

“It was calculated, not casual. We now have an inside track with Hector. He doesn’t know if I’m a friend, an enemy, or the Easter Bunny. But he’s damn sure I could have killed him and didn’t. Given that, he’s likely to be real titty-fingered about pissing me off, which means that Lane is safer now than he has been since Hector locked down the school. Let’s go.”

Grace fastened on the one thing that mattered: Lane was better off than he had been. That was worth a few windows and a wrought-iron gate any day.

Listen to yourself, Judge. Blowing up things is a felony.

So is kidnapping. If it benefits Lane, I’ll help Faroe commit as many Class A felonies as it takes.

If the law can’t protect my son, screw it.

She fell in step beside Faroe as they headed out of the room. She didn’t ask where they were going.