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
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
