Hostage Zero by John Gilstrap

the ignition. “How do you want to handle it?”
    Jonathan said, “Let’s keep it light. Weapons holstered but ready.” He opened the door and slid to the ground.
    Boxers joined him at the front bumper. “Who are you expecting them to be?”
    It was a good question. As Jonathan thought through Jimmy Henry’s story, it could be anyone from a bad guy returning to the scene of the crime to a cop investigating a lead. “I just want to be ready for the worst,” he said.
    As they approached the Chrysler, Jonathan noticed that the engine was still ticking as it cooled under the hood.
    “Sounds like they just got here,” Boxers said, speaking his boss’s thoughts.
    Jonathan cocked his head, listening. Something wasn’t right about this. “Who just parks in a storage lot at this hour? If you’re retrieving something from storage, you park in front of your unit. Whoever drove this car isn’t here for what’s in the units. They want something else.”
    “Like what?”
    That was the million-dollar question. Jonathan beckoned with his chin for Boxers to follow as he walked toward the woods at the edge of the lot. As the approached the grassy patch at the edge of the woods, he pointed to the ground. “Look here,” he said.
    Clearly, people had recently walked this way. They drew their weapons and started into the woods.
    Jonathan heard voices. On a still, humid morning like this, sounds traveled easily. He could clearly make out the hum of men’s voices in the distance, but a career of firearms, helicopter insertions, and explosives had made it impossible for his abused ears to decipher individual words.
    Three minutes later, they were on top of what looked to be a mugging in process. Two clean-cut guys in T-shirts had drawn down on a gangly Latino hippie who appeared to have established a campsite near the edge of the water. From the look of the place, Jonathan guessed that the guy had been living there for a long time. The body language of all three men telegraphed an urgency that told Jonathan he’d arrived in the proverbial nick of time.
    Moving with a choreographed unison that came from years of cooperation, Jonathan and Boxers spread out slightly to create a more difficult target, and they both brought their weapons to bear. As they approached to within twenty yards, Jonathan made brief eye contact with the bearded victim, and noted with interest how cool the guy remained as he continued to pivot in a wide circle away from the campsite. To Jonathan, that meant that there was something worth hiding in the camp.
    At this range, their words were clear. The hippie was talking a mile a minute—something about these guys being three hours late.
    Jonathan felt Boxers’ gaze on him and returned it with a nod. The time had come to intervene.
    “Drop your weapons!” he yelled.
    The hippie, who seemed to have been expecting the confrontation, reacted instantly, dropping to the ground to leave an unobstructed sight picture.
    The men in the T-shirts whirled, with guns at the ready and murder in their eyes. There was no time for negotiation.
    Jonathan and Boxers fired simultaneously, and the men died on their feet—triple-tapped with two shots to the heart and one to the forehead in the time that it took for the first spent shell casing to hit the ground.
    Even with the targets neutralized, neither man broke his aim. Jonathan yelled, “If I didn’t just shoot you, you’d better by God stand up and show me your hands.”
    Nobody moved. Boxers shrugged.
    “Last chance!” Jonathan yelled. “If I have to come and find you, you will not be happy.”
    As he spoke, he kept his aim trained on the spot where the hippie had disappeared. It surprised him when the man slowly rose above the grass thirty feet to the right. He and Boxers pivoted their aim in unison.
    The guy looked older than he had before. Scrawnier and dirtier, too. He rose straight up, as if on an elevator, his large hands extended more out than up, his fingers