Hostage Zero by John Gilstrap Page A

splayed wide. He looked scared to death.
    “Very well done,” Jonathan coached. “Very smart.”
    He sensed movement near the campsite at the exact instant when Boxers said, “Left.”
    Since Jonathan held the left flank, the target belonged to him. He pivoted as Boxers held fast.
    Jesus, it was a child. The look of terror in the boy’s face didn’t touch the feeling of horror in Jonathan’s stomach as he broke his aim and redirected the muzzle of the .45 to the ground. The weapon was still at the ready if he needed it, but even an unheard-of accidental trigger pull couldn’t do any harm.
    “Don’t let that one move an inch closer,” Jonathan said, pointing to the hippie. He moved in closer to the boy, and within two steps, he recognized him. “Jeremy?” It seemed too good to be true.
    The boy’s mask of fear morphed into a mask of confusion. Then, finally, recognition. “Mr. Jonathan,” he said.
    Jonathan holstered his weapon, still cocked as always, and rushed to the boy. He stopped, though, when Jeremy recoiled. “Are you all right?” Jonathan asked. He shot a contemptuous glare at the hippie, whose hands remained high. Jonathan dared another couple of steps, stopping just a foot or two outside the kid’s personal space. “We’ve been worried sick about you,” he said. He resisted the urge to ask about the other missing child, Evan Guinn. Maybe he didn’t want to know. Maybe he just wanted to savor this victory before finding out awful news.
    Still, Jeremy didn’t move. He just cocked his head a little, as if trying to fit together the pieces of too complex a puzzle.
    Jonathan had memorized the dossiers on the missing children, so he knew Jeremy Schuler to be thirteen years old—a seventh grader just three years away from having a driver’s license—but at this moment he could have been ten, or even eight. Six. Pick a number. As his features melted, he transformed from young man to little boy.
    He launched himself at Jonathan, wrapping his arms around his chest in a crushing bear hug, and he dissolved into deep racking sobs. Jonathan wasn’t ready for it. The rawness of the emotion made him self-conscious. He patted Jeremy’s back, and then he cupped the crown of his head and pulled him in closer.
    In Jonathan’s job, nothing good ever came from crossing the line that separated the heart from the head. His world was about life-and-death decisions made quickly, in the vacuum of professional detachment. That meant shunning hugs from relieved victims and constructing emotional walls to separate him from the people he helped.
    As Jeremy Schuler trembled and sobbed, his hot tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt, Jonathan felt his defenses crumbling. A few yards away, Boxers searched the hippie for weapons.
    This was a victory, Jonathan told himself. With one still missing, it was only one half of total victory, but it was a moment to be celebrated nonetheless. In the midst of a thousand unanswered questions, Jonathan Grave knew one fact beyond even the slimmest sliver of doubt: Whoever had hurt this child—whoever might still be hurting Evan Guinn—was going to pay an extraordinary price.

C HAPTER E LEVEN
    Brandy Giddings sat comfortably in the upholstered antique chair in the hallway, pretending not to notice the stares from the stern-faced Secret Service agents who stood in their assigned corners of the anteroom. She marveled at the way they could simultaneously project lethality and professional indifference. She wondered if The Look—easily recognizable by anyone with eyes—was specifically taught in the academy.
    Did they even have an academy? she wondered. Surely they learned their craft somewhere, but she’d never heard mention of such a place. FBI Academy, yes—everybody knew that was in Quantico, Virginia, the place where Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster’s character in The Silence of the Lambs ) received her orders—but a Secret Service Academy? Never heard of one.
    Even a year