“Can you see Falcon?” said Chavez.

“Negative. The black male is holding the injured female in his arms, but there is no sign of-Check that. There’s Falcon. He’s standing directly behind the male hostage.”

“Then take the shot.”

“There is no shot.”

“If you can see Falcon, there’s a shot.”

“It’s too risky. He’s using the hostage as a shield.”

“What about the north-south snipers? Any angle for a shot to the side of the head?”

“Negative. The hostage is standing at the threshold. Falcon is still inside.”

“Then back off. It’s time to breach.”

“If you breach now, Theo Knight is dead.”

“Then take the shot, damn it!”

TAKE THE SHOT.

For a brief instant, Falcon thought he was hearing voices in his head all over again, but it sounded unlike any voice he’d heard before, and it was coming from a place that seemed all too real-specifically, one of the nearby rooms.

“Back inside!” shouted Falcon as he grabbed Theo by the collar and pulled him out of the doorway.

chapter 59

V ince listened intently as Jack described what was unfolding on the command center’s closed-circuit television-Falcon retreating into the hotel room with both Theo and the injured girl still held hostage. Vince’s telephone rang almost immediately. He answered just as quickly, only to get an earful of Falcon’s most hysterical screams yet.

“You tried to screw me, Paulo!”

“No one’s screwing with you.”

“I heard your SWAT guy or sniper or whoever talking to someone in the next room. He said to take the shot! Now call them off, or I’ll take the shot. This is no joke. Somebody’s gonna die here!”

“Just calm down, all right?”

“Calm down? You send in a shooter, and now you’re telling me to calm down?”

“Hear me out, Falcon. If SWAT or anyone else is anywhere near you, it’s not my doing. Let me check into it, and I’ll get them to back off.”

“I don’t buy that for one second. It’s just like you did to me on the bridge. You’re lying through your teeth all over again.”

“Look, for what it’s worth, I didn’t lie to you on the bridge. When I said you could speak to Alicia if you came down from the lamppost, that was a firm deal in my mind. Someone else-someone higher up-pulled the plug on us.”

“It’s never your fault, is it, Paulo?”

“I know I must sound like I’m full of excuses, but I swear I’m not lying to you.”

“And I swear right back that I don’t believe you.”

Vince could see that this conversation was going nowhere, along the lines of the timeless are-too-am-not playground debate. He needed another tack. “Falcon, let me make good on this, all right?”

“How?”

“First, let’s agree upfront that you are not going to hurt the hostages. If you can make that promise to me, then we can talk about what it is that you really want.”

“You know what I want.”

“Not until you tell me, I don’t.”

“You’ve known all along.”

“Spell it out, Falcon. Tell me what you want, and I’ll see if I can get it done.”

“Anything I want?”

“Within reason. Just don’t hurt the hostages.”

He paused, as if he enjoyed keeping Vince in suspense. Finally, he said, “I want to speak to Alicia.”

“Okay. I think we can do that.”

“In person.”

Vince didn’t want to use the word “no,” even if the answer was “no freakin’ way.” “How about we start with a phone conversation?”

“No, I want to-” Falcon said, then stopped. “You know what, Paulo? I’m calling your bluff. Put her on.”

“Unfortunately, she’s not here right now.”

“Damn you and your lies! Don’t you ever keep a promise? Don’t you ever stop stalling?”

Vince wasn’t sure how to convince him that he was being truthful, but based on what he was hearing in Falcon’s voice, it appeared that he didn’t have nearly enough time to redeem his own credibility. “If you don’t believe me, talk to Swyteck. Here, he’ll tell you.”

He handed the phone to Jack, who had been listening to the conversation on speaker. Paulo would have liked to coach him on what to say, but there was no time for that, either.

Jack spoke into the telephone. “He’s not messing with you, Falcon. Alicia is not here, and we’re doing our best to find her.”

“It’s time she talked to me. It’s beyond time.”

“What do you want to say to her?”

“Just bring her here. Now!”

Jack hit the mute button and spoke to Vince. “Where the hell is Alicia?”

“She rushed out of the command center after I gave her some files from my source. I sensed something was wrong, but she wouldn’t say what. I honestly don’t know where she went.”

“Find someone who does.”

“We’re working on it.”

“Work harder!” said Jack. He disengaged the mute function and spoke into the telephone. “She’s on her way, Falcon. Just give us a couple minutes.”

Falcon didn’t answer.

Vince slipped Jack a note that read, KEEP HIM TALKING.

“Falcon?” said Jack. “Are you there? Come on buddy, talk to me. Tell me more about that stage you wanted. You know, ‘curtain time.’”

chapter 60

F alcon paced across the room, the cell phone pressed to his ear. Swyteck was clearly stalling, but his exact words were lost on Falcon. The lawyer’s voice was just noise on the phone line. Falcon couldn’t focus on conversation. His mind was roaming elsewhere, and the noise was growing louder. At first, it was a hum, then a buzz, and finally the roar of engines. Airplane engines.

“I want to speak to Alicia, damn it!” Not even his own voice, however, could drown out the rumble of airplane engines inside his head.

It had been a moonless night, and the sky was a vast, impenetrable blackness in his darkest memories. He was flying in a retrofitted Skyvan, a propeller-powered aircraft so squat in its design that it was nicknamed the Flying Shoebox. This craft was owned by the Argentine Coast Guard. Nearly all of the passenger seats had been removed to expand the plane’s cargo capacity, and El Oso was buckled into one of the few that remained. The plane’s normal flight crew was in the cockpit. El Oso was part of a working crew that included a noncommissioned officer and a petty officer. The military rotated different working crewmembers onto each flight-involving as many operatives as possible-so that no one who worked at the detention center could point fingers without implicating himself or a friend. El Oso had, of course, heard rumors about the flights, and he had begun to speculate about the nature of his assignment from the moment he received orders to report to the landing field at ESMA, one of the largest and most notorious of all the secret military detention centers. For El Oso, however, the exact purpose of this particular flight was not confirmed in his own mind until he saw about twenty naked, unconscious prisoners laid side-by-side on the floor of the aircraft.

“Falcon, are you there?” It was Swyteck’s voice on the telephone, somehow cutting through the deafening airplane engines.

“Just shut up and get Alicia on the line!”

Swyteck kept talking, more stalling, but Falcon wasn’t even listening. He was barely aware of the fact that he was still inside a motel room, let alone that he was on the telephone. There was so much noise inside his head, those damn engines roaring from the past. But why so loud?

They had left the hatch open. The Skyvan had a rear hatch that slid down to open, and there was no intermediate position. It either had to be closed or fully open. On the Wednesday-night flights, the hatch definitely remained open. El Oso was staring directly into the night, a black hole in the aft of a noisy aircraft. Between him and the gaping hatch lay the rows of naked bodies on the floor. He wished that each and every one of them were dead, but he knew better. Only the living would require the injection of a sedative from a medical doctor. The doctor. He was making his rounds, so to speak, moving from one prisoner to the next, administering a second injection that would keep them unconscious. El Oso hadn’t noticed at first, but as the doctor worked his way up the row of naked bodies, emptying his syringe, his face came clear. Finally, El Oso made the connection. This man was no stranger. This was the very same navy doctor to whom he had taken prisoner 309’s newborn baby just two months earlier.