Page 43 of No Plan B

The other Minerva guy said, “Want to tell me what’s going on here?”

The blond kid’s mouth drooped open but he didn’t speak.

The Minerva guy took a pistol from the waistband of his jeans. “This is what you need to understand. I’m a law enforcement officer. I witnessed you attempting to kidnap a minor. I shoot you, I get a medal. So if you have anything close to an innocent explanation, now’s the time.”

The kid didn’t respond.

The Minerva guy checked his watch. There were eight minutes before the next bus was due. Which was annoying. This could be the only action he would see all day. He would have preferred to draw things out a little. Have some fun. Instead he frowned and said, “Show me your phone.”

The kid didn’t move.

The Minerva guy pressed the muzzle of his gun against the kid’s sternum. He reached into the kid’s pocket and helped himself to the phone. He glanced at it and said, “Passcode?”

The kid stayed silent.

The Minerva guy said, “OK. This phone’s old. A fingerprint will unlock it. Hold out your hand.”

The kid didn’t move.

The Minerva guy said, “Let’s recap. Passcode, or fingerprint?”

The kid didn’t answer.

“OK,” the Minerva guy said. “I’ll go with your fingerprint. You know your finger doesn’t need to be attached to the rest of you for it to work, right? Or your thumb? Or whatever you used to set it up? Maybe I’ll have to snap off all your fingers, one at a time.”

The kid’s eyes opened wide and he blurted out a string of six numbers. The Minerva guy entered them into the phone then opened its photo library. It was full of pictures of people surfing and drinking beer and hanging out on beaches, plus one shot of someone’s ass.There was nothing that seemed relevant so the guy switched to the phone’s messages app. Straightaway a different picture filled the screen. It was of Jed Starmer. At the Greyhound station in L.A. Taken on Tuesday afternoon. The guy clicked and swiped and saw that the picture had been sent from a California number. There was a note attached to it. A route number. And an arrival time. He handed the phone to his partner, then said to the kid, “How much?”

The kid’s eyes opened even wider. “I haven’t got any money. But I can get some. I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

The Minerva guy slapped the kid in the face. Openhanded, but still hard enough to knock him over sideways, into the gutter. Then the guy reached down, grabbed the kid by the undershirt, and hauled him back onto his feet. “How much will you get for snatching the boy?”

“Oh. Nothing. Nada. Honest.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“Then why did you snatch him?”

“We had to. We don’t have any choice.”

“Everyone has a choice.”

“We don’t. We’re working it off. There’s a debt we owe.”

“Oh yeah? Who do you owe? What for?”

“A guy we met. He gave us some drugs. A lot of drugs. We were supposed to sell them. But they got stolen. And we didn’t have any money to pay him back.”

“Who’s the guy?”

“I don’t know his real name.”

“Where is he?”

“New Orleans.”

“So now you supply him with runaways?”

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