Border Crossings

by Michael Lee Weems

  “Get a map and have her show you where that compound is,” said the captain. “We’ll get started on a warrant.”

  Yesenia was taken into protective custody and after she pointed out on a map about where she thought the little compound was, the police handed it over to the Dallas SWAT team.

  “They’re going to raid the compound tomorrow,” explained Zuniga. “We’ll take you to a safe place tonight, but tomorrow they might need your help.”

  “Of course,” she told him. “Did anybody call Ricky?” She wondered if he knew about Armando’s death and how he and his mother were doing.

  “Yes,” he told her. “He took it hard, of course, but we’ve got some good folks with them. We’ll take care of them best we can.”

  Yesenia spent the night in a solitary confinement cell. “It’s just until we figure something else out, but in the meantime, if you need anything at all, just knock on the door.” Zuniga ordered a pizza and a 2-liter of coke and gave Yesenia what magazines they had laying around. She fell asleep with a Cosmo open on her lap, the colorful pictures of glamorous stars smiling up at her as she dozed off, a promise of the America she’d only heard about, and not at all the one she’d found. She slept that way, tomato sauce still on her fingers.

  The next morning she was greeted by Zuniga, who had brought her a fresh change of clothes, the tags still on them, along with a new hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss. “I hope it fits,” he said, handing the bundle over to her, “Courtesy of the Dallas Police Department. I’m afraid you’ll have to do without a shower until this evening, but I promise better lodgings for you tonight.”

  Yesenia changed her clothes and brushed her teeth and was soon standing in a room surrounded by police and detectives, her nerves vibrating as everyone seemed to be following her lead. She stood looking down at an aerial photograph of Miss Lydia’s compound with a sergeant from the Swat team. “We took this photo this morning with our helicopter,” he told her. “Now, what I need you to do is to point out which mobile homes have the other girls, and in which one the armed men you told us about will likely be in.”

  Yesenia pointed on the map, but as she stared at it she looked at the photo she realized something was wrong. “It’s missing,” she told him.

  “What’s missing?” asked the officer.

  “The trailer. Miss Lydia’s hot box. It was here,” she pointed on the photo where the trailer once stood, now nothing but a big brown patch in the grass.

  “What was in the trailer?” he asked.

  “Nothing. It was where she sent us if we misbehaved. She would lock us inside.”

  “Okay, let’s not worry about it for right now. Now, what else can you tell me about this compound? Is this fence here electric?” Yesenia told him all she knew of the compound and those inside of it. She made sure to mention the two Rottweillers. “Do you know how many guns they have or what type of other weapons may be present?”

  “I don’t know,” she told him. “I just know they have guns. Pistols and rifles. I’m not sure how many, though. I’m sorry. You will make sure none of my friends get hurt, won’t you? And the one man, Arnulfo, he really didn’t seem like that bad of a man, I guess. He kind of tried to be nice.”

  “It’s okay,” he told her, marveling at how a young woman like Yesenia could go through the hell she’d been through yet maintain such a selfless disposition. “We will make every opportunity to keep your friends safe. And as for Arnulfo, as long as he doesn’t try to hurt any of the officers and does what we say, he’ll be fine. If he doesn’t, well that’s another story. We have to keep our officers safe, you understand.”

  Things seemed to happen quickly after that. Yesenia sat in the police station as the Dallas SWAT team geared up for their charge. They had rented a hotel room for her, but she felt safer in the police station, at least for the moment. The anxiety of what would happen began to make her stomach churn like a lava lamp. She worried for the girls. She thought about Armando, and what Jose and Hector had done to him. She kept seeing images of the dead. Armando, the trooper, and his resemblance in death to her father. She didn’t want anyone else to die, not even Jose or Hector. She just wanted it all to be over and to never see such violence again. While she sat wondering what was happening, the police were moving in.

  The SWAT team had two armored vehicles, which they planned on strategically placing. Several vehicles, including the armored ones, approached the compound and at the order of the sergeant, the lead armored vehicle crashed through the gate. Inside, a police officer scanned for activity while the vehicles rushed in. The dogs came running towards them immediately and barked and growled at the vehicles, not entirely sure if they were capable of biting the metal intruders.

  When they reached the mobile homes, one officer rose up on the turret ready to fire upon any hostiles. The other SWAT members began to pile out of their vehicles with guns drawn. Chico made the unfortunate mistake of trying to attack the strange men and was put down immediately in a hail of gunfire, scaring the other dog so much it ran away as fast as its legs could carry it. Then the officers kicked in the door to the mobile home where Jose, Arnulfo, and Hector had stayed. They found it empty.

  Next they kicked in Miss Lydia’s door, and it, too, was empty. “Clear!” they yelled, going from room to room and then on to the next mobile home. In a matter of minutes, they confirmed that the compound had been evacuated. Not a soul remained.

  “Damn it,” said Zuniga. “They knew we were coming.” He scolded himself for not acting sooner, but he had needed time to get the warrant and set up the strike.

  When they returned to the police station he questioned Yesenia. “Do you have any idea where they might try to go?”

  “No,” she said worriedly. “What about the other girls?”

  “Gone,” he told her. “They’ve all left.”

  Yesenia sat wondering what had happened. Would Miss Lydia take Silvia and the others and just set up shop somewhere else? Or maybe it was worse than that. What if she told Jose and Hector to kill them all? She couldn’t help but to think it was her fault for running away. What if they had killed the other girls because of her? Oh, Silvia. What have I done?

  Catherine and Matt decided they’d return to Cancun in a bit more style. They used ten thousand dollars of Ortiz’s money to rent a Cessna XLS, a state of the art jet worlds apart from the single engine seventies Cessna they’d arrived in. “I’m probably going to need some of this cash to pay for the rental cars we’ve damaged,” she told Matt.

  “Yeah, and I may need to reimburse my company for the trip up here. I’m sure they’re good and well pissed off at me at the moment.”

  Before they left she called Jim. She left out all the gory details, but told him everything else, including who had kidnapped Kelly, why they’d picked her, and most importantly, that Victor Arismendez was the man who murdered her. She could only wonder how unbelievable is sounded to Jim. She could hardly believe it herself as she heard the story unravel from her lips.

  “It was completely random, Jim. There was nothing more to it than she was the prettiest girl in the place.” She wondered if it was of any comfort to him. Probably not. “We’re about to head back to Cancun now,” she told him, staring out the car’s window at the sleek jet waiting for them. “I’m not entirely sure what our next step is, but we’re going to get the guy. Hey may think he’s untouchable but we’ll get him, I promise . . . even if we have to hire our own private army. We’ve got the means to do it at the moment thanks to Ortiz.”

  “I can help,” Jim said. “I can call up the news and tell them everything you just told me. They’ll have to take action if the world knows it was him.”

  “No, don’t do that,” she said, concerned. “He’ll run. And if he runs we may never get him. He may end up in some village in Peru nobody has ever heard of, or worse yet, Venezuela. We’d never get him. No, just let us figure it out. We’ll get down there and assess where we’re at then. I know it’s
tough, Jim, but just a little more time.”

  “Okay, but I can’t just sit here. Wait,” he said. “I can contact people here, the governor’s office, maybe. Hell, I can probably get him on the phone personally, he was at the funeral. If I explain to him what you just told me, maybe he can help. Our government can put pressure on theirs, quietly, though.”

  “Maybe,” she said. She didn’t like the idea of involving any Mexican government officials considering there was no telling if someone would tip Arismendez off, but she knew he was going to be a lot harder to get to than Ortiz. “Try the governor’s office, then,” she decided. “But be careful who you talk to and what you say. They need to understand just how well connected this guy is down here. If someone tips him off, we’ll likely never catch the guy.”

  “I will,” said Jim.

  As she hung up the phone Matt escorted her to the plane, “Your chariot awaits.”

  Once on board, he tossed her a coke. “The governor, huh? I’m not so sure about that one. We may end up on the wrong side of that call. We’ve left a mess of a trail lately, if you recall.”

  “I know,” she said. Three dead bodies, no less. The thought made her queasy. She popped the top and took a sip. “You’ve been amazing. More than amazing, but we need help, Matt. We can’t keep running around like a couple of vigilantes, not with this guy. There are some good people there, but they’re scared. We need to light a fire, something to bring them together and take this guy off the streets.”

  “That’s awfully optimistic,” he said smirking.

  She smiled. “Naïve? I know what you’re thinking. Maybe it is, but I’m a believer, Matt. I think I understand now that sometimes to do the right thing may means slinging the blood and mud. But at some point people have to get out of the pit and stand on their principles. It’s not okay for so called civilized people to turn a blind eye to people like Arismendez. If they do, more like him will keep coming, keep kidnapping people for ransom, killing innocent people in a crowd without the least bit of fear. Did you know last year in Sinoloa the cartel skinned a man’s face off, stitched it to a soccer ball, and left it at the city hall?”

  “No,” said Matt. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but no, I didn’t know that.”

  “They were making him an example,” she said. “And that’s the point, Matt. They’re winning because they’re setting the bigger, scarier example. We need to do something else here. Even if we could get to Victor by ourselves, the greater good here is for those who are supposed to be protecting people from men like him to actually stand up and do it. Otherwise, who’s going to stop them? You and I are just two people. We’re lucky we haven’t been killed yet. There has to be a reckoning for these people, Matt. There’s no stopping them if they think society can be cow-tailed against standing up to them.”

  “So you want to make an example out of Arismendez?” he asked.

  “If it’s possible, yes. I want the world to see that there are good people here that are willing to stand up and say enough is enough.”

  Matt leaned back, contemplating. “It’s not a perfect world, Catherine.”

  “I know,” she said, looking back out the window. “Believe me, I know.”

  “Well, it may be a little naïve, Catherine, but I still admire you for it. I can’t say as though I agree with you, but part of me wishes I did.” The jet’s engines roared as they raced down the runway then lifted up into the sky.

  Around eleven that morning Zuniga got a call from a small auto dealership in the Dallas area. “We got this sheet you faxed about the people you’re looking for.”

  “Yes? Have you seen them?”

  “Yes, sir. Two of them, at least. We sold them a truck the other day.” The fax had been sitting on the dealership’s machine and the manager had grabbed it and was ready to throw it in the garbage until the name jumped out at him.

  “Are you sure it’s them?” Zuniga asked.

  “Yes, sir. No doubt. I already checked with the salesman on the description. It was an old woman and her son and they put it in her name. Paid cash.”

  “Do you have the information on the truck?” asked Zuniga excitedly. He snatched up a pin and quickly wrote down the truck’s description, VIN, and temporary tag number. As soon as they hung up, he gave the information to dispatch and issued an A.P.B. on the new description, a white Chevy C1500 extended cab, possibly pulling a metallic trailer.

  Meanwhile, a truck matching that exact description sat parked at a secluded camping area in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, two and a half hours away from the border. Miss Lydia was racking her brain trying to make a decision. Should she continue on Westward in the United States, set up shop in New Mexico, possibly? Or should she cut and run, take her money and head for Juarez. Ortiz hadn’t been any help, jumping off the phone saying something about having his own issues to deal with.

  They had stopped and picked up some food and the girls were all sitting around a picnic table eating. They were becoming difficult to handle, as she’d put them in the trailer for the long drive, which meant they had to make periodic stops to give them a rest from the heat. The girls were not happy and Miss Lydia eyed them, suspicious they might be plotting something.

  “Keep an eye on them,” she told Arnulfo. “I don’t trust them.”

  “It’s too hot in the trailer,” he responded.

  “That’s why we’re getting some air. They’ll be fine.”

  Inside the truck Jose was picking his fingernails clean with a pocketknife, listening to a police scanner for signs of trouble. Suddenly, he heard it. Over the police scanner, a state trooper was asking for confirmation of the tag numbers on the truck Jose was driving. He had a possible match at a truck stop, but after the info was relayed to him, confirmed it was not the correct truck. “That’s a negative. It doesn’t have temporary tags and no trailer,” the officer said.

  Shit! Thought Jose. He jumped from his seat and ran to Miss Lydia who was sitting at a separate picnic table from the girls trying to think of where the best place to go was.

  “Mama,” he told her. “They know about the truck. I just heard it over the scanner. They know what we’re driving and about the trailer.”

  Miss Lydia cursed. They had little chance of continuing West now without being seen, even at night. The police would be looking everywhere for them, and even the truckers out on the roads would know what to look for. The minute they passed someone, they’d take one look at the truck with the metal trailer and it’d be over. It’s time to make the hard decisions, she decided. The only chance was to lose the trailer and make a run for Juarez. But what to do with the girls? She couldn’t fit them in the truck, and even if she could, as this point she didn’t trust them to keep their mouths shut if something happened. They’ll give us up to the police the first chance they get, she thought. She pulled Jose aside and began whispering to him.

  “What do you suppose they’re talking about?” Catalina asked the other girls, spying the secret meeting being held.

  “Probably where to go,” said Silvia. “Do you think they’ll let us go?”

  “Not her,” said Imelda, referring to Miss Lydia. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I smell trouble. Yesenia must have called the police. That’s why they’re running.” As she watched the old woman, she began to have suspicions they might be planning something terrible. She took the opportunity to visit with Arnulfo, who she’d always had something of a friendship with. “Arnulfo, what are they talking about?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Just go back with the other girls. Don’t bring attention to yourself.”

  “But Arnulfo, look at them. They’re up to something.”

  “I’ll find out,” he told her, “but please, go back with the other girls. Now is not the time to risk getting Miss Lydia upset. She’s already on edge.”

  Imelda did as she was told, but she picked up that Arnulfo was also worried. He might even be scared, which made her even more concer
ned. “Something’s up,” she told the other girls, “but he doesn’t know what.”