Crossers

by Philip Caputo

  “I’m not sure the money is the big issue here. A quarter of a million is walking-around money to Yvonne. Anyway, isn’t it our policy not to give in to terrorists?”

  “These people are drug smugglers,” Inserra said. “Thugs. They’re not terrorists.”

  “Yeah, they are,” Gomez shot back. “Just a different kind of terrorist. Go ahead, get the money. Meantime I can get in touch with Bonham. At least he might be able to find out where she’s got them. Is that all right with you, Mr. Castle?”

  His head was swimming again. He thought that if he stood up suddenly, he would black out. “It makes no sense. None of it makes any sense.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t try making sense out of it. It is what it is, and we go from there.”

  35

  THE PROFESSOR AND COMANDANTE ZARAGOZA SAT reading newspapers in the federal police comandancia in Cananea. The hour was late, and it was quiet, the sedate, men’s-club rustling of the newsprint occasionally disturbed by cries issuing from the interrogation room in back.

  Zaragoza, who’d arrived less than an hour ago, occupied the subcomandante’s chair, his snakeskin cowboy boots up on the desk. The matter was urgent enough for him to have made a breakneck, all-lights-flashing, siren-wailing, 250-kilometer drive from his headquarters in Hermosillo. Now he had to wait for his boys to finish the prep work.

  “I heard on the radio driving up that the Yankees took the second game of the series,” he said, putting down his paper. He was an avid baseball fan, a great supporter of the Hermosillo Naranjaros. “Soriano hit in two, and that Japanese, how do you say? Maht-soo-ee, he hit a homer. First Jap to hit a homer in the series.”

  The Professor grunted. He preferred fútbol to beisbol and was reading about Monterey’s coach in El Sol de México. Or pretending to read. It was hard to concentrate, his thoughts spinning.

  He had often likened his line of work to night-flying a small plane without instruments. The margin for error being nearly zero, the clandestine operative never got a chance to become familiar with failure. He either succeeded, or he ended his career in a shallow grave. Which was why he’d found the failure of his mission to entrap Yvonne an experience as strange as it was distasteful. Not so long ago everything had been set up with Customs Agent Pierce. A motel room had been rented and bugged in Douglas, a hidden video camera installed, the money put together; but when The Professor phoned Yvonne in Zihuatanejo, saying that his clients were ready to deal and was she, she backed off. “They can meet me in Mexico, Carrington. It doesn’t feel right.”

  She could not be persuaded to change her mind. Pierce was frustrated. The Professor traveled to Carrasco’s ranch in Caborca and informed him that the sting wasn’t going to come off. He was beside himself, offering half a million to kill the puta jodida down there, just shoot her while she was sunbathing. Pointing out that Yvonne traveled with a positively presidential security detail, The Professor said, “I’m not going to commit suicide for you, Joaquín,” and advised patience while he developed a new approach.

  Now it appeared that Yvonne had given him one. She’d pulled an incredible stunt, nabbing two gringos out of their home in the middle of the night, dragging them across the line, holding them for ransom. Gringos who were not mixed up in the trade. White, law-abiding gringos with a crisp Anglo name. Once this got into the press, as it was bound to, the patriots who wanted to build a wall from Brownsville to San Diego would be screaming for the National Guard to fix bayonets on the border. The effect on business would be disastrous. That was what had brought the comandante, summoned by The Professor’s phone call, racing up from Hermosillo. Yvonne had at last overreached. She’d gotten away with so much for so long, she must have started to think she was a human flak jacket. But there was nothing in this abduction that would profit her patrons in the army and the government. Quite the contrary. In the outcry sure to come, questions would be asked. Who is this crazy woman, and why has Mexico not done something about her? Her protection would dissolve like adobe in a rainstorm.

  “The Marlins are the underdogs,” Zaragoza was saying. “But my money is on them.”

  “Why?” asked the Professor, indifferently.

  “It’s their pitching. Urbina, Beckett—”

  A rap at the door interrupted the comandante’s sports commentary. A federal policeman in a black uniform stuck his head inside. “He’s ready.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll do the questioning,” The Professor said. “His Spanish isn’t all that good.”

  They followed the policeman to the back room, where Cruz, stripped down to his underwear, was handcuffed to a cafeteria chair, a hood pulled over his head. Another cop stood behind him, holding an electric baton. The dense odors of sweat and urine hung in the air. The comandante motioned to remove the hood, and Cruz looked up startled into his lupine face and then into The Professor’s. It was fortunate that he’d become familiar with Cruz’s routines. Almost exactly five hours ago, following the call from Nacho, he’d ordered a squad of federales to stake out the casas ilegales where Cruz stashed his chickens. They found him, sometime later, at the El Mirador Motel and whisked him away.

  “You know, I never thought I’d be talking to you like this again in a place like this,” The Professor said. Then he sang merrily. “‘Oh, where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy, oh, where have you been, charming Billy.’ But we know, don’t we? You were supposed to keep me abreast of Yvonne’s activities. I’m extremely disappointed. Now’s your chance to make amends. Sabes porque estoy aquí. Where is she hiding them?”

  Cruz’s head drooped. The cop behind him jerked it upright by the hair.

  “This shouldn’t take longer than five minutes. We’re pressed for time.”

  “The ranch,” Cruz answered, grimacing.

  “Specifics.”

  “The almacén. The warehouse.”

  “What kind of shape are they are in?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The Professor took the prod and held the tip an inch from Cruz’s groin. “If there are three words I hate to hear, it’s I don’t know.”

  “I don’t! They were okay last night. That was the last I saw of them. We didn’t hurt them, I swear to God. We brought them to the warehouse and left them there, and they were okay then.”

  “Who is this we?”

  “Me, Marco, Heraclio. I was the guide for them and three other guys Yvonne brought in. Pros from the Gulf Cartel. And the two girls.”

  “Girls?”

  “That’s how we got in. We paid them a thousand each to pretend to be wets who’d got lost and needed water and food. The ranch dogs were howling, and we shot them. We had silencers. Then the girls knocked at the door, and when Erskine answered, we moved in and took him down. Then we got his wife.”

  Clever, thought The Professor. The ruse had to have been Yvonne’s idea. “Thought you said you didn’t hurt him.”

  “We didn’t. Just a tap on the head. He had a gun—”

  “How about the mojado? You got to him the same way?”

  Cruz was silent, but he yelped when The Professor gave him a little tap with the baton, on the inside of his thigh. A foretaste.

  “We knew where his trailer was. Some of Yvonne’s people had scoped the place out. The door didn’t have a lock. Grabbed him.”

  “He’s dead, right? Who killed him? I know you’ll swear to God it wasn’t you.”

  “It wasn’t!” he cried out. “Heraclio shot him. After we crossed.”

  “How many people are guarding the warehouse? Don’t say you don’t know.”

  “Six, seven maybe.”

  “How are they armed?”

  “AR-15s, pistols.”

  “Anything that might have slipped your mind?”

  “The truck. She told us to take Erskine’s truck. We drove them over in their truck.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Can I say I don’t know? Because I don’t.”

  “Muchas gracias, Billy Boy. You
have been a model of cooperation. You’ll be staying with us for a while.”

  Retiring to the subcomandante’s office, The Professor summarized the conversation for Zaragoza, who dropped into the desk chair and glanced at a wall map of the region, clicking his tongue. “If we can get those people out of there and capture her at the same time, if we can do that, it would make us look very good. We would be rid of her, Joaquín would be rid of her, and we would look very good.”

  Look very good in the eyes of the Americans, thought The Professor. We are always trying to please them even as we hate them. “And very bad if we mess it up,” he said. “The problem is how. Her ranch, muy lejano, eh? There is no way to get onto it without her knowing about it.”

  “No way by road. And since we cannot come in by sea”—a grin—“that leaves the air. There are two helicopters I know of in Culiacán. I can contact the attorney general in the morning and have them flown to Hermosillo for refueling. Then …”

  “She’s got eyes and ears all over the place. I would say that before they crossed the highway”—The Professor poked a pencil at the Nogales-Hermosillo highway, Federal Route 15—“long before, her spies would spot them and warn her.”

  The comandante took out a pad of paper from a drawer and pushed it across the desk. “You have been on that ranch. Draw me a map of it. Show me where is her house, this warehouse, this airstrip. Show that to me.”

  After studying the sketch, he asked how far it was from the warehouse to the border.

  “Más o menos, fifteen kilometers.”

  “Calderoni captured Pablo Acosta back in the eighties by flying helicopters in from the United States,” said Zaragoza, referring to the legendary federale commander. “Flew right across the Río Bravo from the American side and hit him. So if we can do the same … we fly into the United States and refuel them there.”

  “Nogales,” The Professor broke in, catching his line of thought.

  “Nogales airport,” Zaragoza said. “The helicopters take off from the American side of Nogales. They cross the line, from a direction Yvonne does not expect. Fifteen kilometers more, five minutes flying time, and we’re on her”—forming talons with one hand, Zaragoza clutched the sketch and crumpled it—“como el halcón en la rata. We will need our best people for this one. We will need to talk to your American friends to get clearance.”

  The Professor expressed, without, he hoped, too much obsequiousness, admiration for Zaragoza’s creative tactics; but he had to point out another difficulty. The hostages were in the warehouse as of last night. Yvonne may have moved them. Or she might move them between now and tomorrow. It would be wise to have somebody on the ground to report where they were, and where she was.

  “I do not see how we can do that.”

  “I have an idea,” The Professor said, and immediately picked up the phone and rousted Félix Cabrera out of bed. He lived in Cananea, which would save a great deal of travel time. He told Félix to meet him at the comandancia first thing in the morning. That done, he had one more person to wake up.

  Nacho’s wife answered, her voice thick with sleep. He apologized for phoning after midnight and asked to speak to Nacho, who, clearing his throat, said he’d been anxious to hear from him. The Professor briefed him on Cruz’s revelations.

  “Cruz? You’ve got Cruz?”

  “In custody.” Now was not the occasion to disclose that he’d known of Billy’s whereabouts for a long time. “Remember a couple of weeks ago I said you owe me one? Here comes the bill. I want you to talk to your FBI compas and get clearance for two of our helicopters to land at Nogales airport tomorrow.”

  “Christ, you don’t ask for much, do you?” said Nacho after a long silence.

  “I’m asking for this.”

  “I’m getting the picture. Look, the FBI wants to avoid a rescue situation. They figure it’s better to ransom them out, and I’m kind of leaning that way myself. I mean, you guys, the MexFeds, no offense, but you know—you guys are better with a meat cleaver than a scalpel.”

  “I don’t make messes, Ignacio. Now you look. We think alike sometimes. Yvonne must have put a hell of a lot of planning into this, a lot of effort—”

  “And, yeah,” Nacho put in. “It couldn’t be for the money. She wants something more.”

  “She always wants more.”

  “I’m thinking you’re thinking she’s going to kill them no matter what.”

  “Exactamente.”

  IN THE MORNING, he and Zaragoza having snatched four hours sleep at the Real del Cobre, The Professor rendezvoused with Félix at the federal police station, where Félix drew an assault rifle, a bulletproof vest, binoculars, and a portable radio. He instructed Félix on what he was to do, what to say, and how to conduct himself. He was an assassin and an enforcer, after all, unaccustomed to pretending to be anything else. This was a new thing he was being asked to do—play a role; but all The Professor needed was for him to make a convincing show for about half an hour. Félix was his usual self, listening intently, speaking hardly a word—the silent predator.

  The Professor dialed Yvonne’s mobile. Feigning ignorance of her present location and fishing for any signs that she suspected the police were on to her, he asked, “How is Zihuatanejo treating you?”

  “Zihuatanejo was fine. I’m at the ranch now.”

  “All the better,” he said.

  “What can I do for you, Carrington?”

  A little distant, a little cool, remarkably composed for someone who had just engineered a cross-border abduction.

  “It’s what we can do for each other. I talked with my friend. He’s had a change of heart. He’s willing to meet with you in Mexico, no problem.”

  “What are we talking about here?”

  He cupped the mouthpiece and rose to shut the door; she might hear the comandante, who was in the next room, making arrangements for the helicopters. “A hundred,” he replied. That should interest her. More. I want more. Quiero más, siempre más. “He has an airplane and a pilot lined up. What he would like to do is see what you’ve got, then check out your airstrip. It happens we’re in Cananea right now and could be there soon.”

  “I am busy today, and what I do have is already spoken for.”

  “No business. A get-acquainted meeting. And a look at the landing strip.”

  “Busy, did you hear me?” she said sharply. “A couple of days maybe.”

  He was tired, there was a stale taste in his mouth, and despite a shower at the motel, he felt unwashed. He was also weary of dealing with this homicidal, sadistic bitch. Time to push things. “Maybe you should listen to me. Okay? You’re making me look like a baboso. It’s today or no. This isn’t a guy you can jerk around. He can always walk with somebody else. A hundred keys, I said. You’re not in the mood to make two million in one deal, okay, a la chingada.”

  She laughed her shrill laugh. “Carrington! You have a temper! Está bien. But you get here before noon. After that, I’ve got no time.”

  They made the drive in a Dodge 1500 confiscated from a freelancer who’d fallen behind in his mordida, the weapons and gear stowed in a false bottom. Past the great gray artificial mountains built from the tailings of the open-pit copper mines, up over the cerros, with open country spread below, tans and yellows embroidered by the green álamos bordering the Río Sonora. People died out here all the time, vanished as if they’d never been, and the danger enhanced the beauty of the landscape. Without it, it would only be scenery.

  Back roads took them through Santa Cruz, then through the gate to Los Tres Encinos. Yvonne, accompanied by the two simians who clung to her side every waking moment except when she went to the bathroom and maybe even then, was already at the airstrip when they arrived. She was wearing her big straw hat, and her shirtsleeves were rolled down against the skin-shriveling sun.

  “So that’s her,” Félix said as they pulled up. “Nice ass for an old lady.”

  “Don’t call her a vieja where she can hear it.”
<
br />   They got out of the truck. One of the pistoleros—The Professor recognized him as the one called Marco—patted them down.

  “Your boys at the gate already searched us,” he said.

  “They might have missed something.”

  “You’re looking well, Yvonne. The rest was good for you. How is my friend Billy?”

  “Fine, last time I saw him. I have no time for small talk, Carrington.”

  He introduced his client from Phoenix, Rubén Gutiérrez. She studied Félix as carefully as a portraitist, mistrust wrestling with greed. The latter won out. Capitalism with the muzzle off, The Professor thought. Greed and fear. She brought them to the ramada beside the airstrip. Marco and Heraclio lifted the steel mat covering the pit in which the coke was stored and opened a plastic fuel drum filled with kilo packages, each marked with the initials or symbols of its intended recipient.

  Yvonne removed a bag of her personal stock—the vintner’s reserve, so to speak—and passed it to Félix. “Straight from Colombia, no steps on it,” she advertised, ever the saleswoman.

  Félix dabbed a little on his tongue, then placed a little more on his fingernail and snorted it, pronouncing it “excelente, puro.” If it was all this good, he would take a hundred kilos at the earliest possible date. Next week, Yvonne promised, and then they began to talk price. The Professor had encouraged Félix to drive a hard bargain, in the interest of distracting Yvonne. While they haggled, he sauntered onto the landing strip. Slipping a GPS from out of his pocket, he took a reading and marked a waypoint. The almacén stood about two hundred yards beyond the end of the runway and across an arroyo, a big white oblong building easily visible from the air. A few people were standing near it, but at this distance it was difficult to see how many and if they were guards or workers. As he moved for a closer look, Yvonne called from behind him, “Carrington! Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere. Checking the condition of the airfield.”