Cabo

by Davis MacDonald

  The Judge opened slits for eyes, feeling the water still up to his shorts, seeing another ten-foot wave towering over them, then slamming down.

  CHAPTER 28

  They were submerged again, this time for what seemed an eternity. The Judge pushed and clawed his way back to the rock face, dragging Katy behind him, throwing one arm over a protruding rock and hanging on with all his might as the wave receded.

  They desperately hobbled along the rock face to its end and then up the beach to higher ground, collapsing on the sand, gasping for breath and rubbing their eyes. They lay there on their backs, coughing and sputtering up a mixture of sea water and something else. Something disorienting which made them sick to their stomachs. They were soaked, sanded, bruised and bleeding, still mostly blind from the remnants of the grey cloud in their eyes. They felt for each other, the Judge wrapping his arms around her, holding her tight, Katy softly whimpering, shaking. After a while the Judge staggered to his feet, helped Katy to stand, and they moved shakily higher up the sand, away from the churning surf.

  They made their way unsteadily back toward the hotel, staying high up on the beach where the sand was soft, squishy, slowing their progress. Katy flinched each time a particularly big wave crashed, its power transmitted into vibration under their feet. She had a nasty bruise on her cheek, and was limping noticeably, favoring her port foot. The Judge was concerned she might be in shock. But her shaking had subsided.

  The Judge had sand everywhere inside his salty-soaked clothes. As he walked, it rubbed his skin raw where his thighs joined his torso, and inside the elastic band of his Polo underwear. His hair was filled with sand and it was under his nails. He damn well had sand up his butt. His raised adrenalin was partly a concern the attacker might come back, but mostly anger over this attack on his wife. Someone would pay. Someone would pay dearly.

  They reached their room, an oven inside as the air conditioner had gone off with their departure and the removal of the room card from its slot. The Judge put Katy into a cold shower, fished around on his nightstand for Chief Inspector Garcia’s number, and called his direct line. It was 11:45 at night.

  The Chief Inspector’s line rang and rang. No answer. Finally, after an interminable amount of time, voicemail came on in Spanish.

  “This is the Judge. It’s urgent I talk to you as soon as possible. My wife and I have been attacked. Nearly killed. We’ve made it back to our hotel, but I don’t know how safe we are here. I need your help.”

  The Judge hung up, wondering if the little asshole would bother to call him back. For all he knew, Garcia might be behind the attack. Nothing was what it seemed in Cabo.

  They locked and chained the door, locked the sliding glass balcony door, and crawled into bed to hold each other. Katy took two Tylenol and drifted off to sleep. The Judge lay there staring at the ceiling for a while, wondering what sort of mess they’d walked themselves into, then let his eyes close briefly. When he next opened them, he discovered blinding sunlight focused in through two cracks in the blackout curtains pulled across the balcony’s glass door. It was morning, and late morning at that.

  Katy was there in the room-provided bath robe on the phone, talking softly so as not to wake him. He vaguely realized she’d been making calls for some time. She smiled at him, terminating her conversation and reaching up to throw the curtains open with a flourish, crashing bright sunlight into his eyes, making him squint in pain. “Get up, get up, hubby. You need to call your special friend, the Lieutenant Governor of all of Baja California Sur. Tell him what’s going on. Get him to put a stop to this shameless trafficking.”

  He got up, nodded his understanding, fished again on his nightstand for the Lieutenant Governor’s card, and dialed the number. The very efficient secretary answered again, immediately switching from Spanish to English, not sounding surprised at his call.

  “Is Lieutenant Governor Díaz in?”

  “In but unavailable, Mr. Judge.”

  “When will he be available to speak?”

  “I don’t know Mr. Judge. I can’t honestly say.”

  “I, we, my wife and I, were attacked last night on the beach here in Cabo, nearly drowned.”

  “Oh, Dios mío! Are you okay?”

  “We’re banged up but okay. No serious injuries. But only by chance. We could have died last night.”

  “That’s terrible. What can I do?”

  “Tell the Lieutenant Governor I need to speak to him right away. That it’s urgent.”

  “I’ll tell him, Mr. Judge. But he is very busy. He is not taking calls today.”

  The Judge thanked her and hung up. Why did he feel he was getting a run-around? This didn’t bode well.

  The Judge turned to see Katy watching him, her eyes narrowed and cynical now. “They’re all in on it Judge. All bastards.”

  “Now Katy, we don’t know that. Díaz is a busy man I’m sure. But I’ve been thinking. Perhaps we should cut your vacation here a little short. You could head back to Los Angeles this morning. I could stay on and sort things out a little.”

  “Not a chance, Judge. I’m not leaving without you. And I made a commitment to that girl, Cristina. We need to see she gets help.”

  “What about Ralphie, dear? He’s missing you dreadfully I’m sure. And your folks are getting on in years. They may be running out of energy. Perhaps you should go back, for him… I mean to check on him?”

  Her chin shifted up toward the ceiling.

  “I miss him terribly. But I’m sticking with you on this one. We Thornes can’t be bullied.”

  The Judge sighed. They were in way over their heads, in a country not their own, with limited rights, few contacts, and no certainty on who could be trusted. He knew enough about his wife to know there’d be no reasoning with her today. Her dander was up. She was nothing if not a fighter. Particularly when she felt cornered, as they both now felt.

  The room phone rang. It was the front desk announcing they had a visitor. The phone downstairs was handed over and Chief Inspector Garcia came on the line.

  “Hello, Judge. Are you alright? I got your message this morning and came over immediately. Do you need medical assistance?”

  “We are a bit scraped and battered, but alive. It was a close call.”

  “Why don’t you come down and have breakfast and we can talk.”

  “Yes, we’ll come now. To the big palapa, by the pool.”

  The Judge quickly pulled on his puke shorts, the only thing handy, shaved, doused his throat with mouthwash, and headed down, leaving Katy still in the room, scrambling to get dressed and catch up.

  Chief Inspector Garcia was sitting at a small table by the pool in front of the palapa under an umbrella, sipping coffee. He nodded as the Judge approached. He looked pleased the Judge had called him for help. The Judge could see it was… satisfying.

  “Your message said you were attacked last night, Judge.”

  “We were. By a flying insect-like creature.”

  “By an insect?”

  “Insect-like. It was not an insect.”

  “What was it?”

  “A damn drone…”

  “You were attacked by a drone?”

  “Yes. On the beach. It was built with long outstretching arms carrying spinning blades. It belched a cloud of pepper spray and a nerve gas on top of us, blinding, disorienting, making it difficult to think. Then it drove us into the surf.”

  “The surf can be deadly here.”

  “Yes. We damn near drowned.”

  “How’d you get away?”

  “I fouled its props with a well-thrown beer bottle. We were lucky. Luckier then María and Ana.”

  Garcia sat up in his chair, alert.

  “You think this drone of yours was used to kill the Cervantes women?”

  “I do. The smell of pepper spray. The cuts on their hands and forearms.”

  “From the blades.”

  The Judge nodded.”

  “Of course,” Garcia said, “A drone
. How modern. But who, Judge? Who has such a drone?”

  “ASAM!”

  The name hung there between them for ten seconds like an epitaph. It was as though Garcia didn’t want to hear the name, didn’t want to acknowledge the company’s involvement.

  The Judge pressed on. “I visited the ASAM plant near Todos Sandos. It’s their airplane parts division. They build drones there. I saw them. Look there and you’ll find the drone used to drive María Cervantes, and then Ana Cervantes, off that roof.”

  Garcia sat back in this seat, sipping his coffee, eyes narrowed, digesting this information.

  “There’s something else too, Inspector.”

  “What else?”

  “That ASAM plant is using slave labor as a part of its work force.”

  “That’s a serious charge. You know this for a fact, señor?”

  “I do. I had contact with one of the forced laborers in the plant. He asked me to help him get away. And later we met a young girl, perhaps fourteen, who stowed away in our car just before we left the plant in a desperate effort to escape. She was held captive as both a worker and a sex slave.”

  “Where’s the young girl now?”

  “Your army barricaded the road and took her into custody. They were doing ASAM’s bidding. Taking her back.”

  Garcia’s eyes narrowed again.

  “You think this is why you were attacked? To shut you up?”

  “I think it likely.”

  “Who knows about this forced labor?”

  “I do,” said Katy, marching up to the table. “And Alan Clark. And of course, Señor Castillo, the slimy plant manager. And yesterday we called the Lieutenant Governor.”

  “I see,” said Garcia, chewing on one lip.

  “And now the Lieutenant Governor is ducking my calls,” said the Judge.

  “I’m just a lowly policeman, Judge. In our system in Mexico, I have limited powers. But it sounds like you’ve opened your mouth to the wrong people. But I didn’t say that, and you didn’t hear it from me.”

  The Judge just looked at Garcia, anger in his eyes.

  Garcia put his hands out, palms facing the Judge. “Understand I don’t condone human trafficking, Judge. But the reality is that Mexico is a destination country for men, women, and children fleeing from the south. And occasionally such people find themselves caught up as victims of forced labor, or even sex trafficking.”

  “I’ve been talking to people on the phone this morning, Chief Inspector.” Snapped Katy. “Mexico is already on the Tier 2 Watchlist of our State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report. “It’s a designation given to countries that do not meet minimum international standards for stamping out this ugly practice.”

  “You have to understand, señora, most cities in Mexico have a Zonas de Tolerancia where prostitution is allowed. This has made Mexico a huge destination for sex tourism, and a that has inevitably led to some forcible exploitation of girls as sex workers.”

  “There’s nothing inevitable about it, Garcia,” said Katy.

  “Hasn’t the government adopted new laws, Inspector?” chimed in the Judge.

  “Yes, in 2007. And the government has increased its anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. Our Federal Secretariat has assumed leadership of our Interagency Trafficking Commission and the Congreso de la Union has created its own Trafficking Commission. The number of human trafficking investigations and convictions has been very, very low, which suggests there’s not much of this activity in Mexico. We believe the Tier 2 designation is unfair.”

  “Bullshit!” said Katy. “Investigations and convictions are low because of governmental ineffectiveness and payoffs to local law enforcement, judiciary, and immigration officials. I’ve been talking to the UN people this morning. Dishonest officials extort bribes and sexual services from trafficked adults and children. They extort payment from irregular migrants. They falsify victims’ documents and threaten victims with prosecution or deportation, so they’ll forgo official complaints. They accept bribes from traffickers. They facilitate movement of victims across borders and deliberately ignore commercial sex and forced labor locations where they know trafficking is taking place.”

  “Señora, it’s not nearly as bad a picture as you paint. Mexico is coming to terms with its human trafficking issues.”

  “Coming to terms? Your law was passed in 2007, and trafficking is still a growth industry! How can this exist in the twenty-first century, Inspector, in Mexico, in an otherwise modern country?”

  “A modern country in many respects, señora, but perhaps not so much in this.”

  Katy leaned forward now, jabbing a finger toward Garcia. “I’ve been doing my homework about your country, Inspector, and the powerful criminal cartels. Women and children, and to a lesser extent men and transgender individuals, all exploited in sex trafficking. Forced into labor, human beings shipped across the US border, people used like cattle in your plants and fields.”

  Garcia spread his hands. “I’m sure what you’ve been told is overstated.”

  “Like hell! It’s systemic in Mexico, and it’s modern day slavery. Your own Labor Secretary admits organized crime networks are behind the recruitment of laborers put to work and exploited in agricultural, manufacturing and commercial industries here in Mexico.”

  “‘Exploited’ is a strong word, señora.”

  “Last year, Inspector, contractors ran ads on the radio in Jalisco State, seeking workers for a tomato-packing plant. The ads offered a reasonable wage, and room and board. But when applicants arrived they were thrust into overcrowded housing and paid only half of what had been promised, much of it delivered in vouchers redeemable only at a company store where products were sold at high markups.

  One colleague I communicated with this morning actually spoke to one victim, a man named Valentin. Valentin went to work at the site with his wife and children. They were housed in a tiny room with two other couples who also had children. The camp food was rancid and rotten. They were held and worked at the camp essentially as slaves. They were told they could leave the camp if they wanted to, but the foremen discouraged it, and in the end, forbade leaving. Several people tried to escape, he said. Some succeeded; others were captured, brought back, and beaten before the assembled camp.

  Finally, one worker escaped, made it all the way to Jalisco’s state capital, and filed a complaint with Mexico City’s Special Prosecutor. The camp was raided, and the camp’s five foremen were arrested. Nearly three hundred people, including forty teenagers, were held against their will in slave-like conditions, just so some greedy evil… fuckers wouldn’t have to pay people a living wage to sort and pack their Goddamn tomatoes! Sorry, Inspector, there I go, using strong words again.”

  “Well… that’s an unfortunate situation, but it was just an isolated incident, señora.”

  “Oh? What about the cucumber fields and packing plant in Colima?”

  “The what?”

  “Forty-nine indigenous Mixtecs, recruited by a local Mixtec gangster. Upon being transported to the worksite, the Mixtecs were subjected to unsanitary bathrooms and latrines, a lack of proper food, and no potable water except what they could get from a single distant well. Children worked barefoot in packing lines. Workers were provided no proper protection against extreme temperatures and dangerous fungicides and pesticides. Pay turned out to be based on piecework, resulting in many workers paid so little they could never reach minimum wage. The corporate employer set up a company store where prices were jacked to the ceiling. And workers were restrained from leaving. I’m told the rescue of those forty-nine makes it four-hundred-and-fifty-two people rescued from slave-like conditions since the beginning of this year around the Colima area alone.

  And Inspector, these appalling stories go on and on. Two-hundred members of the Rarámuri indigenous tribe were freed two months ago right here, in Baja California Sur. They’d been forced to work under shameful conditions on the potato harvest.

  And
what about the Mexican and foreign men, women, and children, forced to work for the cartels? Forced to act as lookouts, forced to work in the production, transportation and distribution of illicit drugs, and sometimes forced to act as assassins. What about the big, supposedly legitimate companies, who engage in forced labor? Making their bottom lines look better at the expense of their enslaved employees. Companies like ASAM!”

  Garcia threw up his hands in defeat.

  “Okay, okay. It’s a problem here in Mexico. We are working on the it, but you are right. Trafficking is difficult to stamp out.”

  “What can we do about this girl, Garcia, this Cristina?” asked the Judge. “And the man in the bathroom stall at the plant, Felipe. How can we at least help them?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not my assignment right now. My assignment is the twin murders of the sisters.”

  Katy said, “You can go to your police chief? Or to the Governor of Baja California Sur, since we seem to have no luck with the Lieutenant Governor.”

  “It’s our system here in Mexico, señora. Everything runs on personal relationships, personal favors, and small payments along the way. I wouldn’t know who to trust. If I start making waves… at a minimum I’ll be out of a job, and worst case I’ll have my own personal drone chasing me.”

  “But, but… what about our embassy, Chief Inspector? Can’t we go to them for support and help for Cristina and Felipe? Or the President of Mexico? Or the United Nations Task Force on Human Trafficking?”

  “You seem to have plenty more ideas than I do, señora. But if you pursue this, I’m afraid you make yourself a target. In fact, it sounds like you are seriously at risk already. And unfortunately, there’s little I can do.”

  Garcia was silent for a few seconds, thinking.

  “I would do this, Judge, but understand you didn’t hear this suggestion from me:

  There’s a man, Santiago Lopez, here in Cabo right now. On vacation like you. He is a well-known news reporter for the daily Veracruz newspaper, La Opinión. And his cousin in Mexico City is the Vice Chairman of the Mexican Congress Commission on Human Trafficking. He’s staying at Palmilla. You should talk to him. And now, today! But for God sakes don’t mention my name. Tell him all you know. If he writes a story about it and the information about ASAM is made public, it is possible there may be less incentive to do away with two talkative Americans.”