by Reece Hirsch
“Thank you.”
“Good luck.” The man hung up.
Chris shook Ian awake.
“What?” he said, rolling away from him and tugging at the insulation he was using as a blanket.
“Wake up! We need to go.”
When Ian’s eyes focused, Chris told him about the drone and the phone call from their mysterious benefactor. “We need to get out of this house right now.”
They walked quickly away through the unfinished subdivision, which looked unnervingly deserted under the full moon. In that light, at that hour, if you squinted your eyes you could almost see the suburban dream that the construction site was intended to embody.
“So we know where this Corbin guy is right now,” Ian said. “But what can we do with that information?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Chris said as he scanned the night sky for drones. They had just crested a hill and put the half-finished house out of view.
“And?”
“Have you ever swatted someone?” Chris asked.
26
Corbin was awakened in his hotel room at 2:00 a.m. by a phone call from headquarters. A minidrone had spotted Bruen and Ayres; all Corbin had to do was go and take them out. He needed to get to them before they could find some coyote to take them across the border.
Because if they made it to Mexico, they would be much more difficult to track—fewer cameras, less surveillance infrastructure. Mexico wasn’t one of the United States’ closest intelligence-sharing allies, but in 2006 the Bush administration had quietly helped the Mexican government fund and build a state-of-the-art eavesdropping center—in exchange for information sharing.
Corbin got dressed and made himself a wretched cup of coffee from the coffeemaker in the room. He took a sip of the tepid coffee and mixed in some stale creamer in hopes of improving the taste. His team was on the way, but he didn’t intend to wait for them to arrive. There wasn’t time, and Bruen and Ayres weren’t professionals and wouldn’t pose any challenge.
Corbin heard a footstep on the walkway outside his room. Someone was outside. Someone with intention.
He stopped, set down the coffee, and began to cross the room to reach his gun on the nightstand. Before he could take two strides, the door to the room blew open. In the next moments every sense impression seemed slowed down and particularized, like slides clicking into place.
A cylinder clattered on the floor.
It was a flash bang.
He heard the heavy thud of a battering ram hitting the door.
Then his senses exploded.
The magnesium flash was a white supernova, activating all of the photoreceptor cells in his eyes at once and completely blinding him. He felt the air in the room compress and the heat singe his face.
An instant after the flash came the bang, an explosion so loud that it reduced his hearing to an insistent tone, like a phone that had been left off its receiver. Then he felt a foot on his back, and he was on his knees. Another blow sent him facedown. His arms were twisted behind him, and he felt zip ties tighten around his wrists. There was probably shouting, but he couldn’t hear it. Corbin knew exactly what was happening to him, but knowing didn’t help.
About ten seconds later Corbin’s vision returned, the colors bleeding back into everything from pure white, like syrup poured into a snow cone. By the time Corbin could see again, his view was limited to a patch of the hotel room’s gray carpet.
Corbin craned around to see that he was surrounded by heavily armed men and women in Kevlar vests labeled “SDPD.” A battering ram had been dropped near the unhinged door. He saw their lips moving, especially those of a pasty officer with red hair crouched down in front of him, but still couldn’t hear anything.
“Federal agent,” Corbin said. “I’m a federal agent. Check my wallet.”
The lead officer removed his wallet and looked through it. Then they all began speaking rapidly to each other. Two of the police hauled him off the carpet and placed him upright with his back against the wall.
When Corbin had both sight and hearing again, he said, “You are obstructing a federal investigation, and I advise you to take the zip ties off right now.”
The officer in charge was directing his team to search the closets, the bathroom, and under the bed. “Listen, buddy,” he said, “you’re going to shut your mouth until we’ve finished searching the premises.”
“Let me explain,” Corbin said.
“You’ll get to explain in a few minutes after we’ve checked for explosives.”
Corbin sat fuming as the officers completed their search of every inch of the hotel room. When they were satisfied that there was no imminent threat, the red-haired officer returned and studied Corbin’s credentials.
“Well, these do look legit,” he said. “But I’ve never seen this before. What is it?”
“It’s an interagency working group. National defense.”
“I’d like a number for your supervisor.”
“She won’t like it.”
“I don’t care.”
Corbin provided Sigrid’s phone number, and the red-haired officer went in the other room to dial it.
When the red-haired officer returned, he said, “No answer. So you’re not going anywhere until we’ve checked your story out.”
“I don’t have time for this. I need to be someplace—right now. It’s a matter of national security.”
“I’m sure it is, buddy. I’m sure it is.”
“Keep dialing that number.”
“I left a voice mail. You’re coming down to the station with us until we know who you are and who you work for.”
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“Clearly.”
“This is all way above your pay grade, Officer. I’m going to make you very sorry that you interfered.”
“I’m going to make you sorry if you don’t shut up.”
Corbin flexed his wrists to bring back the circulation. “So just tell me this. What brought you here, Officer?”
“Anonymous tip.”
“Of course,” Corbin said. “What did they say it was? Hostage situation? Child abduction? Oh, I’ll bet I know—domestic terrorism.”
“Yeah, the last one. Someone said you were making pipe bombs in here.”
“Which is clearly not the case.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve heard of swatting, right?”
“Yeah, I know what that is. We just haven’t seen it happen down here in San Diego. So when we get a call like this one, we take it seriously, and we follow procedure. You’re not going anywhere.”
After holding Corbin at the SDPD’s downtown headquarters for two hours, the red-haired officer finally released him. The officer had a pained expression as he removed the handcuffs, which probably meant that he had been the recipient of one of the blonde Popsicle’s controlled but acid-laced tongue lashings.
“I’ll settle things with you later,” Corbin said to the officer.
The cop leaned forward and got in Corbin’s face with a clenched smile. “Oh yeah? Why not now?”
“I have a suspect who’s escaping.”
In fact, Corbin was fairly certain that he was already too late.
27
The coyote pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot at 5:00 p.m. in a dusty blue van with a mottled spray-can paint job. He leaned out the window and motioned for Chris and Ian to get in. It was the same man who had been so tequila drunk the night before; today he wore a large pair of sunglasses and a scowl.
When they didn’t respond, the coyote said something peremptory in Spanish.
Ian didn’t reach for the door handle. “My mother told me never get into a van like this. You think it’s okay?”
“It can’t be more dangerous than what’s coming for us if we stay.” Chris tried the van’s rear door. It was unlocked and they climbed inside.
As soon as they sat cross-legged on the floor with their backs to the wa
ll, the van jerked into gear and began moving.
The cabin smelled of sweat and urine. A couple of empty plastic water bottles rattled about. Even though there was plenty of room for Chris and Ian inside, it felt as if the hundreds of illegals who had previously occupied the space crowded in on them, their fear and desperation still thick in the close, still air. The truck would probably be jam-packed with human cargo on its next trip north to the border.
After about forty-five minutes of smooth driving on a highway, the ride grew rougher. They were probably on poorly paved roads, heading into the backcountry of the Jacumba Wilderness. The temperature steadily rose inside the compartment, and they had no window to open. Dark sweat stains appeared on the fronts of their shirts and steadily spread until they were both drenched.
A half hour after that, the ride grew bone rattling, and it felt as if the truck cabin were a space capsule about to come apart on reentry. They must have gone off-road down some dusty dirt trail into the desert.
“I think I know now how a popcorn kernel feels,” Ian said.
When the van finally came to a stop, Chris was painfully sore from being slammed against the hard floor of the truck bed.
The rear door opened, and they were hit by a furnace blast of desert air and dazzling, white-hot sunlight.
“You okay in there, jefe?”
“Fine,” Chris said.
“You and your little friend don’t look so good. You better get out of there before you fry your brains.”
Ian was the first out of the door, and Chris followed. They were in the middle of a flat desert landscape of low, rolling hills, scrub brush, and cacti.
“Are we across the border yet?”
“No. You walk that way for about ten minutes, and you’ll see the wall.”
“How will we get over?”
“The fence doesn’t run through the mountains. It just stops where the hills start. You can climb over a boulder and you’re through.”
“If it’s so easy, the Border Patrol must watch that spot.”
“They do, but not so much when it gets dark. Too dangerous. That place belongs to the drug cartels. It’s one of the places where they bring the drugs in.”
“What do we do if we run into the cartel?”
“Don’t run into them.”
“What’s on the other side of the fence?”
“Keep walking south and you’ll see Jacume.”
“So we can stay there?”
“No, Jacume is a cartel town. Even the Mexican cops don’t go there. If you know what’s good for you, you keep walking south past Jacume until you get to Santa Isabel.”
“How long will it take?”
“If you keep moving and stay on track, you should be there in seven or eight hours.”
“And what if we don’t stay on track?” Ian asked.
Their guide shook his head. “Then you die most likely.” He handed them two liter jugs of water. “Drink them slow. And now it’s time to pay me the rest.”
The coyote’s hand drifted down to his side, as if he might reach for a gun if Chris pressed the issue. Chris pulled out his wallet—slowly—and produced the remainder of the fee.
The coyote counted out the bills on the hood of the van, nodded. When he was done counting, he said, “You know, we don’t get many customers like you, going the other way.”
Chris remained silent.
“Makes me wonder what you’re running from.” The coyote nudged a stone with his boot.
“I thought I was paying you so I didn’t have to answer those sorts of questions,” Chris said.
“Verdad, jefe.” He smiled. “You got me there.”
Chris could tell that he was wondering how much he could get for selling them out, but he wasn’t sure who to sell them to, and Chris was not going to help him.
They all stared at each other for a few moments as the sun beat down on them, and then the coyote climbed back into his truck.
“Good luck,” he said, leaning out the driver’s-side window. “Stay hydrated, okay, boss?” He showed his yellow teeth and drove away.
Chris and Ian set out in the direction in which the coyote had pointed. When they could see the border fence dividing the landscape in the distance, they crouched down under some scrub that provided a sliver of shade to wait for sundown.
“You think we can trust anything that coyote told us?” Ian asked, mopping sweat off of his forehead and back into his damp hair.
Chris peered into the sun. “Well, I can see the boulder at the end of the fence where it reaches the mountains. He was right about that. Hopefully, he was right about the rest too.”
They tried not to drink too much of their water as they watched the lengthening shadow cast by the border fence as the sun went down. A scraggly tree near the fence shook in a gust of hot wind, waving as if it were trying to warn them. When the fence receded into the darkness, they set out on a moonless night.
Chris and Ian trudged in silence for a long while over parched, gently rolling hills. The only sounds were the crunch of their footsteps on the sand, the slosh of the water in their jugs, and the rustling of the night wind. When they neared the border fence, they could see that it was a formidable barrier consisting of square beams supporting rows of tightly packed steel spindles.
As they approached the fence, a gunshot sounded. Instinctively, Chris threw himself in the sand and pulled Ian with him, his heart hammering like it wanted to pry open his rib cage and make a break for it. Together, they crabbed behind a patch of scrub that clung to a slight rise in the desert floor. They remained motionless, about twenty yards from the fence, waiting for what came next, hoping it wasn’t headed their way.
Ten minutes later a man wearing night-vision goggles clambered over the boulder from the Mexican side. Once he had landed on the US side, two heavy duffel bags were slung over to him. The bags were followed by three more men, also with night vision.
Chris knew what Ian was thinking, but they didn’t dare speak. With the benefit of the goggles, the landscape was glowing bright fluorescent green for the cartel smugglers, like high noon on Mars. For all he knew, he and Ian stood out as clear as day in their hiding place.
The men carried the duffel bags away toward the highway, heading straight for the rise where they were concealed. Chris was about to stand up and raise his hands, figuring that if they stumbled upon them in the dark, they’d be more likely to shoot them. But before he could get to his feet, the men veered off to the right, following a barely perceptible path that had been worn in the sand. Chris resumed breathing.
The duffel bags must have been heavy, because each one required two of the men, one at each end. Preoccupied with hauling their load, they didn’t look back, finally disappearing over a low dune.
After waiting a few minutes to make sure that they weren’t coming back, Chris and Ian stood and walked quickly over to the end of the fence. The boulder wasn’t hard to climb, and a few minutes later they were standing in Mexico, staring at a dead body. The man was Mexican, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He’d taken a bullet to the chest, and his blood soaked the sand.
“We need to keep moving,” Chris said. “Federales might have heard the gunshot.”
Chris was distracted for a moment by graffiti on the Mexican side of the wall. Based on his high school Spanish, he thought that it read, “Go north and prosper—but remember where you came from.”
They started out at a brisk pace, anxious to distance themselves from the border and the dead man.
After an hour they saw a few lights in the distance. It was the small town of Jacume, the one the coyote had warned them about. They saw a gas station and a bar with the lights on but no one on the streets. The place had the still, expectant look of a trap waiting to be sprung.
They kept walking to the south through the night, until the sun rose over the horizon, heating the landscape as fast as a microwave oven. Soon enough it must have been over a hundred degrees, and their pace sl
owed in the heat. Chris felt lethargic, and his movements settled into an automaton shuffle. Observing Ian kicking through the dust, barely lifting his feet, Chris knew he was feeling it too.
They entered a ravine that might have in some unimaginable past been a riverbed. The path was flatter, well worn, and littered with empty water jugs. Apparently, this was a common route for those crossing into the United States. They followed the ravine as it twisted, and Chris realized that when they were back out in open country he would have lost any directional orientation that he’d had.
Perhaps he could still steer by the sun, but that was a very imprecise compass when it was still high in the sky, at least for him.
Ian looked back at him. “You ever had one of those David Byrne moments where you look at yourself and ask, ‘Well, how did I get here?’”
“All the time, Ian.” Chris laughed despite himself. “All the time.”
They walked a bit more, the pale shadow of the ridge providing some respite from the searing direct sun. They heard a shifting of rocks up ahead, and both stopped in their tracks.
“Did you hear that?” Chris asked.
“Yeah.”
They paused and listened, parsing the faint hisses and murmurs of the desert. Then they heard it again, this time clearer. There were footsteps approaching them along the ravine path. It sounded like a group of people.
They could retreat back the way they had come, but there was nowhere to hide. If they tried to climb the sharply inclined face of the ravine, they wouldn’t make it before the approaching strangers came into view. Lacking a better option, they stood and waited to see who would round the bend ahead of them.
First into view was a small, wiry, sunbaked man in jeans and a T-shirt with sweat stains that traced and seemed to broaden the straps of his backpack. He was carrying a plastic water bottle, and his shoes were wrapped in muslin to obscure his footprints, making it harder for Border Patrol trackers. He stopped immediately upon seeing them and made a motion to those behind him, bringing them to a halt.
Chris had no idea what sort of procession they were confronting. They could be a cartel crew with automatic weapons or a desperate bunch of women and children.
