Under Cover Of Darkness

by Elizabeth White

  Carmichael was silent for a moment. “The only way to take down the whole cartel is to stick to the original plan.”

  “I don’t know, Carmichael. These guys aren’t playing games. With Herrera in the hospital, I’ll be on my own down there.”

  “I don’t think we’ve got any other option. It’s all set, right?”

  Jack nodded. “I drive the truck down to Eagle Pass tonight for the pickup. Soon as Warner pays me, we make the bust.”

  “I’ve alerted handpicked agents in Eagle Pass. They’ll be watching out for you.” Carmichael squinted, watching Jack narrowly. “Something about the setup bother you?”

  “It’s just…” Jack paused. “I’ve been working this case all summer. Herrera’s just a poor chump who tried to sneak his family across the line the cheap way, and wound up in over his head. If we could offer him immunity, I bet we could get more out of him.”

  “I’m willing to entertain the idea. Let’s see how things go tonight, then we’ll see where we are.” Carmichael reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigar. “What are your plans after we have these clowns behind bars?”

  Jack shrugged. “Back to the border, I guess.”

  A puff of smoke hid Carmichael’s irregular features. “What about the young lady? You gonna take her with you?”

  Jack didn’t pretend not to know what the OIC meant. “Meg’s a landscaper, Carmichael. Nothing grows down there but carrizo and rattlesnakes.” Jack shifted in his chair. “Besides, I wouldn’t put anybody I cared about through what Isabel Valenzuela has gone through since Rico died.”

  The smoke cleared enough for Carmichael’s dry smile to appear. “That’s a mighty pessimistic outlook.”

  “Just realistic.” Jack more than cared for Meg. He loved her with a passion that wanted the best for her. He couldn’t ask her to give up family, career and mission to follow him. But whining about it wouldn’t change anything. Jack pushed back his chair. “Better go. One more thing to take care of before I leave.”

  Carmichael looked at his watch. “All right. What’s your timetable?”

  “I’m supposed to hit el puente negro no later than two a.m.” Jack stood up. “I’ll be at the Spanish church on James for the next hour or so. I’m leaving from there.”

  Carmichael looked curious. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a religious man, Torres.”

  Jack hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. He had no idea where his OIC stood with God, but Meg and Ramón would call this an open invitation. Time to quit being a coward.

  “It’s not just religion, Carmichael. I’m learning to take my faith into every part of my life.” Jack managed a sheepish grin. “When you’re going into battle, a little spiritual armor can’t hurt, right?”

  “I guess not,” said Carmichael dubiously. He stubbed out his cigar and dismissed Jack with a cynical flip of the hand. “Give my regards to the Man Upstairs, then, would you?”

  Inwardly wincing, Jack nodded and left. At least he’d tried.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Benny, I’m home!” Meg pushed the kitchen door shut with her foot and wearily leaned against it. She wished she could as easily close the door on her anxieties.

  In six weeks, Benny was going off to Mexico. Not just a short-term Backyard Bible Club mission, but for keeps. Leaving America behind.

  Leaving me behind, Meg thought, gaze skimming all the little indications of her roommate’s personality. A collection of pictures on the refrigerator, teenagers Benny had been praying for. A pair of orange rubber flip-flops beside the door. A Greek Bible commentary on the table. A Brazilian butterfly pressed between glass disks hanging on the wall. It was going to be awfully lonely around here without Benny’s calm, steady presence.

  Jack’s going to leave me behind, too. No matter what he said, that kiss hadn’t been anybody’s song and dance. Possessive came close to describing it. And he was off playing hero now. She could tell by the way he’d walked away from her without looking back.

  “Why’d I have to fall in love with a guy with a hero complex?” she muttered, pushing away from the door. She raised her voice. “Ben, where are you?”

  “I’m at the computer,” she heard from the living room. “Come here, Meg, and tell me what this is.”

  Meg shoved open the swinging door between the two rooms and found Benny sitting on the sofa with her computer in her lap. Her curly hair was twisted on top of her head and secured with a yellow pencil, and a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses perched on her nose.

  “What’s what?” Meg said lightly. No sense making everybody depressed by airing her discontent.

  “This picture disk. Who are these people?”

  Meg leaned over Benny’s shoulder to see what she was looking at. “Oh, those are some photos Tomás took with Dad’s camera after the Fourth of July party. Didn’t he do a good job?”

  “Yeah, but have you seen this video clip at the end?” Benny double-clicked an icon, and it began to play.

  Meg abruptly straightened. She didn’t want to see Jack acting drunk again. “I meant to erase that.”

  “It looks like Tomás was hiding when he filmed it. See the weird angle? And it’s partially obscured by a curtain or something.”

  Meg came around the sofa to sit down beside Benny. “What are they saying? It went by so fast I couldn’t translate it.”

  “They’re talking about transporting something across the border.”

  “Oh, that.” Meg laughed. “Apparently they were all chicken farmers back in Mexico. I heard Manny and Efrin talking one day—”

  “Meg, ‘pollos’ doesn’t just mean ‘chickens.’ That’s also what they call people who come across the border illegally.”

  Meg stared at her roommate. “How do you know?”

  “Never mind, I just know. Did you hear them talking about coyotes, too?”

  Meg nodded, wide-eyed. “What does that mean?”

  “A coyote is a guide, the person who arranges tubes to cross the river and safe houses and transportation north.”

  Meg’s eyes widened as she remembered the conversation she’d overheard at Jack’s baptism. “Benny, what does ‘pagarte’…um, something like…‘cuando entregues’ mean?”

  Benny slammed the computer shut. “‘I’ll pay, you deliver.’ Meg, we’d better take this to the police.”

  “No, wait a minute!” Meg put her hands to her face, thinking. Jack had been living among these men all summer, probably setting up some kind of sting. He’d made her promise not to tell anybody who he was. How was she going to keep Benny out of it? “Let me have the disk, and I’ll take it straight to border patrol.”

  Benny frowned. “What do you know about border patrol?”

  “Nothing,” Meg said hastily. “But I’m going to find out.” A thought occurred to her. “Benny, what did they say after Jack left the room?”

  “Something about taking out la migra. That’s border patrol.” Benny’s face flamed with uncharacteristic fury. “Meg, I cannot believe we fell for this con man. You take care of this and call me back within an hour, or I’m going to the police myself.”

  Speechless with shock, Meg nodded.

  “Taking out la migra” meant Jack.

  They knew who he was. They were going to kill him.

  Jack didn’t know why the church had been left unlocked. He could only reflect that God knew his need. Face down, arms pulled into his chest, he half knelt, half lay at the bottom of the carpeted altar steps. All his life he had responded to threat with action. Now he could only lie still under God’s hand.

  Jack rolled onto his back, feeling the edge of the altar steps dig into his shoulder blades. The only light switch he’d been able to find had lit the foyer and the choir loft, where a rustic wooden cross hung. The sanctuary was shadowy and stuffy and smelled like dust. He tipped his head back so that he looked at the cross upside down.

  Something had compelled him to come here, no doubt not knowing what might happen tonight. He thoug
ht about Meg’s refuge at the Water Gardens.

  Water, water, everywhere…

  “Wouldn’t be my first choice of places to go,” he muttered aloud. Feeling God smile at him, he relaxed. “Yeah, so I’m afraid of water and I’m afraid to die.”

  Well, that wasn’t exactly it. He wasn’t afraid of death anymore. But he sure wasn’t eager to die. He’d really like to see where this thing with Meg might lead.

  Then the truth slammed him between the eyes. He’d been right to mislead her earlier, downplaying his feelings for her. His job, who he was, affected the people he was close to. He couldn’t claim to love Meg and endanger her life on a daily basis.

  It would be cowardly to start anything with her.

  Well, judging by that intense kiss, things were a little more than started.

  “Okay, God, why’d You send along a woman like her in the middle of this mess? You’ve yanked the rug out from under me so many times—”

  He covered his eyes with his forearm, obliterating the cross, but other images kept flashing. The ambulance pulling away with his mother. Screaming sirens and lights flashing across Rico’s broken body. Dottie Rook’s tired voice on the phone.

  “What if I die? What if I live and I have to leave Meg?” What if, what if. “I can’t do this again.”

  Above the unanswerable questions, Scripture drifted into his mind. I lay down My life for the sheep, and they will listen to My voice. Tired of struggling, he let tears run down his temples and into his hair.

  Okay, take me, Lord. Take my weakness and fear. Take my selfishness, rebellion and resentment. Do what I can’t do. Go where I can’t go. Break me apart and put me back together.

  In thirty-two years he’d never felt so alone and vulnerable. And, paradoxically, so sheltered. Maybe Vernon Rook was a traitor, but Jesus had dealt with worse.

  He’d just read in the Bible this morning that God would work good out of the worst circumstances.

  Help me hold on to that, Lord.

  He was just about to drag himself to his feet when his beeper buzzed against his hip. Sitting up, he looked at the number in the display window.

  He didn’t recognize it and almost deleted it.

  Something made him press the save button.

  In the parking lot behind the Euless border patrol office, which shared an unassuming brick building with Immigration, Detention and Deportation, Meg stopped next to an SUV with a border patrol insignia on the door. It was late, almost seven o’clock, but maybe somebody would still be here. She locked up the Mustang, then headed for a glass door with modest block lettering.

  A secretary looked up as Meg entered the main office area. “May I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Agent Jack Torres.” Meg had no idea if Jack would actually be here. But surely someone would know him.

  The woman lifted a pair of reading glasses hung on a chain around her neck. After surveying Meg thoroughly, she pushed a button on the phone. “Sir, there’s a young lady here to see Agent Torres.”

  After a brief silence, someone barked over the intercom, “What?”

  “I said—”

  “Never mind, send her in.”

  The secretary jerked her head toward the door behind her.

  Meg knocked timidly, opening supervisory agent Dennis Carmichael’s door when she heard him growl, “Come in.”

  A craggy-faced, middle-aged man with thinning gray hair, agent Carmichael stood as Meg entered the room. He wore a border patrol uniform, one empty sleeve of which was pinned to his shoulder. With his good hand he gestured toward a folding chair. “Sit down. I’m Torres’s supervisor. What can I do for you?”

  Meg sat. “I’m Meg St. John,” she began, nervously looking around the windowless office. The metal desk was piled with towering stacks of overstuffed manila files, two half-empty mugs of black coffee, and a stinking Skoal can that apparently served as an ashtray for the cigar clamped between Carmichael’s teeth. She gave him a cautious smile. “First of all, Jack would be really mad if he knew I’d come here.”

  The officer plucked the cigar from his mouth, and Meg noticed his lips looked funny on one side. “I’m guessing you have a good reason,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. I tried to get hold of Jack, but his phone’s been busy, and I’m not sure he’s even—” She stopped, feeling utterly stupid now that she was here. “I thought somebody needed to see this.” She laid the picture disk on Carmichael’s desk.

  “What is it?”

  “Somebody in the company I work for is running a smuggling operation. There’s a video on that disk that proves it.” Meg pressed her fingers between her knees. “I called once before, but the only thing that happened was, I got reprimanded for disloyalty.”

  Carmichael jammed the cigar into the Skoal can. Without further comment, he sat down and put the disk into his computer. After a moment the video clip appeared on the screen. When it blinked off, he turned to Meg. “Where’d you get this?”

  “A young man on my crew took it with my dad’s camera, and I wound up with it. I’ve had it for a few weeks, but—” Something told Meg not to bring Benny into this. “It took some time to translate the Spanish.”

  Carmichael rubbed his hand across his mouth. “I see. Miss St. John, would you be able to identify the men in the video?”

  “Yes, sir. I work with them every day.”

  Carmichael nodded. “Good. I need you to come with me.”

  Meg caught her breath. “Come with you? Why?”

  “Obviously Torres is walking into a trap. He’s already left for the border. We’ve got to stop this.”

  “But—” Meg stood up so fast the chair rocked on two legs. “You want me to go all the way to the border with you? I can’t do that!”

  Carmichael looked stern. “I’m afraid you have to. Jack’s life is in danger.”

  Meg stared at Jack’s supervisor with her mouth open. She’d known instinctively that she’d seen something critical, but it hadn’t occurred to her that she was directly involved. Fear kicked her in the stomach.

  Lord! I’m no super-chick. What am I supposed to do?

  Meg tried to think. “Okay. Okay, can’t you just call Jack and tell him—”

  “He’s deep undercover. If I call him, he’s dead.”

  Meg sat down again, abruptly. Her love for Jack canceled her fear for herself.

  “Okay. I’ll come.” Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat. “Let me just call my roommate and tell her where I am.”

  “You can’t tell anybody.” Carmichael turned to shut down the computer. “He’s already got a good head start, so we have to leave now.”

  “Now?” Meg suddenly felt like an overcooked spaghetti noodle. “Now?”

  Without answering, Carmichael opened a drawer and pulled out a handgun, which he slid into a holster at his waist.

  “I guess now’s as good a time as any,” Meg said meekly.

  Jack pulled the eighteen-wheeler up to a pay phone in a nearby gas station. He got out, pushed his money into the slot and dialed the number on his pager display window.

  The phone rang once before it was answered by a familiar gravelly voice. “Rook here.”

  “Vernon, how did you get this number?”

  Rook ignored Jack’s question. “Where are you?”

  “Where are you?” Jack retorted. “I already told you—”

  “Listen, son, I got information related to your case. We need to talk now.”

  Jack’s mind raced. Carmichael had said Rook was under investigation. Besides that, new information should have been forwarded directly to Jack, not passed through an agent unrelated to the case. What was going on here?

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m at a quick-stop at the corner of James and Felix.”

  “Don’t move. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” The phone went dead.

  Jack looked at his watch. He had an hour to kill, so he could afford to hear what Rook had to say.

  Back in the cab of the
truck, Jack sat with the windows down, listening to the desultory sound of traffic lurching by on James Avenue, punctuated by the occasional boom of hiphop music blaring from an open window. The sunlight had faded to warm, murky dimness. He was due at the border by 2:00 a.m., where he’d shuffle the aliens to a safe house under cover of darkness. They’d hide out during the daylight hours, then complete the trip north tomorrow night.

  The minutes inched by. Jack pulled out a stick of gum and, to pass the time, opened his Bible to Isaiah.

  Those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

  Pretty good bunch of words for a guy headed to a showdown in Eagle Pass. Jack prayed for Meg, the Herreras and Miss Dottie, then for Carmichael’s salvation and for a safe trip tonight.

  Fifteen minutes went by, and he considered calling Rook again. Or calling Meg. His stomach churned.

  Don’t get distracted, Torres.

  He was looking at his watch again when Rook’s border patrol cruiser suddenly pulled into the gas station.

  Jack got out and slid into the front seat of the sedan. He forced himself to relax. “What’s up, Vernon?”

  “Hey, kid.” Rook reached to turn down the radio static. “I hear you got a big party on for the next couple of days.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I got reason to believe Carmichael may be on the take.”

  So the gloves were off. Unexpected rage flared in Jack. Where did this slug get off accusing Carmichael of treachery? He took a breath to keep his tone cool. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

  Rook leaned forward to prop his arms on the steering wheel and glanced at Jack. “Don’t go through with this run tonight.”

  Was that a warning or a threat? Baffled, Jack studied Rook’s puffy face. He’d lost some of the red-brown sunburn that characterized officers who spent much of every day patrolling the border in the baking south Texas sun. As a young cop, Jack had trusted Vernon Rook with his life. Rico Valenzuela’s death, however, had shaken Jack’s faith in almost everyone.