If only others could understand.
Kermit smiled. He touched one of his twelve dreadlocks, each representing a gauge boson. Kermit’s fingers tingled as he felt the power and the chaos locked inside. Then he remembered the young, nubile ticket agent at the Cancun airport.
Kermit had simply freed the power in order to change the electrical energy of the space. The gravitational field had altered in his favor, and Kermit knew that he wouldn’t even have to specifically ask for the upgrade. Instead, Kermit asked the agent how he could safely transport his new guitar to America.
The ticket agent looked at Kermit and then at the guitar case in his hand. “Are you a rock star?” Love was in her eyes.
“If you spend the night with me, sweetheart, you wouldn’t have to ask that silly question.” Kermit winked. He then wrote his number on a piece of scrap paper.
She took the number, giggled, and gave Kermit a first-class ticket in return. It wouldn’t be the last time Kermit would call upon his ratty bosons for help.
###
A fake, high-pitched bell dinged three times and the pilot announced the plane’s descent into New York. Kermit pressed the button for his seat to return to an upright position, and then gathered his various notepads and multi-colored note cards related to his QCD research. He put them in his knapsack and re-buckled his seatbelt.
“Ready, Mr. Guillardo?” The flight attendant touched Kermit’s shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze. Word of his rock stardom had spread among the ladies.
“Steady, senorita, just keep the tin can steady.”
“We’ll try.” The flight attendant winked, took her hand off his shoulder and continued walking down the aisle toward the other passengers in the back.
Kermit waited, making sure she was gone, and then dug through every compartment in his bag. He checked and re-checked every pocket.
They had a plan, and Kermit understood his role.
When he was arrested, it would be better if all illicit substances were absent from his pockets and luggage.
###
Vatch checked his gun, and then gave each of the agents a piece of paper. The paper had three pictures printed on it, photographs of Michael Collins, Andie Larone, and Kermit Guillardo.
“Arrest them and then keep them separate. I don’t want them talking. I don’t want them to know what’s happening to the others.”
Vatch could feel it. Everything was coming together. The airline confirmed that Collins and the others had printed boarding passes, checked bags, and boarded the plane. Kermit Guillardo had somehow gotten upgraded to first class, but nothing else was unexpected.
Collins was so arrogant, thought Vatch. Collins actually thought that he was just going to walk off the plane, as if he was untouchable. Vatch chuckled to himself, then he continued to lecture the other agents.
He pointed at the doors leading out of the airport’s immigration center.
“I want two at each. Others need to be spread.”
Vatch looked at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents working the “stamp desks.”
“Their passports have been flagged and ICE has been directed to delay our friends during the review. The immigration desk boys will message their supervisor, and then they’ll take them back to the holding area …. But watch for Collins to run.”
Agent Vatch looked at the clock.
“The plane should land in a few minutes. I’ll notify you all when the plane is at the gate and people start getting off. He’s a runner, always has been.”
Vatch waved. “Now get going.” Then he spun his wheelchair around and started toward the gates.
“Where you off to?” Agent Armstrong asked.
Vatch stopped, turned back to his mentee, and flicked his tongue.
“Greeting Mr. Collins at the gate. Be sort of a one-man welcoming committee.”
Armstrong didn’t like that plan. He followed behind as Vatch tried to roll away.
“With all due respect,” Armstrong kept following when Vatch didn’t stop. “Wouldn’t that give Collins a warning? Eliminate the surprise element? I don’t know, seems like the situation could escalate.”
Vatch didn’t respond. He kept on going, ignoring Armstrong. There wasn’t any point in arguing.
Vatch thought escalation was just fine. In fact, escalation would be great.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Vatch waited off to the side. He watched the first few passengers straggle up and out of the gate, into the waiting area, and then proceed towards customs and immigration.
Excitement spiked when Vatch saw the weird one amble out, a guitar case was strapped to his back. Vatch looked behind Kermit Guillardo, expecting to see Michael Collins or Andie Larone. Neither one of them, however, came out.
Vatch watched Kermit Guillardo walk into the waiting area, and then watched as Kermit stopped, looked back at the gate, and then sat down in an empty seat next to an old woman planning to board a departing plane.
Vatch remembered that Kermit Guillardo had been upgraded to first class. He figured Michael Collins and Andie Larone must be seated further back on the plane. He just needed to be patient.
###
Time passed, and Agent Vatch watched more and more passengers get off the plane. They stopped coming in a steady flow. Now they came in little clumps of one or two.
“Hey.”
Vatch looked up at the person who had tapped his shoulder.
“Are you looking for me, dude?” Kermit Guillardo smiled. His gray dreadlocks bounced as his head bobbled. “ Been sitting over there the whole time, like, totally waiting for you to arrest me.”
Vatch was appalled. His eyes narrowed. “Did you just touch me?”
Kermit looked confused.
Vatch repeated himself. “Did you really just touch me?”
“Like sexually?” Kermit scrunched up his face. “No way, man. I don’t like you like that. But I’m glad you’re still looking.” Kermit winked. “Never too old to find love, my man. There’s somebody special out there for you, just gotta believe.”
“Where’s Collins?”
“Right now?” Kermit shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t really know. Last I saw him, the man was in Mexico.”
“He’s supposed to be on this plane.”
Kermit looked at the gate and watched as the flight crew emerged behind the final three passengers. Then Kermit nodded, deep in thought.
“Supposed to be, but not.” Kermit picked up his guitar. “I’ll let you wait it out further, if you don’t believe me, muchacho. Just tell the other jack-boots to let me go to the bathroom before they take me into custody ‘cuz I gotta disperse the liquid matter in the ol’ bladder, you dig?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In Mexico, Michael had mailed a package at the Cancun airport to the address for Brea Krane that Tad Garvin had provided. He paid a little extra for express mail service, and figured that the package would arrive about the same time that he would get to New York.
Michael and Andie then checked two bags full of dirty laundry, walked down to their gate, and then allowed a flight attendant to scan their boarding passes. Then, the two went half-way down the ramp to their plane with Kermit, and that was where they had stopped.
Michael and Andie wished Kermit luck, and then turned around. They weren’t going to run from the FBI, but they weren’t going to make it easy, either.
Kermit would be a great decoy with the bonus of likely embarrassing Agent Vatch once again.
Michael and Andie left the main terminal. They crossed the street and over to a smaller airstrip designated for private, charter planes.
Their pilot was drinking at the terminal’s bar, which was never a good sign, but he had been cheap and available on short notice.
Michael handed him an envelope of cash, and after finishing his drink, the pilot led Michael and Andie outside to his small, twin-propeller plane.
They climbed up three steps and crawled into the cabin. The pilot waited fo
r Michael and Andie while they settled in and buckled their seatbelts.
“One quick check, then go.” The pilot pointed to the front of the plane, smiled, and closed the door.
He walked around to the front. He fiddled with a few of the levers attached to the plane’s engine. After performing another series of pre-flight rituals, the pilot got inside, and closed the other door. He put on a pair of dark sunglasses, adjusted a knob, and then pressed a button.
The plane’s rusted propellers popped and crackled to life. Within minutes, they were in the air.
The engine noise was too loud to have a conversation, and so Michael and Andie simply held hands as Andie rested her head on Michael’s shoulder for the rest of the flight.
###
An hour later they landed in Chihuahua, Mexico. Because they hadn’t crossed any borders, there were no passports or requests for identification.
They got out of the airplane, unloaded their packs, and walked to a hired van that was waiting to take them to a small town called Manuel Benavides and then to where the road dead-ended further north.
Michael and Andie were now about twenty miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, and Michael figured that they had about a fifteen percent chance of making it across.
###
The road from Manuel Benavides to Mexico’s Santa Elana national park was narrow and dusty. Michael and Andie bounced along in the back of the van. They looked out the window at the desert landscape, cascading brown and tan hills streaked with red and specked with scrub brush and cactus.
Neither one of them saw another person or car the entire trip. That was normal. It was a part of the world where no human being was supposed to live. It was too hot.
Quick movement of any kind was rare, which Michael figured was both good and bad. It would make them easy to see, but it would also complicate matters for anybody following them to go unnoticed.
The van stopped. There were seven rusted metal barrels filled with concrete, each spaced a few feet from one another across the road. This was where it ended.
“Gracias.” Michael paid the driver.
They gathered up their packs and got out of the van. They stood on the side of the road and watched the van turn around, and then they watched as it disappeared in a cloud a half-mile back down the road on its way back to Manuel Benavides.
With the van gone, Michael and Andie were now alone in the desert. It was quiet for the first time on their trip. The respite from constant engine noise was a relief.
Michael stretched. He looked up. It was late afternoon, but the sun was still high. The landscape baked in the heat and hummed with the sound of cicadas.
Michael shook out his arms and rolled his neck from side to side, and then he took a water bottle out of his pack.
He unscrewed the top of the Nalgene bottle, and then Michael handed it to Andie.
“Ready?”
Andie took a sip of water, and handed the bottle back to Michael.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Michael put the water bottle back in his pack, took out his GPS device, and then swung the pack over his shoulder. He’d used the GPS device more in the past few days than he had used it in the past year. Michael didn’t really know what that meant about his current state of affairs. He figured it probably wasn’t good, but he’d have plenty of time to think about it on the trail.
The two left the road and started hiking north. In the distance, they saw the red lunar peaks of the Chisos Mountains on the other side of the Rio Grande.
Andie and Michael were now just a half-dozen miles from the border.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was dusk when Michael and Andie got to the ridge. Below them, the free-flowing Rio Grande River cut deep into the rock. The river was the border, and on the other side of the river was the least-visited national park in the United States, Big Bend.
Michael and Andie sat down. He opened his pack and removed two granola bars and two apples. He handed one of each to Andie. Then Michael ate his granola bar faster than he had wanted to.
Michael was still hungry when he was done, but there wasn’t more time. It was getting dark, and there was no way that they could safely climb down the steep canyon wall to the river at night, even with headlamps.
He checked his GPS, took a final sip of water, and then, after Andie finished her apple, they followed the ridge further east. They had another kilometer to go.
###
The drop was nearly straight down 1,500 feet on both sides of the river canyon, but there were a few narrow, jagged paths that led to sandy open areas. The paths, however, were difficult to find. A person needed the right coordinates.
Michael checked his GPS with increasing frequency until finally the device beeped. Michael and Andie stopped, looked at one another, and then walked toward the canyon’s edge. They didn’t see it until they were there — a five-foot drop, and then a trail just ten inches wide to the next drop.
Michael was relieved. They’d found what they had been looking for, just as the sun dipped out of view.
Half the sky had already turned black and within an hour there would be total darkness. “We have to go,” Michael said. “Don’t want to get stuck.”
When Andie didn’t respond, Michael stopped just before climbing down. He turned and reached out his hand.
“You okay?”
Andie nodded, wiping sweat and dirt from her forehead, and then she took his hand.
“Just get me to the river.” She let go of Michael’s hand and rubbed the key that was on a necklace around her neck. She rubbed it for good luck, remembering her experience on Ayers Rock when she was a teenager. “Just get me to the river,” she said, again, like a mantra.
Michael nodded, an attempt at confidence, and then they started.
They took small steps, trying to keep from sliding. Each step posed a risk of falling or turning an ankle, especially since they were both still recovering from the explosion a few days earlier.
It was one drop after another, a slow, twenty-foot descent.
Michael stopped. He looked down at another ten-foot ledge.
“I’ll go first.”
Andie didn’t argue.
Michael wasn’t worried about falling ten feet. He was more concerned about falling ten feet and being unable to stop himself from continuing to fall the rest of the way down the canyon. There were dozens of boulders and sharp outcroppings that could easily crack open his head in an uncontrolled fall or snap a leg or an arm.
He put his hands down on the dirt. Michael lowered himself, searching for a foothold. He found one, put his foot in, and then descended the rest of the way.
After hesitation, Andie followed.
###
By the time they reached the small rocky beach, the sun was gone. The sky was pricked with thousands of tiny stars.
Michael and Andie limped toward the water. Their feet were blistered and sore. Their eyes stung with the salt from their sweat, and both were dehydrated and bruised. Michael and Andie had fallen straight on their backs a few times at the end of their descent. Their packs softened the impact with the ground, but most of their quad muscles ripped in the process. It was unlikely either one of them would be able to move particularly fast in the morning.
Luckily, they had some relief. The air temperature had dropped forty degrees and the high rock walls naturally kept the bottom of the canyon cool and in shadows.
Michael looked up at the night sky, put his hands on his hips, and closed his eyes, still trying to catch his breath. “Pretty nice down here.”
Andie nodded. “It is.”
“Pretty dark too.” Michael’s eyes opened. His voice rose with a hint of mischief.
Andie shook her head and laughed. “Are you actually trying to hit on me?”
“Dirty and sweaty women get me excited.” Michael sat down. “ What can I say?”
Andie shook her head. “You’re gross.”
>
Michael laughed. “I thought that this crisis in my life would be a good time to be more open about my various kinks.”
“You sound like Kermit. You’re hanging out with him way too much,” Andie said. “He’s a bad influence.”
“Perhaps.” Michael kicked off his hiking boots and pulled his sweaty socks away from his feet. Then Michael stripped and ran naked into the river.
He hit the water with a splash, and Michael emitted a high-pitched scream. “That’s cold.” He bobbed under the water and came up, again. “My heart stopped working for a minute.”
“Good.” Andie sat down on a large flat rock, unscrewed the top of her water bottle. She took a sip. “Stay in there for awhile. You need to cool off.”
“Does that mean I’m not getting any lovin’ tonight?”
Andie massaged her quad muscles. “Since I’m having difficulty moving my legs, I think that’s a pretty fair assumption, young man.”
Michael splashed some water toward her. “Why do you need to move your legs?”
###
After Andie drank all of her water, she set the empty bottle aside. She turned on a small flashlight and laid it down on the ground next to their packs so that they could find them again. Then she walked away from the light.
Andie got close to the edge of the river and stopped. Michael watched as she slowly took off her clothes. The shape of her body cast a dark silhouette.
Andie dipped a toe into the water, and then stepped in. She edged deeper into the river until the water met her thigh, and then she jumped toward Michael.
Swimming a few yards, her hands reached out and found him. Michael pulled Andie up, and they came together under the stars.
He pressed her close to him, caressed her back, and then kissed her neck. She returned the kiss, finding an intimacy that had been lost in the rush to leave the resort and the tension that had flared after the visit from Tad Garvin, the fire, and the passing of Father Stiles. All three events had happened so close together, it had overwhelmed them.
J.D. Trafford - Michael Collins 03 - No Time To Hide Page 6
