Ground Truth

by Rob Sangster

  THIRTY SECONDS after the little chopper cleared the ground, Gano whipped it into a right bank so steep Jack was looking almost straight down until Gano reached his course and leveled off.

  Twenty minutes later, Gano pointed at Batopilas ahead of them. “Looks like a dump now, but in the old days it was surrounded by the richest silver mines in Mexico. Pancho Villa robbed their mule trains loaded with silver so often he was on a first name basis with the drivers. In the 1890s, a lucky bastard from Washington, D.C. got hold of the mines and became one of the richest men in the world.” He pointed up at the rotors. “With this racket, we can’t sneak up on them, so I’ll fake ’em out. They’ll be watching the open end of the canyon. We’ll come in from the other direction.”

  Gano skimmed the rock-strewn surface of a wide mesa, then jammed the stick forward and dove over a cliff, plunging hundreds of feet in seconds, entering the canyon from the cul de sac end.

  “Eyes sharp, laddie. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  Jack noticed the men under the trees scrambling to their feet, several pointing at the chopper and shouting. The chopper was past the men in a flash. Still not a truck in sight, but he’d seen something that hadn’t been visible on foot. At the base of the canyon wall was a crack, thirty-feet wide and as tall as a three story building.

  “Hold on, tiger. Stunt coming up.” The chopper, now almost at the canyon’s exit slot, shot straight up, hung for a moment and then fell off to port and swooped back down just above the valley floor, zipping among obstacles like a race car in a video game.

  White puffs of smoke popped from the barrel of the guard at the entrance. Jack gritted his teeth, bracing for the impact of bullets. They missed. Gano had a tight smile as he flew directly at the tree cover, scattering the men. Apparently he didn’t take to being shot at and wanted payback.

  At that moment, a black behemoth slowly emerged from the crack in the wall like some Paleolithic beast. Just then, a man on one knee started firing a semiautomatic weapon at the chopper. Gano waggled the stick hard from side to side, then hauled back and curved to starboard to get out of the canyon.

  “Damn, we made it,” Jack shouted. “I don’t see how they missed at that range.”

  “They couldn’t, which means they weren’t trying to hit us, just scare us away. Signs all over this bird say Raramuri Tours. Those suckers assumed I was some asshole pilot giving a tourist a thrill. They know the shit would hit the fan if they shot us down. And they aren’t the kind to call attention to themselves by complaining back in Divisadero. They played it just the way I was counting on.”

  “You’ve been shot at before?”

  Gano grinned again. “Things can get a little rowdy when I have to land at some pissant backcountry airstrip at midnight with no runway lights. I can’t see who’s down there, but I know they may want to take what I have on board. Or they don’t want me to see what they’re up to. Not a lot of trust in these parts.”

  “So you shoot at each other?”

  “Usually, but friendly—sort of.”

  As soon as he’d landed, locked the bird, and driven them back to the Hotel Divisadero Tarahumara, Gano settled himself on the deck and quickly drained a bottle of beer in a series of gulps, belched, and took a sip from a second. “So, hombre, get what you wanted?”

  “Still no idea what the cargo is, but I saw where the trucks go to be loaded. Do you know anything about that crack in the cliff face?”

  “That’s a lot more than a crack. It’s a sacred place for the Tarahumara people. Story is, their greatest chief cast a spell on it a thousand years ago, putting a curse on any outsider who might enter it. During the silver rush, some of the miners went in. Not one ever came out.”

  “What’s it like inside?”

  “Tarahumara legends say there’s a maze of caverns with spikes in the ceilings that fall and impale intruders. Then there are black-water lakes full of croc-like things with fangs and packs of scorpions the size of Chihuahuas. Every midnight, weird beings they call ‘guardians’ run footraces deep inside the mountain. Anyone working inside that cave should be looking over his shoulder every few seconds.”

  Gano set down his empty beer bottle, and a server set a full one in its place.

  “Both times I’ve been there,” Jack said, “the truck crews were sitting in the shade instead of doing the loading. That’s so they don’t know what’s being loaded and can’t blow the whistle. Damn smart.”

  “So the little tour was worth $5,000 after all, just like I said.”

  Jack still didn’t know what the cargo was but he knew what to do next. He stood, walked to the railing, and turned. “I want you to fly me to El Paso.”

  “That’s easy,” Gano said. “Five hundred plus gas both ways for the trip. If you want me to hang with you after that, it’ll be because things have gotten complicated. That’ll be $1,000 a day, plus expenses for the plane. No offense, Goldfinger, but let’s see if we can get some laughs out of this.”

  The price was stiff, but Gano was the only game in town.

  “Don’t know about the laughs, but the money’s right.”

  He wasn’t about to mention that this flight was just the first step. He intended to hook Gano into a lot more than that.

  GANO PULLED UP in a steep climb from the private airstrip. Jack didn’t like flying in a small plane any better than he did in a helicopter, but he had no choice. He’d expected Gano’s plane to be utilitarian and old. Instead, it was a shiny new high-wing, four-person Cessna. “You must have hit the lottery to buy this thing.”

  “Better. I hit three gents who had to get out of Dodge in a hurry, life or death you might say, and they weren’t in a position to fly United. My fee was 300k. After I set them down on a Colombian country road in a rainstorm, I hauled ass to Wichita and bought this baby. It’s the turbo version of the Skylane, and it’ll climb faster than anything I’m likely to come up against in my line of work. Intuitive avionics. Flies like a bat in Carlsbad Caverns.”

  “What’s that?” Jack pointed to a long-barrel weapon in a bracket bolted to the dash.

  “Benelli R1 semiautomatic rifle. Almost no recoil, so it’s easy to keep on target. Depending on what I expect, I may swap it with my Mossberg 935 loaded with three and a half inch 12 gauge magnum shells. It’s back there.” He indicated a weapon strapped above the rear seat the way it’s done in an Alabama pickup truck. “One burst from that baby can cut a grove of banana trees in half.”

  In his shades and cowboy hat, Gano reminded him of Hunter S. Thompson, the gonzo journalist who had a lifelong romance with firearms and drugs. Gano’s impulsive nature made him a loose cannon Jack would have to watch every second. On the other hand, going after the mystery trucks was leading him deeper into a swamp where Gano would come in very handy.

  If he’d driven the pickup back to El Paso, he’d have been on the road until after three a.m. Flying with Gano would get him there in time to grab a few hours of sleep and gather some essential information in the morning. During his pursuit of the mystery trucks, Debra would have delivered the samples to Rincon and been working on the other assignment he’d given her.

  They landed at the El Paso airport just after nine p.m., and he hailed a taxi to take them to the El Diablo motel. Along the way, he gave Gano a sketchy outline of who Debra was but nothing about what she’d been doing.

  He knocked on the hotel room door to let Debra know she had company. No answer. He let himself in. No Debra, just a note which he read.

  He told Gano, “Debra flew to Austin to do some research. She’ll go to Professor Rincon’s office at UTEP tomorrow morning and then brief me on what she finds out.”

  “What kind of research—”

  Gano’s question, which Jack didn’t want to answer, was cut off by the phone ringing. He snatched up the receiver and listened to Debra’s qu
estions about his safety. As soon as he reassured her, she switched into a commentary on his recklessness. He interrupted to fill her in on what he’d learned about the black trucks and the cave near Batopilas.

  “I brought back someone who’ll be working with us for a few days. Gano LeMoyne. He’s a private pilot who does . . . special deliveries.”

  “Who recommended him? Do you know him?” She sounded skeptical.

  “We’ve done a project together that worked out fine. You’ll like him. Now I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow, and we’ll choose a place to meet.” He hung up.

  “That was interesting,” Gano said, filling a plastic cup from a bottle of dark rum. “You forgot to tell her about the bullets and the bad guys. What’s she going to say when she finds out about that?”

  Chapter 36

  July 8

  6:30 a.m.

  IN TRUDY’S Restaurant across the street from the El Diablo, Jack watched as Gano wolfed down the Breakfast Burritos Salsa Special and a plate of refried beans.

  Gano looked up. “What you lookin’ at?”

  “Nothing.”

  Gano looked down at his tight black trousers and black-on-black embroidered western shirt with pearl buttons. “This is my El Paso pimp look. Glad you like it.” He turned his attention back to demolishing the giant burrito.

  Waiting for Gano to finish, he had to make a decision. He could stake out the plant again and try to follow the trucks north, knowing he might be trapped in traffic or at the security checkpoint and lose them. Or he could try to pick them up on the U.S. side of the border.

  “Gano, if a convoy of black trucks, like the one we saw yesterday, was heading north from Ciudad Juarez, where do you think they’d cross?”

  “Bridge of the Americas stacks up like a parking lot. Same for the Zaragosa and Stanton Street bridges. Smart truckers avoid them like the clap. The Ysleta crossing is less crowded, but truckers with questionable loads stay away because it has a gizmo that uses Pulsed Fast Neutron Analysis. It’s a scanner that detects smack, pot, explosives, mustard gas, even bags of cash. But it takes so long they scan only about one in twenty trucks, and they just guess which ones to pick. On the Mexican side, they pay some grunt $50 a day instead. Anyway, your black trucks wouldn’t go through at Ysleta.” He scraped the plate for a last fork full of beans.

  “Okay, so that’s where they wouldn’t cross.” He tried not to sound exasperated. “Now tell me where they would cross.”

  “At Santa Teresa in the New Mexico boonies. Trucks coming from Mexico are supposed to be inspected on the U.S. side, but that’s a joke. A serious inspection takes two hours, and they don’t have enough trained people. Only about ten percent of trucks get checked at all, and that’s mostly for worn brakes or tires and for whether the load is secured right.

  “As far as trucks going into Mexico at Santa Teresa, neither side gives a damn. U.S. shippers file a bill of lading and an export declaration, and that’s it. After the Customs grunts get to know certain companies and their trucks, they just wave them through. Of course, serious players never take a chance. We, I mean they, lay some dinero on the Customs officers at Santa Teresa so they’ll start inspecting the clouds.”

  “So trucks that cross into the U.S. at Santa Teresa are home free?”

  “Unless they’re terminally stupid. If they head toward El Paso on I-10, they’d hit a checkpoint at the New Mexico/Texas border where trucks are spot-checked with an X-ray to catch illegals. Trucks with any kind of no-no on board stay in New Mexico and drive north without being touched.”

  He made his decision. “Eat up, and we’ll rent a car in your name.”

  “Hold on, pard.” Gano mopped up the last of the burrito sauce and ate it. “Okay, now let’s hit it before all this lard slams into my heart.”

  Jack drove to within fifty yards of the Santa Teresa crossing and stopped to watch. From the American side of the border, the light that was supposed to flash red if a Mexican Customs officer wanted to signal a vehicle to stop, seemed to be stuck on green. Cars barely slowed.

  There were only five trucks stopped in the northbound lane entering the U.S. Instead of vigorously inspecting the first truck, an officer leaned against the cab and chatted with the driver.

  When he’d seen enough, Jack entered the Mexican Customs office and flashed a Sinclair & Simms business card at the officer in charge. “I’m conducting a routine audit for Palmer Industries to confirm how many trucks have come through here in the past thirty days carrying hazardous waste to our plant in Juarez. I especially need to know how many large black trucks in groups of three to six have come through. They have yellow ‘Hazardous Waste’ warning signs on their sides.”

  The officer, who wore gold-braid epaulettes and a galaxy of brass stars across his chest, chewed one corner of his mustache and waved away a colleague who had stopped to eavesdrop. “No trucks like that have passed this checkpoint, señor.” He broke eye contact and shook his head side to side several times.

  “Maybe you could check your records. I’m willing to pay a fee for your service.” Jack took out his wallet and withdrew several 100 peso bills.

  “No such trucks, señor.” The official raised both hands in the universal gesture of que sera sera.

  Gano pulled Jack aside and whispered, “Okay, your honor, this bureaucratic weasel is lying so bad it must make his teeth hurt. What say I take him around the corner and beat the crap out of him until I get a straight answer?”

  Gano’s mouth was smiling, but his voice wasn’t. Because of his black shades, Jack couldn’t tell how serious he was.

  “Not this time. If he’s been bribed to keep those convoys invisible, he’s probably been threatened big time. We can’t turn him around.”

  As they got back into the car, Jack said, “We don’t have time to wait around hoping a northbound convoy shows up. Besides, I have a better idea, a long shot.” He pulled back onto the road north and pushed down hard on the gas pedal.

  “Way to go, champ,” Gano said. “When in doubt, drive faster.”

  “Very funny, but it just hit me that while the Customs guy was giving us the runaround, I looked out the window and saw a man working on the adobe wall around the building. When we came out, he was driving away in an old Taurus. I want to talk with him.”

  “Your wish is granted.” Gano pointed to a Taurus parked in a Serv-U gas station.

  “Buenos dias, señor,” Jack said as he walked up to the man filling his tank. He described the convoy. “Have you seen trucks like that?” He held out a $20 bill. The man shrugged. Jack added another $20. No response, so he turned and started back to the car.

  By the third step he heard, “Señor,” behind him.

  In broken English, the man described the black trucks crossing the border two or three times a week while he worked on the grounds of the Customs offices. He said the head Customs official on duty spoke only with the lead driver and waved the trucks through within a minute. Trucks like that had passed through just a half hour ago, heading north.

  Jack climbed back into the car and punched the steering wheel. “Damn it! We missed them.” He looked at Gano. “Unless . . .”

  GANO PEERED out the side window of his Cessna. “Looks like the foxes have gone to ground. We’ve flown along three highways and come up dry.”

  “We’re not quitting.”

  “May have no choice. We’ve already violated half the FAA rule book. Been in and out of Fort Bliss air space for half an hour. I guarantee they’re tracking us. You might say Bliss is following us.”

  Jack suppressed a chuckle at Gano’s little joke and said, “But I haven’t seen anything that looked like a military base.”

  “It started just outside El Paso. At seventy miles by thirty miles, it’s bigger than Rhode Island. Those ol’ boys specialize in air defense and g
et downright cranky about visitors. I’m surprised they haven’t scrambled a fighter to ground us. Anyway, if they come up, we go down in a hurry.”

  Jack tilted a road map toward Gano. “There’s a back road from Las Cruces to Alamogordo then up to I-40. Let’s try that.”

  “We have to be careful. See that long line of white gypsum dunes off to the left? White Sands Missile Range is over there. They play games with guided missiles and high energy laser weapons and don’t put up with drop-in company. We’re also right over the UFO capital of the universe. Maybe that’s where those big trucks came from.” He grinned. “Hey, flying this low isn’t makin’ you nervous is it, chief?”

  “No sweat.” But he wouldn’t have minded pulling up a few hundred feet. They were so close to the ground he could easily read the signs on the concrete block buildings below: American Legion Post, Crystal Ballroom, and Black Cat Fireworks. Straight ahead he saw the Mendoza Tortilla Factory, the New Image Beauty Shop, and a large sign that read “Income Tax Service & Window Tinting.”

  “Shame your friend Debra’s not along for this joy ride,” Gano said.

  “Maybe, but she’s working on a project for me. We’ll see her when we get back.”

  “Cool. Okay, we’ll follow Highway 54, that’s the back road you were pointing at. If we get as far as Alamogordo without spotting them, they lost us.”

  “No way. We’ll keep looking until we’re out of fuel.”

  Gano glanced over. “Tell me this, compadre, what’s got you so riled up? You’ve got it made in the shade. Why go through all this shit?”

  Jack didn’t answer right away. Gano assumed he had it “made in the shade.” Yeah, maybe if you don’t count seeing everything he’d worked for destroyed in a week, including his reputation and dreams.

  “I’m going through all this shit because in the last few days I’ve cared more about what I’m doing than in the last ten years. You’ll understand more about that after we hear from Debra.” He didn’t mention the new fear he carried like a great stone.