“Roger that.”
They stood quietly for a few moments at ninety degrees to each other, arms crossed, both gazing out the locked front doors. The street was empty. The Feds didn’t need a physical surveillance team—they could track the truck with a drone and not have to worry about losing it in traffic. They may have tagged the cab’s roof with infrared paint for a drone’s benefit; he wouldn’t know until it started to yellow after a few days in the sun. Any other watchers would be using NVGs from a distance. Exactly what Luis had hoped.
Luis scuffed away a dust bunny with the toe of his boot. “Sure you want to do this?”
“Yes, sir. You’ve been good to me. Gave me a chance.”
And hadn’t regretted it. Still… “You know this might not turn out so good for you.”
“You get three squares in jail, right? A mattress? Toilet?”
“As far as I know.”
Tyler shrugged. “Bonus.”
They filed into the storage room. There between parts racks stood Luis’ backpack, filled with the contents of the two now-empty banker’s boxes. Tyler dragged his pack from a nearby corner. Other than dirt and wear, the two were identical; Luis had bought the pair three years back and gave one to Tyler to replace the ragged thing he’d been hauling.
“Ready?” Luis asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Luis handed Tyler his button-down shirt and khakis, then climbed into his old ACU trousers and boots. He swapped a semi-new long-sleeved black tee shirt for the dark-olive one Tyler had worn to work. Tyler’s everyday costume wasn’t a lot different from what Luis wore when he ran travelers over the border. They were roughly the same height but Tyler carried at least thirty fewer pounds, so Luis’ work clothes hung on him. Nothing they could do about that.
“Now it’s beauty-parlor time,” Luis said.
They crowded into the bathroom—the only mirror in the shop—and Luis broke open the box Salma had sent by courier that afternoon. He scanned the several pages of printed instructions. He’d asked for idiot-proof, and she’d taken him seriously. He pulled a wig from the box, handed it to Tyler. “Put some hair on, will you?”
The wig was a good match for Luis’ hair—not quite as much gray (Salma was maybe being kind) but the right texture and length. Tyler slipped it over his bristly buzz cut, cocked his head this way and that. “Hm. Feels weird.”
“You’re getting off light.” Luis handed him a set of electric hair clippers. “Know how to use these?”
For the next hour, Luis followed Salma’s instructions to turn himself into Tyler and vice versa. He couldn’t stop scratching his new quarter-inch brush cut. At the end, they stood side-by-side in front of the dirty mirror, shaking their heads in amazement. Tyler had Luis’ nose and eyebrows, filled-out cheeks and fuller mouth. Luis had covered much of his hair stubble with Tyler’s battered old Angels cap, and now had a longer, slimmer nose, lighter eyebrows, and thinner lips.
“You’re darker than me,” Tyler said.
“Not that much, with your tan. Doesn’t matter. It just has to look good enough on night vision, they won’t see color.” He hoped he was right. If he wasn’t, they’d find out in a bad way. “Let’s go.”
People pay to live here, Luis thought. Tyler pulled the truck into the driveway to the derelict self-storage place that was now his home, in a grimy light-industrial area of Costa Mesa three long blocks from the shop. Half the roll-up doors yawned open, revealing people sitting on lawn chairs or old sofas in the faint rectangles of weak light spilling out of the storage cubes. People looking for a chance at night-shift work stuffed themselves into a couple of already-overloaded temp-agency minivans.
“All the way back,” Tyler said. He held out a shiny-new padlock key. “Fifth one on the left. C105.”
Luis took the key. “Anything I should look out for?”
“Nope. They’re all normals. More or less.”
Once he stepped outside, Luis would become Tyler, while Tyler would drive to Luis’ house and sleep in the garage. As far as the FBI was concerned, nothing would’ve changed. Before dawn tomorrow morning, Tyler would drive to work as Luis, then become himself again. Luis should have vanished by then. At least, that’s how this was supposed to work.
“Thanks, Tyler.” Luis stretched out his hand. “If I can’t get back, I’ll put in a good word for you with Xiao if you’re interested in running the shop.”
“Sure.” Tyler shook his hand. “Good luck. Watch your six.”
Luis didn’t even look back when he heard the truck pull away. He trudged into the storage yard with his backpack slung over his good shoulder. He didn’t have to try hard to limp; his body had stiffened from his injuries. Music spooled out of cheap speakers attached to phones and streamers, a sampling of every genre from the past twenty years. He returned waves and nods along his way to Tyler’s narrow storage cube.
It wasn’t much: a plastic patio chair, a battered bathroom vanity with a slab of plywood on top, an old Red Cross cot, a tiny microwave. Great home for a wounded veteran, but he was doing better than some Luis knew of.
If Luis didn’t play this right, this could be his next home.
He called the car service for his ride south.
45
SUNDAY, 16 MAY
Nora wanted to say “no.” The word wouldn’t come out.
Just enough early-morning light straggled through the open door leading from the garage to the back yard for Nora to see the dark circles under Luis’ eyes. He looked odd with his hair chopped off. Paul watched them from the doorway leading into the house, arms folded, leaning against the doorjamb.
Nora drifted to the door and caught some pale sunshine on her face. This was so wrong. They’d sworn they’d leave together, a full family, nobody left behind. If they split up, she couldn’t protect them, and she had to—it was her job, her duty. Leave them to a stranger? No way.
But…
Luis had risked his life in the firefight at the other safe house, taken a bullet. What more did he have to do to prove himself to her?
She hadn’t slept right for months since she and Paul had made this decision, hardly at all here in California. More than anything, she had to know her family would be safe, even if she was caught or killed. She’d put up with whatever the Bureau decided to do to her, but she couldn’t live knowing Paul or the children were in a camp or prison or…
Nora finally said, “Will this work?”
“It should,” Luis said behind her. “It’s your picture up on Fox, not theirs. You’re the one they’re after. So let’s get Paul and the kids south the easy way, and me and you walk out, okay?”
“How would this work?” Paul asked. “What do we do when we get across?”
“I’ll have a guy meet you, get you holed up in a motel. I’ve worked with him a lot, he’s good, I trust him. Then when me and Nora get over, he’ll come get us and you guys move on.”
“How long will we be apart?”
“Day or two. Depends on how far we have to go.”
He made it sound so simple. Nora’s angels and demons had a screaming match inside her head. She turned to face Luis. “Can you guarantee they’ll be safe?”
Luis shook his head. “I can’t guarantee we’ll be safe. Beto’s a good man, he’ll take care of them. That’s the best anyone can do right now.”
Paul stepped down onto the garage floor, his face set. “I say we do it.”
“Paul!”
He held up his hand. “Just wait. It’s easier on the kids. I’m all for easier. And it’s not as risky for you. I’m all for that, too.” He approached her, arms out. “Just let go. It’ll be fine.”
Paul was right, but she hated the idea. Nora stared at him for what seemed like hours, her head about to burst. Being separated terrified her. The way things were, though, she might be endangering the most important people in her world right now, just by being near.
Let go. She hadn’t let go since the day she’d married Paul. How could she
let go of the other half of her life?
How could she not?
46
While other nations enjoy more online amenities and services, no one is as utterly dependent on the Internet as Americans are…With no paper mail, no paper bills, no paper checks and no access to humans at the bank, the financial lives of average Americans exist entirely online…The leverage this gives Comcast, Time-Warner, AT&T and Verizon – the last four providers of broadband access in the U.S. – is hard to overstate…Losing Internet or email access means you essentially cease to exist.
— “Shackled to the Net,” Wired.com
SUNDAY, 16 MAY
Bel watched with a growing load of sadness and guilt as Alvaro and Graciela hobbled their way through the glass security tunnel leading to the scanners for John Wayne Airport’s Terminal C. Just before they passed into the semi-opaque frosted part at the end, Alvaro gave her a look that weighed a thousand pounds. She only just held herself together. Her gut told her she’d never see Lucho’s dad alive again. This—the abandonment—would kill him.
She hurried through the pairs of patrolling guards into the nearest ladies’ room, found an empty stall, stood facing the door. It’d been years since she’d been in an airport, and the overall grubbiness surprised her; luckily, sitting on the seat wasn’t on the program. She pulled her burner phone—a junky little Nigerian iPhone 21 copy—from her purse and slipped in the battery. She held her breath as it booted up. Please be there please…
One text waiting: “Im ok”.
Bel closed her eyes and let out a huge sigh. She’d slept in her clothes on top of the bed the night before just in case the FBI came through the windows. The burner had sat inches away on her nightstand, luring her to connect to Lucho. She hadn’t dared turn the thing on until now in case the FBI was watching for it.
She longed to call him, hear his voice, but didn’t have a number. He’d left his personal phone on the dresser, a reminder of how out of reach he was. Where was he? Had he crossed the border yet? Was he safe?
Bel stared at the text for a few more moments, touched her fingertips to the letters. She then erased the phone’s memory the way Lucho had taught her. She removed the chip, snapped it in half, flushed it down the toilet.
The morning was already bright and hot at not quite eight. She trotted to her car in the parking structure, eager to get going. Traffic would still be Sunday-morning light; maybe she’d get to the San Ysidro crossing by lunchtime. It would cost a fortune in tolls to take the Interstate all the way, but now that she and Lucho had decided to do this, she wanted to get it over with.
She twisted the key in her car’s ignition. In an instant, a huge, black SUV filled her rear-view mirror, and stormtroopers in black swarmed her from all sides.
The room was small, beige, barren, overcooled and smelled like industrial cleaners. Kind of like one of the hospital’s exam rooms. Bel stared up at the black camera bubble in the corner above the single steel door; it stared back. The rigid, white plastic chair put pressure on all the wrong parts of her butt and thighs without providing any back support at all—also like the hospital. She wanted desperately to get up and pace, but her wrists were zip-tied to an eyelet poking out of her side of the laminate tabletop.
Three hours had gone by like three months.
Her whole body had burned with outrage and embarrassment when the FBI stormtroopers threw her on the garage’s concrete and trussed her up like a pig. Since then, her anger had melted into a dull throb in her back and a fog of fear everywhere else. What was taking so long? What were they doing? Would she ever get out?
Through the fear, she held on tight to one floating piece of debris from the wreck of her life: she was still at the airport, not on her way to some dungeon somewhere. Yet.
The loud clack of the door’s latch release jolted her out of her haze. A sharp-featured but otherwise unmemorable man in a black suit paced in, carrying a stainless-steel tray. The door whispered closed behind him, locking with another gunshot-like crack. He placed the tray in the exact center of the table. It held her personal and burner phones and her slate, each in a plastic zip-lock evidence bag.
Evidence. That must make her a criminal.
The man arranged himself in the chair opposite her, crossed his legs and straightened the crease in his slacks. He watched her cooly, blinking occasionally like a basking iguana.
“Who are you?” Bel finally asked. She wished her voice wouldn’t shake so much.
“Special Agent Symonds.” Symonds’ voice was low, deliberate and almost eerily calm, as if this was some kind of exercise.
She couldn’t keep from staring at her things on the tray. “What do you want?”
“My people are searching your home, right now. Is there anything you wish to tell me, Mrs. Ojeda?”
You bastards! Bel clamped her mouth shut until she could trust it not to bury her. “Do you have a warrant?”
“Not one that I can share with you.”
She took a temperature reading from the man’s turquoise eyes. No heat at all. She was used to living and working with people who flew their emotions like flags over their heads. Symonds’ detachment disturbed her more than if he’d been stomping around and screaming.
He lifted her slate from the tray, turned it in his hands the way he might an unusual piece of driftwood. “It’s remarkable, isn’t it, Mrs. Ojeda? The things we can learn from something that looks so simple. Our technicians will find everything you’ve hidden on this. We’ve locked your email accounts, your autopays, your medical records. You have no secrets, you understand. So, Mrs. Ojeda…do you have anything to tell me?”
“You locked our autopays?” Bel blurted. “How do we pay our bills?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Symonds said. He didn’t even look at her. “We’ll unlock them if there’s no evidence in them. In three or four months, perhaps.”
Months? By then the bank will have taken the house. Maybe that was the point. The panic she’d tried to smother started burning through the mental blanket she’d thrown on it.
“Of course,” he went on while he placed her slate on the tray, “you don’t have to worry about your mortgage since we’ve seized your house—”
“You what?”
“—as the proceeds of criminal activity. They won’t foreclose until the property is cleared.” Symonds leaned back in his chair. “These days, that takes a year to eighteen months if we don’t file charges. If we do, it’s an average of seven years for a federal case to go to trial. A shortage of judges, you see.” He put a finger to his lips. “But I forgot, this is a national security issue. There won’t be a trial. We’ll simply sell the house after we close the case.”
Bel’s face couldn’t burn any hotter if someone had thrown flaming gasoline on it. Could they actually take the house and sell it? No trial, no appeal? But even as her mind screamed against what Symonds said, she pictured all those people packed off to prison camps, not just Muslims, but also the “fellow travelers” who complained or resisted. A bucketful of fear doused her anger and left her pressing her knees together so Symonds couldn’t see them shake.
Symonds narrowed his eyes. “Mrs. Ojeda.” He pitched his voice low enough that she had to lean forward to hear him clearly. “I’ve told you this so you understand you have no power at all in this situation. Do you understand?”
Even though it killed her to do it, Bel nodded once.
“Very good. All this is a huge headache, you can probably imagine that. The Bureau can be very accommodating if you’re innocent bystanders and you cooperate with us. What I’m saying is, you can make this go away by answering one simple question.” He leaned toward her. “Where is your husband, Mrs. Ojeda?”
She’d been waiting for that. Give up her husband—the man she’d loved for twenty-three years—and life would go on. But even if she’d consider this deal—which she wouldn’t—she couldn’t do what Symonds wanted. She could only tell this man the truth. “I have no ide
a where he is now.”
Symonds fell back into his chair and let out a disappointed sigh. He shook his head, maybe imagining all the paperwork she was forcing on him. “The Bureau has some leeway in what to do with unindicted family members living in a seized house. If you cooperate, we can let you stay pending resolution of the case. If you don’t, well, eviction is so easy these days. Since you’re all material witnesses, though, I imagine it’s simply easier to take you into custody. For your own protection, of course. Once people learn your husband is harboring a wanted terrorist, it’s hard telling what they’ll do, isn’t it?”
She wished he’d yell or kick the chairs or even pull his gun on her. She could understand that, she could deal with it. She handled irate people every day at work. But this bland detachment—talking about what could happen to the ants on the sidewalk—grabbed at some dark, scary place inside her.
“The last time I knew where Lucho was,” she said, no strength left in her voice, “was when he walked out the front door yesterday morning.”
“You’ve had no contact since?”
“None.” Thank God she’d flushed the chip in her burner.
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea where he may have gone?”
“South somewhere. He could be in Mexico by now, I don’t know.” Please let that be true.
The agent shook his head. He checked his watch, then returned to Bel and parked his palms on his knees. “Mrs. Ojeda, would you be willing to contact your husband? Explain the situation to him, persuade him to turn himself in? Would you do that to save your house and your family?”
Bel’s anger roared back, hotter than ever. How could she give in to this kind of extortion? Lucho had told her Nora’s secret; the FBI was just trying to cover its own ass, and the asses of a bunch of high-up people, and the lie that put them all where they were.
She opened her mouth to hit him with this, but grabbed the words at the last moment. If he knew she knew the truth, she’d never see daylight again. She had to play along, get loose from these people, so she could try to go south again.
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