She squeezed Hope a little tighter.
“Mommy, you’re hurting me.”
“Sorry, I’m sorry.”
One minute.
Nora stuck her right hand into her purse, wrapped it around her pistol’s grip. She had no problem shooting a dog, none. She just hoped she could put it down before the thing ripped out her throat.
“How about now?” the captain yelled.
“Hold on.” Dog Cop fiddled with his field reader, thumbed it off and on, waited for it to reboot. “Nope.”
Just FIX the damn thing!
The analyzer peeped. The flashing green light on the control panel burned a hole in Nora’s vision. A cold dog nose snuffled at her leg. “Officer?” she said to the cop on the stool. “I think my test is done? Could you check, please?”
Once again he climbed off his stool, then paced to the analyzer. He prodded the screen with a thick finger, leaned closer to read the red and blue bar charts and callouts. “Hey, Cap’n, she passed the test. Can she go?”
Nora felt her knees turn to rubber bands. Passed. She picked Hope off the counter, sidestepped the dog (his eyes said, “Dinner and a snack?”), called out, “Thank you, Captain!”
“What?”
“She passed. Can she go?” The cop squinted at the captain’s computer. “You got an alert, too.”
“Uh, yeah, let her go. What’s the alert?”
Dog Cop held the door open for Nora as she hurried out. She looked right, found the Santana parked at the compound’s north end, flashers on. She hitched up Hope, said, “Put your arms around my neck, Cupcake,” and quick-stepped toward the car as fast as she could without turning an ankle on the damn shoes.
“Miss?” The voice behind her sounded like Dog Cop. “Miss, could you come back?”
The alert. They’d identified her. She wound up into a trot, wished she had some sensible shoes.
“Mommy, slow down! I can’t hang on!”
“I can’t slow down,” she gasped. Hope weighed a ton and Nora was already off-balance.
“Halt! Put down the child and show me your hands! Now!”
She kicked off her shoes, yanked up her skirt and started to run. The asphalt seared the soles of her feet. Don’t look back don’t stop don’t slow down go go go…
A shot. She ducked around an outbuilding. Her shoulders ached as if they were about to come apart, her arms burned with Hope’s weight, her feet were on fire. Hope screamed and cried and clung to Nora’s neck so hard, Nora started to see stars. An alarm moaned to life behind her, the first note of what sounded like an air-raid siren.
Ten yards to the car. Luis stood in the open driver’s door, gun in one hand, waving her forward. She focused on the open back door, dark like a cave, shelter, safety. Go.
Another shot, yelling, running feet. The dog booming. Is it chasing me?
In the car.
Luis hit the gas before she could close the door, which slammed shut when the car surged forward, tires screaming and smoking. Hope’s crying filled the cabin. Nora tried to soothe her with one hand, strapped herself in with the other. Child in one hand, gun in the other.
“You okay?” Luis said over his shoulder.
“Fine.” Nora lowered her window, stuck her head out, and lost the last of her breakfast.
50
One of the many ironies of America’s current economic situation is that a great number of its Red Indian tribes are now materially better off than their non-indigenous neighbours… With economic power has come a new willingness to aggressively exercise their sovereignty, as they eject non-aboriginal service providers and become in fact the mini-states established by treaty in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
— “United States: Native Uprising,” Economist.com
SUNDAY, 16 MAY
Luis could see flashing light bars in the rear-view as he roared past the southernmost trailer park. A couple miles to the checkpoint at the main entrance to the reservation, and the Santana was nudging eighty. They might make it to the tollbooth.
He caught Nora’s eyes in the mirror. She crushed a crying Hope against her body with both arms. Luis didn’t know whether he ought to be impressed by her guts for walking into that trap, or be pissed that she’d blown cover and signaled to the entire border where they were. He’d figure it out when he got a moment. “Change,” he barked.
“Into what?”
“Something else that makes you look female. Switch wigs, lose the nose and chin.”
“I’ll look like myself.”
“We’ll deal. Just don’t be the woman on the cameras back there.”
They charged through more desert, then passed the second trailer park. He saw Nora lock Hope into a seat belt, then haul her backpack onto the seat and start to pull out clothes.
“What happened?”
“They got an alert on me. On Hope, I guess, just as I was leaving.”
“You got the IDs back?”
“Mine’s still in the reader back there. Paul has Hope’s.”
“Oh, great. Hope’s backpack?”
“In the office.”
“And you were on camera for a good fifteen minutes.”
“Forget the cameras, they have my DNA. I had to prove I’m Hope’s mother.”
“Ay, chingado.” Luis shook his head. The only way it could’ve worked out worse was if she’d killed a cop. “You didn’t shoot anybody, right?”
“No.” She pointed to the rear-view. “Could you turn that away?”
Luis wrenched up the mirror so it filled with headliner. “I’m too busy to perv on you right now,” he growled.
They flew across a canal and into the gentle rise leading to I-8. Sand berms blurred by to their right, and the tan-stucco-and-tile casino grew fast at their ten o’clock. The flashing lights disappeared behind a corner.
Luis spied the wide driveway to the left, stomped the brakes and wrenched the wheel. The car drifted with the scream of rubber over a small rise—Nora and Hope both squawked as the car went airborne—and into the ocean of asphalt surrounding the casino. Just as Luis stuffed the car into an empty spot in a full section of parking, the two CBP vehicles charged past the driveway on their way to the bridge over I-8.
Nothing but the ticking of hot metal broke the silence for a moment. Then Nora said, “A little warning?”
Luis started to look back, but glimpsed her clutching something bright pink to her chest and stopped. “Just get dressed.”
“Are we going inside?”
“No. We can’t stay long. They’ll figure out we’re not on the highway and come looking for us.” Luis grabbed his binoculars from the glove box and scoped the tops of the nearest three light poles. No visible cameras; a lucky break. He pushed open the door. “Back in a second.”
The heat seared his nostrils. He swept the lot with his binoculars until he found the white casino security mini-SUV, cruising two aisles away. Beyond the lot’s far north edge, perhaps a hundred yards off, he watched a black-and-white California Highway Patrol car roll up the offramp, its light bar blinking red and blue. The roadblock, building up.
Luis dropped back into the driver’s seat, jacked his burner into the car’s data console. The Cartel’s license-plate app appeared on the phone’s screen. It had been years since he’d last switched states on the e-plates, and it’d been a pain in the ass. With one eye on Security and the other on the phone, he managed to find the right menu, selected “Arizona,” and searched for a pewter Santana within a year or two of this one. The “Searching…” notice pulsed endlessly.
He found casino security again—in the next row over, moving faster than he liked. “Come on,” he grumbled at his phone. “You slow son-of-a-bitch.”
“What are you doing?” Nora asked.
“Changing the plates.”
An Arizona number appeared on the screen. He confirmed it, then lurched outside and hurried to the car’s nose. Last time he did this, the app hadn’t replaced the front California tag. It hadn�
��t this time, either. Come on…
He sensed movement behind him. A white SUV with a flashing blue-and-white light bar eased down the driveway.
CBP was on the scene.
Luis kicked a rock into the aisle. Why couldn’t those tontos come a couple minutes from now? Why did Hope have to run? Once he got that out of his system, his analytical mind shoved its way forward and started throwing off ideas for getting past the roadblock. He didn’t like any of them, but he’d have to settle for the least-bad solution.
Security trundled down the next aisle over. Luis had a couple minutes to act, no more. He rapped on the left rear window.
It whirred down, revealing Nora’s anxious face. Her hands gripped the top of the door. She’d changed into a lipstick-pink tank top, jeans and the black version of her blond wig. “What’s happening?”
“CBP’s here. Get out, you and Hope are going in the trunk.”
“We’ll fry!”
“It won’t be that long. They’re looking for a guy, a gal and a kid. I wasn’t on camera. You and Hope need to disappear. Get out.”
Nora closed her eyes, sighed, then nodded. She leaned to her right—“Come on, Cupcake, we’re going to play hide-and-seek”—then turned back to him. “Are we clear?”
Security’s flashing yellow light rounded the corner at the end of the next aisle, heading for this one. CBP’s blue-and-white lights blinked their way down the next aisle on the other side. “We’re clear. Move.”
He helped Nora into the trunk while keeping an eye on the lights. Hope squirmed and kicked when he picked her up, wrenching his crippled shoulder. “No! I don’t wanna go in there!”
Nora reached up to grab one of Hope’s flailing legs. “Raja! Behave!”
Hope froze, her eyes growing huge. Luis handed the girl to Nora, dropped Nora’s backpack next to his, rearranged the flats of bottled water and their weapons and tactical gear to make more room, then eased shut the trunk.
Security swung into the end of his aisle.
Go slow, Luis told himself. Fast means guilty. But slow meant Nora and Hope would roast in the trunk. In this heat, dogs and kids left in a car could die in a few minutes.
He strolled to the car’s nose, ready to break the LCD screen if he had to. The white-and-blue California license plate was gone, replaced by the red-gold-blue Arizona sunset design. He let out his held breath, wiped his forehead on his sleeve.
Once he started the car, he did a quick sweep for anything that said “woman” or “little girl.” The blond wig peeked out from under the passenger’s seat. Luis cursed, shoved it farther under cover. He backed into the aisle at walking speed. In the rear-view, he caught a quick red flash—Security’s laser scanner, swiping his plate. Luis hesitated a moment, then pulled away.
No siren, no chase.
Breathing again, Luis steered out onto State 186. Up ahead at the mouth of the overpass, he could already see the flashing lights of the other CBP vehicle and the CHP cruiser. Waiting.
A muffled little-girl shriek leaked out through the back seat. Luis yelled, “Quiet back there!” He unbuttoned his shirt as he approached the roadblock, slipped on his old CBP ball cap. His palms poured sweat like faucets. Chill. Be the rock.
The CBP trooper waved him down. When the trooper edged his way to the Santana’s driver’s door, Luis lowered his window and held out his fake ID. “Hey, mon, what’s happening?” He threw a little cholo rumble into his voice.
The trooper ignored the ID, peered into the car. He gestured to the window behind Luis. “Open that.” Luis did as he was told. The CBP guy scoped the back for a lot longer than an empty seat needed. Did he see the wig? Did something else roll out on the floor?
Then the CBP guy slid to the car’s rear, glanced down. Luis’ shirt felt like he’d been swimming in it. One sound, one thump out of Nora or Hope…
The trooper paced back to Luis’ window. “Where did you come from just now?”
“The casino, mon. Won some bucks.”
“Where are you going?”
“Winterhaven, mon.” Luis gave the man his best hazy smile. “Temptations, you know?” The local strip club.
“I know it.” The CBP guy stared at Luis’ sunglasses and cap for a few moments, then shook his head. “All right, move on.” He waved at the CHP unit, which backed up enough to leave a car-sized gap to drive through.
Yes! Luis flicked a salute to the trooper. “Sure thing, mon.”
He drove the mile to the reservation’s toll crossing at the maddeningly slow speed limit, paying more attention to the mirror than the windshield. Nobody followed. The horizon danced in the heat blazing off the desert. The data screen on the dash said the temperature was 109. “How you guys doing?” he yelled.
“Just get us out of here,” Nora pleaded. Her voice was thin, with an edge of desperation.
“Hang on, almost there.”
A teenaged Quechan in a Lakers jersey took the ten-dollar bill from Luis’ outstretched hand without bothering to look at his face. The kid waved him across the two-lane bridge over the American Canal, the only swatch of blue or green in sight.
Luis rolled through a few minutes of rocky desert and creosote before he pulled onto the dirt shoulder. Only the rattle of light breeze in the brush and the rumor of I-8 to the south broke the silence. He threw open the trunk lid, hoping not to find fried people.
Nora glared up at him. She’d pulled off her wig and was soaked from the waist up, surrounded by a half-dozen empty water bottles. Poor Hope looked like a drowned kitten.
“That wasn’t fun,” Hope said, frowning at Luis.
“No, it wasn’t.” He helped both the women out of the trunk.
“Let’s not do that again, okay?” Nora said. She peeled the tank top away from her body and flapped the bottom to get some airflow. “Are we safe here?”
Luis opened Nora’s backpack and pulled out the wadded-up sundress. “Sort of. We’re on tribal land. They hate ICE and CBP, so any cooperation is gonna come slow and hard. We’re both the right color to be here, not like down the road in Arizona. We’re good for a little while. Grab the wig from inside?”
Nora fetched the wig, holding it like a dead animal. “Now what?”
“Now we do what I didn’t want—we try to go overland with her.” He nodded toward Hope, walking in circles a few feet away with her arms flapping like wings. “That’s all we can do now. We’ll never get close to another crossing.” Nora turned her eyes away from him. “I know a place. There’s a flat part and a mountain part. Depending on how lucky we are, we may be able to cross over the flat part.”
“Okay.”
“Two problems. We have to go into Arizona to get there.” Nora grimaced. “Second, it’ll take us into Sonora.”
“So?”
“Godawful desert, for one thing. But worse, it’s Zetaland.”
Nora shook her head wearily. “There’s noplace else we can go?”
“Just you and me? Sure. With her? This is the closest place where we have a prayer of getting across even semi-easily without having to climb a wall or do any mountaineering. It doesn’t get any better farther east, and the California border’s been locked up for years.”
“Mommy?” Hope peeped. “What’s Zetaland? Are there rides?”
Nora gave the girl a faded smile. “No, Cupcake, it’s not like that. It’s not a nice place.”
“Oh.” Hope squirmed. “I hafta go potty.”
“Okay.” Nora sighed and aimed a tired look at Luis. “Any bathrooms near here?” Luis pointed to a mound of sagebrush a few yards away. “Right. Do you have any tissues?”
“Napkins, in the glove box.”
Once mother and daughter disappeared behind the weeds, Luis shoveled the dress and wig into an orange trash bag in a pile at the shoulder’s edge. Then he slid his burner out of his shirt pocket, inserted the battery and checked for messages. None. Four calls to Beto, four messages, and nothing back but silence. Paul hadn’t answered Luis’ call, eithe
r. Going on ninety minutes since Paul and Peter busted across the border and no word from anyone. What happened? The FBI and DEA launched cross-border raids without warning the Mexican police. Did the Feds get them?
Worse yet: did the Zetas get them? If so, how did they know where to find them?
One disaster at a time, Luis told himself. He didn’t want to think about the implications.
If the Zetas could find Paul, they could find Nora, too.
51
…However, international attention has yet to turn to the fates of over 5,000 Catholics, Episcopalians and American Friends (Quakers) held in federal prison camps as a result of their work in the Sanctuary movement…Pope Matthew continues to engage the U.S. Government to gain the release of these prisoners of conscience despite the rupture of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Vatican, which the President has referred to in fundraising events as the “whore of Babylon.”
— “Seeking Shelter for Sanctuary,” CommonwealMagazine.org
SUNDAY, 16 MAY
The supermarket-sized thrift store hunkered in an older part of Yuma—not that there were many newer parts—surrounded by faded, half-empty single-story commercial buildings. Luis surveyed the cars in the parking lot: old, sad, coated with desert sand, none of them cops.
They’d jounced over farm roads and a sagging bridge to get into Yuma without having to deal with the Arizona Highway Patrol roadblocks. Nora, now revived after two Quarter Pounders, a large fry and an iced tea half as big as she was, had pointed out that Hope would need something better than a tee shirt and shorts to wear on the crossing. As much as Luis didn’t want any contact with the locals, he had to agree. He’d followed Nora’s directions via MapQuest, scrupulously following the speed limits and traffic lights. The local cops wouldn’t be able to see them through the Santana’s tinted glass to pull them over for driving while brown, but a bullshit speeding stop could turn into a disaster.
The lettering on the thrift store’s front windows spelled out for Luis the kind of trouble they’d find inside. “I think we need to move on.”
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