South

by Lance Charnes

  “I did. Slick move, burning the brush like that.” And in a way it impressed him, at least a little. Ojeda dreamed up a plan and made it work when most folks would be crapping their shorts. “Where are you? We still have an agreement, amigo. I can come get your new girlfriend in a few hours, take her off your hands for you.”

  “Making deals with you guys hasn’t gone so well. Question: who has Tavo?”

  That didn’t make a lot of sense, and McGinley had to stop to think on it for a few seconds. “The Zetas do. One of my snitches sold me some bullshit about a double, but—”

  “Are you sure?” Ojeda’s voice sounded like he had a burr under his saddle. “The FBI suddenly knows a lot about the Nortes. They just knocked over the Cartel’s safe houses. Haven’t touched them for years far as I know, now they go after a bunch of them. Did they raid Zeta safe houses too? Also, they found out about me and Nora a few days after Tavo got snatched. Hardly anybody knew about that—Ray, me, and Tavo. Does the Bureau have him? If they don’t, how are they getting this intel?”

  McGinley leaned back into his seat, let this roam through his mind while he watched the drilling rigs in the lake-flat Pacific a couple miles offshore. The picture of the dead runners from Barstow, the Feebs stiff-arming him about Casillas, the sudden discovery of a “terrorist” right in their own HQ. True, the Feebs were plugged into the NSA and their own ungodly mess of surveillance and wiretaps and what all. But the timing…the timing was a skosh too convenient.

  “What do you want from me, Ojeda?”

  Something big and diesel rumbled through Ojeda’s end of the line. He was outside by a road, not that knowing that meant a damn thing. “Get answers to my questions. You want to know what they’re up to, I know you do. Make us both happy. I’ll call back in a few hours. They’re pushing me into a corner, McGinley. Me and Nora can just disappear.”

  That slick bastard. The hell of it was, he was right. McGinley wanted to know what kind of game the Feebs were playing. He and Ojeda maybe had more in common than he’d thought.

  60

  SafeTrax offers a full line of implantable GPS tracking chips that are completely safe for use in humans. Imagine the peace of mind knowing that by using a simple, easy-to-use app on your slate or phone, you can at any moment locate your young children or an elderly loved one to within five feet anyplace on Earth.

  — “About Our Products,” SafeTrax.com

  MONDAY, 17 MAY

  Bel strapped on the Taser and a fresh pair of latex gloves to prepare for her first round in the Pit this shift. The tracker lozenge the FBI planted between her shoulder blades itched like crazy. She finally understood why so many chipped kids showed up with their backs all torn up—it was all she could do to keep from rubbing on a doorjamb like a bear against a tree. Beyond the constant irritation, it was humiliating to be on an electronic leash like an animal or a child. All her FBI watchers would let her do was pretend that today was a normal day.

  Only half her brain focused on Out There; the other half worried about Lucho. She’d checked her burner phone as soon as she got to work and found a new text: “Ok in mexico.” Ever since, she’d fought the urge to call the number that sent the message. He might not be using it anymore, and the FBI was sure to be listening to hers. She kept the burner on. There was no way they’d be able to find it in the hundreds of cell phones in the hospital—or at least she hoped they couldn’t—and she didn’t want to miss a call from Lucho if he managed one.

  The Pit was the usual disgusting, chaotic cesspool. She’d ferried three casualties into the ED for treatment before she was even a third of the way around the waiting area. She paused at the double doors after ushering the third patient through, surveying the mob with a heavier-than-usual load of hopelessness. Would this ever get better? Would anyone ever fix this train wreck? The only answer she could believe made her want to kick a wall in.

  Flashing and movement drew her focus to the small databoard attached to the square pillar in the room’s center. Fox News had some kind of bulletin going on, not that that was anything unusual. The whirling shapes resolved into two red stripes, the one across the top of the screen blaring “TERROR ALERT.” She never made it to the bottom of the screen to see what the other one said.

  In between them was a close-up of Lucho’s face.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Bel had asked herself that once every five seconds, in between thinking “Oh, God” and trying to convince herself it was all a big mistake, which didn’t work. Now she watched Ros check the stalls in the women’s staff restroom to see if they were alone. “I don’t know.”

  Ros had towed her away from the ED doors and to the bathroom before a doctor found her channeling her inner deer-in-the-headlights. Bel had started out standing, but soon slid down the tile wall by the sinks until her butt hit the floor.

  Ros squatted in front of her and slapped a palm down on each of Bel’s kneecaps at Bel’s chin level. “Want anything? Some tranqs, maybe?”

  “No. Thanks, though.” Bel couldn’t turn off her brain, even though the idea sounded great. She had to think.

  “It’s not true, right?”

  “God, no! Lucho’s not a terrorist. It’s…oh, I don’t know. Complicated.”

  “I’ll bet.” Ros sat back on her heels. “Where is he? Have you talked to him?”

  “Not yet. He’s out of town.” He’d never felt so far away, and she’d never felt so alone. How much could she trust Ros? They were friendly, but not in a sharing-deepest-secrets way. Ros had her own agenda.

  “He’s not having an affair, is he? With that Arab—”

  “No! It’s not an affair, just business.” She failed again to get down a deep breath. “Look, Ros, thanks for getting me out of there, but you shouldn’t—”

  “Get involved?” Ros crossed her arms and snorted. “I owe you, remember? Besides, they probably already think I’m a terrorist. I’m sick of this ‘terrorist’ shit. Half the country’s a terrorist. Listen, qin, us old-timers have to stick together. The kids don’t remember how things used to be. We need to show them.”

  She had a point. Ros’ union work had probably earned her a file with some spooky agency somewhere. “I guess they think we’re both troublemakers now.”

  “No shit. Do you have somewhere to go?” Ros asked, her voice softening.

  “You mean, not home?” She could go home. She could go anywhere. She wouldn’t get far—the FBI could follow the tracker chip and haul her away any time they wanted. “There’s nowhere I can go,” she finally said. “I won’t go to your place, though. That’s like telling the cops to arrest you, too.”

  “How will they know?”

  “Because…” Bel hadn’t wanted to admit this to anyone, but Ros deserved to know if she was going to get involved. “They put a tracker on me.”

  “They chipped you?” When Bel nodded, Ros shook her head and made a disgusted noise. “Those bastards. Stand up, let me see.”

  Bel climbed to her feet, turned to face the wall. Ros hiked up the hem of Bel’s scrub top and tugged down her athletic bra’s backband. Bel felt a cool fingertip gently probe the raw lump.

  Ros let her go. “Okay, wait here. I need to go score some supplies.”

  “What for?” Bel pulled down and smoothed her top.

  “To get that thing out of you. I’ll just be a sec.”

  “Ros, no!” Bel grabbed Ros’ arm. “The FBI did this. You can’t–”

  “Fuck the FBI. You. Saved. My. Life. Last week, remember? So let me do this. You’re gonna try to get away, right?”

  Bel would be on the run sometime soon. It was an instinct, like breathing. She nodded.

  Ros pulled her arm free. “Then that tracker’s gotta go. You can carry it if you want, but at least you’ll be able to dump it when you have to.” She took Bel’s face in both her hands. “I need to fight back too, qin. For Zach. Now stay put and come up with a plan. I’ll be back in a few.”

  “Okay.” Be
l needed a plan. She hoped she’d have enough time to make one. And she prayed she’d have the courage to use it when she had to—which could be very soon.

  61

  The U.S. auto industry’s exports set another record in 2031…Led by the auto industry, U.S. manufacturing has reclaimed from China its role of “workshop to the world”… Low costs and wages, a permissive regulatory environment and unparalleled access to natural resources has drawn even Chinese automakers to open manufacturing facilities in the U.S. for export to their home market.

  — “2032 Jobs Report,” Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers

  MONDAY, 17 MAY

  The Chinese Golden Dragon bus was less than ten years old, but its suspension felt twice that. Every pothole and ridge shot straight into Nora’s tortured rear. Luckily, the highway had been maintained better than the ones up north, so they hit fewer shocks than they would in the supposed “developed world.”

  Nora and Luis filled two seats near the back of the bus on the left. Hope sat on Nora’s lap, fascinated by a landscape unlike any she’d ever seen, watching out the window as the tan hardpan and sun-broiled balls of shrubs blurred by. The rusted strip of border fence underlined the rugged tan-gray mountains visible through the windows on the other side. From time to time they’d pass a roadside shrine, white cement and faded plastic flowers marking someone’s end. Nora answered the “Mommy, what’s that?” questions without knowing much more than Hope did. Luis slumped asleep to her right, his chin doubled under his drooping head.

  They’d sold their body armor and UMPs to a man who sat in the roadhouse’s corner booth. He’d tried to trade for marijuana, then zip, but Luis managed to get money out of him after a lot of haggling in Spanish. It seemed crazy to give up that gear, but Luis explained it would only hurt them. “They sometimes stop the buses at roadblocks,” he said, an idea that still twirled Nora’s stomach. “If we have this stuff, whoever finds it will kill us right there.”

  He’d also made her put on the black wig, some makeup, an apple-green, sleeveless button-down top and dark jeans. “Aren’t we done with that?” she’d pleaded. “They don’t get Fox down here.”

  “Actually, they do,” he’d said. “I don’t know how far the net’s stretched. Where we’re going, we could walk across the border in about ten minutes. So can they. Let’s play it safe.”

  Two convoys of Humvees and armored fighting vehicles had raced past them going west in the half-hour since they’d boarded the bus. She couldn’t tell who they belonged to and it hardly mattered. They also passed through a cluster of burned-out semis, military trucks and RVs straddling the road. Now she didn’t resent the costume so much.

  The land gradually became slightly less sterile, power lines appeared, and soon they trundled down a recently repaved four-lane highway. Buildings appeared—a gas station, a junkyard, some kind of construction yard. Then the bus slowed. She peered over the seats in front of her to see a pair of dark Humvees parked in a vee across the westbound lanes. Off to the right, a white banner covered with Spanish draped a fence. She wondered if the big red “Z” at the bottom meant what she hoped it didn’t.

  Nora fell back against her seat, her heart turning over faster than the bus’ engine. A roadblock. She’d read the stories about drug gangs stopping buses and slaughtering all the passengers, leaving the bodies roadside or dumping them in some city street.

  She elbowed Luis. His head popped up, eyes blinking. He checked the view out each side before he asked, “Yeah?”

  “There’s a roadblock. We’re stopping.”

  He peeked down the center aisle, then leaned in close to her. “Zetas,” he whispered. “This is their turf now.”

  “Mommy, are we there yet?”

  Nora gave Hope a squeeze, more for her own comfort than her daughter’s. All those pictures of innocent dead Mexicans came back to haunt her. “What do we do?” she whispered.

  “Chill. They might not even come on the bus. If they do, they’ll probably be looking for mules or anyone who might be an enemy.”

  “Like us?”

  He chewed his lower lip for a few seconds, thinking. “I doubt it. I’m too old, and you have Hope.”

  The bus stopped, pulled forward a few feet, stopped again. The air brakes hissed. Nora reached under her shirttail to finger the butt of her Glock nestled in the small of her back. If these people wanted her, they’d have to fight her.

  “Why did we stop?” Hope asked.

  Nora brushed Hope’s hair off her face. “Because some men outside are looking for something.” Us? Do they know about us?

  The door opened. A man in gray tiger-stripe utility pants, body armor and a black hood trudged up the stairs, an AK-74 slung across his chest. He stopped to talk to the driver.

  Nora glanced to Luis. He still slumped in his seat, but his face had gone quiet and watchful and his eyes were locked forward.

  The hooded man edged down the aisle. His right hand curled around his rifle’s pistol grip; his left carried a slate. He’d stop, look at a passenger, hold up the slate, then move on.

  Luis leaned against her and wrapped his arm around her waist. She was about to push him away when he whispered, “Your name is Mirabel. You’re my wife. I married you in El Norte and took you to Nogales. You’re deaf, you lip-read only English. We’re going to El Centro to visit your parents. We’re on the bus so we don’t have to drive across Arizona. Got all that?”

  A legend in thirty seconds? “What about Hope?”

  “Her name’s Esperanza. She’s our daughter.”

  The hooded man had made it halfway down the aisle. His head swept left and right, pausing here and there to check his slate. He argued with a young man, dragged him out of his seat and pushed him toward the door.

  “Undo your top couple buttons.”

  “Are you crazy? What—”

  Luis clamped a hand across her mouth. “If he’s got your picture, we need to give him something else to look at. Do it.”

  Nora glanced up—the gunman was only a couple rows away now—swallowed her principles and loosened the top two buttons on her shirt. The resulting wedge of skin wouldn’t be much of a distraction, so she clamped her teeth hard, undid the next one and spread the open collar to show off her cleavage. There; if that didn’t do it, the guy was gay.

  Hope squirmed in Nora’s lap, frowned at her as she exposed herself. “Mommy—”

  Nora pressed her fingers against her daughter’s lips. “Hush,” she whispered. “Don’t say anything. Do whatever I tell you, agree with whatever I say, even if you don’t understand. Okay?” Hope scowled, but nodded. Nora kissed her. “Good girl.”

  The gunman stopped next to their row. He looked to his left at the two young women in the seats across the aisle. Luis stole a peep at the man’s slate, then cozied up to Nora and nuzzled her ear. “Your photo’s on the slate.”

  The lightning bolt she’d felt hovering over her head struck. They want me. They want to kill me. Her hand burrowed behind her back to get to her weapon, but she managed to stop it just in time. That was the fastest way to end up as part of a mass execution.

  The gunman turned. His focus fixed on her face, slid down to her chest, then slowly worked its way back up. He held up his slate so he could see both it and her face at the same time. Then he asked her a question in Spanish.

  I’m deaf. What do I do? After a moment, she cocked her head, then looked to Luis. He turned to face her and said slowly in English, “What is your name?”

  The guy spent too much time looking at his slate. She remembered the deaf girl she’d known in college and pretended her mouth was full of peanut butter. “Mirabel,” she told the gunman.

  Luis explained something to the man in Spanish while Nora looked on with genuine ignorance. She picked up the word “esposa”—wife—and place names. The gunman examined her cleavage while he listened, forcing her to turn her head away. They couldn’t afford to have this scum see the hate and fear she felt crawling into her eye
s.

  The tone of their words changed. The gunman became demanding, Luis defensive. Then a rough hand yanked her head around. She slapped it away without thinking, only to find herself face-to-face with a now-angry Zeta. Her anger fed on his. She’d blow his head off if he touched her again.

  No. That’s Nora the Terrorist talking. Give him fear. You have to play the part.

  She flooded her mind with every sad image she could scrape up—Paul and Peter hurt, Hope abused and frightened, her parents disgraced, that moment of hopelessness in the desert—and felt her eyes fill. She let her chin go floppy, clutched shut her shirt’s open throat. Then she let loose a strangled sob and pushed her face into Luis’ chest. He wrapped both arms around her and Hope and rocked them, stroking her back, strong but not hard. It was more comfortable than it ought to be. He grumbled something at the gunman that sounded like the Spanish version of “Look what you’ve done.”

  Nora had a fuzzy view of the man’s chest out of the corner of her eye. He stood there, his hands moving aimlessly, until he threw them up in frustration and stomped down the aisle toward the back of the bus. He returned a minute later, but only for a few seconds before he turned to march up the aisle toward the exit.

  The engine rumbled and the bus rolled past the roadblock.

  Once she stuffed her fear into a lockable closet, Nora pulled away from Luis, flashed him a self-conscious smile. She dabbed at her eyes with the bunched curtain next to her before she closed up her blouse.

  “Mommy, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Nora whispered. “I was just pretending to make that bad man go away.”

  “You pretend good. I thought it was for real.”

  The city grew up around them—palm trees in the median, tilt-up concrete buildings in the industrial park, the Bimbo bread distributorship (really? Bimbo?), used-car lots, junkyards, all of it with the border fence as a rusty backdrop. Nora noticed other, less homely things: lots of late-model SUVs, big pickups, Humvees and military trucks parked at major intersections, the occasional knot of soldiers or masked gunmen around a building, the burned-out shells of businesses and homes.