Where to Choose

by Penny Mickelbury

  Carole Ann looked through the shadows for Anthony. Other than herself, he was the only person not wearing an identifying police logo. She spied him huddled with an INS agent, the two of them standing well apart from a larger group and talking with their heads close together. Suddenly there was movement. Energy. It was time to go. She looked at the sky. There was no light on the eastern hori­zon, but the promise of dawn was in the air. The sun already was up and hot in D.C., she mused, and Jake and Valerie already were up and into the day. She and Tommy would talk to Jake later, and Tommy would talk to Valerie, and she wondered whether they both would tell of the excited dread they felt at the prospect of this new day.

  “Ready?”

  She hadn’t seen Anthony approach and was startled when he spoke. “What’s the game plan?” she asked.

  “The ground troops pull out now. The choppers’ll be here in forty- five. We’ll all reach the location at the same time.”

  Her heart was pounding so hard that she was certain he must have heard. Choppers! This was to be a full-fledged assault on the smugglers. Panic would ensue. People would be injured. Tommy was in more danger now that his emancipation was imminent than he was at the moment of his capture. Fear caused a roaring in her ears and a roiling in her intestines. How could she save Tommy under these circumstances!

  “This is not gonna be the shoot-out at the OK Corral,” Anthony said dryly, reading perfectly the emotional display on her face. “The choppers are for effect, mostly. They’ll scare the shit out of the con­traband and they won’t try to run, but they’ll also provide aerial tracking of the bad guys if they make a run for it. Nothing out there but high desert and low mountains. Anybody familiar with the area, we’d lose ’em fast.”

  She wanted to believe him but there was nothing upon which to hang an article of faith. She took a long, hard look at him. What was there to reassure her? A steadiness of the eyes and a solidity to the jaw. A proud and confident carriage of the body. Memory of a mother slain because of her courage and sense of justice. Enough courage inherited from that mother to induce him to quit a job rather than hurt the woman he now called Mother. It was nearly enough.

  “If you’re going, now’s the time,” he said, holding her gaze. “And unless everything we’ve learned about Gutierrez and Nunez and the rest is flat-out wrong, this will not be Waco revisited. These people are stupid, not violent.”

  She raised her left eyebrow at him. “The people at Waco weren’t stupid? Locking twenty-three people in a van to die of carbon monoxide poisoning isn’t violent?”

  His lips crinkled in what could have been a grin and he shook his head with what definitely was a little sigh of exasperation. “I’ll rephrase the statement, Counselor. We don’t think they have an ar­senal and we don’t think they have the stomach for a firefight.”

  She resisted the impulse to point out to him that the size and scope of the operation now in progress suggested just the opposite. Instead, she opened the passenger door to the Bronco. “I’m ready,” she said, climbing in and shutting the door firmly behind her. She still was securing her seat belt when Anthony rumbled out of the parking lot, fifth in line behind four other black four-wheel-drive ve­hicles. They drove, all of them, as if trying to outrun the dawn. De­spite the fact that she’d had virtually no sleep in the past twenty-four hours, she felt wide awake and alert. Tommy would call it wired, and indeed she felt as if tiny electrical currents were cours­ing through her being. The thought of Tommy intensified the charge. She hoped he knew that she was on her way. She hoped he knew how strongly she felt her commitment to him.

  “You’ve got time for a short nap,” Anthony said.

  Carole Ann shook her head. “It’s past time for that. In fact, it’s al­most time to wake up. Do you mind if we talk?”

  “About what?” Wariness crept into his voice and his body. She saw the imperceptible hunching of his shoulders, the tightening of his hands on the steering wheel.

  “About Gloria—Sergeant Killian—and her two children and you and how your lives have been. And why you and she risked your pro­tected witness status to help me.”

  “That last part’s easy. She met Griffin in D.C. He handled all the crap with what happened to her mother—he dealt with the cops, even spent a couple of nights there just to make sure that Ricky fool didn’t pay a return visit. And Jake Graham told her what it cost you to get protected witness status for the old lady. She’s had a stroke, you know.” He retreated deep within himself. The silence went on so long that Carole Ann assumed their conversation was finished and lapsed into her own silence. When he spoke again she jumped. “Know what she said? She’d always wanted to live in Califor­nia. She’s seventy years old and nobody ever knew she had that dream.”

  “What does she like best?”

  He laughed. “The ocean, of course. The way it sounds and the way it smells and the way it never ends. She says she can tell, stand­ing on the beach and looking toward the horizon, that the ocean never ends. She said that feeling tells her she’s finally safe.”

  Carole Ann pondered that, attempted to experience the ocean from the point of view of a seventy-year-old blind woman who’d es­caped death thanks to an error. An incorrect address. And found that she could not. “She’ll like living at Jacaranda. It’s as Cal­ifornia as the ocean.”

  “Only if she can hang out with the Wrecking Crew. She was born to mischief.”

  Carole Ann emitted a bark of laughter. “Tommy told you about them, huh?”

  “I’d like to meet them myself,” he said with a hoot of his own. “They make me almost glad Grams is blind and paralyzed on one side. Maybe instead of trying to keep up with them, she’ll slow them down.” Then he sobered suddenly. “But this is all needless and pointless wishful thinking. We’re never going to get in there, not af­ter what’s happened.”

  She felt his sadness and did not attempt to lighten the load. She allowed the silence to grow as she contemplated the imminent changes in store for Jacaranda Estates. Tommy had already told her that a new family was moving into the Asmara home. And certainly a new property manager would be hired. And, oh, God! Luisa! What would happen to Luisa’s house, for certainly she’d not be permitted to remain? Whoever the new property management entity was, he or she would most likely want to purge the place of all remnants of the reign of terror.

  “Those guys on the playground. They’re cops, right?”

  He looked sideways at her, and nodded his head.

  “And there are two undercovers living there.”

  “Yep,” he replied. “LAPD. The others are LAPD and INS.” Darkness prevented him from noticing, but her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened.

  “Then I’m sure,” she said through clenched teeth, “that the LAPD and the INS won’t mind paying for the de­struction to the playground.”

  He clearly wanted to laugh, but instinct dictated a wiser display of behavior. He said nothing. He watched the road ahead, conscious of her eyes on him, and offered a silent prayer of gratitude when the brake lights on the GMG Jimmy in front of him glowed red, off and on, three times as the driver tapped his brakes—the signal that they were nearing their destination.

  Carole Ann felt him tense and felt the Bronco lose speed as Anthony lifted his foot from the gas pedal. Since there was no vehicle behind them, he didn’t need to give the signal. A half mile or so ahead, she saw the first vehicle make a right turn off the road. She saw what looked like a barn in a field. A cloud of dust trailed the lead truck, followed by the second truck and its own dust shroud. By the time she and Anthony arrived and parked, the other sixteen officers were paired and ready to proceed. She took in their vests and their assault weapons and shuddered. For their own sakes, she hoped Anthony was right about the smugglers, hoped that they would not offer any resistance.

  As she observed them, several of the troops looked up, and as Ca­role Ann followed the direction of their gaze, she heard a dull grum­ble, like half-formed thunder. The choppers. She c
ould not tell from which direction they approached, though the assault team was look­ing north. Then everyone began moving at once. Anthony grabbed her arm and propelled her forward. Despite the fact that she was wearing lightweight sneakers and they were wearing combat boots, she had to struggle to keep up with the cops. They ran double-time in a low, bent-knee crouch. Anthony followed suit. She tried to imitate and failed, and had to settle for a bent-waist approximation. Within minutes, her nose and throat were coated with dry, powdery dust and she hacked, trying to clear it.

  She raised her head hoping to discern their destination, but she saw only an endless expanse of gray-brown, sandy soil, scrub grass, cacti, low-growing pinon trees, all eerily shadowed in the interim be­tween dark and dawn. She knew that hundreds of life-forms were moving in the dimness all around them, and she wished that she, too, wore high-top combat boots with her pants legs tucked in. Car­ole Ann loved the desert and the beings that lived in it, but she didn’t want any of them finding new lodging in her clothes. She was contemplating tucking the bottoms of her sweatpants into her socks when Anthony reached out and grabbed her arm. She stopped at the same moment as he, and she looked where he was looking. They almost were at the front door of an adobe and timber cabin so art­fully crafted that it seemed to be of the land rather than on it.

  Swift-moving shadows fanned out, in too wide an arc, she thought, merely to surround the structure, which was dark and still. Carole Ann studied it, realizing that it was one of several outbuild­ings, part of a complex much larger than she’d initially thought. This was much more than a cabin out in the middle of the desert. This was, she was beginning to recognize, an elegant, expensive, and quite extensive compound. The main building’s roof was cov­ered with gently sloping hand-crafted tiles of azure. The roof’s vary­ing heights and angles guaranteed an eternal match with the sky, whatever its mood. The sandstone-colored adobe and worn timber blended in with the earth. The entire setting was one of perfection, and Carole Ann realized that smuggling human cargo was an ex­tremely lucrative enterprise. And she guessed that this was how Pablo Gutierrez had spent a significant portion of his share of the scam.

  A sliver of light creased the eastern horizon and snaked its way to­ward them, enhancing the magic of the setting by several hundred percent. Gutierrez’s morals may have been way out of whack, but his artistic sensibilities existed on a very high plane. Not an uncom­mon occurrence, Carole Ann mused. Aesthete Thomas Jefferson bought and sold human beings and the Nazis committed unspeak­able atrocities upon human beings to the strains of classical music. The thought disgusted her and she shook her head, forcing herself to focus on the moment and what must be done. She wondered in which of the buildings the smuggled Mexicans were being held, and whether Tommy was with them. Would his proximity to them make effecting his release simpler or more difficult?

  She didn’t have time to reach a conclusion.

  The choppers had arrived. Cruising in for on-the-dime landings, the blades churning up the desert and the sound of the Bell Jet en­gines churning up the spirits of long-gone desert beings; for this must be what was meant by a sound “to raise the dead.” She resisted the urge to cover her ears, and her reward was that the noise quickly abated as the engines were cut and the passengers disembarked, joining the scurrying black-clad figures already on the ground.

  Suddenly, it seemed to Carole Ann, it was fully light. Day had ar­rived, obliterating all traces of the night. It was bright, hot, dry, and, for an instant, still. Then people began shouting, and, after several seconds, screaming. And running. The air was charged with panic and anger and fear. She could feel all those emotions and more, em­anating from those whose dreams were being so rudely deferred. From her vantage point she could see two women and a man who, after they’d run several feet from the larger of the outbuildings, qui­etly dropped to their knees. Carole Ann felt another emotion: Despair. They’d come so close to having their dreams real­ized.

  She was galvanized by the sound of a shot that came from within the building. Then she heard the sound of a car engine, followed by slamming doors and rubber racing and churning on dry dirt, seek­ing to gain traction. On her hands and knees, she crawled toward what she thought was the front of the building. The car, the low-pro­file, half-assed restoration that she’d seen parked in the alley behind Robbie’s studio, careened around the building on two wheels. Two INS agents followed on foot at a respectable trot. When they reached the clearing, they stopped, in unison, and aimed, both of them hold­ing their weapons in two hands and sighting down their arms toward the barrel. Simultaneously they squeezed off shots and the Caddy shimmied, swerved, and rolled over. The scent of burning rubber and the sound of screams contributed to the sense Carole Ann had that the situation was getting out of hand.

  Still concerned about the shot fired inside the building, she crouched low and scooted closer to the structure, flattening herself on the ground when she reached the cover of the side of the build­ing. Feeling safe enough, she turned to catch a broader glimpse of the action away from the building. The overturned Caddy now was surrounded by INS agents and LAPD cops, who were pulling two men from it. Judging from their lack of gentleness, Carole Ann assumed that the would-be escapees were not seriously injured. Toward the rear of the building, toward open desert and the moun­tains, several agents stood guard over perhaps a dozen men and women who were spread-eagle on the ground. Sickened by the sight, she turned away and began inching her way around the building to the door from which all the people had run. When she reached the corner, she peeked around. Two LAPD cops stood several feet away.

  She snatched herself back before they saw her, and wondered how long she’d have to wait for them to find something more challenging to do. Not long, the sound of running feet told her, and when she peered around the building’s corner again, the two cops were chas­ing two men who had a twenty-yard head start. Crawling on her hands and knees, Carole Ann rounded the building, then quickly stood and approached the door. She opened it slowly, carefully.

  The odor inside was foul—the smell of perspiration and dirty clothes and dirty bodies and unwashed hair. And fear. There was no furniture in the large, square main room. Mats and cots were lined against the walls, all empty. Three doorways led off the room and she approached them in order. The first opened onto a kitchen of brick and tile and timber and a fireplace, occupying half a wall that should have exuded warmth and comfort but did not. The room contained no appliances. A dozen Styrofoam chests lined one wall and bags of paper plates, cups, and napkins were piled on the coun­tertops.

  Not wanting to see more, Carole Ann backed out of the kitchen and approached the second door and pushed it open. The odor that emanated told her it was the bathroom and she quickly pulled it shut. One toilet for two dozen frightened people. At the third door there was a short hallway and in it, a puddle of blood on the floor. Nausea rose in her throat and she pushed it back down as she stepped over the blood and to the door. She stood listening and heard nothing. She gripped the latch, lowered it, and pushed the door open as she leaned her body away from it. Then she peered in­side. A trail of blood led to Tommy Griffin, propped in a sitting posi­tion against the wall, eyes flickering open and shut, but not seeming to focus.

  She rushed to him, knelt down, and embraced him. He groaned and she uttered a cry of relief. His left shoulder was oozing blood; a quick check revealed a bullet hole in the soft flesh beneath his shoulder and no other wounds. She pulled him upright and he groaned again and opened his eyes and struggled to have them focus.

  “Fish,” she whispered. “Fish. I’m going to get some help.”

  He grabbed her hand with frightening strength. “Don’t,” he man­aged through lips that barely moved. His eyes fluttered and his mouth opened and closed but no other sound came out. Then his head dropped to his chest. She quickly untied her sneakers and re­moved them and her socks, which she folded into a pad and pressed against his wound. She then removed the shoestrings, tied them
to­gether end to end, and bound the makeshift bandage under his arm and around his chest. When she pulled him toward her, he did not groan and she didn’t know whether or not that was a good sign; only that he was not conscious.

  “Fish!” she whispered into his ear, gently tapping both sides of his face. “Fish! Wake up now. Come on, Fish! Don’t fade on me!” She brought his head forward into her embrace and held him tightly.

  He groaned. “C.A.? You?”

  “Yes, it’s me. And we’ve got to get you up and out of here.” But she didn’t know how she’d get him up and she didn’t know why, but she didn’t feel that leaving him was a good idea. Why not? It would be for seconds, a minute at the most. There was a small army outside the door. She’d run to the door, yell for help, and return im­mediately to Tommy.

  “C...C...” He tried and failed to say her name. His eyes rolled back and his head flopped down, chin on chest. The two socks, fold­ed together into a thick pad, were saturated with blood.

  Carole Ann jumped to her feet and ran out of the room, almost tripping and falling as she remembered too late about the pool of blood in the hallway. She slid in it and stumbled and as she caught herself, she thought she detected movement in the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar, she could smell it. She thought she’d closed it, but she’d been so intent on getting away from that stench that per­haps she hadn’t. And anyway, it didn’t matter. She sprinted across the wide room and to the door and rushed out into the yard, looking for help. There was no one. She dashed around the side of the build­ing. The Caddy now was upright and listing toward the passenger side, a function, no doubt, of the tires having been shot out, but the INS agents who had disabled it were not in sight.