by Don Easton
“They’re bosses. I guess they do what they’re supposed to do,” he added begrudgingly. “Now I’ll take you to the Cactus Sunset.”
The Cactus Sunset was appropriately named. It was a two-storey building with ten rooms on each level on the edge of the desert. Adams pulled into the parking lot and asked, “Do you want to talk to the manager?”
“No, the FBI have already done that, along with searching the room. I want to get out and walk around the back to see what’s there.”
Adams joined Jack and they strolled around to the back of the motel. There was nothing to see but sagebrush, cactus, and sand dunes.
Jack walked up the closest sand dune and looked. The view didn’t change. “Okay, I’ve seen enough,” he said, looking back at Adams, who had remained at the back of the motel, watching him. “Didn’t know what I was hoping to find, anyway. I think I just wanted to get a feel for the place … and its surroundings.”
They returned to the car and headed out on the highway toward the Armadillo Motel. They drove in silence for about a mile when Adams hit the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road.
Jack looked around and saw there were no other vehicles in sight. “What is it?” he asked.
Adams pointed far out into the desert.
Jack didn’t see anything at first. Then some dots circling high in the air caught his attention and he felt his heart sink. Vultures …
chapter twenty-two
* * *
For twenty-five minutes, Adams slowly drove and wound his way around clusters of cactus and small sand dunes. In a pickup truck, the trip could have been done rapidly, but the Camaro was built close to the ground and was not meant for off-road driving.
Eventually they came upon two sets of tire tracks from a pickup truck that had tandem rear tires. It appeared the truck had driven in the same direction as the vultures were and then had doubled back.
“Let’s walk from here,” suggested Adams. “This might be a crime scene. I don’t want to drive over anything.”
Jack nodded in agreement as two vultures swooped down from the sky and disappeared out of sight in front of them. He guessed they were only about a ten-minute walk farther ahead.
Both men walked beside the tracks until they came upon a deep ravine. Marks in the sand showed where the truck had turned around and backed up to the ravine.
Jack peered over the edge. Part way down the slope was a large flock of vultures jostling each other for space as they fought for room, while other vultures flew overhead or perched on nearby rocks to await their turn.
Jack saw a limb sticking out of the feeding frenzy. Is it a leg or an arm? He swallowed to try and keep his lunch down and watched as Adams picked up a rock and tossed it toward the vultures.
The vultures were not overly intimidated by the rock, but a few did leap away long enough for them to glimpse the carcass strewn open with its ribcage exposed.
“Just a cow or a steer,” said Adams, as he turned and walked away.
Jack took a deep breath. He was relieved they hadn’t found Lily Rae, but the sight of the vultures sickened him when he thought of what might have become of her. He looked around at the horizon and was glad he didn’t see any other signs of vultures.
On their way back to the car, Adams asked, “Have you got that map you were talking about?”
Jack handed him his notebook with the roughly drawn map.
“EP-W-CR14-12-U-L,” said Adams aloud as he looked at the map. “Then a bunch of dotted lines leading out to an X mark.”
“There were more of a hodgepodge of other short lines near the one with the X,” said Jack. “I didn’t have time to copy them all down.”
“You didn’t have time?” questioned Adams. “I had presumed your … delicate situation meant you were protecting a CI.”
“I strongly believe in protecting my informants,” replied Jack, “but in this case, that is not what I meant. Do you have any ideas?”
“I would take a guess and say the EP means El Paso … and west of El Paso is an intersection to the start of county road number 14.”
“We’re west of El Paso. Is it close to here?”
“Not far. It’s slightly south of the highway we’re on. Incidentally, to get to Country Road 14 from El Paso you generally drive past a casino called the Sunland Park.”
“Which means the casino wouldn’t be all that far from the Cactus Sunset Motel where Porter moved before the Mexicans found him.”
“Same general area. My guess is these directions mean twelve miles up Country Road 14. I don’t know what the U-L is. Maybe the L is left. Let’s take a look. It could be out along the border someplace. Maybe another trail into Mexico.”
“Into Mexico?”
“Yeah, there are quite a few of them. Places are always popping up that the illegals use to enter into El Paso every day to work. Mind you, this seems a little far out for that. The other lines you mentioned … it’s hillier out there. Those could be hills or big sand dunes. Maybe the trailer is hidden amongst them.”
“Okay to try and find it?”
“Yeah, can do. We’re only fifteen minutes away from The Armadillo Motel. Want to swing past it first to see what it’s like? Then head up Country Road 14?”
“Sounds good.”
A few miles farther outside the city, a faded sign portraying the image of an armadillo hung in front of a single-storey row of motel rooms.
“Is that a rat or an armadillo?” asked Jack as they drove past.
“The one on the sign is an armadillo. The rats will be inside the place out of the heat.”
Jack glanced around. There was not another building in sight and the land was flat. “I feel like I’m in Saskatchewan on the hottest day of the year,” he said. “Except the wheat fields have been replaced by sand and cacti.”
“You want the air turned up?”
“It’s high enough. Air conditioners usually give me a cold.”
“Know what ya mean. Normally I prefer to suck on a cold beer.”
“Got one?”
“No, I figured you Mounties had a reputation for being goody-two-shoes type of guys. Never swear, never tell a lie … follow the letter of the law.”
“Yeah, that would be me.”
Approximately five minutes down the road, they spotted a side road partially obscured by bushes.
“Could put a cover team in there,” suggested Jack.
“Yeah, but it is still about five minutes away. A lot can happen to a guy in five minutes.”
“I know, but I’ll have you and a policewoman. That’s more than I’ve had other times.”
“Your funeral.”
“I know,” said Jack, quietly.
“Glad you know,” said Adams abruptly. “Let’s check out your map.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Adams turned at a T-intersection where a sign indicated they were turning on to Country Road 14.
“I’ll let you know when we’re about twelve miles along,” said Adams. “Keep your eye open for that U on the map.”
At around twelve miles, Adams slowed the car down, but there was nothing to see except sand dunes or the odd shack. Adams drove for another two miles before turning around and driving back.
“That has to be it,” said Jack, minutes later, pointing to a sun-bleached skull of a long-horned steer. It had been nailed to a fencepost from which a rusted gate hung open on one hinge. The nose of the skull had deteriorated in the sun and it was missing one horn.
“That skull is your U you think? How do you figure?”
“Bet it used to have two horns. Using your imagination … it could be a U.”
“Yeah … maybe. Doesn’t look like any recent vehicle tracks on the other side of the gate,” noted Adams. “Still, with wind and sand, things disappear pretty quick. Okay, we’ll take a look and see where it leads.”
They drove through the desert as the trail wound in and around sand dunes and over hills. The Camaro periodically bottomed out
in the sand and there were several occasions when both men feared the car would get stuck, but Adams was able to continue on.
“Christ, at this point I don’t know if we’re still in Texas or if we’re in Mexico,” said Adams with a worried look on his face as he glanced at Jack.
“I don’t care. Let’s keep going,” replied Jack.
Moments later, they saw the roof of a mobile home sticking up from the far side of a sand dune.
“It’s about time,” breathed Adams with relief as he stepped on the throttle to give the car an extra boost along the trail leading over the dune.
The engine roared as the tires spun through the sand and the car burst over the top of the dune and slid down the other side.
“Oh, fuck,” said Adams under his breath, while instinctively reaching for the gun in the holster on his belt.
chapter twenty-three
* * *
District Attorney White took the call and recognized Davidson’s voice immediately.
“You wouldn’t believe it,” said Davidson with a chuckle.
“Believe what?”
“The Mountie from Canada arrived this morning. Adams picked him up and we all went for lunch and then left them alone. Talk about two peas in a pod! I’m on my other phone to one of our people doing the listening. They’ve only been alone together a couple of hours and sounds like they are already doing something they shouldn’t be.”
“What are they doing?”
“The Mountie had some map they were following.”
“I don’t remember reading about that … just a minute,” said White, reaching for a file folder.
“Don’t bother looking. The Mountie didn’t mention it in any report and said he didn’t want people knowing about it. Hang on, I’m talking in two phones at once here. I’ve got the guy listening to the bug on my cellphone … He just told me it sounds like the two of them may have driven into Mexico.”
“Christ, that didn’t take long. Where in Mexico?”
“We’re not tailing them. Adams would spot that pretty quick.”
“I know. I meant a satellite tracker.”
“We, uh, the four of us here talked about that. The only ones we have are being used on more important targets.”
“I see,” replied White. He thought of Davidson’s comment after they first interviewed Adams. White wondered if the agency would move Adams in case the cartel would murder him. Davidson’s reply had been, ‘That would save everyone a lot of embarrassment.’
“Anyway, this whole thing could be wrapped up in minutes,” continued Davidson.
“They’re talking?”
“No, I don’t mean that. Something is going on. Adams’s voice has gone up a couple of octaves. He’s not a guy who gets scared easily. Hang on, my other phone … sounds like they’re in deep trouble. Maybe about to be grabbed … not sure yet. Talk of guys pulling rifles on them. They’re out of the car … I better call you back.”
Unaware that Adams was reaching for his pistol, Jack looked at the scene before them as their car slid to a stop in the sand. The collection of other short lines he had seen on Slater’s map he now knew represented other house trailers. There were a dozen of them scattered like pick-up sticks around a small road paved with blacktop.
Half the trailers had trucks and SUVs parked beside them. There were no cars except the one he and Adams were in and it was attracting attention. Several men from different trailers had stepped out and were gesturing in their direction.
Jack could not see past some sand dunes to know where the blacktop road went, but it ended abruptly near where they had arrived.
“Look at all the skid marks at the end of the road,” noted Jack. “Kids must be drag racing out here.”
“Those aren’t from kids,” replied Adams tersely, holding his pistol in his lap. “It’s from light aircraft landing. We just drove into the middle of a drug dropoff zone.”
“Oh, shit,” said Jack under his breath, feeling very stupid. It hadn’t occurred to him a smuggler’s drug dropoff site would be this big and include a paved runway.
To the right of their car and close to where the runway ended, sat a Mexican on a large cooler under a wooden lean-to. The man was fat, unshaven, and reminded Jack of a bad guy out of an old Mexican Western movie. The man’s thick black eyebrows knotted together as he stared at them suspiciously.
“Damn it, the two guys over by that black pickup were hauling a table out of the trailer. Now they put it down and are grabbing rifles out of the cab,” warned Adams, with a nod of his head in the opposite direction.
Jack looked past Adams out the driver’s window and saw two men. Both had dark scowls on their faces and held their rifles at waist height as they started to approach. Jack estimated if the two men continued to walk, they would reach their car in about a minute.
“Take my gun while I try to drive us the fuck out of here!” said Adams.
“Keep it,” replied Jack. “We’d never make it with what you’re driving, anyway,” he added as he opened the car door and stepped out.
“What are you doing? Get back in here!”
“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” he added, as he closed the door.
“What the fuck …” He glanced back at the two men approaching. Using a pistol to go against two guys with rifles at this distance wouldn’t be ruled an act of self defence, it would be classified as suicide …
Adams quickly got out of the car and said, “I’ll cover you.”
“No!” whispered Jack heatedly over the top of the car. “Smile and wave at the guy behind me in the lean-to. I’m going over to talk to him.”
“Him? He’s not the one with the rifles!”
“Ignore those two. Keep your back to them and act like you haven’t seen them.”
“What the fuck?” muttered Adams, feeling extremely vulnerable as he turned his back to the two men with the rifles. Is Jack hoping to take these guys by surprise? Maybe yell and have me spin around and drop them both? This ain’t fuckin’ Hollywood …
Jack did his best to casually stride over to the lean-to as though he had done it many times, although a glance back at Adams, who was watching him over the roof of the car while clenching his pistol under his shirt, made it difficult to look relaxed.
The Mexican eyed him suspiciously as he approached, but remained seated.
“Buenos dias, amigo,” said Jack.
The Mexican gave a slight grunt in response.
“Hace mucho calor hoy,” said Jack, gesturing to the sun. “Dos cervezas, por favor.”
“Si.” The Mexican stood up, opened the cooler he was sitting on, and popped the tops off of two bottles of Corona and handed them to Jack.
“Muchas gracias,” said Jack, as he paid him and then strolled back toward the car, stopping once to take a swig of beer. As he did, he noticed the two men with the rifles spoke briefly with each other and then walked back toward the trailer they had come from.
“Jesus Christ,” said Adams as they got back inside the car. “How did you know that guy was selling beer?”
“My wife says I have a gift for finding cold beer,” replied Jack, handing him a bottle, “but seeing a fat guy sitting on a cooler in the desert surrounded by dope runners … well, it doesn’t take much logic to know he wasn’t selling salted nuts.”
Adams breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Okay, let’s see if they’ll let us slowly drive away. The guys with the rifles are still staring at us.”
“Not yet. Sit for a second and enjoy the beer. As you do, take a look around. My guess is the trailer marked with the X is that one straight ahead of us with the door facing the runway … the one where the wind has made a small sand dune in the driveway. What do you think?”
Adams gulped down half his beer as his eyes scanned the different trailers. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“It looks abandoned. In fact, half the trailers do. I think they’re clearing out. Let’s take a look inside. It will also mak
e it look like we belong here.”
“Good point,” replied Adams apprehensively, with a quick glance back to the two men who were now putting the rifles back in the cab of the truck.
Moments later, Adams parked beside the trailer. “We don’t have a warrant, but if it’s unlocked we can say it was abandoned and go in,” he said.
Jack gave Adams a sideways glance. A warrant? You really don’t trust me …
They each got out of the car and Adams was the first to reach the door. “Shit, it’s locked,” he said, glancing nervously back.
Jack glanced around, as well. For the moment, nobody was staring at them.
“At least I don’t smell a body,” Adams noted.
Jack nodded, but didn’t know whether to feel happy or nauseous at the comment.
“Hang on, I’m going around back to see if I can see in,” said Adams.
Jack waited a moment before peeking behind the trailer. He saw Adams checking all the windows at the back of the trailer, hoping to find one that wasn’t locked. Jack grinned to himself. So he isn’t averse to breaking in …
Jack went back to the front door and took out his wallet. In it he kept a small set of lock picks. It took him less than ten seconds to unlock the door. He then opened it and said loudly, “What? Did you say come in?”
Adams scrambled around to the front of the trailer and his jaw dropped when he saw Jack holding the door open.
“I’m not sure,” said Jack. “I think I heard someone say to come in.”
Adams looked at Jack and then hurried past him into the trailer. Once they were both inside Adams turned to Jack and said, “It was locked. I know it was. There’s nobody here …”
Jack flashed him the lock picks.
Adams stared at him for a moment and said, “So this is what you mean when you say you obtain something through a delicate situation.”
“Sometimes,” admitted Jack.
“It didn’t take you long to pick,” noted Adams. “Can you do that with all locks?”