Birds of a Feather

by Don Easton

  “Ah,” said Rubalcava, as his eyes flickered to the end of the alley behind Jack. “John worries too much. I am sure it is nothing.”

  “But as a police commander being away from your office, does it not raise any questions?” asked Jack. “They might wonder where you are going.”

  “At this time of day it is okay. Every day I leave my office before three o’clock to pick my two sons up from school … but you have reminded me of something.” Rubalcava retrieved his business card and gave it to Jack and said, “John has a way of contacting me through his wife, but if she is not available, call me yourself if it is urgent. Please memorize the numbers. Do not get caught with this card tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry,” replied Jack. “Tomorrow I will be travelling under a false surname and anything I have, like my real wallet or notebook, I will leave in John’s office for safekeeping.”

  “That is good. So if you are in dire trouble, call me and say you were robbed by a policeman and got my number from your consulate. I will say you were probably robbed by someone pretending to be a policeman and hang up. Then I will come to this spot.”

  “Thank you,” said Jack.

  “I will also go through this alley every day at this time while you are working here, so you can meet me if you have something. I will also do it on my way to work, between eight-thirty and nine. If it is more urgent, then call me.”

  “Again, thank you. It is very much appreciated.”

  Rubalcava eyed Jack curiously for a moment and asked, “So tell me, Jack, why do you risk coming here? This is not your country.”

  Jack retrieved a picture of Lily Rae from his wallet and showed it to Rubalcava. “I promised her mother I would do everything I could to find her. You know how it is with promises. They are something that should not be made if you do not intend to keep them.”

  Rubalcava smiled. “That I understand, amigo … that I understand.” He glanced down the alley and added, “If John does not know the identities of the men Tio sends to meet you tomorrow, perhaps he can take their pictures. Maybe I will know them.”

  “Thank you. I am hoping I will learn much more when I meet Tio. I may act a bit like a tourist and bring my own camera. He might be willing to have his picture taken with me.”

  “He may feel safe enough to do that in Mexico,” noted Rubalcava.

  “Until I meet him, I do not know how long it will take to get what I want. It may take a few meetings with him to find out what happened to the girl.”

  Rubalcava stared at Jack a moment. “Out of curiosity, do you have children, too?”

  “Yes, a baby boy and another baby on the way.”

  “Ah,” replied Rubalcava as he reached out and grasped Jack’s hand with both of his and shook it. “We have something in common, you and me … besides our work. It makes us even more like brothers.”

  Jack reflected on how much more dangerous Rubalcava’s situation was. I have been in some dangerous situations, but they pale in comparison. He is walking a very high tightrope without a net. How long can he stay before a gust of wind comes …

  Adams returned and said, “It was nothing. Only a street vendor.”

  Rubalcava smiled at Jack as if to say I told you so.

  “Is this other thing still on for tonight?” asked Adams, speaking to Rubalcava.

  “Yes, I have heard several policemen will be receiving extra pay tonight, but I do not know how large of a shipment it will be.”

  “Same place they used before?”

  “Yes,” replied Rubalcava.

  “Good. Last time I found their tracks the next day where they crossed.”

  Adams looked at Jack and said, “The Sinaloa cartel is running a shipment of marijuana across the border tonight, a mile from the bridge I first showed you yesterday morning.”

  “Will you be there?” Rubalcava asked Adams.

  “Only to watch and see who picks it up on my side of the border. Don’t worry, I won’t jeopardize you by doing anything.”

  “I know you won’t, amigo.”

  chapter twenty-seven

  * * *

  As Adams drove Jack back across the Bridge of the Americas, he said, “I forgot to mention to you, you’re invited for dinner tonight.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “It’s already done. Yolanda, wants to meet you. She’s never met a real Mountie before.”

  “Is she expecting me to arrive on horseback?”

  Adams chuckled and said, “No, I told her about you.”

  “Nothing bad, I hope,” said Jack.

  “From what I told her, she said you sounded like me … except to say I’m not as genteel.”

  “Genteel? What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “She meant at handling, what was your word … yes, delicate situations. She suggested I could learn from you.”

  “I think we can learn from each other.”

  Jack was introduced to Yolanda. She was an attractive woman and her Mexican features suited her well. She was quick to smile and embraced Jack like he was a long-lost relative. The dinner she served consisted of numerous dishes, with Jack’s favourite being a slow-cooked pulled pork. Conversation was light and Yolanda asked Jack about his family. When Jack told her Natasha was pregnant, he saw her give John a quick smile.

  After dinner, as they sat at the table sipping white wine, Adams excused himself to go to the washroom.

  Yolanda took the opportunity to look at Jack and say, “John speaks quite highly of you. He wishes you were his partner.”

  “I really like him, too. I guess for the moment we are partners.”

  “I’m slightly jealous of partners,” said Yolanda. “I know they tell each other everything. More than they tell their wives. I never get all the real details.”

  Jack could see her eyes studying him. He had the feeling there was something bothering her in particular. “I think Natasha feels the same way, sometimes,” said Jack. “Although she once told me she doesn’t want to know anything secret, so she doesn’t ever have to worry about slipping up.”

  “I guess there’s that,” replied Yolanda, frowning slightly.

  Adams returned and suggested as Jack had a big day tomorrow, perhaps it was time to drive him back to his hotel.

  “I thought you were working tonight?” said Jack.

  “Going out around eleven. The shipments usually cross around one or two in the morning.”

  “Let me join you,” said Jack. “I know I’m not here long, but I still feel like we’re partners for the time we are together.”

  Adams smiled and said, “On one condition. Tonight you carry a piece.”

  “I told you I was a lousy shot … but okay, just for tonight.”

  At midnight, Adams and Jack turned around at the same bridge southwest of El Paso where someone had previously fired shots at the U.S. Customs hut. Adams then backtracked about a mile and pulled off the highway and parked so the car was hidden by a few clumps of scrub brush.

  Adams handed Jack a set of binoculars and said, “If you look left about a quarter-mile across the highway from where we came from, you’ll see a slight ridge on the Mexican side of the border. Last time that is where they came over. All I want to do is try to identify the truck that picks it up on this side.”

  “You know it’s a truck?”

  “We’re talking marijuana. They wouldn’t be using the police to guard it if the shipment was small. Once they load, I’ll belly-crawl to the road and take a look at the truck when it goes past. The guys guarding it over the border from Mexico should vamoose pretty quickly once the load is delivered. With luck, we’ll wait about five minutes after it leaves and then pull out. We’ll still have plenty of time to catch up to the truck before it reaches the city.”

  “Don’t you have any of the other guys from the office to help?”

  “I asked Weber and he said he doesn’t want to pay for the overtime for anyone else. Pisses me off, but what else can I do?”
/>   “Typical,” replied Jack. “I often deal with the same problem in Canada.”

  “Well, as Weber said, it is no big deal to get a plate number and I should be able to follow a truck easy enough.”

  “How long do you think before the deal goes down?”

  “You know how dope deals go.”

  “Never on time, that’s for sure.”

  “Exactly, we could be waiting half the night.”

  Davidson and Weber sat in a car four miles away and smiled.

  “What do you think?” asked Weber. “Turning up the pressure enough?”

  “I would say so. If they sit there an hour or two waiting for the delivery, they’re bound to talk about something.”

  “Hope so. I’m getting too old to be out this late,” replied Weber.

  “Good thing they’re sitting in the car,” noted Davidson.

  It was after one o’clock and Adams was scanning the horizon with the binoculars when he blurted, “Fuck! They’re here, but not where they crossed last time. Look,” he said, passing the binoculars.

  Jack focused the binoculars and looked to where Adams was pointing. He could make out the shapes of several men on the Mexican side of the border, but they were slightly to the right of them instead of the left as expected. “They came out practically on top of us,” said Jack, handing the binoculars back.

  “Yeah, except if the truck comes from El Paso it probably won’t go past us,” said Adams. “I’m going to have to sneak down the ditch about a hundred yards to get the plate. It could still be another hour or two.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  Ten minutes passed as Jack and Adams, both hunched over, crept along a ditch, stopping twice to lie down flat when a car and a truck passed. Eventually they could hear whispered conversation from the Mexicans guarding the drug shipment and knew they had gone far enough.

  Adams tapped Jack’s arm and pointed to a small knoll up from the ditch in the direction of the voices. There were a few clumps of dried grass to give them cover.

  Jack nodded and they both crawled toward the top of the knoll to watch. As they went, he winced several times when sharp needles from small cactus plants found his elbows and his knees.

  Once in place at the top of the knoll, Adams looked through the binoculars and then handed them over.

  The binoculars were barely needed, but Jack used them to count about thirty men, many of whom were wearing Mexican police uniforms. Somewhere in the darkness behind the men, they could hear a truck idling.

  “Must be a small shipment, maybe only one or two ton,” whispered Adams. “For the really big ones the bad guys hire the military to protect the crossing. You’ll see fifty to a hundred soldiers protecting it.”

  Jack felt his stomach knot as he thought of how dangerous Mexico really was for anyone who would dare to take on the cartels.

  Another few minutes passed when the sound of a car racing up the highway from El Paso could be heard. It caught everyone’s attention when the car came to a screeching stop a short distance down the road.

  The whispers of the Mexican police officers became louder and more excited.

  Seconds later, gunshots erupted from the car and bullets flew overhead.

  Jack literally kissed the dirt as he stuck his face as deep as possible into a small indentation in the ground. Several of the Mexican police officers returned fire and the bullets whizzed like jet-propelled bees over Jack and Adams in the opposite direction. The truck that had been idling immediately sprang to life and seconds later all of the Mexicans ran back.

  “What the hell happened?” asked Jack, as the car on the highway did a U-turn and sped away.

  “The car had to be from the Guajardo cartel,” replied Adams. “They must have found out at the last moment what the Sinaloa boys were up to and sent someone out here to fuck with them.”

  Adams and Jack both stood up and walked back to the car. On the way Adams asked, “Do you feel like going for a drink?”

  “Normally I would jump at the chance, but I want to rent a car from the airport and be at the Armadillo around noon tomorrow. That may give the bad guys the impression I just arrived. I also don’t know what tomorrow will bring, so I think I better take a rain check tonight and get some sleep.”

  “I understand. I’ll pick you up in the morning around ten-thirty and drive you to the airport. I’ll also arrange to get a policewoman and check into the motel before you do and put a backup team at that spot about five minutes down the road from the motel.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How are you going to handle it with my people if the bad guys want you to go to Juarez?”

  “I’ll say they want to meet me in the dance spot you showed me. The Old Warehouse. It’s so big they’ll have a hard time knowing if I’m there or not. I’ll also tell the bad guys I want my own car, so I’ll have some control.”

  “How will you communicate with me?”

  “I’ll tell the bad guys I have to call Damien and then call you on your cell.”

  “Who’s Damien?”

  “National president of Satans Wrath. He’s the top boss in Canada and is who they will think I represent.

  “And once you meet Tio?”

  “Party hearty and try to gain his trust to find out what they did with Lily. Once I do that, I’ll try to get anyone who was involved, including the two hit-men who killed Porter, back across the border into El Paso so they can be arrested.”

  “And how the hell will you manage that?” asked Adams as they arrived at the car and he unlocked the door.

  Jack shrugged and said, “I don’t know yet, I’ll come up with something. It’s what I do.”

  Adams stared silently at Jack over the roof of the car.

  “Relax,” said Jack. “What could possibly go wrong?” he added with a smile, trying to sound light-hearted.

  “What can go wrong is you’ll leave a pregnant widow and a son behind,” said Adams tersely.

  Jack quit smiling.

  chapter twenty-eight

  * * *

  The following morning, Jack went to the hotel lobby with his laptop and only one of his suitcases. He had decided he would not check out of his room in the event he needed a safe haven later on.

  In the lobby he used a pay phone to make a collect call to Natasha. He did not want to risk using the phone in his room in case a nosey hotel clerk listened in, nor did he want to use his cellphone in the event it fell into the wrong hands after and would have a record of his call home.

  Natasha answered and Jack could hear Mikey banging a spoon on the tray of his high chair in the background.

  “So where you been?” asked Natasha, sounding snippy. “Taking care of business?”

  Jack smiled. Usually collect calls meant they could talk freely, but not always. Natasha always acted like a jilted woman until Jack gave her the clearance to talk. Even then, most details were left out.

  “I called to tell you I love you,” said Jack, “and Mikey, too.”

  “I love you, too,” she said lovingly. “We miss you.”

  “I think the only thing Mikey misses is his food if it’s a minute late,” said Jack.

  “No, he doesn’t. You’ve seen his face light up when he sees you. Speaking of which?”

  “Hope to have a business meeting today with this new partnership. With luck, I’ll be back sometime this weekend.”

  “Call me as soon as you can.”

  “I will.” Jack knew Natasha worried about him. They had made a pact that rather than have her worry needlessly, he would try to let her know when he was doing something risky and then call her as soon as it was over. In the long run, it was a bit easier on her that way.

  Jack saw the Camaro pull up in front of the hotel lobby and knew he had to go. He quickly said goodbye and picked up his luggage and stepped outside.

  Adams and an attractive young woman got out of the car as he approached.

  “This is Sherry,” said Adams. “My one ni
ght-stand,” he added with a grin.

  “Don’t you wish,” replied Sherry, rolling her eyes.

  After arriving at the airport and giving his laptop to Adams to hold for safekeeping, Jack rented a car. He then went for breakfast to give Adams and Sherry time to ensure the cover team was in place and check into the Armadillo Motel before he arrived.

  It was twelve-thirty when Jack arrived at the motel. He spotted the Camaro in front of a unit as well as five other vehicles parked in front of other units. Slater’s truck was not one of them. The other vehicles made Jack feel a little more comfortable. The motel had enough business that the presence of Adams and Sherry should go unnoticed.

  The motel manager turned out to be a skinny, nervous-looking man who constantly sniffled. Jack figured he either had a cold or a bad coke habit. Probably the latter …

  “Oh, you’re the guy from Canada,” said Sniffles, as he read the hotel registration sheet Jack filled out. “Got a message for ya,” he said, reaching into a beehive of cubbyholes behind him and handing Jack a slip of paper.

  The message was short. Hit a deer and gotta wait for a new radiator. Will be there tomorrow afternoon. T’s guys said they would be over to see you. Clive

  Jack didn’t care if Slater was there. The important thing was to meet Tio. He got the key to his room and discovered it was a couple of units past where the Camaro was parked. He didn’t look in the darkened room as he went past, but did notice the curtains were open a crack for someone to see out.

  Jack hadn’t slept much the night before and was hoping to get a few hours’ shut-eye. He lay on the bed, but his adrenalin wouldn’t allow him to sleep.

  He was in the room less than an hour when he heard a vehicle pull up. He looked out the window and saw two Mexican men getting out of a white SUV. They both appeared to be in their mid-thirties.