Betrayed

by Sam Morton

  "Well," the agent said sweeping his hands around the room, "I doubt very seriously you're dumb enough to parade your illegals around the front office."

  William placed his tongue between his upper lip and front teeth before he spoke next and nodded his head as if he'd weighed his words carefully. "Agent Boling, as you can plainly see, I have few workers in here who are adults, and they are fully documented with every tax form the government requires. The rest of these guys are here because they are friends with my son or they are the sons and daughters of people I go to church with. They learn what it's like to work. We have some fun, eat a lot of pizza, play some softball, and I throw them a few dollars here and there. If that's a problem, then it seems to me you should send someone over here from the Department of Labor and not Homeland Security."

  Boling squinted a look of self importance. As if he could be more full of himself, Austin thought. He brought a pen and pad eye level and made a note. "Perhaps I will inform Labor after I'm done here, but these people, with the possible exception of the Russian over there," the agent said glaring at Konstantine, who glared back, "don't concern me. It's someone else we've gotten the report on."

  William sighed heavily. "Yes, we had one young man working here who was not a legal immigrant, but he is gone. Has been gone for nearly a month."

  "And you, of course, didn't report it? Perhaps even facilitated his getaway, as it were?" The smirk on his face spoke volumes about this guy's character.

  "Agent Boling," William said carefully, "Get out of my warehouse or I'll throw you out. And if you come back, bring some paperwork. Leave! Now!"

  "Mr. Pierce, you are aware that even the mention that I've been here is illegal, so..."

  Konstantine moved so quickly Austin almost didn't see him, but before anyone could react, the Ukrainian was up and away from the table and hovering over the agent, his head bent down so that they were nose-to-nose. "Are you deaf?" he yelled. "Mr. Pierce says to leave his place or he throw you out. I will gladly help him."

  Austin thought he saw the agent's legs shaking. "Do you know the penalty for threatening a federal agent?"

  Konstantine held his ground. "I was just telling young man about my days in the Soviet Army. Was not so nice. I was conscripted because I am Ukrainian, not Russian, you jackass. That's what my very observant young friend called you as he walked by. You would have heard if you had been listening. Conscripted means drafted, by the way."

  "I know what it means." Boling seethed.

  "Good. Sometimes I am not sure how stupid American cops can be. What I did not tell my friend that also not so nice was the two years I spent in Soviet prison. So to answer question, I do not know what penalty is for threatening officer, but if I can stand gulag, American federal prison would be like little girl's birthday party. Now, do as Mr. Pierce demands and leave, or perhaps you will spend next few days picking pieces of pretty vinyl jacket out of teeth."

  When Boling had gone and everyone started breathing again, Austin asked his dad, "Is what he said true, all that stuff about the warrant and getting in trouble for just telling?"

  William glanced at Konstantine and a knowing look passed between them. "Technically it's true, but, no I'm not worried. I think Konstantine and I realized about the same time that this was all B.S. No federal agent comes on a 'raid' by himself. This was a message from somebody just to intimidate us." He looked at the big Ukrainian again. "You didn't tell me you'd been in prison."

  "I was guard," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Jackass not need to know difference."

  Everyone laughed out loud.

  Just as the laughter subsided, one of the graphic designers poked her head in through the door that led to the front office. "William. Jordan Steele from Senator Stevens' office is holding on line three. Says it's important."

  The smile faded from William's face. "Well, what a coincidence." William took the phone call in the mail room. As he lifted the receiver, he put his finger to his lips to signal everyone to be quiet. "Jordan? It's William Pierce." After a moment of silence, he said, "I see. Jordan, it's fine that the senator wants to take his business elsewhere. You can spare me the lecture on immigration." William listened some more and then started clicking his ink pen repeatedly. "Fine, but let me remind you, and you be certain to remind the senator, the janitor, and everyone else on your staff that you're bound by the same confidentiality agreement you made me sign when you first came in my office. If I start losing business and I get the slightest inkling you're behind it, I'll offer my services free to the senator's opponent."

  Austin, and everyone else in the mail room, could hear Jordan Steele yelling into the phone. William raised his eyebrows and looked across the room at his son, Konstantine, and employees. A slight smile came to his lips as he winked at the group. "Oh, and Jordan, your buddy just left. Try pulling that one again and I'll personally make sure you'll pay."

  There was a pause. "Yes, I'm certain you don't know what I'm talking about." And then he slammed the phone down and walked from the room.

  Chapter 18

  Carranza, Mexico

  Rico stretched out on the couch of his new rental home, one foot on the floor, his thumb methodically working the television remote as he flipped mindlessly through the channels. Outside, rain spilled from the sky. He was bored. Rico could always smell the rain before it came, that sweet, light scent on the breeze that always made him close his eyes and breathe deep.

  It had rained for the past three days. Today, the drizzle only kept the yard muddy and the streets wet. It also kept him inside where he caught a major case of cabin fever. He had surfed the net, checked his MySpace page, and answered some email before his father commandeered the laptop back for business and headed out the door.

  Daytime television in Mexico was just like daytime TV in the States–talk shows and soap operas. The small house and the small town afforded him little else to do, though, since he wasn't in school, so he rounded the channels again, this time as fast as he could. He tried to see if he could change the channel before the person onscreen could get the first syllable out.

  Just as he thought he would toss the remote across the room in frustration, he heard the back door to the kitchen open. "Rico," said a young feminine voice, "you home?" Rico heard the ruffling of vinyl as his cousin removed her raincoat.

  Veronica Larnas was a raven-haired beauty with almond shaped eyes and light brown, café au lait-colored skin. Despite being only fifteen, she commanded whatever room she walked into. Her wide shoulders gave her an air of authority and she always spoke with confidence, her voice having the same gentle accent as Rico's. Today, though, she was different.

  "In the den," Rico called, and as his cousin came into the room, he saw worry in her eyes. He straightened on the couch. "What's up?"

  Veronica slipped onto the couch beside him. "It's Uncle Viktor," she said. "It's been four days and he hasn't come back yet."

  "How about the people he was helping across, have you talked to any of their families?"

  "Only one. It's dangerous to ask too many questions." She looked around the room almost as if looking for people eavesdropping. If helping people made you this paranoid, Rico thought he might not want any part of it.

  "The lady I talked to," Veronica continued, "hadn't heard from her son, but that doesn't mean anything."

  "Why don't we walk down to the Internet café? We could IM my friend Austin, maybe see if his dad could find out if Uncle Viktor has been picked up by the border patrol," Rico said.

  "No, Rico! We can't involve him. You said yourself his father is an American politician." Her eyes grew wide, her voice intense. She began to pace.

  "Wait. He's not a politician. He's a…" Rico, struggling to find the Spanish word for "advisor," snapped his fingers and looked toward the ceiling, "he's a consultant, a consejero."

  Veronica shook her head. "It's the same thing. We can't mention a thing to him."

  "We can at least ask him to find out how we can
get the information. This is a border town for God's sake. People getting caught crossing over isn't exactly uncommon. We can just tell him somebody in town went missing and we want to check it out. It's not like we'd be asking for military secrets."

  Veronica stopped pacing and seemed to consider the idea for a moment. Outside the rain had stopped, so the only sounds in the house were the ticking of the clock in the den and the random popping of individual rain drops as they fell from trees onto the wide leaves of the plants in the flowerbeds outside. "All right," she said finally. "We go with your plan, but not a word about Uncle Viktor. I mean it Rico."

  He spread his hands apart. "What? You want it in blood?"

  "No, but I'll have some if you mess this up."

  Chapter 19

  Columbia, South Carolina

  Brooding. That's what his mom and dad called it. If brooding meant being pissed off at the world, then Mom and Dad were right on the money, Austin thought. Despite what Rico said, emailing wasn't the same and phone calls cost too much. The couple of times they had talked, Austin felt more frustrated than satisfied because he just didn't know what to say. Preparing for his standardized tests only reminded him Rico wasn't there.

  He avoided going to his dad's office to work and, every free moment his mom was not making him do school work, he closed himself away in his room. But even that pretty much sucked. His music bored him. His video games failed to entertain him. He had other friends, but no one as close as Rico. When he spent time with the others, it only felt like a betrayal of his best friend. He knew his mom and dad were worried, and probably more than a little frustrated with him. But he didn't care.

  Austin sat at his desk, his chin propped in his left palm while he used his right hand to search through a stack of Nintendo DS games, none of which interested him at the moment. He heard a soft knock at his door. It opened and both Karen and William walked through. Great. Time for another "it'll all turn out okay in the end" pep talk.

  Karen sat down gingerly on the edge of her son's bed nearest to the desk.

  William stood next to her. "Austin, son, we're concerned about you," he said. "You're hardly eating. You're depressed. And you don't say two words to us or your brother and sisters."

  Karen reached out and stroked the back of her son's head. "It would probably help to talk about it."

  Austin shrugged away from his mother's touch. "What's there to talk about?"

  "Everybody is working as hard as they can," Karen said. "Sometimes–most of the time–we can't just snap our fingers and get what we want. It just takes time." Austin thought the expression on her face was probably meant to encourage him, but it looked more like defeat.

  "It does take time, son," William said. "I can't tell you why this is happening, except to say that there is a reason for everything. One day the reason will be revealed to us, but a lot of the times, especially when bad things happen, we don't see the reason until after it's over, if ever." William spoke softly.

  Austin knew his dad had deep, sincere concerns, but somehow that only irritated him even more. He wanted to be mad, not consoled. He'd heard his mom say a million times when she got angry, "I just have to process it and work my way through it." Austin wanted to work his way through it and right now he was in full-bore pissed off mode.

  "Character is determined by how we react to tough situations. Remember, God doesn't give you more than you can handle. You've just got to trust in that and in Him," William said as he placed his hand on Austin's shoulder.

  That's it. He's played the God card like that's supposed to make everything rosy and bright. Austin's sigh almost sounded like a hiss. He rolled his eyes.

  "Austin, you've got to get out of this mood you're in. You've got exams coming up," Karen said.

  Austin noticed an ever so slight change in her voice. She sounded less compassionate and more authoritative.

  I guess Mr. and Mrs. Nice Guy have left the building and now I'm being told to get over it. He felt the slow boil of frustration rise to the top of his head, and then the floodgates burst.

  He stood from his desk, propelling his rolling chair across the room harder than he'd intended, but it was too late to turn back now. "Okay, what should we study, Mom? Civics? How about manifest destiny? Should we go over that again? How nobody invited us onto this continent, but we came anyway and we took and took, and forcibly removed or killed anybody who got in our way?" His voice was strong and running on raw emotion. "Let's review slavery in the South and child labor in the North. Then move on to Japanese internment camps. Whatever we want, whenever we want it with no regard for whose lives are at stake or who gets hurt."

  "Austin, you can't change history, only learn from it." Karen was standing now, too.

  "Okay." He tossed his history book into the trashcan and picked up his Bible. Karen and William stared, stunned and wide-eyed. William started to raise his arm to interrupt, but Karen held him in check, apparently realizing Austin needed to let all of this out.

  "Then, maybe we could go over a few Bible lessons starting with doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. Or how about whichever commandment it is that says 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house'? But we 'coveted' this great country of ours from Jamestown right across to San Francisco."

  "That's enough," William said in a low, but firm voice. Austin's face was beet red and he started to tear up.

  "Austin, I know what it's like to lose someone who's very close and important to you. It's not fair. It sucks. And you feel powerless to do anything. But son, it's not your mom's fault or mine. If I could point to one individual or group and say, 'That's where the problem is,' trust me, I'd fight them tooth and nail. I'd take out advertisements in the paper and pay every lobbyist I know to make the situation better, but I just don't know who that person or group is." He paused to let that sink in. "Sit down for a second." The three of them sat on the edge of Austin's bed. Karen laid her arm tenderly across her son's shoulders.

  "People are scared to death right now," William said, "and for every thousand people like Rico and his parents who cross the border for good, honest reasons, there's maybe one drug runner or gang member, or potential terrorist who comes across, too. September 11th, as much as you don't remember it, is too close and too fresh for the people who make the decisions right now. But I promise you, and you know I've been involved in politics all my life, I'll do everything I can to make sure Rico comes back here with us where he belongs."

  Austin hung his head and nodded with more resignation than reassurance, but he had at least calmed himself.

  William looked at Karen and said, "Tell you what, let Mom and me go out and have a quick conversation. We'll be right back, okay?"

  Austin nodded again.

  For the next ten minutes he heard his parents talking in the hall right outside his room. His door was shut and all he could make out were muted, unintelligible words. He was sorry for what he'd said to his parents, his mother, especially. Because he spent so much time with her, she was his closest ally, his confidant, and advisor. And yet the longer he remained alone, the more the feelings of hopelessness crept back over him like clouds shrouding the sun. Just as he was about to close his eyes to shut out the pain, his door opened and his mom and dad came back into his room.

  "Your mom and I have talked it over, and here's what we've decided." Austin felt his heart freeze in place. He looked up at his dad with expectant eyes, but he didn't know whether he was about to hear good news or bad. "If you get out of this funk, study hard, and pass all your exams and if you come back to work to earn some money to take with you, we'll get you down to Mexico to visit with Rico for a couple of weeks over the first part of summer. That's if it's okay with his parents."

  Austin couldn't believe it. It was like somebody had just handed him a million dollars. He shut his eyes, looked upward, and balled his fists in victory. Yes. Thank you. Thank you!

  "What about it, Austin?" Karen asked. "Is it a deal?"

  "Dea
l? Deal?" he shouted. "Shoot yeah, it's a deal!" His face brightened. It was if the blackness of a thousand nights had been lifted off him. "Hey, Mom, how about throwing me that history book from the trashcan, would you?"

  "No way, mister! You threw it in there, you fish it out. No telling what kind of junk you've got swirling around in there."

  "Yes, ma'am," he said, bounding from his bed to retrieve the text. Karen and William stood smiling, glad to have the "old" Austin back. "Well," he said making shooing motions with his hands, "what are you people doing just standing there? I've got studying to do, so out. Out!"

  Chapter 20

  Carranza, Mexico

  Rico and Veronica walked slowly to the Internet café, their raincoats rustling as they swung their arms. The air hung heavy with moisture, and a few fat drops fell from trees and power lines overhead and splattered onto their shoulders. They passed an auto garage where the whirring of pneumatic wrenches sounded like some prehistoric flying dinosaur.

  Rico noticed that Veronica wasn't like girls he had known in the States. She didn't yammer on and on just to talk. As a matter of fact, she rarely talked just to fill the silence. She spoke when she had something to say. Rico thought that was refreshingly different, but he also found it strange. It was a result of growing up in this town, he believed, with its undercurrents of corruption. Here, money is money and power is power he had told Austin. How right he had been.

  A small, dingy cantina sat about half a block from the Internet café. As Rico and Veronica passed, they saw a half dozen men from a construction crew getting toasted after the rain cut their work day short. One young man, probably no more than nineteen, looked drunker than the rest, and his friends looked amused as he swayed on his feet and yelled out "Una mas cerveza ahora!" One more beer, now!