by Louisa Luna
Otero took a moment to whittle down what he was trying to say.
“It’s like he’s earned all of this and how dare I not be nicer about him blackmailing me.”
“He’s earned points with a Mexican cartel?” said Cap, skeptical. “Guy’s got some priority issues.”
“We don’t have a whole lot of time, and we don’t know where the four Montalvo girls are,” said Vega. “Do we know who drove them all away in the bus yet?” she asked Otero.
“Boyce is getting back to me on it, and the location of the facility as well where the six girls are,” he answered.
“Good,” said Vega. Then she remembered something. “Oh, we need McTiernan back,” she added.
“I told you he has to go through the motions of IA,” said Otero, holding his hands up in surrender. “I started the process, totally my fault, but I can’t pull him now without raising more flags.”
“You’ve got to free him up,” said Vega. “We need him.”
“What do you need him for, specifically, that I can’t help you with? Or another detective?” Otero said, still patient, just interested.
“Rodrigo trusts him,” said Vega. “And we need one more favor from Rodrigo.”
Otero sat back in his chair and turned his face to the side as if the new angle of Vega’s face would reveal her intention.
“You want to tell me what the plan is here?” he said quietly.
“Not yet,” said Vega.
Otero nodded rhythmically, like he was tilting back and forth on a rocking chair.
“You want to tell me why that is?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Vega said again. “It’s me and Cap who are dead if we don’t straighten this out. So if it’s all the same, I’d like to let you know the best way to move forward after we talk to Rodrigo.”
“If you’re suggesting that I’m not personally invested, I can remind you that my son will most probably be spending some time in a juvenile detention center instead of playing the homecoming game,” said Otero, calm.
“Yeah, but it’s our eyes getting cut out, and so forth,” said Vega.
“Hey, don’t forget the part where he puts them in our mouths,” said Cap.
“That as well,” said Vega. “I know I’m asking a lot, but you just have to trust me here, Commander. We trust you. Let us off the leash a little bit and let McTiernan come with us for an hour. Confirm the bus driver, and then we circle up.”
Otero glanced at Cap, as if to ask him to explain. Cap responded with a firm nod, crossed his arms to show his resolve.
In truth, Cap didn’t know Vega’s exact plan, but like Otero, he had a message that kept coming back to him again and again in his life. It was always, without question: Trust the girl.
* * *
—
Cap and Vega stood next to a silver food truck parked down the block from the station and ate and drank like starved farm animals. They ate breakfast burritos with scrambled eggs, cheese, and chorizo. The food truck sold bars made with dates and nuts and soy protein isolate, but Vega found herself wanting the carbs, the salt, the substance of the eggs after the accident, the adrenaline washed from her system and replaced with weariness. Cap drank a large iced coffee with the lid off, gulping it down like Gatorade after a game. Vega drank hot tea, bottled water on the side.
They didn’t speak for a good five minutes. Cap went back for seconds, another coffee and another burrito, and Vega waited on the curb for him, feeling steadier in the legs as the moments passed, the calories and caffeine making their way through her bloodstream. Cap came back to her and peeled the foil off the burrito, held it out to her, offering the first bite. She shook her head.
It was something close to ecstasy she felt. She knew it was the recovery from trauma, the elation of coming close to death and escaping. She recognized it because she had just slid by in other similar situations, like the day before, for example, but she’d been distracted by the physical injury. But something about Cap offering her the first bite of his burrito made all the joy she had in her emotional reserves well up.
Tears began to sprout in her eyes beyond her control. She turned to Cap, to attempt to explain. He was not looking her way, eating his second burrito like it was his job.
Then they heard someone calling their names.
It was McTiernan, jogging toward them.
“McT!” Cap shouted, mouth full.
They ran toward each other like in an old movie and hugged. Vega followed, and McTiernan shook her hand, gripped it hard.
“Hey, Vega,” he said.
“How’re you doing?” said Vega.
“Fine. Told everything to IA. No big thing. We got nothing to hide, right?” he said, excited.
“Right,” said Cap. “Did Otero bring you up to speed?”
“A little,” said McTiernan. “He just said we’re all working together now and you guys needed me.”
McTiernan blew out air, a relieved exhale.
“He didn’t tell you anything else?” said Cap. “About what’s happened since we saw you last?”
“No. It’s only been, what, twelve hours?” he said, laughing. “Haven’t y’all been asleep?”
“Where’s your car?” said Cap. “We’ll tell you on the way.”
They walked to the station lot and got into McTiernan’s car while Cap filled him in. Vega sat in the backseat, watching McTiernan’s face as he listened intently. He sat still in the driver’s seat, didn’t start the car.
When Cap finished, McTiernan turned to him.
“So now we’re up against Mackey and also the Perez cartel?”
“Yeah, I think that’s all right now,” said Cap.
McTiernan turned around to look at Vega, who nodded.
“Sweet,” said McTiernan, a little dazed. “Just wanted to make sure I had an accurate head count. So what’s next?”
“Back to Rodrigo’s diner,” said Cap.
“Yeah?” said McTiernan, putting on his seatbelt. “What else do we need from him?”
“We’ll tell you when we get there,” said Cap, looking at Vega. “Right?”
“Right,” she said.
Vega shut her eyes, and McTiernan started to drive. She was vaguely aware of them talking. McTiernan asking questions and then describing his experience with Internal Affairs. She wasn’t asleep, just trying to maintain a soft focus on what was about to happen, pull apart the knot of thread that was the case of the Janes and lay it flat in one long, straight line.
* * *
—
Rodrigo was not happy to see Vega. She stood outside the car, the door open, with Cap in the backseat now and McTiernan waving from behind the wheel. Rodrigo broke into a restrained smile when he saw McTiernan and sat in the front on the passenger side, Vega sliding into the backseat.
“Hola,” said McTiernan warmly, patting him on the shoulder.
Rodrigo said “Hola” back to him and appeared self-conscious, glancing at Cap and Vega behind him like chaperones.
“We are very sorry to bother you again,” said McTiernan. “We know you’ve been through a lot. But we have one more favor to ask of you,” he said, holding up one finger.
Rodrigo stared as if the favor was spelled out on McTiernan’s fingerprint. He nodded, not in agreement, but only to hear more. McTiernan gestured to Vega, who leaned forward between them.
She had Rodrigo’s attention but knew he was still skeptical of her.
“We need you to call your father,” she said, figuring it would do no good to put off the first punch.
“No,” said Rodrigo immediately, nearly shouting. “No, I can’t do that. He made me promise not to call him.”
“Why?” said McTiernan.
“It’s not safe,” said Rodrigo. “He said he never knew who was listening.”
&nbs
p; “Do you mean someone listening on the phones, or someone listening to him speak, like in the room with him?” said Vega.
“Either,” said Rodrigo. “But more like people who are around him. When I left he didn’t know if there were spies for Perez working for Lalo.”
“We need you to take that chance now,” said Vega cautiously.
“No,” said Rodrigo, pointing at her. “Fuck this. I’m not risking the life of my father for your job.”
“Hey,” said McTiernan. “We could find out who exactly is responsible for everything, all of this. Not just who killed your sister, but where the other girls are. All the other Maricels and Dulces.”
Vega watched Rodrigo’s face as McTiernan spoke his sister’s name. Just a wrinkle of the nose, like an allergy had come and gone.
“It’s more than that,” said Vega. “We could take them all down. We already have Coyote Ben. But we could get the rest, too. Mackey, Javier Castán, Perez himself,” she said, addressing Cap and McTiernan too. “But we have to talk to your father.”
“Why?” said Rodrigo, plaintive. “My father’s a pawn like the rest. Like Maricel,” he said, the name catching in his throat.
“He’s not,” said Vega, sounding assured. “Neither are his friends.”
Then Rodrigo’s expression changed—he regarded Vega quizzically and suddenly he grasped it, even as he, and Cap and McTiernan, didn’t know how all the parts were connected, he knew it was all that was left to do.
* * *
—
Cap carried the paper-pulp cup tray from the Reno’s back to the car. Coffee for him, black tea for Vega, Diet Coke for McTiernan. McTiernan was talking animatedly in the driver’s seat. They had just said goodbye to Rodrigo once again after he’d gotten off the phone with his father, whom he’d hadn’t spoken with in eight months. Now the three of them were stopping briefly, waiting for Otero to call them back.
Cap got back in the car and handed out the drinks. McTiernan was in the middle of something.
“Logistically how’re you going to work this?” he said to Vega, somewhat exasperated.
“I need to talk to Otero and Boyce,” she said, blowing on her tea.
McTiernan laughed.
“Yeah, I’m not sure they’re going to go for it,” he said.
“You mean, you’re not sure your old straight-arrow boss, Otero, would go for it,” said Cap. “Your new recently blackmailed and liberated boss, Otero, is probably up for anything.”
McTiernan cracked open his soda and chugged it like a beer.
“Maybe,” he said. “But Boyce—”
“Boyce seems like the type who’ll go far to make things right,” said Vega, with a degree of authority, as if she were intimately familiar with such a type.
* * *
—
“How big are what?” Otero asked again, as if he hadn’t heard her.
They were back in the station, in the large conference room where Vega had originally met them all for the first time. Cap stood against the wall behind her, and McTiernan paced and texted. Boyce was on the speakerphone console in the middle of the table. Cap thought Vega’s plan was in the upper digits on the one-to-ten insanity scale, but also that everything about being alive within the past twenty-four hours had taken on a certifiably surreal quality, so Vega’s idea fit squarely alongside.
“The tunnels,” Vega repeated. “Are any of them big enough for a car to drive through?”
Boyce answered: “Not a standard-size car but conceivably a golf cart or a Smart car, something like that.”
“The most recent one we found, the one you two saw the other day, it’s built like a mine,” Otero added.
“You know who built it?” asked Cap.
“Money’s on Perez,” said Boyce from the speakerphone. “We don’t know who else would have the resources.”
“You got one that’s a little smaller?” asked Vega, like she was ordering steaks at a butcher counter. “Like smaller than the tricked-out one by Perez, but bigger than the ones that just fit one or two people army-crawling.”
Otero nodded.
“Sure, there’s one we found about three months ago. Narrow, relatively, but someone could stand almost to full height and walk through, if they were under five ten or so.”
“Perez build that one, too?” said Cap.
“We don’t think so,” said Boyce. “From the entrance and exit points, we think it’s a straight-up immigration railroad.”
“You think another vehicle might fit, like a bike? Or a motorcycle?” Vega asked.
McTiernan stopped texting to see what Otero would say.
“Maybe,” said Otero. Then he changed his answer: “Sure. Let’s say, sure.” Otero gripped the back of a chair and leaned on it. “You want to tell me what you’re thinking?”
Now everyone watched Vega, and it was quiet except for desk phones ringing in another room.
“Javier said he’s got people in Immigration and border police. He’s got someone at the DEA, obviously. He’s got politicians. He may have other people in your PD. But he doesn’t have you,” she said to Otero. “And he doesn’t have us. He knows about his tunnels, but he doesn’t know about all of them.”
Otero took it in, trying to sort what she was getting at. Boyce remained silent on the other end of the line.
“What do you want to bring through the tunnel without Perez knowing?” he asked.
“Not what. Who,” said Vega, glancing to Cap. “Me and Caplan, we got nothing here. Not a card. Javier knows who we are and where to find us. And our families. I want to bring the only people through the tunnel who might make Javier think twice about all of it.”
“Montalvo,” Boyce said, his astonishment audible.
“Not him, per se,” said Vega. “Just five or six of his friends. Guys who might have a bone to pick with Perez’s number two.”
Otero pushed off the back of the chair and put a hand to his head.
“So you want to stage an ambush of Javier Castán before he can kill you,” he said.
“Not necessarily,” said Vega. “I could tell Javier where to meet us, and we’re pretty busy, me and Cap, we might not make it in time. Other people might get there before us.”
Otero was silent, stunned. He stared at the speakerphone as if Boyce were in the room.
“Seems we could all end up with a net gain at the end of the day,” Vega added. Then she shrugged. “Something to think about.”
Win-win all over, thought Cap.
Then Vega said, “Agent Boyce, do you have a location for us for the ISC facility where the six girls from the bus were dropped?”
“Not exactly,” said Boyce, measured. “I called a guy I know over there who was forthcoming about it. Said an agent of theirs, the bus driver, was called in by Mackey to pick up some suspected illegals but he couldn’t tell me what facility they’re at.”
“You call that forthcoming?” said Cap. “He wouldn’t tell you where they are?”
Otero and McTiernan looked at each other, shared something specific in their glance that Cap and Vega had no idea about.
“Lately, the past year, ISC has worked a little differently in the border states,” Otero explained. “Anything spills into PD jurisdiction or DEA they step back, but it’s become its own animal.”
“They don’t keep a lot of records,” added McTiernan. “A few months ago I had a case: old man, Latino, legally immigrated in the seventies. One day he goes missing—his adult kids are worried because he has bouts of dementia. Very long story short: I track him to an IS facility up near Riverside, middle of nowhere. They’d picked him up and just”—McTiernan sliced his hand through the air—“took him away. Like a, you know, a truant officer or a…” McTiernan said, pausing.
“Dogcatcher,” said Vega.
“Right,�
�� said McTiernan. Then he continued: “They released him to me as soon as I got there, no questions asked. I was pissed, boy, but I just wanted to get him back to his family, and I told his kids, you all have got to sue ISC.” McTiernan looked at Otero when he said this. “I told them, Comm, I said, ‘You got a good case, sue the shit outta the state of California and ISC and whoever else.’ ” McTiernan paused again and shook his head. “They didn’t do it. They were just grateful. And scared.”
“The takeaway here,” said Boyce on speakerphone, “is that we can get a district court order to have those six girls released, but before we do that I suggest you speak to the bus driver face-to-face to get more intel and the possible location of the four Montalvo girls, as well as Agent Mackey. Commander Otero?” he said.
“Still here,” said Otero.
“After Ms. Vega and Mr. Caplan leave the station, let’s speak about our options privately.”
“Agreed,” said Otero.
“I’ll be in touch with Rodrigo,” said McTiernan. “We can get his father and his people to the entry point.”
“Let’s talk to the bus driver,” Cap said to Vega.
He felt some of the tension in his neck from the morning dissipate at the thought of a good old-fashioned witness interview with Vega at his side. He couldn’t tell for certain from her expression, but it looked like she was also a little pleased, her eyes soft and tired, the corners of her mouth beginning to turn up. For a brief wild moment he thought she might wink at him.
Instead she stood up and said to Otero, “Can we borrow another car? Both of ours are in the shop.”
22
cap hadn’t driven an undercover cop car in a while. he’d expected the West Coast version to be some kind of NASA-level space bullet, but it turned out undercover cars were the same everywhere—decent pickup but crappy shocks; absolutely no Bluetooth or GPS hookup. Vega read him directions to the ISC office off her phone.
ISC was in an office building not far from the police station, still downtown. Cap parked the car at a meter down the block, about to head into the main lobby when Vega pointed to a set of frosted glass double doors to the left of the main entrance. U.S. IMMIGRATION SERVICES CONTROL read the vinyl lettering on the right door. Cap opened it, and they went inside.