“Not only do I now understand the problem, I also see how this is a war that needs serious attention. If Mexico isn’t going to become Columbia, Washington better get it’s head out of it’s ass and give Mexico a whole bunch of support,” Jenks said as we rode home in the golf cart.
“Not money. It will just disappear into politician’s pockets. What a mess.”
“You think it’s bad over here, you should be where I’ve been.”
Was that an invite? So far Jenks had avoided the subject of Dubai. We parked the cart in the garage, and as we were getting out, he said, “Let’s go down to San Carlos for a few days before I have to head for San Francisco.”
“Oh, jes.” I called the marina and they told me my boat was ready, they’d splash her that afternoon on the high tide and send in a clean up squad to have her ready for us by the time we arrived the next day.
Ted called. Both Rosa and Lupe were home, and yes, they were kidnapped and held at Rancho Sierra Coronado until freed by the Marine raid, but they didn’t know why they were taken. The missing cobalt rods were still a mystery, but all he cared about was they were home safe and sound. However, Sonrisa had not returned since we dropped her off the week before in Naco, and he feared she’d been scared off permanently. I tried to sound sympathetic.
I called Maria at the mine, asked if she’d be in the next morning so I could drop off some paperwork for her to forward to Mexico City.
“Oh, yes, Café, I will be here, but please address your correspondence to Señor Orozco. Señor Racón was called back to Lebanon on an urgent family business matter.”
Man, oh man, my day was getting better by the minute.
“I want to make us legal,” I declared as Jenks and I packed the car for our trip south.
He almost dropped a suitcase, probably thinking I was about to propose marriage. I let him stew for a three-count, then let him off the hook. “If we’re gonna stop by Ted and Nanci’s on the way back, now that the world is a safer place, we’re actually gonna get a car permit for the drive up the Rio Sonora Valley.”
Was that vast relief washing over his tanned and handsome face? “Uh,” he stammered, “I thought you didn’t need one anymore.”
“Not for San Carlos, or on the main roads to get there, but when we go to Ted and Nanci’s winery we’ll be outside of what the Mexicans so charmingly call the Hassle Free Zone, and after the last trip I took through there, hassled doesn’t sound like fun.”
“We can get the permit at the Naco border?”
“You know, I’m not sure, but I’m going to give it a shot. Damned if I’m going to drive out of my way to Agua Prieta to get one, so if that’s the case, we’ll travel on good intentions and a fair smattering of Gringo denseness should we get pulled over. Besides, we’re driving Aunt Lillian’s car, so if it gets confiscated, so what?”
“I love your ability to make a situation work to your best intentions. Or your worst.”
“It’s a gift.”
Chapter 37
We rolled through the border just as the usual gaggle of school kids, hauling backpacks, chatting, laughing, and jostling each other, headed into Arizona. Once again I went through the explanation of the border school situation. Jenks wondered if there was traffic the other way, for kids whose families wanted them to attend school in Naco, Sonora.
“Hmmm, good question, but I don’t recall seeing uniformed kids heading south, and as you will see, the ones in Mexico are wearing the plaid. Crap.”
“What?”
“Red light. We have to go through customs. No big deal, all we have is some food and our clothes. I locked all the guns in a closet back at the house.”
Jenks grinned at this. “Most people, Hetta, do not carry arsenals in their vehicles.”
“The events of the past few weeks have made me touchy. And as old Thomas Jefferson said, ‘Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.’ I hate to plow.”
Jenks was still chuckling when we pulled into the Aduana inspection bay. A very attractive young lady in a tight uniform leaned over Jenks and opened the glove compartment, flashing cleavage in his face. Lucky for her I left the guns at home.
She asked me to pop the trunk, and took interest in my brief case, which she asked me to open. Since I planned to stop by my office at the mine on the way to San Carlos, I’d thrown my latest work into the case. Not finding reams of drug money in my Halliburton case, she bid us a good trip and sashayed back to her office. Every Mexican man within viewing distance watched her swaying rear with avid appreciation. Jenks, however, did not, bless his little soul.
I moved the car into the first parking spot I found, in front of a farmacia, and told Jenks, “You gotta walk across the street, right there where we crossed the border. That’s where you get your tourist visa. Mine’s still good.” I pointed to the Migracion office. “Get the one that’s good for a week. It’s free, and no sense spending twenty bucks, since we’re coming back anyhow. You can spend that twenty on my precious self.”
He smiled, promised me a few precious Margaritas, and I watched him walk away, thinking how wonderful it was to have him home, no matter how briefly. No matter the reason. Which, by the way, he’d been pretty vague about, but I suspected my friend Allison had put more than a quiet word in the Trob’s ear about our situation. Whatever it was, I didn’t care. He was here, and I was glad. More like thrilled.
I gathered Aunt Lillian’s car papers, along with my passport and purse, and was exiting the car to find out about a sticker so we could travel legally to Ted and Nanci’s for a change, when I spotted a lone child, headed for the border crossing. Bundled up like Nanook of the North, she struggled, head down, with a heavy backpack, but kept up a purposeful stride seldom seen in children on the way to school.
Smiling to myself, I remembered another little girl, back in grade school, foot-dragging it alone instead of with other kids, already marching to a different drummer. I’d have to analyze that trait some day, because it seemed to carry through all too often into my present life.
Sighing, I was locking the door when my hand froze on the handle. The forty-degree temperature was nothing compared to the chill that ran through my entire being.
In a flash, I knew. I knew.
Everything that had happened during the past few weeks fell into place with a crash that made my knees weak. Everything.
Through the window at Immigration, I saw Jenks sitting at the official’s desk, studiously filling out forms. Two young soldiers lounged against the wall at the Aduana on my side of the street. No cars waited at the border to cross into the United States.
Only the lone child strode toward the pedestrian crossing.
One lone child with a Huipil backpack.
I, like many, have had moments of knowing. Like the time, when I let go of a plastic loop at a county fair, I knew it would perfectly ring the bottle and win me a huge Teddy bear. Once, in Vegas, I knew, when I placed a stack of chips on 14, that it would win. It was a combination of déjà vu, because I saw myself winning before I acted, and premonition. Whatever, both times, when I thought about them later, were a little frightening.
This moment, however, was not one of clairvoyance, but more like one that a safecracker must experience when the tumblers all fall into place.
Sonrisa’s constant meanderings along the highway and into Naco.
Sonrisa’s barely disguised contempt for Americans.
Sonrisa at Ted’s airport during the hijacking attempt, eyes wide with surprise and fear. She had expected to get into that plane after the men took it from us.
Sonrisa sitting quietly in Nanci’s car on the way back to the border after the attempted hijack, then the radiation detector going off at the border. Not because of Jan’s stress test, but because of stolen cobalt pencils from the winery that Sonrisa carried in that Huipil pack.
A terrorist had been in the car with us, transporting what was needed to construct a dirty bomb: cobalt pencils.
<
br /> I. Just. Knew.
I jumped into the car, started it, backed out into the empty street, and hooked a U-turn back toward the border. As I picked up speed, everything else seemed to move in slow-mo time, even my breathing.
Calculating distance and timing, I also knew what I had to do.
How ironic that Sonrisa and I should be destined to share a fate.
The first person to notice me was Jenks.
He was standing by the immigration officer’s desk, half-turned to leave, as my aunt’s car streaked by in the wrong direction, going almost airborne on steep speed bumps. His expression, as I registered it in my peripheral vision, went from quizzical to alarmed. Then he was gone from my field of vision, and only one thing remained, much like when you reverse a telescope.
My hands, freezing and sweating at the same time, lost all feeling. As I sailed over the speed bumps on the Mexican side of the border and landed with a rib-jarring, axel-threatening whomp, I floored the accelerator.
A US border guard who was looking my way, reached toward his weapon. His mouth opened to sound a warning. Another ran to his side, dropped to one knee, and aimed in my direction just as my bumper connected with Sonrisa.
With a sickening thud, Sonrisa went airborne. I stomped the brakes, but skidded under her. She fell onto the hood and my forward momentum sent her head crashing through the windshield, which imploded into a million tiny nuggets. Wide dead eyes stared at me from where the glass used to be, and her tiny body was twisted at an odd angle so I could see both her hands. They were empty. Her Huipil backpack lay in the crosswalk.
Looking into those cold, and truly dead eyes, I had a sudden moment of clarity: I had to get the hell out of Mexico. To the Mexican’s thinking, I had just run down one of their children like they would a stray dog.
Jumping from the car onto lead legs, I smacked right into Jenks, who grabbed me by the shoulders. “Jesus, Hetta, what in the hell just happened here? What is wrong with you?”
Pounding feet and rattling weapons heralded Mexican soldiers, but the US border officials wisely stayed put on American soil. I didn’t blame them, because that was damned sure where I wanted to be.
I pointed at the backpack and yelled, “Jenks, bomb! We have to get across the border.”
He didn’t hesitate for an instant. Yelling out, “American citizens,” he held both hands high, one with his passport in clear view. Following his lead, I threw my hands onto my head, and we both ran, quite literally, for our lives. Problem was, we had a good chance of getting cut down by friendly fire before I had a chance to explain.
Come to think of it, how would I explain? Sonrisa lay dead on the Mexican side of the border, and I had, in front of probably twenty witnesses, killed her in cold blood.
It was at that moment I spotted agent Tim Ramos, crouched, weapon drawn. “Tim!” I screamed, “bomb! In the backpack!” I headed straight for my fellow Texan, praying his knowing me would count for something.
Within seconds Jenks and I were at the bottom of a pile of uniformed agents, every one of them with a gun or two. Through a break in human limbs, I saw the Mexicans stop and drop, their guns aimed at our pileup.
Although I was pinned like a quarterback with a bad defensive line, I managed to yell, once more, “Bomb! Dirty bomb! In that backpack! She’s a suicide bomber!”
Something very solid, maybe a boot belonging to a fleeing member of Homeland Security, whacked me solidly in the head and I literally saw stars.
Then the world exploded.
Chapter 38
From the sounds and smell, I knew I was in a hospital and hoped it wasn’t one affiliated with a federal prison on either side of the border.
A hand rested on my arm, and I instinctively knew it was Jenks’s. Okay, two for two. I was alive, and so was Jenks. However, I resisted opening my eyes, because I feared some part of me was missing. Not my arm, at least.
On the bad side, however, was I facing life in a Mexican jail for vehicular manslaughter, or life in an American prison for the same? Nope, I’d just as soon go back to sleep.
“Hetta, I know you can hear me,” Jenks whispered.
“No, I can’t,” I mumbled, surprised how much that small effort hurt. Oh, yes, sleep was definitely better, so I went back out. This time though, I actually dreamed.
I was back on the boat in the Sea of Cortez, lying on the warm deck, naked, hand in hand with Jenks. Bright sunlight warmed my eyelids, washed my svelte (hey, this is my dream here) body. The boat rocked gently in a slight, cooling breeze. Wavelets slapped the bow, sea gulls skreighed, a fish splashed.
Then somehow Nacho pulled alongside in a fishing panga. “…and the authorities on both sides of the border, at the highest level, want this kept under wraps. Hetta need not worry,” I heard him say.
Jenks asked, “But what about the, uh, bad guys?”
Bad guys? Come on, let’s call a spade a spade. “Terrorists,” I croaked, and opened my eyes.
Both men stared at me, then Nacho glanced back over his shoulder at the closed door to my hospital room. “Ah, Café, you are awake, after all. Jenks and I were discussing the, er, situation.”
“Is she dead?”
“Who?” Nacho pulled an innocent smile.
“Sonrisa, with the bomb.”
“We know of no one named Sonrisa, and no bomb. That bump on the head has stirred your overly vivid imagination.”
“But—"
Jenks cut me off. “No buts. Never happened.”
Okay, I can be a little dense at times, but I finally got it. “What never happened?”
They both smiled.
Epilogue
The boat rocked gently in a slight, cooling breeze.
Wavelets slapped the bow, sea gulls shrieked, a fish splashed. We were back on the boat in the Sea of Cortez, lying on the warm deck, naked, hand in hand. Jenks snored softly as bright sunlight warmed my eyelids, washed my body.
This time though, it was real, not some hospital drug dream, and Nacho was not in the picture. In fact, we had not seen him since that day in the hospital. My guess is he had a whole heap of covering up to do. We will probably never know who Nacho is, or who he works for, but two-to-one his employer goes by a well-known acronym. Maybe it’s better we don’t know, for he’d most likely have to kill us. I still have his card, even though he told me to memorize the phone number and tear it up, just in case I need to be sprung from another fine mess involving dope dealers, smugglers, and suicide bombers.
No report ever surfaced about Sonrisa’s attempt to detonate herself at a US Border crossing. It was as though she did not exist, therefore she could not die. Jenks and I put our heads together and came up with a theory that Sonrisa was meant to take a kamikaze dive out of Ted’s plane after it was hijacked, most likely into Fort Huachuca.
Who was she, and why would she do it? The only hard evidence of her was an embroidered shawl Rosa found in her room. The Arabic writing, when transcribed, read Safiyya. I looked up that name and learned that Safiyya was Muhammad’s aunt who saved Muslims from destruction in the battle of the Trench when she heroically killed a Jewish spy. Muhammad’s eleventh wife was also named Safiyya.
I Googled Muslims in Mexico and was astonished to find a site claiming Muslim extremists were actively converting poor Mexican Indians to their religion, then recruiting them to do their dirty work. Perhaps Sonrisa found a home with them, one she had never had as an outcast in her own country. I gave Border Patrol agent Ted Ramos the photo I’d snapped of Rosa and Sonrisa on the road the first day we met them. Maybe the government types could figure out who she really was.
Ted and Nanci Burns learned more details of the raid at Rancho Sierra Coronado. Rosa and Lupe were held hostage in a storage shed, but never knew why. I knew, but was not allowed to tell them, that Sonrisa was sent to their winery on a mission to steal the cobalt rods.
Newspapers reported the roundup of more East African Muslims in a San Diego INS raid. A human smuggling ring,
linked to a local mosque, and a group of Lebanese-born Mexican citizens had been operating out of an undisclosed location in northern Sonora. The Africans were deported, smugglers jailed.
The strike in Cananea is nearing its end, as is my contract. The office scuttlebutt is less about strikes and more about the mysterious disappearance of El Ratón. No one but me knew of his connection to a smuggling ring and a terrorist group. Too bad he escaped to Lebanon before my buddy Nacho could get his hands on him. Or did he?
Doctor Brigido “Chino” Yee and Doctor Sister Jan Sims are still counting whales in the Baja, but now they live in a fancy RV complete with satellite TV, high speed Internet, and, best of all, indoor plumbing. Chino’s love life has taken a turn for the better.
My new Uncle Fred called from Mazatlan, where he and Aunt Lillian have rented a house on the beach. Although I’d last seen my aunt’s car in Mexico, engine running, body sprawled across the hood, I reported it stolen from a side street in old Bisbee. Auntie collected the insurance money, and the car probably has a new and happy home with some Mexican who is less than squeamish about a few bloodstains.
Dr. Craig Washington bought a restored miner’s shack in Bisbee, and has opened a mobile large animal practice operating on both sides of the border. His new partner, in more ways than one, is the cattle rancher we’d met at the golf club. Turns out he owns a huge spread near Bisbee. For the first time ever, Craig is with someone who has more money than he has, and who actually treats him well. Of course, they are deep in the closet, but for them it is a good and comfortable closet. Vinny enjoys the run of Craig’s new digs and is actively seeking a partner of his own.
Booger Red was the extremely reluctant recipient of Craig’s implanted tracking chip, and I would have dearly loved to watch that operation. I heard there were only a few injuries. At least Ted and Nanci can rest easy the big bull won’t surprise them, or any of the many Europeans who flock by the bus load to sample their wine, now that they won another prestigious international award for their Bull Nose Burgundy.
Just Deserts (Hetta Coffey Series (Book 4)) Page 24