by Johnny Shaw
“If I were them and knew what was what, I’d leave Alejandro, the kid, and us dead in a ditch,” Buck Buck added.
“Easiest way to get rid of anything,” Snout seconded. “Bury it in the desert.”
Because getting in was simple, most of our plan was about getting out—and getting out quickly. We used the bolt cutters after all. If we had to leave in a hurry, which seemed inevitable, then a big hole in the fence was easier and faster than a climb.
Although light filled most of the compound, there were still enough pockets of shadow that we could stay out of sight. Not that there was anyone looking. We still hadn’t eyed a single person.
The plan was to split off. Buck Buck and Snout would take a look in the far warehouse building. Bobby and I would check out the double-wide and then hit the nearest warehouse. If all went smoothly, which none of us were planning on, we would meet at the northwest corner of the middle warehouse and go in together.
We would communicate only in an emergency and by text message. I can safely say that this was the first time that I was glad for that particular technology. And the first time I had found a unique function for it. Who knew that texting would be a boon to covert infiltration?
As Buck Buck and Snout made their way across the grounds, Bobby and I quickly investigated the double-wide. No light came from the windows. It was either empty or its occupants sleeping. It didn’t take us long to learn which.
The snoring shook the walls. The man-made vibrations had both weight and girth. Bobby gave me a wide-eyed look, impressed. There could be only one person in the office. Nobody else could have slept through that kind of storm. And if anyone were awake and not stone deaf, they’d have woken up the beast or gone insane. It sounded like someone was strangling a nine-foot-tall goose.
Bobby slowly rose and peeked through the bottom corner of the window. He ducked back down, shaking his head. It wasn’t Alejandro. I wasn’t surprised. I don’t know why, but I hadn’t figured him for a snorer. We continued to the nearest warehouse building.
Bobby and I crouched in the sunken truck ramp of a wide loading dock. Multiple rolled steel garage doors and a couple of standard doors led into the building. Concrete and steel were the predominate building materials. None of the main buildings in the facility had windows. That was obviously a problem. That meant we were going to have to enter the building Monty Hall–style without any idea of what was behind door number one.
We worked under the assumption that the Oasis guards and their guests had a level of overconfidence in their safety. Why guard doors if they weren’t expecting anyone to come through them?
We didn’t even know which buildings were being used to house people. However, we did know that if we came in contact with anybody, we’d have to improvise. Bobby had a recently modified sawed-off, and I had Pop’s shotgun. That made improvising a little more interesting and, in some ways, predictable.
I did a sloppy stomach roll up onto the four-foot-high loading dock, neither graceful nor particularly quiet. Bobby made it look a lot easier, shushing me as he rose. We walked slowly to one of the rolling doors. Very gently I put my ear to the steel, trying to get a sense of any activity within the building. I waited for what felt like a full minute, but was probably closer to twenty seconds. I heard nothing and shook my head. Bobby head-nodded to the standard door twenty yards away. Bobby put his shotgun to his shoulder, pointing the barrel to the ground. I put my hand on the doorknob, waiting for Bobby’s signal.
Bobby took three quick breaths and then nodded. I turned the knob. It was unlocked and made a loud click as I pushed the door in an inch. I cringed from the sound and then quickly opened the door. Bobby slipped in. I followed him into the darkness, lifting my shotgun.
We stood in an abandoned office that now appeared to be used as a storeroom. It was filled with boxes, but thankfully, no people. I kept the door open a couple inches for the light. There was only one other door. It led further into the building.
“It’s like playing Doom,” Bobby whispered. “We can only go forward.”
“There’s nothing about this that’s a game,” I said. “Not a fucking thing.”
“Settle, Jimmy. We’ll get the kid back.”
“This isn’t a game,” I repeated.
“You keep telling yourself that.” And with that, Bobby opened the door and moved quickly into the deeper darkness beyond.
Once I closed the door, it was pitch black. And while we had flashlights, it didn’t feel prudent to turn them on. That was until I almost brained myself on a low pipe. My head made a distinct coconut sound that made me think of the Three Stooges. The four of us were kind of like the Stooges. And if we were, I’m pretty sure that made me Shemp.
Rubbing the bump on my head, I listened into the darkness. It was dead quiet.
Bobby whispered, “Ain’t nobody going to just sit in the dark like this. There ain’t nobody in here.”
I had to agree. It was like being blind, seeing nothing but black with your eyes wide open.
Bobby turned on his flashlight and gave the building a quick sweep. The interior of the structure was the size of an airplane hangar, the beam of light swallowed by the darkness after thirty yards. A massive dormant generator filled the center of the structure. The rest was pipes. Lots of pipes. Big pipes. Little pipes. They were everywhere. Even an engineer would have a hard time figuring out all their functions. I’m convinced that some of them had no function, but were only there to complete a certain industrial aesthetic.
“Let’s walk around, make sure,” Bobby said.
I nodded.
“Did you nod?” Bobby asked. “Cause in the dark, nodding don’t communicate dick.”
“I nodded,” I said.
“I just nodded back,” Bobby said, and then he walked deeper into the building, waving the light into the corners.
I kept my shotgun at the ready, trying to maintain focus through fear. The pipes and shadows made hallucinatory beasts as the light passed. I concentrated on Juan.
Five minutes later, we were waiting at the northwest corner of the middle warehouse. Hidden in the shadows of some rusted equipment, Bobby and I waited for Buck Buck and Snout. The quiet was as alarming as every slight sound.
Five minutes after that, still no Buck Buck and Snout. I gave Bobby a tap on the leg with the barrel of my shotgun. “You think something happened to them?”
“They’re too dumb to get caught.”
“Sometimes I’m not sure if you hear the things you say,” I said.
The not-so-quiet vibration of Bobby’s cell phone echoed from his front pocket. Bobby smiled and dug it out. He read the face.
“The boys say they found a tunnel. Think it leads to the smokestack things. They’re going to check it out and we should go in here ourselves.”
“They texted all that?” I leaned in, trying to read the message.
“No. It just says, ‘Found tunnel.’ And ‘tunnel’ is spelled wrong. I inferenced the rest. ‘Found’ is spelled wrong, too.”
Second verse, same as the first. We entered into the building the same way as the previous warehouse through the office door, assuming correctly that the layout would be identical.
Four stained mattresses lined the floors. Half-eaten bags of pork rinds littered the floor next to juice boxes and empty beer cans. A bucket full of piss and soft shit gave off an ammonia stench so strong my eyes watered. I stood completely still for a moment and concentrated on not puking.
The air was thick with flies. The sliver of light from the half-open door sparkled off their iridescent bodies. The poorest man’s fireflies.
Bobby lifted the collar of his shirt over his nose and mouth. He put a hand on the knob leading into the warehouse. He blinked tears from his eyes and opened the door.
I followed him into the light.
It took me a long second to realize the difference from the other warehouse. The lack of darkness. Every light was on in the building, the maze of pipes and equipmen
t sharply visible. I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand. I turned to Bobby to say something, but stopped when I saw his finger on his lips.
He walked slowly along the wall of pipes that made one side of the makeshift hallway along the perimeter of the building. It turned into a winding maze, but my tour of the previous warehouse gave me some sense of direction. I followed closely behind Bobby, keeping the barrel of my shotgun trained at the ground. With each step scattered noises grew louder. Some kind of machine was running. An engine or a venting system.
We continued slowly toward the sound. Cold sweat dripped from my hair down the middle of my back. I was jonesing for a cigarette.
We rounded a corner. Red light. Bobby and I froze.
It wasn’t a machine. It wasn’t Alejandro or Juan. It was seven tattooed and scarred South Americans huddled on the ground in deep sleep. Their rhythmic breathing softly purred in the hollow space. The innocence of their positions made them appear angelic. The black guns that each of them clutched in their listless hands ruined that effect.
One of the sleeping men had a yellow, red, and blue flag tattooed on his arm. I made a mental note to look up the country of origin when I got home. That is, if the same man didn’t end up killing me.
Green light. Bobby and I took a quiet step back. Not quiet enough.
Flag Tattoo opened his eyes. He stared at us with that early morning glaze. Seeing, but not yet comprehending what was in front of him.
“Quién?” he mumbled.
We didn’t hang around to answer. Bobby and I hauled ass back the way we had come. I had to keep one hand on Bobby’s back to keep from tripping over him.
As we neared the office door, the rustle and voices grew louder behind us. Swearing and barked directions in Spanish. But the voices weren’t loud enough to hide the sound of a different group of voices in front of us. While the voices behind us were belligerent, the voices in front of us were laughing and seemingly unaware.
Five armed Mexican men stood at the office door. The very same office door that was supposed to be our exit out of the building. The Mexicans stared at us with amusement and surprise when we rounded the corner and came into view.
Bobby stopped. I tried to hit the brakes, but slammed into his back and fell on my ass. I scrambled to my feet.
The Mexicans laughed at my pratfall. Then they noticed our shotguns. Then they heard the voices behind us. Then they stopped laughing.
Bobby looked behind us, voices and footsteps growing loud. He turned back to the Mexicans and trained his shotgun to the ceiling.
He shouted, “Llene tu manos, hijos de las chingadas,” and fired two quick rounds. The deafening sound rang in my head and echoed throughout the building.
The Mexicans hit the deck, reaching for their guns. The footsteps behind us stopped.
Bobby took off back toward the South Americans. No time for questions, I followed and prayed he had a plan.
The moment we were out of view of the Mexicans, Bobby fell to the ground, crawled under the nearest pipe, and scuttled out of view into the center of the building. I didn’t need an invitation. I dove under the pipe right behind him.
We crawled quickly, staying below the maze of pipes. At points the squeeze was so tight that exposed bolts tore at my shirt and back. We kept moving. I focused on the soles of Bobby’s feet, my face inches away, keeping pace. Even when his heel brushed my chin, I made no attempt to broaden the gap.
It didn’t take long for the firefight to commence. It was a hell of a thing to hear. The Mexicans had obviously pursued us and ran smack-dab into the South Americans. As everyone’s gun was cocked and ready, all it took was one itchy trigger finger and war was declared. Not enough time for it to occur to anyone to use their shared language to ask where the gringos hightailed it to. From under the pipes, it sounded like the end of the world. The blast of arms and the tenor ping of ricocheting lead.
I had no sense of direction under the pipes, putting my complete faith in Bobby. With the volume and echoes, for all I knew, we could have been going toward the gunfight. It was like all my senses had been stripped away.
Bobby led us right to the office door.
With the gunfire at our backs, we tore out of the building and ran across the length of the loading dock toward the north edge of the building. As we turned the corner of the warehouse, we literally ran into Buck Buck and Snout. We almost knocked each other down and shot each other simultaneously.
“What the fuck is going on in there?” Buck Buck loud-whispered.
“Not now,” Bobby said.
He motioned for us to follow and took off toward the first warehouse. We stayed along the north edge of the building. Back at the loading dock, we jumped into the truck ramp and quickly found the safety of darkness. We all sat with our backs to the concrete, breathing hard.
I had a good view of the double-wide and saw the light go on in the office. We were deep enough in the shadows that I had little concern of being detected. Nobody would be looking in our direction anyway with the violent popping of gunfire in the distance.
“Who the fuck is doing all that shooting?” Buck Buck asked.
“Fucking drug smuggler convention in there,” Bobby said.
“We’re here. Who they shooting at?”
“Each other,” Bobby said.
“Nobody in the back warehouse,” Snout chimed in. “Sorry, Jimmy. Didn’t see no kid.”
“Could be more people in the middle one. These are big buildings. We didn’t exactly get the complete tour,” I said.
“We can’t go back there now,” Bobby said.
“How many you talking about?” Buck Buck asked.
“Enough. Like a half dozen on each side. That is, if there are only two sides and some other group of scumbags didn’t feel left out and join in,” Bobby said.
“Probably a few less by now,” Buck Buck said.
“We can take ’em,” Snout said.
The door of the double-wide flew open. While we were well out of sight, we all still ducked out of instinct. An impressively fat man buttoned his shirt as he stepped out of the office. His red face and peeling bald head telegraphed his time in the desert sun. He shouted into a walkie-talkie.
It didn’t take long for two other guards to show. A heated discussion with a lot of pointing and shouting followed. With the gunfire continuing in the middle warehouse, the three men stood in a close huddle and discussed their plan of attack. Baldy was in charge.
One of the men went into the double-wide for a minute and came back with three serious guns. I don’t know firearms well enough to say what kind, but they were action movie serious.
Even with the guns, they made no move. Why would they? Whatever was happening in that warehouse wasn’t their fight. It looked like the plan was to wait it out, assess the damage, and take it from there. These guys were smarter than they looked.
With the guards standing there listening to the show, we were trapped in the darkness of that truck ramp. We were safe and out of sight, but the floodlights between us and the fence were too bright to allow any escape. And we hadn’t found Juan yet. I couldn’t speak for the other guys, but I had no plans to leave until I found him.
The men lifted their rifles toward the warehouse. Someone approached out of view. There was yelling back and forth. While the guards kept their guns aimed, they let the man approach.
It was Alejandro. He was carrying Juan. He held his hands out as much as he could with Juan in his arms. He approached cautiously, even doing a pirouette to show them he wasn’t armed. They lowered their rifles, but their body language never relaxed. Drug smugglers shooting at each other in the distance will do that.
Baldy motioned for Alejandro to go into the double-wide. Alejandro asked a few questions, but only received shrugs and curt responses in return. Visibly frustrated, Alejandro and Juan entered the trailer. The door slammed shut. The three guards remained outside, still in discussion.
Like popcorn in a mi
crowave, the gunfire slowed to sporadic bursts. Then stopped. Nothing for a minute. Then one quick shot. And again. After fifteen minutes of complete silence, the guards huddled again. They came to some kind of agreement and walked very cautiously, guns at the ready, toward the far warehouse.
I gave Bobby a look. He nodded. Buck Buck woke up Snout. I counted to thirty and then lifted myself out of the truck ramp. Glancing in the direction the guards had gone, I saw nothing. I motioned for the guys to follow. We walked quickly but quietly to the double-wide, stopping just below the window.
I crept up to look, but Bobby pulled me back down. I threw him a glare, but he shook his head and nodded to the door. Keeping low, Bobby and I crab-walked to the door. Bobby pounded on the door, saying nothing.
“This is bullshit,” Alejandro said through the door. His voice grew louder. “I ain’t paying no full price. Lo jodiste. Chingadas shooting, not what I paid for. Wanted to get shot, I would’ve stayed in La República. You better have some discount…”
The moment Alejandro opened the door, Bobby and I had him by his shirt. We pulled hard. He landed face-first on the ground, immediately attempting to scurry to his feet. I put my foot on his back, and Bobby stepped on one of his hands. Alejandro yelped, flailing his arms and bucking his body.
Buck Buck didn’t need to be told what to do. He ran quickly up the steps into the double-wide.
Alejandro yelled loudly. Bobby kicked him in the head, and I dropped to one knee onto the middle of his back. He arched and moaned, the wind knocked out of him. Gasps took the place of volume.
Buck Buck came out holding Juan in his arms. He wasn’t overly gentle, obviously not accustomed to carrying a child. Luckily Juan was subdued. His eyes were huge. But after this recent adventure with Alejandro, he seemed like he was just going to go along with whatever happened.
“Get him out of here,” I said. “Take one quad, one bike. Don’t wait for us. Get the kid as far away from here as you can. Bring him to Angie. Don’t tell her nothing. Just tell her to look after him. Go!”