The bouncer attempted to intervene. He was thrown into the bartender. Furniture was broken. Bottles smashed. By the time the police finally arrived, the place looked considerably more authentic.
* * *
I wasn’t at the bar myself, but I watched a good part of the proceedings thanks to a video camera Tex planted in one of the goofy mining props near that bar. We’d also planted bugs on Mongoose and Shotgun, hoping they would give us audio throughout the night. Unfortunately, both units stopped working soon after the fight began—clearly, the boys had taken their role playing a little too seriously.
Tex and Veronica were outside the bar for most of the fight, acting as close backup in case things got out of hand. Trace, Stoneman, and I were sitting on the hill at the top of the mining pit, watching the jail with night binos and a telescope Trace bought at one of the tourist shops in town. The video was being piped to one of our laptops over an encrypted Internet channel.
(The video camera in the bar was making use of an unprotected WiFi connection nearby. Let that be a lesson to you: you never know what’s going to show up on your network if you don’t protect it. The bugs were more traditional, working on a short-range radio network that transmitted to Tex and Veronica in the car. Well, they would have been working on a radio network if the boneheads hadn’t broken them.)
Trace, Tex, and Stoneman had arrived in town a few hours before; Trace had only just finished filling me in on her adventures with the Garcias and the tractor-trailer. For the record, she wasn’t entirely convinced that sending Shotgun and Mongoose into the jail was a good idea; she’d seen The Big House with Wallace Beery recently, and came away scarred.
Everyone else thought it was a great gig, and offered to change places.
“Man, that is so cool,” said Stoneman as we watched the fight. “Look at what they did to that ice machine.”
Have I talked about Stoneman yet? This was one of his first real assignments with us. He worked for the Christians In Action as a NOC. Some people claim the abbreviation stands for “non-official cover,” meaning that the agent has an “outside” identity or cover—your basic spy. Of course, we know it really stands for Not Overly Conceited, which is meant sarcastically, since to even be a member of the CIA you have to have a head so big you have to go sideways through doors.
Having it up your ass is optional, though it helps if you want to be promoted.
Stoneman supposedly got his nickname because he was “Stoned, man.” That’s one of those stories that can neither be confirmed nor denied. He spent a lot of time in Thailand and environs while he was in the agency. But while he occasionally talks like a doper straight out of a Cheech and Chong sketch, he’s not old enough to have experienced the sixties. He’s also aced all of the drug tests we’ve ever administered—but then so has Lance Armstrong.
It may be a coincidence, but his favorite weapon happens to be a Stoner Rifle—an SR-25 manufacturer by Knights Armament Company. Aficionados will recognize the SR-25 as the basis for the Mk 11 Sniper Rifle, a weapon favored by many SEAL snipers. Stoneman’s version is outfitted with a twenty-inch barrel, which frankly isn’t practical in a lot of situations. Since joining us, he’s taken to supplementing it with an Uzi, possibly under Mongoose’s influence.
Stoneman is skinnier than a string bean. His face—well, about the best thing you can say is that you can’t quite tell his chin was broken when he played wide receiver in college. He’s always fidgeting with his hands, and he has a tendency to wear his clothes so long they could stand up without him. But he’s a hell of an expert in Luta Livre, which is free-form Brazilian kick-the-shit-out-of-your-enemy martial art. He claims to know fifty-seven ways to choke a man to death.
Fifty-eight for a woman.
“Who do you think would win a real fight between those guys?” Stoneman asked when the police finally managed to handcuff them.
“Be pretty close,” said Trace.
“Trace would kick both their asses,” I said, leaning toward the telescope. “And yours. All at the same time.”
Stoneman nodded. He knew I was right—Brazilian martial arts was no match for Apache fury.
I went over to the telescope, examining the interior of the prison compound. Floodlights illuminated every inch, including the two exercise yards and the parking area near the front entrance. The prison was classified as a minimum security facility, with most of its prisoners within a year of being released; the rest were awaiting trial on minor charges, such as those that were about to be hurled at Shotgun and Mongoose. This meant that none of the inmates was considered a serious escape risk, which in turn explained why security was so light—there was one guard in each tower, and a pair of men near the front gate, but otherwise I could see no one.
There were other possible explanations—such as understaffing to save money and increase profits by a private company more interested in protecting stockholders than the citizenry. But that couldn’t be the case here, right?
“Say, Dick, there’s a truck coming up the county road,” said Trace. “Take a look.”
She gave me the night binoculars and pointed out the tractor-trailer.
I glanced at my watch as the truck slowed as it neared the turnoff for the prison. It was ten minutes past twelve. Pretty late for a delivery.
“Is it going on the trail, or the road?” asked Trace.
The vehicle slowed for the road, but then continued a few more yards and made the turn onto the trail Veronica and I had spotted earlier in the day.
“Change of plan,” I told the others. “Listen up. We have about sixty seconds to get this together.”
* * *
Truck drivers always stop for beautiful women. Especially when they are standing in front of a broken-down car and showing plenty of leg and cleavage.
The fact that they’re blocking the way on the narrowest part of a treacherous trail doesn’t hurt either.
The truck jerked to a stop as Trace stepped away from the rental we’d put on the trail. She began waving wildly, doing her best frantic female imitation, rubbing her forehead and thrusting her pelvis in a way guaranteed to hobble any male over the age of seven. She ran to the truck, waving her hands, and saying in Spanish that she was lost and her car had overheated.
“Why are you out here?” said the driver, rolling down the window as she hopped up on the running board next to him.
“To rob you,” she said, pulling out her pistol.
The driver hit the gas. Trace grabbed the mirror bar with her left hand. With the other hand, she smacked the driver with her pistol, knocking him in the head as the truck bolted forward.
Unfortunately, he had a thick head. He swatted back, trying to knock her off with his forearm and elbow. He jerked the truck left and right, but the vehicle was in first gear and it drove extremely slowly.
Thank God. I was already in the cab, sliding across the seat toward him.
“You stop now or I put a hole in the side of your head big enough to run a fist through.” I pressed my pistol into his temple.
He took his foot off the gas and raised his arms.
“Take us farther,” I said. “Keep it in first.”
We inched ahead to a wider spot in the road. Trace opened the door and hauled him out onto the ground. She took it as a personal insult that he had stepped on the gas and tried to brush her off. Such intransigence needed to be corrected.
While he howled, I went to the back of the truck. Stoneman, who’d been backstopping us from above, came down to cover me.
The rear door was locked. I could have picked it, or better yet let Stoneman do it, since he’s supposed to be such a whiz at spy craft. But I was tired—I shot the damn thing off.
When I rolled the door up, the smell almost knocked me over.
“Shit—are they all dead?” said Stoneman.
The blinking eyes inside showed they weren’t. But some of the people jammed into the back of the truck may have wished they were. All were soaked with sweat. M
ore than a few had either vomited or lost other body fluids.
“This is a lot like what we found in Mexico,” Trace told me after we’d helped them from the truck. “Even worse—there are more people here. The truck must get to a hundred and twenty degrees. They’ve probably been driving for days.”
We culled the weakest from the group, taking them a short distance from the truck and helping them sit and lie down. We hadn’t planned on doing any of this, and so we had nothing for them to eat or drink. I called Veronica, and told her to get some drinking water and come up to the pit.
“How much water?”
“Buy out the store. Leave Tex to shadow Shotgun and Mongoose. They’re not going anywhere they haven’t been.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, I held my breath against the stench as Stoneman ground through the gears and wended his way to the prison. We weren’t exactly sure what was supposed to happen once we got there, but we figured the guard would know.
Stoneman pulled in front of the tower and stopped. When no one appeared after a few seconds, he tapped his horn a few times. The door at the base of the building opened, and a guard came rushing out to scold him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you stupid ass bean eater,” yelled the guard. “Shit for brains, you greaseball.”
Stoneman rolled down the window and leaned out of the cab.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not Pedro,” said the guard. “You’re not even fuckin’ Mexican.”
“I’m fillin’ in.”
“You stupid shit. Why did you beep the horn?”
“So you could yell at me, asshole.”
They exchanged a few more insults back and forth, with appropriate profanity and good doses of ethnic insults. Though he had seen that Stoneman was an American, the guard continued to hurl curses at him as if he were Mexican. It was almost as if he had been preprogrammed and couldn’t change the script.
Inside the truck, I was sorely tempted to yell at them to get on with it. I leaned against the side wall and did my best not to become asphyxiated. It was pitch-black—a good thing, since I couldn’t see that I was standing in a pool of pee.
The men around me—I’d insisted on leaving all the women behind, along with men Trace judged too sickly to continue—began mumbling.
I’d considered threatening them, telling them that they weren’t to say anything about stopping, or give me away. But they all had a blank look in their eyes—faraway zone, as Stoneman called it. I felt it was better just leaving them be.
Now I wasn’t so sure. They suddenly seemed a hell of a lot more alive than just a few minutes earlier.
The rear of the truck flew open. The guard who had accosted Stoneman now began yelling at us in heavily accented Spanish, saying that we were worthless pieces of putrid shit, and that we should get out of the truck before he hosed us out.
The men started to file out. One of the older men put his hand out to the guard, hoping for help down. Instead, the guard stepped back, shooting him a look of disdain. I went and helped him down, then started helping others.
“Get your ass inside the building,” the guard snarled. “Get.”
It took every ounce of self-restraint not to smack him. I waited until two Mexicans came over to help the last stragglers before shambling over in the direction of the building.
I expected that we would be greeted by guards with shotguns and dogs. Instead, there was a single grandfather type in an orange prison coverall standing near the threshold, waving his hand to urge everyone inside.
Mr. Cortina, Veronica’s grandfather.
He looked a little trimmer than the photos she’d showed me, but it was definitely him. He even smiled the same.
I sidled up next to him. A liver mark made a large teardrop at the corner of his temple; he had a full head of white hair and very tired eyes.
“Mr. Cortina, my name is Richard Marcinko,” I whispered. “Your granddaughter sent me. I’m here to get you out.”
He looked at me for a moment. I thought he was going to cry. Then his eyes narrowed.
“Mr. Cortina?” I asked. “Did you hear me?”
“Get back in line,” he snapped. “Go.”
X
I did as he said, joining the rest of the men walking through the tower into the exercise yard beyond. A few of the men had bags of clothes and other belongings, but most were as empty-handed as I was. I didn’t have a weapon, or a radio. I didn’t even have my trick shoe.
Two more prisoner trustees were instructing the new arrivals to stand in lines ten people across by four deep. I managed to get a spot in the third line back. I slumped a little, making myself as inconspicuous as possible.
As the last stragglers filed in, a woman in her midtwenties came out of the building across from us. Dressed in jeans and a light blue Polo shirt. The shirt had a small crest above the pocket; this was apparently the prison company’s logo. It took a few seconds of staring before I realized it was an outstretched hand.
Handcuffs would have been more appropriate, no?
“Quiet now, quiet,” she said in Spanish, though no one was talking. “I am Serena Gomez, the assistant director at our facility. You will all get some food and water in a minute. First, let me tell you that your journey is almost over. Your next stop will be in America. We will take you there a few at a time starting tomorrow. Have some water, and rest.”
She turned around and went back to the building. As she had been speaking, two more trustees had come out with chests of ice and water bottles. They set them down, then stepped back.
A good thing. They would have been trampled in the slow-motion stampede that followed.
I joined the group. There were two trustees watching us. Neither looked particularly interested. One of the men I’d come in with approached one of them, but backed off when the trustee put up his hand and shook his head.
It had been clever of Gomez to tell them they were still in Mexico. It lessened the possibility that they would try to escape on their own.
The people running the operation had plans to extract more money from them. Each person had already ponied up a considerable sum31 to get this far; now they would be taken to supposed safe houses where they would be made to pay exorbitant rents from low wages at menial jobs. Any who escaped without paying would find their families back home in Mexico threatened—or might not find their families at all.
One of the trustees blew a whistle and pointed at the door of a building behind him. We started walking in that direction. I put my head down, doing my best to blend in.
The building was a single-story barracks. Beds lined both sides of the room. An air conditioner at the far end made the temperature surprisingly cool. There were stands with hangers next to each bed, but no clothes. Most likely they’d have a chance to buy some in the morning.
I found a bunk and plopped down, watching the others and at the same time trying to decide how I was going to find Mr. Cortina and what to do once I did. The small, skeleton staff they had here made it easy to move around, but Cortina’s apparent attitude toward me was a complication.
I hadn’t considered the possibility that he had gone to work for the cartel, accepting Veronica’s view of her grandparents uncritically. But now that I thought about it, I realized it might make a lot of sense: why not work for the cartel?
Maybe they thought America had screwed them in their golden days, forcing them to live south of the border to stretch their retirement dollars. Maybe they’d been corrupt all along. Or maybe they just decided to go with the flow—it was a lot easier than resisting.
I picked out a cot and sat on it, watching the others. A few went to the shower room, but most were so exhausted they just lay back on the beds and went right to sleep. After we’d been in the room about ten minutes, the overhead lights began blinking on and off. Finally they dimmed, leaving the three or four night-lights scattered around the room to provide light.
I rolled out of
bed and made my way to the door. As I reached for the knob, it started to turn. I slipped back behind it, waiting as the dark shadow of a man filled the space. He stepped inside and the door closed.
I grabbed him around the neck.
“¿Quién eres?” I whispered. “Who are you?”
“Marcinko?” said the man in English. It was Mr. Cortina.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was coming to talk to you. You know my granddaughter?”
“Yes, I know Victoria well.” I released him.
“We can’t talk here,” he whispered. “Sometimes they put in spies. Follow me.”
I let him lead me back outside and around the building, into the side yard. Every shadow I saw tightened my short hairs—he could easily be leading me into a trap.
“Can’t they see us from the tower?” I asked when we stopped outside.
“There’s no one in the back tower,” said Mr. Cortina. “Only the front tower is manned at night. Once the new ones come, the guard leaves.”
“There’s no one watching the back?”
“No. Never.”
“Why doesn’t anyone escape?”
The corner of his mouth edged upward, and I saw the same twinkle that animated Veronica. “We’re working on it,” he told me. “We have a plan. Come with me.”
We walked along the side of the building, pausing when we came to the corner. He leaned out from the wall, glancing in the direction of the front tower. He waited for a few moments, then walked very quickly across. I followed at his heels.
We crossed behind another building, then came to a squat, square building with a tin roof that edged against the exercise yard. He went to a door, knocked, then opened it. The heavy aroma of bleach nearly knocked me over as I went in behind him.
The short corridor opened into a larger room. Dozens of bedsheets were hung from the ceilings.
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