The First Lady Escapes

by Verity Speeks

  While Gretchen and Sally-Ann discussed tomorrow’s hospital visit, Moon felt a twinge in her gut. Maybe there was a way she could use the President’s germ phobia, at this point a secret from everyone except the people in this room, to torpedo his popularity. It would ease her guilt for helping increase it.

  “Okay, I just got the info you wanted,” said Pricker, who was sitting on the sofa across from Moon, hunched over his laptop.

  “Speak to me,” said Gretchen. “Sally-Ann, take notes!”

  “Vaclav Szabo went through immigration at the San Diego Airport at 12:45 p.m. after arriving on American Airlines flight #1543 from Prague via Chicago,” Pricker said. “At 2:06 p.m., he departed from the U.S. by car, a Honda Civic rented from Enterprise, at the Cruce Peatonal Hacia, and crossed the border into Mexico.”

  “Excellent, Pricker,” said Gretchen. “I want you on the next flight to San Diego. Rent a car and drive across the border. If you find Natalia’s Slovak lover boy in Tijuana, you’ll find Natalia.”

  “Agent Pricker is not going anywhere!” It was President Funck, his eyes on the TV.

  “But Daddy!” She stepped in front of his chair, blocking his view of the screen. “We need him in TJ! We can’t give this job to anyone else! It’s not like we can send the Secret Service or the fucking army after FLOTUS! If this gets out to the—”

  “Pricker is my personal Secret Service agent!” Funck glared at her, his lower lip thrusting out even farther than usual. “I do not loan out Special Agent Pricker like a copy of my book, The Art of the Con. Pricker’s job description entails staying no more than twenty feet away from me at all times unless he’s asleep for the five hours he is allowed each night, or in the can. You want someone to go get FLOTUS, give the job to the U.D. officer on duty when she walked right fucking past him out of the fucking staff-entrance security area. Tell the son-of-a-bitch that he’s dead meat if he doesn’t find her. And that if anything about this leaks to the press, he’s more than dead meat. He’s a handful of ashes that I will dump in the toilet, fucking shit on, and fucking flush down into the sewer!”

  “That’s good, Daddy. You are right, as always! I will do that!”

  Moon could see that Gretchen was clenching her jaw in anger. The First Daughter doesn’t like to be crossed, just like her dad, she thought.

  “Sir, there were two U.D. officers on duty when FLOTUS walked,” said Pricker, checking his laptop. “A James Conner and a Tallisha Jones.”

  “‘Tallisha Jones?’” Rex snickered. “She’s black, right?”

  “I believe so, Mr. President.”

  “You ‘believe’ so? A person is either fucking black or white.”

  “No, sir, I mean, yes, sir,” said Pricker, rattled. “I’m looking at her ID photo on my laptop, and yes, affirmative, Tallisha Jones is African-American.”

  “Then send Officer Conner to Tijuana to find Natalia’s ass.”

  “What about U.D. Officer Jones?”

  “Demote her. Assign her to the staff cafeteria. No, make that the staff-cafeteria kitchen, in the basement. The night shift!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Moon chuckled to herself. She conjured up an image of Tallisha Jones hanging out at 1:30 a.m. in the staff-cafeteria kitchen with Stella. Stella is punching dough and Tallisha is reading aloud from Michelle Obama’s memoir, just as they were doing last night. Only now, thanks to her demotion, it is Tallisha’s job to be in the staff kitchen. The U.D. officer no longer has to sneak down there in her off hours. She can spend time with her true love as part of her job description. And in the morning, when their shifts end, they can leave the White House together, hand in hand, and go home to the apartment they will soon share as wife and wife.

  Chapter 35

  Near the Mexican Border, CA

  December 18, 10:00 p.m.

  Natalia shivered in the cold desert wind that whipped the tumbleweeds, like battered soccer balls, across the parking lot. She was wearing Angel’s wool-knit cap under her camouflage hat, but still she was chilled to the bone. “I thought deserts were hot,” she said as Angel jumped out of the pickup truck.

  “Not at night in December.” He walked a few feet away from the truck and flicked on his flashlight, panning the beam in a slow circle around them. “It’s gotta be here somewhere.”

  “What are we looking for?

  His flashlight beam picked up a wooden sign in the distance. “C’mon!” His boots crunched on the gravel as he trudged across the parking lot and onto a trail. Natalia followed him.

  Above, with no moon, the sky shimmered with stars. It reminded her of the sky above her babika’s farm in Slovakia when she was a child. On moonless nights, even if it was past her bedtime, her babika would take her outside to show her the constellations, like the Veľký voz. She said it was the soup ladle that Zlatorog, the mythical Slovak mountain-goat god, used to eat his Slovak sauerkraut soup. She looked up and spotted it in the sky, wondering if Vaclav, her very own Zlatorog, was looking at the Big Dipper right now. She pictured him walking alone on the beach in Rosarito; he should have arrived there today. She hoped that he was as excited about their reunion there tomorrow as she was. She crossed herself and said a silent prayer that all would go well.

  She caught up with Angel in front of the sign. In the glow of his flashlight beam, she read it: “The Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail (PCT) is a treasured pathway through some of the most outstanding scenic terrain in the United States. Beginning in southern California at the Mexican border, the PCT travels a total distance of 2,650 miles through California, Oregon, and Washington, before reaching the Canadian border.”

  “I saw a movie about this,” she said. “Reese Witherspoon plays this woman, Cheryl, who really did hike the PCT, over one thousand miles, all by herself. She was trying to get over a bad marriage and prove she could do something on her own. What she did was really difficult, really amazing. It helped her find herself.”

  “Great,” said Angel. “Now we gotta find the tunnel where I proved I didn’t have to be a poor dumb maricón in Mexico for the rest of my life.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Natalia. “This is the start of a trail that goes north to Canada, not south to Mexico.”

  “Yo, the tunnel I took from Mexico comes out exactly five miles due south of this sign,” he said. “So paid coyotes, or family, or, like, whoever’s waiting for an illegal burrito to sneak through the tunnel knows to meet him here.” He pulled a metal compass out of his pocket. “I used this to find my way here from the tunnel the night I came through.” He led Natalia back to the truck. “Some Mexicans got, like, a St. Christopher medal in their car to watch over them. I keep this in my pocket for the same reason.”

  They climbed into the truck. Angel started the engine and kept one eye on the compass as he drove south.

  “Was someone waiting for you?”

  “Huh?”

  “That night at the Pacific Crest Trail sign?”

  “My tio Claudio, my mom’s brother,” he said. “Claudio escaped through the tunnel himself a few times. He was what they call a ‘sandbeaner.’ The plan was, if the border Nazis showed up, we’d hit the PCT and head north.”

  “What happened?”

  “ICE shows up. Claudio takes off to the west. They go after him. He planned it so I could get away on the trail. I followed it north a mile or so, then used my compass to head east. The first Greyhound station I hit, I bought a ticket to Miami.”

  “What about your uncle?”

  “They caught him, detained him a few months, then sent him back to Mexico. But he hopped the border again.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Phoenix. He manages a car wash and has two kids in college.”

  “Awesome!”

  In the pitch dark, Natalia pulled down her jeans and squatted behind a rock. Hoping she wasn’t aiming at a sleeping rattlesnake, she peed. She figured she’d better go now—and boy, did she need to go—before they entered the tunnel. Angel had sai
d it was two miles long and only three-feet high. They would have to crawl on their bellies. “So many poor fucks escape through that tunnel, it stinks of piss and shit,” he warned her. “You might even see un muerto, a dead body, or smell one.” Angel explained that illegals died in the tunnel from lack of food or dehydration. “Chica, I hope you can deal with it.” She hoped she could too.

  Natalia knew all about the importance of staying hydrated. Since Paris, she always carried a bottle of natural spring water with her, like Evian, San Pellegrino, or Perrier. She hadn’t drunk, or seen, any of what she called “the big three” since leaving the White House. At the Golden Acorn Casino, where she and Angel had stopped for a break on the drive here tonight from Tucson, the only bottled water they sold was a generic brand. She worried that someone had filled the bottle with tap water and passed it off as purified. Then it hit her: What did it matter whether she drank bottled whatever water or tap water? Where she was going, she wouldn’t be riding in the back of a limo stocked with designer water. At the Indian casino, as a test, she had forced herself to drink four bottles of a generic brand. It didn’t give her cramps, gas, or diarrhea, as she feared. All it did was make her need to pee.

  “La puta!” Angel shouted. “Shit!”

  Natalia hurriedly zipped up. She spotted Angel’s flashlight beam and rushed over to him. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  He was standing near a saguaro cactus that looked worse than the dangerous giants she had seen earlier. Its arm had rotted off, leaving a festering hole where a lizard perched, a wriggling centipede in its mouth. The reptile skittered away. Muttering in Spanish, Angel was staring at an uneven circle on the ground of what looked like rocks, pebbles, and tar, about five feet in diameter.

  “What’s that?”

  “Dude, how could I be so pinche stupid?” His voice was trembling with rage.

  “Stupid about what?”

  “Like, how could I not get that the minute Rex Funck became President, he’d fill in every pinche gopher hole, every pinche crack in the earth, where wetback drug dealers and rapists… and…and pinches cannibals…could sneak into the good old U.S. of A!”

  Natalia gaped at the mound of rocks and tar. “This was the hole for the tunnel?”

  “They plugged it with pinche asphalt!” Angel threw his compass on the ground. “We’re fucked!”

  Angel raised his foot to stomp on it, but Natalia hastily scooped it up. “No!”

  Suddenly it hit her: If she couldn’t get into Mexico, she wouldn’t see Vaclav tomorrow.

  “NO!” she screamed.

  “Shhhh!” Angel clapped his hand over her mouth. “I bet they got, like, mics out here, and radar and drones with night-vision cameras. And…and pinches robots!” He hustled her back to the pickup. They climbed in. He flicked on the lights and the engine.

  She spotted searchlights flashing on along the horizon. “Look!” The searchlight beams grew brighter, moving closer.

  “Computerized searchlights.” He flicked off the headlights. “They’re like those sprinkler systems mounted on wheels that roll through farm fields. Only the searchlights aren’t watering strawberries. I bet they’re equipped with, like, video cameras. Anyone caught in the glare of the searchlights gets picked up by them. ICE sees them on a monitor and sends guys in cars, trucks, and ATVs after them.” He handed her the compass and shoved the truck into gear. “Point me north, dead north.”

  Natalia was too upset to focus on the compass. Her dream for a life with Vaclav was crumbling, rotting away like the arm on that cactus.

  “Mexico won’t build a pinche brick-and-mortar wall, so Funck builds a wall of American technology!” It was pitch dark. With the headlights off, Angel was driving blind, jolting over rocks and sideswiping cacti. “Are we heading north?”

  When she didn’t answer, he looked over and saw the tears on her face. “Look, I’m as sorry about this as you are, but I’ll get you to TJ, I swear.” He read the doubt on her face. “Chica, have I ever let you down?”

  She wasn’t angry at Angel. Right now, she was too disappointed, too sad, to feel any emotion. “If my mother wasn’t such a suka, a bitch, y’know what I’d say right now?”

  “What?”

  “I want my mamina,” she whimpered.

  Angel’s eyes suddenly widened, as if he was seeing a vision. A smile erupted on his face.

  “What’s so funny? I didn’t mean it as a joke.”

  “You want your mamina? Your mommy?”

  Natalia shook her head. “No, forget it. I don’t. I definitely do not want my mother right now. My mother is a world-class suka! She will be overjoyed when I go back to the White House because I can’t get into Mexico. She will kiss Rex’s feet. She will kiss his fat disgusting ass!”

  “Chica, you’re not going back to the White House!”

  “Oh, really? What? We’re going to drive over the Mexican border, like we’re tourists? What do we use for passports?”

  “We won’t need passports cuz we’re going to see my mommy.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Mi mamacita is NOT a bitch. She’s a wonderful, kind, generous, and sweet woman I love even more than I love you. Sorry, chica, but, like, she’s my mom. She’s also brave. So brave she is going to drive us across the pinche border herself!”

  Part IV

  Chapter 36

  San Diego, CA

  December 18, 10:30 p.m.

  U.D. Officer James Conner walked off Delta flight #1345 from Washington, D.C. with a swagger in his step. He wore his only newish pair of jeans, his only button-down white shirt without a frayed collar, and over it a black North Face puffer vest he had “borrowed” from the U.D. staff locker room at the White House. He had been too amped up to sleep on the plane and he was too amped up to sleep now. Tomorrow my life will change forever, he thought.

  Conner had no doubt in his mind that he would pull off his assignment from the First Daughter, a mission straight from POTUS himself. After his success, he was certain that he would be promoted to the rank of Secret Service special agent. No more wimpy U.D. uniform, complete with ASP aluminum tactical baton and pepper spray; it made him look like a goddamn flatfoot. No more tedious days checking IDs at the White House staff entrance. He pictured himself as a babe magnet in a sleek black suit and tie, packing a Sig Sauer P229 handgun, on his dream assignment: striding alongside the President’s limo in a Presidential motorcade, one hand on the shiny black metal skin of the “Beast,” one hand on his 12-gauge Remington 870 shotgun. Or wait… What I really want to do is drive the Beast, he thought.

  As he walked through San Diego International Airport, Conner spotted a Sunglass Hut kiosk. The vendor, a young Chicana, was locking up. He hustled over and persuaded her to stay open so that he could buy a pair. “It won’t take long. I know the shades I want,” he assured her. He zeroed in on a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators with polarized lenses and slipped them on. At $180, they were the most expensive sunglasses he had ever bought. I don’t give a shit, he thought. All special agents wear Ray-Bans.

  “Do I look cool?” he asked her as he admired himself in the mirror.

  “Absolutely.”

  He thought of asking the chick to have a drink with him in the airport bar. Maybe after renting his car, he could fuck her in it before heading to TJ. He checked her out and decided against it. She wasn’t that hot; her tits were the size of marshmallows. Besides, he had a job to do. He thanked her and walked in the direction of the sign: “Rental Cars.”

  Chapter 37

  Rosarito Beach, MX

  December 19, 2:00 a.m.

  Conner checked the GPS on his rental car. He’d been on the ground for nearly three hours since his plane landed in San Diego, but he was still a few blocks away from his destination. It had taken a shitload of time just to rent this piece of garbage at the airport. Thrifty had charged him so much for extra insurance to drive into Mexico, that he could have bought the damn car. Not that I’d ever want to own a Ford Fie
sta, he thought. No class.

  According to the rental-agent nerd, the cost of insurance for a Ford Fiesta was half of what it was for a Mustang or an SUV, cars that drug dealers love, because the chances those cars will get ripped off in TJ are twice as high. Conner sure wished he could have afforded the one black Escalade on the rental lot. It would have been good practice for driving the “Beast” in a Presidential motorcade. “Sorry, sir,” the Thrifty asshole had said. “We can’t rent you an Escalade if you’re driving to Mexico.”

  At 1:30 a.m., the border crossing itself had been a piece of cake. The line was mostly trucks. Conner’s was one of the few cars and the border agent didn’t even ask his purpose of entry. The dude must have taken one look at me—a stud wearing Ray-Bans, even in the middle of the night—and figured I’m going to TJ to get drunk and get laid, he thought. Don’t I wish.

  As he drove through Tijuana, he was surprised to find that it was a big modern city with eight-lane freeways, high-rise buildings, and shopping malls. It was the slums in the city outskirts that blew his mind: thousands of shacks made of cardboard boxes, old tires, and scraps of tin. Conner had never seen such wretched shantytowns. It sucks, big-time, to be poor in Mexico, he thought. But better the poor sons-of-bitches stay and rot in Mexican slums than come to pollute America.

  “Turn left on Calle Cantil,” said the GPS voice. As Conner hung a louie, he had to admit that the neighborhood was getting nicer. A road sign indicated that he was leaving the Tijuana city limits and entering Rosarito Beach. According to the GPS, he was a mile from the ocean. The houses here were made of stucco painted white or pastel colors. Some had two stories, windows covered with decorative iron grates, and satellite dishes on the tiled roofs. All were surrounded by cinderblock fences topped with shards of broken Coke bottles, or steel fences topped with sharp-pointed pickets. Either would nail the ass of a crook attempting to break in, he thought.