by DJ Erfert
~*~
“Lucia!” Mariposa screamed.
Mark had just put a pair of flex cuffs on the injured guy when he looked over at Lucy in the dirt. “Lucy?” He yelled, “Jason, watch them!” as he ran over to Lucy and gently touched her throat to get her pulse … He quickly pulled his hand away from her body when he felt the strange temperature of her skin. It was ice cold.
“Lucy,” he whispered softly, kneeling down and leaning closer to her face. “Lucy?” Mark gently wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and felt her strong pulse with his thumb. She was alive but as cold as somebody found in a freezer. Suddenly her skin heated up to normal under his hand, and she took in a deep breath. When she opened her dark blue eyes, he softly asked, “Lucy, what happened?”
Smiling, she said, “You’re alive, and we stopped them.”
“But … your skin was so cold. I thought you were dead.”
“I can’t talk about it right now, Mark,” Lucy quietly told him. “I’ll tell you later. I promise. Please keep what happened to me to yourself—please!”
Mark stared into Lucy’s deep blue eyes. She had a secret, and whatever it was saved at least two people, probably many more, he had no doubt about that. And now she was asking him to keep a secret—for her. “All right,” he whispered. “Can you get up? Were you wounded?”
Lucy slowly sat up and, with his helpful arms, got to her feet. “I’m fine, Mark.” She looked at Jason. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell your partner.”
“It’s not going to be the same thing you tell me?” he asked softly. She shook her head.
“He’s very young and might not be as … discreet as he should be, as I need him to be.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
~*~
“Be careful when you open that backpack,” Lucy said when Jason tugged on the pack’s zipper. Sitting in the shade with her back pressed up against the dirt wall of the arroyo, Lucy sipped on a bottle of water and watched the two agents go through the gray Suburban.
“After everything you’ve done, aren’t you curious about what’s inside these?” Mark asked, tossing one of the packs on the ground.
Lucy shook her head and took another swallow of water. “I wasn’t looking for the backpacks. I’m glad the helicopter found Ana and her kids. Where will they go?”
“To the hospital first,” Mark said. “Then to headquarters for processing.”
“I guess that’s good.” She took another long drink of water as she watched the search. “Let me know when you find the tracking devices.”
Mark turned around and sat on the edge of the tailgate. “You think that’s how the bandits found your group?”
“Uh huh,” Lucy said. “But I don’t think those guys are random bandits.”
“Okay, time to clue me in on your theory.”
“I, uh, I can’t prove it until you’ve searched all of the backpacks, but …” She leaned forward and pulled up her knees to her chest. With her arms wrapped around her legs, she said, “My cover was a waitress job in a small cantina in Los Vidrios. It was there that our coyote made arrangements with the men for our crossing—”
“Only with the men?” Jason asked.
“Uh huh,” Lucy said. “Umberto wouldn’t talk with us women. Since I didn’t have a husband, or a brother, Juan talked for me.” She closed her eyes, trying to block out the last time she saw him. He was covered in blood, dead. So was his son.
“That’s a little weird,” Jason said, sitting down next to his partner.
“Not really,” Mark said. “In Hispanic culture, the men take care of business. You don’t see it much in the U.S., but every once in a while that sexist dominance surfaces here, too. Lucy, are you okay?”
She opened her eyes and nodded. “I’m tired. My brain is … forgetting something.”
Mark moved over and kneeled on the sand next to Lucy. He gently touched her cheek. “You’re very hot.”
“Why, thank you. I like you, too.” The sudden pink streak that stained his cheek made her afternoon. “Sorry,” Lucy whispered. Louder she said, “When I was in the cantina, a man came in with Umberto. The suit he wore was out of place. He spoke only once before Umberto sent us women outside, and it wasn’t in Spanish.”
“He spoke English?” Jason asked, kneeling down in front of her.
Lucy slowly shook her head. “No. It was Farsi, or Dari, I think.”
“Farsi?” Jason asked, looking over at his truck.
“It’s a common Middle Eastern language,” Mark said. “Why would he want to help illegals cross into the U.S.?”
“You called them mules, but you assume they only carry drugs.” Lucy took a swallow of water, and continued. “Do you carry a Geiger counter in your truck?”
“Holy crap!” Mark jerked his head back once. “You suspect something radioactive?”
“I do.”
“Damn,” Jason cursed. “I’ll get my RIID.”
“Rid?” Lucy asked.
“Geiger counters are old fashioned,” Mark said. “We don’t usually carry anything for detecting radiation, but today I let my rookie take out his own truck. It’s brand new with all new equipment.”
“And it carries what we need?”
“Yeah. He’s got a Radioactive Isotope Identification Device. It detects even the smallest amounts of radioactive isotopes from a great distance away.” He stood up and moved over to the pack on the ground. Sighing loudly, he leaned over and slowly unzipped the black backpack at his feet. When he peeled back the nylon flaps, they could see two plastic-wrapped brick-looking things. “Without testing it I can’t be sure, but it appears to be cocaine.”
Lucy got up and went over. “Is that all there is inside it?”
Mark lifted out the top two bricks of coke and set them on the tailgate. When he lifted another brick out—he froze. “Damn—” He set the cocaine in his hand down on the tailgate as he moved away, taking Lucy’s elbow and dragging her with him. He grabbed his rookie along the way to hide behind his truck.
“What happened?” Jason asked, looking around the side of the Tahoe toward the Suburban.
“I found a bag of dynamite wrapped around a tube.” Mark pushed Lucy toward the passenger door. “We need to get out of here. Jason, get your truck moving, but do it very gently. Let’s not put out any more vibrations than necessary.”
He sounded scared. Lucy could hear it in his voice. She didn’t get to see what was in the pack, but if it contained explosives then it was more complicated than just a bomb. Mariposa and Raul sat cuffed in the backseat. Lucy hadn’t said a word to them since they were taken into custody, but they looked as frightened as Mark acted. He put the Tahoe in reverse, turned in his seat, and began to back up, following Jason down the arroyo.
“We don’t know where the rest of the group is,” Lucy said. “The GPS locator is in that truck.”
“Oh, hell, Lucy. How many backpacks are we talking about?”
Driving backwards was making Lucy’s stomach nauseous. She closed her eyes. “Only the men carried the bags. Uh … eleven—eleven packs.” When she opened her eyes she saw the color drain from Mark’s face.
“And we have six contained,” he said quietly. “Leaving five unaccounted for.”
“Now you’re the one making a big leap here, Mark. We don’t know they all contained the same packages.” Lucy waved at the windshield. “And if they did, you threw the backpack to the ground, so I don’t think it’s going to blow up now.”
“I’m such an idiot,” Mark said with a groan. “I should have known better than to be so careless with an unknown package.”
“Okay, now think,” Lucy said. “Did you see a detonator attached to the dynamite?”
“I didn’t see anything but eight sticks and a tube before I found my yellow streak—”
“Mark, you’re not a coward,” Lucy stated flatly. “Now, stop the truck. I need to go back.” He hit the brakes.
Mark had his arm over t
he top of Lucy’s seat. “No, you’re not. I know how fearless you are. I saw you take down those men without breaking a sweat, so I know you’re well trained, too. But walking to a truck loaded with explosives without body armor is just suicidal. Not to mention the radioactive material that would be let loose.”
Lucy let her gaze fall to the people in the backseat. They were listening to everything the border agent said, and their eyes were round, moist orbs of understanding. They knew more English than they let on. “We need to talk outside.”
Down in the arroyo there wasn’t much of a breeze, but every once in a while a brief gust would make its way through the dry riverbed. Lucy ran her fingers along her scalp, and she began to braid her long hair. She looped the end with a rubber band she had in her pocket. When she turned around she saw that Jason had decided to join in on their conversation. Not her first choice when talking about her secret—but it might be her only choice if she were to get their cooperation.
“What is it, Lucy?” Mark asked when his partner stopped next to him.
“Did you get a hit of radioactivity on your RIID?” she asked the younger agent.
Jason’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t get a chance. Sorry.”
Lucy took a couple of deep breaths and wished she could just leave and not worry about the whole situation. But the facts were plain and simple, at least to her. “I’m taking control of this mission. Do either of you object?”
“Is this a CIA mission?” Jason asked quietly.
With a jerk of her thumb over her shoulder, she said, “It started in a foreign country, and that’s my purview. Technically I need the FBI to continue this, but you guys are the federal law enforcement agency on the scene, so we’re all set, legally, anyway.” Lucy let a hint of a smile touch her lips when she said, “Besides, the FBI complicate things too much. Nobody ever knows who’s in charge.” Mark chuckled, and Jason smiled.
“Is that a yes?”
“I need to check in with dispatch—”
“Not a good idea,” Lucy said quickly, cutting Mark off. “Not until we know if there is a detonator affixed onto the explosives, and if there is, what kind it is and how it’s triggered.”
Jason shook his head.
Mark said, “Some detonators are triggered by cell phone, some by radio frequencies.”
“Right,” Lucy agreed, nodding. “So … I need to go back and look in the bag. And we need to do it quickly, before your helicopter gets here.”
Mark sighed. “He’ll radio us.”
“Yeah.”
Mark briskly rubbed his face, but his hands dropped away like fifty pound weights when Lucy said, “And I need one of you to come with me.”
“I wasn’t going to let you go alone,” he said sharply. “Jason, stay here and make sure our prisoners stay put.” He stared at Lucy. “We’ll try to make this quick.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Their footsteps echoed off the dirt walls as they approached the Suburban. Lucy almost giggled when she realized they were sneaking up on an inanimate object like it could see them. “Mark, do you trust me?”
He must not have expected a blunt question like that. He came to an abrupt standstill and faced her.
Without hesitation Mark said, “Yes.”
A tired smile spread on Lucy’s dirty face. “Then believe me when I tell you that you’re not going to be killed going back to the truck.”
“You say that like you know it for a fact.” Mark glanced at the open tailgate of the Suburban and asked, “How can you be so sure?”
She followed his line of sight and saw the pile of backpacks stacked behind the second set of seats, then tried to find a way to tell him her secret. “I would have seen it already.”
He jerked his head back a little. “Seen what?”
Lucy wiped her sweaty forehead with her fingers. “Your death.”
“Huh?”
Her half-empty bottle of water still sat on the sand in the shade, and Lucy walked over to get it. She noticed her partner stopped short, obviously not wanting to get any closer. But he was close enough that if just one bag of eight sticks of dynamite went off, he’d be killed by the blast. She picked up her water and drank a few mouthfuls before turning to the reluctant border agent. “I have a gift. I can catch a glimpse into the future if someone is about to die.”
Mark swept his hat off his head and ran his fingers through his short hair, glancing back at the way they’d walked and then at Lucy. She could see him trying to rationalize the events of the afternoon. “And I have a short window of time to change that death.”
“Is … Is that how you knew where your friends were? You saw them killed by the bandits?”
The particulars of Mariposa’s manhandling weren’t necessary for him to know. “Yeah.”
He shook his head. “Then why didn’t you know about Juan and his son being shot?”
Lucy’s heart twisted in a painful reminder—she didn’t save them, couldn’t save them. She felt Mark’s arm around her shoulders.
“I want to believe you,” he whispered.
“They—they were committing a crime,” Lucy said finally. She looked up into his doubtful eyes. “I don’t think I ever noticed before, but as many times as I’ve had my windows, I … I never once saw a criminal being killed. They were all … innocents.”
“Then it was the woman you saved and not her husband.”
“And your partner—”
“Jason?”
“We would have heard the shots, just like the last time, except this time they wouldn’t have taken off as quickly.”
“And my partner would have been shot?”
Lucy nodded.
“And me?”
“Shot, but not killed.”
“How about you?”
Shaking her head, she said, “I can’t see myself in these windows.”
“And that’s why you needed me to come back here with you—to see if I,”—Mark let out a heavy breath—“was killed in an explosion?”
“I’m sorry, but, yes.”
“Wow …”
Lucy wiped her face. “I need your flashlight.” He took a small cylinder out of his pocket and passed it to her. “I’m going to check the, um, the package. You can stay here while I look it over.”
The front flap was opened, but the pack was sitting in the shade of the truck. The LED bulbs of the flashlight lit up the inside, showing every creepy detail. Raul had carried eight sticks of dynamite wrapped by black duct tape around a metal tube. If this were Lucy’s bomb, then she’d have taped a detonator to the outside of the dynamite. Reaching in carefully, Lucy lifted the bundle out of the bag and set it on the tailgate next to the bricks of cocaine.
“It doesn’t have a detonator,” Mark said quietly.
“Nope. I wish we had that Geiger counter. I can almost guarantee that inside this tube is radioactive medical waste. It’s tightly controlled in the U.S., but in Mexico—” She sighed. “Security can be more easily swayed with cash.” She caught his eyes. “A dirty bomb. A nasty, nasty thing. Ready to open another bag?”
“Definitely not.” Mark reached for the next backpack and carefully unzipped it. Peeling open the front flap, he said, “More cocaine.” After taking out three plastic-wrapped bricks of the drug, he sucked in his breath. “And another bomb.”
“That’s two. Isn’t this fun,” Lucy said sarcastically. She gently extracted the dynamite wrapped metal tube from the bag and set it next to the first.
“No detonator on this one either,” Mark said with a soft sigh.
“Are you okay?”
“Oh, fine!”
“Not just another day at the office, huh?”
“That’s why I became a border agent.” He looked at the other packs. There were four left. “Are we going to search the rest?”
“We better,” Lucy said. She took another bag while Mark reached for the one next to it. The results were slightly different.
Lifting out another bundle of
dynamite, Mark said, “Bag three is a bomb.”
Opening her backpack all the way, she pushed down the flaps, exposing the surprising contents. “And I found the satellite detonators.” She tilted a few of them upward and looked at the dials before releasing a quick breath. “Unarmed satellite detonators. Call your dispatch and bring every available unit in on the search.” Lucy took the bag in her hands and started walking.
“Where are you going with those?”
Lifting the bag, she said, “I’m getting them as far away from the bombs as I can. They may look dormant, but I don’t know for sure someone hasn’t found a way to arm them remotely.” Lucy nodded toward him. “Make sure the other two bags are only bombs. Then I want you to find that GPS locator, and start your search for those other five men. They may or may not know about the explosives, but I know we don’t know where they are.”
~*~
“They found the last man about five minutes ago,” Mark said, passing Lucy a ham and cheese sandwich fresh from the Border Patrol Headquarters’ cafeteria. “HazMat took care of the radioactive materials and detonators we found, too.”
Lucy set her Pepsi down next to the computer keyboard and began to peel the plastic covering off from the sandwich. The towel she used to dry her hair was still wrapped around her shoulders. “I had no idea what those men dressed in the weird looking space suits were going to do to us.”
Mark laughed. “The outdoor decontamination showers were for our benefit, Lucy.”
Straightening her back, she asked, “For whose benefit was it that I strip naked and be scrubbed with brooms and sprayed with weird smelling water, exactly?”
“Yours,” he said, smiling and lifting a sandwich to his mouth. Before he took a bite, his gaze drifted down her loose-fitting hospital scrubs, and he said under his breath, “It made my day, too.”
“Well, at least we don’t have ten dirty bombs and a whole bag of sat detonators floating around Arizona any longer. I guess that’s worth a little humiliation.” With her mouth full of sandwich, she mumbled, “And I’m glad the bandits had to go through the same decontamination as we did.”
Nodding toward the computer, Mark asked, “Did you get your report done?”