by Ian Bull
Her radio crackles, and she adjusts her headset and talks with the Nogales airport. Life is strange. Two years ago, I was working eighty hours a week developing hit shows and only making two hundred fifty thousand a year, and never getting laid. Now I’m coasting, getting rich, and getting sexual offers, all at the same time.
Pauline lands my DC-9 like a knife smearing butter on warm toast. We’re fifteen miles south of Nogales City Center, at a general aviation airport. It’s an official port of entry, but only sees fourteen flights a day. She slows at the end of the runway and taxis back to the small, adobe-shaped terminal and stops at the jet fueling station, which looks like an oversized gas pump.
“The rear airstair is down,” she says.
“Come meet Pablo,” I say to her, then grab my travel binder and walk through the plane. “Get your passports out, just in case,” I tell everyone else in the fuselage.
Jim unscrewed all the CCTV cameras and put them in the cargo hold until we get to Cananae, and we moved Tina’s big TV editing system from the office into the middle of the plane and secured it with bendable brackets. Lionel will use this to transmit the roll-ins to the TV monitor that will be on the plane, so we can rile up the fighters. Right now it looks like the fake mapping system.
“Lionel, get some maps on those screens,” I say as we step past.
“It’s a little below my job description, but I’ll do it,” Lionel mutters.
Pauline and I walk down the stairs where Officer Pablo Aguilar waits for us. He’s short, with straight dark hair and a mustache, and a pressed green uniform. He stares up at the empty camera domes we’ve attached under the wings.
“Pablo, good to see you again.” I shake his hand.
“Professor Kirkpatrick, bienvenidos a Mexico,” Pablo says. “Congratulations, your work has paid off.”
“Officer Aguilar, this is my pilot, Rebecca Schumacher, and this is our flight book.” I hand over the binder. “My students are inside.”
“Professor Kirkpatrick came every two months for over a year, trying to map our region,” Officer Pablo Aguilar says. “He always spoke about getting real funding and a plane and proper cameras so he could do the job right.”
I got lucky with Pablo. I didn’t even need to bribe him. He’s an idealist who loves his country and believed my story about mapping the desert to prevent its destruction. I’d fly in with a day pilot six times a year. My cover story is perfect, with credentials and cameras and documents in perfect order, with an ongoing open multi-trip visa. I even ate dinner at his house on one trip, met his wife and daughter, and talked to them about how to get into a university in the States. I emailed him that I was coming with an old jet plane, and he was more excited than I was. He’s my earnest sap, a regular Mexican patriot.
“So those are the cameras?” he says, looking at the domes on the wing.
“High-definition mapping cameras, mounted on an old, slow plane. That’s all we need,” I say. “Want to see inside?”
“I’d love to.”
“Mind if I stay outside and refuel?” Pauline asks.
Pablo nods and follows me up the stairs. When we get inside the fuselage, Lionel, Tim, Hachiro, Katashi, Yoshi, and Yuko crowd around the AVID editing system. Lionel has a terrain map up on one monitor, and he’s routed the one working exterior camera mounted on the tail into the other monitor. It senses Pauline moving and zooms in on her walking across the tarmac.
“With eight cameras like this one, we’ll do low passes for a week and make our own high-definition map of every tortoise trail out there,” I say.
“Amazing,” Pablo says. “Very good for Mexico.”
“These are my students—Lionel, Hachiro, Katashi, Yoshi, Yuko, and Jim.” I motion for them to take out their passports.
Pablo stands up straight. I offer to hold the travel binder, and he hands it over. He gives each passport a cursory glance and hands it back. I open the book to the page with the Advanced Passenger Information Sheet, where their names are listed, and he nods. In all my trips to Mexico, I’ve never had my passport stamped, and he doesn’t stamp theirs this time either.
“Four days total?” he asks.
“Or less. Then, we’ll fly back to the states through Texas,” I say, tucking the binder under my arm. “But we’ll be back in a few months.”
“Good luck, Professor.” Pablo shakes my hand. “Send me your results when you get them; I’d like to know.”
The binder is still under my arm. He didn’t even look at it. That’s what years of preparation will do. The day arrives, and you don’t even need it. Warm butter on toast.
Then minutes later, Pauline and I are back in the cockpit. Pablo stands in front of the small airport building as we taxi back down the runway, and waving as we take off and rise into the sky.
It’s showtime. My perfect life just got even more perfect.
Chapter 44
* * *
Steven Quintana
Day 14: Friday
Somewhere in North Mexico
They’re going to kill you. Do something. That’s the thought that keeps rapping its knuckles on the inside of my forehead, demanding to be heard. But I have no answer. All I can do is sneak looks out the side window of this moving car, stuck in the middle of the backseat, between the men in black who shot me two weeks ago.
I haven’t been stuck in middle of the backseat on a road trip since I was a kid riding the hump between my brother Anthony and my cousin Patricio. Now, instead of my dad driving and my mom in the passenger seat, it’s Ms. Curly behind the wheel and Peter in the seat next to her. Me, I’m just as dumb and powerless as the twelve-year-old boy I once was, if not more so.
They tried to kill you before. They’re going to kill you for sure. Do something.
Do what? The threat heightens my senses and all my synapses are firing, but I’m trapped. I see every leaf on every tree and I feel every bump in the road, but I can’t move. I remember every detail of every experience I’ve ever had, every photo I’ve ever snapped and every book I’ve ever read, but I can’t use them. The addictive rush is back, just like I wanted. I feel alive again. Too bad for me I had to get myself killed to feel this way. Julia is right. I’m an idiot.
Even an idiot can do something. Try. They’re going to kill you.
I analyze my situation. Once we crossed into Mexico at Nogales, our two Ford Explorers headed southeast and out of the Sonoran Desert. Now the road curves through low mountains with finger canyons and long, flat plains in between. It’s the end of winter, so there’s plenty of high grass, scrub, and pine trees. Apache pine, I remember from a history book. This is Apache territory, where Geronimo and his warriors hid out from their pursuers. There’s water and places to hide out there, just like in Geronimo’s time.
They’re going to kill you. You’re in a moving car. Do more.
The rapping is getting louder. More scared. It’s demanding action. Plus, I have a raging headache from what Peter did to my face, and I’m starving. I haven’t eaten in a day. Why feed me if they’re just going to kill me?
Think. Make a plan.
Okay, what can I use in the car? There are door handles, headrests, but no weapons. Peter notices me glancing around. He turns and stares, then shakes his head as if he’s disappointed. Maybe he’s upset about watching me get killed after doing all that work on my face. Or maybe he truly hoped to “free me from my trauma,” so I’d join his tribe. The other body mods, Bree and Michel, are in the car behind us with two tattooed women. They handed out maps, petty cash in pesos, proof of insurance, and border crossing instructions, just like on a real, working TV show. Our two-car caravan crossed the border at Naco without even lowering a window; the guard just waved us through.
They’re going to kill you. Do something.
I’m running out of options. They’ll probably pull off on some side road, make me dig a hole, then shoot me and bury my body. I should have sabotaged the plane somehow and run away while I had a chance. I
should have listened to Julia and Carl and stayed home. Now, I’ll die a second time, with no way to tell anyone where I am, without getting closer to the people behind it all. That’s the worst.
Stay focused. Do something.
Ms. Curly’s eyes catch mine in her rearview mirror. She stares for a second, then looks ahead. We pass a dirt road—a potential grave spot—then another. She just has to pick one, then drive a half-mile and park behind some Apache pines and hand me a shovel.
We reach a small town nestled in the low mountains, with signs in Spanish with cobre in them—“copper.” Avenida Cobre, El Peso Cobre, El Toro Cobre, Mercado Cobre—it’s a mining town.
I must make a move here. The town is full of narrow, meandering streets that climb the hillsides. If I can get away, I can do what I do best—hide and stay alive. I look out the window for anything that could help me if I get away—a mercado, a car lot, a cellphone store, a bank. We pass a sign that says Bienvenidos a Cananae.
“Cananae? I wonder what that means,” I say.
“It means ‘horse meat’ in Apache,” Peter says. He stares at me so I know what he’s thinking—which is what you’re going to be soon. Mr. Black Hair snickers.
Ms. Curly pulls the Explorer into an empty Pemex gas station and hands Peter a credit card. We’re in a section of town so new it seems barren. Across the street is a new five-story hotel with no cars in the parking lot. Without a word, Peter takes the card, gets out, and starts pumping gas while Ms. Curly pulls out lipstick and dabs her lower lip. For whom is she putting on lipstick?
Ms. Curly finishes and puts the lipstick in the middle cup holder as she gets out of the car. She dials her cellphone and starts talking, nodding, listening, and pacing. She put lipstick on for a phone call? Something taps my foot. It’s the lipstick. Ms. Curly was in such a hurry to make her call that she missed the cup holder and it rolled under the seat.
“I need to shit,” I say.
“When we’re out of town, you can go by the side of the road,” Mr. Black Hair says.
It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak. He’s got a German accent, which I didn’t expect.
“You all went before you left. If you don’t let me go here, I’m going to stink up this car.”
“No,” Mr. Black Hair says.
I moan and lean over, holding my gut. “I gotta go,” I moan. I grab the lipstick from the floor just as Mr. Black Hair yanks me up.
Mr. Brown rolls down the window and shouts at Ms. Curly. “He says he needs to go!” She covers her cellphone with her hand and shouts back. “He can have five minutes. But stand outside the door, and don’t let him lock it.”
“Come on, then,” Mr. Black says, opening the door and yanking me out. The bathroom door is six steps away. He kicks it open and shoves me inside. “You have four minutes, and then I kick this door in.”
The door shuts, leaving me in blackness. I find the light switch. I am in a dirty gas station bathroom in Mexico, with used paper towels and urine on the floor and streaks of feces on the wall. I kick off my right shoe, use my teeth to pry open the heel, and yank out the black AmEx card. I leave it on the dirty porcelain sink, hoping someone finds it and uses it right away. Mr. Black Hair bangs on the door.
“You got two more minutes!” he yells.
I open the lipstick and start drawing on the back of the door as fast as I can, starting at the top and heading to the bottom, counting the seconds off in my brain.
A minute left…. thirty seconds… ten seconds.
I am on my knees by the end, scribbling the last bit at the very bottom of the door. I toss the lipstick into the trash and flush the toilet just has he kicks open the door.
“Four minutes, just like you said. Very German of you,” I say. “You should light a match before going in there, by the way.”
“Get in the car, or I’ll light a match and stick it up your ass.”
Within a minute, we’re leaving the town of Cananae and back in open country.
“Hold your hands up with your palms together,” Mr. Black Hair says. I obey, and Mr. Brown hair puts two zip ties around them and pulls them tight. I’m screwed.
Chapter 45
* * *
Julia Travers
Day 14: Friday
Phoenix, Arizona
The facilities manager opens an electrical panel, flicks on the overhead lights, and beckons us into a gigantic, empty soundstage.
“Has anyone called about renting this?” Agent Taylor asks.
“People call all the time,” the manager says, not really answering the question. He is an overweight, gray-haired, ponytailed old rocker in a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, with a voice as oversized as his belly. “This is the largest soundstage in the Southwest, and we have two of them.”
So what? Warner Bros. alone has thirty-five soundstages. Just answer the question.
The manager keeps going, in love with his own voice. “Any decent production with any kind of budget comes through here.”
Carl and I trade glances. We spent yesterday afternoon and evening checking all the TV facilities, paused to grab four hours of sleep at the hotel, then started again this morning, with no luck. Now this clown is trying to lease us a soundstage and we just want to know who hired him in the last month. Steven is somewhere within 500 miles of here, but we’re trapped on this Phoenix version of the Universal Studios tour.
My cellphone rings. It’s American Express.
“Can you not answer your cellphones during the walkthrough?” the manager asks.
This guy is really beginning to bug me.
“I want your shirt. I love Led Zeppelin,” Carl says.
“You can’t have it. It’s a classic from 1972. It’s very important to me.”
“Then shut up while my friend is on the phone. Her call is important.”
The facilities manager’s eyes widen. He’s getting a clue.
“Hello, this is Julia Travers,” I say into the phone.
“Miss Travers, this is your American Express concierge,” the female voice says. “I am calling about your Black card?”
“Yes, I know. Go on,” I say, gesturing at the phone to hurry up.
“Someone just used your card to purchase ten Coca-Colas and six bags of large Doritos in a gas station in Cananae, Mexico.”
“He’s alive and he’s in Cananae, Mexico!” I shout to the group. Anthony cheers out loud and does a happy dance.
“Cananae? Where’s that?” Carl asks.
“It’s fifty miles south of the Mexican border,” Mendoza says, looking at his cellphone. He already looked it up.
“Would you like my help with travel arrangements?” The concierge asks over the phone.
Chapter 46
* * *
Robert Snow
Day 14: Friday
Outside Cananae, Mexico
A rainbow arcs down from clouds and hits the tall yellow grass a half-mile away from our airstrip. If there’s a pot of gold out there, I don’t need to chase it. My fortune is right next to me.
Hachiro, Katashi, Yoshi, and Yuko dash in and out of the plane, yelling at each other in Japanese. They’re in hyperdrive, most likely backed up with meth. The Japanese invented methamphetamine in World War I, and they’ve never stopped taking it. It’s the secret ingredient powering the Japanese workforce. Hachiro’s design crew has carried in colored lights, gels, cushions, balloons, and smoke machines. Now they’re carting in the weapons—bullwhips, clubs, and nunchucks. It’ll be a cross between a nightclub VIP lounge and an MMA cage match.
“Hachiro!” I shout, and my head designer stops halfway between the rear airstair and the office trailers that arrived yesterday from Hermosillo.
“Hai! Bosu wai?” he asks.
“Snakes?”
“We have six. They’re in the trailer, in an ice chest.”
“Explosives?”
“We have smoke bombs coming from Hermosillo.”
“I want to choose where we place the snakes an
d explosives.”
“Yes, boss!”
“Now, get back to it!” I shout, waving for him to continue. He rushes for the trailer door and almost collides with Yoku exiting with a klieg light.
I love pushing my crew. This is my favorite time in a production. All I do is tweak it into perfection.
The wind picks up, and I zip up my jacket. It’s getting chilly, but by Monday, Tina and I will be on a warm beach, rich and in love, baking in the sun.
“Robert!” I hear a shout. “Over here!”
At the far end of the runway is a two-hundred-foot tall abandoned relay tower, built in the 1950s by Western Union. Jim is waving from the top of it, like an overgrown kid. He’s above the last walkway without a safety harness, his hands nowhere near the railing, bolting the ground-transmitting antenna to the metal structure. On the ground, overweight Lionel runs toward me with a huge grin on his face, his extra belly fat jiggling under his sweatshirt.
“Is it working yet?” I ask as he runs up.
Lionel holds up what looks like an oversized transistor radio with an antenna. It’s a handheld RF meter reader. “Check this out! We have a 14-gigahertz signal that’s kicking out at sixty decibels. We can transmit two camera signals from the ground or from inside the plane before takeoff. You will have your arrivals, no problem.”
I want Tina here for this excitement. We landed four hours ago, and she should be here by now. Maybe her caravan got held up at the border. I want her to help me hide the parachutes and the money. It will cement us together even more.
She and I must also pick who’s going to shoulder the two handheld ground cameras to capture contestant arrivals. One camera will be outside, getting them as they board the plane, and the other can be inside as they get strapped in. We need long shots, close-ups, and we need reaction shots. Jim and metal-faced Michel can do it. I can give them a lesson in an hour.