Edge of Battle

by Dale Brown

  …Growing anti-U.S. sentiment in Mexico, stoked by election-year rhetoric and negative publicity over a group of American vigilantes that organized its own border patrol in Arizona, also contributes to a dangerous situation for Americans on the border. To further complicate the situation, the so-called Minutemen are soon to expand their activities from Arizona into New Mexico and Texas.

  …With drug wars raging on both sides of the border—and law and order broken down in Nuevo Laredo to the point in which the army has been sent in—the U.S.-Mexican border has become a dangerous place.

  CATCH AND RELEASE POLICY FREES ILLEGAL ALIENS TO MOVE FREELY ABOUT THE COUNTRY, © 2005, The Associated Press, July 4, 2005—…Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, more than 118,000 foreign nationals who were caught after sneaking over the nation’s borders have walked right out of custody with a permiso in hand.

  They were from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil. But also Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Yemen, among 35 countries of “special interest” because of alleged sponsorship or support of terrorism.

  These are the so-called OTM, or “Other Than Mexican,” migrants too far from their homelands to be shipped right back. More than 70,000 have hit U.S. streets just since this past October.

  …The government has no place to put all the “OTMs” while they await deportation hearings, so they are released with a permiso, or notice to appear in immigration court. Over the years, thousands have failed to show up, disappearing, instead, among the estimated 10 million undocumented migrants now living in America.

  …Front-line officers voice concern that so many who break the law to enter the country are systematically set free. “I absolutely believe that the next attack we have will come from somebody who has come across the border illegally,” says Eugene Davis, retired deputy chief of the Border Patrol sector in Blaine, Washington. “To me, we have no more border security now than we had prior to September 11. Anybody who believes we’re safer, they’re living in Neverland.”

  STRATFOR: DAILY TERRORISM BRIEF—August 2, 2005, © 2005, Strategic Forecasting Inc.—CHAOS ON THE U.S.-MEXICAN BORDER: OP-PORTUNITY FOR AL QAEDA?—U.S. authorities closed the U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, on August 1—four days after intense firefights rocked the town of more than half a million people across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas…

  …The chaos on the border is increasing concerns within the U.S. intelligence community that al Qaeda–linked groups or other terrorists could exploit the situation and cross operatives into the United States. Al Qaeda, investigators fear, could use well-established smuggling routes to bypass the enhanced scrutiny of passengers on air traffic “no-fly” lists. From an operational security perspective, terrorists could be wondering why they should run the risk of having their documents scrutinized by outbound immigration and inbound inspectors when they can bypass all of that at the U.S.-Mexican border…

  SUV CARRYING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, DRUGS CRASHES—San Diego, California, © 2005, The Associated Press, August 18, 2005—The driver of an SUV packed with suspected illegal immigrants and nearly 700 pounds of marijuana sped from police the wrong way on Interstate 8 before crashing head-on into a California Highway Patrol car, officials said. Authorities say the incident late Wednesday was part of a pattern by smugglers who try to evade border checkpoints by veering into oncoming traffic, often at night, sometimes with their headlights off. The SUV involved had been modified [with nondeflatable silicone-filled tires] to enable it to flee more easily…

  ICE NABS THREE AT NUKE PLANT—INSIDE ICE: Volume 2, Issue 19—Blair, Nebraska—In the latest in a series of arrests involving illegal aliens at nuclear facilities, ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] special agents arrested three illegal aliens in Blair September 15 when they attempted to enter the outer secure area of the Omaha Public Power District’s Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station to perform contract work at the plant for the first time.

  The three men, all citizens of Mexico, had been hired by an independent contractor to perform maintenance work at the nuclear facility. As they attempted to enter a secure area of the plant, the men presented identification documents that raised the suspicions of Omaha Public Power District employees. They contacted ICE special agents for assistance, who responded and arrested the men after determining that they were illegally present in the United States…

  BORDER CROSSING DEATHS SET A 12-MONTH RECORD—By Richard Marosi, L.A. Times Staff Writer—October 1, 2005—A record 460 migrants died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the last year, a toll pushed higher by unusually hot temperatures and a shift of illegal migration routes through remote deserts.

  The death total from October 1, 2004, through September 29, [2005,] surpassed the previous record of 383 deaths set in 2000, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Border Patrol.

  The dead were mostly Mexicans, many from the states of Mexico, Guanajuato and Veracruz, but also from the impoverished southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas. Migrants continue to die in automobile accidents and from drownings while crossing waterways into California and Texas, but 261, or more than half the total, perished while crossing the Arizona deserts, the busiest illegal immigrant corridor along the nation’s two-thousand-mile border with Mexico.

  The migrants, herded across the border by smugglers, have been traversing increasingly desolate stretches of desert as the Border Patrol cuts off more accessible routes…

  PROLOGUE

  SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF GLAMIS, CALIFORNIA

  MAY 2007

  The youngest child in the group, an eleven-month-old girl, died sometime before midnight, a victim of a rattlesnake bite the day before, suffered when her mother set the baby down in the darkness near an unseen nest. The infant was buried in the desert of southern California, just a few miles north of the border that they had worked so hard to cross. Two other children, one a four-year-old girl, the other an eleven-year-old boy, wept for their infant sibling, but their bodies were too dehydrated from spending almost two days in the desert to shed any tears.

  It was all the same to Victor Flores, the seventeen-year-old coyote, or human smuggler, escorting the group of twelve migrants across the southern California border. It was sad, of course, the baby dying—he prayed with the others for the baby’s safe deliverance into heaven, hugged the mother, and wept with her. But one less child meant one less cry in the night to alert the Border Patrol, one less reason to slow down on their long trek across the desert—and, of course, there were no refunds. It was five hundred dollars a head, Federal Highway 2 in Mexico to Interstate 10 in the United States of America—no refunds, cash on the table.

  Besides, he thought ruefully, children had no business out here. He was seeing lots more mothers and their children these days on these trips across the border, not just the men. That was a frightening trend. Things were bad in Mexico, and probably had been forever, but typically the family stayed in Mexico, the father went to search for work, and he returned months later with cash; he stayed long enough to crank out another child or two, then departed again. The exodus of women and children from Mexico meant that things were only getting worse there.

  Not that the economic, sociological, or political situation was looking any better in the United States these days, but it was a heck of a lot better than in Mexico.

  The calendar said it was spring, but daytime temperatures had soared above ninety degrees Fahrenheit every day since the group was dropped off beside Federal Highway 2 about ten miles south of the border. They camped when Victor told them they needed to stop, crossed Interstate 8 on foot at night when Victor told them to—it was much easier to see oncoming cars at night than in the daytime, where heat shimmering off the pavement made even huge big rigs invisible until just a few hundred feet away—and stopped and made shelters with their spare clothing in dusty gullies and washes when Victor said it was time to hide. Flores had a sixth sense about danger and almost always managed to get his pollos (or “chickens,�
�� what the coyotes called their clientele) into hiding before the Border Patrol appeared—he even somehow managed to evade helicopters and underground sensors.

  He knew his route well, so they traveled at night. That usually meant a more comfortable journey, but in the arid, cloudless air the desert released its sun-baked warmth quickly at night, and now the temperature was in the low forties. The pollos baked during the day and shivered at night. There was no way around it. It was a hard journey, but the work and the money at the end of the trail hopefully made the sacrifice worth it.

  Victor’s specialty was the El Centro Border Patrol region of eastern Imperial County, between Yuma, Arizona, and El Centro, California—what the coyotes called the Moñtanas del Chocolate, or Chocolate Mountain region of southern California, an area of roughly two thousand square miles. He led a small group of migrants all the way north to Interstate 10 somewhere between Blythe and Indio, California. With decent weather and a cooperative group, Victor could escort a group of twelve along that route to his drop-off point in two days, sometimes less, with almost one hundred percent probability of success.

  For an additional fee, he would take pollos as far as they desired—Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Reno, even Dallas, Texas, if they desired. But the real money was in the short trek across the deserts of southern California. Most migrants hooked up with friends or relatives quickly once they got to the farming communities of the Coachella or Imperial Valleys or along the interstate highways, and Victor’s prices for travel beyond southern California were steep. It was safer traveling with him than trying to take the bus or trains, since the Border Patrol checked IDs of Hispanic-looking individuals frequently on those two conveyances. Victor charged mightily for the safety and convenience of longer-distance trips, but it was well worth it.

  Victor never bragged about his skills at evading the authorities, but he never denied them either—it was good for business. But he was not gifted with any sort of extrasensory perception. He was successful because he was smart, patient, and didn’t get greedy, unlike many of his friends who also worked the migrant underground railroads. Where other coyotes took twenty migrants in more conspicuous vans and rental trucks, Victor took a maximum of twelve in smaller vehicles; when others raced and took unnecessary risks to do the job in one or two days and were caught at least half the time, Victor was careful, took extra time, and made it 95 percent of the time.

  Many thought he was good at his job because he was a bebé del angel, or “angel baby,” born in the United States. Perhaps most folks wouldn’t consider being born in an artichoke field in Riverside County near Thermal, California an angelic thing, but Victor had something that his friends didn’t have—a real American birth certificate.

  About ten miles north of the border, just before daybreak, Victor came upon his “nest,” and after removing a few branches and rocks and a sand-covered canvas tarp, his pride and joy was revealed—a 1993 Chevy Suburban with four-wheel drive. Before doing anything else, he started inspecting the outside of the vehicle.

  “¿Qué usted está haciendo? What are you doing?” one of the male pollos asked in Spanish, with a definite Eastern European accent. This guy was somewhat different than the others. Victor at first thought he was a federale, but he had paid cash and observed all of the security precautions without question or hesitation. He wore sunglasses all the time except when walking at night, so it was impossible to see his eyes. His hands were rough and his skin toughened by the sun, but he didn’t carry himself like a farmworker.

  Of course, more and more migrants using Victor’s service were not farmworkers. This guy looked tough, like he was accustomed to fighting or violence, but at the same time he was not pushy or edgy—he seemed very much in control of himself, capable of springing into action but very content not to do so right now. An Army deserter, maybe, or some sort of fugitive from justice or prison escapee trying to sneak back into the United States. Victor vowed to keep an eye on him—but he was not his biggest concern now.

  “Comprobación primero,” Victor replied. Very few of his clients ever spoke to him, which was probably best—this was business, pure and simple. He believed these were his people, even though he was an American, but he wasn’t in this line of work to help his fellow Mexicans—he was doing this to make money. Besides, in this business, except for the question “How much to L.A.?” or “How much to the I-10?” the only other ones who ever asked questions were federales. “Checking first. Maybe the Border Patrol inspected or bugged my yate, or the lobos sabotaged it.”

  The man looked at the beat-up Suburban and chuckled when he heard Victor refer to it as his “yacht.” “Lobos?”

  “Los contrabandistas,” Victor replied.

  “But you are a smuggler,” the man said.

  Victor smiled a pearly white smile and corrected himself, “Los contrabandistas malvados. “The evil smugglers.” I smuggle honest workers who want to do honest work, never drugs or weapons.”

  The man nodded, a half-humorous, half-skeptical expression on his face. “A man of principle, I see.”

  Principles? Victor had never thought of himself like that—he wasn’t even sure what it meant. But if it meant not moving drugs or weapons across the border, he supposed he had some. He shrugged and went back to work, noticing that neither the man nor any of the other pollos offered to help him. Yep, just business. He was the driver; they were his passengers.

  After not discovering any evidence of tampering, Victor uncovered a second hiding place and pulled out a canvas bag containing a battery and ignition components. He filled the battery with water from his water jugs, quickly reassembled the parts in his SUV, and fired it up; the pollos let out a little cheer when the big vehicle started amid a disturbingly large cloud of black smoke. With his clients’ help, he eased the truck out of the depression, and they clambered aboard quickly and wordlessly, thankful they didn’t have to walk for a while.

  They followed dirt roads and trails for several miles, then crossed the Coachella Canal and entered Patton Valley. A large portion of the environmentally sensitive Glamis Dunes desert was closed to vehicles—and the off-highway vehicle enthusiasts, afraid of losing all their favorite driving sites, patrolled the off-limits areas just as well as the police and park rangers—so Victor was careful to avoid the off-limits areas that trapped so many other coyotes. He stayed on dirt roads and trails, being careful to keep moving and not pull off into a parking area because he didn’t have a camping permit and anyone stopping in a camping area had to display a mirror hanger or be cited on the spot. He crossed Wash Road north of Ogilby Camp Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) Area, emerged onto Ted Kipf Road, and headed northwest toward the town of Glamis, occasionally pulling off into a hidden OHV trailering area and mixing in with the dune buggy riders when his senses told him patrols were nearby. His trusty “land yacht” did well in the sandy desert and low hills of Patton Valley.

  A few pollos got out at Glamis, ahead of schedule, but it was entirely up to them. Glamis was near the fertile Coachella Valley farming region, and there was work around if you knew where to ask—but of course, there were plenty of Border Patrol agents hereabouts as well. Victor stopped long enough to gas up and let the two migrants out, then hurried back onto the road.

  He took Highway 78 north around the southern end of the Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range, then exited on Imperial Gables Road. A turn onto Lowe Road, past Main Street into the town of Imperial Gables, then a left onto a dirt road northbound, through fields of every imaginable kind of produce. They made several turnoffs and stops, sometimes prompted by a signal from a worker in the fields that the Border Patrol was nearby, but most times by Victor’s sense of nearby trouble. After nearly twenty miles of negotiating the dirt farm roads, they emerged onto Wiley Well Road, and it was an easy cruise north to the intersection with Chuckwalla Valley Road, just south of Interstate 10, shortly after sunset.

  Unlike Imperial Dunes and Sand Hills, this area was lush and green thanks to the
series of irrigation canals that crisscrossed the area—right up to the areas beside the freeway that had no irrigation, where the earth immediately turned to its natural hard-baked sand. There was a closed fruit and vegetable stand, a self-serve gas station, and a large dirt open area with a few portable bathrooms where truckers could turn around and park for the night, awaiting another load. Victor did not pull into the turnaround area, but stayed just off Chuckwalla Valley Road near an irrigation control valve sticking out of the fields near the road, trying to make himself look like a repairman or farmer.

  “Pull up there,” the military-looking man said, pointing to the truck parking area. True to form, he was still wearing his sunglasses.

  “No, señor. Demasiado visible.”

  The man nodded toward the parking area. “They don’t seem to think it’s too conspicuous,” he said. There were four produce trailers parked there, two tandem rigs, a beat-up old pickup that looked like it belonged to a ranch foreman…

  …and a large brown and green panel truck with fat off-road tires that Victor recognized, and his warning alarms immediately started sounding.

  “There is my ride,” the man said. “It looks like mis amigos have already arrived. Take me over there.”

  “You can walk, sir,” Victor said.

  “¿Nos asustan?” the man asked, smiling derisively.

  Victor said nothing. He didn’t like being insulted, but getting in a customer’s face was bad for business. He ignored the remark about his courage, took a clipboard, put on a straw cowboy hat, and went out beside the irrigation manifolds sticking out of the ground to make it look like he was taking water pressure readings. He carefully looked up and down Chuckwalla Valley Road and Interstate 10, then waved at his Suburban, and the rest of the migrants quickly jumped out. The mother of the dead baby girl gave him a hug as she stepped past him, and they all had satisfied albeit tired and worrisome expressions on their faces. Within seconds, they had disappeared into the fields.