Undercurrents

by Pamela Beason

  He could easily envision his grandfather living in a place like this when he’d first come to the States. None of Chase’s family ever talked about how Abuelo Perez had crossed the Rio Grande, just about how hard he’d worked his whole life—mechanic, logger, and finally, small store owner, proud to put Chase’s father and uncle through college.

  “Hey, cucarachas!” Marshall’s voice roared out front. “Listen up! Go home!” His shout was followed by a huge whoosh of ignition. A fireball leapt over the flat tarred roof of the building.

  Chase galloped up to a window from which a baby girl dangled, ripped the kid from the extended arms, and then dragged the woman over the windowsill to join her daughter. “Váyense, rápido!” he murmured softly, pressing the child into the mother’s arms and urging her to run.

  Nicole made her way through the closest bushes, scattering the sniffling kids hiding there into the blackness of the desert beyond.

  Along with the smoke, shouts drifted over from the front of the motel. “Go back to Mexico! Goddamn wetbacks!” Then, “Hell yes, you’d better run!” followed by a couple of shots.

  He joined Nicole, crouching among the shrubs. “Damn,” she said. “Hope we don’t have to shoot anyone.”

  Chase wondered what unspeakable acts DEA agent Cisneros had committed to infiltrate the cartel. Had any of those had led to his death in the desert?

  A pudgy man dressed in T-shirt and undershorts fell out a window, scrambled to his feet, and dashed across the dusty yard.

  “Cockroach!” Nicole shouted loudly. “Get him, Charlie!”

  Chase fired two shots over the guy’s head. Half the motel was on fire now. Please God, let everyone be out. He tried not to think about how the burning rooms likely contained everything these people owned. On the opposite side of the building, the other four attackers whooped like a group of drunk teenagers, their laughter and shouts punctuated by crashing noises.

  He and Nicole headed back around front. Three of the numbered motel doors hung open. Randy emerged from one, holding a bottle of tequila in one hand and waving a wad of cash in the other. “Look what I found!”

  Dread scurried out of another, smoke trailing in his wake. He carried a backpack. The pockets of his jacket looked suspiciously full.

  In the parking lot, Joanne and Marshall smashed windshields and headlights with a bat and a tire iron. The tinkling of breaking glass sounded almost festive.

  “Save some for me!” Nicole grabbed a baseball bat from the ground and trotted toward a car.

  Chase joined Dread and Randy. He kicked in the door to Room 6 and stood in the doorway, the neck of his T-shirt pulled up over his nose to filter the worst of the smoke. The curtains were ablaze, showering black sparks over the bed and chair. In the corner of the room, plastic wrapped bundles were stacked into a small tower. The covering on the bundles sprouted holes as he watched. The plastic dripped flames onto the floor as the smoldering contents gave off the distinctive sweet smell of burning marijuana.

  A black-and-white with flashing lights zoomed over the hill. “Shit!” Dread yelled, dashing for his car.

  Their group scattered as the cruiser slid to a stop in the gravel. Chase raced toward Nicole and dove to a hiding spot between cars, halfway to their truck. Two uniformed officers leapt out of the cruiser, guns drawn, crouching behind their open car doors. “Stop! Police! Stop or we’ll shoot!”

  Chase was painfully aware that neither he nor Nicole wore bulletproof vests, and that the local cops had no inkling that two FBI agents were on scene. Crouching on one knee and doing his best to keep his head down, he took careful aim at the lone light in the parking lot. Nicole, lying on her stomach and sighting beneath a ruined station wagon, put a bullet into a front tire on the squad car a fraction of a second before Chase pulled the trigger on his rifle and blasted out the light. In the ensuing darkness and confusion, the vandals all managed to escape.

  The six of them met up at 1:45 A.M. back in the Horseshoe Tavern.

  Chase swept a hand over his sweat-slick scalp and clinked his beer glass against Dread’s. “That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Thanks for lettin’ Nikki and me join the party.”

  Marshall stood and shucked his denim jacket, revealing a shield tattoo on his upper arm identical to Randy’s. Sitting again, he drained his glass and thumped it down on the scarred table in front of him. He stared first at Chase, and then at Nicole. “That was some shooting you guys did. You sure you’re not ex-military?” He held out a clenched fist toward Randy, who joined him with a fist bump and a chorused “Hooah.”

  That explained the camaraderie of those two. “Military? Not us,” Chase snorted. “We’re a little too old to volunteer to get shot at by ragheads.”

  Dread turned his cold gaze on Chase. “I’d say it was almost like you were law enforcement.”

  Chase tensed and narrowed his eyes to slits. He sat back in his chair, crossed his arms, and studied Dread, debating the best comeback.

  Nicole patted Chase on the bicep. “Down, Charlie. I’m sure our new friend here didn’t mean to insult us.” Turning to Dread, she said, “For your information, we’re a hell of a lot better than law enforcement. Charlie and I won a whole lot of shooting contests back in Florida. The Southern Sting Shootout was our favorite.”

  The ATF owned the www.southernstingshootout.org website. In the archives was a supposedly thirteen-month-old article about Charlie and Nikki Perini, husband and wife sharpshooters who won the club championship three years in a row.

  “Felt good to shoot again,” Chase contributed in a gruff voice. He fingered his skull earring.

  Dread’s dark eyes moved from Nicole to him. “You still compete?”

  “Hardly ever,” Chase told him. “Entry fees are steep, and then you gotta pay for all that ammunition. Unemployment ran out over a year ago, and there’s been nothin’ but shit work ever since, you know?”

  “I know how that goes.” Dread’s shoulders relaxed. He took a swallow of his beer.

  “We get by.” Nicole laid her hand on top of Chase’s in a show of wifely support.

  Chase noticed a fleck of blood on her cheek, probably from flying glass. He pulled a paper napkin out of the holder on the table, dampened it in the sweat on the outside of his beer glass, and then wiped the blood from her face. She gave him a curious look and he showed her the red smear on the napkin.

  “Thanks, hon,” she drawled.

  “We know exactly what you’re going through,” Joanne said. She looked at Marshall. “That’s why we’re here, to help get the jobs back and stop all these criminals coming in. There’s no place safe anymore. Drug runners everywhere.”

  Randy gestured for the waitress to come over. “Somebody’s got to take action. The government can’t handle the job.”

  “Let me buy you both a cold one,” Dread offered Chase and Nicole. He shot a look at Marshall, who reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, and then tossed them on the table in front of Chase.

  The top bill was a worn fifty with stains and tattered edges. The stack was at least a quarter-inch thick, held together with a rubber band. “What’s this?” he asked.

  Dread leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and said in a low voice, “Your cut from tonight.”

  Chase studied the money but didn’t touch it. Nicole’s lips twitched in a slight smile. It was the second big test tonight. He asked, “Two cuts?”

  Dread nodded. “Course.”

  Chase folded the stack of bills and stuffed them in the front pocket of his jeans.

  Marshall grinned at him. “There’s a bottle of tequila with your name on it, too.”

  “I adore tequila,” Nicole said.

  Dread remained silent as the waitress delivered another pitcher of beer to the table. As soon as the woman was out of hearing range, he hefted the pitcher and filled Chase and Nikki’s mugs. “You don’t need to be broke anymore.”

  “That right?”

  “I’d like to talk
to you about a show our group’s runnin’ down south by the border. We could use some talents like yours.”

  Chase raised an eyebrow in Nicole’s direction. “Sounds intriguing,” she said.

  “The ammunition’s on us,” Dread said. “All you can use.”

  A dark smudge on the Dread’s thick neck might have been part of an old tattoo. The rest was hidden by his shirt, but what Chase could see looked like the amateur inkings that prisoners often bestowed on each other.

  “What kind of contest is it?” he asked.

  Marshall snickered. “Shooting rats in the dump. Whoever takes them all out wins.”

  “Spic rats,” Joanne clarified.

  “What’s the prize?”

  “Whatever they’re packing,” Randy said.

  Marshall added, “Plus, they learn turnabout’s a bitch. They come here to steal from us, and—surprise! We take everything they got.”

  Chase turned to Dread. “What if they’re carrying drugs?”

  Dread folded his hands on top of the table and stared intently at Chase. “We sell ’em to fund the cause.” The black man didn’t look at his other comrades, but Chase could feel the tension humming between members of the group as they waited for his and Nicole’s reaction.

  So the group was dealing drugs, too; or at least Dread was. Chase glanced again at Nicole. Her gaze was cool and steady. Like him, she knew the real choice of the moment was between becoming an active participant or becoming the next corpse found in the desert. Turning back to the others, Chase said, “Count us in.”

  Dread grinned and held out a fist. “Welcome to the New American Citizen Army.”

  Chase bumped knuckles, then leaned back and took a swallow of his beer. The group was looking for sharpshooters. Either these were the same scumbags who had gunned down Cisneros and the others last week, or there was a whole network of armed vigilantes out there ready to kill anyone crossing the Mexican border.

  Either way, he and Nicole had just joined the team.

  11

  The next morning Sam awoke to shrill cries and the bottom view of a pelican squatting on the light stanchion directly above her head. She pushed herself up from the deck chair and ran her fingers through her hair. No sticky globs. A flash of white shirt above caught her eye. The captain waved a hand at her through the window of the bridge. Tony stood beside him.

  Her head throbbed. She vaguely remembered thinking about sleeping up here. Apparently she’d done it. Thank God she was decently covered. She wore a green T-shirt dress that served dual duty as nightshirt. The sun was peeking over the black hump of a different island. Her pillow and blanket lay on the deck chair. How could she have snored through raising anchor, starting engines, anchoring again? The answer lay in the empty wine bottle rolled into the wadded towel beside her makeshift bed.

  The dawn was painfully bright. The slanting rays glancing off the water made her teeth ache.

  She fumbled her way down the two flights of stairs to her cabin. Under the shower, memory slowly returned. After dragging her pillow and blanket up to the top deck, she found her half-empty wine bottle right where she’d left it. Eduardo had been there, too, with another bottle of wine, which they’d shared, along with bittersweet memories of Dan. Sam was surprised to learn that the two had met nearly nine years earlier, when Dan was a doctoral student working at Darwin Station.

  As she brushed her teeth, she frowned at herself in the mirror. What else had Eduardo told her? Had he said anything about Dan’s whereabouts during the afternoon? Had she even asked?

  Sam checked her printed itinerary. 16 Feb, Floreana (Charles) Island. So that lump of lava out there was Floreana Island, or Charles, or whatever name they were calling it this week. Were the officials still searching for Dan’s body to the west of Isabela?

  17 Feb, Puerto Ayora and Darwin Station. Yes. She needed to revisit Puerto Ayora. She never had a chance to explore the town or see Darwin Station, which served as headquarters for Galápagos National Park and as a primary research station for scientists from around the world. Maybe she’d find someone there who knew Dan; someone not involved in the tourist trade, who could share honest information about who to trust and who to stay clear of. If she could get her passport back, maybe she could leave for the U.S. tomorrow.

  She called the American Consulate in Guayaquil, and ended up explaining her situation to the consul’s secretary, a woman with a heavy accent. She concluded her story with, “The authorities took my passport and visa.”

  The following silence stretched out so long that she finally added, “Hello?”

  “Yes,” the woman said. “I listen to your message left on the machine.”

  And? Sam wanted to yell. Why didn’t you call me back? Gritting her teeth, she said mildly, “So you understand why I need your help.”

  “What is your involvement in this?” the woman asked.

  It was like being questioned by the police again. This was the American consulate, for chrissakes—shouldn’t they help American citizens? She explained who she was working for; that she was posting reports about the NPF study in the Galápagos.

  “And your purpose in doing this?”

  That was the second time she’d been asked that. She hesitated, suddenly certain that there were definite right and wrong answers to that question. Earning her pay was probably not one of the acceptable responses. “Dr. Kazaki was hired to make a report of the environmental status in the marine sanctuary. I was hired to dive with him and write about the experience.”

  “Your intent was to criticize the government of Ecuador?”

  “Of course not.” At least not directly. But if the marine survey showed that the islands were not being protected, that would naturally reflect badly on Ecuadorian authorities in general. As it should.

  “You know that you can be arrested in Ecuador for participating in a demonstration?”

  What? First time she’d heard of that. “There was no demonstration.”

  “It was a protest?”

  Sam gulped, thinking about the critical tone of Zing’s article yesterday, not to mention the graphic shark video. “No. Dr. Kazaki was counting fish. I am writing articles.”

  “On the worldwide Internet.”

  This conversation was not going well. “Look, Miss . . .”

  “Campo.”

  “Miss Campo, writing articles for the Internet is my job. And now a man—my friend and expedition partner—is dead, under suspicious circumstances.”

  “The fiscalia say he is missing.”

  “Trust me, he’s dead.” Sam blinked away the image of Dan’s lifeless face behind his scuba mask. “Don’t you think you should be investigating this?”

  “We will monitor the situation,” Miss Campo said. “Please do not hesitate to call again if your American consul can be of any further assistance to you.” The phone went silent.

  Sam wished she had an old-fashioned cradle to slam the phone receiver down onto, but had to settle instead for punching the End button as hard she could, which was not in the least satisfying.

  So much for help from the authorities. She couldn’t get on any plane without her passport. And even if she had it now, it didn’t seem likely she’d be able to convince anyone to ferry her to the airport today.

  Resigned, she sat down and checked the posts on Out There. Responses to Zing’s new article numbered nearly one hundred. Quite a few were in Spanish. She scanned the English comments. The readers seemed to be arguing among themselves. One side took the point of view that here was yet another arrogant American tree hugger butting into a foreign country’s affairs. The opposing side praised Zing as a champion for the environment.

  She checked her personal email. There was nothing new from Chase. She settled for reading his translated attachments from the day before. According to the Quito article, it was well known in the Latin American press that illegal fishing was taking place all along the western coast of South America, with the catch mostly destined for Asian m
arkets. The other piece was an editorial from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, about how citizens in the Galápagos had the right to fish and farm wherever they wanted.

  Galápagos Should Benefit Ecuadorians

  The islands belong to Ecuadorians; not to tourists and not to some mythical World Heritage Centre. Why does Quito allow other countries to exercise control over Ecuadorian territory? Citizens of Ecuador should have the right to fish and farm anywhere within our country. Abolish Darwin Station and remove the scientists and park police. Increased development will bring jobs and more tourists. If the current government cannot stand up to international pressure and defend the rights of its own citizens, then this government should be overthrown by any means necessary.

  Consider the implications, Chase had written at the end.

  Sam felt a chill. This was a local editorial. Papagayo’s crew lived in these islands. Had Quiroga been hinting at his opinion when he mentioned his cannery and the problem with “the world”? Had Dan, a known conservationist and foreign scientist, been “removed” by someone on board?

  Her satellite phone chirped. She picked it up. The tiny screen identified the caller: Kazaki, Daniel. She dropped the phone on the bed and stared at it in horror.

  Of course it wasn’t Dan. It had to be Elizabeth. Had she been told about Dan? Or was she trying to reach him? Either way, Sam wasn’t ready to talk to her. She covered her ears with her hands until the phone’s godawful bleating finally stopped. When she heard the other passengers leaving their cabins to go up to breakfast, she joined them.

  After choking down coffee and toast and sympathetic murmurs from the others, she decided to go on the scheduled nature hike with the group. There was likely to be safety in numbers, and Wyatt and Whitney still expected her to write her posts today. Between the underwater footage she had shot on the first day and some terrestrial photos gleaned from a walking tour today, she could slap something together for both characters.