“Why?”
“See that? ‘100% American.’”
Nora’s mouth twisted. “I don’t know about you, but I’m 100% American.”
“That’s not what they mean.”
“I know what they mean.” Nora’s hands balled into fists. “Idiots like these are chasing me out of my own country. I’ll be damned if I let them keep me from buying a coat for my daughter.”
Luis sighed. Normally he’d agree, but not here and not now. “You don’t have an ID, remember? Your picture is on TV. Everybody in there is armed and half of them are probably zipheads or kronkers. You really want to pick this fight?”
The expression on her face said hell, yes. But after a few moments, she sighed. “Where do we go, then?”
“Look up ‘sanctuary’ and ‘Yuma’.”
They pulled up across the street from a small Catholic church in a moldering residential area out back of downtown. The church’s thick Pueblo-style stucco walls had shed chunks of tan paint and lost others to racist graffiti; steel mesh shrouded the stained-glass windows on the front and sides. A many-times-painted wall stretched along the sidewalk to another stucco building, perhaps a community hall. A wooden sign near the church’s main doors read “San Antonio de Padua.”
“What’s here?” Nora asked.
“Sanctuary for anyone who isn’t popular. That’s us right now. Food, shelter, medical care sometimes, whatever. They usually have a handout box of clothes. It’s almost summer, so warm clothes probably aren’t going fast.”
Inside they found white plaster walls, worn dark woodwork and afternoon light streaming in the stained-glass windows. The mesh cast gridlike shadows on the designs and cut the sun into streamers that highlighted every grain of dust in the air. Judging from the time and the dozen shabby people drifting out, vespers had ended.
Luis left Nora and Hope at the back of the central aisle, found the font, touched his fingers to the holy water and crossed himself. Decades of Sunday Mass had turned into muscle memory. What was being here like for Nora? He’d been with her and her family at all hours of the day and night and had seen them pray only once, which was odd for Muslims. He’d often had to plan traveler movements around their prayer schedules. Maybe they waited until he was gone, or maybe they weren’t too observant.
An old woman pushed through the squeaking door of an antique confessional in the left side aisle. He crossed to it as quietly as he could and caught an alarmingly young, blond priest as he stepped out of his half of the booth.
The priest peered up at Luis, his head tilted to one side. “Bienvenidos a nuestra iglesia,” he said with an accent Luis had never heard laid on top of Spanish before. The gentle light didn’t mask the moonscape of acne scars over his high cheekbones, or the scar splitting his upper lip.
“Father, do you provide sanctuary here?” Luis asked in English.
“Yes, yes,” the priest said, smiling. “Sanctuary, yes. I am Father Jedrik.” Jedrik had some kind of Slavic accent, not heavy but obvious. He shook Luis’ hand in both of his. “The woman and child, they are with you, yes?”
“Yeah. They need a restroom, and we need warm clothes for the girl. We have money.”
“Of course.” The priest steered Luis down the aisle. “Money is not needed for sanctuary. But the church …” He smiled and shrugged.
After Jedrik led Nora and Hope away, Luis slumped in a back pew, part praying for grace that night and part wondering what happened to Paul and Beto, and what he’d do with his half of the Khaled family once they made it to el otro lado. It was also time to start calling Bel, see if she’d made it to Tijuana yet.
He was betting that the buses still ran on Federal Highway 2—the two-lane road that paralleled the border—mostly because the buses always ran, through war and famine and floods and plague. Lacking Beto’s help, they’d have to take a bus to Mexicali at least. If the road was still open. If the Zetas weren’t looking for them. If they made it across the desert at all.
Heavenly Father, Hope’s only a little girl. Please don’t make it too hard on her.
Jedrik slid onto the pew next to Luis. He sat straight, his hands folded in his lap. His black shirt was tucked into a pair of boot-cut blue jeans. “Your friends are changing clothes and washing,” he said, his voice low.
“That sounds like a great idea. I’d like to do that when they’re done.”
“Of course. You go across the border, yes? It is why you want warm clothes, I think.”
“Yes.”
“Which way, I may ask?”
“El Camino del Diablo.” A series of desert tracks used by the Indians and the Spanish after them to cross some of the nastiest desert around.
Jedrik pursed his lips. “This is hard for the little one, but not as hard as other places. You go on west side of mountains, yes?”
“We haven’t decided yet.” Luis waited to be struck by lightning for lying to a priest. When no fireworks appeared, he asked, “Can you tell me anything?”
The priest rocked slightly on the pew, nodding each time he swung forward. “There are airplanes over the fence, of course.”
“Manned?”
“No, the other, drones. With guns, very bad. But.” He drew a line in the air with his forefinger. “Where El Camino crosses the state highway, yes? Police patrol to catch people.”
“I doubt they catch many incoming.”
Jedrik shook his head. “They do not look for that now, I think. The police, they find people, not white people, driving at night to go across the state, yes? Take their things. They put these not-white people in the jail until they pay big fines.” Jedrik bit his lower lip, looked down at his hands. “Then by canal, um, jak mówisz…Border Keepers, yes? Be careful, bad people.”
Those assholes. “They’re still out there?”
“Yes. I hear rumors. Bodies buried in the desert, under rocks, yes? Bad things happen to women, evil things. Please be careful.”
Luis sighed. The bigger threat came before they even hit the border. He filed this intel away, hoping not to have to use it. “Thank you, Father.”
“God bless you, my son.” The priest rose, placed a hand on Luis’ shoulder. “I will pray for you and your friends. They are Muslim, yes?” Luis nodded. “The Holy Father says we can pray even for them. God will hear and decide.” He smiled. “Hope is a very good name for a little girl, I think.”
“Yeah, it is. Father…will you hear my confession?” It had been two years since he’d gone to confession, but if there was ever a time to do it, this was it.
“Yes, yes, of course. You have a hard journey ahead. You must prepare.”
52
SUNDAY, 16 MAY
McGinley slumped in the recliner, mostly ignoring the baseball game playing on the little wall-mounted databoard. Denver against…San Jose? Where the fuck was San Jose? And who cares? Of course, there wasn’t a Rangers game tonight. Enough damn soccer on, though.
He shut off the game and moseyed out to his apartment’s balcony, leaned on the rail. From the fifth floor, he could see over the marina out to the ocean. A couple fires burned in the concrete circles on the beach. If he listened real close, he could hear the surf.
Carla Jean loved the water. No matter how deep he was in the doghouse, all McGinley had to do was take her to the Gulf for a weekend and all was forgiven. He could see her splashing in the water, all tan in one of her little bikinis. Grinning like a kid with a Christmas pony, her hair flying in the wind. He’d give a body part to see that smile again…
His phone rang. He sighed, checked the screen, then stood bolt upright. “Yes, sir?”
“Agent McGinley? This is Arthur O’Hanlon.”
ICE Deputy Director O’Hanlon. Jesus, it got kicked all the way up there? “Yes, sir, I’m Jack McGinley. Are you calling about my report?”
“Yes, I am. I have Mel Devereaux on the line—” HSI Executive Assistant Director Devereaux, McGinley’s boss’ boss’ boss, well, shit if this ain’t special “
—and I wanted to get back to you as quickly as possible.” No joke—it was past ten D.C. time. “How certain are you that your confidential informant is in contact with Nura al-Khaled?”
“Well, sir, he told me, and he gets nothing out of lying except me on his butt some more. Also, like I said in the report, the Feebs—sorry, the FBI—are pretty sure he’s got her, too.”
“Can you bring him in, Jack?” Devereaux said.
“I might, sir, if I can get the FBI to back off’n his family some. Get some goodwill, give him a reason to play ball. He’s real attached to his family, sir.”
“I’m sure he is.” O’Hanlon again. “Agent McGinley, I’m authorizing you to pursue this in any way you need to. I’ll deal with the Bureau. You’ll report directly to Mel. I’ll backbrief your chain in the morning. If you need anything, ask Mel. I expect you understand how important it is to the agency’s future for you to bring this woman in.”
“Yes, sir, that I do.” Plus the bloody nose it’ll give the Feebs.
“Very good. Go get her, son.”
“Jack?” Devereaux said. “I’ll get a tac team ready to go for when you nail her.”
After years of swimming upstream, McGinley didn’t know whether he could stand the sudden downpour of support and “Jack” this and “go get her” that. But hell, he’d take it and run. Maybe for once they even meant it. “Thank you, sirs. I’ll get on it first thing. I’ll take her down.”
53
Approximately 55% of Arizona’s population left the state during the 2020s in response to the collapse of the state’s finances following that decade’s wholesale cuts in Federal spending, as well as the catastrophic loss of surface water due to prolonged droughts throughout the West…Many of the remaining Arizonans interviewed for this story approve of the result…
— “Arizona’s Cities Are the New Empty Places,” LATimes.com
SUNDAY, 16 MAY
Nora rocked side-to-side in the second-row seats as the aged Expedition squeaked and rattled its way eastbound on Old U.S. 80. The SUV’s shocks and struts didn’t soak up the assault from the huge potholes and remaining chunks of asphalt. This couldn’t be a good sign. If the paved roads were this bad, what were the dirt ones like?
She twisted to look through the back window. The mountains showed black against the lingering red-and-yellow photochemical sunset painted across the western sky. Bright patches of sun burned on the mountains to the south. They’d be going through those soon.
This desert was so unlike the green fields and forests of home. Miles and miles of undeveloped land, scrub brush, sand, the occasional spindly tree or saguaro cactus. Only occasional power lines proved human civilization had arrived. It looked more like Somalia than America.
She and Luis had stolen the Ford 4x4 from a scabby used-car lot in Gadsden, a paved patch in the desert hard against the Colorado River southwest of Yuma. They left the Cartel’s Santana in a grocery-store parking lot a block north of the San Luis crossing. She and Hope stayed in the car while Luis went inside to buy more water and energy bars. “Isn’t that overkill for grocery shopping?” she’d asked, pointing to the submachine gun slung across his back.
“Here?” he said. “No. And I won’t get hassled.”
While waiting, she’d had too much time to think about what hadn’t happened yet. Paul hadn’t called, and neither had Luis’ man. Luis finally admitted he’d been trying to reach them, without success. Where was her husband? Where was Peter? Had something happened to them? Those worries had worn grooves inside her brain ever since. No wonder she’d been semi-sick to her stomach for an hour now.
Hope poked Nora’s body armor. “Why are you wearing that, Mommy?”
The same reason she had her UMP on the floor at her feet. She looped her arm around Hope’s shoulder and pulled her close. “So we’ll be safe.”
“Can I have one too?”
“They don’t make these for little girls.” Actually, they did now—she’d seen them on the Internet. That it made sense didn’t lessen the essential wrongness. Kids got caught in gun battles, too. Mass shootings had become so common—she saw the raw figures at work—that the Bureau had to keep bumping up the definition of “mass shooting” (over twelve fatalities now) so the statistics wouldn’t be too embarrassing.
“How come?”
“Because their mommies are supposed to protect them, like I’ll protect you.” Nora scrunched her daughter in a one-armed hug and kissed the top of her head. She caught Luis’ eye in the rear-view mirror. “How much longer? I think I’m going to be an inch shorter after this.”
“A couple miles to the turnoff, then about thirty miles cross-country.”
A flash a hundred yards or so ahead revealed a side road intersecting the highway. There was enough light for her to see dust billowing behind a big, white pickup with its brights on. A low-profile light bar on the roof, a dark stripe cutting diagonally across the door, big tires, heavy brush bars. “Is that…?”
“Yuma County Sheriff.”
The Expedition slowed gradually. Luis flicked the high beams, the signal to go ahead, but the pickup stopped at the intersection, waiting. They passed the dirt road’s mouth. Nora glanced back in time to see the truck pull onto the highway to follow them. She squinted in the headlight glare. “Are you going the limit?”
“I don’t even know what the limit is. I haven’t seen a sign since we got off the Interstate.”
Nora recalled the priest’s warning, that the local cops would pull over non-whites to extort money. They probably liked not having a posted speed limit; that way, it could be anything they wanted it to be. She saw herself back in Somalia, up against warlords and bandits, and became uncomfortably aware she was in a stolen vehicle. “Do you think that car lot reported us?”
“They were closed. I don’t see how they’d know so soon.”
Cameras, alarms, witnesses, that’s how. After a couple minutes, they passed a jumble of run-down houses, trailers, storage tanks and junk straddling another dirt road. A sprinkling of distant window lights marked more settlement. She mentally urged the cop to pull off to patrol, but he didn’t.
At the next dirt road, a sign the size of a sheet of plywood was propped up on wooden posts behind a sagging barbed-wire fence. The caricature of a hook-nosed Arab in a kaffiyeh, red crosshairs over his forehead, and “Open Season – No Limit” in big, faded black letters. She’d seen several “Terrorist Hunting License” bumper stickers in Yuma. Out here, they probably meant it.
“What’s the plan?” Nora asked. She wished her voice was steadier.
Luis didn’t answer for a few moments, which didn’t make her feel any more confident. “I can’t say I want to shoot any cops, but we may have to. These guys carry assault rifles. They’ll stand off and blow this thing to pieces if we let them.”
“I didn’t hear a plan in there.”
“There wasn’t one.”
“You’re just full of good news. How long before we turn off?”
“A mile or so.”
A shootout with police. That was even sicker than body armor for children. She was a law-enforcement officer; she wasn’t supposed to kill other cops. But a few nights ago at the safe house, she’d been ready to do just that to protect her family. Maybe it was all about incentive. Or maybe she really was turning into a terrorist.
The glare from behind suddenly disappeared. The police truck blazed past, rocketing into the darkness ahead of them. Nora sagged in her seat, relieved beyond words that Hope wouldn’t end up in the middle of a firefight.
The sunset’s yellows had shifted to reds, and the reds to purple. The road ahead slowly faded into the night, which also closed in on either side of them. The road moan fell in pitch as the Expedition slowed. “Turn’s just ahead,” Luis announced.
A blast of light filled the road ahead of them. Headlights, floodlights, strobes. The police truck blocked the highway.
“Hold on!” Luis yelled.
He screeched onto
a cross-street running south toward the now-black mountains fading into the night sky, then stomped the gas. Nora grabbed Hope with one hand, the back of the driver’s seat with the other, and leaned into the turn.
A few seconds later, headlights and floodlights filled the rear window. Nora’s insides fell into a heap between her hips. The lightwash revealed a huge orchard to her left and vast nothingness on her right, not even little yellow fireflies of windows to comfort her. “Is this the right road?”
“Yeah. That doesn’t give me a good feeling.”
Are they herding us? “How far are we going?”
“A couple miles until we hit the range boundary.”
“Then what?”
“Then we find out if there’s Border Keepers down there.”
Desert scrub replaced the orchard. Telephone poles whizzed by to her right. The mountains were faint shapes now, some marked by tiny blinking red lights. The truck was so close behind them, its lights so bright, Nora could read her watch as if it was daylight. This felt more like the prelude to an ambush every minute. It made a certain twisted sense that if these cops were bandits, they’d make their move after nightfall… which had just happened.
“What if you just stop?”
Luis flicked his eyes to the rear-view mirror. “That close, they’ll rear-end us.”
“Maybe it’ll disable the truck.”
“Not with the brush bars that thing has. It’ll end up in your lap.”
An overpass appeared ahead, a dark strip with a lighter area underneath. The tire roar over the broken pavement grew so loud Nora could hardly hear herself think, which was fine, since her thoughts were growing more morbid by the minute. When they emerged on the other side, Luis reported, “I-8, in case you care.”
“Mommy, I’m scared.”
Nora gathered Hope in her arms and hugged her as tight as she dared. “It’s okay to be scared,” she whispered into Hope’s ear. “It means you’re thinking.”
“Are you scared?”
Which was better: the obvious but reassuring lie, or the awful truth? “Yes, I am. Even mommies get scared sometimes. Just hold on to me.”
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