by Steve Brewer
An industrial zone clung to the narrow strip of territory between First and the railroad tracks. Near where the tracks crossed under I-40 sat an oversized garage that her late father had owned for years. Chuck Nolan hadn't believed in taking his rumbling big rig into their quiet neighborhood when he returned from the road. He always parked it here, then drove home in something more suitable. Since his death, Jackie kept meaning to have the property appraised, but that was one more chore she never got around to because she was busy with her mother. Or at least that's what she told herself. It was easier (and certainly more exciting) to make extra money lifting semis from truck stops than to face all the end-of-life decisions tied up in her mother's ownership of the property.
For now, Jackie was glad she'd kept her dad's garage. Gave her a place to park this mystery rig while she checked out the cargo.
The garage was seventy feet long by twenty feet wide by twenty feet tall, made of wood framing and metal sheeting. Most of the screws holding it together had rusted over the years, streaking the white exterior with brown tears. The building had sixteen-foot-tall roll-up doors on each end so you could drive through without a lot of back and forthing. Next to the garage, a two-hundred-gallon diesel tank stood on six-foot-tall steel legs. Jackie had always thought the rusty steel tank looked like a spider, its spigot and refueling hose where its mouth should be.
The one-acre lot was surrounded by a six-foot-tall chain-link fence with gates on either end. A single security light on a pole glowed over each of the padlocked gates, which opened into the short side streets that dead-ended at the railroad tracks. The nearby commercial buildings were shut up tight for the night, security bars over their dark windows.
Jackie sat in the idling truck for a full minute, watching her mirrors, but saw no one. She climbed down from the truck to unlock the gate.
Winter-dead weeds poked up from the gravel, crunching underfoot as she rolled the gate out of the way. Leaving the truck where it was, she hurried to the garage and opened the roll-up door.
Her father's last long-haul cab, a thirty-year-old Kenworth with rounded fenders and a red paint job faded to pink, was parked in the garage. Jackie needed to move it out of the way to make room for the stolen rig. She climbed up into the cab and cranked the engine, holding her breath against the cigarette-smoke stench that permeated everything inside. She hadn't started the truck in weeks, and the cold engine coughed and sputtered, but finally caught. She moved the truck outside without turning on its headlights and parked it next to the diesel tank.
She trotted back to the idling Peterbilt, her breath fogging the air. Up into the cab, then she drove the heavy rig into the garage. As soon as the truck and trailer were completely inside, she killed the lights and turned off the throbbing engine. She sat in the looming silence for a minute, catching her breath.
Close call back there. She would've been caught red-handed, too, would've gone straight to jail. What would Rose Moore have done if Jackie had never come home to tend to Mom? Turn Marge over to the authorities? Jackie shuddered at the thought.
She steered her mind away from the what-ifs, and got back to the question of what's in that trailer.
Jackie climbed down from the cab in the dark. The concrete floor was so cold, she could feel it through the soles of her boots.
She closed the roll-up door before turning on the cage lights that ran along the spine of the ceiling. A wooden workbench lined one wall, but otherwise the unheated garage was an empty concrete pad and four blank walls, its wooden beams and rafters faded to a uniform gray. Above the workbench, some of her father's tools still hung in place on a pegboard, including a set of bolt cutters – exactly what she needed at the moment.
She carried the heavy cutters around to the back of the trailer, and made quick work of the lock on the doors. Jackie set the tool aside and swung open the doors, letting light spill inside the trailer.
Wooden crates and steel canisters filled the trailer from wall to wall to a height of about six feet. The neatly stacked wood crates had handles made of short lengths of white rope. The smaller boxes were made of steel painted olive green. All of the containers were printed with stenciled black letters saying "U.S. Army" and "This Side Up" and "Military Ordnance."
According to the stenciled labels, the long boxes each held four M4 rifles and the steel canisters were full of ammunition. She took a pry bar from the pegboard, then climbed up onto the edge of the trailer, peering inside. She had to stand on tiptoes, but it appeared that the entire trailer was packed tightly with boxes of weapons and ammo.
"Good Christ," she whispered.
Jackie grabbed a rope handle and slid one of the wooden boxes from the top. The crate was four feet long and two feet wide. It weighed about forty pounds, and Jackie stooped over to lower it to the floor before she climbed down herself.
Now that she had room to work, she pried the top of the box open and peeled back the packing material inside. An M4 automatic rifle lay inside the wrapping, looking black and oily and deadly, an efficient weapon stripped to the essentials of polymer and steel, the entire gun shorter than a yardstick. She'd never seen one up-close before, but it was familiar from war-zone footage from Afghanistan and Iraq. It was the rifle all the desert-camo boys used in combat, a lightweight weapon that could spray hot lead like a fire hose.
She peeled back the wrapping to make sure more rifles were underneath, but didn't actually touch the guns.
The aroma of gun oil reached her nostrils, so strong it made her retch. She closed the lid and squatted there another moment, her fingers resting on the box while her mind did the math.
Four rifles in each of these boxes, which added up to five or six hundred in this unregistered trailer. And plenty of ammo to go with them. She pulled down one of the heavy ammunition boxes and popped it open. It was filled with pointy brass-colored bullets. She slipped one into her shirt pocket.
The guns and ammo almost certainly were stolen. Probably a whole mess of Army and Homeland Security investigators chasing around the country, trying to find this stuff.
Jackie needed to get rid of this cargo as quickly as possible, but that presented its own problems. Howard had said the load was destined for his contact in Mexico, which meant the guns likely were going to one of the drug cartels. Guns were hard to come by in Mexico; the only legal sales were from a government store in the capital. But there never seemed to be a shortage of weapons.
She had followed the headlines as the turf war south of the border resulted in slaughters and crazy shootouts. Whole towns changed hands in a never-ending struggle for dominance over the drug routes into the United States. The desert was scarred with mass graves.
If these hundreds of guns and thousands of bullets reached Mexico, how many more lives would be snuffed out?
Jackie whacked the side of her fist against the wooden lid to make sure it was closed tight. Then she got to her feet and turned out the lights in the garage.
Chapter 9
Howard Bell started Wednesday morning in a bad mood. His mother, who lived in a condo across town, woke him with a phone call, badgering him about some article she'd read in the newspaper. Something about "pear-shaped" men being more at risk for blood-pressure problems or something. Howard hadn't gotten the real gist of it because he'd fixated on the term "pear-shaped." He vaguely remembered promising his mother that he'd get more exercise. What he'd really like to do was exercise his legs, kicking the ass of whatever fool medical researcher came up with "pear-shaped."
The day had dawned cloudy and murky, unusual for Albuquerque, even in winter, and the gray skies contributed to Howard's sour mood. By the time he pulled into the parking lot in front of Duke City Truck Salvage, he felt sure his day couldn't get any worse.
The front windows were dark and there was no sign of Jackie's car. Damn it, Howard thought, I'll have to make the fucking coffee, too.
As he got out of his warm Mercedes, the wind snatched at his hairpiece and nearly got it this tim
e. He clamped both hands on his head as he hurried to the front door, then kept one hand planted up there while he fumbled with his keys. Once inside, he shut the door and turned up the heat and went to the men's room to check on his curly toupee. Crooked, but easily fixed. Whew.
Once he was well-groomed (if still pear-shaped), he went back into the office and hung his coat on the usual rack. The heater was roaring now, and the office was more comfortable. He turned on all the lights.
He'd just gotten the coffeemaker started when an aged white Peterbilt rumbled into the front parking lot. Truck, but no trailer. When it turned out to be Jackie who got out of the truck to open the gate into the fenced yard, he got a chill that made him shiver all over.
Where was the trailer?
By the time Jackie came into the office, Howard had composed himself. He sat in his swivel chair behind his disorderly desk, hands folded before him, waiting for her, while the aroma of brewing coffee filled the room.
"Good morning. I got that truck last night."
"I see that. Where's the trailer?"
"In a minute," she said. "Let me have some coffee first. I was up late."
He sat very still while she went to the coffeemaker and poured them each a cup. She had a green duffel bag slung over her shoulder and she had to keep shifting the bag out of the way as she poured and stirred.
Howard gave her a tight smile as she set the steaming cup in front of him. She sat in the visitor's chair, facing him, the long bag in her lap. He waited, his lips pressed together, until she'd had a sip of her precious coffee.
"Where's that blue Freightliner I brought you yesterday?"
"Gone," he said. "I had a buyer in Phoenix just waiting for a rig like that."
"And the cigarettes?"
"Sold 'em to one of the Indian tribes."
"You work fast."
"I don't want hot stuff sitting around here any longer than necessary."
Jackie nodded and took another sip of her coffee. Making Howard wait. He was getting steamed.
"Why are you asking me these questions, Jackie? You've never cared about the cargos before. Why the sudden interest?"
"Do you know what that Peterbilt was hauling?"
He didn't answer her. He knew full well that the trailer had been full of firearms of some sort. Santiago had indicated that much. But Howard had hoped Jackie wouldn't look inside the trailer.
"Guns, Howard. Hundreds of automatic rifles and the ammunition to go with them."
He shifted in his chair, but before he could respond, she dug into the pocket of her denim shirt and pulled out a shiny bullet. Held it up for him to see. It was a brassy, pointy thing, nearly as long as her finger.
"Look at that, Howard. Imagine what that bullet could do to a person. And there are thousands of rounds in that truck."
"I don't see how this is any of your business," he said. "So the trailer's full of guns and bullets. So what?"
"The crates have 'U.S. Army' stenciled all over them," she said. "Are they stolen?"
"Jeez, I don't know, Jackie. You think?"
"You send me to pick up a truckload of hot guns, stolen from the government, and you don't tell me first?"
"I didn't know for sure," he said. "Santiago said something about being careful with the load—"
"Don't lie to me, Howard."
"Okay, okay. Some Army guy in El Paso told Santiago about the stolen shipment, how the guns were being delivered to a buyer in Albuquerque. So I thought—"
Jackie leaned forward to interrupt.
"You thought we'd rip somebody off, and hand those guns over to your pal in the Mexican cartel."
"I simply don't see what difference it makes—"
"They're guns, Howard. They kill people. That's all they're good for."
"Not our problem," he said. "We hand over that shipment and take our money and never look back."
"I can't do that."
"Come on, Jackie. Where's that trailer?"
"In a safe place. But that can change."
"Are you threatening me? After all I've done for you?"
"This is bigger than me and you and money," she said. "It's about innocent lives being saved."
Howard took a deep breath, striving for patience, but anger washed over him.
"If a bunch of Mexicans want to shoot each other, what do we care? It's population control."
She gripped the wooden arms of her chair and squeezed. Howard was impressed by the ropy muscles in her forearms. No wonder she could wrestle an eighteen-wheeler around city streets. Her father had taught his only daughter to drive a big rig while most kids her age were learning to ride bicycles, and she had the muscles to show for a lifetime of driving. She definitely was too tough to be bullied by a pear-shaped middle-aged man. Howard needed to get hold of himself. Tamp down the hot panic rising within him. Try to reason with her.
"Look," he said after a moment. "This simply isn't our call. I promised that shipment to Santiago. If we don't deliver, we make people unhappy. People who don't respond well to disappointment."
"Too bad for them."
"Too bad for us, Jackie. These people won't just say, 'Never mind. No sale. See you around.' They'll come after those guns and they'll take them and nobody will get paid. How is that better?"
She shifted the duffel bag in her lap. Now that it was no longer suspended from its strap, Howard could see the shape within its canvas confines, could see how the tips of the object poked at the ends of the bag. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
"Jesus Christ, Jackie. Did you bring one of those guns here with you?"
"What? No."
"What's in that bag?"
"A sawed-off shotgun I took off that trucker night before last. I didn't know who might be here with you."
Howard rocked back in his swivel chair, smiling at her.
"That's kinda ironic, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"You won't hand over those guns to the Mexicans because you're so big-hearted, so worried about who might get killed. But you'll happily use a scattergun yourself."
"Just for protection," she said. "There's a difference between self-defense and mass murder."
"Not to the people getting shot. Dead is dead."
"I haven't shot anybody, Howard. I want to fix it so the guns in that truck never shoot anyone, either."
"But that's what guns are for. If you boosted a load of toilets, would you insist that they be used as flower pots?"
She scowled at him.
"You're not changing my mind, Howard. I'll hand those guns over to the cops before I let them go to Santiago."
"Better keep the cops out of it," he said. "Once they start investigating, they won't stop with this one shipment. They'll uncover the other heists. You'd be looking at hard time, Jackie."
She didn't flinch.
"What about your mother? Who's going to take care of her if you're in prison?"
"Low blow, Howard."
"Maybe so. But it's a consideration, right? If we want everybody to come out of this unharmed and unjailed, able to meet our responsibilities, the only answer is to sell that load to the intended customer."
She shook her head.
"Do I have to remind you who's the boss here?" he said. "Without me, you've got no job, no income."
"Really, Howard? You're threatening to fire me? Do you think that's going to change my mind?"
He shook his head. "I don't want to fire you. But if you don't hand over those guns, there won't be any jobs at Duke City Truck Salvage. Because there's no company without me. And if we stiff those Mexicans, there's a good chance they'll kill me. Is that what you want, Jackie?"
She stood and slung the strap of the duffel bag over her shoulder.
"I've already done the math, Howard. Put your life up against the hundreds of potential deaths in that truck. Still think you come first?"
Howard thinking: Damned right I do.
"I understand where you're coming from
, Jackie, but it's not just my life you're risking. It's your own as well. If I can't give the Mexicans what they want, they'll track down the person who can."
"Then it's a good thing I've got this shotgun."
She turned toward the front door.
"Jackie, wait! You can't just walk out on me."
"Watch me."
Chapter 10
Special Agent Romeo Sandoval had just pulled into his parking spot downtown when his cell phone rang. The parking slots reserved for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were perks that came with having office space in Albuquerque Plaza, the tallest building in New Mexico at twenty-two stories. Reception was always iffy in the underground garage, but Romeo answered the phone anyway. He was in no hurry to face a ten-hour shift full of paperwork and fluorescent light.
"Sandoval."
A crackle, then a man's voice. "Hey, this here is Nate McCoy."
It took Romeo a second to place the name. The driver of the stolen cigarette truck.
"Yes, Mr. McCoy. Something new?"
"I'd say so. You haven't heard?"
Romeo sighed. Couldn't the man just get on with it?
"Heard what?"
"That woman stole another truck here last night."
"At the same truck stop?"
"That's right. I seen her with my own two eyes, climbing up into the cab of a white Peterbilt. I yelled after her, but she just slammed the door and drove away."
"You're sure it's the same woman?"
"She was dressed like a man, but I knew it was her."
"Two nights in a row. That's ballsy."
"I know!" McCoy said. "That's what we were saying here in the café."
"And you're sure it was her."
"Goddamn, I done said it twice. I'd know her anywhere."
"Your vision's okay now?"
"My eyelids are still puffy as a toad's, but I can see fine. I'm telling you, it was her."
Romeo was starting to feel a grudging admiration for this woman, this truck hijacker. She had guts, that was for sure.