Edge of Battle aow-2 Page 3

  To Victor’s dismay, the tough-looking man was still there beside the Suburban by the time Victor made sure his pollos were on their way. Victor said nothing as he walked around to get in, but the man asked, “Where do they go?”

  “No sé,” Victor replied. “To work, I suppose.”

  “Well, well, it’s Victor Flores, late as usual,” he heard. It was none other than Ernesto Fuerza, probably the most notorious and successful smuggler on the U.S.-Mexico border. Tall, young, good-looking, wearing a dark military-looking utility uniform without any badges or patches, black fatigue cap over a black-and-white patterned bandana, long hair and goatee, and well-cared-for military-style boots laced all the way up, Fuerza had successfully made a worldwide reputation for himself not as a criminal, but as an entrepreneur, satisfying the needs of Americans and Mexican immigrants alike…

  …and also because Fuerza had no compunction whatsoever to abandon his pollos if the federales closed in on him. It was widely suspected that Fuerza had ditched one of his trucks filled with migrants in the middle of the desert and escaped—except the authorities never showed up until days later, to find over fifty migrants dead inside from heatstroke.

  Fuerza nodded to the European. “I told you, it would have been better for you to come with me, Señor Zakharov. Dovol’nyi Vy bezopasny, polkovnik.”

  “We speak only Spanish here, señor,” the man named Zakharov said in Spanish. “See that you or your men do not forget again or I may have to cancel our contract.” Fuerza lowered his eyes but offered no other apology. “Any difficulties, señor?” he asked in a low, menacing voice.

  “Of course not. Everything according to plan, exactly as promised. It would be better if we departed right away.”

  Fuerza scowled at Victor. “He made us wait too long in this area, which could easily alert the Border Patrol.”

  “I thought you said this location was secure.”

  “We took precautions,” Fuerza said. “But if young Flores here would learn to get his ass in gear and be on time, we wouldn’t have any concerns at all. Next time, Señor Zakharov, you should come with me.”

  “It was operationally dangerous to all go in one vehicle,” the man named Zakharov said. The little hairs on the back of Victor’s neck began to stand up. This was no ordinary migrant-worker smuggling job, nor even a fugitive entry—these guys looked and acted as if they were on a mission. Something was amiss here, he decided, and the sooner he was gone from here, the better. He was extremely relieved when Zakharov said, “No matter. Let us be on our way.” He reached behind him, and Victor thought the shit was going to hit then—but to his surprise, Zakharov pulled out a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to Victor. “Buen trabajo, señor. ‘Good job.’ Perhaps we will meet again. I am sure this will buy your absolute silence.” Victor managed a polite nod and accepted the money with a shaking hand.

  “Buy yourself a life, Flores,” Fuerza said as he spun on a heel and left with the two men. Victor got into his Suburban as fast as he could without looking like he was panicking.

  Fuerza and the others had just crossed Wiley Well Road and were almost back at the panel truck when suddenly a white-and-green Border Patrol van pulled up and parked directly behind it, blue, red, and yellow lights flashing. Two Border Patrol agents got out of the van. The agent on the driver’s side had a microphone to his lips and was aiming the vehicle’s spotlight in the other hand; his partner had a large portable spotlight in one and his other was filled with plastic handcuffs. “La atención, ésta es la frontera de Estados Unidos patrulla,” the first agent’s voice said over the vehicle’s loudspeaker.

  Victor was about to start up the Suburban and jam it into reverse, hoping to get away from the area, but the headlights and flashing lights of a second Border Patrol van suddenly appeared in his rearview mirror, blocking his exit. “Ésta es la frontera patrulla!” another voice said over the loudspeaker from the van behind him. “¡Usted en el Suburban, puso su reparte la ventana, ahora!”

  Shit, Victor cursed at himself, this is unbelievable! He was about to get popped with Ernesto Fuerza, the biggest coyote in Mexico, and a mean-looking dude who looked like a big-time terrorist on a hair trigger. He stuck both hands out of his window. Spotlights began moving in his direction. Damn, it was all over. Victor looked in his side mirror and thought he saw a few of his pollos in the back of the Border Patrol van behind him. That was worse—they would finger him as their smuggler just to show cooperation with the authorities. He was screwed.

  “You two, turn around, kneel down, hands behind your head,” the first agent ordered in Spanish over the loudspeaker. Fuerza and Zakharov did as they were told. When they complied, the agent radioed, “You inside the truck, get away from the door and get down on your knees. No resista.” His partner stepped up to the truck, inspected the latch, found it unlocked, undogged it, and moved back to the van. “You inside the truck, lift open the door slowly. Ponga sus manos en su cabeza y no salga del vehículo hasta ordenado para hacer tan. Repeat, ‘Put your hands on your head and do not exit the vehicle until ordered to do so.’”

  The lift door to the truck began to slowly open, and both agents carefully directed their spotlights inside. As Victor watched, a familiar-looking Border Patrol agent swept his spotlight inside Victor’s Suburban, opened the driver’s door, grabbed Victor’s left wrist, pulled it around outside the window frame, and then wrapped a plastic handcuff strap around both wrists, securing Victor to the door. “We meet again, eh, Victor?” U.S. Border Patrol agent Paul Purdy said in Spanish, “La tercera vez es el encanto. ‘Stay put and relax,’ okay, partner? We’ll do the drivin’ from now on.”

  “I have nothing to do with any of this, Agent Purdy,” Victor said in perfect English. “I’m just here taking a nap. You know very well I’m an American. I’ve got ID.”

  “Save it for your arrest statement, Victor,” Purdy said. Unlike many of the veteran Border Patrol agents in this sector, Purdy was tall, rather boyish, and friendly, with an old-fashioned “flat-top” haircut and a silver-gray mustache. He was somewhere in his mid-to late fifties, old for a field agent of today but probably rather typical of the breed from a generation earlier. “Two of your recent clients already gave you up. Now shut up and just relax, okay, amigo? You’ve probably been on the road a couple days—take it easy. Besides, you know I’ll tell the prosecutors anythin’ you tell me now, so if you’re lyin’ you’ll be caught in a lie, and that’ll make it worse for you.” Purdy and the other agent from the second unit started walking toward Fuerza’s truck, spotlights scanning every inch of the outside.

  Victor could see just the very far left edge of the inside of the truck, but it was obvious that it was packed full with migrants. He could see a woman and two men with work clothes standing in the open door, and judging by the way they were being jostled from behind, it seemed like they were being pressed by many more pollos in there. “You persons standing in the door, get down on your knees slowly and put your hands on your head.” The first agent put the public address microphone down and reached into the van for the radio mike, obviously requesting more vans to take all of the migrants away. Victor could hear the radio request from the van behind him and the dispatcher’s response.

  “Christ, looks like we got ourselves a long night ahead of us,” Purdy said, reaching behind him for his bundle of nylon handcuffs stuffed into his utility belt. “We’d better…”

  At that instant, all hell seemed to break loose right in front of him.

  Several migrants, the ones standing in the open door, suddenly flew out of the van, landing headfirst on the hard-baked dirt. Men and women screamed, and spotlight beams darted in every direction. More screaming…and then heavy automatic gunfire erupted. It seemed as if dozens of yellow tracer lines zipped out from inside the truck, focusing on the two Border Patrol agents behind the vehicle.

  “Holy Christ!” Purdy swore. Both men ducked almost to the ground as the automatic gunfire rang out, droppin
g their handcuffs and spotlights. “Split up and take cover!” He dashed off to the left; the other agent half-rolled, half-stumbled to the right. “Code ninety-nine, code ninety-nine!” Victor heard Paul Purdy’s voice coming from the van’s radio as he spoke on a portable transceiver. “Patrol One-Seven, shots fired, shots fired, Chuckwalla and Wiley Well Road, south of I-10, west of Blythe. Get someone out here, now, we’re under heavy fire!”

  Victor watched in absolute horror as at least ten men, dressed in black and carrying military-looking rifles, jumped out of the back of the truck. Two of them advanced on the first two Border Patrol agents and fired single shots into both of them from point-blank range. He could see that all of them were wearing black ski masks and gloves and combat boots. Several of them advanced toward Victor, rifles at the ready.

  Suddenly there were several shots fired from the right from Purdy’s partner. One of the attackers was hit, but he did not go down, and he swept the vegetation line with automatic gunfire.

  “Get out of there, Bob!” Victor heard Purdy scream. “Run! They’re wearing body armor! Get away! Hide in the fields! I called for backup! They’ll be here in five minutes!”

  “Cover me, Paul!” yelled the second agent.

  “No…!” Just then a loud bang! and a blinding flash of light erupted in the fields, and Purdy’s partner began rolling on the ground, arms covering his eyes and ears, screaming from the effects of the flash-bang grenade. Another attacker ran up and fired a three-round burst into the agent, immediately silencing his screams of pain.

  At that instant, Purdy broke cover and ran for Victor, diving behind the Suburban’s door just as a hail of bullets flew past. He skidded to a stop like a base runner sliding into third base, and in a flash he had a knife in his hands and had cut off Victor’s plastic handcuffs. “Get going, Victor!” Purdy ordered, his sidearm in his hands.

  “You…you saved me, Agent Purdy…”

  “We’re both going to be dead in ten seconds if you don’t move!” Purdy shoved Flores behind him, fired three shots, then turned, picked up Victor by the back of his trousers, and hauled him up toward the Border Patrol van. He threw Victor behind the van, then opened the vehicle’s doors. “¡Usted adentro! ¡Salga! ¡Ahora salga!” he shouted. The woman and the boy inside the van cowered in fear on the floor. “Victor! Help me get these people…”

  His voice was cut off as bullets ripped into his back. Purdy gurgled, his mouth opened like a dying fish, his eyes rolled up inside his head, and he pitched forward and rolled into a dry ditch.

  “Vy proverjaete dlja bol’she veschestv?” a voice shouted. Victor didn’t understand a word—it was a language he had never heard before—European, he thought, but not German or French.

  “Sí,” another voice responded in Spanish, much closer. “¡Y hable español, usted idiota! Now check that truck for any other surprises!” Shit, Victor swore, they were coming for him. He was behind the van, too scared to decide what to do. If he ran left he would have to cross the ditch, a road, and the freeway; if he ran right, he would have to jump over the irrigation pipe and a wide clearing before reaching the fields; if he ran back down the farm road, he’d be an easy target. He heard footsteps and the clicking and clattering of gun mechanisms as the attacker reloaded. One voice was getting very close.

  “We’ve spent too much time here already!” a gunman shouted.

  “¡Cierre para arriba! ¡Me estoy apresurando!” The gunman was right beside him! Victor heard the attacker searching the Border Patrol agent’s body, probably removing weapons, ammunition, IDs, and radios; then the attacker opened the hood of the Suburban.

  “¿Es bueno ir?”

  “No, es tiro.”

  “¡Cabron! I told you not to shoot the damned truck!”

  “¡Carajo! I was under fire. I…” The gunmen stopped, and Victor heard the upraised rifle. “¡Hey, hay alguien aquí!”

  This is it, Victor thought. He froze in place and closed his eyes tightly, moving his lips in a silent prayer, waiting for the heavy-caliber bullets to blow his brains into a million pieces. A few moments later, he heard two gunshots…

  …but he wasn’t shot. He heard a loud, anguished woman’s scream, then two more gunshots. “Dos pollos en la furgoneta. Ningún problema,” the gunman shouted. A few more moments later, the gunmen were gone.

  Victor stayed motionless until he heard no more vehicle sounds. When all was quiet, he rose and looked into the ditch beside the farm road. Paul Purdy was one of the few good guys on the U.S. Border Patrol—he really seemed to want to help the migrants, not just round them up. He went down into the ditch and saw the three large-caliber bullet holes in Purdy’s back, and he was afraid to touch him anymore. The body was twitching and heaving grotesquely.

  The Border Patrol was no match for these gunmen, Victor thought. Those bullet holes were massive—the exit wounds would be many times that size. Purdy was definitely a goner. The other agents would be here shortly; they would know what to do with Agent Purdy.

  He stepped out of the ditch and looked inside the Border Patrol van. With horror he recognized the two dead migrants: the woman who had thanked him when she was dropped off after their safe journey, and her eleven-year-old son. He would have been old enough to identify the attackers to the authorities, so of course he had to be eliminated too.

  That boy didn’t deserve to die—all he did was accompany his mother to America in the search for work, searching for a better life. Victor was the one who deserved a bullet in the head. It was his fault, he thought bitterly, that all these people died at the hands of that murderous bastard Fuerza.

  Unbidden, the child in Victor Flores finally reemerged, and he began to cry just as loudly and sorrowfully as he did when he was a child. He sank to his knees, emotionally and physically spent.

  After several long moments of uncontrolled sobbing, his innate sense of danger rang loud and clear, and he jumped to his feet. The Border Patrol was on its way, he could feel it, and he took off running down the dirt road, parallel to the irrigation pipe. He knew enough not to try running through the fields, because the Border Patrol’s infrared cameras could pick him out from a mile away. He ran about two hundred yards, then immediately turned left toward the freeway. In the pitch-black darkness, he made out a shallow culvert. It was small, but he managed to slip inside…

  …moments before he heard sirens approaching, then saw the impossibly bright light from a helicopter-mounted spotlight. He scrambled deeper inside the culvert, clawing frantically at every rock, piece of garbage, and bit of soil he could to find room to wriggle in. Victor didn’t have enough room to turn around to see if his feet and legs were all the way inside the opening—if they weren’t, the Border Patrol agents would be on him within minutes, guided in by the helicopter’s observer.

  But he had made it. The sound of the helicopter moved away, as did the sirens. When he thought it was safe, he tried to snake his way backward, but he couldn’t move. He had no choice but to go forward. After almost twenty minutes of crawling, he found himself on the other side of the culvert, on the north side of the eastbound lane of Interstate 10. He knew enough not to try to cross the highway—agents would be scanning the highway with night vision equipment. He also knew he could not stay there—the Border Patrol would be quickly setting up a perimeter around the murder scene.

  He crawled on his belly in the sandy median between the east and west lanes of the interstate highway, praying that the sand and dirt that covered him from head to toe would allow him to blend in with the earth. A few minutes later he came across a culvert on the westbound lane, and he crawled in. This one was a bit larger, and he found it easy to crawl to the other side. He found another irrigation pipe and decided to follow it, pausing to hide behind a concrete support or valve whenever he heard any vehicles approaching. As his eyes adapted to the dark, he spotted several barns and other service buildings nearby in the fields, but he dared not try to enter any of them because he knew that’s the first place the
police would look for him.

  After almost an hour of nearly continuous running, interspersed with frantic searches for hiding places, he came across a knoll and a service road that crossed the westbound lane of the interstate. His throat was completely dry, and he was becoming dizzy from dehydration and exertion. He saw several men sitting on the side of the service road, speaking Spanish and passing a large bottle of something in a paper bag back and forth between them. He would only stay for a second, he told himself—one sip of whatever they had, that was all. He started to stand up and raised his arms to flag them down…

  …then instinctively dropped to the ground—just as a sheriff’s patrol car, slowly and quietly cruising down the service road on the other side of the interstate, turned on its red flashing lights. “¡No muévase! ¡Este es la policía! ¡Levántese con su arriba las manos! ¡Tengo un K-9!” came the order from the car’s loudspeaker.

  Oh shit, a dog! Victor didn’t hesitate. He crawled into the field to his right, took a few moments to find the deepest, smelliest open furrow he could, then began to scoop soil on top of himself. In moments he had completely covered himself in coarse, sandy loam, stinking of fresh fertilizer and decaying vegetation. If the men tried to run and they let the dog go, he was caught.

  But the men didn’t run. Victor could hear bits and pieces of conversation: it turned out all the men had identity cards and lived nearby—they may have been illegals, but the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department rarely detained undocumented workers who were minding their own business. If they tried to arrest even a third of them, their jails would be full to bursting, Victor knew. The questioning took some time, but the sheriff’s deputy never let his dog loose, and eventually the patrol car departed.

  Not long afterward, Victor rose up from the putrid stench of the furrow when he heard the workers leaving. He was shivering from a combination of thirst, hunger, fear, and adrenaline. He didn’t want to, but he heard himself call out to the workers, “Hey, amigos. Espere, por favor.”