extensive arrest record.” What Adam is saying is, “What you would expect for the wayward son of a wealthy man?”
“It starts as a juvenile with auto theft, graduates two years ago with attempted murder. It seems the old man’s money has been able to keep him out of the slammer thus far. Though that may not work much longer if what we hear is true, that there’s a falling-out between father and sons.”
“Any narcotics?” I ask.
“Eight years ago,” says Adam. “Let’s see.” He licks his thumb and turns a page. “Here it is. Both of the sons were arrested. It was dismissed for lack of evidence. Federal Judicial Police believed they were into cocaine, growing it out in the jungles down in the area we’re going to today.”
“Anything in the states?”
He looks, peruses the record in the file for several seconds, and turns some pages. “Doesn’t look like it. There is a credit report. It shows they have bank accounts in several foreign countries, Belize and the Caymans, nothing huge, but continuous activity.”
“So they’re making money doing something,” I say.
“It would appear,” says Adam. “They applied for a loan about four months ago, listed assets including the last major deposit. That was about eight months ago, just shy of three hundred thousand dollars, U.S. So they’ve got something going.” Adam takes a deep breath, closes the file, and we settle in for the ride.
An hour on and we see large signs along the road for something called Xcaret. Julio explains that this is a water theme park built around Mayan ruins. Families come for the day. For a fee they can swim in the natural lagoon or play in the artificial waterways constructed by the developers with the blessings of the government.
The Mayan Riviera has its moments, incredible natural beauty and undisturbed jungle, with pockets of tourist wealth. We pass a number of these. Most of the resorts are closed off behind iron gates, with armed guards in kiosks out in front.
From what I can see, the tourists who stay in the resorts pass along the road in air-conditioned comfort, only coming and going.
Real life is out here. Traveling at seventy miles an hour, we come upon periodic migrations along the shoulder of the highway. Groups of men walking along the road dressed in shirts and jeans four sizes too large for them.
“There must be a town,” I tell Julio.
“Ah, villages. All over,” he says, “in the jungle.”
“Where are they going?”
“They look for work,” he says.
Every few miles there’s another band, trudging along the sandy roadside in cast-off athletic shoes, some of them trailing wives and children, little kids, scrubbed and carried by their mothers, with their older brothers and sisters walking along in the dust. Like their parents, looking for a way to feed themselves for another day. I cannot help but think of Sarah at home, and what she would think, looking at kids her age unable to go to school, having to scratch the soil to eat.
Adam leans over and says: “Even for this, the natural forces of the economy have an answer.” I begin to think he can read my mind.
“And what’s that?”
“It’s why it didn’t make any sense that the Ibarras would be talking to Metz, trying to bring heavy equipment down here. There’s your answer.” He points off in the distance, a mile or so ahead, a bald part of the landscape where something has hacked away at the jungle. As we draw closer I recognize it: a construction site.
“That’s where they’re all going,” he says.
The place looks like an Egyptian tomb-building scene out of the The Ten Commandments. A vast anthill of men, too many to count, wielding shovels and pushing wheelbarrows, not a single piece of heavy equipment anywhere in sight. Even concrete is being mixed in a series of large tumblers on location, no modern cement trucks.
“It’s what didn’t make any sense when you told me about the story Metz gave you. When labor is plentiful and cheap, why would you bring bulldozers and backhoes?” says Adam. “Besides, the government down here doesn’t favor it. You don’t get to depreciate your equipment in Mexico. You’re expected to hire your countrymen. Give them jobs. Did you notice the hotel staff last night?”
“What about them?”
“Veritable army,” says Adam. “It took three of them to lead each of us to our rooms, one to lead the way, one to carry our luggage, and one to follow along, I suppose to make sure we weren’t ambushed from behind. Mexico is learning how to avoid revolutions,” he says. “You have to admire them for the effort.”
“You sound like you travel down here regularly.”
“Enough. I like the people. Friendly. What you see is what you get.”
“Then why all the security?” I ask.
“I’m a humanitarian,” says Adam, “not a fool.” Something catches his eye. He leans forward and talks into Julio’s ear over the seat in front.
When he settles back, he looks at me and points off to our left. “That’s Puerto Adventuras up ahead there. It’s a resort. Has a fleet of good fishing boats. Have you ever done any deep-sea sport fishing?”
“No. I’ve had clients that are into it, though.”
“You should try it sometime. We’re going to stop there on the way back for dinner. We may spend the night, depending on how late it is.”
“I didn’t bring a change of clothes, toothbrush, or anything else.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll go native,” he says. “Besides, anything we need we can find there.”
We pass several signs with the word Cenote, each of these listing kilometers. I ask Julio about these.
He tells me that the Mayans considered them sacred watering holes. They worshiped at these caverns in the limestone under the jungle where large quantities of fresh water gathered, sometimes running in underground rivers.
“There are many of them in the jungle down here. Some of the Indians take their water from them even today. You want to be careful, though,” he says. “Watch out for ah… how do you say? Caiman.”
“Gators. Big ones,” says Herman. “What he’s tellin’ you is, you get off the road, you wanna watch where you take a drink.”
I make a mental note, not that I’m planning on drinking anything that doesn’t come out of a sealed bottle.
A few minutes farther up the road, and Julio is looking at a map spread open on his lap. He’s talking in Spanish into the handheld wireless again. “Aqui. No, no, no, no, aqui.”
The lead car throws on its brakes and suddenly turns left across the highway without a signal. The car doing at least forty. We all follow, a Mexican intersection.
We bounce along on a sand-strewn road into the strip of jungle between the highway and the coast, my body bucking in the seat belt. We travel for a few miles.
As we approach a rise in the road, Julio issues orders for the cars to slow down. Finally we stop. He marks the place on the map with his finger and confers with Herman, who seems to agree. Then Julio gets out of the car and runs up to the lead vehicle. The man in the passenger seat of that car gets out, and the two of them take off up the road, on foot.
They are gone for about five minutes, when I see Julio coming back toward us, a few steps and a skip as he hustles down the road. He finally reaches the car. Adam pushes the button, rolling down his window.
“This es the place.” Julio is out of breath, perspiration running down his forehead and cheeks, dripping from his chin. “You will want to take a look.”
Adam closes the window and gets out. He tells the driver to keep the motor running and the air-conditioning on.
I climb out on the other side while Julio opens the back of the car and fishes around for something. He comes up with a bottle of water, takes a long drink. “Senor?” He offers it to me.
I pass.
Then he finds two pairs of field glasses, large Bausch amp; Lomb’s, twelve power, fifty millimeters. He hands one to me and the other to Adam, then leads us back up the road.
