Do They Know I'm Running

get swamped by delegations from home wringing their hands, begging something be done. It’s a waste of time. The maras, the salvatruchos, they don’t own isolated tracts of land where you can build an airstrip. They don’t have diplomatic immunity or connections to the military or go to the same clubs as the judges quashing warrants. The real problem is the cartels, the corruption. Real organized crime, the men with social or political connections, immune from prosecution.”

“You saying Mara Salvatrucha’s not connected to the cartels?”

“Right now? They’re humps, mules. They provide muscle and move freight.”

“And people, don’t forget. They move people. Like the ones in this case, including a Palestinian we’re all hoping is who we think he is.”

“They couldn’t move those folks without the blessing of the cartels. Running those routes on their own? Five years away at least. The cartels would skin them alive.”

“Really? Five whole years. Well damn.”

“I’d like-”

“They’re sure as hell not five years away from running pot farmers off their land at gunpoint up in Mendocino and Humboldt counties. That’s happening right now.”

“I’d like to get back to talking about terrorism. Islamic terrorism.”

“How come I hear Salvadorans and Hondurans tell me, when they go back to visit family, every time it’s worse, the shakedowns, the muggings, the drug use, the killings.”

“You’re thinking like a cop.”

“Whoa. Imagine that.”

“Guatemala’s got the best infrastructure in the region and it’s a testament to one thing. Drugs. You think the World Bank put up that money? Graft is a way of life down there. Christ, it’s a tradition, like cockfights and quinceaneras. But the maras don’t pose anywhere near the kind of organized-crime danger they’re routinely blamed for. Granted, once they’re a solid cog in the trade, looking up from the ground, they’re going to tell themselves they deserve better. They’re going to make their move, start fighting for control and I don’t mean a barrio here or there. That’s when it’s going to get hairy. You think Mexico’s a mess? It’ll look like Mother’s Day in Fresno compared to what’s coming.”

“All the more reason to jump now.”

“With a trumped-up case?”

“Mr. McIlvaine-”

“I asked you to call me Andy.”

The cushion hissed as Lattimore leaned forward. “All right. Andy.” A janitor poked his head in at the door, kicked the nearest wastebasket, left. “I’m not so sure we’re disagreeing here. Seeing the problem from different angles, maybe. But even if I wanted to back off this case, I couldn’t close it down completely. First, like I said, it’s generally agreed we have better control over Samir Sadiq’s movements working this operation than we would otherwise.”

“I haven’t said word one about calling off that end of things.”

“Second, the smugglers my CI has connections to have corrupted some border agents, we don’t know who they are just yet. The inspector general over at Homeland Security-”

“Can run his own sting.”

“Look-”

“You’ve got politicians running campaign ads where terrorists slip merrily across the Rio Grande and make a beeline for the Alamo. Is this possible? Sure. And about as likely as a meteor hitting my cat. If the chuckleheads who’ve bought into your snitch’s scheme had one good functioning brain cell in their collective head, they’d know that. Which means a jury is less likely to see them as the menace you’re making them out to be than just plain stupid.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve what they get.”

“These cases are backfiring, Lattimore. The whole counterterrorism effort looks ludicrous. If you’re going to cry wolf, you better have one to show for it.”

It was startling, the change in his demeanor, the hardening around the edges of the eyes, the combative snap in his posture. And with it the slovenly shabbiness dissolved. Maybe the secretary was right, the Bannaret Group was real, but Lattimore wondered if the entire encounter wasn’t a charade, down to the documents the man had brought, the supposed translation. Time would tell. Maybe it was all just a way to throw him off the scent of some other problem lurking around the edges.

“The men we’re investigating aren’t innocents,” he said. “Fools? Maybe. But they gladly jumped on board, even knowing they were involved-”

“Imagine you’re a terrorist,” McIlvaine said, barely able to contain himself now. “You have an engineering degree, like Mohammed Atta, and you live in Munich. Are you going to schlep to Tijuana or try to swim the Rio Grande or starve in the desert for days with a pack of mojados who will hand you up in a heartbeat if they get caught? No. You have a legal passport and no criminal record, you’re not on any lists-that’s the kind of character a real terrorist cell will send here, okay? You’ll get a student visa to Canada, where you’ll rent a car, drive in comfort to some spot in the 450 miles of wilderness patrolled by four Mounties and simply walk or drive across the border. It’s that easy. Or maybe you’ll buy a skiff with an outboard and cross a few miles above Niagara Falls, where you’re as likely to get spotted as a cricket. Maybe you’ll just sign up with a Bavarian travel agency for a charter flight to Vegas with a pack of blue-hairs, play the slots, cruise the buffet at the Luxor, go to a drag show, then get on a bus and vanish.”

“Or bribe a border agent and cross over at Douglas, or Laredo or Calexico or-”

“In hock to a bunch of mareros? Too many things to go wrong. Too many idiots to pay off. It’s not the style of the networks we’re tracking. They’re used to outsmarting Mossad. They wouldn’t soil their hands with the likes of the hoons you’ve got your sights on here.”

Maybe I’m missing something, Lattimore thought. He didn’t see the bad news in all this. He didn’t want to bring a real terrorist into the country, a phony one served just fine. Better, in fact. That was the point. And what the fuck was a hoon?

“Look, all you’re saying, seems to me-”

“What I’m saying is that by rigging up a case where you have a bunch of losers tricked into thinking they’re bringing a real terrorist into the country, you condition people to believe that this stuff is always jerry-rigged by us to make it look like we’re actually doing something about terrorism when we’re not. There is no threat. It’s prosecution for the sake of PR, soap opera for paranoids. Five years from now, when the problem’s real, who’s going to believe us?”

***

AN HOUR LATER, AS LATTIMORE SAT IN A CONFERENCE ROOM REVIEWING with Happy the transcripts of his most recent tapes, he decided to pose the question that had been nagging him ever since he’d watched Andy McIlvaine disappear like a magician’s assistant behind the hushed brass doors of the elevator. Nothing seemed solid now. But the phrase that haunted him most, the one that kept circling again and again through his mind, was: You’re not on any lists. That was the man you had to worry about. Even if the Mukhabarat lead turned out to be a red herring and nothing else hinky cropped up, even if this Palestinian came up clean as a tadpole’s ass, that wouldn’t mean he wasn’t a danger. Quite the contrary.

Tucking the last transcript back into its accordion file, he said, “This friend of yours, Mr. Sadiq. The guy whose heart you know so well. Saved your life, you say.” He glanced up, a brushback stare. “I don’t remember you telling me anything about him and Saddam’s Gestapo. Or were you just saving that up, a little gift for later.”

Eighteen

A LOW-WATTAGE BULB SCREWED INTO A WALL SOCKET PROVIDED the only light in the gasolinera’s cramped back room, the smears left behind by greasy fingers projecting