the riverbank. The hat blocked her face from the camera, but she seemed to be cradling something. She rocked back and forth, as if rocking a baby to sleep. Or was she sobbing? The doctor slid down the dirt bank and ran to her; he dropped to his knees. The camera zoomed in for a closer shot, and Jorge could now see that the nurse was not cradling something. She was cradling someone. A child.
A child in a bloody white dress.
The doctor took the child and placed her on the ground. He leaned over and blew into the child's mouth, then pressed on her little chest. Again and again and again. He finally stopped. He sat on the riverbank a long moment, and his head hung so low it seemed that it might fall to the dirt. Finally, he lifted his head, and then he lifted the child. He held the child in his arms. From off-camera came a child's voice in Spanish.
'She was playing beside the river, and we heard gunfire from Nuevo Laredo. And then she fell. She was only four.'
Down below, the doctor stood with the child clutched in his arms. The child's arms and legs hung limp. He left the nurse behind on the bank and walked to a spot where he could step up onto the bluff; hands from the crowd helped him up. He walked toward the colonia. The camera caught his face. He was crying.
Jorge realized that everyone in the restaurant had fallen silent. And like the doctor, they were crying.
Back on the screen, the doctor in the white lab coat now stained red with blood carried the child into the colonia; the crowd and the camera followed at a respectful distance. They walked down dirt roads, past residents who stopped what they were doing and stood frozen in place, as cars on a highway when a funeral procession passed, and who then joined the procession. The doctor finally came to a little travel trailer half sunk into the ground. He stepped to the door. The crowd and the camera stayed back. The doctor knocked on the door. After a moment, a woman appeared. Her eyes found the child. She screamed. She took the child into her arms and went inside. Her wailing could still be heard. The doctor turned and wiped tears from his face then walked down the dirt road. Alone. Neither the crowd nor the camera followed this time, but the camera remained focused on Dr. Jesse Rincon.
It was one of those moments Jorge Gutierrez would never forget. Like where he was when he first heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated. And then Martin Luther King. And Robert Kennedy. Like watching the television as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon. Like seeing those planes fly into the twin towers on 9/11. Like witnessing a black man inaugurated president of the United States of America.
This was such a moment for Jorge Gutierrez.
Jorge wiped the tears from his own face then pulled out his cell phone and hit the call back for the state Democratic Party chairman. Clint Marshall answered on the first ring. Jorge Gutierrez's voice was solemn.
'I have found the candidate.'
NINETEEN
He was the leading Republican candidate for the White House.
The last week had been a blur of interviews and cameras and cheering crowds from L.A. to D.C. And with each television appearance, his poll numbers and Twitter followers had increased exponentially. Bode Bonner had ridden the tea party wave all the way across America.
But his wife was still in Laredo.
The whirlwind media tour was over, and Bode Bonner was back in Austin-back to budget deficits and a runaway wife who knew about his mistress. She had only been gone nine days, but he found that his thoughts turned to her more each day. He wanted her back. But did he want her back because he loved her or because he needed a first lady to win the White House? He didn't know. He couldn't know. He could no longer separate his political ambition from his personal life. What he wanted from who he was. Ambition burned hot inside Bode Bonner. It always had, as a football player and as a politician. It drove him to win the next game and the next election. But with each win, he wanted more. He needed more. And now, it drove him to become president.
But a president needed a first lady.
'You call her yet?'
'Nope.'
'Afraid?'
'Yep.'
Jim Bob fiddled with his iPhone then said, 'Your followers jumped again after the Fox News appearance yesterday morning and the 60 Minutes segment last night-six million, more than Ryan Seacrest.'
'Who?'
There was a knock, and the door swung open on a stout middle-aged woman.
'Mr. Burnet, here are the latest poll results you asked for.'
She walked over, handed a stack of papers to Jim Bob, and said, 'Good morning, Governor.' Then she left.
'Who's she?'
'Helen. My new aide. Mandy hired her.'
'What happened to Jolene?'
'She quit while we were out of town.'
'Why?'
Jim Bob's focus had turned to the polls. He answered with a shrug.
'Damn, Jolene was a helluva lot easier on the eyes than Helen.'
Jim Bob flipped through the pages.
'You pulled ahead of Obama in the Bloomberg poll. In one week you've gone from not even being in the game to leading the game. Hell of a week.'
'You were right, Professor. You said I'd be the presumptive Republican candidate for president. I am.'
The Professor turned the pages but shook his head.
'No. I was wrong.'
'But I'm leading the Republican pack.'
'Not about that. About the wave. I said you were just riding the wave. You're not.'
'I'm not?'
The Professor looked up at Bode.
'You are the wave.'
Lindsay Bonner stood outside the small shanty in the least-populated part of the colonia. A young girl had darted inside when Lindsay had spotted her from down the road. As she came nearer, she heard hushed voices from inside. Pancho barked.
'?Hola! '
No response. Lindsay walked around the outside of the shanty and tried to peek inside. She heard whispers. She stepped to the front door-a piece of sheet metal pulled across an opening-and pushed the door open enough to see inside.
'No, John Ed, I don't have the speaker and lieutenant governor on board yet. We're flying down to Houston later this week, I'll talk to them then.'
'Goddamnit, Governor, I need to move on my water deals, before it rains.'
'Hell, yeah, you don't want to let a good drought go by without making some money.'
John Ed Johnson launched into a profane narrative, so Bode held the phone out with his left hand and made the universal masturbation gesture with his right fist. Jim Bob muffled a laugh from his spot on the other side of the governor's desk. After John Ed had tired of his tirade, he hung up without saying goodbye or go to hell. Bode shook his head.
'Man expects a lot for twenty-five million.'
Jesse Rincon was at his desk in the clinic when his nurse arrived in a sweat. Inez was gone. Again.
'What is wrong?'
Lindsay caught her breath. 'I found eleven girls… young girls… a man kidnapped them in Guadalajara, drove them north to the border… they said he's taking them to Houston to be-'
