them.
As they walked, he scanned the buildings. He and Julia drew interest but it lasted no more than half a block.
He wondered how long it would take the cops to find the abandoned RAV 4 and work out who the occupants had been. Less time than it would take him and the girl to cover the mile, that was for sure. And if they knew he had her so close to the consulate they would be able to figure where they were headed.
At the end of the block, he spotted a store with racks of clothes left out on the sidewalk. As they reached it, he guided Julia in as a Federal Policia car sped down the next street. ‘What are we doing?’ she asked.
Three minutes later and fifty dollars lighter (twenty for the clothes and thirty for the owner’s silence), they emerged from the store, the girl’s long hair tucked up under a baseball cap, both of them wearing long sleeves, the tall man with a wind-breaker zipped up to his chin. Hand in hand, they strolled across the street, without a care in the world.
Looking ahead, Ty swore that if he pulled this off he would head back to that old witch Santa Muerte and leave her the biggest goddamn spliff he could find, with a whole goddamn case of tequila.
Sixty-three
Lock hunkered down next to the thin plywood door of the one-room shack where he was holed up with Charlie Mendez. Outside, a group of children were busy kicking a soccer ball. Behind him, Mendez was sprawled on a threadbare floral couch, his chest rising and falling as he slept. Sunlight splashed lazily through a Perspex window, etching a yellow square on the bare floorboards. The facilities were meagre — a chemical toilet out back, but no electricity.
After a nerve-shredding night spent one step ahead of the police search party, they had chanced upon the owner, a heavy-set middle-aged woman, as she was leaving for work at around four in the morning. As soon as she had turned the corner at the end of the street, Lock had snuck them inside, figuring they would probably have the place to themselves until early evening when she would return from one of the factories or a day spent cleaning rich people’s houses.
Mendez had fallen asleep quickly, the exhaustion of the pursuit and the consequent huge dump of adrenalin taking its toll. Lock had kept guard by the door. A cursory check of the GPS on his cell phone, before he had powered it down, had given him their position.
They were approximately five miles north of the city centre, and south of the Rio Grande by less than a mile. To the west lay the highway they had fled. To the east lay the desert. But to the north lay another highway where headlights twinkled in the distance, and that highway lay in the United States. They were closer than he would have dared believe possible, but it was an agonizing proximity.
Though the distance may have been less than a mile, more and more cops were pouring into the colonia with every minute that passed, and even if they could make good their escape, they still had to cross the border. Ten, even five years ago, it would have been a matter of wading the river. But now they faced not only the river but a whole host of defences aimed at keeping people out of the United States. The irony of an American trying to break back into his own country wasn’t lost on him but that was what he faced, and the plain fact of the matter was that they wouldn’t be able to achieve it during daylight. They would have to sit out a long day and wait until night fell again.
On the up-side, he had Mendez, and the shots aimed at him from the helicopter had made him broadly compliant. Mendez knew that, on his own, he was most probably dead. The knowledge had served — it often did — as a calming influence. Lock wasn’t sure how long it would last but Mendez was aware that, at this very second, the only person who appeared even vaguely interested in him staying alive was Lock. If it hadn’t been for him, he’d already be dead.
Sixty-four
Ty stood at the edge of the crossing, directly opposite the office building that held the consulate, and gave Julia’s hand a reassuring squeeze. He had talked to her the whole way there, as they played the part of a happy couple, trying to keep her calm. He had asked her about her family, about her memories of growing up. Safe stuff designed to reassure.
The walk had gone quickly. There had been a moment when, darting through traffic, a motorcycle cop had stopped to stare at them. Ty had bluffed with a friendly wave, and that single nonchalant act had been enough to satisfy the cop’s curiosity as he took off with a macho twist of his handlebars.
It was as they started to cross that Ty noticed the two men. Both Hispanic, both wearing wrap-around sunglasses, each man posted within twenty yards of the two entrances to the consulate building. They might have been working for the Americans — US consulates were often staffed by locals and now, with military resources stretched, regularly used private security. As they hit the opposite sidewalk and Julia made towards the nearest entrance, a set of glass double doors, Ty pulled her in the opposite direction towards a row of stores on the ground floor of the building.
He cursed his own stupidity. If the cartel and their buddies had guessed that he wasn’t going to risk the border crossing, where they could easily be detained in Mexico on a pretext, and instead head straight for the the consulate, they wouldn’t have cops on show to scare them off. They would be watching from the shadows. A spider didn’t sit in the middle of a web waiting for the fly: he clung to the edges.
Ty studied the storefronts. ‘Here,’ he said, guiding her towards a nail salon as one of the men swivelled around to watch them.
Inside, the salon was quiet. The owner bustled over and, without asking, got Julia to sit down. Ty pulled out his cell phone and motioned towards the back of the salon. ‘Okay if I make a call back there?’
‘What’s wrong?’ Julia asked, as the owner shrugged in agreement.
‘Just be cool.’
Ty stepped away and pulled up the number Lock had given him. A few seconds later a woman answered, speaking in English but with an accent: ‘American Citizen Services Unit.’
Without explaining who he was or why he was calling, Ty asked to be put through to a member of the consular staff. He was put on hold. The phone pressed to his ear, he walked to the front of the store and peered out. The two men he had spotted were standing next to each other now. One was nodding towards Ty, who was only partially obscured by the gaudy stencilled advertising plastered across the window.
Finally there was a click, and for a second he thought he had been cut off or placed in some kind of automated queue. A second later there was a voice, a real live human being. ‘How may I help you?’
He stepped away from the window, and started to speak. He gave the man at the end of the line Julia’s name and explained that they were across the street but that two men were positioned outside the consulate who, he believed, had been placed there by people who wished to prevent Julia’s safe return to her family.
‘Mr Johnson, please stay on the line, and I’ll be right back to you.’
Before he had a chance to protest he was put on hold. He walked back to the window and took a peek. The two men were still in heated discussion. One was on a radio. Not a cell phone but a walkie-talkie. From the corner of his eye, Ty caught a flash of red light as a patrol car sped down the avenue. The two men watched it pull up not far from them. Walkie-talkie Man keyed his radio again. At the same time the consular official came back on the line.
‘Mr Johnson, I want you and Julia to stay exactly where you are. If you have a weapon please do not draw it. Do you understand me?’
‘Yeah, got it.’
The patrol car was joined by another. One of the two men, the one without the radio, broke off to go and speak to the cops as the one with the radio started towards the salon. The owner, completely oblivious to the scene unfolding outside, remonstrated with Julia, who was fidgeting in her seat.
