A SHORT TIME LATER
The streetwalkers were so easy, especially the older ones who thought they knew how to handle their johns. Act macho and smooth during the initial exchange; change to acting indecisive and unsure during negotiations to reel the girl in; then act apprehensive and a little scared as each date began in the hotel room. A few drinks, some tense necking, some clumsy stripping and play-acting to get the john hard, and then let her get on top and have the reins so she might think this was going to be an easy “wham-bang-thank-you-ma’am” date.
Then, when she was ready to wrap it up and leave—turn the tables, quickly and violently. Make her fear for her safety within seconds, and then her life within a minute or two. Delight in watching her transform from an experienced pro to a quivering, whimpering, begging child. Anything goes at that point—she was ready to accept anything, agree to do any perversity or act, as long as she believed she had a chance to survive and get out of that room alive and relatively unhurt.
They were usually gone in the wink of an eye when he was finished, and they didn’t stop for several blocks. They would notice that the money was fake then, but most wouldn’t have the courage to go back for it. A few had their pimps and enforcers go back to try to collect—that’s usually when he would pick up a new gun, maybe some nice jewelry, and some traveling cash before leaving that part of town, before the cops found the badly mutilated bodies he’d leave behind.
Yegor Zakharov had just finished one such encounter—his second of the evening—and was on his way back to the place he had left his car when his satellite phone rang. He read the decryption code on the display, looked up the unlock code on a card in his pocket, entered it, and waited until he heard the electronic chirps and beeps stop.
“Tell me your men did not enjoy it, Colonel,” the voice of Ernesto Fuerza said.
“Fuck you. My men and I are not your wet-workers.”
“But they
“What do you want?”
“The Americans are putting a thousand National Guard troops per week out on the border over the next few months,” Fuerza said. “The Mexican government and the Hispanic community in America will explode long before that. The revolution is well underway, thanks to you.”
“I am happy for you,
“Within days the backlash will start,” Fuerza went on. “The editorials in the liberal newspapers will start to moan about the cost and the ugliness of armed troops on the peaceful borders; the human rights groups will be at fever pitch within a week, filing lawsuits and making their case on every TV show in the world to protect the immigrants and condemn the neofascist government; and Hispanic people from all over the world will start to fight, with the radicals and revolutionaries leading the fight, soon to be joined by the common people, and soon after that by the politicians, headline-grabbers, and even actors. The American government will be on its guilt-ridden, confused, beleaguered knees in no time.”
“What the fuck do you want?”
“To give you a reward, my friend. I have information that you might find very gratifying.”
“How much is it going to cost me?”
“Not a penny,
“Another ambush, to be broadcast on the damned Internet?”
“You may do with the information as you wish, my friend—it is entirely up to you.”
“So? What is this reward?”
“I know exactly where your friend Major Jason Richter is right now, Colonel.”
“
“I knew you would be pleased,” Fuerza said. “He is searching for you in the migrant community of the Imperial Valley, just a few hours south of you, with a Border Patrol agent by the name of Purdy. It is just the two of them, and they are not being supported by anyone, especially not the U.S. attorney in San Diego who would certainly throw anyone from Task Force TALON in prison if she could. They appear to be out on their own—they are no longer part of Task Force TALON, Operation Rampart, or any other organization I can discern.” Fuerza gave him details of how and where they were to be spotted.
“This had better not be a setup, Fuerza,” Zakharov warned, “or I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting you down so I can take great pleasure in stripping the skin from your body, a bit at a time.”
“Call my satellite phone number at any time and ask me for assistance, Colonel,” Fuerza said. “I will be close by, and so will my men.”
“Then let us take them together, you and I.”
“I am not so foolish as to face this robot enemy of yours, Colonel—I will be happy to leave him all to you and those heavy weapons I sold to you,” Fuerza said. “My target is much more vulnerable: a survivor of our rendezvous near Blythe. I wish to keep him from talking to the authorities, so I will be in the same area looking for him.”
“I warn you again, Fuerza—you had better not double-cross me, or you had better pray that they kill me, because if you send me into a trap and I’m still alive afterward…”
“Do not worry, Colonel—I promise, this is not a setup,” Fuerza insisted. “I wish to do business with you again many times in the future. And as you undoubtedly know, there is a price on my head as well, almost as great as yours—I will certainly never be allowed to keep any reward money.”
NILAND, CALIFORNIA
TWO DAYS LATER
Maria Arevalo rose before daybreak every morning without the help of an alarm clock—the sound of trucks, buses, farm equipment, and sleepy men getting ready for another hard day at work was her only wake-up call. Careful not to disturb her three children, sleeping either in or around her bed, she tiptoed to the kitchen to put on a large pot of coffee and began making breakfast. Her husband had already left for the day’s work; the children could sleep in another couple hours before they had to get ready.
She lived in a two-room shack in a remote corner of a relatively small two-thousand-acre lettuce and cilantro farm near the town of Niland in the Imperial Valley of southern California, just east of the southern tip of the Salton Sea. During most of the growing season, Maria worked the fields with her husband, but in the summer she made meals for the thirty or so migrant farmworkers here. It was hard, exhausting work alone in the tiny kitchen, but she preferred it to being in the blazing sun all day with the others, doing “stoop labor.”
Breakfast was scrambled eggs with tomatoes, peppers, and scallions, potatoes, refried beans, beef and chicken tacos, gorditas, coffee, and water. Maria charged four dollars per man per day for breakfast and lunch; she gave 20 percent to the owner for the use of the shack, paid for the food, and kept the rest for herself and her family. The men ate well and it was easier, faster, cheaper, and safer than going home for meals; the owner and farm foreman liked it because the men stayed on the job site and they could keep an eye on them; and Maria liked it because she loved cooking and her only other option was to work in the fields herself.
By the time everything was cooked and loaded up into large pans for the trip out to the fields, it was time to get the children up and dressed. Fortunately Maria’s older daughter, at age eight and a half, was more than capable of helping her younger brother get ready, while Maria handled the infant daughter. At seven-thirty a small rickety bus arrived to take the boy to the community day care center, and a few minutes later the older daughter caught a station wagon filled with kids to go to summer school to brush up on her English and math before beginning second grade in the fall in the Imperial County public elementary school. The infant stayed with Maria; she tried to give her as much attention as possible, but unfortunately the baby stayed strapped into her car seat for most of the day, with a little battery-powered fan to help keep her cool and to keep pesky flies and mosquitoes away.
About that same time a forty-year-old milk delivery truck pulled up to the shack, and an older gentleman wearing the ever-present green bib overalls and old crusty work boots greeted Maria.
“You are late, old man,” she said irritably in Spanish.
“
