Against All Enemies

the way home, but he took the cash ahead of time and figured he could use a few bucks of the thousand they’d given him to pay for a taxi.

The tunnel entrance inside the warehouse had been carefully concealed within a narrow electrical maintenance room. There was a four-foot-by-four-foot hole cut into the concrete, with a wooden staircase leading down to the dirt floor. Rueben carefully descended the stairs, following the heavyset man in front of him, then turned to his right, staring down the seemingly endless shaft. The ceiling rose to nearly six feet, and his backpack didn’t even brush along the sides of the tunnel, which he thought were at least three feet apart. LED lights had been strung across the ceiling, as though the cartel had decorated the place for the holidays. Rueben also noticed ventilation pipes and electrical wires, along with a piece of PVC piping that ran along the right side of the floor. As they got farther into the tunnel, the walls and ceiling became covered in strange white panels that he overheard one of the guys behind him say were being used to absorb sound.

The Bluetooth in Rueben’s ear began to itch. The FBI guys listening to his every move were losing their signal now, and even his GPS transponder was failing, he knew.

He began to grow claustrophobic and tried to steal a glance behind him as those panels on the walls seemed to close in. The long line of men kept coming, and the gap between himself and the fat man in front of him was widening.

“Come on, move it!” cried the guy behind him.

Rueben hustled up, reached the man, and began to breathe deeply, trying to calm himself. Even if the police were waiting to bust all of them on the other end, it didn’t matter. He’d walk. He’d already been turned, made his deal with the devil, and there was no going back. This is what it was to be a man, to take responsibility for his actions, and he hated it.

The man behind him grunted and said, “Welcome to America,” because someone had painted a line on the ceiling and written U.S. on one side, Mexico on the other, demarcating the border. Rueben just shrugged and moved on. A secondary tunnel shifted off to the right, where he noted a small sanctuary with burning candles. He wished he had time to say a prayer for himself and his family. He wished everything had been different. He thought of the boy with no toes …and shivered.

32 PAWNS IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

En Route to Border Tunnel Site

Mexicali, Mexico

Pedro Romero overheard one of the Arabs call the tall man “Samad,” and so he began addressing the man as such, just to unnerve him. I know your name. That was petty power but all Romero had for the time being; still, he was biding his time, because he hadn’t truly surrendered. Not yet.

There was a scintilla of hope.

He’d phoned the sicarios in charge of the cocaine shipment, and the newest lieutenant, Jose, a kid who used to work for Corrales and who now wanted to be called El Jefe, though he was barely twenty-two, began screaming at Romero that he could not get everyone out of the tunnel.

“These orders come down from Corrales himself.”

“Where is Corrales? Where has he been? No one has seen or heard from him. That’s why I’ve been put in charge of this shipment. This is my operation right here.”

“Shut up and listen to me. I want all those men out of the tunnel and out of the house within ten minutes. If you don’t get that done, Corrales will come for you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“If you want to take a chance, then okay. But you will die, young man. You will definitely die.”

The kid swore, hesitated, then finally agreed.

Three vehicles had been used to carry Romero, Samad, his two men, and the other fourteen Arabs to the tunnel site. Romero was driving his own car, with Samad seated next to him and the two lieutenants in the backseat. Behind them, in his wife’s car, were five other men, and behind them, crammed into an old Tropic Traveler van, were the other nine, along with six rather large traveling bags whose long rectangular shapes left Romero shaking his head. Bundles of rifles? Missiles? Rocket launchers? It was safe to assume they weren’t toting camping gear.

As they neared the site, Romero considered what might happen once the Arabs reached the end of the tunnel. He asked God for his salvation and prayed that his family be spared. These men did not want witnesses, and they would murder him once they got what they wanted out of him. He could no longer deny that. He’d been around evil men long enough to understand how they reasoned.

He also wondered what they would do once they reached the United States, how many people they would kill, how much property they would destroy. He hated them as much as the Americans did, and they thought he was powerless against them.

But as he’d noted, hope was not entirely lost.

What Samad and his fanatical followers did not realize was that the tunnel had been rigged with C-4 charges so that it could be destroyed at a moment’s notice, even timed in such a way as to bury anyone within it. This was made very clear to Romero during the early stages of construction. Corrales had told Romero that his bosses feared the tunnel might be used by their enemies or even terrorists one day, and so a fail-safe would be put in place. Inside a construction trailer on the opposite side of the site were three sicarios whose job it was to monitor the tunnel’s security cameras. There were nine men in all who worked in three shifts. They were also in possession of the primary set of wireless electric detonators, although they would not blow the tunnel without direct orders from Corrales or one of the other bosses. The backup set of detonators was on the top shelf of a locker inside the maintenance room. Romero need only retrieve one of them before taking the Arabs into the tunnel.

And then he would make his move.

Rueben sloughed off his heavy backpack and let it drop to the floor, and the other men did the same. Before they could sit and wait for the shipment bound for Mexico to arrive, the sicario who demanded they call him El Jefe had come up from the tunnel and told them they needed to leave right away. The orders had come down.

“What about the other shipment?” Rueben asked. “I thought they needed our help. They said we’d get a bonus.”

“Forget it. Go.”

Rueben’s frown deepened. “What about our backpacks? Who’s coming to take them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Look, I need to evacuate this place now! Those are my orders. That’s what’s happening.”

“Then I’m coming back through the tunnel with you,” said Rueben. “My ride’s waiting for me out there.”

El Jefe shook his head. “Get the fuck out. You figure out your own ride home.”

One of the other mules, probably the oldest, with a streak of gray hair near his left temple, lifted his voice: “We can’t all leave at the same time. That draws too much attention. They told us that.”

“The fuck you can’t! Go!”

The other men began filing past Rueben, heading for the front door. The oldest mule held them back.

El Jefe rushed up to the mule and jammed his pistol into the man’s forehead. “?Vayanse!”

The man gave the young punk the evil eye for a few seconds, then nodded slowly and turned back for the door. The mules began filing outside after him.

“Well, I’m taking a piss first,” said Rueben, crossing to the bathroom. He went inside, shut the door, and waited. The house grew silent. He turned on the faucet and called Ansara, who’d been updated and knew what was happening.

“What do I do now?”