CL Hart -From A Distance (27 page)

"I don't trust people, Big Polly. You know that. It's not in my nature."

"You know me, and you know you can trust me. They can't x-ray it because it's too big. Don't worry, even if they were to shake it, it won't make a sound. They'll be looking for your reaction, that's when they'll decide if they want to look inside, but they never do. I'm sure you can handle it."

She nodded her reluctant acceptance. "So, do I want to know what's inside?"

Big Polly smiled. "A prize. Open it when you've cleared the border and are on the trolley heading north. The whole idea here is to blend in. You're a couple of women who just spent the day shopping in Tijuana. Once you're over the border, just follow the rest of the tourists. Use some of the cash I gave you and buy a few things from the locals. Be seen, but don't make a scene. Make some friends and everything will be fine. You know how this works, blend in."

Looking around at the other tourists on the bus northbound to Tijuana, she gave Big Polly his due. There was not a single empty-handed passenger on the bus. He was right. If they were going to pull this off, then they had to be taken for tourists.

It was something Kenzie found disturbing. She knew the protocols for her job. Unfortunately, her mind and body had been so badly beaten up that she had neglected one of the first rules of training: if you don't want to be noticed, then you have to learn to blend in and become part of your surroundings.
Walk like a duck, talk like a duck, and you'll be taken for a duck.

"What did you say?" Cori shot Kenzie a puzzled look. "Did you just say...did you say that we look like ducks?"

"No," Kenzie said firmly.

"Yes, you did," Cori insisted.

Their short bus ride to the border lurched to a stop, saving Kenzie from having to respond. All but a few of the passengers rose to their feet at once, hoping to beat the mass exodus in escaping the stifling heat. The windows of the bus were open, allowing a steady breeze to swirl the dusty heat inside the rattletrap, but now that they had come to a stop, the temperature inside the bus would quickly become unbearable.

One of the few still seated, Kenzie wiped the sweat from her brow. A puff of diesel smoke billowed past the window. She took several shallow breaths, hoping to clear some of the fumes from her head, but it didn't seem to help much. "Come on, let's go," she said as she stood up and waited for Cori to move into the line exiting the bus in front of her.

They stepped out of the bus, away from the smell of diesel, dust, and sweat and into the ever-present aroma of Tijuana. Small carts and open-air stalls were cooking, making, and selling tortillas, burritos, and tamales, and the warm afternoon air was filled with their smells. The contents of many shops spilled out onto the uneven sidewalks: pottery, leather belts, jackets, t-shirts, ponchos, gold and silver jewelry in aged glass cases, velvet paintings of long dead singers and actors, and just about anything else a tourist might want to haggle over.

An elderly local held out silver jewelry as Kenzie and Cori passed them. "Ah,
Senorita,
come, take a look. For you or your friend." He held up an arm adorned with beautifully crafted silver necklaces. "Come, come." He beckoned them over, but they moved on with a shake of their heads, following some of the other tourists from the bus as they strolled along the wide walkway. The shops began to look pretty much the same as every merchant gleefully propositioned them to come into their shop. They did slow down for the occasional store, though it was more for appearance than to look for bargains. Kenzie had one thing on her mind and that was to get across the border.

The sloping of the sidewalk gradually lessened, as the pedestrian bridge over the cement banks of the Tijuana River came into sight. Several tables of trinkets lined the concrete walkway that zigzagged toward the bridge. Unlike the merchants in town, the women watching over these tables were silent as Cori and Kenzie walked by.

"You okay?" Kenzie asked as they proceeded up the ramped walkway.

"Yeah... Well no, I'm scared shitless," Cori answered honestly as she slid a nervous glance in Kenzie's direction. "If I neglected to mention it earlier, I'm glad I have you with me." She offered her best smile, but it quickly faded away. "Are you sure you're okay? You look a little flushed."

"I'm fine." She wiped the sweat from her face. "It's just the heat."

Cori was about to comment that it was not that hot, but as they rounded the last turn that would take them onto the bridge, she saw something that bothered her more than Kenzie's temperature. There, right in front of them, at the beginning of the pedestrian bridge, was a small red and white booth. Her eyes darted to the matching booth on the opposite end of the bridge. Both were marked with a faded but clearly written word:
POLICIA.
They appeared to be empty and she took a calming breath as they turned the corner and walked out onto the bridge. Her relief was short lived as they almost bumped into three uniformed officers partially blocking the entrance. Cori's heart thumped and her stomach dropped, but after one more reluctant step forward, she realized the trio was not even looking at them. The three uniformed officers were having an angry exchange with two young men and didn't seem to be aware of them.

Kenzie leaned over and whispered into Cori's ear, "It's okay. We're tourists heading home, remember? Just ignore them like everyone else is doing." Kenzie took Cori by the elbow and gently steered her around the group. Keeping their eyes away from the officers and their detainees, the twosome casually crossed the aging footbridge, carefully avoiding some of the large potholes in the older sections of the bridge. At some time in its past, there had been attempts to liven up the concrete by painting brightly colored squares with names all over the surface, but time, weather, and millions of footsteps had faded them to a memory. Neither woman spoke as they passed the halfway point.

"There's the border," Kenzie said. "See the fence?"

Cori looked beyond the cement riverbed to the exceptionally tall fast food restaurants signs and the palm trees that lined the streets of San Ysidro. "Then that would make that America."

"Yup."

Cori stopped and looked back over her shoulder at the busy streets of Tijuana. She was leaving Mexico, and that realization unsettled her. The lifestyle of the impoverished country was something that had initially been hard for her, especially seeing the children who had little more than the clothes on their backs. She recalled with vivid clarity the first time she had seen one of them eating in the middle of an open-air market. The flies had been buzzing around the mixture of refried beans and rice on the young girl's plate. The child barely noticed them as she scooped the food into her mouth with her fingers. It was a different world down here, and it took Cori a while to get used to the poverty, the heat, and the crime, but the people made it all worthwhile. Never before had she been around such a sense of community and family. They seemed to celebrate everything and they seemed to do it together. Family was everything, and everyone was invited. "Cori?" Kenzie's placed a hand on Cori's back. "You okay?" Cori turned and looked ahead to the end of the bridge.

"Yeah, I was just..."

"There's no one following us, if that's what you're looking at. Even if there were, they wouldn't try anything here - too many people, too many eyes, too many cameras." Kenzie spoke reassuringly, but the caution inherent in her profession made her glance back over her shoulder as well.

"What about that guy in Santa Rosalia? The crowds there didn't seem to bother him."

"Cobra?" The name was barely a whisper off her lips as she scanned the vantage points that she would have used if she were the hunter rather than the hunted. The lay of the land would be perfect for a sniper - lots of uneven rooftops and billboards. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as her senses heightened. "I doubt he's following us. I winged him back at Santa Rosalia." Her eyes didn't find anything out of the ordinary, but she felt the sweat rolling down her back and between her breasts. "There are way too many witnesses here. But just to be on the safe side, stay in front of me.

Cori did as she was directed, her mind still working on the possibilities. "If he...this Cobra is out of the picture, would they send someone else?"

It was a good question, considering they had sent someone else because she had not done the job to start with. Even if they had, she didn't have the tools to deal with it at that moment, so there was no sense in worrying about what she couldn't change. "Probably. But they don't know where we are and they don't know where we're going."

"They don't know about your boat?"

"No one knows about my boat, except the Judge and Big Polly, and neither has been there. We'll be safe there, so come on, let's just keep moving."

Once they were off the bridge and down the ramped, zigzagging walkway, they found themselves in the middle of an open town square surrounded by more shops.

"Now where?" Cori asked.

"Big Polly said to keep going straight across the road until we pass the restaurant and the taxi stand. The Millennium Bridge to the border will be in front of us." Kenzie cursed under her breath as she transferred the pinata from her left arm to her right. The pain in her side had been throbbing almost continuously and, though she tried to ignore the pain, it was not going away. Despite her resolve to keep that knowledge from Cori, when the salty sweat from her body trickled down her wound, she couldn't stop the hiss of pain that escaped from between clenched teeth. Cori didn't seem to hear it, and for that, she was thankful. She shifted the pinata and their windbreakers back to her left side.

Cori did notice that. "You want me to take that stuff for a bit?"

"Nah, its okay, I've got it. Let's just keep moving."

It took only a few minutes for them to cross the square and find the Millennium Bridge that would take them over the road to the States. It was a lot more modern than the ancient footbridge, a lot narrower, too, leaving just enough room for two people to cross it side by side. Halfway across, Cori stopped in shock at the endless line of cars and trucks inching their way northward.

"Wow!" she said in awe, her mouth open at the sheer volume of vehicles converging on the Land of the Free and the home of the twenty-four hour shopping mall.

Kenzie joined her in looking over the traffic below. There were eleven lanes open to the border, hundreds if not thousands of cars idling their way northward past vendors desperate to sell their wares. She shot a glimpse over her shoulder, but she couldn't see the end of the line.

"Is that it?" Cori asked, drawing Kenzie's attention back to the direction they were heading. "That's where we're going, right?" There, in front of them, was the largest and most modern building in the entire area, and its identity was clearly spelled out in bold aluminum letters: United States Border Inspection Station.

"Yeah." Kenzie narrowed her focus to their immediate goal. Her head was still spinning and she squeezed her eyes shut several times, hoping to clear her vision and ease the throbbing in her head. "Let's get this over with."

They moved off the bridge and headed north. Cori was nervous, but she did her best to hide it. With each step, her heartbeat seemed to get louder.

Sensing her nervousness, Kenzie leaned over and whispered into her ear, "It's going to be okay. Just take a couple of slow, easy breaths, and remember, we were just down here for the day."

"I know...I know," Cori said, more to herself than to Kenzie. She took several deep breaths, blowing each one out slowly through slightly parted lips.

The sidewalk was not busy, though everyone around them seemed to be heading in the same direction. They reached the glass doors of the border station and Kenzie pulled one open for Cori to enter. She smiled and winked, hoping to help ease Cori's tension.

The building itself was warm. That was the first thing Cori registered as they moved forward with everyone else down the unfurnished corridor. She licked her lips several times, but it didn't help; her throat and mouth were too dry to furnish any moisture. The building was eerily silent except for the sound of everyone's footsteps echoing off the bare brick walls. At the end of the corridor, the foot traffic slowed as they approached the numerous inspection stations. There were four lines directly in front of them and all appeared to be moving quickly. Kenzie motioned to one of them and Cori silently followed her direction.