Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (7 page)

A pair of men behind one table fiddled with a Mini-14 rifle, they couldn’t get the stuck magazine out.  The rifle reminded her of the ‘gun guards’ in the fields back at D-Camp, she wondered if they knew that she had escaped yet.  A full size black AR-15 also lay on the table, along with gun cases and nylon zipper bags.  Going back five years to the last she had heard, semi-auto rifles had been outlawed, but here they were, lying out in the open.  A tall range safety officer wearing a red ball cap walked over. He tersely admonished the two for inadvertently pointing the muzzle of their rifle sideways down the firing line, while they tugged at the magazine.  The lanky RSO appeared to be in his mid-fifties, she thought. The same age her father would have been, if he had not been murdered. 

***

The range master finished with the two men,
and walked over to Ranya’s end table.  “Howdy. You new around here?” He noted her pack, with the rolled-up blanket tied underneath.

“Just got in,” she replied.

“What’re you shooting today?” She had no visible gun case or range bag.

“Glock 19.”  She pulled the 9mm pistol from a side pouch on her pack. “I’d trade it for a .45 though, a model 1911.  That’s more what I’m used to.  Anybody around here trade guns?”

The man laughed.  “Anybody here trade guns? Who doesn’t?” Random rifle blasts split the air just to their side.  “Look, you need ear protection.  We’re not very formal around here, but we do insist on that. I’ll cut you a break though—wait just a second.”  He walked over to the range shack and returned in a moment, and handed her a pair of plastic earmuffs.  The man had sandy hair sprinkled with gray; he wore jeans and a faded blue polo shirt with the lightning bolt logo from Thunder Ranch.

A .45 caliber pistol, a model 1911, was holstered in leather high on his right hip. She gestured with her head toward the rifles on the nearby table. “Weren’t semi-automatic rifles banned a few years ago?” she asked.

He took a half step back and regarded her carefully.  Questions posed by strangers about firearms legality were regarded with suspicion at gun ranges. The realistic fear of ATF entrapment stings ran deep. 

“Where are you from?” he asked her, his hands on his hips.

“Virginia.”

“Virginia—back east.  Well that explains it.  Sure, semi-auto rifles were banned, after the Stadium Massacre.  And they still are banned, I guess.  But this is North Texas, not Virginia, and we sort of do things our own way out here.  We’re not too worried about the federal gun laws, as you can probably tell.  I mean, if the feds tried to come out here on gun raids, they’d have a real time of it!  Anyway, I’m thinking they’ve already got their hands full in Detroit and LA, places like that.” The man snickered.  “Yeah, they’ve got plenty enough on their plates as it is, without declaring war on Texas.”

“So, there’re no feds in Texas?” she asked.

“Oh, no such luck.  I’d say we still have our share, but they tend to mind their own business.  They don’t get out of the office much, you might say. They’re not stupid: they want to go home at night, like everybody else. Meaning no disrespect to Virginia, but trying to enforce the old federal gun laws in Texas these days, well, that would be just about purely insane.”

She nodded, and then asked, “Say, I noticed those two guys couldn’t even get the mag out of their rifle.  Are there any instructors around here? I could stand to earn a few bucks.”

He chuckled.  “Yeah, you might say there’re a few instructors here. In fact, you’re looking at Numero Uno.  But you seem kind of young to be a gun pro—you’re a firearms instructor? NRA certified? Or maybe you’re just some kind of a natural Annie Oakley?”

She grinned at the mention of one of her childhood nicknames. “Something like that.  All of the above, I guess.  I grew up around guns. My father was a gunsmith; he owned a gun store with an indoor range. Back in Virginia.”  She pointed to the logo on his shirt.  “He even came out to Texas, to Thunder Ranch a few times, back when…” She cleared her throat, her voice cracking.  “So yeah, I can shoot.  I’m a little rusty, but I can shoot.”

“Say, what’s your name?” He put out his hand, and she took it.

“Diana.  Diana Williams.”

“Diana, I’m Mark Fowler.  I run this range, and I know everybody that matters around Barlow’s Creek.  Hey, you know what? If you can shoot, I mean really shoot, you might be able to make a little money, or maybe win some prizes later on this afternoon.  There’s not much to do for excitement out here but watch the grass grow and the wind blow, so shooting is pretty much the big sport.  Of course, we encourage it: we keep the spent brass, and I get to reload it and sell it all over again.  It’s how we stay in business, you might say.  Hey, you gotta be creative to make a buck these days.”  He paused, looking her up and down, considering.  “You know, if you want to shoot for money, I might even lend you one of my .45s.  You don’t want to be shooting reloads out of that Glock, not even my reloads.”

“No kidding—I don’t want to lose any fingers. And I’ve only got two magazines of factory nine mil.”

“Well then, let’s see how you do with one of my .45s.  If I think you can beat the local talent, I’ll sponsor you, and spot you the ammo.  How’s that sound?”

“That sounds great Mr. Fowler, I appreciate it.”  She flashed him a toothy smile, forming cheek dimples, and he grinned right back at her.

“Mark. Please call me Mark—I’m not that old!  Let me get a competition pistol out of my truck, and we’ll see if you can shoot.  None of the suckers around here will shoot against me anymore, so it might be fun to enter a ringer in the money matches.  We usually have some macho men show up, and their pride just won’t let ‘em quit when a lady’s whoopin’ on ‘em.  Now let’s grab my race gun, and see what you can do with it.”

***

It took Ranya only a hundred rounds
through Mark Fowler’s custom-tuned .45 to get her shooting reflexes back up to speed.  More shooters began arriving after lunchtime, mostly on foot or bicycle, or packed into the backs of trucks.  It was becoming evident that gasoline was not only expensive, but it was hard to come by.  She did as much listening and as little talking as she could, concealed behind her ball cap and aviator’s sunglasses.

They started with a contest shooting steel targets for time. A judge with a stopwatch followed behind the competitors.  Skillet-sized steel plates were balanced on steel bar frames, at ranges from ten to thirty yards from the firing line. When hit, they made a loud ringing clang and flopped over.  Shooters had to run from position to position, firing at specific groups of targets, knocking them all down before moving on, changing magazines as needed.  

If nothing else, she figured she would get in plenty of pistol practice, after five years without firing a shot.  Practice that she might put to good use later, when it was time to rescue her son from his kidnappers.

4
 

The toy store was air conditioned,
but not so cold that you would notice it. Not unless you had just walked in from the asphalt parking lot in back, where the temperature hovered around 95 degrees Fahrenheit.  It was bearable inside, and in Albuquerque in June, that was enough, considering the frequency of citywide power outages. The shop’s dusty ceiling was low, the aisles were cramped, the shelves half-filled with last year’s toys and overlooked games.  In its favor, it had entrances both in front on Central Avenue, and in the back behind the mini shopping center.

Luis Carvahal entered through the rear doors.  He was wearing shorts, running shoes and a plain gray t-shirt that was dark with sweat.  Carvahal had the physique of a much younger man, but his deeply lined face betrayed his late middle age.  He propped his sunglasses up on his curly gray hair, and as his eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, he found his contact seemingly shopping in the middle of a center aisle.

His contact was more than a decade younger than he was, perhaps only in his mid-forties.  Carvahal thought the man looked like a typical
Telemundo
or
Unavision
network newscaster.  He was the standard clean-shaven and fair-skinned Latino from central casting, with wavy chestnut hair and gentle brown eyes.  Both men were exactly the same height, five feet eleven inches, so when they met, they literally saw eye to eye. 

His contact was an FBI Supervisory Special Agent named Alexandro Garabanda. 

After the brief eye contact, he turned toward the shelves and stage-whispered, agitated.  “I don’t like meeting in stores. You know I don’t like meeting in stores! You’re supposed to be a pro at this—didn’t they teach you this in spy school? And the Toy Hut? What am I supposed to be doing in a toy store?  I’m 58 for God’s sake—I look like a pervert trolling for kids in here.  I stand out like a sore thumb!”

They didn’t shake hands, but pretended to be looking at games on the same shelf.  “No Luis, you look like a grandfather. A grandfather, shopping for a special birthday gift for a favorite grandson.”

“Well, I don’t have a grandson.  Or any son, not any more.”  He sighed, and grew pensive.  He pulled off his daypack and removed a small white towel, and used it to wipe his face dry.  “You know, after 300 years, I’m the last Carvahal in Albuquerque.  The end of the line.”  He took a clear plastic bottle of water out of a side pouch and drank from it.

“I’m sorry for setting up our meeting here, but this place was the best I could do on short notice.  I had to bring my son, and he can play with the toys while we talk.  Half of the time when I leave my house or I leave work, I’m getting plain-clothed Milicias tailing me.  The Special Surveillance Group. I needed a decent cover, in case I was followed here.  Father, son, toy store.”

“I forgot: it’s Saturday.  You’ve got weekend custody, right?”

“Barely.  I’m supposed to, but it hardly ever works out that way.  It’s not like I work nine to five, and my wife, my ex-wife…”

The toddler was near the end of the aisle, sitting on the ground playing with wind-up racecars, letting them go and chasing after them, smiling and laughing.  The child was dressed in denim shorts and a camouflage pattern t-shirt.

“He’s Brian, right?”

“Right, Brian. Five years old.”

“I’m sorry Alex, I get so damned nervous.  I always feel like I’m being followed.  There are people in here…”

“Not on this aisle,” said the FBI agent.  He was wearing jeans and a Navy-blue polo shirt, with a brown vest on the outside.  The unzipped vest resembled one that might be worn by an angler or a photographer.  It covered his belt, and concealed his .40 caliber Sig-Sauer pistol.  Thin layers of ballistic cloth sewn inside the vest would stop bullets from most standard pistols.  “Don’t worry, I checked the place out.  Nobody followed me today, and nobody came in after me, or after you.  It’s clean.  The Toy Hut’s not a chain store, so it’s not in the National Surveillance Network. It’s too old, too small.  Its cameras aren’t linked to the NSN; they don’t go anywhere.  I checked.”

“Well they better watch out anyway: they’ve still got ‘Toy Hut’ on all the big signs outside.  Putting up a couple of ‘Casita de Juguetes’ placards, that won’t satisfy the hotheads.  The Spanish has to be on the biggest signs, not the English.”

“Well, why don’t you tell them, then?”  Garabanda snapped. “Sorry, I know, it’s not your fault.  I mean, can you even believe this crap? Any of it?  ‘Spanish Only’—what the hell is that?  Is this America, or not?” He shook his head slowly, resigned.  “You know, a year ago when you told me that Agustín Deleon would be elected governor, I said you were nuts.  But you called it Luis, you called it.”

“Yeah, well, that and twenty bucks will buy me a cup of coffee. Alex, I don’t want to complain too much, but at least you drove here.  I had to ride my bike, three miles and every inch uphill.  I can never get enough gas.  I can’t afford it, and I can’t get enough gas coupons.”

“What’s the matter, the Mountain Lion can’t toss some gas cards your way?  I thought you were in tight with El Gobernador?” Garabanda was ribbing him—Deleon’s stinginess was infamous.  The governor retained the lifelong habits of frugality, which had sustained him during his years of exile, during his hard years in the wilderness.

“I am, but…”

“But no extra gas cards.  I thought you were an insider now, Deleon’s buddy?”

“Alex—enough joking around.  I’ve got important information.  You know the Democrats in the Senate—the U.S. Senate—they’re supporting the revolution in Mexico…”

“I look at the computer from time to time,” said Garabanda. “Sometimes I even turn on the TV.”

“Funny.  You know I was up in Santa Fe yesterday, with Deleon? Anyway, he got a call from Senator Kelly while I was with him in his office, after dinner.  He was showing off—he let me listen in on another line.”

“Why would he do that, Luis?”

“Why?  Because I’m ghostwriting his memoirs, why else? The man is 82 years old.  He wants me to know everything, see everything from his point of view, right? He trusts me a hundred percent, and he’s very, very serious about his memoirs.  Believe me, this was a proud moment for the Mountain Lion, taking a call from the senior senator from Massachusetts! I mean, it validates him, he thinks.  Everything from the courthouse raid in ’70, to prison, to exile, to the election—his entire life!  So of course he wanted me to hear it...for his memoirs.”

“So what did Kelly tell Deleon, that the FBI should know?  You don’t actually think I can send up a report on it, do you? On a private conversation between a U.S. senator and a governor?”

“Shit.  I didn’t consider that. Well, I’ll give it to you anyway.  Do what you can with it.  Kelly’s not going to object to the New Mexico land reform laws.  He’s going to support them in Congress, so they’re a done deal.  The special tax on ranches over a thousand acres, the Spanish Land Grant Commission—everything.  Looks like Washington’s not going to oppose any of it, as long as the state stays away from federal land.  And you already know the President won’t say a word.  With Los Angeles burning, she can’t afford to alienate the Hispanics…”