Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (88 page)

“Thanks for the ride.  And thanks for what you did back there.”

“No problem.
Vaya con Dios
, soldier.”  Neither man put out a hand to shake.

The one-armed veteran turned and limped away down the sidewalk. Ramos climbed back into the front of the van, and their driver made a U-turn on the empty street.

***

When they pulled ahead
, Genizaro reached forward and yanked the curtain aside and demanded, “Comandante, we have a mission, this is serious business!  Why did you stop to help that fucking
pinche
gringo?”

“Why? Because he was a soldier, like us.  A veterano.”

“No Comandante, no, he was not like us!  You heard him—that Yanqui lost his arm fighting an imperialist war of aggression, not a war of liberation!”

“It doesn’t matter.  He was still a soldier.  You could end up like him. Any of us could.”

“But Comandante, gringos like him shot down our helicopter, and killed six of our comrades!  Gringos like him killed our brothers from Alpha Platoon last week in Búrque!  Have you already forgotten them?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten!  But he didn’t shoot them—his war is over, long over.”  Ramos didn’t say any more after that, and Genizaro didn’t push the issue, but the belligerent Zeta grumbled loudly as he sat back down on the cargo deck.

Comandante Ramos couldn’t explain his complex feelings to these men.  Perhaps he could discuss it with his communications officer, the more cultured Teniente Almeria, but never with these hot-blooded but simple mestizo fighters.  Yes, Basilio Ramos recognized that on some level, he did sympathize with the plight of the wounded gringo soldier, crippled and disfigured in war—any war.  The Yanqui soldier was only a pawn in any case.

But on another level, he understood what the veterano vagabundo truly represented: he was a walking, breathing symbol of Yanqui defeat. Powerless, impotent, beaten; an object of pity, not anger.  In Cali—and soon in all of Aztlan—the old gringo fighters were mere shadows, hollow men, yesterday’s warriors.  As a force, they were finished, reduced to begging for alms in their former stronghold.  Ramos almost wished that he had given the beggar-soldier Fremont one of the small gold Indian coins, a magnanimous token to cement their relationship of victor to vanquished.

Their driver approached the crossing point, and Ramos tightly closed the fabric curtains separating the two front seats from the back of the van. The crossing point was a highway underpass near the eastern base of the Coronado Bridge.  The road passed through a square opening in the cement, the barrier wall on the side of Interstate 5 rising far above them.  A single black and white San Diego police cruiser was parked in the bright sunlight a hundred feet away on the other side of the box-like tunnel.  Two policemen stood near the patrol car, carrying MP-5 submachine guns on slings, scanning the occasional traffic that rolled through.  Both officers were wearing black ball caps; both had cop mustaches and wore black sunglasses.  The van slid through the darkness, and Ramos relaxed slightly when he recognized them as
carnals
, Hispanic brothers.  One casually held up his hand, and blocked the vehicle’s path. 

The van’s driver was prepared; his window was already down.  As one of the cops approached, the driver held up his California driver’s license, his national ID card, his downtown entry permit and his business license for inspection.  Ramos glanced over, and could see two small gold coins fastened to the back of the driver’s license with a paper clip.  The policeman examined only the driver’s license, turning away for a moment, and then he handed it back and waved them forward.  The small gold coins were gone.  They were inside of I-5, two miles southeast of downtown, the city’s skyscrapers rising before them.

Their taciturn chef-coyote was suddenly light-hearted, almost carefree, after successfully penetrating the forbidden zone once again. “You don’t have to worry about
policias
leaving downtown,” the driver advised. “The only extra security is on the way into
el centro
, and now you’re past it.  Just keep your men with the gang tattoos in the back as much as you can—there are secret police who will kill them on sight, you understand that?”

“Yes, I understand.  And so do they.”

“Okay, good.  When your mission is finished, you can leave downtown from anywhere—the police don’t care about that.  You know the way back to where we started?”

“No problem. 
El Chino
will be driving. He’s from San Diego.”

“All right then.  I’ll jump out up here—I have friends around the corner on the next block. 
Buena suerte
—good luck.”

***

Brian saw that Gretchen was wearing her running clothes,
a loose green t-shirt and the same stretchy black pants she wore when she went for rides on her bike.  She had a special pair of sneakers that she only wore when she went running.  She told Mommy that she was going to run by the bay.  She was going to run ten K.  Brian knew that ten K was very far. It meant that Gretchen wouldn’t be back for a long time.  After she left, Brian’s Mommy let him have the remote control, and she went into the bedroom and closed the door, but not all the way.  In a few minutes, Brian heard the shower running.  He quietly walked to Mommy and Gretchen’s bedroom, and peeked inside.  Mommy’s clothes were lying across the bed, and her bathroom door was closed tight.

This was his chance—he had enough time right now, if he hurried! He ran back to the living room.  Mommy’s leather pocketbook was on the little table by the end of the sofa.  She kept her cell phone in a little black pouch inside of her pocketbook.  He pulled it out, and sat on the sofa, took a deep breath and opened it up.

He remembered what to do.  He pushed the ON button, and the little television lit up.  He pushed CONTACTS, and the list of names appeared. The first name said ALEX. It was already a different color than the other names, so he pushed the green SEND button, and held the phone up to his ear.  He could hear it buzzing on and off.  

After seven buzzes, he heard clicks, and then his Daddy’s voice! Brian said, “Hi Daddy!” but his father only said, “You’ve reached the voicemail for 505-555-4522.  Leave a message after the tone.”  It wasn’t really his Daddy; Brian understood with a sinking heart, it was only a tape machine.  But it was his Daddy’s voice, and he suddenly realized it was a way to leave a message for him!  His Daddy would hear his message, and find a way to come and get him!

42

Ranya was taking her turn monitoring the computer,
while Alex watched cable news with the sound muted.  About once a minute, someone went in or out of the Fed Tower’s revolving glass doors on Broadway.

“Look, is that Gretchen?” she asked.

Alex twisted the upholstered easy chair toward the desk and the laptop, reached over and tapped a command on the keyboard.  The one-quarter size view of the building’s entrance went full screen.  “That’s her— the Beast.”

Gretchen Bosch was wearing a green t-shirt and black bicycling shorts, stretched over the powerful thighs of a serious body builder.  She had a white sweatband around her head, and with her crew cut, it was almost impossible to tell that she was a woman.  While they watched, Gretchen went through an elaborate process of stretching out, and then she disappeared running down the sidewalk on Broadway, toward the harbor four long city blocks away.

While they were both watching the screen, the laptop’s speakers began to sound the tones of a phone number being dialed automatically, followed by ringing.

“Excuse me—let me sit there, okay?”  Ranya vacated the hardback chair in front of the computer, and Alex settled into it, typing rapidly, causing the screen to shift to another window.  “That’s Karin’s phone, she’s making a call.  There’s her number, and that’s the number she’s calling, see?  It’s ringing.” 

Alex stared at the number Karin had dialed.

Ranya said, “505, isn’t that the Albuquerque area code?”

“That’s…
my
phone number!  Karin is calling me!  Oh jeez—now what?”

They both heard Alex’s recorded announcement:  “
You’ve reached the voicemail for 505-555-4522.  Leave a message after the tone.
”

But it wasn’t Karin’s voice they heard next.

“Hi Daddy.  This is Brian. I’m in San Diego.  I hope you can hear this sometime.  I really miss you a whole lot.  San Diego is okay, but I wish I was with you.  We didn’t go to Seaworld yet, but we went to a beach.

Next week we’re going to move to a house, but right now we’re in a tall building. There are red trolley trains that go by our building, but Mommy doesn’t want to ride on the trolley.  Maybe if you come to San Diego, maybe you can take me for a ride on the red trolley train?”

There was a long silence, and then the child began speaking again, with pauses between each sentence.

“Daddy, did you know today is the 4
^th
of July? Tonight we’re going to see fireworks. When it gets dark, we’re going to walk over the trolley tracks, down to where Bob Buller keeps his big boat.  Bob Buller is Gretchen’s boss.  I can see his boat from our balcony.  The fireworks are going to shoot up over the water.  

So Daddy, if you can hear me, I miss you a lot, a whole lot.  I hope you miss me too, because it’s pretty terrible not being able to see you…

Uh-oh, Mommy’s shower just turned off.  I love you Daddy.  Bye-bye.”

They both stared at the computer screen, at the two phone numbers, Alex sitting in the chair, Ranya holding the back of the chair and leaning over his shoulder.

Ranya spoke first, choking with emotion.  “Was that saved?  Can we hear it again?”  She had never heard her son’s voice before, and a tear spilled onto Alex’s neck.

“Sure, it’s all saved.”

“He’s a great talker!”

“Oh yeah, Brian’s as sharp as a tack.  He was talking at fourteen months.” 

“Did you hear what he said at the end, about ‘Mommy’s shower’? It sounds like he was sneaking the call.”

“Right, I think so too,” Alex agreed.  “He was sneaking it.”

“But he’s only five—and he knows how to use a telephone?”

“I’m telling you, he’s smart,
really
smart.  He figures things out.”

“Will she know he used the phone? Will it show, will she check?”

“I don’t think so, not if he puts it back the same way he found it. There’s no reason for her to check.”

“He must be a clever little guy.”  She wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

“Oh, he is.  He takes after his mother.  His
real
mother.”

“And he’s brave—like his father,” said Ranya. “Like both of his fathers.”

“He knows about Bob Bullard, can you imagine that? He said that ‘Bob Buller’ is Gretchen’s boss, that’s Bob Bullard, but how would he know that?”

Ranya hesitated, and guessed, “The television. ‘
Hi, I’m Bob Bullard
.’ They must have seen the homeland security commercial.  Karin must have told him ‘Bob Buller’ was Gretchen’s boss.”

“That makes sense,” Alex agreed.  “He was telling me where he’s going to be tonight—
on the dock where Bob Buller keeps his big boat.
A dock he can see from his balcony.”

“And he told us when: when it gets dark.  And he told us they’re walking, that it’s only a few blocks.  He told us everything!  What do you think?  Is it doable?”

“It’s doable,” said Alex, “If we don’t get a better chance before that.”

***

“If we grab the boy,
we could hold him for ransom,” suggested Chino, who was in the front passenger seat.  Basilio Ramos was now driving the white catering van.  Chino was wearing a brown turtleneck long-sleeve jersey, to conceal the gang tattoos on his neck and arms.  The small teardrops tattooed beneath the corners of his eyes were not so noticeable when they were obscured by his sunglasses.  “If we take the boy, we could force Bardiwell and Garabanda to come to us.”

Lieutenant Almeria was in the back, sitting on the floor with his laptop computer, wearing headphones.  Genizaro and Salazar sat across from each other in the far back, playing cards between them.  All of them were wearing long jeans, and except for Chino, they were wearing checked shirts in different patterns, loose and untucked to conceal their weapons, and their Kevlar vests.  The green Kawasaki was tied against the left side of the cargo van, across from the sliding door.  They were driving slowly down Harbor Drive, spending 15 or 20 minutes in various parking spaces, and then moving, always remaining within sight of the Pacific Majesty.

“That won’t work.  We just need to be patient, very patient.  The child is in that building, in apartment 4124.  Bardiwell and Garabanda will come around; you know they will.  They’ll be like tigers sniffing around the tethered goat, unaware that the hunter is also waiting and watching.”

“Tigers are dangerous, even to hunters,” observed Chino.

“But they don’t know they’re being hunted.  We have the advantage.”

Behind them, Almeria said, “Quiet! A call!” and they fell silent.  The blue curtains were open in the middle.  Almeria was situated at the front of the cargo deck behind the passenger seat, with his electronics mounted in a plywood box.  After a minute, he pulled off his headphones, and said, “Comandante, you’re not going to believe this—the child has telephoned his father in Santa Fe.  His English is hard for me to understand, let me play the call for you.”