Unlimited (23 page)

Ojinaga's market area was located half a mile from the central square. The main streets contained offices for national utilities like the power company and the banks and the city's more expensive shops. The narrow side streets held a variety of smaller shops and open stalls. The market sparkled like a desert rainbow. The boisterous, good-natured crowds defied the heat. At every intersection, street performers competed with beggars for attention.

Pedro led Simon into the city's main electronics store. The shop was a throwback to another era. Dishwashers and flat-screen televisions and computers and toys all competed for space. The wall separating the shop from what appeared to be a repair station was lined with shelves and drawers. As Pedro greeted the shopkeeper, Simon set out the seven components from his own device that were fried beyond repair. Pedro swept a hand over them and asked a question.

The shopkeeper picked up one of the circuits and fitted a jeweler's loupe into his eye. He spoke and Pedro translated, “He wishes to know what happened.”

Simon kept his response to the bare minimum. “I overloaded the device.”

The shopkeeper went through the components carefully, then confirmed he had all but one in stock. As he laid the fifth component on the counter, he asked another question that Pedro translated as, “What kind of device are you working on?”

But while Pedro was still translating, the shopkeeper's eyes widened, and fear rippled across his face. He jerked his hands into the air.

Pedro and Simon turned together to find the bearded hunter standing in the doorway. He was smaller than Simon remembered. But the feral expression was the same. As were the glittering eyes. And the shapeless leather coat.

The gun, however, was new.

The hunter barked at Simon. Pedro translated, “He wants your case.”

“Tell him the machine doesn't work.”

“Then you can give it to him, no?”

Simon spotted Harold rushing up behind the attacker. The orphanage director dropped his briefcase and hefted a ceramic vase from the shop next door.

The hunter screamed something, his voice rising to impossible heights. Pedro said, “Give him the bag.”

“Sure thing.” Simon held it out.

Harold dropped the vase on the attacker's head. The man shouted and wheeled about. As he did so, the gun went off.

The shot was impossibly loud. The narrow shop compounded the noise, turning it into an assault on Simon's brain. Pedro, however, seemed unaffected. He grabbed the shopkeeper's laptop and slammed it down on the attacker's head.

The bearded man went down hard.

Simon's relief at having survived was short lived. He saw Harold holding his shoulder, with blood seeping from between his fingers.

The shopkeeper pressed an alarm, and a siren blared from above the entrance. The three of them stumbled out, Pedro and Simon supporting Harold between them.

The entire plaza emptied in a flash of screaming panic. The streets became silent as the grave. Even the stallholders had vanished. The only motion he could see came from a lone car. It zoomed toward them and slammed on the brakes. As soon as Pedro saw who was behind the wheel, he groaned.

Simon recognized the driver and a chill struck his bones. The car was driven by the woman who had led the council meeting. The one who had offered him a thousand dollars for the device. The woman in the photograph in the professor's office. The one supposedly engaged to Vasquez. The one Pedro called a
bruja.
A witch.

Dr. Clara pushed open the driver's door and screamed across the car, “Get in!”

Pedro did not move.

She pointed behind them. “Your attacker is coming!”

Simon glanced back and saw it was so. The bearded man was up on his knees, one hand clamped to the back of his head, the other scrabbling for the gun.

As a police siren rose in the distance, the woman's voice lashed at them. “You wish to risk your friend's life? The police will come and lock him in a cell. He needs a doctor!
Move
!”

Simon sat in the front passenger seat, turned so he could watch the two men in the backseat. Pedro's face was washed of all color. Harold's features were etched with pain, and the hand holding his shoulder was soaked through.

Dr. Clara glanced in the rearview mirror and snapped, “Don't sit there doing nothing!”

Pedro asked dully, “Why are you here?”

“Never mind that. You need to apply pressure!” She swerved around a corner, taking it fast enough to pop the car up on two wheels. When the vehicle righted, she snapped at Simon, “Give him your shirt!”

Simon pulled the shirt over his head and passed it back.

“Bind it to him tightly and press down on the wound.”

“It hurts,” Harold complained.

“Of course it hurts. You've been shot.”

Pedro said, “Why are you going this way? The hospital is behind us.”

“So too are the police behind us. You want Dr. Harold to die in custody?”

“I will call Enrique.”

“You will keep pressure on that wound. The mayor is in Juárez.”

“Where are you taking us?”

“Is the police officer still on guard at the orphanage gates?”

“Yes.”

“We will go there.”

Simon shared a worried glance with Pedro. “How do you know about the police guard?”

“So many questions,” she replied. “You sound like Vasquez.”

“Here's another one. Why are we running from the police behind us when there's another one up ahead?”

Pedro replied, “The guard at the orphanage is Enrique's trusted man. The police who come to the square, who knows?”

“But you're the town manager.”

“Assistant manager. And that means something only to Enrique's allies. To the others . . . Perhaps she is right.”

“Of course I am right.” She held up a finger in Simon's face. “No more questions. I drive. You sit and you breathe and you be glad you are alive one day more. Questions can wait for a safer hour.”

Agent Martinez insisted on driving Sofia and Juan back to Ojinaga in her car, while her partner followed them in Sofia's van. Martinez expressed the invitation as politely as she could, but the steel was there in the policewoman's voice. Sofia assumed it always was present to a certain extent. As they passed through the cordon of soldiers ringing Juárez, Sofia wondered at the things this woman must have seen.

The agent drove a late-model Ford SUV with an oversized engine and dark tinted windows. The seats were woven leather and the steering wheel was burl. The dash and the central console and the doors were rimmed in chrome. Sofia ran a hand over the soft leather door handle. “Very nice.”

“It was confiscated in a raid on the cartels. Many of the best police equipment comes to us care of our enemies.”

Juan asked from the rear seat, “Have you always wanted to be a policewoman?”

“Not always. When I was your age, all I wanted to do was run track.”

“What happened?”

“I come from Sonora. My father is a pastor. I see I have surprised you. Yes. We are trained not to speak of our past. It is a way of protecting our families. When I was in high school, I won the state championships. I was a sprinter. I went to the junior nationals and placed in the hundred meter, the four hundred, and the relay.” She smiled tightly at the memory. “In those days, if I was going anywhere, I
ran
.”

“And then?”

Her smile slipped away. “I was in a car accident. I damaged my knee. It was repaired well enough. But my running days were over.”

“And the police?”

“My father let me wail and weep over my fate for a time. Then he asked me what I wanted to do with my life. What would give me a purpose worth living for. Because whether I saw it or not, surviving that wreck was a gift from above. In time I realized that my father was right. And the simple fact was, I was a fighter. Sprints are all about power, about transforming the body into a bullet. And my father and my upbringing had taught me a strong sense of right and wrong. I hated seeing the changes that were happening to my country. So I decided I was going to do something about it.”

“What . . . ?” Sofia's phone rang. She checked the readout and saw it was Enrique. “Excuse me, I must take this.”

He demanded, “Where are you?”

“Twenty miles east of Juárez.”

“Why did you leave?”

Sofia did not try to hide the acid she felt rising with her answer. “Ask your mother.”

He sighed. “My love, did it ever occur to you that your response was precisely what my mother was after?”

Sofia mulled that over. “It did not. No.”

“She is finally accepting that my affection for you is genuine. She does not approve. She will not say this, because she knows that for once I am not bending to her will. So her only hope is to push you away.”

“She succeeded.”

“Sofia, I hope you are listening, because I will only say this once. This indecision of yours only makes it worse for everyone. It is important—”

Sofia broke in to ask, “Do you truly believe in God?”

Enrique went silent. Martinez glanced over but did not speak.

“This is not a difficult question, Enrique. Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

“Sofia, my dear, we have spoken of this so often.”

“And we will continue to speak of it for as long as we are together. For as long as I have breath.”

“But why now? Why over a phone in the middle of a frantic day?”

“Because of something your mother said.”

“My mother the troublemaker. Can we please have this discussion another time? I have a building full of people waiting for me and an empty chair beside my own.”

“Yes, Enrique, we can discuss this any time you like.” Sofia cut the connection and clenched the phone with both of her hands. It all came down to that.

Juan asked, “The mayor does not follow Jesus?”

“He has said . . .” Sofia shook her head and stared at the road ahead. “He has said many things. And I have been willing to hear what I needed to, instead of what he has
not
said.”

Martinez spoke quietly, “He is a politician.”

Sofia studied the woman seated beside her. The strong hands, the tensile strength to her slender frame, the dark hair cropped short as a man's. “Juan and I thank you for this gift of safety.”

The policewoman smiled into the rearview mirror. “You and our handsome escort are both welcome.” She hesitated, then said, “I would like to ask you something. It may not be proper.”

“Please. Ask.”

“The orphanage, Enrique mentioned that it has financial difficulties.”

“Very serious ones. Harold's money is almost gone, and the American churches are giving less because of the recession.”

“And yet, the mayor, he is rich.”

“His
family
is rich. All the assets are parked in trusts.” Enrique had explained this often enough, the frustration he knew over his inability to do more for Harold. “He hopes that his family would offer a larger payment as a gift for our marriage.”

“A dowry.”

Juan asked, “Enrique will save our orphanage if you marry him?”

“Perhaps. If his family agrees. He hopes they would see the orphanage as something to hold up to the press. A symbol of where I came from. They could not do this if the orphanage were to close.”

“Then why . . . ?”

Sofia admired Juan for not fully shaping the question. She reached back between the seats and took hold of his hand. “I do not know why I haven't accepted his marriage proposal. I have prayed and prayed for guidance. I have asked the Lord to take away my fears and my reluctance. But God has been silent. I have never felt farther from Him than over these past weeks. And so I wait. And I pray.”

Juan declared, “I will pray with you. Every day.”

She turned to offer him a from-the-heart smile. “You are more than my family. You are my friend.”

They broke midway through the return journey for an early dinner in the last village before the mountains. The sunset turned the vista into a field of gold beneath an azure sky. They sat on the covered veranda and watched children play hide-and-seek around a dusty plaza. Three times Martinez rose from her chair to field phone calls, each time returning more somber. When they had finished, Consuela signaled to her partner, a taciturn man with a powerful build and fathomless eyes. He rose to his feet and spoke for the first time that day, asking Juan if he would like to inspect his guns.

When they had strolled back to the police vehicle, Consuela asked, “Do you object to my partner showing Juan his weapons?”

“Did you see his response? Juan was as delighted as any other fourteen-year-old boy.”

“I need to ask you something. But I don't know how to shape my question.”

“Is there a problem?” Sofia frowned.