Intercept (26 page)

These days they were heavily armed. They were sweeping the entire border with radar, and American satellites had cameras trained on the border. They also had high-speed vehicles that were armored and equipped with searchlights. Their communications were state of the art. Lately, the patrols were increasingly successful, which did not especially appeal to Ibrahim, since a return to Guantanamo was not in his immediate plans.

He comforted himself with the undeniable knowledge that thousands broke out of Mexico every year and were never located in the United States, and he cast to the back of his mind that 660,000 people were stopped, apprehended, and sent back every year.

His new itinerary required he and his three fellow terrorists reach the city of Chihuahua, and then take a bus northwest up to El Bajio, a small town some five miles short of the border in the middle of the endless wastes of the huge Chihuahua Desert—a place with no water, and no hope for those who collapsed in exhaustion while attempting to cross it.

The instructions specified they were to rendezvous with a guide, who would provide them with food and water for the journey. But they would first have to walk the five miles across the desert, which is almost too hot for survival in the day, and very nearly too cold at night. A vehicle was out of the question because it could be tracked by U.S. radar, was and would also be open to attack from the many gangs of Mexican brigands who drove around the desert at night looking for victims to rob. They were also instructed to buy cowboy boots, because snakes would be out at night, some of them rattlers, and most cowboy boots made in this part of the world are snake-bite proof.

The only way across that border was by pure stealth, dropping down to the desert floor at the slightest suspicion of an intruder, staying below the radar, and making as little sound as possible.

Despite their nickname, “coyotes,” the guides, had a very good reputation, though more out of necessity than goodwill. The human cargo and escort border business was so lucrative, no one would dare to shoot, harm, or rob a guide because of the damage it would inflict on the entire “industry.”

One reckless bandit did indeed shoot a guide and then robbed and murdered his paying clients, and it was just about the last thing he ever did. The man’s body was found two days later in a hotel room in El Bajio with multiple machine gun wounds, and a dagger sticking out of the left-hand side of his chest.

Ibrahim’s coyote, Miguel, would locate the four al-Qaeda men in El Bajio, in the main square. There would be four Kalashnikovs with magazines in the back of his truck, though Ibrahim’s al-Qaeda officer sincerely hoped that a shootout could be avoided. Miguel would also bring them curved combat knives of the kind wielded by the Special Forces of the Taliban, and four cell phones pre-programmed with all the necessary numbers. There would also be one hand-grenade, in case of real trouble. Three different al-Qaeda Sleeper Cells would be awaiting them on the U.S. side of the border, all with vehicles.

Ibrahim felt better once he realized they would be well-armed for the crossing. All four were hardened freedom fighters, veterans, and they had been unarmed for too long. Abu Hassan especially longed for the comfortable grip of those light and deadly Kalashnikovs, the weapon that had kept him safe in combat zones like Baghdad, the Left Bank, Kabul, and in the mountains.

They landed at Chihuahua’s General Fierro Villalobos Airport just before noon and boarded the bus into town, a distance of eight miles. They changed at the main Aldama Street terminal and set off across the hot, dusty cactus-strewn wasteland for El Bajio, a deeply unimpressive place peppered with tin roofs and several abandoned stone buildings. There was one shop and one bar, apparently made of driftwood. And a large town square where the bus stopped.

In Ben al-Turabi’s opinion it was hotter in the still of the late afternoon than it had been in the bus depot on Aldama Street. And he was right. Chihuahua is a mountain town, situated on the high foothills of the Sierra Madres. Out here, further north, the land flattens out as it descends to the floor of the desert, and that cooler mountain air is left behind.

Dusty El Bajio simmered in a dying afternoon wind. The sun beat down, and there was a heat-shimmer off the tin roofs. One or two Mexicans were sitting quietly on the veranda outside the ramshackle bar. It was too hot to talk, too still to walk, and too unutterably boring to think.

“As far as I am concerned,” said Abu Hassan, in Arabic, “this is the worst place I ever went, and that includes Camp Five. But this is hotter.”

The four men slouched across to a wooden bench in the middle of the main square and watched as the rickety bus that had transported them across the desert was disappearing to the northwest in a cloud of dust.

There was no shade, but the arrangement was to meet the coyote on the bench in the square. Ibrahim would have done anything to get out of the sun, but like his enemies in the SAS and the SEALs, he could not tolerate even the slightest deviation from a mission plan. And he ordered the other three to join him.

Abu said he wasn’t going to sit under that sun and that he would wait outside the bar under the veranda. Ibrahim spun around on him. “What happens if this coyote drives into the square looking for four Arabs, and sees only three people on the bench? Maybe drives away, and doesn’t come back. Sit down on that bench.”

At that moment, Ibrahim became the leader. The powerfully built al-Qaeda warrior was the expert bomb maker and a man who had been groomed for the high command of bin Laden’s platoons. And in the previous two minutes, he had shown wisdom and thoughtfulness, the instincts of a trained strategist. He had made Abu Hassan look like a child, and the Palestinian accepted it. Without another word, Abu sat down on the bench, and Ibrahim, like the natural leader he was, offered him the last of the cold-water bottles, a gesture of friendship, and the action of a man who wanted the best for his troops.

They sat there in the heat for more than an hour before they saw a truck approaching the town, kicking up dust, bouncing and bumping at high speed over the sandy shale of the Chihuahua Plain. It came hurtling into the main square and skidded to a halt, turning as it did. A dented, scraped, battered wreck, driven by a maniac.

“We’re not driving with him, are we?” asked Yousaf. “Allah would not wish that upon us.”

“Unless he wanted us to become martyrs,” said Ibrahim. But by then the driver was out of his cab and walking toward them. He was a Mexican kid, early twenties, with a large high-caliber revolver stuck jauntily into his wide leather belt.

“I’m Miguel,” he said, “your guide to the border.”

“We’re walking, right?” asked Ibrahim.

“No other way,” said Miguel. “It’s five miles, and we need to arrive there by ten o’clock for the border patrol’s shift change. That’s when there’s a gap, and the fence is unguarded.”

“How do we know when that’s happening,” said Ibrahim. “It’ll be very dark, right?”

“You leave that to me. That’s why I get paid.”

“Okay, boss,” grinned the Afghani. “What happens to us now?”

“I got a little work. You need better clothes. It gets real cold out here, very sudden. I’ll get blankets—ponchos, you stick your heads through like proper Mexicans, okay?” For some reason this floored Miguel, and he threw back his head and laughed. “You Mexicans for one whole night! I got guns for you in truck. You have rich friends.”

“I just hope we don’t need to use them,” said Ibrahim. “We’re looking for a quiet crossing.”

“You don’t use guns,” said Miguel. “They are just for emergency. Your people tell me that. Only if we are attacked in the desert, or a guard opens fire on us. Then we kill him quick, before he kills us.”

“I tell you what I do notice,” said Abu Hassan. “The temperature just dropped maybe twenty degrees. You’re right about those blankets.”

“I done this before, hey?” said Miguel. “This is my profession. For a few more years. Then I go to medical school. Doctor Miguel before you know it. Maybe I fix that scar on your face. Big money, for plastics, eh?”

For a few moments all five of them laughed out there in the square. Four mass murderers and a kid with a huge pistol, falling about laughing, before attempting to breach the most heavily guarded U.S. border, the one that sealed off West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

Tonight they would storm the symbolic barricade that led into the U.S. State of New Mexico, where forty-five percent of all the population was Hispanic, thanks in part to Spanish Colonial settlers, but also to the droves of Mexicans who made it over the border in the early years. Not to mention their friends and relatives who still keep trying.

“We need to get away by eight o’clock latest,” said Miguel, “Which gives us two hours to cover the five miles. That ought to be simple, but if we get any kind of a hold-up on the journey, we’ll be glad of the extra time. I want to be in position at the border by around nine thirty.”

Miguel headed off to fetch the ponchos and water and was back in thirty minutes. The men gladly put on these deceptively warm outer garments and their new cowboy boots, and prepared to face the desert.

Miguel took them to the back of the truck and issued the rifles, magazines, combat knives, cell phones, and the hand grenade. They had all bought Stetsons in Chihuahua, and, with their Kalashnikovs tucked into
their belts under the ponchos, they endeavored to look as little as possible like renegades from Emilio Zapata’s revolutionary army.

Night fell swiftly, and the desert grew suddenly colder. Without another word, Miguel gave a jolt of his head toward the northwest, and began to walk. The others fell in line behind him. “Do not talk,” Miguel said. “We travel in silence all the way.”

Ibrahim thought this said much about the safety of the place, reminiscent of days in the Hindu Kush when the American SEAL patrols were on the warpath. But he had not expected a vast and desolate Mexican outback to be anything similar.

One thing that was not similar was the terrain. The desert was as flat as a pool table, all rough shale and sand, with a surprising number of plants somehow thriving in one of the harshest, driest climates on earth. The lemony scent in the air was from the plentiful creosote bush that opens its pores at night. The agave plants, the thick-leafed cactus-like giant from which tequila is made, and which can grow as high as thirty feet, were everywhere.

There were sundry cactus, ocotillo, and yucca bushes, all rough and spiky, and painful when you blundered into them in the dark. Ben al-Turabi stabbed himself on a cactus and let out a yell that might have been heard at the border. “No noise,” Miguel hissed. “No noise at all.”

They covered the first mile in a little over twenty minutes, but found the next mile slower. It was impossible to walk fast because of the desert bushes, and Miguel, who seemed to be able to see in the dark, led them at a steady pace, steering them away from the impediments and making the occasional murmured call on his cell phone.

They were midway through the third mile, freezing cold and getting tired, when they spotted the lights of two vehicles heading directly toward them. Miguel sensed all four of his clients were reaching for their rifles. “Don’t shoot anyone, because if you do we’ll have to go back,” he whispered. “There are patrols, Mexican, and even my money won’t buy them off if there’s bodies on the ground.”

The two vehicles veered off, one left, one right. But suddenly they changed direction and were once more headed for the group, now from different directions.

With headlights blazing and spotlights on the roof, two Jeeps came screaming to a halt. One man, a big, powerful character in a sombrero and holding a heavy machine gun, stepped down from his cab, and called,
“Okay everyone. No one gets hurt. Just give me all your cash, watches, and jewelry. Because if you don’t, I’ll blow your heads off.”

Miguel stepped forward, and shouted, “Hey, Tony, what the fuck are you doing. I’m trying to make a living over here.”

“
MIGUEL!
You crazy kid. What’s going on.”

But now Miguel’s voice hardened. “You wouldn’t dare shoot me, would you? Because you’d be dead yourself in twenty-four hours.”

Tony said nothing. Miguel drew his pistol and aimed it straight at the bandit’s head. “You got five seconds to beat it. Otherwise I’ll blow your head off and a lot of people will thank me, you fucking nuisance. Now
FUCK OFF
!”

The bombast and swagger seemed to drain from the would-be bandit. He said nothing. Just turned around, climbed back into his jeep, and left, followed by the second vehicle.

The border-crossing game was big business in this part of the world, and tearaways like Tony Morina were merely tolerated, just so long as they paid off the Mexican police. However, Miguel mattered more. Because he paid them off much more, very regularly. And there were dozens like him. Tony and his thieves were just scavengers, mere jackals in the high finances of the Chihuahua Desert.

By now it was really cold and the men wrapped their ponchos around themselves as they walked forward in the pitch dark. There was no rising moon, and the sky was overcast. They just kept following Miguel, sometimes swerving past the cactus and spiky bushes. By nine o’clock they were approaching the final mile, and there were distant lights far up in front on the horizon.

“We stay slightly left from here,” whispered the guide. “There’s a group of hills up there, not very high, but good for reception on phones. I got a man up there, watching.”

No one answered. They were all tired, and Ben al Turabi’s cowboy boots were killing him. All four just kept walking, and slowly the lights drew nearer. The ground began to rise, and up ahead, through the wire, they could see two patrol jeeps, both green, both with the livery of the State of New Mexico on the doors.

They hunkered down behind a clump of bushes, and the border wire was about two hundred yards in front. They could see the patrol officers gathered in a small huddle, laughing. There was no other movement.