Just Add Trouble (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 3)) (25 page)

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did.

Chapter 31

A gloomy dusk fell as fast as my own gloom. Past tired, I was numb and dumb with fear, dread, and cold. Deep grooves, worn into places left better unmentioned by the bottom rim of the bucket, gave a whole new meaning to pain in the butt.

On the bright side, maybe I’d permanently lose some cellulite.

On the horizon, an aura glowed, but from what city? By my calculations, we had to be nearing the border, but where? After a couple more miles we saw what appeared to be a fairly good-sized spread of lighted houses and, strung to the left and right, a straight row of lights like those on a fence. No, a wall. The border? A little frisson of energy sat me up straight.

Nacho slowed, then stopped, consulted a piece of paper, and pulled from his jacket pocket what looked to be a hand-held GPS. “You two get out. No cute ideas, either.”

Jan stirred from the zombie-like trance she’d been in since our scary unscheduled departure from the highway due to Tecate truck interference, and slowly slid from her seat as I dismounted my bucket of doom. She looked terrified, so I put my arm around her and patted her shoulder.

Big tears loomed in her eyes. “Hetta, I’m s-scared.”

I wasn’t feeling overly optimistic about our situation myself. More than one critter-ravaged body had been dumped in the desert by low life dope dealers. The thought of being left for buzzard food should have scared me sillier than I already am. Instead, a wave of fury swept over me and gave me the determination to survive so I could kick Nacho a good swift one in his
huevos
. Screw him and his gag order all to hell.

“Look, Jan,” I pointed to the row of lights, “the border. Everything will soon be all right, huh, Nacho?”

Nacho seemed to forget I wasn’t supposed to talk. In the dim light I saw his face was drawn with fatigue. In a weary voice he answered, “Yes. It will soon be over.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Being
all right
and
over
are not necessarily the same thing.

Still holding onto Jan, I growled, “You don’t need us anymore. Leave us here, dammit. By the time we walk to the border, you’ll be on the other side, safe and sound with your slimebag friends.”

“No way, Red. This desert is crawling with dangerous animals.”

“Ain’t it though? I, for one, prefer to take my chances with
real
rattlesnakes. They, at least, only kill for food or protection.”

“Stuff the National Geographic bunk. You know how to use a GPS?”

“No, I guide my boat by stars and Ouija board.”

Ignoring my sarcasm, he handed me the GPS. “See these coordinates? I’m going to drive, and you are going to keep me on a straight course. Cooperate, and we’ll be in Arizona in a few minutes. Screw with me and I’ll drop a dime on Maggie, then put a bullet in Blondie’s leg and leave her out here to deal with the coyotes.”

“Gee, I feel so left out. What you gonna do to me?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Gulp. “Okay, make the Maggie call and get this show on the road. The sooner we get over the border, the sooner we’re shut of you. According to this,” I studied the GPS, “we’re only five miles, as the crow flies, from your waypoint, which I assume is in Arizona?”

“Close enough.”

“Is it or isn’t it?”

“You’ll see. Now, load up and do what I say.”

What choice did we have? “You just keep this rattletrap on the road, Nacho, and I’ll tell you where to go.”

“Who said anything about a road?”

For future reference, a Volkswagen Thing, not all that great on the road, is pure torture off-road. To its credit, though, the tough little bugger held up for what had to be the roughest ride of its life. Certainly mine. Comparatively speaking, my trip across the Baja peninsula in Nacho’s four wheel drive Toyota was like driving a Mercedes down a German autobahn.

Nacho drove fast through the dark desert, without lights, and across terrain designed by nature to keep idiots like us from crossing it. I kept us on course, thanks to the backlit screen of the tracking device, and Nacho kept us right side up. Jan? She whimpered with each bump. I felt her pain, all over my backside.

“Half a mile, straight ahead,” I yelled at Nacho, then asked, “Say, isn’t that, like, a wall or something?” I pointed at a line of lights illuminating a tall, rusty, corrugated iron fence much like the one I’d seen along the border between Tijuana and the US border.

“Yep. Runs for several miles in each direction.”

“Several miles? Looks like your coordinates are off. We’re headed straight for it.”

“Shut up and watch that GPS.” He accelerated.

“Quarter mile, straight ahead.”

He concentrated on driving.

The wall stretched to the left and right as far as I could see. The GPS said to go straight ahead.

“Two hundred yards. Jan, get ready to jump!”

“No!” Nacho yelled, “Do not jump. You’ll be killed. You have to put your trust in me. It will be all right.”

“Trust you? Are you friggin’ nuts? Just because you have a death wish doesn’t mean—Oh, shit! Oh, dear!”

Nacho bore down on the wall, but by now jumping was out of the question, as we were surrounded by tall, spiny, spindly cactus. Nacho mowed down the ones in front, but a forest of ocotillo enveloped us on all sides, just waiting to rip tender skin to shreds. Cactus, wall? Cactus, wall?

I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket and cocked the flare gun. If I could get off a shot, at least someone would find our bodies before the coyotes did. Nailing Nacho with it would only hasten our own demise.

As I pulled out the pistol, we barreled toward the wall at over forty miles an hour.

Oddly enough, what popped into my mind at the nanosecond before impact was the old engineering paradox: What happens when an irresistible force—that would be us—meets with an immovable object, say, an iron wall?

My life flashed before my eyes.

No, not my life flashing, after all, but a burst of light. In my fear, I’d pulled the trigger, sending the flare high into the sky overhead.

Just like in the song, the rocket’s red glare gave proof through the night that the wall was still there.

Everything went into a surrealistic sort of slow motion. In the glow of what must surely be the fires of Hell, metal on metal shrieked. Or was that me?

From behind me, Jan chanted, “Oh m’god, Oh m’god, oh m’god.”

Then, in what I can only put down to Divine intervention, or maybe Divine comedy, the wall swung open, and we rocketed through, and instead of ending up like sardines in a flattened can, we found ourselves airborne.

We’d slammed into the wall, sailed through a hinged opening, only to have the bottom drop out. There was that stomach rolling sensation of weightlessness, flight, before plummeting into what turned out to be a six-foot deep trench.

Nacho, in the middle of crowing about how good the GPS coordinates had been, was thrown forward, his head connecting with the steering wheel. As dust billowed around us, and the Thing gasped its last, Nacho croaked, in a puzzled tone, “Well, heck, what’s the ditch doing here?”

His eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out, but not before grabbing the GPS from me and stuffing it into his pocket.

Turning to check on Jan, I saw she had a death grip on the roll bar above her head, but she looked unhurt.

In the flare’s glow, a cloud of fine dust fluoresced, like a witch’s cauldron, all around us. Behind, the hinged gate squeaked softly, slowly swinging to its closed position.

I guess Homeland Security sorta missed
that
little entry point.

I was squirming to extricate myself from the Thing when Jan let loose with a maniacal laugh and quipped, “Welcome to Arizona, and thank you for flying God airlines. Please check the overhead before departing the plane.” I’d forgotten she once aspired to be a stewardess, flight attendant, or whatever they call themselves these days, before deciding being a CPA paid better.

I giggled with relief, somewhat stunned we were still alive. I gazed through the red haze, up into an inky clear sky twinkling with stars. Yep, Heaven was still up, and I didn’t detect fire or brimstone pulling us under.

Behind us, the fence had ceased creaking and left no sign of ever opening. Once again my engineering background kicked in, this time with a grudging respect for the artisan who redesigned that wall. Someone very clever had, probably in the dead of night over a long period of time, and using only small hand tools, created a masterpiece of illusion. He was probably, at this very moment, either tunneling out of some prison, or starring on a Las Vegas stage.

“Hetta, you okay?” Jan, finally in control of her giggles, whispered. After our explosive entrance into the good old US of A, whispering seemed a lit-tle redundant as a means of obscurity.

“I’m fine, but we have to boogie. Let’s grab our bags and some water.”

As we unloaded our stuff from the Thing, Jan eyed the unconscious Nacho. “What about him?”

“Screw him.”

“He could be badly hurt.”

“I certainly hope so.”

Nacho roused a mite, croaked, “That’s not nice,” then passed out again.

“Not nice at all,” pronounced a deep voice from on high.

If that was God speaking, He wore a cowboy hat.

Out of the red haze sauntered an apparition, making me reconsider whether we’d actually survived the crash, but in a voice that could hardly be classified at angelic, it drawled, “What in hey-all are y’all doin’ in that ditch?”

“Well, heck, Jan, we’ve died and gone to Texas.”

Chapter 32

Okay, so we weren’t dead, nor in Texas, but we were being pulled out of a ditch by a group of Militia Men from our home state. How lucky is that? Or was it?

After a few questions as to whether we were harmed or not, one of them cocked his head suspiciously toward Nacho. “Whut you gals doin’ with the Mex?”

Jan, fully aware of the disdain many Texans hold for interracial mingling, batted her big blues in the fading glare of the sputtering flare. “He…he…kidnapped us, and threatened to shoot Maggie.”

One of the cowboys put his hand on my shoulder. “That true, Maggie?”

“I’m not…yes.”

After that we were treated with utmost sympathy, while the same couldn’t be said for the semiconscious Nacho. They manhandled him rudely out of the Thing and roughly propped him against a rock, but they did throw a blanket over his shoulders while they called the authorities. The first official wave arrived in minutes.

“What we have here?” a Border Patrol guy asked as he speared us with his flashlight. Another reached inside their jeep and lit up the entire desert with his spots.

Head Militia Man shrugged. “Two white gals and a Mex.”

“What’s their story?” he asked, like we weren’t standing right there.

“Claim they was kidnapped by the Mex, forced across the border.”

“They were forced across the border from Mexico?”

“Right through yon wall, if the tire tracks tell the story.” The agent cast a skeptical eye toward the solid steel wall, but refrained from calling the guy nuts. More vehicles roared up, and men in suits and various uniforms joined our circle of light.

Nacho was bundled into an ambulance that took off into the night, lights and sirens going full blast. Desert creatures scattered in all directions. Then, once again, it was quiet.

I produced a passport from a bag in the Thing. Jan, of course, could not.

We were trying to explain how it was that she lost her purse, and all her identification, without divulging our whereabouts at the time. I was in the middle of backing up her hotel theft story when, over the wall, swooped a loud and winged creature.

With a mighty squawk, and a hearty, “Oh, boy! Oberto,” Trouble dive-bombed a couple of Militia Men, then landed on my head and scurried for safety under my jacket collar. Cozying up to my neck, he peeked out to taunt the men who had drawn their weapons, intent on blasting him from the sky. When Trouble took refuge on my shoulder, we both became a target.

Alarmed at seeing the self-appointed border guards taking aim at an American citizen, the US Border Patrol drew their weapons. Before we had an O.K. Corral kind of moment, with me in the middle, I yelled, “Hey, everybody just please chill!”

“Oh, boy! Oberto,” Trouble screeched. I had to teach him to say, “Cease fire.”

After a tense minute, guns were holstered, and an embarrassed silence fell over the entire cadre until someone quipped, “I do declare, I think we got us an illegal avian here.” He broke into a guffaw, so amused was he by his own wit, and we all followed. The tension, so thick it was palpable, dissolved.