Nothing to Hide (A Roland March Mystery Book #3) (26 page)

I take a deep breath and pass through the door, pausing to cushion the impact as it pulls shut. On tiptoes I cross diagonally to the edge of the T, pressing myself against the wall, getting as close to the edge as I dare, feeling terribly exposed. There are glass doors at either end of the short hallway. Anyone approaching could look right in and see me.

“They’re all here,” a voice says. I don’t recognize it, so it must be Ford’s companion. “Ten carbines. Just what the doctor ordered.”

“And here’s ten grand, like we said. It’s all in small bills, tens and fives and ones, like you took it in at a register. Nobody’s gonna look twice.”

“You expect me to count all that?”

“Do what you want. But we’ll need a hand first getting them out to the van.”

A long pause follows. I imagine them eyeballing each other while Wrangler makes up his mind whether to count the money first or take Ford’s word. If he didn’t know I was out here, I’m guessing he’d insist on the count. Hopefully he’ll do that anyway, so they don’t get suspicious. I steal a glance around the corner, but the corridor is still empty.

“All right,” he says.

I hear a dull thud, then a metallic ring followed by the sound of a padlock being threaded through a hasp and snapped shut. He must have taken the money and dropped it into the icebox where the guns had been stored, locking it up for safekeeping. I hear the Cordura cases rubbing against each other.

“I can take one more,” says Ford’s companion. “Lay it on me.”

More shuffling, and then footsteps.

“Come on,” Ford says. “You go up front so I can see you.”

Three sets of heels click on the concrete. I glance around, and there they are, backs to me, silhouetted against the sunlight pouring in through the entrance. Time to move. I advance on tiptoes as far as the open storage unit, ducking inside for cover. I use the edge of the doorway to brace my arm, lining up my sights on Ford’s silhouette.

I’m about to call out when I feel the vibr
ation in my pocket. Ignore it. The phone buzzes more insistently, and if I don’t stop it the ringer will sound. I reach into my pocket and mute the sound, raising the glass face high enough to check the screen—force of habit.

The call was from Jeff.

Down the corridor, Ford is halfway to the exit. Far enough now that he might think he can draw down on me, or make a run. The phone buzzes again. A text message this time. My hand is shaking as I look at the screen.

ABORT.

No, no, no, no,
no
. I put the phone away, drop the safety on the Browning, and edge into the corridor. There’s still time. If I advance quickly to close the distance, I’ll risk exposing myself and they’ll have the light at their backs, making it harder for me to see their hands. But it’s just two against one and I have the advantage of surprise.

I step out, gun leveled, licking my dry lips so I can shout a challenge.

The phone buzzes again, insistent. The word flashes in my head. He wants me to abort. I can’t see what he’s seeing, can’t judge whether his call makes sense or not. Heart pounding, I start to backpedal, tucking myself behind the cover of the open unit. What else can I do?

One more look. They’re at the entrance, pushing their way out into the light. Wrangler goes first, and he’s scowling through the glass, probably wondering what happened to the cavalry. Ford motions him forward and the three men disappear from view, heading in what I presume is the direction of the white van.

The ringer chirps audibly and I answer.

“It’s a scrub,” Jeff says. “There’s at least one in the van and then a separate car. I can’t tell how many men they have total, but they’re switched on and ready for a fight.”

“What’s happening now?” I ask.

“They’re loading the van. The curly-haired guy is over at the car, saying something to the driver. He’s going around to the other side.”

“What about the good guy—cowboy-looking—?”

“Going back inside.”

I peer around the corner. Wrangler comes through the glass doors, takes a few steps, then starts running in my direction.

“They’re rolling out.”

I take off running, too, heading to the entrance. We pass each other in the corridor and I tell him to collect Dearborn and get out of here.

“Are we square?” he calls. “What about the money?”

“I’ll be in touch!”

When I reach the glass doors, I pause for a look before pushing through. The white van brakes at the edge of the parking lot, waiting for traffic to clear, then accelerates onto the street, the back end sagging. It disappears behind a stand of pines overlooking the road.

I walk outside, squinting at the glare. I rub my hand against the holster for reference, then slide the Browning in. Jeff cruises up with one hand draped over the wheel.

“Get in,” he says.

I slump into the passenger seat and pull the door shut. He punches the gas, pinning my shoulder blades against the upholstery.

“Don’t lose that van.”

“Don’t worry,” he says.

We turn onto the street in time to see the lights change at the next intersection, freeing the van to proceed on its way. I rattle off a host of instructions: don’t get too close, don’t change lanes if you can help it, don’t do anything to attract the van’s attention. In reply, all Jeff does is nod. He keeps nodding until I’m done talking, then nods some more, like he wants to make it clear he knows what he’s doing.

“They’re heading back to the tollway, looks like.”

“Just keep them in sight,” I say.

I cradle my phone in the palm of my hand, looking down at the screen. Thinking. I can have them pulled over, no problem. I can call dispatch and have patrol intercept them. I can also get a tactical team in motion if I call Lt. Bascombe and fill him in. He won’t be happy about it, but what’s more important? Keeping people happy or picking up Brandon Ford? With him in custody, the John Doe investigation blows wide open. I can hand him over and let Bascombe and Cavallo take things from there. Or I can dial Bea’s number and let the
FBI
take it from here.

It’s not up to me to see this through. Not personally.

“Are you gonna blow the trumpet?” Jeff asks. “Summon up the cavalry?”

“I’m just working out what to say.”

The van swings U-turns under the tollway and takes a northbound entrance, heading back toward I-59. As Jeff speeds up the ramp, he strains over the wheel, trying to see farther up.

“March,” he says.

“What?”

“I don’t see the car anymore.”

“Just follow the van.”

“Yeah, but Ford got into the car and now I don’t see it. I thought they were ahead of the van, but they’re not. It’s a silver four-door, a big Toyota, with tinted windows and dealer plates. Do you see it? I think we lost them.”

I crane my neck around, scanning the traffic behind us. I press myself against the window trying to see ahead of the van. No silver four-doors.

“What do we do?” he asks.

“Just follow the van.”

Maybe Ford went ahead. Maybe he’s planning to meet up with the van farther down the road. If we keep the van in sight, we have to catch up with him sooner or later. There’s no other option.

“They’re getting onto 59,” he says. “Going south away from town.”

“Keep following.” I lean over and check the fuel gauge. We have three quarters of a tank. “They’ll lead us to Ford, maybe take us to wherever they’re all staying. Just don’t let the van get away from us.”

The white van curves off the tollway, circling onto the Southwest Freeway, and thirty seconds later we do the same thing. Once the turn is made, Jeff finds a southbound truck to settle behind, letting a comfortable distance build between us and the van.

“I’m sorry about back there,” he says. “Maybe I just lost my nerve, but I could see it all going wrong right in front of me. They would’ve fought, and it would’ve gotten messy.”

“It’s fine. I’m sure you made the right call.”

But I don’t feel sure. My fist closes around the rim of my phone, mashing down hard. I had Ford in my grasp and I let him walk away. There in the storage facility corridor I had the power to end it all. Perhaps Jeff is right that I couldn’t have gotten away with it, would never have gotten Ford in cuffs and taken him into custody. He was in my sights, though. I could have stopped him one way or another. Even if it all went wrong, even if things did get messy, I would have stopped him. And now I can’t, and maybe I’ll never have the power again.

This phone is rigid in my grip. As my knuckles whiten, my palm starts to throb. There is no one to call. Not yet. Maybe never. I was wrong before; I
do
have to see this through. That’s what my gut tells me, my heart, my pain. This is my responsibility. Mine. And it has been since the last breath of Jerry Lorenz.

The white van pulls into
a truck stop on the edge of Victoria, a couple of hours outside Houston, where the driver pumps gas. The passenger trots straight inside like he’s overdue for a bathroom break. I motion Jeff toward the opposite pump island.

“Let’s switch seats,” I say.

I top off the tank, using my credit card so there’s no need to go inside. Jeff circles around the back of the car, stepping over the hose to pass behind me.

“Looks like there’s just the two of them. Want me to run inside and take a look?”

“No need,” I say. “Just sit down and don’t call attention to yourself.”

He slides into the passenger seat and shuts the door.

“We need some way to slow them down,” I say. “If I could distract the guy at the pump, you think you could get over there and stick a knife in the tire? They’d have to change it, which would give me time to make a phone call and get some real surveillance up.”

“You’re asking me to slash his tire while he’s pumping the gas?”

I let out a sigh. “There’s gotta be some way to slow them down. We could have somebody waiting for them on the other end if I had an idea where the other end might be, but—”

“I hear you,” he says. “But if you’re making that call, it had better be a good one. You only get one shot, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

He turns in his seat. “The moment you make the call, all this is out of your hands. The moment you make the call,
they
take over—whoever they are. It ends the way they want it to, not your way.”

Between the pumps I watch the driver out of the corner of my eye. As he finishes pumping and screws the cap into place, the passenger returns with a couple of water bottles and a road atlas tucked under his arm. They spend thirty seconds or so consulting the map, then climb back into the van. Apparently the route is new to them.

When I get back in the car, the driver’s seat is warm and too far forward. I scoot it back, realigning the mirrors, giving the van time to get under way. They pull back onto the feeder and continue south, driving just under the speed limit, taking 91 at the split and heading straight onto Highway 77, next stop Corpus Christi. Once the switchover is complete, the van speeds up to about five miles over the limit. They’re driving fast enough to keep up with traffic without running the risk of being pulled over.

Jeff has a point. If I call Cavallo or even Bascombe, it’ll get kicked up to Wanda’s desk and I’ll be cooling my heels indefinitely. Besides, we’re already outside
HPD
’s grip, which would mean bringing other agencies into the picture. There’s always Bea with her Federal reach. But that underling of hers who put the flea in my ear might have known what he was talking about. I’ve taken a lot on trust from her. When I’ve had the power to check on what she’s told me, it hasn’t always added up.

My speedometer holds steady and the whine of the engine subsides as the gears shift. Apart from the thump of the tires on rough highway, we drive in silence. The sun sits far enough to the left that no matter how I reposition the visor, I can’t block it out. I rest my elbow on the door, using my hand as a screen. This isn’t silence, not when I really listen. There’s also the wind hurtling around us, an invisible envelope of white noise. And the percussive pop of fresh insects against the windshield, already scabbed from the drive out, leaving behind viscous smears.

I hold the wand down, sluicing the windshield with washer fluid, then let the wipers swish back and forth.

“If I’d had more time back there,” Jeff says, “I would have scraped some of that stuff off.”

“What’s a road trip without a few dead mosquitoes?”

He smiles. “So how far are we gonna follow them?”

Neither of us has asked the question out loud to this point, though it’s been on the air since we left the city. There are many stops between here and the border—why assume they’re heading straight to Mexico?

“We’ll follow them until we know where they’re going.”

“I have a pretty good idea already,” he says. “It’s not South Padre. This is the delivery run. Which means they’re not stopping until they hand off those guns. Are you prepared to cross the border, or are we gonna call it quits when they hit Brownsville? You’ve got one call to me. Is that where you’ll do it?”

I don’t answer because I don’t know. The possibilities have been churning at the back of my mind. Along with my driver’s license and police
ID
, in the recesses of my wallet there’s a passport card, good for travel to Canada and Mexico, which I applied for at Charlotte’s behest when she was temporarily obsessed with the notion of a cruise to Cozumel, a plan she dropped, much to my relief. Since I’ve never taken it out of my wallet, I have the option of crossing the border without any hassles. Back when I was in college and the six-hour drive to the border was a regular weekend jaunt, you could pass back and forth without anything but a Texas driver’s license, and sometimes without even that. Those days are gone.

“You don’t happen to have a passport on you?” I ask.

Jeff laughs. Of course not.

“What?” he says. “You do?”

I ignore him. The passport card isn’t a solution. With the Browning on my hip and the AR-15 in the trunk, I can no more cross the bridge over the Rio Grande than the men in the white van. It’s not a matter of simply flashing my badge. I’m out of my jurisdiction, and in Mexico even the U.S. cops who are supposed to be there must go unarmed thanks to the tight gun regulations.

“If it comes to it,” Jeff says, “there are ways.”

“Maybe it won’t. Maybe they’ll meet up with Ford somewhere along the way.”

“That could happen,” he says, shaking his head.

———

The landscape changes as the hours pass. We’ve left behind the pines for the desert-like plains, their flat monotony broken up here and there by a lonely mesquite. In Sarita, south of Kingsville, a line of northbound vehicles idle at the
ICE
checkpoint, waiting for the agents to confirm their citizenship and give their backseats a once-over. And this is about an hour outside Harlingen, ninety minutes from the Rio Grande, well inside Texas. The fact that the Border Patrol is operating this far north is a testament to the scale of the immigration problem. Not long ago, the agents stopped a minivan driving back to Houston and found illegals hunched between the rear seats, hiding under blankets. That arrest made the news.

The white van sticks to its southward heading. Instead of mesquites, the highway is lined by dried-out palm trees. The Gulf of Mexico is less than thirty miles from here, close enough that when I roll the window down, I imagine I can smell salt on the balmy, humid breeze.

When Hilda walked me through Brandon Ford’s procedure for making contact with Inferno, she said he usually took a flight from Hobby Airport down to Brownsville, then took a taxi downtown, crossing the border on foot. After collecting whatever Inferno had for him, he’d stay overnight at the Colonial on E. Levee Street, and then fly home in the morning. If the van doesn’t lead us to him, there’s always a chance he will be at the hotel. When I explain this to Jeff, he repeats what he said before: “That could happen.”

“This may sound crazy to you, but we might just get lucky. For days I’ve been feeling like there’s nothing to hold on to, and now that I have something, I’m not letting go. The big breaks are always like this. Half the time you don’t know what you’re doing, but it feels right, so you go with it.”

“So it’s not about evidence and hard work,” he says. “It’s about luck.”

“Napoleon thought so, too.”

“Napoleon?” He snorts the name, like I’ve just made the most unlikely connection he can imagine. “You mean
him
?” He presses his hand flat against his chest, tucking his fingers inside his shirt.

“That’s the one. You should study history sometime, Jeff, or you’ll be forced to repeat it.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Anyway, that’s what Napoleon would ask about a general. Not if he was experienced or tough or a genius. He’d ask, ‘Is he lucky?’ And right now, I think I am. The tip from Dearborn, that van right there. The initiative is finally on my side for a change.”

“Napoleon,” he says, shaking his head. “‘God is on the side not of the big battalions, but the best shots.’ Wasn’t that Napoleon, too?”

“That was somebody else,” I tell him. “But I can see why you’d like to agree with that one, being such a good shot.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Except there’s no God.”

“I should introduce you to my friend Carter. He’d argue with you on that point.”

“And he’d lose.”

“He would argue with us both about luck, too. He’d say everything happens for a reason, all part of the divine plan.” I glance over to see him react with an amused smile. “You don’t happen to be a conspiracy theorist, do you? Is the government hiding the existence of aliens from us, or denying the truth about the Twin Towers? If so, you’d be playing right into Carter’s hands. He has a theory about you foxhole atheists.”

He answers with a snort of derision.

“When you stop believing God controls everything, Carter says, then you start making up all-powerful conspiracies to take the Almighty’s place.”

“This Carter sounds like a moron. Plus, some conspiracies are real.”

“That’s what I told him.”

“And anyway,” he says, his voice charged, “I happen to be a determinist. I think things happen for a reason, too, but not because Zeus or Allah or God or whoever says so. My determinism isn’t top down; it works from the bottom up. We’re products of our environment, March, pure and simple. Genetically determined, socially determined, whatever you like. To people like me, the God hypothesis
is
a conspiracy theory—the ultimate conspiracy.”

“Still, there’s something to it—”

“There’s nothing to it, March. There’s no heaven or hell, no angels floating on the clouds, no good, no evil, none of it. We’re just animals who like to tell ourselves stories in the dark. Animals making up rules for each other to follow. And when you die, that’s it. End of the line.”

“You don’t think there’s something out there—?”

“There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. Read the book, March. You told me you did.”

“I’ve been a little busy recently.”

We sit in silence awhile. I can tell Jeff’s angry, the emotion coming out of nowhere like a flash fire. All I’d intended was to rib him a little, to pass the time as we drove, but the turn in the conversation has gotten him riled up.

“You’re a bit of a fundie, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says.

“Anyway. We’re coming up on Brownsville. I guess this isn’t looking too good. They’re gonna have to stop somewhere, though. They can’t just drive those guns into Mexico. The odds of the van being searched are too much to risk.”

“Not if they already have a plan. Someone could wave them right through.”

I laugh. “Now you
do
sound like a conspiracy theorist.”

“Do I?” He doesn’t even smile. “Or maybe I’ve happened to see some things in life that you haven’t. On our side, I doubt they’re searching vehicles that are leaving the country, and I’m guessing the cartels pretty much own the Mexican side.”

“You’re probably right,” I say, trying to sound conciliatory. There’s no point in stoking the tension between us. I need him focused on the situation at hand.

He points up ahead. “The van’s turning off.”

“Here we go.”

———

We’re just inside Brownsville, flanked by a row of chain hotels on one side and a suburban strip mall on the other. The van turns off the frontage road into a big shopping-center parking lot, cruising down the rows until it slides into an empty space. I drive past them, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, circling the row and doubling back on the other side. The van doors open. The driver climbs out, leaving his door ajar, while the passenger makes a beeline toward the Best Buy electronics store.

“I’ll follow him,” Jeff says. “Any of these guys sees you, they might recognize your face. You keep an eye on the van.”

I head up the row and drop him on the front curb just as the passenger walks up. Jeff pauses, then follows him inside. Then I double back and find a space halfway between the store entrance and the van.

The van’s driver leans against the fender, propping his foot up. He cups his hands in front of his mouth, and then there’s a flame. He drops his hands and exhales a cloud of smoke. In the twilight I can see the cigarette’s cherry, if I’m not imagining it. The man seems relaxed, not bothered about the time or concerned that he has a payload of illegally obtained assault rifles in the back of his van.

I take my phone out and rest it on my lap. This isn’t the end of the line for these guys, and there’s a limit to what I can expect of myself. If I lose sight of them just once, if those guns disappear and end up in the hands of the cartel . . .

I dial Charlotte’s number. It rings and then her voicemail picks up.

“You’re not going to believe where I am.” I pause, not certain what to say. “I told you I couldn’t let go of this thing, right? I guess I wasn’t kidding. I’m going to be out of pocket for a while. Something’s come up—a lead—and I’ve got to follow it.”

I look up and see the passenger emerging through the sliding doors, walking out past a yellow concrete stanchion.

“I’ll call you later, Charlotte. I love you.”

Stopping in front of a garbage basket, the man digs through the plastic shopping bag in his hand, removing the contents. He tosses the bag, then rips the package open and throws that in after it. He slips whatever he’s purchased into his pocket, then starts toward the van. Jeff walks out with a bag of his own.

When he reaches the car, I ask: “What did he buy in there?”

“A
GPS
unit. Wherever they’re stopping for the night, it’s not here. Pop the trunk for me.”

“What for?”

“Hurry, before they take off.”

I push the trunk release, then go around back to see what he’s doing, glancing at the van to make sure it’s not moving. He takes the AR-15 out of its case, resting the rifle at the bottom of the trunk, then dumps the contents of his own bag out. A pack of plastic zip-ties drops out. He rips it open and stuffs a handful in his pocket. Then he takes the rifle and crawls underneath the car.