Crooked River

42

Two hours later, on his way to the airport, Coldmoon called Pendergast.

“Delighted to hear from you,” came the smooth voice. Coldmoon, to his surprise, found it unexpectedly reassuring. “Have you made any progress?”

“A lot.”

“Excellent.”

“Martina Ixquiac was part of a large group of travelers headed for the United States. They left San Miguel Acatán in December. A local man guided them over the border into Mexico, where they met with a coyote, a fellow called El Monito — real name Alonzo Romero Iglesias. El Monito has been moving groups of people from southern Mexico into the U.S. for half a dozen years now. We just had quite a long talk, El Monito and me.”

“What is his methodology?”

“I’ll start by telling you how it usually works; Martina’s group was handled differently.”

“Very well.” There was some kind of humming sound in the background, behind Pendergast’s voice.

“Usually, he picks them up outside of La Gloria, in Chiapas State. It’s where I am now, a little town about twenty miles from the Guatemalan border. He has vans and drivers, and he brings them north in a sort of caravan. There are certain Rurales and police he pays off to let him through the checkpoints. They go up through Oaxaca, bypass Mexico City, on through Durango, Hermosillo, and into Sonora — heading for the San Pedro River, which flows from Mexico into Arizona, just south of Palominas. That’s where they bring them across. The Sonoran drug cartel controls that portion of the Mexican border, and charges a toll to the coyotes to bring people through — a thousand dollars a head. So our man has to pay off the cartel.”

“How do they actually get across?”

“There’s a fence along that stretch of border, but where the river flows there are only some steel tank traps that are easily climbed over. The area is heavily patrolled by ICE, but they have spotters on some hills on the Mexican side with powerful night-vision telescopes. They’re able to track the coming and going of the ICE patrols. The group waits for hours, sometimes days, on the Mexican side before they find an opportunity to slip through.”

“And once over?”

“El Monito takes them to a ‘safe ranch’ north of Palominas. There they wait before being allowed to continue on to wherever they want to go — Houston, Chicago, New York, LA. Most of them have a destination where there’s family or friends. El Monito makes sure that only a few leave the safe ranch at a time, in ordinary-looking delivery vehicles or cars, so as not to arouse suspicion.”

“But this isn’t what happened with the group that included Martina Ixquiac.”

“No, it isn’t. That was special. Just after his previous trip, El Monito was contacted by an ICE official — at least someone claiming to be ICE. It scared the hell out of him that they knew who he was and how to contact him, but they told him they had a proposition. They needed to engineer a spectacular bust, something dramatic. It would not only help their careers, but also ease the difficult political climate. Or so they said. So they asked him to bring in an extra-large group so they could bust it. They would pay El Monito big money: fifty grand. The migrants would be nabbed on the U.S. side, before they reached the safety of the ranch. For fifty grand, El Monito couldn’t resist.

“So: in order to get enough people to satisfy the official, El Monito had to assemble three groups of twenty individuals each and consolidate them in Sonora. One of those groups he recruited in San Miguel, and the others in Huehuetenango. He brought them up, paid off the Sonora cartel, combined them at the border, and then brought them over — all sixty — at once. They were able to cross quickly, without any problem. At the time, El Monito figured this was part of an official plan. But it’s possible that certain bad actors had instead arranged for a diversion that would draw off ICE.

“The bust was to happen where they had to cross Route 92 in Arizona. It was a moonless night, dark as a tomb, when El Monito and his two associates got the group over the border and up through the mesquite scrub. They waited along Route 92. As they were waiting, a bunch of truck headlights turned on and moments later the place was swarming with armed men in military fatigues. But something wasn’t right. El Monito had a bad feeling, or so he says. These weren’t ICE vehicles, but U.S. military trucks — with the logos and markings painted over. And it wasn’t a normal kind of arrest either, making everyone lie down and that sort of thing. Instead, the soldiers surrounded them and just started loading them into the trucks as fast as possible. El Monito, who was in the rear driving the stragglers forward, saw them take his two associates away at gunpoint as well. So he took off back south. Some soldiers chased him, but he knows that country like the back of his hand and was able to escape and get back over the border.”

“And then?”

“He was pursued into Mexico. That scared the hell out of him. These men were in military fatigues — not ICE — and they were looking for him. Not to pay him, but to kill him. He just barely escaped several times. They’re determined, he says, and that’s why he was hiding in a remote farmhouse outside La Gloria — where I found him.”

“Still being hunted after five months?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe his story?”

“I do. I was totally convinced. The guy was terrified, and when he found out I wasn’t going to kill him, he just spilled his guts.”

“You left him there?”

“He wouldn’t come with me, and there’s no way I could get him out of Mexico without his cooperation.”

“It would be a setback if he were murdered. He’s a vital witness.”

“I realized that. I gave him almost all the rest of my money — ten thousand dollars — and told him to buy another car, get the hell away from La Gloria, and go to ground. He was very grateful.”

“Agent Coldmoon, you’ve done outstanding work, and I thank you. How quickly can you return? This case is starting to present some unexpected developments. I am uneasy.”

“I’m on my way to the airport in Tuxtla — I’ll be back in Fort Myers by evening.” In the silence that followed, he noticed the humming again, and now he recognized what it was: the sound of an automobile engine. “Hey. Are you in a car?”

“Yes.”

“You mean, you’re driving somewhere? Driving yourself?” Coldmoon had to laugh.

In lieu of an answer the line simply went dead.