Edge of Battle

PROLOGUE

SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF GLAMIS, CALIFORNIA

MAY 2007

The youngest child in the group, an eleven-month-old girl, died sometime before midnight, a victim of a rattlesnake bite the day before, suffered when her mother set the baby down in the darkness near an unseen nest. The infant was buried in the desert of southern California, just a few miles north of the border that they had worked so hard to cross. Two other children, one a four-year-old girl, the other an eleven-year-old boy, wept for their infant sibling, but their bodies were too dehydrated from spending almost two days in the desert to shed any tears.

It was all the same to Victor Flores, the seventeen-year-old coyote, or human smuggler, escorting the group of twelve migrants across the southern California border. It was sad, of course, the baby dying—he prayed with the others for the baby’s safe deliverance into heaven, hugged the mother, and wept with her. But one less child meant one less cry in the night to alert the Border Patrol, one less reason to slow down on their long trek across the desert—and, of course, there were no refunds. It was five hundred dollars a head, Federal Highway 2 in Mexico to Interstate 10 in the United States of America—no refunds, cash on the table.

Besides, he thought ruefully, children had no business out here. He was seeing lots more mothers and their children these days on these trips across the border, not just the men. That was a frightening trend. Things were bad in Mexico, and probably had been forever, but typically the family stayed in Mexico, the father went to search for work, and he returned months later with cash; he stayed long enough to crank out another child or two, then departed again. The exodus of women and children from Mexico meant that things were only getting worse there.

Not that the economic, sociological, or political situation was looking any better in the United States these days, but it was a heck of a lot better than in Mexico.

The calendar said it was spring, but daytime temperatures had soared above ninety degrees Fahrenheit every day since the group was dropped off beside Federal Highway 2 about ten miles south of the border. They camped when Victor told them they needed to stop, crossed Interstate 8 on foot at night when Victor told them to—it was much easier to see oncoming cars at night than in the daytime, where heat shimmering off the pavement made even huge big rigs invisible until just a few hundred feet away—and stopped and made shelters with their spare clothing in dusty gullies and washes when Victor said it was time to hide. Flores had a sixth sense about danger and almost always managed to get his pollos (or “chickens,” what the coyotes called their clientele) into hiding before the Border Patrol appeared—he even somehow managed to evade helicopters and underground sensors.

He knew his route well, so they traveled at night. That usually meant a more comfortable journey, but in the arid, cloudless air the desert released its sun-baked warmth quickly at night, and now the temperature was in the low forties. The pollos baked during the day and shivered at night. There was no way around it. It was a hard journey, but the work and the money at the end of the trail hopefully made the sacrifice worth it.

Victor’s specialty was the El Centro Border Patrol region of eastern Imperial County, between Yuma, Arizona, and El Centro, California—what the coyotes called the Moñtanas del Chocolate, or Chocolate Mountain region of southern California, an area of roughly two thousand square miles. He led a small group of migrants all the way north to Interstate 10 somewhere between Blythe and Indio, California. With decent weather and a cooperative group, Victor could escort a group of twelve along that route to his drop-off point in two days, sometimes less, with almost one hundred percent probability of success.

For an additional fee, he would take pollos as far as they desired—Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Reno, even Dallas, Texas, if they desired. But the real money was in the short trek across the deserts of southern California. Most migrants hooked up with friends or relatives quickly once they got to the farming communities of the Coachella or Imperial Valleys or along the interstate highways, and Victor’s prices for travel beyond southern California were steep. It was safer traveling with him than trying to take the bus or trains, since the Border Patrol checked IDs of Hispanic-looking individuals frequently on those two conveyances. Victor charged mightily for the safety and convenience of longer-distance trips, but it was well worth it.

Victor never bragged about his skills at evading the authorities, but he never denied them either—it was good for business. But he was not gifted with any sort of extrasensory perception. He was successful because he was smart, patient, and didn’t get greedy, unlike many of his friends who also worked the migrant underground railroads. Where other coyotes took twenty migrants in more conspicuous vans and rental trucks, Victor took a maximum of twelve in smaller vehicles; when others raced and took unnecessary risks to do the job in one or two days and were caught at least half the time, Victor was careful, took extra time, and made it 95 percent of the time.

Many thought he was good at his job because he was a bebé del angel, or “angel baby,” born in the United States. Perhaps most folks wouldn’t consider being born in an artichoke field in Riverside County near Thermal, California an angelic thing, but Victor had something that his friends didn’t have—a real American birth certificate.

About ten miles north of the border, just before daybreak, Victor came upon his “nest,” and after removing a few branches and rocks and a sand-covered canvas tarp, his pride and joy was revealed—a 1993 Chevy Suburban with four-wheel drive. Before doing anything else, he started inspecting the outside of the vehicle.

“¿Qué usted está haciendo? What are you doing?” one of the male pollos asked in Spanish, with a definite Eastern European accent. This guy was somewhat different than the others. Victor at first thought he was a federale, but he had paid cash and observed all of the security precautions without question or hesitation. He wore sunglasses all the time except when walking at night, so it was impossible to see his eyes. His hands were rough and his skin toughened by the sun, but he didn’t carry himself like a farmworker.

Of course, more and more migrants using Victor’s service were not farmworkers. This guy looked tough, like he was accustomed to fighting or violence, but at the same time he was not pushy or edgy—he seemed very much in control of himself, capable of springing into action but very content not to do so right now. An Army deserter, maybe, or some sort of fugitive from justice or prison escapee trying to sneak back into the United States. Victor vowed to keep an eye on him—but he was not his biggest concern now.

“Comprobación primero,” Victor replied. Very few of his clients ever spoke to him, which was probably best—this was business, pure and simple. He believed these were his people, even though he was an American, but he wasn’t in this line of work to help his fellow Mexicans—he was doing this to make money. Besides, in this business, except for the question “How much to L.A.?” or “How much to the I-10?” the only other ones who ever asked questions were federales. “Checking first. Maybe the Border Patrol inspected or bugged my yate, or the lobos sabotaged it.”

The man looked at the beat-up Suburban and chuckled when he heard Victor refer to it as his “yacht.” “Lobos?”

“Los contrabandistas,” Victor replied.

“But you are a smuggler,” the man said.

Victor smiled a pearly white smile and corrected himself, “Los contrabandistas malvados. “The evil smugglers.” I smuggle honest workers who want to do honest work, never drugs or weapons.”

The man nodded, a half-humorous, half-skeptical expression on his face. “A man of principle, I see.”

Principles? Victor had never thought of himself like that—he wasn’t even sure what it meant. But if it meant not moving drugs or weapons across the border, he supposed he had some. He shrugged and went back to work, noticing that neither the man nor any of the other pollos offered to help him. Yep, just business. He was the driver; they were his passengers.

After not discovering any evidence of tampering, Victor uncovered a second hiding place and pulled out a canvas bag containing a battery and ignition components. He filled the battery with water from his water jugs, quickly reassembled the parts in his SUV, and fired it up; the pollos let out a little cheer when the big vehicle started amid a disturbingly large cloud of black smoke. With his clients’ help, he eased the truck out of the depression, and they clambered aboard quickly and wordlessly, thankful they didn’t have to walk for a while.

They followed dirt roads and trails for several miles, then crossed the Coachella Canal and entered Patton Valley. A large portion of the environmentally sensitive Glamis Dunes desert was closed to vehicles—and the off-highway vehicle enthusiasts, afraid of losing all their favorite driving sites, patrolled the off-limits areas just as well as the police and park rangers—so Victor was careful to avoid the off-limits areas that trapped so many other coyotes. He stayed on dirt roads and trails, being careful to keep moving and not pull off into a parking area because he didn’t have a camping permit and anyone stopping in a camping area had to display a mirror hanger or be cited on the spot. He crossed Wash Road north of Ogilby Camp Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) Area, emerged onto Ted Kipf Road, and headed northwest toward the town of Glamis, occasionally pulling off into a hidden OHV trailering area and mixing in with the dune buggy riders when his senses told him patrols were nearby. His trusty “land yacht” did well in the sandy desert and low hills of Patton Valley.

A few pollos got out at Glamis, ahead of schedule, but it was entirely up to them. Glamis was near the fertile Coachella Valley farming region, and there was work around if you knew where to ask—but of course, there were plenty of Border Patrol agents hereabouts as well. Victor stopped long enough to gas up and let the two migrants out, then hurried back onto the road.

He took Highway 78 north around the southern end of the Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range, then exited on Imperial Gables Road. A turn onto Lowe Road, past Main Street into the town of Imperial Gables, then a left onto a dirt road northbound, through fields of every imaginable kind of produce. They made several turnoffs and stops, sometimes prompted by a signal from a worker in the fields that the Border Patrol was nearby, but most times by Victor’s sense of nearby trouble. After nearly twenty miles of negotiating the dirt farm roads, they emerged onto Wiley Well Road, and it was an easy cruise north to the intersection with Chuckwalla Valley Road, just south of Interstate 10, shortly after sunset.

Unlike Imperial Dunes and Sand Hills, this area was lush and green thanks to the series of irrigation canals that crisscrossed the area—right up to the areas beside the freeway that had no irrigation, where the earth immediately turned to its natural hard-baked sand. There was a closed fruit and vegetable stand, a self-serve gas station, and a large dirt open area with a few portable bathrooms where truckers could turn around and park for the night, awaiting another load. Victor did not pull into the turnaround area, but stayed just off Chuckwalla Valley Road near an irrigation control valve sticking out of the fields near the road, trying to make himself look like a repairman or farmer.

“Pull up there,” the military-looking man said, pointing to the truck parking area. True to form, he was still wearing his sunglasses.

“No, señor. Demasiado visible.”

The man nodded toward the parking area. “They don’t seem to think it’s too conspicuous,” he said. There were four produce trailers parked there, two tandem rigs, a beat-up old pickup that looked like it belonged to a ranch foreman…

…and a large brown and green panel truck with fat off-road tires that Victor recognized, and his warning alarms immediately started sounding.

“There is my ride,” the man said. “It looks like mis amigos have already arrived. Take me over there.”

“You can walk, sir,” Victor said.

“¿Nos asustan?” the man asked, smiling derisively.

Victor said nothing. He didn’t like being insulted, but getting in a customer’s face was bad for business. He ignored the remark about his courage, took a clipboard, put on a straw cowboy hat, and went out beside the irrigation manifolds sticking out of the ground to make it look like he was taking water pressure readings. He carefully looked up and down Chuckwalla Valley Road and Interstate 10, then waved at his Suburban, and the rest of the migrants quickly jumped out. The mother of the dead baby girl gave him a hug as she stepped past him, and they all had satisfied albeit tired and worrisome expressions on their faces. Within seconds, they had disappeared into the fields.

It was a tough business, Victor thought. One out of every twenty pollos he dropped off near the interstate highway, mostly young children or older women, would be killed trying to cross it. Two out of this group of ten would be caught by the Border Police within a matter of days. They would be taken to a processing center in Yuma or El Centro; photographed, fingerprinted, ID’d if possible, and questioned. If they resisted or complained, they would be taken to the Border Patrol detention facility at El Centro, Yuma, or San Diego for booking on federal immigration violation charges. If they were smart, stayed cool, and said, “We are just here to work,” they would be treated fairly well by the Americans. They would be fed, clothed if necessary, given a fast medical checkup, and within a few hours taken to the border crossing at Mexicali or Tecate and turned over to Mexican authorities with their possessions.

Their real troubles would begin then. If they or their families had money, they could pay their “bail” by bribing their way out of jail on the spot; if not, they would be taken to jail until they could raise “bail.” Their clothes and all possessions would be taken away, they would be given prison rags to wear, and they would serve as virtual slaves for the federales in any number of menial, dangerous, or even criminal tasks—anything from road crews to prostitution to drug running to robbery, anything to raise the “bail” money and secure a release.

To Victor’s dismay, the tough-looking man was still there beside the Suburban by the time Victor made sure his pollos were on their way. Victor said nothing as he walked around to get in, but the man asked, “Where do they go?”

“No sé,” Victor replied. “To work, I suppose.”

“Well, well, it’s Victor Flores, late as usual,” he heard. It was none other than Ernesto Fuerza, probably the most notorious and successful smuggler on the U.S.-Mexico border. Tall, young, good-looking, wearing a dark military-looking utility uniform without any badges or patches, black fatigue cap over a black-and-white patterned bandana, long hair and goatee, and well-cared-for military-style boots laced all the way up, Fuerza had successfully made a worldwide reputation for himself not as a criminal, but as an entrepreneur, satisfying the needs of Americans and Mexican immigrants alike…

…and also because Fuerza had no compunction whatsoever to abandon his pollos if the federales closed in on him. It was widely suspected that Fuerza had ditched one of his trucks filled with migrants in the middle of the desert and escaped—except the authorities never showed up until days later, to find over fifty migrants dead inside from heatstroke.

Fuerza nodded to the European. “I told you, it would have been better for you to come with me, Señor Zakharov. Dovol’nyi Vy bezopasny, polkovnik.”

“We speak only Spanish here, señor,” the man named Zakharov said in Spanish. “See that you or your men do not forget again or I may have to cancel our contract.” Fuerza lowered his eyes but offered no other apology. “Any difficulties, señor?” he asked in a low, menacing voice.

“Of course not. Everything according to plan, exactly as promised. It would be better if we departed right away.”

Fuerza scowled at Victor. “He made us wait too long in this area, which could easily alert the Border Patrol.”

“I thought you said this location was secure.”

“We took precautions,” Fuerza said. “But if young Flores here would learn to get his ass in gear and be on time, we wouldn’t have any concerns at all. Next time, Señor Zakharov, you should come with me.”

“It was operationally dangerous to all go in one vehicle,” the man named Zakharov said. The little hairs on the back of Victor’s neck began to stand up. This was no ordinary migrant-worker smuggling job, nor even a fugitive entry—these guys looked and acted as if they were on a mission. Something was amiss here, he decided, and the sooner he was gone from here, the better. He was extremely relieved when Zakharov said, “No matter. Let us be on our way.” He reached behind him, and Victor thought the shit was going to hit then—but to his surprise, Zakharov pulled out a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to Victor. “Buen trabajo, señor. ‘Good job.’ Perhaps we will meet again. I am sure this will buy your absolute silence.” Victor managed a polite nod and accepted the money with a shaking hand.

“Buy yourself a life, Flores,” Fuerza said as he spun on a heel and left with the two men. Victor got into his Suburban as fast as he could without looking like he was panicking.

Fuerza and the others had just crossed Wiley Well Road and were almost back at the panel truck when suddenly a white-and-green Border Patrol van pulled up and parked directly behind it, blue, red, and yellow lights flashing. Two Border Patrol agents got out of the van. The agent on the driver’s side had a microphone to his lips and was aiming the vehicle’s spotlight in the other hand; his partner had a large portable spotlight in one and his other was filled with plastic handcuffs. “La atención, ésta es la frontera de Estados Unidos patrulla,” the first agent’s voice said over the vehicle’s loudspeaker.

Victor was about to start up the Suburban and jam it into reverse, hoping to get away from the area, but the headlights and flashing lights of a second Border Patrol van suddenly appeared in his rearview mirror, blocking his exit. “Ésta es la frontera patrulla!” another voice said over the loudspeaker from the van behind him. “¡Usted en el Suburban, puso su reparte la ventana, ahora!”

Shit, Victor cursed at himself, this is unbelievable! He was about to get popped with Ernesto Fuerza, the biggest coyote in Mexico, and a mean-looking dude who looked like a big-time terrorist on a hair trigger. He stuck both hands out of his window. Spotlights began moving in his direction. Damn, it was all over. Victor looked in his side mirror and thought he saw a few of his pollos in the back of the Border Patrol van behind him. That was worse—they would finger him as their smuggler just to show cooperation with the authorities. He was screwed.

“You two, turn around, kneel down, hands behind your head,” the first agent ordered in Spanish over the loudspeaker. Fuerza and Zakharov did as they were told. When they complied, the agent radioed, “You inside the truck, get away from the door and get down on your knees. No resista.” His partner stepped up to the truck, inspected the latch, found it unlocked, undogged it, and moved back to the van. “You inside the truck, lift open the door slowly. Ponga sus manos en su cabeza y no salga del vehículo hasta ordenado para hacer tan. Repeat, ‘Put your hands on your head and do not exit the vehicle until ordered to do so.’”

The lift door to the truck began to slowly open, and both agents carefully directed their spotlights inside. As Victor watched, a familiar-looking Border Patrol agent swept his spotlight inside Victor’s Suburban, opened the driver’s door, grabbed Victor’s left wrist, pulled it around outside the window frame, and then wrapped a plastic handcuff strap around both wrists, securing Victor to the door. “We meet again, eh, Victor?” U.S. Border Patrol agent Paul Purdy said in Spanish, “La tercera vez es el encanto. ‘Stay put and relax,’ okay, partner? We’ll do the drivin’ from now on.”

“I have nothing to do with any of this, Agent Purdy,” Victor said in perfect English. “I’m just here taking a nap. You know very well I’m an American. I’ve got ID.”

“Save it for your arrest statement, Victor,” Purdy said. Unlike many of the veteran Border Patrol agents in this sector, Purdy was tall, rather boyish, and friendly, with an old-fashioned “flat-top” haircut and a silver-gray mustache. He was somewhere in his mid-to late fifties, old for a field agent of today but probably rather typical of the breed from a generation earlier. “Two of your recent clients already gave you up. Now shut up and just relax, okay, amigo? You’ve probably been on the road a couple days—take it easy. Besides, you know I’ll tell the prosecutors anythin’ you tell me now, so if you’re lyin’ you’ll be caught in a lie, and that’ll make it worse for you.” Purdy and the other agent from the second unit started walking toward Fuerza’s truck, spotlights scanning every inch of the outside.

Victor could see just the very far left edge of the inside of the truck, but it was obvious that it was packed full with migrants. He could see a woman and two men with work clothes standing in the open door, and judging by the way they were being jostled from behind, it seemed like they were being pressed by many more pollos in there. “You persons standing in the door, get down on your knees slowly and put your hands on your head.” The first agent put the public address microphone down and reached into the van for the radio mike, obviously requesting more vans to take all of the migrants away. Victor could hear the radio request from the van behind him and the dispatcher’s response.

“Christ, looks like we got ourselves a long night ahead of us,” Purdy said, reaching behind him for his bundle of nylon handcuffs stuffed into his utility belt. “We’d better…”

At that instant, all hell seemed to break loose right in front of him.

Several migrants, the ones standing in the open door, suddenly flew out of the van, landing headfirst on the hard-baked dirt. Men and women screamed, and spotlight beams darted in every direction. More screaming…and then heavy automatic gunfire erupted. It seemed as if dozens of yellow tracer lines zipped out from inside the truck, focusing on the two Border Patrol agents behind the vehicle.

“Holy Christ!” Purdy swore. Both men ducked almost to the ground as the automatic gunfire rang out, dropping their handcuffs and spotlights. “Split up and take cover!” He dashed off to the left; the other agent half-rolled, half-stumbled to the right. “Code ninety-nine, code ninety-nine!” Victor heard Paul Purdy’s voice coming from the van’s radio as he spoke on a portable transceiver. “Patrol One-Seven, shots fired, shots fired, Chuckwalla and Wiley Well Road, south of I-10, west of Blythe. Get someone out here, now, we’re under heavy fire!”

Victor watched in absolute horror as at least ten men, dressed in black and carrying military-looking rifles, jumped out of the back of the truck. Two of them advanced on the first two Border Patrol agents and fired single shots into both of them from point-blank range. He could see that all of them were wearing black ski masks and gloves and combat boots. Several of them advanced toward Victor, rifles at the ready.

Suddenly there were several shots fired from the right from Purdy’s partner. One of the attackers was hit, but he did not go down, and he swept the vegetation line with automatic gunfire.

“Get out of there, Bob!” Victor heard Purdy scream. “Run! They’re wearing body armor! Get away! Hide in the fields! I called for backup! They’ll be here in five minutes!”

“Cover me, Paul!” yelled the second agent.

“No…!” Just then a loud bang! and a blinding flash of light erupted in the fields, and Purdy’s partner began rolling on the ground, arms covering his eyes and ears, screaming from the effects of the flash-bang grenade. Another attacker ran up and fired a three-round burst into the agent, immediately silencing his screams of pain.

At that instant, Purdy broke cover and ran for Victor, diving behind the Suburban’s door just as a hail of bullets flew past. He skidded to a stop like a base runner sliding into third base, and in a flash he had a knife in his hands and had cut off Victor’s plastic handcuffs. “Get going, Victor!” Purdy ordered, his sidearm in his hands.

“You…you saved me, Agent Purdy…”

“We’re both going to be dead in ten seconds if you don’t move!” Purdy shoved Flores behind him, fired three shots, then turned, picked up Victor by the back of his trousers, and hauled him up toward the Border Patrol van. He threw Victor behind the van, then opened the vehicle’s doors. “¡Usted adentro! ¡Salga! ¡Ahora salga!” he shouted. The woman and the boy inside the van cowered in fear on the floor. “Victor! Help me get these people…”

His voice was cut off as bullets ripped into his back. Purdy gurgled, his mouth opened like a dying fish, his eyes rolled up inside his head, and he pitched forward and rolled into a dry ditch.

“Vy proverjaete dlja bol’she veschestv?” a voice shouted. Victor didn’t understand a word—it was a language he had never heard before—European, he thought, but not German or French.

“Sí,” another voice responded in Spanish, much closer. “¡Y hable español, usted idiota! Now check that truck for any other surprises!” Shit, Victor swore, they were coming for him. He was behind the van, too scared to decide what to do. If he ran left he would have to cross the ditch, a road, and the freeway; if he ran right, he would have to jump over the irrigation pipe and a wide clearing before reaching the fields; if he ran back down the farm road, he’d be an easy target. He heard footsteps and the clicking and clattering of gun mechanisms as the attacker reloaded. One voice was getting very close.

“We’ve spent too much time here already!” a gunman shouted.

“¡Cierre para arriba! ¡Me estoy apresurando!” The gunman was right beside him! Victor heard the attacker searching the Border Patrol agent’s body, probably removing weapons, ammunition, IDs, and radios; then the attacker opened the hood of the Suburban.

“¿Es bueno ir?”

“No, es tiro.”

“¡Cabron! I told you not to shoot the damned truck!”

“¡Carajo! I was under fire. I…” The gunmen stopped, and Victor heard the upraised rifle. “¡Hey, hay alguien aquí!”

This is it, Victor thought. He froze in place and closed his eyes tightly, moving his lips in a silent prayer, waiting for the heavy-caliber bullets to blow his brains into a million pieces. A few moments later, he heard two gunshots…

…but he wasn’t shot. He heard a loud, anguished woman’s scream, then two more gunshots. “Dos pollos en la furgoneta. Ningún problema,” the gunman shouted. A few more moments later, the gunmen were gone.

Victor stayed motionless until he heard no more vehicle sounds. When all was quiet, he rose and looked into the ditch beside the farm road. Paul Purdy was one of the few good guys on the U.S. Border Patrol—he really seemed to want to help the migrants, not just round them up. He went down into the ditch and saw the three large-caliber bullet holes in Purdy’s back, and he was afraid to touch him anymore. The body was twitching and heaving grotesquely.

The Border Patrol was no match for these gunmen, Victor thought. Those bullet holes were massive—the exit wounds would be many times that size. Purdy was definitely a goner. The other agents would be here shortly; they would know what to do with Agent Purdy.

He stepped out of the ditch and looked inside the Border Patrol van. With horror he recognized the two dead migrants: the woman who had thanked him when she was dropped off after their safe journey, and her eleven-year-old son. He would have been old enough to identify the attackers to the authorities, so of course he had to be eliminated too.

That boy didn’t deserve to die—all he did was accompany his mother to America in the search for work, searching for a better life. Victor was the one who deserved a bullet in the head. It was his fault, he thought bitterly, that all these people died at the hands of that murderous bastard Fuerza.

Unbidden, the child in Victor Flores finally reemerged, and he began to cry just as loudly and sorrowfully as he did when he was a child. He sank to his knees, emotionally and physically spent.

After several long moments of uncontrolled sobbing, his innate sense of danger rang loud and clear, and he jumped to his feet. The Border Patrol was on its way, he could feel it, and he took off running down the dirt road, parallel to the irrigation pipe. He knew enough not to try running through the fields, because the Border Patrol’s infrared cameras could pick him out from a mile away. He ran about two hundred yards, then immediately turned left toward the freeway. In the pitch-black darkness, he made out a shallow culvert. It was small, but he managed to slip inside…

…moments before he heard sirens approaching, then saw the impossibly bright light from a helicopter-mounted spotlight. He scrambled deeper inside the culvert, clawing frantically at every rock, piece of garbage, and bit of soil he could to find room to wriggle in. Victor didn’t have enough room to turn around to see if his feet and legs were all the way inside the opening—if they weren’t, the Border Patrol agents would be on him within minutes, guided in by the helicopter’s observer.

But he had made it. The sound of the helicopter moved away, as did the sirens. When he thought it was safe, he tried to snake his way backward, but he couldn’t move. He had no choice but to go forward. After almost twenty minutes of crawling, he found himself on the other side of the culvert, on the north side of the eastbound lane of Interstate 10. He knew enough not to try to cross the highway—agents would be scanning the highway with night vision equipment. He also knew he could not stay there—the Border Patrol would be quickly setting up a perimeter around the murder scene.

He crawled on his belly in the sandy median between the east and west lanes of the interstate highway, praying that the sand and dirt that covered him from head to toe would allow him to blend in with the earth. A few minutes later he came across a culvert on the westbound lane, and he crawled in. This one was a bit larger, and he found it easy to crawl to the other side. He found another irrigation pipe and decided to follow it, pausing to hide behind a concrete support or valve whenever he heard any vehicles approaching. As his eyes adapted to the dark, he spotted several barns and other service buildings nearby in the fields, but he dared not try to enter any of them because he knew that’s the first place the police would look for him.

After almost an hour of nearly continuous running, interspersed with frantic searches for hiding places, he came across a knoll and a service road that crossed the westbound lane of the interstate. His throat was completely dry, and he was becoming dizzy from dehydration and exertion. He saw several men sitting on the side of the service road, speaking Spanish and passing a large bottle of something in a paper bag back and forth between them. He would only stay for a second, he told himself—one sip of whatever they had, that was all. He started to stand up and raised his arms to flag them down…

…then instinctively dropped to the ground—just as a sheriff’s patrol car, slowly and quietly cruising down the service road on the other side of the interstate, turned on its red flashing lights. “¡No muévase! ¡Este es la policía! ¡Levántese con su arriba las manos! ¡Tengo un K-9!” came the order from the car’s loudspeaker.

Oh shit, a dog! Victor didn’t hesitate. He crawled into the field to his right, took a few moments to find the deepest, smelliest open furrow he could, then began to scoop soil on top of himself. In moments he had completely covered himself in coarse, sandy loam, stinking of fresh fertilizer and decaying vegetation. If the men tried to run and they let the dog go, he was caught.

But the men didn’t run. Victor could hear bits and pieces of conversation: it turned out all the men had identity cards and lived nearby—they may have been illegals, but the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department rarely detained undocumented workers who were minding their own business. If they tried to arrest even a third of them, their jails would be full to bursting, Victor knew. The questioning took some time, but the sheriff’s deputy never let his dog loose, and eventually the patrol car departed.

Not long afterward, Victor rose up from the putrid stench of the furrow when he heard the workers leaving. He was shivering from a combination of thirst, hunger, fear, and adrenaline. He didn’t want to, but he heard himself call out to the workers, “Hey, amigos. Espere, por favor.”

Each of the men instantly produced a weapon—pocket knives, a tire iron, a tine from a tractor-pulled rake, and an ax handle. “¿Quién es ello?” one of them called out.

“My name is Victor, Victor Flores. I need help.”

“Victor? El coyote?” another asked.

“Sí.”

“Victor! What’s happening, my man?” The older man with the tire iron ran over to him. “I am Jorge. You brought me and my brothers across the border many times, my friend.” He handed Victor a bottle of warm malt liquor; Victor nearly puked on it, but he gulped down a few mouthfuls. “What has happened to you?”

“We must get out of here, Jorge,” one of the other workers said. “The sheriff will be back.”

“Shut up, Carlos. This man has helped me more than you ever have.” Jorge looked at Victor carefully and said, “They say there was a shooting back there. Were you involved in that, Victor?”

“Let’s get out of here, dammit!”

“Look, Jorge, help me,” Victor said. “I was not involved in the shooting, but the ones responsible will find me if I’m caught by the police.” He produced the hundred-dollar bill the one called Zakharov had given him. “This is all I have, but it’s yours if you help me.”

The one named Carlos licked his lips and made a step toward the money, sensing its value even in the darkness, but Jorge blocked his way. “Vete a hacer punetas, puta avara!” he swore. “Victor has helped me many times in the past—now I will help him.” He turned to Victor and said, “We are waiting for a ride to a farm in Indian Wells, my friend. We can take you as far as that.”

“Gracias, amigo,” Victor said, holding out the money to him.

“Keep your money, Victor—you may need it later,” Jorge said. “Just tell me you were not involved in a shooting.”

“I saw what happened,” Victor said. “A group of Ernesto Fuerza’s pollos killed four Border Patrol agents and some migrants. I…I got away.”

“¡Mi Díos!” one of the workers gasped. “Comandante Veracruz? He attacked la Migra?”

“Him and a pollo, a big guy.”

“The fight for freedom and liberty from American repression must be underway!” the worker said happily. “Comandante Veracruz has been calling for the workers of the world to rise up and resist the American oppressors! He must have raised an army and the fight is beginning!”

“Shut up, you idiot,” another worker said. To Jorge, he said, “You cannot let him travel with us—we will all be taken to prison or killed by the Border Patrol in retaliation if he is caught with us!”

“I said Victor will go with us, and he shall,” Jorge said. He looked at Victor. “But Carlos is right, my friend—it is too dangerous for you to stay with us.”

“I won’t,” Victor said. “Indian Wells would be fine. I can find my way from there.”

About an hour later, a large produce truck stopped near the service road overpass, and the men piled in. No one spoke to Victor for the rest of the trip. When the truck stopped and everyone got out, no one at all said a word—they just walked off toward their destination, none of them expecting Victor to follow them. He didn’t.

He watched the sunrise as he lay against a rock about two hundred meters away from Route 74 outside Indian Wells—secretly he hoped the rock hid a rattlesnake or some other desert predator that would just put him out of his misery. But thinking of suicide was sinful, an affront to Jesus the savior, and he immediately regretted those thoughts.

Instead, he thought about going home. He was born not far from here, and he had not been back in many months. Technically Thermal was not his real “home,” since his parents were migrants from Mexico and he didn’t have a real home, but he always considered the fertile, expansive Coachella Valley his home, and that’s where he thought he should go. He knew he shouldn’t risk it—he was an American citizen, so he assumed the government knew a lot about him, including his place of birth and the names and addresses of his closest living relatives, so that’s where they were sure to look for him—but he was tired, bone-tired, and still more scared than he had ever felt in his entire life. He had to do something, or the fear would surely cause him to go out of his mind. After a few more minutes’ consideration, he got up and started walking toward the sun rising over the Orocopia Mountains, toward home…and, hopefully, some rest.

The air was crisp, clean, and not yet hot; there was a gentle breeze blowing from the west that actually seemed to help him as he headed east. Yet the horrible, stupefying stench of death and guilt encircled his head like cigar smoke, and would, Victor was certain, remain with him for the rest of his life.