Station Breaker

40 Convenience

Everybody has to know that I've managed to crash land the plane. But how many steps ahead of the US authorities am I?

The first thing they'll do is send a reconnaissance plane to do a flyover. If there's a helicopter within range they'll send that out as well. Most likely it'll be Border Patrol on both counts.

Will my Mexican friends stick around and wait inside the border? Or will they pull back? I have no idea how those kinds of jurisdictional things work.

I suspect that since they were responding to a plane crash, crossing the border to provide "help" is probably okay to do.

That means they'll tell Border Patrol to be on the lookout for a stolen Humvee with the Mexican flag painted on the side. So maybe I should ditch this thing first chance I get…

I see a straight patch of unpaved road and turn onto it. The desert is criss-crossed with these kinds of paths. My hope is that this one will take me to one covered in asphalt with helpful signs telling me which way to go.

Thirty minutes later my wish is granted. I pull onto the blacktop and feel like I just time-travelled to the present.

A sign marker says "Ranch Road 92." Whatever that means. I just keep going north.

Odds are, if I head south I'll run into a border town that might have what I need, but that will also be the first place they look. I'm sure all the sheriffs around here have already been warned that I might be nearby.

Lock your doors, folks.

I drive for another half hour, constantly on the lookout for circling Black Hawk helicopters or highway patrol hiding behind cacti. I don't see any, but civilization slowly creeps up on me.

First it's metal cattle guards lining the road. Then it's aluminum sheds and the signs of ranches. When I start to see green fields and irrigation, I know I have to be close to some kind of town.

Agriculture means produce. Produce means trucks. Trucks mean truck stops. All of that hopefully indicates a farm community of some kind.

I pass a small collection of double-wide trailers and a faded billboard that says "Historic Hotel El Monte Restaurant and Bar 1.9 miles."

I love that they shaved off that one tenth of mile in case that was a deal breaker for some starving weary traveler.

At some point I pass the historic hotel because I'm not watching my odometer, being more focused on the town of Van Clark.

It's tiny, filled with box-shaped buildings that look half abandoned. But there are also signs of life as pickup trucks pass me on the street. I even drive past a school bus and get a few stares from kids in baseball uniforms.

For a moment I think about the children in Rio that helped me out — the ones I left sitting by the concrete soccer court.

I feel a twinge of guilt. They were sweet kids that only wanted to help their strange friend. Dirty, poor children that were only going to keep being victimized by life. And I left them there.

Hell, what was I supposed to do? Adopt them and take them on the run with me?

Focus, David. Maybe you can do something for them later. You have to get to later, first.

Wow. All the crazy shit I've done in the last twenty-four hours and that's what I feel the most guilty about?

There's a deserted RV park up ahead.

I assume it's deserted because it's missing the "V" and there are no actual RVs parked there.

I pull into the lot because it's got a line of trees at the back that look like a great place to hide a Humvee you stole from the Mexican army.

After making sure I can't be seen from the road, I do a search for anything that might be useful.

Inside the center console I find a pistol. No thanks. I also find a wallet belonging to a Sergio Flores. The grim-faced man on the driver's license vaguely resembles one of the soldiers I unleashed the whoopee cushion of doom upon.

I also recognize several US presidents and a few people from Mexican history printed on the bills. I shove them and the credit cards into my pocket — promising that I'll pay him back later.

Unlike the jerk who threw the rock at me in Rio, Senor Flores was just doing his job. I think.

I take the keys and lock up my stolen Humvee in the event I need to come back to it. Hopefully, I'll get ahold of Capricorn and he can pull me out of this mess.

Not sure if there is a center of town, I walk away from the deserted part and head towards the highest concentration of buildings that look like they haven't had a coat of paint since the Zimmerman Telegram.

I pass a defunct gas station and a few machine shops, then come to a street with more traffic. There's a truck stop with a Subway sandwich shop next door.

"Morning," says the friendly girl behind the counter with a slight Texas drawl. Red hair and freckles, she's as All-American as you can get — meaning her ancestors are 100 % from somewhere else.

Don't get me wrong; I loved my eight-hour stay in Brazil, without a doubt. And the six seconds I spent skidding across the Mexican desert was a memory I'll cherish for the rest of my life, but to hear someone in English greet me— even the Texas-grilled version of it, is something I can't describe.

Sure, my flight crew friends spoke my native tongue, but I was pretending around them and afraid to say the wrong thing.

Here, I'm just a guy walking into a convenience store about to get a cup of coffee.

"How you doing?" I say with a smile. "You know where I can get wifi?"

"Smile," she replies.

"Pardon me?" I say, grinning, but confused.

"That's the password for here. It'll be the only wireless network."

Smile. How adorable. "Thanks." I fumble with my stolen phone, getting it online while I pour myself a cup of coffee.

I pay for it with my stolen cash then have a seat on a bench outside.

There's still nothing from CapricornZero on Twitter.

Damn. I need an alternate plan. I was hoping he could get me out of this, but if something happened… I'm screwed.

I spend the next half hour sipping my coffee and checking the internet. When the battery on the phone goes, I buy a charge pack in the station.

"You still here?" asks the girl.

"Yeah. Waiting to hear from a friend."

She looks past me and waves. On the security monitor over her head I see two sheriff's deputies getting out of their car.