My Enemy's Enemy, page 5
“That ranting pipsqueak?” She sniffed Jacob’s empty stein. “Was there cocaine powder in your beer?”
Jacob cocked his head at the ceiling. “If the Nazis really have matured from thugs into political dealmakers, a coalition government might be fine, compared to gridlock. Speaking of unsavory deal making…” He turned to her with puppy eyes.
Rachel tipped her stein, peered into it, and sighed. “I know. A deal is a deal. Yes, Lisl Schroeder is in my English literature club. Yes, I will introduce you to her. No, that will not get you anywhere.”
“She’s stuck up?”
“No. She’s nice.” Again, Rachel rolled her eyes at her idiot brother. “Jacob, she’s a gentile. Mother will make Father cut off your inheritance. After Mother cuts off your penis.”
“Bergman!”
The shout came from among a half-dozen young men wearing football kit. Their cleated boots’ thunder echoed through the beer hall, as loud as the band.
Her brother waved them over, and they arrived, sweaty and muddy amid much backslapping and laughter.
Horowitz, a friend of Jacob’s, smiled at her.
“Bergman, aren’t you going to introduce us to your beautiful girlfriend?”
Someone said, “Don’t introduce her to Winter if you expect to go home with her, Bergman.”
Laughter.
Someone else said, “Here he comes!”
Another called to him, “What took you so long, my captain?”
“Somebody had to stay behind and pay off the referee for that penalty kick.”
More laughter.
The team captain who waved as he trotted toward the group, holding a silver trophy cup aloft in one hand, was blond, stood taller than the rest, and was broad through the shoulders, where many football players were slight.
His eyes sparkled blue, his chin was strong and cleft, and his smile shone like the sun. Sweat sparkled on his forehead and he breathed heavily and rapidly, nostrils flared.
She shivered as she stared at him, and realized that she was holding her breath. He was the most beautiful human being Rachel Bergman had ever seen.
Jacob said to Horowitz, “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my sister. Say hello to Horowitz, Rachel.”
Someone said, “Bergman, has no one told you there are laws against seducing your sister?”
Even more laughter.
The beautiful human set the silver cup on the table, leaned across it, and smiled into her eyes. “Rachel. Miss Bergman. I’m Peter. Peter Winter. And if you were my sister, I would break the law.”
The captain’s teammates hooted, then dragged him and the trophy away across the hall to another table, at which more of their club already sat.
Rachel stared after them, and she was sure Peter Winter had turned and searched her out, and smiled, before he was consumed in the celebration’s scrum.
Jacob said, “Sorry. Horowitz isn’t a bad sort.”
“What? Oh. Who is he?”
“I take it by ‘he’ you don’t mean fat Horowitz. Peter Winter’s the best fullback in Bavaria. Maybe in Germany. Shall I go over there and slap him, for getting fresh with my sister?”
“I may go slap him myself. On the behind.”
“Rachel!”
“He just made a joke. And a clever one at that. He seems quite nice.”
“For God’s sake, he’s nineteen.”
“And I suppose you’re going to point out that he’s a gentile, and Mother and Father wouldn’t approve.”
“Not just a gentile.”
“What?”
“His maternal uncle was one of the sixteen marchers who the police shot dead, around Hitler in the Odeonsplatz in the 1923 putsch. The Nazis call them their ‘Blood Martyrs.’ Pure blood is everything to them. That makes Peter National Socialist royalty.”
Rachel’s jaw dropped. “Him? One of those? Never!”
Jacob said, “I didn’t say that. Peter’s the kindest, most honorable fellow I know. I just reported his family tree, which is hardly his doing. But if Father’s right about the Nazis, I suppose in politics Peter’s family ties could be an advantage someday.”
She rolled her eyes again. “God. He wants to be a politician? That’s more disgusting than being a banker or a lawyer.”
“Actually, it’s even worse. He wants to be a physicist.”
“He hardly looks bookish.”
“Fullbacks rarely do. But I’m as good with numbers as Father is, and in calculus Peter not only left all the rest of us in the dust, by the end of term he was explaining differential equations and topology to our instructor. In the fall Peter’s off to University, in Leipzig.”
“Ugh. Bavaria without Alps. If he’s so smart why not Berlin?”
“Apparently, all the very best physics people are fighting to get in to Leipzig now.”
“Why?”
“There’s a rising genius there, named Heisenberg. They say Einstein himself has already nominated Heisenberg for the Nobel Prize.”
Rachel peered across the great hall, to the table where Peter Winter’s teammates raised their steins, toasting their captain, who was too beautiful to be a physicist, and too honorable to be a Nazi. Suddenly Berlin seemed less important.
“Jacob, isn’t Goethe Father’s favorite author?”
“Father is a German to his core. By definition that makes Goethe his favorite author. Unlike one of us at this table. Who prefers Hemingway and Fitzgerald.”
“Or, as Father calls them, my smut and rebellion peddlers.”
“You know, Goethe attended the University of Leipzig. Be careful. When you argue your case for university with Father, don’t even mention Leipzig, if you hope to sell him on Berlin. If he gets the idea in his head, he’ll pack you off to Leipzig kicking and screaming. To get the smut and rebellion scrubbed out of your head.”
“Jacob, you are the smartest person I know, but sometimes I think your head is a block of wood. If it’s Father’s idea to send me to study at Leipzig, and Peter Winter is there, too, neither of them can object to it, can they?”
Her brother smiled at her and shook his head slowly. “Poor Father. And poor Peter Winter. Any man who matches wits with you doesn’t realize what he’s gotten himself into. Until it’s too late.”
“Jacob, none of us ever realize what we’ve gotten ourselves into until it’s too late. The secret is to find a way out once we do.”
Four
“Where are you from, my friend?” The Mexican, one thin hand on his brown beer bottle, squinted through the empty bar’s midday gloom, and across the table at the Asp.
The Asp stifled a frown that would betray his frustration at the question.
He had conducted his Shanghai business successfully, despite a forger who had tried to re-trade a deal, and was therefore now dead. He had then crossed the Pacific by freighter without further incident, from Shanghai to Lima, Peru.
Although his mother had been born in Peru, and what Spanish the Asp spoke he had learned from her, he had not stayed long in Lima.
By back roads, and through back doors, he had crossed Colombia’s porous borders. Then the borders of Central America’s jigsaw of nations. Until he arrived here in Ixtepec, north of the equally porous border that separated Guatemala from Mexico.
Behind the Asp lay thirty-five thousand excruciatingly slow, but impeccably secure, kilometers. He had spent hours in his onboard cabin, practicing his Spanish. He had kept his facial hair shaved down to a Mexican-style mustache. He had acquired, and wore, Mexican peasant clothes.
But now, after hearing the Asp speak just a few words in Spanish, this man had realized instantly that the Asp was not Mexican.
Two thousand kilometers—thirteen hundred miles, he reminded himself—still separated him from the United States’ southern border. The closer he approached that border, the greater his risk became. His appearance was consistent with those around him here. But, with his accent, he dared not risk traveling without local assistance. Even though local assistance came with its own risks.
He answered the man. “I am from Peru.”
“Ah.” The man nodded. “I knew by your accent you weren’t local. What brings you to Ixtepec?”
“I’m looking for a Vaquero.” He used the word for “Cowboy.” It was the title applied to recruiters, who filled the northbound migrant pipelines to America.
“Me?” The Mexican pointed a finger at his chest as he shook his head. “Assisting people who want to sneak into the United States is against the law.”
“Of course.” The Asp pointed through the bar’s open door. “But the lady selling bread, on the plaza, suggested you might know of such a person.”
The Cowboy smiled, and nodded. “Ah. My aunt. I am not in the business, of course. But as you are a friend of the family, perhaps I could provide hypothetical advice. You are alone?”
The Asp nodded. “Hypothetically, what service would such a person provide?”
“First the traveler needs a place upon the back of the beast.”
“The beast?”
“The train that will transport you as far as Mexico City.”
“First I must buy a railway ticket?”
The Cowboy shook his head. “It’s a freight. As long as you are traveling under an organization’s protection, the railroad personnel and the police along the way will not trouble you. It is safe, but it is not luxurious. Our clients ride on the car roofs, rain or shine.”
“I am a simple man. That is quite satisfactory. What then?”
“In Mexico City, an organization’s staff will provide comfortable accommodations, until you can transfer to a bus. The bus will take you to the border crossing point you select.”
“What crossing point do you recommend?”
“Where do you want to settle in the States?”
“I need to get to Houston, initially.”
“Do you fear water?”
The Asp wrinkled his forehead, pointed at the man’s bottle. “Only in my beer.”
The man threw back his head and laughed, then said, “In that case, it’s easy. From east of Juarez, almost to the Gulf of Mexico, there never was, and never will be, the great wall you have heard of. The Rio Grande River, its canyons, and the Sonoran Desert through which the river flows, are wall enough. You will be assigned to a group that our affiliates will lead on foot to the crossing point. There all will cross the Rio Grande in inflatable boats.”
“Your question about the water. The river is swift?”
The Cowboy shook his head. “Not at all. Most of our clients are families. They fear for the little ones.”
The Asp hid a smile behind a cough. The transition from hypothetical advice to a negotiation between buyer and seller had been triggered by his single joke. “Boats? Doesn’t that attract attention?”
Again, the Cowboy shook his head. “We employ Chequadores on the U.S. side. Our checkers are the best informed, and most vigilant, anywhere on the border. They know the border patrol’s schedules perfectly. They know where the sensors, that detect footsteps and body heat, are located. They even know the schedules of the drones in the sky. Groups cross only when and where it is safe.”
“How large are the groups?”
“Twenty or thirty, total. Families, mostly. Simple people. Very compatible with yourself. After the crossing, and a few hours additional walk, you will all be met, then moved to secure and comfortable accommodations in the States, until a group for Houston is assembled. Then you will be driven by car or truck to begin your new life.”
The Asp frowned. “It seems that a large group, including mothers and children, would move slowly. And be easily spotted.”
The Cowboy smiled, as he raised a finger. “Here is the reason we enjoy such a good reputation! That is of no concern! Our services are guaranteed. Even if you are apprehended, you will merely be returned across the border. We provide up to three additional attempts at no additional charge.”
“Could I just hire a guide locally, up near the border?”
The man recoiled, eyes wide, as though bitten. “Hire a coyote at the border? My friend, unlike us they are all dishonest and violent criminals. Some smuggle drugs, even while they assist travelers like yourself. They abandon their clients to die in the desert at the first sniff of the border patrol. Or they slit their clients’ throats, then rob their possessions.”
“All of them do this?”
“Without exception.”
“Shocking.”
“Yet one hundred percent true. Also, while we pay taxes to the appropriate cartel, which insure your safe passage, you cannot be sure your border coyote has paid his. If you travel with one who has not paid, the cartels may kill you both. Or may kill your coyote, then leave you alone, to die horribly in the trackless desert.”
“Even more shocking.”
The Cowboy frowned as he shook his head. “Trust me, my friend, you don’t want a border coyote.”
“How much, then?”
“If you were Mexican, four thousand U.S. dollars from here to Houston, all inclusive. If you were Central American, six thousand. Clients from greater distances, like you, are more complicated. Ten thousand. All of these prices include our repeat guarantee. Payable in cash now.”
“That seems high.”
“If you were a chink, or a sand nigger, the fee would be even higher.”
For an instant, the Asp didn’t recognize the slang, but context left no doubt.
He said, “I have heard equivalent services are available for eight thousand.” Failure to haggle might arouse suspicion.
The Cowboy shrugged. “You get what you pay for. Also, because we treat you as family, we offer flexible payment options. Others may not. You can pay one third now, one third before you board our transportation, from Mexico City for the border. The balance upon arrival at your final destination in the States, about to begin your new life. Most of our clients have their relatives here in Mexico wire the last two payments to us. After they telephone them and report their safe completion of each stage.”
“Sadly, I have no relatives who could do that. May I just pay you now for the trip as far as Mexico City? Then we’ll see how it goes.”
The Cowboy’s mouth corners turned down, as though he was about to cry, as he shook his head slowly. “If you unbundle our services, our organization cannot guarantee you will obtain the better life you seek. Because you are like family to me already, I would prefer not to take your money on such a basis.”
The Asp had entered the bar with no intention of involving himself in the conspicuous human cattle drives offered by overacting hucksters like this one. But the Asp was, in fact, the very sort of “sand nigger” that the United States was most interested in interdicting. Anonymity, offered by blending in as just one simple, silent Mexican among many, during the kilometers between this little town and Mexico City, would be worth what it cost.
He slid the envelope across the table. The envelope contained fifteen hundred U.S. dollars. His research had showed that amount represented market value.
The Asp said to the smuggler of humans, “Of course you would prefer not to take it. But you will take it.”
* * *
The Asp collected his pack from the seat alongside himself, then stepped from the idling pickup truck. Its driver sped away, to return eventually to Mexico City, where the Asp had hired him. The Asp stood alone in dusty, moonless darkness, on a winding dirt track that ran parallel to, and ten kilometers south of, the Rio Grande River.
According to his study, the Rio Grande, like the Nile, flowed through a desert. The Sonoran Desert south of the river was in the Mexican state of Coahuila. On the north side, the Sonoran Desert sprawled across the sparsely populated Big Bend region of the American state of Texas.
The silent gray and white desert in which he stood was rocky. Also scrub-dotted, unlike the orange sand sea of the Sahara he knew, that began just kilometers west of Cairo.
The scent of the truck’s petrol exhaust, perhaps because it was like his father’s straight-six Jag sedan’s exhaust, reminded him of his brother’s seventh birthday. Or perhaps it was this night, which like that one was perfectly cool and still.
On that night the Asp’s parents had the servants pack a picnic, and then had given even the driver the night off. The Asp’s father, himself, had driven them all out to the Pyramids, to mingle with the tourists for the Son et Lumière show. All because his brother liked the lights.
The Asp would celebrate no more birthdays with his brother, or his father and mother, in this life. The journey from that happier time and place had already been long and painful, and remained to be completed.
Ten minutes later another car, a Jeep SUV appointed like a limousine, approached. Handsome, in its blocky way, as the Jag had been in its curvaceous glory, the Jeep arrived at the rendezvous. It dropped off the guide, along with the large backpack that contained the inflatable boat.
The guide’s greasy hair hung to his shoulders. He smelled of tobacco and sweat, and wore his shirt open. A gold crusader’s cross dangled from a gold chain that encircled his neck.
Hands on his hips, he looked the Asp up and down, then pointed at the Asp’s backpack. “You’re taking that into the States with you?”
The Asp nodded. “You’re charging me four times, to compensate for the three empty seats you usually fill. So there should be space.”
“It’s not a question of space. It’s a question of what’s in your bag. I’m already carrying a kilo and a half.”
“You didn’t say you transported drugs, as well as people.” And I didn’t ask, because the people who told me about you already told me.
“Listen, man. Coahuila is Los Zetas territory. I pay my taxes to the Z’s. They let me freelance a kilo and a half every trip, because I kick up to them from my take.”
They told me all of that, too. What attracted me to a drug smuggler, operating on the fringe of the Los Zetas cartel, is that, unlike a mere smuggler of peasants, a smuggler like you needs to avoid the Americans almost as badly as I do.
The Asp said to the guide, “I am carrying no drugs. I’ve brought my own water. Like I was told.”
