SAN DIEGO
MONDAY, 1:23 A.M.
ANOTHER BORDER PATROL HELICOPTER leaped from the tarmac of Brown Field and swung sharply off into the darkness over Spring Canyon. Searchlights probed the tangle of brush where coyotes, feral dogs, smugglers, bandits, and sweating illegals hid. A mile away, along the south edge of Spring Canyon, the lights of Tijuana’s Colonia Libertad washed in a glittering tide against the steel wall of the border. The night was alive with fear and hope.
Grace and Faroe stared out the windshield, waiting for Steele’s plane to land. The airfield in front of them was pools of darkness and strips of light. Thin fingers of mist curled around the pedestal lights at the edges of the hardstands.
A group of people came out of the night and raced across the asphalt runway, disappearing into the darkness on the other side.
“What was that?” Grace asked, startled.
“Illegals,” Faroe said. “Ghosts in the night. They disappear and then reappear a thousand yards or a thousand miles away. By dinnertime those runners could be in Chicago or New York or Atlanta.”
“You really enjoy the shadows, don’t you?” Grace asked.
“It’s the only place I’ve ever felt completely alive.”
She made a sound that could have been a laugh. “Completely alive, huh? In other circumstances I’d be insulted, or at least disappointed.”
“In other circumstances, I’d tell you that we met and loved in that shadow world. Best thing that ever happened to me.”
“And the worst,” she whispered.
“That too. Have you figured out which hurts most?”
She made that sound again, half laugh, half sigh, all sadness. “No.”
“Neither have I.”
Off to the east, above Otay Mesa, a pair of powerful lights appeared in the darkness-an aircraft on a straight-in final approach.
“Steele,” Faroe said.
An oversize buslike vehicle that had been parked on an isolated tie-down area started up its diesel engine. Running lights and interior lights snapped on.
At almost the same moment, another vehicle drove through the perimeter gate and headed for the bus. As it passed under a light on the front of a small hangar, Faroe got a good look. It had the unmistakable profile of an armored messenger truck. He punched his speed dial and within a few seconds was speaking with a St. Kilda communicator.
“Is someone supposed to be meeting Steele?” he demanded.
Grace could hear the distant, disembodied voice on the other end of the phone line. He sounded amused.
“Okay,” Faroe said, snapping the phone shut.
“And?” Grace asked.
“Looks like Steele has been rounding up the usual suspects and then some.”
Faroe started the Mercedes and joined the odd caravan that was assembling on the hardstand.
Ambassador James Steele came down the ramp in the arms of a mammoth linebacker of a man named Harley. Steele rode with his arm around the bodyguard’s neck. He was dressed in a newly pressed suit, a clean white shirt, and a perfectly knotted tie.
Faroe and Grace met Steele at the bottom of the ramp. Three men got out of the idling diesel bus, which doubled as traveling quarters and a rolling command post. Faroe didn’t know any of the three, but they all moved like former Navy SEALs or special ops of some stripe.
One of the men pulled a gleaming, tricked-out wheelchair from the motor home’s baggage compartment. A few swift motions positioned the chair and activated its electronics. In the glare of the jet’s landing lights, Steele looked down at the unconventional wheelchair for a long moment, examining its tubular frame and cutaway alloy wheels.
“Have I mentioned that I’m not into racing?” Steele said acidly to Harley.
Harley deposited the Ambassador on the seat, arranged his legs, and made some adjustments to the seat and controls. “I’ve been jonesing to get you into this one for months. Now stop pouting and pay attention. This is the joystick.”
“Oh my God,” Steele said through his teeth.
“Forward is forward, back is back, and side to side are self-explanatory,” the big bodyguard-nurse explained.
“I’m still not racing anyone,” Steele retorted.
But as he fiddled with the joystick, he didn’t quite conceal his pleasure at how responsive the machine was. Not as good as legs, but better than whatever else was in second place.
“If I can only teach this contraption to talk politely to me,” Steele said to Harley, “I can fire you.”
“Not until you teach it to wipe your ass, too.”
Steele laughed, then looked at Faroe and Grace. “You look like you could use some sleep, Your Honor. I have legal meds if you need them.”
“So far, so good,” she said.
“Don’t be shy,” Steele said. “They’re part of every special ops survival kit, and those people are trained within an inch of their lives. You aren’t. You don’t want to be staggering tired when you need to be alert.”
“She’ll think about it,” Faroe said before Grace could answer.
“And so will you,” Steele said to Faroe.
It wasn’t a suggestion.
“Before I debrief you,” Steele continued, “there’s someone you must meet.”
They watched as Steele turned the chair smartly and rolled across the asphalt to where the idling armored car was parked. As the Ambassador approached, the side door of the truck swung open and a slight, white-haired Mexican in a business suit stepped down. The Mexican moved with a flat-footed limp and a stiffness in his upper body that spoke of old injuries.
When the two men met on the hardstand and shook hands, the Mexican bowed stiffly at the waist, a courtly gesture that was old-fashioned and completely natural. They spoke together in the shadows between the hard glare of headlights and landing lights. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted over.
“Who is it?” Grace asked quietly.
“If it’s who I hope it is, Lane’s chances just went up. I’ll gladly sit in a smoke-filled room to pick that man’s brain.”
Steele and the other man crossed the asphalt to stand in the shadows near Grace and Faroe.
“Allow me to introduce Dimas Quintana Blanco,” Steele said, “one of the foremost journalistic chroniclers of Tijuana’s narcotraficantes. Senor Quintana has agreed to advise us in an informal way on our problem.”
Faroe offered his hand. “A genuine honor, senor.”
“It is mutual,” Quintana said with a small smile. “I won’t ask your name, because I know you by too many as it is.”
Faroe’s smile flashed in the shadowed night.
Quintana took Grace’s hands in his own and bowed. “Judge Silva, I am profoundly sorry to hear of your troubles.”
“I didn’t expect to be discussing them with a journalist,” Grace said bluntly.
“Don’t worry,” Faroe said. “The Rivas Gang already has offered Senor Quintana silver or lead. He chose lead. Ten years ago, ROG assassinated his business partner. Three years ago, they tried for him.”
Grace’s stomach clenched. It was one thing to hear vague rumors of Mexican journalists, cops, and judges being shot because they refused to go along with ROG.
It was quite another to look at the dark eyes of the man whose life had been scarred by lead.
“In Tijuana, any honest journalist has a target painted on his back,” Quintana said calmly, dropping his cigarette to the ground and crushing the ember with his heel. “Fortunately, ROG’s gunmen are cowards as well as bad shots. We survive-very carefully, yes, but we survive. Whatever information I have, I will give to you with greatest pleasure.”