OVER TIJUANA
MONDAY, 9:33 A.M.
THE HELICOPTER CAME IN from the north and circled the eastern edge of Tijuana like an American border patrol aircraft slightly off course. The pilot made slow orbits over the hillside slums and shantytowns of Colonia Libertad.
Galindo sat in the front seat, next to the pilot, looking a little dizzy from the circling. Faroe looked over his shoulder, orienting him to the aerial view of reality while Magon translated. Galindo had never been in an aircraft, much less in an aerobatic helicopter. He was having a hard time sorting out perspective.
Finally he spotted a crowded highway intersection.
“There, I remember,” he said over the intercom in rough Spanish. “We travel on that when they bring us to the warehouse.”
Ahead of them lay the patterned ground lights of the Tijuana airport looking sullen beneath a haze of jet exhaust, heat, and humidity from the storm circling over the Pacific. Beyond the airfield was the fenced and plowed border.
Faroe touched the pilot on the shoulder and pointed to the industrial buildings behind the airport perimeter fence.
“Then it has to be in there, right?” Faroe asked in Spanish.
Galindo nodded quickly. “Yes. Yes. I remember the noise. Big jets shake the ground and we dig deep.”
“Let’s have a closer look at those buildings,” Faroe said. “Maybe you’ll remember the shape of a door or windows or something.”
“That’s restricted airspace,” the pilot said in English over the intercom. “Unless you want to dogfight the Mexican air force, we can’t get any closer.”
“I think I see one of your status lights flashing red,” Faroe said.
The pilot looked at the status lights. Green. He ducked his chin, staring at Faroe over the top of his aviator glasses. Then he shrugged. “Sure. Why not? It’s not my bird.”
He fingered the dials of his radio and brought up the airport tower frequency.
While the pilot argued with the air traffic controller about just how urgent a need the helicopter had to land, Galindo stared at the ground, trying to recognize something, anything, that would identify which building might be hiding the entrance to the tunnel.
“Look,” the pilot said to air control. “I have a status light flashing red every time I get above sixty feet. I don’t know if I can make it over the border. I can declare an in-air emergency, land, and then we’ll all spend the rest of the day doing paperwork, or you can just give me clearance to fly straight and low for Brown Field.”
After a supervisor was called in, the pilot got clearance for a shortcut to the border.
“Going down,” the pilot said over the helicopter intercom. “Look sharp. This card can only be played once.”
The helicopter passed over the field, then dropped to about thirty feet above the taxiway that led to the warehouse area.
“Slow down and let Galindo have a good look,” Faroe said. “It’s got to be on this side of the airport, somewhere close to the border fence.”
The pilot slowed.
Magon talked urgently with the miner, who kept shaking his head and staring anxiously at the hangars and industrial buildings. Then Galindo started talking rapidly in creole, pointing to one of the warehouses.
“That’s it,” Magon translated. “He recognized the printing on the roof.”
The helicopter flew slowly over a large sheet-metal hangar with four twin-engine executive jets parked in front. From the look of it, part of the hangar also served as a warehouse.
Faroe read the sign painted on the roof. “Aeronautico Grupo Calderon. I’m shocked, dude. Just totally shocked. Who’d a thunk?”
The pilot snickered.
“Is he sure?” Faroe asked.
“They transported him in vans with curtains,” Magon translated, “but he remembers that name on the side of the vans.”
“Gotta love advertising,” Faroe said. “And there’s how they got rid of the dirt.” He pointed to the fake hills and raised landscaping that surrounded the building.
Magon was quiet.
Too quiet.
“You didn’t know about that nasty little alliance between the drug trade and Grupo Calderon?” Faroe asked.
“I knew there was a relationship,” Magon said, his voice thick with disgust. “I didn’t think it was this close.”
“It’s so close that I don’t know who’s pitching and who’s catching. Ask Galindo about the entrance on this side.”
“The tunnel entrance is at the back, on the left, in a big supply closet,” Magon said.
“What about the other end of the tunnel?”
Magon didn’t have to ask Galindo. The miner was already pointing toward another industrial sheet-metal warehouse a quarter mile away, on the other side of the border.
“It must be that building there,” Magon translated. “He can give you distances and compass directions from memory. They had to be very precise to come up in the right place on the other side.”
Faroe touched the pilot on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs-up. “Take us home.”
Magon kept translating. “The other entrance is in a bathroom in the manager’s office of that building. Galindo was in charge of the calculations. He only missed by one meter over a distance of six hundred meters.”
Faroe’s eyebrows rose. “Then he can find both entrances again, right?”
Galindo nodded eagerly. He understood Spanish a lot better than he spoke it.
Faroe called Steele to tell him they’d caught a break.
No one answered.
Frowning, he tried again.
Still no answer.
The helicopter picked up speed, then dropped off the radar as soon as the terrain allowed. Soon waves were rushing by beneath. Just beneath. The pilot circled back into U.S. airspace at wave-top height and settled onto the sandy RV park north of Imperial Beach.
Faroe started swearing under his breath when he spotted the extra cars through the flying sand caused by the prop wash. He thought about keeping everyone aboard and running for it.
He didn’t.
There was no time to run and no place to hide.
“Everybody out,” Faroe said.
Galindo and Father Magon stumbled to the ground, shielding their eyes from the sand.
“That’s it,” the pilot said as Faroe jumped out. “I’ll get away with that stunt once. But if you don’t start checking in with customs and immigration, there will be F14s from Miramar waiting to shoot you down.”
“Thousands of Mexican peasants make it across the border every night,” Faroe said.
“They aren’t flying helicopters.”
Faroe slammed the cockpit door.
Instantly the chopper lifted off the sand just enough to fly back out to sea, below the radar. Everyone turned their backs on the gale of sand and air. The grit from the prop wash hadn’t even settled before a black Suburban raced up. The two people who jumped out had FBI written all over them.
No wonder Steele wasn’t answering his phone.