The moon threw just enough light to follow the dirt road without headlights. They parked and then for hours watched the ocean and the waves breaking on the crescent of beach below. The dark shapes of moored fishing boats rocked gently. The beach bar with its blue neon sign and rose-colored lights leaked music. Two vehicles sat out front of the bar, a battered Toyota pickup and a light-colored minivan. Javits studied each again. Nothing had changed and she was tired and doubting Rayman’s tip.
But she did not doubt that Rayman knew she was in Baja before he made the phone call tonight. She brought it up again.
‘Who passed the word that I was coming down here to double up with you?’
‘You’re paranoid because of what happened to Marquez.’
Osiers was weary of talking about it but she kept worrying away at it, trying to get at what she was missing, and they kept watching the dark sea with the arrow of moonlight across it. Her thoughts jumped to John driving back to Tijuana with Takado’s body in the seat next to him.
‘Hear that?’ Osiers asked.
At first she only heard the music and the waves breaking, but now heard the low thrum of a plane, a vibration as much as a sound. Osiers pulled on the night vision goggles, plastic straps snapping against his skin. Whatever was out there was flying without lights. The sound grew closer.
‘Got it,’ Osiers said. ‘I see it.’
Sheryl heard the plane’s engines working as it made the drop and pulled up. Boat engines kicked in and sounded like mosquitoes at this distance. Boats must have been sitting out there waiting in the dark. Now, below them a truck turned of the highway and started along the road toward the beach and the bar. Headlights traced the road. It passed the bar, continued on toward the dock and the beach. A jeep followed a few minutes later and Osiers called it out.
‘I count four in the jeep.’
He pulled the goggles off and asked, ‘Hear the bigger boat, that droning? That’s the ambush coming.’
She saw the lights of the smaller boats way out there. They had found the load and were probably winching it up and now were very scared as the fastboat’s engines rose in pitch and closed in. The fishermen picking up the load were more than likely locals with families here. They were out there making extra money. The narco trafficantes arriving in a fastboat were coming in without lights, closing for the capture and kill.
From up here she and Osiers watched it like a play, a bit episode in centuries of smuggling. They saw the flash of gunfire, heard the shooting, the pip, pip, pip loud enough to be real and far away enough not to be.
‘They’re dying out there,’ Javits said softly.
On the beach the panel truck backed up to the dock and men got out of the jeep with weapons. The bar lights went out. Shooting out on the water stopped and very faintly the scream of a woman carried on the wind and made Javits shudder. Made her wish she was a thousand miles away living a whole different life.
But it was only that one scream and then a brighter light shone out on the sea. That had to be the big offshore boat using a searchlight. There was no more shooting, so they must be getting their pilots on to the fishing boats and starting the boats this way, she guessed. The searchlight went out. The fastboat’s engines droned loud again as it ran south into the night, and the convoy of fishing boats moved slowly this way, their lights rising and falling, their owners left somewhere back in the dark sea.
As they watched the boats come in and off-loading start, Osiers said matter-of-factly, ‘I’m going down to those trees where the beach road hits the highway. Do you know where I’m talking about?’
‘Right where the beach road meets the highway?’
‘Yeah, right there, and I’ll wait in the trees and try to get some plate numbers. Stay here until they pull out and we know what direction they’re going. I’ll radio you to come get me and we’ll call the Mex Feds if we get license plate numbers.’ He paused. ‘You got that?’
‘They could have someone down there watching the road.’
‘No, I watched both vehicles pull in, neither slowed or stopped, and if we don’t get plates and makes on the vehicles, the Mex Feds aren’t going to do shit. I know how they work around here.’
He left before they could argue about it, and she watched him as far as she could. Ten minutes later her radio squawked as he reached the trees.
‘I’m here.’
Javits watched the Jeep and the panel truck leave the beach and start up the road toward the highway. She glanced back toward the beach. Bar lights remained off, same two vehicles still parked in front. The panel truck and Jeep drove out the beach road and slowed where the road met the highway near the trees where Jim was waiting. When the vehicles turned north and disappeared she started down. As she reached the highway she expected Osiers to radio and she paused there, and then drove slowly down the highway. When she neared the stand of trees and the beach road entrance, the Toyota pickup that had been parked in front of the bar pulled out on to the highway, accelerated and passed her going north. So the pickup hadn’t just been left there for the night. That bothered her and when Osiers didn’t answer the radio she got worried.
She drove down around the curve in the highway and then came back slowly, expecting him to walk out on to the highway shoulder. She cued the radio repeatedly and now turned down the road to the beach, stopped at the trees, and got out. She called, ‘Jim.’ She used her headlights and then a flashlight, and then hurried back to the car.
She drove slowly forward trying the radio. Twenty minutes later she fought to keep her voice calm as she used the satellite phone to call Marquez. Her heart hammered. The phone rang. Come on, John, pick up, please pick up, and then he did.