The Mexico Run (27 page)

    I gave it a great deal of thought. It was true, of course, that there was every reasonable chance Ann and her sister would not be stopped at the border. It was equally true that should anything happen they would probably eventually manage to beat the rap. There was a danger, of course, but there was a certain danger, no matter what I did.

    "Let us say, captain, that I do go ahead with this. What guarantee do I have as far as Angel Cortillo is concerned?"

    "You have my word."

    "Your word is not good enough, captain. If I do this, I will do it under only one possible condition. The plan calls for my leaving Ensenada the day after tomorrow. As I have explained, I am to follow the camper in my car. I want Angel Cortillo sitting next to me in that car. I want his papers to be cleared so that he can cross the border. This is the only condition under which I would undertake the mission."

    "You ask a great deal, Senor Johns. It would be extremely difficult."

    "Why should it be any more difficult the day after tomorrow than later on?"

    He didn't answer my question. Instead he was silent for several moments before he again spoke.

    "You say that you are to leave Friday? What time on Friday?"

    "I do not have the details yet," I said. "Santiago will be getting in touch with me again tomorrow, apparently to give me the final outline of the plan. As of now, I have not even agreed to go ahead with it."

    "But you will go ahead with it, Senor Johns."

    "I will go ahead with it under the terms that I have stated."

    "I must know exactly when you leave and all other details. But I will not see you again."

    "And then how will you know?" I asked.

    Again he hesitated.

    "Santiago will be giving you the final details on your methods of procedure some time within the next twenty-four hours. As soon as he does, I want you to write them out and put them in a sealed envelope and give them to Billings. I will want to know exactly when you plan to leave, the route you plan to take, where you will cross the border, as well as your ultimate destination after you cross the border. That envelope must be handed to Billings at least three hours before your actual departure."

    "And you will see to it, then, that Cortillo is in my car when we leave La Casa Pacifica?"

    "I will see that he is in your car."

    "Should there be any hitch, captain, I will abort the trip. Neither I nor the camper will leave Ensenada."

    "There will be no hitch."

    He opened the door of the car and without another word stepped to the street and stalked off into the night. I returned to La Casa Pacifica.

    

    

    It had been a long day and a longer night. I could have slept for ten hours, and probably would have, had I not been awakened before nine o'clock the following morning by the ringing of the telephone in my room.

    Carlos Santiago didn't bother to give his name, but came directly to the point.

    "I have been in touch with our friend in Acapulco," he said. "I would like to see you immediately."

    This time he requested that I come to his room, and I met him there some forty minutes later.

    "You've thought over our conversation of last night?" he asked, after I had entered the room and he had closed the door behind him.

    "I've, thought it over," I said. "I still don't like your plan, but if there is no other way of doing it, I will be forced to go along."

    "An excellent decision, Mr. Johns," he said. "And a very wise one on your part. Our friend in Acapulco was quite unhappy when I talked with him."

    "He will have nothing to be unhappy about," I said shortly.

    "In that case, we will go over the details. We haven't got too much time. I will want you to leave here at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. You will cross the border at Mexicali sometime shortly after dark."

    I looked up, startled.

    "Mexicali? Why not Tijuana?"

    "Tijuana is always a dangerous place," he said. "And furthermore, Mexicali fits into our plans."

    He walked over to a table on which he had spread a large-scale map. It covered the area of northern Baja California and Southern California proper.

    He took a pencil from his pocket and pointed to a spot on the map in California in the Vallecito Mountains, just off State Route S2.

    "There is a small desert inn at this location," he said. "Now follow me. When you cross at Mexicali you drive north to Calexico, where you will pick up Route 98 going west. You will follow that Route 98 west to the point where it intercepts Route 8. You will cross Route 8, pass through the town of Ocotillo, and continue north on State Route S2 for exactly thirty-eight miles. You will see a small dirt road on the right hand side opposite the Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

    "A mile and a half in on this road and you arrive at the Rancho Grande Inn. You will arrange with the two girls who are driving the camper to meet at this inn, explaining to them that you have phoned ahead for reservations for the night.

    "And when do I phone ahead for these reservations?"

    "You don't. You will be expected. It is a small, secluded, semiprivate lodge, and your party will be the only one which will be there tomorrow night."

    "And then what happens?"

    "Your companions will retire to the room which has been reserved for them, to wash up before dinner. You will go to a separate room. After a short interval you will join your friends and have dinner. After you have eaten, you must see to it that the young ladies retire for the night. They are not to leave the inn once they have arrived. The following morning you will all be free to depart."

    "And that is all there is to it?"

    "That is all."

    "I assume then that the package will be picked up sometime on Friday night, while we are at the lodge?" I asked.

    "Let us just say that when you leave on Saturday morning, we will no longer be worrying about the destination of the contents of that package. That if all goes well-and all should go well and must go well-you will have earned your commission."

    I nodded. It seemed simple enough. Almost too simple. I guess he was reading my mind.

    "It is a very simple plan and one which should be foolproof. But there is one thing you must do. Until you arrive at the inn, you are not to let that camper out of your sight. Not for an instant. But you must be very careful. Especially at the border. You must do nothing which would make anyone believe that you are following it or riding herd on it. There is a chance, of course, that during the actual crossing of the border, the camper will be some distance ahead of you, but you must catch up to it as quickly as possible."

    "You sound,as though you think there is some possibility of its being intercepted," I said. "I have told you I will not have those girls put in a position where they could be…"

    "We expect no trouble at all," he interrupted. "None. But we are still taking no unnecessary risks. On the other hand, you are being paid a very large sum of honey, and you must be prepared to earn it if the necessity arises."

    "You are considering the possibility of a hijack?" I asked. "It has happened before with people running Narcotics into the States."

    He shook his head.

    "I think we can disregard that possibility," he said. The only people who know of this operation are our own people-and our security is watertight-and the people in the other end who are to receive the cargo. There is no possibility of a leak at that end."

    "In that case," I said, "why all the worry about my hiding shotgun?"

    He looked at me as though I wasn't quite bright.

    "Suppose," he said, "the camper were to break down somewhere along the road? Suppose it were to be involved in an accident? These things can happen you know. Well, we would want you there. We would want you to stay with he vehicle until arrangements could be made. You under-stand?"

    I understood. It sounded reasonable enough. After all, they would have a half a million dollars riding in it.

    We went over it again, this time, in detail. He explained very explicitly about the dirt road turning off the main highway which led to the Rancho Grande Inn. exactly how we were to recognize it. That if by any chance the Volkswagen missed the turnoff, I was to catch up at once and turn it back.

    When he was through, he folded up the map and landed it to me.

    "There must be no mistakes," he said. "No mistakes. You understand?"

    "There will be no mistakes," I said.

    When I returned to my room, I found a sheet of paper and I carefully wrote out my itinerary for the following day. The time we would leave, the route we would take our ultimate destination after we crossed into the States.

    I added an extra paragraph before sealing it in an un addressed envelope. I wrote: "Only if my friend is sitting next to me in my car and his papers are clear."

    Billings was at the desk in the lobby, and I handed him the envelope, being careful to see first that we were alone.

    "For our friend, the captain," I said. "He is waiting for it, waiting very anxiously."

    Billings took the envelope, saying nothing.

    A dozen times during those isolated moments when had Ann to myself that day I was tempted to tell her what would happen when we left Friday afternoon. The fact that I didn't wasn't because I feared she would refuse to go along with my plans. I believed she would if she knew the whole story, knew what was involved. No, what mad me hesitate was the realization that the knowledge would put her in additional jeopardy. She would feel guilty, and it would show. She would be unable to conceal it.

    It would increase the risks of her being stopped and subjected to a minute search. The very essence of the safety of the plan lay in the fact that she wouldn't know what she was doing.

    On the other hand, I was exposing her to certain calculated risks, and it was unfair not to tell her, not to give her the opportunity to refuse to take those risks.

    In one way I was balancing my loyalty to Ann against my loyalty to Angel Cortillo; my obligations to Ann against my obligations to Angel.

    I tried to consider it coldly. I tried to reason that ever if she was stopped, if the drugs were found in her possession, she'd be able to get out of it.

    On the other hand, if I failed to go through with the plan, I knew what Angel's fate would be.

    One thing, however, I did decide. When it was over and done with, I would tell her everything.

    It was during the mid-afternoon, after we had had lunch and Lynn had gone back into the surf to swim, that I had my first opportunity to talk with Ann alone. I outlined the plans for the following day, telling her that I wanted to drive up to the border and into California with her and giving her the itinerary.

    She was curious about the roundabout route I had selected, but I explained that I wanted her to see something of the real Mexico. She fell in with the plan.

    And then I had to explain about Angel Cortillo. I told her that he was a friend of mine who had been in a hospital following an accident, and I had promised to drive him back to the United States. I explained that I wanted them to go first, and that we would be following in the XKE. I got out a map and I traced the trip to the border and beyond.

    "We'll leave in the afternoon," I said, "around three o'clock. Angel can't make it before then."

    "This friend of yours," Ann said, "will he be with you all the way, or are you dropping him off after you cross the border?"

    "I'm not quite sure what his plans are," I said. "He will probably stay in Calexico, just across the border. We went to school together in Texas. You will like him. He is a very fine man."

    "You say he has had an accident and has been sick. What happened to him?"

    "It's a long story, Ann," I said. "I'll explain it to you later."

    Some time toward the latter part of the afternoon we finished off a bottle of champagne and then lay on a blanket in the sun on the beach and I rubbed oil into her back. Within a few moments she was quietly dozing off, breathing gently as she slept. Lynn was sitting in a folding deck chair a few feet away reading a paperback novel, and she asked me if I wanted to go back in the water with her. She pouted when I shook my head. I lay beside Ann on the blanket, on my stomach, my head on my folded arms, but I didn't sleep. I was thinking,

    I was planning what I would do once we had safely crossed the border.

    Thinking of a telephone call I would make from a phone booth before I headed north on Routh S2, heading for that lonely semi-private lodge, the Rancho Grande Inn.

    I took the two girls into Ensenada for dinner at a Mexican restaurant which oddly enough served superb French food. It was a leisurely meal, and we didn't leave until after 10 o'clock.

    When we returned, La Casa Pacifica was deserted except for Billings, and we had one nightcap in the bar before taming in for the night. I wanted everyone to get a good rest.

    I walked Ann and her sister to the door of their room and Lynn went in. Ann waited until she'd closed the door, and then we kissed goodnight.

    She wanted to know if I wanted her to come back to my room for a while, but I shook my head. I could tell that she wanted to talk, and I didn't want to have to go through any more lies. I kissed her again and told her that I was very tired and that I wanted us both to get a good night's sleep. I sensed her disappointment.

    I only hoped that sometime before another twenty-four hours were over, I would be able to explain things to her.