Unlimited (10 page)

When the gang left their region, Carlos returned home and opened a small business repairing cars. He was too young to own the business outright. So his mother and his uncle, his late father's brother, cosigned as partners. His mother arranged this. She was the smart one in the family and Carlos agreed with everything she suggested. He tried to tell himself he was content with his life, living in the small village and eating in his mother's kitchen and repairing cars. He even started seeing a young woman.

Then when Carlos was twenty, the jefe had called and asked to see him.

The boss did not actually come himself, of course. He sent a car. The driver was very respectful. The boss did not order Carlos to come. He asked it. As a favor.

When Carlos arrived, the boss came out of his fine office and personally shook Carlos's hand and ushered him inside and offered him coffee and made sure he was comfortable. Then the boss ordered everyone out and told his secretary there were to be no interruptions. Then he asked, “Are you happy with your life?”

Carlos shrugged. The drive from his village to this office had taken almost two hours, long enough to decide why the boss had called. “I am alive. Thanks to you. And my brothers and sisters will not be forced to do what I have done. Thanks to you.”

The boss nodded slowly, accepting both the gratitude and the fact that Carlos had acknowledged the debt. “I have a problem. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“If I can, I will do this thing.”

“Do you not want to know what my problem is?”

“If you want to tell me, I will listen. But it does not matter.”

“What precisely are you saying?”

“I will do whatever you ask.”

The words hung in the cool, still air. Then the boss smiled. It was a beautiful thing, this smile. Huge and uncomplicated and full of power. It was as fine a reward as Carlos had ever known. “I have a man who is troubling me greatly.”

“Give me his name,” Carlos replied instantly. “He will never bother you again.”

Again the smile appeared. No words of thanks could possibly have matched the quality of this reward. “I seek to do everything I can to help lift up our little corner of Mexico.”

“This I know,” Carlos said.

“Unfortunately, to do this, I am sometimes forced to take actions that are outside the law.”

Carlos wore a leather jacket that creaked as he shrugged. “This is Mexico. It is to be expected.”

“If I am to be successful, no connection can ever be made between these actions and myself.”

“I understand.”

“For this reason, I regret that we shall not be able to meet together very often. Perhaps never again.”

Carlos nodded his acceptance. The prospect of never being in this man's presence again was bitterly disappointing. But he had found a purpose in life. He would do what was required of him.

The boss rose to his feet. He was a young man, tall and strong and handsome. The power radiated from him like heat from the sun. “Know that you have my undying gratitude. Your family will want for nothing.”

Carlos spoke the words he knew the boss wanted to hear. “Whatever you require. Tell me and it will be done.”

Carlos was seated in his car, watching the orphanage's front gates. He had tracked his quarry back to their lair. The attack was to be secret this time. His orders were clear. No fuss, no witnesses, no sign. Just make the Yanqui disappear.

So far, this American had not been alone for an instant. The police had come and gone, the mayor, the woman Sofia. Now the town manager was poking around. But it was only a matter of time.

Carlos had scouted twice around the orphanage exterior. Despite his size, he could join with the shadows and move in utter stealth. It was his gift, this silent passage. He took pride in his work, as he did the trust his boss placed in his abilities.

Because cell-phone service was spotty in north Chihuahua, Carlos carried a satellite phone. It meant he could be reached anywhere, instantly. The phone was very cumbersome. But it was also virtually impossible to have a call over a satellite phone traced. When his phone buzzed, he picked it from the seat beside him, saw who called, and pressed the receive button. “Jefe.”

“You are on him?”

“He is two hundred meters away. The orphanage has only one entrance. If I move to where I can observe him, I will be seen.”

“No, no. Stay where you are. In fact, I want you to pull farther back.”

“I can take this one. Now, if you like. The others, they can be frightened into silence. Or erased as well. You know I can do this.”

“No. The orphanage is not to be touched. And this man, I must rescind my order.”

“You do not want him killed, even in secret?”

“For the moment, he must live.”

Carlos did not object to the change in orders. It was not his nature to object. Not with this man. “As you say, Jefe.”

“Stay on him. Report back to me any movement. And be ready to move upon my command. His stay of execution is only temporary.”

Carlos cut the connection and settled back into his seat. He did not move his car. There was no need. It was a perfect position for unseen observation. The orphanage gates opened onto a small village plaza. There were hundreds of such places in Mexico, thousands. Tiny hamlets that had been swallowed by growing towns and cities, yet which maintained their individual nature.

There was a whitewashed church, and a small grocery, and a pair of cafés, and seven little shops that somehow managed to eke out an existence. Old men sat on weathered benches beneath dusty trees. Another man sat behind the wheel of a truck, waiting with the eternal patience of a Mexican peasant. No one paid Carlos any mind.

He stared at the gates, content to wait and observe. He understood the boss. There was no need to trouble him with discussions or further questions. The American would be kept on a long leash. He would be allowed to breathe the air another day. Perhaps two. But the orders remained in place.

The American would never be allowed to cross the border alive.

Simon went upstairs and took a long shower, trying to wash off the morning and the sweat and the emotions. Occasionally he heard Sofia's voice in the office below him. She sounded upset. Simon assumed she had just heard it would take a week to get him a new passport. Through the guestroom's open window, he saw that Pedro's truck was parked by the front gates. Which was a good thing. He had an idea and he needed Pedro's help.

A fresh bandage had been laid out on the bed, alongside a tube of antibiotic cream and another T-shirt and drawstring trousers. Juan, no doubt. The kid was incredible. As Simon peeled off the wet bandage, Sofia's voice rose momentarily, long enough for him to catch one word.
Reckless
. Simon sat on the stool and toyed with the key strung around his neck. Reckless had been Vasquez's favorite way of describing him.

The last time Simon had seen the professor, Vasquez entered the bar during Simon's shift and ordered him to stop wasting time and get back to his real work. By that point, Vasquez was the only person at MIT who hadn't written him off.

Simon started to offer his standard response, that he spent so much time in the bar, he might as well get paid for his troubles. But something in the professor's gaze stopped him. Vasquez had barely been able to contain his excitement. He was working on a new method of generating power. For years the professor had searched for a means to break the Mexican power company's stranglehold over the poor. Vasquez was never more passionate than when he was defending the oppressed of Mexico.

In Mexico, electricity was controlled by a government monopoly called Comisión Federal de Electricidad, or CFE. Vasquez accused the CFE of fostering an attitude of corruption. Nothing was done without kickbacks. The senior bureaucrats running CFE had fought and schemed all their lives to arrive at the point where they could line their pockets. Supplying power was the least of their concerns. CFE had the highest cost per kilowatt of any major power company in the entire world. CFE was so inefficient, over half of all power generated was lost between the station and the end user. The professor could go on for hours about CFE.

That night the professor had revealed to Simon the project that had consumed his every free hour for years. He made a major breakthrough, but more was needed. Much more. And Simon was the answer. Of that the professor was absolutely certain. He spoke with a believer's fervor. Vasquez was
convinced
of this.

Simon leaned over the bar and watched as Vasquez described his work, using bar napkins and a pen that blurred and stained over the wet spots. Simon was totally captivated, rushing back from filling orders. Amazed at the man's vision. Jealous of the professor's ability to dream. And frightened of letting him down.

When Simon descended the orphanage stairs, Harold played a piano while Juan stood and sang beside him. Simon was surprised at the quality of the boy's voice. It broke a couple of times, as Juan struggled to work through the change to manhood. It bothered Juan a lot more than it did Harold, who beamed approval and said several times, “Good, that is excellent. You are ready!”

Pedro stood on the shaded stoop outside Harold's office. Simon knew there was more at work than the town's assistant manager holding up a post in his former home. Pedro was waiting for him. Bearing the weight of his sister's words.

“I know you took a risk bringing me here. I appreciate that,” Simon said, then repeated the same words he had told Sofia. “I don't want to do anything that might harm these kids.”

Pedro swiped his face with a hand broad as a shovel, as though a hard life had expanded and flattened it. “This is south of the border. Very few things are the way any of us want them.”

Simon nodded, more in respect to what the guy had lived through than an acceptance of his words. “I need two things. First, a passport.”

“Enrique is handling this.”

“He also said it was going to take a week.”

“Maybe less. Four days, he hopes.”

“Still, do I stay here for another four days?”

“Harold says you are our guest.” Pedro did not speak so much as sigh the words.

Simon tried to keep the relief from his face. He had virtually no money and nowhere else to go. And this place did seem to offer a basic level of comfort and safety. “Okay. Great. Thanks.”

Pedro shrugged. Clearly the decision was not his, and the gratitude was misdirected. “And the second thing?”

“Harold showed me a video of Vasquez in his lab making the apparatus work. I need his data.”

“What are you saying?”

He took a breath. “I need to get into his lab.”

“You are as Sofia describes. Reckless. A threat.”

“You heard what Harold said. This machine could be a big deal. And I need to find out what Vasquez was closing in on.”

“Harold would also say we should not take this risk.”

Simon saw the man fish his keys from his pocket and knew he had won. “Then I guess we better not tell him where we're going.”

Carlos was confused. Which for him was a dangerous condition. He responded to confusion with an icy rage. When he became bewildered, people were hurt. It was inevitable.

And this day, the American was to blame.

Carlos had never disobeyed a direct order from the jefe. But today might be an exception.

He had followed the town assistant manager's decrepit pickup from the orphanage. Carlos saw the American in the passenger seat. So long as they had remained on the main road circling to the west of Ojinaga's downtown, Carlos could hang back. Pedro's pickup had a tall frame holding a stepladder and cleaning equipment. Carlos could see it even with six cars between them.

When Pedro turned off the main road and started up the hill known as Boys' Town, following them had grown more difficult. But Carlos was not worried. They could only be headed toward the professor's house. There was nothing else in Boys' Town that could possibly interest them. The former houses with the women were mostly shut down. And the people around the orphanage were all religious. Carlos assumed that included the American. It meant nothing to him. It changed nothing. A job was a job. Duty was everything.

But now he had failed the boss. He had lost them.

Carlos could not risk keeping the truck within view. There was almost no traffic on the road that climbed the Boys' Town ridge. When he had first come to Ojinaga, driving this road had been entirely different. After dark the traffic had been so bad, most people parked along the main road and hiked in. The visitors had been almost all men.
Vaqueros
in from the surrounding farms climbed the ridge, laughing against their nerves, their high-heeled boots clicking on the stones. They shared the road with loud-mouthed tourists from across the border.

From almost every house had come music and the clink of glasses and the raucous laughter. Carlos had known Boys' Town intimately, for it was from this place that many of the coyotes operated. The violence and the danger had lurked just beyond the reach of the gaiety, and many dawns revealed fresh corpses.