Ground Truth (17 page)

One man waved at the others to fan out on the slope between the pipeline and the plant. A second guard moved cautiously toward Jack’s miserable hiding place then stopped, listening, scanning the brush.

The moment the guard looked back toward the clearing, Jack hurled a stone to land away from the pipeline. As it skittered across the rocky ground, the guard fired a volley in that direction.

Jack plunged into deeper brush. If they caught him, they’d find the camera and his toxic waste samples and beat him to death on the spot.

Branches tore at him, but he held back curses and yelps of pain. An automatic rifle fired somewhere behind him, followed by more angry shouts. After running more than half a mile from the wells, he bent over, hands on knees, gulping air, but ready to drive himself on if he had to. The hunt had flipped. No longer the bloodhound, he’d become the quarry.

He moved more slowly through the thorny brush, trying to protect his face from dangling branches. Finally, he saw a raised roadbed ahead. He stopped at the bottom of the slope leading up to the road. Sweat stung in his nicks and scratches. He couldn’t stay where he was. They could still catch up, maybe using dogs. His car was too far away. He’d never get there.

A slowly approaching vehicle rattled like an old truck, maybe carrying a farmer and his girlfriend to a local bar. Or it could be full of armed men scanning the brush for him. By the time he knew for sure who it was, it would be too late to run. If he stepped up onto the road, there was still enough light for them to get him in their sights. He had to decide, and he had to do it now.

Chapter 31

July 6

9:30 p.m.

THE PICKUP STOPPED. The driver leaned across and squinted at Jack through the passenger-side window. With deep, down-turned wrinkles and his few remaining lower teeth protruding from between his lips, he looked like a bad-tempered beaver. After a cold look he turned away, clearly ready to move on.

“Wait, I can pay.” Jack stepped in front of the truck. He pulled out his wallet and held up a handful of peso notes.
“Yo pago,
I’ll pay. After long seconds of hesitation the driver stuck a .22 pistol out the window and sighted on Jack’s nose. If the old man fired, he’d die for no reason on this miserable back road. Jerking the barrel, the driver gestured for him to come closer.

As Jack came alongside, the driver snatched the whole stack of bills out of his hand. He narrowed his eyes, waiting to see if Jack would object. Jack raised one hand, palm facing the driver to signal agreement. He kept the hand holding the hat at his side. The driver waggled the gun barrel at him, a mute threat. Then he wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and pointed the barrel back toward the open bed of the truck where two hog snouts were sniffing over the side rail.

“Muchas gracias.”
Jack pulled himself over the side into the truck bed, pushing the curious hogs out of his way. Unable to stand as the truck bounced violently across ruts and potholes, he slipped to the metal floor plates with his back to the driver’s cabin.

His right hand had been clamped down on the hat full of samples for so long he could barely loosen its grip. He pushed the hat out in front of him and pinned it to the floor with his heel using it as a barrier between his body and the hogs. The hogs backed away, grunting disapproval.

He needed this break to recharge, to let his mind stop racing. This was no spy game. The guards would have reported to Montana that there’d been an intruder, and one workman would earn a bonus for describing that man. Montana would identify Jack Strider in seconds and mobilize all his forces to track him down.

That brought Ana-Maria’s safety to mind. It had been two days, and he hadn’t gotten a confirmation from the
coyote
. That sucked. She wasn’t safe until she was out of Juarez. He’d go to the guy’s place and make sure.

After about twenty minutes, the pickup stopped at a paved, two-lane highway. It was evident the driver intended to turn right, the wrong direction for Jack. So he tapped on the rear window and pantomimed that he wanted off. The hogs snorted and jerked their heads like bulls as he hastily climbed over the side of the truck.

He ran and jogged until he reached his rental car where he’d left it off the main road on the backside of the tank farm. He stuffed the stinking hat into the trunk, sped into Juarez, and drove toward the U.S. border.
He could have been captured—or killed
. This was real. But he gave himself a pat on the back for having figured out Montana’s scheme when he could easily have missed it. And for having taken some damn big risks. He’d keep going, whatever that meant.

In El Paso he stopped at a hardware store and bought a metal bucket with a top held on tightly by four clips. Outside the store, he opened the trunk and turned away when noxious fumes went up his nose. He walked several steps away, sucked in deep breaths of fresh air and returned to use his thumbs and forefingers to pick up the hat and drop it into the bucket. That immediately cut, but didn’t eliminate, the smell. Even after he’d washed his hands vigorously in the hardware store’s bathroom, his fingertips looked chapped.

He quickly spotted the El Diablo Motel, a one-story, cinderblock trucker’s dump that would be a fine hideout. Meeting Debra at the Rialto would be a bad idea, so he asked the desk clerk for the name of a very out-of-the-way place to eat in Juarez. He implied that his companion would be someone he shouldn’t be seen with, so he couldn’t take her to any popular restaurant.

“You want the Casa Lupo,” the clerk said. “Only locals go there.”

Next, he called the Rialto in Juarez. Debra answered immediately.

“Hello,” Debra said in a cautious tone.

“Hi. Meet me at Casa Lupo restaurant. It’s a local hangout, so dress accordingly. Call a cab and leave as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting.”

“Hold on.” Her voice rose and she sounded exasperated. “I’ve been trying to get you all afternoon, but your cell was off. I have something important to tell you.”

“We’ll talk there.”

He was eager to tell her what he’d learned, and to have her challenge his reasoning. They could plan a strategy together, but he didn’t want to do any of that on the Rialto’s phone.

A hot shower washed dried blood out of scratches and made him feel better until he noticed that the water circling the drain was tea brown. He didn’t know whether the unpleasant color came from the El Paso water system, the dirt from his cross-country run, or from his own blood.
This sure wasn’t the Stanford faculty lounge.

The clothes in his luggage would make him stand out like a Mormon missionary, so his next stop would be a clothing store. Scanning shops as he drove, he saw Digby Western & Work Clothes Exchange. Suits and jackets hung around the walls of the long room. All the other clothes were piled in huge wooden crates resting on saw horses. Above each table hung a hand-printed sign announcing the contents of the box.

He found a pair of 34 x 34 jeans and, from the next crate, chose a wide leather belt with the words “Fort Worth” spelled out in flat metal washers riveted across the back. Next, he pulled a navy blue work shirt and a Levi jacket from hangers and headed for a dressing room to change. On the way to the checkout desk, he saw the “hats” crate where a broad-brimmed black Stetson floated on top of the pile waiting to be liberated.

“Twenty eight bucks,” the indifferent teenage cashier stated. Her bored expression didn’t change when he handed over the cash.

Driving across the bridge into Mexico reminded him that decaying Ciudad Juarez wasn’t El Paso South. They were very different cultures separated by a few hundred yards of dirty sand and a trickle of polluted water.

Following the desk clerk’s directions, he drove along a seedy commercial street in north Juarez: shops, bars, men hanging out. When he turned onto Casa Lupo’s street, activity stopped. The neighborhood seemed almost abandoned. The single naked bulb at each street corner barely illuminated the garbage from overturned cans. Most of the buildings, dark as tombs inside, were barricaded with bars and multiple locks. He spotted the yellow neon “Casa Lu o” sign. Apparently, no one had felt a need to replace the missing “P.”

Because of “No Parking” signs along both sides of the narrow street, he had to park around the corner a couple of blocks away.

As he walked back toward Casa Lupo, the alleyways that bisected the blocks were such black holes he instinctively moved away from them as he passed. This restaurant was looking like a bad choice.

He wanted to be waiting on the sidewalk when Debra’s cab arrived, so he decided to use the time to call his friend George McDonald at Stanford on his cell. He should be home from teaching hydrology classes by now.

Four rings, and McDonald hadn’t picked up. Was his plan going to crash just because McDonald was out for dinner?

Then there was a click on the line and a man said, “McDonald.”

“Hey Mac, it’s Jack Strider calling from Juarez, Mexico. Got a moment?”

“Sure. Great to hear your voice. Giselle and I were talking about you just—”

“Look, Mac, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need some information, badly. Can we catch up on what I’ve been doing some other time?”

“No sweat.” Mac’s tone went sober. “What’s up?”

“I’m about to violate the hell out of lawyer-client privilege, so I need your word that this conversation will stay just between us.”

The pause that followed was long enough to tell him Mac was troubled at making a blind promise.

“You got it,” he said at last.

“My former client is a California corporation with a plant here that processes hazardous waste.”

“Not my idea of fun, but someone has to do it.”

“That’s the problem. They
aren’t
doing it. The Mexican government was about to shut them down, but my former client bought its way out of trouble. I spent this afternoon snooping around on the plant site, and I think I have proof that what the company is doing is much worse than the government knows. I’m talking about poisoning people, maybe a lot of them.” He related what he’d seen on the mesa and at the injection wells.

“Wow! That sounds serious. What’s your next step?”

“I took samples of the chemicals in some of the tanks. I need to know what’s in those samples.”

“You need to get them to UTEP first thing in the morning.”

“UTEP? University of Texas at El Paso, right?”

“That’s it. Contact Dr. Ed Rincon, head of the Center for Environmental Resource Management; they call it CERN. We worked together at EPA. I’ll call ahead. He’ll let you know exactly what chemicals you have.”

“Can I trust him?”

“Absolutely, he’s very straightlaced. He’s also brilliant, which means he’s bored in El Paso and would love to work on something unusual. But he’ll try to tell you more than you want to know about everything. He’s a little . . . eccentric.”

“If he can do this job, I don’t give a damn how eccentric he is.”

“What else can I help with?”

“I need to know what will happen if that poison goes down those wells.”

“I’ll research the geology down there—soil conditions and absorption rate into the water supply. That will provide clues as to whether your chemicals will have no effect, make people nauseous, or kill everyone. I just hope Juarez isn’t sitting on an aquifer.”

“This region is a desert, so it probably is.”

“You pour cyanide into a swimming pool and you can drain or neutralize the water, but an aquifer would stay toxic for years, maybe decades. Shouldn’t you go to the police about this?”

“I believe the man behind this has the cops in his wallet, and no one in El Paso has jurisdiction in Mexico. For now, I’m on my own.”

“In the old westerns, isn’t this when the townsfolk call in the Texas Rangers?”

“I may have to go a lot higher than the Rangers, but first I need more facts.”

“Where can I reach you?”

“Call my cell—before noon, if you can.”

He clicked off as a cab pulled to the curb. Debra stepped out wearing black, trim-fitting pants, a burgundy, long-sleeve blouse, and a black leather vest. Her black hair was in a single braid, Mexican style, under a cap with a bill. Two other cars passed, and the cab drove away after them.

She took a look at his Western gear and the Stetson. “Very sexy.” She looked up and down the street. “I was wondering whether the cab driver knew where he was going.”

“Yeah, the guy who recommended this place didn’t mention that the neighborhood was so rundown.”

“Did you come by cab, too?”

“Rental car. I had to park a couple of blocks down there.” He pointed. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re safe. Did Montana give you any trouble?”

“Didn’t even see him, but I sure heard about him. That’s what I need to tell you.”

“Let’s talk at the table. I don’t want to risk being spotted standing out on the street.”

He pulled open the green and red paneled door and inhaled the unmistakable odors of cilantro and chips frying in hot oil. Hundreds of photographs of solemn men seated at the restaurant’s tables covered the walls. Wood tables in the single large room had been painted with Aztec designs now covered with plastic. Instead of mariachi music, speakers delivered 1960s Frank Sinatra. Behind the bar, a teenager in a yellow shirt stacked cases of Tecate and Corona.

A passing waiter paused next to him.
“Señor?”
His brow was wrinkled, as if they might have come here by mistake. When Jack pointed to a table in a dark corner at the rear, the waiter waved him in that direction and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

He felt okay keeping his Stetson on as he walked to the table since most of the men in the room wore various types of hats. They’d just seated themselves, Jack with his back to the wall, when a waiter ambled up.

“Buenas tardes, señor. Quieres algo de beber?”

Jack turned to Debra. “Ready to order a drink?” She nodded.

“Margaritas. Con
Don Eduardo Anjeo,
por favor.”

Screwing up his mouth, the waiter shook his head side to side. “
No lo tenemos.”

“No problem.” He shouldn’t have asked for a top-end brand.

The server returned immediately with a pitcher the size of a quart paint can, enough margarita to fuel a revolution.

He filled Debra’s glass and then his own. They tapped rims and he took a deep sip and felt a rush.

“Okay, what did you want to tell me?”

“I was in the break room at the plant getting coffee when two young women came in. They must have assumed I understood no Spanish because they talked about how the extra guards Montana had posted saw
el abogado
trespassing. Montana was so mad they hadn’t caught
el abogado
that everyone tried to stay out of his way. He was still up on the ridge next to the plant when I left.”

El abogado,
the lawyer. “Yep, that was me.”

“Jack!” she said so loudly that a couple at the next table turned toward them. “What were you thinking?” She reached under the table and squeezed his thigh hard, right on a deep bruise. Surprised, he squawked in pain.