IGMS Issue 9 (16 page)

But as Miguel sat there, looking at Sandro, he realized why. Miguel had been trying to cut Sandro out of his life for years. Yes, he went to visit Sandro -- they played chess and talked a few times per month -- but Miguel had always been looking for a way to get out of Vero Beach for good. And Sandro knew it. He'd been trying to spare Miguel the pain he was bearing.

"Tell me about it," Miguel said softly. "I want to understand it."

Sandro stared at Miguel, his face expressionless, but then he softened and leaned back in his chair, scraping it noisily against the white tiles. He jutted his chin toward the far wall, northward. "When I decided to come here I thought I was like this city, that I was split in two, one piece damaged and rotten, the other healthy but not whole." Sandro paused, frowned. "I felt . . . incomplete. Broken.

"I couldn't stop thinking about what was gone." He glanced out the window to the littered street outside of the bakery. "Maybe the parts that were damaged didn't mean anything. Maybe I turned out exactly the way I would have without the surgery. But maybe not. Maybe I only achieved half of what I might have, understood a tenth of what I could have. I felt like a ghost of a man, like seventy years of my life had been going in the wrong direction. You can't know what that's like as young as you are."

Sandro picked up the picture -- a boy on a table, a broken implant destroying something vital. He'd never seen his grandfather look so sad.

Miguel took the picture from him and laid it face-down on the pile. "You don't have to throw your life away just because something was taken from you so many years ago."

Sandro nodded seriously. "No, you're right. That's why I came -- to prove that my life wasn't worthless -- but when I got here, I realized it was all bullshit. Good part . . . Bad part . . . It doesn't matter. What matters is doing something in your life that you can be proud of."

"You've done a lot," Miguel said. "You served your country."

"That was sixty years ago," Sandro said. "I've done nothing but stew and live off my bum knee and my family since, and it's high time I did something about it. I want you to come back with me, Miguel. Take the stories of the others:
El Movimiento para las Fronteras Abiertas
. I want you to spread their stories, just as you hear them, just as you see them."

"There are reporters all over both sides of the wall."

"Come on," Sandro said. "When's the last time you saw anything about a Mexican
family
, one that doesn't show them as illiterate beggars? I need
you
to tell their stories, Miguel. That's the only way I'll know it'll be told fairly."

The door of the bakery tinkled opened. A middle-aged woman came in and stepped up to the counter as the air conditioner continued to squeal. As she chatted with the owner, Miguel tried to sort his feelings. Part of him felt proud to be Sandro's grandson -- he was taking a stand; he was trying to do something he felt was right -- but another part of him saw a wizened old man with a bad knee and a guilty conscience.

"You don't owe anyone anything."

"I
do
!" Sandro gave Miguel such an intense gaze then, a gaze filled with more purpose than he'd ever seen in the eyes of his grandfather. "I owe
me
. I owe
you
. I owe those that came before me. I owe those that come after. Don't you believe that, Miguel? Don't you want to leave the world a better place then when you came into it?"

"Yes, but --"

"There are no buts! My time has come, simple as that."

Miguel realized that this had become just another chess match, though the stakes were unbelievably high. Sandro had convinced himself there was no other way than the one he'd chosen, and he wasn't going to back down.

Miguel had to accede. He would hear their stories, take their pictures. He'd even see about publishing them. And once Sandro had some time to calm down . . . then he would see reason. Then he would come home.

As soon as they left the
panadería
, Miguel was blindfolded and shoved into a car. He'd been blindfolded twice before, once in Riyadh and another in Pyongyang -- they had been the two times he'd most feared for his life -- but in that car, on the mercilessly rough ride to the MFA hideout, he feared not only for his life but Sandro's as well.

They took him to what Miguel assumed was a butcher shop -- even through the musty blindfold, the smell of meat and blood was strong. Everything seemed oppressive in that dark, dank basement. But the woman Miguel met with first -- a thick woman, a skilled cheese maker -- began to ease Miguel's mood. There was an earthiness to her that Miguel had never felt in his life. He'd been so wrapped up in school and travel and technology and his career that he rarely noticed such things. But while he was talking with her so intimately, asking about her dreams and reasons for joining the movement, he couldn't help but notice it. She was a decent and honest woman. She wanted a fair shake in life, as simple as that.

And so it went. He interviewed eighteen more members, and took a dozen pictures of each. He tried not to draw any conclusions while interviewing them. He tried to follow Sandro's wishes and merely let them tell their story. The important thing was to get to the human side of the conflict, the one that was getting lost beneath the politics of walls and spyders.

When it was done, Miguel was driven back to the
panaderia
with Sandro. Sandro walked Miguel over from the ancient Ford Torino to his pristine blue rental car and held the door open for him.

"Come back with me, Grandpa. Let
them
fight this war."

Sandro shook his head sadly. "I'm in it for good, Miguel." He smiled, like he used to when Miguel had won a tight chess match, the smile that said he was proud of his grandson.

"We still need to talk about the money," Sandro said softly.

"I know," Miguel replied. He'd been thinking about it on the ride back, unsure how he was going to break it to Sandro. "I can't give it to you."

Sandro straightened his back, and his aged face looked more hurt than Miguel could ever remember. "It's not for me. It's for them. There are dozens coming back every night with spyders buried in their chests. The doctors work for free, but the equipment and supplies are expensive."

Miguel shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't support this. There are better ways,
legal
ways, to solve this crisis."

Sandro spit into the street. "Where were your legal ways when they were cutting a hole in my skull? Where were they eight years ago when the drought struck Baja and Sonora, when
seventy thousand
people died? Where are they now, while innocent Sonorans are getting killed because they stepped over some imaginary line?"

"I'm only one man, Grandpa."

"You still don't get it, do you? You can be greater than one man."

"How much time would my money buy them? A week? Two weeks? I agreed to tell their story, and I will, but that's as far as I'll go. It'll have to be enough."

They stared at one another for a long time, the hot desert wind blowing through the square and kicking up dust. Then Sandro coughed, and the spell was broken. "You want to tell stories? Fine. Then tell one more. The MFA is going to issue a statement the day after tomorrow, seven miles west of the crossing. Go there and take pictures. Tell everyone what you see. Tell it honestly."

"What are you going to do?"

Sandro stepped in and hugged Miguel. "You'd better go," he said.

"Grandpa, what are you going to do?"

Sandro turned and walked away. As the Torino carried him off into the Sonora streets, Miguel's gut twisted. It felt like the last time he'd ever see Sandro.

In the years to come, he would wish many times that it had been.

Miguel made it back to the hotel late that evening, and found himself unable to sleep. He stayed up the entire night, worrying about what the MFA was going to do, and wondering if Sandro was going to be directly involved or not.

The MFA was going to "issue a statement." It made political sense; Miguel hadn't realized it at the time, but the decision to widen the system to three more cities had been made the morning he'd gone to see Sandro. Surely Sandro had known, and surely they'd chosen their timing to coincide with the dog and pony show at IGS's tracking facility. The governor of Arizona and over a dozen congressman were going to be there.

By the time lunch had come and passed, Miguel's stomach felt as twisted as a wrung-out wash rag. Why had Sandro refused to tell him what they were going to do? What would the message be? Even though Sandro claimed the MFA was for a peaceable resolution to the conflict, the fact remained: men had died on both sides. Just because Sandro wanted peace did not mean that all of them did, or that the Border Patrol or the National Guard did. Tempers flared all too easily at times like this.

That evening, Miguel couldn't take it anymore. He called the Border Patrol and told them of Sandro's plans. The captain running the anti-insurgent team asked Miguel to stay at the hotel. Miguel refused. They couldn't prevent him from being close since it was a section of the wall near a suburban neighborhood. But Miguel did promise to stay a few miles away when the captain authorized a tunnel into his embedded police transceiver. He would use it, he said, to update Miguel every half-hour, and Miguel could contact him should the need arise.

Miguel parked his rental car beneath a huge, curbside oak tree as the sun rose over a row of tan condos. It was 7:00 a.m.

He thought back to Sandro's face as he'd told him about the planned crossing, how he'd asked Miguel to take pictures of all of it. His face had been so serious, but Miguel hadn't been able to read anything beyond that. Just like when they played chess.

Miguel's veins went ice cold.

Just like when they played chess.

Dear God.

No, no, no.

This was all a feint.

"Captain!" Miguel called over his temp channel. "Captain!"

"Mr. de la Cueva, not now. It's already begun."

"No, that's not the real one."

"What are you talking about?"

"That's a decoy."

"No, Mr. de la Cueva. This is deadly serious. I'll update you when I can."

"Captain!"

He didn't answer.

Miguel started the car and punched the accelerator. The car surged forward, and he screeched onto the street ahead, narrowly missing a white sedan. He wove through traffic, heading for downtown, seven miles away.

Where would Sandro strike? What would he do?

He had no idea.

He blew through a red light. The traffic lamp blared a warning as he sped past, a signal that the police had been alerted, a request to pull over and wait.

He drove faster.

As he reached the edge of old town, it hit him. The tour of the tracking facility. The politicians. It was the only thing with enough heft to it, the only thing that would draw enough attention.

Why hadn't he seen it before?

He knew from the newsfeeds the facilities were just north of the downtown area, only a few miles away.

Halfway there, a black-and-white pulled onto the street a quarter mile behind him. It gained quickly on his sickly little rental.

He was so close . . .

He screeched into the parking lot a few minutes later, the cop nipping at his heels. The fifteen-story glass-and-steel building lay just ahead. Seven or eight news trucks surrounded a huge water fountain. He drove past the fountain and onto the lawn, braking too late to avoid slamming into one of the squat cement vehicle barriers lined up in front of the building.

Seven men in black suits and three guards were lined up on the far side of the lawn, near the street. Their pistols were drawn, and they were pointing them at the twenty Mexican men and women dressed in orange prison uniforms. Sandro was standing near the center. Each of them held a butane lighter in one hand, unlit, held near the center of their chest.

Closer to the building, three cameramen were snapping pictures with traditional cameras.

"Lie down!" one of the men in suits was screaming.

"
No viviremos como presos!
" they shouted as one.
We will not live as prisoners!