The Black List (10 page)

She flicked on the light, took a deep breath, eyed herself in the mirror, then froze. Sleeping pills. Only
half
the champagne was missing. Not near enough for anyone to pass out, least of all Carillo, who had said he was going to drink apple cider. “Shit.”

She backtracked to the spare bedroom. Pushed open the door, turned on the light. The bed was empty. She checked her room. Empty.

She ran into the living room, shook Carillo, willing there to be some logical explanation. Not tonight, she thought, seeing Griffin’s address written on the palm of her hand. She shook Carillo harder. “Wake up, damn it!”

He stirred slightly and she checked his pulse. Slow, steady.

The same with Sheila. She grabbed the pill bottle, dumped them out, saw only four were missing. Enough to put them to sleep, not enough to kill them.

Sydney ran to the kitchen, reached for her cell phone, wanting to scream, cry, something, and it was everything she could do to keep her voice calm when Griffin answered the phone. “We have a big,
big
problem.”

16

San Ysidro Border Crossing

“What was the point
of your trip to Mexico?”

“Shopping.” Yusuf opened a bag to show the Border Patrol agent a black leather coat. “Cheap.” There were a number of agents at desks, interviewing various persons who were trying to get into America, those they’d pulled aside for extra screening. Yusuf had been prepared, told this was likely, due to his appearance. Thus he’d waited for a busy holiday, where due to the higher numbers of people walking across the border, agents were likely to be in more of a hurry and not so thorough.

“Are you a U.S. citizen?”

“No.” He handed the passport over, worried as the agent typed something into his computer. The cost to get his student visa from the United States had used up most of his funds. “I go to college here. UCLA.”

“When do you graduate?”

“At the end of this year.”

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a Lakers sweatshirt?”

“Lakers sweatshirt?”

The man pointed to Yusuf’s thick shirt, and the San Francisco Giants emblem on the front, which he was assured was a popular thing to wear in the U.S.

Yusuf held his ball cap in his hand, running his fingers across the brim, trying to figure out the nuances of a Lakers sweatshirt. Did that mean he’d sweated on it? There was something wrong, he could tell. And then it struck him. Sports teams. He wasn’t sure what it had to do with sweat in his shirt. “Yes. I like the Giants.” He smiled.

The agent’s fingers flew across the keyboard, then paused as he read whatever was on the screen. Yusuf couldn’t see what was there. But he saw the man’s eyes seem to focus in on something a moment before he pushed his chair back and said, “Wait here.”

He stood, then walked across the room to speak to another agent, this one with hash marks on his sleeves. That man looked over at Yusuf while the first agent discussed what it was he found or saw . . . Yusuf’s heart started beating, and he forced himself to remain calm, look unconcerned. Someone who had a valid reason to be in the country would not worry. Not be scared.

“Hey!”

The shout startled him. A dark-skinned man was making a dash for the door. The agent ran after him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and then the fight was on. A mass of green uniforms coming from every direction tackled the man. As they fought, Yusuf eyed the door, wondered if he picked up his things, casually walked that way, would they notice.

His agent, the one who’d seemed suspicious, or curious—he couldn’t tell—was at the bottom of that pile, having been one of the first to help. Who would notice?

No one, he decided. Certain he wasn’t being watched, he reached over, slipped his passport off the desk and then took his plastic bag with the jacket inside, stood, then waited. Someone took out pepper spray, and he felt a sting as the agent sprayed it in the man’s face. It hit another agent, his, and he knew this was a sign and backed toward the door. He opened it, looked out, saw a few uniformed men standing just outside. Would they stop him?

Not if they were busy.

“There’s a fight in here,” he said. “A big fight.”

The agents all ran past him, and he let the door fall shut, then started walking among the other pedestrians into America.

It was all coming together.

Very soon now. Very soon.

Border Patrol immigrant
inspector Daniel Balthazar rinsed the residual pepper spray from his eyes, feeling grateful it wasn’t too large a dose, then returned to his desk after they’d finally managed to get the suspect into a holding cell. A typical case. The man had been working illegally in the United States for over two decades. This was his second attempt to reenter the country, to rejoin the family he’d been forced to leave behind.

Daniel felt for him, but their hands were tied. And now, unfortunately, he had an assault charge on top of the immigration charge.

He pulled out his chair, sat, then stared at his computer, the screen he’d started typing the name on. “Oh shit.”

Gil, sitting at the desk next to him, glanced over. “Oh shit, what?”

“The guy who was sitting here. Don’t suppose you’ve seen him?”

Gil scoffed. “I was on the bottom of the dog pile beneath you. Not like I was taking note.”

Daniel stood, a sense of panic arising in him as he looked around the office, not seeing the guy. He walked to the door, ran out, looked around, then hurried through the building out to the footbridge, trying to find him among the pedestrians walking across to California.

Gone.

“What’s wrong?” Gil asked when he returned to his desk out of breath. Daniel sat and stared at the computer screen, not moving. “You get a little too much pepper spray in the face?”

“The guy who was sitting here when the fight happened. I think he got through.”

“You were going to dump him?”

“I was thinking about it.”

“He show up on any lists? Any lookouts?”

“No. But something was off.” He went over the conversation in his mind. “The guy said he was in college, but his conversation was stilted. I was asking him about his sweatshirt. Wearing a Giants logo in UCLA. It was like he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“Foreign student. What’d ya want?”

Daniel wasn’t the sort to get worked up over an illegal alien, certainly not someone who was just trying to go to college, get an education, but the guy who’d slipped from his desk during the fight got to him. That whole conversation about the Lakers. A real college student, or at least a college student from UCLA, was going to know who the Lakers were, but the way the guy looked at him when he’d mentioned the sweatshirt . . . Daniel rewound the video surveillance, watched the fight going on, then saw the man reach over, slip his passport from the desk and casually walk to the door, informing the agents outside about the fight.

Gil walked over, watched with him. “You sure you want to put it out there? It’s not like they’re gonna find the guy. Damned needle in a haystack once he crosses over. And you’ll get razzed for weeks, never mind written up for letting him go.”

“What if he’s someone?”

“Chances are he’s just a schmuck like the poor guy we tackled earlier, but if you want to make something of it, send out a teletype, call the agents working the Greyhound station, and move on. We’ve only got about twenty thousand more pedestrians to screen before the day’s out, and the line ain’t growing any shorter.”

Daniel typed up a BOLO, then sent it out.

Possible illegal border crossing, suspicious person. Name used may be Abdoul Hassad, reporting to be student at UCLA wearing San Francisco Giants sweatshirt.
If contacting individual, notify US Border Patrol Immigration Inspector Daniel Balthazar. Advise on possible routes of travel.

That done, he got back to work. Gil asked him about it when they were changing in the locker room at the end of their shift. “They check the Greyhound for you?”

“Yeah. A few times. Nothing.”

“Bet he took the very first bus. I wouldn’t worry about it. Probably nothing.”

Yusuf paid the
taxi, then got out at the storage facility. He had memorized the unit number, 314, and found it near the back. A man was unloading boxes out of his truck into a nearby storage unit. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead, then drank from a can of Red Bull, nodding at Yusuf as he finished it off, then tossed the empty can into the back of his truck. Some of the UN workers drank it back at the refugee camp, and he’d heard one say it was a stimulant, laughing that they weren’t allowed to chew khat, or
qaad
as his countrymen called it, so they drank Red Bull instead. Yusuf had never partaken in chewing the plant, nor could he see drinking the manufactured substitute.

He nodded back at the man who continued unloading his boxes, then turned the corner and found 314. The padlock hung there, taunting him. It was supposed to be a combination lock. He’d memorized it before he left.

Now what? He had no key, and someone seeing him with bolt cutters, even if he had a pair, would rouse suspicion.

And then the long-ago memory came to him of one of the boys at the orphanage showing another boy how to pick the padlock . . .

A soda can. He retraced his steps, saw the man struggling with a heavy box that seemed off balance, and he ran up. “Let me help.”

“Thanks, bud.”

Yusuf took hold of one side and together they walked it into the unit, which was filled with dozens of boxes, all marked.

“Right here near the door’s fine.”

They lowered it to the ground, and Yusuf said, “Do you need help with anything else?”

“I got it from here. The rest are light. But thanks.”

Yusuf walked out, eyed the Red Bull can lying in the pickup. He couldn’t just reach into the back of the truck. “Would you mind if I take that?”

“You one of them recyclers? Feel free.”

Yusuf hesitated, trying to determine if that meant yes.

“Go ahead. You can have it.”

“Thank you.” He reached in, took the can, then walked back to the locked storage unit, fishing his small folding knife from his pocket. He sliced off the end of the can, then cut out two squares, slicing each, then folding them into shimmies, which he inserted into the lock on each side of the shackle, allowing it to pop open.

He tossed the pieces of the can and the lock on the ground, then slid open the door, just as he heard the sound of a vehicle driving around the corner. Before he could slide the door shut again, he heard, “What the
hell
is that?”

Yusuf turned around and saw the man he’d helped staring through his open driver’s window into the storage unit. Yusuf had been taught that to remain calm was the key, even when he saw the man look down at the open lock and the pieces of aluminum can used to pick it. Any show of surprise or anger would draw attention. Just like what happened at the border crossing with the man they’d tackled. “It’s used for cancer therapy,” he said about the machine.

The man stared at it. “Huh. Never seen one up close. Looks like it belongs on the Starship Enterprise. Laser beams or something, right?” He laughed.

Yusuf pretended to laugh as well. Starship Enterprise. He thought back. Space movie. “Right.”

“You a doctor?”

“No. I fix the machines. This one’s broken.”

“Ah. Well, thanks for your help and all.”

He drove off, and Yusuf immediately turned on the light, closed the door so no one else would see him, then set about dismantling the machine, removing a lead capsule the size of his fist from the protective rotating head. He hurried out of there and was walking down the street when he saw a patrol car arriving at the storage facility. There were no lights, and the officer didn’t even seem to notice him as he drove on past, turning into the gate.

The man with the boxes would have called the police, Yusuf thought, probably because of the lock picking. It hadn’t occurred to him before. But apparently it didn’t matter. Perhaps the police had too much violent crime to tend to and so couldn’t send someone out right away to investigate.

A good thing, he thought, holding tight to the small metal tube a couple inches in diameter. It contained cesium 137, a water-soluble radioactive powder, something he was aware could make him very sick the longer he had it with him. He walked a couple blocks to a grocery store, then used his phone to call the taxi company again, this time for a ride to the Greyhound station. He smiled at the man working the ticket counter. “Hi. One ticket to Washington, D.C., please.”

17

McNiel walked into Griffin’s
office late that afternoon. “It’s New Year’s. Why are you here?”

“Same reason as you,” Griffin said. “Catching up on reports.”

“I forgot my tickets to the symphony.”

“Okay, maybe not the same reason.”

McNiel narrowed his gaze, approached Griffin’s desk and peered at the computer screen. “What about this don’t I want to know?”

“We’ve had a few complications.”

Tex rushed in the door. “Just got this photo from Homeland Security—” He stopped short at the sight of McNiel. “Hey, boss. Just . . . working away . . .”

“I always find that when you do the work you’re
paid
to do, life is a
lot
easier. For me, at least, since I’m the one who has to sit in front of the Senate intelligence committee and justify our dollars spent.”

And Tex asked, “How exactly does that occur if we don’t exist?”

McNiel started for the door, saying, “I don’t suppose either of you have bothered to take a look at the intelligence report I put on your desks before I left yesterday . . . ?”

Neither answered, because they hadn’t. They’d been too wrapped up in Carillo’s case.

“Try your In basket. The folder with the big ‘Priority’ stamp across the face of it.” He paused in the doorway, looking back at them. “Marked for a reason, I might add.”

He left, and Griffin found the folder in question and opened it. “So what did Homeland Security have to say?”