No one robbed him during his cycling east.
By midmorning he was at the old Union Station, a landmark he loved—Leonard and his daughter Dara had once spent a weekend just watching old movies, most of them set in the 1930s to the 1950s, with major scenes shot in Union Station—and then south under the abandoned stretch of the 101. It was a hot day for September and Leonard was sweating through his white shirt by the time he reached his first roadblock where Santa Fe Avenue ran into East 4th Street.
East 4th was barricaded. On both sides of the street hung the large green-white-red tricolors of Nuevo Mexico. Unlike the former United States of Mexico flag designed in 1968, the eagle in the center of these flags was not wrestling with a snake and was facing forward. It wore a crown. Emilio had once explained that this flag was based on the 1821 flag of the First Mexican Empire, but the new eagle was so stylized that it reminded Leonard more of the FDR-era National Recovery Act eagle or—more ominously—of the stylized Nazi eagle.
He didn’t have time now to study the flags. Men armed with automatic weapons came out from behind the permanent barricades.
“¿Qué quieres, viejo?”
Professor George Leonard Fox didn’t appreciate the “old man” but he presented the card Emilio had given him and answered in a voice he managed to keep from quavering, “Exijo que me lleven a la casa de Gabriel Fernández y Figueroa.”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have used the verb “demand,” but it was too late now. One of the spanics started to laugh but his comrade holding the small card showed it to him and the laughter died.
“¿Por qué quieres ver a Don Fernández y Figueroa, gringo viejo?”
Leonard was tired of the smirks and insults. “Just take me there,” he said in English. “Don Fernández y Figueroa is expecting me.”
Five of the armed men conferred rapidly. Then the one with the card gestured Leonard toward a black Volkswagen G-wagen parked behind a barricade. “Come.”
Emilio lived in a huge old home just east of Evergreen Cemetery.
Actually, Leonard realized as his escort led him through layers of roadblocks and sentries, it was far more an armed compound than a home. Military vehicles with the crowned-eagle Nuevo Mexico flag painted on the sides filled the streets for blocks around. Across the street, the wall and fence surrounding the huge Evergreen Cemetery had been knocked down and Leonard could see scores more wheeled and tracked vehicles parked on the faded grass. In front of Emilio’s address, rows of large, black SUVs filled the street at roadblock angles. The compound’s walls were topped with embedded broken glass and multiple rolls of razor wire.
His guide was stopped half a dozen times inside the compound’s walls and in the house itself and each time the card was presented. Twice Leonard was frisked—aggressively, embarrassingly, thoroughly. It would have been absurdly easy for them to appropriate his bag of money, but other than a quick search through the rubber-banded stacks of bills, no one paid attention to his paltry life’s savings.
On all sides of the tiled foyer hallway clustered groups of men in various rooms. They were smoking, arguing, bent over maps, gesturing. Everyone seemed to be talking on cell phones even as they argued and gestured. His escort led him up two flights of stairs and down a broad hallway. Two men in civilian clothes but carrying automatic weapons stood guard outside the open doorway of a library. Again the card was presented by his guide. Leonard was frisked a third and final time and they opened the door wider and allowed him to enter. Again the searchers looked at his messenger bag full of bank notes and said nothing.
The room was impressive. Bookcases filled with leather-bound old tomes rose twelve feet on three sides of the library. The fourth wall was windows and through it Leonard could see and hear black helicopters landing in a paved area of several acres within the walls of the compound. Emilio Gabriel Fernández y Figueroa was sitting behind a broad desk. Opposite him was a bald man in his early fifties and Leonard could see at once that the two men were related. Both stood as he approached.
“Leonard,” said his Saturday-morning Echo Park chess partner of the past four years.
“Don Fernández y Figueroa,” said Leonard, bowing slightly in respect.
“No, no,” said the older man. “Emilio. I am Emilio. Allow me to introduce my son Eduardo. Eduardo, this is my chess and conversation partner of whom I have spoken with such respect, Professor Emeritus Dr. George Leonard Fox.”
Eduardo bowed his bald head. His voice was very soft. “Es un verdadero placer conocerlo, señor.”
“The pleasure is mine,” said Leonard.
Saying to Emilio, “I will see to the dispositions, Father,” Eduardo bowed toward Leonard again and left the room, shutting the tall door behind him.
Leonard felt his heart pounding. All these years he’d known that Emilio’s sons and grandsons must be important in the reconquista movement in California and Los Angeles, but now he realized that it was Emilio who was in charge. Why had this important—and dangerous—man wasted so many slow Saturday mornings with a retired classics/English lit professor?
Leonard had never noticed bodyguards in Echo Park on those mornings, but now he realized that they must have been there.
“You have decided to leave Los Angeles, my friend?” said Emilio, waving Leonard to the empty chair and taking his own seat behind the broad, empty desk. Outside the window, more helicopters were landing and taking off.
“Yes.”
“Bueno,” said Emilio. “It is a good time for such a move.” The older man hesitated a second, cleared his throat, and continued. “In two days—early Saturday morning, before dawn—the state of California will attempt to assassinate me here. They will use a Great White predator drone and will destroy this entire compound, hoping to kill me, my family, and everyone here.”
“Good God…”
“Sí,” said Emilio. “God is good. He allowed us to gain this valuable intelligence. My family and I shall not be here when the missiles strike. The forces of the reconquista are ready to respond. Within a week, all of the City of Angels will be under new leadership.”
Leonard had no idea what to say to this so he set the heavy messenger bag on the desk.
“One million three hundred thousand in new dollars,” he said in a strangely strangled voice. “My entire life’s savings. I kept only a small bit for expenses during the trip.”
Emilio did not look in the bag. He nodded courteously. “It is less than the usual price for two people being transported from here to Denver… you still wish to go to Denver, my friend?”
“Yes.”
“It is less than the usual price, but the convoy leader owes me a favor,” continued Emilio. The old man smiled, showing nicotine-stained teeth. “Also, our reconquista men and vehicles are providing security for this convoy. The convoy leader would not wish to alienate us over a few dollars one way or the other.”
“When does the convoy leave?” asked Leonard. He felt hollow, almost buoyant, as if he’d downed several strong drinks. This dialogue belonged in a movie, not in Professor George Leonard Fox’s life.
“Midnight Friday,” said Emilio. “Mere hours before the scheduled attack on my home. There will be twenty-three eighteen-wheelers in this convoy, some private vehicles, and, of course, our security vehicles. You and your grandson will ride in one of the large trucks. In the extended cab, of course.”
“Where do I go to find the convoy?” Leonard’s worry was that the rendezvous point would be too deep in East Los Angeles for Val and him to get there on bicycle or foot. Or at least get there alive.