The taxi driver swings to the right and falls in line behind the U-Haul, nearly plowing into the back of the truck. The driver is angry, saying something in Spanish to Herman, both of his hands off the wheel for a moment as we lumber into the outskirts of Rosarita. We drive off of pavement and onto dirt streets.
I can’t tell what the driver is saying, only that he is getting short with Herman.
“You know, I’m getting the sense those two are together.” Herman is ignoring the driver, talking about the cargo carrier and the U-Haul.
I’m hoping that we’re coming to the end of the trip. Maybe they’ll stop for the night. “Herman, you got the cell phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Check it and see if we have a signal.”
He pulls it out, powers it up and waits, then shakes his head. “Nothing.”
We’re hanging back, rolling slowly along the dusty, unpaved street when half a block up the two trucks pull into a Pemex station. The driver of the U-Haul climbs down out of the truck and starts to gas up. The container truck pulls on through and stops in a wide area next to the little mini-mart in the gas station. It looks like a bladder break, all of them suddenly jumping out of the trucks.
“My father!” says Maricela. “That’s him!” Her face lights up as she points.
Where?
There's my father. Maricela reaches for the door, and before I can stop her shes out, running along the edge of the road.
Herman is out before I can move.
I try to go and the driver grabs my arm. Seńor! ĄMi tarifa, por favor!”
He wants his money.
By the time I look up, Herman has caught up to Maricela and pulled her into some bushes off the road.
I pay the driver and tell him in my best pidgin Spanish and sign language to wait. A few seconds later I join Herman and Maricela in the bushes.
“What’s wrong with you?” Herman is giving her a piece of his mind. “You want to get us all killed? To say nothing of a few thousand bystanders. Think, woman!”
Maricela looks as if she’s about to cry.
“She’ll be all right. Calm down. She got excited, that’s all. She didn’t know if he was alive or dead. When she saw him,” I shrug a shoulder, “she snapped. Cut her some slack,” I tell him.
Herman shakes his head slowly and takes a deep breath. He apologizes and removes his huge hands from her shoulders.
As we’re talking I hear the engine start behind us. Before I can even turn to look, the taxi driver pulls a U-turn from his parking position and heads the other way down the dusty street.
“Great!” says Herman. “That cuts it. What do we do now?”
There is no time to think or talk. “Stay here and keep an eye on her.” I step out of the bushes and walk as fast as I can along the side of the road toward the gas station at the end of the block. If we lose the truck now, we’ll never find it again. We could get ourselves killed, but what choice do we have? I’ve never done anything like this before, but then I’ve never been in a situation like this. Sometimes we surprise ourselves-what adrenaline can do.
When I reach the corner, only one of the men is outside, keeping an eye on the trucks as the pump continues to fill the empty tank on the U-Haul. The guy is moving around over by the container. He is checking it out, making sure it’s fastened down tight on the rails that form the bed on the back of the cargo carrier.
The others are still inside the mini-mart. When I look back, the guy at the container truck has moved to the other side.
I notice that the back of the U-Haul is not locked. I swing the handle on the catch out of the way and gently lift the roll-up gate just enough to crawl inside. Once in, I lift the gate a little farther so Herman, down the street, can see me. Holding the gate in one hand, I’m motioning with the other for them to join me, and to make it fast.
Before they can move very far, I hear voices coming out of the mini-mart. A foreign tongue that isn’t Spanish. I put my hand out and Herman steps off the road and into the bushes with Maricela once more.
As I quietly lower the gate, I see a small piece of wood on the bed of the truck, just inside the door. I slip it under the edge at the bottom of the door just enough to keep the outside hand lever from sliding into the lock and sealing me in.
A few seconds later the voices get louder as they approach. I hear someone pull the fuel nozzle from the tank and hook it back to the pump, and a few seconds later the doors as they open and slam closed. Off in the distance I hear the diesel engine on the container truck as it turns over and starts, and a second later the U-Haul ignition as it kicks in, then the deep rumble of the engine.
I stand and lift the gate high over my head and look for Herman. He sees me from the bushes. I point with my thumb, like a hitchhiker, to the other side of the street.
Quickly Herman grabs Maricela by the hand and the two of them scoot across the street and end up behind an old pickup truck off its wheels on blocks at the side of the road.
It’s a gamble, but I’m assuming these guys have pulled off the highway for gas, which means they may be heading back to the highway. I hear the container truck as it swings in front of the U-Haul to make the turn back down the dusty street to the freeway. The U-Haul starts to make the turn to fall in behind it. I am holding on to the gate to steady myself, hanging on to it over my head as the truck rocks back and forth leaving the pavement and going onto the dirt.
The driver misses a shift and grinds the gears just as Herman steps out from behind the parked pickup. He is carrying Maricela on his shoulders and before the truck can get up to ten miles an hour he tosses her up to me. All I can do is break her fall with one hand and part of my body as I hold the gate for Herman. A second later he is on board.
I look down at Maricela. She’s smiling back at me. She’s fine. Herman and I carefully lower the gate and I stick the piece of wood underneath it again.
We can barely see each other in the dark, but there is no chance they’re going to hear us up front, not with the rumble of the engine and the road noise.
“May as well make ourselves comfortable,” says Herman. He grabs a heavy packing blanket off the top of a wooden crate up front, brings it back, and spreads it in a double thickness on the floor, for us to sit on.
I catch my breath, but still can’t believe we’ve just done this. That we are so close to risking it all.
FIFTY-NINE
So they have no idea where the truck is headed?” said Rhytag.
Thorpe shook his head. “According to our agents the Mexican police are pushing them pretty hard. They got the captain and two of the others down belowdecks right now teaching them about the inquisition.” Thorpe was talking about the ship’s crew, the captain and the others brought on board the Amora to replace the original crew members, who have all disappeared except for two who signed on in Colombia.
“All we know right now is that the current crew members appear to be connected to the Tijuana cartel. Most of them are seamen or have some sea experience. They were contacted by people they knew in the cartel to bring in the ship. They’re telling the Mexican authorities that’s all they know. When they were shown the photos taken by Nitikin’s daughter, they IDed Nitikin as being on board as well as at least three and possibly four other individuals in the photographs. According to the cartel crew members, they have no idea what Nitikin was doing or what was in the container. We did get a good description of the container, color and size. It’s a twenty-footer, lime green, and one of the crew members gave us a partial plate number off the truck. It was a Mexican commercial plate. Mexican government is checking it now as to the owner and possible destination. Also, there was another vehicle, a box truck. One of the crew members said he thought it was a rental truck of some kind but he couldn’t remember the name of the company or the license number. There was one thing that was curious though.”