Driving up, he hadn’t seen Patrick on the street, but he checked around the adjacent houses anyway, yelling his son’s name as he ran, his heart pounding in his chest. He entered the chaparral, zigzagging to cut Patrick’s trail, hedgehog cactus thorns biting at his legs. A startled Gambel’s quail rose up from the underbrush, sounded a sharp quit quit in alarm, and fluttered away. He cut across an arroyo, looking for a sign. There were the distinctive four-point-star tracks of roadrunners everywhere, and long, thin lines of snake trails etched in the sand, but no footprints.
Kerney stopped, gathered his breath, bellowed Patrick’s name, listened, and took a long look around before running with his head down, eyes scanning the ground, until he reached the wide mouth of another arroyo that curved toward the valley floor. There, two hundred yards from the house, he found tiny shoe prints in the sand. Up ahead he saw Patrick sitting on a boulder with tears streaming down his face.
“Are you all right?” Kerney asked as he reached his son and pulled him into his arms.
Patrick sniffled and nodded.
“Did you hear me calling for you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you answer, sport?”
Patrick rubbed his nose. “ ’Cause you sounded mad at me.”
It kicked Kerney in the gut that Patrick didn’t know every tone of his voice. “I’m not mad,” he said. “I was worried about you. What are you doing out here?”
“I was looking for you,” Patrick replied.
“Well, here I am, okay?”
“Okay.”
With Patrick in his arms Kerney turned to see a half-dozen men fanned out behind the row of houses, coming in his direction. He whistled, waved, and held Patrick above his head for all to see. The men stopped and waved back.
“What are they doing?” Patrick asked.
Kerney lowered Patrick to his chest, kissed him on the cheek, and started back toward the house. “Looking for you.”
“I wasn’t lost, Daddy,” Patrick said.
“I know you weren’t. But no more of this, champ. You stay with Libby and the other children. Okay?”
Patrick nodded. “I saw a big snake. It curled up and rattled its tail.” Kerney’s legs turned to stone and he stopped in his tracks. “Did it bite you?”
Patrick shook his head. “Nope.”
Back at the house Kerney thanked the men who had started to search for his son and accepted Libby’s apology. She promised that Patrick would never be out of her sight again.
He told Libby that Patrick would be with him for the rest of the day, put him in his car seat, and drove away. “How about some ice cream?” he asked.
Patrick’s face lit up and he kicked his feet. “Ice cream,” he echoed, apparently without the slightest inkling that he’d panicked his father almost beyond belief.
Chapter Thirteen
Surrounded by a windswept desert broken only by the silhouette of the Florida Mountains to the east and the Tres Hermanas to the south, Deming sat sun blistered under a yellow, dust-filled morning sky. A town of modest homes ringed with patches of grass, house trailers on scrub acreage, and a main commercial strip that paralleled the interstate and the railroad tracks, Deming drew its lifeblood from travelers and truckers, and blue-collar retirees seeking the sun and affordable housing.
Billboards cluttered the sides of the highway, advertising lodging, fuel, and food. Warning signs advised travelers that the interstate would be closed during severe dust storms. Not at all an uncommon event, Kerney figured, given the amount of grit from a stiff breeze that covered the windshield of his truck.
He drove the main strip to get his bearings. There were a few older buildings that harkened back to the town’s founding as a railroad stop in the late-nineteenth century, but for the most part the strip consisted of stand-alone gas stations, automotive repair shops, mom-and-pop businesses, eateries, and moderately priced motels.
Kerney had left Patrick behind in the care of the nanny, and he didn’t feel good about it. But he was determined to find out what he could about Agent Fidel’s undercover operation. Maybe he’d learn enough to let him step aside from it completely and give Patrick more attention.
Following Officer Flavio Sapian’s directions, he took the main street east toward the Florida Mountains and followed the road that led to Rockhound State Park. He made a hard right at an intersection and bumped down a gravel road to a 1960s ranch-style house, where Sapian’s state police cruiser was parked under a tin-roofed carport.
He pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of the house, shaded to the south by a row of tall poplars. Under the trees a trampoline and a swing set occupied a swath of green grass. Beyond the trees stood an old railroad boxcar that probably served as a storage shed.
Kerney tooted his horn and Sapian stepped out the front door. Off duty, he wore jeans, boots, a long-sleeved Western shirt, and a faded, sweat-streaked baseball cap. He got into Kerney’s truck and the two men drove away.
“Your phone call took me by surprise,” Flavio said. “I thought the Border Patrol was handling the death of that Mexican you found on the highway. Why are you still involved?”
Kerney ran it down for him, leaving nothing out. He concluded with his misgivings about Fidel’s undercover operation. “I just want to know if things really are as they seem,” he said.
“So that’s why you asked me to set up a meeting with the agent in charge of the Deming Border Patrol Station.”
“Exactly. How well do you know him?”
“His name is Steve Hazen and he’s good people,” Sapian answered. “Been here five, maybe six years. If he can tell you anything, he’ll play it straight.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
The station, located just outside of Deming on the highway to the border town of Columbus, was a modern brick building with a sloping metal portal that covered the entrance. Shrubs and trees planted along the front of the building softened the monotonous facade, and an American flag waved from the top of a pole that towered over the building.
Inside, Steve Hazen invited them into his office. A heavyset man in his forties with wide shoulders and a thick neck, he had a military-style hair-cut that showed the bumps and ridges of his deeply tanned skull in full relief. His shipshape office contained all the personal and professional memorabilia some cops loved to display. Framed family pictures, official citations, university degrees, and recognition and award plaques from civic organizations lined shelves and filled walls.
Highly arched eyebrows gave Hazen’s face a persistent quizzical expression. He held up a coffee mug that read # 1 DAD in big red letters. “Can I get you some?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” Kerney answered.
“Not for me,” Sapian said.
“Flavio said you have some questions.” Hazen motioned to a table next to a tall bookcase that held volumes of government documents. “Take a load off and fire away.”
The men pulled out chairs and sat. “What can you tell me about the undercover operation at Playas?” Kerney asked.
Hazen smiled. “Domingo Fidel’s little feint. He said you might not fall for it.”
“Feint?”
“Yep,” Hazen replied. “Eight months ago we got a contingent of National Guard soldiers from a Lordsburg unit assigned to assist us apprehend illegals crossing the border from Columbus west to Antelope Wells. Soon after that human trafficking volume picked up in the Bootheel, especially in those areas manned by the troops. We believe some of the soldiers have been taking bribes from the coyotes. The undercover agent you found dying on the highway was supposed to make his maiden run north of the border to a safe house, which we think is located outside of Lordsburg. Somebody ratted him out and he was killed.”
“Are you saying Officer Mendoza is clean?” Kerney asked.
“He is,” Hazen replied. “But Fidel has put the word out that he’s dirty and is using you and Bratton to convince our target suspects that we’re looking for the wrong people in the wrong place. By now every National Guard trooper on the line has heard scuttlebutt about the Playas operation.”