He drove along Route E-60, the road rather rapidly ascending. It was considerably more beautiful a drive than had been the day before with its flatness of countryside; however, Bat wasn’t particularly observant of scenic values. He still had his premonitions and chewed away at his heavy lower lip as he drove. There didn’t truly seem to be anything untoward. But…
He sped along at a clip of two hundred kilometers an hour. He wasn’t in too much of a hurry. He didn’t expect to go any further than the Pan American Highway and he’d make that in half an hour or so; however, he wanted to be sure and be back to New Woodstock before the town took off past Linares.
They nailed him about five kilometers before he reached the tiny hamlet of Iturbide and about forty kilometers out of Linares. There was a road block of three cars, only one of which was a steamer and it an old-fashioned kerosene burner, by the looks of it.
Four men, two of them in a uniform which Bat didn’t place and all of them armed, stood before the road block.
Bat came to a halt and activated the window.
One of the civilian-dressed of the four came over and said, “Senor Hardin? Come out, please.” His English was at least as good as Bat’s own.
Bat opened the door and came forth, scowling. He said, “How did you know my name?” His eyes went over them. The alleged uniforms were obviously makeshift. He snapped, “You’re not police!” and his hand shot for his shoulder holster.
Bat Hardin was not slow at the draw, but the Mexican was a blur. His own pistol was out and trained on the American’s stomach.
He said softly, “Move much more slowly, Senor Hardin, and give me that for which you were reaching. So. You carry a gun here in Mexico. To shoot Mexicans with, undoubtedly.”
Bat brought forth the gun and handed it over. He said, “I have a permit issued by your border authorities. Our town is going all the way down. At least to Peru. Undoubtedly we’ll be going through some fairly wild country in places like Colombia and Ecuador. So we have various guns. They weren’t meant to be used against the citizens of your charming country.”
He submitted to a frisk by the other, who relieved him of his pocket phone.
The Mexican stuck Bat’s Gyrojet pistol in his belt and said, “You’ll never reach Peru or Ecuador, Senor Hardin, which will undoubtedly be a great relief to them. This way, please.” He indicated with his gun the more modern of the three cars.
“Where do you think you’re taking me?”
“It is not a matter of mere thinking, Senor Hardin. Just to make matters clear, I would not particularly mind shooting you, although this is not the purpose of your, ah, arrest.”
Bat climbed into the seat next to that of the driver. Into the back climbed one of the uniformed men, a short carbine at the ready and trained at the back of the American’s head.
The English-speaking one took the driver’s seat and started up. They had to wait a half minute for the engine to heat, the steamer being that old a model.
“What am I supposed to have done?” Bat demanded.
“Nothing in particular, simply being a gringo here in Mexico.”
“Who are you people?”
The other ignored him and said something in Spanish to the Mexican in the rear. That one threw what seemed to be a towel over Bat’s eyes and tied it roughly. Bat winced when the cut on the side of his head had pressure applied to it.
They drove only a few minutes before taking off on what was obviously a side road. A side road to the right, Bat remembered. He might have to remember such information in the future. He hadn’t the vaguest idea of what he was up against. They went on for what he estimated to be two kilometers, climbing rather steeply, if Bat, in his blindfold, could estimate correctly.
Finally they came to a halt and car doors opened. There were other voices now, in the background, all speaking Spanish. Bat was taken by each arm, not especially roughly, and led forward.
“Watch your step,” the English-speaking one said.
“Watch your own,” Bat rasped. “You people realize that you’re kidnapping an American citizen?”
There was a chuckle but he couldn’t tell from whom it came.
The one with whom he had been carrying on the conversation said, amusement in his voice, and something more, “We do indeed, Senor Hardin.”
They entered a house, led him down what was evidently a hall. He tried to count the steps he took, so as to be able to identify the house later. They obviously entered a room and then sat him in a chair.
A new voice, an older voice and a highly cultured one, said, “Ah, Mr. Hardin. You do not look like a villain, Mr. Hardin. But I suppose you do not know that you are a villain. Villains seldom think of themselves as villains, so I understand. They usually think they are being terribly put upon by their victims and only doing what is correct.”
Bat snapped, “What is the meaning of all this? I don’t have the vaguest idea of why you have grabbed me, or what’s going on. How do you know my name?”
“That is not important, Mr. Hardin, and we are not particularly interested in you. Any of your town authorities, or even an ordinary member of your community would have done. It is just that circumstances made it you, rather than someone else. We wish to issue an ultimatum.”
“An ultimatum!” Bat snapped. “I’m beginning to suspect that you’re all around the bend. What was the idea of stopping me, dressed in those phony uniforms? You’re not Mexican officials; certainly you’re not police.”
“But we are Mexicans, Mr. Hardin, and in a way even police. Vigilante police. And here is our ultimatum. Your mobile town of New Woodstock must turn about and return to your own country.”
Had Bat Hardin not been blindfolded, he would have stared.
The speaker said flatly, “We do not want you here in Mexico, Mr. Hardin.”
“Who are you?” Bat demanded.
“We are Mexicans,” the other said, more emotion in the elderly voice. “Mexicans who are tired of having their country raped by you endless hordes of norte-americanos.”
Bat said hotly, “We applied for and received all permissions required by the Mexican authorities to pass through the country and exit through Guatemala.”
“We do not agree with some of our authorities. They are overly conscious of the American dollars spent by your tourists, your vacationists and you who permanently establish yourselves in our country and devastate it. You corrupt our young people with your money, your lack of moral decency, your arrogance to a proud people, your pretense to a superior culture.”
Bat began to say something but the older man interrupted him. “When I was a boy, you used to cross the border in ones and twos, some as ordinary tourists, some in their house trailers. We welcomed you, welcomed the dollars you spent in our country. It must have been at the time of the 1969 Olympics that the dam first broke. That year not scores or even hundreds of your trailers and mobile homes crossed but literally thousands. And that was just the beginning. When you established your fantastic Negative Income Tax and millions of your people were suddenly free to leave America’s overcrowded cities with their slums and ghettos, then they swarmed out over not only your own land but Canada and, above all, Mexico as well.”
A new voice, a younger voice but still in English added, “And now my own country, Guatemala, and the other nations to the south. Everywhere, everywhere, your damnable mobile cities destroy the countries in which they park.”
“Listen,” Bat said. “We pay our way. We spend plenty in every country we go through or remain in. Your people benefit by the dollars we spend.”
The older man’s voice same again. “A few benefit. Most of us, not at all. Our way of life, our culture, is destroyed. The sites in which you stay, government built, are government operated. It collects for the power you buy, it collects for the expenditures you make in the ultra-markets, restaurants and cantinas located on each site. Admittedly, the money realized is used by our authorities in their grandiose attempts to speed up the industrialization of Mexico. But some of us are not even sure that we wish to be industrialized to the fantastic extent to which you of the north have accomplished.”