A light steady rain fell as Pescatore drove into Border Field State Park. He waved at a park ranger in a yellow slicker who sat in a guardhouse by the entrance. The road slanted southwest through a grassy field. Sheer hills topped by mansions with satellite dishes and cupolas, the exclusive Playas de Tijuana neighborhood with its beach-and-border view, marked the international line. The rain and mist blurred the bowl-shaped hulk of Tijuana’s seaside bullring in the distance. Three Patrol Wranglers were parked in the lot overlooking the southwestern corner of the border.
When Pescatore had arrived in the San Diego sector, a retired agent had told him about what the beach was like in the years before the border fence. On sunny weekends, the retired agent had explained, an unspoken agreement between The Patrol and the beachgoers caused the border to temporarily disappear. Extended families arrived in contingents, some from San Diego and some from Tijuana. They camped out on blankets and towels. Kids chased soccer balls in the surf. Vendors carried Styrofoam coolers and pushed ice cream carts. Musical trios known as conjuntos lugged instruments across the sand to perform serenades. All of them breaching the unmarked international line as Border Patrol agents lounged in the parking lot above the beach.
The agents sunned themselves, propped on their vehicle hoods in wraparound dark glasses. They permitted the foot traffic between First and Third worlds as long as no one strayed off the sand or too far north. It was a peaceful scene. Only on rare occasions did some lowlife cholo ruin the mood by removing his shirt, hoisting a boogie board over his shoulder as camouflage, and trying to sneak toward downtown San Diego, which rose out of the Pacific like an apparition in the distance.
But then the U.S. Army had constructed a specially engineered metal fence at the state park. The fence extended down the dune, across the sand and several hundred yards into the ocean. And it put an end to transborder weekends at the beach forever more.
Pescatore climbed into Garrison’s Wrangler with Dillard and Macías. Garrison was on the phone and smoking furiously. Garrison said the name Mauro and wrapped up the conversation.
“Listen up, gentlemen,” Garrison said, peering south through the rivulets on the windshield. “You know this Colonel Astorga that busted out of the penitentiary in TJ? Well, he’s coming across in a couple minutes. We’re giving him a escort north.”
“Here?” asked Macías, who was in his early twenties and had a crew cut. “Be less fuss to have him come through one of our lanes at the port of entry, wouldn’t it?”
“This guy’s all over the news,” Garrison said. “It’s too hot for him to show up at San Ysidro or Otay. Macías, I want you out by the park entrance. Anybody shows up, you shoo ’em off. Me and Valentine and Dillard are gonna meet our guy. Door-to-door service.”
Garrison said he planned to stash the Colonel at the safe house in Imperial Beach until the end of the shift. Then they would give him a ride north past the Border Patrol freeway checkpoint at San Clemente. Somebody else would take over from there.
Macías departed. Garrison, Pescatore and Dillard sat in the Wrangler listening to the rain on the roof. Pescatore’s hand gripped the belt sheath holding his cell phone. He cursed himself for not having called Isabel Puente when he had had the chance. He had resisted his initial instinct that Garrison’s “urgent thing” involved the Colonel. It had seemed too brazen, too risky.
Garrison checked his watch.
“Ready?” he said.
His phone rang again. Pescatore slumped, restless, exhaling forcefully. He watched Garrison. The supervisor closed his eyes momentarily as he listened. He muttered one word into the phone: “OK.”
Garrison closed the phone and clipped it to his belt. He did not look at Pescatore or Dillard.
“You guys get going down there in Valentine’s vehicle,” Garrison said. “The Colonel is about five seven, one seventy-five, late fifties. Wearing a fatigue-type jacket and a Pittsburgh Pirates cap. He’s with a subject in a Padres cap named Rico. You just put ’em in the vehicle. I’ll cover you from my little command post up here, buddy.”
His door open, water hitting his sleeve, Pescatore started to ask Garrison where the third escapee was and, more important, why Garrison wasn’t coming down to the beach. But as he studied the bulging gray eyes, the controlled savagery with which the supervisor stubbed out his cigarette, Pescatore understood. He’s scared, Pescatore thought. That’s why he’s not taking the lead, shaking the Colonel’s hand, the big-shot bullshit. It doesn’t make sense-unless somebody just told him it’s not such a hot idea to get close to the Colonel right this minute. And if he’s scared, I’m scared.
Pescatore steered his Wrangler down a sandy ridge to the beach. Dillard popped bubbles next to him. Pescatore drove slowly south across the sand. He stopped about a hundred feet from The Line. There were fuzzy lights along the fence on the Tijuana side, the shadow of the bullring beyond. The fence was dark and devoid of movement. Rain usually thinned the gathering of migrants and vendors on the beach.
The Colonel was supposed to come through a new hole in the fence. The gap was about the size of a doorway. Floods and erosion had weakened the support of one of the metal panels during the winter rains, and smugglers had knocked it down.
Pescatore glanced back up to his left. He saw Garrison’s vehicle over the low stone wall of the parking lot atop the bluff. Pescatore intended to sit in the Wrangler until the Colonel came to him.
“They’re waitin’ on ya,” Garrison said over the radio. “You gotta meet ’em on foot. That’s the arrangement.”
Dillard got out. Reluctantly, Pescatore followed suit. Rain pattered on the brim of his uniform cap. The moon-striped surf sloshed and crackled on his right.
Stepping clear of the Wrangler, Pescatore drew his gun. He held it next to his leg. It made him feel better.
They walked slowly, Dillard about fifteen feet to his right.
“What’re you doin’ with your gun out?” Dillard snapped. “You’re gonna spook them old boys.”
“Fuck them old boys,” Pescatore hissed, his eyes never leaving the gap in the fence. “I’m takin’ appropriate precautions.”
The certainty that something terrible was about to happen settled over him. He felt utterly focused. He stopped, knees slightly bent.
Shadows filled the gap in the fence. Two men, both wearing baseball caps, entered U.S. territory. They made their way down the sand slope to the beach. A third shadow remained in the gap.
The tall one in the Padres cap, Rico, raised a hand in greeting. A coat flapped around him. Pescatore heard Dillard advise Garrison over his radio. Pescatore could see the black P on the yellow background of a Pittsburgh Pirates cap taking shape in the gloom, the hard squarish face of the shorter man beneath it. The Colonel. Both of the men in caps had their hands open and extended to their sides as they walked.
A raindrop slid along Pescatore’s cheek. Shifting his gaze back and forth from the approaching duo to the fence, he saw the third man make a move.
Pescatore went into a crouch, causing the Colonel and his sidekick to falter. Pescatore started to shout a warning. Gunshots exploded in the gap at the fence.
Multiple impacts buckled the Colonel. He said, “Ay.” He pitched forward onto his belly.
Pescatore shouted: “Ten-ten! Shots fired, shots fired!”
He saw Dillard draw his gun, wild and disoriented, and yell at Rico, who had extracted a big revolver from the folds of his coat. Rico was next to the fallen Colonel, whirling back and forth between the agents and the shooter at the fence. When Rico saw Dillard point his gun in his general direction, he sank down on one knee in a practiced and fluid motion. He shot Dillard in the face.