The Un-coyote

On August 24, 2035, the same date on which Mexico had become independent of Spain in 1821, Mexico was admitted to the United States of America as two states, North Mexico and South Mexico. The DHS quickly established border defenses between South Mexico and the neighboring states of Guatemala and Belize, and this border was unique in American history.

This border consisted of a wall of steel reinforced concrete ten feet thick that reached from twenty feet underground to forty feet above ground. Only two gaps in that wall were left to allow travel to Belize and Guatemala, and both were designed such that once a person or vehicle entered, there was no easy way to return. All entrants were searched, and if the search of the person or vehicle found nothing banned and the person had the appropriate travel or work permit, the person or vehicle was allowed into South Mexico. If any contraband was discovered, the person was arrested and held for trial.

Guardhouses manned by the US Army were stationed at five hundred foot intervals at the top of the wall and were equipped with radar, night vision, and seismometers to detect digging. The orders to these troops were to open fire on anyone attempting to bridge the wall.

As the US Army guarded the wall, the US Navy patrolled the oceans on both sides and the US Air Force flew continuous coverage by AEW&C aircraft to detect any unauthorized attempts at landing. Any ship, boat, submarine or aircraft that would not stop to be searched or could not prove it was on a legal mission was to be immediately destroyed.

Sacrevista had ignored most of these happenings. The new country was in the process of making Sacrevista into the country the ultra-liberals had visualized. Every resident of Sacrevista was made a voting citizen of the country by virtue of residence, and there was no restriction on immigration from anywhere. All residents were guaranteed a living wage, free medical care, free education to include all college programs, and a retirement income equal to the last year's earned wage or established minimum living wage, whichever was greater.

These guarantees were financed by several different taxes. Businesses were taxed at seventy percent of net income and individuals were taxed according to a sliding rate. That rate ranged from negative taxes, i.e. payment to make up the difference between earnings and the Sacrevista declared minimum living wage, to taxes of seventy percent of net income over the equivalent of ten million US dollars from the highest earners.

The manufacturers of goods landing in Sacrevista ports were charged a port tax of thirty percent of the declared value, and goods manufactured in Sacrevista had a value added tax of fifteen percent appended to the selling price if they were exported from Sacrevista.

Life in Sacrevista was good and people were happy, well except for businesses and the middle class. The high earners in Sacrevista had a little less money at the end of the year, but not enough for them to feel any real discomfort. Most of them were supportive of the socialist state Sacrevista was becoming and thought their high taxes were a small price to pay. The middle class was hit hard by taxes that took from forty to sixty percent of their net income. They were also hit the hardest by the means by which business reacted.

In order to maintain profitability and thus stockholder dividends, businesses were forced to raise prices of what they produced. While this worked to the benefit of their stockholders, the higher prices pretty much negated Sacrevista's minimum annual income program and made any exports from businesses in Sacrevista more costly than the same items manufactured in other countries.

Sacrevista had foreseen disagreement by business and knew some would attempt to relocate to more tax-friendly areas. To counteract this, Sacrevista passed a law requiring any business leaving the country to pay to the Sacrevista government an amount equivalent to the estimated earnings of each displaced employee had they worked to the age of seventy. Business grumbled, but stayed, settled for lower profits, and paid the high tax rates. It was less expensive in the short term than moving back to the US.

It took ten more years before Sacrevista sat up and took notice of their neighbor to the South. Both North and South Mexico had made huge expansions and improvements to their Pacific ports. Where before, some ports had only been large enough to accommodate cruise ships, they now could handle loading and unloading of the largest tankers and container ships traveling the Pacific shipping lanes. Labor costs were lower in the new ports, and the new highways linking them to the rest of the US made transportation by truck cheap and fast. By the time Sacrevista realized the trend taking place, as much cargo was being offloaded in North and South Mexico as in Sacrevista.

As transportation improved, so did industry in both North and South Mexico. Prior to the infiltration of the drug cartels, Mexico had enjoyed several US factories that assembled electronics, appliances, and autos and trucks. Once the cartels were driven out, those industries were ready to return and expand and many other corporations were more than willing to build new factories there.

By 2040, the corporations in Sacrevista had realized a quirk in the law regarding displaced employees -- it only applied if they moved their headquarters or relocated production of existing goods. It had been assumed by the Sacrevista legislation that the end of a product life-cycle would result in continued employment of the same workers to construct a new, replacement product, so the law did not include payment for workers furloughed because of lack of production.

Instead of expanding in Sacrevista, the corporations headquartered there added production capacity for new products in North and South Mexico. It was cheaper to manufacture there and there was also no port tax or value added tax to be paid. Since many of the products produced in Sacrevista were electronic with a short life span, more than one corporation was still headquartered in Sacrevista but had no manufacturing facilities there.

The same situation existed for agriculture. Most of the fruits and vegetable products grown in Sacrevista were also cultivated in North and South Mexico. Before, transporting them to the US made the cost to the consumer nearly as high as for the same products grown in Sacrevista. That changed when the highway, rail, and air travel system infrastructure in North and South Mexico were upgraded. Transporting fruits and vegetables even from South Mexico cost less than the value-added tax on the same goods from Sacrevista.

Some of the Sacrevista corporate employees and field workers began following their jobs from Sacrevista to North and South Mexico. Wages were lower there, but there was no state income tax and the cost of housing and other living expenses were much lower.

Sacrevista wanted them to stay. If they left, there would be fewer workers to pay the taxes that would maintain Sacrevista's ability to continue the benefits for income, education, health care, and retirement they had established.

The response of the Sacrevista government was to make it illegal to leave Sacrevista without obtaining an emigration permit. The permit fee was fifty thousand dollars for individuals employed in high-tech industries and ten thousand dollars for farm, construction, and other workers. Spouses paid the same fee. The fee for dependent children under the age of eighteen was half the fee for adults.

The other deterrent to leaving Sacrevista was the requirement that all emigrants would relinquish half their assets to Sacrevista. In enacting this law, the government of Sacrevista explained that since the government infrastructure and legal system was responsible for any person's success, that government was therefore entitled to half the results of that success should the person decide to leave Sacrevista.

To guard against illegal emigration, Sacrevista constructed a border fence at each highway and road in and out of the country and established the Sacrevista Border Patrol to man them. The rest of the Sacrevista border was patrolled by units of the Sacrevista National Army. There were rumors of electronic monitoring devices in those areas as well that could detect the motion and body heat of anyone attempting to cross the border.

It was at that time I made a career change, though I didn't anticipate the career I chose. My tour of duty with the military was over and I didn't really want to sign up for more. I still liked the glamour and excitement of the military, but I was tired of all the regulations on everything I did.

I also had a problem with my grandparents. They were ready to retire and desperately wanted to leave Sacrevista. Grandpa figured his land, house and vineyard were worth around two million US dollars, so by selling his vineyard, he could easily afford the emigration permits for him and Grandma. He just couldn't see why he should give Sacrevista half of what his father and then he had worked for all their lives.

Grandpa was smart enough to know any electronic communication was risky. While Sacrevista had continually decried the US government eavesdropping on email and phone calls into and out of Sacrevista, Grandpa knew of one other farmer who was of the same sentiments and who had conveyed his desire to leave Sacrevista via several emails and phone calls to his daughter in Texas. That farmer had been hauled into a police station and grilled for a day before they finally let him go. Even then, the farmer suspected his communications and daily activities were monitored.

Grandpa wrote me letters instead, and I responded in the same manner. Neither he nor I were certain about the confidentiality of written correspondence in Sacrevista. I would suppose it was because it was easier to eavesdrop on email and phone calls than open letters and then re-seal them, but the first six we exchanged didn't appear to have been tampered with. Even so, we were very careful in the wording of those letters.

Grandpa wrote me and said he was thinking of retiring and moving back to the city. He said since he'd been born in the city it would be kind of like going home. Grandpa asked if there was any way I could use my truck to help him move so he wouldn't have to hire a mover.

Only he and I knew the city he was talking about was Phoenix, because that was where he'd been born. His parents had moved to that same vineyard in California when he was two. Asking to use my truck was his code for getting him back to Phoenix.

It didn't take much thought to realize I could get him and Grandma across the border. I wasn't a Ranger or Special Forces guy, but I'd had training in navigation and survival and I'd spend a lot of summers roaming all over Grandpa's vineyard. I'd just use my military training to locate and avoid the border patrols. We'd have to go slow because Grandpa and Grandma weren't up to much running, but his house was only a few miles from the North Mexico border.

I wrote back that I'd be happy to help him move with my truck if he could make sure everything was ready because I could only take off work for one day. That was my code for telling him it would have to be done in one night.

Over a period of about two months, we formulated a plan that was simple, but would probably be successful. Grandpa would put his farm up for sale. Once it sold, he'd hold back a few a hundred thousand or so and invest the rest on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. To any nosey Sacrevista tax investigator, it would look like Grandpa had banked enough to live on and pay his taxes and invested the rest in the stock of companies friendly to Sacrevista. Sacrevista had a strong economic relationship with both Hong Kong and Mainland China because of the electronics industry so those investments wouldn't attract attention.

Grandpa's farm sold on the first of March, and just like we'd planned, he paid the first and last month's rent on an apartment in Campo as soon as the deed transferred to the new owner. Grandpa and Grandma had until the first of April to move out. From the first of March until the tenth, I camped in North Mexico within a mile of the border. I spent all day doing nothing except eating, hiking around, and acting like I was enjoying myself just in case the border guards were watching me. I did see three ultra-light aircraft flying down the border, so I figured they knew I was there. I spent every night sitting a hundred feet from the border and watching what the guards did through my night vision binoculars.

Once every night, I'd slip up to within twenty feet of the border and throw balls of raw hamburger as close to the path the guards walked as I could manage. That was a trick we'd used on the cartel strongholds. Those compounds also had the latest in electronic monitoring equipment. The balls of hamburger attracted the local coyotes and other scavengers. After running out to check on the resulting alarms a dozen or so times every night and finding nothing, the guards would shut off the alarms. The Sacrevista guards began doing that after the third night as soon as the first coyote howled.

The twentieth of March was supposed to be a new moon. I'd be able to see pretty well with the night vision equipment I'd bought, but the lack of a moon would make it difficult for the guards to see three people dressed in black. At Nine P.M. on the twentieth, I slipped around the border guard in that sector and hiked to Grandpa's house. All the lights were off when I got there, but that was according to plan. Grandpa and Grandma had been turning off all the lights at ten for the past six months.

They weren't in the house anyway. They were dressed in all black with black backpacks and waiting for me in the wine storage building. Their backpacks had been there for a week and held enough water and food for two days travel on foot as well as the few personal items they couldn't bear to leave behind. I thought Grandma had done a good job on them both with the black shoe polish she'd used instead of camo makeup.

We didn't talk much. Grandma hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. Grandpa shook my hand, took a last look around, and then said, "let's go".

There was only one little hitch along the way back to the border. I'd planned to cross the border at the point where two guard posts met. The guards walking the posts would usually meet each other there to confirm both were on duty. Once they started back to the other end of their post, we'd have about half an hour to get across without worrying about being seen.

We were within a hundred yards of that point when the two guards met. For some reason they stood there and talked for half an hour before starting back in the other direction.

Once they separated, I waited another fifteen minutes to give the guards time to get out of sight. They were five hundred yards away when we slipped across and then down into a gully where we wouldn't be seen.

That morning, I drove Grandpa and Grandma to my mom and dad's house in Arizona. That afternoon, Grandpa sold all his stock and put the money into CD's in a US bank. He'd lost a little from commissions and the exchange rate, but it was only about ten percent of what he'd been paid for his farm. He and Grandma bought a house in the country and started life as a retired couple.

It was two weeks later a man in a black suit and sunglasses knocked on the door of Mom and Dad's house. When Mom answered his knock, the man said he'd like to speak with me if I was home.

Mom said I was out looking for a job and would be back in a couple hours. The man gave Mom his business card and said he'd wait in his car. I got back home after an interview with the Arizona Department of Natural Resources. They liked me but I wasn't sure about them. They still had a ton of regulations about uniforms and the proper way to act. Those were the things I hadn't liked about the US Army and I didn't figure the DNR regulations would be any better.

The guy called my name when I was half way to the house. I was trying to figure out how he knew me when he walked up and stuck out his hand.

"Thomas...Thomas Gaines?"

I nodded.

"What can I do for you?"

"My name is Juan Ramirez, and I'm with the North Mexico Office of Labor Development and Employment. Can we speak for a few minutes?"

Well, that few minutes turned into an hour of sitting in the lawn chairs in the back yard, an hour that decided my future employment and how I'd live my life.

After Mom brought us each a soda, Juan explained how he knew my name and why he was there.

"Mr. Gaines, my job is to help North Mexico coordinate its agricultural and industrial expansion, but I'm not here in an official capacity. I'm here because I have a problem similar to the one you just solved for your grandparents."

That statement made me suspicious that the guy was out to haul my ass off to jail. Getting Grandpa and Grandma out of Sacrevista was illegal there, and since the US was still trying to play nice with the new country, they'd probably think it was something they should tell Sacrevista about. I had no desire to spend any time in a Sacrevista prison. I looked at Mr. Ramirez with what I hoped was a confused face.

"Mr. Ramirez, I'm not sure what you're talking about. My Grandpa and Grandma moved to Phoenix a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't have anything to do with that. They just wanted to be closer to Mom and Dad."

He smiled at me again.

"Mr. Gaines, being part of the United States means certain government employees of certain government agencies in North Mexico have access to certain information from certain other government agencies. As you may or may not know, the border is continuously monitored via remote cameras. My office receives the video of any border crossings along with the identity of the individuals if they are in the Federal face recognition database. Since you were photographed when you joined the US Army, it was a simple matter to match the face on the video with your military photographs., Now, may we dispense with the denials and false explanations and discuss my problem like men?

"My agency is very interested in people who cross the border. They bring experience in industry and commercial farms to North Mexico, so we need to know when they come and where they go. I know the date and time of your border crossing and know your grandparents now live on a small farm about ten miles from here."

He was still smiling, but his face looked sort of hopeful too. I decided if he wanted to send my ass back to Sacrevista and already had the video like he said, I'd probably already be on my way. Maybe I could trust him.

"I'm not admitting to doing what you think you saw, but if I did you'd probably turn me over to the Sacrevista government, wouldn't you?"

Mr. Ramirez frowned for the first time since we'd met.

"No, Mr. Gaines. I want you to do it again...with my niece and her family. My niece is a software engineer as is her husband. She wants to come home but does not want to lose half the value of their savings and home. I understand your grandparents were in the same situation."

I still wasn't convinced. His story sounded like a trap.

"My grandpa told me he sold his house, kept enough to pay his taxes, and put all the rest and his savings in stocks on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Once he moved to Arizona, he sold the stocks and put the money into US investments. Your niece could do the same, pay the emigration permit fees, and come home legally."

"Yes, yes, under ordinary circumstances she could do just that, but you do not have access to the same information as I. There have been rumors in various news agencies, but I have the factual information.