The Un-coyote

"The President of Sacrevista and the congress have become concerned about the plans of the corporations headquartered in Sacrevista to expand in other countries, namely the US states of North and South Mexico. Their plan is to nationalize those corporations and to declare all employees as crucial to the national interests and therefore prohibited from leaving.

"That plan will be made public in the next month or so, and the required laws will surely pass quickly through the Sacrevista House and Senate and be signed by the President. In the interim, all emigration permits for all employees of those industries are being held by the Sacrevista authorities. My niece has already sold her home and invested the money just as your grandfather did, but she will never be granted an emigration permit, nor will the rest of her family.

"All I am asking is for you to help my niece and her family escape what will surely become a virtual life-long imprisonment in Sacrevista. Of course, I cannot offer you official status, but I can furnish you with anything you require."

I was starting to believe him a little, but I was still not really convinced.

"Mr. Ramirez, anyone trying to do what you're asking would need some pretty sophisticated equipment. Getting more than a couple of people over the border would be difficult, and nearly impossible without some way to know where the guards are, how many there are, and what electronic devices they have. That means military grade night vision, GPS, and equipment to detect various types of sensors. I doubt you can get that type of stuff since most of it's highly classified and available only to the military."

Mr. Ramirez just smiled.

"As I said earlier, working for a US state agency means there are certain avenues available to certain people with certain needs. I have already assembled most of the equipment you would require based upon an assessment of the risks by a friend of mine. It includes water and food rations for ten people for a week should you think it will take that much time."

"Ten people? I thought you said it was just your niece and family."

He smiled.

"It is my niece, her husband, their three children, her two brothers, her husband's two sisters, and one grandparent of her husband's."

I was getting ready to tell him to go fuck himself when he smiled again.

"Of course you will be rewarded accordingly."

"What is accordingly?"

"I believe five thousand dollars per person would compensate you adequately for your time and effort."

"You have that kind of money?"

"I have made certain arrangements."

He handed me a business card.

"Should you accept my proposal, I will authorize your access to the bank account on the back of that card. Currently, the account balance is half the amount I propose. The balance of your compensation will be added once I see my niece and her family safe in my home."

Fifty thousand was a lot of money. Getting ten people across the border would be a tough job, especially since three of them were kids and one was older, but it would take me over six months to earn that as a DNR officer. It could also end up with me and those ten people in a Sacrevista prison for who knows how long. It was that old excitement thing that got me. It would be pretty damned exciting to sneak ten people across the border.

.

At the time, I didn't realize what I was getting myself into. I wasn't until a week after I delivered all Ramirez' family to his doorstep I found out. He called me again.

"Mr. Gaines, I can not begin to tell you how happy I am right now. My niece and her husband have already found jobs and are starting their new life. The rest of the family are in the process of relocating to the cities where their relatives reside."

"Well, you're welcome, but I'm sure that's not why you called me."

"No, it is not. I have another proposal for you, one which will be similar to that which you have already accomplished. Would you consider another such activity?

That second trip hadn't been as difficult as I'd thought, especially after we put the kids to sleep with a mild sedative Juan had been thoughtful enough to provide. Everything had gone according to plan so it was easy money. I had nothing better to do either.

"Let's say I'm interested. We need to meet again because I have some more questions."

Juan seemed overjoyed.

"Excellent. Could you drive down to my office in Nogales? We'll have a late lunch and then another discussion."

We had lunch at Toscanos Restaurante, and then Juan drove us to the Plaza de Benito Juárez. Juan pointed at the statue of Benito Juárez and smiled.

"Benito Juárez is both a symbol and a hero of the old Mexico. Did you know he forged a close working relationship with the US?"

I said I didn't, to which Juan sighed.

"I would suppose most US schools do not teach much about the history of Mexico. Perhaps that will change now that we are two US states. Juárez was very important to Mexico because of what he did and because of his background. He came from a poor, rural family and yet became a lawyer and the President of Mexico. It is something to which we hope our youth will aspire now that we have a stable government and a growing economy. The other statue here represents that hope."

Juan pointed to a statue of a naked man fighting some sort of flying animal.

"The naked man is the Mexican people", Juan said. "The winged creature is ignorance. It is ignorance we must conquer for all our people. It is the people who relocate from Sacrevista to North and South Mexico who will assist in that effort. Now, you said you had some questions. What might those questions be?"

Juan was smiling, and the smile didn't change when I asked him who he really worked for. He just motioned for me to follow him to a section of the Plaza where there were no people. Once there, he gave me the answer, sort of.

"My employer is the organization of which I spoke, the North Mexico Office of Labor Development and Employment. It is a small, but important branch of the North Mexico state government and is charged with doing that which the name implies."

I'd already done some research and knew that much, but it didn't seem reasonable that such a government office would engage in smuggling people across the border. I said as much to Juan and he smiled again.

"I believed you would not settle for a simple answer. Unfortunately, I can not give you a better one. There are matters of US and North Mexico security to consider. Let us just say my office is unique in that it receives Federal funding for certain of our efforts."

I knew of only one Federal agency that would be dabbling in foreign affairs.

"You must be speaking of the CIA."

"Now, Mr. Gaines, were I to say you are incorrect, you would not believe me, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"Perhaps we should just leave it at that. What other questions do you have?"

"If I decide to help you out, I'm going to need some more equipment that I can't buy on the open market. How would you suppose I could get that equipment?"

Juan grinned.

"If you give me a list, I assure you I can have everything you need in less than a week and it will be located in the cave on your grandfather's farm."

"How many people are we talking about?"

Juan stopped smiling.

"My sources tell me there are several million who wish to return to their homeland. Obviously you can not accomplish that by yourself. We would ask you to bring perhaps two hundred workers and their families over the course of the first year."

"Two hundred...and their families? You have to be crazy. There's no way I could get that many people across the border without the Sacrevista Border Patrol noticing."

Juan shrugged.

"Were you to bring a few at a time, say perhaps ten or twelve, it could be done. There are approximately fourteen days each month when the moon is not so bright you would be easily seen. By making a trip on those days, you could make nearly fifty trips in a year.

"Who would I be bringing across? I'm sure it's not more relatives."

"A few will be relatives of government associates, but for the most part, they will be people selected for their knowledge of how to work in factories and on commercial farms. They can do the work required to grow our economy and teach our people at the same time. You will be doing a service to the people you bring to North Mexico as well. You will be providing them security for the future, just as you did for your grandparents and my family."

"So you're going to pick who gets to come along?"

Juan chuckled.

"Mr. Gaines, we have no way of supporting the lives of people who do not contribute without turning North and South Mexico into copies of our neighbor to the north. There are also known criminals living in Sacrevista who would bring their activities along with them. Surely you can understand that."

"Well, if I decide to do this, bringing even a dozen people across at a time might not be a big problem, but Sacrevista is a big country and some are probably a long way from the border. How would they get to someplace close enough to the border I don't have to walk them hundreds of miles? I can't do that and make those fifty trips a year."

"My organization has taken care of that problem. I can not tell you how it was done, but your grandfather's vineyard is now in sympathetic hands. While it still produces wine for Sacrevista, it will also serve as a collection point for those we wish to return. Because of the number of workers required by the operation, the small increase and decrease from time to time will not be noticed by the authorities. The trip will be much the same as you took with your grandparents."

"OK, that makes it easier, but if a bunch of people start to disappear, won't Sacrevista suspect something's going on?"

He chuckled again.

"Most certainly they will, but if my information is correct, Sacrevista has a much larger problem to worry about. Already one of the remaining still-private corporations has ceased manufacturing in Sacrevista because they have located all new products in North Mexico. There are few remaining employees, so they have quietly paid the relocation tax and are in the process of transferring their headquarters to North Mexico.

"Sacrevista has already nationalized the largest corporations, and the Sacrevista value-added taxes make those products more costly than those made here. As a result, demand for those products has been significantly reduced. In the very new future, Sacrevista will begin losing the revenue that enables their social programs to continue. They are more concerned about that state of affairs than they are about emigration of a few people.

Juan shrugged.

"In any event, there will be no way to follow them to your grandfather's farm. There are certain people in Sacrevista who will convey them there by certain means that will appear innocent should Sacrevista Emmigration Control investigate. They will simply be taking a weekend vacation to see the sights or are going to visit friends. By the time they are missed, that transportation will have been replaced by a different means untraceable to the first."

The first six trips were pretty easy. The laser sensors had stopped being a problem after the first trip. I was tossing my hamburger balls at the border between ten and midnight twice a week. That kept the coyotes coming every night and setting off the alarms. After another week, the guards just disabled them as soon as the first one went off.

The adults were mostly in good physical shape, and the same mild sedative put any young kids to sleep so they'd stay quiet. We had to carry them, but only from my cave to the border and then to the waiting bus, about a fifteen minute walk each way from the border.

The seventh was harder. A month before, two of the top engineers at one of the nationalized software companies had gone on vacation with their families and had never come back. The Sacrevista Bureau of Investigation traced them to a tour bus headed for Chula Vista, but when they investigated further, they discovered the company that owned the tour bus didn't actually exist and the bus was nowhere to be found.

It was a day after those engineers didn't show up for work the software company reported all the files relative to the artificial intelligence software which those engineers had written had also disappeared, including all the backup copies. By that time, I had those two engineers and their families safely in North Mexico. The engineers were explaining their work to their new company and their families were in the process of finding housing.

The SBI had worked on other cases like this, but those people were small fish compared to these two engineers. They'd long known there were people leaving Sacrevista, but the others had just been factory supervisors or junior engineers. The loss of these two engineers and all their work would set back the company at least five years if not more.

The result was Sacrevista had increased the number of Sacrevista troops guarding the southern border, and now instead of walking a five hundred yard strip of the border, each guard only walked half that distance.

That afternoon, I stretched out on top of a rock behind some yuccas and watched the guards patrol through my binoculars. By my watch, it took a guard about eight minutes to walk his guard station from one end to the other. I'd have only about ten minutes max while the guard was far enough away he probably wouldn't hear footsteps or anyone brushing against something.

That was going to be a problem. I'd have to take one across then wait for the guard to walk past, turn, and then get far enough away he wouldn't hear me coming back. I figured it would take about an hour per person to get them all from my cave and across the border. There were only six on this trip, but it was still going to be a long, long night.

I picked up the group at Grandpa's old house and spent the first night walking to my cave. The next morning, I got them all something to eat and then sat them down.

I explained how we'd have to make the crossing and since it would take a little over six hours, there was some risk involved. We'd have to start as soon as it was dark enough we wouldn't be easily seen and cross one at a time. The risk would be that we'd have to finish before dawn or we'd be caught. I said if any of them were reluctant to take that risk, I'd take them back to the farm and they could go back home.

That's when Maria, a young factory supervisor from a semiconductor factory, asked why I had to go back and forth.

"Why can't we just walk across in a group? All of us can run that far."

"We'll only have a few minutes to get across and out of sight, and it's easy to trip and fall if you try to run in the dark. If you did that, the guard would be sure to catch you and that would mean everybody who's left would probably be caught too. We can't risk that. I can see with my night vision goggles, but I don't have enough for everybody. They take some getting used to anyway."

Maria asked if I had another pair.

I nodded.

"I do, but I don't see how that's going to help."

She grinned.

"I can help because I know how to use them. My company made the sensor chip assemblies and we had to test them in the goggles."

"OK, that would get you across by yourself, but what about the others?"

Maria smiled.

"You give me your extra goggles and take me and one other person to the border first so I'll know the way. Then I'll come back and get the next person while you take the first one across. I'll meet you at the border with the next person and you take them across while I go back for another. We'll keep doing that until all of us are across. Wouldn't that work?"

It would cut the time in half if I could trust Maria to not just run off after she brought the first person to the border. I wasn't quite ready to do that.

"Yes, Maria, it would work, but how do I know you won't just leave once you find the border?"

The older woman beside Maria raised her hand.

"I'm Maria's mother and I'll stay here and be the last to cross. Maria would never leave me behind."

That night I gave Maria my extra goggles and had her walk around outside the cave for a few minutes. She didn't bump into anything or fall down, so I figured she could probably make it to the border and back. At eleven, I heard a coyote howl and knew they'd be looking for a little snack. I tossed a few balls of hamburger a hundred yards each side of my planned crossing point to make sure the laser sensors were turned off. Ten minutes later, Maria and I started for the border with one of my clients in tow.

We stopped fifty yards from the border and waited until the guard turned and was half way to the other end of his post. Maria waved as she turned and walked back toward the cave. I slipped the first, an older factory manager whose wife and daughter would be next, across and down to the ravine where we'd wait for the rest.

Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting behind a bush ten yards from the border and watching the guard. He wasn't being particularly attentive. I'm sure his supervisor wouldn't have approved of the ear buds in his ears or the cell phone in his hand.

He reached the end of his post, turned and started back. He was half way when I saw Maria walking slowly toward me and glancing in the direction of the guard every three or so steps. The woman behind her had her hand on Maria's shoulder. I stood up and quickly walked to meet her.

She grinned when she saw me, and walked a little faster until we met. She leaned over, put her cheek against mine and whispered, "See, I told you I could do it."

I sent her on her way back to the cave and took the woman across and down to my hiding place. We had just three more plus Maria, to go.

The rest were about the same except for Maria and her mother. Evidently the guards had changed. I knew they probably changed about every four hours. I just didn't know when since they'd changed their protocol since my last trip.

The new guard looked like he was still half asleep. He walked past me, yawned, and then sat down.

I was afraid he was going to go to sleep, and since he was only a few yards from where we crossed, I couldn't risk Maria and her mother coming across. If he woke up and saw them, all hell would break loose and I'd lose my crossing point and probably my cave.

He stayed sitting for about ten minutes, then looked at his watch and stood up. He wasn't quite half way to the other end when Maria and her mother walked up beside me.

Maria smiled.

"My mother is the last, and I shut off everything before we started like you showed me."

We walked back to the ravine, got our group together and started walking south. About half an hour later, I saw the North Mexico Immigration bus and flashed my flashlight once. After the bus flashed its lights twice I walked the group to the bus and helped them board. Maria and her mother were the last two to board besides me.

Always before, I'd taken the seat behind the driver, but this time when I got on the bus, I saw Maria waving at me. I walked back two rows and sat down beside her. Maria put her hand on my arm and smiled.

"I couldn't say anything back there, but now I can. Thank you for helping me and my mother. She'll get to see her grandchildren for the first time since they were born."

I shrugged.

"I'm happy for you both, but I did get paid, so you don't really have to thank me. I was just doing my job."

"I know, but you didn't have to be as nice as you were. Mother told me the man who brought her across the border years ago wasn't nice at all. She was terrified that time. Tonight she felt safe. I felt safe too even though it was really exciting."