34
THE RADIO calls kept coming, a new one right on top of the last. The border-cam dispatcher spotted a drive-thru station wagon in fields near Hammer Road and three people running with duffel bags near Jones Road. Locals phoned in suspicious vehicles on Froberg and Peace Drive as well. The freshest tip was that a sedan carrying two people up Foxhurst exited with just one. Brandon was the closest agent to this north-south road, so he sped toward it.
He’d volunteered for the graveyard shift, thinking he’d stand a better chance of making it through eight hours without facing smirks, glares or sarcastic questions about the bomb-scare fiasco in the park. He was sick of trying to read people and didn’t want to talk to anyone except Madeline or his mom. The memory clinic had called his mother to say she’d scored poorly on their test, but that the results might have been skewed by nerves. They wanted her to take another exam. Though she was excited to get a second chance, Brandon felt his world slipping underfoot.
He followed Foxhurst toward the border, then veered off into dirt toward the big swamp. Setting out on foot, with night goggles now, he scanned the trees and sky for pulses of life. He reported to the supervisor that he saw plenty of tracks leading into the woods but couldn’t gauge their age, which triggered second-guessing grumbles about chasing swamp ghosts when so much shit was going down in the valley.
The swamp wasn’t even considered a smuggling route, as there was no easy route through or around it. Despite being larger than most lakes in the county, it was of so little interest that nobody had ever bothered to name it, though Brandon had always considered it the best place to find marsh wrens or Virginia rails.
He headed into the soggy woodlands toward the border, looking for tracks, trails or any warm-blooded life-form that flashed white in his goggles. It was hard to hear anything over the sucking sound of his boots, so he kept stopping and listening before pushing on again. On one break he heard the distant foghorn of a great horned owl, but forced himself not to reply.
He picked a fast route through scraggly trees and shrubs where roots offered enough traction to almost jog. Then he froze at the squawk of a blue heron that flushed a brood of mallards. Brandon scanned the air for rising ducks, but saw nothing. They were farther away than they sounded. A nighthawk or an owl might have rousted their bunkhouse, or perhaps they’d heard him running. Regardless, he strode toward the commotion until the swamp opened up. Here he stopped again and crouched, scanning the water and the sky and the water once more for motion, his gaze sweeping slowly across its surface. A raccoon or even an aggressive bass could have startled the birds, though he’d never seen a fish in this muck. He was about to resume wading when he saw something move. Through his goggles he could see its warm core. It was too large for a beaver or—then more ducks suddenly went berserk, and he lifted his goggles and shined a powerful beam on the muddy backside of a large man crouched hip-deep in sludge.
He appeared to be wearing army fatigues over a wetsuit that went up over his head, frogman-style, a large neoprene tube strapped to his back.
“Border Patrol!” Brandon shouted.
The man lunged deeper into the swamp. A car slowed on Zero, killed its headlights and glided past, its hopeful passenger within thirty yards of the line and charging for it. If he got there before Brandon got to him, he’d not only be free but could also stand on the other side and taunt him. This had happened to Dionne, who still fumed over it.
Brandon slogged diagonally away toward the shallower side, then galloped along its edge and, within fifteen yards of the border, holstered the flashlight and cut straight toward the man, charging through water up to his calves before finding a log to spring off. His foot slipped, so he got only half the launch he’d hoped for and splashed well short, chest-first. When he got up and sloshed ahead, the gasping man reached back into the top of his pack. That’s exactly when Brandon bear-hugged him as a truck howled past just twenty feet away on Zero. They both went underwater for a long moment, but this guy was so winded that Brandon soon felt like he was rescuing him. He practically dragged him to firmer ground, then slapped on handcuffs and propped him against a stump.
It was hard to see what this one looked like even with a flashlight. His face was painted green and black, his eyes wild, his mustache long, his mouth a noisy funnel. Listening to him wheeze, Brandon examined the backpack. Whatever had been in the top compartment was no longer there, but in the main sack he found plastic-wrapped bricks of money on top of two double-wrapped bags of what he slowly realized were handguns.