We’re on the road for forty-eight hours. A heavy, tense silence settles over the car, no one really feeling the desire to discuss what we all just went through. Occasionally, I feel Natalia’s cool touch on the back of my neck, and I can’t help but wonder what the fuck is going on in her head. The life she knew is now over. Nothing can ever be the same again. Is she happy to be running from Ecuador, ducking off highways every time we see a cop car, sleeping in snatches whenever we can? Is she happy that Fernando’s dead? I’m too fucked up on pain meds and pain itself to ask her right now, in front of others, where she might be too upset, worried or ashamed to admit otherwise.
We arrive at the tiny airfield Jamie picked out just as the sun is going down. It’s not really even an airfield. It’s a flight school, of all things, and the place looks like it’s been closed for years. Full-blown trees are growing out of the cracked blacktop, and the control building looks like it’s about to fall down. If it weren’t for the single, pristine white single prop Cessna sitting at the far end of the runway, I’d think we’d come to the wrong place.
There’s no one to stop us from driving out onto the blacktop. No one to ask us for passports, or confirm our visas. Ocho guns the Humvee’s engine, and then we’re pulling up alongside the small aircraft, and Carnie, one of the Widow Makers’ recently promoted members, is hopping down out of the plane.
“Took you long enough, motherfucker,” he says, punching my arm. I wince, trying to hide how painful the light tap is, but Carnie notices.
“Another war wound, man?”
“You could say that.”
“Oh well. Chicks dig scars. And speaking of chicks…” His eyes are all over Laura, appraising her, devouring her hungrily from the ground up. Such a fucking asshole. I give him a warning glance so caustic it could strip paint.
“Don’t even think about it, shithead. That’s my sister.”
Carnie’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “No fucking way! You’re Laura? You’re alive?”
She nods.
Carnie can’t stop looking between the two of us, shaking his head, grinning like he just won the lottery. “That is bad ass, man. Bad. Ass.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
REUNION
Since the Cessna’s such a small plane, we have to refuel in Mexico. Only Carnie gets out of the plane, though, and the airport officials don’t ask questions. Pick the right town in Mexico, and a ten-thousand-dollar bribe can buy you anything.
Soon, we’re flying over New Mexico. The wheels touch down, and the Cessna bounces once as Carnie aims the plane’s nose directly toward the Widow Makers’ compound in the distance. In the back of the plane, Laura’s forehead is pressed up against the seatback in front of her, and she’s white as a sheet. Anxious, by the looks of things.
Natalia seems less fragile. She hasn’t slept at all. I feel her eyes on me, burning holes into the side of my head as I talk with Carnie, but I make a point of pretending that I don’t notice. She needs time to figure out what she wants to do, and I think her intense study of me is a part of that problem solving. She has options open to her now. She’s entered the States illegally, but that can be fixed. Jamie has enough dirt to bury a number of politicians in the state of New Mexico; a green card shouldn’t be too hard to drum up once a few phone calls have been made. So she can either stay here in New Mexico, here with me, or she can go somewhere else, explore the rest of the country, see what there is to be seen. It’s her call. I won’t ask anything of her.
At the very back of the plane, Freddie buries his face in his hands, taking ragged, uneven, bottomless breaths. When he uncovers his face, sitting back in his chair, his eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks are bright red, his hands trembling like crazy.
“I can’t believe it,” he says. “I seriously can’t fucking believe it. I never thought I’d step foot on American soil again. I thought for sure I was going to die on that godforsaken mountainside.” He’s wearing a t-shirt Carnie had in his backpack, plain white, now spackled with flecks of blood, and I get the feeling the poor bastard’s spent a lot of time either naked or dressed in a full suit over the last three years. I can tell by the way he keeps running his fingers over the hem of the t-shirt that it’s a novelty to him.
“What do you plan on doing now?” I ask him. He looks stunned at the very thought of having a say in the matter.
“I don’t know. I hadn’t gotten that far. I’ve been so focused on getting out that I never really considered what would come after that.”
“Where are you from?” Carnie asks.
“Texas. Not far from the border of Mexico. I’m not going back there, though. No way.”