In Dark Corners (32 page)

"Balzac?" I said, clearing my throat, forcing a smile, and extending my hand. "I'm Al Sandoval, and this is my partner, Nando Sanchez."

He said nothing for a moment, slowly shifting his cold gaze from me to Sanchez than back to me again. "You can call me, Balls," he finally said, his voice disarmingly soft and gentle, at odds with his unnerving appearance.

"Right, ah…Balls," I said, thinking it an odd nickname—maybe a Russkie thing. I turned, pointing to the bar behind me. "Drink, or something to eat?"

Romanov shook his head. "No, I'm tired."

Sanchez remained quiet and still, except for taking Romanov's diminutive hand in his huge fist. The greeting of the two a comical sight—David and Goliath—if I'd been in a more relaxed mood.

"Okay, we have a private compartment, this way," I announced, and led them off toward number 211.

After we settled down in our accommodations—two seats facing two seats—there was an awkward period of silence.

Sanchez was rarely talkative—in fact he was pretty taciturn, even with me. At this moment, he just gazed out the compartment window. After leaning forward and looking under the seats, Romanov leaned back on his headrest, closed his eyes, and instantly fell asleep.

Must have a clear conscience, I thought wryly, remembering the word in the M-City underworld was that Romanov was the top cleaner for the American-Russkie mob. I relaxed a little and glanced again at our client's business card, the borders ornately decorated with arabesque flourish:

TARIQ SHABAZZ

M-City

Artifacts, huh? And why did Shabazz require a renowned gringo hit man to help us find and bring this mysterious artifact back?

Two days ago, the Arab had hired Sanchez and me to smuggle an unnamed relic across the border, instructing us to first pick up Romanov in Monterrey before continuing on to New Laredo. But instead of answering my objection regarding the need for a high profile gangster, Shabazz had only smiled and responded vaguely that Romanov had contacts north of the border—necessary connections to acquiring the artifact. Before I could object any further, he'd increased the one-third down payment by another bundle of 1000 peso notes. So, I'd sat in that café in M-City holding the cash in Gramps' old attaché case—more money than Sanchez and I had ever made during our ten-year partnership—and listened to the Arab's detailed instructions, which focused on Romanov establishing the contact in Corpus Christi, verifying the authenticity of the artifact, and making the payoff in Canadian dollars. Our responsibility was to negotiate the border, arrange safe transport, and help move the goods back in our backpacks.

Simple, uh-huh.

Now, just sitting in the Bullet speeding above the rail toward New Laredo, listening and watching Romanov snore quietly, my doubts about the whole operation were again center stage in my thoughts.

Sanchez and I had crossed the border many times at a number of locations in the last ten years—mostly at four secret spots on the outskirts of the great metropolitan centers of T-Town, Mexicali, Juarez, and New Laredo. But we always conducted business just across the line in the little border towns such as dingy Laredo. We'd never been far in country and never to a once-great city like Corpus Christi. My instincts were telling me that we were in way over our heads on this operation. I nervously glanced at my friend who was calmly looking out the window into the night rushing by as if we were headed out on a vacation to Cancun. His strong-jawed profile and rock-solid poise were indeed comforting, deflating some of my uneasiness.

Okay, I rationalized to myself, we've been paid well for the risk, we're here now; put your paranoia to bed, boy. Still looking at Sanchez, I smiled inwardly, suppressing a sigh. In addition to being a certified badass in a physical confrontation, my partner had undergone the economy-package sensory enhancements at University Hospital in M-City. So I knew that he was worth any three thugs as backup if something went terribly awry. In addition, the two of us were closer than blood brothers. I'd known him since my grandparents had taken him in as an orphan, when I was three and he almost two. Gramps loved baseball and called Sanchez Fernando, after some legendary pitcher. When we were thirteen and twelve, Gramps introduced us both to his growing
export-import
business, taking us across the border for the first time at Juarez. And much later, a year or so before he died, Gramps arranged for Sanchez's bioengineering—called the four visual and two aural selections:
a personnel upgrade
. Expensive for Gramps. But it'd turned out to be a great investment for me; Sanchez using his special abilities to get us out of numerous tight jams over the ensuing years.

The Bullet was slowing.

Ahead, the bright lights from the towers of New Laredo. I could tell by the condensation on the compartment window that it was really muggy outside, even though it was ten o'clock at night.

I woke up Romanov, and the three of us slipped on the huge backpacks that Shabazz had supplied back in the Capitol for carrying out the artifact.

***

We walked over the real border northwest of New Laredo half an hour later, before the moon was scheduled to come up in the east—an old sign on a rusting pole stating:

USA/MEXICO

I paused at that point, took a book-sized packet from my backpack, opened it, and shook out the folded, paper-thin, shiny-black, very expensive coveralls. After slipping the light covering over my regular clothes, I zipped up the front, then ran my hands carefully over the face of the slippery plastic-like material, insuring that nothing foreign was stuck to it, barely feeling the microscopic circuitry and chips embedded inside the thin garment. Finally, I pulled up the cover and mask, adjusting the goggles and making sure that my head and face were completely covered. Finished dressing, I flipped on the powerpack behind my left shoulder, cloaking myself in full stealth mode; able to slip about now with almost total impunity in the darkness, and, most importantly, invisible to all kinds of electronic sensors.

Then, I checked the other two who were performing the same routine.

"Man, these damn things will soon get hot and sticky," Romanov said, not a whining complaint, but more a statement of fact. Because it was true. Already my underarms and crotch felt damp and prickly, sweat beginning to trickle down my ribcage.

"We won't have to wear them long," I said, readjusting my goggles, glancing up into the foggy overcast blocking out the stars.

***

We carefully wound our way the mile or so across no-man's-land, Romanov and I following in the large footsteps of Sanchez as he scanned with his acute vision for old mines or other indications of buried surprises, the three of us coming to an abrupt halt as The Wall suddenly loomed up out of the foggy night like a monumental apparition. The massive ebony structure rose up, up, up, before finally disappearing from view into the overcast blackness. And it extended both northwesterly and southeasterly as far as we could see in either direction. No matter where on the border I encountered The Wall, the awesome size and scope of the gigantic structure always took my breath away—no question, an engineering marvel.

"Rest a minute," I said to the others, my hoarse tone revealing my sense of wonder. I added, "Let's check the position of the backpacks before moving any closer."

Standing in front of the other two, I carefully inspected their frontal silhouettes, insuring that I could not see any part of the huge backpack each carried. Even though they were black, they were not stealth engineered—the Arab probably hadn't had time or didn't want to spend the cash. A strap hanging out or even the corner of the pack leaning left or right could be electronically sensed. They both looked fine. Sanchez checked me over and gave a thumbs up.

"Balls, make sure that you keep squared up moving forward to the wall from here in, using your stealth-covered body as a screen for the backpack." I was probably being overly cautious, as I was almost certain the sensors here had been dead for over a decade now, like so much of The Wall that had broken down since Gramps had first started our training twenty years ago. But recently I'd watched a horrifying Channel 3
PrimoNews
holocast of an aerobus floating over into no-man's-land near T-Town, the vehicle apparently tripping an old wall sensor that automatically activated a laser cannon shot, destroying the bus and killing several tourists. There was also a rumor around M-City a couple of years ago of a similar incident involving a boat that strayed too close to a northern portion of The Wall up near Toronto. But I never heard any media confirmation on that.

In any event, I could hear Gramps' often repeated admonition:
Always expect the unexpected, boys
.

Smiling, I answered back silently:
We will, Gramps
.

***

After edging closer, we stopped and waited anxiously for a few minutes in the dry wash running adjacent to the foot of The Wall for Sanchez to get us a GPS fix. "Okay," he finally murmured, then pointed upstream twenty yards to a specific clump of bushes. "It's in there."

Sure enough, we found the boulder, completely hidden from view behind the shoulder-high clumps of chemise growing along The Wall in this section of the old wash.

With relative ease, Sanchez slid the boulder several feet along a barely visible track, exposing the narrow tunnel entrance. After we were inside, my friend grabbed a pair of metallic grips embedded on the inside of the boulder, and with slightly more effort he tugged the stone back into place, concealing our entry point.

I tapped on the night vision goggles in my mask and peered into the shimmering greenness of the passageway. It smelled wet, moldy…and ahead someplace I could hear water dripping. "Follow me," I said. We could all see in the eerie illumination—a surreal neon-green world. But we were forced to stoop over by the confines of the tunnel's shallow height, even the shorter Romanov. "We have only about twenty-five yards or so of this, before we come up," I explained to him.

Leaning forward, I led the way through the damp tunnel.

***

At the end of the passageway we dropped down into a smaller cement pipe, running perpendicular to the tunnel. On hands and knees, we crawled along in an inch or two of cold slime, before we finally exited the culvert where it emptied into a drainage ditch running along a narrow road. Off in the distance, Laredo's dim lights glared brightly in our night vision goggles.

"Can we slip out of these awful sauna suits yet?" Romanov whispered, after we crawled out of the culvert.

"No," I whispered back, glancing around nervously. "I think we are still in no-man's-land on this side—"

"Hush!" Sanchez warned, making the be-quiet sign with his forefinger to his lips. "Listen."

I froze, cocking my head, but hearing nothing at first…then, a half-minute later, a high-pitched mechanical hum accompanied by an occasional dissonant rattle. I spotted the source of the sound. Two low figures, about thirty yards away to our right, charging side-by-side in our general direction through the fog that had settled to ground level, increasing the surreal nature of the world viewed through our dark vision lenses.

"What are they?" Romanov whispered.

"Guard dogs," Sanchez whispered back. "Stand absolutely still, and
be quiet
."

I touched Romanov's shoulder, as if to restrain him, but he remained quiet in place as the creatures came closer…closer…closer—

They stopped suddenly up on the road, not more than 10 yards from where we lurked in the drainage ditch. Mastiff-sized, but hairless creatures with shiny bodies and gigantic heads, their huge eyes burning like green coals, as they seemed to peer directly at us.

I held my breath and waited, stomach clenched in a knot, pulse racing, sweat pouring down my ribs now…for an eternity, as the seconds dragged by. Not now, I prayed, not just before our biggest score ever.

The two creatures slowly twisted their massive heads left, then right, scanning 180 degrees, before turning and dashing off—the nearest dog wobbling clumsily and emitting the odd humming and rattling sounds. Thankfully, neither dog had spotted us; and I watched with relief as the spooky creatures disappeared into the foggy, humid night, realizing I'd been holding my breath the whole time they'd stood on the road. I gasped loudly through my stealth suit mask.

"Those were dogs?" Romanov asked curiously, no trace of stress in his tone.

"Not biologicals," Sanchez explained in his curt manner.

"Artificial guard dogs," I added. "Sentinels designed to patrol this side of the wall, catch anyone straying too close. They rely on auditory and visual sensors, not smell like a biological. That's why you saw the exaggerated head movements before they ran off. Obviously the one dog is defective."

"I see," Romanov said, apparently little affected by the experience.

Odd reaction, I thought. Years ago, early in our training, both Sanchez and I'd found the sight of the huge artificial creatures terrifying when we'd first encountered them with Gramps. Of course we hadn't had stealth suits and night vision goggles in those days. We'd had to drop down and quickly cover ourselves with dark blankets we carried after Gramps spotted the dogs; and the creatures were just a metallic blur to us as they hurtled by in the night, monster-like things in our minds.

"We can take these off now," Sanchez said, after climbing up onto the poorly maintained asphalt road and unzipping his stealth suit.

"About time," Romanov murmured, pulling down his mask and rubbing his sweaty face. "It was getting pretty warm."

I nodded, glancing over at Sanchez, who was carefully folding his suit and replacing it and his goggles into the book-sized packet, wondering if he'd noticed Romanov's abnormally casual reaction to the frightening appearance of the guard dogs. But my friend just glanced back at me with his normal blank expression. I pushed the observation to the back of my mind, then gestured toward Laredo.