Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (172 page)

Ian started to stir, his face grimacing as he became aware of his surroundings. His shirt still hung around his neck. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

Julia realized she was still holding his hand. It was cradled tightly in both of hers. She didn’t release it, but instead stroked her thumb along his palm. It felt so good she didn’t want to let go.

Then she realized she was shaking. Not like Ian had been. But the emotion came pouring out now. Tears welled up, and she let go of Ian’s hand to wipe her face with the back of her arm.

“Julia?”

“It’s OK, Ian.”

“What happened?”

“You had a seizure.”

“What? How? I thought you took out the…”

“Just rest for a second. There must be a backup battery on the chip. Hopefully the charge won’t last long. Plane must have passed over. I think it’s out of range now.”

“How did you…” Ian scrunched his eyes shut, still looked groggy.

“I kept resetting the implant. Seizures eventually stopped.”

“Thanks.”

“I know you’re out of it, but we’ve got to get moving.”

“Right. You’d better drive. Cut south, off the freeway. We’ll go through the Indian Reservation then down to Arizona. We should be OK once we’re away from Four Corners. Let’s just hope the plane doesn’t come back before we can beat it out of here.” His voice sounded stronger, more composed.

Julia walked around the car as he slid over into the passenger seat. But in her mind she couldn’t stop thinking about how it had felt holding his hand.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Julia and Ian approached the Mexican border south of Tucson, at Nogales. After a brief stop in Tucson to empty the safe deposit box, they had driven to Nogales, abandoned the car in a parking garage, tossed a duffel bag with the shotguns into a dumpster, and made for the border on foot. There was a regular crossing, where you could just walk into Mexico, but Ian said he didn’t like the looks of two men who milled around the gate, so they spent a couple of hours looking for another way across. Nogales was really two cities: one in Mexico and one in Arizona. A barrier wall divided the American town with the larger city to the south. Fencing angled from the top, toward Mexico. Green-striped border patrol vans and SUVs ranged up and down the wall, looking for illegal crossers.

“You’d think we were in Baghdad or the West Bank,” Ian said after they probed the length of the wall as it stretched through town and beyond. “It’s all about control, I suppose.”

“How are we going to get across?”

“We’ll have to go back to the border crossing and try our luck.” He looked her over. “Let’s do something about the way you look.”

“What’s wrong with the way I look?”

She’d showered, even slept a little. They’d paid cash for a pair of hotel rooms on the outskirts of Tucson and she’d picked up a change of clothes and a few toiletries.

“Nothing except that you still look like Dr. Julia Nolan on her day off. I want you to look like a woman crossing into Mexico on a day trip with her boyfriend. See the difference?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “But I’ll trust you.” Her mind lingered on the word
boyfriend.
Did that mean Ian thought she looked young enough to pass for his girlfriend?

An hour later Ian wore mirrored sunglasses with a white tank top that showed off his biceps and muscular shoulders. The gauze and tape on his chest were gone, as was the orange stain of the betadine on his skin. Julia wore short shorts and a chemise top with flip flops. He wore an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball cap and she had a cute green oasis sombrero. She’d shoved her other clothes into a bag and carried it over her shoulder, the probe from her destroyed laptop also inside.

Ian put his arm around her shoulder and the two of them walked toward the border crossing. Julia felt every pressure point from his touch and mingled with the anxiety of approaching the border crossing she couldn’t help the goose bumps that rose on her neck and arms.

“Calm down, you’ll be fine. And don’t look up at the cameras. Let the hat hide your face.”

She hadn’t noticed the cameras, but standing near the gate that let people simply stroll into Mexico, opposite the long line of people waiting to cross in the other direction, were the two men that Ian had spotted earlier. One man read a Spanish newspaper and the other talked on a cell phone, but both eyed her as she approached. The first man ducked back into his paper at once, but the guy on the cell phone stared as she passed.

But nobody stopped them as Julia and Ian walked through the gate and into Mexico. It was a Sunday and half the people heading south seemed to be out for a shopping expedition. There was a well-dressed family with a young girl in a white dress with bows in her hair who looked to be on her way to her First Communion.

“I don’t like how those guys were watching me,” she said, once she was sure that neither of the men would follow them across.

“They’re staring because you look hot.”

She looked at him to see if he was kidding, but there was a blank expression on his face as he glanced first at the patrons standing in front of a taco stand and later at the man behind a table, selling lottery tickets. Studying his surroundings.

His arm was still around her shoulders.

“You don’t think they were looking for us?”

“I thought maybe, at first, and I had contingency plans.” There was a hard edge to this last bit. “But seriously, I think they were just checking you out.”

He kept his arm around her shoulder as they rounded a corner and walked deeper into town. Nogales, Mexico looked similar to Nogales, Arizona. A bit more run down, the streets more crowded with cars and foot traffic. And much bigger.

“Did I hear you right this morning, that you speak Spanish?” he asked.

“I said I could read a little. I took it in high school. But I don’t think I remember more than a few words or phrases.”

“I’m sure some of it will come back to you,” he said. “Enough to get by in Mexico, at least. First things first, we need to change some money. Then, I figure we can catch a bus for somewhere south, like Guadalajara or Mexico City.”

“And we’ll fly to Namibia from there?”

“I was thinking about that. We’d have to fly to London first, and they’d probably route us back through the United States on our way to London. What if we flew to Cuba instead? We’d be safer from the CIA, and we could catch a direct flight to Europe from there. Maybe Spain or France. From there, I’m thinking it would be better to fly to South Africa first, then drive into Namibia by car.”

“I can’t fly without a passport,” she said. Ian had picked up one from his safe deposit box in Tucson, together with the cash.

“This is a Mexican border town. I’m pretty sure you can get a fake passport. First chance to practice your Spanish. After that, let’s catch a bus, make it as far south as we can and find a place to crash for the night.”

Ian looked around, seemed to be satisfied with what he saw and dropped his arm from her shoulders. “I guess we’re far enough away to drop the pretense that you’re my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“You sound disappointed.” He laughed. She felt herself blush. “I think you liked playing spy. Secret agent stuff.”

“Hey, why should you have all the fun?” she asked.

“You were good. Acted perfectly natural.”

If that had been acting, it had been the easiest role she was ever likely to have.

Ian slowed his pace and turned toward her. “Julia, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

Julia tensed and was silent while Ian seemed to gather his thoughts. Had he been thinking about her as well while he had his arm around her? She felt her chest tighten.

“It’s the implant.”

She let out her breath, feeling foolish for overreading his comment. “What about it?”

“I feel like it’s changing, or I’m changing. Not sure.” He stopped walking.

“How do you mean?”

“A couple of times I’ve used the implant feature where it’s supposed to make you more alert. Started in Utah, at the asylum, and then at the hospital.”

Julia nodded. “That’s natural, that’s what it’s for.”

“But it started to creep me out, you know. The more I used it, the more I felt I needed it. Like how you drink an extra cup of coffee when you’ve had a crappy night of sleep and it helps so much that you do it the next day and the next and pretty soon you need a whole damn pot just to crawl out of bed in the morning. So I decided to knock it off, only use it if things got really hairy. You know, emergencies.” There was a note of uncertainty in his voice.

“Go on.”

“Just now, crossing the border, I felt that surge. Like the implant firing off. Thing is, I didn’t give the implant any command.”

“You think it’s going off by itself?” Julia’s attention had shifted now, her thoughts focused, trying to figure out if he could be right.

“I was
thinking
about using the feature – the energy thing, and suddenly it just happened, but I didn’t move my fingers. I’m sure of it.”

“Did you imagine moving your fingers?”

“I don’t… think so. Hard to remember.”

“Are you tired? Why did you think you needed an adrenaline boost?” Her voice came across more clinical than she had intended.

“I don’t know. Not especially tired. It’s just…”

“Better not use it, then. Just to be safe.”

Ian fell silent, then started walking again. “I was just wondering if it was possible. You know, for the thing to go off by itself. Maybe I’m just imagining things, but it kind of seemed like it’s reading my mind, acting on my thoughts.”

“The brain can learn and adapt, even in adults. We didn’t really anticipate this, but it’s entirely possible that the brain learns to fire areas in the motor cortex in sequence by itself, sort of like a learned reflex. I agree that’s a concerning development.”

Ian continued walking, now a step ahead, seemingly lost in thought.

________

It was hard to tell what was bigger, Carlos Aguilar’s belly, his mustache, or the enormous silver buckle on his belt. The police chief seemed proud of all three, alternately patting his belly, stroking his mustache, and tapping his fingers on the buckle.

While Anton Markov told Aguilar what he would require—
nothing
, or specifically, a blind eye—Aguilar watched with a skeptical expression. In spite of his oversized accoutrements, the chief gave an impression of competence. And even though Markov had dragged him from bed at four in the morning, Aguilar looked alert. Admirable in normal circumstances, but inconvenient in this case. Markov would have preferred to find the Querétaro police department corrupt and easily bribed.

“They called you from Mexico City, I assume,” Markov said.

“They called. Told me to expect an American to come bully my department. They tell me I have to cooperate.” He spoke English fluently, but with a strong accent. “Who are you, DEA?”

“That’s right. We’re after a drug lord and his girlfriend. They killed a man in Phoenix last week and they’re trying to flee to Central America.”

Aguilar held his hands open wide in a gesture that said,
what do I care?
“That is business for the Mexican police. We arrest him, you can ask for extradition. Or maybe we try him in Mexican courts first.” He rested his hands on his belly.

“This man is a gringo, not a Mexican national,” Markov said. “But he’s got connections in Mexico, and a lot of money.” He carefully framed his argument. Insult Aguilar or Mexico and the man would be sure to push back, in spite of orders from the Mexican government. “You arrest him and you’ll have to turn him over to the
federales.
And he’ll pay some money to his friends and be loose again.”

Aguilar frowned and tapped at his belt buckle. Markov thought he had deciphered the gestures. Mustache meant he was angry, hands on belly meant he was stubborn, and buckle taps meant he was thinking but not yet convinced.

“And you’re just going to arrest the man?” Aguilar asked. “No shooting?”