Unlimited (21 page)

Before Simon could ask what he meant, Pedro turned and walked back to the pickup. When they were back in the pickup and heading for the orphanage, Pedro asked Simon, “Will you tell me what else Enrique said to you?”

“Basically, back off your sister. Which is kind of weird, you know? I mean, what's the deal? It looks to me like he's got that all sewed up.”

“Weird, yes, I agree.” Pedro drummed his fingers on the wheel, squinting at the sunlight on the windscreen. “Enrique told me to pass on two messages to Harold. First, your passport should be ready in a few days. Second, you had trouble with the police. You were arrested at the bar where you worked, and this arrest led to Vasquez being deported. Is this true?”

The pain was so fierce, it felt like a blade of shame was jammed between his ribs. “The charges were dropped. But yeah. It's all true.”

Pedro drummed on the wheel and did not speak.

Simon struggled to fashion a genuine apology. Over how he had let down so many people. How he had felt a change taking shape inside himself. How he didn't want to let anyone else down. Especially the orphanage.

But Pedro surprised him by saying, “I share your impression that what Enrique said was not what Enrique meant. We need to discuss this with Harold.”

The pain stabbed Simon anew as Pedro passed on Enrique's message. But Harold did not condemn him as Simon expected or expel him as he feared. Harold said simply, “Vasquez told me about the incident. He also told me he had forgiven you. How could I possibly do anything else.”

Simon fought against himself, and managed, “I didn't come down for the machine.”

“I never thought you did.”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“Son, you still can, and you know this.” He gave Simon a chance to argue, then pressed on, “There is one act above all else that would validate the confidence Vasquez has shown in you. Reach beyond where you are. Acknowledge that you can't make a success of your life alone, that you need help, and that it is there in front of you. Waiting for you to ask. Ready to give you wings.”

For the second time in as many days, Simon found himself willing to push away the cynical response that came bubbling up. “I hear what you're saying.”

Harold studied him a long moment. The light in his eyes belonged to a man half his age. “Let me show you something.” The orphanage director unfolded the professor's pages. “Four of the frequencies are circled.”

“Right. Those are the ones I used when I powered down the entire city.”

“Good. Now look here.” Harold ran his finger along the letters written down the page's left border. “Three are underlined.”

“I've been over them and over them,” Simon said. “They don't correspond to any standardized calculation or frequency pattern.”

“Then it obviously means something else. You know Tesla used a cryptogram to hide his most-sensitive data. Letters for numbers and vice versa.”

“Vasquez was fascinated with the guy,” Simon recalled.

“I applied Tesla's system and came up with this.” Harold handed him a sheet.

Simon read, “Juan, eight one two.”

Pedro exclaimed, “It's a clue!”

“Eight hundred and twelve is not a viable frequency,” Simon replied.

“I've told you before, look beyond the obvious.” Harold stared out to where the children played their afternoon game of soccer. “Armando was both very excited and very afraid. He sensed that someone was after his device. So he demonstrated to you the obvious. He revealed how far he had gotten, what he knew would work.”

Simon nodded. “Which was what anybody else who was observing Vasquez knew as well. The device worked, but turning on the power resulted in a catastrophic blackout.”

Pedro said, “Last night was not the second time the city has recently lost power. It was the third.”

Simon felt a new energy course through him. “Which means Vasquez tested the device once. He saw the problem. He realized someone was tracking him. He tested it a second time and recorded the results. He was killed.”

“The police say otherwise,” Pedro said.

“Forget the police,” Harold said. “We have needed to discount everything they've said.”

Simon went on. “Between the first and the second blackouts, Vasquez realized what the answer was.”

“But because he was being watched, he hid his discovery,” Harold confirmed. “Why don't we go see if the shop in town has the components. We can talk to Juan when we get back.”

“What about Enrique?”

Harold said to Pedro, “For a start, can you give him enough to satisfy the city attorney?”

Simon swept up the fried components and dumped them in Armando's case. “Done.”

“Leave it with the officer standing guard by our gates.”

Pedro's concerns resurfaced. “I'm still not certain Enrique told us the truth.”

“About anything.” Simon agreed.

“Neither am I,” Harold said. “But we can't react to what we don't know. Let's focus on getting the professor's device ready for the visit of my investor.”

For a time, Sofia had considered making Juárez her home. Her first year at the University of Texas at El Paso, she had crossed the border several times a month. The culture in an American university had been jarring. She had thought she would never settle in comfortably. She had traveled back with other freshmen from Mexico who had felt the same way. They had walked along the market streets and dined in family-style restaurants. Gradually she had come to think of Juárez as a home away from home.

During her first two years at university, Juárez had been vibrant and filled with a growing prosperity. The border factories had employed almost two hundred thousand people. The smaller local companies who supplied them had created another quarter of a million jobs. The entire city vibrated with new energy and promise.

Then the year before she graduated, the nightmare came to Juárez.

Sofia had adapted to the American university and culture. She had made friends. She had become active in two of the campus ministries. She was involved in her studies. She had entered the honors program. Her junior year, she had not entered Juárez at all. Of course she heard about the change. She saw the worried expressions of those who returned. She heard the stories whispered around the halls. But there was a very real difference between reading the stories in a newspaper and witnessing the change.

She went in late October of her senior year. The border crossing took twice as long as before. The patrol officers were different, very grim and cautious. It was the first time she had ever seen body armor. The streets of Juárez were drenched in unseen shadows. Every face she saw was creased and stained with fear.

Today as they approached the city's outskirts, a ghost town rose up around them. People flitted into sight, then vanished just as quickly. Cars raced down the side streets, the engines sounding a shrill note, as though echoing their passengers' fears. Stoplights were meaningless things. They might as well have spelled out the word
flee.

Then the army came into view.

Armored-personnel carriers appeared on the corners. Soldiers loitered in the plazas fronting the churches and municipal buildings. Their guns were stacked like cordwood. They hung their thumbs from body armor and eyed the passing cars from behind mirrored shades. Juan gaped at them, then turned round eyes toward her.

Sofia said, “You must stay close. You do not point at anyone. If a man glares at you, look down. You remain silent while we are in public.”

“Yes, Sofia.”

She pulled into a multistory parking garage and waited while three guards inspected the car's interior and trunk, then passed mirrors underneath. They entered one of the safer shopping areas, which meant enduring bag searches and X-ray machines like were found in the American airports.

She first took Juan for a haircut, then to a men's store where she bought him his very first jacket and dress slacks and shoes and white cotton shirt. The sight of him emerging from the dressing room caused her eyes to burn with tears she was determined not to shed.

She took him to a restaurant on the top floor of a high-rise building connected to the shopping area. She selected a table where they could sit and look out over the Rio Grande to El Paso beyond. She pointed out the spires of her university. She described the people and the life. For a few minutes, the grim nature of the city below was forgotten, and they were simply two people enjoying a midday meal.

Juan surprised her by announcing, “I like Simon.”

“So do I. Very much.”

“He did a bad thing to the professor.”

“How do you know about this?”

“I heard you two talking about it one night.”

“You young imp. What have I told you about listening at windows?”

Juan paid her scolding no mind. “The professor loved him. I heard Vasquez say it himself. Why would Simon do this?”

Dressed in his new outfit, Juan looked as though he was perched on the border of manhood. That and the distance between them and the orphanage made it easy for her to say, “Sometimes when I look at Simon, I see what might have happened to me.”

Juan nodded. “If Harold had not found us. If we had not learned how to trust. And how to hope. And how to pray.”

The burning sensation returned to her eyes. “You are a truly remarkable young man.”

“Do you love Simon?”

She started to deflect the question, then decided otherwise. “Can I trust you to keep this completely between us?”

“Always and forever.”

“The answer is, I don't know if I feel what the professor felt, or if it is really what I have come to feel myself for Simon.”

Juan looked out over the cityscape, his expression thoughtful. “Or perhaps it is God placing this in your heart, so the professor's love can live on.”

Sofia found it difficult to shape the response. “Perhaps.”

Juan looked at her with a gaze far older than his years. “God is right to trust you with His love.”

She used both hands to wipe her face. “What makes you say this remarkable thing?”

“Because who could be better at showing Simon what love really means?”

As they approached the tallest building in Juárez's business district, Sofia saw the helicopter descend onto the rooftop landing zone and knew Enrique had arrived.

The soldiers surrounding the central plaza were backed up by agents wearing suits and carrying walkie-talkies. The absence of uniforms made them more dangerous, not less. These people did not follow the normal rule of law. In today's Mexico, such agents
were
the law.

Juan was cowed by the military and the guns and the tension. He shrank back as an agent recognized Sofia and saluted her and ordered the military to pull up the barrier so she could park in the VIP section. She cut off the motor and said, “Everything is all right, Juan.”

He nodded but did not speak.

Halfway across the sunlit square, she squatted down in front of Juan and waited until he met her gaze. “You know I am dating the mayor of Ojinaga, yes?”

“Yes, Sofia, of course.”

“You also know that he is running for the governor of Chihuahua state?”

“Everyone knows this.”

“This is the other side of Mexican politics. The threat can only be met by real force. We are going to observe Enrique as he is interviewed by the national television. And then we are attending a rally. Do you know what a rally is?”

“Of course, Sofia. I am not a child.”

“No, that is certainly true.” She straightened his jacket and smoothed his hair. “You look very handsome, Juan.”

He beamed. “I am dressed like a prince.”

“Indeed you are.” She rose to full height and said to the hovering agent, “We are ready.”

“Jefe, with respect, I can take them all here on the road into Ojinaga. No one will—”