J. Bertrand - Nothing to Hide

“If it comes to it,” Jeff says, “there are ways.”

“Maybe it won’t. Maybe they’ll meet up with Ford somewhere along the way.”

“That could happen,” he says, shaking his head.

– -

The landscape changes as the hours pass. We’ve left behind the pines for the desert-like plains, their flat monotony broken up here and there by a lonely mesquite. In Sarita, south of Kingsville, a line of northbound vehicles idle at the ICE checkpoint, waiting for the agents to confirm their citizenship and give their backseats a once-over. And this is about an hour outside Harlingen, ninety minutes from the Rio Grande, well inside Texas. The fact that the Border Patrol is operating this far north is a testament to the scale of the immigration problem. Not long ago, the agents stopped a minivan driving back to Houston and found illegals hunched between the rear seats, hiding under blankets. That arrest made the news.

The white van sticks to its southward heading. Instead of mesquites, the highway is lined by dried-out palm trees. The Gulf of Mexico is less than thirty miles from here, close enough that when I roll the window down, I imagine I can smell salt on the balmy, humid breeze.

When Hilda walked me through Brandon Ford’s procedure for making contact with Inferno, she said he usually took a flight from Hobby Airport down to Brownsville, then took a taxi downtown, crossing the border on foot. After collecting whatever Inferno had for him, he’d stay overnight at the Colonial on E. Levee Street, and then fly home in the morning. If the van doesn’t lead us to him, there’s always a chance he will be at the hotel. When I explain this to Jeff, he repeats what he said before: “That could happen.”

“This may sound crazy to you, but we might just get lucky. For days I’ve been feeling like there’s nothing to hold on to, and now that I have something, I’m not letting go. The big breaks are always like this. Half the time you don’t know what you’re doing, but it feels right, so you go with it.”

“So it’s not about evidence and hard work,” he says. “It’s about luck.”

“Napoleon thought so, too.”

“Napoleon?” He snorts the name, like I’ve just made the most unlikely connection he can imagine. “You mean him ?” He presses his hand flat against his chest, tucking his fingers inside his shirt.

“That’s the one. You should study history sometime, Jeff, or you’ll be forced to repeat it.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Anyway, that’s what Napoleon would ask about a general. Not if he was experienced or tough or a genius. He’d ask, ‘Is he lucky?’ And right now, I think I am. The tip from Dearborn, that van right there. The initiative is finally on my side for a change.”

“Napoleon,” he says, shaking his head. “‘God is on the side not of the big battalions, but the best shots.’ Wasn’t that Napoleon, too?”

“That was somebody else,” I tell him. “But I can see why you’d like to agree with that one, being such a good shot.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Except there’s no God.”

“I should introduce you to my friend Carter. He’d argue with you on that point.”

“And he’d lose.”

“He would argue with us both about luck, too. He’d say everything happens for a reason, all part of the divine plan.” I glance over to see him react with an amused smile. “You don’t happen to be a conspiracy theorist, do you? Is the government hiding the existence of aliens from us, or denying the truth about the Twin Towers? If so, you’d be playing right into Carter’s hands. He has a theory about you foxhole atheists.”

He answers with a snort of derision.

“When you stop believing God controls everything, Carter says, then you start making up all-powerful conspiracies to take the Almighty’s place.”

“This Carter sounds like a moron. Plus, some conspiracies are real.”

“That’s what I told him.”

“And anyway,” he says, his voice charged, “I happen to be a determinist. I think things happen for a reason, too, but not because Zeus or Allah or God or whoever says so. My determinism isn’t top down; it works from the bottom up. We’re products of our environment, March, pure and simple. Genetically determined, socially determined, whatever you like. To people like me, the God hypothesis is a conspiracy theory-the ultimate conspiracy.”

“Still, there’s something to it-”

“There’s nothing to it, March. There’s no heaven or hell, no angels floating on the clouds, no good, no evil, none of it. We’re just animals who like to tell ourselves stories in the dark. Animals making up rules for each other to follow. And when you die, that’s it. End of the line.”

“You don’t think there’s something out there-?”

“There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. Read the book, March. You told me you did.”

“I’ve been a little busy recently.”

We sit in silence awhile. I can tell Jeff’s angry, the emotion coming out of nowhere like a flash fire. All I’d intended was to rib him a little, to pass the time as we drove, but the turn in the conversation has gotten him riled up.

“You’re a bit of a fundie, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says.

“Anyway. We’re coming up on Brownsville. I guess this isn’t looking too good. They’re gonna have to stop somewhere, though. They can’t just drive those guns into Mexico. The odds of the van being searched are too much to risk.”

“Not if they already have a plan. Someone could wave them right through.”

I laugh. “Now you do sound like a conspiracy theorist.”

“Do I?” He doesn’t even smile. “Or maybe I’ve happened to see some things in life that you haven’t. On our side, I doubt they’re searching vehicles that are leaving the country, and I’m guessing the cartels pretty much own the Mexican side.”

“You’re probably right,” I say, trying to sound conciliatory. There’s no point in stoking the tension between us. I need him focused on the situation at hand.

He points up ahead. “The van’s turning off.”

“Here we go.”

We’re just inside Brownsville, flanked by a row of chain hotels on one side and a suburban strip mall on the other. The van turns off the frontage road into a big shopping-center parking lot, cruising down the rows until it slides into an empty space. I drive past them, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, circling the row and doubling back on the other side. The van doors open. The driver climbs out, leaving his door ajar, while the passenger makes a beeline toward the Best Buy electronics store.

“I’ll follow him,” Jeff says. “Any of these guys sees you, they might recognize your face. You keep an eye on the van.”

I head up the row and drop him on the front curb just as the passenger walks up. Jeff pauses, then follows him inside. Then I double back and find a space halfway between the store entrance and the van.

The van’s driver leans against the fender, propping his foot up. He cups his hands in front of his mouth, and then there’s a flame. He drops his hands and exhales a cloud of smoke. In the twilight I can see the cigarette’s cherry, if I’m not imagining it. The man seems relaxed, not bothered about the time or concerned that he has a payload of illegally obtained assault rifles in the back of his van.

I take my phone out and rest it on my lap. This isn’t the end of the line for these guys, and there’s a limit to what I can expect of myself. If I lose sight of them just once, if those guns disappear and end up in the hands of the cartel. .

I dial Charlotte’s number. It rings and then her voicemail picks up.

“You’re not going to believe where I am.” I pause, not certain what to say. “I told you I couldn’t let go of this thing, right? I guess I wasn’t kidding. I’m going to be out of pocket for a while. Something’s come up-a lead-and I’ve got to follow it.”