Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

So does Nora. She’s not too concerned about a visual search, or even dogs, because the pooches have been trained to sniff for drugs, not cash. Even so, the bundles of hundred-dollar bills have been soaked in lemon juice to neutralize any smell. And the car itself is fresh-it’s never been used to carry dope, so there can’t be any residual scent.

There is residue of sand, however, carefully left on the driver's-side floor and in the backseat with some damp towels, a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of old flip-flops.

The wait at the border today is over an hour and a half, which is a pain in the ass. But Adan insisted that she cross on a late Sunday afternoon, when the crossing is the busiest, jammed up with thousands of Americans returning home from weekends at the cheap resorts in Ensenada and Rosarita. So she has ample time to work her way over into the third lane, where the Border Patrol agent coming on duty is on the Barrera payroll.

It hasn’t been left to chance, though. Raul stands at the window of the apartment and peers out through binoculars. There are three apartment towers overlooking the border from the Mexican side, and the Barreras own all three. Now Raul watches his paid Border Patrol agent take his position and look up toward the apartment tower.

Raul punches digits into his pager.

Nora’s pager beeps and she looks to see the numbers 666 on the little display screen-the narco-code for “All clear.” She nods to the driver in the Ford Explorer in front of her. The man is looking into his rearview mirror and now he turns right into the third lane, setting a pick for Nora to turn behind him. The Jeep Cherokee behind her does the same thing, making space for her. Horns honk, middle fingers are raised, but Nora is going to get into that third lane.

Now all she has to do is wait and fend off the squadrons of vendors who walk up and down the line of cars hawking sombreros, milagros, Styrofoam jigsaw-puzzle maps of Mexico, sodas, tacos, burritos, T-shirts, baseball caps, just about anything you can think of, to the bored people waiting to cross. The border wait is one long, narrow open-air marketplace, and she buys a cheap gaudy sombrero, a poncho and a MY GIRLFRIEND WENT TO TIJUANA AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT to fortify her tourist profile and also because she always feels bad for the street vendors, especially the kids.

She’s three cars away from the checkpoint when Raul looks through his binocs and yells, “Fuck!”

The chop-artist jumps up from his chair. “What?”

“They’re switching. Look.”

Raul peers down. A Border Patrol supervisor is rotating the agents into different lines. It’s a common practice, but the timing is awfully close to be just coincidence.

“Do they know something?” the chop-artist asks. “Should we abort?”

“Too late,” Raul answers. “She can’t turn around.”

Sweat pops on the chop-artist’s forehead.

Nora sees the agent being changed out and thinks, Please God, no, not now, when I’m so close. She feels her heart start to race and makes a deliberate effort to breathe deeply and slow it down. Border agents are trained to look for signs of anxiety, she tells herself, and you want to be just one more blond chick coming back from a hard-partying weekend in Mexico.

The Ford Explorer pulls up to the checkpoint. It’s “chock-full-o'-Chicanos,” as Fabian had put it, again part of the plan. The agent will spend a lot of time checking this car out and be more likely to give her just a cursory look. Sure enough, the agent is asking a lot of questions, walking around the Explorer, looking in the windows, checking IDs. The golden retriever comes out and scurries around the vehicle, sniffing happily and wagging its tail.

It’s good that it’s taking time, Nora thinks, it’s part of the plan. But it’s also excruciating.

Finally, the Explorer clears the checkpoint and Nora pulls up. She pushes her sunglasses up on her forehead to give the agent the full benefit of her blue eyes. But she doesn’t say hello or start the conversation-the agents look for people who are overly friendly or eager.

“ID?” the agent asks.

She shows him her California driver’s license, but has her passport in plain sight in the passenger seat. The agent notices.

“What were you doing in Mexico, Ms. Hayden?”

“I came down for the weekend,” she says. “You know, some sun, the beach, a few margaritas.”

“Where did you stay?”

“At the Hotel Rosarita.” She has receipts matching her Visa card in her purse.

The agent nods. “Do they know you took their towels?”

“Oops.”

“Are you bringing anything back into the country?”

“Just this stuff,” she says.

The agent looks at the tourist shit she bought in line.

This is the critical moment; he’s going to wave her through, or search the car a little more, or pull her off into the inspection lane. Options one and two are acceptable, but option three could be a disaster, and Raul’s holding his breath as he watches the agent lean through the window and look into the backseat.

Nora just smiles. Taps her foot and hums along with the classic-rock station on the radio.

The agent leans back out.

“Drugs?”

“What?”

The agent smiles. “Welcome back, Ms. Hayden.”

“She’s through,” Raul says.

The chop-artist says he needs to take a piss.

“Don’t get too relaxed!” Raul yells to him. “She still has to get through San Onofre!”

The phone rings on Art Keller’s desk.

“Keller.”

“She’s in.”

Art stays on the line to get the make of the car, a description and the license-plate number. Then he phones the Border Patrol station at San Onofre.

Adan gets a similar call in his office.

“She’s through,” Raul says.

Adan feels better but he’s still worried. She still has to get through the checkpoint at San Onofre, and that’s his fear-the San Onofre checkpoint sits on an empty stretch of Route 5 just north of the Marine base at Pendleton, and the area is rife with electronic surveillance and radio jammers. If the DEA were going to grab her, they would grab her there, far from the Barrera lookout towers or any possible help in Tijuana. It’s entirely possible that Nora is driving straight into an ambush at San Onofre.

Nora drives north on the 5, the major north-south arterial that runs the length of California like a spine. She drives past downtown San Diego, past the airport and SeaWorld, past the big Mormon temple that looks like it’s made from spun sugar and would melt in the rain. She drives past the exit to La Jolla, past the racetrack at Del Mar, and speeds past downtown Oceanside before she finally pulls over at a rest stop just south of the Marine base at Camp Pendleton.

She gets out and locks the car. She can’t see the Barrera sicarios who are parked nearby, but she knows they’re in one car or another, or maybe several, to guard her vehicle while she uses the bathroom. It’s highly doubtful that anyone is going to steal a used Toyota Camry, but nobody’s taking the chance with several million dollars in cash in the car.

She uses the toilet, then goes to a sink to wash her hands and freshens her makeup. The cleaning lady waits patiently while she finishes. Nora smiles, thanks her and gives her a dollar bill before going back out. She buys a Diet Pepsi from a vending machine, gets back in the car and starts driving north. She loves this stretch of highway that runs through the Marine base because once you get past the barracks it’s mostly empty. Just the range of hills to the east and to the west, nothing but the lanes of southbound traffic and then blue Pacific.

She’s been through the San Onofre checkpoint hundreds of times-most southern Californians have, if they make the trip from San Diego up to Orange County. It’s always been kind of a joke, she thinks as the traffic in front of her slows, a “border” checkpoint seventy miles from the border. But the fact is that many illegals are on their way to the Los Angeles metro area, and most of them use the 5, so maybe it makes sense.