Stephen Hunter - Dead Zero

Now it prowled dusty trails, switchbacks, and arroyos in the dark of night, but slowly. Dust rose. No moon guided them. The landscape was raw and ugly, mostly tall, spiny vegetation that could kill you. Bilal drove, trying to stay on the donkey track before him without headlamps, and his Mexican contact Rodriguez, a veteran of many crossings to and from, sat next to him, squinting to read the map and compare it with his memory.

Behind them, crouched in the darkness of the cargo area this side of a black curtain, were two elderly gentlemen named Dr. Faisal and Professor Khalid. Both were educated men, unused to roughness in transit. One was a university lecturer, the other an engineer of some renown. They had never met before this little adventure, but they immediately recognized in the other a kindred spirit. They could not stop talking excitedly about politics, literature, spirituality, poetry, science, history, and the law, and it seemed each knew everything about these topics there was to know and like men everywhere, of every creed and kind, upon discovering such a commonality of spirit, each wanted to totally destroy the other. The arguments! They were driving Bilal, an earthier sort, crazy with this kind of endless aggression.

“Old buzzards,” he said, “shut up. We need to concentrate.” It turned out that of the several languages spoken by the passengers in the vehicle, the only one all four shared, if imperfectly, was English.

“The young,” said Dr. Faisal. “So rude these days.”

“He is such a pig. Bilal, you are a pig, you have no manners, no respect,” said Professor Khalid.

“These two,” said Bilal. “They know everything about nothing and nothing about anything.”

“At a certain age,” said Rodriguez, “they all go off a little like that. It should be right around here.”

“You should know I do not like this ‘should be,’” said the testy Bilal. He was a rangy man around thirty-five, all sinew, extremely shabbily dressed in a hand-me-down tweed jacket over a frayed black sweater, jeans, and beat-up Nikes. He was a Mediterranean type of the sort usually called “swarthy,” for darkness of skin, eyes, and hair, and perhaps eternal melancholy, except that if you could get him to smile, you saw that he was quite handsome. He had a mop of unkempt hair dark as any wine-dark sea; a vague sense of coffeehouse revolutionary to him; and quick, furtive eyes that missed little. He was one of those uncomfortably intense men most people find a little unnerving, as if his rhythms were a little too rapid, or perhaps he was too quickly wired through synapse, or bore too many unforgivable grudges, or was too quick to haggle to the death over a nickel.

“It’s the desert,” said Rodriguez. “It changes continually.”

“I know something about the desert,” said Bilal.

“Then you know that the wind moves mysteriously and covers and uncovers rocks, reshapes cactus, sometimes seems to move-there it is!”

His flashlight beam penetrated the dirty windshield to illuminate a certain crack in the earth that widened eventually into a full gully. This time of year there was no water and even the mud had turned to crushed pottery. The gully would run like a superhighway for about two hundred yards, and reach the border fence and open a channel beneath it. With a little industrious snipping, the gap in the fence would be wide enough to drive the van under. Then it was another hundred or so yards of rough but not impossible transit to a long, straight road that ran to a major highway. A left turn at that junction and into the belly of America you flew.

“Hold on,” said Bilal. “You, old dogs, cut the chatter. It’s rough and dangerous through here.”

Alas, Dr. Faisal did not hear him. He was making an exceedingly important point about the Greek myth of Prometheus, bringer of fire, and how he had been punished by Zeus. It was his carefully considered opinion that the tale was out of something the Jew Jung had called “the collective unconscious,” and it wasn’t really fire that Prometheus brought, it was the foreknowledge of the arrival of Muhammad and the fire was the destruction of the West.

Professor Khalid thought this rather a stretch.

“I agree,” he said, “that many of their myths suggest that in their view of the ethos they are unconsciously aware of something missing, something yet to come, something yet to rule, something yet to proclaim truth, but I wonder, truly, if one can be so explicit in assigning meanings.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” shouted Dr. Faisal. “You can! Have you read the original Greek? I have read the original Greek and I tell you there are meanings-”

“ Shut up !” screamed Bilal. “It is very dangerous here. You fools have no idea what is happening. Keep those old yaps shut until we get across and up into Arizona. Then you can talk all you want.”

“It’s almost time to pray,” said Dr. Faisal.

“Prayers are canceled today,” said Bilal, “with Allah’s permission. I guarantee you, Allah understands.”

The van puttered shakily along the rough track, rolling over rocks, grinding through vegetation, knocking down this or that cactus. It was not completely beneath ground level, as the gully was only around five feet deep; a foot and a half of van top stuck out, and when they reached the fence itself, most of the lower strands had to be cut.

“What was that?” said Bilal.

“You are seeing things,” said Rodriguez.

“Oh no,” said Bilal. “See, there, there in-”

Something poked him in the ribs. He looked and saw Rodriguez had a shiny automatic pistol in his hand, pointing apologetically at Bilal’s middle.

“So sorry,” the Mexican said, “I must inform you of a slight change of plans.”

Two men came from out of the dark, illuminating the van in their flashlight beams. They wore red cowboy bandannas around their heads, almost like turbans, and carried AK-47s with the easy grace of men who’d spent a lot of time with gun in hand. Bilal could see that each wore a shoulder holster under his jeans jacket, with another shiny gun. They had the raffish, ignorant insouciance of Israeli paratroopers.

“Out, you and the old ones, and we shall see what is so important that you must smuggle it into Los Estados instead of merely driving through the border posts.”

“What is he saying?” said Dr. Faisal. “Why does he have a gun? Bilal, what is going on?”

The door of the van was slid open roughly and the bandits grabbed the two old men, shoving them to the ground.

“Now you,” said Rodriguez, “don’t make no trouble. I am reasonable, but my two amigos are locos. Bad ones. I think I can control them, but you must show them you respect me, or they will get very angry. And I know you have more money, señor. I know you would not be going for a long trip in America with these two geezers without no money.”

“I have money,” said Bilal. “Lots of money. I can pay. No need for anything unpleasant to happen.”

“See, that’s the attitude. My friends, the young man here will cooperate, he understands.”

One of the two huskies came over, grabbed Bilal by the lapel of his decades-old sports coat, and threw him hard against the side of the truck.

He opened the coat, looked up and down, then backed off, nodding.

“You tell me where the money is,” said Rodriguez amiably. “Emilio doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He is an impatient person. You tell me where it is, and I will get it. Oh, and another thing. We must have a look at what treasure behind the curtain is so important to get into Los Estados. Oh, it must be something very interesting to go to all this trouble.”

“It is religious tracts. Booklets on the true faith.”

“Oh, yes, I believe that one. You must think I’m a fool. Besides, the true faith is our lord Jesus and his immaculate mother, heathen.”