J. Curtis - Calexit - The Anthology

Opposite the couch was a wide desk bearing a computer and a rack of what looked like old stereo equipment. On one side of the desk was a doorway leading to a bathroom, while on the other a set of stairs led up to a loft that overlooked the room. The ceiling soared over their heads, but the steep-pitched roof gave the room a boxed-in feeling.

“Sit,” the young voice said from the doorway. Jen looked behind her to see a young man with a dark beard and hair pointing to the couch. Mark and Jen eased down onto the worn sofa, which did its level best to swallow them up in its overstuffed cushions.

The young man said nothing more, but watched them intently. The revolver in his hand wasn’t exactly pointed at them, but he made no move to put it away, either. A few minutes later, an older man with a long, gray moustache came through the door. His shotgun was slung over his shoulder, and he carried a large black garbage bag, which he set down on the floor in front of the couch.

“Mark and Jen, huh?” he said in a gruff voice.

“Yeah,” Mark replied. “Ramon told us…”

“Never heard of Ramon,” the younger man said. The older man gave him a hard look.

“Listen, we’re just being careful,” the older man explained. “There’s a way this is supposed to be done, and this ain’t it.”

He paused for a moment and looked intently at Jen. “Your hair always been brown?” he asked.

Jen exchanged a look with Mark, then replied, “No. I’ve been dyeing it.”

The man pursed his lips and nodded. This made the ends of his moustache wriggle back and forth as they dangled below his lip. “Thought I’d seen you before. You’re that lady that got attacked down in Sacramento a few months ago.”

“How?”

“They splashed your confession all over the net. News ran with it for a couple days.”

Jen felt her cheeks heat up. “Listen,” she said, “I…”

“You got raped by a bunch of guys and they made you say you made it up?”

She looked at the man in shock. “You, you believe me?” she stammered.

“Ma’am,” he said, his tone now not quite as harsh, “after the past few years, there’s not much about what goes on in Cali that I won’t believe.”

He nodded to the younger man. “Get on the line and tell folks it’s okay.” The young man put his revolver in the pocket of his jacket and walked over to the desk. When he touched the computer, a chat window with multi-colored lines of text appeared on the monitor. He started adding comments, which caused a cascade of new conversation in the window.

Sadana whooped with glee when she saw the new comments scroll across one of the windows on her screen.

“Got ’em!” she cried out. Jiminez looked up from his own monitor.

“The twins are safe at home and everyone is looking forward to getting some rest,” she read from the chat.

“Good,” Schmidt said. “Jackson is just getting to Placerville, so once they get the local yokels to block off traffic around the target, they can take it down.”

Sadana looked over at Jiminez. “Don’t we want to wait for them to get to the next place?”

Jiminez shook his head. “No,” he replied. “They’re too close to the border. If we wait, they might get across and we won’t have her pretty face for the newsies.”

“Nah,” he said as he leaned back and looked up at the dark ceiling. “We’ll bag these guys and get the rest from what we get out of interrogation.”

Jackson banged on the window of the brown and green SUV parked in front of a gas station in Placerville. The window came down slowly, letting a puff of warm air escape into the night. The man inside wore a brown uniform underneath a warm jacket, and his close-cropped red hair was flecked with streaks of silver.

“You Andrews?” Jackson asked, not waiting for the other man to speak.

“I’m Sheriff Andrews,” the other man said suspiciously.

“I’m Tom Jackson from Dee-Ohh-Jay down in Sacramento.” He showed the man his credentials and gave him a business card.

“Yeah? Is there a problem?”

“Human trafficking,” Jackson said. “We’ve been tracking them from Sacramento, and they’ve stopped at some cabin a few miles outside of town.”

“Don’t get much of that through here,” Andrews replied.

“Yeah, these guys are getting fugitives out through the mountains.”

“What d’ya need from me?”

“We can take down the house, but we need you for traffic control and that kind of thing.”

“I’ll have to wake up my guys,” Andrews said. “Give me a few.”

“No problem. We’re getting some coffee and if I don’t take a leak soon, I’m gonna need a new pair of pants.” Both men smiled at the joke.

“Tell Susanna in there I said to make you my special brew,” Andrews said. “That’ll wake you up.”

“Will do. We’re over in that van there.” Jackson jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Give me a shout when you’ve got your people ready.” Without waiting for another reply, he turned and walked back to his van.

Andrews his window back up. He picked up his phone from the console and started dialing his deputies as he watched Jackson make his way across the parking lot to the brightly lit front door of the gas station.

While he dialed with one hand, he opened the laptop on the dash next to him with the other. A couple clicks on the mouse brought up a chat window.

Sadana watched as a new message scrolled across the chat window in front of her. “Got something,” she said in a bored tone.

“What’s up?” Jiminez said.

Sadana read a few more lines of text, then replied, “Says that Juanita went into labor a few hours ago, and it’s too soon.”

“Who’s Juanita?” Haven’t heard that one before.

“Not sure. Might actually be a real person. There’re a few of those in here. Wait, there’s more. Said they’re transporting her to the hospital in Indio, and they want everyone to pray.”

“Indio’s on the other side of LA. Watch for anything going on up here.”

“Will do. Don’t forget, the chinks will be taking the UAV off station in ten minutes. We only paid for a few hours.”

Jiminez swore under his breath. “All right, tell that asshole Jackson when we lose coverage. He’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

The older man motioned toward the sack on the floor in front of him. “Here’s your clothes. Mariana’ll ditch your bags and the rest before she gets back down in the valley.”

“Dad,” the younger man said.

“If they were here to take us down, we’d be dead by now,” the older man replied. “I’m Luke and that’s Ted over there.”

“I’m…”

“We already got your names, and I think that’s as much as we need to know about each other,” Luke said, cutting Mark off.

Mark nodded gravely. “Where do we go from here?”

“First we’ll get some food into you and let you rest for a bit. It’s about an hour or so to Tahoe on the back roads, so we’ll take you across tomorrow night,” Luke replied. He took the shotgun off his shoulder and leaned it against the desk. “Border Patrol’ll be there to process you, and after that they’ll get you to where you need to go.”

Jen felt a weight fall from her shoulders as she sensed the mood in the room change. “My mom and dad…”

“Yeah, they’ll get you in touch. For now, let’s get you comfortable,” Luke said as he opened one of the desk’s drawers and took out a couple cans of soup.

Andrews approached the white and tan van. The sliding door opened before he got close, and several sets of dark eyes glared out at him. He stopped when he saw several guns pointed at him.