J. Curtis - Calexit - The Anthology

“Praise Jesus,” Luke whispered. His words came out in a ragged stream of vapor, and in the first dim light of dawn, Jen could see steam rising from the black ski cap he wore.

They half walked, half slid down the hill toward the shore. At the bottom of the hill, they rushed across a wide road, with Ted watching both directions as Luke and Mark helped Jen run to the woods on the other side.

A few minutes later, they reached the edge of the trees and looked across the lake. The water looked calm, but a thin coat of ice ringed the shore.

Mark opened his mouth to speak, but Luke shook his head and pointed away from the lights to the south. The little group made their way along the shoreline until they came to a clutch of floating docks that pointed out into the dark water. Across a narrow drive from the docks were several small buildings with garage doors.

Luke took a long moment to look about for anyone else up so early, then casually walked toward one of the buildings. Ted waited a moment to see if there was any reaction to his father’s presence, then tapped Mark and Jen on the shoulder before following. By the time they had caught up with Luke, he had the side door to the building open and had stepped inside.

They found him standing in front of a metal cabinet and pulling out several items and a gas can. Next to him, a boat and trailer sat under a tarp.

“Here,” he said quietly, “put these on.” He handed out flat, green vests to each of them. At a questioning look from Mark, he explained. “Life vest. The wind’s going to come up when the sun comes up, and we’ll have to run if we’re spotted.”

“Can we get across? The sun’ll be up soon.”

“We’ll be as quiet as we can, but we took longer to get here than I hoped.”

Jen looked dubiously at the thin material before pulling it over her head with her good arm.

“It’s self-inflating,” Ted explained as he helped her fasten the vest’s straps. “You go down a few feet, then it’ll fill up with gas and bring you back up.”

“Used to wear them in fishing tournaments,” Luke said has he tightened his own straps. “Hope they still work.”

Mark helped Ted uncover the boat while Jen and Luke opened the garage doors at the front of the building.

“This is gonna suck without the truck,” Ted muttered as he pulled a pair of wheel chocks out from under the tires. Mark hurried to the other side and pulled out the other set.

“Ramp’s only a couple hundred yards up the road,” Luke replied. “Jen, you get up and sit in the back of the boat. That’ll help us lift the front.”

Mark boosted Jen up into the fishing boat, then joined Luke and Ted at the trailer’s tongue. Luke nodded to Ted, who tilted the trailer back a few inches, then the older man removed the cotter pin for the leg that held the front of the boat up and folded it up.

Mark grabbed the trailer and all three of them strained at it until it creeped forward. Once it started moving, they guided it out of the shed and turned it down the street toward the boat ramp.

“Nothing?” Jiminez demanded. “Four hours and all you’ve got to show for it is one helicopter that wouldn’t start after it got refueled and two crews that are threatening to call Human Resources over flight hours?” He paced at the front of the room and glared at his subordinates.

“The snow covered up any tracks,” Schmidt replied nervously.

“What about IR?” Jiminez spat back. “We paid a buttload of money for that Chinese crap!”

“The repair crew at Tahoe said that one of the birds’ scope never worked, and the other quit after the first hour,” Sadana said, not looking up from her monitor.

Jiminez opened his mouth to shout, then stopped and took a long, slow breath, “So, I’ve got to go to the Attorney General and tell them that in exchange for a couple million Callors, all I’ve got is a fat gringo who’s going to take days to interrogate once he sobers up and a chengada maricon who doesn’t know shit,” he said calmly through clenched teeth. “Is that it?”

Schmidt and Sedana didn’t say anything, although Sadana’s cheeks flushed at the sound of Jiminez’s slur.

“Anything on that chat room? Any idea on where they might be heading?”

“It went quiet after we hit the garage,” Sedana replied. “Everything’s gone quiet.”

Again, Jiminez closed his eyes and blew his breath out between clenched teeth. “Where are the choppers now?”

“The one that can still fly is fueling up at Tahoe. Jackson and one of his guys are on it,” Schmidt replied.

“Fine.” Jiminez looked up at the clock. “The AG’s driver is supposed to call me when he picks them up in an hour. I want something to report by then, got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Sedana and Schmidt said in unison.

Ted cussed as he tried to loosen the straps holding the boat to the trailer. The nylon was stiff from the cold, and the boat had shifted a fraction of an inch when they had dropped one of the wheels in a shallow pothole on the way down the street.

“Just cut the damned things,” Luke growled. He and Mark were straining to balance the boat at the top of the ramp. “We’re never going to use them again, anyway.”

Luke pulled out his knife and sawed through the tough material. When the last strap was hanging loose and frayed below the trailer, he trotted up to the front and helped the other men guide the boat down the ice-slick ramp.

“Tell me you put the plugs in,” he said with a sarcastic grin at his father. “This thing’d make a crappy submarine.”

“Yep,” Luke said through bared teeth. His left foot went out from underneath him, but he recovered without losing his grip on the trailer. “Did that before we left the shack.”

The trailer’s wheels crunched through the thin ice that sat at the bottom of the ramp, then the boat floated free as the men let go of the trailer. It was a wide craft, made from silvery-gray fiberglass and aluminum. The three men clambered aboard and Mark dutifully took a seat next to Jen when Luke pointed to it.

Ted picked up the gas can and poured its contents into a tank at the back of the boat while Luke unfolded a small motor at the front.

“Batteries probably aren’t charged for shit,” Ted grumbled. “That trawler isn’t going to get us far.”

“Get the big motor ready,” Luke said as he pushed the trawling motor over the side with a quiet splash. “We’ll need it if we’re spotted.”

He unfolded a chair at the front of the boat and sat down. Using a foot pedal, he used the small electric motor to push them away from the shore and toward the steadily brightening sky on the other side of the lake.

Jackson watched as the small airport on the Cali side of the border crossing dropped away beneath them. They had stayed on the ground long enough to use the restroom and report their status to Sacramento. His joy at being able to relieve himself after too much coffee and too much time in the cramped seat of a helicopter was ruined when his status call had devolved into observations on his incompetence and questionable intelligence and heritage.

He keyed the microphone on the headset the copilot had given him and pointed to the north. “Sacramento says to try looking at the logging roads over there,” he said curtly.

“Yep, heading that way already,” the pilot replied in a flat tone. Jackson glared at the back of her head, then looked over at Juan. His subordinate looked as tired as he felt, but was still scanning the terrain to the right of the chopper.

It’s cold as fuck out there, Juan thought. He shivered as he shifted in his seat. Not exactly toasty in this damn thing.