“A state.”
“Where? Is it far?”
“Sí,” Enrique answered soberly. “It is south, near the ocean.”
The two men at the front table leaned toward each other, talking. They paused every now and then, their eyes shooting imaginary daggers at Sophia. They weren’t happy that she’d found the help she needed. But she ignored them. She’d decide what to do about them later. “How did they get here from so far away?”
“Probably by bus.” He checked with Juan, who agreed. Bus was easy to understand in either language.
Juan’s brother spoke up, and Enrique listened to what he had to say before passing it on. “Miguel, he go to meet them when they arrive.”
“When was that? How long ago?”
There was more conversation between them, and Sophia heard the word cuatro, which made sense when Enrique answered, “Four days. They rest at hotel on Thursday. Friday, they wait for night. And then—”
“Which hotel?” she broke in.
“Hotel California. That way.” He motioned to indicate south.
“And then what?” she asked.
“And then Juan and Miguel, they pick them up at—” there was a rapid burst of Spanish before he finished “—seven-thirty.”
“Just them? Or were there others?”
This question was passed on before it was answered. “Many others. A…” He rubbed his hands together as he again struggled to find the right English word. “A…group. About thirty.”
“That many?” she asked in surprise.
“Sí. Mucho. Is better.”
Sophia could see that there might be some safety in numbers. She also knew that coyotes often sent out smaller groups as decoys to confuse the patrol officers. But if the CBP couldn’t keep groups of thirty from crossing the border, America didn’t have much hope of stopping illegal immigration. “Who else was in this group? Can he give me a list of names?”
The men discussed this but Enrique ultimately shook his head. “No, señorita. Some names, maybe. He take groups two, three times a week, you understand? He no remember every one.”
“He remembered Benita and José.”
“Because she was muy bonita—pretty, eh? And scared. He tried to talk to her, to calm her. And her esposo, her husband, he no like it.”
Okay, so the Sanchezes’ youth, looks and relationship had set them apart, made them memorable. That was encouraging. What else could she get from these men while she had the chance? Because of the language barrier, it wasn’t as if they’d volunteer information. She had to ask for it. “Where did Juan and Miguel take this group? Where did they cross?”
“There is an abandoned cattle rancho. About cinco kilometers from here. They go there to cross, after the fence turns to barbwire.” He walked two fingers across the table to make sure she understood that they went on foot.
Sophia tried to imagine what that day must’ve been like for José and his wife. Leaving their families, their home. Arriving in this dirty town from somewhere deep in Mexico, a place that was bound to be cleaner if not more affluent. Being met by Miguel and shown to a hotel to wait for night. Being taken to a ranch and herded across the border like cattle. Being chased by the CBP.
“If José and Benita left with thirty people, how’d they end up alone?” she asked. “How is it that Juan and Miguel are sitting here alive and well, and this couple is dead?”
“La Migra,” he said simply.
“You’re saying the CBP killed them.”
“No, the…the sensors give them away.”
He was talking about the Virtual Presence and Extended Defense System, technology that could detect pedestrians and vehicles, even differentiate between them.
“Sensors go off, but no one knows, eh? Only agents at the command. They call other agents.” He pretended to be driving, closing in on a target. “Mexicans run.” Making an explosion with his hands, he tried to clarify, and Sophia knew exactly what he meant. She’d heard border patrol agents use the term going quail. The CBP had shown up and everyone had scattered.
But the illegals didn’t always run. Sometimes they were too exhausted. Apparently, this group had been found early enough that they still had the energy to make a break for it.
“And this couple?” she asked. “Did they return to Mexico?”
“No.”
“Did Juan or Miguel see them leave with anyone else?”
He shook his head but checked with his companions to be sure. “He was running himself.”
“What about everyone else? What happened to them?”
Enrique told her that some of the same people who’d been “VPed,” or caught by the new security system and repatriated to Mexico, had crossed the border the very next night without a problem. But he had no idea what’d happened to the others.
“Is there any talk of this on the street? About a particular border patrol agent, for example?”
“Not a particular agent. They’d all like to shoot us.”
“That’s not true.”
“You don’t know what goes on out there,” he said grimly.
She was beginning to learn. And she didn’t like what she heard. Becoming familiar with the unvarnished truth made her uncomfortable because there didn’t seem to be any way to solve the problem and still be sensitive to the needs of Americans and Mexicans alike. “So no one has any idea who’s doing this.”
“None. But it sounds as if you do. It sounds as if you think it’s the CBP.”
“That’s not what I think. I’m just being cautious enough to look at every possibility. If it is a Federal agent, it’s one random officer gone bad, which you can find in any organization.” She certainly didn’t mean to villainize the whole force. She knew too many of the officers, saw how hard they worked to maintain their humanity while fulfilling the requirements of the job.
“You ask me? They’re all bad,” he said. “At least half are the children of Mexicans who snuck across the border a generation ago. How does that make them any better than us?”
“You consider them disloyal.”
“Sí.”
“What about your part in all this?” she asked.
Confusion lined his forehead. “Señorita?”
“You don’t feel guilty—bad—about the people who get hurt because of what you do?”