Just west of Lukeville, Arizona, along Puerto Blanco Drive, a well-established concrete distribution business occupied 38 acres of Arizona turf. In business since 1971, the center had recently experienced the economic downfall that so many businesses had suffered; so J. Blanton Concrete Distributors was sold two years earlier to an anonymous corporation. The name would remain the same through a contractual agreement, for five years, and then renegotiated if the plant was still there. It was a sad day in Lukeville when the final papers were signed at Stockmen’s Bank. The concrete plant had been a part of Judy Blanton’s family for three decades.
J. Blanton Concrete was located about five-and-a-half miles west of Lukeville, where Puerto Blanco Drive turns south and then west, running parallel to the United States-Mexican border. Three hundred feet to the south, across the Mexican border, Mexico Highway 2 moves north and then west, almost parallel to Arizona’s Puerto Blanco Drive. It is also the site of a recently constructed beer distribution center, one of Mexico’s largest facilities, a distributor of Corona, Corona Light and Pacifico fine beers.
Like J. Blanton Concrete, the financiers of the new distribution center remained anonymous. There had been rumors that both businesses had a Japanese interest, but no evidence of such had been presented.
Ricardo Alvarez, gray hair and dressed in a tan, wrinkled suit and straw hat to keep the desert sun off his face, made his way through the main entrance of the beer distributor, after asking his taxi driver to wait and keep the meter running.
“Ricardo, welcome.” The plant manager had met Ricky twice before but acted like they were long, lost brothers. The manager, built like the Pillsbury Doughboy, jiggled when he laughed, which made Ricky laugh too. “How’s Guatemala?”
“Call me Ricky. All my friends do.” Ricardo didn’t trust the manager but liked him as much as he could like any Mexican. It seemed to him that all Mexicans were a little shady.
“Guatemala’s hot like it always is, like our chili peppers. We need to have a little pow-wow.”
The manager invited him into his semi-cool office, stark with light gray paint and metal desk. The facility was large but seemed to have few employees, no one in sight.
“What’s up, Señor Ricky?”
“I have your final payment, but I need a tour first.” “No problem señor. This way.”
The manager gave Ricky a hard hat with an LED flashlight headset and escorted him down the hall, through a door on the right with a “Secured Access” sign in Spanish, and down two flights of stairs. The stairwell was dark and dry. It exited into a storage room, boxes and wooden crates stacked floor-to-ceiling, with rats and other vermin scurrying about. This was the part Ricky hated the last two visits, and it was no better this time.
Working their way through tight spaces, trying to avoid the mushy crunch of the unfortunate rat underfoot, the manager moved three wall shelving units to reveal the gray wall that really wasn’t a wall at all.
The manager opened what appeared to be an electrical breaker panel, and flipped breaker number 13. The gray wall converted into a double door entrance and led into a tunnel, twenty-five feet below Mexico Highway 2. The tunnel was well lit, ventilated and had been bored through the rocky crust with one of Sweden’s state-of-the-art boring machines. The boring process had taken eighteen months to complete.
Ricky and the manager walked 480 feet north, under the border and undetected. The tunnel would have been well below any border fence, but there was no border fence here. That project had long been stopped.
At the northern end of the tunnel, they entered another two- flight stairwell, also dark and dry, and mounted the stairs where the stairwell exited into a large storage room packed to the hilt with 50-pound bags of J. Blanton Concrete. The tunnel was perfect, the plan was perfect and every detail was now complete. The tunnel would have been an excellent venue for people- trafficking, but that was not the intended use.
Ricardo Alvarez thanked the manager for his effort and for keeping everything hush-hush as they reentered the manager's office. Ricky was to make the final payment. He opened his black, leather briefcase, took out a stack of one hundred dollar bills in United States currency and sneezed like no one had ever sneezed before, literally throwing the money across the desk and onto the floor at the manager’s feet.
“I’m so sorry,” Ricky offered, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“No problem.” The manger bent over to pick up the scattered bills.
Ricky circled the desk to help the young man, the garrote hidden behind his back. It was over in a flash, the wire tightly secured around the manager’s neck. The manager would not be missed by family, because he had none; and Ricky dragged the body down to the secret storage room, a dinner fest for the rodents below.
Exiting the building, Ricky put his straw hat atop his graying head, walked across the gravel and mud driveway and thanked the taxi driver for waiting.
Sitting in the back seat, Ricky texted the “all clear” message to Muhammed in the Valley of Death; and within a few seconds, the electronic, coded text had made its way across the ocean and down the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. An all-new crew would show up at the beer distributing plant tomorrow morning. Ricky was a devout Muslim and hadn’t really wanted to shave his neatly trimmed beard and mustache before he crossed from San Diego into Mexico the week before. It was necessary for his new identity. He surely couldn’t go by Vinny anymore.
After departing the Duluth Diner, it was hard to get the Gulf disaster off his mind. Jeff felt sure he heard gunshots, and now traffic was stopped behind the National Guard convoy. Jeff was not one for traffic jams, and the dark, gray sports car made another sudden and deliberate U-turn. He would take the back way to his meeting.
In less than an hour, Jeff was waiting in his recently elected Congressman’s office. Congressman Woodell was always on time and welcomed Jeff to his office. They greeted, talked the small talk about family and kids and how hot the weather was. They had known each other for several years.
“So my calendar states you want to talk to me about the American Legion? Is that correct?”
“It is Bob. I have a bone to pick with the federal government. I would like your help; and from the years I’ve known you and your bio on Facebook, I am sure you will be interested.”
“So tell me your idea, and I will do everything I can to make it happen. You’re well respected in my district. My aides Googled you; and you have quite a history, more than I knew. You are quite the modest man, Mr. Ross.”
“In the past few months, I have visited Post 251 in Duluth, several times. There’re lots of good people there, people who have played a part in making the United States the great country it is,” or was, Jeff silently thought.
“I know the Legion is a non-profit organization, and it seems to me that their funds could use a little help. I always took for granted that the Feds contributed to the operations of the American Legion but found out differently.
“I recently paid for new air conditioning at the Post; but in retrospect, why don’t the Feds help out. Seems to me if we can fund struggling artists and art institutes, if we can fund abortions for third world countries and give money to our sworn enemies; why can’t we help the people that made all this funding possible, the American soldier?
“I find it totally disgusting. Some of the American Legion Posts I’ve visited have World War II tanks sitting on the front lawns. You’ve seen them! We all have. Why don’t they have new Bradley Fighting Vehicles or MRAPs sitting out front?” A new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle would be really cool, he thought.
“That would be costly,” the Congressman interjected.
“Well Congressman Bob, I’m a businessman. I look at things through a marketing perspective. Think of all the little kids who would want their parents to pull over at a Legion Post so they could see these tremendous vehicles. Future recruits, don’t you think?”
“Jeff, you make some excellent points. It might be possible to get refurbished vehicles, possibly the manufacturers might donate a few.”
The conversation ended, a brief twenty minutes later; and the congressman asked Jeff to come back for a follow-up meeting in a month. “We’ll do lunch.”
“Did you hear anything about gunshots earlier this morning, somewhere around Peachtree Industrial Boulevard?” Jeff asked the question as he was leaving the congressman’s office.
“I did. Someone was taking pot shots at the convoy, if you can believe that. There was no return fire from what I understand.”
Jeff left Congressman Woodell’s office, driving south on I-85. He planned to stop by Emory to see if he could learn anything about Samarra. Maybe he would run into Senator Jack; and he wondered how Senator Russell was handling all his personal matters. Little Tom’s finger had been amputated by someone, his wife was still in and out of consciousness and an indictment would be staring her in the face if she ever did recover.
At the Admissions Desk, Jeff was delighted to learn that Samarra had regained consciousness and could have a few visitors from a list that Senator Russell submitted to Homeland Security.
“What is your name sir?” The receptionist asked and withdrew the “approved” list from her desk drawer.
“Jeffrey Ross.”
The list was short, and the receptionist found Jeff’s name almost instantly.
Jeff took the elevator to the 4th floor, exited into the almost sterile hallway and located Room 444, three rooms down from the elevator. He knocked and entered when he heard someone say, “Come in.”
When Samarra saw him, she broke down in sobs. Jeff walked to her bed and held her hand, IVs still pushing fluids and medication directly into her veins, her arms bruised from the puncture wounds of the intravenous sets over the past weeks, or months. He leaned over the bed and hugged her, as her body shook, her tears freely flowing onto his shirt.
“How are you doing Sam? You’ve had quite a row to hoe.” She looked pale and weak, not nearly as perky as the last time he saw her at the Emory conference, the one he did not attend.
Samarra wiped her eyes and blew her nose, a dainty, feminine type of blow, not the loud snorting that men usually did. His heart hurt, seeing her distress.
The security guard came in the room to check on Samarra, and probably Jeff, leaving after a few seconds.
“You know what Jeff? This is the strangest thing. I came out of my coma two days ago. Do you remember the CDC security guard who has also been in a coma?”
Jeff shook his head in the affirmative.
“Well, he came out of his coma two days ago too, within ten minutes of me. Isn’t that odd? His name is Russ Ivies.”
Samarra’s nurse came in and checked her blood pressure, 110/58, and urged Jeff to keep the visit brief. Samarra was weak, and she seemed depressed. Jeff wondered if she knew how much trouble she was in.