DOMESTIC ENEMIES 3
The toy store was air conditioned, but not so cold that you would notice it. Not unless you had just walked in from the asphalt parking lot in back, where the temperature hovered around 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It was bearable inside, and in Albuquerque in June, that was enough. The shop’s dusty ceiling was low, the aisles were cramped, the shelves half-filled with last year’s toys and overlooked games. But in its favor it had entrances both in front on Central Avenue, and in the rear behind the mini shopping center which contained the store.
Luís Carvahal entered through the rear doors. He was wearing shorts, running shoes and a plain gray t-shirt which was dark with sweat. Carvahal had the physique of a much younger man, but his deeply lined face betrayed his late middle age. He propped his sunglasses up on his curly gray and brown hair, and as his eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, he found his contact seemingly shopping in the middle of a center aisle.
His contact was more than a decade younger than himself, perhaps only in his early forties. The man looked like a Telemundo television newscaster, Carvahal always thought on seeing him. The suave clean-shaven Latino from central casting, with the wavy chestnut hair and gentle brown eyes. Both men were exactly the same height, five feet eleven inches, so when they met, they literally saw eye to eye.
His contact was an FBI Special Agent named Alvarez Garza.
After the brief eye contact, he turned toward the shelves and stage-whispered, agitated. “I don’t like meeting in stores. You know I don’t like meeting in stores! You’re supposed to be a pro at this; didn’t they teach you this in spy school? And the Toy Hut? What am I supposed to be doing in a toy store? I’m 58 for God’s sake—I look like a pervert trolling for kids in here. I stand out like a sore thumb!”
They didn’t shake hands, but pretended to be looking at games on the same shelf. “No Luís, you look like a grandfather. A grandfather looking for a special birthday gift for a favorite grandson.”
“Well, I don’t have a grandson. Or any son, not any more.” He sighed, and grew pensive. He pulled off his day pack and removed a small white towel, and used it to wipe his face dry. “You know, after 300 years, I’m the last Carvahal in Albuquerque. The bitter end of the line.” He took a clear plastic bottle of water out of a side pouch and drank from it.
“I’m sorry for setting the meeting here, but this place was the best I could do on short notice. I had to bring my son, and he can play with the toys while we talk. Half of the time when I leave my house or leave work, I’m getting plain-clothed Milicias tailing me. I needed a decent cover, in case I was followed here. Father—son—toy store.”
“I forgot: it’s Saturday. You’ve got weekend custody, right?”
“That’s right.”
The toddler was near the end of the aisle, sitting on the ground playing with wind-up race cars, letting them go and chasing after them, smiling and laughing. The brown-haired child was dressed in shorts and a camouflage pattern t-shirt.
“He’s Brian, right?”
“Right…Brian. Five years old.”
“I’m sorry Al, I get so damned nervous. I always feel like I’m being followed. There are people in here…”
“Not on this aisle,” said the FBI agent. He was wearing jeans and a Navy-blue polo shirt, with a tan vest on the outside. The unzipped vest resembled one which might be worn by a fisherman or a photographer. It covered his belt, and concealed the butt of his .40 caliber Sig-Sauer pistol. The thin layers of ballistic cloth sewn inside the vest would stop almost every standard pistol caliber. “Don’t worry, I checked the place out. Nobody followed me today, and nobody came in after me, or after you. It’s clean. The Toy Hut’s not a chain store; it’s got no video cameras. It’s too old, too small.”
“Well they better watch out: they’ve still got ‘Toy Hut’ on all the big signs outside. Putting up a couple of ‘Casa de Juguetes’ placards…that isn’t going to satisfy the hotheads. The Spanish has to be on the biggest signs, not the English.”
“Well, why don’t you tell them, then?” Garza snapped. “Sorry, I know, it’s not your fault. I mean, can you even believe this crap? Any of it? ‘Spanish Only’; what is that?” He shook his head slowly, in wonderment. “You know, a year ago when you told me that Agustín Deleon would be elected governor, I said you were nuts. But you called it Luís, you called it.”
“Yeah, well, that and ten bucks will buy me a cup of café con leche. Al, I don’t want to complain too much, but at least you drove here. I had to ride my bike, four miles and every inch uphill! I can’t get enough gas. I can’t afford it and I can’t get enough gas coupons.”
“What’s the matter, the Mountain Lion can’t toss some gas cards your way? I thought you were in tight with El Gobernador?” Garza was ribbing him; Deleon’s stinginess was famous. The governor retained the lifelong habits of frugality which had sustained him during his years of exile, during his years in the wilderness.
“I am, but…”
“But no extra gas cards. I thought you were an insider now, Deleon’s buddy?”
“Al—enough joking around. I’ve got important information. You know the Democrats in the Senate—the U.S. Senate—they’re supporting the revolution in Mexico…”
“I read the newspapers from time to time,” said Garza. “Sometimes I even watch the TV.”
“Funny. You know I was up in Santa Fe yesterday, with Deleon? Anyway, he got a call from Senator Kelly while I was with him in the governor’s palace, after dinner. He was showing off; he let me listen in on another line.”
“Why would he do that, Luís?”
“Why? Because I’m ghost-writing his memoirs, why else? The man is 82 years old! He wants me to know everything, from his point of view, right? He trusts me one hundred percent, and he’s very, very serious about his memoirs. Believe me, this was a proud moment for the Mountain Lion, taking a call from the senior Senator from Massachusetts! I mean, it validates him, he thinks. Everything from the courthouse raid in ’70, to prison, to exile, to the election—his entire life! So of course he wanted me to hear it...for his memoirs.”
“So what did Kelly tell Deleon, that the FBI should know? You don’t actually think I can send up a report on it, do you? On a private conversation between a U.S. Senator and a governor?”
“Shit. I didn’t consider that. Well, I’ll give it to you anyway; do what you want with it. Kelly’s not going to object to the New Mexico land reform laws. He’s actually going to support them in Congress, so it’s a done deal. The special tax on ranches over a thousand acres, the Spanish Land Grant Commission—everything. Looks like Washington’s not going to oppose any of it, as long as they stay away from federal land. And you already know the President won’t say a word. With Los Angeles burning, he can’t afford to alienate the Hispanics…”
“I could’ve told you that. I have told you that! My instructions from headquarters have been clear ever since this mess started: New Mexico ‘land reform’ is not a federal issue. We’ve already been directed by the DOJ to stay out of it. So it really doesn’t matter if Senator Kelly confirmed it to El Gobernador.”
“Al, that’s all just background; there’s more. I haven’t gotten to the really interesting part. This is why Kelly called: there’s going to be a conference next week up north near Taos, some kind of mega-meeting of big shots. Politicos and tycoons from all over. Senator Kelly is coming down, and he said Senator Montaine is coming too! Imagine those two cooperating on anything! Deleon didn’t even know about the conference before this call, but it sounded like Senator Kelly didn’t know that he didn’t know. Kelly must have assumed that El Gobernador was already in the loop… Well, you know how cagey Deleon is—he played it like he knew all along—he didn’t miss a beat. It’s going to take place up at Wayne Parker’s spread next week, on the Gaia Ranch. You won’t believe who’s coming: Orozco, Warburg…”
“Pascual Orozco’s not in charge of Mexico yet, there’s still a revolution going on! Zorrero is still El Presidente.”
“Not for long. Zorrero is going to go on a permanent vacation in Ireland any time now, that’s the rumor. He already owns a castle there, or at least his brother does. Zorrero is finished. Coronel Orozco will be el supremo, one way or the other. And he’s coming to Parker’s ranch next week!”
“Then this meeting must have been cleared with the Whitehouse.”
“That’s what I think too. It must have gotten the okay from on high, it had to! And you wouldn’t believe the guest list! Thank God Senator Kelly is such a shameless name dropper! Besides the Senators, Paul Warburg is coming, and Herman Tides, and Daniel Bretton! Imagine those billionaires, sitting down for dinner with Pascual Orozco! And those are just the headliners: according to Kelly there’ll be some mystery guests he can’t even mention yet. Foreigners, it sounded like. Probably UN, I don’t know how high up. Something huge is going to happen up there! This is going to be like a Davos meeting, but more exclusive, and all in private, all in secret.
Carvahal continued, warming to his subject. “Wayne Parker’s ranch has its own jet runway—I mean, the Gaia Ranch is almost a million acres! Big names are flying in from all over, Kelly said. I’m guessing it’s got something to do with Orozco taking over in Mexico, and maybe some new federal status for New Mexico, maybe something they’re going to cover at the Constitutional Convention in the fall. I’m just guessing; Kelly wasn’t specific. But whatever it’s about, it sounds like it’s going to be huge!”
“Luís, what am I supposed to do with this kind of information? Send an intell report to Washington, saying that a couple of US Senators are meeting secretly with foreign leaders and billionaires in New Mexico? All because Senator Kelly made a call to the governor? I can’t send a report like that! You could leak something like that to the media, that might work. Put it out on the internet, the blogs might run with it… But it’s political—it’s completely out of my area of responsibility, and it’s way, way above my pay grade! I need something else, something solid, tangible. Maybe more information on the foreign fighters you said were coming over the border. Something hard, with pictures, with names and documentation. Then maybe they’ll pay attention at headquarters.”
Carvahal exclaimed, “Mother of God, you already know they’ve got a damned Mexican Ho Chi Minh trail running straight across the border and up into Colorado, and that’s not enough? What more does Washington need?!”
“Calm down Luís, don’t make a scene... I don’t know what it’ll take, I just don’t know. I can’t even tell who’s really running the show back at headquarters. It seems like sellouts and UN carpet baggers are in most of the key positions. The way I see it, nobody’s left back there who gives a damn about a sovereign America any more. New Mexico…face it, we’re a backwater, a side show. Washington’s got bigger problems to deal with than tin-horn radicals in ‘Nuevo Mexico’. As long as they fly the Stars and Stripes over the capitol in Santa Fe, I don’t think Washington gives a damn what else happens here. Not with LA burning, and half of Detroit in a state of siege.”
“Then what’s the point, Al? What are we doing this for?”
“What are we doing this for?” asked Garza in return, taken aback. “That’s a question I only ask myself about a hundred times a day.” He paused, and said quietly, “I suppose I’m just hanging on until retirement, is one answer. Maybe the only one…”
“Aren’t you already over twenty years? I guess you got screwed on that deal.”
“You got that right. I was at nineteen when they changed the minimum retirement to twenty-five years. ‘Take it or leave it.’ Bastards!”
“Listen, you weren’t the only one who got screwed. Remember, my entire pension evaporated into thin air when the Tribune went belly up. At least you feds will get paid, even if they’re only going to pay you in blue bucks—or by then, they’ll be pink or red or orange bucks! Worthless paper money: just change the color and whack off a zero. Know what my IRAs are worth today?”
Garza responded cynically, scowling. “Yeah. Bend over, here it comes again.”
“So what keeps you going, working for the feds? I know why I’m here: my reporting days are finished. If I’m anything any more, I’m an historian now. Deleon’s confidant and biographer by day…and secret historian by night. At this stage in my life, it’s enough for me to be where history is being made, and write it all down. And maybe—just maybe—do what I can to keep New Mexico in the United States. But why do you keep at it? You’re not from here, what do you care?”
“Shit, now you’re getting all existential on me? Here in the Toy Hut?” Garza laughed for a moment and gestured toward his son, playing on the floor. “Well, I’ve got Brian there, that’s one reason to keep going. And besides the paycheck, as long as I stay in, I can get into the federal stores, and shop at the exchanges on the Air Force base. And getting free gas for the bureau cars, that’s another nice bennie. I can’t imagine how you civilians manage it, without getting into the federal stores and the military bases.”
“But is that enough?” replied Carvahal. “Enough to keep you working for the whores and sell-outs in Washington? Al, that’s like being a stoker on the Titanic, and staying in the engine room, shoveling coal while the ship goes down! For what?”
Garza pulled a shiny black “Magic 8-Ball” from the shelf in front of him, and was slowly turning it over and over. “It’s what I do, Luís. It’s all I’ve ever known. Protect the country, try to warn headquarters… It’s all I can do. Finish the career, hope for a pension, and raise Brian as best I can…when I’ve got custody. It’s all I’ve got left. Like your memoirs, and your history book.”
“Al, speaking of which, there’s something else: Deleon is seriously paranoid about the Lieutenant Governor. He’s as much as told me he thinks Magón is planning a move against him. Finding out about the Gaia Ranch conference from Senator Kelly—that really did it. Now Deleon is certain Magón is operating behind his back. He thinks Wayne Parker set up the Gaia Ranch conference with Magón, making a private deal. Probably protecting Parker’s million acres from the land reform act.”
“And Magón’s insane, a total whack job,” added Garza. “He’s a real Castro wannabee, if you ask me. Worse than Hugo Chavez.”
“You’ve got that right. You should see his ‘Falcon Battalion.’ They make the regular Milicianos look like Girl Scouts! Almost all gang-bangers. Scariest bunch of tattoo-necked killers I’ve ever seen... Most of them are right out of the M-19 gang—the worst scum from El Salvador to LA. I mean, this is the crew that’s in line right behind Agustín Deleon! And Washington doesn’t want to hear about it?”
Garza stared intently at his informant, absorbing this latest rumor about the neo-communist Vicegobernador Magón, improbably cutting backroom deals with billionaire capitalist Wayne Parker. He replied, “Exactly. Washington doesn’t want to hear about it. DC is still in the PC lockdown mode. ‘See no evil, hear no evil’. If Montana and Wyoming can pass ‘English only’ laws and start kicking out the illegals, then Nuevo Mexico can pass ‘Español Solamente’ and fire all the gringo cops. Washington doesn’t see any difference at all. They don’t see ‘land reform’ as confiscating private property—they prefer to think of it as ‘helping the little guy’. ‘No justice, no peace’, right? Meanwhile, you’ve got a bunch of stone-cold neo-Marxists and gangsters taking over an America state, right under their noses!”
Carvahal said, “An American state, but for how long? Listen Al, I’m going with Deleon up to Tierra Andalucia Monday. He’s going to inspect the Milicia training camps with Magón. He’s got to show himself, make sure the Milicianos all know he’s really in charge, and not just the party figurehead. I’ll take some pictures, and try to get you something you can send back to headquarters. Something that might wake them up.”
“What the hell Luís, give it a shot. Watch your back though: if Magón’s gunning for Deleon, he’ll take out anybody near him.”
“I will, I will. I’ll be back sometime Tuesday. Let’s meet again midweek, okay? But not inside; not in another store. How about the old Mount Calvary cemetery?”
“We’ve used it before,” replied Garza, dubious.
“So what? It’s huge, and I won’t have to pedal five miles to get there. I’ve got enough gas to drive there, from home. Say, Al, about the gas…”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll bring the hose; I’ll fill you up. Bring some extra Jerry cans in the trunk, and I’ll fill them up too.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” said Carvahal. “The blue bucks…they don’t go far. Thank God I own my family home free and clear… But trying to find gasoline on the open market, it’s tough. Nobody wants to sell gas for blue bucks, not with the prices frozen, and the money inflating by the hour. All the gasoline is winding up on the black market, and I can barely afford it. At least you feds can get gas, on the federal bases.”
“Thank goodness for that. I know it’s tough; I can’t even imagine having to live on the civilian economy. Gasoline and coupons, that’s the best I can do for you, my friend.”
“No my friend, the best you do for me is listen, is take the time to listen to an old reporter.” Carvahal paused, looking briefly at Garza, and then turned back to the toy shelf. “You know, I used to admire a lot about Deleon. I still do, in some ways. I used to be such a star-struck lefty, in my younger days…such a naïve idealist. Oh, what a fool I was!” Carvahal smiled weakly, and shrugged. “You know, the Mountain Lion and I, we go way, way back together. All the way to Tierra Andalucia, and the courthouse raid. He’s actually mellowed in many ways. At least he’s not completely crazy! But the people around him today, oh my God! It’s like being trapped in a Marxist insane asylum, up in Santa Fe! They think it’s Barcelona 1935, or Havana in ‘58! You wouldn’t believe it, the lunacy of them! They’re trapped in a time warp.”
“They are?” asked Garza. “Or we are? Maybe we are.”
“Us? Trapped in a time warp? My God, maybe we are. Maybe we all are! But who’s going to stop this merry-go-round? Where does all this insanity end? And how the hell do we get off?”
“That, my friend, I haven’t figured out. Not yet.” Special Agent Garza turned over the Magic 8-Ball. “Where does this insanity end?” he mused to himself.
He read the secret message which floated up into view.
It said: “Better Not Tell You Now.”
The tin-roofed two story farmhouse had a screened-in veranda, which extended completely around the first floor. The unsanctioned private RV campground spread along the bottom land almost a mile away to the west. The sun was lost in gunmetal overcast across the creek, near setting. The dozens of trucks and campers were blunt punctuation marks silhouetted across the fading horizon.
A ceiling fan circled quietly above the polished pine dinner table, which was located just outside the kitchen on the side of the house facing the campground. Brass hurricane lamps suffused the screened-in porch with a soft golden glow. The dishes had mostly been cleared away after a dinner of steak, salad, and fresh corn. Four diners remained from the original group, including John Whitney Barlow. His family had owned all of the land within sight for a century and a half.
Barlow sat in his wheelchair and stared intently at Ranya, while sipping bourbon from a heavy glass. He had a full head of snow white hair, combed straight back, piercing blue eyes, and a face chapped red and deeply lined from a lifetime spent outside in all seasons. It was his house, the house he had grown up in, moved away from, and returned to in his later years. He was seated in his wheelchair at the head of the table opposite Ranya. Mark Fowler, the range master, sat on one side facing the screens and across the fields. Another man sat across the table from him, he was a middle-aged black man with a shaven head, wearing a red Western shirt with blue piping.
After devouring a plate-sized steak and all the trimmings, Ranya had told them her real name and her story, going all the way back to Virginia. To before her escape to Colombia, her return to America, and her betrayal. Before her baby had been born in prison, and then stolen.
Before D-Camp.
Before Brad Fallon.
Back to her father’s murder, the week after the Stadium Massacre. Back to the day her world had been turned upside down.
She didn’t mention her sniper killing of Eric Sanderson. That secret had gone to the bottom of the Potomac with Brad, five years before. But she told them the rest.
Barlow said, “Come around here; let me see your hands.”
Ranya got up, walked around the table behind Fowler, and extended her hands to the old man, who took them in his like a palm reader making an initial appraisal. He turned them over, stroked them, and fingered her calluses.
“Well,” he said, examining them, “you certainly didn’t just get these today. These are from field work, years of field work, the same as your farmer’s tan. I’ve never seen a government employee yet with hands like that. In fact, if you hadn’t of had these calluses, you’d have torn your hands bloody today. What did you fire up there at the range, 500 rounds?”
“At least,” she replied, returning to her seat. “I lost count.” She was wearing her khaki-colored nylon hiking pants with the legs zipped on, and a plain black t-shirt which matched her dyed hair.
“Closer to 800,” added Mark Fowler, beaming. “And she did pretty good, I’d say. She won a couple of pistols, a ton of ammo, and over three thousand bucks. Those boys just had to keep trying again and again; they were regular gluttons for punishment! It purely kills ‘em to get beat by a woman.”
The black man in the fancy cowboy shirt raised his long neck beer bottle in toast to her and said, “You know what they say: ‘your ego is not your amigo!’ Those Tennessee boys didn’t know when to quit!”
Ranya toasted him back, sipped her own beer and said, “I just sort of slipped into the zone. I was pretty much floating along after the first couple of steel plate matches. Mark kept me stocked with fresh mags, and all I had to do was pull the trigger.”
“Pull the trigger!” exclaimed the black man, snorting his beer. “Hell, you won everything from bowling pins on the table to long range metallic silhouette!”
“I guess I had a good day, considering I haven’t touched a gun in five years. But remember, I was raised in a gun shop with an indoor range. I mean, I was shooting against grown men since I was a little kid! I used to just shoot for free ammo, it was only for fun. I never won a pile of money like today! Not to mention the guns...” She took a pull off of her own beer. “Pretty weird to see the new dollar bills though. There was no money at all in the camps. When did they switch over to blue money?”
“Blue bucks,” said Mark Fowler. “They’re new, just this year. All the old greenbacks had to be turned over in March. Ten for one, and the prices are still going through the roof.”
Barlow said, “You did well by yourself today, Miss Bardiwell. Very well. We’re all impressed with your shooting skills, especially after not touching a gun for five years. I’ll admit that had us wondering about you, but our law enforcement sources confirm most of your story. A female prisoner matching your description did escape from a federal facility in Oklahoma yesterday. That’s just gone out on the police wires.”
The black man winked across the table at the mention of “law enforcement sources,” but Mark Fowler kept a poker face.
The old man continued. “The police report says it was from the Federal Transit Center at Oklahoma City, but I suppose we can’t expect them to blow the cover on your secret D-Camp. Your story holds up, what we can check of it. I’m real sorry about your father, and Mr. Fallon, and of course about what happened to your baby son.”
Fowler said, “It just amazes me that I know Leo Swarovski personally, and that he told me years ago how he was tipped off about the ATF raid. It never made any sense, not until now. He never knew who tipped him off, or why. It’s just the damnedest thing, and now it all fits, it fits right into your story. I suppose it’s one of those ‘six degrees of separation’ things: me, Swarovski, your father, and you.”
“So here we are now, Miss Bardiwell,” said the white-haired John Barlow. “We believe you. It’s one hell of a story, but we believe you. We’ll have a doctor carve that chip out of your shoulder tomorrow morning. That’s no problem. In fact, we know some experts who would love to study it; we’ll send it on to them. But I still don’t know exactly what you want us to do? Nobody in their right mind would try to drive straight through to Albuquerque from here! No gringos anyway. Say, how’s your Spanish?”
“Pretty good. Mas que bastante; more than good enough. I had a lot of practice in the camps—I always figured it would come in handy, eventually. Like when we were in Colombia. I can’t pass for a native speaker, but I speak Spanglish about as well as millions of American Hispanics can. I’m not afraid to go into New Mexico, if that’s what you mean. Mr. Barlow, I intend to find my son, no matter what it takes. I’ll walk to Albuquerque, if I have to. Or trade my winnings for a motorcycle, and ride there.”
“I’ll bet you would, too. Hmm...” Barlow looked at his two friends. “Mark, Sam…you wouldn’t mind going inside for another round of beers, would you? I’d like to talk to Miss Bardiwell for a little while, please.”
When they had left he paused, stared up at the ceiling fan, and then quietly spoke. “I can get you a ride in. Not all the way to Albuquerque, but close. Close enough. Close enough to get past most of the checkpoints and roadblocks, at least all of the ones we know about. The permanent ones. We can get you close enough for you to rendezvous with somebody we trust, somebody who can drive you the rest of the way into the city.”
“How will I get through the checkpoints? I don’t have any ID.”
“Not through the checkpoints. Over them. In an airplane, a light airplane. You’re game to fly, aren’t’ you? If you can ride motorcycles, a little hop in an airplane shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
“Oh no, no problem! No problem at all!”
“Okay then, it’s settled. You’ll take off tomorrow night at dusk. We’ll have until then to get you ready. There’s some folks in the camp from near Albuquerque; they got thrown off their land. Got ‘land reformed’ out, you might say. They can fill you in on what to expect in the city. If we’re lucky, we’ll get an address for your son. We still have some good law enforcement sources in New Mexico, but I don’t know about finding an FBI agent’s home address…”
“That’s all I really need: an address for Special Agent Alvarez Garza.”
“We’ll do our best. And we might be able to find you an ID card. I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask around, see what’s available on short notice. Nothing that’ll stand up for long, mind you. Not if they scan your thumbprint or your eyes. From what we’re hearing, there’s not too much of that. Just something to get you past a regular Milicia checkpoint. If you’re lucky, if they don’t have a scanner. If they scan your card into a wireless network, well…after that, you’ll be on your own.”
“Mr. Barlow, that’s all I could ask for. More than I could ask for! I don’t know how to thank you!”
“Oh, it’s not much. The smile on your face right now is all the thanks I need… The plane is going in anyway; you’ll just be a strap hanger. Since you’re bound and determined to get to Albuquerque, one way or the other, I figure it’s only fair to give you a head start. After what you’ve been through for the last five years, I guess you’re in line for a break. And I’ll admit it: I’ve always been a sucker for a good looking gal who can really shoot! You remind me of…well, never mind who you remind me of…” He looked away from her, toward the last fading light, beyond the RV camp.
“Well, if I could, I’d like to do something for you in return, to repay…”
“Repay? No. No. But…something in return…in return…” He cleared his throat, and took a drink. “Miss Bardiwell, for at least thirty years I’ve watched the politicians of both parties selling our country like a two dollar whore. America’s being carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and sold out by political prostitutes for their own short term personal gain. I’ve watched it happening for most of my life.” He slowly shook his head.
“I do wish you well, in your quest to find your son, and I’ll do what I can to help from here.” He paused again, thinking and considering. “Now maybe, just maybe there is something you might be able to do for me. You’ll hear about this tomorrow, when you talk to my friends from New Mexico.” He took another sip of bourbon. “The University there is a magnet for radicals from all over America and Latin America. UNM has become the center of the radical Hispanic movement, you might say. The ‘Aztlan’ movement. Have you heard of it?”
“Aztlan? Sure. All that La Raza crap. The new homeland for the Hispanics, after they ethnically cleanse out all the gringos.”
“That’s it. Well, if you have any chance of blending in, it’ll be with that crowd, with what they call the ‘voluntarios’. You look Latina enough, and you can habla the Español, so if you can spout off Marxist gibberish, you’ll be able pass muster.”
“I went to UVA for three years; most of my professors were hard-core socialists. I can ‘spout Marxist gibberish’ all day long. I had to, to get decent grades.”
“Good. You’ll need to, if you want to pass yourself off as a new voluntario. And if you’re questioned, that’ll be your best explanation for coming to Albuquerque. So, if you do wind up at the university…well, one of the professors there, you might say he’s a personal enemy of mine.”
Barlow’s eyes and lips narrowed; he finished his whiskey and clapped the glass down on the table. “Richard Johnson. He’s a gringo transplant from up north, but he’s ‘gone native’ you might say. He’s a complete America hater, what we used to call a crypto-communist in the Cold War days. If you find yourself near the university, you might come across him. I understand he’s advising the state government on ‘land reform’ policy.
“This Richard Johnson—this so-called professor of American history—he’s poisoned the minds of I don’t know how many thousands of students over the years. And believe me, that’s bad enough, but then he made it personal. Very personal. He turned my only granddaughter against America, against her own family, and against me. Richard Johnson was her ‘guru’ at UNM. Her guru…and even more than that. He pulled her in, and turned her into a real one-worlder, a socialist true-believer. I haven’t seen or heard from her in a couple of years. Last I heard, she was down in Mexico with the Army of the Poor. Before that, she was in Venezuela, and before that, Cuba. This Richard Johnson—to me he’s the worst kind of traitor. He poisons children…”
Barlow paused, and stared directly at Ranya. “So if, and I only say if…if you happen to come across him…well, let’s just say I wouldn’t mind hearing that he came to a bad end. Wouldn’t mind it at all.” Barlow placed his elbows on the dinner table, rested his chin on his knuckles, and looked hard at Ranya. “No, I wouldn’t mind it at all.”
“Mr. Barlow, I’m just going to New Mexico to find my son. I…”
He spread his hands and said, “It’s all right, I understand. Forget I brought it up. It’s only a personal family matter; it has nothing to do with you. Now if you’re finished, Conchita will take you upstairs and show you where you’ll be staying tonight. You’ll be sleeping in the girls’ room. They’ve all grown up, and moved on.”
Barlow made a mirthless chortle without smiling. “You know what’s ironic? The last one who lived in that room was my own sweet granddaughter, before she went away to college. My granddaughter Jessica…the communist.”
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