“Thank you.”
“I’m going to tell everybody. It’s even on CNN!” She left, leaving the door open. Ten seconds later, well-wishers began filing into his office again, one after the other.
Danny wanted to scream. He wondered if Hunter was having the same problem today.
***
Hunter drove the back roads north and east of Shafter, the ghost town once famous for its silver mines. She was having a good day wor
king alone in the desert. Too many people crowded around her yesterday. That always made her uncomfortable, but today she hadn’t seen a soul here in the mountains, and that makes today a winner, she thought. The gravel at the edge of the road ahead looked disturbed, so Hunter pulled over to take a look. She found evidence of recent activity, seeing signs of five or six people where they had waited in a small, brush-filled draw. The tracks showed them walking to the road, and there the tracks disappeared. It was a pickup point, where smugglers met undocumented groups and hauled them north.
She marked the GPS coordinates of the draw on her iPhone and would write it up in the report she forwarded to Sector Intelligence. A second copy of the report went to the Presidio Agents. Her thinking was that somebody might get lucky. Hunter turned in a full circle to look at the terrain and trails. This was a hard place to work, especially since manpower was not enough to have Agents working off the immediate border area as much as they needed. But, having the coordinates would allow the sensor team to put some bugs in the ground, and that would help…well, if the signal could get out.
A text message came on her phone: Call the office on landline. “That’ll work out good,” she said. The peanut butter sandwich she brought for lunch was not that appealing today, and this way she could go into Presidio, make the call to the station, and then work in a call to Lucas and get some lunch. “A good day,” she said, and took the gravel road out of the hills toward Highway 67.
In Presidio, Hunter swung by the Border Patrol Station to call Marfa. David Lamascus answered and Hunter said, “What’s up? I was told to call.”
David said, “Do you know about the big deal tomorrow in Presidio?”
“No, I’ve been working and haven’t heard anything.”
“Well, you will. The Secretary of Homeland Security and the Governor are coming down to have a big ceremony for Sheriff Montoya. Gonna be tons of media coverage. CNN, all the area news stations, and some from Mexico, too.”
Hunter imagined the crowd and pomp that would happen, “Why do I have to be there?”
“Well, duh. You and Montoya saved everybody in Presidio, that’s why. Nobody’s heard if they want to recognize you, too, but the PAIC wants you to be there in case they do.”
“I’m not big on that stuff,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter what you want, you know that. These are orders.”
“Is it dress uniform?”
“No. He said rough duty, so you can work before and after the dog and pony show.”
Hunter sighed, “Okay, where and when tomorrow?”
“The PAC, the Activities Center, at noon. They’re setting up chairs and a podium in the basketball gym. Only place big enough for the expected crowd, they say. You might want to get there a little early.”
“Or a little late,” Hunter said.
David laughed and said, “Dang it, Hunter, don’t you–” but she’d already hung up the phone.
She chewed on this bit of news while she drove to the Oasis Restaurant and called Lucas. He answered on the first ring.
“Hey.”
She said, “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet. Where are you?” She told him and he said, “I’m outside OJ right now, so it’ll take me a while to get through town and across the bridge, but I should be there in, oh, thirty, if that’s not too long.”
“Not too long at all. I’ll have a table.” That he was coming made her heart beat a little faster.
Lucas walked into the Oasis Restaurant twenty-five minutes later and sat down across from her, “I hear there’s a big celebration tomorrow.”
“Yeah, they’re going to give the Sheriff an award or commendation, something like that.”
“How about you?”