Free The Border Lords by T. Jefferson Parker Page B

sea. He saw a pod of gray whales and watched them breach and blow. The coast was dotted with islands, some green and some stripped bare by goats. The secret of Mexican airspace was to stay low, under the radar. You didn’t need to file a flight plan for short jaunts across the border. With no radio and no transponder, he was essentially invisible. If Mexican authorities got tough with him, he’d act like a dumbass gringo with no idea where he was or how he’d gotten there.
    He used a private runway outside of Calexico. The owner was an acquaintance and he’d given Ozburn permission. He still circled it his lucky three times, looking for signs of his ATF family, who were no doubt frantic to bring him in. But the strip was deserted and smooth, and Ozburn set Betty down short and sweet.
    He got out Daisy’s kibble and poured some into her bowl and set the bowl under the wing of the plane. While she ate he watched the distant cars on I-8 and listened to the roar of the blood in his ears.
    They walked into town on dirt roads, Ozburn dead-reckoning his way in. Daisy acted as scout. Ozburn had his old Marine Corps duffel slung over his shoulder, pretty much everything on earth he might need in the coming days.
    At the motel he asked for a room upstairs in back, paid cash for one night. He walked across the mostly empty parking lot toward his room. Just a couple of weeks from now the snowbirds will be packing in here , Ozburn thought. He fondly remembered his mother and father, who had mounted many a family vacation in their Winnebago—four kids, six bikes, a dune buggy and always a dog or two. From Dallas, it was a long drive anywhere.
    In the motel room he checked his cell messages and downloaded the e-mails to his laptop.
    He read them, then wrote Seliah:
    From Sean Gravas [[email protected]]
    Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 10:02 p.m.
    To: Ozburn, Seliah
    Subject: If
     
    Dear Sel,
     
    If I could touch you I would. If I could see you I would. If I could tell you where I am and what I’m doing—I WOULD. Be STRONG for me and we will be together soon. Six years ago when I promised better or worse, it was a statement of fact, too. There is no power on EARTH or HEAVEN or HELL that can keep me from you when OUR TIME comes. Have faith in me as I have faith in you.
     
    Sean
     
    PS. Daisy says hello.
    PSS. Hi, Charlie—I assume you have Sel’s password now?
    Ozburn paused, then sent the message. He knew the reference to Charlie was a breach of his cover story—if his North Baja Cartel “partners” were to get his laptop and read his outgoing mail, they might well wonder who the hell this Charlie was. Over my dead body , he thought. And screw Herredia. Screw his North Baja Cartel. Yes, I will screw them royally.
    He stripped down and turned on the shower. The sight of the water coming from the head brought a painful ache to his throat. Weird. He wondered if it was a delayed reaction to Mateo’s veiled threats and the gunman’s move to shoot Daisy. But neither of those things had bothered him at the time, and what a nice growl or two I gave them , he thought. He had been fighting the urge to growl for more than a week now, and tonight he’d just let it come.
    He stepped under the stream of falling water but he couldn’t get the temperature right—first too hot, then too cold—then he realized it wasn’t the temperature that was annoying him. It was the water itself. It was formless and threatening and suffocating. Eager to fill and penetrate. He shut the water off and lathered and shampooed, then turned it back on only long enough to rinse off. He shuddered as he dried, watching the liquid circle and slurp down the drain, his throat muscles on the verge of cramping. Last night the headache just about killed me , he thought. Now this. And Seliah going through the same shit I was, a couple of weeks back. What’s happening?
    He got his vitamins and supplements out of the duffel and laid them out on the bathroom