谎言书：07

Those are new.
“Don’t panic just yet,” he says.
I hop 1 in, he hits the gas, and we head straight for my latest federal crime.
11
It was nearly four in the morning as Lloyd Harper flashed his ID and pulled
the tractor truck with the long empty trailer through the main gate at the Port
of Miami. Sure, he was tired — his side ached as the anesthetic 2 wore off —
but he knew what was at stake. When he got the e-mail notification that the
hold was off, well, some rewards were better than cash.
He’d been at this long enough to know that juicy worms usually had a hidden
hook. And he’d lived in Miami long enough to know that if he got caught, the
payback would be unforgiving. But what the doctor said tonight: the pains
he’d been having in his shoulders and chest, plus the way his hands started
shaking over the past few years . . . He’d lost his wife, lost his family, in
prison they took his dignity — life had already taken so much from him. Was
it really so bad to try to get something back?
With a tap of the gas and a sharp right turn, Lloyd headed for the open metal
fence of the shipping 3 yard, where dozens of forty-foot metal containers were
piled up on top of one another — rusted 5 rectangular monoliths, each one as
long as a train car.
But as Lloyd tugged 6 the wide steering 7 wheel, a lightning bolt of pain knifed
his side. He told himself it was the bullet wound, but he knew the truth: just
seeing Cal tonight — seeing the white hair and the heartbroken eyes — just
like the ones that burned through him nineteen years ago. Tonight’s bullet
wound was nothing. The sharpest pains in life come from our own swords.
Lloyd had spent the past two decades building his shield, but this was one
blade he couldn’t stop.
“I’m here for GATH 601174-7,” Lloyd called out his window as he read the
container number from the yellow sheet.
Across the open lot, an older black man was sitting on a pyramid of three
boxes as he read yesterday’s newspaper. He didn’t bother looking up.
“Excuse me . . . sir . . .” Lloyd began.
“I ain’t deaf. My shift don’t start till four.”
Lloyd glanced at the digital clock on his dash: 3:58. Typical union.
“Okay, whatcha need?” the black man called out two minutes later,
approaching Lloyd’s truck and reaching up for the paperwork. “Lemme guess:
Startin’ this early — y’r trynna make Virginia by nightfall.”
“Something like that,” Lloyd replied.
From there, it didn’t take long for the man to find the rust 4-colored forty-foot
container with 601174-7 painted on the outside or to climb on his forklift and
load it onto the back of Lloyd’s tractor trailer. To be safe, Lloyd came out to
check the numbers for himself. And the seal they put on the back to make
sure the container hadn’t been opened during transit 8.
As he was about to climb back in his cab, he took a quick glance around the
metal towers of the container yard. No one in sight. Back in the driver’s seat,
he checked again, peering in his rearview as he shifted the truck through the
first few gears and headed for the exit. And he checked again as he drove
toward the final security checkpoint — a three-story-tall radiation portal
monitor that looked like an enormous upside-down letter U. The detector 9 was
new, designed to catch smuggled 10 nuclear devices. Everyone who left the port
had to drive through it. For a moment, Lloyd edged his foot toward the
brakes.
He held his breath as he approached the detector. The truck bounced slightly.
Slowly rolling forward, he kept his eye on the red and green bulbs that were
embedded 11 in the roof of the detector. Once again, a bolt of pain burned at his
side. But when the green light blinked, he smiled, slammed the gas, and
never looked back.
And that’s why, as the eighteen-wheeler climbed and lumbered 12 over the
bridge toward Miami . . . and as he stared into the darkness, searching for
the coming sunrise . . . Lloyd Harper didn’t notice the white, unmarked Crown
Vic that was trailing a few hundred feet behind him.
“Think he knows what he’s hauling in back?” Timothy asked.
“I don’t really care,” Cal replied from the passenger seat, never taking his
eyes off his father’s truck. “But we’re about to find out.”
12
“Guns or drugs — gotta be,” Timothy says as my dad’s eighteen-wheeler
makes a slow, sharp left toward the entrance for I-95. We’re at least three
football fields behind him, with our lights still off. But at four-thirty in the
morning, with only a few cars between us, he’s impossible to miss.
“Maybe your dad’s container—”
“Maybe it’s not my dad’s. For all I know, he’s just another feeb doing a
pickup 13.”
“But if you thought that, would you really have shown up at three in the
morning? Or would he have shown up at four, fresh from his new bullet
wound? I know you can’t bring yourself to say it — and I know it was just a
random 14 hold — but you should be worried about him,” Timothy says. “Don’t
apologize, Cal. I got twin teenage girls — and no matter how much they hate
me, only monsters would let their father take a beating. In fact, it’s not that
different from Deirdre—”
“Can we just focus on what’s in the shipment? Please.”
To his credit, Timothy lets it go. And I try my best to ignore my crooked 15
pinkies.
According to the bill of lading, GATH 601174-7 is a refrigerated container
that’s (supposedly) carrying 3,850 pounds of frozen shrimp 16 coming
(supposedly) from Panama. My dad definitely gets credit for that. In the world
of smuggling 17 — drugs or anything else — you never know when you’ll be
inspected. But if you want to improve your odds 18, pick a quiet, seafood 19 producing
country (like Panama), fill the container with one of its top exports
(like shrimp), and make sure it’s refrigerated (because once it’s listed as
“perishable,” it’ll move twice as fast through inspection).
This isn’t just about some really good shrimp.
“Turn for the worse,” Timothy says, motioning to the truck.
The shipment was scheduled to be delivered to a warehouse 20 in Coral Gables.
That’s south of here. Which is why I’m surprised to see him heading for the
on-ramp of I-95 North.
“Maybe he’s smuggling people,” Timothy says.
“It’s not people,” I tell him, surprised by my own defensiveness 21. “You said
the shipment checked out fine. No buzzers 22 ringing; no dogs barking. If he
were smuggling people, audio would’ve picked up the heartbeats.”
“Then what? Plastic nuclear triggers? F-14 parts? Stolen Picassos? What can
you possibly hide amidst four thousand pounds of frozen shrimp?”
I don’t bother answering. During our first year as agents, Timothy and I
ripped open a suspicious crate 23 and found two hundred snakes with their
anuses sewed shut, their stomachs filled with diamonds they’d been forced to
swallow. There’s no end to what people will try to hide.
Next to us on the highway, an orange taxi blows by us, then races past my
dad and disappears in the horizon of night. “So you never looked him up?”
Timothy asks.
“Pardon?”
“Your dad. All those years at ICE — you had access to computers that could
find the addresses, phone numbers, and birthmarks of every known felon 24 in
the country. You never took a glance to see where your missing dad was
living or what he was up to?”
I stare at the outline of my father’s truck in the distance and can’t help but
picture our client Alberto whispering to his father’s ashes in that rusted old RC
Cola can. “No,” I say. “Never did.”
Timothy turns my way and studies me as I fidget with the stray wires that run
down from the blue lights on his dash. There’s no end to what people will try
to hide.
Twenty minutes later, the sky’s still black, my dad’s still ahead, and the
highway — as we blow past the exits of Fort Lauderdale — is dotted with the
first batch 25 of early risers.
“You think he sees us?” Timothy asks as my dad veers 26 toward the exit that
sends us west on I-595.
“If he saw us, he’d try to lose us. Or at least slow down to get a better look.”
It’s a fair point. But as my dad once again clicks his blinker, I realize we’ve
got a brand-new problem. The exit and highway signs say I-75, but every
local knows the thin stretch of road known as Alligator 27 Alley 28.
“Why am I not surprised?” Timothy asks as we follow the exit and no other
cars follow behind us. “Cal, I need to call for backup.”
“And where do you plan on hiding me?” I ask as the grass and trees on the
side of the road give way to miles of muddy swampland.
Connecting Florida’s east and west coasts, the narrow and mostly abandoned
lanes of Alligator Alley plow 29 straight through the mosquito marshes 30 known as
the Everglades. To protect the land, the road has no gas stations, though it is
lined with metal fences to keep the ample alligator population from getting hit
by cars and . . . well . . . eating people.
“There’s no way you’re leaving me out here,” I tell Timothy.
He doesn’t argue. He’s too busy realizing that at barely five a.m., with the
December sky as black as the road in front of us, there’s no one on Alligator
Alley but us. It’s like driving full speed through a cave.
“Cal, I have to put the lights on.”
“Don’t!” I shout as he reaches for the switch. My dad’s truck is still a good
half mile in front of us — two faint red dragon’s eyes staring back from the
depths of the cave. But with no other cars to hide behind . . . “He’ll see us.”
“Then he’ll see us. But I can’t drive like this. I wouldn’t worry, though —
we’re so far, he’ll never make us out.”
With a twist, Timothy flicks 31 on the lights, and the gray road appears in front
of us. I wait for the dragon’s eyes to glow brighter . . . for my dad to panic
and hit the brakes . . . but he just keeps moving. It doesn’t make me feel any
better. I pull out my cell phone to check the time. The bars for my signal fade
from four . . . three . . . two . . . just a tiny X. No signal.
“If you want, we can turn back,” Timothy offers. “Have them call in the
helicopters and—”
“No,” I insist. I lost my father once. Now that he’s back, I need to know why.
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
“I didn’t ask that, Cal.”
“Just stay with him,” I add, squinting 32 into the night and never losing sight of
the dragon’s eyes.
For the next few miles, we chase him deeper down the desolate 33 road, which I
swear narrows with each mile marker. By the time we hit mile marker twenty two,
we’re so deep in the Everglades, the black sky presses down like a circus
tent after they’ve yanked the main pole.
“This was stupid of us,” Timothy says. “What if this was the whole point: to
lead us out where there’re no witnesses, no one to protect us, and only one
way to get in or out?”
I’ve known Timothy a long time. He rarely lets a hair get out of place. But as
he grips the steering wheel, I see a clump 34 of them matted by sweat on his
forehead. “Listen, Timothy, if this were an ambush—”
Out in the darkness, halfway 35 between us and my dad, two other red dragon’s
eyes pop open.
“Cal—”
“I see it.”
We both lean forward, tightening 36 our squints 37. It’s another car. Parked on the
side of the road from the looks of it.
Without a word, Timothy pumps the brakes and shuts the lights. I assume
he’s trying to use the darkness to hide us — but in the distance, the new
dragon’s eyes shake and rumble 38 . . . then shrink away from us. This new car
— it’s got no interest in us. It takes off, chasing my dad.
“Maybe that’s his buyer. Or his girlfriend.”
A burst of blue light explodes from the new car. I blink once, then again,
making sure I see it right. Damn.
“Cops,” Timothy agrees. “State troopers, I bet. They love Alligator Alley as a
speed trap.”
Sure enough, the new car zips forward, a blazing blue firefly zigzagging 39
toward my dad’s truck. The dragon’s eyes on the eighteen-wheeler go bright
red as my dad hits the brakes. But it’s not until they both slow down and pull
off onto the shoulder of the road that we finally get our first good look.
“You sure that’s a cop car?” Timothy asks.
I lean forward in the passenger seat, my fingertips touching 40 the dash and my
forehead almost touching the front windshield. That’s not a car. It’s a van.
And not a police van. No, the siren’s not on top. The blue light pulses from
within, lighting 41 up the two back windows where the tint 42 is peeling.
I lean in closer. My forehead taps the windshield.
There’s a swarm 43 of rust along the back.
My tongue swells 44 in my mouth, and I can barely breathe.
What the hell’s my van doing out here?