Latitude 38 Read online

  LATITUDE 38

  By

  Ron Hutchison

  SCHILLER & WELLS, LTD.

  An Imprint of Stay Thirsty Publishing

  A Division of

  STAY THIRSTY MEDIA, INC.

  staythirsty.com

  Copyright © 2010 by Ron Hutchison

  All Rights Reserved

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected]

  Atten: Permissions.

  Cover Design: Jason Mathews

  RON HUTCHISON

  LATITUDE 38

  Prologue

  It began its cross-country pilgrimage on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean not far from Maryland’s George Island Landing. Continuing west across the southern tip of Maryland, it forded the Intracoastal Waterway and extended into Virginia, climbing the Appalachian Mountains.

  The ghostly line next crossed the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia, and then jumped the Tug Fork River into Kentucky on a route south of Louisville. Cutting a narrow swath through Indiana, north of Evansville, it knifed into Illinois, then hopscotched the Mississippi River into Missouri. Spanning the Show-Me State on a path that ran a few miles north of the Mark Twain National Park, it continued west, traversing the sprawling Kansas prairie.

  In Colorado, the dead-straight span ascended the Continental Divide, passing like a phantom through the shadow of 14,014-foot San Luis Peak. From there it slithered into Utah, across the barren wastelands of Nevada, and up and over the Sierras, ending its 12-state odyssey at the Pacific Ocean 35 miles northwest of San Francisco beneath the sun-kissed sky of Point Reyes, California.

  1

  Diego and his wife returned to their Baker Street apartment that afternoon. They hadn’t spoken a dozen words to one another during the half-hour drive home. Diego had thought of any number of things to say—small talk mostly—but idle chitchat seemed meaningless. The word terminal had sucked the life out of them.

  Diego parked in the small private lot behind their apartment building, and he and Adriana walked up the steps to their second-floor flat. They had climbed those stairs hundreds of times, but today they seemed steeper. Diego found the business card wedged into their apartment door.

  Detective Duke Cunningham

  San Francisco National Police

  Homicide Division

  It was bad timing. No, it was worse than bad, and Diego wondered what other terrible news was headed his way. It always came in threes, right?

  “Why would a homicide detective be leaving his business card?” Adriana asked. Her voice seemed raspier.

  “I have no idea,” Diego said. A phone number was printed at the bottom of the card.

  They went inside and Adriana immediately opened the packet of ten Z patches that Dr. Chiapas had given her. She applied one to her right forearm. Diego stepped into the kitchen and prepared an antioxidant-rich beverage of blueberries and kale, and while Adriana relaxed on the sofa with her drink and the August issue of Archaeology Today, he called the number Dr. Chiapas had hastily scribbled on the palm of his hand.

  It was a crazy voicemail. Thinking he had dialed the wrong number, Diego hung up and placed the call again. No, it was the right number—it was just a freaky message. A man’s husky voice said: “You’ve reached A and C Adventure Tours. If you’re interested in the next cross-country junket, meet with the tour leader at our store, located on Fisherman’s Wharf, on Wednesday, August the fourth, at nine p.m. Our next tour leaves in three days. The cost is $40,000 per person. Bring cash.”

  Diego hung up and made some notes. Forty thousand dollars seemed a small price to pay to insure that Adriana receive a smooth, pain-free ride on what Dr. Chiapas had euphemistically labeled “the next bus to heaven.”

  Diego joined his wife on the sofa. “Anything new in the world of archaeology I should know about?”

  “Something about Paleolithic people gathering wild grasses.” She gave a wan smile and laid the magazine aside. “I’m afraid my train of thought is a bit jumbled. Any luck with your phone call?”

  “Voicemail. Sort of strange,” Diego said.

  “How was it strange?”

  “Just…strange. We’re to meet a man Wednesday night at Fisherman’s Wharf.” Diego let out an anxious sigh. “Are you sure this is what we should do, Adriana? I don’t think this little escapade will be a walk in the park.” Thinking about all the risks caused a fist to clench in his stomach.

  PNN’s News at Six often led with another harrowing story of someone killed or apprehended trying to cross the 38th latitude. It was government propaganda bullshit—Diego was savvy enough to recognize the lame attempt at brainwashing—but at some level in his mind the Pavlovian conditioning had worked.

  “Adrianna, are you sure this is what—”

  “I heard you the first time, Diego. Just trying to sort through everything.”

  “And…?

  “And…I’ve never felt more certain about anything in my life,” Adriana said. “It’s just that we have so much…so much on our plate.” Then, as if remembering something, she smiled.

  “What?”

  “You,” she said.

  “Me?”

  “I’ve never seen you glare, but you were actually glaring at Dr. Chiapas today.”

  “Hey, I can glare with the best of them,” he said, studying her face. “How’s the pain? The patch working?”

  “Yes, it’s working. Boy, is it working.”

  “A real buzz, eh?”

  “I’m halfway to La-La Land.” She rolled her head. “Neck’s still a bit stiff.”

  “But no pain?”

  “Not much,” Adriana said quietly, the brightness leaving her face, her eyes welling.

  Diego understood his wife’s sudden heartache and he wrapped her in his arms. Adriana hadn’t shed a single tear when the cancer had made its debut performance four years earlier; instead, she had accepted her bad luck and made plans to change it. Nor had she allowed the melancholy to stir her emotions two years later when Dr. Chiapas told them the cancer had returned for what everyone believed would be a final engagement. But now it was back for one last curtain call. Now it was terminal—the tissue in her throat and neck could not withstand another round of radiation treatments and chemo alone wouldn’t kill the cancer—and Adriana lowered her head and wept quietly in her husband’s embrace.

  “Go ahead and let it out,” he whispered, his heart breaking into little pieces.

  “I’m not...not crying for myself,” Adriana sobbed. “I’m not afraid to die, sweetie.” She raised her head and looked at him with red, moist eyes. “Honestly, I’ve made my peace with God and I’m not afraid.”

  “You are one tough little lady.” He had a lump the size of a softball in his throat. He tried to swallow it away, but couldn’t.

  “I’m crying for you. I worry that—”

  “Adriana, I’ll be fine…honestly.” It sounded trite, but it was the best he could do. He brushed away the tears from her toast-brown face with the back of his hand. “Have I told you today how much I love you?”

  Adriana stifled a sob. “No, and I’ve missed hearing it.”

  “I do, you know. Wildly, crazily, madly in love.” He stared into her big dark eyes. They were filled with a tangled mishmash of pain and fear and uncertainty.

  “You wouldn’t kid a girl, would you?”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance.”

  In a voice that sounded delighted but tired, Adriana said, “Then you’ll have to prove it, Mr. Sanchez.”

  Diego leaned in toward her, finding her mouth with his own. He kissed her passio
nately, and then pulled away with a devilish smile. “You scientists are all alike. You always want proof.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Then Diego made love to his wife on the sofa.

  2

  The night was black as coal and the fog crept through the city streets like a ghostly prowler. Diego parked the car beneath a streetlight not far from the entrance to Fisherman’s Wharf.

  He and his wife were preparing to get out of the car when Adriana said, “That’s certainly encouraging.” She gestured through the car’s windshield at something up the street.

  Through the gray mantle of fog, up the street a short distance and off to their left, was a lighted government billboard, one of dozens of such broadsides that had been posted around San Francisco during the past six months. The billboard glowed in the soupy mist.

  I.D. A RABBIT

  SEND THE TRAITOR TO PRISON

  EARN $50,000

  There was a picture of a cartoon rabbit in handcuffs. A telephone number ran across the bottom of the billboard in smaller type, along with the promise:

  Your Call Will Remain Anonymous.

  Diego winced. “I think someone’s trying to tell us something.”

  “Indeed, but would you please tell me why they’re called rabbits?” Adriana had a puzzled look on her face. “What possible connection is there between rabbits and people wanting to cross the border?”

  “It’s prison jargon. To take a rabbit means to try and escape. It can be used as a noun or a verb.”

  Adriana raised her eyebrows. “And since when does my husband speak prison jargon?”

  “I read, Mrs. Sanchez,” he teased. “Prison Jargon For Dummies.”

  “So we’re about to join the rabbit ranks? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “We can only hope,” Diego said.

  She turned and looked at him, her tone strangely grave. “Are you having second thoughts?”

  He frowned at her. “No, not at all, Adriana. Why would you think that?”

  “I just get the feeling that you’re not as, I don’t know…committed to the idea.”

  “That’s not true, Adriana, and you know it,” Diego said. “Those Z patches are screwing up your head.”

  “It’s not the Z patches.”

  “Then what?” He could see the tension in Adriana’s brow.

  “Everything is happening so…so fast. I’d like to slow things down.” She uttered a fragile moan. “Plus I have a bastard of a headache.”

  “We can’t slow things down, Adriana. We can’t.”

  “Don’t you think I know that, Diego?” Adriana said, looking hurt. “I’d love to see your 43rd birthday. Or drink a cup of hot-buttered rum with you under the tree on Christmas—”

  “Adriana, please,” Diego said in a quiet voice. “This is as hard on me as it is on you.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re right. I can’t imagine….”

  “No, you can’t.”

  A sob began working its way up Diego’s throat. He fought it. “Where’d the headache come from?”

  “I have no idea. Let’s forget it.”

  Diego uttered a frustrated sigh and glanced at his watch—8:50 p.m.

  “You brought the money, yes?” Adriana asked.

  “Uh-huh.” Diego patted the inside pocket of his trench coat.

  He and Adriana got out of the car and were walking down Jefferson Street toward the entrance to Fisherman’s Wharf when they were stopped by a uniformed National Police officer. He had appeared as if from nowhere, an apparition emerging from the fog, startling them. A pit bull was at his side, snorting and tugging on its short leash.

  “Evening, officer,” Diego said politely, glancing at the dog. Its devil eyes seemed to be sizing him up.

  “¿Qué hace usted aquí?” the officer said, sneering.

  “I’m sorry, officer,” Adriana said, “but we don’t speak Spanish.”

  The police officer was a thin little man with black eyes. He wore an assault helmet and bulletproof vest emblazoned with the words NATIONAL POLICE. His wide belt held a revolver, a nightstick, a taser baton, and several canisters, none of which Diego could identify. A small wireless microphone was attached to the inside of his helmet. A nametag on his vest identified him as Sergeant Carlos Diaz.

  “I said, what are you doing here?” Sergeant Diaz spat, moving the tiny microphone away from his mouth. “But first, IDs! And be quick about it!”

  Diego and his wife produced their photo-ID cards. Diego noticed Adriana’s hands. They were trembling.

  Sergeant Diaz read the IDs, and then swiped Adriana’s through the reader of a palm computer. The screen blinked to life. “Too bad. No activity for Mrs. Adriana Sanchez,” he said, reading the computer screen which shimmered in the curtain of fog. Sniffing the air, he leaned in toward Adriana. “The scent of your hair…it smells like mangos.”

  “Peach, I think. Peaches and cream,” Adriana said uneasily.

  “I used to pick mangos from a tree in my grandfather’s backyard,” Sergeant Diaz said. “He lived in a small town outside Guadalajara.” He smiled at Adriana, but there was no humor in the smile.

  “How…nice,” Adriana said. She looked at Diego, her eyes showing the tension she felt.

  “Have you ever been to Guadalajara, Mrs. Sanchez?”

  “No, no I haven’t.”

  Diego said, “Officer, if you have no further questions we need to get going. We have an appointment and we’re running late.”

  “Relax, Mr. Sanchez,” the National Police officer said, handing Adriana her ID card and then swiping Diego’s. The officer’s eyes immediately lit up. “Look what we have here,” he said, reading the screen. “You have been requested to appear in person at the Criminal Justice Department a week from Friday…Friday the 13th.” He looked up at Diego with a roguish grin. “Friday the 13th. Are you superstitious, Mr. Sanchez?”

  Diego shook his head. “Not at all.”

  “What’s the interview all about, Mr. Sanchez?” He looked at his screen again. “It doesn’t tell me all I’d like to know.”

  “I’m not sure,” Diego said, his confidence waning. “People are asked to appear in person for a variety of reasons. Most don’t amount to a hill of beans.” He uttered a willowy laugh. It sounded phony as hell. “As you know, our justice system often gets bogged down with trivialities.”

  “You don’t say?” Sergeant Diaz stowed his computer in his shirt pocket and stepped closer to Diego. “Tell me again. What’s a pretty boy like you doing in this part of town?”

  “Yes, uh, my wife and I are planning a short vacation.” Diego could feel the beat of his heart in his ears.

  “I see,” Sergeant Diaz said, looking at Adriana for confirmation.

  “Yes, that’s right, officer,” Adriana said. “We’re scheduling a trip with A and C Adventure Tours. It’s sort of a…you know, a romantic getaway.” She had delivered the last line of her lie with feigned embarrassment.