Chapter 50: New Mexico
"She's in New Mexico."
It took a moment for that to sink in, then Alex yelped, "What?"
Clayton held the phone away from his ear, winced, shook his head, then returned to his conversation. "She's in New Mexico. ICE shipped her across country to New Mexico. They took her out of the detainee camp to a doctor to see about her medical condition and the doctor spoke Navajo. Apparently Charlie's been teaching her some of his language and she knew enough to ask a half-Navajo doctor to call us."
"Have you talked to ICE yet?"
"No. I decided not to let them know that we know where she is. I was planning on having you stop over at the detainee center and just ask for her. If they know we know where she is they might move her again. I don't want to risk that happening. The doctor she was taken to see had to take the stitches out of her body and let the infection drain, then put them back in. According to him she's supposed to come back in a week to have the stitches looked at but he doesn't know if they will bring her back to him—he says he rarely ever sees the same patient twice."
"Oh my God what a nightmare."
"Yes. I agree wholeheartedly," Clayton said feelingly. "Okay. Here's what I want to do. I want you on the ground in New Mexico as fast as you can, that means no civilian flights. There's a transport leaving out of Fort Hamilton heading to California in three hours; Colonel Gold has agreed to take you and Charlie out to Arizona and drop you off at Holloman Air Force Base when they stop there to refuel. Holloman is only about sixty miles from the detention center in Otero County New Mexico. You should be there by tomorrow morning."
"Why Charlie?"
"Because Charlie speaks Navajo. Alex, the doctor wasn't allowed to be alone with Cam, and he had to treat Cam with full body shackles still in place—ICE rules. That means Cam won't have any privacy and the only way you're going to be able to talk to her without them knowing what you're talking about is in a language that few of these guards are going to understand."
"That's a good idea. I think I'll ask Charlie to teach me a few words too. Now, what do I tell her? Have we made any progress?"
"Allie's found a folder of stuff she thinks is government paperwork, so we have to be pretty close to a breakthrough. It's only a matter of time now; we're close. We should have her out of there by the end of the week." He hesitated, then decided he should give her the whole truth. "Alex, the doctor who saw her said she's pretty bad. He told us to tell her if we see her to just sign the deportation papers—"
"She's not illegal! If she's not guilty why sign?"
"He said that living outside the US would have to be preferable to dying in a deportation camp."
Silence for a long moment. Then Alex swore, fervently and at length.
Despite the grimness of the situation, Clayton had to smother the chuckle. Alex had obviously been hanging out with Courtney too much; in addition to looking alike, they were even starting to swear alike. "I'll make sure to tell Courtney her language is a bad influence on you."
"Why, you—"
"Uh-uh, Private Cabot, watch out, I'm still your commanding officer!"
"—sir."
He laughed at her; he couldn't help it. It was just as fun teasing Alex and Liv as it was to tease Allie and Shana and Courtney. There was little enough humor in the kind of work they did, the business of killing that they were so good at, that he seized it whenever he could. "All right, Alex, grab your things and head to Fort Hamilton, Charlie will meet you there."
"I'm taking my laptop and I'll keep in touch via email—you have mine, right?"
Yes, he had hers. And Liv's. "Be careful, Alex."
"I will, General."
So he wasn't surprised, the next day, to see an email from Alex in his email box.
Got to Holloman okay. I have to tell you looking at those lines of planes ranged out in rows on the desert floor looks hellaciously impressive. Charlie looked at them and said he wished Frank had been able to come—seems Frank grew up staring at these planes.
Base Commander Dennis Pittman was extraordinarily gracious—might have a little something to do with the fact that he found me attractive, but at least he was professional enough not to show it. Charlie standing there doing his best 'formidable Indian brave' impression could have had something to do with it.
Clayton had to chuckle at that. Yes, he could imagine guys falling over themselves over Alex Cabot's tall blond beauty—with clothes on, it was hard to tell that earlier in the summer she'd been comatose and barely alive in his infirmary. But he could also imagine Charlie standing just over Alex's shoulder, arms folded, doing his best impression of a formidable, unmovable mountain, and he could imagine that would dampen some overeager military personnel quite a bit.
They offered Charlie and I a ride into Chaparral, and we passed the Otero County Detainee Center on the way. Clayton, I fail to see how the detainee center could be any better than Sealview in New York; it looks just the same, like a prison building, with people in orange jumpsuits walking around in the yard outside. You know what gets to me? They don't have any kind of recreational equipment. Not even the balls and hoops that practically every prison has. And most of these people aren't even criminals, their files are just missing a piece of paper! They're undocumented, not illegal! Mass murderers, rapists, and violent offenders have more rights than Cam does, who has done nothing wrong past missing a piece of paper and getting on Colonel Broadview's bad side!
Base Commander Pittman asked me what we were doing here. I didn't know how much we could tell him about who we are and how we ended up out here—I didn't want to bring up the SERE training and the court martial, so I simply told him that the ICE was holding a US Army Ranger until a missing adoption paper could be found. He seemed sympathetic, told us to let him know if there was anything they could help us with, because apparently they don't really like the sight of that deportation center sitting down there by the New Mexico/Texas/Mexico border.
Clayton, he said that if she's current, serving, active duty US Army, then the Army should be responsible for detaining her until her status is sorted out, not ICE. Can you look into this, or check with Lieutenant General Johnson? It makes sense—the U.S. Military has its own prisons and that has to be better than sitting in this camp.
Anyway, we got to Chaparral and found a hotel room. You're not going to believe this—the guy at the desk asked Charlie if he was a legal citizen. Charlie opened his wallet and showed the guy his military ID and his tribe registration; the guy looked doubtful. I asked him if he thinks Charlie assaulted a Native American and stole his paperwork, and he said he wouldn't put it past any 'dirty Mexican'.
Clayton, I swear the atmosphere down here is downright poisonous. If you don't happen to be blond, blue-eyed, and apparently white they'll stop you and ask if you're an American citizen. Charlie hasn't said anything but he's gotten very, very quiet since we've gotten here—particularly since we were stopped by an officer on our way out to a store to grab something to eat. Normally I'd say cops are our friends but in this case he definitely wasn't—he acted like he was just looking for an excuse to arrest both of us. You know, when I saw the law was passed that would let a cop check to see if you're legal, a couple of guys in the DA's office said 'hey, I don't mind getting stopped for a few minutes if it'll take care of the illegal problem'—it's not a few minutes, Clayton, we waited an entire hour and a half! Just for them to check Charlie! They never even asked me to prove I was legal, they just assumed because his skin's darker than mine that he wasn't!
This ICE policy of 'guilty until proven innocent' is bullcrap. For a country that says it's 'free' all of a sudden we're looking an awful lot like Nazi Germany! I swear if Charlie didn't have his tribe registration on him they would have arrested him just on suspicion alone! There's no 'reasonable seizure' or 'due process'—I look at what's happening down here and I wonder if this is the same America that I got a law license to practice in. If it were Liv I'd bet she wouldn't bother to ask papers from everyone she stopped either—and if her superior told her to I'll bet she'd resign!
Clayton had to laugh at that; yes, Liv probably would—and she'd tell her superior where to shove it, too. But at the same time, he couldn't imagine Don Cragen forcing any of his detectives to check everyone's papers—the entire idea was abhorrent to him, as an American Military General, and he knew instinctively without needing to ask that Don Cragen would too.
I don't wonder legal immigrants are fleeing the area. I would too. I am never moving to a state that adopts these laws; I can see so many ways this could go wrong. That cop didn't like Charlie because of the color of his skin; if Charlie had had actual Immigration papers I wouldn't have put it past him to have torn those papers up right there and then arrested Charlie for not having them. It's so easy for someone holding a grudge to exercise it here, and Charlie's not alone in wanting to get this over and done with as soon as possible so we can come home.
We tried something different this morning—before we headed out to grab breakfast we both put on our fatigues. And you know what? Not stopped once. No one said anything rude; in fact, we got smiles and nods everywhere, and a few people said 'thank you for your service. And we got military discounts at the restaurant, which, I'll admit was kind of neat. Thing is, it was just amazing how Charlie's skin color vanished behind his uniform; they didn't see him as 'other' anymore.
There's a definite double standard here and it stinks. We're on our way out to the deportation center now; I stopped back here to change clothes into something 'lawyer-like'. I called them earlier and listened to the entire automated menu; apparently detainees can see lawyers any day of the week during 'normal' business hours but relatives and friends are only allowed to visit on the weekends and it's limited to an hour, so I'll have better luck seeing her if I go as her lawyer. I'll let you know what happened when we get back.
He sat for a long time, staring at the computer screen and Alex's email sitting silently on the screen. Since Cam was active duty, currently-serving military, technically it was the Army's responsibility to detain her while the mess was sorted out.
He left his office and headed down the hall to the small conference room where Allie had set up piles of papers from the large charred wooden trunk, opened the door and poked his head in. "Got a minute?"
Allie looked up and smiled tiredly. "Yeah. I guess."
He came all the way in, sat down at the table across for her, and studied her critically. "You look tired."
She stretched her arms over her head to work the kinks out of her back, and then leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes with a sigh. "Staring at all this fine print makes my eyes hurt. The Asian characters are so different from ours, it kind of requires a whole different mindset and a different way of thinking just to puzzle out the syntax and grammar forms."
He tried to wrap his head around the outside of that, and failed. "I'll take your word for it; you're the linguist here, not me."She cracked open one eye and gave him a raised-eyebrow, doubtful look, and he laughed even as he patted her hand. "It's okay. I'm just teasing. I actually came to ask you a different question."
"Shoot," Allie said without opening her eyes.
"Alex sent me an email from New Mexico. The Base commander down there was… enthusiastically welcoming… and Alex said she suspected she might have had a problem if Charlie hadn't been doing his best, and I'll quote her here, 'formidable Indian brave' impression."
Allie cracked up. Clayton reflected that she looked younger when she laughed, and wondered if Flint liked hearing Allie laugh as much as he did. The slight Celtic lilt in her voice was barely noticeable when she talked unless she chose to put on one of her (many) mimicked accents, but you could hear it when she laughed. She'd been absolutely unique when he'd recruited her for the project; now, years later, she was still unique.
So was Shana. And Courtney. And even Alex. And, of course, Liv. Five extraordinary women in the most unlikeliest of places, in the most unlikely of friendships. He was incredibly lucky to have such a team. And Cam…if she made it through, if she survived this physically and emotionally intact, would make six. Six women with extraordinary skills and talents.
Thank God he had a base full of thirty other guys to balance them out.
"So anyway," he said when Allie's laughter died down to giggles, "Alex said that Base Commander Pittman asked her, since Cam is currently active, serving military, why the military isn't detaining her instead of ICE. And Alex didn't have an answer for that. Do you?"
Allie's giggles stopped. She sat for long moments completely silent and motionless, eyes closed; to someone else she might have looked asleep; Clayton knew she was actually thinking very hard. When Shana thought hard, she chewed her lower lip. When Allie thought hard, she closed her eyes and went completely motionless. When Courtney was thinking hard, the vehicles in the garage mysteriously fell apart.
He wondered what Cam did when she was thinking.
"You know what…I don't know the answer to that. The US Armed Forces maintain jurisdiction over their own in most cases, and we do maintain prisons for just that reason. So no…I don't see a reason why she couldn't be detained in a military prison instead of n ICE camp. But we have to think about something, Clayton—military prison is awfully restrictive. Wouldn't it be better for her to be in an Immigrant detainee camp? After all, she isn't being detained for something criminal, she's being held for a civil infraction, and regardless of how they treated her at Sealview, it was like that because it was a criminal facility. This civil facility has to be better."
"According to Alex, it's the same as a prison. Maybe worse. Orange jumpsuits and people walking around a yard. She said there wasn't even a basketball hoop and balls like there are at practically every other prison out there. There's no recreational equipment that she could see. And the doctor who called us up to let us know where she was said that when they brought her into his office to be treated they refused to take her restraints—shackles—off; he had to treat her still chained."
Allie stared at him. "That's inhuman."
"That's ICE. Allie…can you coordinate with Shana and figure out how we can get Cam into a military prison instead of the detainee camp?"
"Well, she's female so she'd go to Miramar. She'd get to wear her fatigues there, although she couldn't wear her cover or rank or insignia. She'd be able to work—they have a woodworking shop, if I remember correctly, and I think she'd enjoy that—she certainly enjoyed carving her flute. Although, Charlie kept her company then and that probably made the task of carving a bit more enjoyable." Allie grinned. "But she'd get medical help there, and better mental help—the military has experts trained to deal with CPTSD and it'll be better than our fumbling efforts. Shana and I aren't trained psychologists; we just did what we could to get her back in touch with reality and reason her out of the self-destructive thinking she displayed, try to get her to face what happened and deal with it instead of avoiding the topic. All right, Clayton, let me finish with this stack for the day and then I'll talk to Shana. We'll see if we can find some legal loophole we can slide Cam through and get out of there."
