"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." - Saint Augustine

Chapter 5

Mapping the Route

Sam continued to ride the motorcycle down California Street and through the empty streets of Socorro. In a few minutes, he was out of the city and merged back onto the dark interstate.

"Has Ziggy figured out what I'm supposed to do?" Sam shouted over the engine's roar.

"You get off this road, for one. Come on, Sam," Al goaded. "You're on a Harley. Kick this pig! We need distance."

Sam pushed the bike faster. 70 MPH. 80. 90.

"Better. Okay…" Al reached forward. A map was suddenly in his hands. The winds of the speeding bike did not even ruffle the badly folded edges. "We're about," he twisted the map one way, then another, "eight miles from the turnoff for Highway 380. Ziggy says we should turn east…"

"To Stallion's—"

"No!" shouted Al. This was exactly what Ziggy warned about. "Geez Louise, Sam! Get it through that Swiss-cheesed brain of yours! You can't waltz onto a Marine base like White Sands. No, you go to Carrizozo and go south on Highway 54."

A map of the area played out in Sam's mind. He had studied many maps of New Mexico since his days working on the Starbright Project, gone on many trips with Al, Tina, Gooshie, Dr. Verbeena Beeks, and other Project members. He knew this, even if he could not place faces to these names, and names to faces that drifted into his mind.

The Very Large Array, Carlsbad Caverns, the petroglyphs, Acoma Pueblo's Sky City, the Gila Cliff Dwellings, El Malpais, the International UFO Museum in Roswell … the memories were hazy, photograph snapshots of locations, but no solid memory. It drove him crazy that he knew these things, yet could not remember.

"Highway 54?" muttered Sam. "But that also takes you to El Paso, same as I-25."

"Yes, but from the east. Ziggy hopes this will throw off the pursuit. Milano and the Cammisanos are expecting you to come from the west and aim for Arizona. Instead, we'll head to Socorro."

"Another Socorro," Sam mused mirthlessly. "I need twice the help this time around."

"Now, you don't want to cross where there's high population," Al advised with a serious tone. "El Paso to Juarez will take you hours sitting in line. Zaragosa Bridge, lines stretching a quarter mile! You have no ID, no passport, not even a driver's license. Whatever Theodore Nyt was thinking, leaving behind his identity has caused us a distinct problem when it comes to crossing the border. So, you want to avoid populated areas."

He pushed the map forward through Sam's chest. The motorcycle swerved for a moment as Sam saw lines and place names suddenly emerge out of his abdomen. He hated when Al did things like walking through furniture, let alone moving right through him.

"Ziggy calculated U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics for illegal border crossings in 1995 and cross-referenced that to reported occurrences of border-crossing-related deaths…"

"Oh, wonderful!"

"… and came up with the ideal section, just south of Socorro." Then a hand went through his upper chest and a stubby finger pointed to a spot on the map.

Sam frowned. "What? There's nothing there."

"Exactly! Nothing but a dirt road, a barbed-wire fence, and the Rio Grande. The hard part is crossing the river. You'll have to ditch the Harley—such a shame; it's a nice bike—but if you cross the border here, then go five miles southwest, you come to a dirt road that leads to the village of…" Al suddenly leaned his head completely through Sam's body and squinted at the map.

Sam involuntarily flinched at the visual horror of the neurological hologram's head popping out of his chest like some science fiction movie monstrosity. "Will you stop that?" he snapped.

"Damn, can't read it," Al mumbled, not noticing Sam's discomfort. "Anyway, you can't miss it, only town for miles. From there, with that wad of cash, you could buy another bike and ride anywhere in Mexico you want. I know of a few places with really hot mamacitas," Al said lasciviously.

Sam frowned and put his attention back on the road ahead of him. Only occasional semi trucks lit the highway. The motorcycle did not make that bright of a light ahead of it. It felt like flying through a nocturnal abyss.

"I don't know about this whole fleeing-the-country-thing, Al."

"Ziggy says if you stay in the United States, you'll end up dead by tomorrow."

Sam thought back to the saddlebag. "You'd think, with a few million dollars, this Nyt guy would have had a better escape planned out: a private jet, tickets to a tropical island. Could he have been heading to something like that?"

"Well," Al admitted with a hesitant pout, "there was a hold on flight tickets to Costa Rica made in Dallas."

"See!"

"But Theodore Nyt was chased away from I-40. And you can't head back."

"Why not? The Mafia expects me to go to El Paso, right? What if … What if I turn right around and head north? They'd take time to regroup. Come on, Al! Isn't that smarter than this whole cross-the-border plan?"

Al looked at him in exasperation and checked the handlink. "No."

"No?"

"According to hotel records, Vito Navarra, an associate of the Cammisanos, is waiting in Dallas. Ziggy says they've dispatched soldati through all the major cities south of I-70 and from here clear to Kansas City. These families have connections everywhere, Sam."

"And who's to say they're not already in Mexico?"

Al gave a short, sharp laugh. "On their home turf, the Mexican Mafia can run circles around these guys. If Theodore Nyt is the type of slimeball he seems to be, he's already weaseled his way into some rich Don's checkbook. It could be he has a contact in Mexico. Ziggy is still looking into it, but this involves the Mafia. They don't exactly keep accurate records."

"All right, all right. Let's get to Carrizozo. Then I need to rest and get some hot coffee. My butt's killing me, and I think I swallowed another bug."

A/N:

Regarding the issue of spelling: even within a single source like the Quantum Leap Wiki, the spelling of Donna's last name or Dr. Beeks' first name differs, sometimes within the same page. I picked what was on IMDB, which I took as being an "outsider" view, thus presumably less affected by rabid fans. Eleese or Elesee, Verbena or Verbeena: both are Donna and Dr. Beeks.

I did extensive research on the best place to illegally cross the U.S./Mexican border, taking into consideration that this had to be by 1995 standards, since border security has tightened considerably since then and illegal border crossings are a fraction of what they used to be. (I'm probably on a watchlist now.)

I found a few locations, but after doing all that, I considered the ethical (and legal) ramifications of publishing precisely how to do something illegal like crossing an international border. So I made it vague. "Somewhere" southeast of Socorro, Texas … a land with nothing but desert and the Rio Grande separating one country from the other. That area today would have drones and infrared cameras to catch people, even at night, but in 1995 it was a matter of knowing your way in the dark and surviving the desert.

In 1994, Operation Gatekeeper began, a political strategy to minimize the influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico. Today, this plan to make illegally entering the U.S. more physically dangerous costs $2 billion yearly. By February 1995, there were still many holes in the "gate," but in dangerous areas far from urban cities, mostly in the middle of the desert. Many people die of thirst crossing the desert. Yet people chance it, because staying home means death, either by starvation or drug lords. As dangerous as it is, fleeing to the United States gives them better odds of survival.

I grew up near the border and knew many undocumented immigrants. I tend to sympathize with them. It's a treacherous life even if they survive entering, always looking over their shoulder, unable to get good jobs, unable to get government aid for housing or food, thus unable to afford the expensive and lengthy process to become citizens, no matter how desperately they wish to have a green card. Every single undocumented immigrant I know dreams of the day they can finally be a legal citizen. The USA makes the process challenging if you're poor, but simple if you're rich and well-connected.

I'll stop preaching now. My point is, what Sam is trying to do is illegal and dangerous. Don't try this at home, kids!