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Javi rolled down his window while Court and Zoya began scooting forward to seats just behind him, pulling their backpacks along with them in case they were searched.
Soon a police officer in his twenties stepped up to the open window. He wore a black beret with a clear protective rain cover over it, a black raincoat, and an Uzi 9-millimeter subgun hanging over his chest. Court couldn’t see a handgun on the man’s hip because of the raincoat, but he assumed he would be carrying either a Glock or a Jericho.
Behind him, three men stood with Israeli-made Tavor rifles, a much more powerful weapon than the Uzi, but also considerably larger. Another PNC officer, this man older with gray in his hair, leaned against the trunk of his car looking at his phone. No weapon was visible on the man, but again, Court knew he’d have a pistol on his duty belt under his raincoat.
He wore the rank of a sergeant on his wide-brimmed hat, which made him the commander of this group, and he didn’t seem at all interested in the traffic stop going on next to him.
Two more cops stepped into the road behind the van, and Court saw they both had wooden-stocked pump shotguns slung over their shoulders.
None of this caused him any alarm; all these weapons were fielded by the PNC, and the behavior was typical of police who had been ordered to stand in the rain and stop passersby on the road to check IDs.
Zoya, seated on Court’s right, echoed his feelings.
“Looks legit,” she whispered.
“Yep.”
The officer in the van’s window took Javi’s commercial driver’s license without even speaking, then asked him where he was heading.
“Melchor de Mencos.”
“To the border crossing there?”
“Sí, señor.”
He glanced in the back. “Do your passengers speak Spanish?”
“No, señor.”
Now the policeman addressed Court and Zoya. “Hablan español?”
They both shook their heads.
The cop focused on Zoya now. In Spanish, to Javi, he said, “The rubia. She’s hot.” Rubia meant “blonde,” and Court pretended like he couldn’t understand.
Javi just chuckled a little.
Zoya made no expression that she’d understood, either. Instead, she just held the officer’s gaze with a little smile.
The cop said, “Passports, por favor.”
“Of course,” Zoya said, adopting her Canadian accent as she’d done for months in public.
Court handed both his and Zoya’s blue passports up to Javi, who, in turn, passed them out the window into the rain.
The man began looking them over, then glanced back to the pair inside the van.
After a moment he stepped away without a word, walked back towards the older man leaning against the pickup truck, and handed them over.
Court sensed no danger, not yet, anyway, but something in the way the younger officer moved made him wonder if they were, in fact, looking for a pair of tourists matching their description.
The older cop pushed off the pickup, said something to his subordinate, then tapped a button on his cell phone and brought it to his ear.
The young man with the Uzi came back to the van. “Sal de auto, por favor.”
“He wants us to get out of the van,” Javi said. “It will just be for a moment.”
Javi’s relaxed tone had given way to a little confusion, perhaps even trepidation.
