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One of the cops with a Tavor rifle opened the driver’s-side rear sliding door, and Court and Zoya stepped into the rain as Javi climbed out from behind the wheel.
No one raised a weapon, no one made any move to restrain either Court or Zoya, and, by looking around at everyone, Court decided that other than the sergeant on the phone, no one was occupied in anything other than standing around getting rained on.
Thunder rumbled in the low gray sky.
The phone conversation was too far away for Court to hear, but then the silver-haired sergeant’s eyes suddenly flashed up, locking on Court.
The American looked away as if he had not noticed.
The man on the phone then called out to his subordinate who had been talking to the occupants of the minivan. “Los pasejeros? Hablan español?” Do the passengers speak Spanish?
“No, señor,” came the reply, and the older policeman began ambling over closer to the van. He wasn’t talking into the phone at the moment; he seemed to be either listening or else on hold.
As he got closer, he looked to Javi and, still with the phone to his ear, he spoke to the driver in Spanish. “Somebody is looking for people who match their description. I don’t think you’re going to the border. I’m waiting to find out what we’re doing. We’ll probably have to take them back to Flores to process—”
He stopped talking suddenly as someone obviously began speaking on the other line. After a second, he said, “Claro que sí.” Of course.
Looking at Court now, he held his phone out in front of him as if he was going to take a picture. In English, he said, “Smile.”
Court did not smile. He heard the iPhone take the photo of his face, and now he began to worry.
Zoya stood to Court’s right, next to the driver’s door, and the cop also took a picture of her, and then he seemed to text the images to someone before bringing the phone back to his ear.
Javi hadn’t said anything to them in a while, but when he didn’t get his picture taken like the other two, he turned to them. “They are looking for people who look like you. If it not you, then all okay.” After a beat, he said, “It not you…right?”
Neither Court nor Zoya answered, and Court began wondering if Zoya was beginning to feel as anxious about this as he was. Just as he began to turn to her to gauge her expression, however, she softly spoke one word to him, an interrogative, and she said it in Russian.
“Smertelney?”
Court knew that the word meant “lethal” and she was asking if he wanted her to use lethal force if it came down to fighting these cops.
Clearly, Zoya gets the danger. Though concerned, Court simply replied back to her with a soft “Nyet.”
They weren’t going to kill these cops to avoid getting arrested. They’d only kill them if the cops had more nefarious plans in store, and so far, most of them didn’t seem to show any signs that made him think they were any sort of a death squad.
Most were young, under twenty-five, and even the sergeant seemed confused by his conversation with the other party on the line. This wasn’t something he dealt with on any sort of a regular basis, that much was clear.
Court was soaked to the bone now, as were Zoya and Javi, but they just stood there waiting. Court took the time to judge the location of everyone here at the roadblock, and then he looked back to the boss, still with the phone to his ear. He noticed a slight narrowing of the man’s eyes now, a tension in his body that wasn’t there before. The cop muttered something else into his phone, but he appeared to be whispering it.
A fast exchange began, the sergeant perhaps arguing or protesting to the person on the other end of the line.
A quick scan around showed him that a couple of the other police had picked up on their sergeant’s energy. The young man standing closest to Zoya stepped a few feet away, letting his hand rest on the grip of the Tavor on his chest that pointed down at the asphalt.
A civilian car approached from the east, and another officer with a Tavor waved them to stop some twenty meters away, and then he held his hand up higher, as if he were ordering the occupants of the car to wait right there.
This all barely registered with Court, because he was so locked on to the sergeant. Someone on the other end of that line was in charge, and the sergeant was, at the very least, being told Zoya and Court were dangerous.
This was going downhill fast, and the arrival of a bus full of travelers from the direction of Flores didn’t help matters.
A cop with a shotgun just waved the weapon over his head to encourage the bus to stop and wait.
Court and Zoya stood there in the rain as more passing cars were ordered to a halt so that the situation in the middle of the jungle highway could be handled.
While he continued talking into the phone, the sergeant reached inside his raincoat and propped his hand on the grip of his pistol, a failed attempt to appear nonchalant while putting his hand on his weapon.
Oh, fuck, Court thought. We’re getting arrested.
Now the sergeant lowered the phone, then called out to the driver. “They are coming with us. Get their luggage out of your van, and you are free to go.”
