Border songs by Jim Lynch

Author:Jim Lynch
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Washington (State), Border patrol agents, General, Fiction - General, American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +, Fiction
ISBN: 9780307271174
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2009-06-16T21:02:15.860000+00:00

21

BRANDON FOUND it hard to track what Patera was saying. We need to be on full alert, as usual. Nothing has changed, understand? So be ready. His words seemed secondary to the urgency he radiated to seize the moment and show—ASAP!—that these new cameras were worth every penny. The sooner their benefits were proven—no pressure!—the sooner the people who listen to us (him) and believe in us (him) would be rewarded. See what I’m getting at?

In other words, as McAfferty later summarized, it was a pep rally to jack up the stats and justify the border cams, preferably right away but definitely within the next reporting period. Not that the chief was suggesting they do anything differently. No, everybody was doing great work. Best sector in the country—if you factored in the complicated terrain and mandate and the sophisticated smuggling and, well, there’s just no doubt about it.

Patera then packed the agents into a dark command room where he beamed like a game-show host in front of thirty-two wall-mounted screens, fourteen of which were already connected to video cameras. He asked the technician to demonstrate what Charlie 1 through Charlie 14 were providing beyond live views of vacant trails, empty fields and desolate streets, including, Brandon noticed, a stunningly familiar strip of Boundary Road.

The technician panned, tilted and zoomed Charlie 1, showing how it could read license plates or detect motion more than a mile away. Not even McAfferty’s Big Brother cracks could dent the chief’s enthusiasm. “Think of it,” he gushed. “This sector’s first HQ was a farmhouse on Double Ditch Road, back when agents were called Mounted Watchmen and the focus was bootleggers and a potential Chinese invasion. An agent’s qualifications were somewhat less stringent then: You had to be six feet tall, of good moral character and own a horse.” He waited out the polite chuckles and McAfferty’s audible yawn, then asked the tech to show how video could be instantly retrieved, explaining as she did so that the cameras tape in forty-eight-hour loops, with infrared lenses kicking in at night. “This is completely different than a sensor call.” He balled a fist and pointed aimlessly with his other hand. “We’ll know the difference between a deer, a smuggler or local traffic—if not immediately, then shortly thereafter. So we’ll need prompt responses, understand?”

His eyes flitted across the room, skipping over the gum-smacking roadies, lingering on the seven new agents transferred from the southern line and finally settling on Brandon, a full head above the others, his eyes fixed on Charlie 7. “We’re here to stop terrorists,” he said, as if for the first time. “That, of course, is our foremost responsibility. And it is with considerable unease that I must inform you of inter-agency warnings that something may be plotted for right along our sector in the near future.”

“Chief?”

“Yes, Mr. McAfferty.”

“Could these warnings be any more vague?”

Patera attempted to grin. “We all wish they were more specific, but the fact is we have to be prepared for everything from armed terrorists and smugglers to an attack on the food supply.

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