When they touched elbows, Letty said to Ochoa, in a near-whisper, “Another message, when you can. Say, ‘Message from Letty. They will break out tonight.’？”
The camerawoman: “You’re sure?”
“Send it.” And she moved away, watching the helicopter circling the potential landing zone on the bridge.
* * *
The militia’s pickup trucks were lined up around the parking lot, all facing the entrance, as if prepared to make a break for it. Letty walked down the line with her cell phone held to her face, as if listening to music, snapping photos of the trucks’ windshields. With everybody’s attention on the helicopter, she got more than twenty shots, she thought, though she wasn’t counting.
At the end of the line of trucks, she walked off a short distance and looked at the photos. They’d been taken from six or seven feet from the windshields; the stickers were shown clearly enough, and when she used her fingers to spread the photo size, she could clearly read the tag numbers on all but four trucks. Those trucks had a hot spot from a sun reflection; she could go back later, she thought, and try again.
As she was doing that—and the whole photo walk took no more than two minutes—the helicopter came in, hovered, turned, landed on the bridge. Two paramedics got out and checked the wounded man, unfolded a gurney, loaded him in the helicopter, and two minutes later, the chopper was gone over the mountain. Rodriguez and Ochoa hurried up the hill to their truck and Ochoa caught Letty’s eye and nodded.
Two militiamen had been watching the chopper go, and Letty eased up to them and asked, “When’s the caravan get here?”
“Maybe three hours, I guess,” one of them said. “Maybe . . . six o’clock or a little after?”
The other one asked, “So . . . what’re you up to? You live here?”
“Up the hill,” Letty said.
“You ever make it to El Paso?”
“It’s kind of a long trip with the baby, the bottle warmers and diapers and all . . .”
“Okaaay . . .” The interest vanished and Letty ambled away.
* * *
The afternoon dragged: even the militia seemed bored, waiting for the caravan to come in. Letty continued taking renewal tag photos whenever she could do it inconspicuously. When she’d gotten most of the trucks around the lower part of the town, she went back to Jeff’s diner, ate a very late lunch, checking in with Kaiser on the half-hour. Neither of them had anything to report except that they were still alive and operating.
Letty went back to the motel and lay on the stripped bed. She’d been down for five minutes when somebody knocked on the door with a key, like housekeepers do. Letty rolled onto her feet, put her hand in her gun pocket, looked out through the peephole she’d forgotten to plug, and saw the old man who managed the place. He was unhappy, but alone.
She opened the door and he said, “I saw you come in. The housekeeper checked your room and your friend’s room and she said you’ve stolen the blankets and sheets and pillows.”
Letty said, “Step inside for a minute.”
She stood back and the old man followed her inside. She shut the door, took out her ID, held it in front of his face, and said, “My friend and I are agents with the Department of Homeland Security. We took the city council out of the jail and up to the Mescalero Cave campground, where my friend is holding the militia off.”
He had to think about that for a minute, then asked, “What about the blankets and pillows?”
“We thought we might have to stay up there for a couple of days . . . couple of nights . . . and it gets cold at night. We needed something for people to wrap up in.”
“Are we going to get them back?”