Talking on a cell phone while riding in a Jeep Wrangler would seem like an exercise in futility; between the wind, the road noise, and all. But with a good hands free device, the sound quality is surprisingly good. Hands free device or not, talking on a cell phone while driving can be dangerous, especially if you do not notice that a scorpion has climbed in while you were gassing up. This was the situation that Special Agent McGinnis found himself in.
"Yes, I turned off Ranch Rd 169 a while ago." He said. "No, its outside the jurisdiction of Presidio County Sheriff but DHS said that they'll send a Border Patrol agent from Marfa station to meet me at the crash site."
Special Agent McGinnis strained to listen to the voice at the other end of the phone, then pulled a highlighter from his from shirt pocket and removed the cap with his teeth. He flipped through his print-out and highlighted the names he was being told.
"Okay, I got it." He said. "No, I didn't see the lights; there's no such thing. Ouch. Damnit, I've stuck myself. On my ankle. No, I don't see anything. I must have a pen or a knife down there or something. Damn that hurt. Oh, hey, I see it... let me call you back."
The crash site was not what he expected. He expected a flaming wreck and charred bodies in a pyre with huddled survivors cowering under a makeshift hut fashioned from soiled undershirts and ski poles. The reality was a featureless patch of desert with a 767 incongruously parked between two dunes. The unreality was an eerie sense of foreboding and the vision of a tan warrior with a head-dress and an obsidian knife, shimmering in the heat. McGinnis' foreboding was replaced by abject terror, with a touch of normally suppressed homoerotic titillation, as the shimmering Meso-American warrior charged headlong towards his windshield. With a spray of gravel, the Jeep veered and screeched to a halt. Feeling queasy and disoriented, McGinnis stumbled towards the uniformed border patrol agent.
The uniformed border patrol agent introduced himself. "Special Agent McGinnis, I'm Special Agent Gomes, and well, we're it."
"What do you mean?" asked McGinnis.
"I mean," continues Gomes, "that you're the federal guy and I'm the local guy, even though I'm really a federal guy too, but the point is: there will be no additional first responders or more other responders of any kind. Actually, that's not entirely true. I called to a local charter bus company. They'll come eventually, but apparently their bus is on its way back from New Braunfels; something about seniors at Schliterbaan, but after they clean up the vehicle, we can transport everyone out of here. In the meantime, we can survey the scene and interview all the witnesses. Here's how I think we can reconcile the differences between 6 CFR and 49 CFR for you. First of all, our respective agencies have different but not entirely incompatiable missions..."
McGinnis fought back waves of nausea as he listen to Gomes synthesize the Code of Federal Regulations for two agencies into a hybrid set of standard operating protocols. While the topic was itself excruciating, he was extremly worried about the waves of searing pain pulsing from his ankle. McGinnis did his best to fight through the agony and instead focus on the soft and hypnotic voice of the DHS agent. His seductive mustache wiggling up and down like a little fuzzy caterpillar. McGinnis shook and coughed up some vomit.
"You know, at first I just tought you just some suit from Washington who was uncomfortable to be away from his desk, but now I think you might be sick," remarked Gomes as McGinnis collapsed to the ground, stripped off his left shoe and began thwacking it into the desert sand. "Oh hey... that looks like a scorpion bite.
Two hours and one 50ml vial of Anascorp later, things were finally moving along with interviewing passeners and crew. After determining that there was a curious lack of need to give any first aid (other than for Special Agent McGinnis), the two federal agents separated the passengers into two groups: those who had given statements and those who had not. The passengers were suprisingly chatty with useless information about what they were late for, how they felt about their home lives, and speculation about the odd mannerism of certain members of the crew. Gomes recorded all conversations using a microphone attachment that he happened to have for his iPod, but McGinnis wrote down the critical comments.
As the day wore on and became dusk, McGinnis was starting to see a profile of a prime suspect through a confluence of similiar comments. He circled some phrases in his notepad:
male... blond hair... dark eyes... double-jointed in multiple places ...English? (stiff upper lip... dry sense of humor) ...claimed to work in agriculture ...pet bat?
McGinnis glanced up from his pad. Someone had positioned the emergency ramp under the belly of the plane and was jumping up and down. At first it seemed comical, even more so when a flurry of luggage spilled out the bottom of the plane and nearly buried the man. Then McGinnis came to his senses and shouted, "Gomes! Stop that man."
"That's Special Agent Gomes," replied Special Agent Gomes, as he dashed past Agent McGinnis, and in whirling dervish of patriotic fervor, flashed his DHS Border Patrol badge with his left hand and unholstered his Advanced Taser M26 with his right while proclaimed "Stop in the name of the Department of Homeland Security and the Government of the United States of America!"
Then Gomes charged, leading with his extended arm towards the far away man, who was frantically digging through the pile of luggage. With a clearly practiced flourish, Gomes about 40 feet away from the man, dove forward into a somersault, and came up in the kneeling position behind a medium-size rock, getting a negligible amount of cover, Taser trained on the man the entire time.
"Last warning, Jefe." he cried.
Having made such a racket, all of the passengers and flight crew of had turned their attention to the showdown underneath the plane. The man in the luggage had just picked up a beige pet-carrier when he heard Special Agent Gomes and their eyes locked. The man in the luggage lifted, clearly startled, raised one arm in the air and held the cage aloft with the other. The rest of his body seemed to scrunch in on itself. In a shaky voice he said, "I... I am just trying to get my pet, Flappy. He might die"
As the dancing red dot of the laser sight from Special Agent Gomes's Taser danced on the sternum of the quivering man, the pet carrier rotated the cage slowly back and forth in the man's hand. When the front faced McGinnis, McGinnis saw through the bars of the cage, a fluttering of black wings. Everything clicked and McGinnis accidently blurted out, "Oh my God, that's him!"
Taking that has his signal, Gomes squeezed the trigger. With a pop, compressed nitrogen jettisoned two small probes towards the man's torso which, improbably, folded neatly backwards out of the way. Special Agent Gomes cursed, as the man, holding the cage the entire time, completed his backwards round-off flip-flop. McGinnis, already agape, felt an ebony wave of blackness pass through him and then out of him. Then he saw a black mist before his eyes form into the shape of the headdressed warrior. The shape became translucent flesh and the warrior raised an obsidian axe, smashing open the cage of the pet carrier. The flexible man in the luggage, the translucent warrier, and the bat, sprinted away from the plane and disappeared into the glare of the sunset.
