It was 4 a. Friday morning, August Their destination: San Carlos, Baja California for a Labor Day holiday weekend filled with surfing, kite surfing and relaxation. This was trip they had done many times before. I was now looking up, maybe five feet below his feet.
Combined, the three men have been traveling into Baja for over 60 years. Duke and Roger speak fluent SpanishβRoger with a slight gringo accent; Duke with the native tongue. They were looking forward to surfing the uncrowded south swell. A pending protest at the border on Friday was sure to slow down the normal throngs of south bound surfers.
They drove in two trucks. Roger and Duke were in the Honda. Behind them followed their buddy Walt in a Toyota Tundra loaded down with five surfboards another three kites, two kite boards and more camping gear.
Oh, and they had some beer, margarita mix and Hornitos Tequila. They crossed the border at a. It is the road that everyone who has ever traveled into Northern Baja has been on. Then the blue lights hit their rear view mirror. They were being pulled over. Good surf awaited. My first thought is that they were looking for drugs. In the meantime Roger, the passenger in the front vehicle, was being dragged out of the truck by his shirt at gunpoint.
The Mexican carjacker was wearing a cut-off black wetsuit ski mask. While this transpired Duke the driver of the Ridgleine also had a gun to his head and was being lead out of the car. With a black semi-automatic gun to his head, Roger was led to the roadside guardrail by the masked man and into a dark, open lot with a formidable cliff 30 yards away. Again Roger tried to reason with carjacker.
