by Peter Nealen
“How sure are we that that’s the target?” Wade asked.
“No idea,” Hancock replied. “Could be our guys, could be Los Zetas. We won’t know until we get there.”
Wade nodded, still without taking his eyes off his sector of the perimeter. Something about his attitude made Hancock follow his gaze. His eyes narrowed.
Wade wasn’t watching the town. He was watching the Mexican Marines. Several specific Mexican Marines, for that matter. They weren’t watching the town, either.
They were watching the Blackhearts.
Wade seemed to have sensed that Hancock had seen the same thing he had. He glanced over at him. Hancock shrugged. “If we had foreign contractors with us when we were in the mil, we’d probably have minders on ‘em, too,” he pointed out quietly.
Which doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with them. The Mexican Marines might have a good track record for resisting corruption by the cartels, but that doesn’t make ‘em our friends. And I know a bit about their track record otherwise, too.
He saw the same thought mirrored in Wade’s eyes, as the man simply raised his eyebrows briefly before turning his icy stare back on their escort.
Behind them, in the parking lot, they started to hear breaking glass, the occasional car alarm, and shouts as several of Huerta’s Marines started “acquiring” local transportation. The Blackhearts, not having been invited to help, kept their hands on their rifles and their eyes outboard.
***
The Blackhearts ended up in two trucks, blue and white, both older, mid-‘90s Ford F150s. The Mexican Marines were driving, with Hancock in one cab, Santelli in the other. The Marines had wanted to just put all the mercs in the beds, but Hancock and Santelli had been adamant that that wasn’t going to happen. When the lieutenant, Medina, had tried insisting, through Gomez, Huerta had seen them getting heated and come over to intervene. He’d shut Medina down, and Hancock and Santelli were up front.
“I always hated these trucks,” Childress said, sitting in the bed of the blue truck as they waited for the rest of the vehicle column to start down the main road through Chiquilà. “This body style always looked like a half-melted plastic toy to me.”
“How old were you when these were all over the roads, Sam?” Wade asked. “Five?”
“I was ten when the new body style came out in ’97,” Childress said. He felt like he should be annoyed, but he’d gotten mistaken for a much younger man for years. He was kind of used to it.
Wade did a bit of a double-take, and looked over at him. “Damn, I thought you were younger than that.”
“Clean living, John, clean living,” Childress said. Bianco snorted. Wade lifted his eyebrows doubtfully. Tanaka glanced around at the rest of them, but didn’t say anything, and quickly turned his eyes back outward.
“Keep your eyes open back there,” Santelli said from up front. He’d pulled the rear sliding window open. “Our little buddies might have left a nasty surprise for us on the way out, if they saw us coming after them.”
The men subsided, the tension returning. They were surrounded by, if not enemies, definitely not friends. And there was probably a firefight coming up.
Finally, the Blackhearts’ vehicles started moving. Huerta had been serious; they were the last two trucks in the stack. The column itself was a motley assortment of pickup trucks and SUVs. Most of them looked nearly brand new; the Marines had been picky when it came to carjacking for the op.
Somehow, Childress doubted that most of the vehicles’ owners were ever going to see their trucks again.
He turned his attention to the left side of the truck as they followed the white F150 in front of them. Flanagan, Curtis, Jenkins and Gomez were set up in the back of that one. He couldn’t hear him, but he could see Curtis engaged in an animated, nearly one-way conversation with Jenkins, who didn’t look like he could get a word in edgewise. Flanagan and Gomez appeared to be pointedly ignoring him in favor of watching their surroundings, which only seemed to make the smaller man more agitated.
But Childress had gotten to know Curtis well enough that he knew that it was just par for the course. If he couldn’t get a rise out of Flanagan, he turned to pestering someone else.
Watch your sector. He was tired; the little bit of sleep he’d gotten aboard the frigate didn’t seem like it had been nearly enough, and the sun was awfully bright without sunglasses. None of them had brought shades; they’d been diving in. It hadn’t been practical. But Childress really, really wished he had some as he squinted at the side of the street. A lot of the buildings were whitewashed or painted bright colors, though the paint was peeling. Doors and windows were dark blocks in the bright walls, even under corrugated metal awnings. They were also all barred. Clearly, tourist location or not, the residents of Chiquilà were more than a little concerned about crime.
Gunfire suddenly rattled up ahead, near the head of the column. It sounded like a single burst, but it was definitely an AK on automatic. The Marines returned fire in an instant, their P90s chattering rapidly, the 5.7mms making a lighter crackling noise compared to the AK’s heavier, slower action.
Childress perked up a bit, lifting his rifle to his shoulder, watching the shadows to either side of the road over the sights.
Frankly, the place reminded him a lot of the Middle East, just with more trees. The buildings were rough, plastered concrete blocks, often with outbuildings and awnings made of corrugated tin over rough-cut poles. Yards were mostly bare dirt and rocks. The road itself was pocked with potholes, and he wasn’t sure how accurate he was going to be if he did have to start shooting while they were moving.
Movement caught his eye as the truck hit a particularly deep pothole with a tooth-rattling jar. For a second, as he bounced against the cab, Childress’ heart almost stopped. He thought he’d seen a door swing partway open in a house a few yards back from the road. It had just been wide enough for a shooter to see without exposing himself.
But as he got his focus back after the impact with the pothole, he saw a little kid peering out of the crack for a moment, before a pair of brown hands grabbed him and pulled him back, shutting the door.
He let out a ragged breath. He wasn’t sure if one of the Mexican Marines wouldn’t have opened fire, from what he’d seen already. The driver sure seemed keyed up, with his own P90 sticking out of the open window beside him.
Childress might have a justified reputation for being a wise-ass and a mouthy son of a bitch. The number of men he absolutely wouldn’t snap off to if he thought they were in the wrong was a small group, pretty well limited to Santelli and Brannigan, in that order. But there were reasons why those who could see past his bluntness and abrasiveness called him a “good dude.” And the fact that accidentally shooting a kid was one of his recurring nightmares was one of those reasons.
The gunfire up ahead had died down, but they stayed alert, trying to watch every door, window, or crack in the often-crumbling concrete walls as they passed. Near the edge of town, he saw where the engagement had happened. There was a low, flat-roofed, white building with a roughly-painted patch of blue on the front, half-hidden by bushes and palm trees, on the right. Childress glanced over as he saw the sun glinting off the brass in the road, and saw the dozens of bullet pockmarks in the plaster around the single window. There was no sign of a shooter, living or dead.
Then they were past, and heading into the hinterlands, the sides of the road getting overgrown with jungle foliage. Whoever the bad guys had left behind to delay pursuit hadn’t done a very good job.
Chapter 22
“Listen up, shitheads,” Flint barked, as he swung out of the pickup’s cab, dropping to the dusty concrete floor of the barn. The place was a mess, littered with parts and barrels, all of it covered in a thin layer of oil and dirt. “Time’s wasting, and those Mexican Marines are on their way. You know as well as I do that they’ll interrogate the shit out of the locals until one of ‘em tells ‘em which way we went.” Not that there were a lot of possib
ilities; the only major road went south. Everything else was jungle or mangrove swamp.
“Everybody’s got their go bags,” he continued. “Ditch your cammies, get in civilian clothes, and grab the bikes we’ve got stashed in the other garage.” He glared around at the lot of them. “Nobody pairs up, nobody gets in a pack. You scatter to the winds and come into Cancun or Playa del Carmen individually. It’s gonna mean being unarmed, but if you’re just a tourist in Mexico, you can’t be a hitter. They won’t be looking for you.”
“What about the Zetas?” Gibbet asked.
“What about ‘em?” Flint replied. “They don’t fuck with tourists, unless it looks like they’ve got a lot of money for a ransom. Trust me, none of you monkeys looks like the type.” He folded his arms impatiently. “Does anyone else have any stupid questions, or can we hit the road before the Mexicans’ Goon Squad gets here?”
Flint was generally self-assured to the point of overweening arrogance, but even he knew that, outnumbered as they were, they didn’t stand the greatest of chances against the Mexican Marines. They’d take a lot of the bastards with them, but the Mexican Naval Infantry wasn’t known for pussyfooting around.
Fortunately, nobody ventured any more questions or opinions, so he pointed toward the opposite outbuilding, where a dozen beat-up motorcycles of various years and makes were waiting for just this eventuality. “Let’s go, then! What the hell are you waiting for?”
Funnyman was almost to the barn doors when there was a flash and a deep, bone-jarring thud outside. The entire team stopped in their tracks.
That was the pressure plate out front. Shit! We’re out of time. “Defensive positions!” he snapped. “Now!”
***
Tanaka saw the sudden black cloud appear ahead, a split second before the shockwave hit the rear vehicles with a tooth-rattling wham. The explosion was like a slap in the face; the shock made everyone just sort of freeze for a second.
But then he realized that the two trucks full of Brannigan’s Blackhearts weren’t moving, while the rest were continuing to advance. “Hey, what the hell?” he asked.
He could hear Gomez rattling off a harsh question at the driver of the front truck. The answer didn’t seem to be satisfactory, since Gomez’ reply was considerably less than friendly. But the trucks still weren’t moving, even as the rest of the motorcade moved forward, becoming little more than dim, hazy silhouettes in the still-settling smoke of the explosion and the burning truck that had hit the IED. Gunfire was starting to rattle and bark up ahead.
“He says that his orders are to hang back in reserve,” Gomez reported, loudly enough that he could be heard in the rear truck as well.
“I don’t give a damn what his orders are,” Santelli said, his head sticking out the window. “We’re not sitting here on the road waiting for something to happen.”
“Agreed,” Hancock called back, his voice faintly muffled from having to turn around and yell back through his open window. “Everybody out. Push right.”
Hancock’s driver must have said something. Standing in the bed, Gomez snapped a reply in Spanish, and tapped the action of his M6. The driver subsided.
By then, Tanaka was jumping over the side of the F150’s bed, bending his knees to absorb the shock as he hit. His cammies were stiff with salt, and getting damp again from his own sweat. Maybe it was the nearly three days they’d gone without a decent night’s sleep by then, but his gear and weapons all felt heavier.
He rounded the front of the truck, only realizing as he did so that none of the others were going that way; they were moving behind the vehicle. Only when he saw just how easy it would have been for the rear driver to pin him against the lead truck’s tailgate did he really see what he’d done wrong, and he flushed a little. Rookie mistake. Can’t be doing that shit.
The gunfire from the farm was getting more intense, and bullets were starting to snap overhead and rip through the foliage above them. They were pretty close to the target already, and from the sounds of it, the Marines were trying to make a frontal assault. And the bad guys were putting up a hell of a fight.
“What did you say?” he asked Gomez, as they plunged into the jungle.
“Just that he had three options,” Gomez replied shortly. “Let us go, come with us, or get shot.”
Tanaka glanced at his comrade, realizing that he had no idea if Gomez would really have killed the man. The dark-eyed former Recon Marine could be a little scary sometimes, and his determination to play the cold, silent, hardass Apache made it hard to read him. Tanaka certainly didn’t know the man well enough to know if he was just quiet, or if he was really as scary as he seemed.
None of us really know him, do we? I’m pretty sure even the Colonel only knows that he’s good in a fight.
It was a passing thought, as disquieting as it might have been. They were in a fight, and Tanaka knew that he needed to be on his game if he was going to keep up. He’d already embarrassed himself getting out of the truck. Nobody had said anything, but he could feel their eyes on him.
Their movement got slower as they got deeper into the greenery. The foliage was thick, a mass of tangled branches, leaves, and vines, and they were soon in a couple of single-file columns, forcing their way through the brush, even as the firefight off to their left seemed to be intensifying.
Tanaka found himself the second man in one of the columns, fighting through right behind Gomez. He felt clumsy as hell compared to the quiet man, who seemed to swim through the foliage without too much effort. Tanaka felt like he was getting slapped in the face with every branch that Gomez slid past, his gear catching every half a step.
Gomez slowed, holding up a fist. Tanaka came up next to him, with Santelli close behind. He peered through the foliage, looking for whatever Gomez had seen, but just saw leaves and branches.
Gomez pointed. Slowly, peering through the tiny gaps in the vegetation, Tanaka started to make out the shape of a building. It looked like little more than a shack, but there was a bright muzzle flash coming from inside. The shooter was hidden, but the muzzle flash in the shadows was what finally showed Tanaka what he was looking at.
Without a word, Gomez lifted his rifle, bringing the red dot to his eye. Tanaka looked around, catching his breath, even as Santelli did the same, putting a meaty hand on Gomez’ shoulder.
The Blackhearts were slowly working their way through the undergrowth, spreading out in a line, facing the building. Tanaka started to feel the growing sense of urgency; the fire coming from the Mexican Marines seemed to be getting slower and more ragged. The enemy was keeping the pressure on, and movement dimly seen through the foliage suggested that they were starting to maneuver.
How many of these bastards are there? How are they beating up a company of Mexican Marines?
Gomez lowered his rifle and whispered to Santelli, who nodded, and spoke softly over his radio. There was way too much noise out in the clearing for them to be overheard, but caution was ingrained in most of them.
Most of the SOF guys, anyway.
“Surfer, Goodfella,” Santelli was saying. “Chato says that he sees some fire coming from the shed in front of us, and a bunch more from the big barn about fifty yards past it. He also says that it looks like it’s all open once we clear the treeline.”
“Chato’s got good eyes,” Hancock’s crackling voice replied. “We move to the shed, clear it, and deconflict with the Marines before we move on the barn.”
“Roger,” Santelli said, before turning and making sure that everyone in earshot knew the plan. It wasn’t detailed, and Tanaka was a little nervous about it. He wasn’t sure where he should go, precisely.
Knock it off. You did fine in Burma. Find a job and fill it. That’s what Hancock said during the train-up. It wasn’t what he’d been used to in the regular Infantry, but he was getting a taste for it.
Santelli thumped Gomez in the shoulder. It was go time.
Almost as one, the Blackhearts rose from their kneeling positions and s
tarted to move forward. It wasn’t a fast advance; there was too much vegetation in the way. But they kept a ragged line abreast as they approached the cleared farm.
Tanaka found himself fighting for every step. It seemed as if the greenery was actively trying to trip and strangle him, now that he had to force his own way through. His rifle muzzle kept getting caught up and was nearly pulled out of his hands more than once. But he fought through, determined not to let either Gomez or Jenkins, the men to either side of him, get too far ahead.
In fact, he was so intent on not falling behind that he didn’t quite notice that he’d pushed ahead, until he suddenly stepped past a wide-leafed bush and into the open.
There were three outbuildings and what looked like a farmhouse grouped around the clearing. The grass and weeds around the clearing were nearly knee-high, except where they’d been worn away down to the bare dirt.
Intense, sustained automatic fire was coming from the biggest outbuilding, a metal-roofed, metal-sided barn or machine shop with a tall rollup door. A tailgate was clearly visible in the doorway, and the enemy shooters were firing past it, at the Mexican Marines out by the gate.
The Marines were in a bad way. Backed by a burning truck, they had moved forward onto open ground and found no cover. Whether that was by design was impossible to say; the farm looked like just another backwoods Mexican farm, rather than a prepared position. But there had clearly been some preparation involved, judging by the fact that there had been an IED waiting for them.
Bodies were strewn on the ground, where men weren’t huddled down in the prone, some behind the corpses of their comrades, firing back at the barn and the shed with their P90s. Bullets were whipping back and forth across the cleared farmyard, hissing and cracking, striking the metal of the barn and the vehicles inside with loud bangs that were dimly audible even where Tanaka stood.
