by JD Dutra
“What’s going on?” Asked Bruce in a whisper, he had his suppressed pistol in front of him at the low ready position.
“I heard something, a motor sound. I don’t think we are alone.” Nathan’s voice was barely audible. The entire group was doing a good job remaining still; Nathan had drilled this for a long time after the bus left. The cold rain drops felt heavier on his skin, the water having long ago soaked through the thin, worn cotton of his immigrant clothes.
Dark shapes were materializing in front of them, dim figures heading slowly towards Nathan, they were about 30 yards from his group. These shadows were larger than the small bushes that surrounded them.
“Fan the men out, someone is coming our way,” Nathan whispered to Bruce who immediately fell back, passing on the message to the others in Nathan’s team.
The shadows were getting closer, five distinct shapes coming towards them from deep within the black of the night which began spreading out in a half circle in front of Nathan. He began to reach into his waistband for his pistol, when suddenly a powerful strobe light shone into his eyes, flashing intense beams of brilliant white light in rapid bursts, and four others immediately followed, making Nathan’s eyes ache with pain and shut tight involuntarily, blinding him.
Attempting to hide his face behind the bend of his elbow and feeling disoriented, he heard the muffled cries of fear and desperation from the illegal immigrants cutting into the sound of the rain. A voice with deep Texas drawl boomed out.
“Stop right there! Don›t y›all move or we›ll shoot ya where ya stand! Now y›all get on your knees!” A few people, confused and scared, began to comply and the voice yelled even louder.
“Get down! On your knees!”
All the people in the group that understood English began to kneel down or squat and the others soon followed. Nathan’s vision slowly adjusted as cries in Spanish began to blend in with the heavy rain. Nathan placed both hands in the air, and someone who stood behind a large spotlight began to walk towards him.
“You’re the coyote of this group ain’t ya. Ya’ll don’t even look Mexican either. Who the hell are ya… exactly… and where are ya leading these people to?»
The menacing Texan voice was close behind the powerful strobe light which shone only inches from Nathan’s face. He thought about reaching for his knife and pinning the guy’s foot onto the ground, but he needed more information and he couldn’t see to be sure he would strike on the right place.
Tom was wrong.
“I can’t see, the light is blinding me. Turn it away, then we can talk,” Nathan said.
“You stupid coyote gringo, it’s supposed to blind ya! I ain’t taking this away from your face, it can fry your eyeballs for all I care!” The man began to laugh, mocking his catch.
The powerful light was making his head pulsate in pain, the beam so powerful through his squeezed shut eye lids that it was starting to disorient him. He folded his arms again and pressed his face into them, letting his own cheap flashlight fall to the ground. There was no light hitting his eye anymore but he could still see bright colors spotting his vision. The group of men with the brilliant lights began to laugh, the way kids do when a friend toasts a bug with his grandpa’s reading lens.
“Count’ em up and let’s see how many illegals we rounded up today,” another man said from behind one of the powerful strobe lights. The bright lights went up and down the line, they were like beacons of a lighthouse in the middle of dark and rainy night.
“20!” A third voice yelled. “21 with the coyote gringo.”
“Put 21 more down to the Texan Night Watch Militia!” The man in front of Nathan yelled. “Illegals, this is a citizen’s arrest. Cletus, call the border patrol and let’s cuff ‘em.”
“Don’t worry illegals, by the time the sun comes up y’all be eating breakfast burritos in Mexico!” another man chuckled.
Some of the women in the illegal immigrant group began to weep, but the men remained silent with their heads down, their dignity taken away from them. Two of the five men turned off their lights and began to remove plastic zip tie handcuffs from their utility belts. They walked towards the immigrants while the three others with spotlights illuminated the group from different angles. The men’s heavy boots muddied the water and the powerful beams cut through the night, illuminating the heavy rain droplets in front of them.
The real illegal immigrants now stood in silence, most of them already had their hands together behind their backs, waiting for the tight plastic bracelet on their wrists. Suddenly, a muffled thud cut the air and a strobe light fell onto the ground and rolled around, its powerful beam cutting through the night in random directions.
“Don’t drop that, its expensive gear! Pick it up, we need some light here!” The man in front of Nathan said, before something heavier hit the wet ground. All the lights moved away from the group, trying to find where the sound came from within the rainy night.
“Keep the light on ‘em. I got this so keep cuffin ‘em,” said the leader of the group. He began to walk away from Nathan, shining the light at one of his men on the ground. Nathan looked around, the militia men all had rifles slinging from their necks and support weapons on their hips.
“There’s blood coming out of Cletus’ ear! Who did —”
Before the man could finish his sentence and swap his spotlight for a rifle, he too collapsed following the sound of a thud. This sent the three remaining men into a frenzy and they dropped the plastic cuffs and crouched down with their rifles in hand, backing up into each other, falling to a defensive formation. One of them illuminated the fallen militia men, each with a pool of blood under their heads, which slowly mixed with the rain.
“Shoot ‘em! Shoot ‘em all!” Said one the remaining militia men, but before he could squeeze off his first round, there was the muffled sound of a suppressed gun being fired and immediately his head exploded, spraying brains and skull pieces into the spotlight, and another rifleman also collapsed stiffly onto his side. The illegal immigrants were crouching down in the rain, holding their heads and wailing in fear. The cuffed ones buried their faces in the person next to them, like children hiding from their worst nightmare.
The remaining Texan dropped the brilliant spotlight and ran into the desert, trying to get away from the group as fast as possible. Then another sound of a suppressed gun going off filled the night and the fleeing militia man suddenly fell face first and began to scream in pain.
Nathan had watched everything unfold in seconds. He’d heard the militia men count 21 people, but there were 36 in the group. Five of them were his own team, ten were the Iraqis and they had 20 immigrants. The spotlights on the ground, shining in all different directions, were all the light Nathan needed in order to recognize his own men moving, checking the fallen militia men.
He stood up, got his knife out to cut the zip ties on people’s wrists. Two of Nathan’s men got spotlights, lowered the setting, and began illuminating the group, while the remaining militia man was being dragged over by Bill and Lance.
Bruce leaned into Nathan’s shoulder, and spoke softly.
“All the Iraqis are here, but some illegals took off.” Nathan nodded his thanks and it seemed as if the soaking rain was working gently to calm everyone’s nerves.
“Nazeer?” Nathan asked, looking around for him and then spotted the Iraqi squatting down before the first militia man who had fallen, running his thin, calloused fingers through the back of the dead man’s head, picking at it. Nathan walked over right at the moment when Nazeer was pinching a fold of the man’s scalp and peeling it upwards, exposing a deep bleeding gash. There was a strange, sadistic smile on Nazeer’s dark lips, the rain and the light of the flashlight giving him a maniacal look. The militia man’s blood and the rain coated his fingers a light shade of red.
“Yes, Pete. I came to see how hard I hit him. I got the first two with a rock…” Nazeer chuckled, and then forced the smile off his face, not knowing how the man everyone c
alled Pete would feel about him killing one of his countrymen.
Nathan looked at the militia man, his lifeless body still soaking the dirt with blood. The other man, the one who blinded him and led the group, had a laceration on the side of his head, in between one eye and ear. Blood ran from it onto his open, lifeless eyes. Nazeer ran his dark fingers over the man’s eyes to brush them shut and then wiped them clean on the fallen man’s wet hair, like a child cleaning his hands on the fur of his pet dog. Nathan watched him, unsure about how to feel about this.
“Please gather your men, we need to move out of here quickly,” Nathan said, deciding to process Nazeer’s actions later. He guessed that one of his guys, probably Bill, had taken out the third and fourth Texans before they could open fire.
Screams of pain came from the last militia man as he was brought before Nathan, propped up by Bill and Lance. The remaining illegals, standing in a circle along with the Iraqis, had now turned their backs to the dead in front of them, the women weeping silently into the men’s shoulders and chests.
“Let me go, you filthy animals, get out of our country!” The militia man cried tears of rage and weakness as Nathan looked down at the Texan’s leg; blood gushed down his thigh and into his boot.
“I tried to slow him down but it was too dark, I think I hit his external iliac vein,” said Bill. The wet rain and the rush of adrenaline giving him a mad man look.
“You’re all Americans? You traitors, you —” The Texan coughed and blood gushed down his leg once again; he was bleeding out.
“Who told you we were going to be here tonight, in this exact spot?” Nathan asked, while the militia man rolled his eyes, dancing on the balance of consciousness and death.
Nathan hit him hard with the back of his hand, whipping life into his eyes once again as blood and rain spewed from his face. Nathan then took a set of zip tie handcuffs from the militia man’s side, and used his knife to modify them quickly into a tourniquet, placing it around the man’s bleeding thigh.
“Answer me, and we’ll try to save your life,” Nathan said, gazing deep into the man’s eyes which were filled with moisture. Whether they were tears or the cold rain Nathan didn’t know.
“Please man, my wife and kids are waiting for me, I was just trying to protect my country, let me go…” The militia man pleaded in between sobs.
Nathan tightened the tourniquet around the man’s leg, trying to stop the bleeding. He got another set, and quickly made a collar with the zip ties, and placed it around the man’s neck, zipping them tight enough to make him uncomfortable, but lose enough to still let him talk and breathe.
“I will ask you just one more time… if you don’t tell me the truth, by the morning the vultures will have picked your face clean, and your wife will go on to raise your kids alone. Who sent you and your men to this exact spot in the desert?” Nathan’s aggressiveness and perhaps a belief that he was dying anyway suddenly made the man put up a wall of pride.
“The love I have for my country sent me here,” said the militia man, trying to brush aside the pain to speak in a tone that was dignified and showed honor and pride. The anger in his eyes was a window into what he wished he could do to Nathan and the men holding him by the arms.
“The love I have for this country will send me straight to hell,” Nathan said, as he gripped each end of the zip ties around the man’s neck. He slowly pulled on them, and they clicked notch by notch, choking the patriot’s last scream in his throat. The dark plastic bands sank deep into the militia man’s flesh and almost disappeared into the folds of his neck.
Chapter 15
Big Bend Desert, Texas
Friday, October 23rd, 2020
5:57 A.M.
The skies had poured all the rain they had for the Big Bend Desert in just a few hours and now the clouds were light enough to let the dimmest sunlight shine through. Dawn was beginning to show its face and several footfalls could be heard, splashing onto wet earth, brushing against wet weeds and plants. There was no path already cut through, to where the group was going.
“What’s bothering you, Nathan?” Asked Bruce.
“Everything,” he responded while looking at Bruce for a few moments, as if he had the answers.
“What exactly?” Bruce whispered, looking over his shoulders to make sure they weren’t being overheard. The line of illegal immigrants and Iraqis was following the two of them from 10 yards away.
“This was supposed to be a combat free mission but now five Americans are dead in the desert and ten people from this group ran in fear and have now no doubt got lost, so I expect they’ll die of thirst or worse,” replied Nathan. His eyes were now gazing about two miles ahead, where the dull shape of a large ranch and vehicles could be seen.
“I don’t think they’ll care about the loss of life, Nathan, it’s not like they’ll debrief us or ask for a written report,” Bruce said, before taking a sip of water from his plastic bottle.
“It’s not that…”
“Don’t try and tell me this is the first time you’ve had to kill one of your countrymen?”
“No, that’s not it either. Let’s say it was just a coincidence, I get that militias can form overnight and go out looking for something to do, and that even our crappy flashlights could have given away our position from miles away in a dark night. What worries me is the cargo we are smuggling. Nazeer bothers me.” Nathan sounded like a conflicted man who didn’t know where the line was between prejudice and legitimate concern.
“There is something psychotic about that guy,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “During my watch yesterday afternoon, I saw him catching a gecko by hand, a big one, and shoving a stick through it slowly, from in between the legs out through its mouth. At first I thought he was going to barbecue it, but then he got another stick and shoved it under the gecko’s front paws, all the way through, coming in on one side and out the other. He stuck the gecko on the ground, like he was crucifying him. It took a while for the gecko to die, its tail was whipping around like crazy, and he just watched it until the end with this sadistic grin on his face.”
“Great…” Said Nathan, shaking his head, remembering how some of the psychopaths he’d studied about enjoyed torturing weak animals.
“And then he prayed over the gecko after it was dead. Who knows what was going through his mind then.”
“Good thing it was a gecko he got and not a goat,” said Nathan. “He would’ve stuck something else in between its legs for you to watch!”
Bruce laughed and shoved Nathan lightly.
“No seriously,” Nathan continued “I agree he seems unstable and I don’t know what we are doing dealing with a guy like that. I know he’s been through a lot after we talked for a few hours on the first day. I guess all that could have damaged him psychologically… “ Nathan’s voice trailed off as he once again tried to work out what Nazeer was all about… and what he really was doing in the US.
“The rest of the group worries me just as much. They haven’t spoken a word to each other or to any of us since the beginning,” said Bruce, looking back at the group of people that walked behind him and his leader.
“Pete!” A voice came from behind the line. It was Nazeer and he ran a little to catch up with them.
“Speak of the devil,” whispered Bruce, “I’ll see you later… Pete.”
“Where is he going?” asked Nazeer in his lightly accented voice.
“Check on the men.”
“That is where we are going, is it not?” Nazeer pointed a long tanned arm towards the ranch that could be seen more clearly now. There were several cars parked around it and some looked like police vehicles, others seemed to be black SUVs. To one side of the ranch sat a black helicopter.
“Yes, I believe so,” Nathan said as he gazed down at his GPS watch to make sure the coordinates were right.
“Well my friend Pete, I wanted to thank you and your team for bringing me and my men through alive and well,” said Nazeer. He smiled and
bowed his head slightly and Nathan couldn’t tell if the Iraqi’s smile was fake or if he was just feeling awkward somehow.
“No problem,” replied Nathan, trying to keep the conversation short.
“And, I am so sorry about what happened. When I got away and saw that those men had rifles, you looked in trouble. Me and my men were only trying to help. The stones we threw were meant to knock them unconscious, not kill them. I hope you do not have hard feelings towards us, since we killed some of your people.”
To Nathan, Nazeer sounded like a veterinarian talking to a family about their pet dog that had to be put down.
“I saw a smile on your face when you stuck your finger into the gash on his scalp, Nazeer. You seemed pretty proud of yourself.”
Nathan let the comment hang in the air and there was silence between them for a few moments.
“Adrenaline, I think is what it is called. I confess I was scared, me and my men, unlike you and your men, are unarmed. We always just cross with our clothes and your people don’t let us bring even a small knife or…”
“Listen, Nazeer,” interrupted Nathan, his voice was calm, but filled with intent, “I don’t know why exactly you and your group are being brought into my country, but know this. I don’t do this job for money, I do it for the love of my country, to ensure this place stays as good as it is. Anyone who tries to interfere with that will die and I’m willing to kill anyone, at any time, to make sure my country stays safe. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?”
Nazeer’s face darkened into a mask of amusement and then his meekness and politeness dissolved at Nathan’s words. The tone of his voice went cold and sharp, like the edge of a scimitar.
“If I wanted you dead I would’ve thrown that rock in your face and no one would ever find out it was me. I come to thank and you respond with aggression in your words. I understand how you feel, but others who do not understand your culture find this type of behavior rather, arrogant. Perhaps if you and every other American treated people from other countries with more dignity, America as a country wouldn’t have so many foreign enemies.”
