Border Sweep

by Don Pendleton

  Then he threw up.

  5

  Bolan hauled the still-groaning Sipe out of the shower. He was conscious but groggy. Bolan shook him, and the man tried to wriggle out of his grasp. He took a wild swing, but the fist sailed harmlessly past the warrior's shoulder.

  "Hold on a minute, friend. I'm on your side."

  "What are you doing in my office?"

  "You've had a lot of unexpected company tonight, haven't you?"

  Sipe narrowed his eyes and tried to fix Bolan with a piercing stare that kept fading in and out of focus. He reached for his left arm and rubbed it absently, kneading the flesh just below his elbow. He hit a sore spot and yanked his cuff out of the way, nearly tearing it from his sleeve. Like a crystal forming in time-lapse photography, understanding began to transform his face, the stuporous slackness replaced by bafflement.

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  "You sent for help."

  He nodded. "Yeah, I did. You from Brognola?"

  Before Bolan could answer, Sipe slid down the wall to sit on the floor, his back against the shower stall. "I don't feel too good."

  "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

  Sipe rubbed his face with both hands, chafing the skin of both cheeks. Then he screwed his knuckles into his eye sockets. He tried again to stand, and this time managed to get halfway up before he lost his balance and slipped back to the floor. He looked up at Bolan and tried to smile, but his features tumbled over themselves, and he settled for a weak grin. Extending his right hand, he said, "Help me up, would you?"

  Bolan grabbed the hand and pulled, and Sipe bounced to his feet and leaned against the shower stall for a long moment. He started to walk, and nearly fell. Bolan caught the attorney under the arms and half dragged him into the inner office.

  When they were within leaning distance of the desk, Sipe shook Bolan off and caught the edge of the desk with both hands. Like an old man, he shuffled his feet, the soles of his shoes scraping on the tiled floor. When he got close to the chair, he smiled like a man reaching the peak of Everest, then bent to swing the desk chair around. He toppled into it with a shuddering sigh.

  "Okay, let's start all over. Who did you say you were?"

  "I didn't."

  "Weil, do you mind telling me who you are?"

  Bolan tilted his head slightly to one side. A shadow of a smile formed on his lips, but he let it go no farther. He had to hand it to Sipe. The guy had guts. Half dead, maybe more, twenty minutes ago, he was already scratching his way back to some semblance of control.

  Bolan stood up and walked into the bathroom, returning with his jacket in hand. Sipe noticed the two guns for the first time as Bolan casually sat down, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather case. Tossing it across the desk, Bolan watched as Sipe opened it, looked at him, then back at the case.

  "Mike Belasko. That you?"

  "That's right."

  "And you say Brognola sent you?"

  "I'm helping him out. Let's just say I'm from Justice, okay?"

  "Did he give you the details?"

  "He said you could handle that part of it."

  Sipe shook his head, rocking slightly in the big chair. "Yeah, I guess I can do that."

  "Before you do, why don't you tell me what happened here?"

  "Not much to tell. I was working late, reading some papers. I called Washington and must've fallen asleep. I'm not sure. Anyway, the next thing I know, I'm looking into the wrong end of a pistol. These guys were standing…"

  "Hold on a minute." Bolan raised a hand like a traffic cop. "How many guys?"

  "Two, I think, maybe three. I'm not sure. It all happened so fast. Anyway, I tried to get up. My gun was on the filing cabinets. That's where I always leave it. You wouldn't believe how uncomfortable the damn thing is when you have to sit at a desk for four or five hours. I got slugged, and that's all I remember. Until I woke up in the shower, that is. I guess I forgot to thank you for that."

  Bolan waved it away. "Did you get a good look at the men?"

  "One of them. The others not so good."

  "Ever seen any of them before?"

  "I don't know. I think maybe, yes, but… for some reason I could swear I'd seen this one guy before, but I don't know where."

  "Would you recognize one of them if you saw him again?"

  "The one guy, hell, yes. No doubt about it. In fact, I hope I do see the son of a bitch. I…"

  Sipe stopped when Bolan stood up. "Come on out here a minute, will you? Can you manage?"

  The attorney shook his head and stood up. He tottered for a moment, then edged around the desk, holding himself up with one hand. He walked unsteadily to the doorway. Stepping to one side, Bolan pointed to the two bodies on the floor.

  "Good God!" Sipe mumbled, then fell to the floor with a damp thud.

  Bolan knelt beside him, slapping Sipe's cheeks to wake him up. The man groaned, then raised himself on one elbow. "Sorry. I don't know what happened. I just…" Then he remembered why he'd fainted. His eyes kept drifting past Bolan's shoulder to the nearer of the two dead men, then back to Bolan's face. The pallor of Sipe's cheeks had grown even more ghostly under the bright red prints of Bolan's hands.

  "Either of them look familiar?"

  Sipe didn't answer immediately. He stared at the behemoth on the floor, twisting his neck to an uncomfortable angle. He inhaled deeply, then let the air out in a long, slow whistle. He nodded. "Yeah. The fat bastard is one of them. I won't forget him for a while."

  "What about the other one?"

  Sipe shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I'm not sure, but he doesn't look like the other guys I remember. I just don't know. What the hell happened here, anyway?"

  "I'm not sure," Bolan said. "I came here straight from the airport. When I got to your office, it was dark, but the door was open. I wasn't here long when the Welcome Wagon showed up."

  "You mean they followed you?"

  Bolan shook his head. "I don't think so. They were probably waiting outside and saw me come up."

  "You mean they know who you are?"

  "Not necessarily. Probably just paranoia. They knew what happened to you and had to be jittery. They were waiting to make sure you croaked. An unfamiliar face made them nervous. Either that or they just wanted to double-check."

  "It's a good thing you got here when you did." Sipe collapsed back to the floor, breathing in short, shallow drafts. His chest moved spasmodically, and he pressed against it with both hands, trying to reestablish control. "Christ almighty," he whispered. "I must have really touched a nerve."

  "Looks like it. Now all we have to do is figure out whose."

  "I'm gonna have to call the sheriff about my late friends here."

  Bolan nodded. Sipe got to his knees, then using the doorframe to hoist himself up, he climbed to his feet. Bolan offered a hand, but the attorney waved it away. He gritted his teeth, his clenched jaw muscles bulging under the white skin. Upright again, he walked slowly toward the bulk of the fat man, stepped around to the dead man's feet and stared into the still surprised features. "That's him, all right. The bastard."

  He turned and walked over to look at the second body. After a long minute he shook his head, slowly at first and then definitively. "Nope. Never saw this guy before." He started to walk back toward Bolan, then stopped.

  Bolan tossed him the walkie-talkie. "They had a friend outside."

  Sipe turned to look at the door, as if he expected another man to burst through it.

  "Don't worry. He left."

  "Then these guys have a car downstairs somewhere."

  "Maybe."

  "Want to take a look?"

  "I think you should get these two taken care of first. Then we'll see what we want to do."

  "I'll make the call." Sipe walked back into the inner office. His legs were steadier now, and he seemed to be shaking off the grogginess. He stepped around his desk and dropped into the big chair. "After I call the sheriff, I think I'd bette
r get you up to speed."

  Sipe reached for the telephone, but it rang before he lifted the receiver. The noise startled him, and he dropped the phone as he snatched it from its cradle. Peevishly he bent to snag it from the floor. He watched Bolan thoughtfully as he lifted the receiver slowly to his ear. "Sipe," he snapped.

  "Where? When?" He knitted his eyebrows in a tight frown. "I'll be right there." He let out a long breath as he replaced the receiver. "Jesus!" He stood up.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Come on. I'll tell you on the way over. I hope you don't mind riding in wet clothes."

  "I've done worse," Bolan replied. "Where are we going?"

  Sipe grabbed his snub-nosed.38 Police Special from the top of the filing cabinets. "You'll see. I think you may have gotten here just in time." He slung his jacket over his shoulder and ran toward the door.

  6

  The rail yard was clotted with emergency vehicles from as far away as fifty miles. Ronny Sipe paced back and forth at one end of the aisle. Mack Bolan, after a cursory introduction, had slipped to one side. He watched the controlled chaos with a dispassionate eye, more interested in the chemistry of the living than the dead. Will Ralston directed traffic in front of the open boxcar, but Randy Carlton was someplace else. With his Stetson tilted forward, he leaned against another freight car, his legs crossed at the ankles. His arms were folded across his chest, but his big hands just wouldn't keep still.

  Sipe and Bolan had been the first to arrive, followed by an intermittent stream of police. They all waited for the medical examiner and the crime photographer. The heat dried their clothes quickly, leaving them wrinkled, but no one seemed to notice anything unusual. It was just one more footnote in an already convoluted story.

  No one seemed to feel like speaking. Instead, they just leaned against the ends of the boxcars or wandered in tight little circles, avoiding one another's eyes. When the photographer finally arrived and began his work, even Bolan was overwhelmed by the bizarre flashes issuing from the open mouth of the boxcar. The incessant clicking and small bursts of light had swallowed all other sights and sounds.

  Randy Carlton seemed to take it the hardest, first stalking up and down the aisle like an enraged beast, then, as the aisle grew crowded, collapsing in a heap in the closed end of the aisle, his back to the boxcar. Bolan watched the rangy patrolman with interest, recognizing in him some of the same passion and outrage that had shaped his own life. It wasn't often he came across a lawman who carried in his gut that white-hot flame that burned without consuming or being consumed.

  Most lesser men, if they were aware of it at all, tried to ignore it or, if that wouldn't work, to quench it. Drinking was a common hazard for cops, anything to numb them, to let them get through the day without feeling too much. It was impossible to understand the sensory overload of a day on the job unless you'd been there.

  Bolan understood.

  He drifted closer to Carlton, as if drawn by an invisible cable slowly tightening, its silent ratcheting slowly but steadily narrowing the gap between them. He stopped about ten feet away, knowing it was the longest ten feet in the solar system, and knowing that Randy Carlton knew it, too.

  As the word spread, the law-enforcement crowd continued to grow. Arizona Rangers, border patrolmen and the county sheriff with three deputies all mingled in the restless crowd as paramedics began removing the bodies. Wearing surgical masks, they were forced to check each one to make sure there was no sign of life. And one by one they wrestled each lifeless corpse into a black body bag. The angry rasp of each heavy zipper cut through the low buzz of conversation, and Carlton shuddered every time.

  Sipe stopped pacing for a moment and slipped down to the end of the aisle. He nodded to Bolan, then planted himself in front of Carlton, staring at him for a quick eternity. Finally he bent forward to rest his hands on his knees, and in a hoarse whisper he asked, "You okay. Randy?"

  "No, I'm not okay and I will never be okay again." His jaw snapped shut.

  Sipe resumed his pacing. He stopped once and looked at Bolan, either for help or sympathy, then, as if he knew there was no help and that sympathy was useless, he shrugged and walked away.

  He stood with his back to the crowd, and Bolan could see by the tight set of his shoulders that it wouldn't take much to send him teetering over the edge of the same precipice Randy Carlton had already fallen over. Muffled shouts echoed between the railroad cars, and Sipe turned, then took a few steps forward just as the milling crowd began to surge back toward him. Like boiling soup overflowing a pot too small for it, the crowd burst out of the mouth of the aisle and spread away on both sides, squeezing in between the cars and the loading dock at one end and bubbling into the open at the other.

  Two paramedics pushed through the last remnants of the crowd and sprinted toward an ambulance. Sipe recognized Marty Sanfilippo from the EMT unit at Mariposa Hospital. He watched Sanfilippo and the other paramedic open the back door of the ambulance and yank a wheeled gurney through it. He was almost mesmerized by the flashing red and blue lights all but invisible in the harsh sunlight. The paramedics rushed back toward him, and Sipe fell in behind them as they slowed to maneuver the gurney through the crowded aisle.

  "What's going on, Marty?" Sipe puffed.

  "We got a live one," Sanfilippo said.

  "He going to make it?"

  "How the hell do I know, Ronny? He might not even want to." Sanfilippo didn't elaborate. He didn't have to.

  The paramedic squeezed through a tight ring of lawmen, which closed behind him like an airlock. Sipe turned sideways and started to follow, when an elbow caught him in the ribs. The border patrolman who'd blocked his passage didn't bother to turn, and Sipe grabbed him by the upper arm and tugged. The larger man spun his head, ready to argue, until he saw who it was. "Shit, Ronny, why didn't you say something?"

  "Forget it, Buck. I didn't recognize you, either. Just let me through." Sipe didn't really mean it, and Buck Allenson knew it. The two men had had more than one run-in, and each knew there would be others.

  Sipe slid through a narrow gap and entered a semicircular clearing around the yawning boxcar door. Flies buzzed in and out of the doorway, and the lawmen gathered there swatted absently as the insects landed on their sweating necks and arms. Reluctantly Sipe walked toward the boxcar and poked his head into the shadows. An overwhelming nausea surged over him, and he doubled up, banging his forehead on the floor of the boxcar. He vomited onto the railbed, and the twinges in his gut seemed as if they would never stop. Long after his stomach was empty, involuntary contractions racked him, and it was several minutes before he could straighten up.

  "What's the matter, Ronny," someone in the crowd asked, "don't like Mexican food?" The smattering of awkward laughter died before he turned.

  "Who said that?" Sipe stared at each of the lawmen in turn, but no one said anything. "Who the fuck said that?"

  The men squirmed as Sipe walked toward them, but they kept their silence. Finally Roy Harrison, one of the deputies, said, "Hell, Ronny, it don't make no difference who said it. It was just a joke."

  Sipe shook his head like a teacher at the end ot his rope. "A joke? You think that's something to joke about?" He flung one hand back toward the boxcar.

  Harrison cleared his throat. "No, not especially. But, damn, you got to keep a sense of humor. You know that. Hell, you know what we see on this job. How can we get anything done if we let it get to us?"

  Sipe shook his head again. He turned away, took a step back toward the open door, then swung back. "I'll tell you one thing, Roy. If I find out who's responsible for this, he'll wish to God it was him in that boxcar. I guarantee it."

  "Come off it, Sipe," Buck said. "It don't mean nothing. Hell, for every dead Mex in that train, there's a million more ready to take his place. And take his chances, too. They accept it. Why the hell can't you?"

  Sipe said nothing. He looked at Allenson a long time, then, with a wave of his hand, he turned back to the boxcar and h
auled himself up through the open door. Inside, the stench was even more overwhelming, but his stomach was empty now and his anger took control.

  Marty Sanfilippo and his partner were just lifting a frail man, who appeared to be in his early fifties, onto the gurney. A third paramedic stood to one side, an IV bottle held over his head in his right hand. Several coils of clear plastic tubing dangled from his left hand, and he tapped them nervously against his left knee.

  Sipe clapped Sanfilippo on the shoulder. "Marty, you got to save him."

  The paramedic turned with a stiff mask in place of his usual smile. "You mean keep him alive long enough for you to question him, don't you? That's all you're really interested in."

  "Marty, what the hell are you talking about? You know I…"

  Sanfilippo nodded his head at the unconscious man. "That could be my father, or one of a dozen uncles. How the hell do you think I got here? Ronny, get out of my way. I'm gonna save him — if I can — but not for you. Not for him, either. I'm gonna save him so I can find out who's responsible for this. And then I'll take care of it. My way."

  "You can't do that. You…"

  "Watch me, Ronny. Just stand back and watch me. It shouldn't be too hard. You're already pretty good at it."

  "Marty, I…"

  "I gotta go. This man needs to be in the hospital." Sanfilippo turned away, shrugging off Sipe's hand. He backed toward the doorway, then set the end of the gurney on the boxcar floor while he jumped to the ground.

  Sipe watched Sanfilippo's partner jump down, and the two men hauled the gurney off the car floor, releasing collapsible wheels as they did so. A moment later they were out of sight. The attorney walked to the doorway and watched them maneuver through the crowd. Not until the gurney was lifted into the ambulance and Marty had followed it in, ahead of the closing door, did he turn back. For the first time he saw the row of body bags, the wrinkles in the shiny black plastic filled with pulls of brilliant sunlight. He walked across the open doorway and peered over the shoulders of the lawmen.