by Doug Ball
Good Friday
The all dull, flat black helicopter lifted rapidly off the ground and swung its nose to the north. As the dust settled in the compound it had lifted from, folks ran out to follow the track it made in the sky, a long stream of exhaust. They watched as the chopper moved to within thirty feet of the ground, kicking up a dust devil that chased it to the border between Mexico and Arizona. Once across the border it moved slowly and lifted to fifty feet in order to keep from kicking up the dust and line up for the rugged hills ahead.
Out from behind a large collection of boulders, an Arizona Border Patrol truck appeared. The truck was plainly marked ‘Arizona Border Patrol’ because the President had pulled the U. S. Border Patrol out of Arizona after the Governor and the Legislature refused to accept any more funds from the Federal Government. The Governor had confiscated all the USBP’s equipment and personnel - that wanted to be a part of Arizona’s effort - and the patrol kept on doing their job, only this time, they were doing it accordance with the law and not the directions and policies from D.C.
The truck stopped and two men jumped out, watching the chopper fly over. One man jumped back in and grabbed the radio to make a report as the chopper turned and came back toward them.
“Adam2, ABP 14, have unmarked black chopper running low to the ground. Just went over the top of us and is now turning to come back. Taking cover.” He dropped the mike, grabbed a portable from the seat, and ran. His partner ran faster as the chopper opened fire with a pod mounted gun.
A rocket was launched from the chopper and took out the truck causing a mushroom cloud of black smoke to rise into the previously clear air. Both men moved deep into the boulders.
“Adam2, ABP 14, we are now without a vehicle. The chopper took ours out with a rocket. Chopper is circling looking for us and watching the truck burn. Appears to be 5 or 6 men onboard.” He took his finger off the send button.
“What do ya think, Rico?”
“I think we may have the War for Arizona all over again. Somebody just declared it, but there are no markings on the chopper. Could be anyone with enough money to buy it or huevos to steal it.”
“Pretty danged good flying for a thief,” Rod responded as he snuggled deeper under his favorite boulder.
The chopper hovered and settled to the ground, 15 yards beyond the truck forcing the smoke into the boulders.
“Think we have justification to shoot?”
“Do you feel your life is in danger?”
“Yes. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s move to a better place and see what we can do with these Beretta’s they gave us. Gotta make it good with only two spare magazines.”
“Yeah, but I got a Glock strapped to my ankle.”
“Mine’s an S & W.”
Both of them laughed. Neither had the firepower to deal with five men and an armed chopper. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
They eased up over the top of a ten foot tall boulder just in time to see five men with M-16’s come around the burning truck and headed in their direction, fast.
“Man, that ain’t fair. M-16’s against our pea shooters.”
“Nope. But, we gonna do our damnedest to get us outta here alive. I promised my wife I’d be home in time for breakfast.”
“Well, that gives us enough time to take that bunch and walk home, it’s only 1600 now. We need to split up and take them from two directions. Confusion should give us an advantage, at least that’s what my old Gunny used to say.”
“Mine always put it, ‘if you can’t beat them with tactics, baffle them with bullshit.’ Let’s bewilder the daylights outta them. You go thatta way and I’ll take this’n.”
“Go.”
Each paused long enough to say ‘goodluck’ with a smile and then turned and trotted away.
Within twenty feet, Rico popped up and took a shot at the approaching bad guys. Rod kept quiet figuring the bad guys would split and either two or three would come in his direction and the others would go to the far side of Rico. He’d only have two or three to take if that happened.
Rod waited quietly, listening.
Rico popped off another round.
Rod heard shuffling footsteps coming his way. Looking between three or four piled boulders he could see men passing. He counted three. “Damn.” He pulled a spare magazine from his belt, checked the Beretta again, and moved to his secondary spot.
Within moments the three were lined up in front of him walking away, crouched over intent on Rico’s assumed position. Rod broke cover and practiced the moves to hit all three, aiming at each back as quick as possible. In his head he said, ‘NOW.’
Six rounds left his gun as fast as he could line and shoot. Two of the camo clothed men fell as the last one turned, catching one round in the kidney and the second in the ribs. The last man’s gun chattered as he squeezed the trigger in pain, falling. Bullets ricocheted off the rocks and went every which direction leaving the shattered rocks to fly in their own direcitons.
Rod felt something hit him in the lower right ribs.
Rico heard the shooting from Rod’s direction and waited. One man walked past his hidey hole so quietly he did not hear him approach. He wondered how many there were over on his side. The one he could see was walking away toward all the shooting on Rod’s side.
Rod looked between boulders and saw a single hunter coming his direction with his M-16 up to his shoulder, swinging in his general direction. Knowing he was in a good spot, Rod stood still, Beretta at the ready in his two hands.
Rico decided he needed to act. Stepping to the side of a boulder, he raised his gun and fired two quick shots and then a third. The man went down.
From his right came the clatter of an M-16 on full auto. Rocks chipped and splattered all around him as he fell to the dirt amazed that he had not been hit. Looking around he found no one.
Rod moved toward the shooting, heard the full auto firing, and ran to his left so he would not charge in straight on. Another couple of rounds whanged through the rocks and boulders. Between the primary sounds and the echoes, directions were confusing.
The words, “I will kill you, gringo,” came to him from one direction and then another. He chose to chase the first. No more than three minutes had passed in this whole episode, he thought. How far away was the man from him? How far was Rico? He knew he’d had a bit of luck to go with the years of training at the range and combat courses, but this was ridiculous. An armed attack on the two of them from a helicopter did not make a bit of sense.
From right in front of him he heard, yelled in Spanish, “I am leaving. You want a ride home, come now.” He looked and saw a radio one of the attackers had dropped. No one answered.
Rico held his position. The view wasn’t the best, but it was better than sticking up his big head for a target. From his left he heard shuffling feet. A slow turn of his head let him see a rock in the way for him to get a view. He slithered back into the gap under the edge of the boulder behind him.
The footsteps continued closer and closer.
‘A shadow with a long gun. Couldn’t be Rod,’ he thought.
He waited.
The shadow showed the head swiveling. It also showed that the man was carrying the M-16 across his chest. He thought about his position in relation to the approaching man. The hunter would have to swing the gun down and across his body, rotating to the right, in order to get to him. He, on the other hand, had only to lift his gun and let fly.
‘That’s great,’ he thought.
Rico slid out of the gap, pulled himself up on his left elbow swinging his right arm up and forward, before emptying the magazine into the Mexican. The hunter twisted, trying to pull the M-16 into line to make a final kill before death. Rico reloaded as he heard three rounds fired from behind the hunter. The hunter fell face down in the dirt. Rod landed on the man’s back, slapping him with his Beretta.
Rod looked up, “You okay?”
“Fine as frog’s h
air.”
The two of them moved to sitting positions in the dirt as the sound of the chopper winding up let them know it was leaving. They jumped and ran, trying to get in position to fire on the chopper. Rico grabbed the M-16 as he moved, lifting it high just as the chopper came into sight over the boulders. The M-16 was on full auto. He emptied the magazine.
They watched as the chopper turned and headed back to Mexico.
The radio on the dead soldado chattered with, “Adios, muchachos.”
Rico picked up the radio, “Come on back, Cabròn. We’ll kill you all.”
“Go to hell, Señor.”
“See ya there, Mex, see ya there.”
Rod walked back to the radio he had dropped and called in the firefight. “We’ll need a medic and a meat wagon for five bodies.
Rico wandered around between the boulders making sure all were really dead and collecting firearms.
2
Arizona State Law Enforcement Academy
Tan and the rest of his crew sat quietly awaiting the beginning of the graduation of their $10 an hour guide, Tank. With his tats and record the only way they could get him in was having the Governor give him a special dispensation, call in four or five u-o-me’s, and beg the DPS director, Desi Armistad, for a slot. She owed Desi a dozen i-o-u’s and now it was two dozen.
Tan looked at Rachel, “You really want to do this?”
“Oh, yeah. With my Paramedic cert and then a cop cert, I would never be without a job. Think the Governor will buy it?”
“Who knows?”
Lenny looked over at the two and said, “Look, if she’s gonna get in here, she’s gonna have to get in better shape. I out ran her to the car this morning.” He was smiling.
Rachel punched his shoulder, “I let you win. I made it a rule to be nice to one miserable old fart at least once a day. You were it for today.”
He punched her back, very lightly.
Chuck looked at the three of them and wasn’t happy. Rachel was his girl, not theirs. He had waited for a long time to find a woman he would marry and he was planning to ask her as soon as there was time. Hopefully, tomorrow after their weekly day out together. They were supposed to climb Camelback and he wanted to ask her on top of the mountain. Of course, if he dropped the ring they’d never find it again. He kept quiet.
Bruce looked at Abdul and then Chuck, “This team just ain’t all here without Leon. What did he have in mind to just up and say he’d had enough?”
“His choice, Bruce. The Director told him he could do years with us if he wanted, but Leon, being Leon, went his own way. He says he’s happy with the security job.”
“No real cop would be happy driving a van around with ‘Old Dominion Security, your valuables are our Dominion’ on the side. He’s not even allowed to carry on the job.” Lenny was not happy with the loss. “I tried to talk him into staying and he blew me off.”
Tan shushed them with his hand as the Director of the Academy moved to the podium.
The Director said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you this graduating class of the Arizona Law Enforcement Academy.”
The graduates filed in from both sides of the room and filled the three rows with 27 men and women in various uniforms. Each was sponsored by a Police Department, Sheriff’s Department, or the State Department of Public Safety. Tank was the last one to enter. He was wearing a uniform with no insignia, he had no sponsoring force except the Governor and she had no police force.
The team whooped and hollered as he came in, lumbering along with all his tats covered by the uniform. Knowing the whole story, the Director smiled..
One of the graduates said, “Seats.” Everybody on stage except the Director, sat.
The Director spent twenty minutes talking about what a great group this was and how they worked together to get everyone through the grueling physical training and the never ending classroom assignments. Finally, he said, “I would like to present a few awards here before we pass out the diplomas.”
Five awards later, the staff of the Academy came to the front to help with the presentations of the diplomas. The Director called the names from the top person in the class all the way down to Walter Dorfman Kozaklewics. The room went silent in awe of someone with a name like that and that someone could pronounce it.
Tank stood up. The team sat in awe with their mouths open. All they had ever known him by was Tank. Lenny stood first and started cheering, followed by the rest of the team. From the back of the room a petite woman moved forward. It was the Governor.
She moved to the rear of the presentation line as Tank moved along the line of instructors to the Director and finally the Governor, who gave him a big hug. She grabbed his hand as he tried to walk away. “You wait with me.”
He stood next to the Governor making her look like his little sister with an emphasis on little.
The Director pulled the mike to him again and said, “I have one more award. This award has never been given before and I pray will never be given again. We call this the Sticky Award. Our man, Walter Dorfman Kozaklewics, better known as Tank, by acclamation of the other candidates and the staff, has earned, not won, but earned this award by being the candidate with the most sticktoitiveness of any candidate ever. Tank spent the entire first week running everywhere, including to the bathroom at night, so he could get up to the standards required for the first phase. He was always able to charm someone into running with him on the longer runs, who would quiz and tutor him in the classroom requirements.
“When someone told him he needed to be able to do something, he went out and learned to do it. He literally stuck this out by being bottom in the class in every subject, every activity, and every report, but the bottom man still graduates. I will never be able to put into words the effort and drive required of this man in order for him to graduate, and graduate he did. We had three that washed out.
“He probably could have pulled political weight, or had a couple friends of mine twist my arm, instead he never asked for slack and beat himself up worse than the course did.
“Tank, my man, you have earned this award.”
He walked down to the man and the Governor, reached out with the award in his left hand held strangely with two fingers on a corner, and offered his right for a hand shake. “Congratulations for your efforts and sweat. I have never seen anyone work so hard to be a cop.”
Tank took the award and promptly stuck to the plaque. In trying to get it off one hand, he stuck the other hand to it.
The Governor was cracking up, the Director was laughing, and the graduating class was on their feet cheering. The plaque was covered, all except one corner, front and back with the sticky mouse traps a person might place alongside a wall to catch mice. He was stuck good.
Tank looked good after losing 30 pounds or so, and stood dumbfounded trying to remove the plaque which he obviously took seriously. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”
He walked up to the mike, “I just want to thank all the little people that gave me a boost and lifted me to the pinnacle I have reached. Mr. Director, you wanna come up here and get this off of me?”
“No.”
Everybody laughed louder.
The Governor left for an appointment she just could not miss.
#
“Patrón, I told you three times I don’t know how five men could die from gunfire when all the Patrol had was pistòlas. They leave the chopper and not come back. I call on the radio. No one answer. I leave after three minutes. I heard no shots with the rotor still hot.”
“You left them.” Borrago looked around and nodded to his Segundo.
The Segundo stuck a rifle barrel in the pilot’s ear and said, “Come with me,” as he lifted the automatic from the pilot’s holster.
“NO! Patrón, you will need me. I am not at fault. What would you have me to do, go find them?”
“Sí. Go find them.”
“I could not leave the machine.”
<
br /> “Too bad. We will see to it that you can leave the machine next time it flies.”
“If I live, you will die.”
The Segundo dropped him with a blow to the back of his head and motioned to two soldados to drag him out. Neither was gentle.
“Take him out and make sure he does not live.”
#
Tank sat at the end of the table in the Rancho Grande Restaurant looking at the best friends he had ever had. The team that the Governor put together to stop the terrorist sat around the table telling cop or in Rachel’s case, paramedic, stories. Each story got wilder and wilder. When Rachel told the story of the rescue from the bombed U. S. Airways Center in downtown Phoenix with a few embellishments that made Tan look like Superman lifting the entire roof of the building off of the trapped janitor, the competition stopped.
The meal over, Tan stood to make a toast with his coffee. “I give you Tank, or should I say Walter Dorfman Kozaklewics, the toughest new cop in the state. May his baton always stay sheathed, his gun never fired, and internal affairs never called.”
Various ‘Here, Here’ and other comments were heard as each of the team stood and faced the man of the day.
Tan continued, “This man drives like a pro with only one problem, he parks on big rocks. He can go to the mountaintops and come back with gold. His belches keep the bad guys away and his jokes are so bad they keep you awake on stakeouts. I give you, our man Tank.”
Tan’s phone rang.
He checked the number as everyone at the table tried to talk at the same time. The window said, ‘Governor.’ He punched ‘accept.’ “Yes, Governor, how may I assist you this fine day?”
“Let me talk to the group, please.”
“Hey, everybody, the Gov has a few words.” He hit speaker and cranked up the volume. “You’re on, Governor.”
“Tank, congratulations on the graduation. Tan said you wouldn’t let the team down and you haven’t. From what the Director of the Academy tells me, you are one tough cookie, but never leave any cookies on the plate.” A rustle of laughter sounded around the table.
