State of Peril (State of Arizona Book 3)

by Doug Ball

  Vents at each end of the many gables gave him all the light he would need to move around and move around he did. At the far side he found a platform with old toys, clothes chests, and other junk piled under a heavy layer of dust. “Nobody has been up here in years,” he said out loud and immediately slapped his own mouth.

  From below him came some excited Spanish. Three or four men were running all over the level below him, yelling back and forth as they opened doors and slammed them against walls and jams. They had discovered his absence and were looking for him. ‘Now it gets tricky,’ he thought. ‘They know I am in the house, but they don’t know where.’

  He drove himself to move and find a way to get Leon loose before he died from loss of blood and shock. How would he get the nails out? Could he do it without making noise? Suddenly something changed. He listened and could hear very little noise.

  They had stopped chanting.

  The east side vent louvers were getting noticeably darker telling him that sundown was getting close. He moved to the east side, knowing it would be the dark side shortly, and began looking for a way out.

  Through the louver on that side he could see down onto the driveway. A woman and three young women were getting into a Mercedes. A man kissed the woman and hugged them all as they piled in. The car pulled out. The man followed them to the gate and closed it behind them. As he turned, Ray got a good look. “Armado Borrago,” he whispered. How he knew he did not know, he just knew.

  The man below him looked up at the louver like he had heard Ray speak. The man was stout, with a dark Mexican bandito mustache and heavy black eyebrows. Armado walked straight at him and into the house, closing the door heavily behind him and yelling at someone directly below him. “Uno cervesa por favor, pronto.”

  Ray would have liked a cold beer right then.

  He had to move around quickly to check all the louvers trying to find one that would be easy to remove. Accidentally, he found a hatch on hinges up to the roof. It lifted easily enough for him to see the horizon to the southeast, downwind. ‘This is my out,’ he thought looking around for his sharpened badminton handle.

  Now all he had to do was wait for dark.

  16

  Leon hurt all over. He was soaked with water, but in this evening heat it felt good. He tried hard to not meet the eyes of any of the men and women running around the property. Every time he did, they doused him again, spit on him, or slapped him. One of the women ripped the bandages off of the shoulder wound and stuck her finger in the bullet hole. He lost consciousness into black oblivion. If he could have talked just then, he would have said, “Thank you.”

  He missed seeing the women leave.

  #

  Miguel did not miss the women leaving. He pulled his car in front of them as they approached his position. He slowly got out of his car. Unfortunately for him, he got out on the side facing the Mercedes.

  Señora Borrago knew this culebra. She stomped the gas pedal to the floor and the snake lost its head as the door on his car was shut rather rapidly and his neck was in the way. She backed until she had room to pass and started her journey again with a slightly dented Mercedes. She decided it was time to go north, no matter the consequences. Perhaps, political asylum in return for the information she would gladly share. The young women in the back replaced their guns in their purses and Mama turned toward the border to a road she remembered from her childhood. The Sasabe store would be her next stop.

  #

  Armado heard the cars collide and watched the dust cloud heading north and knew she had been ambushed, but recovered. Now he had to get out of this alive. And, if he did, El Trinchante would hunt him down and kill him if it took his last peso.

  He called his Segundo.

  While he waited, he checked the automatic on his hip and his hideout gun up his sleeve.

  “Si Patrón, you wanted me?”

  “Yes, how loyal are you to me?”

  The Segundo was puzzled. Was his Patrón trying to test him or was he getting ready for a coup against El Trinchante? “I am your Segundo, Patrón. I am for you against the world.”

  “El Trinchante is finished since he lost the border of Arizona. We have not been able to make steady routes into the state since the war. I think maybe we can do better on our own. He has over 200 soldados to come after us. I think he will only send 100, no more. He must have many to protect his puny interests in New Mexico, a territory he shares with three others. They will kill him if he sends all his soldados.”

  “Si Patrón. I know these things. What can we do?”

  “We have 52 men here if you and I fight.”

  “We will fight.”

  “Bueno. Let us get ready. Alert the choppers and have them ready to fight ground personnel. Their job will be strafing and maybe the taking out one old chopper.”

  #

  Tan looked around to get what might be his last Arizona sunset. He then called his wife. She answered on the second ring. “Hello there, Marine.”

  “Well, hi to you, too, Wavey Navy.”

  “When you gonna be home, lover? It’s lonely here alone with three little boys and one something on the way. I’d like to see my big boy for a change.”

  “I should be home tomorrow evening at the latest. Tying up loose ends tonight and tomorrow, and then I head home. I’ll keep ya posted.”

  “You sound tired, lover.”

  “Dear lady of mine, I am a Marine. Marines are never tired. Marines only reinforce their physical training with tactical exercise, don’t ya know?”

  “Sounds like a crock to me. Wait a minute. Are you going into another shoot’em up?”

  “Who me? I retired from all that crap, remember.”

  “Sounds like phony denial to me.”

  “Denial is a river in Egypt.”

  “Baloney. You get yourself killed and I promise you I will never name this next child after your Mom or Dad.”

  “You wouldn’t dare. Would you?”

  “Just try me.”

  “Well, I love ya and I gotta run.”

  “Watch that leg, it isn’t healed all the way yet, and keep your butt down. I don’t need a Forrest Gump wound to explain to my kids.”

  “Love ya, babe.”

  “I love you, too, Jarhead.”

  Tan looked around to see if anyone could see the tear in his eye before he brushed it aside.

  #

  Ray watched from his attic perch as the compound was turned into a fighting ground. The yard ornaments and chairs were moved into positions near the inside of the wall so anyone coming over the wall had a chance of hitting them and breaking something. None of them would be worth beans as a bullet stopper. Shrubs and small plants were removed. Spot lights were set up to pour light on the walls from the inside should they be breached or climbed. Outside the walls the lights were turned to aim further out. All the booby traps and trip wires had been checked when the hunt for he and Leon was set up.

  Ray was amazed at the armament they pulled into the house from the small barn looking building which Ray had taken for a workshop until now. The windows in the downstairs and upstairs were removed allowing them to be firing ports. From the sounds of the floor below him, they had some heavy guns set in some of the windows. In the distance he heard the spooling of a chopper. “Oh, damn, they are going to use the chopper on whoever they are getting ready for. I hope it isn’t a rescue attempt. I don’t want any more folks dying for my foolish attempt at revenge.” Ray was at the point he did not care if anyone heard him. He just wanted to kill that one man down there.

  Just as Ray was about to give up on stealth and try something for an attack, all the lights inside the compound went out. Only the lights facing outside the walls were still lit. From where he was, he could see for at least a mile and there was nothing there new to see.

  #

  El Trinchante was fuming. His three best men had died in a barroom fight. The squad of men he sent to kill the killers had not returned. He had no
choice but to write them off. He did not realize that the large number of men he thought he had were no longer anywhere near him.

  Eduardo sat in the corner along with the new bodyguard playing cribbage. El Trinchante said, “Can you two do nothing but riffle the cards and count your silly numbers?”

  “Sorry, Patrón. We are just killing time,” Eduardo said in reply.

  “I am about to kill someone or something. Where are my Segundos?”

  “We don’t know, Patrón. Where did you send them?” He stood, glaring at the Patrón with hard eyes.

  “You are being loco to talk to me in that tone, Eduardo. I can kill you at my leisure.”

  “Like you did my brothers, sending them to the north to be killed.”

  “They were fools or they would be alive.”

  Eduardo stood, laying the cards on the table. He slowly turned to the Patrón, “Por favor, Patrón, do not call my brothers fools. They were your best men. We would have followed you to the portals of Hell. I am all you have left.”

  “You are not that good, mijo.”

  “Patrón, you call me child, now watch what I am going to do to prove I am best.”

  Eduardo lifted his left hand. It held a gun, a gun with a dark cylinder attached. The dark cylinder spewed red three times perfectly aimed with the three ffftt’s of sound that filled the room with the smell of gunpowder burning. El Trinchenté fell to the floor leaking blood from three holes in his chest each over his heart. Eduardo walked calmly over and put the fourth round in the Patrón’s left ear.

  “Call the rest of the compañeros and we will divide the money from the safe and go home. This man is no longer of importance.”

  #

  At the hacienda of Borrago the phone buzzed quietly in Armado’s pocket. He flipped it open, “Hola!”

  “Señor Borrago?”

  “Si.”

  “You don’t know me, mi amigo, but your enemy is my enemy and he is dead.”

  “And, who is this enemy you speak of, amigo?”

  “El Trinchante.”

  “And, how did our enemy die, Señor?”

  “Many perforations of the chest and head.”

  “I am not sure that is good news, mi amigo. He was my Patrón.” Armado was thinking this may be a trap to see if he was loyal. “How do I know he is dead? And, why should I not kill you for killing my Patrón?”

  “You don’t know who I am and I will tell you that Miguel was told to kill your family if they tried to leave, mi amigo.”

  “I see. My family is not dead. Miguel is muerto. He was in an automobile accident.”

  “Ah, so sad, my friend. Adios.” The line went dead.

  Armado was thinking. ‘Is this a trick?’ he asked himself. He hit his Patrón’s number on the speed dial. The phone rang and rang. No one answered. He waited a few minutes and called again. Same results.

  He relaxed. Stepping out the door, he called, “Segundo.”

  There was celebration on the grounds of the hacienda that afternoon and well into the night. It was not much of a party, there was no alcohol served or allowed. “We may be in business later tonight. I have product to move.”

  #

  The sun was down and the sky slightly overcast giving the countryside an eerie appearance as Tan walked among the group of armed individuals at the jump off point along the border. There was a truck, his truck, aimed south across the fence as directed by the Governor. He tried to call her, but got no answer.

  Each man in the group did whatever was his ritual just before combat as they waited for the car lights signal to produce the promised men. Some told jokes, one man appeared to be asleep, two played cards on the tailgate of a Border Patrol pickup under the glow of a cargo light, and Tan paced.

  #

  At the house outside Nueva Casas Grandes the body of El Trinchante stiffened on the floor. His current lady was laying at the bottom of the pool. The guards had all gone home. In the servant’s quarters, all was quiet with two bodies on the floor of the kitchen. A small fire at the top of a candle burned in the corner of the storage room attached to El Trinchante’s home. Under the candle was a collection of gasoline soaked materials.

  As the candle burned, the flame got closer and closer to the fumes of the gasoline, until finally there was a quiet whoosh and the room was lit up like the night before the homecoming game’s bonfire. The flames slowly spread through the remaining product and up the walls until the entire home and attached rooms were alight and sending a major signal to the surrounding countryside that said, “El Trinchante is dead. The fear is over. You may all rest until another drug lord sets up shop here again.”

  Many of the locals were unhappy because their income, a very good income, was finished. They would now have to work for a living. Others were overjoyed because vengeance had been served.

  Nobody lifted a hand to put out the fire. A few met at the mission church and lit a candle in memory of the people the Patrón had killed.

  #

  Ray figured it was dark enough even though he could not figure out what happened that the men went inside and laughed a lot. There were a few rounds fired into the sky. Three men had stood twenty feet away from Leon and fired their automatics, betting on who could get the closest to Leon’s head without hitting him. The winner collected $20 USD from each of the two losers.

  The louver kicked out easily allowing him to wiggle through and begin the climb to the ground. He found nothing to climb as he sat in the opening. He found a slight ledge over a window below him and was able to turn around facing the wall standing on the ledge. He got both hands on the bottom of the opening, kicked out, and dropped to the ground hoping there was no one looking out the window as he fell. Hitting the ground he rolled backwards out into the open ground. He laid flat on his belly, holding his badminton racket handle, and looked around to get his bearings.

  The steps of someone coming drove him into the bushes next to the window still on his belly. Two men walked past laughing at the man suffering at the tree. When they got clear, Ray got up and calmly walked to the tree. “You awake?”

  “Why? You don’t want to torture me if I am asleep?”

  “No, Leon, I want to get you lose.”

  “Ray?”

  “Yeah. That would be me. I don’t know what to do with you after you are loose. I can’t carry you to the gate and out. The gate has guards on it. There is no way I can get you over the fence. What do you think? Can you walk?”

  “With these holes in my feet and a couple broken bones because of the nails, probably not very well, but I will try.”

  “Okay. The knots are too tight, I cannot untie them. Even if I did, how do I get the nails out.” He stopped and thought. “You wait right here. I’ll go find some tools.”

  “Where am I gonna go, Ray? See if you can find some painkillers, too, lots of painkillers”

  Ray walked calmly back to the wall of the house and into the bushes there. He drew the layout of the hacienda in his head trying to figure where any tools might be. He remembered the locked building he saw as they were marched in. There was another smaller building toward the back of the compound that might be a shop, but that was on the far side from where he was. Tucking his racket handle up his sleeve, he stepped into the open and walked like he knew where he was going and why.

  He passed a guard standing near a door. The guard said nothing as he passed. Ray had his hand on the sharpened steel the whole journey. As he stepped up to the door, he saw it was not locked. He stepped in.

  Inside there was light. There were tools. There was a man working on a pump of some kind. The man turned and received the steel through his sternum and out his backbone. He made no noise as he slumped to the floor where Ray pulled out the racket handle. The door had a knob that could be locked from the inside, he locked it.

  The man was dead when Ray checked him, so he dragged the body to the far corner. Against one wall was an AK 47 and on the floor beside it was a combat vest with four magazin
es for the gun. Now all he needed were the tools to get Leon loose. He started looking.

  A carpet knife with a retractable blade went in his pocket followed by a large pair of electrician’s pliers. The nails they had used to pin him to the tree were the real problem until he saw a set of bolt cutters with handles 3 feet long that looked brand new. It would not be new by the time he cut the heads off of four large nails. Some paint thinner in a one gallon can was added to his loot, along with a cheap butane lighter he found on the work bench. It was time to get moving.

  He unlocked the door and opened it slightly to look outside. The grounds were crawling with men, most of which were armed. “Damn, now I either have to really put it on the line, or wait. I’ll wait for a while.” He closed and locked the door.

  Within minutes someone tried the handle and shouted, “Arturo, are you in there?” Getting no response the man left.

  17

  At 8:30 PM a voice came out of the darkness, “You want to come play with us, Señors, or would you rather we went home?”

  “Come on in and let’s give this some thought,” yelled Tan.

  Within ten seconds the men in Tan’s group were surrounded by men in black night camo. Each was armed and most had night vision or infrared gear on their helmets. “I am called One. I am in charge. This man is Two, and the short one over there is Three. Our unit is not very original and each is named with a number. You see, we are just figments of your imagination. Spiderman sent us after he whipped the Silver Surfer this afternoon. Are we ready to go play with Señor Borrago?”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet with my figments. We are ready. Warn your men we may have some coming up behind us who have not arrived as yet.”

  “Why not just leave them a note to wait here for the extraction?”

  Tan wrote three notes and stuck one under a wiper blade on each of three vehicles.

  “We are ready. How do you want to do this?”

  Ten minutes later they were all on the same page and moving south toward the hacienda of Borrago. Two of the men in black moved ahead of the man body to keep the crowd from surprises.