Spectre Black

by J. Carson Black

  Jeri led them to the barn. It was like a hundred barns Landry had seen before. Open doors on both ends. A row of four stalls on one side, and three stalls and a tack room on the other. The stalls on each side were grouped together, making for a wide central aisle.

  The barn was massive and very old, and had been modified to stable horses—a relic from an earlier era now utilized in a different way.

  The stalls were pipe fence construction. The floor was concrete and covered by a thick layer of raked dirt sprayed down with water.

  They walked back outside after the short tour. The house must have been built about the same time as the barn. Old, stuccoed adobe. A late-sixties-model Chevy Malibu, primer-gray, sat next to an eighties-model Ford truck. The Chevy had new tires, a yellow front fender, and was jacked up just a little in back.

  “The Chevy run?” Landry asked.

  “Nope. It’s my brother’s car—he’s thinking of selling it.” She eyed the muscle car, decided she might have someone on the hook. “You interested? It would be worth a lot if it was cherry.”

  “No.”

  They talked horses for a bit. Jeri handed Jolie her card, telling her how well one of her stallions had done at Sunland Park. She concentrated on the woman because it was usually the woman who one, loved horses and two, made the big purchases. She told Jolie how exciting it was to get into racing. Nothing like it, she said. Jeri was sorry she didn’t have any horses to meet their needs. Racing was their emphasis, but most of these horses were trained for riding.

  “One down,” Landry said as they drove away.

  The second ranch was abandoned. Since the last Google Earth shot, the roof of the farmhouse had caved in. Not only that, but it was too small to hide an underground vault for three semis inside.

  The barn was equally impossible—filled to the brim with rubble and junk. Someone had shuttled half a house into the barn and left it there.

  “Makes me think of farmers leaving the Dust Bowl back in the thirties,” Jolie said. “Snake eyes. Now what?”

  “They’ve got the trucks hidden somewhere,” Landry said. “Maybe they’re still in Branch.”

  “Where they always were. Inside those vaults in Hangar B.”

  Landry thought about the levers that had been removed out of the cabinet at Denboer’s farm, the loose wires. He didn’t think there was any other way to open up the doors to the vaults.

  But maybe they’d had a second junction box. Someone could do it from a distance by punching in a code.

  Jolie seemed to read his mind. “No matter how you slice it, they had it covered. I hope we didn’t miss them—I’d really like to see what they’re like.”

  “We will,” Landry said. “All we have to do is wait.”

  “Yeah. If this is where they’re headed.”

  Chapter 34

  Landry and Jolie drove down through the town of Columbus, New Mexico, before hitting flat desert again. They reached the outskirts of the other, smaller portion of Columbus, this one situated right on the border with Mexico. They met up with Eric at a rest area a half mile from Columbus.

  The rest area was no more than a picnic table chained to a garbage barrel, a healthy-looking yucca, and a shack marked “WOMEN” on one side and “ME” on the other—the “N” was gone.

  “‘Me,’” Eric said. “Nice of them to make it so exclusive.”

  “Very funny,” Jolie said, “Better keep your day job.” She consulted her phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “This is the time to alert the Border Patrol,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t,” Landry said.

  “We need to. For one thing, if they see a gun battle on the border, how are they going to know who the bad guys are?”

  She had a point. Landry said, “What if they see us engage and they think we’re the bad guys?”

  “I flash my badge.”

  “You think they’re gonna wait for you to hold it up?”

  “They’ll know I’m there. Or I could meet up with them ahead of time.”

  Landry shrugged. “Then you tell them what to look for and let them handle it. I don’t want to be part of a free-for-all. Everyone shooting at everyone else. That’s a good way to get killed.”

  “I’ll tell them who we are.”

  “And who is that?”

  Jolie had no answer. Finally, she said, “I don’t mention you.”

  “Which will make us sitting ducks.”

  “They should be there. It’s their job. Whether we contact them or not, they’ll be there. They’re right on the border, they patrol it day and night.”

  “Okay,” Landry said. “We’ll monitor the situation. Where will they be?”

  “I’m assuming right on the border. A show of force.”

  “The runners will spot them. They’ll just turn the trucks around and go back. Wait for another time.”

  Jolie had no answer to that, either.

  But she was a cop, first and foremost, and so ultimately, she made the call. She used her burner phone. Gave her badge number and her real name. Told them she had reason to believe, from a CI she’d been working with, that three or more semis would try to penetrate the border into Palomas carrying arms. She gave them the approximate time range.

  “Think they’ll respond?” Landry asked when she ended the call.

  “Oh, they’ll respond, in one manner or other. Either with a show of force or with one car. But we can’t leave it to them—if the agent talks to the Branch Sheriff’s Department, all bets are off.”

  “What I was thinking,” Eric said.

  “Look at it this way,” Jolie said. “It’s their job to take care of it. Which means we won’t have to.”

  “If they take care of it,” Landry said. “We’ll still have to be there to see that they do.”

  Eric said, “No matter what, we make our own plan.”

  Landry said, “Agreed.”

  From here they would split up. Jolie would go with Eric—it was a two-man job to find the right side street—while Landry scouted a place to set up his G3. It would be difficult, because the land was as flat as a Monopoly board. Looking for high ground was pointless.

  Once he found that place, he would come back to the highway and watch for the trucks to come through.

  He drove into the truncated version of Columbus. He looked at Google Maps and put himself in the place of Denboer and his crew, and immediately saw the best way for the trucks to get through. The second option wasn’t even close. Landry needed a spot where he would have a clear shot at the area along the border fence. He’d need elevation.

  After driving around for a half hour, Landry found the only good place to set up: a well-water-pipe access shed caged by a chain-link fence. The shed had a mild pitch to the roof, which would be useful. The slope of the roof would conceal him from the border fence.

  The watershed was deserted, as these sheds usually were. Landry easily defeated the padlock holding the chain to the post and the gate, and clambered up onto the roof. He rested the tripod of his sniper rifle on the down-slope of the roof, looked through it. A clear shot. The shed was ideal. It was approximately eight hundred yards from the most likely access area—no problem for his G3.

  That done, Landry returned to the rest area. He needed to be there when the trucks came through. One, to see who was escorting them, and two, to take out one or more of them if he could.

  He knew that by now, Jolie and Eric would be in position. In an ideal world, Landry would manage to leave them with nothing to do. Either the Border Patrol would take care of it, or he would. But if he couldn’t get his shot, if the Border Patrol didn’t come, Jolie and Eric could handle the situation.

  They had surprise on their side.

  Back at the rest area, Landry stood by the side of the road and glassed the highway be
tween the north section of Columbus and the section of Columbus on the border. So far, it was empty. There had been very few cars.

  This was the first place to engage.

  He glanced around, looking for places to mount an ambush. There were a few low bushes but they were burro brush, small little clumps close to the ground. He drove the Challenger around back of the restrooms, parked, and waited.

  Forty minutes later he heard cars coming. Not just cars: the mosquito whine of dune buggies, tearing across the desert. And big engines on the road. He knew what they were: runner cars. They were there to protect the trucks: the three big semis barreling down the highway to the border. Landry stepped behind the restrooms, trained his binocs on one of the cars—a beater with a big engine. Still far out but noisy as hell.

  They would run interference with anyone or any entity in their way. By attracting attention to themselves, creating diversions, or—

  Ready for an outright gun battle.

  The road cars zipped by, but returned a few minutes later, heading back in the direction they’d come from. The dune buggies circled back around, too.

  Soon even their sound was gone.

  For a while, there was quiet.

  But Landry knew the trucks would be coming. They weren’t all that far down the road.

  It was late afternoon now. The grassland here was studded by low bushes. From a distance, a prone human would not be seen. A head and torso could easily be mistaken for a small bush. They would be round, dark shadows dotting the grassland, just like every other round, dark shadow out there.

  No cars at all, at the moment.

  Landry decided to cross the road and scout for a better position to engage the caravan that was most certainly coming. The opposite side of the road was the ideal place to shoot from because at that point, the highway bent in a westerly direction. Anyone driving toward him from either direction would have a hard time seeing—the sun would be in his or her eyes.

  The grassland was tinged gold but would soon turn to gray.

  He looked in both directions, saw nothing, and walked to the edge of the road. He kept his weapon at his side, always looking to blend in, just a guy walking across the road, maybe to look for a place to take a few pictures of the desert. The sun’s red eye seemed to burst behind his eyeballs. In this light, the sun would be in the driver’s eyes. Anyone coming down from the north would have a hard time seeing him.

  But just as he stepped onto the verge, a gust of wind hit him.

  Chapter 35

  Landry stepped back—almost as if he’d been pushed back by the blast of warm air.

  He had the sensation of something big rushing past—

  Then it was gone.

  He knew what it was.

  He’d recognized the sound of the big rig’s engine, if not the intensity.

  They must have found a way to muffle the noise.

  He squinted in the direction the truck had gone and thought he saw a tall oblong that could have been the landscape but was slightly out of kilter, moving independently from the grassland and road around it—defined by negative space.

  Like a mirror made of old wavy glass walking itself down the road.

  It receded into the red haze as if it wasn’t there at all.

  By the time the second semi blew through, Landry was lying flat on the dirt by the side of the road, sheltered by a clump of burro brush. This time he had already been looking north, but saw nothing—

  And then, mud flaps, slapping in the wind of the semi’s passing, right past his ear. The high-pitched drill of big tires on the pavement, chains rattling and swaying on the chain-hangers.

  He did not move, remained prone. Waited for the third rig.

  And waited.

  Ten seconds.

  Thirty seconds.

  A minute.

  The third one was late.

  This was good.

  He went around the restrooms and started up the Dodge Challenger. He patted the steering wheel and said to the car, “I hate to do this.”

  It was hard to see, but his binocs locked on something. Coming. Like wind pushing down the highway. Impossible to see from this distance, but the runner cars were back—a dune buggy driving the desert on one side, and another car opposite. He could see the dust billowing up behind them.

  Running interference.

  He had to go by the runner cars. They would be his signal. But they weren’t here yet.

  Landry had to time it perfectly.

  He measured the distance between the cars and where he was. They would be abreast of the invisible semi truck.

  If he went too soon, they would be able to stop the truck.

  If he went too late, the semi would bulldoze into him and turn the Challenger into a crushed tin can.

  He revved the engine. Drove onto the verge. Waited. And waited some more. They had reached the place where the road bent toward the west, into the eye of the sun.

  This wouldn’t work if they saw him.

  Landry had utilized the knowledge more than once during his time in Iraq: It takes a loaded semi truck driving sixty-five miles per hour under ideal conditions approximately 316 feet to stop completely. Nearly the entire length of a football field.

  As the runner cars and the virtually invisible truck approached, Landry counted down in his head. One-one-hundred, two-one-hundred, three-one-hundred.

  The runner cars keeping apace. Landry had to get past them, and hope they were still abreast of the thing he could not see.

  The smallest mistake, and he was a dead man.

  Now!

  His foot jammed the gas pedal hard to the floor and the Challenger slewed onto the road. Slammed on the brakes, dead center, the grille on one side and back bumper on the other. Pulled on the door handle, shoved the heavy door open, and dove out of the car.

  A little bit of a slope on the other side—

  Rolled.

  Right into a bush. Skidded down past it and lay on the ground like a lizard flat to a screen door.

  He heard the hiss of air brakes, the stuttering screech of rubber as the semi stood on its tires, the cars out in the desert driving diagonally in the road’s direction, slewing through the dirt, fountains of dust shooting from under their tires—

  Destruction in slow motion.

  Landry’s mind ticked through the phases.

  The truck would skid. The truck box would torque sideways, arresting forward motion. It would try to topple on its side.

  Landry peered through the brush. He was right about that. The truck, barely visible, seemed to tremble in the air like a rectangular heat wave, canting to the right, the mesh of screaming metal and crunching truck body sounding like the death throes of a dinosaur. It was monumental.

  The box toppled and slid, skidded the few feet to smack right into the cab, ramming into the back, crushing the life out of whoever was within.

  Landry didn’t wait to see the leviathan come to rest. He was already halfway up the low rise on the other side, keeping low and to the bushes, rifle slung over his back and his H&K in his hand.

  By the time he reached his new hiding place among the burro brush, he could look back at the chaos.

  More cars slewed to a stop near the big rig. Landry watched them through his rifle scope. Recognized the chase cars: a jacked-up four-wheel-drive truck with KC roof lights.

  And a souped-up primer-gray car.

  The car was a 1960s-era Chevy Malibu complete with a yellow-painted front panel.

  Landry watched as the driver got out and walked over to survey the damage along with the rest of them.

  Slim figure. T-shirt, jeans, running shoes. Attractive.

  Long brown hair in a ponytail.

  Jeri.

  It all clicked into place: the temporary pipe fencing in a barn tha
t in retrospect seemed way too big for its function; the concrete pad covered over with a thick layer of dirt; the primer-gray car with the yellow fender panel.

  The horse farm.

  The semis had been hidden right under their feet. If he’d paid more attention, if he’d kicked up the layer of dirt from the cement floor . . .

  Regrets never got you anywhere.

  He called in to Jolie and to Eric.

  “We’re down to two trucks now,” he said.

  “Two trucks,” Jolie said to Eric.

  They were sitting in the Dodge Ram truck, one among a handful of cars parked in the Columbus Port of Entry lot.

  This side of the border was virtually deserted. There was a small neighborhood north of the port of entry farther north on Highway 11, but the area on the US side of the border was sparse. No way they would miss any vehicles coming their way. The trucks might be invisible—it was dusk now and hard to see—but the runner cars around them would soon have to use their headlights, or at least their parking lights. They were counting on that.

  Every second that ticked by brought them closer to darkness. In this case, darkness was better.

  Their theory was that the trucks would turn west on the road bordering the north end of the port of entry parking lot.

  “See any Border Patrol?” Eric asked.

  “Just those two in the parking lot.” Most of the Border Patrol cars had peeled out twenty minutes before, after the collision on the highway. Landry was keeping them informed.

  It hadn’t just been Border Patrol. It had been Luna County Sheriff’s. It had been Columbus PD municipal cars and emergency vehicles of every stripe—

  Although they were few enough down here.

  “Their attention will be on the truck,” Eric the Red said. “Every emergency vehicle for miles will be drawn to the scene.”

  “Leaves it to us,” Jolie said.

  He made a noise in his throat—agreement.

  “Except for whoever’s patrolling the border,” Jolie added. Border Patrol trucks patrolled the border area every thirty minutes. You could set your watch by them. One Border Patrol agent to a car, Jolie thought, although it was getting too dark to see.