And we’ll lower the price of gas to a dollar a gallon and declare beer free on Sundays.
* * *
Sarcasm aside, letting those people get scared out of their homes—or worse—didn’t sit very well with me, and I suppose I would have figured out some way to help them eventually. But it was the call I got from Shunt as we were approaching the Mexican hamlet that put juice in my battery.
“Looks like the cartel realized something’s up, boss. They just broadcast an IM that had three words: Atacar. Angel Hills.”
Attack. Angel Hills.
“My Spanish isn’t very good,” admitted Shunt. “I can’t tell if they’re ordering an attack or saying they’re being attacked.”
“I don’t think it’s going to make a difference one way or the other,” I told him, stepping on the gas.
Saul started banging on the back window. The next thing I knew, he was hanging in my face, curled around the driver’s side of the truck.
“What’s going on? What’s going on?” he shouted.
“You have to get your people out right now,” I told him. “The cartel is rallying its troops.”
“We’ll fight! We’ll fight!”
“What are you going to use? Your bare hands?”
“If we have to.”
I glanced at Saul. He had a determined scowl on his face.
“We will fight them,” he insisted.
I got back on the radio. “Junior, is the Bird above?”
“Roger that.”
“See anything?”
“Just you, trying to set a land speed record.”
“Run a wide circuit around the area, hitting the main roads. You see anything coming, yell.”
“Sure.”
“All right, here’s what you’re going to do,” I said, skidding to a stop in front of the community center. “Get everybody awake. Tell them the shit is about to hit the fan. They have two choices—run like hell through the tunnel, or stay and fight.”
“They’ll fight! They’ll fight!” yelled Saul.
“With what?” asked Veronica.
“I’m going to go take care of that right now,” I said, hopping out of the truck.
Shotgun and Veronica followed as I went back to the tailgate and dragged Celerino onto the ground.
“Stick him in that railcar below,” I told Shotgun. “Saul, round everybody up. Tell them I’ll meet them in the community center.”
Veronica was starting to have second thoughts. “Dick—”
“Take my MP5. My extra mags are in the pack.”
“It might be easier if—”
“Give her your sat phone,” I told Shotgun. “If it rings, get everyone into the tunnel and across the border. Both of you—if you’re in doubt, retreat. You hear gunfire or even think you do, run. Get through the tunnel and get out. I’ll have Shunt contact some people we trust at the Border Patrol. Shotgun, you’re with me.”
“Hot shit,” he said. “Time to blow stuff up.”
PART THREE
I would rather die standing than live on my knees.
—EMILIANO ZAPATA, REVOLUTIONARY
I
The wrecked vehicles were still hulked by the side of the road as we sped up the back road to the camp. Down at the barn, bodies were slumped where we left them, most just lying peacefully, one or two with their legs and arms at weird angles. The gray light of the false dawn made everything gray. The shadows of the nearby hills threw an ominously dark hand across the landscape. With our windows closed, we couldn’t smell the blood or even the burnt metal of the smoldering trucks, but there was no doubt that the air was heavy with it.
Sounds like a Thomas Kinkade painting, no?
I backed the pickup to the door of the barn.
“Rifles and ammo first,” I told Shotgun. “Grab some of the grenade launchers as well.”
“No machine guns?”
“I’ll get the machine guns,” I told him, jumping from the truck.
“Didn’t we close the barn door before we left?” asked Shotgun.
“I don’t think there was time.”
“I swear I closed it.”
We were too busy piling the weapons into the truck to worry about it. About midway through I stopped, found a seat in the back of the barn, and checked in with Junior and Shunt. The banditos had still not come out to the development, although there was considerable traffic on their IM system.
“I’m trying to find their cell phone network and see if I can listen in,” said Shunt. “But it’s hard by remote control from here. I have to break into the TelCel system. It’s kind of a pain, because unlike—”
“I don’t need the technical bullshit,” I told him.
Shunt’s response was drowned out by an automatic weapon firing near the front of the building.
“Shotgun, I’m on the phone!” I yelled.
“That ain’t me!” He was standing a few feet away.
A burst of bullets raked the front of the building. Shotgun and I dove to the ground simultaneously.
Ordinarily I prefer flanking attacks and similar maneuvers, tactics that might come under the heading of Hit the enemy in the balls before he realizes where you are.
But there was no way to flank our enemy now; all the doors were in the front of the building. Not only that, but we had to get back to the condos as quickly as possible.
The solution was another favorite SEAL tactic—overwhelming force.
“You cover me,” I told him, picking up one of the Mexican Xiuhcoatl FX-05s for myself. “Let’s go.”
“You got it,” said Shotgun, picking up one of the fifty-calibers and jaunting it on his hip like a Mattel toy.
Shotgun is so big he probably could have held the damn thing at his side and done a reasonable job. But even he’s not quite that foolhardy.
Besides, he could have just as much fun with grenades.
“Grenades?” he asked.
“We fire them from back here where they can’t see us,” I told him. “Take the launcher, pump a couple, then we move out. You take a SAW.”
I pointed him to an FN Minimi, known in the U.S. as an M249 Squad Automatic weapon, or SAW for short. (There are some slight differences, too trivial to get into. Yes, I used the American nickname instead of the proper nomenclature. Sue me.) Then I picked up a launcher and a pair of grenades for myself.
We fired the grenades, charging from the building behind the second salvo. No sooner did I cross the threshold of the barn than the gunfire stoked up; the grenades had failed to find their mark.
I fired off a few rounds from the Xiuhcoatl as I threw myself down into the dirt, the heavy fifty-caliber bullets beating through the building behind me. I looked for a muzzle flash in the direction the gunfire was coming from, but saw nothing.
Crawling along on my elbows, I dragged myself through the dust for a good thirty feet, moving toward the end of the dirt road and the ditch on the other side. Shotgun held his fire, and after another second or two the bastard who was shooting at us stopped as well.
“Junior, I need you to bring the Bird down here and see what we’re up against,” I told him. “The bastards have us pinned down in front of the barn.”
“I’m coming in that direction. May take a few minutes.”
I edged to my right, pulling along slowly so I didn’t make much noise. But evidently I wasn’t quiet enough—the ground began percolating with bullets. I heaved myself toward the road, rolling across it and down into the very shallow ditch alongside it.
Very shallow ditch. I had maybe three inches of cover. Another burst of gunfire rang out and I got close and personal with the earthworms.
Shotgun began firing from the other side. That took the heat off me for a moment, but when I started to peek, a fresh volley streaked within inches of my head.
“Dick, we’re coming overhead,” said Junior.
“Tell me how many. And where.”
“Hold.”
I considered telling him wha
t he could hold, but a burst of bullets to my right sent a shower of rocks over my head.
“I need to know where these bastards are now!” I snapped. I think I was loud enough that Junior could have heard me all the way back in the States even without the phone.
“One. At exactly two o’clock from your position. I can see you’re on your back. He’s up to your right.”
One?
One mf was doing this?
One?
I lifted my gun and fired a burst.
“He’s at three o’clock,” said Junior.
I adjusted and fired another few rounds. Bullets spit out of the gun.
“Moving back—at four o’clock.”
“Two, three, four, make up your damn mind,” I said, rising to my knee. I sprayed the rest of my bullets out in an arc across the field. The weapon rattled, and not in a pleasing way—that’s what I get for buying foreign.
“He’s hit,” said Junior. “He’s down.”
I reloaded and rose to my knee, looking out toward the field. Nothing moved.
“He’s flat out,” said Junior. “I think you’re good.”
Shotgun moved up from the other direction, drawing parallel with me. We waited while Junior directed the Bird to take a few more passes overhead.
“Nothing else,” he told us finally. “He hasn’t moved.”
We went over and checked on the tango. He was lying facedown, three large bullet holes in his back.
The dead man was dressed in nondescript camis, similar to the others we’d shot earlier. He had a turbanlike scarf; it seemed to be an identifier, as if all the men in charge of small teams wore them. He had a stamped Koran in his upper pocket.
Hezbollah.
I took a picture with my cell phone.
“Just a kid,” said Shotgun, looking at his face. “I don’t think he’s twenty.”
“Maybe he’s older than he looks.”
“Think he’s Arab?”
“Middle East somewhere. Hard to tell.”
“Dumb shit,” said Shotgun. He turned the body back over so he wouldn’t see the tango’s face anymore. “What a dumb shit.”
We grabbed his M16. He had several more boxes of ammo in his pockets.
“You think we missed him in the house before?” Shotgun asked as we went back to the SUV.
“Maybe. Or maybe he’s the guy who ran off to get the police. Came back to see his friends.”
“A real dumb shit.”
Junior swung the Bird back toward the development, checking the road for us and then getting over the condos. A pickup truck was approaching, just passing the Mexican hamlet.
“Nobody in the back,” said Junior. “Can’t tell how many people are in the front. It’s a two-door. I tried radioing Veronica. She must be underground; I didn’t get an answer.”
“Any markings on the truck?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Keep an eye on it. We’re on our way.”
We threw a few more boxes of ammo and rifles into the back of the pickup. Shotgun positioned himself in the front seat, gun hanging out the window, ready to fire.
“Dick, four more pickups on the way,” said Junior as we started up the back road. “Loaded with goons.”
* * *
Back in town, Veronica and Saul had split up. Veronica went to the community building to look for weapons; Saul tried to gather his neighbors.
He started by waking the Friendlys, the only family on the block where the sales office was. Then, bypassing the Mexican family on the corner whom he believed were relatives of someone in the cartel, together they woke up the Kandinskis and the Engelhardts on the next block. He skipped Herman Leferd, who lived in the corner unit and never rose much before three in the afternoon. Mr. Leferd had the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and wasn’t to be trusted with a weapon.
Two blocks over, Saul found his good friend Paul Smith awake and seemingly ready for action. Smith had been a champion skeet shooter before retiring, and Saul decided to trust him with his shotgun, at that point the group’s only firearm.
They were on their way to Marielle Hogan’s house when the small white pickup truck came around the corner.
“Get him!” yelled Saul.
Smith swung his gun in the truck’s direction and fired into the windshield. The truck skidded off the road onto a nearby lawn, crashing into the corner of the condo. The driver’s side door opened. The driver fell out on the ground, blood spurting from his head.
For a second, no one moved. Then Mrs. Kandinski, who had been a nurse before retiring, started toward the man. She had only taken a few steps when the other truck door opened. The goon who’d been the passenger lurched out of the vehicle unsteadily, an M16 in his hands. He began firing in the air.
Smith fired a second round from his shotgun. But his hands were shaking—firing at clay pigeons and firing at people are two very different things. The shot went wide; pellets sprinkled across the truck, but if any hit the goon they had no effect.
“Take cover!” yelled Saul.
He and some of the others began retreating around the nearest condo. Smith got off another round but again his bullet had little effect. Fortunately, the Mexican missed as well, probably because he’d been dazed by the accident. Smith retreated to reload, joining the rest of the group around the corner.
The collective age of the little band of Americans easily topped six hundred. Excepting Saul’s experience as a one-man neighborhood watch, none had police or military training. But they were fired up and feisty. Regrouping behind the building, Saul came up with a plan. Half of the group would lure the thug away from the pickup and his companion, while the other half circled around the buildings and made their way to the truck and the man who’d been shot. Hopefully, there would be a weapon there; once they had it, they could use it to get the drop on the bad guys.
Mrs. Kandinski and the Engelhardts trotted off to the north. Saul and Paul Smith peeked around the corner to see what the thugs were up to. The man who’d fired at them was kneeling near his fallen comrade. The wounded man was sitting near the truck. He had his hands on his forehead, where a shirt sopped up blood.
Saul told everyone who had stayed to go down the block to the Gilfeathers’ house, which was a corner unit with a good view of the street. The Gilfeathers had left some months before, but Mr. Gilfeather was reputed to be a sportsman, and Saul thought there was at least a distant chance there were weapons in the house.
“Take another shot at them,” Saul urged Smith, joining him back at the corner of the building after the others had left. “Then we’ll retreat to the Gilfeathers’.”
“I’m too far to hit them,” hissed Smith, slinking near the side of the house. “I need to get close.”
“It’s barely twenty yards,” said Saul.
“Closer to fifty!”
“You’re nearsighted. Let me shoot.”
“You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn at two feet,” declared Smith. He steadied himself on one knee despite the bad case of arthritis he had been battling for several years, sighted his shotgun, and fired.
The distance was closer to Saul’s estimate than Smith’s, but it was still a good way off. And as Saul hinted, Smith’s eyes weren’t the best. Between that and his shaking hand, his aim once more went awry. The man who’d already been wounded took the brunt of the pellets, folding over on the grass. The other Mexican, after flinching with the shot, grabbed his gun and began returning fire.
Smith fired again. This time he definitely got a piece of the gunman, who fell or threw himself down face-first but continued to fire. Saul and Smith retreated, running across the yard between the buildings to the Gilfeathers’. The others were already inside, scouring the place for weapons. They found some two-by-fours in the garage, apparently left over from the original construction.
They tried rigging the pieces against the front door to keep it from opening, propping it against the nearby stairs. They couldn’t get a snug fit
and had no tools to cut it or connect two pieces together. While they were trying to solve the problem, they heard a bang from the garage—the man with the M16 was trying to get in.
“I locked it,” said Mr. Friendly.
There was a loud burst of automatic weapons fire, followed by the sound of the door being rolled up.
“Now it’s not locked,” said Saul. He took one of the two-by-fours and wedged it in the hall against the garage door. The thug banged against the door with his shoulder once, then again.
“Back!” yelled Saul. “Into the living room.”
A second later, the thug in the garage laced the door with bullets.
“I wish I had an iron pan. I’d open the door and smack him in the head,” said Mrs. Friendly.
“Come on—out the back,” said Saul.
“I’ll get him when he comes through the door,” said Smith.
Saul was about to tell him no—they weren’t sure how many might be with the man—when the two-by-four gave way. The thug burst into the hall. Smith unloaded both barrels, and this time didn’t miss. The Mexican fell in a pool of blood.
Saul ran forward and grabbed the rifle.
“Damn. I never killed someone before,” said Smith.
“Just go! Just go!” yelled Saul. He tugged Smith and led the rest of the group to the back room, where they made their way out a window. They ran over to the Leterris’ condo, about thirty yards away.
* * *
Meanwhile, the Engelhardts and Mrs. Kandinski had circled around the block and were approaching the truck from the yard behind where it had gone off the road. The wounded thug was sitting back upright, holding the wadded shirt against his head and moaning.
He moaned even louder when Mrs. Engelhardt whacked him aside the head with a kick she had learned in tae kwon do nearly fifty years before. She’d been a much younger woman then; her knee was a little stiff now, and her thigh didn’t have quite the spring it had had back then. But the blow caught the Mexican completely by surprise and he fell over.
This put him in a perfect position for Mr. Engelhardt. Mr. Engelhardt—Big Mike to his friends—had never taken tae kwon do and in fact had been somewhat suspicious of the instructor who had taught it to his wife, as he always seemed to be offering opportunities for personal instruction. Big Mike applied his own style of kicks, mostly with his heel, as he pounded the sense out of the wounded thug.
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