Border Offensive

by Don Pendleton

  “I will be silent,” Abbas said. “But if they seek to betray us—”

  “Then they will. Ma’sa’Allah.” Tumart idly genuflected. “My plan—”

  “Our plan,” Abbas said. Tumart let it pass.

  “Our plan hinges on this moment. We will not get another.”

  “Then you had best see to its success.”

  “That is what you are paying me for,” Tumart said.

  * * *

  IN THE TOWN, men watched the approaching jeep with hooded eyes. “They’re here, Django,” someone said. And the man known as Django Sweets tipped the frayed edge of his cowboy hat up, out of his narrow face, and grinned.

  He was a rawboned individual, and, at a distance, easily mistaken for the stereotypical cowboy. He sat up, the worn-down heels of his cowboy boots snapping against the wood of the floor. He adjusted the hang of the shoulder holster he wore under his denim jacket and stepped outside the empty cantina.

  “How many?” he said.

  “Three.” The man standing nearby turned. He sniffed and rubbed his nose. “Damn ragheads.”

  “Shut up,” Sweets said. “Don’t insult our guests, Franco. We all need this score.”

  “So you say,” Franco said.

  “So my bank balance says. Yours, too,” Sweets said. “Where’s Digger?”

  “He’s, ah, he’s upstairs with that woman he brought,” Franco said hesitantly. Sweets frowned.

  “Go get him. I want his ass down here. He should be finished by now anyway.”

  “Man...” Franco had turned pale.

  “Get him,” Sweets snarled. “Now, Franco!” Franco bobbed his head and moved back into the cantina. Sweets watched him go, then strode out, hands stuffed in the pockets of his coat. He walked out into the middle of the street and waited as the jeep pulled to a halt a few feet away. Its engine clicked as it cooled.

  Tumart stood and leaned over the windshield. “No party? No welcoming committee?”

  “Figured you wanted to keep this low key,” Sweets said, spreading his arms. “I got some refreshments, though.”

  “We do not drink,” Abbas said, stepping out of the jeep. Sweets looked at him, then at Tumart.

  “Means more for me, then. Leave your guns.”

  “But—” Abbas began to protest, his hand inching toward the Glock holstered on his hip. Fahd barked at him in Arabic, and the Saudi grimaced. Tumart snatched his pistol out of the holster before he could protest and tossed it into the back of the jeep.

  “Our driver will stay here,” Tumart said, handing his own weapon to Fahd. “Are there any objections, Mr. Sweets?”

  “It’s your dime, Mr. Tuerto,” Sweets replied, using Tumart’s alias. Tumart smiled.

  “Excellent. I may have to add that colloquialism to my repertoire.”

  “This way if you please, gen’lmen.” Sweets turned back to the cantina and led the two inside. “We got business to discuss.”

  * * *

  UPSTAIRS, FRANCO APPROACHED the door to Digger’s room with what he would have hastily denied as trepidation in different company. “Digger? You in there?” Franco said, knocking lightly on the door. The cantina had a second floor with four rooms, one of which had been taken over by the man called Digger earlier in the day.

  Such as with all criminals, human traffickers like coyotes had a pecking order. There were those like Sweets, who had some organizational ability and charisma, and those like Franco, who kept their heads down and collected their money.

  Then there were those like Digger.

  His real name was Philo Sweets though no one ever called him that. He was just...Digger. Not even Grave Digger, which would have made sense given certain rumors. Just Digger. A coyote, like any other, except he was Django’s baby brother and sometimes his cargo didn’t make it where it was supposed to go. Then, accidents did happen and no one wanted to think about it too much. Especially not Franco. Sweets wouldn’t hear a word said against Digger, and he’d buried men who had a mind to take a run at his brother. The door creaked open at the touch of Franco’s knuckles. He hesitated, licking his lips. There was a smell, like spoiled meat, and the whisper of voices. “Digger?”

  Bedsprings whined, followed by the sound of bare feet on wood. Franco stepped back. Digger pulled the door open. He was handsome, in a chunky way. Just a tad too much excess weight to be Hollywood pretty, but under the fat was muscle. A lot of it, packed into close to seven feet of height. He smiled childishly, his eyes unfocused.

  “Hi, Franco,” he said. His voice was light, like a much younger, smaller man’s. There were dark stains on his cheeks.

  “Digger, Sweets wants you downstairs,” Franco said quickly. Digger frowned.

  “I’m busy.”

  “Now,” Franco said, trying to put some steel in his voice. Digger’s lip wobbled. His fingers, where they clutched the door, were red.

  “But I’m busy,” he said again. “Django said I could stay up here. And I’m busy.”

  “Yeah, I know. But now he wants you downstairs,” Franco said, trying to ignore the slow trickle of red that slithered down the surface of the door. “The ragheads are here.” Digger shook his head, as if trying to clear it.

  “The—” He took a breath. “Yeah, okay. I’m coming. Just need to clean up.” He closed the door in Franco’s face without waiting for a reply. Franco, feeling faintly ill, didn’t wait for him, and started back down the stairs.

  As Franco retreated, Digger closed the door and turned to survey the room. It was empty, but for a bed and a bureau and a cracked and rusting sink. And the woman, of course. There was always a woman.

  But no black bird.

  Digger frowned and looked at his hands. There was a crust beneath his nails, his skin was crimson to the elbow, and his mind felt fuzzy. It was a familiar feeling. He dragged the back of his forearm across his face. “I’m sorry,” he said to the woman on the bed. “I just wanted to see.”

  She didn’t reply. Not strange, considering that she had been dead for an hour. What was left of her was hardly recognizable as the woman she had been.

  Digger looked at his handiwork, and a flush of shame squirted through him. “I didn’t mean to,” he whined, gathering up his tools and taking them to the sink. He washed them quickly, then his hands. “I just wanted to see the black bird,” he continued. “I have to see it again.”

  He wrapped his tools up—his knives and his hooks—and set them gently into his satchel. He gave it a fond, almost guilty pat, and began cleaning himself.

  “My mother showed it to me, the first time. The black bird,” he said. “It whispered things to me but I can’t remember them. You understand.” He glanced at the ruin on the bed. “I keep looking for it, but I can’t find it.” He paused. “Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place.”

  Cleaned and dressed, he left the room, carefully shutting the door behind him.

  Downstairs, Franco took a seat at the bar as Digger came down not long after, looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Sweets nodded to his brother as he led his guests inside and motioned toward a table.

  At another table in the corner, two other men sat. Like Franco and Digger, they had the look of rough men. A Mossberg shotgun sat on the table in front of one. The other was spinning the cylinder on a .38. They eyed the newcomers with interest, but otherwise didn’t react.

  “So,” Sweets said, plopping himself down in his chair once more. Tumart sat opposite him.

  “So.”

  Sweets leaned forward. “I’ve talked to several of my, ah, peers. There are niblets of interest.”

  “Niblets?” Tumart said, amused.

  “Mostly for the money.” Sweets leaned back, fingers interlacing behind his head. He swung his boots up on the table, eliciting a grunt of disgust from Abbas.

>   “Well. That is good news. How many?” Tumart said, ignoring Abbas.

  “Ten. Me, Franco there. Henshaw and Morris.” As Sweets said the latter, he motioned toward the two men in the corner. “My baby brother, there. And four to arrive tomorrow.”

  “Ten. And ten men each.” Tumart sat back. He frowned and glanced at Abbas, who nodded. “That will work, I believe.” He looked back at Sweets. “Your men know what to do? What we need them to do?”

  “You need us to get them boys across the border at different points, mixed in among the usual assortment of wetbacks. From there, we head into the Yoo-nited States proper,” the man with the .38 said. He popped the cylinder closed and scratched his unshaven cheek with the barrel. “Easy peasy.”

  “Yes,” Tumart said, looking at the speaker. The man did not inspire confidence. Still, one worked with what one had. “Fine. You’ll be paid when each group reaches their destination.”

  “Nope,” Franco said. “All up front, or we ain’t going nowhere.”

  “You—” Abbas rose to his feet, groping for the pistol that wasn’t there. Tumart grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

  “And that’s why we didn’t let you bring weapons,” Sweets said. Tumart inclined his head.

  “Wise move. No.”

  “No?”

  “No. After.” Tumart knocked on the table with his knuckles. Sweets frowned and swung his legs off the table.

  “I heard you guys liked to haggle...”

  “Us guys?” Tumart said.

  “Ragheads,” Franco supplied. Tumart glanced at him. He made a pistol with his fingers and pointed at the man.

  “I am starting to dislike you.”

  “I’ll live,” Franco grunted.

  “The day is yet young,” Tumart said. “No dickering. The agreed-upon offer was after.”

  “Maybe we’d like to renegotiate,” Sweets said. Tumart nodded, as if this made sense. Then, smoothly, he was up, over and onto the table before anyone could react, a leaf-shaped blade sliding from his sleeve and dropping into his palm. The tip of the blade poked Sweets’s Adam’s apple, eliciting a thin trickle of blood. The other coyotes reacted slowly, aiming weapons in a general fashion. Tumart ignored them.

  “You should have frisked me. Negotiations are closed,” Tumart said, pressing lightly.

  “Maybe,” Sweets said. Tumart looked down. Sweets’s hand held an M-9 Parabellum pistol, and it was pressed to the other man’s crotch.

  “Ah,” Tumart said. “Well. This is awkward.”

  “Yeah, you done made your point,” Sweets said.

  “Ha.” Tumart raised the blade slightly and slid back, getting off the table. “Would you settle for half and half?”

  “That seems fair.”

  Chapter 4

  Bolan watched the natural beauty of the Sonoran Desert roll past as James drove. It never failed to amaze the man known as the Executioner that the same world that could produce men like those he fought could also hold sights like this. He wouldn’t go as far as to say that it was life affirming, but it was close enough for him.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t want to talk to your own people,” Bolan said without turning around.

  James started, as if deep in thought. “What?”

  “About me,” Bolan said, turning away from the window.

  James laughed. “Yeah, that would have accomplished a lot, wouldn’t it?” he said snarkily.

  “I could have been anybody,” Bolan said.

  “You’ve got an honest face, my friend.” The agent grinned at him, and then shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I’m just too trusting, right?”

  “Maybe,” Bolan said, eyeing the man. He had pegged James right, he knew. Like Bolan, the younger man played fast and loose with proper procedure in favor of getting things done, even if it meant possibly endangering himself. It was for that very reason that Bolan had decided to deal himself in. If things went wrong, at least he would be there to play damage control and maybe keep the feisty young man alive. And if that wasn’t enough...well, bravado aside, there wasn’t much that the Executioner couldn’t handle, one way or another. “Still, your superiors won’t be happy...”

  “Ah, Greaves is a good guy, but he’s out of his depth,” James said. “Jim Greaves, I mean, my handler. Dude’s so tight he craps diamonds, you know?” He hesitated. “Not literally, mind.”

  “I know,” Bolan said, ignoring the joke. He’d met his fair share of government desk jockeys in his time who had little understanding of how things worked in the field. He’d also met his fair share of men forced into a command position that they were supremely unqualified for. “What about the Interpol contingent?”

  James made a rude noise. Bolan laughed. “That bad?” he said.

  “Rittermark—or Control, as they call him—is as tight-assed as Greaves, but less pleasant. Stiff-faced German guy, all business. I suppose he’s good at his job...otherwise, he wouldn’t be in charge of this thing, would he?”

  “I suppose,” Bolan said. Privately, however, he wondered about that very thing. Too often, men with good connections failed upward, and this sort of assignment would be a plum for any man. “What about the other one...the French guy you mentioned.”

  “Right, Tanzir’s guy—Chantecoq,” James said. “Too cool for school, that guy. Top flight detective, with eyes like marbles.”

  “Sounds like he made a good impression on you,” Bolan said, curious.

  “Yeah...better than his boss, at any rate,” James said, as if embarrassed.

  “Django Sweets... What can you tell me about him?” Bolan said, changing the subject.

  James cleared his throat and frowned slightly. “Like I said before, he’s a big-time king coyote. Story is he was a gunman for one of the cartels for a while on the red, white and blue side of the border, then he turned smuggler. He’s a cool customer, though. We brought in one of those pop-psych teams the Feebs enjoy so much and they said he was a ‘high-functioning sociopath,’ whatever that means.”

  Bolan smiled slightly at the reference to the FBI. While he knew more than a few agents—or former agents in Hal Brognola’s case—he would trust with his life, the organization had its share of annoying bureaucracy the same as any other federal agency. James had obviously run afoul of it at one time or another, the same as any federal agent. “It means he’s dangerous,” Bolan said.

  James snorted. “Oh, he is that. I didn’t need some armchair psychologist to tell me that. I’ve known Sweets maybe a month, and it’s been the longest one of my life. Not to mention most tense, too.” He slapped the steering wheel with a palm as he parked the van. “He’s got a mouth. He likes to talk, and he likes to poke and prod. So just play it loose, let it roll off, and don’t flash him any sass. That’s my advice.”

  “Not something I’m good at, I’m afraid,” Bolan said.

  “Try hard. He’s rattlesnake mean, and fast on the draw. He ain’t playing gunslinger, get me? Guy is the real deal.”

  Bolan grinned mirthlessly. “I’ll do my best, Scout’s honor.”

  “You don’t strike me as the scouting type, Cooper,” James said. He grimaced. “And anyway, it isn’t just Django you’ve got to worry about. There’s also Digger...”

  Bolan blinked at the raw distaste evident in James’s voice. “Digger? Unusual name.”

  “Yeah, Django’s baby brother,” the man said, shaking his head. “And I use the term ‘baby’ loosely. He’s seven feet if he’s an inch and he’s all muscle. He looks like an elephant.” James looked straight ahead, his eyes narrowed. “Django is ice, but Digger is something else entirely...he’s crazy, and not in a fun, party-animal sort of way. You hear stories about him...” He shook his head again. “Anyway, he’s Django’s attack dog. If you make a run at Django, Digger will have his teeth
in your ass before you take three steps.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Bolan said. Up ahead, he caught sight of a skeletal shape slouched in the desert, like the remains of a dead dragon.

  “This is it...the town with no name,” James said.

  “The town with no name?” Bolan said.

  “That’s what Sweets calls it, anyway,” James said. “It used to be one of them border towns, not really Mexican or American, but catering to folks on both sides of the line. The usual stuff...guns and whores and drugs and booze. That sort of thing,” James went on. He grunted. “By the Second World War, when they started tightening up on things out here, a bunch of these little towns like this got caught up in things and they were all abandoned.”

  “All? How many are there, exactly?” Bolan asked. He had heard about these phantom towns, but he’d never seen one before. It was like driving into a snapshot of his country’s history.

  “Dozens,” James said. “And Sweets knows them all, believe you me. He uses them like hideouts, you know?” He shook his head slightly. “Him and Digger, they don’t do well in high-population-density spots, if you get me.”

  Bolan did. There was a certain type of man for whom civilization, with all its benefits and burdens, was simply intolerable. Modern wolfheads, they clung to the fringes, making their way as best they could. For a while, Bolan himself might have been counted among their number, but he had never truly given up society. He simply took issue with certain aspects of it.

  The van moved up slowly through the dusty streets, trailing a cloud of the same behind it, the shadows cast by the sagging, arthritic buildings crawling across its roof and windshield. But where another man might have just seen empty buildings falling into ruin, Bolan saw a hundred potential snipers’ nests. He’d been in numerous towns just like this one over the years, in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia. They were corpse-towns—ghoulish reminders of worse times, forgotten and lonely.

  “Funny,” Bolan said as he calculated angles of fire and entry and exit points. “This Sweets is a fan of Westerns, I take it.” He plucked at the loose shirt he had changed into. His body armor and fatigues were stowed beneath the seat, and he presently wore more appropriate garb for his cover—a loose floral-pattern shirt and denims.