by JT Sawyer
Mitch grabbed the mugs and began placing them inside the microwave along with the bleach. She grinned and looked back at him. “I see we’ve both had the same class in improvised munitions that my father taught.”
He looked at her with a mix of surprise and relief, knowing that they might have a chance at getting out of here after all if she was as skilled as she let on and was indeed Anatoly Leitner’s progeny. Mitch glanced around the sparse but comfortable surroundings of the old adobe structure, recalling the good times he’d had and regretting the damage he was about to incur upon the historic structure.
She closed the microwave door and set the timer for sixty seconds. Then they retrieved their gear bags and retreated out the back door. Making their way down into the arroyo, Mitch heard the footfalls of the approaching men as they walked over the parched cottonwood leaves on the ground before the front porch. He glanced down at his watch, counting down the seconds and hoping it would give them the time needed to slip away through the desert.
Chapter 9
The first man through the door was larger, more muscular than the others. When he entered, four other men flowed in behind him. Maybe it was the mass of the larger mercenary that prevented more from succumbing to the steel shrapnel hurtling through the air when the microwave erupted. Instantly, in a blaze of flame and stabbing spikes, the team of fifteen shooters was reduced by nearly a third. Two more men received a spray of broken glass on the porch as the front windows blew outward, breaking away some of the adobe surrounding the wooden frames.
Drake rushed forward, yelling at his men to retreat to either side and provide support cover as he came up the middle. Standing back ten feet from the front door, which was clinging to the stud by a single hinge, he surveyed the twisted limbs and perforated flesh of the dead men inside. Fuck me. We don’t have a lot of spare guys to draw upon in Arizona. This is going to be a setback if we lose any more assets.
He scanned the immediate terrain behind the rear of the structure, noting the rock-strewn arroyo below with a backdrop of steep walls on the other side. “She has to be close. That IED was on a timer to coincide with our arrival.”
He walked around towards the back, motioning for a few men to follow him. “Search the drainage. There aren’t too many places she can go except down there.” He yanked another man by his vest and growled at him to help patch up the two injured men by the porch.
When the smoke cleared from the bunkhouse, Drake peered inside then looked back outside at the other buildings. “A bunch of inbred cow-pie lovers,” he muttered as he looked around at the rustic dwellings with disdain.
One of his men motioned with a whirl of his hand to a faint trail leading down into the arroyo. Drake nodded for him to continue while he radioed out, knowing he might lose reception once they lost elevation.
“Echo One, do you copy?”
“Bring it,” said the man on the other end.
“Four men down, two injured from an explosion. We’re on her trail which heads northeast along a drainage.”
“Turn on your GPS unit so I can catch up with you.”
“Copy that,” he said, placing the radio back in his vest, not recognizing the man’s voice and wondering who his boss was sending. Drake walked by one of the injured men who was sitting with his back against a tree, wincing and holding gauze over his right cheek. “You ready to move or you gonna sit there and moan like a little bitch?”
The skinny man’s one eye widened and his lips parted. He began to stand and Drake extended his gloved hand out to him. “Just kidding. We don’t leave our people behind—company policy, you know.” He nodded his head at the charred corpses inside the house. “Unless you’re dead, of course.”
The group moved to the cusp of the arroyo. “Alright, people, let’s roll. She couldn’t have gotten too far in all this cactus and rock. It’s possible she’s with a few others who were here already and they will have a good knowledge of the area so I want eyes up on the ridges for any potential ambushes.” He instructed two of his men to return to the main road by the ranch where they’d hidden their jeeps and ordered them to drive north a few miles and await instructions.
Drake led the way down, using the butt of his rifle to push through the thick foliage. He studied the ground, not noticing anything unusual amidst the jumbled rocks. The terrain was impossible to read and he kept mistaking the older disturbances made by horse hooves with the subject he was pursuing, unsure if he was even going the right way. After several hundred yards of slow movement and with his forearms scraped by thorns, he stopped and pulled out a tobacco tin from his cargo pocket, tucking a pinch under his naturally bulbous lower lip. He scanned the arroyo ahead, trying to discern any navigable route through the cactus hell while maintaining an air of confidence with the men on his heels. Occasionally, he’d stop and touch the ground, inspecting some unknown impression and then hoping he was correct in his assumption that it was related to the woman he desperately needed to find.
He knew backup, in the form of a local asset, was on the way but it would be a while before the man arrived. Drake was irritated that Ritter had brought someone else into the picture and hoped it would just be for this brief leg of the operation. I’m more than capable of taking over the next stage of the mission after we get the woman. I don’t need some federal shit-nugget telling me what to do.
Drake was a rock-solid foot soldier who was excellent at being a blunt instrument, using his considerable brawn to plow through any obstacles that confronted Aeneid or posed a personal threat to Ritter. He’d go to war for the man who had lavished so much attention upon him over the years, even referring to him once during a drunken binge as his wayward son. At least that’s what Drake thought he heard. It was enough for him.
Chapter 10
Two hours later, in the shattered kitchen of the adobe bunkhouse, Ryker and his FBI forensics team were staring at the damage. The wooden window frames were still smoldering while nails and glass shrapnel were embedded in the cabinets amidst mangled corpses spread around the tiled floor. A forest service fire lookout spotter had reported a plume of black smoke emanating from the area that afternoon. After the sheriff’s department arrived, they phoned in the information which eventually made it up the chain of command to Ryker as a potential act of domestic terrorism.
He looked over the dead gunmen, removing their masks one by one and studying their faces. Perry had come up on his day off at Ryker’s summoning and was trying to piece together Mitch’s involvement and possible whereabouts given that he resided at the ranch.
“I got positive ID on two of the perps but the others don’t show up in our database,” said Perry, who tapped his soiled boots against a bloody corpse whose head looked like it had passed through a wood chipper. “This guy used to head up a security detail in Bogota and the other fellow drove armed convoys through hot zones in Africa. Both were affiliated with some unregistered merc outfit overseas that pulled up in our database.”
Ryker put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “What on earth were these guys doing here? Looks like someone’s private little army was about to go on a shooting rampage—but why?”
“I spoke with the owners of the ranch. They’re up in Prescott. I informed them one of their own had been killed. They confirmed that Mitch was renting out this bunkhouse just as I thought.” Perry looked around at the old adobe structure that was partially intact. “Damn, he always said he liked living like a pioneer but I thought he meant going without Wi-Fi.”
“Listen, Perry, I know you guys are friends but if there’s anything you want to tell me—anything I should know about Mitch’s involvement in this…”
Perry rolled his shoulders and smirked. “When I last saw him this morning, he was headed back here. What happened between then and now is beyond me. If he hasn’t reported in yet, it’s because something went sideways or he’s without comms.”
Perry walked out the back door and surveyed the ground. He saw a trail through the lea
ves leading to the arroyo and climbed down past the rock-strewn surface until he was at the bottom. Moving twenty yards to the west, he found a boot print that matched Mitch’s tread pattern along with a smaller set that resembled a woman’s. To either side were a series of a dozen or more tracks with tread patterns bearing the same design. Mitch and the woman’s stride indicated that they were moving quickly while the others were shortened like they were proceeding with uncertainty. Perry took off his FBI ballcap and scratched his head, looking at the challenging countryside then swatting a fly away from his ear. He retraced his steps back to the bunkhouse where Ryker was still analyzing the scene.
Perry glanced at the other buildings strung out around the pasture, amazed that there were no civilian casualties amongst the ranchers. Would’ve been a fucking OK Corral shootout if those boys had been at home.
He squatted down beside Ryker. “They didn’t ride a horse or drive out of here. They headed down the wash with a shitload of hostiles in pursuit.”
“What do you mean ‘they’—I thought it was just Mitch?” said Ryker with a puzzled expression.
“There’s a woman’s tracks as well. I’d say it’s at least Mitch and one other person.”
Ryker scratched the back of his neck. “Hmm…interesting. Not sure if there’s a connection but there was a sighting of a high-value female fugitive in Cave Creek yesterday—the one on the Most Wanted list that I sent around the office. What are the chances that’s a coincidence?”
Perry looked over his shoulder at the parking area and at the homes above where a flurry of field agents were swarming around collecting crime-scene evidence. “Let me take some men with me and we’ll get on the trail. Once I get a fix on their location, I’ll radio back.”
“We can get a helo to sweep the areas around here. No need to get any of our guys tangled up in these canyons.”
“Look, I’ve got fresh sign and a verified direction of travel. You’re not going to be able to see that kind of detail from a thousand feet up. Plus, I know Mitch and his methods. It’ll hasten our search efforts.”
Ryker seemed surprised at Perry’s insistent tone but knew he was a skilled mantracker. “If it were anybody else, I’d say no but take three, and only three men with you and then check back with me at the first sign of Mitch.”
Perry summoned the agents, all of whom were new recruits in their late twenties. After the men gathered their assault packs from the vehicle, they headed down into the arroyo. He had worked intermittently with the other agents over the past few months, all fresh out of the academy. Perry took point as he tried to decipher the story on the ground and what had become of his colleague. At the first juncture in the narrow drainage, Perry paused to study the cluster of assorted boot prints in the damp sand while the other men scanned the surroundings, fanning out around him.
Using a South African tracking method, he drew a square with his fingertip on the ground so he had a containment field measuring roughly three feet by three feet. Then he counted each individual heel impression and divided by two, the number that corresponded with the two-legged stride. “Looks like 10 guys passed through here.” The method was a reliable predictor for numbers up to a dozen people.
A mile later, Perry looked at the route ahead which wound through cacti and other jagged flora known to impale wayward explorers. He rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. “This is gonna be some bitchin’ terrain to track a bunch of evaders through. Sure hope this isn’t a long pursuit.”
Ryker came over the two-way radio that was attached to his front breast pocket.
“A helo is inbound and will assist with an aerial search but will have a limited flight window with the monsoon storm brewing to the north of us.”
“Copy that; I would concentrate all of their efforts to the northeast.”
“I thought you were tracking them to the northwest.”
“That’s correct but this canyon splits up ahead according to my GPS. I’ll cover the area that veers in the other direction. It’ll be a better use of our resources.”
He clicked off his radio, attaching it to his shoulder sling. “Man, what the hell is Mitch tangled up with?” he grumbled to himself as he began following the contours of the rock-strewn arroyo. “Whatever it is, he’s gonna take us on a wild chase through the bowels of hell if I know him.”
Chapter 11
Mitch and Dev had been trotting along the faint gravel trail for the past mile, snaking their way past boulders that had become dislodged from the rim above as they traveled deeper into the wash which had slowly transitioned into a canyon. Being in such a chokepoint was something he wanted to avoid as it set them up for easy containment and a potential ambush. This was the method the Apaches used to lure U.S. troops during the Geronimo Campaign in the 1880s. The war of counter-insurgency that had taken place in this very region was one which Mitch was intimately familiar with. The Apaches’ guerilla tactics were required reading in the special operations community and he found that the exact same methods were of great use across the globe in modern times in Afghanistan, another desert proving ground for unconventional warfare.
As they rounded a curve in the canyon where a large hackberry tree hung out over a huge finger of sandstone, Mitch saw a small spring bubbling out from under the roots. The water trickled over the rocks into the sandy wash and then disappeared in the soil twenty feet away like most desert springs. He stopped in the shade and set down his cumbersome pack, then removed his large fixed blade and began cutting down a handful of finger-thick saplings. He handed several to Dev, who had just swigged down a mouthful of water from the flask in her small pack.
“Sharpen both ends. We’re going to use an old Vietnamese mantrap to slow down the goons on our trail.” He continued sharpening the tips of the four-foot-long saplings, tossing each one down by his boots upon completion. “Most mantraps you see in the movies are just pure bullshit, done for theatrics. Like the old jungle foot snare that yanks the guy up in the air. Those take around four hours to make and then you gotta have a giant rock on the other end that weighs double your victim to provide the leverage. How the hell is someone supposed to set that up when they’re on the run?”
Mitch finished carving the last point and retrieved the newly formed weapons off the ground. “I learned this one from an old marine recon guy who used it on more than one occasion in Vietnam. The natives here also employed this for impaling deer on the trail. It takes mere minutes to set up and can buy you time at the end of the day for getting back to friendly forces.”
“What great pals you have. Sounds like some guys I know in my organization—the kind of people you want on your side when the world around you gets ugly.”
Mitch craned his head up towards the sylvan canopy of broad-leaved trees. “This world isn’t ugly—it’s perhaps the only place left that is a temple in the truest sense of that word. It’s only man’s actions that make things ugly.”
Dev stopped whittling for a second while looking at him. She was surprised by the philosophical tone of someone given to pondering his surroundings in a non-tactical manner. It contrasted sharply with the maiming weapon he was fashioning and she wasn’t sure what to make of him. She had worked with plenty of special operations types before, mostly Israeli, and wondered if other American military men were so inclined or if this was peculiar to Mitch.
“So why were you living in that run-down shack back there? You fall on hard times or something?”
Mitch shook his head and emitted a crooked smile. “That ‘shack’ was my castle in a land of plenty. Far more luxurious than the tiny room I had growing up on my uncle’s ranch and anything I stayed in during my army days.”
“What did you do for entertainment? I didn’t even see a TV,” she said with a hint of repulsion.
“There’s nothing like waking up to the sounds of the canyon and then spending time working with your hands under open skies. That’s the life we were meant to live—not reclining in front of a laptop in a ca
fé clicking ‘Like’ buttons while wondering if the lady at the checkout counter made the foam on your pumpkin-spice latte thick enough.”
“Wow—don’t sugar-coat things for me, Agent Kearns. I can take it.” She chuckled and then resumed preparing the sapling in her hand.
When they had finished carving, making sure the shavings had fallen between the boulders at their feet to cloak their efforts, Mitch walked up the trail. He stopped at a point where it meandered between heavy clumps of overhanging tree branches then he drove the half-dozen spears into the ground on a sixty-degree angle so one end protruded towards the incoming trail. “This heavy foliage will obscure the traps, causing the lead guy to get impaled where it counts,” he said, pointing to the groin area. “Such traps are designed to maim and slow the pursuers down and will sometimes even cause them to reconsider whether they should continue the chase.”
“You ever have to use this before?”
“Not here, but I’ve seen dope fields in the mountains outside of Phoenix with this setup. It’ll make you think twice about where you’re hiking.”
He grabbed his pack and picked up some handfuls of water, splashing it over the tracks they’d made to make it look like they were filling up on water. Once he’d manicured the area enough, they carefully skirted around the mantraps and continued heading north through the serpentine canyon until they found a horse packer’s trail leading up. A mile further, they veered off to the right in a side canyon, making a few obvious tracks in the sand. After a hundred yards, they backtracked, making sure to step on rocks to conceal their movement.
“Dummy trails like this don’t take a lot of time to make but can buy you some time at the end of the day in getting away,” Mitch said. “We’ll head up the other canyon and hope they get hung up in this one for a while.”
