“You can rest here, son,” the man said sitting on one of several nearby folding chairs, as if to illustrate his point. “Won’t nobody mess with you.”
Anson had finished the soda, but held the can protectively in both hands, unable to put it down. Occasionally he would tilt it back and get a remaining drop of the delicious sugary substance. His body felt like it was coming alive all over, as if he were waking from a dream.
“Thank you,” Anson finally managed to croak.
“You’re welcome.”
Anson looked at the man’s uniform closely. It was a different pattern from anything he’d seen before. “What’s the Texas State Guard?”
The man laughed. “Before we was all rebels again, it was a bunch of veterans who got together and drank and talked about the military. Every now and again we’d help out with disaster relief. Sort of what the National Guard used to be before getting deployed to the Middle East in all those wars. Now it turns out we’re needed.”
“For what?”
“To protect Texas, of course. You don’t think old Uncle Sam is just gonna let us be, do you? They hate a rebel state as bad as they do Edens, and Texas has both. There’s a fight coming and its all hands on deck, if I might use a Navy term.”
“You taking recruits?” Anson asked.
The man looked at him and smiled. “How old are you son?”
“Eighteen, Sergeant,” Anson answered, unconsciously straightening and recalling proper protocol. “And I’ve got experience.”
“I can see that,” the man answered, looking critically at Anson. “Listen, son, I can see you’ve come on hard times and I wish you the best, but we’re likely to be fighting in the days ahead. Wouldn’t be doing you any favors to bring you on board.”
“How long you think I’m going to last like this?” Anson asked with more anger than he thought he was capable. “If I don’t starve, someone’s going to kill me or I’ll finally give in to the temptation to sell myself for food and that will only be a short stop from me hanging myself.” Anson forced himself to speak the truth, as much as it shamed and hurt. “Do you really think I’ll be worse off with you?”
The man stared at him hard for a full minute. “What type of experience you got?”
“I fought with the Arkansas Free State,” Anson said, forcing himself not to think of his brother. “We got overrun and I managed to make my way across the border into Texas. Before that, they made me a squad leader. I’m a crack shot too.”
“Crack shot, huh,” the man smiled. “We’ll see about that. Maybe you would be better off with us. I’m allowed to sign up anyone who’s at least eighteen, although I would guess you have no identification that could prove your age.”
“Nope. If I had, I might have been able to get work.”
“I figured as much.” The man stared at Anson for a while, as if trying to make up his mind. “At the very least, we’d feed you and give you some clothes. Get you a shower and a place to sleep. Can always use someone to mop floors.” It almost seemed as if the sergeant were trying to discourage him.
“You got Netflix?”
“Don’t push it,” the man answered.
Anson smiled. “Just joking. I’d be grateful, seriously. I got no place else to go.”
The man chewed on the inside of his lip, and then smiled and reached out his hand. “Well, son, welcome to the Texas State Guard.”
Chapter 10
“Does anyone else think we should be going just a tad bit faster?” asked Shortfuse from his place by the barge’s rail.
“Just enjoy the ride, dude,” said Tarzan.
“Yeah, dude,” Hawkeye echoed, lying on his back on top of a pallet of boxes, a yellow Speedo the only thing covering his oiled body. “This is one of the best coastlines in Mexico.”
“We’re not supposed to be on vacation,” said Crash. “Lots of people are depending on us.”
Reaper cleared her throat and gave a warning look toward the barge’s crew, some of whom watched their passengers, keeping their distance. “We’ll get there soon enough.”
“I still say flying would have been faster,” said Flyboy.
Reaper mentally agreed with her pilot, but knew it would have brought more scrutiny. Also, despite her initial alarm at learning they would infiltrate the U.S. using Spooky’s drug smuggling route on one of his large sea barges, she’d discovered that it was safer than expected.
Spooky had taken advantage of an international maritime law that said any country that forcibly boarded a ship in international waters and did not find contraband had to pay a hefty fine. Even a small banana boat could cost up to twelve million dollars, depending on how long it was stopped. So Spooky had sent slow moving boats and barges north over the past year, piled high with what looked like bags of drugs on the decks, but were in reality coffee or sugar. He’d reportedly made close to a quarter of a billion dollars off false stops, and now the countries along the route were leery of stopping them without probable cause.
“Anyone got any pogey bait?” asked Hulk, looking at the sides of the boxes and bags in the pallet.
“Dude, you ate it all,” said Bunny. “You ever heard of sharing?”
“I was hungry, that’s all.”
“What exactly is it you bring to the party anyway?” asked Livewire. “I mean, we all have skills, but the only one I’ve seen from you is the ability to make food disappear. You some sort of magician?”
“I can carry a lot of stuff. I break down doors pretty good.” He lifted one massive arm and clenched his fist. “When you’re in a tight spot, you’ll be glad you’ve got me, I promise you that.”
“Dude, we’ll be in a tight spot soon enough if you keep eating all our food,” said Tarzan, who was fishing off the side of the boat.
Reaper closed her eyes and enjoyed the sun. Her team was slightly smaller than the one she took into Kenya, but she felt better about it. She’d cut Hound Dog first thing. Spooky had tried to press her, but she’d stood fast and won. The man had done good work near the end of the Africa mission, but she still didn’t trust him. Besides, she’d learned that Tarzan wasn’t a half bad tracker should they need one.
C3PO had also stayed behind. There wasn’t much need for a translator in the U.S., except for Spanish, and she’d regained her fluency after almost two years in South and Central America. Adding Hulk, she had Hawkeye the sniper, Shortfuse for demo, Flyboy as their pilot, Crash the medic, Tarzan for outdoor survival, Livewire on commo, and Bunny the all-around actress and sexually charged convincer, to complete their team of nine. Reaper hoped it was enough for what they needed to do.
“I’d still feel better if we were moving a little faster,” muttered Shortfuse again, staring out at the water of the Gulf of Mexico.
Reaper sat up and looked at him. “We’re safer going slow. I know it doesn’t feel that way, but it’s the truth. Coast guard types look for fast movers. A slow heavy boat like this blends into the background noise, one of hundreds. Don’t worry.”
Bunny nodded toward the Colombian crew watching them. “What about these guys? They might make a boatload of money turning us in.”
“Spooky’s cartel enforcers would track them down and skin them alive and they know it,” said Reaper. “Don’t worry about the crew.”
“What’s with the new ‘don’t worry, be happy’ Reaper?” asked Shortfuse. “Aren’t you the one who’s always trying to plan for every conceivable contingency?”
Reaper shrugged. “There’s just not a whole lot we can do about this situation. The infil is the infil. Besides, I already planned for every conceivable contingency.”
“If you say so, boss.”
They sailed for three days up the Gulf of California before pulling into the port of Guaymas, on the west coast of Mexico. Small tugboats maneuvered them into a quay among other large, rusty barges. A line of Mexican police awaited them along the dock.
“What’s this?” asked Flyboy.
Reaper shook her head. �
��Play it cool.”
“Want me to go talk to them?” asked Hawkeye. “I can do the whole Mexican homeboy routine. We can bond over soccer and tequila.”
“Let’s see if the crew can handle it. This is their show.”
The barge’s Colombian captain talked to the police from the rail. There was a back-and-forth discussion for a few minutes before the police began raising their voices and pointing their weapons toward the boat.
“What’s going on?” Reaper asked Hawkeye.
“They’re saying they want more money, as the risk has increased lately. They’re asking for double.”
“Tell them to pay it,” Reaper said. “We need to get off this boat and on our way before we draw any more attention.”
“That’s not how things are done. To not push back might make them suspicious and cause them to take a closer look at us. The captain has to negotiate or he’ll also appear weak in front of his crew.”
“Couldn’t the police just arrest us all and seize everything?” asked Bunny.
“Maybe, but that’s a lot of trouble and paperwork. They just want some easy cash,” Hawkeye said.
The argument began to get more and more heated, and Reaper stepped closer to Hawkeye. “Slip below and get a couple of suppressed pistols.”
He looked at her for a second. “You sure?”
“No,” she answered, “but I want to be ready in case we need to force the situation.”
Hawkeye nodded and started to walk down a nearby stairway, but one of the police saw him and began yelling in their direction. When Hawkeye didn’t stop, the man fired a burst of automatic gunfire into the air. Heads from all over the harbor turned their way.
“I think now we’ve got a problem,” said Shortfuse softly.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa there muchachos,” came a surprisingly jovial voice from the parking lot near the dock, in English. “Is it Cinco de Mayo or something and no one told me?”
The Mexican police turned and began speaking to the man in Spanish, with raised voices and animated hand motions.
The Anglo, a man covered in blue prison tattoos, spoke calmly back to them in colloquial Mexican Spanish, a big smile on his face.
Hawkeye looked at Reaper, but she shook her head and he stayed put.
After a few moments, the tattooed man shook hands with each of the policemen in turn, who walked away from the boat.
“What the hell just happened?” asked Bunny.
“That man there,” said Hawkeye, “evidently has a great deal of influence in this area. It didn’t take much to calm them down and convince them to move along.”
“I guess he’s gotten smoother in the last year,” said Reaper, moving toward the dock. The gangplank hadn’t yet been lowered, but she leapt the six-foot gap from the boat to the edge and walked over to the tattooed man.
“I thought you were dead,” she said, hugging him fiercely.
Python smiled as he wrapped her up in his arms. “I wished I was, at times.”
Reaper pushed him back, holding him at arms’ length. “What happened to you?”
His face grew grim. “They grabbed me and threw me in a special lockup for Edens. Lots of starvation and experimentation, but I cut my teeth in real prisons, with professional bulls. Those bozos couldn’t hold the Python. Didn’t take me more than a few weeks to bust out and make it across the border after all. On dry land, this time, though.”
Reaper struggled with conflicting emotions. “I shouldn’t have...I would have come back...but...”
Python stepped close to her, placing a hand on her cheek. “It’s okay. I told you to leave me, otherwise they would have grabbed both of us. Nothing you could have done. Just my fault I never learned to swim.”
“I tried to find out what happened to you,” Reaper said. “Border Patrol said you were...”
“Dead? Yeah, they have a deal with the SS. Anyone they catch, they report as killed, and then turn them over to the creepos. It keeps the others in line, waiting in the camps, afraid to try to escape for knowing what could happen.”
“Scumbags. I didn’t know things were getting that bad.” Reaper took Python’s hand off her face and held it.
“Am I interrupting something?” asked Bunny, moving up close to Python and gazing at him with big eyes. “You haven’t introduced us to our rescuer.”
Reaper felt instant irritation at Bunny. Maybe it was jealousy. Reaper wondered if she could feel more for the man beyond comradeship? Did she ever have feelings for him? Or was it just resurgent lust – they’d shared a bed for months, after all – and the relief of seeing a comrade alive again after thinking he was dead?
And guilt at leaving him behind. Yeah, that was all.
The rest of her team had strolled off the boat and gathered around the pair. Reaper said, “This is Python. We escaped from Camp 240 over a year ago. Then we lost track of each other.”
“He’s kind of hot,” said Bunny in a voice loud enough for Python to hear.
Python preened and flexed slightly. “You ain’t so bad yourself.”
“You two knock yourselves out, but do it on your own time,” Reaper snapped, spinning on her heel and stalking back toward the boat. “Grab the gear and get moving, everyone.”
“I’ve got vans over there,” Python called after her. “We need to load all these boxes and bags first and then put your gear on top.”
Reaper stopped, turning to look at him curiously. “Why are we taking coffee and sugar with us?”
Python smiled and started laughing.
“You can’t be serious,” said Reaper, walking over and squatting by one of the canvas bags. She pulled out the knife in her belt and poked its razor-sharp tip into it, feeling it bite through a several layers of plastic beneath. A fine white powder stuck to the blade. She wiped it with her finger, and then touched it to her tongue, which immediately went numb.
“I guess that part of the plan was a surprise,” Python said.
“Damn you, Spooky,” Reaper muttered. “You actually used the boat we were on to ship drugs.”
“Don’t look at it like that,” Python said. “No reason to waste a trip. Besides, if anything went wrong, this would have been great cover. You’d have been exactly what you appear to be.”
“Drug smugglers?” asked Shortfuse. “Wouldn’t that get us thrown into Mexican prison?”
“Exactly,” smiled Python.
“And how is that a good thing?” asked Flyboy.
“Because we can bribe out drug smugglers a lot better than commandos.”
Reaper figured he was right.
Chapter 11
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Justin “Case” Lee tried not to think about the nature of his mission. A veteran of countless B-2 bombing missions, he struggled to convince himself that this was simply a mission like any other.
“Two minutes,” announced his copilot, Pierre “French” McElroy. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Stay focused,” Case ordered. Neither of them was happy with this one, but there was nothing to be done about it. At least they were bombing the Periman oil refineries and storage facilities early in the morning when it was very dark. That should minimize casualties.
The big plane, looking like nothing so much as a flying black boomerang, cruised above 40,000 feet, invisible to almost any radar. Well, technically not invisible, but its electronic return, if it was even noticed, would show something the size of a goose instead of a bomber with a payload of twenty tons. The B2 was an aeronautical marvel, but right now Lee would rather be at home in bed with his wife.
“One minute,” said French. “Opening ordnance doors. Permission to remove ordnance safeties.”
This is the last chance I have to back out of this, Case thought. I could claim some sort of warning light that would prevent us from dropping. French would back me up. Neither of us feels right about this mission.
“Case?”
“Remove safeties,” Case finally ordered.
&
nbsp; A few seconds later French said, “Safeties removed. Acquiring target.”
A century ago he would have had to relinquish control of the plane to a bombardier at this point. Even a few decades ago, a mission like this would have required someone painting the target with a laser. Now, if they knew the target’s location – and the Periman Basin wasn’t likely to move – all they had to do was plug in the geo-coordinates and let the military-grade GPS do the rest, with an expected circular error probability of less than one meter.
“Thirty seconds,” said French.
This was the most dangerous part. With their big bottom doors open, their radar signature grew to the size of a Cessna. A savvy operator might wonder about that and deduce what was about to happen and scramble fighters or alert the air defenses. It wouldn’t short-circuit his mission, but the B-2 wasn’t a supersonic airplane. It could be caught and shot down after the fact. He hoped the Navy boys were on their toes; if he had to, he’d fly out to sea and let them cover his ass.
“Ten seconds,” said French. “Permission to release.”
Are we really doing this? Case wondered. “Release,” he heard himself say.
“Ordnance away. Closing doors.”
Case steered smoothly westward along the egress path, alone and unafraid. No escorts flew nearby; they hadn’t wanted to tip off the Texans.
“Confirmation message sent,” said French, indicating he’d transmitted the encrypted message reporting they’d successfully delivered their payload. They would not break radio silence until well past the Texas-New Mexico border ahead of them.
Case caught the flashes against the night sky and tilted his head back to look behind them at giant fireballs erupting into the sky. High explosives had combined with oil and natural gas to create a burning inferno that would take days, if not weeks, to extinguish. He saw other fireballs far off to his left and right as other B-2s from his squadron delivered their payloads. “Well done, French. We’ll be back for breakfast and I’m buying.”
Apocalypse Austin Page 9
