by Peter Nealen
A couple of the younger men looked at him then. “Who are you?” It was half curiosity, half challenge.
“I’m the man who’s here to kill narcos. Whether they’re Soldados or Vengadores. Now, you can come with me and help, or you can waste your lives and let the bad guys laugh over your corpses.”
They hesitated, all eyes turning toward the Soldados down the street. More of them were starting to notice what was happening, and the cluster in the middle of the street was growing. All eyes were now on the truck and the small group of young men who were unsuccessfully trying to hide their weapons, which were mostly shotguns except for a pair of AK-74s that had drawn Hank’s eye.
“Get in, or we turn around and leave you to them.” It was harsh, but they were at the point of no return. A few of the Soldados were starting to drift toward them, smelling blood.
Castaneda said something quickly, and then the boys looked around at each other and frantically started to clamber into the covered bed.
One of the Soldados, an older man with much more of a professional look about him, stepped closer, a blocky Kriss Vector submachinegun in his hands. He raised the weapon and pointed it at them, though he didn’t fire. Hank tensed, his hand going to his own rifle, down by his leg and out of sight from the window, as Taylor backed up.
He didn’t try to turn around there in the street. Instead, he backed around the corner before turning around. Just before they took the turn, Hank saw the Soldado in the middle of the street throw up the clenched fist salute. It wasn’t a sign of triumph, either. It was a challenge. Hank bit back his own pride as Taylor hooked a U-turn around the median and headed back the way they’d come.
We’ll be back for you, you son of a bitch.
***
Torres fell in behind them as they sped up, putting distance between them and the Soldados. There was no way of knowing whether or not the bad guys would try to follow, but Hank had to assume that they would. He peered up at the sky above them, as well as watching the rearview mirrors. Some of the cartels had started using drones, much like their Islamist counterparts in savagery had some years before. They hadn’t seen any yet, but if the Chinese were involved, it was only a matter of time.
But if they had drones up, he couldn’t see them. Maybe that particular SdA house didn’t rate it. He didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, either.
About ten blocks and multiple turns later, he was reasonably comfortable that they weren’t being tailed. “Pull over somewhere in here. I want to talk to Castaneda and his buddies real quick.”
“Is that the best idea while we’re still in town?” Taylor kept his eyes on the road as he asked the question.
“If I was planning on an in-depth conversation, no, it wouldn’t be. Pull over.” Hank wasn’t interested in debating his course of action at the moment.
Taylor just shrugged and did as he was told, finding an alley next to another park and pulling over, watching every direction as best he could.
Hank got out, carefully scanning their surroundings. He had a pistol this time, thanks to Torres, but this spot was still awfully exposed. He walked around to the back and opened the canopy.
“Castaneda.”
The kid was the second one in from the tailgate, crammed in almost on top of one of his buddies. “Si?”
“We need a safe place to talk. Not Elizondo’s place; he’s already drawn their attention. Somewhere they won’t think to look.”
Castaneda looked around at his compatriots, as if he was lost and not sure what to say or think. One of them in the back, a short, skinny kid with protruding ears and sullen eyes, spoke up in the silence.
“There’s a farm south of town. No one goes there. Not even the narcos.”
Hank’s eyes narrowed a little. “Why not?”
The kid shrugged. There was a coldness in his eyes that wasn’t quite natural for someone his age. He’d seen too much death already. “Don’t know. But they don’t.”
Hank thought about it a moment, then beckoned. “Come on. You’re riding up front. We’ll need you to show us how to get there.”
***
The kid’s directions were clear enough, and they reached the abandoned farm less than half an hour later.
The place was heavily overgrown, though most of the grass and brush was dead. The house itself was whitewashed cinderblock, or it had been whitewashed. It was dingier than most of the houses in town, and the windows had been broken a long time before. The front door was hanging half off its hinges.
Torres took the lead as Taylor slowed, pulling up closer to the house, putting their truck between it and Hank’s vehicle. Torres and his Triarii got out, and Hank saw their guide’s eyes widen a little as he saw the gear and the weapons. The kid looked at him a little sideways, clearly wondering just who these gringos were.
Torres and his fire team flowed through the sagging door and quickly cleared the house. Torres appeared in the doorway a moment later and gave a thumbs up. All clear.
Hank opened his door. “Come on. Let’s get out of sight for a bit.”
Taylor and Faris stayed in the truck. Hank escorted the big-eared kid out, then dropped the tailgate. “Come on. Everybody out and inside.” A few of the faces that came out of the shadows were clearly scared, but Hank hadn’t taken their weapons, and he heard one of the older one say something to that effect under his breath as they got out.
Hank pointed them inside the house, and he and LaForce followed them in. The interior was dark and empty. A couple of broken couches stood against one wall, covered in dust. From the looks of the place, nobody had been inside in a very long time. Torres’s team’s were the only footprints in the dust.
“Okay, whose idea was it to go after the Soldados de Aztlan with half a dozen untrained kids with shotguns and two cuerno de chivos?” Hank glared around at them. In part, it was genuine frustration with the amateurish hit. The other part was establishing a certain degree of dominance. There was a lot of machismo among Mexican teenagers, and this group obviously had their fair share—they wouldn’t have tried to kill some Soldados over a point of honor otherwise. And he was old enough to be their father, some of them.
They looked around at each other. Some were sullen, some were a bit shamefaced. None answered.
“Okay. Whose sister was it?” He glared around at them, his arms crossed.
Somewhat to his surprise, it was the kid with the prominent ears who’d led them to the farm who looked up, his eyes burning. “It was my cousin. They forced her into a car, took her to that house, and took turns. Then they tossed her out on the street. They were laughing while she lay in the middle of the street, half-naked.” The hate in the kid’s voice was palpable.
“So, do you want to hurt them?” Hank’s voice was as cold as his eyes. “Or do you just want to get yourselves killed on some jerk-off, half-assed attempt at revenge, in public, in broad daylight?”
The kid glared back at him. “I want to hurt them.”
Hank nodded, his face still stony. “Then talk to me. I want to know who they are. I want to know where they stay. I want to know where they go and when. I want every bit of information you can give me.”
The kid nodded. “If it gets them dead, I’ll tell you everything I know. And if I don’t know it, I’ll find out.”
Hank tried not to think of Arturo as the young man—with several interjections from his buddies—started to outline the Soldados de Aztlan’s entire side of the operation in Camargo.
Chapter 26
Well, this seems awfully familiar.
They were back on the slopes of the ridge outside of Camargo, within sight of the power substation alongside Highway 67. It was almost the exact same spot where they’d halted before moving into town.
Hank was behind Moffit, heading up toward the crest, overlooking the cut and the highway to the northeast. They needed a long sightline for this; timing would be everything.
They got to the crest and fou
nd a good spot to set up. Just in time, too; headlights were already closing in from the north. Even in the deepening dusk, it was easy to pick out the convoy’s escorts and the five tanker trucks.
“Looks like the flow hasn’t stopped yet.” Moffit was watching through his rifle’s scope.
“Not yet.” Hank got down in the prone next to him and got on his own scope. “I don’t know much about the Texas State Guard, but I suspect that they’re going to have their hands full trying to retake the crossing. And even if they manage it, how much you want to bet these bastards have a backup plan?”
“If the Chinese are involved?” Moffit hadn’t taken his eye away from his optic as he whispered back. “No bet.”
That was the wild card. Torres’s guys had gotten a couple looks at Chinese personnel inside the industrial park, but so far it looked like they were letting the Soldados and the Vengadores do the heavy lifting while they stayed put. They hadn’t identified just what was being done with the stolen oil, but Hank suspected that if the Chinese had taken over the petroleum stations to the north of the industrial park, they were probably stockpiling it there.
He was hoping that if they could strip the operation of its narco security and support, they could shut it down. And tonight would see the first step of that plan.
The two of them watched the convoy in silence. It was hard to see detail, just using their scopes in the twilight and the glow of the vehicles’ headlights. But he thought that this bunch didn’t appear to be as triumphant as some of the convoys they’d already observed. There were only three gun trucks to five tankers, and the gun truck in the back was lagging a little. As Hank focused on it, he noticed that one of the headlights was out. Shot out, or just broken?
He wondered if they’d watched this very same convoy before, on the way into Texas. They had to have; however deep the Chinese’ pockets were, neither the Soldados nor the Vengadores could afford a bottomless supply of trucks and shooters.
For one thing, the Soldados still had operations across California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The Vengadores were still upstarts. If either group stripped too many of their resources from their other operations, one of their rivals would move on them quickly.
Briefly, he thought back to the ambush in Potrero de Llano. Maybe the wolves were already circling.
So much the better if they were, for his purposes.
The convoy limped past. As they went through the cut, he got a better look. They had definitely taken some fire. That rear gun truck was missing a window, and bright scars on the darkened armor plate looked like bullet impacts.
How long are they going to be willing to take the risk for the Chinese, while the Chinese sit in a secure compound?
However long that is, it’s time to shorten the timeline even further.
He turned his attention back to the north after the convoy passed through the cut, trundling toward Camargo. The road was clear as far as he could see. Even when he took his eye away from the scope and flipped his NVGs down, he didn’t see anything. Unless the bad guys were driving blacked out—which they hadn’t seen yet—they had some space.
He keyed his radio. “Give that convoy five minutes. Then move.”
***
Hank and Moffit stayed in place while the rest of the squad did the work down below. But they had a good view.
The three Soldados trucks they’d captured were driven out onto the highway and arranged carefully. The lead truck was left halfway across the lane, the next one back angled in the opposite direction. The rear vehicle was set slightly farther back. Then, leaving the engines running, the drivers got out and ran down off the road into the brush.
Then Fernandez opened fire with the Minimi they’d taken off the gun truck.
He raked the vehicles thoroughly, making sure that the tires were blown out, the engine compartments were thoroughly ventilated, and the cabs were hammered. Then, going up to each vehicle at a time, he and Evans opened the side doors and he dumped long bursts inside.
They’d already splashed the interiors with pig blood that they’d gotten from one of the youngsters, who was a farm kid who lived outside of town.
The belt expended, Fernandez hefted the weapon and turned away, hustling back down into the desert. Smoke was beginning to pour out from under the hood of the lead vehicle; he’d hit something vital and the engine—still running—was starting to give up the ghost.
Hank was about to get up and head down the hill to join them, but lights flashed all too close to the southwest and he froze. Looking down, he saw that two vehicles had just turned onto the 67, coming from Camargo.
Slowly and carefully, so as to avoid letting one of the headlights glint off his scope lens, he turned his optic toward them. They were Vengadores trucks—not gun trucks, but two pickups bearing the now-familiar paint scheme.
Well, this should be interesting.
The two trucks slowed as they came closer to the bullet-riddled, blasted vehicles. Hank watched them, trying to see the reactions of the dim figures piled in the truck beds.
As they got closer, the headlights shone in the smoke now wafting from under the lead truck’s hood. A few flashlights appeared, playing over the scene.
The trucks stopped and several gunmen got out, walking around the vehicles. One of them raised his voice, though Hank was too far away to make out words.
More voices were raised in reply. Again, there were no words, but the glee in the shouts and jeers was evident even from where he and Moffit lay. The celebratory bursts of gunfire into the air only accentuated it.
Both of them got flatter, trying to shrink into the ground. Neither one wanted to catch a stray round, and the kind of idiots who engaged in celebratory gunfire never considered the fact that what goes up must come down.
None of the bullets came near them, fortunately. Equally fortunately, the gunmen got back in their vehicles and started to drive away.
Hank got up as soon as the headlights passed into the cut, and Moffit joined him, the two of them quickly descending the slope toward the rest of the squad.
Their little display had been seen. Word would spread. The groundwork was set.
Now to get to the night’s real work.
***
Ordinarily, Hank had come to favor stealth and preparation on raids. But sometimes, speed, surprise, and violence of action worked just as well, if not better.
He was pretty sure that this was one of those times. But with the limited transportation currently at their disposal, and his section having more civilian clothes than Torres’s, that wasn’t an option.
So, he and Fernandez were standing behind an unattended dump truck outside a large, walled-in warehouse, across the street from Victor Ochoa’s house.
Or, rather, the house that Victor Ochoa had decided was his.
The orange faux-adobe house with Spanish-style roof tiles and a shaded veranda had, according to Emilio Rangel, the young man whose cousin had been gang-raped by the Soldados, belonged to a local Camargo businessman. Apparently, Ochoa, who was a former member of the Gulf Cartel and now a facilitator for the Soldados, had taken a shine to the house.
No one had seen the businessman since. Hank could guess where he’d ended up. Or pieces of him, at any rate.
Hank checked his watch. This op all hinged on timing, and the timing was out of their hands for the moment.
He peered around the street. There. Evans and Faris were standing near a parked truck, partially obscured by the arbor vitae growing on the sidewalk, most of a block to the east. LaForce and Bishop were strolling up the street behind them, about another half a block beyond.
A glance to the northwest confirmed that Huntsman, Taylor, and Reisinger were closing in, keeping to the shadows on the sides of the street or drifting in on the little park in the median, staying within the shadows of the tree that stood at the corner.
Hank checked his watch again. This was going to be tight if Rangel didn’t fulfill his part in the plan soon.
Then every light for six blocks went out. Rangel had cowboyed up. Time to roll.
Hank and Fernandez dropped behind the dump truck, tearing their gear bags open, covered by the darkness. Chest rigs, helmets, NVGs, and M5E1s came out of the bags. The rifles had been broken down, but it took moments, even in the dark, to join uppers and lowers, push the pins into place, and quickly load. Helmets were pulled onto their heads, NVGs flipped down, pistols moved to where they were more accessible than concealed, and then they were coming around the dump truck, guns up and ready.
Evans had almost reached the gate in the wrought-iron fence already, though Faris was lagging behind. LaForce and Bishop had already caught up to him.
Huntsman, Taylor, and Reisinger were dashing across the street. Huntsman slowed, his rifle snapping up to his shoulder, and he fired twice, the suppressor’s cough still startlingly loud in the night. Glass shattered, and a body hit the ground in front of the veranda, as Evans tore the gate open. It hadn’t been locked; Ochoa must have had an overdeveloped sense of his own safety in a town where his organization had a lot of rivals out for their blood.
Evans held the gate while Hank, Fernandez, Reisinger, and Taylor raced through, heading for the front door. Raised voices sounded from inside; it might be the middle of the night, but Ochoa’s security was still up, and had definitely noticed the body falling through the front door.
A figure appeared in the doorway. Hank saw the weapon in his NVGs and snapped his rifle up, finding the red dot and stroking the trigger twice. The M5E1 thumped, the suppressor’s cracks echoing down the street, and the Soldado fell backward with a crash that sounded almost as loud as the reports of the gunfire.
With the game having already gone loud and the door open, he didn’t slow down or pause to stack up, but went straight in, over the pair of corpses sprawled in the doorway.
The entryway opened onto an L-shaped living room, which had apparently been occupied only by the two dead Soldados now rapidly cooling on the threshold. A good-sized TV sat on a very expensive-looking entertainment center, faced by a large sectional couch. There were a lot of beer bottles on the coffee table in front of the couch.
