Fortress Doctrine (Maelstrom Rising Book 5)

by Peter Nealen

  Hank turned back toward the handful of vehicles they’d gotten out with. It was going to be a tight squeeze, getting back to Texas.

  Presuming that was what they were going to do.

  He wasn’t at all sure about going back into that hellish inferno. The skull masks had been ahead of them and had them outnumbered. But there was no guarantee that the black-clad narcos knew who they were, or that they’d be looking for them. The Policia and the other two factions, the Soldados and Vengadores, had appeared to be their primary targets. The Triarii had just been targets of opportunity.

  And he still wanted those Chinese facilitators.

  Torres walked up the slope to meet them. “Bad day.”

  “Doesn’t get much worse.” Hank had seen worse, but right then it didn’t feel like it, and it wouldn’t have been the right thing to say, anyway. They all had dead men to mourn.

  “What do we do now?” Torres looked up at Hank. Surprisingly, there was no recrimination, no finger-pointing. Hank didn’t know Torres well, but he had to have been a professional to get a section leader slot.

  “That’s going to depend on Wallace’s call, but my gut says we’re not done. Until I see Triad bodies, this isn’t over.” Hank’s face was grim, his voice hard. “That’s why I sent Lovell, Carrington, Huntsman, and Bishop to watch the north and the southwest. Because if those little Commie bastards run for it, I want to know where they go to ground.”

  “What if they cut a deal with the maneaters down there?” Torres kept his expression flat, but there was a hint of trepidation in his voice. “Do we go back in?”

  Hank turned his stare back on the fires in Camargo, the rising plumes of black smoke from burning vehicles and burning houses.

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  ***

  Bronsted, Second Squad’s head comms guy, was bent over the ham set on the tailgate of one of the local trucks. He frowned as he fiddled with it, glancing up as Hank walked over.

  “Sorry, Hank, I’m still trying to get a solid signal. This thing’s not quite like one of the old 150s we trained on. I can’t just lock onto a channel.” He reached up and adjusted the antenna. Bronsted wasn’t a veteran in the usual sense; he’d never joined the military. He’d been a tech geek, working in an IT cubicle, until riots had burned down half his neighborhood. That had led him to a local militia, though he’d quickly figured out that they were doing more harm than good, and from there he’d jumped ship to the Triarii. Most of his training was home-grown Triarii training, but he had adjusted quickly.

  Hank waited, watching Camargo burn. More gunfire popped in the distance, but it was still sporadic. There was no way of knowing for sure who had come out on top; not yet.

  But Hank had his suspicions.

  “Got it!” Bronsted straightened, the handset to his ear. “This is Tango India Six Four, calling Tango Charlie Two Bravos.” He listened for a moment, then handed it over to Hank.

  Hank took the handset. “Tango Charlie Two Bravos, Six Four Actual.”

  “Sitrep, Six Four.” Wallace was usually terse on the radio, but he sounded downright ragged at the moment.

  Hank outlined the events of the last forty-eight hours, including the sudden push by the masked death’s head group.

  Wallace didn’t respond immediately when Hank finished, and Hank pressed the handset to his ear, wondering if they’d lost the signal. But it was strong enough when Wallace spoke again.

  “We’ve seen several incursions by that same group over the last couple of days. Intel is pretty sure that this is the Xolotl Cartel making its play.” He stumbled a little over the pronunciation of “Xolotl,” but Hank could make out the name.

  “I’ve heard something about them, but no details.”

  “There aren’t many to be had. All their iconography is apparently Mesoamerican, and they’re named after one of the Aztec gods of the underworld. Nobody knows where they came from or who’s a member, and their ‘leader,’ if he even exists, is only known by the Nahuatl word for ‘priest,’ which I’m not even going to try to pronounce.” Wallace’s voice was always a little hoarse and deadpan, but there was still a bit of a wry note to it, a rare bit of levity for him. Hank couldn’t help but suspect that he’d indulged in part because the rest of the situation appeared so dark, and his next words seemed to confirm that.

  “While Lajitas has been partially secured, there have been two more incursions, down near Del Rio. Same MO, but this time it’s this Xolotl group riding shotgun, and they’re far more violent than either the Soldados or the Vengadores. I think you just watched a contract change hands.”

  Hank frowned, even though Wallace couldn’t hope to see it. “We haven’t seen a convoy leave Camargo in the last day and a half.”

  “That confirms something else we were worried about, then.” Wallace’s brief flicker of humor was gone. “This is a bigger operation than we suspected, and it’s not just based out of Camargo. Which raises a whole different set of questions.”

  Shit. Hank could already think of a few of those questions. Like, how extensive is this operation, and how read-in is the Mexican government?

  Wallace’s next bombshell partially answered that question. “Since we’ve confirmed that you aren’t tracking the sole source of the incursions, I’m pulling you out. We’ve already had some trouble with the Mexican Army, it’s getting worse, and if you get caught or compromised that deep into Mexico, it’s only going to work against us. I can’t go into detail over the radio, but things have gotten a lot more complicated. Break contact and get back to Presidio as fast as you can. Avoid any contact with the Mexican Army or Policia.” That much almost went without saying.

  “If we’re pulling back, what are we going to do about these incursions?” Hank knew he was taking a chance asking the question. It was one that Wallace probably wouldn’t be willing to answer over the radio, but abandoning the attack to stick to the defensive didn’t seem like a good idea to him. Especially since he was pretty sure that their targets were still somewhere in the vicinity.

  “Not over the radio.” No surprise there. “There is a plan. Trust me on that. The situation has changed. Get back here, Six Four, and bring Seven Three with you.” Hank didn’t know Torres well enough to know if there was a particular reason that he was supposed to make sure the other section returned to Texas. Oh, wait, Wallace knows that I went a little off Graves’ reservation in Arizona. He’s probably more concerned that I’m going to try to get one more strike in on the Chinese.

  “Roger that, Two Bravos.” Hank sighed. On the one hand, he was getting out of an increasingly hairy situation. On the other…

  He hated leaving a job half done. And as long as those Triad goons—or Chinese PLA, if his suspicions were right—were still running around, the job wasn’t done.

  Worse yet, there were a number of locals back there that they were leaving in the breeze, without a word. That stuck in his craw even more.

  “Get back here as quick as you can, and radio ahead when you’re within thirty minutes of the border. We’re going to have some deconfliction to do before you can cross. Oh, and don’t try to cross at the main crossing point. Contact Tango India Five Five. They’ll have coordinating instructions for you.”

  Hank gathered from that that the situation was even more complicated than Wallace had already let on, but had already figured out that more information was not going to be forthcoming over the radio. Whatever was going on, Wallace was keeping it close to the vest, and wasn’t going to talk much except in person.

  “Copy all, Two Bravos. We’ll be wheels up shortly. Six Four, out.” He handed the set back to Bronsted.

  Bronsted was frowning. “We’re not sticking around?”

  Hank shook his head. “Things just got more complicated.” He keyed his own tac radio. “All Six Four and Seven Three elements, fall back to the northern RV point.” He turned back toward his own vehicle. “Get your shit packed up and get ready to move.”

  ***<
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  The northern rendezvous point was out in the desert, north of Highway 67, near a spot marked on the maps as “El Pozo.” There was nothing there; Hank had no idea what “El Pozo” was supposed to be. There was just miles of sagebrush, cactus, and creosote bushes, with rocky, barren mountains rising in the distance. They’d needed to pick a gate lock to get out there, but they were far enough from the highway that they couldn’t be easily seen.

  The vehicles, overloaded as they were since they’d lost a couple during the outburst of violence in Camargo, were circled up in the desert, with the Triarii out on security around them. Torres had even brought a small drone that still had some juice, and it was currently holding position above them, giving them a bit longer sightline, and allowing them to see anyone approaching on the highway long before they actually entered line of sight.

  “Here comes the last group.” Torres was watching the feed on a ruggedized tablet. “They’re moving like the hounds of Hell are on their heels, too.”

  Hank didn’t look. He was busy watching the helicopters that were just visible over the peaks to the southwest, circling over Camargo.

  The truck came tearing up the dirt road from the highway, leaving a towering plume of dust behind it. It stopped in a cloud of dust, and Lovell and Carrington hopped out, in full gear and toting their weapons.

  “Hot damn.” Lovell spat grit. “We got clear just in time. You guys missed the show.”

  Hank nodded toward the helicopters to the southwest, tiny dark specks just over the mountains. “Mexican Army, or somebody else?”

  “Mexican Army.” Lovell nodded. “Here’s the kicker though; they didn’t look like they gave a damn about those skull-faced freaks. They set up checkpoints on the highways out of the city, but they acted like the skull-faces weren’t even there. They were looking for somebody else.”

  Hank nodded grimly. “Us.”

  “Can’t think of any other suspects. I mean, they did get in a fight with a group of Vengadores who were making a run for it, but I still don’t think they were looking for them.”

  Hank circled his arm over his head. “Everybody mount up! We need to be back to the border before sunrise.”

  Chapter 32

  “Tango India Five Five, this is Tango India Six Four.” It was shortly after dark, and Hank had started to hope that they’d escaped the Mexican Army encirclement of Camargo without being noticed. But they were still seeing helicopters, and with the last of its battery power, Torres’ drone had spotted a good-sized checkpoint on the 67 on the way into Ojinaga.

  The radio hissed softly, but there was no response. A helicopter passed closer overhead than he was comfortable with, though its spotlight was aimed toward the Rio Grande and the border rather than the Sierrita de la Santa Cruz where the Triarii vehicles sat circled up under the shadow of a cliff.

  “Tango India Five Five, Tango India Six Four.” He eyed the helicopter, his eyes narrowing as he did. He didn’t know how many helicopters the Mexican Army had, but it felt like he’d seen an awful lot of them over the last twenty-four hours.

  “Tango India Six Four, this is Tango India Five Five. Report your position.” There was a lot of background noise, and Hank frowned. That didn’t sound like a truck; it sounded like Five Five’s section leader was in a helicopter.

  “We are in the vicinity of 595 650, standing by for coordinating instructions.” Hank wondered at that, glancing over at LaForce, who was wedged in between him and Reisinger, who was driving.

  “Roger that, we copy five nine five, six five zero.” There was another pause. “Send LZ report, over.”

  So, we’re going to try to airlift out of here. He wasn’t sure about abandoning assets like the vehicles, but if Wallace didn’t think they could get across the bridge…

  He was really starting to wonder about some of the complications that Wallace had mentioned on the radio.

  “Stand by.” He started digging a notebook and pencil out of his gear. It had been a while since he’d called in a landing zone brief, and he was thankful that he’d thought to bring along a full set of report formats. The Triarii did a number of things their own way, but what wasn’t broken, they hadn’t seen fit to fix.

  It took a few minutes to get the brief worked up and sent. All he got from Five Five was a curt, “Roger,” and then they had to wait.

  ***

  “Tango India Six Four, this is Tango Alpha One Three. I am leading four Seventies to your location, five mikes out.”

  Hank snapped his head around toward the radio. They’d been prepped for airlift for almost an hour, watching the Mexican helicopters flying up and down the Rio Grande. Spencer had been ready to mark the LZ with IR chemlights already, but Hank and Torres had agreed that it wasn’t a good idea to put the mark out too early; not with unknowns still moving in the vicinity.

  They had to class the helicopters as “unknowns” because they simply didn’t have enough information to know if the Mexican Army was actively hostile. They were all pretty sure that it wouldn’t be good if they got spotted, but staying undetected was a far cry from active hostilities.

  He scanned the horizon through his NVGs, looking for the SH-70s that Tango Alpha One Three was bringing in. The Mexican Mi-17s had almost vanished off to the north, though he could still see the spotlights in the distance.

  There. Four dark specks were barely visible just above the horizon, coming in fast and low. He looked back to the north, toward the Mi-17s, but they didn’t change course, didn’t give any indication that they’d seen the American helicopters coming. A further scan of their surroundings didn’t reveal any other ground elements that might threaten the landing.

  “All right, Cole, pop it.” Spencer started cracking chemlights, which stayed dark to the naked eye but glowed brightly in his NVGs. They were strung together with paracord, and Spencer started to arrange them in a Y shape.

  “Tango Alpha One Three, this is Tango India Six Four. LZ is marked with an inverted Y, hills to the ten o’clock, we will be at the nine-o’clock.”

  “Copy all. One minute.”

  The four SH-70s, ostensibly civilian versions of the UH-60 Blackhawk—though the Triarii had done quite a good job of militarizing them—swept in low, swinging around to line up with the inverted Y of IR glowsticks before settling, still in formation, to the desert floor, billows of dust and grit flying up from their rotor wash and brutally pummeling the Triarii crouched in the arroyo off to one side.

  “All aboard,” One Three’s pilot called. “We have maybe two minutes.”

  “Go!” Hank suited actions to words and surged to his feet, dashing toward the birds where they crouched with their rotors still turning, the tips glowing with static discharge in his NVGs. He made sure he wasn’t too far ahead, scanning to either side to make sure that everyone was following.

  It took some doing to make sure everyone was on board—two sections split across four helicopters, in the dark, presented some accountability problems. But he and Torres were finally satisfied with the overall headcount, and he tapped the crew chief on the shoulder. “All up.” The chief yelled over the intercom, though the roar of the rotors was too loud for Hank to hear it. A moment later, they were pulling for the sky, heading northwest toward the Rio Grande.

  Hank looked out the window as they flew. He could only see so much, flying low and fast and in the dark. But as he scanned the landscape outside, he thought he could see vehicles moving on the roads below. And they weren’t civilian vehicles, either.

  He had some questions once they got on the ground.

  ***

  Unfortunately, answers were going to have to wait. Presidio was a beehive of activity, and the Triarii seemed to be responsible for only a small part of it. Texas National Guard and State Guard were all over, most of them apparently oriented on what was left of the border crossing and the river. The bridge was still intact, though most of the border checkpoint was still a crater. And that wasn’t all, either. Several buildings in town a
ppeared to have been shot up or burned down. The signs of combat were everywhere.

  They landed on what appeared to be something of a hasty LZ set up on a bare dirt baseball field. Once the brownout died down, a man in Triarii tans ran up to the lead bird, stuck his head in, and said, “Come with me. We’ve got trucks lined up to take you to billeting. I’m afraid it’s not much, but nobody in Presidio was ready for this.”

  It took some time to get everyone off the birds and loaded up onto the trucks. It was midnight before they got everyone set into billeting, which proved to be a couple of GP tents with ancient military cots and sheet metal wood stoves. Fortunately, everyone had brought some kind of warming layers, mostly old poncho liners or full Ranger Rolls. It didn’t take much longer for most of both sections to be passed out and snoring.

  Except for Hank. He lay there on the cot, staring at the ceiling while the stove hissed, barely audible over the roaring snores around him.

  It wasn’t the discomfort, though the cot couldn’t exactly be called soft or even particularly comfortable. It was narrow and hard, the old canvas stretched tight, though his feet hung over the end, where the cross-piece had been flipped under the side rails rather than pinned on the ends. He barely noticed that; it was common practice with the things, since it often required a crowbar to get the cot properly assembled.

  No, it wasn’t the discomfort. Sheer exhaustion should have been enough to overcome that. He’d slept in much worse places.

  It was the ghosts.

  He hadn’t had time over the last week or more to focus on much beyond the mission and how to accomplish it. But now, without the mission to occupy his thoughts, back in a secure area where he didn’t have to be on guard every moment…

  The ghosts always come back.

  This time was worse, though. Because as soon as he lay down and closed his eyes, he saw Arturo’s lifeless, smashed body collapsing to the dirt again.