I took it and offered the cup to Fosfora. She shook her head, holding up a hand. “I don’t like coffee.”
Shrugging, I sipped at the steaming liquid and coughed. “Don’t worry. This ain’t coffee.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t spit it out.” One of the other guys in full battle gear materialized from the darkness. He was also looking through goggles. “Worst coffee in the world, but I like the caffeine jolt. Nice shirt, by the way.”
I glanced down at my Aloha shirt that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Staring into the blackness of the cup, I remembered that coffee was the reason I was in that bright shirt in the first place.
“Let me show you how to do it, so you don’t have to drink that shit, sir.” The new arrival rummaged through the MREs and located another packet. He ripped it open and poured the powdered coffee into his bottom lip like he was dipping snuff. Then he added a packet of sugar, puffing the lip out even further. Packing the whole mess with his tongue for a minute, he swallowed what had already dissolved. “Tastes pretty bad even like this, but I’ve learned to like it.” He held out a small pack. “Cream?”
“No thanks, and you don’t have to call me sir.” Shifting to sit on a chair-high boulder, I sipped the dark liquid, thinking it might at least look like coffee in the light, but it sure didn’t taste that way. “I never was in the military.”
“We know who you are. You’re one of us.” He reached out a hand. “Call me Jury.”
I returned his shake. The guy’s hand was like a vise. “Jury . . . and Judge, not your first name like I thought. Code names.”
Judge nodded at the other members of his group who drifted in to join us. “That’s Executioner . . . but we call him Ex for short.”
They all looked like strange bugs with the NVGs over their eyes and carried tricked out AR-style rifles muzzle down on their chests. They were walking armories, with more guns and knives strapped to their bodies than most people have in their closets. I figured they were the ones who ventilated the cartel members behind us. I wondered what they’d done with the corpses and the car.
The guy beside him picked up a loaded magazine from those stacked in back of the SUV and slid it into the empty pocket on his vest. He had a strong Hispanic accent. “That’s really because of all his ex-wives.”
Soft chuckles in the cold desert air. We were hunkered up beside a rocky ridgeline. The other three directions were wide open to the flat landscape, and the waxing moonlight revealed everything, even the shapes of boulders lining the rim far above. I felt the desert chill for the first time that night, and shivered as a meteorite streaked overhead.
They didn’t take off the goggles, and I realized that they were keeping watch on our surroundings. One always faced outward while the others replaced used magazines, and they switched out, taking turns as if through some mental communication process.
“This smartass is the Prosecutor. You can’t tell it, but he’s a redhead like yourself.”
“We gotta stick together.” I sipped the coffee again and wished I hadn’t.
“Yessir. Then there’s Defender there that popped off about ex-wives. He hated the name Defense.” He pronounced it Dee-fence.
Defender grinned, teeth white in the darkness. “It sounds like a football term, and I’m the only guy in the world who hates football.” His accent told me English was his second language.
Prosecutor turned to scan the area. I liked that. Seeing no movement, he swung back around. “Tell ’em what you do like.”
“Planting cartel members.” Defender’s voice was flat. His Spanish accent deepened. “They killed my grandparents down in Camargo. Every one of those pendejos I catch will pay with their lives.”
“And he’s in a good mood today.” Judge jerked a thumb to his left. “The last guy is Victim.”
“Victim?” Fosfora was obviously confused, but I almost wanted to laugh at the courtroom nicknames.
“He comes by it naturally. If something happens, it happens to him first. Hell, he even got stung by a scorpion today, and we haven’t had that happen before.”
Victim pointed to his neck. I could see a small bandage over his left jugular. “Little bastard crawled up on my shoulder and hit me before I even knew it was there. It still hurts like a bitch!”
More chuckles.
“Interesting names. Y’all come up with ’em?”
“Nossir. They came from the Governor, and I suspect I know what you’re angling at. Don’t ask who he is or who he works for. This country down here is twisted like a nest of rattlers, and that kinks things up on both sides of the border so much you don’t know who’s who.” Judge dug into an open pack beside him, feeling in one of the cargo pockets. “Now we’re mixed up with them.”
“You’re here to deal with the cartels, though.”
“You don’t deal with cartels. I can tell you we’re here on a special assignment.” He handed a small packet to me, and offered one to Fosfora. “Energy bars. It’ll make that nasty witch’s brew taste a little better. I’d offer you an MRE, but we’ve already eaten the good stuff, though I think there’s one beef stew left.”
I suddenly realized I was starving and hadn’t eaten since early that morning. “This will be fine.” I peeled the packet open and bit into something that tasted like peanut butter flavored sawdust. I saw Fosfora wolfing her bar like she was starving, though she’d eaten earlier while I was meeting with Esteban.
That reminded me. “Well, guys, thanks for taking us in.” I chewed for a moment. “Where’s Esteban?”
Judge answered. “He’s gone already. He’s like a ghost.”
“He didn’t drive out the way we came in.”
Judge jerked a thumb. “Back way. Winds through a gap in this ridge and comes out a little farther down the road.”
“He already knew you guys were here.”
Judge nodded. “He stopped by on his way to meet you.”
“Y’all’re working together then.”
He shrugged. “More or less.”
“He coming back?”
“You never know.”
“Well, that kinda leaves us hanging.”
“It won’t. You’re just lucky we happened to be where we are. We’re leaving you two right here while we go do a little work tonight, then we’ll be back by sunup and stick around here all day tomorrow, then we all head for the border when the sun goes down. We leave your truck where it is and you two ride with us.”
“It’ll be crowded.”
He shrugged. “We’ll make it work. You’ll be back across by daylight after that.”
“I’m not staying here all day tomorrow,” Fosfora snapped. “I need to get back.”
I almost heard Judge’s eyes harden. “You’ll do what I say . . . ma’am. You two are secondary to our mission. If this man wasn’t a Ranger, I’d leave you right where you’re sitting, come daylight.”
“You guys get caught over here in that gear, it could spark an international incident. Invading army and all that.” I sipped the coffee again. It tasted worse as it cooled.
“Yessir. That’s why we won’t get caught. Sir, why are you here, if I can ask? All we know is that Esteban said he needed to drop off two packages under our care. And then that call from your people of course that verified your I.D.”
“I came across on a murder and attempted murder investigation. Two elderly sisters in Del Rio were attacked by cartel members, but we didn’t have any idea why. I believe they’re possibly connected to the murder of a Border Patrol agent, and a female cartel leader’s running the whole shebang.”
“Yeah, that nest of snakes thing.” Judge and Jury exchanged looks. Judge sighed. “We know about that.”
“What?”
Jury took his turn at scanning the area while Judge paused, weighing something in his mind. Coming to a decision, he scratched his scalp under the helmet. “You didn’t hear this from me, but now I think you need to know. Have you ever heard of the Devil Woman of Coahuila o
r the Hidalgo cartel?”
I nodded “I heard a guy mention it once.”
“The narco government down here’s allowing a female cartel member to run the country and she’s getting wayyyy too much power. They won’t arrest her, because she’s pouring money into their pockets, more than all the other cartel leaders combined. We keep hearing about raids on different safe houses and ranches, but they always say she wasn’t there when the police or military arrives.”
“That’s pretty standard.”
“Yessir. So now we know where she is.”
He left the conversation hanging.
“You guys are going after her.”
“I didn’t say that, sir.”
“I’ve heard of her. I’m going with you.”
“Nossir. You’re not.”
I told them about the Movie Lot Massacre and my part in the attack. When I got to the part about shooting the undercover agent, they shifted and swayed like grass in the wind, uncomfortable with the thought. I told him everything I knew about what happened to the sisters in Del Rio.
“That makes no difference, sir.” Judge sniffed through dry sinuses, the sound loud in the night. “Our job is to take you back with us when we return, and to put you in the hands of Perry Rodriguez.”
“Well, that’s actually two people. Perry Hale and Yolanda Rodriguez. They’re my team.”
“So you understand what we’re supposed to do.”
“Yeah, but I’m going with you.”
Adjusting the goggles in front of his eyes, Victim sorted through a box of MREs, probably so he wouldn’t have to pay attention to our argument.
My phone buzzed with an incoming text message that was loud in the quiet night. I had a signal. “I’ll be damned. I bet it’s from my wife. Hold that thought.”
“Don’t take that phone from your pocket.” Judge scanned the area. “Get in the back seat and cover your head with this blanket. Two minutes, and I better not see so much as a glow in there.”
Feeling like a scolded teenager, I climbed into the SUV and sent three quick texts.
Chapter 27
Fosfora bucked and snorted when I told her she was going to wait there or take Alejandro’s truck and drive her butt on back to Ciudad Acuna by herself. She didn’t want to get caught driving a dead man’s pickup, but she didn’t like the idea of staying all alone at the camp by herself.
“What if all of you get killed?”
“Then you can drive yourself to whatever little ejido is closest and ditch the truck. You said yourself you could ride your thumb back home. And besides, didn’t you tell me that brother of yours was coming to pick you up?”
A look passed over her face, but I couldn’t figure out what it meant. “At some point.”
“So there you go.”
She frowned into the darkness, watching the team gear up.
Judge and Ex pulled several cartons from the SUV and stacked them against the rocks to make room. Judge waved me over. “Changed my mind. You can go as far as the jumping off point. We can use you to wait with the vehicle, but you don’t go in with us.”
I wanted to argue, but thankful for the small victory, I for once remained quiet.
Judge nudged one with his toe. “We’re leaving the extra ammo here. All six of us in this Expedition will be crowded, but that’s the way it’ll have to be.”
Defender came up and handed me an AK-47 and several loaded magazines. They all carried modernized rifles, and it was a surprise to see it in his hands. “I don’t like these things, but they’re reliable.” His soft voice didn’t fit with a man who loved planting cartel members. When he wasn’t irritated, his accent was light. “You familiar with this cuerno de chivo?”
I took the Russian-made rifle and popped the goat’s horn–shaped magazine to see that it was fully loaded, then made sure a round was chambered. My palm came away slightly sticky. “I’ve shot ’em.”
He handed me the Cordura backpack loaded with magazines for the Beretta. “There were some 9mm empty mags in your truck. I reloaded them with our stock, then threw in a couple more boxes, along with rounds for the AK. The bad guy only had one other mag, so you’ll have to hand load it if you have to use this thing. Other than that, you should be good to go. Sorry I couldn’t offer you a better rifle, but this was all those guys had in that car we took out.”
So that’s what was sticky on the pistol grip. The previous owner’s drying blood.
I tried not to think about it as I wiped my hand on my jeans. “This’ll do just fine.”
Judge came around. “You do what we tell you, when we tell you, sir. You’re to stay with the vehicle as we deal with our business. It’ll likely be hot when we leave, so you’re the designated driver.”
“You taking her or killing her?”
“Does it matter?”
“To me. I’d like to talk to her as part of that investigation, and I’m not a fan of assassination teams.”
The guys around us shifted back and forth in the shadows of the setting moon. It was a much different pattern of movement than their deliberate process of loading up for battle. This time they were fidgeting around to stay close and listen to our conversation. Not that I could blame them. They had orders and I was the wild card, changing their mission.
Judge adjusted the rifle hanging over his chest. “You know I don’t have to take you at all. You’re what I guess we’ll call the secondary interest. You can stay here. In fact, I’d prefer that.”
“My CO, the Major, ordered me to find out what’s going on with these hits back home. If they originate here, she’ll be the prime suspect and we can extradite her.” That even sounded stupid to me, but I had to make my case. “I can’t talk to her if she’s dead.”
“Sir.” Judge’s voice hardened. “As one redhead to another, I can understand how you feel. I’m feeling it right now.” He paused to let that sink in, telling me he was getting irritated, but I was, too, though it shouldn’t have been directed toward a man who’d saved my bacon earlier that evening. “But I have my orders and you know as well as I do, we’re operating in a dangerous place. I need to concentrate on my job. You might think about doing yours north of the river. Remember, it’s you who’s insisting on going with us, not the other way around.”
It was time to quit arguing. I shut up and shouldered the AK. “Fine, but I need to talk with her if I can.”
“I haven’t said she was our mission, sir.”
“You haven’t said she isn’t either. So while we’re out driving this evening, and if you know where this Devil Woman lives, would you mind if we stop by her house so I can knock on the door?”
They laughed and the tension was broken.
We loaded up in the Expedition, and I saw Fosfora through the side mirror, watching us drive away.
Chapter 28
I squeezed in the back seat between Ex and Victim, two guys big as mountains. Prosecutor rode in the rear cargo area, saying he preferred to spread out rather than to be stuck in the middle between those guys. I wish I’d thought of it before everyone loaded up.
Though the Expedition had a lot of room, it was crowded in there between two professional shooters covered in battle gear and firearms. I added a little to the constriction because of the tactical vest they gave me. I’m sure I looked ridiculous with it strapped over my flowery yellow Aloha shirt, but it was better than getting shot again.
The desert camo vest helped hide some of the shirt’s glare, and I was thankful for that. No one had brought extra clothing, or I would have borrowed at least a T-shirt. They were dressed for the mission, and spare shirts for visitors weren’t included.
Judge spoke over his shoulder. “We’re making entrance into the compound at three. That’s all you get to know. When we come back, it may be hot, so I need you behind this wheel, waiting. Just be ready to drive us the hell out of there when we exfil. That’s your job.”
He paused, thinking. “I oughta have my head examined, bringing you along though
.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m impulsive.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I’m giving you an out. This is my idea, but I don’t like staying behind.”
“Roger that. But you keep your ass right here in this vehicle, Ranger. You may be able to throw some weight around north of the river, but down here, I’m the stud duck.”
I have no idea what Defender was using to guide him along the dark desert, but we’d long since left the paved road and were zigzagging westward along a web of dirt roads. I lit up my phone, but the No Service sign was up.
Victim grunted. “Technology, huh. Nothing works down here in hell.”
“It probably wouldn’t work right for me if we were in the middle of a city.”
Ex coughed a laugh. “I was in Honolulu a couple of years ago and the damn map application wouldn’t load. I walked fourteen miles that day to a place that was three miles from where I started.”
Judge glanced back over his shoulder, but didn’t chime in. I’m sure he’d seen his men prepare for a mission a thousand times before, and much of it was banter and cross talk to bleed off nerves.
I’ve rolled with SWAT many times in the past, and have always been a little surprised at the conversations between the officers as they rode into danger. It’s their way of calming themselves before the storm.
As we rolled through the night, I checked the contents of my vest, making sure none of the magazines I’d inserted into the pockets had fallen out. It was impossible that they had, because they were designed to keep the magazines in until I needed them.
Ex watched me pat the pockets. He nodded. “I do the same thing.”
“Nerves.”
“Nerves and habit,” Victim said. He placed his hand over a pocket on his vest. “First aid. Compression bandages. Everything I need in case I get hurt. It’s an obsession with me.”
I saw he’d changed the dressing on his neck to one that wasn’t as bright. “I don’t think I like sitting next to you.”
“You shouldn’t like sitting in the car with him,” Prosecutor said from the back where he was folded in with Jury. “I don’t. Hey, are you trying to hit every bump and hole in this damned desert? You’re bouncing me around back here like a pinball.”
Hawke's Fury Page 16
