Hawke's Fury

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  Defender slowed, checked the device in his hand, and steered around a tall yucca. The two-track lane we’d been following vanished at the edge of a shallow arroyo. The steep, rugged ground made it possible to continue downward and across to the other side. He steered right and from there we followed the wash through the untracked landscape until he found a place he liked. After making a three-point turn, facing us back the way we came, he killed the engine. “Time to go to work.”

  We detrucked into the chilly air. The team quickly checked their equipment for the umpteenth time, mostly by feel, and dropped their NVGs into place. Judge nodded. “We’ll be back in two hours at the most. You wait for three hours. That’ll be around daylight. If we’re not here, follow our tracks back to the highway. Turn right. One point five miles from that turn is a dry wash. That’s our secondary exfil. Pick us up there.”

  “If you don’t show up then?”

  “Drive as far as you can to the border and dump the SUV. Don’t get caught in it. There’s enough armament in this thing to put you under a Mexican prison until the second coming. We have a third option, but you’re not included in it.”

  “I’ll need to get Fosfora.”

  He eyed me for a long moment. “She won’t be there.”

  I was confused. “That’s where you ordered her to be.”

  “She doesn’t follow my orders, or yours, or anyone else’s. She has her own job to do.”

  “What?”

  “I told you. This country is twisted like a nest of snakes. She’s already on the move, under a different name.”

  “What’n hell are you talking about?”

  “She sometimes goes by Flaco, because she’s a he, and he’s working with us, though about half the time I’m not sure about that, either.”

  “But.” I held both hands toward my chest, the way we did when we were kids describing the most recent sex symbol on television. “She has…”

  “Yes. He does, and they’re real. Now we have to go. Trust no one.” Judge paused as the guys faded into the darkness. “If I bring a prisoner back with me, you’ll have the drive time between here and the border to question that individual. That’s all I can offer.”

  They disappeared into the night, and I leaned back against the Expedition, trying to sort out what I’d just heard.

  Chapter 29

  The team was gone, and I waited in the desert beneath a canopy of stars.

  Yeah, I should have done what they told me, but I didn’t answer to Judge, or any of his team members. And I’d already explained that I was impulsive. They were after someone I had to find. She was ultimately the reason I was in this mess in the first place, and I was afraid they intended to kill her, and I needed the Devil Woman alive.

  See, if they killed her, then maybe the murders and attempted murders on my side of the river would stop. But I wanted justice, not retribution or a reckoning. I wanted to know exactly who had ordered the hits on my fellow officers, who were destroying their lives and those of their families, and who would send an assassination team to kill two little old ladies.

  If Judge’s dark cover team killed her, who would say that the drug pipeline she’d been putting into place wouldn’t remain, expanding and involving more officers. I chewed my lip for a little while longer, fighting the urge to do what I shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.

  I lost the argument with myself.

  Leaving the keys in the ignition, I trotted through the pale moonlight in a dim arroyo lined with scrub brush and a few dejected cottonwood trees. Along the way, a lot of dominos fell into place, at least they seemed to.

  Earlier that evening, when Defender was telling me about planting cartel members, he had a look in his eye that was familiar. It was at that moment that I remembered it was the same look in Border Agent Manual Trevino’s eyes, lying the hospital bed back in Ft. Stockton when we talked.

  Back there, Trevino was afraid of something, and wouldn’t give me the whole truth. Now I knew that the cartel had gotten to him, threatening his family. And good lord, that’s why they came after Miss Ruby and Miss Harriet. Agent Nelson had failed in some way, and they made him pay with his life and the lives of others. I remembered reading his file and seeing that beside his foster mother, the agent had only the grown daughter in Hawaii.

  Ol’ Davy Crockett said, “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.” That’s the way I’ve always operated, but there’s nothing concrete in making sure you’re right. There’s always somebody who’ll question right and wrong. But that’s how I’ve always operated. Once I’m sure of what needs to be done, I’ll do it. Sometimes there’s an easier way, but by god I’ll make a decision and do whatever’s necessary to get the job done.

  I trudged on, the little daypack full of ammo riding comfortably on my shoulders, mentally flipping info cards in my head.

  More dominos fell, like when I was a kid, lining them on end on my grandmother’s smooth linoleum floor while warm breezes blew through the rusty window screens in their little farm in Northeast Texas. Once I’d placed the last one just so, I tipped it with a fingertip, watching the curved line of dominos standing on end fall in clicking rhythm.

  Curved. Snakelike. A nest of snakes.

  That’s what Judge had told me, and that image had been writhing in my brain. It’s odd how a man’s mind works, allowing him to concentrate on the job at hand, twisting through desert cactus and scrub without getting a leg full of needles, while at the same time working on a mental problem. Sub-levels of consciousness are even in play, working behind the scenes, trying to sort out details I wasn’t even aware of.

  There was still enough moonlight above the arroyo that I could see their distinct tracks in the sand washed into soft white drifts from the last rain. The deep footprints stepped over a half-buried, sun-bleached log before angling up a slope leading to the top.

  I followed, trying to put my feet in their tracks whenever possible. They’d taken what appeared to be a game trail angling up the opposite bank. When my head popped above the rim and halfway under a greasewood bush, the glow of lights from a nearby ranch told me I’d found their destination.

  And mine.

  The familiar, insect-like buzzing I’d heard several hours earlier cut through the still night air. This time I recognized it for what it was. Someone was piloting a drone, probably as security. I stayed where I was, trying to locate the source, until I saw a dark shape flickering across the stars nearly fifty yards away.

  The drone was traveling in my direction, slow and steady. I slowly sank back down below the arroyo’s rim and waited, tracking the irritating little machine by its sound, until the tone changed.

  That wasn’t good.

  I knew it hadn’t spotted me, it was too far away, and if it had, they’d’ve likely shot up overhead to check me out. I eased up to find the drone hovering thirty feet away. It remained in place for a few seconds, then made a quick turn and accelerated.

  I rose and cursed myself for not waiting, praying the damned thing didn’t have a camera in the rear. My mama had eyes in the back of her head, but I hoped the technology hadn’t caught up to her uncanny natural abilities.

  Give ’em five minutes, then follow.

  The luminous hands on my wristwatch told me I only made it three minutes before I couldn’t stand waiting any longer. The moon was low over a faraway ridgeline and I was about to take off when the night sounds ceased and the distinctive rattle of an AK-47 reached me as soft pops, like distant fireworks. I knew in an instant what it was. None of the team members carried the Russian-made rifles. I didn’t have to wonder who was doing the shooting.

  That firearm was joined by several others, and the battle rose in pitch that told me everything up ahead had gone south. The team’s rifles were equipped with sound suppressors, so the loudest reports came from the bad guys.

  That doesn’t mean their rifles were silent. People think that putting what they call “silencers” on a rifle will eliminate all sound. T
hey still make reports each time they fire, only softer. Listening to the battle, and that’s what it was, was like picking out different instruments in an orchestra.

  The bad guys liked to fire their weapons on full automatic. One or two seemed to run on forever until it stopped when the magazine ran out of ammo. Others ripped long and steady for maybe half a mag before stopping.

  Judge’s team was better trained. They fired quick three-round bursts most of the time, soft, like a baby’s cough. They were surgical in their responses, both through training and to save ammo.

  I checked my watch, wondering how long it would take running men to make the trip back to my position. There was no way they could proceed with their operation. All surprise was gone, and without knowing how many men they were up against, and how well armed, I doubted they’d press forward. By the time they arrived at the ranch, The Devil Woman would be gone.

  Judge and his team probably couldn’t try to fight their way into the house to find her. Or would they. Dammit! I didn’t know enough about those guys, or their mission. Most of the Special Forces I’d ever encountered were outstanding fighters and crack shots. So maybe they were advancing, taking out every cartel member they encountered. Hell, maybe their whole plan was to shoot their way in and back out.

  No matter, they were going to eventually come back my way. My initial half-baked plan was to follow them inside the compound, and once they’d neutralized all the bad guys, I could get a crack at deposing the Devil Woman.

  But now things had changed. I’d just hunker right here and wait for them to come back. If they didn’t shoot me on sight, maybe I could lend another gun to what I figured would be an organized retreat.

  Since I had no idea how far away their objective was, I had no accurate unit of measurement on how long it would take them to reach my position. And that’s if they retraced their own steps. Men in their situation might take any clear trail that would allow them to move fast. I knelt on one knee, thinking.

  “I’d stay right there if I was you, Ranger.”

  The voice was soft, but firm. My heart stuttered and I almost jumped straight up. The smart thing to do was to stay still and hope I didn’t get shot.

  The voice came again. It was Victim. “I saw you coming a mile away in that neon shirt, sir. You’ve been wandering around like a lost calf. Judge’s gonna be pissed when he sees you here.”

  My head about twisted off my neck, and it took several moments to find him, kneeling in a natural divot in the hardpan not far from where I’d climbed out of the arroyo. I couldn’t believe I’d missed him. “Rear guard?”

  “Yessir.”

  “I almost walked right past you and didn’t see a thing in the shadows. You were gonna let me go.”

  “Yessir. My orders were to cover their exfil, not babysit you, but they’ve run into a problem and I can’t have you wandering around right here. They’re coming.”

  Squinting into the dimming light, I couldn’t see any movement. “They close?”

  “Roger that.”

  “There’s a drone . . .”

  “Yessir. It’s come by twice on patrol.”

  The distant battle was moving. I figured it had become a runaway scrape headed our direction. Wishing I had a pair of NVGs, I stepped back to my greasewood bush and dropped down chest deep into the wash. “Tell me what you see.”

  “Nothing yet. Hang on.” I heard him speaking softly. He was talking into a radio. It couldn’t have been VOX, or voice activated, because they would have heard him talking to me and breaking protocol. “Shit! Ex is down!”

  Tucking the AK’s stock against my shoulder, I held the rifle pointed halfway to the ground, squinting toward the direction of the ranch. The glow from their lights looked almost pleasant against the star-filled sky, kinda like the promise of a cool oasis of civilization in the desert.

  There it was again, that buzzing sound telling me the drone was close. It vibrated the air, coming in our direction twenty feet above the brush, glittering in the moonlight.

  The gunfire picked up again, soft, but closer pops rattling the night. Sometimes it was one weapon, other times what sounded like three or four joined in.

  The drone moved a few feet at a time, flying like a dragonfly, or what the Old Man called snake-doctors, zooming a few feet in my direction and pausing. The only thing it didn’t do was rest on a stick or branch from time to time. It was positioning itself to pick up the retreat and send images back to the cartel members. They might even be able to swing around and flank the retreating team.

  When that annoying little hummer came close enough and I could see it hovering still and steady against the stars, I drew a tight bead and pulled the trigger. It exploded in a spray of plastic parts.

  “Just like target shooting, only different.” I scanned the ground, looking for the team, and explaining to Victim why I’d fired. I wanted to be proactive. “I don’t like being spied on. Besides, I bet you wanted to do the same. They’re looking for the guys.”

  My night vision was momentarily shot from the muzzle flare, so I couldn’t see Victim on my right. His voice came through loud and clear, though. “Good thinking, but against orders.”

  “I don’t have ’em.”

  “You’re gonna get us killed.”

  “Nah. If you believe my wife, she say’s our time is already written in the Book when we’re born, so there’s nothing I can do to change that.”

  I could feel him studying me through the NVGs covering his eyes and I wondered what he was thinking. A bright light flickered to my left. Headlights. Someone was barreling in our direction and they had to have been on some kind of open ranch road to move at that speed.

  My sight had returned enough for me to see him turn his head away to avoid the intense glare.

  “Is that your team coming this way in a vehicle?” My voice was louder than I wanted it to be, but then again, things were getting tense.

  Victim spoke into his microphone again for a second before answering. “No. Targets.”

  “You do your job.” I rose from the arroyo. “I’ll stop ’em.”

  “Wait!”

  I’ve heard people holler that at me in the past, and it usually didn’t work. I had no intention of waiting. Like those on my grandmother’s linoleum floor, these dominos were falling faster, and I knew that vehicle was headed our way to intercept the team. I wasn’t operating under orders from a man who didn’t know what was going on around us.

  With experience in running through the desert, I popped out of the arroyo, keeping an eye on the ground to avoid cactus or anything else that might cut, trip, or stab me. The headlights headed in my general direction bounced on the uneven ground. Doing the geometry in my head, I angled to intercept them. The engine roared and the lights steadied. They’d reached smoother ground.

  Dammit! I couldn’t get as far ahead of them as I wanted.

  Those guys were intent on cutting the retreating team off, probably figuring to flank Judge’s team and catch them in a crossfire with the others who were chasing him. I ran several more yards and finally saw the ranch road the vehicle was following. Dropping to one knee that landed on the sharpest rock in Mexico, I shouldered the Russian rifle and led the speeding SUV.

  For a brief moment, the thought that it might be a car load of innocents fleeing the gunfire crossed my mind. Nope. There was enough light from the lowering moon to see the windows were down and the barrel of a weapon protruded into the night. Thankful for the AK’s open sights, I settled them on the driver’s side of the windshield and held the trigger down, letting the car’s momentum pull them through the string of hot lead.

  It was like leading a flying dove with a shotgun, letting the bird fly into the pattern of pellets.

  The 5.56 rounds punched across the windshield, raking down the side and through the open windows as it passed, stitching holes in tempered glass, metal, and finally flesh. Holding the trigger down on full-automatic, I twisted, following the moving vehicle and kee
ping the sights on the open passenger window. A couple of rounds ricocheted off and whined into the distance as I swung the muzzle again into the back seat. The driver, wounded or dead, lost control of the vehicle that left the narrow dirt road and punched out with a loud bang into the thick trunk of a gnarled cottonwood tree that had been struggling for decades to live in the harsh desert.

  Dropping the empty mag, I jammed a fresh one from my pocket into the empty well. It clicked into place. Advancing on the wrecked Suburban, I reached the driver side at the same time the rear passenger door popped opened and a shape stumbled outside, backlit by the dome lights and of all things, blue accent lights on the floor and in the doors.

  A weapon in the man’s hands came up and muzzle flashes froze him into my mind. Rounds whizzed by several feet away as he held the trigger down and sprayed in the hopes of hitting something.

  I shouldered the rifle and took my time hammering him dead as a day-old stogie.

  He was nothing but a dark, bleeding mass on the ground and beyond his still shape, I could see four very still bodies slumped in the seats like rag dolls. Or at least I thought they were all still. One guy in the middle of the back seat wasn’t through. Whatever machine pistol he had in his hand went off, stitching the darkness.

  I was pissed and tired of being shot at. I held the trigger down on the AK, anchoring him and the other two as well, just to be on the safe side. It’s hard to hold the muzzle still on a fully automatic rifle, but I didn’t mind the overspray in that situation.

  Despite ears deadened by the gunfire, I reacquired the sounds of the running gun battle headed my way. “Coming back!” At that point, yelling didn’t make any difference and I wanted to make sure Victim didn’t mistake me for a surviving bad guy.

  “I got eyes on you.”

  “Oh.” I’d forgotten in all the excitement that he was peeking through NVGs.

  “Good work, but get your butt back over here. What I can see of that damn shirt’s glowing like a campfire.”