Hawke's Fury

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  Lucky for him, unlike their van or the gringo’s vehicle, the drone didn’t have to stick to ribbons winding across the land, so once he was sure they weren’t there, he flew the drone cross-country back to their road and finally picked them up.

  Carlos’s stomach knotted again in fear. “This speed is draining the drone’s battery. It won’t last more than a couple of minutes more.”

  Hector didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I thought you said we had more time.”

  “I know what I said.” Carlos tapped at the keyboard and stopped. He clapped his hands in joy. “There! He turned on the autopista!”

  Betting the fleeing vehicle would race for the border on the smooth hardtop, he piloted the drone in that direction and sent it into the air over the two-lane highway. It took another minute, but he saw a glint that could have been moonlight reflecting off a windshield, or chrome. A clear flash of red taillights told him the driver slowed to take a curve.

  He keyed the walkie-talkie again. “Incencio.”

  “What.” The sounds of gunshots came through the walkie-talkie’s tiny speaker.

  Hector and Carlos exchanged looks. “We have followed them to the autopista. They’re going to the Estados Unidos.”

  “Bien.”

  “The battery on my drone is almost dead.”

  “We don’t need you anymore. Return to the rancho. We have killed all the soldados here, but there may be more.”

  “But the Mujer Malvada is not there.”

  “Don’t let La Jefa hear you speak those words, or you’ll wind up in her garden. Others may come for the money, idiota.”

  Carlos and the rest of those at the ranch knew that millions were stashed in a variety of safes set in walls, sunk in the floors, and in a giant standing safe secreted behind swinging shelves in the main house’s pantry.

  “Sí.”

  Hector slowed and stopped when they reached the highway. “He didn’t even say thank you.”

  “Yes, he did. He didn’t say he was going to kill us. That is thanks enough.”

  Chapter 41

  Esteban felt he’d been holding his breath for an hour. He released it in one long whoosh and reloaded the Scorpion he’d taken from Alejandro’s truck. It was the perfect weapon, and he knew from the moment he saw it in the back seat that the little death machine would be his. He’d lifted it before meeting with the Ranger, knowing that Alejandro would be dead by Fosfora’s hand minutes later.

  It was the way of their world.

  He was forced to set up the assassination of the Ciudad Acuna police officer to keep his own cover secure. As he’d told Hawke, he committed certain crimes for the greater good. Though Alejandro struggled to honor the badge he wore, he’d taken bribes from the cartel to look the other way a number of times.

  But when Fosfora came into the picture with him, Esteban was forced to assume she’d told him about their association, and how she was a go-between linking him with the handler who communicated through her brother’s bar. He couldn’t afford to let the officer live, unlike the Ranger he’d knocked out earlier that night.

  The Ranger was on his side, working toward plugging the Devil Woman’s pipeline. His sudden arrival and highly illegal investigation just might be the unexpected move to force her into the states where she wouldn’t have as much heavily armed protection and could either be taken into custody or eliminated.

  And here he was, staring down at the bodies of the Americans he’d been working with only hours earlier, lying in still another dry arroyo where they’d finally made their stand. He’d used the team for his own gain, but it backfired when he realized they’d lied to him days earlier. The Black Ops members were charged with killing the Devil Woman, and they were funded by a dark company back in the states, but when Fosfora accidentally mentioned the vast amount of money that was supposedly hidden in the house after she and the Ranger arrived that night, the mercenaries changed their plan.

  It changed again when Ranger Hawke talked them into taking him along. Fosfora used her own SAT phone hidden in the purse she seldom took off her shoulder and relayed the Black Op team’s new plan to her brother back at the Caballo Diablo bar in Ciudad Acuna. He called Esteban who contacted a Mexican officer named Perez.

  The running gun battle away from the rancherio became a slaughter when more than two dozen soldiers from the Mexican army joined in with La Reina del Diablo’s men and forced Judge’s team into a well-planned ambush.

  And now it was over, and Esteban had even more blood on his hands. He wondered if his own soul was as bloody.

  * * *

  Incencio slapped Captain Perez on the shoulder. “They were very good.”

  Half a dozen surviving cartel soldados stood alongside twenty Mexican soldiers playing their lights over the bloody bodies of the American mercenaries lying in a shallow arroyo where they’d tried to make a stand. With arms and legs splayed in the blood-soaked sand, the men still looked dangerous to Perez.

  Perez stuck a cigarillo between his lips and lit it. The tiny flame was bright in the pre-dawn darkness. “Military?”

  “Mercenaries, operaciaones negras, I think.” Incencio blinked, reacting to the light. “But it makes no difference.”

  “How did you know they’d be here?” Esteban slung the Scorpion over his shoulder and turned toward the glow on the eastern horizon.

  “Fosfora sent word they’d come this way.” Captain Perez drew deeply on the cigarillo. “Esa travesti says they were planning on taking La Jefa’s money and using her as a hostage for ransom. Fosfora was going to get part of that money. She had been working with these norteamericanos and talking to us at the same time.”

  So she’d worked out a deal for herself. Esteban kept his face expressionless, though he was surprised. You never knew who was working a side deal, and you never, never spoke against anyone, no matter their social class. “That idea was suicide.”

  “Yes, it was, but they dreamed large. I admire them for that.”

  Incencio tilted his head in question. “Why do you let Fosfora live, then?”

  “Because, she is like us, or worse. Every time she shows up, her hand is out, but the information we get from her is more valuable than her life.” Captain Perez waved a hand. “We are done here.” Reloading their weapons, his men jogged toward the Humvees parked a hundred yards away. “I assume we will be paid for our ammunition.”

  Incencio chuckled. “Of course. La Jefa always takes care of those who remain trustworthy.”

  As the men scattered, Esteban wondered how much longer he could play both ends toward the middle. He had the information they needed to put an end to the Devil Woman’s operation on the Texas side of the border.

  Maybe it was time to go. There were too many double-crosses to contend with, and it was as sure as the rising sun that his time was coming. He stifled a shiver at the thought of her garden of bodies.

  Incencio wasn’t finished just yet. He waved a hand at his soldados. “Amigos. Shoot them again to make sure no one is still breathing and we will come back with a truck to take these pendejos to La Jefa so she can add them to her garden.”

  Always ready to shoot their weapons, two of his men stepped forward and opened on the bodies with rifles switched to fully automatic at the same time the walkie-talkie on Incencio’s belt squawked to life.

  Esteban listened to the exchange with Carlos and saw his world had just changed, exactly as he predicted.

  Chapter 42

  An hour after Sonny’s call, Perry Hale and Yolanda Rodriguez watched the dark terrain flicker below the scratched windows of a helicopter piloted by a seedy-looking character named Lance Hopkins. The chopper flew so close to the ground Perry Hale thought they would hang a runner on one of the tall chollas reaching upward.

  In battle gear and a four-day beard, Perry Hale could pass for anyone in the U.S. military, but without identifying insignia for any branch. Though she wasn’t wearing makeup, Yolanda could have been a model for a recruitment p
oster with her naturally long eyelashes and dark complexion.

  Lance on the other hand was 100 percent civilian, now, wearing a faded black AC/DC sleeveless concert T-shirt and cargo shorts. Their pilot was way too chatty, and his speech patterns set Perry Hale’s teeth on edge, but the man was a vet, and that made them brothers in arms. Preferring not to engage in conversation, Perry Hale had the microphone on his helmet pushed downward, hoping that Lance would get the idea.

  Yolanda had no problems talking to him. She spoke into her mouthpiece. “You’re scaring me to death.”

  “Hey man, y’all said you didn’t want to be seen coming in.” Lance talked like an ’80s California surfer dude, though he was from the Mississippi delta. “This is called flying under the radar, man.”

  “Fly, yes, but I didn’t know we were going to drive.”

  Lance barked a laugh. “The only people who hire me for runs like this usually don’t make many comments on my technique.” He angled the stick, following a deep, rocky canyon leading into the northern part of Coahuila. “This is nothing, man. I had some guys hire me last year who insisted on flying in the ungodliest weather you ever saw. Raining like hell, man, from a hurricane that came in off the Baja coast and, like, cruised all across Mexico. If that wasn’t bad enough, all I had was a pair of headlights to look for when we got to the LZ. We were in and out without anyone suspecting, but I never did find out why they were dropping off. I don’t mind that, like you two. It’s the stuff folks want to pick up and haul north that I won’t work with, and believe me, man, there’s plenty of business to keep me busy if I wanted it.

  But this is better though, staying in-country, if you know what I mean. Grease a few greedy palms, and you can do damn near anything you want down here, as long as you don’t cross the cartels or the Mexican police . . . or the military, come to think of it. Just keeping my head down, man. You won’t believe how many people ask me to do just this kind of thing.

  “The problem flying this close to the ground these days are drones, man. They’re everywhere, even at night. Especially up around the border. The cartels are flying drugs over the river with those things all the time now. I’ve had those damned mechanical bugs almost tangle in the rotors, man. You don’t know they’re around until they whiz by. I had one just two days ago on a clear day almost punch through the canopy, man. Glanced off the plastic like an RPG. Damn! That’s the scar right there.” He pointed off to the co-pilot side. “Scared the piss out of me.

  “And man, you know, I heard they have ’em big enough to fly people over the river now.” He held his right hand as wide as he could in the cockpit. “Can you imagine one this big? Dude, that’ll put a dent in the coyotes’ business for sure if they get that technology up and running. Think of it! Swarms of giant drones hauling people? Think of the traffic flying back and forth.”

  He checked the instrument panel and gave a harsh bark. “Man. That brings a whole new meaning to human trafficking.”

  Lance came recommended by a friend Perry Hale had known while he was in Iraq. He’d called the guy from the truck only a few hours before Sonny called, and asked if he knew anyone who flew choppers in Coahuila.

  The friend recommended Lance with one caveat. “He’s crazy as a Bessie bug, but he can fly anything that’ll get off the ground.”

  Lance pulled the stick back on the battered old Eu-robus helicopter that was once painted a pale blue, but now was almost neutral in color. They rose above a rocky ridge, but still well below the radar. “Dude. Y’all want me to pick you up later?”

  “No.” Perry Hale adjusted the microphone. “I don’t know where we’ll cross back.”

  “Dude. Just keep my number handy. I’ll come get you.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Hey, man, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “I saw those bags you loaded. They’re heavy, and I think I know what’s in ’em. How’d y’all get firearms across the river?”

  This was why Perry Hale didn’t want to talk at all on the trip. “Coming south is a breeze. Like you said, it’s moving stuff north that’s the problem.”

  “Man, they catch y’all with just one little .22 round in your pocket and you’ll be in a Mexican prison for the next thirty years, if you live that long, and here I am hauling enough guns to start our own country. Dude, you have some kind of death wish?”

  “They won’t catch us.”

  Something in Perry Hale’s tone slowed Lance’s roll. He checked the instrument panel again. Several nonessential pieces of equipment were gone, leaving dark holes where the electronics had been. “All right. We’re almost where you wanted to go, but man, I hope you have enough rats and water. I haven’t seen a light in miles.”

  “We know.” Perry Hale pushed the microphone back down, ending his part of the conversation.

  “We’re here. Chalk Canyon’s that way.”

  “Don’t land too close. Take us a couple of clicks back to the east.”

  “So no one hears us come in. Right, man.”

  Staying right above the canyon, Lance followed a few more miles before finding a good place to land. “This is it. Honey, we’re home.”

  The moon was still high enough for them to see a wide, flat section big enough to handle the helicopter. Lance slowed, raising the chopper’s nose, and settled onto the sand, landing light as a feather, but keeping the big engine at idle.

  “We’re far enough away from your target area that they won’t hear the rotors, whoever they are. Good luck, man! Vaya con dios!”

  Perry Hale and Yolanda popped the door and were out in seconds, dragging two packs and the same number of heavy bags out onto the ground. As soon as they were clear, Lance gave them a thumbs up, and the helicopter rose barely thirty feet into the air before he turned and disappeared back the way they came.

  “Won’t Sonny be surprised to see us?” Perry Hale kept it light as he threw the strap of his MOLLEE pack over one shoulder and shrugged into the other.

  “He will after he gets through chewing our butts.” Yolanda settled her gear, patting the pockets of her tactical vest that would blend into the desert come daylight. By the way, man, how much did that little trip just cost us?”

  Perry Hale laughed at her impersonation. “Well, man, it was a freebie. An old pal owed me one and footed the bill.”

  Standing on the rocky desert floor, Perry Hale and Yolanda pulled their weapons from the black bags and slipped the straps over their shoulders. Leaving the bags behind, they saddled up and headed across the desert toward a canyon highway leading to Texas.

  Chapter 43

  Conversation between me and Devil Woman Tish kinda dried up for a little while. I had the foot-feed almost all the way down to the floorboard and we were booking it as the sun peeked over the horizon on our right. At that hour, there was very little traffic, but each time we rounded a corner I expected to see a roadblock manned by cartel members or the military.

  We passed a couple of old trucks going the opposite direction, and caught up to a late-model Mercedes that saw us in their rearview mirror and immediately pulled onto the shoulder to let us pass.

  They’d likely recognized something in the style of the SUV I was piloting or from the way we roared up on them so fast. In that country, citizens probably didn’t want to take the chance of pissing off the wrong person who might kill them with as little thought as running over one of the many terrapins crossing the highway in the pre-dawn cool.

  We’d been driving with all four windows up, because the desert air was chilly and I couldn’t think with the wind roaring in my ears. I was glad we were, because dry dust boiled up from under the car slowing on the shoulder as soon as their tires were off the pavement. We punched through the cloud as our own tires ate up the miles.

  My eyes kept flicking from the highway ahead to the rearview and side mirrors. I couldn’t believe we weren’t being followed and after a while, began to think that my luck had held for once and we’d gott
en away clean.

  The intersecting road I was looking for appeared on the map in the dash and I slowed. My spirits sagged a little when I got a good look at the rough track’s diagonal path off the highway. I took it anyway and the tires sang a different song on the caliche as rocks rattled against the undercarriage. They were much more muffled than I would have expected.

  Steering felt a little squirrely, and we rocked side to side. Like I said, I’d learned to drive on dirt and gravel roads, and something wasn’t right. It finally dawned on me that the Expedition didn’t feel the same as other SUVs I’ve driven in the past. “You had this thing upgraded, didn’t you?”

  My new little friend glared a hole through the windshield.

  “Beefed up suspension, heavier doors. We’re in an armored vehicle. Did you have them install steel plates? Nah, that’d be too heavy, Kevlar, I bet.” Using a knuckle, I reached out and tapped the windshield. “Bulletproof?”

  “I’ve already told you that if you release me, I will let you live. I see blood running from your hair and onto the side of your face. Have you been shot? Let me go and you won’t be hurt any worse.”

  “Cut myself shaving this morning.”

  “Turn around and get back on the highway so you can drive us east to Piedras Negra and you can get out and disappear.”

  “Well, that’s a fine offer, but you’ve already shown me your stripes, so I’ll pass. And besides, now that we’re off, I’m not getting back on Highway 53. I ’magine it’s about to be working alive with your people and likely the police or military.”

  “People get lost and die out here. I don’t intend to die with you.”

  Long morning shadows from desert vegetation stretched across the dry landscape. “They do, but I don’t think we’re gonna get lost.” I checked the map on the screen and zoomed out to be sure I was still going the right direction. It was dangerous business not giving the road my full attention, but I had to be sure.