Hawke's Fury

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “Do you know where you are going?”

  “I do.” Now that I’d figured out we were in an armored vehicle, I felt a little better. I’ve worked security when dignitaries come to my part of the state, along with other experienced Rangers. Some of the vehicles supplied by the feds were outfitted with everything from military grade run-flat tires, Kevlar wrapped gas tanks and radiators, and underbody panels. The electronics in those things are mind-boggling.

  Over the years we’d heard about cartel leaders buying tricked out SUVs. We suspected three had crossed the river into El Paso five years earlier and engaged in a rolling gun battle with a rival cartel down the streets bordering the river. Apparently, the bad guys from across Mexico were better shots than the bad guys on our side, because after they killed a car full of the opposition, and since there were no bullet holes in the SUVs, they simply drove across into New Mexico and then back home without being stopped.

  “What other upgrades does this have?”

  She turned dead eyes on me. “My hands are going to sleep.”

  “If you think I’m gonna give you any slack, in any sense, you’re wrong.”

  Something in the rearview mirror caught my attention and the thing I’d been dreading was about to happen.

  A similar dark SUV was gaining fast, followed by the rooster tail plume of dust, golden and oddly pretty in the morning light.

  Chapter 44

  With the rising sun peeking over the ridge of mountains at their backs, Perry Hale and Yolanda pushed hard, alternately jogging and walking through the chilly desert air. Not one to completely trust technology, Perry Hale double-checked the position with a map and compass.

  The dark purple sky lightened to a pale blue. Muted grays only minutes earlier burst with color. Deep browns and ochre stones mixed with gold and green leaves of sage plants. The colors would wash out as the sun rose high overhead only to regain their rich hues at sundown.

  He sucked water from his camelback, satisfied they’d made good time from where Lance dropped them off. “We’re about a mile away.”

  Figuring they were on one of the expansive, remote ranches in that dead zone of the Coahuila state, he was looking for a packed dirt and caliche road that wound around arroyos, deep canyons, and low mountains. Their decision to try and intersect Sonny Hawke’s escape route seemed insane, but they’d been with him enough to know how his mind worked.

  It was like no one else’s.

  Most of the ranch roads followed the terrain sculpted by erosion. Some were short and winding two-track lanes that most often dead ended at a canyon or defunct windmill. Others led through dry washes to huge ranges and pastures, but the one he was looking for was wider than most, and ran truer than the others toward the border.

  It was a natural route used for hundreds of years, first by raiding Comanches. The Mexican people followed the route as well, and once the Indians no longer harassed those living in the territory, traders and travelers kept it wide and clear with millions of footsteps, both human and animal.

  Now hardened almost to the consistency of cement, it was made wider by vehicles that came through several times a week, coyotes moving people and goods north to Chalk Canyon. Due to the lack of intersecting highways, habitat, or settlements, the frontier was seldom patrolled on the Mexican side by police or the military.

  That’s where Sonny would go.

  Chapter 45

  My passenger must have sensed my body tighten. The SUV was quite a ways behind, but he was catching up. The road curved back there, and when it did, I saw a second SUV following with just enough distance to avoid the first one’s plume of dust.

  A flashback to the movie set. Two vehicles, driving with the same amount of distance between them. These were the same people.

  Instead of following the canyon’s edge on our left, as we’d been doing, the road straightened, angling away. I punched the accelerator and we gained a little distance, but it wasn’t enough.

  The navigation system didn’t show any road going directly to Langtry. My intention was to drive as far as possible, and that hopefully meant to the road’s terminus, then get out and hump it along the edge of the canyon to the river. I knew Villarreal would intentionally slow me down, but she didn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet and full of bananas. I’d knock her out and carry her if I had to.

  The knowledge that I was likely spinning my wheels weighed at the back of my mind too. There was the chance that I’d already created an international incident by taking the woman. The Mexican government didn’t much like the idea of Americans dragging their citizens north against their will. Soldiers could at that moment be cutting cross country, ready to intercept me.

  Major Parker had given me free reign to step outside the Ranger’s traditional legal boundaries to get the job done, but he might have the same issue as the Mexican government, taking Villarreal without an arrest warrant. Then again, my charge was to handle things the same way those old Rangers did in the 1800s and the early part of the twentieth century, driven by instinct, gut reaction, and right vs. wrong. Maybe this time I’d gone too far.

  Lessons from my high school civics class kept popping into my mind. The job of the U.S. government was to maintain foreign diplomacy, second was military defense, third was maintenance of domestic order, fourth was administration of justice, and I couldn’t recall the rest.

  That was enough. Maintenance of domestic order and administration of justice kept running over and over in a continuous loop. I was bringing a cartel leader to justice, a woman who ordered the deaths of countless individuals, many innocent. I was putting a stop to a cruel woman who was bringing her addictive crap into my country through a pipeline that would potentially impact hundreds of thousands of people in unimaginable ways.

  I’d seen videos shot by hidden cameras the Border Patrol had set up south of Big Bend, and eastward to where I was headed in Langtry. Teams of camouflaged men carrying huge packs on their backs walked in line through the desert, bearing automatic weapons. They were hardened, disciplined mules loaded down with drugs, and the rifles proved they would kill anyone who got in their way.

  It wasn’t just there. I’d also viewed similar footage taken by hidden cameras on private ranches of gangsters on horseback in Arizona, armed with AR-style rifles. One of the horses also had an AK-47 strapped to the saddle. These were the same kind of people who worked for the small Latino woman riding beside me.

  And now they were on my tail.

  A bend in the road yanked me back to the job at hand. I tapped the brakes and power-slid around the wide curve.

  Chapter 46

  Sonny Hawke’s Shadow Response Team, Perry Hale and Yolanda, broke into a trot, afraid they’d reach the road too late. Coming around a particularly lush stand of cactus in the morning light, they emerged on a ridge overlooking their destination. According to the information they’d gotten from Sonny, it was the logical place to intercept the fleeing Ranger.

  Breathing hard, Perry Hale was pleased that he’d led them to Chalk Canyon and the wide track following the rim. “Now where to?”

  “Up yonder.” Holding a small pair of binoculars to her eyes with both hands, Yolanda pointed with a little finger. “See how the road bends to the right? It curves away from the canyon, but see that?”

  Perry Hale dug from a pocket on his cammies and came out with a pair of compact Zeiss binoculars. He squinted in the direction she’d pointed. “I got it. That looks like a wide pull off.” He spoke without taking his eyes from the glasses. “It is, but it’s a helluva turnaround.”

  “That’s what I saw on Google maps.” She glanced southward, where they expected Sonny to appear. “The road bends to follow the river to the east, but that swirl in the sand told me that’s where the traffickers drop people off to be picked up by the coyotes.”

  “This road’s damn near a highway. I bet buses come through here.”

  “I’ve heard they pack them full at two or three thousand dollars a head
. That’s why the turnaround’s so big. Look, the road that branches off over there and crosses the river is half as wide as it is before it gets to the turnaround. We found it.”

  Perry Hale lowered the glasses. “So what do you think?”

  “If Sonny has enough of a lead, he’ll leave his car right there and run for the border on foot. I don’t think a regular vehicle can drive far through all that. He might intend to follow the edge of the canyon, or drop down like everyone else has done and walk the canyon trail. That way he’ll be less likely to be seen from the air.

  “There might be trails or roads up here on the surface, and staying up topside might not be a good idea. One thing’s for sure, if he follows the coyote’s path, he won’t get lost. Remember that trail out of El Paso where we practiced tracking? There was no way to get lost more than half the time because of everything they drop on the way.”

  Months earlier, the class members that day had all been stunned at the amount of refuse left behind by illegal aliens crossing the ranches west of El Paso. The Border Patrol agents led the group of ten people, along with an environmentalist who told them that since the turn of the twenty-first century, a more than forty percent increase in illegal immigration on the southwestern border severely impacted the desert ecology.

  It was the first time any of them had heard the term “nesting” in reference to the people marching northward across the harsh desert. During one rest stop in the heat of the day, the environmentalist named Curt Caldwell pointed to what looked like a giant trash dump in the shade of several spreading mesquite trees.

  He explained that nesting occurs in the desert under native plants that provide scant cover from the blistering sun. It’s when the immigrants stop in the same shade over and over again, like family groups, killing the ecology with their refuse and waste. It’s not uncommon for agents on the Texas side of the border to discover and take into custody large groups of exhausted and dispirited illegal immigrants gathered together to rest and stay out of sight.

  Like nomads, they leave behind what is no longer useful, such as used needles and drug paraphernalia, empty water containers, plastic bags, clothing, food containers, and hundreds if not thousands of used diapers. They also drop whatever is too troublesome to carry.

  “All he’ll have to do is follow the trash they leave.” Yolanda put her binoculars away. “There’s no way he can get lost, and he’ll find where they cross. So, we hoof it for the river?”

  “I don’t think so.” Perry Hale squinted toward the south, looking for a dust plume or people walking the road. “If they’re close on his tail, this’ll be where it’s most dangerous. He won’t follow the road’s bend over that dry wash. That’ll take him away from the border. He has to take the canyon, so he’ll follow the road until it runs out and leave his vehicle.

  “Let’s move down there where the road necks down between the canyon and that steep slope. We might be able to catch anyone following Sonny in a crossfire and hold them long enough for him to get gone. One of us can stay here, and the other head for the river. It’ll double our chances of being right, and we can cover him when they cross.”

  She considered the idea. “You’re right. How far is the border?”

  “About ten miles.”

  “You think one of us can make it that far before he gets here?”

  “Won’t make any difference. Say I stay here. If I engage, it’ll buy Sonny time. If I don’t, and he has time, I can pitch in with them and you’ll be our insurance for later. You’ll get there well before he does.”

  She bit her lip, thinking. “You don’t think he’ll try and drive up here.”

  “No.” Perry Hale pointed. “Look off down yonder. That’s a deep canyon that leads into country too rough from here on out for anything other than a Humvee, and I doubt that’s what he’s driving.”

  “Fine then. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  He gave her a wide grin. “Follow the trash, like you said, but be careful, there may be coyotes coming back this way after dropping people off last night. You don’t want to tangle with them if you don’t have to.”

  “I hope he hasn’t already passed.”

  “I doubt it. From what he described, we got here in time.”

  She nodded and settled the pack on her shoulders. “All right, buddy. Be safe. I’ll see y’all on the river.” She turned and broke into a jog.

  “Right. Hey, Yoli!”

  Irritated, she whirled. “I told you about that nickname. . .”

  “I love you. Be careful.”

  Speechless, she turned and took off, but she was smiling into the morning light.

  Chapter 47

  We drove along the edge of what I hoped was Chalk Canyon. It could have been an unnamed gash, a different canyon for all I knew, but I thought we were in the general direction.

  Didn’t matter. The road split once again, this time a branch angled to the left and downward into a low-water crossing. I slowed and stopped, studying the fork. Another look into the rearview mirror. The terrain hid the oncoming vehicle, but I was sure he wasn’t more than two miles behind.

  The road emerged from the now-dry wash and angled up a shallow slope on the other side. It became a two-track path that disappeared toward the northwest. Bad guys could pop up behind us at any moment, but I sat there and adjusted the map view in the dash, thinking that maybe the road widened or turned north, but I finally saw that it ended only a mile farther.

  That’s when I saw another map feature I hadn’t noticed. I punched the icon that looked like Sputnik and the view suddenly changed to a 3-D satellite picture of everything between me and Langtry. It was like staring down from an airplane, and I was shocked at how rugged the country looked.

  It gave me an exact view of where we needed to go.

  Villarreal twitched, and a quick glance told me she was mad as a sore-tail tomcat that I’d found that feature she’d likely installed just for herself.

  I knew we’d eventually have to dump the SUV and walk the rest of the way, but the road ended way faster than I expected. It looked longer on the screen, and terminated at a wide turnaround. Beyond that was nothing but rolling, rocky country slashed with deep ravines and shallow runoffs. It looked like God had finally gotten frustrated and hacked at the land with a sword until he burned off some irritation. Then he scorched it.

  We’d have to leave the SUV at the turnaround and take the canyon. Satisfied that we were still on the right road, I adjusted the rifle still laying in my lap and we took off again. Down the road a piece, it curved into a sharp drop on our left, and a steep-layered shale cliff on the right.

  The terrain and that satellite view gave me an idea.

  I stopped again and wasted a few more seconds on the map. There it was, the terminus of my dirt road half a mile farther. Based on what I was seeing, the river was around ten miles away. The wide turnaround told me that’s where we’d drop off into the canyon on foot, but we didn’t have to drive all the way.

  “This is where we get out.”

  Villarreal looked around. “Here?”

  “You ever hear of The Three Hundred?”

  She frowned. “Are you talking about that movie?”

  “In a sense.”

  I didn’t have time to explain the battle of Thermopylae and the three hundred Spartans who held off the entire 20,000-man Persian army for three days. The Spartans stalled the invading army by using a natural choke point, a narrow pass bordered by a steep mountain wall on one side and a cliff falling off to the sea on the other.

  Of course, they lost in the long run, but I had no intention of staying there in an extended gun battle. The men coming up on our tail would simply drop down into the dry canyon or send me around the low ridge and come in from the back, catching me in a crossfire, which was exactly what happened to the Spartans.

  What I intended to do was get them out of those mobile battleships of theirs and stall them as long as I could. We’d all be walking, or running, pretty
soon anyway.

  I detrucked and circled around the hood, yanking the passenger door open when I got there. I knew then why they called Villarreal the Devil Woman, because she went insane, kicking and screaming and fighting as I unbuckled the seatbelt. The top of her head caught my cheekbone. I saw stars for a moment.

  With all that black hair flying around, I grabbed a handful and hauled her out onto the ground. She landed with a thump and spun around on her butt, trying to kick me. Getting a better hold on her hair, I pulled her backward as fast as I could, dragging her across the sharp rocks and hardpan.

  Squealing at the pain in her scalp and bound hands, she twisted sideways. I bore down until pain changed the shape of her mouth. “All right! Cut me free and I’ll walk.”

  “You fight, and I’ll drag you some more.”

  “I won’t.”

  I stepped back, throwing another glance back where we’d come from. “Your hands are going to stay tied for the time being. Stay right here. If you try to run, I’m gonna yank your pants down around your ankles and you’ll have to shuffle along like you’re in shackles. You get me.”

  “I’m not wearing anything under them.” Sullen, she stared at the ground. “I bet you’d like to see that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Not hardly.”

  But I’d peek, anyway.

  I hurried back to the car and started the engine again and grabbed up a disposable lighter I’d seen in one of the cup holders between the seats, then popped the hood. It took me a minute to find what I was looking for under there. Back in the old days, engines took up only three-quarters of the space under the hood. The Expedition’s power plant was packed in so tight I could barely see.

  I cut the gas line. Under pressure, it spewed like a tiny firehose while the hot engine coughed and sputtered. If the line hadn’t been held in place by clips, it probably would have flailed around and soaked me. I didn’t want that to happen. Once while working on an RV in Quanah, Texas, I got a face and nose full of gas and it like to’ve killed me. I didn’t want that experience ever again.