The tire noise went hollow; moonlight flashed off a thread of water on either side. “The canal!” Nora cried. “That’s the canal the Border Keepers should be at, right?”
“No. That’s in a couple minutes.”
They crested a small rise, then the wrecked asphalt ended and all at once they were on dirt, the wheels thrumming on washboard. The cops’ lights dimmed in the dust plume, then slid to the road’s centerline. Luis corrected to stay directly in front of them. They moved, he moved. They slithered all over the road, banging over ridges, crashing into dips, the cops’ truck just a few yards behind them.
The cops fell back.
Luis slowed, then stopped on a bridge. A silvery canal ran straight beneath them.
“They’re giving up,” Nora said. “They’re letting us go.”
“I don’t think so.”
The dust-caked windshield exploded with light.
“They brought us to the Border Keepers.”
54
The Minutemen movement dissolved after the effective end of illegal immigration into the U.S. in the mid-2020s. A number of its more extreme adherents formed loosely organized, often violent splinter groups to pursue their own agendas. These groups initially took different names, but by 2027 had come to be known collectively as “Border Keepers,” after the largest and oldest of these organizations, based in southwestern Arizona.
— “Border Keepers,” Wikipedia
SUNDAY, 16 MAY
Luis said, “I’m going to roll down the rear window. Tell me what the cops are doing.”
The window whined down. Luis kept his eyes focused on the instrument panel, trying to avoid the floodlights turning the windshield white. “They’ve blocked us in,” Nora said. “They’re about ten yards back, pulled across the road, lights off. It doesn’t look like anyone got out.”
“Okay.” They’d let their buddies at the other end of the bridge do the hard work, then take their cut. “How well can you see right now?”
“Well enough. I’ve got my NVGs on. Why?”
“Check out the cop truck and see if there are any corporate logos or ‘operated by’ stickers.”
After a few moments, Nora said, “‘Provided by AFT Worldwide.’”
Contractors. Figures—a broke-ass county like this couldn’t (or wouldn’t) afford real employees. “If they come this way and look hostile, open up on them. Shoot to wound if you can. Think of them like buzzards, not cops.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Do you know how much training I’ve had to not shoot cops?”
Luis threw off his harness, twisted in his seat and motioned to Nora. When she leaned in, he grabbed her body armor’s shoulder strap, hauled her close and whispered, “Let me make it easier for you. Everybody outside this car wants to lynch me, rape and kill you, cook and eat Hope and steal everything we have. Any questions?” Nora swallowed, then shook her head. “Good. Cover our six.”
He released her, settled back into his seat and tried to think of the next move. First, he had to be able to see. The windshield washer had fluid (thank God) and the too-old wipers managed to scrape away most of the sludge without disintegrating. The whiteout resolved itself into a supernova of light surrounded by blackness, not a huge improvement but enough to get an idea of what was out there. Based on the lights’ grouping and spread, they had a Jeep or something like it. Two guys, maybe three, all armed to the teeth based on his previous collisions with Border Keepers. Not bad odds.
Luis never had a beef with the old Minutemen. His dad hated them, but Luis wasn’t bringing people in, he was taking them out, and the Minutemen were down with that. A couple even helped him get a van full of travelers out of a ditch once. But once its thug faction mutated into Border Keepers, they became a real pain in the ass.
What he remembered of these pendejos was they liked to dress up in camo and drink beer and carry guns and pretend to be warriors. Like a lot of other superpatriots, most had never managed to put on a real uniform and actually serve the country they supposedly loved so much. They wouldn’t be used to anyone shooting back. But they loved their guns and could probably hit what they aimed at as long as they were sober enough.
The cops were another thing, though. Ex-military of some flavor; they’d know what they were doing. The odds swung back to the bad guys’ favor.
Nora said, “I’m waiting for that plan.”
“So am I. Where’s Hope?”
“On the floor, scared to death.”
Smart girl. Luis noticed a man-shaped silhouette flit past the lights. Those guys out there would start to move in pretty soon, and things would get uglier than they already were. He didn’t want to start a bloodbath. Right now the contractor-cops were in vulture mode, waiting to pick over the spoils. If bad things started happening to their buddies, they could not only get involved, but also call in more cops and trackers and maybe drones and all kinds of shit that would make getting away a fantasy instead of just a dream.
The Expedition sat in the first ten yards of a paved bridge forty or so yards long. The Jeep parked nose-on at the bridge’s other end a bit to the left of center.
An idea crept into Luis’ brain. “How do you feel about low-speed crashes?”
“They’re better than high-speed ones,” Nora said, sounding distracted.
He rolled down all the windows—broken-glass management—and switched the Expedition into four-wheel-drive. “Get on the floor on top of Hope.”
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us out of here.” He strapped in, shifted into neutral, revved the engine. If this worked, they’d be out of this trap without purposely killing anyone. If it didn’t, they’d die soon, and not well.
I’m sorry, Bel. This wasn’t the plan. I love you.
He hunched behind the steering wheel and jammed the shifter into drive. The big, grippy tires launched the three-ton beast forward. Yellow flashes popped beside the floodlights. Bullets pinged against the SUV. The windshield starred until it was opaque. Then he saw the man-silhouette again, rushing toward the Expedition with what looked like a shotgun, and Luis shoved open his door just in time to catch the man full-on and thump him off into the darkness. The lights filled the disintegrating windshield, safety glass rained in on Luis, Hope shrieked her lungs out and…
…he twitched the wheel to the right, glanced off the Jeep’s front bumper. The Expedition shuddered and screeched, but the lighter car whipped back and around in a cloud of dust and a clatter of loose gear.
They were clear.
Luis slewed the SUV around a sharp left-hand turn that fed into a hairpin. He could barely see through the windshield, pocked with a couple dozen holes the size of dimes. He had to sit up to wrestle the wheel over, hoping that wasn’t when the lucky shot would come whizzing through the back window. They bucked and dived over the uneven ground, every landing a slam he felt in his butt all the way up into his skull, and the seat belt’s constant pummeling of his left shoulder was like being punched on his wound over and over until he finally couldn’t feel anything anymore. Nora and Hope squawked at each jounce.
When he finally skidded around the end of the hairpin onto a due-south stretch of dirt road, he slowed so he could roll up the windows and give Nora a chance to get off the floor. “You two okay?” he shouted over the chaos.
Nora wiped a dark stain—blood?—from under her nose with her wrist. She buckled up, then pulled a sobbing Hope onto her lap and cradled her. “Okay enough, I guess. Can you roll up this window?”
“It won’t. They probably shot it.” He fiddled with the headlights, low beams, high beams, but only the right side of the road lit up; the left lamp must be broken. He settled on a speed that compromised between progress, no visibility and spinal injury. Hope’s crying brought back memories of Christa at that age, scared of the dark and the monsters in it. “Is she hurt?”
Nora didn’t say anything long enough for Luis to check her in the rear-view mirror. Her head bent over the girl. B
etween chassis noises, he caught snippets of motherly cooing.
The world behind them was dark and dusty. Risk a stop? He couldn’t go on without being able to see what was coming. He let the Expedition glide down to a walking pace before he applied the brake.
“Why are we stopping?” Nora asked.
“I can’t see.” He pulled the magazine out of his UMP, ejected the chambered round, then beat the remaining glass out of the windshield frame with the weapon’s stock. Another check in the mirror; still clear. He stepped outside, brushed the glass chunks off himself and his seat, shook out the floor mat, then made a quick round of the Ford. Several holes in the body, the left front fender bent back, a hole through the grille (but not the radiator, he discovered when he checked under the hood), a person-sized dent in the driver’s door, the driver’s side-view mirror hanging by a couple wires, left rear window blown out, tires sound. Not bad.
He looked back. A white glow grew steadily brighter in the distance.
“They’re following us,” he announced as he labored back into the driver’s seat. His chest and left side were a single bruised mass of pain. Within seconds they were back up to what passed for speed on this rutted dirt road.
“The cops or the other guys?” Nora asked.
“Don’t know, don’t care right now.”
Luis pulled his night-vision goggles from the center console, jammed them on his face and snapped off the headlights. His view through the empty windshield frame turned black-and-green. He hoped losing sight of the SUV’s lights would make their pursuers give up and go home. It didn’t.
The glow turned into a blob of light that slowly grew in the rear-view mirror. These guys probably had way more experience driving out here, covered this road many times more than Luis had. Their Jeep was a better match for the road than the big, heavy Expedition.
The bad guys were going to win this race.
They busted past the crossroad marking the border of Goldwater Air Force Range and the start of the Camino del Diablo. Their hunters didn’t stop. A mile ground by, then two, then three, and the blob of light expanded behind them bit by bit. A couple bugs careened into Luis’ forehead—damn, that hurt—and many more hurtled past his ears on their way out the open back window. Only the gale rushing through kept the dust from choking him.
“Is there someplace we can hide?” Nora yelled above the wind noise.
“Not for another few miles. An old airstrip.”
“How many miles?”
“A few, five or six maybe. I don’t remember, I didn’t come out here much.”
Nora craned her head over her shoulder. “I’ll bet they do.”
Another mile. Tracked vehicles—probably Marine AFVs—had left behind a churned, lumpy trail Luis recognized from the ‘Stan. It rattled the SUV from nose to tail. His brain joined the throbbing rhythm in his chest and shoulder. Fighting the steering wheel shot bolts of pain up his arms. Hope finally stopped crying and lapsed into a stunned silence. Luis wished his head would do the same thing.
He swerved around an abandoned truck wheel and tire in the road. Beside it lurked a hole a couple feet wide and deeper than the NVGs allowed him to see. He tried to avoid it, but the SUV’s left front wheel charged in. A heavy crack filled the cabin. The Expedition heeled over, then spun. The front airbag punched Luis full in the face. Before he could finish yelling “Goddamnit!” the SUV crashed down on all fours in a cloud of dust.
Luis slapped the deflating airbag out of his face, shook his aching head, tried to take a deep breath. It didn’t hurt more than usual. The bridge of his nose hurt like a son of a bitch, though, and all he could see was static. He realized his NVGs were broken and flung them away, blinking to drive off the flickering stars.
The followers. He twisted to look: the lights were brighter, no more than a mile away.
Nora held her neck in one hand, Hope’s hand in the other, and turned her head in big circles, grimacing. “Are you okay?” she asked, winded. Hope cried like a colicky infant.
He shook his head, a huge mistake. “We’ve got to get away. They’ll be here in a minute.”
She nodded, handed him her H&K, then unbuckled and stepped out. Luis kicked open the driver’s door, then shuffled across the road into the sparse scrub. Nora trailed a few steps behind him with Hope in her arms. They’d stumbled no more than thirty yards when their pursuers’ vehicle closed in. Luis dropped to his face and wriggled his body into the loose dirt, trying to create cover where there was none. Nora joined him a few seconds later.
He tapped Nora’s shoulder, then pointed to Hope. “She needs to stay quiet.”
“We already had that talk. Where are your NVGs?”
“Busted. Where are yours?”
“They flew off when we crashed.”
The Jeep stopped a few yards behind the crippled Expedition. “Not the cops,” Nora whispered.
A robust roll cage replaced the Jeep’s roof. Two bumper-mounted floods were dead on the left side. The full brunt of the two remaining floodlights and two roll bar-mounted spots focused on the Expedition, making it flare against the dark. Seeing the lights edge-on lessened their impact, though, and Luis could make out two dark male figures in the Jeep. He passed a UMP to Nora. “See them?”
“Yes.”
“Can you get them?”
“With this thing? No. There’s too much in the way. At least they don’t have NVGs.”
“Not on, at least.” Their own lights would blind them. Then again, they were already blinded; they’d been staring into all that candlepower shooting off the Jeep’s nose. The rest of the world would be a black smear to them. “I’m gonna move over that way to get a second angle on them. If you get a shot, take it.”
“Right.”
Luis pushed himself up on his elbows, cradled his UMP on his forearms, then crawled what his tortured body told him was three miles but what was really about twenty feet. He collapsed, panting, his left arm on fire. He was way too old to be doing this commando shit.
“Where are youuuu?” a young male voice called out. He laughed. “Come out, come out!”
Tonto. Luis settled, snapped off the UMP’s safety and switched to single shot. He didn’t want to damage the Jeep any more than necessary. He’d need it if they weren’t going to walk the next twenty-some miles to get to the jump-off point.
The Jeep’s driver hopped out and wandered into the floodlights. He was a youngish guy in a Nomex flight jacket and tiger-stripe utility pants, head shaved, toting an evil-looking assault rifle with a carelessness that would’ve had Luis’ old platoon sergeant knocking the kid’s ass all over the compound. Luis couldn’t see what happened to the other guy.
Tiger Stripes swaggered to the open back door, poked his rifle muzzle inside, then repeated his act with the driver’s door. Luis heard muttered conversation through the still air. Tiger Stripes strolled to the open back window, peeked in, then hauled out Nora’s backpack. He dropped it on the road, crouched, opened it, rummaged. “Woohoo! Hey Ern, check this out!”
He pulled out something, then spread it open and held it up in the light. A bra. “Hey bitch!” he yelled. “Come out and try this on for us!” He stood, waved the bra over his head. “Come on, babe! Give us a show!”
One shot. Tiger Stripes staggered, then collapsed against the Expedition’s tailgate before sliding to the ground. Luis shook his head. Don’t mess with her undies. He felt exactly the same lack of remorse he remembered from watching Taliban go down so long ago.
A short burst ripped out over the SUV’s hood. Luis tried to spot the shooter but couldn’t see anything in the absolute dark behind the bright. He rolled out his left shoulder, sighted in on the right-hand spotlight, and squeezed off a round. No effect. He tried again and the spot exploded like an old-time flashbulb in the movies.
The second guy returned fire, a one-second burst that plowed up dirt a few yards in front of Luis. Nora let off another round, and Luis crawled another ten feet closer to the road. Aim
, fire: the leftmost floodlight blew out. The SUV was half as bright as it had been a couple minutes before. Leaving some lights on made these guys easier targets, but kept Luis from getting his night vision back.
He switched to full auto, waited for answering fire. He got it, but not over the Ford’s hood. The guy had crawled into the SUV and shot through the open back door. Dirt geysered a few feet to Luis’ right. He had Luis’ range.
Nora loosed off a burst. The bullets clanged into the SUV’s body. Luis struggled into a crouch, scurried ten yards closer to the road, then dropped. The gunman lobbed a few rapid, single shots back at Nora. Saving his ammo? Whatever it was, he was still shooting at Hope. Luis pushed back into a crouch, put a short burst through the back door, then ran for the road while the gunman pounded a few rounds into the place Luis had been.
Luis had planned to stop at the road’s edge, but momentum and adrenaline carried him all the way to the crippled SUV’s tilting nose. He slung his UMP and drew his Sig; this would be like clearing a room. He poked his head above the hood, winced at the Jeep’s blaze of light.
Another few shots from inside—spent casings pinging off metal—then several from Nora’s direction—clank clank clank, shattering glass. Luis slid around the SUV’s nose to the unlit side away from Nora, stopped at the open front passenger’s door. In the stillness, he could hear the gunman squirming on the second-row seat, less than six feet away.
Should he just kill this tonto, or give him a chance to surrender? Taking the moral high ground out here in the middle of the desert wasn’t the smartest move. But then, Luis liked to think he was better than this scum. He swallowed to reopen his throat, then called out, “It’s over. Give up and you get to live.”
The guy answered by shooting wildly over the front seats with a pistol. Luis crouched by the front wheel, cursing himself. So much for surprise. Then his anger took over. Try to do the right thing and he shits on your shoes…
Luis swung upright, aimed through the passenger’s window and fired five times through the seat back. He heard a sharp cry, then the thud of a weapon hitting the floor. Luis lurched to the open rear door, grabbed the gunman’s ankles and dragged him out onto the dirt. He searched the man, took a sheathed buck knife off his belt and a little .22 backup pistol from his ankle holster. Then he stood back to see who’d chased him across the desert.
South Page 28
