Border Alert- Terrorist Penetration

by Glenn Ball

  The guards felt confident in their numbers. There were five of them, and they’d only heard one man racing up the stairs. Busting out into the dark night air their flashlights darted this way and that, like prison guards hunting down an escaped prisoner.

  One light dropped and rolled, the guard that held it falling hard. There was a pop, hardly audible, and another guard went down.

  Shadow gutted a third guard with a knife, wrenching the knife upward and twisting so that it pierced a lung.

  Another pop, and a fourth guard dropped.

  The fifth scrambled back to the stairs but a battleax met his head full force. Lone Wolf was a master with axes, and had driven the ax with such force it crushed the front of the man’s skull in.

  ********

  “All clear here above,” Lone Wolf said in his com device.

  Nicolas picked up a radio and mimicked a guard in distress. “Necesitamos ayuda aqui arriba!”

  Dead air. At last the radio silence was shattered. “No podemos subir. Tenemos ordenes para guardar los prisioneros!”

  Picking up a flashlight, Adam turned to look at Nicolas. They exchanged a knowing look. The only guards left it seemed were the guards at the dungeon door.

  The time had come to take their fight down to the dungeon.

  CHAPTER 44

  Heaven or Hell

  Her breath was wheezing as she worked at filing down the bone on a rough patch of the dungeon floor. All her inner organs and her ribs felt like they were being crushed. She had been too weak to sit up, but in a last-ditch effort to end it all she forced herself, her sluggish arms sawing back and forth in slow motion.

  A dry, hacking cough resounded in the cavernous abyss. The reminder of Pedro’s presence arrested her efforts momentarily.

  Thoughts of Adam drifted through her head as she stared vacantly into the infinite dark. One memory stood out to her. They were in a concert. U2 had just walked off the stage, and she was caught up with Adam and the rest of the audience singing, “I will sing, sing a new song.” She had felt something special at the time, like she was being transported into heaven. She had that sensation again.

  ********

  Cobra and Robinhood met Adam and Nicolas at the stairwell. With his gun at the ready, Captain Valencia led the way. Passing the second floor, they made a cursory scan before moving on.

  As they drew near the first floor they were stifled by a horrid stench. The bloated corpse in the iron chair of torture was starting to liquify around the spikes. Adam stared at the corpse, struggling to decipher its grotesque features. Satisfied this was not Susanna he was quick to move on. They could not afford to be distracted as they crept into the hallway.

  Motioning for Agent Aguilar to pass him, the captain allowed Nicolas to guide them to the dungeon door. Aguilar squatted low as he skulked along the inner wall. Valencia maintained full height behind him, keeping flat to the wall like a gecko. Several paces behind them Cobra slithered along the outer wall. Robinhood followed down the middle, keeping an eye toward their rear.

  Out of the silence an eerie creak arrested Valencia’s attention. It sounded as if someone had stepped on a loose board in the floor. But the marble floor could not produce such a sound. His senses were in high alert. Scanning every direction, he searched for the cause of the sound, apprehensive of a surprise that could come from any direction.

  Then he spotted the edge of the massive wooden door as it opened beyond the wall. He could see the guard’s hand as it released the door handle. The guard was going to escape into the dungeon.

  Aguilar dove to the doorway, hitting the floor in a roll as he did so. He was firing upward even as the guard was shooting back into the air and missing. One of the bullets clipped the guard in the shoulder, causing him to stumble backwards.

  Recovering his balance, the guard knelt to one side, avoiding the next barrage of Nicolas’ gun while stabilizing his own shooting arm. But Valencia was peering around the corner with a more than steady hand firing his Glock into the guard’s aiming eye. The guard fell backwards into the darkness. A dull thump from far below followed moments later.

  “Susanna!” Adam shouted, giving into hope for the first time in many days. “Susanna!”

  ********

  Susanna felt as if she were floating. A light burst into the darkness above her. She was overwhelmed, unable to keep her eyes open. The light engulfed her. Through the squint of her burning eyes she was dazed by a brightness she had never known. The darkness of what now seemed an eternity was dissipating.

  The air above her burst into fireworks, celebrating her arrival. She was entering heaven. “He brought me up out of the pit…I will sing, sing a new song.”

  She heard a sound so sweet, the raw tissue of her eyes welled up with tears. The light was sparkling.

  “Susanna!” There it was again, that sweet sound. It was her husband, Adam. He was waiting for her up there, up above.

  The floor rumbled, like thunder in the distance. She tried to make sense of the sound of stone grinding against stone, coming from her right. A menacing red glow illuminated what looked like the mouth of hell yawning open.

  Steely fingers clenched her wrist, dragging her toward the ugly catacomb. She fought with all her might with the demon that had her in his claw; weak as she was, her efforts were like a mouse fighting an elephant.

  “Adam! I want to be in heaven with Adam!” Her mind screamed in protest, as the demon hauled her ever further into the catacomb, away from her love.

  ********

  “Susanna!” Adam rushed into the gloom of the dungeon, almost fainting from the acrid stench. The opaqueness was overwhelming, disorienting. The thin film of light coming from the door enabled him to make out the shape of stairs leading down into the gaping abyss.

  From below a dry cough broke the still air. “Susanna!” Adam’s heart was racing as he pierced the darkness with a flashlight.

  Aiming toward the cough he saw a vague gray shape. It was too dim to determine if it was Susanna, or even human. Leaving Cobra and Robinhood at the door as sentries, one watching outward, the other scanning the dungeon for movement with his flashlight, he descended the stairs accompanied by Nicolas. Each heartbeat was a step closer to his beloved.

  The steps were uneven, slippery and treacherous. They had to tread carefully, aware that a guard could be waiting in the dark below to pick them off. The stairs seemed to go on forever, like driving an unknown road in the fog. Adam kept looking further down the stairs with the flashlight, but the end never seemed to materialize. It was as if he were entering another dimension, a mysterious world of rotting carnage.

  As he descended, he continued to call out for Susanna, but was met with nothing but that dry cough.

  When at last they reached the bottom, Adam went straight for where he had seen that shape. Plunging ahead through the reek of death, stepping over bones as he went, he managed not to vomit. He had not seen such rotting carnage except in war. His heart sank, thinking of his Perle suffering this horrid place.

  There she was. Focusing the light on her, he stepped up for a closer look. “Susanna”, he called again, standing right over her. She didn’t move. She was naked. Reaching down to turn her face toward him, an involuntary gag stopped him as the rush of decay overwhelmed his olfactory. He turned the woman over, but it was not Susanna.

  The dry cough again. “Susanna!” He called, looking up with renewed hope. Rushing toward the sound, his flashlight landed on a body that was moving slightly. This journey to reunite with his beloved that had begun on the other side of the world was finally at an end. “Susanna!” he whispered, as he came upon her.

  It was Pedro.

  CHAPTER 45

  Apart

  Alicia was feeling overwhelmed, like a three-year-old taking a college exam. Stacked on the table before her were documents packed full of legal-speak in English. Across the table from her stood an immigration official she had just met, pointing out this line and that for her to sign. H
e was large and imposing and hard to understand, though he did his best to explain everything in Spanish. She missed Nicolas.

  Though she hardly knew him either, she found herself thinking of Nicolas constantly since she’d met him. There was something about him that intrigued her, that drew her irrevocably to him. Was it the tenderness in his voice when he spoke to her, or his gentle manner, or the way he could not take his eyes off of her when she spoke to him? Maybe it was his thoughtfulness, his magnanimous gestures that were proving to be her salvation from imprisonment and slavery to Antonio.

  Apart from Artie and her grandmother, and the priest, nobody else had ever shown her the time of day, except to rape her. She would always feel deep gratitude toward Artie and her grandmother, but with Nicolas there was something more. He was enormously attractive. Gentle as he was, his presence commanded respect. He was obviously very smart and cultured, yet ruggedly strong. He was a man she could fall for in a big way.

  And he’d said he would be coming to see her after he took care of a few things.

  “Miss? I need you to concentrate.” The official was trying not to let the frustration show on his face. She had been daydreaming again.

  ********

  Nicolas was heaving for air as he paused on the lawn outside the Castle. He’d sprinted through the catacomb, glued to Adam’s heels. The garage was empty, the getaway car long gone. He could only imagine how devastated Adam was, his love at arm’s reach, only to be lost again. He thought about Alicia.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Eagle’s voice in the com. “I saw a pickup with bright halogen hunting lights leaving the premises, but I could not get a shot or a good view of who was in it.”

  “Can you still see him?” Adam’s voice was instant and anxious in his response.

  “No, he’s gone now.” Eagle’s response was like a death knell. The silence that followed was like that of a wake.

  Nicolas’ stomach turned in knots, anguishing for Adam. Not only had they been mere seconds short of recovering Susanna and lost her, but the location of the lab still eluded them as well. In this, Aguilar felt he had come up short in his assistance of Adam’s mission. Nicolas had heard numerous references to the lab while undercover but had never been able to discover its ubication. He had pumped Alicia for information about the lab, but she had been brought to it in a state of unconsciousness, and never knew how she got there. Now they desperately needed its hidden secrets to stop the terrorist attack, and possibly to recover Susanna. Even having achieved the impossible, capturing the Castle, they had still come up empty. Aguilar felt like a failure.

  The air hung still, as if the world had stopped turning. He could hear crickets.

  Something else pulsated, making the air jittery. It was a helicopter.

  “Yes…Sky?” Adam was holding his sat phone.

  ********

  Sky could hardly distinguish between the vibration of the helicopter and his own nerves.

  After pulling out his I.V. in the hospital and then failing to reach Adam on the satellite phone, Sky had listened to Adam’s final message to him. “I’m on my way to Mexico with a special ops team. We will recover Alicia. I promise you. You may contact General Hague for details. I have instructed him to allow you to join us, should you so desire. His number is …”

  And here he was only twelve hours later in Mexico airspace, about to join in the recovery effort. He felt queasy but was not sure that it was not caused by the stuffy air in the copter. One of the soldiers had neglected to clean his uniform, and it stunk of grease and body odor.

  Gazing out the window he strained to see the Castle. They should be over it by now. They were on the outskirts of Sonora, Mexico, and the lights of the city were becoming scarce. One especially bright light caught his attention. It looked like a floodlight for a stadium, yet it was moving down a hill, bouncing this way and that on some bumpy backroad. His eyes moved up the hill, and there in the shadows, laying like a sleeping dragon was the Castle.

  “Hi Adam. What’s the news?” He hated to be abrupt, but he’d travelled through storm and flood and nearly died to get here. He could wait no longer.

  “They got away with her again! We took the Castle, but one of the guards took her and drove off in a lifted Chevy pickup. Our lookout spotted the pickup racing down the hill. I’m sorry, but the truck moved beyond his line of sight and we have no idea where he’s taking her. He’s gotten too good of a jump on us to catch him.”

  “Would that pickup have bright hunting lights by any chance?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I’m looking at it right now.”

  CHAPTER 46

  Ambush

  Susanna lay on the cold floor of the extended cab of the pickup. Rope cut into the raw flesh of her wrists and ankles where it had been hastily tied. Swooning from exhaustion and hunger, she struggled to grasp her current circumstance. She had been convinced that she had died, but as her head and limbs banged uncomfortably against the seats and floor, she had a change of opinion.

  From the helicopter Van Horn had surveyed the extensive countryside. Even in the dark his sharp eyes had spotted the obscure guard shack with the dark shape of an armed man standing just outside of it. Noting that the road led straight to it he had reported this to Adam and Nicolas, and they had rightly determined that the lab would be not far beyond.

  With his jumpsuit flapping in the wind and his cheeks sucking the pressure of the fall, Sky located his mark and calculated the distance that separated the bouncing hunting lights from the shack. Beneath him he could see gray spots, the parachutes of his other team members. They were rapidly nearing their landing zone.

  “Adam’s plan just might work,” he thought. The timing would have to be precise. “Three, two, one…” he pulled his ripcord. Eyeing the ground, he aimed and prepared for his landing.

  Like the other eight of his team before him, Sky gathered up his parachute from the road in record time and scrambled for the cornfield that lined the road. From the shadows of the cornstalks he could hear nothing at first but crickets and his own heavy breath. Concentrating on taking slower, deeper breaths, he listened intently for two things: the helicopter, and the hostile pickup.

  He could feel his pulse racing as the light flashed across the sky, a beam advertising the hostile’s approach. Indiscriminately the light beam shot through the cornstalks, throwing shadows this way and that like an army coming out of hiding for an attack, as the truck roared ever closer, a cloud of dust forming a backdrop for the monster. Sky could feel the beads of sweat slickening the cool handle of his Glock.

  The rapid rhythm of his pulse was joined by another pulse, as if a throng of soldiers was beating the air above him. His eyes stung as another cloud of dust suddenly rose up amidst the drumming of the helicopter swooping downward, now hovering just over the road, a dragon braced to spew its flames should the monster truck disregard its warning.

  Tires skidded, pebbles firing in all directions as the cloud of dust enveloped the truck completely. The bright lights of the pickup had landed on the missiles aimed at them.

  Stepping as one from the shadows of the cornstalks, Sky and the other soldiers locked sites onto the truck. In the spotlight of the helicopter the reality of the ambush dawned in the guard’s face. Sky would never forget that look of shock.

  Nevertheless, the face immediately transformed to one of resolve. The guard was no fool. They wanted Perle alive. They would not dare risk firing on her. The tires spun in reverse before any of the soldiers could react. It was surprising how fast the big pickup moved in reverse.

  The desperate escape was to no avail. Like an apparition appearing out of deep darkness, the CFE truck came charging like a giant bull, blocking the road from behind. The guard was trapped on all sides.

  Diving into the back seat the guard made one last desperate attempt to grab Susanna as his hostage. Even as he was traversing the seats, glass rained down on his back as if a grenade had exploded. Hanging helplessly ove
r the seat and covered in glass shards, the guard stopped when he felt the barrel of Valencia’s Glock digging into his side.

  Adam had moved like lightning, busting the driver’s window with the butt of his pistol and forcing the door open in his advance on the driver. Shadow was not far behind, and now stood on the other side with pistol drawn. The guard’s scraggly-bearded jaw dropped. Left with no choice, he tossed his gun out the window in surrender.

  Several more soldiers approached as their captain was hauling Scraggly Beard out of the truck. Van Horn was with them and ordered two of them to take charge of the prisoner. Then he followed Adam into the back of the cab. As Adam bent over Susanna’s naked and emaciated form unconscious on the floor, his throat swelled and his eyes watered.

  He could hear Van Horn over his shoulder ordering one of the soldiers to bring a parachute. Father and husband used this to drape around Susanna’s body. Then they carried her, still out cold, to the helicopter. Sky stepped in with her. She would soon be safe in a hospital.

  CHAPTER 47

  The Lab

  Adam stood in a cloud of dust kicked up by the helicopter watching it carry his beloved to safety. His heart was crushed. While he’d been busy saving the world, she’d been snatched from him and tortured to the brink of death. He’d crossed the world, seized a fortress with a handful of men and at last had her in his arms. But now she’d been taken from him again, and again he was off to save the world without her. He felt suddenly helpless, exhausted and brimming with pain. His legs refused to move. His muscles throbbed, his bones ached, his head was groggy from days of endless stress and little sleep, and now his driving force had been taken from him in a helicopter.

  For a moment all vision was swallowed by the cloud. As the cloud settled the pang inside him was diminished by the assurance of her safety. “Sky will take good care of her,” he chided himself, choking on the dust. He could afford no lapse now. It was time to capture the lab and put an end to the terrorist threat.