Lex Talionis

by Peter Nealen

  “Oh, fuck,” I grumbled, as I pulled out the offending phone. It was another burner, the simplest, cheapest pre-paid job you could find in a local truck stop. There was no contract attached to it, no name associated with the number, especially as the phone and the card had been purchased with cash. There was only one other person who had that number. And I was in no way, shape, or form convinced that I could trust him, not with what he knew in light of everything that had happened over the last two weeks.

  I stared at the phone in my hand for a long moment, while it kept ringing. I felt more like a hunted animal than ever. The man on the other end of the line could help pull our asses out of the fire, or he could be drawing us out for the hammer to fall.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah, it is,” I rasped. The phone kept ringing. He wasn’t giving up. He probably knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t going to answer right away, so he was being patient.

  “Fuck,” I finally muttered, and hit the green “Accept” button. Lifting the phone to my ear, I said, “Give me a reason not to chuck this phone out the window right now.”

  “Relax, Mr. Stone.” I could hear the smooth, reassuring smile in the other man’s voice. “I didn’t sell you out, and no one else has either of these numbers. We are still secure, for the moment.” His tone changed suddenly. “That can, however, change, depending on what you do in the next twenty-four hours. Take my advice and do what I tell you, and we can ensure that all of us remain relatively free and at large to deal with this situation. Ignore me, and you are on your own. I cannot guarantee that it will work out well for you or your compatriots.”

  The Broker, or Mr. Gray, as we had come to know him, was, at least by implication, a former US intelligence officer of some stripe, who had gone renegade shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. He had since become something of a powerhouse in the international underground, what the big brains called a “shadow facilitator.” If you needed information or logistics for all manner of skullduggery, he was the one to find, provided you could meet his prices.

  He had involved himself in our hunt for the elusive—and illusory—underworld kingpin known only as “El Duque.” He had been the one to inform us that we were chasing a phantom, who had been invented precisely for that purpose, and put us on the trail of one of the more dangerous conspiracies brewing south of the US/Mexican border. We had proceeded to dismantle a Mexican cartel and several of their international sponsors, including a Chinese front company, in a series of bloody strikes across several Mexican cities.

  Exactly what The Broker’s game was, I still wasn’t sure. That his hands were as dirty as anyone else’s in the shadowy world where organized crime and fourth generation warfare overlap was without question. Yet he’d gone out of his way to convince us that he had ulterior motives that did not jibe with being an evil mastermind only out to build his own underworld empire. He had some other play in mind, and I still didn’t know what it was. He’d definitely helped us out; we probably wouldn’t have made it out of Latin America alive if he hadn’t interfered. But I was under no illusions that he had taken us under his wing purely out of the goodness of his heart. He’d done us favors, and I was sure that those favors were eventually going to have to be paid for.

  But we were not presently in a position to refuse his help. “I’m listening,” I told him.

  “I expect that you are en route to one of your supply caches as we speak,” he said. The man’s resources were definitely extensive, as was his knowledge of human nature. It was still a little eerie to hear it from him. He was a step ahead of me, and it pissed me off.

  “Stay away from them,” he continued. “I cannot say for certain that whichever one you are making for is on the list, but at least a majority of them are compromised, and under surveillance. If you show up at one of them, you will be targeted and run down within hours.”

  “Who the hell are these people?” I demanded. “And how the hell do you know so much about their operation?” My paranoia was running pretty high. I still couldn’t shake the nagging thought that we were being set up, and that this entire conversation was just bait.

  “Not a conversation to be having over the phone,” he said. “Go to the junction of Highway 72 and Robertson Draw Road. It’s north of the border, in Montana. Call me when you get there, and I’ll give you the next set of directions.” Without further ado, he hung up.

  “Motherfucker,” I snarled. I tossed the burner back in the go bag and started digging out the road atlas. Where the hell was Robertson Draw Road?

  Long hours and longer miles later, we were driving north on Highway 72. Squinting at the sign up ahead, I saw “Robertson Draw Road.” It was time. Jack was back behind the wheel, so I dug in the go back, turned the burner on, and called The Broker.

  “We’re here,” I said flatly, as soon as he answered.

  “Good,” he said. “Take Robertson Draw Road across the river to Meteetsee Trail, and follow it to Stagecoach Trail. Go down to the wash when you hit the end of Stagecoach.”

  “Got it,” I replied. He hung up again. I powered down the burner and pulled out my team phone. A mass text to the other vehicles said only, “Meet at the bridge.”

  Technically, we didn’t stop on the bridge itself, but crossed over the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River and turned off on the fishing access. Jack parked, as I dragged my chest rig out and shrugged into it, pulling my rifle onto my lap and slinging it.

  By the time the other three vehicles arrived, both Jack and I were kitted up and scanning the surrounding fields and hills. It wasn’t that we were necessarily expecting an ambush, per se, at least no more than we usually did. But under the circumstances, this could just as easily be an elaborate trap as a chance for help and support.

  We weren’t just looking for people watching us. We were watching for drones. They were getting pretty small, but if you can see a bird, you can see a quadrotor, and nobody who’s really looking is going to mistake a quadrotor for a bird. The tech to realistically disguise a drone as something natural just wasn’t there, yet.

  When the rest of the team piled out and joined us around the Duramax’s hood, everybody was kitted up and armed. We were far enough out in the boonies, despite the farms right across the river, that we were more concerned with being ready to fight than we were with staying covert. By the time the locals called anybody—if they bothered; this was rural Montana, after all—we’d be long gone.

  I had a tablet on the hood, with overhead imagery of the area. As much as I was trying to go low-tech as much as possible, in the interests of leaving any sort of electronic surveillance blind, I wanted something a bit more detailed than I could get in the road atlas, so I’d pulled out the tablet and plugged it into the satellite puck. I’d stayed connected just long enough to download the imagery I wanted, then pulled the puck and stowed it.

  “This looks like our meeting spot, right here,” I said, pointing to the wash, lined with brush and trees, that during the spring and late fall must be a tributary of the Clarks Fork. “There’s not a lot of high ground, so we’re going to have to do an L-shape, and get closer than we might otherwise like. It does mean that any security that The Broker has out will be likewise constrained, and should, hopefully, be easier to spot and neutralize, if necessary. I don’t want anyone but me and Jack getting closer than three hundred, though, not until we’re sure that it’s not an ambush. I’ll signal the all clear when I’m satisfied, then you guys collapse in.”

  “Comms?” Larry asked.

  “Stay on the radios, but no talking unless it’s necessary,” I said. “If you happen to stumble across any flankers he has out, neutralize them if possible, but don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to.” I took a deep breath, letting out a bit of a frustrated sigh. “We don’t know for sure if he’s friend or foe yet, and it’s probably not going to be a good idea to alienate an ally like The Broker without knowing for sure that he’s out to fuck us.�
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  There were a few short coordinating instructions that we had to work out, then we were saddling up again and trundling down the dirt road toward the meeting.

  Stagecoach Trail was aptly named; it was more a trail than a road. The Duramax handled it okay, though I rather missed my old Ram, which felt more solid on unimproved roads. The GMC was bouncing and rattling more than I liked, but I had to remind myself how little we’d paid for the thing, and the fact that we were driving it precisely because it was expendable.

  We’d been expecting to go all the way down into the wash, but The Broker was waiting for us next to a line of trailers parked in what looked like a staging area for the local ranchers. The place was otherwise deserted, but The Broker was standing in front of a good-sized panel truck, his hands in his pockets, giving every impression that he was just waiting patiently.

  Jack brought the truck to a halt some two hundred meters from The Broker. We sat there for a long couple of minutes, letting the others get into position. The Broker just stood there and watched us calmly, the sunlight glinting from his sunglasses.

  Finally, figuring that we couldn’t hold this off any longer, I opened the door and got out, my rifle slung around my shoulders and my chest rig showing under my open jacket. I didn’t give a fuck at that point if The Broker thought we were being hostile. We’d been attacked twice on our own turf. Damned straight we were hostile.

  The Broker still didn’t move or visibly react as we walked toward him, our rifles at the low ready. He just watched us, his head slightly tilted to one side in an attitude of amused curiosity that I’d come to expect from him.

  He was a small man, going bald, with a round head and a generally soft, genial way about him that disguised the fact that this was a very, very dangerous man, indeed. I’d first met him in a very expensive restaurant in Panama City, where he had been dressed in a suit and tie, which had suited him perfectly well. He was presently dressed in jeans and a Carhartt jacket, and seemed just as comfortable dressed that way. He was a chameleon, able to move through numerous environments easily and unobtrusively. It was how he had become as powerful, and as dangerous, as he was.

  He smiled as we approached him, though with his sunglasses on it was impossible to see if the smile reached his eyes. It probably did; he was too good at tradecraft to have so obvious a tell.

  “Good to see you, gentlemen,” he said jovially. “I’d tell you that the rest of the team can come in; there is no ambush waiting for you in the weeds, and I am certain that the area is clean. But I don’t imagine you’ll take me up on the invitation.”

  “You have a problem with that?” I asked. Jack just watched him, his eyes flicking back and forth between The Broker and the truck, where there was at least one guy behind the wheel, more than likely just as heavily armed as we were.

  “Not at all,” The Broker replied, his voice growing more serious. “Under the circumstances, paranoia is not only natural, it’s commendable. I’d be worried if you weren’t suspicious.”

  That actually made me relax, fractionally, though the little voice in the back of my head that told me not to trust anybody who wasn’t a Praetorian kept suggesting that he’d known his words would have that effect. “What have you got?” I asked him.

  He jerked his thumb at the truck behind him. “Refit and resupply, to start,” he said. “I imagine that you’re running a little low after your adventures down in Colorado.” He nodded. “Oh, yes, I know that was you. I knew as soon as it started hitting some of the information streams. You have your own patterns, for those who know how to look. Everyone does.”

  “You didn’t want to talk over the phone, but now we’re not on the phone. Who sent these assholes after us?” I asked.

  “I’m working on that,” he replied. “Suffice it to say, for the moment, that there’s a major power play at work, and you gentlemen are in the middle of it, if only a part of it. What you need to concentrate on for now is getting in there, getting as many of your people out as possible, and getting someplace more secure. I know a few fallback positions where you can hole up for a while, positions that are not compromised.” He tossed an envelope to me. I let it fall at my feet. He might be on the level, but I was not falling for the “catch” trick if there was some skullduggery afoot. “That’s all the reconnaissance reports from a few of my people on the task force’s numbers and dispositions. Yes, I’ve had them in the vicinity since Mexico. I like to keep an eye on my friends as well as my enemies.”

  I didn’t look down at the envelope. “We’ll take it under advisement,” I said. I was already starting to think ahead, think of staging areas and hiding places in the hills above The Ranch. The last time The Broker had given us intel, it had been extensive, thorough, and spot-on. It still didn’t mean he wasn’t double-crossing us this time, but that was why we always ran our own reconnaissance and moved carefully.

  Well, mostly carefully. If I was being honest, Pueblo had not been a good example of us at our most professionally cautious.

  “If you want to get the rest of your stuff out of that Duramax,” The Broker went on, “we’ll trade vehicles. John and I will take your truck, and you take this one. There’s a new set of burner phones in the glove compartment, programmed with a new contact number, so that we can keep in touch. With that, I will get out of your way, at least until it is time to proceed.”

  “One more question, Gray,” I said. “Why the favors? What does this get you?”

  His smile thinned slightly. “Your company is a hell of a wrecking ball, Mr. Stone. And the time is rapidly approaching when some edifices will need smashing. I’d like to have you around for that. Now, I’d suggest that you concentrate on getting your people out. We can discuss the strategic situation when time is slightly less pressing.”

  Chapter 9

  The Ranch was too big to be properly surrounded by anything less than a battalion. Not only that, but it was backed up against the Beartooth Mountains, and no mechanized force was getting up there without considerable difficulty. Add in our own not inconsiderable defensive measures, and, for the moment at least, the unknown task force was stalled at our two entry gates.

  Nick and I were watching one of those task force encampments. They had set up just outside the North Gate, where the MS-13 attackers had been turned into hamburger. There were few traces of the fight out there anymore, just some shattered glass in the ditch alongside the road. Anyone who didn’t know what had happened would probably think somebody had wrecked their car and nothing else.

  The two of us were lying on our bellies, peering over the crest of a finger that ran roughly southwest-to-northeast, draped in tan and brown camouflage ponchos, watching the gate and our mysterious adversaries through binos.

  The task force had fallen back down the slope from the gate, and was circled up just above the dry streambed to the north and the Harricks’ hay fields beyond it. They were within rifle shot of the gate and the concealed bunkers flanking it, but it didn’t look like they’d exchanged much in the way of fire. Our guys weren’t visible, but the task force personnel we could see weren’t showing too much concern; they weren’t going out of their way to stay behind cover.

  They were very well equipped. I counted four black-painted MATVs, the towering armored replacements for the up-armored HMMWV, along with another six vehicles I didn’t recognize. They were long, sleek, and angular, with eight wheels on what looked like independent suspensions. If there had been any doubt that our enemies had a lot of money and influence—and there really wasn’t—then the presence of what looked like advanced armored vehicle prototypes did a good job of dispelling it.

  While the vehicles were painted black, they displayed none of the block-letter alphabet soup that might be expected of Federal agencies, whether the FBI, BATFE, or DHS. The personnel’s pseudo-uniforms and equipment were similarly blank, though if they had any badges or patches, I couldn’t tell, not from seven hundred meters away, through binoculars. They were kitted up, but n
ot to the extreme level of most SWAT teams, who tend to look like they can barely move, so covered are they in armor, drop leg panels, knee pads, elbow pads, helmets, etc. No, these guys were mostly wearing 5.11 tuxedos in tan and green, with plate carriers and battle belts. Ball caps predominated, instead of the ubiquitous SWAT/Hostage Rescue OpsCore helmets. My grudging respect for their choice of kit was offset by the fact that these assholes were besieging my home, and that a few of them were wearing shemaghs wrapped around their necks, though there was no desert sand to keep off and it wasn’t cold enough yet to need to keep body heat in during the day. Tacticool jackoffs.

  We had been in position since before dawn, and it had quickly become evident that we were going to have to stay put and move as little as possible until after dark. We’d been clean on the way up, but these guys definitely had UAVs out; we’d heard one quadrotor already. I was watching a couple of them, in the shelter of one of the eight-wheelers, setting up another one. They leaned back and it started to wobble up into the sky.

  It didn’t make it far, though. I guessed it had just passed a hundred feet when it suddenly jerked, tilted hard to one side, and fell out of the sky. The two who had launched it had to scramble to avoid getting hit. A moment later, the crack of a shot echoed up the hill.

  “The boys are getting a bit of skeet shooting in, I see,” Nick whispered.

  It was a good sign; it meant not only that our guys weren’t lying down for this little invasion, but that the opposition had limits on their overhead reconnaissance capability. I briefly wondered how many drones they’d already lost.

  Carefully, achingly slowly, so as to avoid showing enough movement to catch a drone operator’s eye, I put down the binos and picked up the camera. A few shots framed the general disposition of the task force personnel and vehicles. As I was just about to put it down, though, Nick whispered, “Don’t put it away, yet.”