The staccato pops from his team’s M4s and Sig Sauer 556s echoed steady and measured, but soon, erratic bursts of enemy AK-47 fire joined the ruckus.
As Dempsey advanced on the center of the courtyard, he heard BT’s voice in his earpiece: “There’s a dude climbing up tower one.”
He tensed, hoping one of the SEAL snipers made the shot before the .50 cal lit up and ripped his team to shreds. The answer came a second later over his headset.
“Got him,” said Eagle One’s calm voice, a split second after his sniper round found its mark.
The plan called for one of the DEA strikers on each team to advance to the base of their respective tower and take control. Win control of the .50s, and they won control of the camp.
It wouldn’t be long now.
Suddenly he saw a wave of men, machine guns blazing, pouring out of the gap between the mansion and the barracks like hornets from a rattled hive. Within seconds, the defenders were saturating his team with disorganized fully automatic fire. His team returned fire, with deadly and systematic accuracy, and bodies began to fall. Dempsey sighted and fired, sighted and fired, dropping two enemy fighters in as many seconds.
“RPG!” someone shouted.
Dempsey took a knee and made himself small, searching for the rocket. It streaked past him and exploded against the wall behind him wide right. Concrete fragments sprayed everywhere, but the impact point was far enough away that he escaped unscathed.
Time to win control of those .50s.
“Eagle One, tower status?” he asked.
“Both towers are clear,” came the report.
“Eight and Sixteen, take the towers,” he ordered.
Dempsey sensed movement to his left and turned on his heel, looking over his rifle. A man wearing a silk shirt and sporting a handlebar mustache was waving a long-barreled silver pistol over his head and barking orders in Spanish at two younger men with rifles. Dempsey sighted in, but before he could squeeze the trigger the man’s head evaporated in a puff of red as one of the SEAL sniper rounds did its work. Dempsey pressed on, sighting the next asshole in line behind the teetering headless corpse. He took the shot, dropping the first guy as the other tossed his weapon and ran for cover back into the barracks.
“One is going to take the barracks,” Dempsey said in his mike. “Still have shooters in the main house.”
“Ten shooters down over here,” Chunk said in his ear, followed by back-to-back gunshots. “Two will take the main house.”
Dempsey scanned the courtyard—another twelve or fifteen KIA on their side, plus three in the towers. They had already cut the opposition force by more than half. The cadence of gunfire was becoming more sporadic. These were cartel shooters they were facing, not jihadi martyrs. No one in this crew was fighting for virgins in the afterlife. Drugs and cash were not the same motivators as faith.
“One, Eight in control of tower one.”
“Roger. Light up the assholes on the balcony.”
One burst from the .50-caliber machine gun in tower one and the remaining cartel fighters began throwing down their weapons and surrendering. Then Dempsey heard the pop pop of a pistol, followed immediately by the sound of an M4 in response. After that, all was quiet. They’d taken the compound without incident or injury on their side. Dempsey scanned for any holdout threats, while his strike team members went to work pressing bad guys’ faces into the dirt and flex-tying hands behind backs.
Chunk met him in the middle of the courtyard, where DEA strikers were cuffing the last of the cartel fighters. “Anything?”
“No terrorists in this group,” Dempsey said, his head pounding. Had they missed them, or was al-Mahajer out in the jungle with his men somewhere? He motioned the DEA strike team leader over. “Can you figure out who’s in charge?”
“We know most of these assholes,” BT said. “The guy in charge of the compound is that headless motherfucker in the silk shirt over by the stairs.”
“Shit. Then find me someone else to talk to.”
“Sure thing. Just so you know, they have a briefing room in the main house.”
Dempsey nodded, grinding his teeth with what felt like a lifetime’s worth of frustration. “Bring them inside the house. We’ll toss the briefing room and other buildings and see what we find.”
“Hey, JD.” It was Smith in his headset.
“Go,” he said into his mike.
“You need to see this shit. I’m in the barracks building—all the way in the back.”
Dempsey looked at BT, who gave him a thumbs-up. He turned to Chunk. “Toss the briefing room and the rest of the house. Find me something that explains what the hell is going on here.”
“Check,” the SEAL said.
Moments later, Dempsey walked through the wooden door at the front of the first long building. The room was bunk-style beds on either side, all unmade with clothes scattered on top. Liquor bottles stood on windowsills and trash littered the floor. The room stank of body odor and cigarette smoke.
“Back here,” Smith called.
Dempsey moved quickly through the dump of a room. A narrow door at the back led to the second building, where everything was completely different. Each bed was meticulously made. No liquor bottles, no cigarettes, no trash. Smith stood next to a small writing desk, leafing through a notebook.
“Here,” Smith said, handing over the book. “Take a look at this.”
Dempsey flipped through the handwritten pages, which were covered in Arabic scrawl. He exhaled slowly through his nose.
“And there’s this,” Smith said, gesturing at the foot of the bed. “Prayer rug.”
Dempsey scanned the room, noting similar prayer rugs rolled up neatly at the foot of each bed. “Think they’re coming back?”
Smith shook his head. “I don’t think so. No clothes, no bags, no personal items. Nothing but rugs, copies of the Quran, and this notebook.”
“So why leave this stuff?”
Smith looked at him and waited, as if he expected him to figure it out.
And then he did. “If they don’t intend to survive wherever they’re going . . .”
Smith nodded. “We just missed them.”
Dempsey’s temples began to throb. “How far behind are we?”
“No idea. Maybe hours. Maybe a day.”
“Let’s go toss the house and interrogate the cartel guys. I don’t care how many skulls I have to crack; someone is going to tell me where they fucking went.”
Dempsey slipped the notebook into his pocket and then marched out of the barracks straight into the main house. In the foyer, Adamo was standing over two men, both kneeling with their hands behind their backs in flex-cuffs. He was speaking to them calmly in Spanish. Chunk saw him coming and hustled over to caucus.
“I think we got something, bro,” the SEAL said. “Follow me.”
Chunk took the steps to the second floor of the house two at a time and Dempsey kept pace, eager for good news. Grimes was already in the large modern briefing room, not so different from the Ember TOC under the hangar. She was poring over what looked like a set of schematic prints. She looked up, excited.
“Check this out.” She stepped aside as Dempsey bent over the maps and drawings.
“What am I looking at?”
“Tunnels,” she said. “These are schematics of the tunnels that the cartel is building and using to move drugs, weapons, and illegals who pay for entry into the United States from Mexico. There are several tunnel designs outlined here.”
He suddenly felt nauseated. “Oh God . . .”
“What?” she said, grabbing his hand. “Are you all right? You look a little green, JD.”
“Bawwaba šamāliyy,” he mumbled. “The Northern Gate is not a tunnel into Israel.”
Her eyes widened. “It’s a tunnel into the US,” she said.
“Al-Mahajer is going to hit us,” he said, nodding slowly.
“Oh God,” she echoed.
“Where are these tunnels?” Demps
ey asked.
“The maps are unmarked,” she said. “They could be anywhere. There are dozens of known tunnels—plus God knows how many still yet to be discovered.”
“Then how do we know which one they’re taking?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Baldwin and the boys could have a look at these schematics and—”
“No time,” Dempsey said, cutting her off. “These cartel guys have set check-ins—both radio and telephone. They also use social media to convey information with code words. If al-Mahajer is still with the cartel and doesn’t know we hit this compound, there’s a good chance he will any minute. We need to know which tunnel he’s using ASAP.”
“How?” she said.
Hot rage took control. Dempsey spun on his heel and headed out the door, pulling his Sig P226 from his drop holster on his thigh.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, chasing after him with Smith in tow.
He ignored her, descended the stairs, and strode quickly over to where BT and Adamo were waiting with two senior cartel leaders.
“What have they told you?” Dempsey said.
Adamo sighed. “Nothing I’m afraid.”
Dempsey looked down at the two assholes on their knees. The older man on the right squinted up at Dempsey with a callous smirk plastered across his chubby face. “Ask him when al-Mahajer left,” Dempsey said, clutching his pistol at his side.
Adamo said something to the man in Spanish. The man said something back and laughed.
“He says he doesn’t remember.”
Dempsey raised his Sig and fired a round through the man’s knee. The man screamed in pain and surprise and collapsed onto his left side.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Adamo shouted. “Are you insane?”
Dempsey stared into the eyes of the man writhing on the floor. He saw pain, but he also saw terror.
“Ask him if he remembers now,” Dempsey said, but Adamo was silent.
Dempsey shifted his gaze to BT. “Ask him.”
BT nodded and spoke to the man in Spanish. The man answered, his voice quivering. “He says the Muslims left this morning at nine a.m.”
“Ask him which tunnel they’re using.”
BT spoke again in clipped Spanish. The cartel man began to cry and plead in Spanish. “He says he can’t tell us. If he does he’s a dead man. Cartel del Norte will torture him and murder his family.”
Dempsey looked up at heaven and exhaled. “This is the part of the job I hate,” he said, to everyone and no one. Then, he looked down at the bleeding, whimpering drug trafficker, and with a steady hand, pressed the muzzle of his pistol into the center of the man’s forehead. “If you won’t talk, maybe your friend over there will. Lord, forgive me, but I have no choice—”
“They will cross in Mexicali,” the cartel man blurted in fluent English, and began to sob.
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know.”
Dempsey pressed the muzzle harder into the man’s forehead.
“I swear it. The crossing logistics are always decided locally.”
Dempsey withdrew the pistol and slipped it back into his holster. Then he turned to Smith. “If you were al-Mahajer and you got word about this raid, what would you do?”
“I would advance the timeline,” the Ember Ops O said.
“So would I,” Dempsey said with a grave nod. “Call the helicopters for EXFIL. We’re leaving, right fucking now.”
CHAPTER 23
Cartel del Norte Safehouse
Mexicali, Mexico
October 28, 2130 Local Time
The bedroom door flew open and smashed against the wall, jolting Rostami awake from the first decent sleep he’d had in two weeks.
“Tell your crazy friend to gather his men and equipment,” Arturo Garcia said. “We leave in ten minutes.”
Rostami glanced at his wristwatch. “What are you talking about? It’s not time.”
“We have been compromised. There’s been an attack on our training camp, and there are indicators that the egress address in Calexico is under surveillance. We’re not crossing,” the Cartel del Norte man said.
“What kind of indicators? How do you know this?”
“No time for questions,” Garcia snapped. “We’re not safe here. You have nine minutes, or I leave without you.”
A surge of adrenaline vaporized Rostami’s drowsiness. He swung his legs out of bed and quickly dressed. Less than a minute later, rucksack on his shoulder, he woke al-Mahajer and told him exactly what Garcia had said.
Al-Mahajer ran his fingers through his hair and let out a weary groan. “I am the one who will decide when and where we go, not the cartel.”
Rostami laughed.
A terrible scowl appeared on al-Mahajer’s face.
“You think you’re in command here? You think the cartel cares about you and your mission? The only thing they care about is money, money that Hezbollah pays to lease their training camps. Best-case scenario, Garcia tolerates us as an inconvenience. Worst-case scenario, he decides we’re a liability and he abandons us here, where we can’t speak the language, have no support network, and no place to hide. How long do you think it will be before the Mexican authorities find us? How long until we are handed over to the Americans? Don’t be a fool, my brother. We have no choice but to do as Garcia says.”
“Where is he taking us?” al-Mahajer asked, rolling out of his cot.
“I don’t know,” Rostami said, “but if I had to guess, Agua Prieta.”
Al-Mahajer sniffed. “The backup location?”
Rostami nodded.
The ISIS lieutenant was silent for a moment and then said, “Find out if this is where they are taking us and if they will still support our crossing into America.”
“And if the answer is no?”
Al-Mahajer smirked. “Then as a fellow true believer, as the Persian who pledged himself to help me fulfill my destiny, it is your responsibility to negotiate a new plan.”
CHAPTER 24
Ember Corporation Boeing 787-9
520 Nautical Miles South of Mexicali, Mexico
October 29, 0125 Local Time
Dempsey stared at the hand-sketched, but remarkably detailed, drawings of the tunnel system. In the schematic, the tunnels formed a complex on the Mexico side of the border, with multiple tunnels originating close together and a third farther away. BT had spent time on the secure line with Baldwin, poring over what they knew about the tunnel systems, where the known tunnels were, and where they suspected new tunnels might now be under construction. Baldwin had used this information—and considerable math and computer time—to confirm that the schematic did indeed suggest the tunnels in Mexicali, with two in Santa Isabel and Mexicali converging and merging together. BT called these feeder tunnels, designed to route product and human cargo to a consolidation site prior to transport across the border. In this case, they converged at a house, and then a single tunnel made a relatively straight shot under the US-Mexico border into California, west of Calexico. Dempsey had no idea how Baldwin and his boys had done it, but they calculated there was a greater than 78 percent chance the tunnels in the schematic ended in a private home at an address on Anza Road.
“What about the other schematic?” Adamo had asked.
“Impossible to pinpoint without more data,” had been Baldwin’s answer. They’d known to look in Mexicali from Dempsey’s violent interrogation. But to find the other site, without any frame of reference, would take time, if it was even possible.
So to Mexicali they were headed.
Dempsey hated not knowing where the other tunnel system was. How did they know that the drug smuggler had told them the truth? It would be far better to cover both tunnels and hit the one with the highest likelihood—but still post assets at the exits to the others.
The current plan was to land at Marine Corps Base El Centro in California and then cross the border in DEA Blackhaw
ks. He would have preferred to land on the Mexico side, but a Boeing 787-9 landing at Mexicali was sure to draw unwanted attention, and now Dempsey found himself wishing, ironically, that they were back in the Falcon for this mission. So far, they had not been able to utilize the wealth of additional gear, including a Humvee, two Suburban SUVs, and several ATVs, that were kept stored in the aft cargo hold, ready to roll into action. On the flip side, it was nice to utilize the 787’s TOC with real-time information flow, instead of having data relayed from Ember back in Virginia.
He looked up from the maps and fixed his gaze on Adamo, who sat bent at the waist, his face red, whispering conspiratorially to Smith, who was listening patiently and nodding. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were talking about. Special Activities was Dempsey’s unit, and Adamo would either have to adapt or ship the hell out. He hoped Smith was telling him as much.
He looked back at the schematics. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t quite articulate it. It wasn’t the assault plan. The raid was a textbook capture/kill with air support from the two Blackhawks. Dempsey’s team would hit the house in Mexicali and either take al-Mahajer down or flush him into the main tunnel. A DEA task force was already standing by in California, monitoring the exit house in case Ember was too late and the crossing happened before the raid.
But if the crossing had already happened, or if al-Mahajer was in the wind . . . they were screwed.
“Hope they’re there,” a familiar baritone said.
Dempsey looked up at BT. “Me, too,” he said. “I’m just worried they heard about the raid on the camp and pushed the timeline.”
“If they go at all.” BT dropped into the leather seat beside Dempsey.
“If they’re in Mexicali, they’ll go,” Dempsey said. “They have to because a border crossing like this requires support operations on the other side—which means assets and logistics that were already in motion.”
War Shadows (Tier One Thrillers Book 2) Page 18