Hired to Kill (The Nathan McBride Series Book 7)

by Andrew Peterson

  At another red light, she reached across and opened the glove compartment.

  “Oh yes,” she whispered. A beautiful Garmin handheld navigation device stared back at her. The gunman had likely used it to navigate the city, which meant it might contain recallable locations, and probably did.

  She heard the gunman moan but didn’t detect any movement. To be certain, she took a quick glance over her shoulder. Nothing. He was likely drifting in and out of consciousness.

  Echoes of multiple sirens now surrounded her. The forlorn wailing sounded eerie and sad at the same time. As painful as it was to crawl along at fifteen miles an hour, she kept going south, blending with the flow of traffic.

  That’s when she saw it.

  Red and blue flashing lights, heading straight toward her. Pulling over to the curb wasn’t possible, so everyone did the next best thing. They stopped. She had to stop too.

  She tightened her grip on the wheel as the police cruiser barreled toward her.

  She edged forward, pulling in tight behind the taxi to keep the damaged fender screened from the approaching cop’s view.

  The moment of truth arrived as the cruiser screamed up to her position. Keeping her head slightly dipped, she felt tremendous relief as the vehicle raced harmlessly past.

  Traffic started again but crawled at a painfully slow pace. It seemed to take forever, but she finally reached Constitution, turned right, and sandwiched herself between a couple of taxis.

  The man in the back seat moaned again, this time louder. When she looked over her shoulder to check on him, he was attempting to crawl up from the floor. She pumped the brake pedal hard enough to jar him and felt a thump against her seat.

  His response was a hissed curse of some kind.

  When he tried again, Jin obliged him again.

  “I can do that hundreds of times if necessary. Your choice.” She didn’t know if he spoke English, but the tone of her message couldn’t be mistaken. He stopped attempting to get up from the floor.

  Sooner or later, she’d have to pull over and deal with her bleeding calf, but she was still dangerously close to the action at Mabel’s.

  “Do you speak English?” When he didn’t respond, she tapped the brakes again. “Okay, have it your way.” Then she did it again for good measure. The man’s knee had to be blindingly sensitive, even to the smallest movement.

  “Yes,” he grunted. “I speak English.”

  “Save your strength. You’re going to need it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Seven Days Ago

  The striped bark scorpion cringed at being exposed. El Lobo smiled and set the twelve-inch rock down to admire the creature. He couldn’t blame it for being startled; he’d feel the same way if the roof of his home suddenly disappeared. What a magnificent creature. He didn’t even consider killing it. How many of them lived in the Chihuahuan Desert? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?

  As a young boy, he’d kept one as a pet until his father smashed it during one of his countless drunken rampages. A valuable lesson. Don’t get close to anything; it might not be around tomorrow. When he turned eleven, he fought back against the verbal abuse, neglect, and beatings that his nine-year-old sister and he had endured since before he could remember. Love and warmth? It never existed in his household. He’d struggled through childhood and learned to disconnect from pain and anguish through hatred. The more he hated, the easier his life became.

  Then, early one morning while recovering from a drunken stupor, his papa took a tragic “fall” and sustained a fatal head injury. His family found some measure of peace after that. Dirt-poor but no longer black and blue: a worthwhile trade. With no income and no support, his mom turned to prostitution to make money. At the time, his sister and he didn’t know it was a bad thing. Years later, by the time they did, they no longer cared. Was their mom a loving caregiver and provider? No, but she never beat the crap out of them for no reason.

  A distracted driver killed his sister on her sixteenth birthday. El Lobo saw the hit-and-run happen. All of it. The idiot was looking at his phone, jumped the sidewalk, and sent his sister cartwheeling through a plate-glass window. She bled out in front of him, pleading for help. He’d never seen so much blood.

  Fortunately, he knew who the driver was, knew where he worked, and knew where he lived. The idiot had been one of his mom’s best customers over the years. He didn’t tell the police he recognized the driver because he had other plans. Later that night, the man took an unfortunate “fall” and sustained a fatal head injury. That’s when it had dawned on El Lobo like a revelation: killing wasn’t that hard to do.

  Over the next twenty years, he worked his way up from a street-gang punk to a cartel gopher and, eventually, a made man. His street smarts combined with desert awareness and knowledge were valuable assets to Mr. A. He took pride in being a coyote and didn’t care for the derogatory label. Smuggling drugs, guns, and people became a perfect fit for his personality and skill set, and he’d been doing it successfully for most of his adult life.

  El Lobo found himself staring at the scorpion, having lost track of time again. He didn’t fear the creature, but its sting produced a nasty and protracted burning sensation. He stepped a few meters away, placed some smaller rocks in a triangular formation, then searched for a suitable flat rock, and set it aside. Using his knife, he nudged the scorpion into his ball cap. It didn’t look real happy about being evicted, but it beat the alternative. After setting it free inside the triangle of rocks, he set the flat piece on top.

  El Lobo returned to the spot he had been setting up as his sniper’s nest, placed the twelve-inch stone and several others at his two o’clock position, and repeated the process at ten o’clock. He now had a clear view to the exact location he wanted along the border fence. The rocks he’d strategically placed created a wedge, also giving him lateral visual cover.

  After removing his backpack, he took a swig of water. The last vestiges of morning twilight were nearly over. This small bluff would be scorching in a few hours. Better to stay ahead of the dehydration curve.

  His wait shouldn’t be long. Through a series of planned incidents, El Lobo had ensured that this fifteen-mile stretch of the fence was under closer surveillance by the US Border Patrol. Not a difficult task: light a few bonfires, throw some carpet over the wire, paint the monuments and markers with threatening anti–Border Patrol slurs. What had been an isolated basin of empty desert was now being patrolled much more frequently. This meant that other areas were now less patrolled. A simple strategy: divert them away from the area where you want to smuggle people and drugs across.

  Because he needed to execute a flawless crossing in eight days, he intended to up the stakes this morning, further diffusing the Border Patrol’s assets. El Lobo bragged about being the best human smuggler in all of Mexico, and he’d proven it many times. In reality, it wasn’t all that demanding, just a pain in the ass. At times he felt like nothing more than a babysitter.

  The job had its benefits, though.

  He and Quattro jokingly referred to the high-tech smuggling center’s warehouse as the whorehouse. After arriving, his “customers” received a hot shower, new clothes, state-of-the-art fake green cards made on the spot, and $200 in authentic American cash. Many of the girls and women were willing to trade sex for an extra $100, one of the many fringe benefits of his business. There was even a picnic area that included a playground for children—although he didn’t see that many kids. His air-conditioned fleet of shuttle vans, like the airports used, worked well for transporting his customers from the southern border of Mexico all the way to Mr. A’s ranch, which occupied an eleven-kilometer stretch of the international border along the Rio Bravo, the same river the arrogant Americans called the Rio Grande.

  Situated in the middle of the property, the ranch house, smuggling center, and training compound were only several kilometers from the border, making it an ideal staging location for Mr. A’s smuggling operations.

  Ra
ncho Del Seco might be isolated, but a forty-thousand-liter fuel truck served as a mobile gas station. He also had a diesel tanker at his disposal. When it came to the business of smuggling drugs and people, El Lobo’s services were highly sought after. Opioids were in such high demand, Mr. A’s suppliers couldn’t produce them quickly enough. Pain pills had now become his boss’s number one commodity, surpassing marijuana, cocaine, meth, and heroin combined. Who could’ve known? He’d heard reports of high numbers of opioid overdose deaths in America, something like thirty-five thousand last year. How many a day was that? Almost a hundred? Incredible. He didn’t feel guilty about it. Why should he? No one made the drooling junkies take the pills; they did it of their own accord. The loss of customers wasn’t ideal, but there seemed to be an endless supply of new addicts ready to step up and pay. The street value seemed hard to believe. Again, depending on whom you talked to, the average price of an illegally sold pain pill had surpassed thirty-five US dollars. Mr. A usually bought five hundred thousand of them for seventy-five cents apiece and sold them to his criminal gang and cartel connections for five bucks each.

  Most of the illegals El Lobo escorted across the border were from Central America. The price for the stroll across the desert into the land of freedom and opportunity? Fifteen thousand dollars. Each. All in advance. All cash. Mr. A preferred American money but accepted Mexican pesos. He knew it could take years for people to save that much money—not his concern. On an average night, Mr. A made over half a million dollars from a column of illegals. And that didn’t even include the drugs. Most of the people he escorted into America, men and women alike, were willing to carry a backpack for a $200 discount. Adding opioids, heroin, or meth to the mix produced anywhere from $400,000 to $600,000 more income. Demand created supply, and for now, the illegal pain pill market showed no signs of tapering off.

  Today’s diversion promised to be exciting. He loved harassing the jackbooted bullies of the mighty US Border Patrol. He thought it ironic that the very thing he hated the most about America’s immigration policy had made him a very wealthy man.

  El Lobo enjoyed a sweet deal with Mr. A—20 percent, a generous chunk compared to his competitors. His share for tonight’s haul should be close to $200,000. Trust ran both directions. El Lobo could easily skim, but that entailed certain death if ever discovered. Besides, El Lobo was doing just fine. Last year, he’d averaged $16,000 a day, 365 days a year. Had he been willing to work harder and take less vacation time, it would’ve been even more. It boggled the mind imagining how much money Mr. A made, but El Lobo felt quite comfortable with his salary. He drove the nicest cars, paid for the best hookers, and owned lots of real estate all over Mexico. He had use of Mr. A’s private jet and helicopters, and he’d be taking his first cruise on Mr. A’s luxury yacht soon.

  Through trial and error over the years, El Lobo had found the optimum number for a column of illegals was thirty-five to forty. Fewer wasn’t profitable enough, and more became too many to manage with a four-man escort. Most people had no clue how dangerous his line of work could be. There were bandits all throughout the Chihuahuan Desert. Lazy bottom-feeders who weren’t willing to do the difficult work. At gunpoint, they’d rob a migrant column of all its cash, green cards, and drugs. And they’d often assault the women and girls. Without El Lobo’s protection, his columns had a good chance of being intercepted. Once stripped of their cash and IDs, they had little chance of making it deep into US territory, but worse than that, El Lobo’s reputation would take a hit.

  Across the two decades he’d been doing this, he’d refined his smuggling skills to a fine art. As an example, he always had one of his own men accompany the convoy disguised as a migrant. You couldn’t be “too careful.” Truer words had never been spoken.

  Years ago, Mr. A had built an incredible ranch house at Rancho Del Seco. El Lobo stayed there for free, as long as he maintained it. The place had eight bedrooms with full baths, a library, game room, sitting room, living room, full gym, and a kitchen bigger than most people’s houses. The one drawback was a total lack of cellular service, but a high-speed satellite subscription allowed him to access online phone services. Making calls via the internet was easy but not secure.

  He found it mildly amusing that Quattro, his right-hand man, had adopted the Italian spelling of the number four, but to each his own. Quattro was more than capable of running the day-to-day smuggling operations, but El Lobo liked being out here, liked hiking across the desert, and liked the thrill and danger.

  Like right now.

  In every sense of the definition, El Lobo was a hands-on man. His enemies feared him and didn’t want to be on the wrong end of his infamous scorpion cattle brand. Many people had been marked by his red-hot iron over the years. Fear, he’d learned at an early age, went a long way toward keeping order in Mexico.

  He watched through field glasses as Quattro, eight hundred meters away, tossed the last of the old tires out of the truck onto the second smaller pile of tires. The bigger pile, perhaps a hundred tires strong, sat ten meters away.

  Quattro rounded up the strays that had rolled away and heaved them onto the smaller pile. Next, his first lieutenant dowsed the larger pile with a mixture of half motor oil, half diesel and threw the empty can into the truck. The motor oil assured the syrupy combination would stay wet for an hour or so, which ought to be more than enough time.

  They weren’t concerned about evaporation on the smaller pile, so they’d use pure diesel to get it going.

  The image in his field glasses wavered with the beginnings of what would be a nice mirage today—not extremely hot, but comfortably warm. The conditions couldn’t have been more perfect. A near absence of wind worked in their favor, for more than one reason. The column of dark smoke would be visible for miles.

  Quattro placed a heavy L-shaped plate of steel about halfway up the larger pile of tires. He had to move a few tires to make it sit fairly level. He then set a twenty-liter red gasoline can on the base of the L shape so that the upright part of the steel was behind the can.

  “How’s that look?”

  El Lobo answered the radio call. “Perfect. I’ve got a solid bead.”

  The last thing Quattro did was place a cardboard box on the near side of the bigger pile, away from the border fence.

  He keyed his radio. “Good job, Q. Light it up and come on back.”

  “Copy.”

  Quattro sloshed an entire can of diesel on the smaller pile, threw the empty container into the truck, and rolled the door closed.

  His lieutenant made a motion—like throwing a Frisbee—and within a few seconds, the smaller mound of rubber became fully engulfed in flames.

  Quattro waved, climbed into the truck, and sped away from the pile.

  It didn’t take long for the dark smoke to reach a thousand meters above the desert. El Lobo glanced at his watch. Response time to this area ought to be about twenty minutes. Because of his strategically planned incidents, the US Border Patrol now had more assets assigned to this stretch of fence.

  The dust from Quattro’s truck slowly dispersed. Out of boredom, El Lobo grabbed his laser rangefinder and began taking readings from various objects. A rusted hulk without wheels or doors sat 763 meters away. A road sign on the American side registered at an astonishing 2,700 meters. He got a reading from an abandoned building at 921 meters and a passing car at 1,436 meters.

  He told Quattro to park the truck and come on up for the show. Because his shooting position atop the twenty-meter knoll offered a shallow downward angle, the beeps would never see them.

  His guests arrived ten minutes sooner than expected. A Border Patrol SUV appeared at the limit of his binoculars. He saw its dust cloud first. In the round image of his field glasses, the SUV slowly got bigger and bigger. When it looked to be about two minutes out, El Lobo set his binoculars down and shouldered his rifle. Today, he favored his Remington 700, chambered in 30–06.

  Quattro grabbed the binoculars and looked at the
vehicle. “Too bad it’s only two of them responding.”

  “Two is enough.” He acquired the red gas can in his rifle’s scope and asked Quattro to check the mirage, a great way to determine the windage correction. “Right now, wind looks negligible in our immediate area, but there could be some downrange.”

  “The mirage is lying down a little more . . . Give it two additional clicks left.”

  El Lobo repeated the correction. “Two clicks left.” His elevation correction was already set for 570 yards. Now all he had to do was pull the trigger. And score two hits, of course.

  No problem, he owned this.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Quattro asked.

  “Yes, it’s old and unstable,” he said slowly, concentrating on the crosshairs. “It’s been weeping nitroglycerin for years. I’m surprised it didn’t go off when you lit the small pile of tires.”

  “Tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m joking.”

  “Come on, boss. You’re being funny. Right?”

  He half laughed and said, “Seriously . . . I was just”—the rifle kicked his shoulder—“kidding.”

  Downrange, the incendiary bullet punched through the gas-filled plastic container and smashed into the steel plate, setting off its miniature explosive warhead.

  “Awesome shot, boss!”

  “All in a day’s work.”

  The gas didn’t explode like in the movies, but it did create a nice fireball.

  “Redneck entertainment at its best,” Quattro said.

  Smoke from the two fires merged into a single roiling mass. He focused on the approaching SUV, which seemed to have sped up. No doubt seeing the smoke column triple in size had motivated the beeps to hurry along. The SUV stopped about fifty meters away, and two agents climbed out. They walked a few steps and stood there with their hands on their hips. No doubt they were wondering why anyone would create a burning pile of tires in the middle of nowhere, forty kilometers west of Ciudad Juárez.