Hostile Borders

by Dennis Chalker

  “I must say your choice in boat camouflage is admirable,” Pena said as he looked to the ladies on either side of him. The pretty blond girl was much older than she looked. Her young teenage looks were why she had been reasonably successful in a variety of adult entertainment venues. Her redheaded “mother” had also been in the entertainment business, running a call-girl operation, one of Pena’s other business interests.

  “I thought you might like some companionship after your long separation,” Santiago said. “And they did manage to run that young ensign off fast enough.”

  “You may cast off whenever you are ready, Captain,” Pena said. “I shall begin my new life by dealing with those who ended my old one soon enough.”

  The cold look on the drug lord’s face promised a short life to those he felt had wronged him.

  Chapter Six

  The sun shone down from the clear blue of the Southern Arizona sky. It was going to be a real hot day, thought Ted Reaper as he drove along at the wheel of his rented Saturn sedan. But it’s a dry heat, and he smiled at the thought. The upper nineties was still hot, no matter what the humidity was.

  Back in Michigan the past June, it had been unseasonably cold, and the spring rains had been heavy. Some bright sun and heat would feel pretty good for a while. Reaper had spent a lot of time in the West during his time in the SEAL Teams, setting up training with various agencies, learning what facilities were available. He really liked the area and was looking forward to some downtime with old friends, and doing just a little bit of business to keep things moving and play with some new tools.

  Traveling southeast out of Tucson on Highway 10, Reaper was just passing the Saguaro National Park to his north. That still gave him about sixty miles to go before he reached Sierra Vista. From there he would head out to the Dogbone Ranch southeast of town.

  The beauty of the desert appealed greatly to Reaper. It had a wild, untamable quality that seemed able to ignore a lot of man’s encroachment. The sand went on for miles, covered by rough brush, cactus, and rocks. A short distance to the right of the road, Reaper could see some dust devils moving across the ground. The miniature tornadoes of dust and grit popped up and cut across the desert. One of the tall, tan, twisters was passing through a parking lot and some people were going to be very unhappy about their car being sand-blasted.

  His mind went back to the problems he was having with money, cars, and everything only twelve months earlier. It had been a long year for Reaper. Any financial problems he had were pretty much gone, but his family life was flushed down the head as well. Just over a year before, his wife Mary and son Ricky had been kidnapped by a drug gang that wanted him to furnish weapons for them. The weapons were intended to help supply a Mideast terrorist cell in the U.S.

  It was only through the skills Reaper had learned as a SEAL that he was able to get his family back and prevent a major terrorist incident. But even those skills wouldn’t have been enough without the help given to him by a close Teammate and old friends from the Special Operations community. His Teammate Bear had died in the action against the terrorists, and Reaper missed him every day.

  Bear hadn’t been the only one to pay the bill for Reaper’s actions. He had just paid the most of any of them. Reaper’s marriage had been on rocky ground before the incident. Afterward, he wasn’t able to argue against Mary’s feelings that she and their son would be better off away from him and his past at least for the time being. Reluctantly, Reaper had agreed to a divorce. Now Mary was living with Ricky in another state.

  Damn, Reaper thought, it wasn’t as though he was still in the Navy and deploying with the Teams. But he still wasn’t able to make a go of both his career and his family life. He had to agree that Mary was right. She and Ricky were safer not being with him, at least not while he was now working as a consultant and contractor for the Department of Homeland Security.

  That was just about the only thing that had worked out for the better from Reaper’s involvement in the terrorist incident. Retired SEAL Rear Admiral Alan Straker had left the Teams and taken up a position with the Department of Homeland Security. It was because of Admiral Straker’s intervention that Reaper wasn’t in prison or worse. The admiral had made all of the legal problems go away. Otherwise, the list of charges applied to a group of ex-military personnel using a variety of illegal weapons against foreign nationals within the territories of the United States would have been fairly long. Normally, the U.S. government did not look kindly on its citizens taking the law into their own hands.

  It hadn’t hurt at all that Reaper and his people also received the rewards the State Department had been offering for the elimination of several of the terrorists on their most wanted list. The $2.5 million in cash they had recovered from drug dealers also stayed with Reaper’s group, Straker hadn’t asked about it, and the information wasn’t volunteered. The cash was divided equally among all of the guys, and Reaper felt they had more than earned it. These men had helped him get his family back, safe and unhurt.

  The most astonishing thing Reaper and his group had received was the full use of an island in northern Lake Michigan as their base. The place had a huge mansion on it, shooting ranges, boat docks, an airstrip, machine shop, boats, even an airplane. And Reaper’s people had it as their base of operations.

  The island had been paid for—big time. Ted “Bear” Parnell had also checked out while covering the withdrawal of Reaper and his family. It was easy to understand that Bear preferred going that way instead of dying of the cancer that was eating him up inside. Reaper felt he owed it to Bear’s memory to keep “the Four Horsemen,” a term Bear used, as the registered name of their security consulting company. The base on South Wolverine Island had become the company headquarters.

  As far as Reaper could tell, a Horsemen operation was one that Straker couldn’t palm off on any other unit. That might not be exactly fair as the Horsemen hadn’t even been called out for a hot operation yet. But to Reaper, the situation felt that way. The Horsemen were going to work in the United States and be one way to get around the Posse Comitatus Act that prevented U.S. military units from acting as a direct part of civilian law enforcement.

  The new headquarters did not come without some strings attached. In order to receive all of the largess from the government, and avoid a lot of criminal prosecution, they had to agree to conduct operations as needed, the missions to be directed from Admiral Straker’s office alone. So now Reaper and his merry band were contractors for the U.S. government, a nice little euphemism for mercenary.

  Reflections on the past year occupied Reaper’s mind as he headed down the road. He was almost surprised when he realized that he was approaching Sierra Vista. Soon he was turning off the main road and heading up the half-mile-long dirt road leading to the main compound of the ranch. The wire fence that went around the 175-acre property extended from either side of a tall set of poles supporting a crossbeam. Hanging from the beam was a big wooden sign in the shape of a bone. Dogbone Ranch was spelled out in big letters burned into the wood.

  This was going to be what he needed. Instead of spending time organizing the Horsemen or training, Reaper would spend some downtime with a friend far away from anything. It would be the first vacation he had taken in a very long time.

  The dirt road leading up to the main house was dusty and winding. It went around the base of a number of small hills and crossed several dry wash gullies that would be rushing, destructive waterways once the rains came. But right now, the area was dry. Dust blew through the scattered undergrowth.

  A few hundred yards away to his right, Reaper could see tall, full trees, bright green and heavy with leaves. The trees and the grassland around them bordered the San Pedro River, a riparian national conservation area. The thorns, mesquite, and mostly brown sands only a short distance from the trees starkly illustrated the value of water in the area.

  The road ended at a long brick wall surrounding the main buildings of the ranch. A wrought-iron gate pe
netrated the south wall without a latch or lock anywhere on its face. Next to the gate was a small sign reading DOGS ON PREMISES.

  “That’s an understatement,” Reaper said out loud as he reached out the window. Punching a six-digit number into the keypad on the pole next to the driveway unlatched the gate and powered it open. The electronic gate was only the first layer of security for the compound. Reaper knew that the second layer was going to be a hell of a lot more intimidating to any stranger.

  Beyond the gate, the end of the road widened into a large, gravel parking area. There was a long, low building along the north side of the area, the three wide garage doors giving a good idea of what was held under the roof. Neat spaces of crushed red stone, raked and smoothed around a few scattered desert plants, bordered the parking place and the low adobe wall surrounding the house. Through an arched opening in the wall, Reaper could see green grass spreading out in the shade of several trees.

  As he pulled up to the edge of the parking space, two huge black thunderbolts rushed from inside the adobe wall and stopped on either side of his car.

  The two large, black-and-mahogany rottweilers barked only a little, but their loud voices clearly announced the arrival of the vehicle. It was obvious, as they stood at each door of the car, that they were in control of the situation no matter what any passengers of the vehicle might think. Anyone who didn’t know the dogs would be more than a little intimidated by the mere appearance of the two powerful animals.

  The rottweilers were relatively quiet, but the big brown-and-black German shepherd standing in the shade of the trees inside the adobe wall made more than enough noise to make up for them. The rottweilers kept watching Reaper intently, intelligence shining in their brown eyes. Reaper wasn’t intimidated by the animals, but he was very respectful of them.

  “Major, shut up,” came a loud voice from inside the house, “you know him.”

  “Yeah,” called out Reaper as he opened the car door, “but does he like me? And what about his friends here?”

  “He’s not the one you have to worry about,” said the man who stepped out of the house and into the walled patio, “it’s that big dummy next to you who’ll knock you over just saying hello.”

  “Grunt?” Reaper said as he held out the back of his hand for the rottweiler to sniff. “Is that you? Damn, you’re a big dog now.”

  “Well, it’s been almost two years since you saw him last. They do grow when you keep feeding them.”

  Jerry “Cowboy” Hausmann walked up to Reaper and wrapped his arms around him in a big, masculine hug.

  “Good to see you, Ted,” Hausmann said. “Glad you could manage to find your way back. Looks like Grunt remembers you, Sarge, too. Got some cold beer on tap inside, if I can force one on you.”

  “You may be able to twist my arm,” Reaper said as he vigorously rubbed Grunt’s big head. The short tail of the rottweiler was wagging so quickly it looked as if it would break the sound barrier. Sarge, the other rott, had seen that Hausmann was happy to see the man in front of him, and that was good enough for the dog. He came up to Reaper for his share of attention. The German shepherd had gone back to lying down on the grass in the shade of the tree.

  “What’s with Major?” Reaper asked as they walked through the yard and up to the house.

  “Just getting a bit old, is all,” Hausmann said, “just like the rest of us. His arthritis slows him down a bit now. Anyone comes into the yard, all he does is ask for their license and registration—lets his deputies do the heavy lifting.”

  Stepping through the arched entrance to the patio, Reaper followed Hausmann into the adobe-style house. The inside of the building was light, airy, and comfortably cool. The center of the room was dominated by a large pool table. Surrounding the table was a leather couch and well-padded leather chairs. A bar with four stools in front of it was on the opposite side of the room from the door.

  As Reaper was standing at the door, a big chunk of dog waddled into the room and shoved itself up against his legs. The massive, heavily wrinkled face looked up at him as the heavily muscled body sat right down on his feet.

  “Jarhead!” Reaper said as he bent over. “Still waddling around I see.”

  As Reaper scratched the fawn-and-white English bulldog on the back, the animal practically convulsed with pleasure. Behind the bar, Hausmann opened a small freezer.

  “Just don’t fall for his begging bit,” Hausmann said. “If I really starved him as much as he acts, he wouldn’t weigh nearly sixty pounds.”

  Jarhead looked up at Reaper with a wide bulldog smile as his tongue came out and the dog started panting. The comedy of the big lump of a dog made Reaper laugh as he stood back up and went over to join Hausmann. The bulldog decided that rolling over on his back and doing the happy-doggy wiggle on a rug was the best way to continue his personal pleasure.

  With a grin on his face, Reaper took a seat at the bar, and looked around at the definitely masculine Western-style decor of the room. Filled gunbelts hung next to framed Western artworks. And there was more than one Stetson hat and set of horns hanging from the walls. Past experience with Hausmann and his habits told Reaper to expect that every one of the weapons in the room was loaded—from the single-action Colts to the Winchester and Sharps rifles hanging in scabbards or on racks.

  It wasn’t that Hausmann was paranoid. He just believed that tools should be kept ready for use. Besides, anyone invited into the house was an adult and usually a long-time professional with weapons.

  “Still roughing it out here in the sticks, I see,” Reaper said.

  “Hey, us heartless attorneys have to hide out somewhere,” Hausmann said as he handed Reaper a mug of beer. “Might as well suffer in style.”

  The first cold Corona in an icy mug went down well. The Western barbecue that Hausmann pulled out of the kitchen oven went well with another beer and some small talk between old friends. Afterward, both men went outside to the swimming pool to enjoy some coffee and cigars and to treat the dogs to some bones Hausmann had specially ordered for them from the same place he had gotten the barbecue.

  Taking their treats and spreading out, each of the dogs lay down to enjoy a big bone from dinner. In the cool of the evening, even Jarhead was outside being sociable. It was startling to Reaper to hear the loud crunching and snapping sounds as the two rottweilers actually chewed up the bones.

  Bullfrogs from the river nearby were putting their own sounds out to compete with all of the birds in the area. There was even the buzz of hummingbirds slipping up to the flowers growing around the patio. As the stars came out and the evening darkened, a huge full moon rose to shine down from the east. The peaceful surroundings helped the two men open the conversation to more serious subjects.

  “So where’s Colonel?” Reaper said, asking about the other German shepherd he remembered Hausmann having. “He wasn’t that old, was he?”

  “No, he wasn’t too old,” Hausmann said with some heat in his voice. “There’s a bitch we call the snake lover who owns the property just south of mine. She’s trying to buy up all of the riparian land around here whenever it goes up for sale, which isn’t very often. The government is trying to buy every acre it can but she’s got some kind of pull with the local politicos and manages to pick up her share of it.

  “She runs some kind of organic food company south of here, has a big ranch and warehousing just a mile or so from the border. It must be successful, she has too much money available for her crackpot schemes. She’s trying to make it illegal to harm a rattlesnake anywhere around here, has some kind of thing for the poisonous bastards. At any rate, I found Colonel down by the river about six months ago. He’d been poisoned and I swear that bitch was the only person who could have done it. She hated my dogs, said they scared all of the local animals.”

  “You didn’t take her to court?” Reaper asked.

  “Not enough evidence to prosecute. Or at least that’s what the sheriff said. I would sue her myself except that I’ve been
wrapped up in a criminal case for the last several months and haven’t had a minute free. Well, paybacks are a bitch.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Hausmann took a long drag on his cigar.

  “I was really sorry to hear about you and Mary,” Hausmann said, changing the subject.

  “Well, we did give it a good try,” Reaper said after a long pull from his beer. “We just finally had to admit that we just weren’t going to work out well. We had to finally call it quits before we tore each other apart, and made Ricky’s life completely miserable. I think she’s happy now teaching school. And Ricky’s developing a good set of friends. I see them as much as I can and they both know that I’ll always be there for them should they need anything at all.”

  There was a flash of sadness that went through Reaper’s eyes. Most of the men who had served in the Teams kept their emotions solidly in check, their feelings to themselves. It wasn’t that they didn’t feel happiness, or sadness, anger, joy, or sorrow. In fact, they felt all of these emotions and more, and they were felt more strongly than the average person experienced them.

  SEALs lived on the edge. Even just conducting their training was dangerous. Operators had died over the years without there being an enemy in sight. Emotions could get in the way when a man had to concentrate on his job. They could trip you up during an operation, cause you to fail to achieve your objectives, get you killed. So Reaper didn’t show his feelings very much at all. It was an old habit that was hard to get rid of, if he ever could.

  Noticing the flash of sadness that passed over his friend, Hausmann kept quiet for a moment.

  “Yeah, I understand,” Hausmann said finally. Changing the subject, he went on. “So, what’s this I hear on the grapevine that your company is doing contract work for the government?”