Vengeance Is Mine

by William W. Johnstone

  “This really is turnin’ into a war, ain’t it?” Hubie said.

  Stark nodded. “I’m afraid so. We’d better get movin’ again. They’re probably spreading out to look for us right now.”

  The three men began working their way north again. The gully twisted and turned, and several hundred yards farther on, it came to an abrupt end. Stark climbed part of the way up the slope so that he could take a look around. The gully came out in the middle of a large, open stretch of ground. There wasn’t any cover for at least a hundred yards.

  He grimaced and bit back a curse. He didn’t know how close their pursuers were. When he listened, he could hear voices calling softly back and forth behind them. If he and Hubie and Everett emerged from the gully and tried to reach the shelter of the mesquite trees, they might make it unseen—or they might not. Stark wouldn’t put it past the searchers to have men back there scanning the whole area with night-vision binoculars.

  “Now what?” Hubie asked when Stark slid back down beside him and Everett.

  “We’re in a fix, and there’s no getting around it,” Stark said. Quickly, he laid out the situation and then said, “I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off going back the way we came.”

  “Right back at ’em, you mean?” Everett asked, sounding confused.

  “That’s right,” Stark declared. “They’re spread out looking for us. If we can slip past them and get back to that truck . . .”

  “I get it,” Hubie said. “We can grab it for ourselves and use it to get out of here.”

  “That’s the idea. How’s it sound to you boys?”

  “We’re with you, John Howard,” Hubie said without hesitation.

  “Lead the way,” Everett added.

  Once again Stark cat-footed along the bottom of the gully, heading south this time toward the road and the river. He paused every few steps to listen, not wanting to run smack-dab into the killers who were looking for them. If the searchers had found the gully, they might send some men along the bottom of it.

  That was exactly what had happened, he realized a few minutes later when he heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel and the soft whisper of voices. He motioned Hubie and Everett against the side of the gully and pressed his back to it alongside them. All they could do now was wait for the men to come to them and try to strike without attracting the attention of the other pursuers.

  Stark felt his nerves drawing tighter and tighter. He was barely breathing. The tramping of footsteps was almost on top of him and his companions before he saw the dark shapes moving through the shadows. He thought there were four of them, but he couldn’t be sure.

  If it came down to a fight, they would have to attack hard and fast in order to keep the men from yelling or loosing a burst of automatic weapons fire. Either of those things would bring more of the pursuers down on them in a hurry.

  Stark, Hubie, and Everett remained utterly motionless as the four men moved past them, no more than six feet away, without seeing them. Stark began to hope that the men would go on up the gully without noticing them.

  But some instinct must have warned one of the men, because he looked back over his shoulder, stopped abruptly, and exclaimed, “Madre de Dios!”

  Stark lunged forward, planting the butt of his rifle right in the middle of the man’s face. He felt the satisfying impact and heard the crunch of bones shattering. The man went down hard, either unconscious and out of the fight or already dead. In a continuation of the same move, Stark rammed the barrel of the rifle into the midsection of another man. That one grunted and bent over, putting his face in perfect position to meet Stark’s sharply upthrust knee.

  Hubie and Everett had jumped the other two and were grappling with them. Hubie was young and fairly athletic and was holding his own with his opponent, rolling with him across the floor of the gully. Everett, on the other hand, was older and not in as good a shape. The man he had tackled managed to throw him off. With a snarled curse, the man swung the barrel of his gun toward Everett. Stark saw what was about to happen but knew he couldn’t get there in time to stop it.

  He didn’t have to. Everett kicked the man looming over him, the heel of his boot driving hard into the man’s groin. The man yelled in agony and his finger jerked on the trigger, but the barrel of the gun had dipped so far that the burst of lead went into the man’s own feet, chopping them to pieces. His screech filled the night.

  Well, that tore it, Stark thought. Every enemy in earshot now knew that the men searching the gully had encountered the fugitives.

  Hubie was on top of his man, using the butt of his rifle to batter the guy’s face into something that only barely resembled human. Stark ran by him and called urgently, “Come on!” He bent to grab Everett’s arm and haul him up on his feet. Everett stumbled a little but soon righted himself. The three of them plunged down the gully, heading back toward the road.

  Stark figured the pursuers would have left some men at the truck. He had hoped to jump them silently, knock them out, and capture the vehicle. Clearly, that wasn’t going to be possible now.

  The only slight advantage he and his companions still had was that the rest of the men wouldn’t know which direction they had gone after the fight in the gully. They would have to split up, some going north while others backtracked to the south.

  Shouts behind them told Stark that the others had found the four wounded and unconscious men. The gully grew shallower, but Stark, Hubie, and Everett could still stay below the level of it by crouching as they ran. Stark saw the road in front of them, a silver ribbon in the moonlight. As he had thought, the gully led to a cement culvert under the road. Actually, there were two of the big pipes, each about five feet in diameter.

  He led the way into the pipe on the right. A little water still remained in the bottom of it from the last rain. The tiny splashes that their feet made echoed hollowly inside the pipe, as did their heavy breathing. After a moment, Hubie whispered, “We can’t stay here, John Howard. They’re sure to look in this pipe.”

  “I know,” Stark said. “We’ll catch our breath for a minute, then move out and make for the river—”

  He stopped short as he heard something. The sound of an engine told him that a vehicle was approaching. Stark hoped it didn’t belong to some innocent traveler who was about to wander into the middle of this firefight. He doubted if the invaders from across the border cared who else got killed, as long as they bagged their quarry.

  As the vehicle came closer, something about the sound of it struck Stark as familiar. He stuck his head out of the pipe and ventured a look along the road to the northwest. After a second he realized that the engine sounded just like that of the jeep that had shot up Hubie’s pickup. He saw the headlights coming closer and recognized them as those of a jeep.

  “You two out the other side!” he barked at Hubie and Everett. “If I start shooting, you do, too.”

  They didn’t argue, just scrambled to follow orders. Stark climbed the short embankment to the road, showing himself in the glare of the lights. He brought his rifle up.

  The jeep slewed from side to side on the asphalt as the driver slammed on the brakes. Someone shouted in Spanish. Stark figured they were trying to turn that machine gun around. Flame lanced from the barrel, but the gunners were too eager and started shooting before it was all the way around. The burst of fire went well to Stark’s right, clawing harmlessly through some brush.

  By showing himself, Stark had confirmed that those men were his enemies. He began to fire, aiming above the lights where the jeep’s windshield would be. On the other side of the road, Hubie and Everett opened up as well. With a tinkle of broken glass, first one of the headlights went out, then the other. The machine gun started to chatter again, then abruptly fell silent. Stark knew one of their bullets must have found the man who’d been pressing the trigger.

  He ran toward the jeep. No shots came from it. His eyes were still a little dazzled from the lights that had shone in them, but his night vis
ion was beginning to come back. He saw three men in the jeep, one behind the wheel and the other two sprawled limply around the machine gun mounted above the rear seat.

  Hubie and Everett weren’t far behind him, although Everett’s wrenched knee made it hard for him to keep up. “We got ’em!” Hubie called excitedly. “We got ’em!”

  That was true enough. All three of the men in the jeep seemed to be dead. Stark pulled them out and left them lying in the road as he and his companions climbed into the vehicle. The jeep’s engine was still running. Stark was glad none of their bullets had smashed anything vital in it.

  “Take the wheel, Hubie,” he said as he dropped his rifle in the floorboard between the front and back seats and climbed behind the machine gun. “Everett, you’re ridin’ shotgun.”

  “What’re we doin’, John Howard?” Everett asked as he settled into the passenger seat. “Why don’t we just get out of here?”

  “They wanted a war,” Stark said grimly. “We’re just givin’ ’em what they wanted.”

  Hubie let out a whoop. “Let’s go!” He threw the jeep into gear and jammed a foot down on the accelerator. With a smell of burning rubber, the jeep tore off through the night toward the spot where the deuce-and-a-half was parked.

  Running without lights as they were, Stark was able to see well enough in the moonlight to make out a large group of men around the truck as they approached at high speed. More men were running back toward the road. Someone must have issued an order for the men to regroup at the truck. They had to hear the jeep coming, but they probably didn’t know yet that it had been commandeered by the three Texans.

  They found out a minute later as Stark called to his friends, “Keep your heads down!” and thumbed the trigger trips on the machine gun. He had already checked the ammo belt and found that it still had over half its load. Back in his leatherneck days, he’d had a little experience with machine guns like this. Not much, mind you, but enough to use this one effectively. He sent a storm of lead at the truck and the killers gathered around it.

  The bullets chewed through several men and flung their tattered corpses around like rag dolls. Tires exploded under the onslaught of machine-gun fire. Some of the men turned to run but couldn’t outrun the flaming death that sought them. Others scrambled for cover, only to find that there wasn’t any. A few threw themselves flat and escaped the scything lead, but only a handful. Others, farther out in the brush, wisely dropped and crawled off, unwilling to throw away their lives.

  The jeep swept past the disabled truck, Stark swinging the machine gun around to fire a burst into the canvas-covered back. A couple of men who had been hiding there leaped into the open, firing pistols toward the jeep. With a flick of his wrists, Stark hosed them with lead and sent them flying backward into the ditch. Then the jeep was past, and Stark shouted, “Turn around and we’ll hit them again!”

  Hubie stomped the brakes and spun the wheel, and the rear end of the jeep slewed around. When the compact little vehicle was pointed back the way it had come, Hubie hit the gas again and it leaped forward. Stark fired, concentrating on the rear of the truck, and after a moment, with a loud crumping sound and a burst of flame, the gas tank ruptured and exploded. A fireball climbed into the dark sky, lighting up the landscape for a couple of hundred yards around. Stark spotted a few men running away and sent a burst after them, more to hurry them along than anything else.

  The light also showed him that the bodies scattered around the road and the burning truck wore civilian clothing, but he couldn’t shake the hunch that these men were members of the Mexican army. He felt a little bad about killing them, knowing that it probably hadn’t been their idea to invade Texas. On the other hand, they were up here illegally, they had been doing their damnedest to kill Stark and his friends, and he wasn’t going to lose much sleep, if any, over what had happened.

  Stark tapped Hubie on the shoulder and said, “Let’s get out of here. Head for the spot we were supposed to meet Devery and the others.”

  “Will do, John Howard. Hey, Ev, you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Everett replied, “other than this knee hurtin’ like blazes.” He twisted his head around and looked at Stark. “No offense, John Howard, but I’m gettin’ a mite old for rowdy-dows like this.”

  Stark laughed as he patted the cooling machine gun. “You and me both, Everett,” he agreed. “You and me both.”

  Twenty-five

  The news that a shot-up, burned-out truck belonging to the Mexican army had been found on the highway about ten miles out of Del Rio was a curiosity. So was the fact that an abandoned Mexican army jeep turned up a few miles down the road. There were bloodstains on the highway, but no bodies. Stark wondered a little about that. The survivors of the battle must have called for help. The corpses had been recovered and taken back across the Rio Grande, so that no one could prove the Mexican military had been involved. A high-ranking officer issued a statement saying that the truck and the jeep had been stolen, dissociating the military from the foray across the border, and no one could prove otherwise. Stark still had his suspicions, though.

  So did the news media, most of whom jumped to the conclusion—accurately, it so happened—that Stark had had something to do with this. But again, no one could prove anything, and since Stark himself stuck to a firm “No comment,” the story seemed likely to die a natural death after a few days.

  It got pushed off the front pages and out of the newscasts a lot quicker than that, by a much bigger story.

  In Loving, New Mexico, three of the locals out on a citizens’ patrol confronted a band of border jumpers. Most of the group had surrendered without a fight; they were illegals, just looking for a better life across the border in the United States. However, two of the men had pulled hidden guns and blazed away, obviously unwilling to be captured, and the locals had been forced to shoot them. When the authorities responded to the incident, they discovered that the two dead men were not Mexicans at all. They were Arabs, and they were carrying detailed plans of some sort of industrial complex. That was more than sufficient to get Homeland Security involved.

  There were enough news leaks so that most of the story got out to the public over the next few days. The dead men, one from Saudi Arabia and the other a Libyan, were known operatives for al Qaeda. They had entered Bolivia with fake passports and then made their way up through Central America and Mexico for the express purpose of slipping unnoticed into the United States. The plans they carried were those of a giant oil refinery in Texas City, Texas, between Houston and Galveston. Along with al Qaeda sympathizers they were to meet in Houston, the two men would have attempted to blow up that refinery in a gigantic explosion that doubtless would have spread to the other refineries lining the Houston Ship Channel, and before it was all over there probably would have been a swath of death and destruction twenty miles long and several miles wide, with casualties in the thousands, if not higher, and property damage in the billions. While not as symbolic as the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the actual toll, both human and financial, of this attack would have been even higher.

  But it had been thwarted, not by the government, but by three common men: a rancher, a barber, and the owner of a hardware store in danger of being run out of business by the big box discount behemoth that had moved in on the edge of Loving. Their vigilance and courage had saved the day.

  And to a man, each of them told the media that they never would have gotten involved in such an effort as the citizens’ patrol if not for the inspiration of John Howard Stark.

  Drug smuggling, as bad as it was, was one thing—terrorism was another. That hot-button issue blew the lid off the news coverage. The War on Terror, thought to have been largely won during the previous administration, was on everyone’s lips in Washington again. Homeland Security, which had endured numerous budget cuts because of the drain on the economy caused by the graying of the baby boomers with its inevitable boosting of entitlement expenditures, was n
ow seen as incompetent to deal with the threat of terrorists entering the country. The sitting president, a Republican, was perceived by many as being not as strong on defense as his predecessor, an image caused in large part by his recognition of the financial realities; Madame Senator from California, the presumptive Democrat challenger, was so far to the left that no one gave any serious thought to her doing anything to stem the tide of trouble. She would be too busy blaming the United States for anything and everything and trying to figure out some new, creative way to raise taxes and fritter away the increased revenue on misguided social engineering. For days politicians on both sides of the aisle shouted at each other, each blaming the other side for what had almost happened.

  And somewhere deep in the bowels of Washington, somebody sat down and told himself that John Howard Stark was the pain in the ass who had brought on this whole mess.

  Stark held the sheet of plywood in place while Elaine hammered in the nails. They were working in what had been their son Pete’s room until he left to join the navy. Like the rest of the house, it had been shot up during the raid on the ranch by Ramirez’s men. In the weeks since he’d been released from the hospital, Stark had been working to repair all the damage done by high-powered bullets tearing through the house. His friends would have pitched in to help if he had asked them, of course. Stark was so well known, in fact, that he probably could have gotten the building supplies warehouse store in town to donate all the materials, and the contractors who worked in Del Rio would have donated their labor to set everything right.

  But that would have been cashing in on what he had set out to do, and that was the last thing Stark wanted. Besides, he enjoyed this kind of task, and so did Elaine. It gave them a chance to work side by side and then step back, look at the fruits of their labor, and feel proud.