Hawke's War

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  Abdullah shrugged, understanding only half of what Chavez was referring to and wondering when they would get to the important part of the conversation, money.

  “Tell me about your experience across the river in Mexico. How did you get there?”

  The Syrian’s eyes narrowed, trying to understand why Chavez needed that information. “I came in with a dozen other believers from Brazil. It was nothing to pay the corrupt border guards to cross, especially in countries like Colombia, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Panama and Costa Rica posed a few problems, but obviously nothing that stopped me.”

  “Then you simply drove to the first ISIS camp you heard about?”

  The man who wouldn’t leave his pants alone was getting annoying. Abdullah wondered why he needed so much information that didn’t help achieve their goal. Saudi Arabia and Qatar were funding hundreds of Islamic terrorists to establish and operate training camps in the corrupt country of Mexico. He considered telling Chavez about serving as a training “officer” in two camps, one only eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as “Anapra” west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The hungry look in Chavez’s eyes shot a needle of doubt through the consideration.

  “We have a vast network and as long as anyone has Internet access, they can find other Brothers who believe in our ultimate goal of a global caliphate.”

  “You didn’t get what you wanted there?”

  “Opportunities arise to provide better opportunities in establishing a network into America’s New Mexico state.”

  Abdullah outlined how he moved to a second ISIS camp in Puerto Palomas, farther to the west, to join other fanatics working to establish a drug- and human-smuggling pipeline into the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming.

  “Ah.” Suddenly excited, Chavez stood and paced the room. “You made that decision with exactly the same criteria in mind as I had when I planned the Ballard takeover.”

  “And that is?”

  “Small towns separated from large cities by vast distances, and the most important part, understaffed municipal and county police forces. I see we think somewhat alike. We sow terror in the U.S. by proving to Americans that no place is safe, not even rural towns with no political or militaristic value.”

  Abdullah’s plans were much wider. He had no desire to tell Chavez that his people had better targets than small towns. His brothers already had maps and plans of Fort Bliss, the sprawling military installation north of El Paso that houses the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division. A successful strike on a U.S. military base would send shockwaves around the world, hopefully inspiring his brothers to attack bases in other countries.

  The only thing standing in his way was the need to avenge his real brother, who had shown him the light when they were kids and convinced him to join the jihad against the United States when Abdullah was old enough to fight.

  “So tell me.” Chavez glanced down to make sure the creases lined up with the center of his shoes. “You no longer help train fighters in the camps. You moved your alliances to the cartels?”

  Did this idiot not know anything? Abdullah gazed out the window, as if watching for incoming threats. “I provide security for Vincente Flores, when he needs me.”

  Both knew that the Vincente Gonzalez Flores Cartel, the Juárez Cartel’s El Machete enforcement arm, was one of the most bloodthirsty gangs in Mexico. Their Coyotes Rabiosos provided security against the Mexican Army and Federal Police. In return, the cartels paid vast sums of money, provided guns and ammunition for the terrorists, and looked the other way when the terrorist cells planned and executed missions against the U.S.

  Chavez resumed pacing and thinking. “You’re always looking for a better opportunity. I understand that completely. Here’s my proposition. I want you to find the Texas Ranger Sonny Hawke and kill him. Once you’ve achieved that goal, I will provide the monetary assistance you need to bring one or more of your cells across, I presume through that pipeline you’ve already established near Deming, and launch the bloodiest, bloodiest, blood . . . bloodiest attacks you can plan against the U.S.”

  Chavez’s jaw muscles flexed as he ground his molars in an effort to rein in his OCD need to repeat.

  Abdullah thought only he and his closest jihadists knew the details of the busy pipeline funneling both humans and drugs into the U.S., and here Chavez spoke the specific location of their targeted area. He figuratively pulled the cards closer to his chest. This man with the glasses, oiled hair, and maddening habits was even more dangerous, and valuable, than he originally thought.

  He focused on Chavez’s melting crease, just for the fun of vexing the rich, homegrown terrorist. “I heard we lost several devoted followers in an operation with you behind it.”

  Instead of allowing himself to be pulled into an argument, Chavez returned to his original thought, but only after he obviously ignored the frustrating crease and crossed the newly installed gleaming hardwood floor to the bar. He placed three cubes of ice in a highball glass, covered it with Glenlivet, and placed it precisely in the middle of a round coaster, where he turned the glass three times. “It would have worked if it hadn’t been for one man. That Texas Ranger who was in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Abdullah shrugged, watching the process. He had no idea what a Texas Ranger was, nothing more than a vague idea that he was some kind of law-enforcement official. He threw both hands wide, wondering why the man’s mannerisms annoyed him so. “So?”

  Chavez’s nose wrinkled and he touched the tip of each finger on one hand against the tip of his thumb over and over again, watching the glass of scotch. “Our plan was to make a statement, an impact, that nothing is safe in this country. Nothing. I still plan to do that soon, but right now I want to make an example out of that Ranger. I’ve heard of your talents. Kill Sonny Hawke and deliver his head to another in my employ whose name is Chatto. He will take it from there and your job is finished.”

  “Then what? I kill this man and where do I go?”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Washington. Make arrangements for me to get to Washington to meet up with my brothers.”

  Chavez snickered. “Which Washington?”

  Abdullah frowned, not understanding. Heat rose in his face at the look on Chavez’s face. “There are two?”

  “Yes. One is a state and the other is the District of Columbia, on the opposite side of the country. Knowing your probable plans, I’d say the one with the White House and the Capitol is where you want to go.”

  Abdullah felt his chest swell with a fanatical flame. “How long will it take to get there?”

  “How do you want to travel?”

  Not understanding Chavez’s need for exact information, Abdullah’s shoulders tightened. “What difference does it make?”

  “A lot.” Chavez raised an eyebrow. “If you drive, it will be approximately twenty-seven hundred miles.”

  The jihadist was stunned. He had no idea America was so large. “Where does the president live? The White House? The Capitol?”

  “The White House.”

  “That is where I want to go.”

  “Done.” Chavez picked up a photo printed off the Internet and passed it to Abdullah with two fingers as if trying to avoid physical contact. “Kill Sonny Hawke and I’ll get you there.”

  Abdullah frowned at the photo of a middle-aged man who looked like a cowboy. He studied the redheaded Ranger. He committed the ridiculous-looking hat, red mustache, angular face, and penetrating eyes to memory, noting the man appeared to be posing with a lever-action rifle, in front of a desert landscape. He wore jeans, a tooled leather gunbelt supporting what looked to be a .45 semi-automatic, light colored shirt, and odd-looking boots.

  “Is this real?”

  “It is. He has become one of the most well-known Rangers in their history. Don’t underestimate this man.” He pointed at a satellite phone on the coffee table. “Use that to communicate with me. Cell phone service is
spotty at best in Big Bend.”

  Abdullah shrugged and picked up the phone. “He is a man, and nothing else. I will kill him.”

  The corner of Chavez’s mouth rose in a slight grin. He picked up the highball glass and drained the contents in three swallows. “You do that.”

  Chapter 5

  The crack of light peeking between the distant, rugged horizon and the electric light show to the west was going fast. Elongated shadows from boulders, vegetation, and mesa crests stretched across the national park’s arid ground. Golden sunlight heightened the warm rust and brown colors in the eroded landscape, contrasting the darker fractures of canyons and ravines spreading like a broken windshield.

  “Are you sure that was the guardabosque Sonny Hawke?” Yooko stood and adjusted the Cobra’s collapsed stock to rest more comfortably against his side. “It was hard to tell through the glasses in this light. It looked like just another norteamericano to me.”

  “His face is burned into my brain.” Abdullah rose from the ground overlooking the canyon. His voice was sharp with disdain for the annoying Indio-Mexicans, who in his opinion existed in a class barely above the dogs that roamed the streets of his home village of Al-Mayadan, a hot, squalid town on the banks of the Euphrates River. “Don’t question me any longer. Do what I say.”

  The electric crackle in the air didn’t come from the approaching storm, but from the tension rising once again between the mercenary and the gangsters. The other three squatting against the honey locust stood when Yooko’s face hardened and Javier tensed.

  The Syrian had left the scoped rifle lying on the ground, but when he rose, the slung Cobra swiveled to the man’s chest. Yooko noticed Abdullah’s hand rested on the pistol grip holding an extended magazine. His finger was curled around the trigger, a sure sign the safety was off and the man was as keyed up as he.

  Both Yooko’s and Javier’s weapons were on safe and the position of their firearms put them at a disadvantage. The light flashing in the Syrian’s usually emotionless eyes spoke clearly of the danger waiting there. Though the odds were against Abdullah killing them all before one of the five could bring their weapons into action were small, they weren’t good.

  Yooko relaxed and smiled showing several gold teeth. “I work for you, jefe. We go down and make sure the norteamericano is dead, no?”

  Javier shrugged and picked up his recycled gallon milk jug of water. “I bet he didn’t miss. I saw him fall. Let’s go pick up the body.”

  The three tattooed men laughed at the joke.

  Built like a bulldog with an abdomen stretching the buttons of his western-cut shirt, Calaka’s skin, like that of the others, appeared to be dried by the sun and freshly oiled to the consistency of leather, but he looked nothing like the skeleton his nickname implied. “We are like the buzzards above, no?” He also had a gold tooth that flashed in the last of the sunlight.

  The joke lightened the mood. Chino, who had chiseled Asian features, raised his weapon and aimed it toward the empty ridge. The teardrops tattooed from the corner of his left eye to his jawbone were the only water that ever fell from his eyes. “If he is not, I will punch holes in him until this gun dries up.”

  Dark clouds absorbed the sliver of sun and dusk arrived. The rugged country immediately lost its intense color, going flat and gray. Pepito, the silent one of the gang, slung a backpack over his shoulders and waited.

  Abdullah pointed with a forefinger at the shortest man with a face tattooed with spiderwebs. One rough tattoo of a large spider clung to his left cheek. The remainder of the web appeared to be filled with its much smaller offspring. “That one is the smartest of you all. He is silent, but observant.”

  The others waited for Abdullah to start his Polaris. It was the only vehicle they had, and he’d used it to lure the Ranger deep into the unmarked Canyonlands far from where he’d ambushed the hikers. Instead of starting the four-wheeler’s engine, he adjusted the Cobra across his chest for quick action and led the way on foot down to where the Ranger had been standing.

  Surprised that he chose to walk instead of ride, the Coyotes Rabiosos followed the Syrian from their sniper position toward a game trail zig-zagging down the shallow slope and through the scrub brush. Yooko followed last, making a point to himself and the others that he was unafraid of anyone or anything.

  Abdullah set a quick pace, hearing the armed illegals make enough noise for a company of men. He compared the slovenly gangsters behind him to the battle-hardened al-Qaeda fighters he’d worked with in the Jabhat al-Nusra outfit in his home country and found them wanting. These gangsters seemed as weak as kittens and lacked the religious fire his Islamist brothers kept stoked day and night.

  Though both the gang’s leader, Chatto, and to a lesser degree Chavez, said they were the deadliest of the Coyotes Rabiosos, the sullen men with false smiles seemed to be missing some vital cog in their mental machinery.

  He adjusted the strap across his chest and under one arm. Abdullah’s thin daypack was small enough that the .308 Win rifle rode comfortably across his back. He promised Allah that they’d search all night if they had to in order to find the body. Once they located Ranger Hawke’s corpse, he’d bury most of him with these other five morons in the desert and piss on their graves.

  The idea lifted his spirits, and he followed a game trail to the canyon’s floor.

  Chapter 6

  It was darker than the inside of a casket when I finally woke up, but it wasn’t nearly as comfortable. I wondered why I was laying on the ground. Rocks dug into my face, and I was wrapped in the distinctive odor of the high desert.

  My left arm and side ached, and I remembered I’d been shot. I tried to blink my eyes clear, but still couldn’t see. A jolt of fear ran down my spine when it occurred to me that I might be blind. I moved a foot to sit up and felt my boot bump into something.

  Fine then. You’re not paralyzed. That’s a good thing.

  The other foot moved as well. My back ached like hell, but an easy wiggle of my hips told me most of my traveling gear was working just fine. The gunshot wound throbbed, burning hot and feverish.

  Fingers.

  Yep, they moved.

  I raised my head and the muscles that did all the work were sore as a risen. I went swimmy-headed and my thoughts got all fuzzy for a good long while. Even though the rocks added to the pressure in my skull, I had to rest again before things stopped spinning. The world came into focus, what there was of it. Glancing up, I realized it was so dark because of a thick cloud cover.

  I put my hand on the ground to raise up and even that hurt. It started coming back to me, and I remembered grabbing at everything in reach when I was sliding down the mountain. Good lord! I fell off the cliff. I started to sit up and finish taking stock when I heard distant voices speaking Spanish.

  It all came back to me. I remembered the exploding dove and echoing shot before falling off the edge. The fog lifted from my brain, and I finally made out the shape of a creosote bush between me and the voices.

  The instincts of my Choctaw ancestors kicked in and I lay still as a nervous jackrabbit, trying to figure out where they were. The frigid desert night was so thick I couldn’t see more than a few yards, and there was no way to know where they were coming from.

  “Ya no volveremos a encontrar a este hijo de puta esta noche!”

  It was the guys who’d shot me. They didn’t know me well enough to call me such a bad name, but I knew better than to move.

  The man’s statement was answered by a second voice, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. They launched into a low-pitched conversation. More rocks clattered and a soft curse came from below, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how that could be.

  A third voice spoke in heavily accented English that I recognized as Middle Eastern. “You two shut up! Keep looking. He has to be somewhere around here.”

  These boys sure aren’t here to help.

  Boots shuffled on the hard ground. Someone kicked a r
ock and a startled bird flushed from the scrub. “Vete a la mierda, pájaro. Casi me haces mear los pantalones.” From the chuckles and harassment floating in the still air, there were more than three guys wandering around in the dark.

  I raised my head and an unnatural flash of light from below told me I was layin’ about twenty feet higher than the valley floor, right on the rim of a sharp drop. Propping myself on one elbow helped to see over the lip, but at the same time it brought a world of aches and pains. I figured that my whole body was a mass of black-and-blue bruises, but at least I was still alive and intended to stay that way.

  The flashlight was intense. I had one of those new high-intensity lights the size of a dill pickle mounted onto the AR-15 back home and figured they were carrying something similar. If those guys had theirs mounted on the automatic weapons I’d heard, and there was no reason for them not to have them, then I wouldn’t have a chance if one of the beams rooted me out.

  A bright lance caught the fine dust in the air as it probed the ground at the searchers’ feet, then angled up along the steep canyon wall farther down, giving me a good view of what was over there. The rocky wall was steep, and if I’d fallen from twenty yards south of my position, it most likely would have been a straight drop to the ledge.

  The damnedest thing happened right then. A recollection of my old man chuckling at a Road Runner cartoon popped into my head. He always loved seeing the coyote fall to the desert floor much like the one I was in, until he landed with a tiny pop. I was lucky I hadn’t ended up that way, but it looked like my luck was about to run out.

  The lights played out into the canyon, illuminating nothing but scrub vegetation that disappeared into the darkness. Another beam aimed at the clouds.

  The Middle Eastern voice was sharp, obviously annoyed. “He’s not up in the sky.”