The Enemy Inside

by William Christie

  His eyes kept shifting from the landscape outside to the GPS receiver mounted on the dashboard. In this desolate land driving maps would not do. He had downloaded topographic information into the GPS. And even that only gave an approximation of the terrain.

  Their entire route was also programmed into the GPS. This he had insisted on. Los Zetas could pick the route, but he was going to know where he was at every moment. Especially in relation to his destination.

  Even without the dirt bikes, Rafael had been as skillful as before, picking their way over goat paths and dry creek beds. It made the going slow but secure. The Los Zetas bulletproof Expedition was in the lead, the other one last in the column. The middle two vehicles held Nimri and the Chechens, with only a Los Zetas driver.

  They had all slowed, waiting for the lead Expedition to reach the top of the arroyo.

  Nimri glanced again at the GPS, and as he lifted his head back to the windshield a beam of bright white light flashed across their front, washing out the image in his goggles as if he were staring at the sun.

  As Nimri tore the goggles from his head, a booming amplified voice was issuing commands in Spanish.

  “La Migra!” the Los Zetas driver shouted.

  The spotlight was issuing from a white SUV a little higher up on the ridge. It had the lead Expedition in its grasp.

  Nimri heard safety catches coming off behind him. “Wait!” he ordered. He reached up and pressed the button to open the powered sunroof.

  A figure popped up from the sunroof of the lead Expedition. Nimri knew what was going to happen next.

  Agent Mike Rodriquez of the United States Border Patrol was standing beside the open door of his white and green Chevy Tahoe, microphone in hand. He was working solo, as was usual along the border. There weren’t enough agents to even consider putting two in each patrol vehicle. He’d already called for backup, but he wanted to stop that SUV before it reached the top of the arroyo. They’d been hearing rumors of black SUVs crossing for months, and now he’d finally got one.

  Like pencils of light, the line of red tracer bullets skipped down the path of the spotlight and seemed to be absorbed by the white SUV. An instant later the hammering sound of machine gun fire made its way down the arroyo.

  Nimri watched as another machine gun opened up from the trail Expedition behind them. That line of tracers wavered a bit from side to side, then settled down to intersect with the other directly onto the SUV.

  The tracers leaped out and died down as the two machine guns traded off their fire. The spotlight either went out or was shot out. There was a pause in the firing, Nimri guessing that both gunners had stopped to put their goggles back on. The tracers started up again.

  Agent Rodriquez was hugging the dirt. Jesus Christ, machine guns! He’d lost the microphone and was yelling into his belt radio but getting no response. Not unusual in the west Texas hills. Unable to reach anyone on any of the frequencies, he crawled back to the Chevy on his belly. Machine gun bullets snapped through the steel as he pulled himself into the open door, staying near the floorboard. He stretched his arm out but he couldn’t reach it. So he pulled himself in a little more, pieces of glass and metal falling down on him like snowflakes.

  Each time Rodriquez tried to rise up the fire made him flinch back, like trying to touch a hot stove burner. It wasn’t showing any signs of subsiding, and he knew they might be moving on him even now. Finally he said fuck it and lunged up, stabbing his finger onto the red button on the computer console, sending off the automatic emergency signal with his GPS location.

  Now there was Kalashnikov fire from the Expedition behind Nimri. A more methodical bap-bap-bap rather than the rapid hammering of the MAG machine guns. He would have been surprised if Temiraev had been able to resist. He shouted into the walkie-talkie for them not to waste their ammunition.

  Unable to turn around in the narrow confines of the arroyo, the lead Expedition was backing down the slope, fast, the machine gunner in the sunroof still firing.

  As it neared Nimri’s vehicle there was shouted Spanish over the radio. The Los Zetas driver threw open his door and leaped out into the night.

  Nimri had been expecting that sometime, but he would have liked a little warning. He lifted himself over the center console, slid into the driver’s seat, and pulled the door shut. “Machine gun, up in the roof,” he ordered. “Wait for my command.”

  The Los Zetas Expeditions were retreating by bounds, firing as they went. Nimri knew his choice was to either follow them back across the border, or go on. Other Americans would be arriving soon.

  “Follow me,” he said into the walkie-talkie before jamming it between his legs so he could shift into drive. “Short bursts,” he commanded the machine gunner. “Do not waste ammunition—just keep their heads down.”

  He headed up the arroyo. This driving wearing the night goggles was not as easy as it seemed. He did not go up the slope as slowly as the first Los Zetas did—he could not afford to—and the SUV bounced wildly.

  “Are they following?” he shouted. He could not use the rear mirror with the goggles on, or hear the radio over the noise of the machine gun.

  “They follow, they follow,” one of the Chechens called out from the backseat.

  Nimri almost had them to the top of the arroyo. He worried about puncturing the gas tank or oil pan, but it was no time to tarry.

  Mike Rodriquez crawled down the line of the ridge on his stomach. The mesquite turned into blackbrush that held him up and ripped his uniform to shreds. He thought he heard approaching engines over the machine gun fire, and thought about shooting back. But everything was still being aimed at the Tahoe and he knew his muzzle flash would bring it all down on him. As he crawled he kept testing his radio. Finally a voice replied.

  As Nimri and the Chechens crested the ridge, they saw that the Border Patrol vehicle was on fire. A tracer must have found gasoline. Nimri didn’t like that at all—it would be a beacon in the night for the Americans.He could hear Temiraev’s vehicle still hammering away. It made him furious, even though he knew it had to stop soon. And as they went over the ridge and lost sight of the burning SUV the fire did stop. What kind of fools painted their vehicles white? Nimri asked himself. Then the answer occurred to him: ones that expected their quarry to run back across the border when the white vehicle was seen. Not this time.

  The GPS directed them down a finger that led off the opposite side of the ridge. And through brush that was as high as the hood. Could this be right? Was the machine faulty, and leading them the wrong way?

  The slope steepened, the Expedition suddenly began sliding sideways. Nimri cut the wheel to straighten them out, applying the brakes carefully. But by the time they reached the bottom he could smell burning brake pads.

  They halted before a wall of brush. Nimri felt helpless. “Do you see anything that looks like a trail?” he called up to the machine gunner.

  “Yes, twenty meters to the left,” the Chechen replied.

  “Next time tell me!” Nimri shouted.

  “You did not say to watch for this,” was the Chechen’s insolent retort.

  “Watch for the Americans and watch the ground!” Nimri shouted back. A perfect view from the highest vantage point in the vehicle, and the fool keeps silent.

  While the conversation was taking place, and before Nimri could get moving again, Temiraev’s Expedition came roaring down the hill and almost slammed into them, the driver swerving away at the last moment.

  Nimri knew Temiraev had to be driving. He turned left and punched through the brush.

  It was little more than a path, a pair of tire ruts cut deep into the earth by the rain washing off the hills. They became so deep that Nimri had to climb the Expedition out of them, afraid the oil pan would definitely be punctured. It reminded him of Afghan roads.

  This route was fine for a slow, unhurried infiltration, but not when already discovered and speed was essential. Nimri found it maddening. At least he was driving. Otherwise
he would truly have gone mad.

  Finally they broke onto a better track, almost a dirt road. Nimri sped down it, glad to be making up time. But it stopped abruptly at the base of another hill, requiring another slow climb through rocks and brush.

  Cresting that hill, the GPS pointed him downward. Nimri still distrusted it, but the dashboard compass showed them continuing roughly north, and that was the direction they needed to go.

  He hated not being able to see the ground properly. The goggles, combined with the concentration required, were making him feel sick again.

  The Chechen machine gunner suddenly shouted, “Ai! Left, left by God! Turn left!”

  Nimri swung the wheel over, and the vegetation fell away before them. Erosion had cut a deep gully into the side of the hill, and they had almost driven into it.

  “Well done,” he called out to the machine gunner. “Now guide us to the bottom of the hill.”

  “More left,” the gunner shouted down. “Go slowly.” As he began moving again, Nimri picked up the walkie-talkie to warn Temiraev when the gunner screamed, “Stop! Stop!”

  Nimri jammed on the brakes, though it was not until he heard the noise that he realized the warning had not been for him.

  Temiraev had been coming down the hill too fast again. Seeing Nimri stopped he had also applied his brakes. But with his downhill speed he skidded. The front tires went into the gully.

  Nimri watched with dismay as the Expedition dropped into the gully and disappeared from view. “What has happened?” he shouted.

  “They flipped over on one side and are sliding down the hill,” the gunner shouted back.

  “Get us down,” Nimri yelled. “Quickly.”

  It was again infuriatingly slow as they had to skirt the edge of the gully and then cut back across the base of the hill.

  Nimri almost screamed his frustration when they were halted by large rocks. “How far away?” he shouted up to the gunner.

  “Twenty-five, thirty meters.”

  The gunner was pointing. “Keep pointing,” Nimri ordered. He snatched up his AK and said to the others in back, “Wait here.”

  The fear Nimri felt was not that all in the other vehicle might be lost, but that Temiraev might be lost. He had always counted on Temiraev commanding the Chechens, and he commanding Temiraev. If Temiraev were dead controlling the rest might be difficult.

  The air seemed alive with the sound of a million insects. Walking with the goggles turned out to be even harder than driving with them. Nimri could not see his feet and the ground both, and could not judge the distance to the ground. He kept stepping as if it was flat and having the sickening feeling of his foot continuing to drop. He almost fell twice, feeling as awkward as a baby. And, disoriented, kept having to look back for the gunner’s outstretched hand.

  Finally he came through the brush and found Temiraev and his men, and the Expedition still on its side.

  “Any hurt?” Nimri gasped, from both exertion and relief.

  “No,” Temiraev told him curtly, deeply humiliated. “Again!” he ordered his men.

  They were trying to rock the Expedition back onto its tires. Nimri knew they would never budge it. The light Toyota pickups they were used to in Afghanistan perhaps, but not this American behemoth.

  “Leave it, my brother,” Nimri urged. “We have no time. Move your equipment to my vehicle. We will fit everyone in.”

  “Once more,” Temiraev shouted, unwilling for the sake of his pride to admit defeat.

  His mean heaved, but to no avail.

  “With the others we can move it,” he said to Nimri. “I know this, by God.”

  Nimri realized he could not shout at the Chechen, no matter how much he wanted to. “There is no time! My brother, move them to my vehicle.”

  Temiraev whirled about, as if seeking further inspiration. Then he slapped his hands to his sides and, to Nimri’s amazement, actually howled in frustration. Just as quickly, he began snapping out orders. And his men began dragging the equipment bags from the back.

  “Let me rig it to explode, brother.”

  “No time,” Nimri repeated firmly.

  Temiraev gave up then.

  Nimri paced in frustration as everything was gathered up. Too long, it was taking far too long. He led them through the brush, begging God not to let him become disoriented. For a moment he thought it had happened, then, thanks be to God, the Merciful and Compassionate, he saw his gunner waving from the roof of the Expedition.

  They threw the equipment bags into the back, and had to fit in three men lying atop them. The rest were wedged in, grumbling in Chechen, with Temiraev and another joining Nimri in the front. Both machine gunners were standing half up onto the roof.

  Nimri turned in his seat and made a last-second count of heads. Temiraev was sullen and silent. Nimri said nothing to him, afraid that anything might be taken as a rebuke and provoke violence.

  They emerged onto a narrow dirt road that actually became wider as it wound through the hills. Less brush and more trees now, thick enough that they were a barrier to Nimri’s goggles.

  He was feeling more confident, especially as the GPS arrow faithfully followed the path of the road. They had been sternly tested, but had prevailed.

  Then from up in the sunroof came the shout, “Helicopter!”

  Nimri’s heart sank. He begged God to forgive his presumption.

  “Pull over, brother,” said Temiraev. “They may pass us by.”

  Nimri backed into the first suitable space he could find between the trees.

  “The engine,” said Temiraev. He ordered the two machine gunners back into the vehicle and shut the sunroof.

  Nimri knew that thermal cameras saw heat, but he did not know how sensitive they really were. He knew from Afghanistan that you could cover yourself with a thick blanket and be safe, but what to do inside a vehicle was a mystery. He cursed himself for not researching this when he had the time. But at least Temiraev had been hunted by the Russian helicopters with the heat cameras.

  “Everyone,” said Temiraev. “Keep your eyes on the sky.” He twisted around in his seat so he could look up through the sunroof.

  Nimri did the same through the driver’s window.

  No one said a word, as if afraid the American helicopter also had microphones to hear them. With the windows shut and the engine off it soon became stiflingly hot.

  Nimri could hear the helicopter but he couldn’t see it.

  Temiraev was looking up through the sunroof. “Yob tvoyu mat!” he spat in Russian. He did not repeat the popular Russian curse “fuck your mother” in Arabic, instead merely stating, “They have us.”

  The copilot of the French AS350B3 A Star used the joystick to lock the forward-looking infrared onto the SUV in the trees below. He was radioing the position as the SUV began to move.

  Nimri opened the windows and sunroof.

  “The hailstorm?” said Temiraev.

  “When we are clear of the trees,” Nimri replied. “You give the command. Everyone stay inside until then.”

  Safety catches began clicking again as Temiraev issued orders. He watched both the road ahead and the sky through the sunroof. The white helicopter was keeping pace with them. The color and the blinking lights made it easy to see. “You know what to do,” he told them. “Be ready.”

  The Chechens were all shifting in their seats.

  The trees thinned out up ahead. Temiraev weighed their speed. “Ready ... Now!”

  The two machine gunners popped up through the sunroof, firing from the shoulder.

  Every Chechen who could access a window leaned out and emptied his Kalashnikov. In a span of ten seconds 500 rounds went up into the air, aimed for the helicopter to fly into. The technique had been pioneered decades before by the Viet Cong. Not all the rounds found their mark, but enough did.

  The light helicopter shuddered from the hits. The copilot screamed that he was shot. Unlike military helicopters neither the aircraft nor crew carried any pro
tective armor. Red warning lights were flashing as the pilot whipped it into a hard turn away from the red tracers that continued to float up toward him. He called out a mayday and, noticing the transmission warning lights, began looking for a place to set down.

  The Chechens cheered as the helicopter ran away. “Be ready in case it comes back,” Temiraev shouted over them.

  Even partially deafened by concentrated gunfire, Nimri heard the machine noise of magazines being changed and bolts pulled back and released. He was driving as fast as he could and still stay on the road. The helicopter would certainly have used its radio. Every American policeman within range would be racing toward them.

  The GPS told him they were approaching an intersection. As the dirt road emerged from the trees he crept forward slowly, looking for other cars. It was Texas State Road 1472, and a turn to the south would lead directly into Laredo, Texas. But not for Abdallah Karim Nimri. All the police and Border Patrol would be using this road.

  But there was nothing in sight. Nimri turned left, heading north. Still driving without lights. After little more than a kilometer, the GPS arrow signaled another turn. Nimri found the dirt road on his right and turned onto it. He had to slow down to negotiate some deep ruts.

  Nimri first saw the halo of light on the trees. An oncoming car on the road they had just left. His first impulse was to speed up, but he knew that would leave a cloud of dust that would hang in the air for quite some time. “No one move,” he ordered. Black with no lights—they should blend into the darkness.

  All heads were turned around, watching the road. The diffuse light narrowed into the beams of headlights. The car flashed by at high speed. Nimri saw the lights on the roof. So even before the Chechens in the back were able to say, “Police,” he had the Expedition moving.

  Happy voices chattering in Chechen celebrated their escape. But Nimri was not so confident. And soon there were headlights cutting through the dust behind them.