The Enemy Inside

by William Christie

  He nudged Troy, so there would not even be the slightest noise of movement, like taking a drink of water. Now he felt more than one person around them. Troy nudged back. He felt it too.

  Whoever it was, they were very quiet. Storey pressed two buttons on the remote control in his hand, and inside the house a light went off in one room and came on in another. An indoor/outdoor wireless AC control. Plug the box into any standard outlet, then plug the appliance, in this case a lamp, into the box. The remote turned the power on and off, as long as you were within 100 feet. Twenty-five bucks.

  At 2:30 Troy thought he saw a file of men moving through the trees toward the back of the house. They’d correctly waited for the time of night when the human brain was operating at its lowest level of efficiency, but the moon was a little too high for the best shadows to conceal movement. A common mistake.

  Inside the house all the curtains were closed so no one could see inside. The Camry was parked out in front.

  Storey thought they might be going for a quiet entry, but at 2:45 the houselights went off as the power was cut. Good, Storey thought.

  Then a single rifle shot, and an instant later two machine guns and, from the sound of it, about twenty more rifles opened up on the house from the front, back, and one side. Well, they didn’t care about waking up the neighbors. Storey supposed he ought to take it as a compliment. He’d walked the whole perimeter of the house and grounds, and the fire support groups were positioned right about where he would have put them. So someone out there had some experience.

  Now a rolling series of bangs and roars and brilliant white flashes. Storey was a little chastened to see his own technique intended for him. They were firing rockets at the windows. Not RPGs, though. Something else.

  Then, more muted over the sounds of the continuing gunfire, some lighter pops. Storey was surprised not to hear any explosions after a reasonable delay. Then the question was answered as smoke began billowing from the windows. They were using tear gas. Storey worried about that. Tear gas burned really hot, and tended to set things on fire.

  They’d used the rockets to blow the security grates off the windows, and hopefully cause some casualties, to open holes to fire the tear gas in.

  A few minutes later the supporting rifle fire tapered off, though the machine guns kept it up. A couple of stray beams of light across the front yard told Storey they were going in wearing gas masks. A couple of the flashlights attached to the rifles had been switched on too soon. There were always a couple of screwups in every unit.

  The machine guns and supporting fire shut off. The front and back doors blew within moments of each other. A harder, sharper bang and a brief flash lit up the living room. They were using grenades to clear the rooms, Storey thought. He would have done the same thing.

  The constant rapping of rifle fire was indistinct, but it was easy to follow their progress through the house by the grenade explosions and the rifle flashlight beams.

  There were twenty Los Zetas in the house. They’d cleared the rooms methodically, in teams of four. The last team had just tossed a grenade into the last bedroom, and raked the room with gunfire. They blasted the closet before opening the door, expecting a gringo to be cowering there from the gas. It was empty.

  Now there was just the bathroom. Again they fired through the door, aiming low. The team leader made a hand signal, and his lead man kicked the door.

  Screwed to the door and the frame were the two halves of a normally closed magnetic switch, about the size of pair of rubber erasers, designed to burglar alarm a door. When the door came open the magnetic field between the two halves was broken, and the circuit closed.

  In case the switch failed or was disabled, there was also a battery-operated wireless motion detector taped to the toilet. When the door moved it went off. But instead of activating an alarm it also closed a circuit.

  In the bathtub, safe from bullets and grenade fragments, was a full ten-kilogram propane canister with kitchen storage containers filled with liquid explosive taped around it, and four compound detonators made from AK rifle cartridges. This bomb had a twin hidden under the rug and floorboards of the living room. But the cast iron sides of the tub channeled the blast wave beautifully.

  It was known in the trade as an MA. Mechanical ambush.

  Storey and Troy watched a bright flash light up the windows in unison with the explosion. The charges weren’t big enough to level the building and make a mess of the neighborhood. Instead the whole house seemed to hop into the air, then the roof fell down on top of everything. Just a rolling cloud of smoke and dust after that.

  After the explosion everything happened incredibly fast. Four SUVs raced down the road with their headlights on. Troy was watching the prominent tree he was using as a mark. He hit the buttons on his remote as the first SUV passed.

  Resting in the sand next to the road, with more sand piled on top of it, was a piece of steel pipe about eight inches in diameter, and the same length. It was aimed at the road like a gun barrel. The rear was sealed off by a welded steel cap. The interior was filled with liquid explosive and another homemade detonator. And the front end was covered by a slightly concave copper serving dish that fitted the diameter of the pipe perfectly.

  A few seconds after Troy pushed the button on his remote the explosive detonated and the whole force of the blast was directed out the end of the pipe, firing the copper plate like a cannonball. Except the force, which was incredible, pushed the center of the plate out and folded the outside edges in on itself, forming it into the shape of an aerodynamic slug. An EFP, or explosively formed projectile. Before it even reached the road that copper slug was moving at a speed of 2,000 meters per second and capable of penetrating a main battle tank.

  It hit the black Expedition on the front passenger door and ripped right through, turning all the metal and plastic and bulletproof armor into additional missiles. The slug cut the SUV completely in half, though not by any means neatly, emerging from the other side and continuing off into the night. There were no survivors.

  Ordinarily the delay involved in any wireless transmission would have made it impossible to time a detonation to hit a fast-moving vehicle, particularly at night. But Troy hadn’t set off the EFP with his remote. He’d merely activated a green plastic box nailed to the nearest tree. A passive infrared sensor-transmitter. Another home security item, to let you know if anyone was coming down the driveway or fooling around with your backyard storage shed. The transmitter box sent an infrared beam to a receiver. Anything that broke the beam would activate an alarm. Or just as easily fire a detonator.

  By pacing out a few simple measurements an EFP could be aimed to hit any part of a vehicle once the front bumper broke the infrared beam. And it was absolutely automatic—no fallible human being to press a firing button too early or too late.

  The infrared triggering technique had been developed by the Soviet KGB and first used by the terrorists of the German Red Army Faction, who planted an EFP device in a bicycle saddlebag and killed the head of the Deutchebank inside his armored limousine in the midst of a squadron of bodyguards.

  Troy had waited for the last second to activate it, not only because he didn’t want to take out any civilian cars by mistake, but because the infrared beam could be seen by night vision devices.

  They’d placed a whole line of EFPs along the road. When the first SUV exploded right in front of them the other three stopped and backed up fast. So the second vehicle didn’t run into the infrared beam waiting for it. But it did back into the beam of the next device.

  All that meant was that the slug entered just behind the rear seat.

  The fourth SUV kept backing up. It hit another EFP and blew like a Roman candle when the gas tank went up.

  The driver of the third SUV, after seeing those in front and behind explode, stopped. He leaped out and ran off into the night.

  While Troy was activating the EFPs, Storey was punching buttons on his own remotes. As the house explod
ed and collapsed, all the Los Zetas outside understandably started running to get away from it. Except dozens of infrared beams popped on in two rough concentric circles around the house.

  One of the machine gun teams, being farthest away from the house, was the first to decide to pick up and get the hell out. They were also the first to break an infrared beam.

  Carefully positioned in a clump of grass to cover the distance between the infrared transmitter and its twin receiver was a plastic kitchen storage container filled with liquid explosive and detonator. The outside of the container had been covered with nails held on by duct tape.

  Being homemade, the blast didn’t achieve the perfectly uniform fan shape of an issue claymore mine, but it did the job. The machine-gun team disappeared in the smoke and were never seen again in their original form.

  The SUVs were exploding. One was burning brightly. The homemade claymores were going off apparently randomly all over the place. Men were running in panic. Leaders shouting orders were ignored. It was chaos. A few Los Zetas started shooting at another group in the confusion, and now it became a full-bore firefight as others thought someone else had found a target and joined in. No one had the slightest idea what was going on.

  Except Ed Storey, the master of the chaos. And his acolyte Lee Troy. Who watched the whole thing from the comfort and safety of their shallow hole in the sand. In the daylight Storey had paced out all the distances and marked the locations for the mines and the infrared boxes. Which made it easier to install the already constructed devices in the dark.

  Because they’d had to stay so close to the house to make their wireless gadgets work there was a narrow gap in the mines right around them. In the firelight they could see someone running right toward them. Storey gave Troy a tap to be ready.

  The Los Zeta had been running behind two others until they disappeared in an explosion that knocked him to the ground. Getting up, he didn’t even realize that he’d dropped his rifle. He stepped on something soft that he looked down and saw was part of a body. He swerved to one side and began running again. Except this time it was a sprinting, panting, sobbing blind panic.

  Something rose up from the ground in front of him. A terrible blow to the stomach, that he did not know had come from the butt of Storey’s AK. All the air rushed out of his lungs, and he crumpled to the ground.

  Troy stepped up and cracked him on the back of the head with his pistol. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Storey took one step, then stopped. “Wait here a second. Keep him alive. I’ll be right back.”

  “Are you fucking nuts?” But Storey had already slipped away into the darkness. God-damn. It was one thing to have balls as big as your brain. But forget about running into someone or catching a stray round in the middle of all this shit—even Storey the human compass might get turned around and not find his way back to the exact same spot in the middle of identical fucking hummocks of grass. Fuck. Troy dropped the Mexican into the hole and checked his pulse. Still alive. Silly shit didn’t even have a weapon. Just a load-bearing vest with a bunch of magazine and grenade pouches that felt like it was made from cotton. Probably homemade.

  The explosions had stopped, probably because all the ordnance had been expended. And the intramural Los Zetas firefight behind the house was dying down, probably because they’d run out of ammo. Son of a bitch! They should have been out of this and on the road five minutes ago. The survivors were going to start shaking themselves together pretty soon.

  Storey’s remote controls were lying in a neat row on the outer edge of the hide, each in a little groove in the sand that had been dug for them. Troy picked up the unit on the far left and aimed it at the road, deactivating the two remaining EFPs there. No sense in blowing up the ambulance crews or the mayor when he showed up in the morning to see what had happed. But any mines left around were the local bomb squad’s problem.

  Someone was coming up on the left. Troy raised his Glock. No more prisoners tonight. If it was Storey, well, he kind of felt like shooting him anyway.

  It was Storey. Two rifles slung across his back and humping two wooden boxes. Troy thought it was a wonder the motherfucker’s solid steel balls didn’t throw up sparks when he dragged them over the ground.

  A low whistle between the teeth confirmed that it was indeed Storey. “Can you carry him and one of these boxes?” he asked Troy.

  “Only if we’re getting the fuck out of here,” Troy replied, lifting the unconscious Mexican up and throwing him across his shoulders.

  “We’re getting the fuck out of here,” said Storey.

  Moving slowly under their burdens, they set out west, away from the road, where the stolen Cherokee waited in a dry creek bed, camouflaged with the rest of the roll of burlap.

  The moon was full up, making it bright enough to see by. It was still dark in the arid scrubland west of Nuevo Laredo, and the Mexican was regaining consciousness. He was naked, and his wrists and elbows were duct-taped behind his back.

  Standing over him, Troy poured a bottle of water on his head.

  The Mexican was somewhere between twenty and twenty-five, thin and wiry. Three gold neck chains. Expensive haircut, short and all gelled up.

  He opened his eyes and discovered himself to be naked, with wrists taped and elbows pulled painfully together behind his back with wire. Two gringos were staring back at him. One white, one negro. The same two lethal gringos who had left eight Los Zetas dead on the street and then destroyed them this night with the exploding house.

  “What is your name, my friend?” Storey asked in Spanish.

  “L ... L ... Luis,” came chattering out.

  “Luis, let me tell you what is going to happen. I will ask you some questions. Answer them truthfully and you will live through this. Other wise ...”

  Troy grabbed his ankles and forced him onto his back. Storey tied an overhand knot in a length of electrical wire and, applying one foot to Luis’s throat to keep him immobile, placed the loop around his penis and testicles, cinching it tight. Letting the long length of electrical wire run through his hands, he tied the other end onto the bumper of the nearby Cherokee. Then he finished his sentence. “Other wise we will go for a drive until your chinga and huevos come off. Then we will ask you the very same questions again. If you still refuse to answer, we will see what else you are prepared to lose. Do you understand?”

  The key to any interrogation is whether the subject accepts the validity of the proffered threat. Luis believed. He had seen many similar sessions, many much worse, but always from the other side.

  The negro, who had been jingling the car keys in front of his face, got into the Cherokee and started the engine. The white man raised his arm so it could be seen from the back window. The Cherokee crept forward until the wire was almost taut. The white man began to bend his fingers, and the Cherokee went forward an inch at a time. The loop cinched tighter. Luis knew they would do it. “The Arab will attack in Laredo soon! He knows everything the FBI does! Stop! Please!”

  The white man made a fist and a slashing motion. The engine shut off and the negro rejoined them. The wire was as tight as a guitar string, and Luis’s hips pushed forward to try and take off some of the pressure.

  “I should have let him continue,” the white man said. “You are lying terribly. You think you can convince me these Arabs told you so much? Why would they tell you so much?”

  “They did not tell us,” Luis gasped. “We found out.”

  “How? Do not make me impatient.”

  “They all spoke Arabic, and those Chechens their own language. The Arab did not speak Spanish, only English. They thought we did not understand Arabic, but we had a man whose father came from Iraq. He listened, but kept his understanding a secret. He learned many things from overhearing the Arab and the leader of the Chechens speaking. We also had microphones in the home they stayed in.”

  The white man seemed unconvinced. “What was this Arab’s name?”

  “Nimri. Abda
llah Nimri.”

  This was the first time he had seen the gringos make any reaction, though it quickly passed away.

  “And the leader of the Chechens?”

  “Temir something.”

  Storey rested his hand on the wire.

  Luis was crying. “I did not learn it.”

  “Let us start from the beginning,” Storey said. “How many are there again?”

  “One Arab and twelve Chechens.”

  Storey thought: only twelve? They must have disrupted things more than they thought. But first things first. “The four Americans in the office downtown. What became of them?”

  They would now surely tear his privates off. “Dead.”

  “Where are the bodies?”

  “Buried in the desert.”

  The gringos made no reaction at all. Luis would have been comforted if they had screamed at him. They were truly men to be feared.

  Storey unfolded his map, found a stick on the ground, and stuck it into Luis’s mouth. “Show me.”

  Luis moved his head while Storey moved the map in front of his face. Then he bobbed it forward, tapping the paper with the end of the stick.

  Storey pointed to the spot. “Here?”

  “Right. Down. There.”

  “What is it?” Storey asked.

  “An old pit. People throw trash there.”

  Storey marked the map. At least they’d be able to recover the bodies. “All of them there?”

  “Yes?”

  “How were they found?”

  “They drove across the border and contacted a real estate agent. They rented the office but did not check in to a hotel or recross the border in the evening.”

  “How did you take them?” Storey asked.

  Luis hesitated.

  Storey snapped the taut wire with his finger.

  Luis yelped, as much at the surprise of it. “Dressed as police,” he answered immediately.

  “Interrogated?”

  “Yes.”

  Storey moved in to another line of questioning before it affected his temper. “From them you heard about the Arab and the twelve Chechens?”