by Cliff Ryder
“Zetas are highly trained, heavily armed professional soldiers working for the drug cartels in Mexico. Originally they were supposed to be helping the U.S. and Mexico fight the drug wars, but after getting trained in special weapons and tactics, many of them went to the other side and are now one of the largest threats on the border. They are ruthless, efficient and don’t take any prisoners,” Denny said.
“You mean that if some help doesn’t get down there immediately, those two operatives are dead,” Kate said.
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”
“Dammit, these zetas, whoever they are, weren’t supposed to be there.”
Denny gave her a wry look. “Kate, you know that’s the nature of any mission. As much as we try, we cannot foresee every complication.”
“That simply isn’t good enough. At the very least, we should have been able to warn them of potential incoming threats,” Kate said.
“May I remind you that these agents aren’t ours, and have their own protocols to follow? It would look pretty unusual for either the DHS or the FBI to be that efficient.
Like it or not, we have to work within certain parameters, especially when masquerading as someone else.”
“Unfortunately.” Although Kate grudgingly agreed with Denny, she certainly didn’t like it. That was one of the reasons that Room 59 had been created in the first place— to circumvent the often cumbersome bureaucracy that bound more traditional intelligence agencies, and successfully complete the jobs that needed doing before disaster could strike. However, even working through their back channels and direct links, sometimes Kate still found herself in a situation like this—where she could do nothing but wait, listen and hope her operative came out alive.
“Nate, what should we do?” Tracy slipped the cell phone into her pocket and raised her pistol. “Is there a back way out of here?”
Outside, she heard what sounded like some sort of disagreement between some of the men in the truck, with at least two raised voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Nate stared through the crack in the barn door. “I count at least four, all with automatic weapons. Running would be suicide—they’d take us out with the rifles. Only one thing to do, and that’s catch them by surprise. If we get them off balance, we can take them.”
“Are you nuts?” she hissed. “Shouldn’t we wait for backup?”
Tracy now saw one of the men set his rifle down, jump off the truck and walk toward the barn. Her suddenly slick fingers gripped her pistol as she watched the man come closer. This was something she’d never thought she’d be in the middle of, and now she was only a few yards away from smugglers armed with automatic weapons. If I get out of this alive, I’ll be glad to go back home and tell Paul he was right, she told herself.
“We wait any longer, and they’re only gonna find two dead agents out here. We go now! Follow my lead.” With that, Nate shoved the door back and leaped outside, aiming at the approaching man and shouting, “United States Border Patrol, nobody move!” He spoke first in Spanish, then in English.
Tracy followed, aiming her pistol at the men in the truck. She smelled harsh exhaust from the vehicle, and the thrum of its revving engine vibrated through her head, setting her teeth on edge. She called out, “Raise your hands, and no one move!”
For a moment the men and illegals packed into the truck stared in total surprise. Then everything went straight to hell. The man walking toward the door charged at Nate, covering the distance to him faster than Tracy thought possible. Nate fired, but his aim was off, and the zeta barreled into him, knocking him to the ground, his hands scrabbling for the pistol. The shot made the other men and women in the cargo bed scramble out any which way they could, leaping over the side walls and out the back of the vehicle.
The second man in the back leveled his assault rifle.
Tracy swallowed around a golf-ball-size lump in her throat, but aimed at him, knowing if she didn’t shoot first, they were both dead. “Freeze!” she shouted.
Instead, he sighted in, and she squeezed the trigger, the gun bucking in her hand. The man lurched back just as the truck’s engine revved, and it zoomed forward, heading for Tracy.
Aiming at the windshield, she got one shot off, spiderwebbing it, but the truck still kept coming, and her instincts took over. She dived out of the way, scraping her hands and knees on the sandy ground as the pickup roared past, smashing through the barn door in a crash of wood and metal. The truck revved again, and Tracy rose to see a large off-road tire in front of her. She put two bullets into it, but then the vehicle reversed out of the barn in a shower of broken boards, and she saw the passenger holding a small submachine gun as he popped out of the open window.
A shadow fell over her, and Tracy jerked her pistol up, only to see it grabbed and levered up at the sky.
“Are you crazy, woman! Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Tracy looked up to see Nate, who grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet as he fired several rounds at the truck, which had been coming around for another attempted ram. She ran with him around the corner of the barn just as someone opened fire behind them, chewing boards apart in a hail of bullets. Running to the back, they rounded the corner to see several men trying to get into the Bronco, with one smashing the driver’s-side window with a large rock.
Nate fired into the air, scattering the illegals, but not before the window shattered. Tracy felt keys pressed into her free hand. “Drive!”
Too shocked to argue, Tracy ran for the door, unlocked it and brushed glass chips off the seat before climbing in.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
Nate had jerked open the SUV’s tailgate and slid in the back. Grabbing the shotgun out of its holster, he racked the pump action. “Just get us to the road. I’ll keep ’em from following us out!”
Tracy jammed the key into the ignition, twisted it, slammed the clutch down and shifted into Reverse. She stomped on the gas and the Bronco shot out from behind the barn, Tracy spinning the steering wheel as they shot toward the highway. Just as they cleared the front of the building, the other truck flew out from the other side and slammed into the Bronco. Tracy screamed and fought the wheel as the SUV slewed from side to side, but regained control and kept going.
“Jesus, watch it up there, will you!” In the back, she saw Nate get back onto his knees and rack the shotgun, then duck down again. “Get down!”
Tracy did her best to hunch down while trying to keep the wheel straight—she knew if they hit the ditch instead of the driveway, their miraculous escape would end quickly. The chatter of an AK-47 sounded right next to her, and the back window exploded in a shower of glass, followed by the roar of Nate’s shotgun.
The truck swerved away for a moment, and Tracy let up on the gas long enough to shove the gearshift into third.
The driveway seemed endless now, the distant road looking as if it were hundreds of yards away. And even if we reach it, there’s no guarantee they’ll stop—it’s not like we’ll be safe there, she thought.
“They’re coming back—make sure they don’t hit the engine!” Nate racked the shotgun again and shot at the truck’s cab, shattering the driver’s-side window.
“Hell, I’ll do better than that.” Tracy swung the wheel, feeling the Bronco lean as it lurched over and crunched into the side of the truck, making the driver fight for control of his vehicle. One of the riflemen triggered a long burst, but the bullets kicked up dirt to the left of the SUV. The pickup’s wheelman regained control, however, and nudged his heavier truck over against the Bronco, trying to send it off the driveway and into the ditch. They were only about thirty yards away, and closing on the narrow entrance fast. Tracy hauled on the wheel, but couldn’t force the truck over. In a straight power contest, the other vehicle had the edge. Metal shrieked as the two vehicles rubbed together in a fight for dominance.
“Goddammit, punch it and get ahead of them!” Nate shouted.
“No time!” The driveway was only a few yards away, and Tracy spun the wheel in the opposite direction and slammed on the brakes, wrenching the SUV into a shuddering bootleg turn. Taken by surprise, the pursuing pickup raced out the driveway, onto the road and into the ditch on the other side. Tracy gunned the engine, running on the desert hardpan parallel to the road, leaving the zetas behind.
Stray shots from the automatic rifles pinged around them, and then they were out of range.
“Thank God that’s over.” Tracy slumped in the driver’s seat, the hot desert wind parching her face. She slowed down automatically, aware that she was running over scrub brush and other things that wouldn’t be good for the Bronco’s undercarriage.
“Hey, hey, keep an eye on where you’re going, all right?
We blow a tire or break an axle out here, and it’s a long walk—oh, shit.”
“What?” Tracy’s eyes strayed to the rearview mirror again, and widened in disbelief.
The truck was growing larger in the mirror as it came after them, its front end caked in dirt and its fender crumpled, but otherwise no worse for wear.
“Guess they weren’t as stuck as we thought. We either need to head into the desert or get onto the road,” Nate said.
“Hold on!” Tracy had spotted a flatter stretch ahead, and gunned the engine to make sure she had the forward velocity to make the switch. She edged closer to the ditch, then tweaked the wheel again, aware that the slightest wrong move could send them rolling over.
“Where are you—Jesus, I thought you were gonna head into the desert!”
Tracy didn’t reply, but steered the Bronco into the wide wash carved out by long-ago flash floods. She saw a grade that she thought they could make, and turned into it before she could think twice, flooring the gas pedal. “Grab something back there and stay low!” she shouted.
The Bronco spun its way out of the wash as its front end launched up into the air and crashed down on the road with a bone-jarring impact, the heavy-duty off-road tires and shocks absorbing most of the landing. Tracy feathered the wheel as she kept the SUV moving in generally the same direction the road was going, although she did come close to the ditch on the other side for a heart-stopping second.
Nate fired several rounds at the approaching truck, hitting the windshield again, and making steam plume from the grille. The pickup’s engine revved as it tried to keep up, but the buckshot had hit something vital, for they were pulling away.
Nate climbed over the seat back and practically fell onto the cushion. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, where in the hell did you learn to drive like that, Beltway rush hour?”
“Growing up with three brothers obsessed with the stock car circuit. It was either play with them or play alone, so I learned a few things along the way,” Tracy said.
“I’ll say. You can be my wheelman anytime.” Nate leaned back in the seat just as the flashing cherries and blueberries of the Border Patrol, sheriff’s department, El Paso police and even a fire truck appeared out of the hazy desert, barreling straight toward them.
Nate surveyed the damage to his Bronco with a doleful expression. The entire passenger’s side, from the engine to the back bumper, was crushed and dented, with the front quarter panel bent down to within an inch of the tire. The right rear window was gone, matching the missing windows from both doors and the back. Bullet holes pocked the cab and the side, as well. “I knew I shoulda signed out a truck. It’s gonna take forever and a Sunday to get all this fixed,” he said.
Once the cavalry had arrived, he and Tracy had gone back to the barn, where the rest of the Border Patrol had immediately starting rounding up the rest of the immigrants before they got hopelessly lost in the desert. Overhead, a helicopter swept the area, herding scattered groups into the waiting arms of the patrol. They had found the shot-up truck, abandoned about a mile from the farm with tracks leading away, but when Nate let the rest of his people know they were zetas, they let them go, as per standard operating procedure.
Tracy, however, was less than pleased by this turn of events. “What do you mean, you’re letting them go? They did just try to kill us, or have you already forgotten?”
Nate jerked a thumb back at the battered Bronco. “That seems to be pretty good evidence to back up your story.”
He took her aside. “Look, I’m gonna be in enough shit as it is about this—it’s bad enough we had a run-and-gun in the first place, not to mention me using an unauthorized weapon. Rules of engagement say we’re not supposed to engage armed illegals out here, but are supposed to let them go whenever possible.”
“So instead, you deliberately put us in danger by confronting them? Are you insane? We came this close to being killed!” Tracy was aware of the attention she was drawing from the other Border Patrol members, but at the moment she didn’t care.
Nate whirled on her, his voice low. “We were already in danger the moment that truck appeared. If we hadn’t done something, our backup would have come out here and found two dead bodies—ours. Or maybe they would have taken you with them so you could have been gang-raped before being killed. Get this straight—this isn’t a comfortable office in Washington where you get to sift through evidence at your leisure before sending a report to your boss. This is the border, and out here you either make a decision and follow it or else you die. There’s no room for error, and no second-guessing yourself after the fact. You need to stop analyzing everything to death and start acting on what you know.”
Tracy scowled, even as a part of her knew he might be right. “None of that excuses your behavior, Agent Spencer.
We could have held them off from inside the barn until help arrived. Let me remind you who’s in charge here.”
“In that case, it’ll be a wonder if either of us survives the day,” Nate said angrily.
Stung, Tracy was about to really lay into him when a shout came from the barn.
“Hey, Nate, you might want to come take a look at this,” a man called.
Nate immediately turned and walked, followed by Tracy, to a trio of men in a corner of the barn clustered around a strange-looking handheld metal machine that rested on three small legs.
“We were doing our usual sweeps when Jason took out the CryoFree radiation detector and took a pass. He found an unusual concentration of residual radiation in this corner—not enough to be a threat to our safety, but certainly more than should be here. If, at some point in the last day or so, something radioactive was here, it apparently was leaking a bit.”
Jason, the far-too-young-looking hazmat tech, beamed with pride as he held his new toy. “We just got this a month ago. First time I ever got to use it, and got a hit, too.” His expression sobered. “Come to think of it, that isn’t a very good thing, I mean, that means I just registered radioactive material coming through here.”
Nate exchanged a knowing glance with Tracy, who spoke up first. “Let’s keep this to ourselves right now, gen-tlemen. That’s the Model 25, right? Is there enough here to find out what kind it is or where it might have come from?”
“It was doing the type analysis when y’all came over.”
Jason checked the readout again. “Son of a gun—says it’s plutonium 239.”
“That clinches that.” Nate straightened up and looked at the open doors where the illegals had gathered. “Did you find a guy near here when you cleared the barn?”
“It was empty, but we found blood spatter over there.”
The agent pointed toward the front door where Nate had wrestled with one of the zetas. “You lookin’ for anyone in particular?”
“Yeah, the guy I head-butted in the nose.”
“All of the illegals are being held near the house until we can transport them to process.”
Nate headed toward the open doors. “Come on, let’s go see if they caught him,” he said to Tracy.
“Just a minute, Nate.” Tracy still faced the three crime-scene techs, and showed her identification. “Gentlemen, I remind you that this inves
tigation is a joint effort between the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. Therefore, I must tell you to treat this information as confidential and not to disclose it to anyone else. The only people who should receive your final report are myself, Agent Spencer or Agent Robertson. Failure to comply with this order will result in charges of obstruction of justice being filed. Is that clear?”
The expressions on the three mens’ faces had been relaxed, almost condescending, but by the time Tracy had finished speaking, all three men had stiffened almost to attention, and Nate thought Jason was on the verge of salut-ing her. They all nodded and answered affirmatively.
“All right, get as many soil samples as you need from the area and go over them as quickly and as thoroughly as you can. I want a full workup and report by tomorrow morning.”
With that, Tracy turned on her heel and caught up with Nate.
“A bit officious, don’t you think?” he asked.
“We don’t need this mission compromised because one of your boys decided to share this with one of his drinking buddies, and the next time we hear about it is on the nightly news.”
“Fair enough.” Nate led the way to the cluster of illegals waiting for transport to a processing and holding center.
Everyone there, about a dozen people, stared back silently.
He scanned the crowd, looking for the guy he’d tangled with earlier.
“See him?” Tracy asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Nate circled around to where a man with his head hanging down stood on the outskirts, trying to stay as far apart from the group as possible, yet still remain within the main cluster. Whereas most of the other men wore either T-shirts or had the sleeves of their flannel shirts rolled up in the heat, he had his sleeves down and collar buttoned up, but couldn’t hide the dark bloodstain on his shirtfront. Nate grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the group.
“¡Hola! Remember me, cholo? ” Nate’s grin was mirth-less.
The man kept his eyes on the ground. “No habla inglés.”
Grabbing his chin, Nate wrenched the man’s head up, revealing a swollen broken nose. “Sure, you do. Now take off that shirt.”