She reminded me a lot of Trace, with blond hair and more Nordic features.9 They both certainly have nice butts.
I grabbed the line and began following. Doubled, the rope held almost to the top.
Almost.
It snapped just as I reached for the beam. I swung my arms out as I began to fall, getting just close enough to the wood to grab it with one hand. I hung there with one hand for a moment, Tarzan of the Apes style, then pulled the rest of my body onto the upward beam.
The space between the rafter and the roof was damn hot, but that was nothing compared to the temperature of the metal roof as I put my hands up to pull myself out. I pulled off my shirt and used it as a makeshift glove, spreading it out so I could put my hands down without burning them. But then I faced another problem. Ms. Reynolds was svelte. I was anything but. I struggled to get through the space, twisting my shoulders back and forth through the opening, finally angling them just right to scrape halfway out.
Then I got stuck. I pushed, I pulled—still stuck. I squeezed, prodded, and poked, and then was finally through.10
I looked around on the roof. Melissa was nowhere to be found. Cursing to myself, I crawled out to the edge. The warehouse was at the edge of a large complex of similar buildings built to take advantage of NAFTA—the Nuke American jobs and Fuck The public Act. (Someone’s going to have to explain to me how opening our borders to dirt cheap labor, nonexistent safety standards, and 1900s-style industrial pollution is good for America. Not that you should think I’m not openminded.)
NAFTA hasn’t worked out quite as well as planned, even on this side of the border: a lot of the cheap crap envisioned for Mexico was now being manufactured even more cheaply in China. There were roughly two dozen buildings scattered around the area. A few had definitely seen better days—the closest one was missing a roof, and the one next to it, about half the size and lower than the one I was on, had large gashes in the walls.
A chain-link fence ten or twelve feet high circled the entire area, setting it off from scrubland and the occasional cactus. At the south, an old and very battered metal rail fence about four feet tall separated the glass-strewn parking lot from another field pockmarked by a dozen small piles of debris and gravel.
Needless to say, there were no signs of sentient life inside the compound, assuming you don’t count the two thugs who were sitting in the shade on the eastern side of the building. They had their backs against the wall and were talking loudly in Spanish, complaining about money they were owed, and how neither one of them could find a good girlfriend who would give them what their wives wouldn’t.
Two thugs, one of me—those were much better odds than I was used to. They were so good, in fact, that I didn’t trust them; surely there must be more guards around somewhere. I slipped over to the other side of the roof, continuing my survey and wondering where the hell Melissa had gotten to. While the roof’s gentle slope made it easy to climb, I was afraid I could be seen easily from the distance, and so I kept low, sliding along the hot steel like an egg slipping down the griddle.
The buildings to the west were empty as well. There was another complex a half mile to the southwest; the buildings there seemed a little higher and blockier, but looked just as empty.
Our lovely Ms. Reynolds, meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen, no matter how hard I squinted. I was just starting to wonder if she had had a stealth helicopter waiting when I heard the loud hum of trucks in the distance. I strained my eyes toward a brown cloud in the distance to the east. A truck emerged ahead of it. It had a familiar shape and form: boxy front, rectangular rear, attractively oversized tires. It was a U.S. issue military vehicle known as an M-3582, aka a deuce and a half. Two more followed, half consumed by the dust from the first.
The Mexican army had decided to pay its respects.
I stood up to get a better view of the nearby area. When I did, I spotted another complication: a pickup filled with armed thugs was driving toward the side gate of the complex, approaching from the opposite direction the army was taking.
They were still some distance away, but it’s safe to say they saw me on the roof: why else would the two assholes standing in the truck bed aim their rifles at me and start shooting?
If the gunfire had been less accurate, I might have stopped to contemplate the discrepancies: the Mexican army was driving three vintage U.S. hand-me-downs, serviceable vehicles to be sure, but all older than their occupants. The thugs had a gleaming, brand-new Ram 3500, with chromed running boards and fuzzy dice hanging off the mirror.
And consider the weaponry. The thugs were armed with the Belgian FN SCAR MK. 17S, or more likely reasonable copycat versions—7.62 mm assault rifles that could be configured for a number of tasks including highly accurate sniping.
How accurate?
Let’s just say one of the rounds put an unsightly hole in the back of my shirt as I dove onto the hot roof. Sliding and burning at the same time, I let myself fall onto the ground. By some miracle I managed to land on my feet and roll down the way I had been taught way back in Army Basic Airborne Training at Fort Benning, Georgia.
And just like lo so many years ago, I fell sideways on my ass.
Adrenaline is a wonderful painkiller, though. I stumbled to my feet and staggered to the eastern side of the building, around the corner from the guards I’d spotted earlier. Alerted either by radio or the gunfire that I was on the roof, they were looking up at it when I peeked around the bottom corner of the building.
No way was I getting a better chance than this. I tucked my arms down and lowered my head. I hit the nearest Mexican like a linebacker laying out a quarterback. He went down; I kept going. Goon number two was wearing an armored vest, which damn near split my elbow when I hit him. Both he and his rifle flew to the ground. I scooped up the gun, but then tripped somehow and hit the dirt. Curling around, I leveled the muzzle at him and fired. The bullets went through the top of his head. I got up to my knee and riddled the other man’s neck and back, dispatching him as well.
The goons had only five mags between them. That was disappointing: with those guns, you could empty the boxes after only a few presses of the trigger.
I pulled the vest off the second man, then grabbed his sunglasses. Half the battle of being cool is looking cool.
But I wasn’t here to look cool.
“Melissa?” I yelled. “Ms. Reynolds—Melissa Reynolds! I know you’re around here somewhere. Show yourself!”
No answer. I tried again.
“Melissa! We have company coming! Time to go!”
I guess I knew yelling to her would do as much good as my calling the dogs to stop chasing a rabbit at Rogue Manor, but I had to give it the old school try. I trotted around the nearby building, not really expecting to hear her answer, let alone see her. I wasn’t disappointed.
Threading my way through the complex, I ran until I came to a building a little lower than the others. With the help of an oil drum, I hopped onto the roof.
The truck with the Mexican banditos had entered the complex and was speeding toward the building with the hostages. I had a decent shot of the front of the truck as it emerged from behind a building, and took it.
People think that the best way to stop a vehicle quickly is to put a round into an engine block. While I won’t deny that that works, it does so primarily in movies and military novels. Blowing an engine block does disable an engine; steam will fly out from the water jacket, a piston or two will sheer, etc., etc. But the vehicle the engine is pulling still has considerable momentum, and a skilled driver can use that momentum to get relatively far, or at least to cover.
Shooting the driver is different: dead men not only don’t tell tales, they don’t drive very well either.
Of course, shooting the driver doesn’t rob all the momentum from the vehicle any more than killing the engine does. The truck continued to move, passing behind a building before I could get another shot. But the loud crash as it hit into the side of one of the buildings
made it clear it was no longer going to be operating.
Taking out the truck was not the same as taking out the goons. Within seconds, three came out from around the corner, heading in my general direction. I laid him out with a shot to the top of his head. Blood splattered all over the place; it was the sort of thing that really has to be seen in slo-mo to be properly appreciated.
Not that I would have been in a position to admire it. The other two peppered my roof with gunfire, and so I decided it was time for a tactical maneuver: in other words, I ran for my life.
Hopping back down onto the barrel, I scrambled to the ground and ran behind a nearby building, hoping I had enough distance between them and myself to circle around and flank them. But I was surprised as I turned the first corner of the building to find two different goons, guns in hand, coming right at me.
They got off the first shots. But the key in a gunfight is not to get off the first shot, it is to fire the final shot. Their bullets missed high; mine caught both in the chest, pushing them back in a jumble. Since they were wearing bulletproof vests, I didn’t kill them, but at that range the slugs must have felt like a heart attack.
I know because a bullet fired by yet another campesino caught me from behind, kicking me face-first into the dirt.
My life flashed before my eyes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for the whole show. I folded my elbow under my chest and levered myself up, turning back toward my assailant. Between the vest and the sunglasses, I’m guessing he thought he’d shot one of his own men, because his gun was lowered and he had a pained expression on his face.
I gave him some physical anguish to go with whatever pangs of guilt he was feeling, cutting him across the shins with 7.62 mm slugs. He tripped into a crazy pirouette, tumbling down a few feet away. A head shot took care of the rest.
My back felt as if someone had put it under a drill press. I fell back against the side of the building, trying to catch my breath.
Several ancient religions have mental techniques for willing away pain, developed in the era before morphine and Novocain. While Bombay Sapphire is my painkiller of choice, I am open-minded on the subject of alternative healing, and at that moment would’ve tried the secret chant of Tibetan garbagemen if I thought it would relieve the pain. The best I could do was slow my breathing and put my head down. My field of vision began shrinking, and I nearly lost consciousness. Then something moved on the periphery of what I could see. Fear kicked away the pain.
Turning to the right, I saw a shadow cast by someone moving down the road between the buildings. I started to point my gun in that direction but a surge of pain sent me to my knees.
Very possibly I blacked out for a second or two. The next thing I knew, someone was shouting in Spanish that I should get the hell up. I groaned and raised my head.
“Up you lazy sack of shit,” said the voice. (The actual words, in Spanish of course, began ¡que va! and got a hell of a lot more vulgar from there.)
Groaning, I got to my feet. A sudden wave of nausea hit me, and for a moment there I thought I was going to puke. Instead, I got my rifle up and fired off a burst.
Nothing happened. I tried again, then realized the problem: I was out of bullets.
Doom on Dickie.
I had two choices: I could throw a nothing-is-fair, Murphy sucks, life’s a bitch hissy fit. Or I could rely on my many years of training, my skills as a warrior, and my deep and well-tested knowledge of martial arts.
I went with the hissy fit.
I pushed off the wall in the direction of the voice, raising the rifle to use it as a battering ram. I hit into something substantial, then fell down to the ground. I rolled over, then tried to get up. I had gotten as far as my knees when I heard the sharp crack of a pistol a few feet away.
I blinked until my eyes focused on a Mexican army captain standing a few yards away. He had his pistol out, and was just lowering it; he’d fired it into the air to get my attention. Four or five privates were nearby, covering me. I hadn’t bounced into a man; I’d hit the barrel I’d used to get on the roof earlier.
Maybe the pain made me silly, but for a moment there I thought the Mexican army was there to rescue us.
“There are prisoners in the building across the way,” I told him. “I’ve been tracking a kidnapping ring.”
“You’ll raise your hands,” said the officer in perfect English.
“You don’t understand. I’m Dick Marcinko.” I coughed.
“And who is that?”
“Doc didn’t call you?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll found out who you are,” said the captain. “And then we will be sure to set the ransom at twice the normal rate.”
III
Not every unit or officer of the Mexican army is corrupt. On the contrary, I’d venture to say that the majority are honest.
It’s a slim majority though. Many supplement their meager incomes with graft from the drug cartels. And then there are the units that are so tight with cartels that it’s hard to know exactly what the difference is.
This unit represented yet another variation: an army group that was in competition with the cartel, or at least one small segment of it. Apparently acting on intelligence he’d gathered, the captain was here to rescue the captives—and put them into his own protective custody. They would be released when their paperwork was in order. Which meant when their ransoms were paid.
I can’t say I was surprised, exactly. Disappointed maybe?
Butt-kicked, definitely.
Pulled to my feet, I was pushed toward one of the army trucks parked at the front of the building. I found the others inside—all but Ms. Reynolds.
A problem to be solved at a future date.
* * *
I know what you’re thinking: Dick, you’re a prisoner of the Mexican army. How hard can it be to escape?
Good point.
* * *
The kidnap victims were confined to the middle vehicle in a three-truck line. The army detail, roughly a dozen soldiers, was divided among the other two trucks. There was no effort to blindfold anyone or tie them up. In fact, the prisoners came along willingly; they were under the impression at first that they were being rescued.
It wasn’t until one of the women asked if she could go to the bathroom that their real purpose became obvious: the soldier pointed his gun at her and told her to shut up, or she would never have to go to the bathroom again. One of the men started to protest; he was silenced by a muzzle strike to the knee that laid him down.
As we passed out of the complex gate, the convoy began to spread out. The driver of the truck behind us was clearly paying more attention to his friend in the front seat than the road. He gestured and waved his hands as he drove, moving them so emphatically he looked like he was practicing karate moves. He was so absorbed that he didn’t see the man leaping from our truck until it was too late—he swerved at the last moment but still managed to run over the escapee’s leg.
A good thing, because I was worried that he would miss him entirely.
Horns sounded. Our vehicle pulled off the road to the right. Soldiers leapt from the truck behind us. Our driver and his escort hustled from the cab and ran to the back, unsure what was going on but determined not to let any of us escape.
They got out so quickly, in fact, that they left the truck running. This was highly convenient—when I crawled out from under the chassis and climbed up into the cab, all I had to do was throw it into gear and step on the gas. The truck lurched back onto the highway, leaning a bit with the acceleration.
Yes, you’re correct: I had slipped down under the truck before the “escapee” leapt out. And not to keep you in further suspense: said escapee was a dummy constructed from various items of clothing.
The lead truck had started a three-point turn back in our direction. In a better world I would’ve given them a twenty-one-gun salute as I roared past. Not being armed, I settled for the bird.
If you’re starting to wonder where Do
c and the rest of my esteemed group of Red Cell International shooters, assistants, and underlings were, you’re not alone. Without delving too deeply into methods and tactics here, some sort of overhead surveillance of the warehouse should have started shortly after I clicked the magic heels. Some sort of surveillance team should have been rushed to the scene to cover any contingency, including the situation I faced now.
In other words, the friggin’ cavalry should have been nearby.
I clicked my heels a few times, frantically trying to make sure Doc knew I was in trouble. I thought about pulling off my shoe and talking to him directly, but I didn’t have that luxury—shortly after I passed the other vehicle, bullets started flying past my window.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, I saw that the truck that had been right behind us was speeding up. There was a soldier on its passenger side running board. He was firing a light machine gun.
His aim was surprisingly good, too: bullets chattered against the truck, splintering the mirror.
The road before me was straight and narrow, which made us easy pickings. I decided it was time to work on my off-road skills.
Cranking the wheel to the left, I skidded off into the desert sand. The truck wobbled slightly, hitting a soft patch on the shoulder, but most of the ground was hard-packed, and I was able to keep us upright as I headed north of the road.
The machine-gun fire either stopped or became so inaccurate that I lost track of it. But we were far from home free: a rifle round cracked through the side window, putting a hole in the glass a few inches from my head.
I ducked instinctively, which saved me from the second and third rounds. The shots came from cartel snipers, who happened to be posted nearby. Their usual purpose is to pick off Customs agents interfering with drug shipments. We seem to have been some sort of bonus round; either they were alerted by radio or saw what was going on and decided to try to help.11
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