The line went dead.
*
Cheese and May pulled into the parking lot of something calling itself the Border Grocery.
“You see Tom anywhere?” May asked.
“No.”
“You want to check inside?”
“I don’t speak Spanish.”
They both laughed.
“He asked to meet us here,” she said. “He’ll be here or he’ll call.”
Her phone pinged. “He says we’re being watched. He says to get out of there.”
Cheese drove slowly around to the back of the store. They were now out of sight of any vehicles.
“We in El Paso?” he asked. “Santa Teresa? Sunland Park?”
“My GPS doesn’t even know if we’re in Texas or New Mexico.”
Ping.
Tom again. “I can still see you. Leave. Now.”
She showed her phone to Cheese.
“Do you see anything?” he asked.
“No.”
“How do we know it’s Tom?”
“It’s his phone.”
“It’d be good to know it was still in his possession.”
Cheese hit the gas, accelerated around the building and out of the parking lot. Went left, then left again. North. Away from where they had come from. Away from Sunland Park and El Paso.
“Call Tom.”
She did. No answer. Straight to voicemail.
Cheese accelerated. He looked in the rear view mirror. Nothing.
“If I don’t slow down, I’ll have cops chasing us”
“Maybe that’ll be good.”
“Unlikely.”
Dead end ahead. Jogged left, then back to due north.
Still nobody following.
“This makes no sense, May. I’ve had choices, so they can’t be in front of me anymore except by random bad luck. And nobody’s following.”
“Maybe this car’s been bugged. Maybe there were only two ways out and they had them both covered.”
“Tom saying anything?”
She looked down. “No.”
“Makes no sense.”
He accelerated onto a main road, racing by a tiny Entering New Mexico sign, and turned right. Cheese drove almost a mile, then, braking hard, he pulled right and stopped in the middle of an ocean of emptiness. Once their dust cloud settled, all they could see were the silhouettes of mountains in every direction except south. Toward Mexico.
“Now what?” May asked.
“Excellent question.”
*
Tom sat, staring at the Border Grocery parking lot, now vacated by Cheese and May. He knew there would be nothing to be seen there. He knew he was being watched. Whoever they were, it was their move now.
May was right. Somebody was hacking the three of them.
He had picked up the tail about half way from La Mesa this morning when he had headed here. Just as he was leaving the County Road.
He had suspected he was being watched yesterday when he came back to the car after hiking several hours in the Potrillo Mountains. The Jeep sitting by his car looked familiar. He was pretty sure he’d seen that Jeep with those two in it several times in La Mesa itself. As soon as he saw them, they immediately drove off down the dirt road.
And earlier this morning it had looked like them again, way back in his rear view mirror.
As a test, before he had left, he had texted to the bogus number May had set up that he was going to stop at a spot just west of Santa Teresa. Off Airport Road.
He had then pretended to have a problem with the car, pulled over, emergency lights blinking. Let’s see what they do.
Except for a lone woman, almost any innocent party would have stopped. But they drove by him, accelerating, both faces averted. He couldn’t tell whether they were Hispanic or Middle Eastern, but it was definitely the Jeep he’d seen several times over the past two days, including coming down from the mountains.
He had watched them disappear over the horizon. Got out. Put the hood up, and spent a half hour under the hood patiently looking busy, but doing nothing. He couldn’t take the risk that they’d be able to use high powered binoculars from where he couldn’t see them.
He had finally put the hood down, got back in, turned off the blinking emergency lights, and resumed his drive. Due east. Fifteen minutes to Airport Road.
There were only two ways into the spot he had indicated as his destination in his entrapment text, and virtually nowhere to hide unless they were going to be on foot. That would make no sense, since, unless they were planning on killing everyone with sniper fire, on foot there was nothing they were going to be able to do when their targets drove off.
And they’d had plenty of opportunity to try and kill him already if that’s what they wanted to do.
Although their hacking would have given them no idea where the mythical textee was going to be coming from, they would be expecting Tom himself to come in from the north. And they didn’t know what they were looking for from the virtual person or persons unknown.
So he had overshot and came in from the south. Absolutely no sign of anything, Jeep or anything else, as he had approached the area from the south, then west on Airport Road. Overshooting the required turn, he had seen nothing up to the airstrip and back again.
Then he had done the quick loop right, then left, and left again, and had seen them. The Jeep was hidden best they could by a building overlooking where he’d texted he would be meeting the virtual textee.
Bingo!
He had been hacked. No doubt about it.
He had accelerated by the spot and turned left and went as fast he dared toward Santa Teresa and the Border Grocery where he knew May and Cheese were waiting.
Followed then by not one, but two, Jeeps. Staying back, not trying to catch him.
He had known he was drawing them to May and Cheese, but the calculus had now changed. If not yet in his favor, at least less in theirs.
He had then known where they were and that he had no secrets from them.
He just didn’t know who they were or what their intentions were.
*
So now he sat. Staring at the Border Grocery after Cheese’s screeching departure. He knew whoever they were, they hadn’t followed Cheese. He just didn’t know why they didn’t.
Were they only interested in him? That made no sense.
Was there only one direction Cheese could have gone, and so they didn’t need to follow him?
Was there a third Jeep waiting for May and Cheese? If so, they hadn’t caught them. No emergency message from them.
Could they have a bug in Cheese’s car? Then why bother with all this cloak and dagger shit? They were looking at him now, and maybe they figured they could find Cheese and May later, using the bug.
Who are these guys? What do they want?
Then it dawned on him. The most likely explanation was that these guys didn’t know who they were dealing with and were simply trying to find out. Add in a dash of incompetence if they were either the Feds or ISIS, and all they were doing was following up on what they had and trying to learn what more they could.
If they were Feds, then it was critical to keep them in the dark and avoid confrontations.
But if they were ISIS, then they needed to find that out without getting their asses shot off.
But if they were ISIS, why weren’t they just moseying back to Mexico to play another day?
Unless they were on a schedule. An important deadline. Blowing something soon. Maybe they’re on a deadline and just need to make sure we don’t get in their way.
He suddenly realized that May and Cheese, and Samms, might know the answer.
The hell with it. They obviously weren’t trying to kill him. Time to go.
*
May’s phone rang.
“It’s Tom,” she said to Cheese. Answered.
“Hello?”
“Meet me at your motel. Watch for tails. Lose them. Don’t shoot anybody.”
She started to say something, then realized he had hung up.
“Back to home, sweet home,” she said. “And Tom wants a zero chance of any company.”
“You’re on shotgun.”
“He said I couldn’t shoot anybody.”
“That’s a shame.”
*
When Cheese and May arrived back at the motel, Tom had already checked into a room. He walked up to them in the parking lot.
“You sure you weren’t followed?”
“Positive,” May said. “You.”
“I lost them in El Paso. On the other side of the mountain. Since then I’ve been following you two for a half hour. I can confirm there’s nobody on you.”
“We saw you,” Cheese said. “The only thing that saved your ass was that you told May she couldn’t shoot anybody.”
“You guys aren’t that good.” Tom put his arm around Cheese. “Let’s go call Samms. We have some decisions to make.”
*
“About time,” Samms said. “You guys take a siesta?”
“Something like that,” Tom said.
“Hey Tom, long time no hear.”
“I was hacked. I had to go dark until I could get together with these two.”
“Which raises, how secure are we on this call?” May asked.
“I’m encrypting it,” Samms said. “Both ends. Unless they know you are in that room, we’re fine.”
They caught her up on what she didn’t know.
“The sixty-four thousand dollar question is whether those trying to track us are Feds or ISIS,” Tom said. “We are totally toast if we assassinate any Feds.”
“I can’t find anything suggesting that the Feds are watching anything like us down here,” May said. “Nothing in any of the intelligence communications. Not even the Mexicans are seeing anything that the CIA is picking up.”
“Roger that,” Samms said. “I had one of our guys make sure that not even the White House has any knowledge of a covert operation down there tracking anybody. Nobody in intelligence knows of such an op.”
“But what if this is the gang that can’t shoot straight?” Cheese said. “Some incompetent NSA or DHS group that thinks we’re ISIS.”
“I doubled back on the second Jeep, got a picture of the driver. He’s not Hispanic. He’s definitely Middle Eastern.”
“That could be undercover, Tom,” Samms said. “Not nearly good enough.”
“Have these guys seen you, Tom?” Cheese asked.
Tom looked stunned. “Of course. Sorry. I’ve been wasting our time here. The two in the Jeep saw me walk down out of the mountains. They also had clear views of me in La Mesa, and, again today outside the grocery store.”
“For that matter, they must have seen us there, too,” May said.
“Stupid. If these are Feds, they would certainly have recognized me. They would have walked over to talk to me, not hacked me and chased me all over the southwest.”
“And they would have received confirmed ID’s back on Cheese and me by now,” May said.
“So,” Samms said. “ISIS.”
“No question,” Tom said.
A general silence settled over the room.
Finally, Tom broke the silence. “Sorry, guys.”
Cheese and May shrugged.
“Now what?” May said.
“Now I catch you up,” Samms said. “The authorities now believe it’s not impossible somebody could have snuck a nuclear device into that area. May, you were right this morning. I checked and Homeland Security is now going in to investigate.”
“Not impossible?” May said.
“You know these guys. Nothing’s ever certain enough for them. Part of the reason so many terrorist attacks are happening is that all the agencies are consensus seekers.”
“Bureaucrats,” Tom said.
“What are the suspected targets, Samms?” Cheese said. “Do the agencies realize there’s a Jewish synagogue less than three miles from this spot?”
“They do. And up until today, it had been receiving extra surveillance. Just like Fort Bliss and White Sands and Los Alamos.”
“What changed?”
“Belatedly, the intelligence community now don’t disagree with you. This isn’t a bunch of dirtbags running around with car bombs. This is something much bigger. With a time deadline.”
“Do we know the deadline?” Tom asked.
“We now know the President is making an unscheduled trip to El Paso. The speech is tomorrow. Noon.”
Chapter 43
Six a.m.
Show time.
The three had camped out, triangulating the sight lines of where they knew ISIS had stored their bomb. Samms knew where it was and was prepared to do everything she could without giving up their cover to call in every Federal Agent at the first sign of a fail.
That was the exit strategy.
The actual plan was to not need an exit strategy.
Cheese was the first to see the dirtbags coming. A Jeep with its lights off slowly entered the lot. They were being either appropriately cautious, or they were scared to death.
Cheese didn’t care which.
He used the laser signal they’d agreed on to alert the other two.
They needed to make absolutely sure there were no other ISIS members standing watch on the periphery. Or still working their way into the area.
They waited and watched for fifteen minutes. Saw the three men come out of the Jeep. Saw them open the gates to the stored truck. Watched as they opened the back of the truck and stepped back. The three men then backed into the storage area. Talking.
Now Cheese knew which. These guys were terrified.
Another twenty minutes dragged on while the dirtbags discussed whatever they felt a need to talk about.
Then an argument erupted. One of the three men had to be restrained from attacking one of the others.
There was no sign of any reinforcements. Either these composed the entire gang, or their comrades were stationed elsewhere, or had chickened out.
Cheese signaled Tom and May, using the laser flasher again.
Suddenly gunfire erupted.
Cheese, May, and Tom all instinctively ducked, but not before Cheese saw one of the terrorists go down. The two terrorists still standing went over and inspected their writhing colleague.
One of them put a gun to the head of the guy on the ground and fired two shots. The man stopped writhing.
Cheese signaled to the other two to meet at the first of the three spots where they’d agreed.
Two minutes later they were there, watching the two ISIS guys putting their former colleague into the back of the truck.
This place was at most a fifteen to twenty minute drive from downtown El Paso. Even for a big lumbering truck, struggling with a heavy load.
Tom looked at his watch just as he saw the two terrorists do the same. “My guess is that these guys are bright enough to not drive that truck into town near the time of the President’s visit. They’re going to want it sitting near enough hours ahead of time.”
“In truth,” Cheese said, “if they had brains, they should have driven it last night to wherever they wanted it to be today. They’re still taking a chance of security forces stopping them even this early.”
“I think they thought that it’s being a City of El Paso Department of Corrections truck would solve that problem for them.”
“Good eyes, Tom. I hadn’t noticed that.”
“What’s the plan, guys?” May said.
“I was going to shoot them one at a time from up here, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t have a clue what a ricochet into that package would do.”
“So let’s take them both together,” Tom said. “Before they get in the truck.”
“May,” Cheese said, “you head down that way. Position yourself to their right. Tom, go around the building to your left. To the other side of the truck, but still in front. Once you’re in place, I’ll work my way to the front. Tak
e no shots that could hit the truck.”
“Or me,” May said.
And she headed down the hill.
*
Cheese lay in a little ravine, peeking over the top at the truck. No sign that a departure was imminent.
Then he thought, God knows what’s in this ravine, then dismissed it best he could, scratching something that felt like it was moving on the back of his right thigh.
The two dirtbags were squatting off to the left of the truck. Just like they did on the dirt streets in the little towns of Afghanistan. He had a clear line of sight to both of them.
He tried to remember what it was that Samms wanted to be sure of before they killed them. Oh yes. Right. The detonating device.
His eyes followed the trail the two had walked from their parked Jeep to the truck. They hadn’t climbed into the truck yet, so it was wherever it had been before they arrived. Were they waiting for more, or was this them? Tom had said definitely three. Could be more, of course, but definitely three.
He worked through it. What was the risk of killing them now? If these two were all that was left of them and the detonating device was findable, then nothing. But if more of them were on their way? Killing them now meant fewer in the firefight when the others got here. Unless the others were waiting for a signal before coming. If the signal didn’t come, could they blow this thing from wherever they were?
He decided to take a risk. He ducked down below the crest and started crawling to Tom. Worst came to worst, he would just kill the two dirtbags and ask questions later. He got to where the truck was between him and the two terrorists, and duck walked quickly to the waiting Tom. He could see May glancing back and forth between them and the two squatting figures. Asleep? Watching? He wasn’t sure.
“Tom,” Cheese said. “Will you recognize the detonator if it’s here?”
“If we can find it, yes.”
“Is there any risk of accidentally setting this sucker off?”
“Shouldn’t be. They’re designed, even by amateurs, to require care and procedure in detonating. Most people don’t want to be within miles when it goes off. And even if they’re suicide bombers, this isn’t their target. Out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Then they could set it off remotely?”
“Possibly. But more likely it’s on a timer, or hooked up to some explosives that are.”
The Point Of A Gun: Thriller Page 22