Hard Favored Rage

by Don Shift

  Stealth would have to be the approach. High value targets inside the houses could be captured for later interrogation. Going loud right away would cause many of the sicarios to scatter and draw extra gunmen from the bordering neighborhoods. The discussion was lively and complex. It was decided that Major Huerta would be mission commander and each discrete target would be an individual objective with their own assault teams.

  Manpower would be problematic. Experienced military men were preferred, and Hidalgo had the most. He offered up a dozen shooters, three drivers, and to modify three vans that could drive completely blacked out. Villareal could spare four SWAT members and two deputies who had been in the Marines. Some sort of transport for the kidnapped women would have be found and more deputies in vehicles to escort it to the hospital. Each participant was giving up a great deal of men and things they could not replace.

  “The women held captive in those trailers are probably not going to react well to us,” Tejada said.

  “Why not? We’re rescuing them,” Sibley asked.

  “The last time any one of them was likely to have seen a cop was before Labor Day. I would suspect that these women have given up all hope of rescue. Some probably have Stockholm Syndrome and might fight us if we shoot whatever guy they like best if they feel he is ‘protecting’ them. We need women to go in with us.”

  Villareal spoke up. “Daphne Minter will almost certainly go.” Deputy Minter was a former combat medic and was until the EMP a paramedic with the Air Unit.

  “That’s one.”

  “I can talk to Palmer and his wife,” Sibley added. “She runs patrols on our perimeter and is a pretty tough girl. She’s also a nurse.”

  “What about that female deputy you have with you? What’s her name? Fischer,” Tejada said.

  “Potentially.”

  “She did get off her bearings in the jail and got beat up,” Villareal said. “By the way, has she healed up?”

  “Yes, well actually. She’s only got a small scar that’s fading. I’m not sure I’d want her at the front of an attack,” Sibley said.

  “That’s not what we’re intending. Just to calm the women down and keep them together until they reach the evacuation point.”

  Sibley nodded. “I’ll talk to her.”

  The planning session did not end until late in the evening. Villareal and Tejada caught a ride back with Major Huerta while their horses stayed overnight in Hidalgo’s stables. Riding in a Hummvee was a new experience for both while Sergeant Pulido, Huerta’s driver, didn’t find any novelty climbing dirt roads up and over South Mountain into the low clouds in the dark. He regarded the sheriff, who was giving directions, as just another civilian.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going, Sheriff?” Pulido asked.

  “Of course. Just head to the north downhill when you get to the radio tower. We’ll follow the oil roads down the hill. I know these roads like the back of my hand.”

  “Seriously Tino?” Tejada asked from the back seat.

  “Yeah. Back in the early ‘90s I was a senior out of Fillmore. We used to have to come over here and bust kids having parties in the hills. That was when we had the Ford Broncos. I’ll tell you a funny story. It’s late one night and my partner and I were racing around a field, just doing dumb stuff you do in a four-by-four. The next morning we pull into the parking lot and I notice there’s this huge tumbleweed caught around the axle.

  “I pulled it out, turned in the keys, and went home. I come in that night and the sergeant calls me in. The vehicle went to the El Rio garage to be serviced. There was a crushed bunny rabbit wedged up under the spare tire. Oops.” Everyone but Pulido, who was concentrating on the road, had a good laugh.

  It was midnight when they got back to the jail. The soldiers decided not to risk driving through the streets of Santa Paula and making people wonder why a Humvee was out so late. They dropped off Villareal at the front door while Tejada showed Pulido where to park.

  “And this is why I told you to bring your sleeping pad and fart sack,” Huerta said as they got out.

  “Major knows best,” Pulido replied as he tugged on his rucksack. He was tired and looking forward to sleeping, even if it was on the floor instead of his commandeered dorm room.

  A gunshot split the silent night. All three men jumped in surprise.

  “There,” Huerta said, pointing in the direction of the main gate.

  “I’ll go inside and round up the quick reaction team,” Tejada said.

  “Go Captain. Pulido, on me.”

  Tejada ran for the staff entrance and the two soldiers began to move towards the front gate. Somewhere in front of them, footsteps pounded up through the parking lot. Huerta saw a deputy armed with a shotgun running towards a prone body in the road. The front gate guard had been sniped. Another shot rang out and the second deputy fell, his shotgun tumbling noisily onto the asphalt.

  “Sniper on the overpass! Quick, get down behind that knoll on the lawn.”

  “It’s pitch black out here Major. Sniper’s gotta have night vision.”

  “Agreed. Wait here, I’m going after Tejada to warn him.” The major doubled back and headed for the staff door.

  Inside the jail, everyone was waking up. A few wives screamed and children cried as their husbands and fathers suited up. Every cop wanted blood. Huerta managed to stop Tejada from charging out with his team in view of the sniper. Instead, they went out a back exit and assembled behind the staff dining facility.

  Headlights were shining down the road as a vehicle approached the main gate. “What now?” someone said.

  Someone fired a full magazine on full auto. It was Pulido, who screamed “Contact, front gate.” Inbound AK fire was the response.

  “Captain Tejada, give me a couple guys and we’ll loop to the west, get up on the overpass and flank the sniper,” Huerta ordered. “Get reinforcements up to Pulido but stay undercover. Make sure you put men on your flanks. Cover the perimeter.”

  “You think they’ll hit us from a second direction?”

  “If they’re making a frontal assault in force, I doubt they’re that smart, but don’t take chances.”

  “10-4.”

  “You guys,” Huerta yelled, pointing at five men in SWAT fatigues. “Let’s go!” He set off for the outer perimeter fence which wasn’t topped with razor wire like the inner one. Huerta was the only one with night vision and led the way through the lemon orchard towards the freeway. Running in the dark, it was impossible to avoid the trees. Lemon branches slapped and tore at the faces and equipment of the men. The sporadic gunfire between Pulido and the attackers covered up the noise they were making. Huerta radioed Pulido. “They through the gate yet?”

  “Negative, sounds like they’re struggling to get the K-rail moved, but the cops are radioing that they shot some guys trying to cut the wire near the warehouse.”

  Shotguns versus assault rifles. “Can you hit them with your grenade launcher?”

  “Negative, there’s a kink in the road and I can’t get a clear shot without exposing myself. Are you on the bridge yet?”

  “Just hopped the freeway fence.”

  “Roger.”

  Huerta motioned for the deputies to spread out more than they were, but they couldn’t see his hand motions in the dark. As soon as he was high enough to look over the small crest in the overpass, Huerta put the laser from his PEQ-15 infrared illuminator on the sniper, who was indeed using what looked like a Desert Storm era Starlight scope and shot him. “Sniper down!” As a combat leader, Huerta’s magazine was loaded with all red tracer rounds to designate targets.

  “Shoot where my tracers go,” he yelled at the deputies. “Fire at will.”

  Huerta put three rounds each at the two gomers who had been lazily keeping overwatch for the sniper. The deputies shot true and killed the two men. Tracers tore into the hood of the SUV parked on top of the bridge and the SWAT rifles ripped that up also.

  Gunfire and tracers were going both
towards and from the jail perimeter. Two loud explosions and flashes came from down below, between the bridge and the jail. The accompanying “bloop” sound told the major that Pulido was firing his grenade launcher. The gunfire became irregular. Several minutes later, the shooting stopped entirely.

  Huerta keyed his mic. “Keep your fire low! We’re coming up top.”

  “Roger,” Pulido said.

  Huerta had a sheriff’s sergeant who had a portable radio passed the order on over their radio net. Todd Road on the opposite side of the bridge was clear and so were both directions of the freeway, not counting the enemies’ bodies and two shot-up vehicles. Two more grenades detonated suddenly in one of the fields off to the side of the jail.

  “Pulido, sit rep,” Huerta called.

  “Mopping up on the flank, sir.” The gunfire died away after a minute. “Sir, perimeter secured.”

  “Roger. En route to your position.”

  Dawn found Sheriff Villareal sitting alone in his office sipping a cup of freeze-dried coffee. He and his wife slept in a cell like anyone else. One concession he did insist on was having his favorite recliner brought into the jail commander’s former office. Chief Ostrander, who didn’t bother to assume the title of acting undersheriff, came in and slumped onto the floor.

  “Take my desk chair. It’s better than the floor,” the sheriff offered.

  “I’m more comfortable on the carpet, thank you.”

  Three deputies were dead and four more were injured, but only Deputy Minter was hurt gravely enough that the small medical staff was worried about her. In the past five years, too many good deputies had died. In the last six months, Villareal felt numbed by it all. The dead had become just names on a list, vicarious casualties of a vile and cowardly attack by a foreign enemy he didn’t even know. Today the heartbreak he felt just as before the EMP on those awful days when the department lost a man sunk back in.

  A frontal attack by two trucks was stopped with the timely intervention of Pulido’s grenade launcher, one toy lacking in the deputies’ arsenal. Nineteen bodies were recovered, sixteen alone down on the ground. Major Huerta surmised the plan was to breach the gate and deposit the gunmen in the parking lot to scatter and overwhelm the quick response team. The K-rail placed in front of the gate to stop vehicles from driving straight through had slowed down the assault and the padlock had not. Examination of the unburnt bodies unmistakably identified the attack as the work of the cartel. Mexican gang tattoos practically covered the bodies of several of them.

  “We go tonight, no matter what. Send word to Sibley and Hidalgo. Make sure Commander Owens at East County knows what’s up too.” Villareal paused. “We need a hero to ride in and save the day right now.”

  Ostrander nodded back. “Like John Wayne.”

  “Exactly. The world needs John Wayne and Gary Cooper right now. Waiting for it all to blow over isn’t who we are. You’ve seen the shameful faces around here. No one wants to go out on patrol because we can’t face the public when we’ve deserted them. All the guys guarding wells mock us for bottling up in here, you know that. This morning is the worst day in the history of this office, but everyone’s face is shining, grief and exhaustion notwithstanding. Why? Because we kicked the asses of some nasty dudes.”

  “Come on, Tino, after the EMP it was every man for himself out there. We simply couldn’t do our job. We threw everything we had left and then some just to get this place up and running to buy us time. You’re acting like the heroism we saw since day one didn’t happen until last night.”

  “You got me there. Our guys made it work until it couldn’t work, then they volunteered to keep guarding wells so everyone could use them. Think about that. Wells! Such a simple thing. I thought we wouldn’t even be able to manage that. Now this cartel cancer threatens that.”

  “Are you sure playing cowboy and riding out to do battle with savages is the way to go? Killing the Indians isn’t viewed kindly.”

  “Tell that to the dead pioneers.” Moral equivalency was a bad road to head down when looking through the lens of history. “We’re not hunting Indians to conquer their land, we’re hunting monsters. You kill monsters. Stop struggling with the morals of a dead society. Miranda warnings and escalation of force are tools for a civilized society. We’re on the fast track to not even having a society.”

  “You talk like I’m soft,” Ostrander said. “I’m not soft. Part of my job is providing the sheriff good counsel. If you want to eliminate these assholes, I’m all for it. You know what the difference between an honest man and a liar is, Tino?” he asked rhetorically. “An honest man isn’t one who never lies, but he has the discretion to know when and how to lie.”

  “Travis, I’ve been awake for twenty-four hours. What does that mean?”

  “It means we can kill the son-of-a-bitch cartel members with a bullet in the back of the head and, if things ever get civilized again, go back to the whole justice and law and order thing.”

  Villareal reclined his chair and closed his eyes. “Yes, but one way or another brutality has a price.”

  Without Regret or Remorse

  Brooke was the only female, besides Mika, physically fit enough to keep up with the men. Carlie and Amy were not out of shape, but they were not rugged or outdoorsy. Privately, Mr. Sibley would not put his son’s wives in harms way, even if he had to place his own sons in danger. It wasn’t as if the two women were going to be directly in the fight. They were needed to help calm and evacuate the women, some of which had been enduring terrible trauma for months or weeks. Heavily armed men with guns breaking in during the night would not put them at ease.

  Mika was excited to hear the news and enthusiastically volunteered to go when Brooke shared the plan with her. Brooke got to do the exciting things, like patrol outside at night. Her skill with an AR-15 impressed Mika. Even though she was a free woman, able to make her own decisions, Sam would be problematic.

  She found Sam laying out his battle gear on the bed. He did not like what Mika had to tell him. Women did not belong in combat or anywhere near it. The entire reason Sam was doing what he was doing is that so women, not just those on the ranch, could be a little safer. And now Villareal and Sibley wanted to risk two of their women!

  “You can’t go,” he said.

  “Why, because you think I’m stupid?”

  Oh no, not this again. Amy had let it slip while drunk one night that Mika was initially held in low regard because she was a less-than stellar deputy and that most of the guys thought she was kept on at the ranch out of pity. She had shown her value since then and proved everyone wrong, but the damage had been done with that little comment, earning Sam a few nights back in his bunk in the shop.

  “No Mika, because you’re irreplaceable.”

  “What, because of my uterus? I have more value than that.”

  Sam put his hands on her shoulders. “Mika, your greatest gift is the ability to give life, not your only one. We can’t afford to lose you. I can’t afford to lose you.”

  “What about you? You’re irreplaceable to me.”

  Sam took a deep breath and hugged her. No one had ever really said anything like that to him before. Lindsey had acted like that was the case, but when things got serious, he found out that her intent was not as sincere as her affections. “Mika, you’ve got nothing to prove.”

  “Neither do you Sam, but you’re going anyway. Brooke could use the help and David is letting her go.”

  Sam knew that Mika was going to go anyway. She was trying to spare his feelings and show him deference by allowing him the “choice.”

  Oh what the heck, Sam thought. We’re going up against gomers and we have friggin’ armored vehicles. All of us will be fine. He conceded.

  Three Stryker infantry fighting vehicles dwarfed the three sheriff’s Tahoes that sat in the parking lot of Hidalgo’s private barn/garage and made the three blacked out vans and the commandeered school bus look positively out of place. Over sixty men and two women, mos
t of whom were dressed in camouflage or dark green BDUs and decked out in combat gear milled around the inside of the barn.

  The crowd was too large to fit in the bunker for the mission briefing, so a sheet was hung up against a wall as a backdrop for the projector. The mood was an intriguing electric mix of enthusiasm and apprehension, but most of the players had been energized by last nights battle of Todd Road or the previous raid on the cartel. The hunger that gleamed in their eyes was not physical.

  All of the men selected were known or expected to perform well under fire. Those who did not have some direct combat experience were all either military veterans with deployment experience or SWAT members. Each had a commitment to fight and survive, knew their weapons, and made a personal investment in training and equipment. These were all hard men, either born that way or wrought by experience, who would not shy away from battle. Several in the room had fought well the night before, distinguishing themselves among their peers.

  Competent and brave as they were, most were as nervous as they were yearning to return the favor on the cartel. Only a handful of men in the room were actually of the special forces “commando” types who regarded the mission coolly as another of one of any number they had been on. Those who were virgins to true combat would be tested tonight and hoped and prayed they would pass the test. What united them was not ignoble revenge, but an obligation to avenge the dead, brother or citizen, and an abiding sense of duty to stamp out evil.

  Since the EMP and its consequential deterioration of society, the deputies’ morale had been destroyed. It wasn’t just their unpolished badges that were becoming tarnished. Like their dirty uniforms that could never be cleaned completely, each felt a distinct sense of shame. Barely able to save themselves, depression at failing their mission to the public had tormented them while behind the perimeter of their jail.