by Peter Nealen
“That’s pretty rich, coming from somebody who hasn’t lifted a finger to help with training or defense, aside from very, very grudgingly allowing the construction of a single fighting position on his property, and that only after getting leaned on by several of the other bigger property owners who are doing a lot more.” Hank glared at him. “And after what happened last night, there wasn’t time to have a full-length debate on it. Or should I just leave and let the bad guys take their revenge on Lajitas for what happened last night? Somehow, I doubt your neighbors would be too happy about that. Present company excepted, of course.” He turned his basilisk stare on Treviño, who was in the back, but still very noticeably there. Maybe he was being paranoid, but he was developing some serious suspicions about the man.
“There still should have been a meeting before you started tearing up property and blocking roads.” Estevez wasn’t going to back down. “If there was any hope of defusing this situation, turning the town into a fortress isn’t going to help.”
“If you think there’s any negotiating with sicarios or mareros, then you’re dumber than I thought.” Hank wasn’t backing down. “Especially after they’ve been resisted, and worse, repulsed. They might have been trying to secure the crossing point last night, but the next time, they’ll be out for blood.”
“And whose fault is that?” Martin demanded.
“Are we really going to go over this again?” Hank’s temper was about to its boiling point. “Are you really that fucking stupid? If you’re so scared of the bad guys that you want to grovel, well, they haven’t burned down the town on the Mexican side yet.” He pointed. “Go over there and bow and scrape. I’ll be here, defending the people who actually fucking deserve it.”
The argument had already gone on long enough that Bob Morgan’s truck was approaching from the northeast and rumbled up to the knot of people standing in the road. Morgan, a lean, hawkish sort of man with long, flyaway gray hair, stuck his head out the driver’s side window.
“Paul Estevez, are you getting in the way again?” Bob Morgan had a kindly side, and had been more than willing to help out Lajitas’ inhabitants, even though he had a bone to pick with more than a few of them, but there was a hard, unforgiving side to him, too. And Estevez had gotten on that side a long time before. “I see a lot of work going on, and you arguing.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Morgan,” Estevez shot back. “You’re not right in the line of fire.”
“And yet here I am, and here you are.” Morgan squinted at him, then dismissed him and turned to Hank. “Where you want this wire, Hank?”
Hank jerked a thumb at the serpentine barrier system being put across the road using mounds of dirt and rocks behind him. “We can probably use some there, but I’d also like to string some across the main fords. If we can tangle up some axles, so much the better.”
He deliberately turned his back on Estevez and his cronies, waving at Morgan to follow him. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
He could feel the eyes on his back as he walked away. Given what happened to the Doogans, we all need to watch our six.
***
“Hank!”
He sighed. Finding the right places to put the wire down was proving difficult enough, without a dozen interruptions. Bob Morgan, it turned out, had a pretty good eye for terrain and avenues of approach, and had had some different suggestions to improve the obstacle plan. So, they were both up on the hill overlooking the river, trying to figure out the best use of their limited resources.
He straightened from where he’d been sitting on the hillside with map, map pen, and binoculars, and looked over his shoulder. Arturo was clambering up the hill from the RV park.
It wasn’t Arturo who made him tense, though. It was the figure climbing behind him, slower but no less determined.
He turned to the youngster, trying to ignore the matronly figure of Margaret Radcliffe behind him. “What is it?” He noticed that Arturo’s jeans were wet; he’d been in the river. “I thought I told you to get up on the peak and keep an eye out.”
“I was,” the kid said proudly. “You just didn’t say which peak.”
Hank’s eyes narrowed, but Arturo didn’t wilt. Which meant he knew he had something good, and despite the fact that he’d obviously taken Hank’s words in the sense in which he’d wanted to hear them, he wasn’t going to get in trouble.
“You didn’t go over to the Mexican side and scout over there, did you?”
“He did.” Margaret Radcliffe was a stout, red-haired woman who would have been a lot more handsome in Hank’s eyes if she hadn’t been quite such a sugar-tongued pain in his ass. Especially when it came to Arturo and his circle of friends, who in her mind were kids who needed to be sheltered and cared for, not allowed to act as de facto halcones for the Triarii.
The fact that Arturo had latched onto Hank, following him almost everywhere and trying desperately hard to win his approval only served to increase her dudgeon at the fact that Hank didn’t discourage the young man’s efforts.
“Mr. Foss, you simply have got to do something about this. It’s bad enough that he snuck out and tried to go into a firefight with you last night, but now he’s playing recon commando on the other side of the river?” She wasn’t breathing that hard from the climb, and planted her hands on her hips. “These boys are living with enough risk right now without adding to it with dreams of being soldiers in the middle of a war.”
“Arturo’s fourteen, Margaret,” Hank retorted. “There was a time when that made him a grown man. And even if he still had parents, and hadn’t been living on his own for the last two years, I’d say that the current circumstances have required that he grow up a lot faster than you might like.” He turned his glare back on the teenager. “All the same, that was fucking stupid.” Radcliffe’s mouth thinned and her eyes flashed at the profanity, but he drove on before she could say anything. “What have I taught you about contingency plans and letting the rest of the team know where the fuck you are? If you’d gotten caught, we wouldn’t even have known where to look.”
Arturo’s shit-eating grin slipped a little at that. The truth was, though he’d never admit it within earshot of Radcliffe, Hank was a little shaken at the thought that the kid had been by himself over on the Mexican side of the line. Particularly after the previous night. He knew that the bad guys, whoever they were, still had eyes on Lajitas. Which meant that if Arturo had gone the wrong way or been less sneaky, they might never have seen him again.
At least, not until his severed head had been tossed into the middle of town.
“But at least you made it back, and from your hyperactive bouncing, I have to assume you saw something.” Arturo’s grin widened again, then faded a little.
“Yeah.” He pointed. “There’s another group that just crossed the river, around the bend to the north. Three Humvees, a bunch of technicals, and three armored vehicles. One of them’s got a big gun. It looks like a tank, but it’s got wheels.”
“Fuck.” Once again, Radcliffe frowned at him, but fortunately, she didn’t say anything. She’d gone white as a sheet when Arturo had described the “tank with wheels.” “They’ve raided a Mexican Army depot, all right. Either that, or the Army’s joined them. That sounds like an ERC-90. What did the other two look like?’
“Weird-looking. They’ve got six wheels, a machinegun, and a kind of pointed front, like a beak with windows in it.”
“More Army vehicles. VCR-TTs. Great.” He looked at his watch. “Were they on their way already? How far out were they?”
Arturo shook his head. “They looked like they were waiting for something. They were just sitting there, and a bunch of them were standing around the tank. It looked like they were arguing about something.”
Radcliffe was watching Arturo with a furrow between her eyebrows. She’d never heard him report one of his observations before, and was probably wondering how he’d seen that much from over the river. Hank knew that the kid’s binoculars, w
hich LaForce had given him, were his most prized possession, and he’d used them extensively in his role as scout.
“We might have a little bit of breathing room, then.” He looked north. “Come on.” Turning, he started back down toward the trailers.
“What about the rest of the defenses?” Morgan asked.
“We’ll have to throw up some extra berms on the highway and get wire onto the major avenues we’ve already identified,” Hank replied over his shoulder. “Otherwise, we need to get gunfighters in fighting positions, and figure out how to take that ERC-90 out before it starts blowing houses up.”
Chapter 6
As he led the way down the hill, not quite running but still moving fast enough that he had to carefully watch where he put his feet so he didn’t bite it on the way down, Hank scanned what he could see of the highway to the northeast. He wasn’t sure if he could expect the package from Wallace in time to deal with the next incursion, but he sure hoped it got there in time. The handful of Molotov cocktails they had on hand might do the trick, but he’d rather have a lot more standoff from that ERC-90 and its 90mm cannon.
He keyed the radio as he went. “All Tango India and Mike elements, this is Actual. Stand to. Move to defensive positions. Get everyone up. One-One, One-Two, and Mike Actual meet me at the CP.”
He’d barely taken his hand off the PTT when his radio crackled with a new voice. “Tango India Six Four Actual, this is Gray Man.”
“Send it, Gray Man.” He thought he recognized the voice, and hoped that it was true.
“I just crossed the bridge over an arroyo, with your requested cargo of party favors, but I’m seeing some movement ahead; a pair of pickups just pulled up to the visitor center, and another vehicle just came out from town to join them. Are they yours?”
Hank slowed and frowned. “Can you describe the vehicle that came from town?” He had a hunch, and a nasty one, but he wanted to be sure.
“Dark green Subaru station wagon, from the looks of it,” was the reply. “And…they just turned and headed into town. Looks like they’re turning off onto a side road. Should I proceed?”
“Bring it in, Gray Man. We’ll deal with what you just saw.” I just hope we’ve got time.
“Actual, One-Two. A green Subaru? That sounds like…” Faris trailed off.
“I know who it sounds like. We’ll deal with him as the situation allows. Meet me at the command trailer.” He picked up the pace as the slope got shallower, closer to the RV park. Arturo was already running ahead, while Radcliffe, to his chagrin, followed somewhat more sedately.
LaForce was already in the trailer when he arrived, and Faris wasn’t far behind. Even as Hank mounted the steps, gravel crunched under tires, and a big Duramax with a canopy over the bed pulled into the park and rolled toward the trailer and its surrounding tents. Hank paused in the doorway, one hand on the jamb, and turned and waited.
The truck halted in a cloud of dust, and the driver’s door flew open. Gray Man was, in fact, Charles West, one of Tom Wallace’s small staff. Wallace had led the relief column of Triarii-escorted supply trucks from Utah into Phoenix, and then ramrodded the incursion into California that had resulted in the fight for the San Diego harbor. Hank had never heard what had led Wallace to shift his efforts to Texas, but he’d brought Hank and his diminished section along.
“Glad I made it before the fun started.” West was short, skinny, and bald; he didn’t look like much if you judged by outward appearance. Hank had gotten to know him a little, though, and knew better.
He slapped the side of the truck. “Got as many EFPs as I could fit in here. Hope it’s enough.”
“It’ll be better than nothing, which is about what we’ve got right now.” Hank stepped down and crossed to the truck, shaking West’s hand. Like the rest of the Triarii, West was in desert khakis, wearing a chest rig and pistol, his M5 still in the cab. “How many men were in those trucks you saw?”
“I’d guess half a dozen. I take it they’re not yours?”
Hank shook his head. “No, they’re not. And I suspect I know who went out to meet them. But right now, we need to get these explosives set. We’ve got an ERC-90 coming on.”
West whistled. “They’re not fucking around, are they?”
“No, they’re not.” Hank lifted the canopy’s rear door. The truck bed was stacked with coffee-can-sized cylinders, each wrapped in either det cord or shock tube. A glance at the end of one of them revealed an inverted cone of copper.
“Well, given the timing, I might have worse news. How big is this element you’re waiting on?” West asked.
“Sounds like a couple platoons, maybe as much as a company.” Hank lowered the back door. Better to drive the EFPs out and emplace them than to take the time to walk them down.
West grimaced. “Yeah, I’ve got worse news. There’s a big-ass column on the way from the southwest, heading straight for the border. Looks a lot like the ISIS convoy that took Mosul, back in ’14. Wallace is jumping through his ass to get reinforcements out this way, but the ‘crime wave’ has gotten so bad that it’s going to take some time.”
Hank walked around to the passenger seat and got in, unslinging his rifle and sliding it next to the seat as West got in behind the wheel. “How much time?”
“We’ve got to hold for at least twenty-four hours.” West slammed the door and put the truck in gear. His face was as grim as his voice.
“That’s a long time if we’re looking at Mosul numbers. The IA might have cut and run, but we’ve got a lot fewer people and guns than the IA did.” He remembered the fall of Mosul; he’d been a Corporal at the time. Never had made it in to fight ISIS, but he’d seen plenty of action since.
“I know.” West pulled the truck around in a tight U-turn and started rolling out of the RV park. “Where are we going?”
“Down to the highway, up to the first curve off to the west.” Hank pointed. “If they’re already on the road, that’s where we’ll make first contact.” He rubbed his chin, the bristles of his lengthening beard scratching under his fingers. “I’d better start spreading the word that we might have to E&E, go back into the hills.” He grimaced. “I can’t wait for that round of arguments.”
West glanced over at him as he turned onto the highway. “You’re still getting that much pushback from the locals?”
“Some of ‘em. There’s a history of ‘civil disobedience’ around here, which if you’re cynical—which I am—might just be linked to the amount of smuggling that’s crossed the border here.”
West nodded. “Gotcha.” He floored it as they got on the hardball, racing up the highway toward the anticipated contact point.
Miguel Hernandez and Ian O’Malley were already hard at work with a pair of Bobcats, shoving growing berms up onto the pavement and packing them down as best they could. They wouldn’t be quite as effective as concrete, but they were still big enough that any armored vehicle without tracks couldn’t just drive over them. And the ditches they were digging to either side, angled toward the cliffs on the north and the river on the south, would further canalize the enemy into a kill zone.
They just didn’t have enough firepower to make full use of the firesack, at least not against armor. At least, they hadn’t before West had arrived.
Hank kicked the door open as West brought the truck to a halt just short of where the Bobcats were piling up the dirt and rocks. A couple of Bob Morgan’s hands, along with another knot of Lajitas residents, were setting in a couple spools of barbed wire.
“I’m kinda surprised this is only happening now,” West commented as he got out and walked around to the back. “Or did the local pillars of the community object that strongly to fortifying their little resort town?”
“Yep.” Hank didn’t want to get into it. The truth was, Grant and the militia were motivated and willing, and the majority of Lajitas’ residents had been mostly cooperative, helping to set in concealed strongpoints on the hills and even in a few of the houses. The netwo
rk of reporting eyes was extensive and responsive. But even those who hadn’t flat out denied that there was a threat hadn’t thought that openly fortifying the town had been a good idea. Too many of them were still worried about either Federal scrutiny or the cartels taking too much interest in their open resistance.
The night before had altered that calculus, and Hank was no longer playing along.
Hank waved at a couple of the militia who were helping out to come join them. Anthony Michaels and Loren Ott came over, Ott having to run back and grab his rifle when he noticed that Michaels had his slung across his back.
West and Hank started pulling the coffee-can IEDs out of the back of the truck. “Either of you remember any of the explosives classes we taught?” Hank hefted the Explosively Formed Penetrator in his hand as he looked back and forth between the young men.
“A little.” Michaels had been going to college in Austin, of all places, before the power had gone out. He’d been visiting with his family when things had gone pear-shaped, and had stayed. The long-haired, slightly effeminate young man had become born-again hard over the last few months, and was one of Grant’s top performers. His hair was still long, and the less said about his wispy beard the better, but his skinny softness had been traded for a lean ranginess, and there was a fire in his eye that hadn’t been there before. “We’ve got to aim those things, don’t we?”
Hank nodded. “Just like a claymore.” They didn’t have any of those, either, but the Triarii had taught how to make field expedients with cans, ANFO, and ball bearings, screws, or whatever other fragmentation they could find. “The tricky part is more timing than anything else; we’ve got to get these set in, the initiation systems primed, and long enough control wires connected and laid in so that we’ve got some standoff when we set them off.”
He handed Michaels the first EFP. “We’ve got at least three armored vehicles to worry about, and we don’t know what order they’re going to be in yet. So, while we’ve got a limited number of these little party favors, we’re going to have to set most of them in, just so we’ve got our bases covered. One of the vehicles is an ERC-90 armored car with a 90mm cannon, so I think you can figure out which one’s our priority, and why we want to take it out as fast as possible.”