by Peter Nealen
Unless that was it, right there.
If it had been, he was too late. He settled in and went back to watching and trying to keep his mind from wandering down dark and dangerous paths.
***
Something was happening. The sudden burst of activity around the front of the hotel was ample evidence for that. Hank settled in behind his scope, hoping that maybe they’d get their opportunity. Still, he hadn’t seen more than a couple of Vengador vehicles the entire day.
It was about mid-afternoon. If this turned into their hit, exfil was going to be… interesting.
One of the big, black Escalades had been pulled up to the front, flanked by up-gunned Cybertrucks. There were Soldados all over the place, openly armed. The fact that the Policia Militar station was barely four hundred yards away, and these guys still had no qualms about moving around like they owned the place told Hank all he needed to know about where the cops in Cuidad Camargo stood. They were either too scared or too crooked to do anything against the Soldados, the Vengadores, or the Chinese.
Lovell hissed at him. “Head’s up. We’ve got company. Green and tan gun trucks, coming from the south.”
Jackpot. Even if this was nothing more than a shopping trip going out, they might just have their spark.
He settled in a little more solidly behind the rifle, scanning the Soldados outside the hotel through the scope. As he watched the doors, he saw them open, held wide by a pair of Soldado gunmen. Two men walked out toward the Escalade. One was dressed in jeans and a black hoodie. The other was wearing embroidered black jeans, a black silk shirt, black jacket, and mirrored sunglasses, his black hair combed impeccably to one side.
Holy shit. Is that… Muñoz?
Jose Ravela Muñoz had been on his section’s target deck for almost a year already. The ostensible leader of the Soldados de Aztlan, he was also suspected to be the former Los Hijos de la Serpiente cartel shot-caller known as La Sonrisa. There weren’t many pictures of La Sonrisa around, and most of them were poor-quality, but Muñoz had appeared in Los Angeles, organizing the first chapters of the SdA and launching their first attacks on the LAPD and the FBI, barely two months after La Sonrisa’s disappearance. The timing had been a little bit too coincidental. Rumor had it that he’d disappeared just ahead of the sicarios sent by his former compadres after a failed power play within the cartel, which itself had split off from the Tijuana cartel just over two years earlier.
It was hard to see detail, but the longer he looked, the more certain he became. He’d never seen Muñoz in the flesh, but the photos and video fit the man he was watching, seemingly close enough to touch at four hundred yards through the eight-power scope.
But with the Vengadores getting closer, he was running out of time to make the decision. He came off the scope to confirm their position and how fast they were closing.
That almost blew the whole thing. The Vengadores’ trucks were already right in front of the hide. They’d be passing the hotel itself in another minute.
Dropping back to the scope, he slipped his finger inside the trigger guard, let his breath out as he found a target, and squeezed.
He got five shots off as fast as the trigger could reset, before the green-and-tan Vengador gun truck eclipsed his view. But he’d seen Muñoz go down after the second shot.
Then all hell broke loose on Highway 45.
The Soldados had only seen several of theirs go down, as gunshots had torn through Muñoz and at least two others. And their hostile allies, the Vengadores en los Sombres, were driving by right then. So, they returned fire.
Hank watched, as low to the crest of the berm as he could get, as the Soldados shot at the Vengadores, long ripping bursts and semi-auto fire as fast as triggers could be pulled. He saw one Vengador gunner go down before they’d figured out what was happening. The lead vehicle was perforated by a pair of long bursts from the Cybertruck-mounted machineguns. The M60 and MG34 made quick work of the gun truck—apparently, it hadn’t been as well-armored as it looked.
Then the Vengadores started shooting back.
The second truck back mounted an M2 .50 caliber machinegun, that was probably older than the gunner. And while it wasn’t affixed properly to the turret—the gunner was free-gunning it—from a hundred yards away, it hardly mattered.
The big .50 thundered and spat flame as it rocked on its pintle. The big bullets struck with catastrophic flashes and explosions of fragmentation and debris, blasting through metal and meat with equal ease at that range. The impacts tracked across the front of the hotel as recoil drove the muzzle skyward, and a good portion of the façade was blasted to powder in a storm of destruction.
The Cybertrucks rocked and shuddered under the pounding, as the third Vengador truck opened fire as well. More shooters were starting to pop out of the hotel, though, and a burst of fire from an upper-floor window felled the rear gunner. More gun trucks came roaring out from behind the hotel, and then the surviving Vengadores were breaking contact and running for it, roaring down the highway toward the north, leaving their dead in the street behind them.
Hank slid down the back side of the berm, staying on his belly as he turned toward where they’d left the truck. It was time to go.
Chapter 29
It took half an hour of crawling to cover the four hundred fifty yards to the truck. Hank was listening for any sign that their plan had worked, but Cuidad Camargo was strangely quiet in the aftermath of the ferocious firefight at the entrance to the Hotel Santa Fe.
The four of them reached the truck and clambered in. Hank, however, paused first, then ducked underneath and looked at the undercarriage. A further inspection under the driver’s side dash was followed by a pull of the hood latch. He scrutinized the engine compartment carefully before equally carefully lowering the hood and making sure it was solidly shut. Then he shucked out of his chest rig and divested himself of the camouflage before peeling off his khaki shirt and pulling on a civilian plaid.
Lovell was frowning at him when he slid behind the wheel. “You don’t think they found it? We had eyes on this area all day.”
“If those guards were crooked enough to let us through, they’re crooked enough to let somebody else in and give them a rough idea of where we went and what we were driving.” He started the vehicle, trying not to hold his breath, but it didn’t explode. “And if they knew we were watching, they’d know how to get in and out without being seen. These bastards have been getting better and better at planting car bombs. You’ll forgive me for not wanting to take the chance.” He started them trundling out of the draw and turned onto the unimproved road, heading back toward the gate. “Everybody try to look casual and be ready to kill everybody if this goes south.”
***
Somewhat to his surprise, things didn’t go south at the gate. The guards waved them through, just like they had before, as if nothing was happening.
Maybe they actually stay bought.
The quiet as they drove back toward the farm was downright eerie. But as they threaded their way through the south part of the city, Hank couldn’t help but notice that the tension had definitely ratcheted up a notch.
Fewer people were out on the streets. In the little more than half an hour since the first shot had been fired, word must have spread fast. Even as they drove past Parroquia San José, Hank could have sworn he saw a man hastily pull his van over to the side of the street in front of a tiny, whitewashed house with metal bars over the windows, hurry through the door, and lock it behind him.
By the time they left the city proper, the atmosphere felt like a thunderstorm was coming.
Hank sincerely hoped that it was.
***
“You’re never going to believe this. But I think we just schwacked Muñoz.”
The abandoned farmhouse went dead silent as every eye there turned to stare at Hank where he stood just inside the doorway.
“You’re fucking with me.” Torres stood up and searched his face. His eyebrows climbed to
ward his hairline. “You’re not fucking with me. Holy shit.”
“I wish I’d seen it, but I was looking the wrong damned way, watching the fucking Vengadores.” Lovell grabbed a bottle of water and slammed it down. It was still winter, but they hadn’t been able to drink most of the day. Even that much movement might have given their position away. That had not been the most auspicious hiding place. “Now Hank—who isn’t exactly what I’d call a ladies’ man at the best of times—is going to be wasting all that ‘I assassinated the head of a cartel/revolutionary movement’ cred, when I could use it to lay all kinds of strange.”
“Even Texan college coeds tend to be bleeding-heart types who don’t actually get all weak in the knees at the idea of killing people, Amos,” LaForce pointed out. “I think you’ve burned a couple too many brain cells.”
Lovell wagged a finger at him. “And Etienne once again demonstrates that his fumbling attempts at dealing with the opposite sex have not taught him anything.” He grinned as LaForce glowered at him. “Trust me, buddy, the bleeding-heart liberals are the ones who will totally be all over a killer by the end of the night. They’ll make the bleeding-heart noises at the start, but their pulses start pounding as soon as they realize that you’ve actually scragged people.” His grin got wider. “Works every time.”
LaForce just shook his head in a combination of amusement and disgust. Hank shook his head, too, but for different reasons. Lovell and LaForce had always gotten on like oil and water. Both men were ultimately professional enough that it never quite bled over into ops, but they didn’t particularly like each other—though Lovell would protest otherwise, just to tweak LaForce—and bickered constantly. It had gotten old a long time ago.
“So, what do we do now?” If Torres had picked up on the tension between the two men, he was trying to get past it, and Hank was thankful for it.
“From the sounds of it, things haven’t gone completely to hell yet.” Hank paused and listened, but if the shooting had started in Camargo, it was all inside and too muffled to hear from outside the city. “My guess is that the Soldados are still too shell-shocked. Muñoz wasn’t all that big on initiative; he was going to rule ‘Aztlan’ with an iron fist, and he acted like one of the old-school capos as much as he could. So, it’s going to take a little time for his lieutenants to sort themselves out.”
“Do we keep pushing?” Torres didn’t sound all that averse to the idea.
“Maybe.” Hank thought about it. “Ultimately, our goal here is to disrupt the cross-border op, and if we take the Chinese off the board, that should do it. Putting the Soldados and the Vengadores at each other’s throats could give us the opening we need to go after them.” He thought, scratching his chin. His beard was getting longer.
“Split into two- and three-man elements, and start moving into position near the industrial park.” He looked up at Spencer. “Lovell and Two-Bravo can be our backup plan.” Turning his attention to Lovell, who had dropped the grin and was now collected and professional again, he pointed to a mark on the map. “This is that Vengador hangout that Rangel found for us; that little cantina they took over. I think a drive-by should do it. Just be careful not to spray too much fire around and hit any locals.”
Lovell nodded. “What’s the go/no-go criteria?”
“If they’re still lying low by mid-afternoon.” Hank wondered briefly if he was pushing things a little fast, but they weren’t in Camargo to take their time. The longer they operated in Mexico, the more likely things were going to go pear-shaped in a big way. He was under no illusions that the Mexican authorities were going to react well to having sixty gringos running around with guns and gear, killing narcos. Sure, they were narcos, but they owned half the Mexican government as it was.
He checked his watch. “I’d love to push this now, but I’m smoked. We’ll go down for a few hours, then we’ll start getting into position just before sunrise.” He grinned mirthlessly. “That should give the Soldados enough time to find their balls.”
***
He came to slowly, the gentle shaking dragging him up from a dark miasma of nightmares. It was almost a relief.
“What time is it?” He sat up.
“Just before 0500.” LaForce was squatting down next to him, already dressed and fully geared up. “Things have gotten interesting.”
“Define ‘interesting.’” Hank found his boots and started to pull them on.
“Somebody hit the cantina that was Lovell’s target about two hours ago.” There might have been a faint smirk behind LaForce’s thick, black handlebar. “He’s still bitching about it.”
“I’m sure he is. Any idea who the hitters were?”
“Looks like SdA.” But the uncertainty in LaForce’s voice made Hank pause and look up at him, frowning.
“You said, ‘looks like,’ as if you’re not entirely sure.”
LaForce grimaced. “None of the rest of the cells that we’ve been observing have acted like they were ready for it. Now, maybe they’re just still uncoordinated after we took Muñoz down. Or maybe…”
“Maybe we’re not the only ones trying to spark a war between them and the Vengadores.” Hank thought back to the guy with the skull tattoos and the two black SUVs.
That gave him some pause. He knew nothing about the death’s heads, whoever they were, but something about them gave him the creeps. He wondered if they weren’t unleashing something far, far worse on the locals if they took the Vengadores and Soldados out of play.
But he shook his head and heaved himself to his feet. That was out of his hands. Can’t save everyone. Sixty Triarii weren’t going to solve the Mexican cartel problem. That had never been the mission. Stop the forcible raids on the West Texas oil fields. That was the mission. He couldn’t afford to worry about the second and third order effects in Mexico. His priority was the people north of the border.
It seemed cold, but the equations of war always are. Especially with severely limited manpower and support.
“Let’s go. I want to be in position to grab our primary targets as soon as things really go hot.”
***
As they slow-rolled toward the Oxxo gas station and convenience store, the situation suddenly got more complicated.
“Oh, shit.” Fernandez was driving. They’d had one of Rangel’s friends, an older teenager who could pass for a grown man with his mustache and thin, pointed goatee, buy a couple more vehicles, a van and an ancient, creaky F100. Hank, Fernandez, and Moffit were in the F100. It wasn’t ideal, but it provided them with a bit more concealment than if they’d tried to sneak around on foot with chest rigs, helmets, and rifles.
But it wouldn’t be enough to get them to the gate if they got stopped by the pair of blue trucks parked on the street between them and the industrial park—blue trucks with mounted machineguns and Policia stenciled on their sides.
“Did the cops decide to move on the Chinese?” Moffit was in the back, under the bed topper that had come with the truck. The back window of the cab had been knocked out at some point, so it was as if the cab simply extended back into the bed.
But Hank was watching the Policia with a frown. “Take us around front—preferably without it looking like we’re trying to avoid the Policia.” He watched the two police gun trucks as Fernandez took a hard right turn, angling to swing around the block toward the 45.
Something wasn’t right here. He’d need to see more, but something told him that those cops weren’t there to arrest the Chinese. All their attention had been directed toward the outside of the perimeter. Now, they would probably have to act that way even if there was another team inside, securing the offenders and gathering evidence. But he’d seen a lot of perimeters around such scenes, and while there were always a few who had the discipline to stay focused on the exterior perimeter and the task of keeping unauthorized personnel out, somebody was always looking over his shoulder and chatting with his buddies about what was going on inside. And none of the Policia Militar shooters on those t
wo trucks had been doing that. They’d been watching the perimeter and utterly ignoring the buildings behind them.
Fernandez pulled around the block and passed the Oxxo gas station to the north, turning south on the 45. There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the highway, and the reason for that became clear soon enough.
Four more Policia Militar trucks were set up on the highway. They weren’t blocking both of the southbound lanes, but they were definitely on watch.
These cops weren’t watching the industrial park behind them, either.
“Keep going. Nice and casual. We’re just tourists.” The weapons and gear at their feet would put the lie to that if anyone saw them, but he hoped that they could slip past in the general background noise.
Fernandez kept driving in the left-hand lane, falling in behind a semi that looked like it had been up-armored almost to the same extent that a lot of American semis had been in the aftermath of the IED strikes that had all but crippled interstate commerce after the power had gone down. Apparently, Mexico wasn’t doing much better these days.
Sitting behind the semi, they kept driving past. That was when Hank noticed that the cops in the outer vehicles were watching the traffic very carefully.
He glanced over just in time to lock eyes with one of the Mexican cops, who raised a radio to his lips as they passed.
Shit. We’re made.
He kept his face composed as he turned back forward. “Keep rolling but get ready. We might have a fight coming up.”
The semi wasn’t speeding up or slowing down, and the gun trucks on the side of the highway didn’t move. Hank didn’t let that lull him into a false sense of security. That cop had been talking to somebody on the radio.
Still, he looked past the Policia vehicles and through the gate into the industrial park. None of the tanker trucks were visible. Nor were any of the cartel gun trucks. It looked like the place had been sanitized before the Policia showed up.