High Desert Vengeance (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 5)

by Peter Nealen

  Hell, it’s not even like this is the first technically illegal offensive mission I’ve been on, not even counting Transnistria.

  Maybe it was because this outfit had been strictly professional so far. Maybe it was simply the worry nagging at the back of his mind that it wasn’t being thoroughly thought-out, but was simply a revenge mission. He didn’t have a lot of objections to revenge missions, but if Gomez went off the reservation…

  But he thought back to how they’d had to adapt in Transnistria, and forced his doubts to the back of his mind. These guys were pros in every sense of the word, and that included dealing with a fluid and unpredictable situation as it developed. And having Gomez’ sister as an enemy hostage certainly lent a certain urgency to the job.

  So, he trudged along the tracks as the night descended on the desert, his med bag digging into his shoulders and the OBR in his hands dragging his arms down a little, following a dozen yards behind Jenkins.

  The Ascensiòn Mountains loomed ahead, black against the indigo sky. He looked up at them as they continued to follow the tracks, scanning for headlights or any other indication that their adversaries might have come north again, following up on the last bunch’s disappearance. The Espino-Gallos had to know that something was up by then; they’d already lost too many sicarios. But as he looked at those mountains, he knew that there were a lot of places to hide in there. He really wasn’t sure how much luck they were going to have, following tire tracks. Sure, they were pretty obvious here, but once they got south of the border they could disappear like a will-o-the-wisp.

  Up front, far enough ahead that he looked like a toy soldier to Javakhishvili, even in the green glow of his old NVGs, Flanagan stopped, lifting a hand to signal a halt, and sank to a knee. The rest of the Blackhearts started to slowly converge on his position; he hadn’t signaled to “freeze.”

  It took a few minutes for Javakhishvili to join the growing, compact circle of shooters, down on a knee in the brush, rifles pointed outward. He found a spot, tapped Brannigan, who was in the center of the circle, on the shoulder, and then lowered himself to the ground, watching his sector keenly. It was dead still, nothing but rolling desert and dark sagebrush against the slightly lighter background of the sandy soil.

  “Border’s right up ahead, about three hundred meters,” Brannigan whispered. “There’s supposed to be a fence, but if those punks got through with three trucks, I think we can rest assured that they broke through it. There’s a road that the Border Patrol is supposed to patrol, too. That could be a problem; we don’t know their patrol pattern. More importantly, that road’s supposedly swept for tracks regularly; it’s a track trap to see where the illegals and the traffickers are coming across. Somebody’s probably going to see where we crossed.”

  “Maybe,” Santelli said. “But I don’t see any vehicles down there, the tracks lead down there, and it’s been hours. I think if the Border Patrol was going to respond to this situation, they already would have, and there’d be armed BORTAC guys all over the place.”

  “You think that the Border Patrol got compromised, too?” Bianco asked quietly.

  “Doubtful,” Brannigan replied, “but there are always ways to keep patrols away from your AO. For all we know, they sprang an ambush somewhere else, just to cover for this crossing.”

  “Or the road’s laced with IEDs,” Wade said grimly. “These guys have been learning for a while.”

  “We won’t know until we get there,” Brannigan said. “Spread out, move carefully, watch your footing, and be ready to drop flat as soon as you see headlights. Move out.”

  Without speaking or looking back, Flanagan flowed to his feet and started down the shallow slope leading to the border. One by one, the rest followed.

  It was only three hundred meters, but as carefully as they were moving, it took almost an hour to get there. Once again, they closed in on Flanagan’s position, as the man took a knee and waited.

  Even under night vision, it was clear what had happened. The fence hadn’t been broken through; it had been cut, and the sections pulled aside, the poles holding it up either torn out of the ground or cut off at ground level. There was a gap in the fence easily two vehicles wide.

  The road, which was as dusty as Brannigan had said, was churned and trampled by a combination of vehicle and human tracks. And even in the dark, it was apparent that there were a lot more than could be accounted for by just the three vehicles that had attacked the ranch.

  “This is a regular crossing point,” Curtis whispered. “And if the Border Patrol knows about it…”

  “Note where it is,” Brannigan said. “We’ll send an anonymous tip later. Then it’s in their hands.” He spat. “Can’t solve every problem.”

  With Flanagan in the lead, they got to their feet and walked across the road and into Mexico.

  Chapter 14

  Rather as Javakhishvili had suspected would happen, the tire tracks got lost pretty quickly once they were in Chihuahua proper. The ground got rockier, and the tracks faded away. But they were pointing in a pretty straight line, so Flanagan found a point on the Ascensiòn Mountains that roughly correlated with that line, and followed it.

  They hadn’t gotten half a mile when they saw the light.

  Flanagan stopped first, taking a knee and going still. Brannigan quickly signaled to the rest to do the same, getting low and going motionless, listening and watching.

  Flanagan slowly lifted his rifle, putting his eye to the scope. Looking through glass with NVGs wasn’t easy, but he’d had enough practice that he could get a somewhat coherent picture of what he was looking at.

  There was a small adobe at the base of the hillside ahead of them, with a single light burning in the window. Through the green glow of the night vision goggle, it was impossible to tell if it was electric or a lantern, but the fact was, there was a house showing a light not even a mile from the border, and the tracks were leading straight toward it.

  He continued scanning, looking for guards, dogs, or vehicles. There was a shape back in the scattered junipers that might be a truck. He didn’t see any dogs, but he was a quarter mile away, looking through glass.

  A boot crunched faintly on the shingle behind him. Brannigan eased his big frame down onto a knee next to him. “What have we got?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  “Single house with a light on,” Flanagan answered. “No movement.”

  “It is almost 0300,” Brannigan murmured. “I’d be surprised if there was much.”

  “After what just happened up north?” Flanagan asked, without taking his eyes away from the house. “I’d think they’d be a bit more alert. And that light is on inside. Which means somebody’s up.”

  Brannigan watched the glimmer of light in the distance for a long moment, thinking. “We’ll move up. Let’s see if we can’t get on some high ground to get a closer look.”

  Flanagan peered at the dark bulk of the hills behind the house, then pointed. “I’ll start veering off from here then,” he whispered. “We’ll head up about a half mile to the west.”

  Brannigan just nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  Flanagan got to his feet and led out, quickly moving away from the tracks they had been following and circling around the house.

  The light didn’t shed any illumination that far away, being little more than a faint point that almost disappeared if he looked directly at it. But he still intended to keep a healthy distance from it. He’d been on more than one patrol in the Middle East and Central Asia that had been compromised, or should have been, when a local dog started barking. And he had little doubt that the cartels would keep dogs, and particularly vicious ones, as guards.

  No dogs barked as he continued out into the desert, making for the darkened hills in the distance, growing taller and darker as they got closer. Other desert night noises could be heard, including coyotes yipping and howling in the distance, but if there was a dog at the house, it didn’t even react to the coyotes.

&nb
sp; He still kept his distance.

  Behind him, the rest of the Blackhearts were spread out in a ragged line, almost an echelon, angled back toward the tracks. And as he turned to glance behind him, keeping track of the rest of the team even as he led the way toward the hills, Flanagan saw headlights, coming from the north.

  He immediately froze and lowered himself to the ground. He’d gotten about three hundred yards from the tracks, but that meant that Hancock, who was taking up the rear, was only a few dozen yards from those same tracks. And unless Flanagan missed his guess, those headlights were following the same tire tracks that they had been backtracking.

  Behind him, Brannigan simply saw his pointman get down, and followed suit. There weren’t a lot of signals necessary; the rest of the Blackhearts were soon making themselves as one with the dirt as possible. The reason why became evident pretty quickly, as the vehicle trundled up the tracks, the headlights bobbing in the dark and sweeping overhead as the driver swerved to avoid rocks.

  Brannigan’s Blackhearts stayed low and still as the SUV rocked past, heading for the house at the base of the hills.

  ***

  Gomez was lying flat on his belly, barely twenty yards from the tracks when the car went by. It looked black in the dark, despite the splash-back from the headlights, but while the driver was being sloppy, it was handling the soft ground of the desert floor well enough.

  He squinted as it went by. He couldn’t see the driver, and he was being careful not to quite look directly at it, as much out of concern about the headlights possibly reflecting off his NVGs as the suspicion that staring directly at his quarry might spook it. He’d seen it happen before. He could never explain it, but humans and animals sometimes seemed to have some kind of sixth sense for when they’re being watched.

  But there was something familiar about that vehicle. He knew that there were a lot of Toyota FJ Cruisers around, but somehow, he felt like he’d seen this one before. He shrugged it off. Until he saw the driver, he wouldn’t know. But there was a hard, vicious knot starting to form in his guts as he watched the red lights receding toward the house. His suspicions couldn’t be true. But if they were…

  Carefully, moving slowly while staying as flat as he could, he got his pack off and dragged it around in front of him. Digging inside, he found the spotting scope and pulled it out, setting it on top of the pack and steadying it as he put his eye to the lens and looked for the house. It was only about three hundred meters away, so he should be able to see fairly clearly with the scope.

  The FJ Cruiser stopped, the taillights brightening as the driver braked, the headlights illuminating the front of the house. It was an old adobe; it didn’t look in much better shape than the abandoned ruin they’d used as a safehouse south of Lordsburg. The door was intact, though, and it swung open as the vehicle stopped. A man in dark jeans with no shirt, carrying what might have been an AK in one hand, opened the door and stood in the doorway.

  The driver left the lights on, presumably leaving the vehicle’s engine running, as he opened the door and got out. He walked around the front of the hood toward the man in the doorway, and Gomez got a good look at him.

  That uncomfortable feeling in his guts turned to an icy fist grabbing him by the heart. He had recognized that FJ Cruiser. Because, as much as he hadn’t wanted to believe it, he’d known exactly who was driving it.

  He watched as Antonio Gutierrez, his second cousin, stood in the headlights and talked to the man in the doorway, even as his fingers seemed to twitch toward his OBR as if of their own accord.

  ***

  The Blackhearts watched, motionless, as the brief meeting concluded. The two men in the doorway spoke briefly, and then the man with no shirt motioned Antonio inside. Gutierrez shook his head, but the weapon lifted ever so slightly, and it appeared that the invitation was repeated, with a bit more emphasis. Gutierrez nodded reluctantly, went back and shut off the FJ Cruiser, and then disappeared inside.

  As darkness once again settled over the house, Gomez started looking for Brannigan. But the rest were already moving again, following Flanagan toward an overlook above the house.

  Gomez stepped it out, leaving his position in the formation as he tried to close with Brannigan. The Colonel needed to know about this.

  He needed to know that they had a target, and that Gomez had first rights to kill him.

  ***

  They had gotten about another two hundred yards when Brannigan looked back to see Gomez closing in on him. He frowned. Something was up; Gomez wouldn’t have broken formation and risked dropping security otherwise. He turned back forward, waiting for Flanagan to glance back, and when the other man did, he signaled a halt. Flanagan returned the signal, and sank to a knee amidst the sagebrush.

  Brannigan moved to Flanagan, and started setting up their little security circle. He wasn’t going to stop while the team was all spread out and have a conversation. They were in hostile territory, and they couldn’t afford to get lazy. Even if the desert was wide open, Brannigan had seen too much go wrong because of complacency.

  Slowly, the Blackhearts consolidated again, forming a tight perimeter, with Gomez and Brannigan in the center. Once Hancock had joined them, counted heads, and given Brannigan’s shoulder a squeeze with a whispered, “Last man,” Brannigan turned to Gomez. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I know who was driving that SUV,” Gomez said, his voice sounding a little thick.

  “And?” Brannigan prompted, when Gomez didn’t immediately continue the sentence.

  “And it’s my cousin,” Gomez said, his voice sounding half-strangled. Even in the dark, Brannigan could see him almost shaking with rage. “My own piece-of-shit cousin, my dad’s nephew’s kid, who never lacked for a damned thing in his life, sold out to these pendejos.”

  “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,” Brannigan said, mainly to get the younger man to calm down a little. “We don’t know the full story yet. You think he knows anything?”

  “He’s a spoiled brat who thinks he’s smart,” Gomez replied. “Of course he knows things. He’ll have weaseled stuff out just so that he could look big, look like an insider.”

  Brannigan peered toward the house, thinking. This opened up new possibilities. He fully understood Gomez’ rage; he knew he’d feel the same way in the other man’s position. The sense of betrayal, especially after the murder of his parents, had to be almost unbearable. But he had to think like a commander at the moment, and so he was detached, considering the possibilities and the opportunity this might present.

  “You know where he lives?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Gomez replied. “He’s got a place in Las Cruces. Only comes out for holidays and when he wants money.”

  Brannigan thought about it, his eyes narrowing. “Las Cruces is a ways away from here, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s about two hours east of Lordsburg,” Gomez replied. “Almost due north of El Paso.”

  “So, he’s some distance out of his way, and in the middle of the night,” Brannigan mused.

  Gomez was still fuming. “That little maricòn,” he whispered. “I always knew he was dirty, somehow. He’s never been poor, even when he wasn’t working. Now I know why.”

  Brannigan looked at the younger man. The old PVS-14s didn’t provide a lot of detail, especially not up close, but he could see that Gomez was staring back toward the house and the Toyota SUV parked out front. He frowned behind his NVGs. This was going to have to be handled delicately. This wasn’t a job, per se. It was a mission taken on purely for Gomez’ sake, and because every man crouched there in the desert thought it was the right thing. They weren’t getting paid. They weren’t under orders. And that made managing Gomez’ rage that much dicier.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked. He recognized that it was a dangerous question. He was the team’s leader and commander. As far as the team went, he made the final decisions. That had been accepted since they’d started off with the Khadarkh mission. B
ut this situation being what it was…

  “I want to kill the little fuck,” Gomez muttered.

  “Except that’s not going to get us any closer to finding your sister,” Brannigan whispered. The rest of the Blackhearts were motionless around them, clearly listening but staying out of it, their eyes and their rifles pointed outboard.

  “We need information,” he said, “and we need to gather as much of it as possible without tipping our hand that we’re coming after these bastards. Your cousin might be the key to getting it, but we’re going to have to take him alive for that to happen.”

  Gomez didn’t say anything at first, but just stared toward that house. He didn’t move a muscle; there was no fidgeting with Gomez. Even in his fury, he was still and quiet.

  “We can take the house,” he said, but Brannigan shook his head.

  “They don’t know we’re across the border yet,” he said. “That will tip our hand for sure. They might kill the hostages if they know somebody’s coming after them.”

  “They have to know that we already killed everybody at my family’s ranch,” Gomez protested.

  “And that’s all they know for now,” Brannigan said. “It’s bad enough, I know. I’d have preferred to gather more intel before we moved, but what’s done is done. Let ‘em think that we just wanted the ranch. Give ‘em some time to let their guard down. They obviously think they’re King Shit around here. Let’s not rattle their cage too much, too early. There are ten of us. We need to know exactly where to strike and when. Otherwise, this is all over with all of us and the hostages dead. Use your head.”

  Gomez clearly didn’t like it, but he held his peace. Finally, he nodded. “We’ll take him, then.”

  Brannigan nodded. “Joe, mark where that house is. I think we’ll be coming back to it.” He looked around. “Let’s get some distance. I want to be back over the border before the sun comes up.”

  ***

  Brannigan had to admit that it bothered him, slogging back over the border into New Mexico as the sunrise began to lighten the eastern sky. It felt almost like capitulation, going that deep into enemy territory only to turn back. And he was sure that some of the Blackhearts, especially the more aggressive ones, like Wade, would feel the same. But he thought he saw an opportunity, knowing that Gomez’ cousin was working with the Espino-Gallo gang. If they could grab him, he had little doubt, just from Gomez’ words, that they could get the kid to talk. It didn’t sound like Gomez had much regard for the guy, and would probably be able to intimidate him, especially as fueled by righteous rage as he was.