Yeager's Law

by Scott Bell

  CHAPTER 24

  McAllen International Airport

  McAllen, Texas

  “What are you saying?” Victor asked. “We have ’til Wednesday morning?”

  “Yeah.” Yeager took a deep breath and blew it out, staring at the wall without seeing it. “It’s like this whole thing has been one big clusterfuck, all across the country. And now headed for Mexico.”

  “Man, you don’t got no luck at all.” Victor opened a drawer, dug out his laptop, and fired it up. “Except in choice of best friends, homes.”

  Victor spun the screen to show Yeager some aerial views of a ranch house surrounded by acres of scrub trees and brown fields.

  “What’s this?” Yeager asked.

  “This, my ugly and unhappy friend,” Victor said, tilting his chair back, “is the pictures I took of the place where they got your truck. It’s a ranch north of Monterrey. I flew over early this morning, stuck my camera out the window, and did some recon.”

  “Holy shit, Por Que. Did they see you?”

  Victor shrugged. “Is not like I hovered around, you know, sayin’, Look at me, I’m planning to raid your place and steal back my friend’s truck. No, I took one slow trip by, snapped some pictures, and kept on.”

  Yeager studied the pictures, flicking through the images. The place looked as though it might have been a horse ranch at one time. The enormous house, surrounded by a rail fence, had several cross-fenced paddocks and corrals around the property. A long, narrow structure, stables maybe, stood about a Hail Mary pass away from the main house. Opposite the stables, maybe a hundred yards to the east, loomed another square barn-like building. In the yard in front of that building, parked nose to the north, sat a red Peterbilt with a plain trailer attached. Yeager’s rig. He’d know it anywhere.

  Two other buildings, narrow little add-ons to the barn, butted up against the bigger building at polar opposites, north and south. And behind the big barn lay a small airstrip.

  “Yeah, no way is this Steven Buchanan’s setup,” Yeager said. “I wonder what happened to him. Think we could land a plane on this strip?”

  “We could land, but it wouldn’t be like, you know, a secret infiltration. See this guy?” Victor pointed at a tiny figure between the main house and the barn, a man with the unmistakable silhouette of an assault rifle slung over one shoulder. “A guard. Where there’s one, there’s a bunch.”

  “Like cockroaches. So we need to get in quiet, slip through the guards, start up a diesel engine, and drive the truck away without being noticed.”

  “Easy, dude,” Victor said with a toothy grin. “We Marines, remember?”

  “You think they have motion sensors?”

  “I would, I had their kind of money. IR cameras, too.”

  Yeager continuing flicking through images on the screen, a sense of lost time making his throat tighten. Law Number Five: Hurry carefully. He found it hard to concentrate when he kept picturing Charlie being held captive by a bunch of thugs. He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. He paused on an image of another ranch, not the target place. “What’s this?”

  “Is a cheep ranch.”

  Yeager blinked. “A cheap ranch?”

  “Sí. A cheep ranch. With cheep. See?” He pointed at the screen. “There’s the cheep herder leading the cheep from the pen to the fields.”

  “A sheep ranch?”

  “Is what I said. I started clicking pictures too soon, thinking that was the place, but no. It’s a cheep ranch about a klick north of the target.”

  A sheep ranch.

  “Thoughts?” Yeager asked.

  Victor shrugged. “I’m just the chopper driver, man. You the ninja stealth warrior. I say drop a coupla cluster bombs and blow the fuckin’ refried beans outta the place.”

  “You got cluster bombs?”

  “Sadly, no.” Victor frowned then brightened. “Hand grenades, we got.”

  “How in the world did you get…? Never mind. Forget I asked. What else?”

  “Sidearms of all kinds. A couple of .45s for you, 9-mils for me. M4s, MP5SDs, a bolt-action Winchester with scope, night-vision goggles, vests, miscellaneous shit like that. Suppressors for the MP5SDs, frangible 9-mil rounds. We also have some C4 and det cord. Been savin’ that for an especial occasion, you know?” Victor clamped his hands behind his head. “And don’t forget my secret weapon. I got a grade-A psychopath with a plane and wing-mounted .50-cal.”

  “Well.” Yeager scratched behind his ear. “The fuck we worried about, then?”

  “Is what I’m sayin’.”

  Abandoned Convenience Store

  East of Austin

  They drove for most of the morning, crisscrossing country roads outside of Austin, while Harlan looked for the right place to hide out. Charlie’s mind kept returning to David. What was he doing? What would he think when they found the bookstore empty and his mother missing?

  Survive today, she told herself. Survive today. David needs you alive. A strange lethargy blanketed her in a cocoon of numbness. Against all odds, she dozed off for a few minutes.

  Charlie jolted awake when the car turned off a paved road onto a crushed gravel parking lot of a country convenience store. The place was vacant and out of business, situated on the crossroads of a two-lane blacktop and a gravel road. The store was a metal building with two high front windows and a door atop cinderblock steps. Attached to one side via a covered walkway was a small frame house with busted windows and more dry rot than paint, a home for nothing more than spiders and snakes.

  The morning clouds had burned off, leaving the rolling hills and grassy fields lit by a broiling sun. There wasn’t much cover, only a scattering of trees, spaced too far apart.

  “Feel like campin’ out, ladies?” Harlan, the ever-chipper blond creep, popped the door of the Challenger. The muggy air blew away the cool interior air, but it also blew out the reek of the snaky bastard next to her.

  Skeeter thumped the seat in front of him, pushing Nita to get out of the car as well. Then he crawled out, leaving Charlie mercifully alone in the car, giving her mind a chance to process. She needed to think, plan, and come up with a way out of her situation. There was no way those assholes were going to turn her loose. She’d seen their faces and learned their names, or at least the names they used.

  And what the hell was up with Nita? The woman as much as admitted she knew about the shipment of concealed cash and that she somehow helped Steven with the plot. When had Nita gotten that close to Steven?

  Inconsistencies and vague suspicions from her marriage came back to her, odd glances and unusual behavior when they were all together. She’d blown it off as casual flirtation at first. But given what she later learned about her husband’s affairs, she really should have put two and two together.

  But Nita was supposed to be my friend. When she got out of the current mess, she and Nita would have a long talk. The bitch.

  Who am I kidding? No way am I getting out of this alive. She had to make a run for it.

  Nita’s purse lay in the passenger-side footwell. There should be a cell phone inside, but Charlie would have to climb over the seat to get it.

  She checked her captors’ positions. Harlan had disappeared around the side of the store. Nita stood by the passenger door of the car, visibly shaking, though the day was hot. Skeeter, the freaky one, rested his rump on the fender in front of Nita, gray smoke rolling around his face from yet another cigarette. To get away, Charlie would have to lever the driver’s seat forward, open the door, wiggle out, and hit the ground running.

  They were somewhere in the area known as Hill Country, not far outside Austin, judging by the time on the dashboard clock, which showed it was only a little after noon. She craned her neck, looking for some sheltering woods, another farmhouse, anywhere she could hide. She saw nothing helpful, not even another car passing on the road.

  She was in good shape for a foot chase. She ran three miles at a stretch during workouts. There was no way Mr. Chain Smoker
would catch up with her.

  But he could simply shoot her. And what about Nita? Could Charlie leave her? After what she had admitted to, or as much as admitted to? Nita appeared disconnected from reality, eyes fixed forward, head completely still. She hadn’t moved much or spoken at all since they’d been taken hostage. Charlie tried to burn a hole in Nita’s head with her stare. Yeah, I dare you to meet my eye.

  If Charlie took off, maybe Nita would take advantage of the opportunity and run in the other direction. Do I really care? They’re going to shoot me anyway, once they get what they want.

  But Charlie’s muscles were frozen. She sent signals from her brain to get started, to lift a hand, lean forward, do something. It was as if her lethargy had turned to paralysis. Moving her head to look around felt like shifting a cinder block. She kept having an unreasonable feeling that as long as she could huddle in the back of the car, she would be safe.

  Harlan shouted something from behind the store, causing Skeeter to shift, moving the car.

  “Naw, I ain’t got no damn crowbar,” Skeeter yelled.

  That raspy voice broke the lock on her muscles, and she was able to move again. Fixing her eyes on Skeeter’s back, she inched her left hand down and forward, reaching for the seat release. Skeeter stepped a couple of paces from the car, throwing his cigarette away.

  Charlie crouched on the floor behind the driver’s seat, coiling into a position that would allow her to jackrabbit out of the car. She stretched for the door handle, keeping her head down. If she looked at Skeeter again and saw his sinewy evil, she might lose her nerve entirely. Closing her right hand on the chrome handle, she took a couple of deep breaths and tensed her legs like a runner in starting blocks. She clenched the handle and hunched up, ready to bolt.

  Movement. She looked up.

  Harlan grinned down at her through the window. “Hey, girlfriend. Going somewhere?”

  CHAPTER 25

  McAllen International Airport

  McAllen, Texas

  Yeager rattled the ice in his Popeye’s takeout soda cup, sucking the remaining watery slush of Dr Pepper. He and Victor were sitting outside the hangar after inhaling enough calories to keep them going for the night ahead. The sun painted the western horizon a dull orange, a last flare before the day died altogether.

  Monday night. Seven p.m. Thirty-seven hours to go.

  Three simple steps: get the truck back, get it across the border, and trade it for Charlie and her friend. But the number of things that could go wrong was astronomical. Stealing the truck back from a bunch of Mexican outlaws would take a superhuman application of stealth and luck.

  “So let’s say we get the truck out of the compound,” Yeager said, “and the money’s still on it. And it’s not shot to shit. And we’re not shot to shit. So I’m driving this thing up to the border crossing and I’m saying to the Customs guy, ‘Hey, don’t worry about the tons of money in the back. It’s just…’ What? What is it? Gas money?”

  “Income tax.”

  Yeager snorted.

  “Hey, man, Democrats in office, you know.” Victor clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’ worry about the border. I got that covered. Customs docs for every situation. We tell ’em you’re hauling medical waste, and they won’t even come within ten feet. Speakin’ o’ that…” He stood up. “I need to file some paperwork. Customs wants twenty-four-hour notice on anything coming in, including a manifest.”

  “Contents, cash. End user, kidnappers.”

  “Yeah, esé. I think I’ll be a leetle more subtle than that. When you heading out?”

  Yeager glanced at his watch. “Now.” He heaved up and headed for his pickup, retrieved from his house earlier that afternoon, along with all his emergency cash.

  He had over six hours to make a two-hour drive, but it was better to wait there than wait here. That way, there was room in the timetable for unexpected complications.

  Besides, he needed to be moving. Sitting still, he continued to brood about Charlie.

  Yeager would be crossing the border clean, no weapons and no gear except for a radio, and he would then go straight for the rally point. Victor would make a hop to Brownsville, top off the tanks, then head into the Gulf toward the oil rigs. He would drop down to wave-top level, dogleg right, and enter Mexican airspace slightly north of El Barril, Tamaulipas. If everything worked out, they’d hook up around midnight, two klicks north of the target.

  As Yeager climbed into the pickup, Victor asked, “Have I mentioned I hate you for this plan? Have I said that yet?”

  “About twenty times, amigo.” Yeager cranked the engine of the ’73 Ford.

  All 351 cubic inches roared to life, blowing blue smoke from the tailpipe. The old power steering pump squealed in protest when he cranked the wheel around. Yeager made a wide circle and aimed the truck at the open gate next to the hanger. He wheeled left onto the main road.

  Headed to Mexico.

  Hold on, Charlie.

  Hacienda Del Norte

  Northern Mexico

  DaSilva paced the flagstone patio behind the hacienda, a demitasse of espresso in one hand and a cell phone to his ear. “The situation is under control,” he told his boss. “Obviously, the Cruz brothers have been after our shipment this entire time. Humberto attacked the bookstore where the truck was sent, and his man stole the truck. Somewhere along the route, he must have stopped and hidden the cash. I have twenty-four men here: eight on active patrol, eight in ready-reserve, and eight sleeping. I am sending ten more to collect Oscar Cruz and bring him here. Once we know where the money is, the entire force will descend on the location like locusts.”

  “Ricky, I trust you like no other,” the boss said in his rich, satiny voice. He had a velvet tongue for the only man alive who could make DaSilva’s sphincter clench. “If you say it is under control, then it is under control. I will stand by until you have something more… positive to report.”

  “Sí. I—”

  The phone went dead. DaSilva resisted the urge to throw the little device into the brush. It would not look right to have a temper tantrum where the peons could see. Outwardly, he maintained an air of calm detachment, but on the inside… he fumed.

  Maybe he would ask for a new bed-warmer for the night. And she would not get off as easily as the last.

  Abandoned convenience store

  East of Austin

  They locked Charlie and Nita in the beer cooler inside the convenience store. Empty of all but some flattened cardboard boxes, dust, and cobwebs, the cooler had glass doors on one side, blocked by racks for drinks, and a large metal door at the other end. Cut wires and thumb-sized holes indicated where the refrigeration units had once been mounted.

  The place stank with an old mildew smell of a refrigerator left turned off too long. Moldy cardboard, spilled beer, and a faint dead-animal reek completed the bouquet.

  Their captors blocked the handles of the glass doors from the outside with some loose lumber, so even if Charlie managed to crawl through the drink racks, she’d be unable to get out. Then they did something to the metal door, locking it from the outside. Charlie knew that because she’d already tried to open it.

  After they’d finished locking them in, their muffled voices came from the front of the store. Charlie nudged open a glass door as far as it could go, enabling her to hear more clearly.

  “We got a good spot here,” Harlan said. “The car’s hidden in the shed, and the women are locked up. All we need do is wait it out. We can take turns guardin’ the women until it’s time for the swap.”

  “And how we gonna manage this here swap, college boy?”

  “Well, calm down, dawg. Don’t be gettin’ up in my grill. Like I said, that’s Stone’s problem. No need to worry. Time comes, he’ll have us a plan.”

  “Fuck.” Skeeter sounded disgusted. “I’ll take first turn guardin’ the women.”

  “Naw, I need you with me, homie.”

  “What fer?”

  “We’re short on
cash, for one thing. For another, we need to get us some campin’ supplies. I figure to kill two birds with one 9-millimeter, so to speak. Find us a sporting goods store, load up on supplies and cash at the same time. You and I can take one of these Podunk stores here’n Mayberry RFD land. Right?”

  Skeeter grunted. “You hear that?” His voice, loud against the door, startled her. He must have stepped up close. “You ladies have some time together in there. Be sweet, and we’ll bring you a treat!”

  “I have to pee,” Charlie yelled back.

  “Pee in the corner, sweetheart,” Harlan said from farther away.

  “Wait!” Nita shouted. The woman had been silent for so long, Charlie had all but forgotten her. “Wait. I need to tell you something.”

  “Save it, sweetie.”

  “It-It’s about the money.” Nita swallowed and glanced at Charlie with what seemed like a guilty expression.

  “What about the money?” Harlan asked, sounding closer.

  “I lied about the money,” Nita blurted. She moved away from Charlie to stand near the door.

  “What are you doing?” Charlie whispered.

  Nita refused to look at her. Her eyes stayed fixed on the cooler door. “I need to talk to your boss. Let me out of here.”

  After a clink of the latch, Harlan swung the door open, hinges creaking, and stepped back. “This better be good, honey, or you’re gonna wish you’d stayed locked up.”

  Nita stepped toward the door. “Don’t worry.” Her voice had gained strength, sounding much more poised and confident, as if she’d flipped a switch. “What I have to tell your boss is going to make him very happy. Take me to him.”

  “We’ll see who gets taken where.” Harlan pulled a cell phone from his hip pocket. “Let’s give him a call and see if he wants what you’re selling.”