GPS (44 page)

When Jeff first heard the squeaking and groaning of FB trucks swerving through the ranch’s main gate across the canyon, his first inclination was to put the gun against his shoulder and put his finger on the trigger. The trucks coming in the main gate multiplied, and the volume in the canyon rose. A line of traffic formed at the entrance, as every person and every vehicle was checked out by guards before being waved in. Within an hour, the lights had been cranked on and all the trucks were forming the giant circle that was integral to the revolucion plan. The music was turned on and was blasting echoes off the rocks in every direction as Jeff knelt stiffly against the quickly cooling rocks.

The busloads of girls arrived, the party was growing and Jeff was wondering how long Paulo would wait to unleash on the bastards. Though it wasn’t even something he wanted to think about, baseball and his pre-drunk life at home kept leaping into Jeff’s brain while he was stuck lying in the cliffs. As always, there was no way of measuring time, and Jeff lost all concept of it after nightfall. The lights that helped the thousands of partiers form the ring of vehicles were dimmed and eventually extinguished as the bonfire in the middle of the ring grew to towering heights.

Despite the bustle below, Jeff’s eyes were getting heavy. Even though falling asleep was undoubtedly the easiest way to guarantee death on this mission, he slowly, steadily, helplessly began to nod. He forced his head back up dozens of times, then shook it furiously in an attempt to somehow force himself out of his growing stupor.

After several minutes, he rolled onto his stomach and took one long look at the growing crowd in the distance through the rifle scope, then set it back down, spun onto his back again and rested his head on his folded hands. Just like pulling to the side of the road on a long trip, he thought a five-minute nap would make him feel wide awake. No way he’d sleep through all that noise.

- 59 -

Jeff snored softly while frightening scenes of nonsense frolicked in his mind.

He dreamed he was sitting in a window seat on a plane which was trying to land but couldn’t because the pilots could not steady the wings in a heavy wind, leaving the plane teetering dangerously back and forth, just a few feet from the surface of the runway. He clenched his teeth, bracing for the impact of the tires grabbing the runway. In the aisle seat, curled into a neat ball, was Lefty. Jeff couldn’t believe the cat was sleeping through something so tense. Or was it him that was sleeping through something?

He jerked awake.

Nothing had changed. The sky above was no darker, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed FB vehicles still crowding into the ranch’s main entrance. He wondered which of his own men, if any, could see him from their positions, and whether or not they would shoot him for falling asleep on his first big night with the revolucion and possibly the most critical night of the entire war to date.

With the booze out of his system completely now, sleep had started to chase him down regularly in recent weeks, even in the middle of the day and whether he wanted it or not. When it did, he was defenseless against it.

A horn on one of the FB trucks echoed across the Destinoso Canyon, making Jeff’s entire torso clench for a second, but almost as soon as he identified the sound, he nodded back off and dreamed. He was sitting again, but this time, it was in a ballpark. It was no park in particular, but instead a mix and mash of the thousands of parks he’d seen over years. In this one, however, the field was mostly darkened in thick night air. Only the pitcher’s mound and the plate were fully illuminated, as if on a stage.

From his first base line seat, Jeff could see it was Felix Ascondo at the plate. He was going through his tugs and pulls and twitches, only in this image, the sequence seemed to go on forever, leaving some faceless darkened pitcher standing completely motionless on the mound. Instead of swinging his bat at the end of the routine, Felix spun around in place, stepped out of the box and began the routine again, like a wind-up toy.

When he looked out to the mound, Jeff whimpered when he saw the man was not planning to throw a pitch to Ascondo at all, but instead was going to kill him. The pitcher held a raised rifle, trained on the man at the plate, who continued his non-stop pre-pitch routine, over and over.

But now Ascondo’s baseball uniform had become a faded greenish-brown military uniform, and the bat he’d left on his shoulder during most of his ritual had been replaced by an M16, his batting helmet now a combat helmet. While the pitcher stood with his gun raised, Ascondo remained stuck in perpetual motion, tugging, twitching and spinning with his gun.

The pitcher suddenly dropped his gun onto the mound and reached into the back pocket of his uniform pants. From it he pulled a pink, glowing ball of fire that showered the mound in sparks. He placed his foot on the rubber, stood up straight and looked in at home plate, the fireball sizzling and cracking in his hand.

He shook off signs from an invisible catcher, seemingly hundreds of them, before finally giving a nod. Ascondo had now spun back into the box, but still hadn’t stopped his routine. The pitcher twirled into motion as now a thick puff of pink smoke trailed the ball in his right hand. He heaved it directly in Ascondo’s direction. The man at the plate didn’t see it coming.

When Jeff awoke this time, sweat beads running from his temples down the sides of his head, he was staring straight up at the sky, thinking Paulo must have fired the first flare. Were there any gunshots? He rolled over and sat up in a panic, canvassing the ranch below. It had gotten completely dark while he slept, and the crowd below had grown considerably larger.

He looked over both shoulders, wondering how close his nearest ally was perched and realized immediately it had gotten too dark to see anything in the cliffs. Now the scene in the canyon was being illuminated by a few sets of headlights on late-arriving SUVs and the raging bonfire below.

Jeff wondered if Josh had made it safely to his post, then smiled to himself. Of course he had. The guy was uncanny, and Jeff felt lucky to have met him. He didn’t think Josh was the kind of guy who really needed any friends, but if the two of them made it to tomorrow in one piece, he hoped they would see each other again. Jeff’s smile became a frown very quickly when he picked up his rifle, steadied it on the rocks and began to study the ground down to his right, the corner of the canyon nearest to the main house and the corner by which Jeff and all the others would make their escape back to their vehicles.

Something had moved down there in the area of ground in between total darkness and the glare of the headlights and flames. In the flickering light, Jeff could see there was someone standing down there just beyond the shadow of the main house. Jeff shifted his shoulders and again peered through the scope, squinting hard. After struggling at first to find it again, the figure came back into view.

It was Josh, and there was a machete blade against his neck, the long blade flashing its reflection against the light of the fire, and a hand pulling him straight back by the hair. Lying in the faint yellow glow in front of the two men was what appeared to be Simmons’ sniper rifle.

- 60 -

Josh had forgotten his 9mm in the car, had realized it as soon as he split away from Jeff but thought he might have a chance to go back and get it before the rest of the transients finalized their perimeter around the ranch. He had failed to control his own situation for the first time, failed to concentrate solely on survival, and trouble came just as quickly as he always said it would. He didn’t get a chance to go back.

He was lying flat on his stomach in a meditative state, on a smooth rock shelf still 20 yards below his position looking out over the ridge and down onto the giant ranch house below. He’d powered the GPS on for just a minute, but a minute became two minutes, and then three.

The thing was like a little treasure chest sitting up there on the rocks, and knowing the power of such little gadgets better than most, Simmons had to open it up and see what was inside. He knew the history alone on such a device could be worth months of spying, assuming it belonged to the FB, and he was certain it did.

By the third or fourth minute of what he thought was great, unexpected detective work in the minutes leading up to the attack on Destinoso, Simmons clawed for the power button, leapt to his feet and looked wildly around in the dying daylight, rifle raised in defense.

He first dropped the GPS to the ground like it was poisoned, but then immediately grabbed it again and slid back off the ledge. He jammed the unit into a large crack in the mountain’s face and scanned his surroundings, trying to find a place to hide before he was either found or before he saw the pink flares and bullets started flying.

He realized he’d likely made a fatal error. Turning the GPS on likely meant he’d given up his position, given up his fellow men and the mission. The FB would be on them, and it would be his fault. Take that back home with you, he thought.

He never made it into his position, never got a look at his targets or saw any of the positions of nearby allies. Because of it, he knew he could get popped by one of his own men wandering around in the cliffs in the growing dusk. The faint sound of a car engine starting up somewhere behind him sent a terrified jolt through him. It was followed by the sound of a breaking branch close by, and with that, Josh had fled down into the canyon.

He made it about 40 yards from his original position and stopped. He peered out, breathless, from behind a tall shard of rock. Within minutes, four FB men with machine guns entered the tiny clearing from which Simmons was supposed to unleash his most significant shots since joining the war.

He not only had to throw them off his trail now, he had to find a way to send word to the others that they’d been discovered, and to come on with the attack. He needed to find one of his own guys now, even at the risk of being accidentally shot.

Otherwise, Paulo would likely wait too long to start the show. But the men spent a long time pondering their next move when they didn’t find Josh perched in the clearing. In fact, they looked frightened not to find him there.

The sun had long since disappeared behind the walls of the mountains, and the smell of burning wood began to climb into the cliffs. Josh maintained his new position behind the tall rock. The FB soldiers stood their ground, but argued in whispers that got loud enough for Josh to actually hear them about what they should do next.

Though it was very likely still light enough for him to get clean shots off on all of them from here, he couldn’t because that would cause a storm of bullets from his own men, some of whom must have been nearby. He wondered if any of them were close enough to see the FB with their own eyes, and if they also knew they couldn’t afford to pull the trigger for fear of foiling their own plan.

So Josh waited, and waited. He’d known since his first spying mission on the canyon that his position was on the leeward side, but didn’t realize just how much smoke would come from the early stages of the bonfire. Even before the last of the daylight had vanished, Josh’s view of the enemy was completely obscured, leaving him stranded.

Simmons’ anguish was furthered by the thought that for all his travels back and forth, all of his close calls, he’d come this close to being done with his tour of duty with barely a scratch to show for it. He’d promised himself, and his wife at home, the attack on Destinoso would be his final act in the war. He’d told Fonseca long ago that he planned to jump back into his old world and never leave it again before the fires at the ranch even had a chance to peak.

The pink flares couldn’t come fast enough for Josh. He knew Paulo would wait as long as he possibly could before attacking, but if he didn’t act soon, the FB would be doing the attacking. For the first time in what seemed like hours, Josh heard heavy footsteps nearby, no idea whether they belonged to a friend or an enemy. He fled, and was immediately tailed. Two FB men had spotted him as Simmons scurried downward into the valley and toward the ranch house, briefly running through a band of light from the fire and the headlights as he did.

Josh was going to head straight for the canyon floor, run past the house and behind the ring of cars and trucks and flash the thumbs up toward the cliffs, hoping his men would recognize him and fire those flares. If he could catch up to the hose men at the trucks without being seen or shot — the stench of gasoline was already thick as he descended into the canyon, dangerously close now to the giant fuel tanks behind the house — he could flee with them and still take his shots at the FB, albeit from much closer and deadlier range.

If his fellow transients didn’t recognize him when he ran out into the open, they would undoubtedly fill him with lead, but only if the FB men on his tail didn’t beat them to it. It was a chance he had to take, because just like that, he’d messed it all up. One split-second decision and he’d ruined them all.

The only thing left to do was to try to save the mission by risking his own life. If he could just get down to the house unnoticed, then out to the trucks and find the hose men without getting shot …

Simmons reached the back left corner of the main house, stopped to catch his breath and knelt to get his rifle ready when one of the FB men crept up behind him from the backside of the house and put a giant blade to his throat.

- 61 -

Simultaneously, two sets of headlights — one coming from the main road to the north and another from the old road to the southeast near the spot where Simmons and his captor now stood — began making their way into the canyon.

From his perch, where he was cemented in terror and unsure if he could even raise his gun and shoot if the flares were ever fired, Jeff noticed both of them. They tugged his attention away from Josh. Two different sets of beams bounced up and down and angled left and right in the air as they approached and as the party raged on in an indifferent roar in front of the Destinoso main house. Something awful was in the works — Jeff was sure of it now — something above and beyond the revolucion’s own sinister plan.