SEAL Team Bravo: Black Ops VI - Guantanamo (14 page)

"What are you doing in El Paso?"

"You wouldn't believe it. After that business on the Osprey, I had to stay with the ship. They refused to help me get ashore. In the end, they put me down at Caracas, Venezuela, and I took the first flight out, which was to El Paso. I'm waiting for them to call my flight to Washington. My boss wants me back 'muy rapido'. I guess I'm in the shit."

Nolan didn't reply at first, as he figured out the ramifications. It could be a stroke of luck with Evers winding up in El Paso. Provided he could persuade him to play ball.

"Do you want to put things right, set the record straight?"

A pause. "How, how could I do that? I mean, they'll be calling my flight in a few minutes."

"I need you here, in El Paso. Ask around. Find out if the men we're hunting crossed the border. It can't be that hard. They'll have heavy protection. It shouldn't be too difficult to pick up some kind of whispers."

"Uh, I don't know, Chief. Look, they're calling my flight. I have to..."

"We need you, Danny. We're so close to these bastards, we can smell them, but without you, they'll disappear into the US. Then what? Boom!"

Another pause, and this time it was much longer. In the background, he could hear the announcer calling the Washington flight. Finally, he sighed.

"Okay, okay, I'll stick around. What time are you coming over?"

"Evers, we have a death sentence on our heads from the Colombians. What do you think the Mexicans would do when they discovered four wanted Norte Americanos crossing their border? Wave them across with a smile?"

"They'd send you back."

"Right. We'll be coming out on one of the smuggler routes. By the way, your Cuban contact is with us."

He decided not to mention Eva, too many complications. He didn't want to alarm the poor guy.

"Rafael de la Vega? What the hell for?"

"Maybe he's coming to collect the money he's owed."

"Yeah, I guess tell him I'll look him up in Ciudad Juarez when this is over. Call me in an hour. I'll grab a cab into the city and see what I can do. But Nolan, I may not be able to help. You know..."

"Do your best, Evers. We're relying on you. And so is America."

A corny appeal to patriotism, but it was worth a try. It worked.

"Right. I'll do it."

 
He ended the call and went back inside. They glanced at him, and he explained about Evers.

"I'll cut the little fucker's throat," Ryder growled, "A man only leaves me in the lurch once. I don't give them a second chance."

"You leave him alone!" he barked. The Texan looked startled at Nolan's order, "Evers is on our side, and he's trying to make up for his failure. We need him if we're to have a chance of getting on the tail of these people. Clear?"

Ryder rolled his eyes, struggling to accept the unwelcome order. When he spoke, he looked totally out of it. "And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan..."

"Ryder!" Nolan warned.

 
"And bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended."

"That's enough. Either you keep your hands of Evers, or I'll shoot you myself."

The Texan stared into his eyes, and his hand was reaching for his knife. But he saw death staring at him and relaxed. Something seemed to go out of him, something that haunted him. Something evil.

"Yeah, okay, I guess you're right."

They all relaxed. Every man had been close to pulling a weapon.

I wonder if he realizes how close he came to death, probably not.

"That's settled. Rafael, we need to get across the border, and there's no way we can cross legally. Can you fix it up?"

He shook his head. "My friend dare not get involved, especially now."

"I can arrange it."

He looked at Eva Sanchez. "You can do it? Tonight?"

"Tonight. They usually cross at 0300. The tunnel entrance is about a kilometer from here. If we hurry, we should be able to reach the tunnel entrance. I'll call my contact. It'll cost the US government a good few thousand dollars."

He nodded. "They can afford it."

"We're coming with you."

He looked at her and Vega. "You're coming with us? Why?"

"As we are here, think about it, about what happened in Cuba. Do you seriously think we can go back?"

"But you'll be illegal aliens in the United States."

"But we'll be alive. If we go back, the very least we're looking at is a life sentence, and Cuban prisons are not holiday camps. Besides," she smiled, "We started this thing, and both Rafael and me want to see it through. You're not the only ones who get pissed with these Islamists running around and blowing up innocent people."

He thought for a few moments. "Maybe we can get you asylum. Christ knows you will have earned it."

Vega shook his head. "The CIA will take care of things, never fear. I have much more they need. I always assumed the day would come when I'd need to do a trade, so I kept information back from them. We'll be fine."

"Okay," he replied dubiously, "It's your funeral."

* * *

The people smuggler looked as honest as an Afghan market trader. He was lean and sinewy, a short man with a lined face, displaying a knife scar on the left cheek. Apart from the MAC-10 he carried slung over his shoulder, he didn't look too threatening. But the two bodyguards who stuck to him like glue were a different matter.

They both looked to be from the same mold. Street thugs who'd graduated to become stone cold killers, muscle-bound brutes with eyes that were devoid of life. They'd have just the one skill, murder. Nolan wondered how many poor souls making the crossing had been left to die in some waterless, godforsaken stretch of desert by these men.

Eva made the introductions. "This is Jesus. He owns the tunnel we’ll be using to make the crossing. I've promised him thirty thousand dollars. That's the going rate. Five thousand for each of us."

"Tell him he'll get paid."

"I want the money now." The Mexican's face came close to Nolan's, and he could smell the spices on his breath, mixed with the rank odor of dental decay, "You no pay, you no travel."

He stared at the man for a few moments. "We don't carry that kind of cash, but you will get your money, and that's a promise."

"You can trust him," Eva reassured him.

It was a tense moment, and the two bodyguards looked ready to launch themselves at him. Nolan knew if they tried it, his three men would cut them down in a split second. Fortunately for them, it wasn't necessary. Jesus calmed down.

"Very well, I will wait for payment. Seven days, no more." He scowled at Eva. "If you try and screw me around, I'll send my two men to cut out your heart."

She didn't blink. "You'll have your money."

They relaxed, and Jesus led them to an apartment block a few hundred meters from the border fence. They went in through the front entrance and down the flight of stairs into the basement area. It was divided into utility rooms, one for each apartment to be used for storage. He looked around carefully, and when he saw they were alone, he produced a key and opened up one of the rooms.

"Come in quickly, before anyone sees us."

They crammed into the tiny basement, and he closed the door. Fitted into the floor were a number of wooden boards about a meter square, and one of the bodyguards began raising them. He exposed a dark shaft with a ladder propped against the side.

"Down there," Jesus gestured.

He handed Nolan a flashlight and stood back.

"You're not coming with us?"

The man chuckled, causing the scar on his face to ripple. "Me, come with you? Why would I do that? It's dangerous crossing the border illegally."

His two bodyguards roared with laughter.

"Yeah, very funny." He nodded to the other men. "I'll lead. Will, bring up the rear."

"Copy that."

He started down the ladder, but Jesus stopped him. "Remember, Señor. Seven days, or Miss Sanchez pays. With her life."

He looked back up the shaft; the Mexican was staring down at him.

"I told you; you'll get your money. You touch the girl, and I'll come for you, my friend." Jesus glanced at his bodyguards either side of him, but Nolan shook his head, "Forget them, they won't do you any good. Just keep your hands off her."

The man shrugged, and Nolan carried on down the ladder. He switched on the flashlight, as there was no lighting in the crude tunnel. The beam showed a long, narrow passage hacked out of the soil, which stretched downward into the earth under the border fence, to emerge somewhere in the desert outside of El Paso. And then? His plan was to call Evers, giving him their location from the readout on the satphone. Always assuming the CIA man was as good as his word and was still in town. If not, it would be a long, hot, hard walk.

The march through the tunnel seemed endless. It was too low for them to stand up, and they had to stoop to stop banging their heads on the roof. The descent lasted for about half a kilometer, and then it flattened out, so he assumed they were under the fence. Another few hundred meters, and the tunnel started to ascend.

They marched on in silence, and he fell into a trance, which he afterward realized was caused by the absence of air. Apparently, Jesus had neglected to arrange for ventilation, and he had no doubt many of the hopeful Mexicans who had traversed the tunnel before would have died. Certainly, the sick, the elderly, and children, there was no way they could survive the suffocating atmosphere.

Vega had been panting for some time, and the only man who didn't seem to suffer was Will Bryce. Brad and John-Wesley were taking short breaths, and Eva looked shaky as she stumbled along. He almost walked into the wall at the end of the tunnel because of his semiconscious state. He shook his head to clear it and shone the flashlight around. There was no ladder, just a narrow shaft that reached upward to a row of wooden boards, and no way of getting up there.

Pushed into a low niche on the floor of the tunnel he could see a heap of bones, human skeletons, and maybe eight or ten people.

Jesus!

He thought of the Mexican, sending people through the tunnel with almost no hope of getting out. In that moment, he made a vow to revisit the Mexican very soon.

It won't be a visit the people smuggler will enjoy, quite the opposite. His career as a tunnel owner will soon come to an end like that of his customers, a permanent end.

 
The rest of them were staring at him, waiting.

 
"We need to climb the shaft. Who's the best man to give it a try?"

To his surprise, Ryder stepped forward. "I can do that, no problem." He took the flashlight and inspected the shaft closely, "Yeah, it's not much different to a rock chimney, real easy. Stand back, I'll give it a go."

He held the flashlight in his teeth, gripped a small niche in the soft earth of the side of the shaft, and started to pull himself up. It wasn't easy; it was anything but. Twice, they thought he would fall, and they prepared to catch him, but he swung his legs across the shaft and wedged himself to stop him falling.

At last, he reached the wooden boards, and they allowed themselves to breathe.

"I'll take a look around for some rope," he shouted down to them, "No, wait, the ladder has to be here somewhere. Give me a minute."

He found the ladder hidden in a tangle of mesquite close to the head of the shaft. He lowered it down to them, and they started up. Nolan looked around when he poked his head out of the shaft and found they were in the center of an area of scrub and desert. The sky was bright with starlight. He climbed out and studied the ground carefully. They were a long way from any kind of civilization, which would have been El Paso, whose lights shone bright ten kilometers in the distance.

God help the people Jesus brought across. He'd stripped them bare and left them to die.

The place was in the middle of nowhere. The only life was aircraft, fixed wing, and rotorcraft that came and went across the sky.

He helped Eva out into the open, then Vega. Will was the last man out, and they started to breathe the warm night air of the desert.

"What next?" Brad asked him, his chest still heaving to suck in air.

He took out his satphone. "I'll call Evers, give him our location, and ask him to..."

Night turned to day as the searchlight came on. They froze as the loud noise of a helicopter came nearer. A loudhailer began shouting orders at them.

"United States Border Patrol, you're all under arrest. Do not move. We are armed and will open fire if you try to run. I repeat, do not move."

The message was repeated in Spanish, and they watched the hovering USBP helo. It made no move to land, and they could see vehicles in the distance heading toward them, more Border Patrol officers coming to arrest them. They were in trouble, deep trouble. Any problems with passports and visas could be resolved, but it would take time, time they didn't have. But there was a bigger problem. They'd come in from Mexico. If the Border cops tossed them back over the border, the Mexes could make the connection. That could easily mean a free one-way ticket back to Colombia.