Spectre Black (25 page)

“But—”

“And the gung-ho guy would say, ‘But there are three American citizens putting their lives in danger.’ And the sergeant would say, ‘Son, do you want to be the soldier who executes a military action on American soil?’ He’d say, ‘Do you want to be on TV for that? You know that we aren’t authorized for that kind of operation. We can’t, anyway. It’s impossible.’ And that’s the Army.”

Landry added, “And then he’s saying that the US Army is not a law enforcement agency, that all they can do is pass along what they know. By then, it’s going to be too late. Even if they notified the proper authorities—and they’d have to contact a commanding officer with some pull, somewhere on some military base—you think they’re going to flood the Mexican border with military and start an international incident?”

“No,” Jolie said. “I don’t.”

“And the last thing the satellite van guy would say is this: ‘We can’t do anything. We’re not even supposed to be here in the first place.
’
”

Jolie had checked into the Holiday Inn in Las Cruces. Eric and Landry checked in as well, all three of them at different times of day and using different aliases. Eric’s room was across the common area, closer to the pool. Landry was on the other side. Jolie got a room halfway between. There were a lot of people staying there, which provided them cover.

Their first bull session was in Landry’s room.

They had done their homework. They’d studied physical maps but mostly relied on Google Earth for terrain and ease of use.

They needed to anticipate what Denboer and his crew would do. Fortunately, they had the timeline, thanks to the coded language Landry and Eric had intercepted. They knew when they would transport the trucks, but not where they would cross the border.

Since Denboer had cleared out of the farm and put the trucks on the road, there must be another hiding place. It would stand to reason that it would be somewhere fairly close to the Mexican border. There were three border entry stations, and the land in between was vast and inhospitable. But somewhere they would find a barn or a structure large enough to house the three trucks.

If there
were
three trucks.

“This is all supposition,” Landry said. “The best we can do is put ourselves into their shoes and imagine what they would do.”

They looked at the three ports of entry.

Antelope Wells, New Mexico, was a long way down over rough roads. Pro: there were places to pass through the fence without being seen. Con: it was a very long drive through the interior of Mexico on inferior roads. The closest town in Mexico was almost ninety miles away. Antelope Wells just wasn’t doable. It wasn’t cost-effective.

There could be access to an airstrip long enough to accommodate a cargo plane, deep in the interior of Sonora. A few years ago, they would have taken that into consideration. But now they had Google Maps. There were no airstrips of that size. There were hardly any airstrips at all.

They did not have access to the latest satellite photos, however. All things were possible. But were they
probable?

Columbus, New Mexico was a small town with a sleepy crossing. The official Point of Entry was staffed. Columbus might be small but several roads on the US side fed into roads opposite them on the border, even though the border fence had cut them off. Most of the corresponding roads in Mexico were dirt, but there were a number of places to hide the trucks in plain sight; plenty of businesses required semi trucks. Produce, for one. And all sorts of goods that came through the border area.

Santa Theresa, near Sunland Park and off to the side of El Paso, was the biggest. Once through the border crossing, there were many feeder roads into Mexico. It was the fastest way, freeways all the way down, and many places to cross. There were also plenty of industrial areas there, which would require semi trucks. But this was the major artery and port of entry, and it was policed heavily.

Landry thought the wise move would be to take the middle road. In addition to having all the desirable qualities for moving trucks through, Columbus was the closest border crossing, and it was reached by an empty highway: a straight line between two points. Even the highway, State Route 1, no longer held the designation of a state route. It was now Highway 11. There was access to dead-end roads on the other side of the Mexican border; plenty of semis passed through legitimately.

Columbus was Goldilocks – just right.

“They had to leave earlier than they expected to,” Jolie said. “The way they packed up the farm. I’ve heard of that before—some of these big organizations can be packed up within fifteen minutes, like they were never there. The first thing we need to do is find out if the trucks are still hidden there. Something spooked Denboer. Otherwise, they would have kept the semis hidden inside the hangar.”

“So we look for structures,” Eric said. “Something big enough to hide three semis. Some place remote.”

“It’s remote down there.”

They went to Google Maps again.

There were a few farms on Highway 11. Two of them had large barns. One looked abandoned. They focused first on the abandoned farm.

Jolie said, “We know the time and date they’re planning to go—unless that’s changed. How far is the farm from the port of entry?”

“Thirty-five miles,” Eric said.

“I think it’s this place. It’s the best guess we have. We have infrared scopes—we can tell if there are people there. We need to take turns watching.”

It was decided that Jolie would go early, set up, and watch the barn. The other barn was farther away from the border and looked new. “We should check that place, too,” Landry said.

“I can do that,” Eric said. “If they’re there, we should blow them up. End problem.”

“The technology,” Landry said. “Good or bad, the technology is cutting-edge. I want to see them for myself.”

“If we blow ’em up there, it’s the endgame. It’s over.”

“I’d rather neutralize whoever’s guarding them and see what these things are like.” He looked at Jolie.

“I want to see them, too.”

“Neutralize, or kill?” Eric said.

“Depends, as it always does. We can’t take any chances. We can’t take prisoners, either. So we’d have to secure them.”

“Secure them,” Jolie said.

Eric looked from one to the other. “Okay. It’s your funeral.”

Added under his breath, “And probably mine.”

Chapter
33

Landry and Jolie went car shopping in the want ads. They bought a 2008 Dodge Challenger that had been souped up. The owner was happy to sell it for cash.

Eric took the truck, and Landry and Jolie followed in the dark gray Challenger. Eric kept going, but Landry and Jolie turned off at the first of the two farms they’d spotted on Google Earth. Both of them had barns big enough to conceal a semi truck or two. And both of the farms were not far from the border with Mexico.

The first was a stud farm, “OAK TREE QUARTER HORSES: Racing, Breeding, Pleasure Horses.” Landry and his “wife” Jolie rumbled the Challenger over the cattle guard to inquire within.

The owner was a woman in her late forties. A good-looking woman who would have been spectacular if she hadn’t spent the majority of her natural life in the New Mexico sun. Landry could tell she didn’t give a rat’s ass about her complexion—she was having too much fun following her dream. Her long, dark brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. She wore a pistol in a paddle holster clipped to the belt of her jeans. As they parked, she walked out to greet them. Friendly, but all business. Sizing them up for riding horses.

Landry asked if she had any off-track thoroughbreds, and nodded to Jolie, who slid out of the passenger’s seat and walked over.

The woman, Jeri, said she had a couple, and offered them a tour of the farm.

Landry thought the horses were pretty good. He’d heard the names of the forebears of the two stallions in residence. Well known in quarter horse circles. And the thoroughbred stallion, Archangelico, was a looker.

Jeri led them to the barn. It was like a hundred barns Landry had seen before. Open doors on both ends. A row of four stalls on one side, and three stalls and a tack room on the other. The stalls on each side were grouped together, making for a wide central aisle.

The barn was massive and very old, and had been modified to stable horses—a relic from an earlier era now utilized in a different way.

The stalls were pipe fence construction. The floor was concrete and covered by a thick layer of raked dirt sprayed down with water.

They walked back outside after the short tour. The house must have been built about the same time as the barn. Old, stuccoed adobe. A late-sixties-model Chevy Malibu, primer-gray, sat next to an eighties-model Ford truck. The Chevy had new tires, a yellow front fender, and was jacked up just a little in back.

“The Chevy run?” Landry asked.

“Nope. It’s my brother’s car—he’s thinking of selling it.” She eyed the muscle car, decided she might have someone on the hook. “You interested? It would be worth a lot if it was cherry.”

“No.”

They talked horses for a bit. Jeri handed Jolie her card, telling her how well one of her stallions had done at Sunland Park. She concentrated on the woman because it was usually the woman who one, loved horses and two, made the big purchases. She told Jolie how exciting it was to get into racing. Nothing like it, she said. Jeri was sorry she didn’t have any horses to meet their needs. Racing was their emphasis, but most of these horses were trained for riding.

“One down,” Landry said as they drove away.

The second ranch was abandoned. Since the last Google Earth shot, the roof of the farmhouse had caved in. Not only that, but it was too small to hide an underground vault for three semis inside.

The barn was equally impossible—filled to the brim with rubble and junk. Someone had shuttled half a house into the barn and left it there.

“Makes me think of farmers leaving the Dust Bowl back in the thirties,” Jolie said. “Snake eyes. Now what?”

“They’ve got the trucks hidden somewhere,” Landry said. “Maybe they’re still in Branch.”

“Where they always were. Inside those vaults in Hangar B.”

Landry thought about the levers that had been removed out of the cabinet at Denboer’s farm, the loose wires. He didn’t think there was any other way to open up the doors to the vaults.

But maybe they’d had a second junction box. Someone could do it from a distance by punching in a code.

Jolie seemed to read his mind. “No matter how you slice it, they had it covered. I hope we didn’t miss them—I’d really like to see what they’re like.”

“We will,” Landry said. “All we have to do is wait.”

“Yeah.
If
this is where they’re headed.”

Chapter
34

Landry and Jolie drove down through the town of Columbus, New Mexico, before hitting flat desert again. They reached the outskirts of the other, smaller portion of Columbus, this one situated right on the border with Mexico. They met up with Eric at a rest area a half mile from Columbus.

The rest area was no more than a picnic table chained to a garbage barrel, a healthy-looking yucca, and a shack marked “WOMEN” on one side and “ME” on the other—the “N” was gone.

“
‘Me,
’
” Eric said. “Nice of them to make it so exclusive.”

“Very funny,” Jolie said, “Better keep your day job.” She consulted her phone.

“What are you doing?”

“This is the time to alert the Border Patrol,” she said.

“I wouldn’t,” Landry said.

“We need to. For one thing, if they see a gun battle on the border, how are they going to know who the bad guys are?”

She had a point. Landry said, “What if they see us engage and they think we’re the bad guys?”

“I flash my badge.”

“You think they’re gonna wait for you to hold it up?”

“They’ll know I’m there. Or I could meet up with them ahead of time.”

Landry shrugged. “Then you tell them what to look for and let them handle it. I don’t want to be part of a free-for-all. Everyone shooting at everyone else. That’s a good way to get killed.”

“I’ll tell them who we are.”

“And who is that?”

Jolie had no answer. Finally, she said, “I don’t mention you.”

“Which will make us sitting ducks.”

“They should be there. It’s their job. Whether we contact them or not, they’ll be there. They’re right on the border, they patrol it day and night.”

“Okay,” Landry said. “We’ll monitor the situation. Where will they be?”

“I’m assuming right on the border. A show of force.”

“The runners will spot them. They’ll just turn the trucks around and go back. Wait for another time.”

Jolie had no answer to that, either.

But she was a cop, first and foremost, and so ultimately, she made the call. She used her burner phone. Gave her badge number and her real name. Told them she had reason to believe, from a CI she’d been working with, that three or more semis would try to penetrate the border into Palomas carrying arms. She gave them the approximate time range.

“Think they’ll respond?” Landry asked when she ended the call.

“Oh, they’ll respond, in one manner or other. Either with a show of force or with one car. But we can’t leave it to them—if the agent talks to the Branch Sheriff’s Department, all bets are off.”

“What I was thinking,” Eric said.

“Look at it this way,” Jolie said. “It’s their job to take care of it. Which means we won’t have to.”

“
If
they take care of it,” Landry said. “We’ll still have to be there to see that they do.”

Eric said, “No matter what, we make our own plan.”

Landry said, “Agreed.”

From here they would split up. Jolie would go with Eric—it was a two-man job to find the right side street—while Landry scouted a place to set up his G3. It would be difficult, because the land was as flat as a Monopoly board. Looking for high ground was pointless.

Once he found that place, he would come back to the highway and watch for the trucks to come through.

He drove into the truncated version of Columbus. He looked at Google Maps and put himself in the place of Denboer and his crew, and immediately saw the best way for the trucks to get through. The second option wasn’t even close. Landry needed a spot where he would have a clear shot at the area along the border fence. He’d need elevation.

After driving around for a half hour, Landry found the only good place to set up: a well-water-pipe access shed caged by a chain-link fence. The shed had a mild pitch to the roof, which would be useful. The slope of the roof would conceal him from the border fence.

The watershed was deserted, as these sheds usually were. Landry easily defeated the padlock holding the chain to the post and the gate, and clambered up onto the roof. He rested the tripod of his sniper rifle on the down-slope of the roof, looked through it. A clear shot. The shed was ideal. It was approximately eight hundred yards from the most likely access area—no problem for his G3.

That done, Landry returned to the rest area. He needed to be there when the trucks came through. One, to see who was escorting them, and two, to take out one or more of them if he could.

He knew that by now, Jolie and Eric would be in position. In an ideal world, Landry would manage to leave them with nothing to do. Either the Border Patrol would take care of it, or he would. But if he couldn’t get his shot, if the Border Patrol didn’t come, Jolie and Eric could handle the situation.

They had surprise on their side.

Back at the rest area, Landry stood by the side of the road and glassed the highway between the north section of Columbus and the section of Columbus on the border. So far, it was empty. There had been very few cars.

This was the first place to engage.

He glanced around, looking for places to mount an ambush. There were a few low bushes but they were burro brush, small little clumps close to the ground. He drove the Challenger around back of the restrooms, parked, and waited.

Forty minutes later he heard cars coming. Not just cars: the mosquito whine of dune buggies, tearing across the desert. And big engines on the road. He knew what they were: runner cars. They were there to protect the trucks: the three big semis barreling down the highway to the border. Landry stepped behind the restrooms, trained his binocs on one of the cars—a beater with a big engine. Still far out but noisy as hell.

They would run interference with anyone or any entity in their way. By attracting attention to themselves, creating diversions, or—

Ready for an outright gun battle.

The road cars zipped by, but returned a few minutes later, heading back in the direction they’d come from. The dune buggies circled back around, too.

Soon even their sound was gone.

For a while, there was quiet.

But Landry knew the trucks would be coming. They weren’t all that far down the road.

It was late afternoon now. The grassland here was studded by low bushes. From a distance, a prone human would not be seen. A head and torso could easily be mistaken for a small bush. They would be round, dark shadows dotting the grassland, just like every other round, dark shadow out there.

No cars at all, at the moment.

Landry decided to cross the road and scout for a better position to engage the caravan that was most certainly coming. The opposite side of the road was the ideal place to shoot from because at that point, the highway bent in a westerly direction. Anyone driving toward him from either direction would have a hard time seeing—the sun would be in his or her eyes.

The grassland was tinged gold but would soon turn to gray.

He looked in both directions, saw nothing, and walked to the edge of the road. He kept his weapon at his side, always looking to blend in, just a guy walking across the road, maybe to look for a place to take a few pictures of the desert. The sun’s red eye seemed to burst behind his eyeballs. In this light, the sun would be in the driver’s eyes. Anyone coming down from the north would have a hard time seeing him.

But just as he stepped onto the verge, a gust of wind hit him.