'Kill him!!!” came the scream from behind him as Sean leapt for the gate.
Bullets began to fire but none came near, heavy gunfire, M60, if he wasn’t mistaken. Sean knew his weapons.
As he reached the gate and threw James unceremoniously over it, he looked around as he vaulted over himself. The Mexicans were falling and squirming on the ground.
As he reached the other side, a soldier almost invisible in camouflage fatigues held James safely in his arms, while another trained his machine gun on any threats from the other side of the gate. A burst of fire ensured another threat was eliminated for good.
“Afternoon, Sean,” offered the soldier holding James, a man Sean had known for many years.
“How long have you guys been here?” he asked, irritably.
“Long enough, obviously,” replied the agent, not really answering Sean’s question. “Katie’s OK also,” he added, ending Sean’s interest in how long they had been there, or for that matter, how many were in Team One. And more importantly, who had authorized Team One. He had specifically told Mike not to endanger the boy’s life by sending a second team to the ranch. But then if the ten-man Team Two hadn’t surrounded the ranch, Sean and James would have been dead. Sean decided to let Mike off, at least on that occasion.
As Sean offered to take James from the soldier, he was handed a cell phone instead.
“Sean,” the voice was very weak but Sean recognized it straight away.
“Vincent, how are you?”
“More worried than I have ever been in my life!” he replied.
“Jesus a heart attack isn’t going to kill you,” laughed Sean.
“Not me you idiot, Mike’s just taken me through his findings and he was right, we are fucked. You need to get back here asap before you head to Moscow.”
“I’m going to the beach, V. trust me I deserve it.”
“Sean, this is about you!”
“About me?”
“Have you ever heard of Dr Joseph Mengele?”
Chapter 63
Sean knew the name. Hell, everybody recognized the name but what the hell did it have to do with him? Vincent wouldn’t explain any more over the phone. Sean was just to get to Langley asap.
“Grab some of those Lexuses, we need to get to the airport,” shouted Sean.
As they careened their way down the hill, the Team Leader contacted his counterpart at the airport to tell them they were on their way.
James was laughing and bouncing on Sean’s knee as the Lexus clambered over the rough terrain. Their off- roading abilities were severely impacted by the weight of their armor.
As they neared the outskirts of the city and bumped onto tarmac, the ride improved, as did the speed of the small three-car convoy. The heavily laden Lexuses were not the most agile but on a straight road and given space, the speed certainly did improve.
“I’ll pass you over!” said the Team Leader, handing his headset to Sean.
“Where are you?” asked a voice Sean recognized.
“About two minutes out,” he replied, as the fencing surrounding the airport came into view. “Who is this?”
“Agent Smith,” replied Agent James Smith who had met Sean at the airport the previous day. The sound of gunfire at Agent Smith’s side of the conversation interrupted the introductions.
“Turn around, it’s not secure here!” Another burst of gunfire highlighted the point perfectly.
As Sean looked towards the access road to the airport, a convoy of pick up trucks was leaving, all filled with men carrying weapons.
“We’re leaving now!” shouted Smith above the engine noise of the aircraft. “We’ll pick you up at Laredo!” he managed before the line went dead.
Sean watched as a jet shot down the runway.
“Turn around!!!” he screamed as the first bullets began to ping off their armored plating.
James laughed as the bullets pinged against the windshield in front of him. Sean took him off his lap and handed him to the agents in the back where he was promptly strapped in.
Sean looked back as the chasers closed. The Lexuses were too slow. Their only hope was to get to the border before the pursuers got through their armor.
As they turned onto another road, two trucks barreled towards them. Their only option was to turn down another road, a narrower road where even more armed men lay waiting.
“What the fuck is going on?!!!” screamed one of the agents, verbalizing what everybody else was thinking.
“They’re corralling us to where they want us!” realized Sean. This was one very coordinated and impressive maneuver.
With each street, the chasing pack became larger; it was like some weird 'B’ movie where everybody had been infected by a homicidal virus. It seemed every living soul in Nuevo Laredo was determined to help kill them.
“Split up?” asked Sean to the team leader.
“Worth a try,” he replied and barked the order to the other two cars. At the next junction they split three separate ways. Sean watched as each and every car ignored the other two Lexuses and followed his.
“Shit!” he exclaimed, much to James’s amusement and warning that Mommy would be angry. Sean didn’t feel she’d be overly concerned given the current circumstance.
As they rushed towards another junction, another makeshift roadblock was forcing them right. The truck that blocked their way had left a small gap at the rear.
“Keep going for that gap and hold tight,” ordered Sean.
“That gap’s half the width of this car!” shouted the driver, in a panic.
“Yep, and hit the gas,” screamed Sean.
They hit the truck and spun it out of the way. The weight and momentum of the Lexus were too much for the empty truck.
“Jesus, if that had been fully loaded, we’d be dead!” screamed the Team Leader at Sean in frustration.
“And the back axle would have been riding much lower,” replied Sean confidently. Although he had no idea how low or high the axle rode on that truck. He just knew they were no longer going where the pursuers wanted them.
The road sign indicated 2 miles to the border. Sean looked back and could see that their maneuver had generated a little extra distance between themselves and their pursuers and hopefully enough to see them to the border.
“Fuck!!!” screamed the driver, standing on the brakes.
Sean whipped round as the Lexus struggled to stop against the momentum it had built up. The queue of traffic stretched off in to the American distance.
Sean yanked the steering wheel to the left and the Lexus bounced across the median to the oncoming lanes, empty thanks to the closed border. The driver floored it again. As Sean checked behind them again, the pursuers remained close behind. They were going to follow them all the way. Sean suddenly realized that there was no guarantee they’d actually stop at the border.
“Shit!” the driver shouted as he once again applied the brakes.
Sean turned expecting a queue of traffic, instead it seemed their pursuers had upped their game. The sight of a helicopter hovering ahead was bad enough but the two ominous pods protruding from either side had even the heavily armored Lexus petrified. The rockets would tear through it like a hot knife through butter.
“Fuck!” he added much to James’ amusement.
He watched in the mirror as the pursuers stopped a couple of hundred yards back, clearing the way for the
