stepped over him and fired once at the agent’s head, stilling him.
The group of immigrants burst into panicked motion, those still inside the truck jumping out while others on the road scattered into the darkness. The gunman continued firing, mowing down several fleeing people. Grabbing Esteban’s hand, Consuelo lurched toward the open back as she heard another strange metallic clatter behind her, then the deafening sound of some kind of terrible weapon.
“Run, Esteban!” she shouted. Pulling her son along, she scrambled toward the open door. Around her, men and women died in their tracks, bullets from the chattering, deadly weapons punching through their bodies. Shouts and screams were heard both inside and out, and Consuelo realized one of the voices was her own, shrieking in dazed terror. One arm was wrapped tightly around her daughter, and her other hand clutched Esteban’s fingers in a death grip.
And suddenly, they were at the door, miraculously un-scathed. Consuelo didn’t stop, but leaped out of the truck, dragging Esteban behind her. She fell hard, landing on her knees, right beside the body of the Border Patrol agent who had collapsed against the side of the truck. The woman’s oozing blood stained her uniform black in the bright lights and heat. Around her, the three foreign men methodically killed everyone in sight. The first one now stood on the patrol vehicle’s hood, shooting anyone who moved. Bodies were strewed everywhere, cut down as they tried to escape.
Sucking in a breath of hot night air, Consuelo staggered to her feet, helped by Esteban, who was now tugging on her.
“Hurry, Mama, hurry!” She let him pull her into the darkness, stumbling past yucca plants and Amargosa bushes.
She saw a thick cluster of
A shot cracked out from behind her, and Consuelo felt something punch her hard in the lower back. All of the strength drained out of her legs, and she collapsed in a heap, still holding Silvia, who was clinging to her neck.
“Mama, get up, we have to get out of here!” Esteban pulled on her hand, pleading, tears streaming down his face.
“Esteban, take your sister and go.” Consuelo shook her head, trying to think. “Follow the—the road.” Scattered shots came from behind them, the cries and pleas of the others falling silent. Suddenly she was tired…so tired.
“No, I won’t let you. Don’t hurt Mama!” She felt Esteban drape himself over her back, and all Consuelo could think to do was to huddle over her daughter, who had suddenly turned limp and heavy in her arms. Consuelo tilted her daughter back and saw Silvia’s head loll on her shoulders.
Looking down, she saw dark blood from where the bullet had passed through her and into her daughter’s body.
“Oh, no…no, not Silvia…” She felt Esteban, still yell-ing and struggling, suddenly lifted off her, and then a single, sharp crack, punishing her ears. Strange, but she couldn’t hear her son’s voice anymore. The shot has deafened me, she thought.
Consuelo drew her daughter close again, wrapping her arms around the small body as footsteps crunched in the sandy soil next to her. She looked up to see one of the men, his eyes expressionless, a pistol held at his side.
“Please…my daughter…she is hurt….”
He spoke to her in mangled Spanish. “Your son had heart of warrior. I give him quick death. Good death.”
“Please…help my baby…let her go….”
He raised the pistol again. “They will be at peace, if Allah wills it.”
Just before she saw the blinding muzzle-flash, she heard him say one last thing in that strange language, and in the flash of a second before Consuelo’s death, she somehow understood the words, although they did not ease her passing one bit.
Nathaniel Spencer tilted his cowboy hat lower over his pale blue eyes and leaned back in the seat of the battered, primer-gray Ford Bronco. He appeared to be just another gringo taking a siesta in the ovenlike afternoon heat on the road in front of a line of small businesses along Oregon Street. But Spencer stared through the loose weave of his straw hat at the auto parts shop and attached warehouse across the street. He also kept one hand on the small, discreet earbud to monitor the reports from his men. He and several Customs and Border Protection agents had been stationed around a drop point for one of the dozens of local drug-smuggling rings that infested El Paso and its poorer half to the south, Ciudad Juarez, for the past four hours, and Nate would stay there until their quarry showed up.
“I still don’t see why I have to sit back here and suffer.
I think I’ve lost five pounds just from sweat alone.”
Nathaniel’s new partner, George Ryan, was a big, green recruit not even six months out of training. He was huddled in the backseat, out of sight, but not out of smell. Nate wrinkled his nose at the sweet-sour stink coming off the other man.
“Because two men in the front would arouse suspicion.
Now shut your trap and drink more water. At least you’re still sweating, so consider yourself lucky. I don’t need my backup keeling over from heatstroke.” Nathaniel eased the straw of a plastic sport bottle underneath his hat and took a long, warm gulp. After dozens of stakeouts just like this one, he knew all too well the stealthy danger of the life-draining heat. He keyed his radio. “Anybody got anything yet?”
A chorus of negatives answered him, from two agents posing as loitering day laborers in front of the hardware store next to Hernando, the unlucky guy who had drawn the short straw and had to dress as a homeless person. He had spent the past few hours alternating between rooting through a small grocery store’s garbage and wandering up and down the alley.
Nate would have preferred to have an extra half-dozen agents on this raid, but they were stretched thin as it was, and he’d been lucky to get the three additional agents in the first place.
“Jesus, these guys are seriously late.” George sucked down tepid water, draining the bottle. “Bet they ain’t coming at all.”
“Slow down, Tex—drink too fast and you’ll give yourself cramps.” Nathaniel heard the growl of a truck coming up the street, and his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, spotting a rumbling cargo truck turning the corner, heading toward the back of the building. Emblazoned on its side was the name of the auto parts store they were watching.
“Everyone look sharp. I think they just arrived.
Hernando, get your head out of that Dumpster and see if you can verify that license plate.”
“With pleasure—you had to pick the day they threw out their old meat, didn’t you? My wife’s gonna make me sleep in the den again. Okay, Lima Juliet Kilo five-one-niner. That matches the truck we’re expecting.”
Nate sat up and pushed his hat back. “All right, everyone. Get ready—the cargo has arrived. We’ll give ’em a few minutes, then move in after the truck has docked and they’ve started unloading. Carter, Juan, you guys take the front. Hernando, move to the back corner and keep an eye on the truck. Ryan and I will circle around the block and take them from behind.” He clicked off his radio. “All right, George, get up here.” He leaned toward the door as the stocky man clambered into the front seat.
“Damn two-door,” he muttered.
“Hey, do not insult the vehicle. This little son of a bitch has gotten me through hell and back.” Firing the engine, Nate pulled a U-turn and headed past the grocery store, then turned right down the side street.
Hernando’s voice came over the radio. “Nate, I’m in position. The truck just parked in the loading dock, and it looks like our boys are in quite a hurry for some reason.”
“We’ll be there in thirty. Front team, you ready?”
“Give the word, and we’ll be inside in ten seconds.”
“Copy that. No one moves until my signal.” Nate turned right again, aiming the Bronco down the alley toward the auto parts store and pulling forward until he could just see the white snout of the truck’s hood. Drawing his .40 -caliber HK P-2000 pistol, he chambered a round, waiting until George did the same. “We’ll pull in front of the truck as Carter and Juan sweep from the front, round everyone up and be done with it. You remembered your vest, right?”
George thumped his chest. “You mean the thing I’m swimmin’ in here? Hell, yeah.”
