0545
PG895707
N 33 09 42.1
W 114 58 10.8
LIVE ORD
1,2,5.
'I don't know what column one is, but column two is the target description,' I continued. 'Mechanized Infantry, Armored Column, SAM site. They drag these old garbage trucks and bulldozers out on the gunnery range, set them up to look like armored columns or a SAM missile site, then the jet jocks roll in and hit all this stuff with Tomahawk missiles. Column three is something. Numbers-I don't know what.'
'Could be the coordinates of the target. The latitude and longitude.' Sonny said.
'No, it looks more like military time. Thirteen thirty-five hours is one thirty-five p. M. Columns five and six look like the coordinates. That N33.13 would be longitude, W115.05, latitude. Then the next column says LIVE ORD. Means they're shooting hot ammo.'
'As opposed to what?' He grinned. 'Rubber pellets?'
'Inerts. We trained with the air wing when I was in the Corps. Inert ordnance is like bombs made out of concrete. They use that stuff to test for target accuracy, but it doesn't explode.'
'And that last column?'
'I don't know,' I admitted.
'So why did Smiley print this out?' Sonny asked.
'I don't have a clue,' I answered. Again, we sat in silence. 'Okay, we have a couple of ways to go here. Your choice,' I said.
'Don't do that 'your choice' BS on me again, Shane. I remember the choice you gave me up at Hidden Ranch Road.'
'Hey, Sonny, if we call the authorities, the Marines are gonna chopper out here in those big double proppers, bullhorn this place, and before they can catch him, Smiley will be long gone across the border into Mexico. Let's just go under the wire and get this puke.'
'With no backup.'
'Our backup is five miles south of this range, still up on the mountain, and we've got the truck.'
He thought about it for a minute, nodded. 'Okay, I'm down. Let's see if we can find where he went in.'
I checked my cell phone again. Still no signal. We continued past the auto graveyard until, off to the right, I saw a wash leading away from the gunnery range with a lot of dune buggy tracks marking the deep sand.
'Turn down there,' I said, 'Follow those tire tracks. Somebody must live down there. Maybe we can find out more about this place and use their phone to call in the locals.'
Sonny hung a right and headed into the wash. The SWAT truck was muscular but heavy, and the minute we slowed, the tires started to dig in and spin. Sonny had to keep the speed up or we'd be stuck. We followed the tracks. Then, off to the right, I spotted a small homestead. A trailer and junkyard sat next to a fenced parking area containing a bunch of radical-looking sand rails. I estimated we were about a mile east of the gunnery range.
'Pull up,' I said.
'If I stop we're never gonna get dug out,' Sonny answered.
'We have to take a chance. We can't off-road in this truck. Look what's parked back there. Just stop,' I said.
We rolled to a stop and our tires immediately sank into the soft sand. Behind the six-foot-high fence we counted half a dozen unpainted dune buggy-like vehicles of various sizes. All were equipped with big, exposed V-8 engines and had massive tractor tires on the rear wheels, with smaller ones up front. The buggies were light and lean with open cockpits, bucket seats, and no windshields. A few had large flatbeds resting between the rear axles. None of them had headlights.
The chain-link gate was bolted shut with a large heavy-duty padlock. Off to the left an old, rusted-out silver Airstream trailer was parked under a lone olive tree. All the lights were off inside. No phone wires anywhere. Whoever lived here was some kind of recluse. I walked to the trailer, climbed up on a creaking wood porch, pulled out my badge and knocked on the front door. It didn't look like anybody was home. Sonny followed and stood behind me.
'What kinda fool lives out here, less than a mile from a live gunnery range?' he asked.
'Desert Rat,' I said. 'Since nobody's home to lend us one of those dune buggies, whatta you say we just borrow one and call it a police emergency?'
'How? They're all locked up,' Sonny said.
'I think I saw some bolt cutters in the back.'
Sonny nodded and took off running to the truck. He returned with a set of heavy-duty bolt cutters, put them on the padlock, and easily clipped through it. Then he carried the cutters back to the truck and disappeared inside.
When he reappeared he was carrying two AR-15s and four circular C-mag hundred-round clips. He reset the complicated alarm on the truck, while I swung the metal gate open. He handed me one of the AR-15s and two of the heavy C-mags. Then we surveyed the motor pool.
'How 'bout this one here?' Sonny said, checking out a two-seat racer with no flatbed. He unscrewed the gas cap and stuck his index finger inside. 'Full. I can hot-wire it easy.'
A few minutes later Sonny had unhooked the ignition wires, twisted them together, and we had the sand rail going. It had straight pipes with no muffler, and the roaring engine fractured the still desert night. I climbed into the passenger seat. The owner had screwed in a metal pole between the seats, about where the windshield would be. The thick mast went up about a foot above our heads and had a huge bolt welded to the top.
'What's this thing for?' Sonny said, pointing at it.
'It probably ain't for water skiing,' I quipped. 'Let's get out of here.'
I stacked the two automatic weapons between us, then Sonny hit the gas and we careened out of the enclosure, passing our SWAT truck sitting low in soft sand.
We raced back up the wash to the gunnery range fence, turned right, and continued running on the road beside the range, which was situated in a desert valley halfway between the Chocolate and Chuckwalla mountains. We were speeding along under a quarter moon, without a windshield or headlights, the wind stinging our eyes, tears streaming down our faces, running almost blind at about forty miles per hour in a two-seat dune buggy with no suspension. I was bouncing hard and holding on with both hands. Every time we hit a pothole my cracked ribs talked to me. After this ride, I was going to need to get my prostate checked.
Up ahead I saw a spot where somebody had cut a hole in the government fence. I pointed at it and Sonny steered over and parked. I got out and peeled back the wire flap. He slowly edged the rumbling, vibrating dune buggy through the opening and I jumped back aboard.
We were inside the restricted area of the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range.
I still had the night vision binoculars around my neck, so I pulled them up and focused them toward the center of the vast area. There had to be thousands of acres out here. I saw burned cacti and sand charred black from Nadaum drops. It looked apocalyptic, as desolate and bombed-out as any place on earth. Then I noticed a small outcropping of low buildings a mile or two away. I pointed them out to Sonny but didn't speak, because the straight pipes on the sand rail were so loud I would have had to scream to be heard. Sonny floored it and we were off again, heading toward the buildings, flying over the sand, jumping berms, Sonny driving like a man who had lost his mind.
As we approached I saw that this was some kind of target town. There were two or three transecting streets and a main drag. The houses were all one-story, built out of adobe bricks and corrugated metal. Many of them had been leveled by past bombing runs, then rebuilt and tumbled down again. We slowed the sand rail and came to a stop on the outskirts of this little unmanned village. Our engine idle filled the night and vibrated the sand rail energetically. A hand-painted sign was posted directly in front of us. It said:
cactus west city limits.
