“I own the whole strip,” Wall said with a damp chuckle. “’Cept the Chinese place. That dude is a stone holdout.”
Instead of sides of beef and boxes of frozen poultry, the freezer contained crates piled high on pallets in even rows. There was several million dollars in government ordnance here, American and foreign. High-end stuff. The room smelled of Cosmoline and gun oil. Smelt like home.
“Hammond said you were looking to outfit four men for a long-range op?” Wall leaned back on a stack of crates and lit a new Camel with the old one.
“Got a grocery list,” Chaz said. “I want four M4s. Bushmaster frames if you have ’em. Five thousand rounds of .223.
“In mags or cartons?”
“Cartons. We’ll load our own mags. And we’ll need 30-round mags. Eighty of them, minimum.”
Wall stuck out his lower lip and nodded. “Got drum mags if you want ’em.”
“Drums aren’t worth shit.”
“No problem. What else?”
“A SAW and a thousand rounds. A dozen box mags. Spare barrel. Make it two spare barrels.”
“I got an FN Minimi in primo. Got a Chinese type 88 but I’m guessing you’re not interested in economizing.”
“You’re right,” Chaz nodded. “It’s our asses on the line. I want reliable. We’ll take the Minimi.”
“Got you covered. What else is on that list?”
“Frags. HE. Some smoke grenades. Four sets of body armor. And NODs.”
“You need sidearms?” Wall began walking through the rows of crates. “Got some sweet Sigs.”
“We’re covered on that. We have a long gun and shotguns. From you, we need the government-issue stuff.”
“How about a Ma Deuce?” Wall patted a wooden crate eight feet in length stenciled M-2, .50 CAL.
Chaz and Hammond exchanged a look that set Wall on a bout of laughing that turned to a spasm of coughing that almost brought the old biker to his knees.
An hour later they were wheels up, the Gulfstream a ton heavier and Chaz’s Nike bag a quarter-million lighter. They dropped down at a private field just west of Coyote Springs ninety minutes later and drove the two hours to the compound pulling a rusting horse trailer behind the doc’s Land Rover. Just two cowboys headed home through the high country.
11
Camp Nowhen
The edge of the escarpment jutted well clear of the lip of the mesa and had a good view of the skinnies’ village below. It formed a natural redoubt, surrounded on three sides by steep walls that would make for a difficult approach. A game trail wound down from behind the position, concealed by brush and berry bushes on either side. Access back to the field site was an easy, level thirty minute hike to the east. It was the perfect hide and perfect observation post.
Dwayne glassed the village and, for the hundredth time, cursed the weak ten-power binoculars they’d packed along. But they brought him close enough to see some of the activity below. The day was clear and visibility good. Many of the huts were just black stains on the sand now. Others were knocked flat by concussion from the satchel charges. The skinnies were stripping the burnt hooches for useable materials. The women and children of the tribe carried scorched logs and branches and placed them in a pile either for burning or to build new huts.
The males had already gathered up the dead in the day and a half it took Dwayne and Jimbo to make their way around the lake and up to this vantage point. Dwayne could see no wounded, and that meant that anyone who survived the fight with injuries had been executed or left to bleed out. Dwayne counted forty-six bodies laid out in the sand, and the men worked over them as though they were game. He recognized the motions, even if he could see little detail. Each corpse was strung up on a gibbet by the ankles to empty their veins. They were gutting the corpses and skinning them before carving meat from the bones. The skins were stretched on a line like some horrible load of laundry strung out to dry. The guts and bones were left in a pile for the dogs to fight over. Some of the innards, hearts and livers probably, were thrown into baskets woven from reeds and carried away by the women. A toddler no more than three rushed up and snatched what had to be a liver from a basket and evaded swats from the men. The little one ran off to gnaw at the dripping slab in the shelter of a ruined hut like it was a slice of birthday cake.
Dwayne had seen his share of horrors but he had to move the lenses away from that sight.
The rockface above the cave was speckled with the black shapes of carrion birds, big turkey buzzards squatting on every available rock and ledge. More and more arrived throughout the day. Now and then one of the big-winged birds would dare to swoop down and snatch a discarded bit of flesh from the pile. Children of the tribe would laugh and throw rocks at the vultures as they soared back up the cliff with long strings of flesh dangling from their beaks.
The hide was a good four hundred yards from and above the village, but the stink of that butcher’s heap still reached him. Dwayne couldn’t see but he could imagine the clouds of flies and God knew what other prehistoric pests that were probably hovering over the camp.
He returned the binoculars to his main area of attention,
