He leaned over the front of my 4W, nearly putting his head to my gun. “Keep your mouths shut and your asses on the other side of the line and you’ll never know we’re here.”
His eyes were small beady black dots as he glared at me, but this close, something else struck me. A flash of another being, floating around, through him, like a ghost. My heart started beating harder. Despite my upbringing, I didn’t believe in Spirits. Until now. Something unnatural was attached to this man and it was evil. Every nerve in my body wanted to twitch, but I held onto my training.
Show no fear. “Back off. My finger is starting to get a mind of its own and it doesn’t like you any better than I do.”
He smirked as he turned away and walked back towards his vehicle.
CHAPTER
3
The armed men let us drive between them, but never took their weapons off us. I looked at the Hummers. They were the real models, made for this exacting terrain. The rear windows were tinted black, making it impossible to see inside. I got the impression there were people inside. I also got a wave of something else, like a smell of desperation.
Guns waved us on. At the rear of each vehicle were drag plates. That explained the consistent patterns in the sand. Even as we cleared their blockade, there were no tire tracks behind them. As we hit a curve I threw the Smirker one last look. He glared back at me. Even at a distance, he tried to intimidate me. With that evil Spirit around him, it worked. I held my breath until we were clear of these intruders.
Lutz dropped back to ride beside me, raising his visor. “We need to report this.”
“I’ll deal with it.” I studied the terrain around us, looking for the traps we’d sprung to tell these people we were even here. “First, let’s clear the last relief station and get back to base.”
He gave me a look that said he thought I was nuts, but he didn’t question my order. As soon as we reached the main wash, the static on my com line cleared. HQ was calling me, sounding pretty persistent and annoyed.
“This is Capt. Castle.”
“What happened? You should have checked in from RS5 by now.”
“Sorry, we were investigating tracks. Only realized a few minutes ago that our coms were down. On our way to RS5 now.” Lutz cleared his throat, but I shook my head. “Will reach the relief station in another ten minutes.”
Having set a deadline, I took the lead again, picking up our pace. It also kept Lutz from asking me a bunch of questions. With the interference the conversation with these intruders hadn’t transmitted, but I’d recorded the Smirker and his papers. I wanted to go over the information before I did anything official.
The last relief station was close enough to the border we could almost throw a rock and hit Mexico. It was also the first point of relief for illegals, and the heaviest hit. By the time they reached this point they were out of food and water.
Lutz confirmed what we already knew, that the boxes were undisturbed. We reported in, informing them we were headed back to base. I kept radio silence as we passed the branch of the washes. All evidence we’d been up that way had been erased. I didn’t say anything to Lutz.
We maintained radio silence until we broke out of the mountains. Then I pulled over, removed my helmet, and walked back along the path a few meters. Lutz was right there, helmet off too. “So why the silent treatment?”
“They were listening to us.”
“Our coms weren’t working.”
“Theirs were. He called me by name and when I threatened to call for backup, he dared me to do it.” I stared into the darkening mountains. “I had my mike full open and HQ didn’t pick up on any of it.”
“Why didn’t they warn us anyone was up there?” Lutz fidgeted as he looked back into the hills too. “That almost came down to a shootout.”
“Which we’d have lost.” I turned back towards our 4Ws.
“Is that what you’re reporting?” Lutz followed.
“I’m not sure what I’m reporting. Not until I get more information.” I hesitated putting my helmet on again, not trusting it now. “I’m not one to jump at conspiracy theories, but I got a bad feeling about this, like you got a bad feeling about the illegals.”
“Maybe they’re related.”
You think? I didn’t need to be snippy with Lutz. “Wouldn’t be surprised. If that’s how they treated us, no telling what they’d do to anyone else. But before I go blowing any whistles I need to know if they’re legit. Making noise could be career-enders for both of us.”
Lutz’s new scowl was understandable. He’d just reenlisted. We’d chatted enough to know getting thrown out of the Marines was not acceptable. “Yeah, let’s cover our asses first.”
Reluctantly I put on my helmet, confirmed we were heading to our camp. We loaded the 4Ws into our truck and I let Lutz drive. It was a long, wordless ride back to base. We checked our vehicles into maintenance, our helmets into the com office and grabbed our duffels. I had two days to turn in a formal report, so I hung onto our data chips. Outside HQ doors I dismissed Lutz, returning his salute and went in by myself.
I half-expected the duty officer to be waiting, to admonish me for the break in communications. Another part of me expected our CO to debrief me for violating a secure area. But the duty officer barely looked up from his desk. “Relief stations checked out? Vehicles and gear checked in?”
“Everything should be restocked and ready to head out tomorrow.” I ran my arm over the ID scanner, electronically signing the mission log. “Anything before I call it a night?”
He
