Edge of Battle

of an immense bird zooming down at him! “What in hell is that?” Swooping down toward the melee, still several hundred feet in the sky but moving in with breathtaking speed, was a massive aircraft with long, gracefully sweeping wings and a bulbous fuselage. It was one of the Condor unmanned reconnaissance airships, barreling almost straight down at them like an eagle about to capture its prey.

“Don’t stop! Get them into the truck!” Zakharov shouted. “I will take care of this thing!” Zakharov began firing his rifle at the airship, but it kept on coming at them. He reloaded a fresh magazine of shells and took aim again. The airship started to wobble, slightly at first and then more wildly as more and more helium escaped from chambers throughout its structure.

At that moment he felt a bullet whiz just centimeters past his head. He didn’t even have to look to know who fired that shot. “I have had enough of you, Agent Purdy,” Zakharov said. “Time to end your tired old existence.” He unslung his rifle from his shoulder, raised, aimed, and…

…at that moment another motion caught his eye, and he turned to see a wounded Victor Flores driving the farm tractor right at him! It looked like most of Flores’s right shoulder was gone and blood covered almost his entire torso, but he was still conscious and shouting epithets as he barreled toward the Russian. He dodged as fast as he could and swung the Dragunov around, but the large right tire clipped him, nearly running him over.

“A brave move, young man,” Zakharov said. He swung his rifle around and fired at the passing tractor. A cloud of red gore exploded out of Victor Flores’s chest, and he slumped forward, dead before he hit the steering wheel. The tractor continued on across the highway, overturning into a ditch on the other side.

Zakharov’s right hip was throbbing, and he was angry enough to chew nails. “?Pidar!” he swore. He was seriously hurt, and he realized he had to get out of there before the police showed up. He started hobbling toward the camper, holding his side…

…when he saw something that surprised him—the farmworkers running out of the fields, carrying shovels, picking tools, rakes, and anything else they could use as a weapon. “?Consigalo! ?Matelo!” they shouted, raising their tools and fists into the air. “You kill Victor Flores—now we kill you! ” Farther down the road, Zakharov could see several other farmworkers rushing his pickup truck.

“Let’s get out of here, Colonel!” one of the commandos shouted. He turned his submachine gun toward the farmworkers and fired a burst. They took cover behind the camper, then started rocking it, threatening to overturn it in moments. Gunshots erupted from inside the cab as the driver fired at the crowd from inside the truck, but before he could fire again one of the workers poked him in the face with a shovel, knocking the gun out of his hand, and then the others were on him.

Zakharov drew his pistol and fired. Three farmworkers went down, and the rest turned and fled into the fields for cover. Zakharov scared the others off with shots from his sidearm, got into the camper, and he and the last three commandos sped south down Highway 111.

Back in the lettuce field, a small crowd of farmworkers along with Maria Arevalo slowly approached Purdy. The Border Patrol agent was awake but lying down, grimacing in pain as he smoked a cigarette. “You okay, Purdy?” she asked.

“The bastard broke my damned sternum, I think,” Purdy said, “but I’m still alive. I remembered the shock plate this time. Something to tell the grandkids when they get older, I guess—Grandpa was shot by the world- famous terrorist mastermind Colonel Yegor Zakharov, and survived. I hope.” He reached up and grasped Maria’s hand. “How about granting a dying man’s one last wish, eh, gorgeous?”

“You must be hallucinating, old man,” Arevalo said with a smile, dropping his hand in mock disgust. “Or should I ask my husband what he thinks of your request?”

“You broke my heart again with the ‘H’ word, baby,” Purdy said. “Where’s that Russian?”

“Got away,” Maria said.

“Dammit, Richter deserves to get tortured for tryin’ to make a deal with that snake,” Purdy muttered. He pulled out a cellular phone, praying he could get a signal out here and relieved when he got one.

“DeLaine.”

“Miss Director, this is Purdy.”

“What’s happened, Purdy? You don’t sound good.”

“I got real bad news. We ran into Zakharov, and he was ready for us. He got Richter and his robot.”

“He what? Where’s he headed?”

“DeLaine, you need to get the Border Patrol, the California Highway Patrol, the Imperial County Sheriff’s Department, and every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine from El Centro to help you cover all the routes between Niland, California, and the border—you’ll need everyone you can scrape up,” Purdy said. “They were heading south on Highway 111 toward Brawley and El Centro. My guess is Zakharov is headed for the border. He’s got three guys and some heavy weapons with him. Get the Highway Patrol with infrared scanners to look in the fields and orchards, and have them seal off Highway 98 and Interstate 8 tight.”

“I’m on it, Purdy.”

Purdy ended his call, then painfully walked over to the tractor across the road. A small group of workers had pulled the body of Victor Flores out of the wreckage and onto the ground. His bullet-torn body made him look even younger than he was. If he ever had a son, Purdy thought, he hoped he would have half the courage of this young man.

He knelt beside him and brushed his hair and cheeks, hoping that he could see some sign of life, but his wounds were simply too massive. “Zakharov, you are one cold son of a bitch to shoot an innocent kid like this,” he said angrily. “If it’s the last thing I do, you are going down.”

“?Que dijo usted, Purdy?” one of the workers asked him.

Purdy shook his head—it was between him, Victor Flores, and God, he thought. “Una promesa a Victor, senor,” he said. He gave the young man another pat on the cheek. “Gracias por salvar mi vida, amigo,” he said. “Thanks for saving my hide, buddy. Don’t worry about Zakharov—I’ll get the bastard for you.”

Zakharov ditched the camper at a rest stop on Route S30 near Calipatria for a Dodge Caravan minivan driven by an older retired couple, and they headed east toward the Coachella Canal through endless fields of crops in the fertile Imperial Valley. At the intersection of Routes S33 and 78, fearing that the elderly owners of the minivan would have had time to report the theft, they transferred all of their remaining weapons and equipment to a battered farmer’s pickup truck that had the keys left in it, ditched the Caravan, and continued south.

As they drove away, Zakharov snapped off the satellite phone. “Dammit, I am not sure if I’m getting through to anyone—there’s a connection, but no response,” he said. “Fuerza had better answer me, or I hunt him down next. We are only twenty miles or so from the border, but they will certainly have shut down the highways and border crossing points.”

“There is a steel fence on the border twenty miles either side of Calexico—they will certainly deploy every Border Patrol agent in this sector there,” one of the commandos said.

“We go east around the fence,” Zakharov said. “We will make better time on the highway than in the fields, and we will get off and cross the border as soon as we are clear of the fence.”

Instead of getting on Interstate 8 near Holtville, they took the Evan Hewes Highway, which paralleled the freeway, being very careful not to go too fast or do anything to attract attention; Zakharov slumped down in his seat so he wouldn’t be recognized. Soon they saw one, then two, then several California Highway Patrol interceptors, lights and sirens flashing, cruising both sides of the interstate highway. A few minutes later, they saw a gray military helicopter fly overhead. “A Navy helicopter, probably from El Centro,” Zakharov said. “They want us very badly, I think.”

It appeared they made the right decision by going east instead of straight south, because most of the police action seemed to center near Bonds Corner and Highway 98, close to the border. But Zakharov’s military-trained sixth sense told him that even this dusty highway was no place to be for very much longer. “We need to get off this road,” he said, after trying for the umpteenth time to make a connection with his satellite phone. “We are violating all the rules of tactical evasion. The police will have the highways closed off soon. We will hide this truck and go to ground until nightfall, then find a way across the border.”

The highway was so straight and flat that it was easy to see several miles ahead, and soon Zakharov saw what he had feared: a roadblock set up ahead, both on the interstate and frontage road. They turned north off the highway at a farm access road and stopped at a portable restroom set up at the edge of a field. The men began arming themselves, preparing at any moment to jump out of the truck and fight if necessary. They were surrounded