Hostile Borders (23 page)

“Come on,” Mackenzie said, “we've got to get the cargo pack unloaded while there's still light.”

After introducing Manors and Hausmann to the others, all of the men set to work unloading some very heavy boxes and containers from the Skymaster. There was a fiberglass box that had been attached underneath the fuselage of the plane that held some heavy ammunition boxes as well as other packages and odd-shaped bags that Hausmann thought he recognized. For his part,
Manors just helped load the materials into the pickup truck, figuring he would be told what they were later.

Pulling other containers and bags from the back of the Skymaster, Warrick walked over to the truck holding one of several large gun cases. All of the men working together quickly emptied the plane of hundreds of pounds of equipment that was stowed in the back of the pickup truck and covered with a big tarp.

“Okay,” Reaper said. “Hausmann, you and Manors take the truck back to the ranch. We'll meet you there later.”

“Where are you going?” Hausmann asked.

“They're going to take the plane over to the Sierra Vista Municipal Airport,” Reaper said. “It's the closest place we can secure it that has fuel facilities.”

“Yeah, we sucked gas pretty heavily coming down here,” Warrick said. “We have to refuel before we can head back.”

“I'm going to head over there and pick them up,” Reaper said. “We'll drive down to the ranch from there.”

Mackenzie and Warrick were already climbing into the Skymaster as Reaper finished his explanation to Hausmann. As they fired up the twin props, the still-warm engines caught instantly and quickly ran up to speed. The boxy plane taxied around until it was facing back along the runway and soon was in the air and heading west.

The Sierra Vista Municipal Airport shared its runway with the Libby Air Force Base and was only a twenty-mile flight from Tombstone. But Reaper had to drive well over thirty miles to get from one base to the
other. The Sierra Vista airport was a nice modern facility. And sharing its space with the Air Force made the location very secure. It was just the kind of place that was great for storing a plane, but Reaper and his friends wouldn't have wanted to unload their cargo there under all of those official eyes. There would have been too many questions that could come up that they just didn't have the time to answer.

During the drive to the Dogbone Ranch, Reaper gave Mackenzie and Warrick a full rundown on what had been happening during his vacation. The two men listened intently to the man they looked to as their team's leader. There had been no question that they would come when Reaper had called. Now they were learning just what the specifics for that call were.

Pulling into the ranch, Reaper saw that there was another car in the parking area, a dusty 2002 Mustang with Nevada license plates. Reaper had never seen the car before, but he had a really good idea who had been behind the steering wheel all the way from Nevada.

“Rick, Rick Column!” Reaper said as he walked into the house.

Sitting at the bar with a beer in his hand was the man Reaper had called that morning. An ex-Army Ranger, Richard Column ran security for a number of men's entertainment clubs in Las Vegas. Several branches of the clubs were in Phoenix, Arizona, where Column had been earlier that day.

“Damn,” Reaper said with a wide smile on his face, “I thought you were just going to call me back.”

“Hey,” Column said, “I didn't get your message until
early this afternoon. I made some calls back to Vegas to confirm some things. You said in your message that you were here at Hausmann's, so I figured I would just come down when I had the answers to your question.”

After everyone was introduced around and had picked up a beer, coffee, or soft drink according to their tastes, Reaper went over the situation that was going on in the area.

The smiles were gone now, Reaper was deadly serious and it showed.

“So that's it,” Reaper said. “We have a group of drug runners who have hooked up with terrorists. And to make matters worse, there's an ex-SEAL who's gone over to the dark side working for them. The word from Washington is to shut down the drug runners' pipeline and take the terrorists out of the equation.

“They have some very bad news in the way of gear stored across the border. Weapons, explosives, RPGs, and shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles. The missiles are SAM-16s, as close to state of the art as there is on the international arms market. I don't have to tell you what could happen if a terrorist cell in the United States got their hands on those.”

“There's more,” Hausmann said, “this message was waiting for you on the computer.”

Handing Reaper the computer printout, Hausmann leaned down on the bar top to wait while the other man read the message. Reaper's reaction was what he thought it was going to be.

“So, things go from really bad to worse,” Reaper said as he slapped the paper down on the table. Col
umn jumped a bit, startled at Reaper's reaction.

“This is from Washington,” Reaper said pointing at the paper. “That footlocker I found over in the other mine fits in with some intelligence reports that have been building up. The thought is that al-Qaeda is looking to build a dirty bomb and detonate it in the United States. They want to cause a disruption of our elections just like they did in Spain with that train bombing.”

“A dirty bomb?” Column said.

“That's a radiological device,” Mackenzie said. “A bomb with an explosive core packed inside a container of radioactive isotopes or waste. Just about the dirtiest bomb you can make. It doesn't make a nuclear explosion, but it can spread radioactive crap around for miles. Set one off of the right size and makeup in the right place, and you could contaminate a city the size of New York.”

“Or Washington, D.C.,” Reaper said. “And apparently, these guys may have the right stuff to build that bomb with. Some of the intelligence reports list the isotopes as having come from those underground radioactive storage sites they found in Iraq, only the materials were moved before the war started.”

“So much for them not finding any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” Manors said.

“A dirty bomb isn't really a weapon of mass destruction,” Mackenzie said. “It is a hell of a terror weapon, though.”

“The only part missing from the puzzle is how the terrorists are financing their operation,” Reaper said. “We took down one of their hawala banks last year, and
a big one at that. The State Department, Treasury, and Department of Homeland Security have been combining their efforts to shut down the rest of al-Qaeda's money supply in the U.S. But they must be getting their funding somehow.”

“That brings up what you asked me about earlier today,” Column said. “If I knew of anything unusual that had happened with this Paul Stebbins character, especially if any Middle Easterners were involved.”

“What have you got?” Reaper said turning to Column. His blue-gray eyes bored intently into Column's.

Boy, am I glad he's my friend, Column thought. Looking into those eyes is like staring down a pair of gun barrels. He was suddenly worried that what he had to tell Reaper might not be important enough to bother him with.

“Could be nothing,” Column said after a moment, “but it sure was weird. A couple of weeks ago, we had an incident at one of the clubs in Vegas. There was a couple of guys there, one of them was this Stebbins character. He'd brought an Arab with him into the club who obviously had never been in one before, but was playing the part of a big-time spender and trying to blend in. He was trying to blend in so hard that he stood out like a sore thumb.

“To make it short, he broke the rules and touched one of the girls. He didn't know and obviously was scared to death when the girl called security over. The guy looked like he was coming unglued trying to apologize and not make a bad scene worse. Stebbins just kind of stood there with his thumb up his ass not know
ing whether to run or stand. The girl was yelling at these two that she was going to have the police come and throw them both out.

“The Arab offered a stone to the girl as an apology. She saw the guy was completely red-faced over the whole thing and was sweating with fear. So she took the rock and said everything was okay. She didn't really believe him when he told her it was a diamond. But she took it and those two were escorted out of the club. No one really thought anything of it and I wasn't told until I called up and asked about things today.

“You see, the girl took the stone in and had it checked. Damned if it wasn't exactly what that guy told her it was, an uncut diamond. It's worth a couple of grand, minimum. She didn't want to tell anyone after that so that she could keep the stone. When I asked my people about it this morning, the whole story came out. It sounded unusual enough to fit what you had asked about.”

“Blood stones,” Hausmann said.

“What?” Reaper said.

“Blood stones. That's what they call the diamonds that have been coming out of the African mines that any one of a dozen rebel factions are holding. They're turning into one of the underground currencies of the world. Small, light, and very valuable for their size. Reports have a lot more guerrilla and terrorist groups than just al-Qaeda using them all around the world.”

“Underground is right,” Reaper said. “In this case, it looks like the diamonds were taken out of one mine just to end up in another on the other side of the world.”

The next morning was an organized blur of activity for each of the men at the ranch. Hausmann had gone with Warrick to open up the vault at the back of the garage and go over all of the hardware. Things would be repacked as necessary to fit everything they wanted to take onto the Prowlers. In spite of the work at hand, Warrick was fascinated by Hausmann's weapons collection in the vault. He thought taking the Gatling gun would have been an interesting idea at least. Mounting it on the Prowler would make a great picture.

In the garage, Manors was going over the Prowlers themselves. Mackenzie had decided to go with Column up to Phoenix in case there was any trouble with Diamondback in his signing for the Four Horsemen company. And, with two men in the car, they could switch off driving to keep either one from getting too tired.

Back in the ranch house, Reaper was in the kitchen going over all of the information they had at hand.
Even more materials had arrived from Washington and an express courier was delivering some specialized equipment to Diamondback's offices for Reaper and his men. One of Admiral Straker's men was hand-carrying some sophisticated radiation detection gear on a red-eye flight from D.C. Homeland Security could call on the Air Force to fly their people wherever and whenever necessary without questions. Straker had exercised that authority for this operation.

In addition to the specific information on the operation, Reaper had informed Straker about the situation with Pat Manors. The Border Patrol, now renamed U.S. Customs and Border Protection, was the mobile, uniformed law enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security. Manors was the perfect officer to be on detached duty and working undercover for Admiral Straker's office. That was going to be the situation as it would be officially recorded. No matter what happened, at least Reaper was able to make sure that Manors didn't lose his job over his loyalty to a friend or working with the Four Horsemen.

There still weren't any hot radiation sources that could be detected by monitoring satellites over the Northern Sonora countryside of Mexico, or in Southern Arizona. If the isotopes for a dirty bomb were in those areas, they were well shielded from detection.

Straker was informed about the unusual situation regarding an Arab and uncut diamonds in a men's club in Las Vegas. He had told Reaper that he would immediately put law enforcement units on the job investigating that situation.

The description Reaper had been able to give on the single suspected al-Qaeda operative he had seen get in the jeep at the Blue Star mine had been a good one. Straker was certain that a surveillance operation could be conducted that could bring down the entire cell. In addition to identifying those terrorists, the active cell could lead to others in the country. At the very least, they would cut off another source of funds for al-Qaeda and other terrorist operations in the United States. And the lady at the Heart Ranch could expect a visit from the DEA, thanks to a warrant based on Reaper's observations.

Reaper's discoveries had helped give Straker a reason to reinforce the security of the southern border of the United States. Straker was already twisting the arms of other government services and agencies to have men and equipment assigned to the area. Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were being assigned to overfly the Arizona border with Mexico. The UAVs would publicly be observing for illegal activity along the border with Mexico. They would also be outfitted with sensor arrays to allow them to detect even some shielded radioactive materials.

That was everything that could presently be done with the information they already had. Anything further would come about in part because of what Reaper and his people found. The Four Horsemen, with their leader, had already proven themselves a valuable asset to the people of the United States. Now, Reaper was concentrating on making sure he did everything he could to bring all of his men back home.

Arriving back at the ranch late in the morning, Mackenzie and Column returned from Glendale with a truckload of gear. The back of Hausmann's pickup was full of huge rectangular black nylon bags.

“Damn, Column,” Reaper said. “I send you out to do some shopping and you come back with the whole damned store!”

“It's fun going out with someone else's credit card,” Column said with a big grin on his face.

Each pair of tactical operations bags held a full operator's kit. Everything needed to fully outfit one man from the underwear out was in the kits. Boots, body armor, flight suits, gloves, knee and elbow pads, flashlights, spare batteries, a high-quality gas mask, a chemical/biological protection oversuit, individual medical kit, even sunscreen was included in the kits. The only major items missing were communications, weapons, ammunition, and munitions. There was even a SpecOps cold-weather clothing kit that included socks in the package—though the men didn't think they would be using the rest of the clothing from the cold-weather kits, at least not for this operation.

Everyone lent a hand in carrying the bags in from the truck. The gear was piled up in the poolroom, which was rapidly turning into the staging area for their operations. Diamondback Tactical had placed numbered tags on the cases to match them up with each other, and identify the contents as to size according to the list Column had supplied.

A welcome addition to the gear pile were the Garmin 120 radios and extra batteries that Column had brought.
In addition, he had picked up a tactical team rappelling kit to augment the equipment Reaper had used the day before. This kit made sure that both Reaper and Hausmann would have a full rappelling harness, rope, and rope bag for their part of the mission.

The last thing Mackenzie brought out was a large sealed box that had been hand-delivered to him by a courier. The man had been waiting in a rented car at Diamondback Tactical until Mackenzie showed up. Then he personally transferred the box and completed his mission. When Reaper cut the seals with his Emerson knife and opened the box, the contents were sobering.

Admiral Straker had sent them two AN/VDR-2 radiac instruments. These were lightweight survey meters and dosimeters. The pouches the devices came in could fit on a belt or on the back of an assault vest. The probes attached by a coiled wire to the meters would detect very low levels of radiation when properly set. Instructions came with the meters along with spare batteries and six more devices.

Each man in the room received one of the six AN/UDT-13 radiac sets that had been delivered by the courier. The sets were smaller than a paperback book and came adjusted to sound an audible alarm if there was a radiation source nearby. They would also keep a record of the radiation dose the user had received.

The idea of facing hard radiation was a scary one. Each of the men around the room had faced danger at multiple times in their lives. But normally, that danger was a man with a weapon that they could fight back
against. Radiation was silent, unseen, and deadly. They were all from the generation that had lived through the nuclear menace of the Cold War. Now, they were very likely going to be facing a new version of that nuclear menace, one designed to poison and spoil, not blast suddenly to eternity.

“This makes it about as real as it gets guys,” Reaper said as he laid the devices out on the kitchen table. “We have enough gear to carry as it stands. Washington wouldn't have sent this equipment if they didn't feel we had a real chance of finding something. Warrick, Mackenzie, and I are in this for the long haul, pretty much no matter what. Manors, Column, and Hausmann, you three are strictly volunteers. You can back out now and there won't be any hard feelings at all. Glowing in the dark is not something you signed on for.”

The banter and joking the guys had been doing among themselves earlier was noticeably absent in the room. All of them had been given military training at one time or another regarding radiation exposure. It was an insidious poison that couldn't be seen. And it killed slowly and painfully. They looked at one another, no man knowing the others' thoughts but suspecting that they were all thinking about the same concerns. No one wanted to face the danger, but no one felt they could back away.

The answer Reaper received from everyone in the room was direct and straightforward. It was a quiet group of men who each reached out and picked up one of the devices. After glancing at the boxes, each man put the device into his shirt pocket. It was an eloquent
answer to Reaper's question, in spite of the fact that not a word had been spoken.

The rest of the gear was broken out of the bags and Column and Manors started setting up their pouches and Predator Level 3a armored assault vests according to their own preferences. Hausmann headed back to the vault to finish up there before he began setting up his gear. There were ammunition boxes and magazines he wanted to pull out for the rest of the team to use.

After going over the gear and paperwork for a few minutes, Reaper headed out to the vault to lend Hausmann a hand. He found Hausmann and Warrick deep in conversation about some of the hardware that was in the room. They didn't even notice Reaper standing in the doorway, or at least Warrick gave no sign of seeing him. With a long rectangular box on the floor in front of him, Hausmann was standing with his back to the door.

“My dad was only seventeen years old when he fought with the Marines against the Japanese on Iwo Jima,” Hausmann was saying. “He carried a hell of a weapon, literally, an M2A1 flamethrower. Said it was the best weapon the Marine foot soldier had to get the Japanese when they were dug into caves and emplacements. Just a couple of years ago, both the Army and the Navy were looking at resurrecting flamethrowers for use in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in caves. I think we can put one to good use on this operation.”

“Yeah,” Reaper said, stepping into the vault, “but a flamethrower is a heavy weapon to carry. And a bitch
to maneuver with quickly, as well. I'm sure your dad told you that, too.”

“Oh, he did,” Hausmann said, turning to include Reaper in the conversation. “He told me that he hated dragging those twin fuel tanks and gas tank on his back. Made him feel like a big target waiting to go up like a barbecue. Which is why I'm not suggesting I bring one of those along. This is a different animal, though.”

Flipping the latches on the long box on the floor, Hausmann opened the lid. Lying in the box was a strange-looking weapon, if it was a weapon. The device was black and made of some kind of plastic or fiber material. When Reaper crouched down and touched it, it was hard but didn't really feel solid. More than anything, the device looked like a six-inch-thick black tube folded over on itself in a hairpin bend, half of a gigantic paperclip. There was a cover over the squared-off ends of the tube. A shoulder strap was secured to buckles at both ends of the weapon.

“Okay, I give up,” Reaper said. “What is it?”

“It's an M8 portable one-shot flamethrower,” Hausmann said. “It's reloadable or you can throw it away. They were developed from a late–World War II design and were only issued for a short time to the Marine Corps and the Army in the 1950s and early 1960s.

“It doesn't have a pressure tank, there's a gas-generating cartridge that fires when you pull the trigger. At the same time an igniter cartridge fires for the load. The whole weapon is only about a yard long and less than a foot wide. Weighs twenty-six pounds loaded with two gallons of thickened gasoline. And it will
throw that napalm out to between fifty-five and sixty-five meters range for four seconds.

“I've had fresh ignition and gas cartridges specially loaded for it by my friends at the All Custom Firearms shop in Sierra Vista. There's a can of the powder to make the napalm for it there in the box.”

“And you want to take it along on the operation?” Reaper said.

“Like my dad said, best thing for fighting caves and tunnels,” Hausmann said. “Besides, it doesn't weigh but a few pounds more than an M60 machine gun, and I carried one of them often enough.”

“Yeah, but I'll bet your dad wasn't talking about using it against a cave he was standing in,” Reaper said. “Bring it along, if you want. If it slows you down, we can always cache it somewhere.”

“It won't slow me down,” Hausmann said. “Besides, it doesn't look like a single-shot weapon, at least not to anyone looking at the working end.”

“So,” Reaper said.

“Even al-Qaeda won't willingly face a flamethrower,” Hausmann said. “That's damned near insane. Touch this baby off and after people see it fire, they can't throw down their weapons and put their hands up fast enough if you point it at them.”

“You can't argue with that,” Warrick said.

“No,” Reaper said, “and I wouldn't argue with a torch myself. So get it ready, if you're going to carry it. We jock-up and load the gear for a noon launch at the latest. The temperature outside is already getting close to the nineties and it's going to be a hot day. Make sure
your hydration containers are full and tell the others the same thing.”

Reaper's “hot day” prediction was looking to be right on the money. Actually none of the four men were really suffering from the heat, but it was hot in Southern Arizona this year. The dry heat didn't feel very bad to Mackenzie or Warrick, they had just come down from Northern Michigan where the humidity could be the real killer when it got hot. But everyone had to be protected from the sun and heat. The only really good thing that Reaper could see from the weather was that the cloudless blue sky and scorching sun would keep most people indoors wherever possible. And it would make the normal Mexican siesta time between 1:00 and 4:00
P.M
. even more popular. If they were lucky, they could literally catch the people sleeping down at the hacienda.

The gear was reduced to a single tactical accessory bag for each man. That, combined with all of the heavy weapons, ammunition, and the fact that both Prowlers were going, meant that they would have to take both available pickups. Manors's truck would be able to carry the Prowler that he was going to use. An additional advantage was that Manors had a radio in his truck that picked up the Border Patrol frequencies. That could help them as they approached the border crossing.