Hostile Borders (26 page)

Only knowing that he had hit one of the gunmen facing them, Reaper ducked back into the side tunnel. Again, he reloaded his weapon, dumping the almost empty magazine for a fresh, full one.

“Shit,” Reaper cursed, “these guys will just keep chipping away at us until one of them gets close enough to pitch a grenade in here.”

“They want to meet Allah,” Hausmann said, “let's arrange things for them.”

As he spoke, Hausmann slipped the shoulder strap of the flamethrower from around his neck and across his chest. Slinging the weapon at his right side, Hausmann laid his MP5A3 down onto the floor of the tunnel. With the M8 ready to fire, Hausmann looked at Reaper.

“This thing could suck all of the air right out of here,” Hausmann said. “Take us out along with the bad guys.”

“Shit happens,” Reaper said, “toast 'em.”

The Galils in the mercenaries hands started to fire down the tunnel, alternating between one man and then the other. Under the cover of this spaced-out fire, they were trying to move forward, leapfrogging as one man lay down a field of fire and the other moved. Coming
up behind them, Masque prepared to take out his opponents. He was certain that he could toss a pair of grenades just in front of the tunnel. That way their fragmentation would kill or badly wound the man who was shooting at him, but not detonate the explosives stacked farther back in the tunnel.

Projectiles chipped the rocks all around the mouth of the side tunnel on a constant basis. There wasn't a chance for Reaper to fire back. Careful of the incoming fire, Hausmann stood and stepped past Reaper. Snugged up against the side of the tunnel, he swung the M8 out away from him. Tripping the trigger, Hausmann stuck the front of the flamethrower out into the main tunnel at an angle. The ignition cartridge fired putting a small stream of sparks out in front of the weapon. At the same time, the pressure generating charge ignited. Pushed by the hot gases, a rubber ball was driven up the tubelike tank of the flamethrower, driving the thickened gasoline out of the nozzle, past the burning ignition cartridge.

With a terrifying roar, a black-edged stream of orange flame shot out of the end of the M8. The first impact of the stream was against the far wall of the tunnel at an angle where it splashed and bounced up toward the entrance. Twisting while the weapon was firing, Hausmann pushed it out farther into the main tunnel. Finally, Hausmann stepped all the way out into the tunnel with the roaring M8 now held tightly against his right hip. Not willing to allow his friend to face the enemy alone, Reaper stepped behind Hausmann and raised his M4A1. He didn't have to bother.

For four long seconds, two gallons of thickened gasoline streamed out of the end of the flamethrower. Moving only a little, Hausmann played the roaring stream of flame along the tunnel, up and down the walls. For those four seconds, the entrance area of the Crystal mine became the mouth of Hell.

Standing upright with two grenades in his hands, Eduardo Masque bore the brunt of the flamethrower's effect. So quickly that his brain couldn't even process the searing pain, Masque was killed; his hair flashed away in an instant. For a tiny moment of time, the scars on his face stood out in stark contrast to the skin around them. Then the flesh on his face and arms blackened and crisped. The final scream of rage his hate forced from his lungs was lost in the roar of the flames.

The corpse stood there encased in flames, even after the flamethrower had ceased functioning. The M8 was only a single-shot weapon, but what the one shot did was incredible. The front of the Crystal mine was a wall of flame.

The heat and gases of the burning fuel rushed out of the mine, away from where Reaper and Hausmann stood. The huge network of tunnels and caverns acted like a giant chimney. The top of that chimney was the mouth of the Crystal mine, and the flames were going out of it—saving Reaper and Hausmann.

There was still a danger in the tunnel besides the fire. In spite of the heat, the two M33 baseball grenades that Masque had been holding had not detonated. The corpse fell backward and thumped onto the ground. The impact popped the safety levers off both
grenades. Again, Reaper shouted “Grenade!” only this time, Hausmann was already moving.

The explosions from the two grenades once more shook the tunnel. This time there was a rain of rocks and pebbles coming down from the ceiling. They had to move quickly to keep from being buried in the mine. But before they escaped, Reaper still had an important part of his mission to perform.

Getting up from the floor, he pulled his flashlight from its pouch. The rugged little light went on when he pressed the switch, the beam hazy as it flashed out through the dust. Swinging the pack from his back, he dumped the rest of the rocks and dirt that had piled up on it off onto the floor.

“Give me your explosives,” Reaper said, “and watch the tunnel.”

Hausmann pulled the pack off his back and handed it to Reaper. Shaking his head from the effects of the explosions, he moved to the mouth of the side tunnel and looked out into the gloom and dust. The rest of the lightbulbs had shattered, throwing the mine behind Hausmann into darkness. Only the glow of the bright sunlight outside, dimmed by all the dust in the air, illuminated the main tunnel of the mine. If any of the men they had been facing were still alive, Hausmann would see them silhouetted against the light.

Working fast, Reaper twisted the back of his SureFire light, locking the switch in the On position. With the light held between his teeth and his M4A1 hanging down from its Chalker attachment, Reaper began placing his explosives.

There was not going to be any style or skill in this demolition job, Reaper was just going to blow the charges along with all of the explosives stored in front of him. Opening up the canvas top of the M183 demolition charge, he pulled out his Gerber DET 600 multipliers. With a snap of his wrist, he extended the pliers' head and unfolded the tool. Swinging out the detonator awl, Reaper stuck the pointed steel rod into the soft plastic explosive in the demolition charge.

Having poked two holes in the explosive, Reaper did the same thing to Hausmann's charge. Folding the tool back up, Reaper slipped it into his pocket and took a deep breath of the dusty air. In spite of the almost choking dust, Reaper calmed for a moment. He couldn't allow himself to make a mistake now. Pulling out a Kevlar pouch from his pack, Reaper opened it and took out a pair of electrical blasting caps.

The leads of the caps were already cross connected. Reaper slipped them into the holes in the C4 and then did the same thing with the other charge. Leading the wires back, he attached them to the terminals of his detonation timer. The charges were set under several of the explosive cases. Opening the top case of a stack, Reaper took out the nonelectric firing device that he had assembled with Hausmann's fuse.

Two twenty-foot coils of fuse had been attached to a pair of M7 blasting caps and M60 igniters already crimped to a fuse. That gave Reaper a ten-minute delay on the caps. Once more using his Gerber DET, Reaper punched cap wells through the orange wrappers of the Semtex blocks. Inserting the caps, he pulled the fuse
igniters. In the beam of his flashlight, Reaper could see the lazy trails of smoke rise up from the burning fuse. Stuffing everything into the case, Reaper set it on the ground and stacked other boxes around it. Then he turned to the electric timers.

The red buttons on the cover of the black plastic box let him adjust the delay for the detonator. Pushing the buttons until 0–09 read on the dial, he hit the start switch. As the numbers on the nine-minute delay started to count down, he pulled the final safety pin from the cover of the arming switch. Flipping up the switch, Reaper armed the delay.

The rest of the men with Masque had disappeared. Either they had run when the flamethrower had opened up, or they were some smoldering piles up around the entrance to the mine. Either way, there was no incoming fire for Hausmann to worry about.

“Come on,” Reaper said as he came up to Hausmann, “we've got to get out of here before the roof comes down.”

The wooden support beams for the mine were all still burning after having been licked by Hausmann's flamethrower. The mouth of the mine was still open, the light told both men that. But it wouldn't be in less than nine minutes. They were standing in the muzzle of a giant cannon.

As Reaper and Hausmann headed to the entrance to the mine, they could hear the explosive thumps of 40mm grenades going off as they rained down on the hacienda. As they stepped into the sun, they saw a white GM Suburban stopped just outside of the mine. The doors of the vehicle were open and it was obvious that it was empty.

“Famine, War,” Reaper said into the microphone of his Liberator headset. “Famine, War, this is Death. Over.”

“Death, this is Famine,” came over the headsets. “What is your location?”

“We are at point Charlie,” Reaper said. “War is not to fire at the vehicle leaving this point. I repeat, tell War to hold his fire on the next vehicle leaving point Charlie. We are heading to the Hotel.”

“Roger that, Death,” Mackenzie said. “War is to hold fire. We are lifting fire now.”

“Okay, let's take this big boy and get the hell out of here,” Reaper said.

Without saying a word, Hausmann climbed into the passenger side of the Suburban after shoving the rear door closed. He tossed his pack to the center of the front seat as Reaper did the same. While Reaper got into the driver's seat, Hausmann looked around the vehicle. He had felt how heavy the door was and noticed how solidly it thumped shut. Looking toward the back of the SUV, Hausmann could see the shattered window and the edges of the material that surrounded it.

“Hey,” Hausmann said, “this damned thing has armor.”

“That will make for a safe ride,” Reaper said as he shut the door. Starting the engine, Reaper was relieved to hear the roar of the motor. Then he noticed that the beeping of the alarm was still going off. He had turned the ignition key that had been left in the Suburban, so that should have shut off the beeping. What in the hell was going on?

“Holy shit!” Hausmann exclaimed. He had pulled his AN/UDR-13 radiac set from his pocket, The beeping alarm wasn't coming from the car, it was the radiation detector.

Numbers were flashing across the screen of the little device, but what they said wasn't of immediate concern to Hausmann. He turned around and looked across the backseat. There was nothing there. Craning his head, he could see into the cargo compartment behind the rear seat. Strapped in place were four white metal cans. The lid on one of the cans was bent and
torn when the fragments of one of Warrick's Mark 211 rounds had ripped into it. They had found the radioactive isotopes.

“Jesus, Reaper,” Hausmann said, “we have got to get out of here.”

“That's exactly what I intend to do,” Reaper said as he put the Suburban into reverse. “If the noise of that thing bothers you, turn it off.”

Turning the heavy vehicle around, Reaper started out toward the hacienda. In the distance, they could see smoke rising from the fires started by Column's 40mm grenades. Not seeing anything he could do to change the situation, Hausmann sat back and watched the numbers change on the screen of the radiation detector.

 

When the head of their driver exploded, Santiago was covered by the spray of blood, bone, and gray matter that used to be the head of his sergeant. He grabbed the steering wheel and fought to bring the SUV under control before they crashed. In spite of a momentary flash of nausea at what covered his face, Santiago kept his composure and wiped the gooey mess from his eyes. Standing still in what he knew was at that point a great big target was the last thing he wanted to do just then, so Santiago grabbed Rodriguez's body and pulled it away from behind the wheel. The body flopped over with a wet sound as Santiago climbed over it.

“The isotopes!” Dr. Ammad said from the middle of the backseat. “They have the isotopes!”

“They won't do you any good if you're dead,” Santi
ago snarled as he sat behind the wheel of the SUV.

The gate to the hacienda was only a few hundred meters in front of them when Santiago got the SUV moving straight once again. At any moment he expected to get another heavy round through the side window, but at least he had the vehicle between himself and whoever had been shooting. The incoming fire had stopped, at least as far as the SUV was concerned. If he had looked up at the wall surrounding the hacienda, Santiago would have seen how Warrick had switched his fire from the vehicle to the men firing up at the ravine.

As a man showed his head and raised a weapon, the big Barrett thundered out a shot. The head of the man would usually explode like a pumpkin hit with a sledgehammer a moment before the shot was even heard. It didn't take long before heads stopped appearing above the wall. Only weapons were being stuck up and fired toward the hillside. That's when the men inside the hacienda discovered that a Barrett loaded with Mark 211 rounds could shoot through adobe walls.

As Santiago smashed open the gate with the front of the SUV, what was left of Masque's men were abandoning the hacienda. Anywhere else was a better place to be rather than where grenades were falling from the sky and men died as bullets came through walls.

This was the end of things, Santiago realized, as he stopped the SUV and got out. The panic in the hacienda was complete. Even his mercenaries were abandoning the situation. The few who had been left in the hacienda were gone before Santiago returned. The damage from the explosions looked to him to be
the work of 40mm grenades. It seemed like the U.S. government had finally decided to visit Mexico.

“We have got to go and save the isotopes,” Dr. Ammad said. “They're irreplaceable.”

Santiago just looked at the old scientist as if he were something found on the bottom of a shoe. He might be a fanatic, but Santiago certainly wasn't one, unless it concerned his personal safety. When Daumudi grabbed Santiago's arm and tried to spin him around, the ex-SEAL's hand came up, palm flat and fingers open. He drove the base of his palm up under Daumudi's chin, knocking the terrorist leader back in a wild stagger.

“So you think you can fight?” Hydar said.

It was the first English that Santiago had heard the man say. As he turned toward the huge bodyguard and crossed his arms, the man growled something unintelligible in Arabic and charged. The man's powerful hands were up and his fingers clutched for Santiago's throat.

The Glock 18C machine pistol that was in Santiago's right hand as he uncrossed his arms barked a short loud burst. The eight nine-millimeter rounds sounded like a single, stuttering shot. All of the 124-grain jacketed hollowpoint projectiles tore into Hydar's chest. The big man stood still for a moment with a surprised look on his face. Then his eyes rolled up in his head as he fell forward and crashed into the ground.

Dr. Ammad just stared at the dead form of his bodyguard. Daumudi couldn't see or speak very well at the moment. The blow Santiago had delivered had smashed his teeth together and brought tears to his eyes.

Reaching for the selector lever with his left hand, Santiago rotated the control on the slide to the single shot position. As he turned to an astonished Dr. Ammad and a hurting Daumudi, four quick rounds barked out of the Glock.

A single projectile smashed into each of the legs of the two men in front of him. Only the brittle tibia bone in Dr. Ammad's left leg was shattered from the impact of the projectile moving at over 1,200 feet per second. The shock of the large wound kept the pain away, but that mercy would last only for a moment.

Both of Daumudi's legs were knocked out from under him by the impact of the slugs. None of the major blood vessels in either man were hit by the shots, at least not as far as Santiago could see. Both men were on the ground clutching at their legs. They would not be a problem—or going anywhere without help.

Dr. Ammad succumbed to the pain of his wounds by falling unconscious. Daumudi looked up at Santiago with his face white with pain and shock.

“Why?” he said through clenched teeth. “Why?”

“You would think you were an Olympic figure skater,” Santiago said. The reference was lost on Daumudi.

“Consider yourself and Dr. Ammad to be my election-year gift to President Bush. Perhaps your capture will help him get reelected. Besides, when the people who will be arriving shortly get here, they can deal with you and your wounds. That should aid in giving me more time to get away.”

The logic and treachery of Santiago's statements
were something that Daumudi could well understand. He let his head fall back to the ground with a groan as the pain of his wounds washed through him. His plans for destruction were over. Nothing was left in front of him but a long interrogation and an even longer incarceration. The only thing that he could hope for would be to be taken to an American prison rather than a Mexican one. The final irony, he would have to lie there and hope the Americans would come and find him.

 

In their armored SUV, Reaper and Hausmann drew closer to the hacienda. Up in the ravine, Column held his fire on the Mark 19. He was accurate enough, but the big grenades could now take out friendlies as well as the enemy. With the lull in the firing, there was a crashing sound that came from the hacienda. Out of sight of the men on the hill, Santiago had taken the last armored Suburban and smashed through the back wall of the garage. Behind him, the fuel supply he had set fire to was starting to grow and throw black smoke into the air.

The smoke helped cover Santiago's escape and prevented Warrick from getting a clean shot at the fleeing vehicle before it disappeared into the hills south of the hacienda. With Reaper entering the field of fire, the sniper wouldn't risk a snap shot.

Coming through the gate, Reaper and Hausmann heard the announcement from War that a single vehicle had escaped the compound.

“Damn,” Reaper said as he pounded on the wheel. “That's Santiago. I know it is.”

“Well, who the hell are they?” Hausmann said pointing to the men on the ground. “That one guy looks like the man we saw at the truck the other night.”

Going up to the two prostrate men, Reaper could see that the younger one was indeed the man they had targeted for capture. The other man was rolling around slightly as the wounds on his legs bled. Pulling a battle dressing from his trauma kit, Reaper tossed it to Hausmann.

“Bandage them up,” Reaper said. “I'm going after Santiago.”

“Reaper, you can't,” Hausmann said. “I know that guy means a lot to you, but you can't chase him down in that SUV. It's hotter than hell from radiation. And we'll need it to get these two back across the border.”

Before Reaper could argue his point, Mackenzie's voice came over the headset.

“Death, this is Famine. We've got company coming. It looks like the Mexican army is coming to check things out.”

“How far?” Reaper said.

“Warrick says maybe ten minutes out,” Mackenzie said. “Could be less.”

Just then, the clock on the timer in the cave reached zero. For an instant, a tiny light on the black box shone in the dark. Then there was the rumbling thunder of several hundred pounds of military-grade high explosives going off.

At the hacienda, Reaper and Hausmann felt the
ground shake and then heard the rumbling roar of the explosion. Up in the ravine, Column stopped dismounting the Mark 19 and turned in time to see a gout of dust, smoke, and debris vomit out from the mouth of the Crystal mine as it ceased to exist.

Inside the mine, rocks smashed through the floor of the elevator cage and fell down into the depths. The roof of the main tunnel caved in for several hundred feet. It would be a major excavation job with heavy equipment to ever open that mine again. Far below the ground, the rumble of the shock wave moved through the huge cavern. Even the bodies in the death pit were shaken slightly by the blast.

At the hacienda, the living were working hard to make sure that they stayed that way. Helping Hausmann with the wounded, Reaper bundled Ammad into the backseat of the SUV while Hausmann put Daumudi in the front seat. The wounds of both men had been bandaged, and their legs and wrists tied with black plastic flex-cuffs, another item that had come with the Diamondback operators kit. The tough plastic cuffs would have to be cut off the prisoners to release them—something neither Hausmann nor Reaper expected to do for a while.

Both prisoners had been searched. When Dr. Ammad had come around, he found himself in the back of the Suburban he had wanted so badly to go after. And he could see the torn shielding of one of the isotope boxes. Gagging the now screaming doctor with a cut length of seatbelt, Hausmann looked the man square in the eyes.

“You wanted to dump that crap in the United States?” Hausmann said. “Now you can live with it as long as we do.”

The rest of the hacienda was already burning violently. If the leader of the drug cartel was in there, he was welcome to the flames. Reaper was disappointed that they hadn't been able to search the hacienda for intelligence. But the heavy cloth bag he had taken from the younger terrorist felt interesting. The rough first aid that Hausmann had performed on the two men would have to be enough for the time being. It would not be a nice ride coming up for them.

Climbing into the front seat of the SUV, Reaper fired up the engine. Turning around in the big courtyard, Reaper knocked over part of a fountain before getting the Suburban heading back out of the gate. Once out of the hacienda, Reaper headed north toward his men, and the safety of the border with the U.S. only a mile or so away. Up in the ravine, all of the gear was being packed onto the Prowlers. The men didn't have the firepower to take on a portion of the Mexican army. Running away was the smart thing to do now that they had accomplished their objectives. There would be no more specific evidence that they had even been there outside of some spent cartridge cases. The State Department would be able to deny this operation easily—if the Prowlers and the SUV could get away.

“Famine, this is Death,” Reaper said into the boom mike of his Liberator headset. Immediately, he heard back.

“Death, this is Famine, over.”

“Famine, we have two wounded tangos, I repeat, two wounded tangos on board,” Reaper said. “We are on our way to your location. I need you and your kit ASAP.”