Whiskey Sunrise - a Christian Suspense Novel: A chilling tale of a desert that buries its secrets. (28 page)

He exhaled the cigar smoke in Dawlsen’s direction. “Mexico is a land of corruption. Every politician, cop, and soldier on the take. The drug cartels waging war. We’re talking third world country. But,” he spread his hands wide, “the land is a paradise of natural resources. Just sitting there, waiting for some enterprisin’ hombre to take them. And that’s what my … umm … business partner and I plan to do.”

Dawlsen stared up at him. “Why tell me?”

Richard laughed. “I want your little mind to understand what you’re missin’. We plan on turning northern Mexico into a prosperous democracy. A strong North Mexico will be good for the US. And you could have been in on it. But nooooo, not the great Rye Dawlsen.”

The chief closed his eyes and shook his head. “You’re not just nuts, you’re a megalomaniac.”

Richard nodded to his son standing to Dawlsen’s right. Junior wheeled and punched Dawlsen on the cheek, opening a cut just under the damaged eye. Blood oozed down his face.

Dawlsen stared at Junior with his one good eye. “You punch like a girl.”

Junior struck Dawlsen in the stomach. Dawlsen bent over gasping for breath. He would have fallen from the chair had Jilt not grabbed him from behind and thrust him back in a sitting position.

“Dawlsen,” Richard said with a cold dread, “you can make your last hours of life somewhat pleasant. Or we will enjoy making it a living hell. Your choice.”

Dawlsen studied him. “Just being in the same state with you makes my life a living hell.”

Junior backhanded the chief across the mouth. Dawlsen’s head jerked backward then lowered forward. When he looked up, Dawlsen bled from a swelling lip.

“Don’t talk to my daddy that way,” Junior said, his face a mask of rage.

“Junior List,” Dawlsen said with difficulty, “you are under arrest for striking an officer. Anything you say—”

Junior backhanded the cop a second time. “Whadda ya want done with him?”

Richard looked to the ceiling, considering his options. “Until the transaction is completed tonight, we’ll need to keep him as a hostage. Just in case the Feds try to interfere. Take him out to the stables with the others. He can spend his last few hours with his wife. Then …” a grin spread across List’s face. “I will personally kill the SOB, after he watches me enjoy the company of his wife.”

<><><><><><><><><><>

Johnny crawled over the uneven tunnel floor towards the firefight. The cold, damp floor conflicted with the hot lead flying overhead. Explosive gunshots numbed his hearing while the flashes lit the tunnel like erratic flares. The pungent smell of gunpowder hung heavy in the air and stung his eyes. He prayed the young cop didn’t
do anything stupid and get himself shot.

“Hey! WPD! Put down your weapons,” screamed DePute.

List’s men answered with a barrage of lead.

Johnny hugged the ground, expecting to eat a ricocheting bullet any second.

DePute returned fire. A grunt of pain indicated someone had been shot. From the bursts of light, Johnny watched the young cop rise to his feet.

“NO!” Johnny yelled.

He sprang to his feet and tackled DePute a breath before List’s men returned fire. As bullets sang overhead, the cop struggled to free himself. An elbow caught Johnny on the bridge of his nose and stars erupted in his vision.

“Take ’er easy,” he said with a string of curses. “It’s me, Batts. Johnny Batts.”

The cop stared. “Batts? Dude, like, what are you doing at this rodeo?”

“Watching out for your punk hind-side.” Johnny pushed on his nose. “Dang it, you ’bout broke my nose.”

“Sorry, dude, but you’re, like, the one who jumped me, remember.”

List’s men fired several more rounds their way.

“This tunnel leads into List’s house.” DePute paused.

“Having some problems breaking through?”

“Yeah. But I’ve got just the thing.” DePute reached into the side-pocket of his pants and pulled out a flash-bang. “I wanted to use this baby later …” he shrugged. “Just cover your ears and close your eyes.” With that, he pulled the pin and tossed it down the dark tunnel.

Seconds later, a bright explosion ripped through the tunnel’s gloom.

“Let’s get ’em, dude.” DePute sprang to his feet, turning on his flashlight.

Johnny shook his head, his ear canals vibrating from the explosion. He pushed up off the tunnel floor.

DePute fished a roll of duct tape from his pack. “Never leave home without it,” he said. “No time to secure these dudes any better. We’ll come back for them later.”

Moving quickly, they taped the prisoners’ legs and arms together. Afterwards, Johnny searched the prisoners’ pockets while DePute gathered their weapons.

“Gentlemen,” Johnny, brushing his hands, said to the prisoners, “me and my partner here are going up to the house to pay our regards to your boss. We’ll come back and …”

DePute motioned for quiet. He cupped one hand over one headset speaker. Dropping that arm to his side, he rolled his head back and closed his eyes. “Bad news. List has the Chief and the others.”

Johnny patted DePute on the shoulder. “That means it’s up to us.”

<><><><><><><><><><>

With rain pelting them, Anne and Tex halted their horses in a plot of land overgrown with stunted pine oak and cottonwood. Dusk filled the afternoon. Anne swung off her horse and hobbled the animal. After Tex did likewise, they passed through the tangled land and knelt along the barbed-wire fence. For all his size, Tex moved like a ghost, a skill that never ceased to amaze her. She studied the house,
seeing only the top floor and part of the next floor underneath. The adobe walled stables blocked the rest of the house from sight.

“No lights in the stable,” Anne said.

While riding down the twisting path of the canyon wall, they heard enough gunshots for a small war. Now, silence hung in the air like an eerie fogbank.

“It’s too quiet,” Tex whispered.

“I agree. Something’s happened. If Chief Dawlsen apprehended List, we would have known.”

Tex pointed toward the door at the rear of the stables. “We should make for that.”

Annie nodded. “Doesn’t look like List owns any horses. There’s no evidence. No tracks. No horse smell. No piles. No feed. No hay.” She studied Tex’s rugged face in the dimming light. She swallowed her smile. He sure was easy on the eyes. “But then … there’s no horses to give away our approach.”

“Let’s do this.” Tex tugged on the brim of his hat.

She drew her handgun and chambered a round, then gave a thumbs-up.

Tex held wide the strands of wire so Anne could step between them without getting caught on the barbs. After she passed through, Tex grabbed the top strand with one hand and leapt the fence.

They sprinted towards the exit at the stables backside. Anne felt chill bumps rise on her skin, the open space triggering her dread of being vulnerable. She waited for the sound of a gunshot, perhaps the last noise she’d ever hear. Fear quickened her pace.

She gained the rear exit of the stables the same time as Tex, and they stood on opposite sides of the door. They waited a few seconds
to catch their breath. She nodded when her breathing returned to normal.

This was a routine she and Tex performed many times. She would open the door, and he’d go in first to one side, and she’d follow going to the other. They exchanged signals with their eyes. She took a deep breath, eased it out, and reached for the doorknob.

Just then, the door opened, and she jerked her hand back. A Mexican male dressed in desert fatigues stepped out. He struck a match to light the cigarette hanging from his lips. His eyes went wide when he spotted them and swung his Ak-47 in Anne’s direction.

“Doctor!” the nurse screamed.

She sprinted out of the patient’s IC room and raced toward the nurses’ station. Her lanyard of badges and cards bounced against her dark gray Harley Davidson smock. She reached the station, leaning on the counter and gasping the aseptic air.
Six months pregnant, and I can’t run a few yards.

“Doctor!” She called out a second time, though not as loud.

A gaggle of nurses and orderlies hurried over to her to see what was wrong. Cries of concern for her baby filled the station. A crowd surrounded her, everyone throwing questions at her. She pushed them aside and attempted to capture the attention of the young doctor seated at a computer in the rear of the station. For several seconds he ignored her, hands poised over the keyboard while downloading his notes into the hospital’s mainframe. With an angry sigh, he rose out of the chair.

Dr. Dollal, you’re a piece of work.

“Nurse—it’s Jamie isn’t it?—why don’t you tell me what’s going
on?” The doctor’s monotone voice with its slight roll of Boston accent hinted at irritation. She took a deep breath and turned to survey the faces of the staff surrounding her.

“The Navajo woman in Room 7. The one from the wreck—” she paused and scanned the faces waiting to hear her report. She turned to Dr. Dollal.
This is going to sound crazy.

“Go on,” said the doctor.

“She’s missing. I mean, she’s vanished. Her IV, the oxygen tube, all of it, is just lying in her bed. Under the sheets. Her bed is made. It’s like she disappeared in thin air.”

“Patients don’t just disappear.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Someone? Please call security.” He stomped towards the patient’s room. Jamie followed on his heels. “Are you sure she hadn’t died? Or was moved to another floor?”

“She did not code,” Jamie retorted at his hint of her professional incompetence. “And no, she wasn’t moved out of ICU. Not without me knowing.”

They reached Room 7, and the doctor came to an abrupt halt. The bed lay empty with no sign of the patient. Jamie gloated, “Like I said, she’s just vanished.”

<><><><><><><><><><>

“What?” Richard growled into the radio.

He paused outside his hunting room with trophies of animal heads mounted on the walls alongside guns and compound bows. He relished the times he stood at the entrance and stared at the measures of his manhood. With each head, an image flashed of the hunt, the
kill. But right now, other business diminished that enjoyment.

“We’ll receive satellite images any moment,” came the reply.

“I’ll be there.” He spun away from the trophy room and headed back to the stairs. Daydreaming about his hunting trips would just have to wait.

“The link is live,” said a security agent. Richard hurried down the hall.

“What do you have?” He flung open the door to the stairwell.

“Okay. I’m getting heat signatures throughout the building. Most I can account for: our people and the prisoners. Looks like we’ve contained the attack. However, I got two large heat sources outside the compound. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re … horses?”

“What the … We don’t have horses,” he shouted. “Can you do one of those zoom things?”

“Yes, sir. Just let me—”

“Anything else?”

“Uh—yeah. There is a fading heat source behind the stables. It’s like a C-shaped mound. I can’t make it out.”

“Zoom in on that first!”
Do I have to tell these geniuses everything?

“Okay, hold on a second, is that? It is! That’s a body!”

<><><><><><><><><><>

Zach zipped from room to room, hiding in rooms whenever he heard patrols getting close. Several things didn’t seem right to him. The blueprints of the house indicated this floor had a six-lane bowling alley and an indoor batting cage. But instead, he discovered barrack type rooms. Though the beds had been made with military precision,
he found the rooms to be empty. So where was everyone?

At the far end of the hallway, a rusty
errrk
warned of the door opening. Zach halted.

“Report in, SG12,” a metallic voice crackled over the radio.

Zach threw glances right and left.

“Beginning to search the third floor,” replied the radioman.

“Hurry up, we need more men to load the weapons.”

The room on the right yawned open with its lights out. Not hesitating, Zach ducked inside, melting into the darkness. He held his breath and aimed his pistol at the open door, finger alongside the trigger guard.
Try it, mother. Just come in here.

Two sets of footsteps approached. The men spoke low, the tones of their voices relaxed. Hopefully, they hadn’t seen him. Yet.

Don’t breathe. Don’t move. Don’t even blink. Movement attracts attention
.

He pointed his handgun at what he thought would be their head height.
One shot, one kill.

They stopped at the door. One of the guards bragged about doing the Cuban cop, and the other laughed.
Real funny. Reach for the light switch, and I’ll make sure you never degrade another woman.

The door opened, and two silhouettes stood in the doorframe. The one reached a hand into the room to feel for the light. Zach moved his finger to the trigger and squinted against the pending flood of light.
Enjoy your last breath, you son …