10

The De la Rosa mansion was, or had been, a prominent fixture of the Nuevo Laredo cityscape in recent years. The late Ezquiel De la Rosa had been a man of education with an aesthetic eye. The gleaming white complex reflected that.

From the outside it was difficult to tell what horrors had gone on inside not even two weeks before. The bought cops remained on the periphery of the fence, guarding against new attacks, while cleaners still toiled in the main house. The blood was mostly gone, though carpets were still being torn out. The powder burns, bullet holes, and explosion damage all remained, and it would take a great deal of time to erase the evidence of the carnage. Felipe Hurtado, the current de facto boss of the Gulf Cartel, at least in the Tamaulipas region, estimated a solid two months to revive as much of the opulent splendor as possible. Personally, he was only overseeing the renovation so that some plausible deniability could be maintained, should outside parties get involved. He had no desire at all to live here. Just walking the grounds now made him shiver. He had been the first man of rank in his organization to stand in the upstairs wet bar room, to look down at the shattered bodies of Sergio Ocampo and Daniella De la Rosa, and understand exactly what had precipitated this mayhem. Ocampo had always been too quick to brutality, and too slow to think, if he was even capable of considering long term consequences. Hurtado was no gentle man either, but he thought of himself as more measured in his responses. In fairness to poor old Sergio, how could he have known just what destruction provoking Alvarez would cause?

A mere month or two before no one had even known who Alvarez was. He was simply some trespasser from America running guns into their country. That should have been a simple enough problem to deal with, yet, somehow, killing, appeasing, and bribing Alvarez had proven unsuccessful. Seducing him had worked, at least until that idiot Sergio decided that Daniella was getting too close to the American and it was time to kill them both. He had managed to do her in, the meter wide blood stain and runny brain matter around her limp form proved it beyond doubt, but the smashed, stained bar stool next to Sergio’s caved in head showed that his death had not been a peaceful one. And now there would no peace for anyone, not with the leadership and the figurehead of the Gulf dead, and Alvarez still alive. The one asset Hurtado could have used to get close to Alvarez and weaken his resolve was gone, and there was no course of action but to kill the man, however Hurtado would be smarter than Ocampo ever could be. He certainly would not get anywhere near Alvarez, but he would undoubtedly have to throw people at him like cannon fodder until the lawman was finally done for. That was no problem, of course. Hurtado had plenty of servants at his disposal, and enough money to guarantee every amateur and professional across the West would get in on hunting down the perpetual thorn that was Ray Alvarez.

A CBP Black Hawk hovered over the landing pad of the Airbase, keeping a safe distance from the EC-135 while Garcia directed its movement. It touched down briefly, and the TARP personnel rushed forward and hefted four large plastic cases from the aircraft, then rolled them on built in wheels far enough away for the helicopter to take off again. They wheeled the cases inside, and Alvarez opened the top of each one. Inside the first were uppers for M4s, while the rest of the cases contained ammunition.

“What’s special about these anyway?” asked Jebbins, lifting one of the uppers and inspecting it. “It looks just like an SBR upper.”

“It is,” said Alvarez. He took out one of the ammo boxes and opened it, spreading the rounds on top of a case. “This is what’s special. .458 SOCOM rounds.”

Fisher picked one of the bullets up and turned it in the light. “I heard about these in Afghanistan. Developed after Mogadishu.”

“Right,” said Alvarez, while the others looked at the rounds themselves. “These will tear right through one of the animals. The only problem is capacity. The mags only hold ten.”

In contrast to the 5.56 millimeter rounds the team normally used the .458 was 11.6 millimeters in diameter. It resembled a small howitzer shell in its shape, and its massive size had proven successful against the wolves in the past, though Alvarez wasn’t sure how it would perform from the air.

“What about these?” Fisher kicked another box. Inside were bulky, black guns seemingly consisting of nothing but polymer. Their overall shape resembled an AR-15, if it were designed around the bulk of a railroad tire.

“These,” Alvarez explained as he hefted one and selected a drum magazine to demonstrate, “are AA-12s. Full auto shotguns.”

Jebbins immediately cut in before Fisher could speak. “I heard about these,” he said, practically ripping one from the case. “Badass! Do we have the explosive shells too?”

“We do,” said Alvarez as he held a box up to show the group. “Frag-12 rounds, buckshot, breaching rounds, and Rhodesian specials. There are five guns in all here.”

“Fuckin’ A!” Jebbins was grinning like a maniac.

“All right, let’s switch out the uppers and go to work,” ordered Fisher. “And don’t get any ideas, Jeb. We’re not taking those shotguns right now.” As usual, he was in no mood for distractions. They were preparing for a new airborne mission, the setting sun dictating the start of it. Alvarez was already tired. The repeated lack of success generated its own fatigue, both mental and physical, not to mention that his company wasn’t enjoyed in this group.

“All right,” said Fisher. “Thermals on. Let’s see if we can eliminate the bush acting as cover for the bastards.”

“Shave the bush to see the pussy.” Jebbins joked.

“Shut up.” Fisher sighed, sounding like an overworked parent. They threw plate carriers and helmets over their street clothes and were off, soaring over an endless stretch of scrubby plants and massive cattle fields. The plan was to work in a sort of circular grid, large concentric “racetrack” patterns flown around the sparsely populated areas that would gradually expand as they flew. The mission would, like the others, continue until dawn.

After about thirty minutes of flying everything looked essentially the same: green, and it became hard to tell what was moving and what wasn’t. Training and experience told Fisher that he should avoid focusing too much on one object or area, the movement might be an optical illusion.

Alvarez blinked hard and wished he could rub his eyes, but his glasses and helmet impeded him from doing that.

“I’ve got movement,” said Jebbins.

“Where?” Fisher demanded. “What position?”

“Four- four o’clock. Your four o’clock.”

“I’ve got it,” said Bascomb. “It’s canine.”

“Laze it,” ordered Fisher. Green rods of infrared light danced around the apparently unconcerned animal as it stalked through a grove of plants. It took off at a respectable gallop when the .458 rounds started exploding around it. The creature made a beeline for a distant house, the lasers following it the whole way. “Hold fire,” said Fisher as it disappeared under the front porch of the house. Had it entered? They watched for several seconds before Fisher decided that, no, it had made entry. “Can you put us down?” he asked.

Jasper Rawlins was sitting down for dinner with his wife and son when he heard the helicopter. He had barely registered it before the crash came. Something smashed his front door in, ripped it from its hinges, and splintered the wood.

He jumped up and rushed into his living room to see the source, then leapt back as the brown fur darted in. He soared deep into his house, grabbed his old Remington pump from the bedroom closet, and came back in time to hear his wife and child screaming like hell.

His wife was split nearly twain, her entrails spiraling out like pasta. His young son screamed in terror, cowering in the corner of the kitchen.

With a bull’s roar, he fired into the animal, which flinched, looked over, then sprung itself as if coming off a diving board. It plowed into him before he could rerack the shotgun and drove its jaws deep into his throat.

“This isn’t a good place,” Garcia replied. “I’ve got powerlines.”

“We’ll mark ‘em,” said Fisher. “Don’t land. Just get us low enough over that field that we can jump.”

“OK,” the pilot said without confidence.

“Guys, listen up,” said Fisher, “laze any obstacles you see, and yell out the minute any FOD comes up!”

Everyone nodded, already too concerned with watching for hazards to look at him. What a time to not have ropes. When the helicopter was a meter or so over the field they jumped, hit the ground running and scrambled for the residence. Light poured out from a smashed in front door. Fisher signaled silently: stack up. As they crept up to the door Jebbins, in the lead, glanced around the corner. He couldn’t see anything, so he shook his head. Bocker extended a flashbang grenade in front of his face. Jebbins nodded his approval, and Bocker tossed it in. At the sound of the blast they flooded into the house, fanning out into a den and, finding it clear, focusing on a swinging door, the kind that normally led into a kitchen. Alvarez heard something through that door, a scratching and tearing sound.

Bocker reached for another grenade, but Fisher shook his head. If that was a person in the room he didn’t want to risk it. They stacked back up and pushed through the door. The first three, Jebbins, Bocker, and Fisher, made it a couple of meters in when they saw the source of the noise. The wolf was behind an island in the kitchen, ripping at the body of a woman. Her intestines looped around the linoleum floor like a python bathed in a massive puddle of blood. As soon as the canine heard them and looked around the side of the counter, they fired. It responded by lunging forward, threatening to bite right through Jebbins. The three men recoiled, knocking Alvarez and Bascomb back as they retreated.

Fisher shouted, “Jebbins, get the fuck out! Back, back, back!” The barrage from his rifle didn’t seem to have any effect, and he ran backwards, forcing the men out the front door. Fisher slipped and landed on his buttocks as he careened through the entrance. The dog pulled back behind the kitchen door again, and Fisher switched his rifle to auto, then fired through the door, tearing huge chunks of wood out as he cut through the house. “Reloading!” he yelled, rolling to the side. “Stack back up!” They reassembled, and Fisher barked more orders. “Everyone bang!”

All five tossed grenades inside then rolled back into line, no longer concerned with any potential collateral damage. Everyone inside had to be dead. They were heaving, waiting a seeming eternity for the grenades to detonate so they could charge back into potential death.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! the flashbangs went in succession. They burst in, pushed past the kitchen door, and fanned out. The dog seemed stunned, and that was all the edge they needed. The massive rounds cut through it, tearing holes the size of golf balls. It stumbled back, trying to growl before it lost too much blood. It pushed forward, forcing Jebbins to kick a table and chair out of the way to avoid its death throes. Finally, with bullets bouncing around it like hail, it collapsed, chest working up and down piston like, instinctively fighting against an end it could not avoid. With magazines mostly empty, the team stopped. They coughed in the smoke-filled room, and waited for their adrenaline to die down, and their wind to return. “Is it dead?” Jebbins finally asked.

Alvarez took a couple of steps up to it, placed his shakily gripped rifle over its head, and fired a controlled pair into it, obliterating its already mangled cranium. “It is now.”

Ralph Ketchum rolled over in bed, his stomach already turning as he recognized the ringtone. It was his department phone. It always rang at the worst times. No one called a lieutenant at 2300 hours unless it was bad news. “Ketchum,” he groaned.

“Hey, it’s Fisher. We’ve got a situation.”

Ketchum groaned again. “What is it?” The tone of Fisher’s voice, normally soft and confident, was all that was needed to make Ketchum pale. He reached for his glasses as his wife woke up. It was about to be a long night. Over the next five minutes Fisher described the problem they had run into, going through multiple details that made Ketchum more and more sick, finally getting to the dead family, and the medics and ACSD deputies who were enroute. “OK,” he finally said. “I’m on my way.” Nothing good ever came with a department call, especially not at night. Ketchum got up, donned some clothes that were laying out, and drove towards the site in his department Charger, cursing the entire way.

Within thirty minutes half the local agencies in the region were on the scene, which TARP had cordoned off for the DPS crime scene investigators. AIR 1 as well as a trooper helicopter hovered over the area as Fisher exited a large mobile command vehicle after giving his statement. Several dozen patrol vehicles were parked in a semicircular pattern around the scene, washing it with red and blue. Alvarez paced back and forth, talking on his cellphone, which he put away when Fisher came out. “FBI is coming up from Dallas,” he said.

“Wonderful,” replied Fisher. “Just what I wanted to hear.”

“Do you know what they’re going to do with us?” asked Alvarez.

“No, not yet.”

Ketchum walked out from the house and shook his head. “How many times did you have to kill that thing?” he asked.

“The damn thing wouldn’t stop,” replied Fisher. “We had to shoot it four dozen times, as Mr. Expert here will outline in his report.”

“You mean in the DPS report,” said Ketchum.

“They’re investigating?” Fisher asked, confused. “I thought the Bureau would be involved in some-”

“They might be,” interjected Ketchum. “But DPS will do the leg work.”

Fisher nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. Ah, shit.”

Ketchum and Alvarez turned to see Clearborn approaching. The two walked off, leaving Fisher trapped, alone.

“Good job,” said Clearborn sarcastically. “How many times did you shoot it? A hundred?”

“We shot until it stopped moving,” Fisher muttered bitterly.

“Shot placement matters, you know,” Clearborn replied.

“At least we don’t take thirty minutes to respond,” Fisher snarked.

“We don’t let civilians get killed either,” the lieutenant shot back.

“You would’ve been staging for an hour while they were killed,” Fisher snapped.

“Better than rushing in and making things worse.”

“Martin!” Ketchum called sharply. “Get up with the team.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant reluctantly conceded. He walked away, head down, his fists noticeably shaking, either in a slowly capping adrenaline rush or from anger.

“Any time you need help Ralph-”

“Don’t keep goading him,” cautioned Ketchum.

“Maybe you shouldn’t keep enabling him. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Your team won’t exist after next week.”

Ketchum began to open his mouth when Bocker opened his. “Hey, LT. DPS is looking for you.”

Ketchum turned to face Bocker. “Which one?” he asked.

Bocker pointed to the agent in question.

“All right.” Ketchum walked away, leaving Bocker to notice Clearborn staring at him rather intently. Bocker stared back, turned, and walked away without a word. Clearborn may have been in his own department, but if he wanted to think he was so damn special just because he was SRT he could get along by himself. Bocker had no time for try hards. Jebbins would probably get along with him though.

Alvarez was standing on the perimeter, staring away from the scene, when he heard someone walk up behind him.

“Hey,” said Jebbins. “Ketchum needs to see us.”

“All right,” said Ketchum when the team was assembled. “This is what the Rangers want: all of the weapons we used tonight in that truck.” He gestured at a white panel van surrounded by crime scene personnel. “We’re going back to base, doing our statements, then we don’t report back to work until Monday.” He surveyed everyone around him, noting their expressions. “Don’t worry guys, we’re going to be fine.” He said it as much to convince himself as his friends.