Part 35 (1/2)
CHAPTER 56.
Sergio Morales sat deep inside an abandoned restaurant along Highway 93, drumming his fingers on a sand-covered table. The wind battered the outside of the rickety building, the old timber frame creaking and groaning with each powerful gust. The constant airflow through the restaurant's main salon did little to ease the sweltering heat. A satellite phone and digital tablet lay in front of him. To his right sat Jorge, who closed a laptop and shook his head.
”The drone's down,” said Jorge. ”Sorry.”
Sergio hadn't expected it to last very long with the storm this close. An expensive sacrifice. The RQ-16 Whisper represented the latest in short- to medium-range military drone technology, and his boss wouldn't be happy to hear that it was out of commission.
”What was their last location?”
”Approaching the town of Nothing.”
”Nothing? For real?”
”Not kidding,” said Jorge.
Sergio shook his head. At least the people who named that town had a sense of humor. Nothing was right. He touched the tablet screen and used the digital mapping application to make a few quick calculations. Their target was now roughly twenty-six miles away, putting them at the primary ambush point in twenty minutes, maybe more depending on the road conditions.
The dust storm had intensified at an alarming rate over the last half hour, arriving ahead of predictions. At this point, his crew would have to weather the storm in Wikieup. He didn't see any way to avoid it. The closest inhabited town was Congress, and that was halfway back to Phoenix. No. They'd get to spend the next several hours hiding from the wind in Wikieup, another nothing town.
The front door banged opened, ushering in a swirl of sand and wind. Three men wearing red bandito scarves and sungla.s.ses stepped into the restaurant. Sergio motioned them to approach. The guard watching the parking lot from the outside reached inside and closed the door. Sergio's team leaders trudged to the table through the deep layer of sand covering the floor.
”Good timing,” he said, standing up. ”They're about twenty minutes out.”
”You sure you want to go out there, boss?” said Marcos, one of the team leaders.
Marcos shrank from Sergio's sharp look. Under normal circ.u.mstances, a question like that might have earned him a bullet, but today Sergio genuinely believed his loyal subordinate meant no disrespect. US military drone strikes had risen steeply over the past few weeks, particularly in western Arizona. The worst of it was down south, but they'd recently lost a few high-ranking members of the organization on the northern roads. The fear was real, not a symptom of cowardice. Still, it didn't help his reputation to hide inside while his soldiers took all the risks. That kind of caution led to resentment.
”They wouldn't risk one of their cowardly drones in this weather,” he said, gathering the tablet and phone. ”Is everything set?”
The team leader a.s.sured him that nothing would get through the ambush point.
”Perfect. I need to make a quick call. Marcos, I'll meet you at your observation post.”
”It's an honor, boss,” said the team leader. ”You can fire the first RPG.”
”I would like that,” said Sergio. ”As long as everyone else is firing at the same time. It's been a while since I've used one of those.”
The men laughed for a few seconds before excusing themselves to leave. Sergio dialed his own boss, who was probably watching the storm arrive from his air-conditioned mansion on the outskirts of Phoenix. Rank had its privileges. Hopefully in a year or so, some of that privilege would find its way into Sergio's pockets. He was getting tired of driving through the desert, shaking down his Wastelands fiefdom.
”It's done?” asked a digitally altered voice.
”Twenty minutes or so. I'm heading out to personally oversee the ambush.”
”I'm counting on you, Sergio. There was a big f.u.c.kup this morning down in Nogales. El Pedro was killed.”
He hadn't heard any of this. ”Killed? By the organization?”
”No. No. He was killed on the highway, trying to run these people down. Don't take any chances.”
”We're not taking any chances. I have enough firepower to stop an army battalion in its tracks.”
”Good. Call me as soon as it's done. How is the storm out there?”
”Coming in fast,” said Sergio. ”We'll be stuck here for a while.”
”That's a smart call. This is one of the biggest I've seen in a while. Phoenix is completely dark right now. Power is going down everywhere. Make sure to call me.”
”I will, jefe.”
His boss didn't ask about the drone, though he surely knew it had gone down. This told Sergio that their targets were extremely important. He pocketed the phone and grabbed the a.s.sault rifle leaned against the table, then nodded at Jorge. ”Let's go.”
Stiff gusts of wind pelted him with sand as they jogged toward a rusted-out school bus parked perpendicular to the highway in a gas station parking lot. A half-dozen derelict cars lay in the desert scrub next to the lot, many of them hiding cartel gunmen. An RV park entrance across the highway, flanked by several gutted mobile homes about thirty feet back from the road, housed a second team. The third group was spread out to the immediate north, manning heavy machine gun positions hidden in the brush on both sides of the road. Nothing was getting through this gauntlet.
The bus's folding door opened when they arrived, revealing Marcos in the driver's seat. Sergio pushed his goggles onto his forehead and stepped inside, surprised to find that it was mostly sheltered from the weather. A few broken windows on the side let in air, but the bus wasn't filled with sand like the restaurant. He had just found his new headquarters for the night.
Marcos led them to the back of the bus, which faced the highway. From the backseats, they had a nice view to the south, despite the rapidly decreasing visibility. A colossal wall of sand, stretching as far as he could see in either direction, loomed thousands of feet over the eastern horizon, in stark contrast to the blue skies and scattered clouds to the west. They'd be digging out from this one.
”Crazy, isn't it?” said Marcos, gesturing to the sand cloud. ”I hope they get here before this. .h.i.ts. A storm like this might stop them on the road.”
”That's why I picked this s.h.i.+thole town. They'll see it on their maps and slog it out to get here, no matter how bad it gets.”
”That's why they made you the boss,” said Marcos, pointing at him.
He didn't like the way Marcos said that, and he certainly didn't appreciate the finger pointed at him. They hadn't made him the boss-he'd earned the position. Maybe Marcos's question in the restaurant hadn't been so innocent. He'd deal with this later. Marcos pressed a finger to an ear, listening to a transmission over the radio net. Sergio had forgotten about his earbuds. He reached into a pocket on his tactical vest for them, but the conversation had ended by the time he'd stuffed them in his ears.
”What's up?”
Marco pointed south, down the road. ”Same car that pa.s.sed through a few hours ago is on the way back.”
”Scouts,” said Sergio.
”Must be. They didn't see s.h.i.+t on the way through. Everyone was out of sight.”
”They wouldn't come back through if they saw anything, so we should be able to take them by surprise. Hit them with RPGs. I don't want them warning off the others.”
”You want to do the honors?” he asked, lifting an empty RPG-9 launcher from the seat behind them.
”No. I'd like to make sure we hit the car on the first try,” said Sergio, pressing the ”Transmit” b.u.t.ton on his vest. ”Team leaders, I want you to coordinate a simultaneous RPG strike on the car coming through. Use it as practice for the convoy.”
”Binoculars?” said Marcos, holding a pair out for him.
”I'll use my rifle,” said Sergio, unslinging it and aiming south.
Through his magnified sight, the road came in and out of view between billows of sand. The vehicle appeared, headlights announcing its presence long before the rest of it materialized. When it reached the first SUV on the opposite side of the highway, trails of smoke raced forward from hidden positions on each side of the road, simultaneously slamming into the car an instant later.