“That’s right.”
“Unarmed?”
“Whatever weapons I bring they’ll just take away. Don’t worry, there won’t be any shortage of guns available in that place, I’m sure.”
“Can you at least tell me what you think you’re going to do when you get there?”
“Sure,” Virginia replied. “If anyone in that family is still alive, I’m going to bring them out. And if I can I’m going to kill every last one of the savages that took them hostage.”
While she was outside making her call she heard the generator roaring to life and saw scattered lights fade on. During the briefing more equipment and a company of soldiers had arrived. Her own men were among them, and these exchanged a discreet acknowledgment with her as they started their work. Others began the task of positioning and raising four heavily armed mobile VIPR watchtowers along the base perimeter.
Off in the distance another vehicle approached; this would be her ride to the besieged home of Harland Dell and his wife and kids. In this midsized mover’s truck was loaded all the loot and the bound prisoners that the kidnappers had demanded be returned to them immediately, or else.
And returned to them it would be.
• • •
By the time she’d driven to the final stretch of her route, the highway had become completely deserted. The roadblocks that accomplished this were disguised as drunk-driving checkpoints, and undercover teams posing as night-shift pavement crews rounded out the travel barricades. This layer of secrecy was mostly to aid in controlling the story, and as such it was probably a wasted effort. For whatever reason the American press had long since proven their bias to ignore the ever-widening, bloody war being fought along these southern borderlands.
Virginia made the turn onto private property and drove slowly down the long gravel drive. The entrance to the ranch was a hand-hewn wooden arch with the family cattle brand displayed at its central apex. Soon after she passed it, from the pitch dark of the moonless desert night the first visible signs of the Dell ranch emerged in the distance.
The place and its grounds were lit only by firelight, but it wasn’t an inviting radiance of the hearth or a peaceful evening glow in the windows that she saw.
There was a crude line of smoky blazing torches lashed to random fence posts along the driveway and around the residence. A massive bonfire burned high in what used to be the front yard, fed by what looked like sticks of furniture and other belongings, and encircled by men with rifles and belts of ammo slung across their backs.
By the light of the torches, off to her left she saw a man crucified among the lower branches of a eucalyptus tree. Another was nailed up in the same way, but higher at the crossbeam of a utility pole. To the right three bodies still hung where they’d been lynched, two in the trees beyond the steep, rocky shoulder and the last one nearer to the inbound road. That accounted for the ranch hands, and one more. The last battered corpse swung from a hasty gallows by a noose suspended from the highest crossbar of a children’s swing set.
Above this hanging body was affixed a makeshift wooden sign, and Virginia was able to read it by the ugly light of the bonfire. It was lettered in dripping black paint and a primitive scrawl as though it had been made by someone unaccustomed to expression in any written language.
H A R L A N D D E L L, the sign read.
Chapter 23
As her headlights swept across the gathering of armed men by the fire, Virginia Ward scanned the scene and noticed one thing right away. There were quite a few more bad guys here than she’d been told to expect.
Her arrival had captured their full attention and soon a group of them put their heads together and then started walking up the driveway toward the approaching truck. They kept on coming and as she slowed they began shouting and gesturing her onward, some with their weapons raised.
Despite these threatening signals Virginia pulled to an abrupt stop, turned off the ignition, lowered the driver’s-side window, and extended her hand outside, waving the white hand-towel she’d brought along to serve as a flag of truce.
The men had nearly reached her as she thumbed a button on the key-chain remote. A signal module under the dash blipped twice in response; she’d activated a one-way kill-switch that the Agency mechanics had installed. To anyone trying to restart it the engine would sound like it was on the verge of firing up, but this well-hidden device would ensure that it would never come to life again. She’d stopped a good distance from the house and that was where the truck would remain.
Now a timer was running and a slow-motion self-destruct procedure had begun. With this action the mission was fully committed and she set a counter ticking in the back of her mind.
The man in the lead grabbed the handle outside, jerked the door open, and shoved his pistol toward her face. Her hand was shaking as she handed him the keys, and then in response to a shouted order, with careful motions she took up her cane and made her way down to the turf from the high cab.
The one who’d opened the door cocked his arm and delivered a backhanded slap across her jaw that nearly put her on the ground. They weren’t happy that she’d stopped where she had and they obviously weren’t shy of violence against a defenseless woman, but that’s where the punishment ended for the moment. It had been a calculated risk—they might have shot her immediately—but she had wagered on their standards as professional murderers. You can penalize disobedience as harshly as you want, but a pro doesn’t kill a newly arrived hostage over nothing.
Two of the other men had climbed into the truck’s cab and were attempting to get it going again. As they pumped the accelerator and worked the key she could already smell the fumes of excess gasoline filling the air. The starter ground away and popped occasionally but the engine wouldn’t fire.
“Ten cuidado,” Virginia said, and she made it seem as though she struggled with the Spanish, “To . . . to inicio, es difícil, muy difícil,” she continued, pantomiming the turning of an ignition key. “It’s something with the fuel pump. Tell him to be careful not to flood it, because it’s very hard to start.”
The lead man pushed her against the fender and twisted her around, playing rough. He searched her with his hands, groping and lingering here and there, and in the course of it he found her pepper spray, her counterfeit ID, her penknife, and the separate ring of keys to the padlocked rear compartment.
When he reached her left leg he flinched back and called the others nearer so they could see. One lifted her skirt and bent to feel the prosthesis, seemingly fascinated, starting at the ankle and continuing upward until he found bare skin. Others joined in and she endured all the pawing until the hooting, leering men were finally called back to order.
They left a couple of their mob to free their unconscious compatriots in the back and to check over the shrink-wrapped cargo. Two more were assigned to lift the hood and get the truck started, refueled, and ready to depart for the border. The rest led her back to the house. The pace was slowed due to her exaggerated limp but despite a few pokes in the back and some mockery they didn’t seem too awfully hurried. As far as they knew, time was still on their side.
From the snippets of conversation she caught it was clear they were now faced with a conundrum. They’d obviously planned to immediately head south for home with their loot while delaying the authorities in fake negotiations for a turnover of the hostages, who by that time would already be dead. With the truck temporarily out of commission those plans might have to change.
Inside, the house was filthy and thoroughly defiled from its brief time under siege. Through an archway she saw the remainder of the Dell family clinging together on the floor of the dining room. The mother and the girls had obviously been brutalized; they were clutching their torn and bloodied clothes against their skin, pale faces looking shell-shocked and lifeless as the tomb.
The son, all of maybe twelve or thirteen, had somehow been permitted to live. He made eye contact with Virginia, and as he did she could see his
initial confusion pass away and become an understanding.
These men had demanded that their truck be delivered by a civilian known to the family. The photo matched on the ID she’d brought and the name was verifiable to the extent that they might be able to check it. But the boy was already thinking and he was with her all the way; to cement her identification he got to his feet and ran to her and hugged her close.
Virginia Ward had whispered a question in his ear before they were pulled apart and the boy was shoved back toward his place. When he was near to his mother and sisters again he found her eyes, and nodded.
Are you ready to help me? was what she’d asked.
While she still held his gaze she glanced up toward the mantel, where a rack of family rifles were displayed. Under two showpieces hung an off-the-shelf Winchester 94 lever-action, something a father might give to his son on the occasion of his coming of age. She looked back to the boy, and though his expression was dark he nodded once again.
The boss man walked over. The phone in his hand was ringing, and upon double-checking the caller ID he held the device out toward her.
“This will be the authorities,” he said in English. “You will tell them you’re here and that this family is safe and sound, every one of them. Say any more and I’ll have to cut your throat. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” With that she took the phone, thumbed the talk button, and brought the speaker to her ear.
Meanwhile, right on schedule, a commotion had begun outside.
With all their ham-fisted attempts to restart the truck they’d managed to ignite a small fire at the fuel pump under the hood. In truth, of course, their efforts weren’t really to blame; an automated sequence of electronics and incendiaries was controlling every step of the unfolding diversion.
Amid a lot of yelling and mounting confusion among the pandilleros she heard the creak of a garden faucet turning and the hose being dragged from its reel, but it wouldn’t be nearly long enough to reach. The exasperated ringleader left her with the phone and herded nearly every one of his crew outside to try to bring the now-urgent situation with the truck under control.
Virginia heard one of her own men on the other end of the call and she repeated the words as she’d been told, loud enough so all nearby could hear them. The caller asked a coded question. She took one last look around the room, and responded: “Yes.”
Before her earlier departure she’d made a satellite call to the base commander of the 162nd Fighter Wing, stationed near Tucson International Airport. The confirmation she’d just given hadn’t really been necessary, she knew; the cavalry was coming regardless, and no one had been certain she’d make it this far. The subtle infrared signature of the truck afire, visible from satellite reconnaissance, had been their agreed-upon go-signal. A trio of F-16s were no doubt already orbiting the area and would have carried out their orders whether or not she and the hostages were still alive.
But just as she’d planned, all hostile attention was focused outside; no one there was expecting any trouble from a timid, crippled woman and a terrorized young boy.
As she’d spoken on the phone Virginia had also made an inventory of the firepower left in the room. Two holstered handguns, a jacked-up AR-15, a ridiculously converted Glock pistol—complete with shoulder stock and a double-canister magazine slung underneath—and then there was first prize: an Atchisson assault shotgun carried by the swaggering leader of the pack.
And that man was still at the open door watching as the truck’s engine fire continued to bloom. The flames suddenly snaked down to a generous puddle of fuel that had dripped to the ground beneath the chassis. He began shouting orders to abandon the failing effort to extinguish the spreading blaze and to unload their valuable cargo while there was still time enough to save it.
“Hey, mister,” Virginia said. She leaned heavily on her cane as she hobbled toward the head man, holding out the phone to him. “They want to talk to you.”
From a great distance in the cloudless night a rumble from the sky arrived, just barely sufficient to rattle the standing china in a hallway cabinet. Unlike any variety of natural thunder this deep roll didn’t recede as these final critical seconds crept by; it only grew.
She stopped a few feet away as the leader of the gang turned from the door. She could see his mind working as he stepped toward her, and he’d just begun to reach for the cell phone she offered when he froze, looked her directly in the eyes, and he knew.
Virginia Ward dropped the phone and let her cane fall aside as the man fumbled to ready the shotgun slung over his shoulder. In one practiced motion she moved into him, caught the barrel and pushed it down and away as it discharged, lashed an elbow into his neck as she grabbed the stock, and wrenched it up and under to bring the muzzle beneath his chin. His finger had snapped as it broke from the backward twist but the sting of the fracture would never reach his brain. She pulled the trigger with her thumb and blew his head through the ceiling.
She crouched behind cover just as a wild reaction shot rang out from the corner. With her weapon now free she flicked the selector to full-auto, stood quickly, and emptied the 20-round 12-gauge magazine in a four-second semicircular volley of solid buckshot and destruction that ripped through the remaining three inside-men and sent them all cut to pieces to the floor.
“Come on, kid!” she yelled, and Virginia leaped to the fireplace, snatched the racked Winchester from the mantel, and tossed it upright to the boy, who was already running toward her. He caught the rifle, worked the action, and fired through the door to take out a man running toward it, and he continued firing from the hip into the others as fast as he could shift his aim and squeeze the trigger.
Virginia pulled the boy down to relative safety behind her, dropped her empty shotgun, and picked up the AR-15 from the arm of one of the fallen thugs. She’d been hit but couldn’t pause to determine how seriously; the next minute or so would tell.
With the butt of the rifle she broke out a window and then laid down a metered pattern of suppressing fire. The closest men outside had been caught unawares and now they turned and ran away from the house, shooting backward and sideways without effect as they fled toward their cohorts and the nearest cover available: the burning truck about fifty yards away.
When their initial panic subsided they would no doubt hope to regroup out there and try to draw her attention from safety, then wait and watch until she and the boy had run out of ammunition, before moving back in for the easy kill.
Just as she’d glimpsed a tight line of formation lights moving among the stars to the northwest, an incoming round splintered the window frame and sprayed them both with razor shards of glass. She told the boy to stay low and then returned fire to cover him as she urged him away from danger with a gentle push toward his mother and sisters in the adjoining room.
The gunmen outside were getting bolder all the while. Their wild shooting had ceased, replaced by more accurate tries from more widely positioned hiding places. It was all she could do to mask and shift her location while keeping them mostly contained behind the truck.
Having had time to think and reestablish their pecking order, they must have been weighing the overwhelming strength of their numbers against the vulnerabilities of the single armed opponent they now faced. Their only real question would be how and when they would choose to make the final advance.
Whatever they might have been scheming, however, their designs were interrupted a split second later by the awesome and on-time arrival of the Arizona Air National Guard.
Virginia Ward had just expended her last round as the first of the Falcons tore through below treetop level at full afterburner, trailing the scream of an avenging angel. All the front windows shattered and blew violently inward as the clap of the pressure wave slammed against the house. Without firing a shot, in its supersonic wake the lead F-16 had flattened the men outside who’d still been standing.
As the first jet peeled off the second followed on, flyin
g slow on a guns-only strafing run. In a flash of heavy-metal demolition its Vulcan cannon plowed a relentless, rooster-tailing furrow across the driveway and cut through the heart of the clustered enemies. The truck’s fuel tanks burst and exploded and the fire roared heavenward, and as the dust swirled and settled, by the light of the gangsters’ burning treasure she could see no human movement amid the devastation.
There would be a last stroke coming. She picked up a pistol from a dead man’s hand as she hurried away from the window and back to Harland Dell’s huddled family. She held them close, shielding them with her body as the shriek of a Maverick missile sheared the air overhead. A final concussion shook the house to its foundation as the explosion cratered whatever remained of the threat from the men outside.
As the echoes of the strike were still fading away she continued speaking softly to the four survivors. Her voice was reassuring and calm as she listened and watched with her pistol held cocked and rock-steady and trained upon the open door. The sounds of a helicopter approaching with the rescue party barely eased her mind at all; she knew from long experience that the last moment before salvation can be as deadly as any other.
And Virginia Ward also knew something else: the nightmare was far from over for this widowed woman and her children. In fact, it never fully would be; they’d have to learn to live with scars even deeper than her own.
But they would live through this, just as their brave father would have wanted. For tonight, that was the very best that she could do.
Chapter 24
When the rescue helicopter had arrived at the burned-out ranch, one of the physicians had insisted that Virginia be flown to a secure medical facility in Colorado for observation. She’d agreed, in part so she could accompany the Dell family to that same hospital and oversee the beginnings of their care.
Once she’d settled into her recovery room she had to admit that the rest would be welcome. She’d taken a legitimate beating and after two rough flights and an endless debriefing she was left feeling every blow this latest mission had dealt her. Despite multiple cuts and bruises and two grazing bullet wounds, she’d chosen to forgo most of the painkillers when they were offered. She needed to preserve all of her mental faculties for a supposedly urgent meeting set to take place later on.