Borderlands (Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series Book 6) Read online

  “No, stay here and cover our escape. Use your weapon to keep anyone from advancing to buy us some time. When you’ve run out of ammo—surrender. The cops get you medical help then you go to jail. I will see that Mateo has you brought back to Mexico.”

  Emilio nodded then clutched his rifle. Vincent opened the water bottle and put it to the young man’s lips. “Drink and rest as much as you can, OK?”

  Vincent got up and bolted back to the truck. Opening the back door, he yanked out Jacobs, who was still bleary-eyed but able to stand. Vincent reached over the armrest and grabbed his daypack and the silver briefcase, then held Jacobs’ arm and tugged him along back to the mesquite trees. He slapped the reluctant man in the side of the head. “You come with me and your daughter might live.”

  He glanced over his shoulder to check the road in both directions then nodded at Emilio. “Be strong—we see each other soon.” Vincent had mentored his young accomplice for the past three years. He had proven to be a reliable man with tremendous endurance. He hated to leave Emilio behind and knew his chances for survival were slim with his grave wound and the law-enforcement officers he might be engaging. However, only the mission mattered now—with the device in their possession, Mateo could put an end to Rafael’s guerilla attacks on the cartel and restore order to their business. He’d had enough of the endless bloodshed and chaos that had consumed the border regions, despite having his own hands soaked in the violence on numerous occasions. All he wanted was a small hacienda with a view, outside of town and away from the constant staccato of gunfire that plagued his daily life. He just hoped his partner Felix was on schedule with the diversion operation he was running west of him to lure border patrol resources out of the region.

  Two hundred yards into the vegetation-choked canyon, Jacobs stopped and leaned against a slab of basalt, his eyes able to focus on his surroundings.

  “You keep moving,” said Vincent, prodding him in the ribs with the muzzle of his AK.

  “Where’s my daughter, you bastard?”

  Vincent twisted the zip-ties, wrenching Jacobs’ wrists as the tendons bulged from the strain. Then he released his grip and patted the briefcase under his arm. “You see her again when you unlock this tracking device and show me how to use it.”

  Steven’s eyes narrowed. “How the hell do you even know what that is? Only a handful of people know that I’m working on that.”

  “Not important—what matters is that we have seven miles to cover between now and sundown; then you get to work if you want your little Amy to keep that pretty face of hers.”

  Steven kicked Vincent in the side of the shin then turned to run. Vincent ignored the glancing blow and grabbed Steven’s shirt collar. He violently yanked him back then punched him in the right kidney. He collapsed to his knees, groaning in pain as he fell forward.

  “You got some stones, I give you that. Maybe you are a caballero after all.”

  Vincent leaned forward and clutched the crop of blond hair on Jacobs’ head. “I can call my men now and have them remove a few fingers from your hija or you can get on your fucking feet and we keep moving.” He was bluffing, but Jacobs didn’t know that his radio was destroyed and that Vincent was running solo. It would have rounded out his plans to have secured the daughter but he knew that even threatening to hurt her would be a powerful motivator.

  The gasping man nodded his head then staggered upright. “Alright, enough. I’ll do what you want. Just leave my little girl out of this. I’m the one who has what you want.”

  Vincent thrust the briefcase into Jacobs’ chest. “Open it. I want to make sure this is what I came for before I trek through this hell of cactus and sand.”

  Steven wiped his forearm along his sweaty face then took a deep breath, dialing in the numeric code. The lid sprung open, revealing a laptop that was integrated into the walls of the case. The top monitor had a folding antenna similar to that on a satellite phone. It swung into an upright position as Steven lifted the lid. The console below held the keypad along with a wallet-sized depression in the left corner.

  “Doesn’t look that fancy to me,” said Vincent. “Turn it on.”

  Steven slid his trembling fingers back from the edge. “I can’t. The component is missing—it’s a small hard drive that activates the system,” he said, pointing to the square recess in the keyboard.

  “Where is it—back in your truck?”

  “No, at my office in Tucson.”

  Vincent smacked him in the face with the tip of his AK muzzle. Vincent stepped back, rubbing the side of his face frantically as he paced. He paused before a tiny cactus and stomped his boot over it, grinding it into a pulp while cursing.

  “Then this whole thing is for nada.” He removed his folding knife and flicked it open, moving it towards Jacobs’ face. “You will die slowly for this, then afterwards your daughter will come back to Mexico with me and be my…”

  Jacobs raised his hands. “Wait—there’s another device back at my ranch. I forgot it this morning when we left.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, gringo.”

  “Why would I have brought this out with me if I couldn’t activate it to do my research?” Steven frantically waved his hand to his right. “It’s there in an upstairs bedroom.”

  Vincent thrust his chin up then grabbed Jacobs by the arm, shoving him forward into the shade while he locked up the briefcase.

  “Now move, and hope my men can get what they need from your ranch.”

  “Everybody should be gone—they’re at a rodeo. They shouldn’t have to hurt anyone.”

  “Shut up and don’t look back at me again, perra.”

  As they walked, Vincent kept Jacobs in front of him. He reached into his pocket and removed his iPhone, texting a message to Mateo in the hopes it would get out once they crested the ridge of the canyon. Package in hand. Our old friend interfered with mission so we are on foot headed to secondary rendezvous point. ETA 4 hours. A critical hard drive is missing. Can you get our other asset to secure this at Jacobs’ ranch?

  Chapter 13

  A half-mile-long plume of fine dust had obliterated the image in the jeep’s rearview mirror as Mitch sped along the winding road below the mesa.

  Passing familiar landmarks brought with it the memories of roping cattle, riding in triple-digit heat, or weathering out a sandstorm in a cave. During his years abroad, he hadn’t remembered all the hardships of his former lifestyle but focused instead on the loved ones and friends he’d left behind. Now, he wondered what was waiting up ahead at the Jacobs’ vehicle. Would it be his old girlfriend, Nora? Would she even remember his face? Not that any of it mattered—the image in his binoculars looked like there was significant damage to the truck and he’d lend a hand in any way he could. He pushed away a vestige of nostalgia for Nora as he glanced over at Dev, who was still trying to get a call out on her phone.

  “I wonder what happened?” she said. “Do you think they slid off the road into the gulley?” She nodded her head to the right towards a twenty-foot-deep arroyo.

  “Nah, unlikely—unless they had a blowout. They know these roads like the back of their hands.” He gunned the accelerator down a straight stretch of narrow road then slowed to take the next turn. Coming around the bend, he saw the still-smoking wreck ahead in a tangle of young cottonwood trees. Mitch noticed another set of tire tracks veering away from the crash site and heading in the opposite direction. Wonder if someone already got here to help?

  Coming to a screeching halt twenty feet away from the overturned truck, he saw that all four tires were blown out. He hopped out and began to trot towards the vehicle but stopped suddenly when he saw a winding band of spikes protruding from the sand in the road. Mitch backpedaled and used a hand signal to tell Dev to grab the rifle, then he removed his concealed Glock 19 and slowly scanned the ridges and treeline for any movement.

  Creeping closer, he examined the ground and saw at least two distinct sets of bootprints. One had a diamond-shaped pattern in th
e tread and the other bore a waffle print. He noticed a pattern of two parallel marks in between the two tracks, indicating they were dragging another person, as the occasional toe print was visible in that set of tracks.

  Mitch gave Dev a sideways glance as they both moved around either side of the truck, sweeping each corner with their weapons. They silently conveyed their intentions through hand signals and knowing glances gleaned from their numerous missions together.

  Arriving on the other side of the crumpled truck, Mitch saw a bloody corpse, the head nearly splintered apart upon the gray rocks. It appeared to be a dark-skinned man, given the complexion of the hands, and he was clad in camouflage pants and a matching t-shirt. Beside the body was an AK-47 and dozens of spent brass on the ground.

  Mitch knelt down to inspect the body and noticed a faint trail of compressed rocks in the soil on the other side. He scanned the disturbance and saw that the tracks had a short stride, indicating someone who was either small in stature or perhaps injured. He ruled out the latter when he observed that the stride appeared equal on either side.

  Mitch looked back at Dev, who had finished examining the interior of the truck. She held up a neatly cut segment of the seatbelt, then made a slicing motion with her hand.

  What the hell happened here? And who would target the Jacobs family? Mitch thought as he stood up and began following the signs along the rocky substrate as it went up the arroyo. Dev kept sweeping to their rear with the MK-12 rifle as they proceeded slowly, while Mitch deciphered the faint marks of passage.

  Whoever it was didn’t weigh very much given how little the rocks were compressed in the sandy substrate. In a region like this with such poor soil conditions, all Mitch had to work off of were the faint scuff marks, compressions, and displaced twigs that were scattered over the pebble-strewn ground. Mitch knew he was unlikely to find a complete track so he focused on looking for anything out of place that fell within the stride pattern he’d established. Searching for the parts of a human print was far more effective under these challenging conditions than focusing on the whole picture.

  After ten feet of slow analysis, he came upon a faint toe print in the sand. Hmm, this looks like a little kid’s track. One of the Jacobs’ grandkids, maybe? He studied the crisp edges of the track, which hadn’t begun to erode from the faint breeze floating along the arroyo. The sand crystals were fine enough to hold detail, but not for long, so he knew these were fresh tracks connected with his trail and not from someone who may have hiked through the region the day before. Twenty feet further, he paused to examine some crushed rabbit droppings, their grainy surface flattened out on the rocks where someone had clearly stepped as they sped up towards a small outcropping of boulders. Mitch didn’t need to search the ground any further, as he figured a frightened child would either be hiding in the boulders or would have rested there for a few minutes before pushing on to another hiding spot. He visually leapfrogged past the rest of the faint trail and scanned the recesses in the rocks ahead. Moving cautiously as Dev kept their rear protected, Mitch saw a small patch of red fabric sticking out from a narrow recess in the ground where a pillar of sandstone jutted skyward like a massive earthen finger. As he approached, he heard muffled breathing followed by a rustling noise in the leaves. He saw the face of a small girl, her cheeks streaked with dirt and a trickle of dried blood. As he moved closer, she darted back into the shadows on the other side.

  Mitch cleared his throat then spoke softly. “My name is Mitch Kearns—with the Kearns ranch down the road. You must be one of the Jacobs’ grandkids, am I right?”

  He heard more scurrying followed by silence as he poked his head around the edge of the rock. Secreted against the back side was a little girl, her wavy blonde hair covering her grimy cheeks. Her knees were pressed into her chest and she held a tree branch in her right hand. She tried to speak but her lips only emitted a convulsed sigh.

  “It’s gonna be OK, sweetie. Whoever did this is gone.” He reholstered his pistol and extended his hand out to her. “Now, let’s get you back home.”

  Chapter 14

  Tombstone, Arizona

  DEA Agent Tony Salazar had just finished stuffing a handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth as he watched a cluster of sandal-clad tourists stroll across the street towards a t-shirt shop next to the OK Corral. He rested one hand on the steering wheel while determining that the crowd was most likely from the Midwest given their choice of clothes and pale skin. Probably Michigan or Ohio. They’re all gonna look like lobsters by the end of the day. He had a knack for reading people that extended beyond his fifteen years working in various branches of law-enforcement.

  “She sure is a beauty, ain’t she?” said the freckled twenty-something agent sitting next to him in their unmarked black SUV. The young man tilted the screen of his iPhone to cut the glare on the picture. “I’m thinking of marrying her if I get that next promotion in a few months.”

  “Muy bonita, indeed,” said Tony in a gravelly voice as he lifted an eyebrow at the picture of the raven-haired woman in the photograph. Hot chica, actually. Maybe I’ll look in on her when Alex is away on remote patrol duty in a few months. He laconically raised the empty coke bottle up to his mouth and spit out a slew of masticated sunflower seeds.

  Alex Stiles had just been assigned to fieldwork one week ago and had the good fortune of getting a seasoned veteran like Tony for his mentor. “Her family’s from Tijuana originally but her old man moved them all up to Tucson years ago to get away from the violence and start their own restaurant.”

  “Good for them—the American Dream ain’t dead yet,” Tony said with a hint of sarcasm, then looked forward at another throng of tourists waddling like penguins towards a cowboy who was waiting to deliver his canned speech. Wouldn’t mind taking a flamethrower to this town and everyone in it. These people have no idea that they’re in the middle of a war zone down here, with guys like me busting their asses to keep them and the rest of the country safe.

  Tony looked down at his watch, hoping the time had magically evaporated since his last glance minutes ago, the crow’s feet beside his eyes growing as he squinted. He had an unsanctioned briefing to do in an hour with a militia group and wanted to make sure his fledgling agent was occupied so he wouldn’t suspect anything was amiss.

  “What about you—ever been married?”

  He frowned, recalling the stack of divorce papers from his second wife that he had to sift through a few months ago. “Just to the job, kid.”

  “That’s what I thought—I mean, I heard that you were in deep at one time doing undercover work and all. From what I’ve heard that’s pretty intense.”

  “’Intense.’” He sighed, letting the word drift across his lips for a few seconds as if it was attached to a long tether.

  He looked at the pasty-faced youth beside him and wondered how much sunscreen he’d slathered on that morning to make the air around them feel like he was drowning in lavender. The man’s fingernails were groomed and his spindly, porcelain-like fingers had probably only ever traversed a keyboard. Tony had seen his type before: an idealistic college grad from back east who was fresh out of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico and suddenly assigned to the furnace-like conditions of the Arizona border while muddling his way through his newly acquired Spanish grammar during an interview with an illegal immigrant.

  Not all of the new agents were like that—most had grown up near the border and some were even of Mexican descent like Tony. But it just seemed like he got all the new kids as some kind of special punishment doled out by his boss in Tucson, who’d had enough of Tony Salazar’s interference in the drug wars.

  Tony had grown up in El Paso and spent most of his teenage years running with a street gang that smuggled stolen goods from Texas across the Rio Grande. Alcohol, cigarettes, and prescription medicine that would be rebranded and sold to unsuspecting American tourists in the border trinket shops. His Mexican-born mother worked two jobs and his fathe
r had been a shady drug dealer on the side, eventually walking out with another woman when Tony was nine years old.

  The knuckles on his right hand appeared to be fused together from years of street-fighting in the barrio on both sides of the border. After getting stoned on weed one night, he wandered out back of a cantina in Ciudad Juarez and witnessed a brutal gang murder by the Zeta cartel when he was seventeen. Seeing his future before him, he fled north to his uncle’s home in Houston at his mother’s insistence. After getting kicked out of two high schools, he finally obtained his GED and entered the Marine Corps, where he became an MP. There, he found the much-needed structure his life had been lacking as well as having a legal outlet for his aggression.

  After his discharge four years later, he moved to Tucson to work for a friend’s private investigation firm. Eventually, he made contact with some of the anti-drug taskforce guys in the Tucson Police Department, who started using his street-savvy skills and hardnosed approach to get answers from informants. He became a civilian contractor then later got on the radar of the DEA branch operating along the Arizona border. In the beginning, his talents were put to use at the port of entry, where he nabbed smugglers stowing dope in their vehicles. His prior experience on the streets of El Paso had taught him the tricks of how to hide quantities of cocaine, crystal meth, and marijuana in wheel wells, custom compartments in the doors, and false panels in the dashboard. With his knowledge of border culture, his real skill involved flipping the smuggler and turning him into an informant, which led to bigger busts throughout Arizona. He quickly surpassed many of his colleagues who were born outside the region, and his career soared during his initial five years, until he was in charge of running his own field operations.

  After the bloodshed along the Arizona border in 2008 resulting from cartel turf wars, his superiors at the DEA realized they needed someone undercover and Tony had the perfect profile. For four months, he underwent training in undercover operations conducted by a joint task force that had members from the DEA and FBI back in Miami. Returning to Arizona with his new credentials, he immediately put his training to use by picking up his old informants and focusing on targeting the cartel kingpins and distribution networks. He was no longer interested in kilos of dope—he was after metric tons.