David Golemon - Ripper

“The president of Mexico is juggling too much. Hell, he’s hanging on to power by the skin of his teeth. This Guzman has a long reach and the whole of the Mexican government is terrified of him.”

“This is clearly an act of war if they are allowing this to continue unchecked,” Compton said

“Baldy, they don’t believe young McIntire is even on his property any longer. They say she’s already been moved.”

“But we—”

The president held his hand up. “We know Guzman is lying, Baldy. That hacienda is now covered by more cameras than they had at last year’s Superbowl.” The president closed his eyes while he thought a moment. He opened them and then looked at his friend two thousand miles away in Laredo. “This madman thinks he’s immune, that we have our hands tied. And he’s right to a point. With Department 5656 so black in nature, Congress would hang me in front of the Capitol for sending in an armed force over there for a purely law enforcement issue.” The president shook his head angrily and held up his hand once more when he saw that Niles was about to explode.

Compton was joined by Pete Golding at the communications console. He sat out of picture range and placed his hand on the director’s arm to calm him down.

“If this fails, of course you have my resignation.”

“Resign? No, that won’t happen. If you attempt it I will fire and then whoever else I need to fire, and then order you back to the Group without some of your key people. Is sneaky little bastard Pete Golding there listening? I know he is, so he’s witness to what I say. And if for one minute you don’t think I have the power to do it, just try me Director Compton. Friends are damned. And I want to speak with Colonel Collins if he gets out of this mess without getting wacked in Mexico. Now, what can I do to assist the colonel and get my people back safely?”

Niles dipped his head in thanks.

“Remember Baldy, they’re also my people, not just yours.”

Collins, Mendenhall, and Everett stopped to take a breath. They were muddy and filthy and because at several points in the long-winding fresh-water culvert they had encountered age-old cave-ins and a narrowing of the pipe itself, their backs ached, and all three were feeling the cramps in their legs.

“They don’t describe things like this in all those, ‘Be All You Can Be’ or ‘Army of One’ commercials, do they Lieutenant?” Everett said smiling as he removed a small black box from Jack’s backpack. He opened the box and then quickly removed a small flashlight-looking device attached to the box by a long cord.

“According to GPS we’re about a half a mile from the hacienda. It’s time to see just how much company we have waiting for us out there,” Everett said as he spied the broken culvert a few feet ahead of them. Jack only nodded his agreement.

As Carl positioned himself near the break, he lowered his night vision goggles and slowly eased himself upward toward the now star-filled sky above them. As his head came free of the underground world, he brought the heat-sensing probe up and pointed it toward the spot he hoped the hacienda was located. Down below him Jack wiped sweat from his face and brought the small LCD monitor online. His heart sank when, one by one, each of the roving patrols of Guzman’s guards appeared as a bright blob of red, yellow, and white heat. Collins hissed as Will looked over his shoulder.

“How are we looking?” Everett whispered from above them.

Jack could only lower the monitor back into the small black box and then in anger kick it away.

“What was I thinking?” he asked no one but himself.

Everett eased himself back down into the culvert and then looked from Mendenhall to the colonel.

“What’s wrong now,” he said as he coiled up the long cord and replaced the heat sensor back on its clip on the side of the black box.

“At least two hundred men, between us and the hacienda,” Mendenhall answered for Jack. Will shook his head at Everett, not wanting the colonel to see the gesture — one of hopelessness. He then moved off farther down the culvert toward Perdition.

Jack was thinking furiously when Mendenhall returned. “More good news here — the culvert ends. We have a massive collapse of the concrete and it’s pretty much filled in ahead.”

Collins lowered his head and angrily slapped at his wool cap, and pulling it free of his head along with the night vision goggles. Everett was also lost for words. He knew they were trained to think on the fly, to improvise; that’s how Special Forces operatives thought. But now they were all out of options. To make a run on the hacienda through all of that open space was suicide — especially against well-armed men that basically used the same night equipment as themselves.

“I’m all out of ideas,” Collins said as he stared at the running water beneath his feet.

Everett thought as hard as he could, but he could see no way out of their dilemma. He thought the colonel was not going to say anything, when Jack suddenly removed his right-hand glove and then shoved it into the flowing water at his feet. The small stream from the Rio Grande was moving at a pretty good clip south, toward the hacienda.

“Will, if the culvert is collapsed ahead, where in the hell is this water disappearing to?” he asked as he replaced his cap and night vision goggles and then lowered them and moved off to the spot Mendenhall had been at earlier.

Everett gave Will a curious look and then followed Jack. Mendenhall, instead of going with his commanding officers, leaned once more against the old and cracked concrete of the culvert and pulled out another foil container of energy drink.

When Everett caught up with Jack twenty feet farther along the culvert, he saw the colonel was looking down at the water as it disappeared about a foot before the cave-in.

“Look at this,” he said without looking up at Everett. “Where in the hell is this water draining off to?”

“It could be anything, Jack. Maybe there’s a fault under the old culvert.

“But wouldn’t it be—”

Before Jack could state his own opinion on the disappearing stream, they both heard a loud crack and then the vibration hit them and they felt the cave-in. Collins knew immediately what had happened and bending over ran past Everett. When he got to the spot they had just been he raised his goggles and then quickly turned on a small flashlight and panned it around through the swirling dust. Everett hurried in behind him, and Jack had to put his hand out to stop Carl before he fell into the large hole that had appeared at the very spot they had been just a moment before.

“Damn, Will, are you alive down there?” Collins asked as he leaned over the hole where the water was falling on a prone shape about ten feet below them. He saw movement.

“Yeah, I hit my goddamn tailbone though, and I bit my tongue. Other than that, I think I’m in one piece.”

“What in the hell did you fall into?”

Jack saw a light come on far below and then he saw Mendenhall go to his knees in the gathering water as it fell into the hole from above.

“A tunnel,” he called up through the swirling dust. He saw something dug into the side of the tunnel and then plucked it from the wall. “It’s a reinforced tunnel, and it’s an old one, Colonel,” he said as he leaned back and heaved the object up and through the hole where Collins caught it.

“A lantern,” Jack said as he looked it over and then handed it to Everett.

The lantern had an old reflection dish attached to its back. They all knew that the reflector was once used to add enhanced light to the otherwise weak oil-filled lantern.