Cliff Ryder - Aim And Fire

“Smell that?” she asked.

Wrinkling his nose, Nate nodded. “Fresh paint. I wonder if the lab boys can get enough of a sample from anything in here.”

Tracy knelt down to examine the floor. “Too hard packed to leave any tread marks or footprints. I think something was stored here in the corner, but I’m not sure what.

Painting supplies that they took with them?”

“Most likely, although they might have disposed of them out here, so they wouldn’t get caught with them.

Might as well bring in a team to go over the area, see if they can pull something up.”

Nate walked back outside, where the afternoon heat was only broiling instead of nearly incapacitating, like in the barn. A noticeably wilted Tracy followed, and he went back to the Bronco and got two chilled bottles of water from a small cooler in the back. Going back around the building, he found her on the other side, looking for evidence. “Here.”

“Thanks, but I don’t feel particularly thirsty. I’m not even sweating.”

“I know, that’s why you need to drink. Your sweat is evaporating as soon as it hits the air, so you’re still losing body moisture—you just don’t realize it. Dehydration sneaks up on a person fast—that’s why it’s so dangerous.”

He flipped open his cell and dialed headquarters, giving them the location of the barn, directions to it and advising that they would wait for the crime-scene team to arrive.

“They figure about thirty to forty-five minutes, longer if whoever’s driving doesn’t know these roads. Nothing to do now but wait,” he said to Tracy.

Tracy gulped several swallows before Nate shook his head. “Don’t drink too fast—you’ll get cramps.”

“Sorry, it just felt better than I expected.” She lowered the bottle and eyed the surrounding landscape. “Do you want to take a look around the area, see if we could find the bury spot?”

“Not without a dozen more men and a full day to do it.

Could use a Shadow Wolf out here, too, since they probably left tracks out to it, but—” Nate lifted his head as the sound of a revving engine split the silence.

Tracy listened, as well. “What’s that? The forensic team here already?”

“Not likely. Truck engine, coming this way from the south. Get inside.”

“You think they’re coming here?”

“This place is really the only reason to be out here.”

Nate hustled her inside and pulled the barn door closed, leaving just a crack open for observation. A few seconds later, another vehicle crested the rise and roared down the hill toward them. It was a bloodred, late-model pickup with an extended cab and dual wheels on the back for hauling heavy trailers. The truck turned into the driveway and approached the barn. Its bed was filled with what looked like illegal immigrants, but as it got closer, Nate saw something that made his blood run cold—automatic weapons in the hands of the two men standing at the front of the cargo bed. “Goddamnit.”

“What, more illegals?” Tracy asked.

“Worse.” Nate raised his pistol, aware it was about as useful as a flyswatter against the assault rifles roaring toward them. “Zetas.”

Kate’s brow furrowed. “What’s a zeta?”

Unknown to Nate, he hadn’t been talking to only Tracy all this time. The cell phone she had given Tracy was a two-way communication device, even when it was closed.

Room 59 often used them to keep tabs on people of interest, or, as in this case, when they were working clandes-tinely with agents from other departments. The phone could broadcast video when it was out—although in this case, stuck at the bottom of Tracy’s purse, Kate saw nothing but blackness—and audio. Even from where it was, they had heard the conversation between the two agents.

Although Kate was well educated in all of the major terrorist groups, this one wasn’t familiar to her. The man working alongside her on this operation, however, had a much different reaction.

“Jesus Christ!” Denny Talbot’s fingers blurred over the keyboard as the director for North American operations also talked into his headset. “I need CBP backup immediately at the following coordinates, via helicopter if possible. Advise incoming agents that there is a large group of undocumented aliens on-site, heavily armed, I repeat, heavily armed, and may be wearing body armor—approach with extreme caution. There are also two DHS agents at the scene, currently inside the barn. Advise all units in the area to converge on this address immediately.”

Kate was busy, as well, sending out an urgent message to all of her hackers asking for whoever could patch into any satellite to get a fix on Tracy’s coordinates and patch her in ASAP.

Denny spoke to her from the computer screen, where he was teleconferencing with her on this mission from Washington, D.C. “Kate, your operative should be calling immediately, so as soon as she fills you in, let her know that help is on the way.”

As if on cue, Kate’s monitor flashed, signaling an incoming call. “This is her, hold on,” Kate said to Denny.

“Agent Stephanie Cassell,” she said to Tracy, employing her cover name.

“Stephanie, it’s Tracy. We’re at an abandoned ranch about twenty-five miles east of El Paso, and need backup right now. Armed hostiles are outside—dammit, they’re coming in!”

“Tracy, sit tight, we are routing all available units to your location.”

“Too late, Nate, what are we doin—?” The connection broke off in midsentence.

“Damn, she hung up. What are they facing down there?”

If there was one thing Kate didn’t like, it was when she wasn’t aware of something—especially since that meant she had sent someone into an assignment without the most recent information.

“ Zetas are highly trained, heavily armed professional soldiers working for the drug cartels in Mexico. Originally they were supposed to be helping the U.S. and Mexico fight the drug wars, but after getting trained in special weapons and tactics, many of them went to the other side and are now one of the largest threats on the border. They are ruthless, efficient and don’t take any prisoners,” Denny said.

“You mean that if some help doesn’t get down there immediately, those two operatives are dead,” Kate said.

“Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”

“Dammit, these zetas, whoever they are, weren’t supposed to be there.”

Denny gave her a wry look. “Kate, you know that’s the nature of any mission. As much as we try, we cannot foresee every complication.”

“That simply isn’t good enough. At the very least, we should have been able to warn them of potential incoming threats,” Kate said.

“May I remind you that these agents aren’t ours, and have their own protocols to follow? It would look pretty unusual for either the DHS or the FBI to be that efficient.

Like it or not, we have to work within certain parameters, especially when masquerading as someone else.”

“Unfortunately.” Although Kate grudgingly agreed with Denny, she certainly didn’t like it. That was one of the reasons that Room 59 had been created in the first place— to circumvent the often cumbersome bureaucracy that bound more traditional intelligence agencies, and successfully complete the jobs that needed doing before disaster could strike. However, even working through their back channels and direct links, sometimes Kate still found herself in a situation like this—where she could do nothing but wait, listen and hope her operative came out alive.

“Nate, what should we do?” Tracy slipped the cell phone into her pocket and raised her pistol. “Is there a back way out of here?”

Outside, she heard what sounded like some sort of disagreement between some of the men in the truck, with at least two raised voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.