John Gilstrap - Damage Control

With her waist clear, she bent until she was flat with the street and she dragged her legs out. Soaked to the skin and disgusted by what she’d endured, she shivered in the hot night air. Soon it would be over.

Maria crouched on the ground, looking first to the left and then to the right for signs of danger. She nearly jumped out of her skin when two men approached her from behind with weapons trained on her.

These must be her rescuers, she thought, but why were they pointing guns?

“You must be Maria Elizondo,” one of them said. “Felix Hernandez is anxious to chat with you.”

In his heart, Palma had known that a third explosion was coming. It only made sense. The first blast was designed to draw his people in. The second was designed to kill those responders-a well-calculated move as it turned out. If he had been planning these diversions-and he knew now that that’s what they were-he would have planted a third bomb to invoke utter confusion.

He hadn’t expected it to be so close, however-only fifty meters away. That his adversary could get so close without being detected was at once impressive and frightening. Palma had put a man very near that location to watch the oncoming street. He couldn’t remember the soldier’s name, but that probably didn’t matter. The fact that the charge had been planted in the first place probably meant that he was dead. And if he wasn’t killed before, then the blast had most certainly taken care of it.

Palma’s radio broke squelch. “Captain, we have Maria Elizondo,” a voice said.

He smiled. A diversion was only as effective as its ability to divert attention. Once he’d figured out what his adversary’s plan had been, Palma had told his remaining forces to hold fast in their current positions.

And now his decision had paid off. With the world around him on fire, he brought his radio to his lip. “Bring her to me,” he said.

Jonathan had read about the Sandcat-in the U.S., they were called tactical protector vehicles, or TPVs-but he’d never seen the interior of one. Built on a Ford F-550 chassis, the dashboard looked just like any other pickup truck. And if it weren’t for the five-point restraint system, the seats would have looked familiar, too.

But that’s where the similarity stopped. The doors felt heavy enough to be armored, but not quite heavy enough to be armored well. Not knowing the Mexican government’s specs for such things, the element of doubt translated to a lack of confidence that the doors or windows could stop anything heavier than a slingshot.

Thanks to night vision, Jonathan could make out the details of the interior, as well, and was surprised to see fold-down web benches instead of seats. They attached to the side bulkheads, and to Jonathan’s eye could accommodate two people each with body armor, and three each without. He assumed that the black knobs that dotted the bulkheads on all sides were gun ports that provided for a fairly effective field of fire.

The article he’d read about the TPVs had showed a picture of a gun turret with a mounted M60 machine gun. Here, in the spot where that turret would be mounted, was a rooftop emergency exit, instead.

Boxers drove with the lights off and NVGs in place. It looked as if the Sandcat was equipped with a FLIR system-forward-looking infrared-but it was tough enough driving with night vision. Why complicate it with the challenge of driving from a television screen?

Apparently, the third bomb had spread a lot of fire, evidence of a full gas tank on the vehicle where it had been set. As Boxers piloted the Sandcat toward the conflagration-there wasn’t room to turn the beast around in the narrow streets-Jonathan watched flames climb higher than the rooftops. As they turned the corner to head north before going east again, he got a glimpse of the carnage he’d created. Bodies littered the street, some of them clearly dead, and some of them writhing in pain. One of the living guys’ clothes were still smoking.

A Mexican soldier-a sergeant, judging from his uniform insignia-spotted the Sandcat and ran toward it, his arms waving for it to stop and help.

“Want me to run him down?” Boxers asked.

“No,” Jonathan said. “Not unless he gets in the way or he looks like he’s going to take a shot. Just keep going.”

Boxers did in fact gun the engine and lurch toward the sergeant, but it was a move designed to make the guy jump back, thereby saving him.

If anyone else had been behind the wheel, Jonathan would have told the driver to slow down, but Boxers was very good at this sort of thing. Jonathan figured they were doing thirty, thirty-five miles an hour when Boxers cut the right-hand turn onto the street that ran behind Maria’s house. He cut it short, too, galumphing over the curb and taking out a bicycle that someone had foolishly left in a yard.

Tristan yelled from the back as the impact launched him out of his bench and nearly into the ceiling before he landed in a heap on the armored floor. “Hey!”

“Hang on, kid!” Boxers said through a laugh. The humor evaporated as quickly as it had arrived as he caught a glimpse of what lay ahead. “I think we’re in trouble, Boss,” he said.

Jonathan saw it, too. A pair of soldiers had a woman in custody, each with a hand on a different biceps while the one on the right spoke into a radio.

“Turn on the headlights,” Jonathan commanded, flipping his NVGs out of the way. “And keep going forward.”

Boxers shot him a confused look, but he complied without a word.

The guards looked startled as the headlights caught them. The one on the left shielded his eyes right away, but the one on the right had to put his radio down first.

“Go in like we belong,” Jonathan said. “I want them to think we’re the cavalry.” As he spoke, he unclipped his M27 from its sling and drew the MP7 from its holster on his left thigh.

“Your plan is just to go out shooting?” Boxers asked. His tone made it clear that he did not approve.

“She’s our ticket out of town,” Jonathan said. “I don’t see-”

Maria Elizondo moved with startling speed. While her captors stared at the approaching vehicle, she made a wild flapping motion with both arms, breaking free from their grasp. She took a step back.

Jonathan saw that as his cue and he shouldered open his door.

The soldiers were still reacting when petite Maria produced a massive pistol from somewhere. She drew and fired in the same motion. The guy on the right fell.

The recoil was a problem for her, though. Before she could regain control, the soldier on the left had found his own weapon. He was bringing it to bear when Jonathan snap-shot a bullet from his MP7 into the guy’s right ear.

Startled, Maria brought her revolver around and took a shot at Jonathan.

He read her body language in time to spin around and duck behind the panel of his open door. The bullet punched through four inches from his ear.

So much for the vehicle being armored.

Maria hadn’t meant to fire at the truck. It was a reflex, a body twitch reacting to the sound of a gunshot. She saw a man drop as she pulled the trigger, and now she expected to be shot herself.

For an instant, she considered running away, but the urge evaporated from her brain seconds after it formed.

She had to make it clear that she’d meant them no harm.

“She dropped her weapon,” Boxers said. “She’s got her hands up.”

Jonathan felt relieved. He didn’t think that her gunplay had been an act of aggression. It would have sucked to have to kill her.

“Put your hands in the air!” Jonathan called from behind the door. He raised up high enough to see through the closed window and saw that she was doing as she was told.

Satisfied, he let the MP7 hang at his side as he stepped out into the open. “What’s your name?” he asked.