Mike Maden - Drone

The helicopter rotors hammered against the cloudless blue sky, spun by a Rolls-Royce turboshaft engine roaring overhead.

Los Pinos had decided to run the op during the day because of the terrain. It was closer to an arrest than an assault. If it had been an assault, the soldiers would have gone in at night. The Marines’ night-vision capabilities gave them a significant advantage over most opponents, though syndicate soldiers had been known to deploy the same technology on occasion.

Colonel Cruzalta scanned the road ahead with his field glasses. A wicked hairpin turn following a switchback was about five hundred meters ahead. A steep mountain with loose rocks walled one side of the road; the other side was nothing but air and a thousand-meter drop into the gorge below.

“Obregón. Tell your driver to slow down. There’s a nasty curve up ahead.”

“Yes, Colonel,” echoed in Cruzalta’s headset, along with the Sherpa’s four-cylinder diesel engine whining in the background.

Like all true warriors, Cruzalta was anxious. Only armchair generals and fat-assed politicians thumped their chests and laughed at danger because they never really had to face any. Without fear, courage was impossible. Fear kept a man alive while courage kept him in the fight.

Cruzalta’s orders were to escort the Castillos back to Culiacán, by force if necessary, where an assistant attorney general was waiting to ask questions in the air-conditioned comfort of a federal building. If the twins requested it, Cruzalta was ordered to escort the Castillos back to their resort compound. It was possible that the Castillos would forcibly resist the attempt to bring them in for questioning, but the appearance of elite Marinas should cause them to think twice. However, it had been determined by the president’s office that a minimum of force was preferable in order to avoid any unnecessary provocation. Cruzalta prayed that the Castillo boys were wiser than their youth suggested.

Several hundred meters ahead, an ancient tractor-trailer rig belched clouds of oily smoke from its vertical exhaust pipes. The driver is doing a bad job of downshifting, Cruzalta thought to himself. The trailers were fully enclosed but ventilated. Cruzalta guessed the truck must be hauling cattle down the hill to the slaughterhouses in Culiacán.

Obregón’s Sherpa 2

Loaded out in his combat gear, including a Kevlar vest, Obregón sweated fiercely, but he could sense a slight cooling in the air temperature as they gained altitude.

He glanced up and over at his two o’clock, watching Cruzalta’s helicopter on station, keeping an eye on things. He was glad the old man was up there watching out for them. Cruzalta’s reputation was second to none in the Marinas . He had always led his battalion into battle from the front and he had the wounds to prove it.

Obregón ducked his head back into the crew compartment. The three young soldiers sat grim and determined beneath their camouflaged helmets, rifles locked between their knees.

“You girls ready to dance?” Obregón shouted over the noise.

“Sir, yes, sir!” they shouted back in unison, smiles creasing their fierce, young faces.

“Good. Won’t be long now.”

The Situation Room, the White House

Greyhill frowned. “Okay, now I’m starting to get carsick.”

Early grinned. “Trust me, it’s worse for them, especially the guys in the back.”

“Boys,” Myers whispered. “They’re just young boys.”

Cruzalta’s OH-6 Cayuse

Cruzalta watched Obregón’s lead vehicle enter the southern end of the mile-long tunnel that cut through the mountain. The other Sherpas were close behind. The drivers were tired and distracted after a three-hour ride in the twisting mountains.

“Keep your vehicles spread out,” Cruzalta ordered through his mic, but Obregón didn’t respond. They had lost voice communication inside the tunnel.

The cattle truck entered the northern end and disappeared.

The Situation Room, the White House

Obregón’s video monitor cut to black.

“What’s going on?” Myers asked.

“They’re inside the mountain. The video will be back up as soon as they’re on the other side,” Early assured her.

Myers glanced at the live feed of the compound. The Castillo brothers were outside now in the pool playing a game of volleyball in the shallow end with the two young women, who were now completely topless.

“Better enjoy it while it lasts, assholes,” Early said.

Obregón’s Sherpa 2

Obregón was glad to be in the cool of the wide two-lane tunnel. The sun had been grinding him down for the last three hours. His eyes were still adjusting to the dark. He glanced up at the tunnel ceiling. There were lights up there, but they weren’t turned on. Civilians, he muttered to himself, as he cracked open his canteen and took another sip of water.

Obregón glanced backward at the other Sherpas spread out behind him, each about two seconds apart. That was cutting it pretty close, and in a combat situation he would push them back and keep them spread much farther apart. He could barely see the anxious face of the young private driving the vehicle behind him, clutching the steering wheel with an iron grip. The private’s frowning eyes finally caught Obregón’s and Obregón flashed him a thumbs-up. It took a couple of seconds, but the young driver finally managed a wide, nervous grin.

Obregón turned around. He glanced up ahead. A pair of cockeyed headlights from an oncoming diesel tractor rattled in the dark up ahead. He could just make out the shadows of the trailers it was hauling behind it.

Cruzalta’s OH-6 Cayuse

“Come around,” Cruzalta ordered his pilot. The helicopter had flown in an elliptical pattern all day, racing ahead of the slower-moving convoy, then circling around and catching up with them, keeping an eye on threats in front of and behind his men. The OH-6 had gotten far ahead again and now the pilot circled back on his commander’s order. The nose of the helicopter turned just in time to give Cruzalta a God’s-eye view of the tunnel.

The Situation Room, the White House

Myers was fixed on the helicopter video monitor. Flames suddenly jetted out of both ends of the mountain tunnel.

“Oh my God!” Myers shouted.

Fire continued to boil out of both ends as the helicopter camera plunged toward the tunnel. Cruzalta’s voice shouted over the speakers, screaming for the pilot to land.

Cruzalta’s OH-6 Cayuse

“OBREGÓN! OBREGÓN! COME IN!” Cruzalta shouted as the helicopter rocketed down toward the highway below. Just as the helicopter’s skids hit the hot asphalt, a long-horned bull shrouded in flames charged out of the tunnel entrance. Even above the rotor wash, Cruzalta could hear its agonizing screams as it thundered past the cockpit and hurled itself blindly over the side of the mountain into the gorge below.

The Situation Room, the White House

Myers’s eyes darted over to the other monitor. The laughing Castillo boys were still batting the volleyball around with their girlfriends in the pool, oblivious to the carnage in the hills below them.

“Jesus, what a goat fuck,” Greyhill blurted. He turned to Myers. “Good thing you weren’t directly involved in this, Margaret. It would’ve been your Bay of Pigs.”

The Situation Room, Los Pinos

President Barraza sat in stunned silence, staring at the monitors. He finally managed to speak, his voice cracking with emotion. “This is a disaster, Hernán. Those poor kids.”

Hernán Barraza turned toward his brother. “We sent the best we have. The Americans will realize that, won’t they?” His voice was etched with pained sincerity. He even managed to wet his eyes a little. Hernán had practiced both for hours last night in front of a mirror. Antonio wasn’t the only actor in the family.