Don Pendleton - Border Offensive

Sweets didn’t look at him. “Don’t tattle, Jorge.” He released Bolan’s hand and stepped back. “Y’all are the last to arrive. Get inside so we can get started.” Sweets turned and ambled back into the cantina, a sullen Franco on his heels. Bolan looked at James and raised an eyebrow.

James shrugged. “That’s Sweets.”

“So I gathered,” Bolan said. James’s estimation had been right on the money, he thought. Bolan had faced many men, and he recognized a nasty customer when he saw one. Sweets wasn’t an especially smart man, or even a vicious one, but he was just enough of both to be intimidating to the men who followed him. Regardless, Bolan made a mental note to never let Sweets get behind him again.

Inside the cantina were nine more men, counting Sweets and Franco. They were a grab bag of ethnicities and accents, but all had the same starving-wolf look in their eyes. They were hard men, and devoted to their greed. They sat around the few tables in pairs or trios, chatting softly. James led Bolan to a table with two other men. The latter’s conversation stopped as Bolan and James sat down.

“Henshaw, Eddie,” James said, nodding to each man in turn. Henshaw was a slim man, with eyes like a weasel and a .38, similar to the one Bolan carried, holstered under one sweat-stained armpit. Eddie was heavier, though he looked to be less affected by the heat. He grinned jovially at Bolan and shoved a pair of twenty-dollar bills at him.

“Here’s your cut, Cousin Frank,” he said.

“My cut?”

“I put a C-note on you to clean Franco’s fat ass. Figure it’s only fair we go sixty-forty.” Eddie leaned back and interlaced his fingers over the belly that strained at his shirtfront. “Oh, lordy, that was funny.”

“Funny,” Henshaw echoed, his eyes elsewhere.

“Easiest money I ever made,” Bolan said, playing the part and pulling the bills toward him.

“Franco’s a chump. Now, you want a real fight? Digger is your man,” Eddie said conspiratorially. He tapped the side of his bulbous nose. “Bastard is as big as a house.”

James looked around. “I don’t see him.”

“Upstairs,” Henshaw said. “He’s relaxing.” The emphasis he laid on the word caused Bolan to perk up. He looked at James again, but the other man shook his head in a gesture that Bolan thought meant “I’ll tell you later.”

Sweets, standing behind the bar, smacked the wood with the butt of his pistol. “Gentlemen, if I could have your attention,” he said. The room quieted down. Bolan found that he was grudgingly impressed. Sweets poured himself a drink and knocked it back, then swept the room with a hard gaze. “We all know why we’re here.”

“Because we’re greedy sumbitches,” Eddie said loudly. There were a few chuckles.

“There is that,” Sweets said. “But it’s also because you’re the best I got. You’ve all run tar, tits and Thompsons over the border. Drugs, bodies and guns, and you ain’t lost a load, or if you did, don’t nobody but you knows it.” He poured himself another drink. “But this here run, it’ll be a bit different...” Bolan tensed. Sweets smiled. “There’ll be more money for one thing.”

“And for the other?” James said.

Sweets looked at him. “Fellows we chauffeuring have specific places they want to go. They’ll be mixed in with the regulars, and you’ll be taking the whole load to different points across the border. They got a schedule, and they’re sticklers for punctuality.”

“Who are these guys? Tourists?” another man asked.

“Ragheads,” Franco spat.

“Customers,” Sweets corrected. “Good ones, too, though, ah, probably not repeat ones.” He leaned forward over the bar. “There are ten of us and a hundred of them. We’ll each be carting ten of them to where they need to go. We’ll be meeting them here and shuffling them over.”

“A hundred men,” James said. “Hell, that’s a damn army, Sweets.”

“So it is,” Sweets said. “And so what? I know a couple of us done run cartel muscle over the border before, this ain’t no different.”

“It is if they ain’t cartel soldiers,” Henshaw barked. His fingers danced nervously along the butt of his pistol. “What was that Franco said? Are we really escorting Jihadists or some mess?”

“What if we are?” Eddie said, looking at the other man. “Their money is as green as anyone else’s.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Boys, let’s be realistic here,” Sweets said, interrupting. “What we’re talking about is likely treason on some level. Then, so is running undocumented workers or Nicaraguan gunmen into Santa Fe or Dallas. And, if it’s tweaking your shriveled little patriotic impulses, need I remind you that every redneck for a hundred miles of the border has a small armory in his basement? It ain’t like we’re escorting these fellows into the Promised Land. They might blow up a department store or erase a preschool, but at the end of the day, they’ll die in the dust same as every other bad man. And we’ll be sitting pretty with a nice chunk of cash.”

“Yeah, but what about the next time, Sweets?” James said. “We get these guys through and the border is going to close up tighter than blazes.”

“Probably, but not for long,” Sweets said confidently. “People got short memories. And we provide a necessary function.”

Bolan thought that Sweets was kidding himself. There would always be cracks in a border as long and as crooked as the Mexican-American border, but if this scheme succeeded it would mean a death sentence or life imprisonment for every man of Sweets’s ilk. Looking around the room, he saw not a few faces that reflected his opinion back at him. None of them, however, were speaking up. Greed could put iron in even the most pliable spine, it seemed.

“Look, I ain’t going to force nobody. Give it a minute, talk it over. Have a drink. Let me know,” Sweets said, filling up his glass again.

The meeting broke up a moment later. Two or three men stood and wandered outside, lighting up cigarettes as they went and speaking quietly. Bolan stood. “Toilet?” he said. Eddie grinned at him.

“Nervous?”

“Something like that.”

“Up them stairs there,” Henshaw said, gesturing. Bolan nodded and shot a look at James. The other man inclined his head. Bolan turned toward the stairs, satisfied that the younger man had understood him. He needed to scout the area.

Instincts honed in countless undercover operations prickled in warning as he made his way up the stairs. Like as not, the bulk of the terrorists were waiting for an “all-clear” signal to come into town. But there would have to be someone here to give that signal. And if Bolan were any judge, that man would be the one called Tuerto.

At the top of the stairs, Bolan let his fingers drift toward the pistol clipped to his belt. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but he couldn’t let pass the opportunity to take the head off the snake first thing, even if he’d have to shoot his way out of town after the fact. His partner wouldn’t like it, but Bolan was damned if he was going to let a hundred armed terrorists get anywhere near the American border, sting operation or no sting operation.

The corridor was narrow and there were four doors, two to either side, plus a bathroom that Bolan smelled well before he spotted it. Stepping lightly down the hall, he let his senses drift in such a way as to catch the smallest sound. If you tried to listen for one thing, you almost always missed everything else. But experience had taught him that listening to everything was a sure way not to miss anything.

There was a low buzz of what might have been conversation coming from one room. But from another... Bolan’s nostrils wrinkled. He smelled blood and lots of it. He pulled the pistol and went to the latter door, a wordless warning siren pealing in his head as he turned the knob. The door opened on darkness and Bolan stepped through.