Don Pendleton - Desert Impact

“Pack up?” Craig asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, let’s pack it in for the night. This was overtime duty for all of us anyway. If we get our asses back to the station, we might actually get a few hours of sleep before the next shift. It might be nice to see my little girl, if she can remember what her dad looks like.”

Rivers smiled at Jennings’s crestfallen expression, but he really was ready to go home and see his family, and he knew the rest of his team was too. His squad was the best trained in the area and people vied for a position on it, but with the training came the hours, and with each passing day the hours felt longer. Field work was really best left to men without families—or social lives. Probably should include it in the official job description, he thought morosely as Jennings jumped down from the Ford Expedition’s running boards.

Rivers lifted his binoculars for one last look. Just as he was ready to end the operation, he saw a faint gleam of light at the edge of a distant sand hill, only to watch it disappear. A flicker and it was gone.

“Hold on...” he said, looking again. Nothing. “Give me your night vision, Jennings.”

Jennings handed over the goggles. Rivers didn’t bother slipping the straps over his head, just held them up to his eyes and adjusted the distance. Other than a few small heat signatures from random desert creatures, the landscape still looked quiet. He knew that in these situations, patience was a field agent’s best friend, so he focused in on the hill where the light had briefly flickered and waited.

Beside him, Jennings started to speak, but Rivers shushed him and continued to watch. Finally, along the base of the mound, people began to appear, followed by a large truck. How the hell they’d gotten it into the hill was a mystery for later. Right now, the primary goal needed to be an arrest. “Hold on, guys,” Rivers said after keying his mike. “We’ve got company.”

Over several minutes, five trucks lined up, and more were emerging. The tunnel must have been huge and taken months to build. Headlights were now clearly visible. “Everyone stand by,” Rivers added, continuing to watch the developing scene. This was a big group, sure, but they were brazen as hell.

“What’s that?” Jennings asked, as the sound of heavy engines filled the air.

From a space somewhere between the squad’s position and where the illegals were gathering, two massive spotlights burst to life. Rivers yanked the goggles away from his eyes but not before he was half-blinded. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision and almost panicked as two modified assault vehicles—ultralight and modeled after rock-crawling dune buggies—came tearing toward them. Rivers caught a quick glimpse of mounted guns a second or two before they opened fire.

The unforgettable sound of two .50 caliber machine guns cut through the night. “Get down!” Rivers yelled, jumping free from the Expedition as bullets pierced the armored vehicle and strafed the ground.

His men ran for cover as Rivers rolled, got to his feet and spun back to jump behind the wheel of the truck. He turned the motor over and threw the truck into gear. After serving four years in the Army Special Forces and nearly eight years in the field as a Border Patrol agent, he knew the illegals’ expectation would be that they’d run like hell. He punched the accelerator and drove straight at the nearest buggy, even as rounds from the machine gun chewed holes in his hood. He yanked his Glock 17 free from the holster and began blasting through the window as he careened sideways.

Rivers’s charge forced the buggy to turn, but that didn’t stop the other one from taking its own shots at him. Rivers spun the wheel, and the Expedition’s tires clawed for traction. He nearly rolled the truck before it slammed back onto the rocky ground. Jennings had somehow made it into the vehicle, but all he could do was hold on. His face was white as a sheet.

“Either get your ass down, or do something,” Rivers snarled, wishing that spots on his team could be limited to men with at least a few years of field experience.

The new recruit grabbed the dash and ducked onto the floor as the second dune buggy closed in on them. Rivers dropped the transmission into reverse and slammed on the gas. The assault vehicle tried to adjust but hit a rock outcropping and flipped over twice before landing on its wheels and coming after them again. Hitting the brakes, Rivers jammed the transmission back into drive, then floored it, ramming the buggy at full speed. Men screamed as the two vehicles crunched together with the sound of tearing metal. One man flew forward and smashed into his windshield, leaving a smear of blood and brains on the bulletproof glass before sliding off the hood. With that buggy finally finished off, Rivers backed up and turned around, heading for where his other men were holed up.

He could see two agents on the ground by their vehicles. A jeep had joined the other dune buggy and had the remaining agents pinned down. Rivers swerved to hit a berm, which launched the Expedition into the fray and gave the agents cover. Gunfire from the automatic weapons on the dune buggy and the jeep knocked out two of the Expedition’s tires, dropping the hulking three tons of steel into the desert sand and throwing him into the windshield.

A sharp spike of pain lanced through his skull as his nose broke and the skin of his forehead split on impact. He leaned back, wiping the blood out of his eyes with a pained grunt.

“Are we going to die?” Jennings asked from the floor.

“If we just sit here, we will,” he replied. “It’s move or die time.”

Rivers reached into the backseat, the armor on the modified truck giving them at least a couple of moments before they’d be completely overwhelmed, and opened the lid for more weapons. He pulled out three grenades, giving one to Jennings, who was trying to pull himself together. Rivers tucked the other two grenades in his belt, then grabbed an FN SCAR assault rifle and two extra clips.

He’d been given the weapon to field test it and he sure hoped it proved to be reliable. Rivers popped two smoke grenades and chucked them out the window for cover, then burst out of the vehicle’s passenger side with Jennings close on his heels. They worked their way along the side of the Expedition, joining the two agents that had been pinned down behind a cluster of boulders.

Rivers heard Jennings yelp and turned back, his Glock 17 in his hand. Jennings looked terrified as his captor wrenched his head backward.

“Drop it,” the man said.

“I don’t think so,” Rivers replied.

The shot from the Glock was smooth and the look of surprise was etched on the captor’s face for a small moment before the bullet in his skull killed the lights. Rivers barely broke stride as he grabbed Jennings and pulled him in his wake.

It looked like the illegals were assessing the situation, so Rivers took advantage of the delay and lobbed one grenade into the dune buggy and the second into the jeep. The explosions lit up the night—and the two vehicles—ensuring that, at least for the moment, everyone was on foot. The thugs who had been pressing closer ran for cover.

“Rivers,” one of the other agents said after the echoes faded away. “I called for support before it all went to hell, but I don’t know how long it will take to get here.”

As if on cue, they heard a helicopter making its way toward them. Rivers popped a flare from his vest, the trailing orange smoke showing the agents’ location. The gunship moved in for a strafing run, giving the agents time to fall back to one of the other vehicles. They piled inside as the chopper moved in sweeping patterns, keeping them safe. The rest of their assailants moved back into the desert, disappearing almost as quickly as they’d appeared.