Stephen Randel - The Chupacabra

“That wasn’t our deal.”

“No, but you only delivered the merchandise halfway. Don’t get me wrong, my friend, I loved your plan, but moving the shipment across the Guatemalan border and through Mexican territory we don’t control adds difficulties on my end. I know you did great work sourcing the weapons. There’s nobody except you I would trust to pull off such a large job. I’ll very gladly pay you the full fee, but only when the shipment has arrived. You have my word. Okay?”

“Okay,” the stone-faced man replied without emotion. For a second, El Barquero thought about killing the Padre right where he sat, but only for a second.

“Excellent.” The Padre checked the heavy gold watch on his wrist. “Come, time to go,” he announced as he rose from his chair. The two men exited back through the storeroom of workers and out through the barn. The two dead men had been cut down and removed. Reaching the black armor plated limousine parked outside with the engine running, the Padre turned and placed his hand on El Barquero’s shoulder. “Remember, if you hear anything about shipments being stolen in the desert, I want to know immediately.”

“Yes, Padre.”

“Good,” the Padre said as he pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open as he climbed into the limousine. “I’ll be in touch.” Two heavily armed guards entered behind him and closed the door.

The long black car kicked up gravel as it pulled out of the compound. El Barquero, seething with anger, glared menacingly at the car as it pulled out of sight, leaving nothing but a slowly dissipating cloud of dust in its wake. He took the metal case and walked toward his car. His eyes were filled with venom.

A few miles north of the border, Agents Hank Martin and Maria Diaz rode their horses through the rocks and scattered underbrush of the desert. The two border patrol agents were cutting sign, or looking for trails in the desert left by illegal aliens and drug smugglers. It was tricky work. Smugglers often wore boots made from carpet that slipped over their shoes like makeshift hospital booties. It made their tracks difficult to spot. The two agents had left their U.S. Customs and Border Protection SUV and horse trailer a few miles back, preferring to use the horses to reach the area they were curious to examine. During the early morning hours, a long-haul trucker along Interstate 10 had reported seeing a red flare off in the distance, somewhere in the vicinity north of the exit to Tornillo. Agents Martin and Diaz knew that drug smugglers occasionally used ultra-light planes, essentially hang gliders modified with a small engine, to slip across the border at low altitude and drop loads of narcotics. The flare might possibly have been a signal used by couriers waiting on the ground to retrieve the shipment.

Law enforcement was in Agent Martin’s blood. His father was a retired Texas Ranger and his mother had worked as a sheriff’s department dispatcher. He had considered following in his father’s footsteps, but after thirteen years of service with the border patrol, he had been promoted to the rank of assistant chief patrol agent, and he knew he was staying put. Besides, the tall, lanky man was an outdoorsman at heart, and this way he spent at least part of most workdays out under the open skies he loved so much.

Agent Diaz had never really considered criminal justice as a career option, but when she graduated from the University of Texas El Paso, the Department of Homeland Security was rapidly expanding its ranks of border patrol agents and she jumped at the chance. After completing her training, her first two years of service had mainly consisted of line watching along the border, but now in her third year with the border patrol, she had been assigned field duty. She had grown up on a ranch in southwest Texas and had barrel-raced for years when she was a young girl. She loved the thrill of riding on patrol rather than just sitting and watching the fence between Juarez and El Paso.

“Well,” said Agent Martin as he reined his big tan horse to a stop and leaned on his saddle horn with both hands. “This ought to put us somewhere close to the area.”

“Did we get an idea of how far from the interstate the flare was?” asked Agent Diaz as she pulled her dark brown horse alongside her partner and removed her cowboy hat, running her hand through her black hair.

“Naw,” replied Agent Martin. “Hell, I’m not even really sure he saw a flare. Could’ve been an airplane light thirty miles away. These big skies can play tricks on you, particularly at night.”

“Yeah, still worth a look, though. Not a half-bad morning for a ride, to boot.”

“That it is, Maria,” Agent Martin replied with a smile. “That it is. Well, let’s head up toward that higher ground a ways. If someone was dropping something, they’d most likely unload it before they got too deep into the hills.”

“Sounds good.”

The two agents paced their horses toward the elevated terrain and then headed east, looking for signs of travel along the foot trails that occasionally intersected their path. From time to time, they would discover a discarded water bottle or abandoned sandal, but nothing that appeared fresh or promising. Suddenly, Agent Diaz noticed something odd about a half mile away and slightly back from the edge of the ridgeline above them.

“Hank,” she said as she stopped her horse and squinted into the bright sun that rose in the eastern sky. “Think maybe we got something up there.”.

“Well, well,” said Agent Martin as he raised a pair of black binoculars to his eyes. “Looks like some kind of camp. I got four tents, a dining fly, and a couple vehicles, maybe more. Can’t tell from this angle.”

“Any movement?”

“Not that I can see. Let’s head back to that wash we passed back there and come in from behind and above for a better look-see.”

The agents returned to the washed-out area that ran down the slope of the ridge. Leaning forward in their saddles, they held onto the necks of their mounts as the horses scampered up the slope. Reaching the top, they looped around the position of the camp, stopping about two hundred yards away to dismount and further examine the area.

“Base,” Agent Martin said calmly into his radio, “this is Patrol Seven. We’re in the foothills north of I-10 in the vicinity of the flare that was reported. We have a campsite with four tents around a dining fly. Don’t see any activity, but there’re three ATVs and a dirt bike parked outside. Going in to check it out. Over.”

“Roger Patrol Seven,” his radio responded. “Do you require backup? Over.”

“Nope. Not yet. Might just be some campers. Will advise. Over.”

The two agents led their horses towards the campsite, removing their Remington shotguns with composite stocks and pistol grips from the long leather scabbards attached to the sides of their saddles. Agent Diaz chambered a shell in her shotgun and unsnapped the holster of the forty-caliber semiautomatic pistol she wore at her hip. She’d only been in the field with Agent Martin for a year, but she’d been fired on before.

“United States Border Patrol!” Agent Martin announced loudly as they approached the campsite. “Anyone there, come out with your hands where I can see ’em!”

The men of STRAC-BOM slowly and wearily emerged from their pup tents and watched in silence as the two mounted border patrol agents in green uniforms and tan Stetson hats entered the perimeter of the camp, brandishing their shotguns across their laps.

“Who was on lookout?” a perturbed General X-Ray asked his men.

“You didn’t assign one, general,” replied Private Tango.

“You fellas look a little old to be boy scouts,” said Agent Martin. “We got some kind of sleepover going on here?”