Dale Brown: Edge of Battle

Shit, Victor cursed at himself, this is unbelievable! He was about to get popped with Ernesto Fuerza, the biggest coyote in Mexico, and a mean-looking dude who looked like a big-time terrorist on a hair trigger. He stuck both hands out of his window. Spotlights began moving in his direction. Damn, it was all over. Victor looked in his side mirror and thought he saw a few of his pollos in the back of the Border Patrol van behind him. That was worse—they would finger him as their smuggler just to show cooperation with the authorities. He was screwed.

“You two, turn around, kneel down, hands behind your head,” the first agent ordered in Spanish over the loudspeaker. Fuerza and Zakharov did as they were told. When they complied, the agent radioed, “You inside the truck, get away from the door and get down on your knees. No resista .” His partner stepped up to the truck, inspected the latch, found it unlocked, undogged it, and moved back to the van. “You inside the truck, lift open the door slowly. Ponga sus manos en su cabeza y no salga del vehículo hasta ordenado para hacer tan . Repeat, ‘Put your hands on your head and do not exit the vehicle until ordered to do so.’”

The lift door to the truck began to slowly open, and both agents carefully directed their spotlights inside. As Victor watched, a familiar-looking Border Patrol agent swept his spotlight inside Victor’s Suburban, opened the driver’s door, grabbed Victor’s left wrist, pulled it around outside the window frame, and then wrapped a plastic handcuff strap around both wrists, securing Victor to the door. “We meet again, eh, Victor?” U.S. Border Patrol agent Paul Purdy said in Spanish, “ La tercera vez es el encanto . ‘Stay put and relax,’ okay, partner? We’ll do the drivin’ from now on.”

“I have nothing to do with any of this, Agent Purdy,” Victor said in perfect English. “I’m just here taking a nap. You know very well I’m an American. I’ve got ID.”

“Save it for your arrest statement, Victor,” Purdy said. Unlike many of the veteran Border Patrol agents in this sector, Purdy was tall, rather boyish, and friendly, with an old-fashioned “flat-top” haircut and a silver-gray mustache. He was somewhere in his mid-to late fifties, old for a field agent of today but probably rather typical of the breed from a generation earlier. “Two of your recent clients already gave you up. Now shut up and just relax, okay, amigo? You’ve probably been on the road a couple days—take it easy. Besides, you know I’ll tell the prosecutors anythin’ you tell me now, so if you’re lyin’ you’ll be caught in a lie, and that’ll make it worse for you.” Purdy and the other agent from the second unit started walking toward Fuerza’s truck, spotlights scanning every inch of the outside.

Victor could see just the very far left edge of the inside of the truck, but it was obvious that it was packed full with migrants. He could see a woman and two men with work clothes standing in the open door, and judging by the way they were being jostled from behind, it seemed like they were being pressed by many more pollos in there. “You persons standing in the door, get down on your knees slowly and put your hands on your head.” The first agent put the public address microphone down and reached into the van for the radio mike, obviously requesting more vans to take all of the migrants away. Victor could hear the radio request from the van behind him and the dispatcher’s response.

“Christ, looks like we got ourselves a long night ahead of us,” Purdy said, reaching behind him for his bundle of nylon handcuffs stuffed into his utility belt. “We’d better…”

At that instant, all hell seemed to break loose right in front of him.

Several migrants, the ones standing in the open door, suddenly flew out of the van, landing headfirst on the hard-baked dirt. Men and women screamed, and spotlight beams darted in every direction. More screaming…and then heavy automatic gunfire erupted. It seemed as if dozens of yellow tracer lines zipped out from inside the truck, focusing on the two Border Patrol agents behind the vehicle.

“Holy Christ!” Purdy swore. Both men ducked almost to the ground as the automatic gunfire rang out, dropping their handcuffs and spotlights. “Split up and take cover!” He dashed off to the left; the other agent half-rolled, half-stumbled to the right. “Code ninety-nine, code ninety-nine!” Victor heard Paul Purdy’s voice coming from the van’s radio as he spoke on a portable transceiver. “Patrol One-Seven, shots fired, shots fired, Chuckwalla and Wiley Well Road, south of I-10, west of Blythe. Get someone out here, now, we’re under heavy fire!”

Victor watched in absolute horror as at least ten men, dressed in black and carrying military-looking rifles, jumped out of the back of the truck. Two of them advanced on the first two Border Patrol agents and fired single shots into both of them from point-blank range. He could see that all of them were wearing black ski masks and gloves and combat boots. Several of them advanced toward Victor, rifles at the ready.

Suddenly there were several shots fired from the right from Purdy’s partner. One of the attackers was hit, but he did not go down, and he swept the vegetation line with automatic gunfire.

“Get out of there, Bob!” Victor heard Purdy scream. “Run! They’re wearing body armor! Get away! Hide in the fields! I called for backup! They’ll be here in five minutes!”

“Cover me, Paul!” yelled the second agent.

“No…!” Just then a loud bang! and a blinding flash of light erupted in the fields, and Purdy’s partner began rolling on the ground, arms covering his eyes and ears, screaming from the effects of the flash-bang grenade. Another attacker ran up and fired a three-round burst into the agent, immediately silencing his screams of pain.

At that instant, Purdy broke cover and ran for Victor, diving behind the Suburban’s door just as a hail of bullets flew past. He skidded to a stop like a base runner sliding into third base, and in a flash he had a knife in his hands and had cut off Victor’s plastic handcuffs. “Get going, Victor!” Purdy ordered, his sidearm in his hands.

“You…you saved me, Agent Purdy…”

“We’re both going to be dead in ten seconds if you don’t move! ” Purdy shoved Flores behind him, fired three shots, then turned, picked up Victor by the back of his trousers, and hauled him up toward the Border Patrol van. He threw Victor behind the van, then opened the vehicle’s doors. “¡Usted adentro! ¡Salga! ¡Ahora salga!” he shouted. The woman and the boy inside the van cowered in fear on the floor. “Victor! Help me get these people…”

His voice was cut off as bullets ripped into his back. Purdy gurgled, his mouth opened like a dying fish, his eyes rolled up inside his head, and he pitched forward and rolled into a dry ditch.

“Vy proverjaete dlja bol’she veschestv?” a voice shouted. Victor didn’t understand a word—it was a language he had never heard before—European, he thought, but not German or French.

“Sí,” another voice responded in Spanish, much closer. “ ¡Y hable español, usted idiota! Now check that truck for any other surprises!” Shit, Victor swore, they were coming for him . He was behind the van, too scared to decide what to do. If he ran left he would have to cross the ditch, a road, and the freeway; if he ran right, he would have to jump over the irrigation pipe and a wide clearing before reaching the fields; if he ran back down the farm road, he’d be an easy target. He heard footsteps and the clicking and clattering of gun mechanisms as the attacker reloaded. One voice was getting very close.