Desert Impact Read online

  “Not yet.”

  “Yet?”

  “It all depends on you and how honest I think you’re being. If you’re a waste of my time, then things won’t go as well as they will if you cooperate.”

  “But...what do you want to know?”

  “I want to know about the weapons being smuggled out of your warehouse and into Mexico.”

  “Weapons? I don’t know—”

  Bolan planted his boot into Hansen’s chest, cutting off his words. He wriggled, trying to catch his breath as he sank deeper into the couch. His face turned splotchy red before Bolan eased up.

  “Let me tell you how this is going to go, Hansen. The time for playing games is finished, and I’m out of patience. Now tell me about the weapons before I have to get creative.”

  “I can’t tell you—he’ll kill me.”

  “Who will kill you?”

  “I don’t know his name! I just do the paperwork!”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Bolan began applying the pressure again. “Is it Kingston?” he asked, aiming the Desert Eagle at Hansen’s forehead. “Give me the name and the details, Hansen, or die protecting someone who wouldn’t lift a finger to save your hide.”

  “Bricker!” he screeched. “That’s all I know. His name is Mr. Bricker.”

  Bolan released the pressure on his chest. “That’s a good start,” he said, sitting back down. “Now, tell me the rest.”

  * * *

  UNTIL THAT MORNING, Nadia Merice had never heard of Matt Cooper, but when Hal Brognola called and said he wanted her to go down to Sierra Vista and do whatever Cooper said needed doing, she’d agreed. In fact, she’d jumped at the chance to get involved.

  Sitting in her SUV and watching the warehouse from a block away, she saw Kingston leave by the front and get into a car. He was moving quickly, and she let him head for the gate before she put the transmission in drive and followed discreetly. Cooper was right about one thing—the Conquest was hardly inconspicuous. Still, Brognola had said she needed to bring a vehicle that could take on the terrain, and this one could do that and more.

  Kingston went into Sierra Vista out of the gate, heading down the main road. She followed along, taking her time. There wasn’t enough traffic that he would be able to easily lose her. He went past a strip mall and a steakhouse, then drove for another half mile before turning into a treelined driveway. The corner lot was fenced off, and Merice took the turn alongside the property. She pulled to a stop when she spotted his vehicle parked in front of a ranch-style adobe house.

  Merice removed a set of Bushnell PowerView binoculars from the console, then trained them on the vehicle. Kingston had parked next to a large Ford Expedition, and two more SUVs sat between them and the garage. She counted six men besides Kingston, one of whom was speaking animatedly with him. Although she could listen in—she had a nice electronic earpiece in the comm kit in the back—another approach might be more valuable in the long run. She put the binoculars away, then checked her appearance in the mirror. She put the SUV back in gear, then turned around, drove the short distance to the driveway and pulled right in, ignoring the large sign that read No Trespassing.

  She saw the group of men stop talking. They all moved in unison, like a military unit, and by the look of these men, all of them were prior service, if not active. She rolled the Conquest to a stop behind Kingston’s car and got out, lugging her purse and faking a near-trip as she climbed down from the driver’s seat.

  “Hi!” she said, waving to the men, who stared at her as though she’d just dropped in from outer space. “Sorry to bother you. Can you help me?” She kept walking until she was standing right next to Kingston and the other man.

  Kingston’s features softened. “Sure,” he said, his eyes resting on her chest. “What can we do for you?”

  She giggled. “I’m a little lost,” she said. “I came down to have lunch with my friend Kimmy—do you know her?”

  When he shook his head, she giggled again. “It’s such a small town, I thought everyone knew everyone. Anyway, we had a little wine at lunch and when I left, I got turned around, and I’ve been driving in circles ever since!”

  “Get rid of her,” the man Kingston had been talking to growled under his breath.

  “Relax,” he said. “Where is it you’re trying to go?”

  “Home!” she said, spinning in a lazy circle in the direction of the road.

  “And where is home?”

  “Back to Scottsdale, silly,” she said.

  “You’ve been driving around here looking for Scottsdale?” he asked, incredulous. “For how long?”

  “Oh, well...” She looked at her watch. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Sure,” he said, amused. “What’s your secret?”

  “I might have had more than a little wine at lunch and then I might have stopped after I got lost at that bar down the road to have a...refresher.”

  “It sure sounds like it,” he said. “Just take a left out of the driveway, and that’s Highway 90. Follow it north—that will be on your right—and you’ll get back to the interstate in no time.”

  “Really?” she asked, stumbling a bit toward him and dropping her purse. “I’m so sorry!”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” the other man said, stomping toward the garage.

  As Merice scrambled to pick up her purse, she slipped the tracker under the bumper of the nearest truck. “I can be such a klutz sometimes!” she added, getting back up with her purse firmly secured to her shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “We’ve got some work to do here. You know where you’re going now?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Out the driveway, left, then go north.”

  “Right,” he said. “Correct, I mean. And take my advice—don’t stop at any more bars along the way.”

  “That’s good advice,” she said. “If my husband knew I was driving his truck like this, he’d kill me!”

  “Then I wouldn’t tell him,” Kingston replied. “You have a nice day, now.”

  She walked back to the Conquest, staggering slightly then righting herself before getting in. “Thank you so much!” she called, waving once more.

  “Anytime,” he said.

  Merice backed out of the driveway and turned left. Whatever they’d been talking about, she suspected that what mattered more was where they went. She drove back into town and found the large parking lot where she’d agreed to meet up with Cooper. It was time to bring him up to speed.

  Chapter 14

  Agent Merice pulled into the parking lot, and Bolan watched her get out of the vehicle that would draw looks in a city as large as Los Angeles, let alone a small place like Sierra Vista. Still, he couldn’t help but smile as she strutted his way. She was all sass and style in a tiny package, but that was only a piece of her allure. Brognola had sent him a brief and her file was a good read. Proficient in undercover work, she’d used her looks to her advantage, but she was just as capable in a fight.

  “Were you able to get anything out of Hansen?” she asked, leaning casually against the hood of his car.

  “He was pretty cooperative when I threatened his life,” he said. “The guy running the show is named Bricker. He was a Marine, Force Recon, before being dishonorably discharged for reasons unknown. Now, he’s got quite an operation smuggling weapons into Mexico. I’ve got Brognola working on tracking him down.”

  “He must have been the guy Kingston was with when I followed him.”

  “Oh?” Bolan asked.

  “Yeah, I tracked him to a house on the outskirts of town. He met up with a handful of men there, and one of them—a crew cut with a cranky attitude—seemed like he was in charge.”

  “Interesting.”

  “The house doesn’t look l
ike much more than a staging area and a crash pad. Several trucks were there and at least five other mercs that I saw. Bricker is the chief, but Kingston is in it up to his eyebrows.”

  “How close did you get?”

  “Close enough to put a tracker on one of the trucks.”

  “That’s pretty close,” he said.

  She slid her sunglasses down and grinned. “I wouldn’t say it was an Oscar-worthy performance, but I do a fantastic half-bombed rich-girl-lost.”

  Bolan smiled back. He liked her. Despite his preference for working on his own, he’d learned that a good agent could be worth his or her weight in gold. In her case, maybe a bit more. He was about to say so when his phone rang. The ID showed it was Brognola, and he answered. “Go ahead, Hal.”

  “Striker, we have a new complication.”

  “I’d be lying if I said I was surprised,” he quipped.

  “This one may be more complicated than usual. They finished the audit of Kingston’s warehouse, and like we suspected, a lot of weapons and ammunition are missing. Looking at the paper trail, it started small, but they got greedy. Some of it was as recent as a couple days ago, and it appears that Kingston was diverting some things into a hidden warehouse. If they haven’t moved it already, they will soon, and he has to know that the ATF and Army CID are right on his ass.”

  “What kinds of weapons have been taken?”

  “Mostly assault rifles and handguns, plus some field anti-tank weapons like the Javelin. They also managed to land a large shipment of armor-piercing rounds for the rifles. Considering the problems the Justice Department has had with Operation Fast and Furious, the ATF wants this stuff found before it gets to Mexico. They’ll be going in force to take his warehouse on the base tonight, but you’ve got to find the rest of it.”

  “We’ve got a tracker on one of the trucks they’re using,” he said. “Merice and I will follow it and see if it leads us to the rest of the weapons.”

  “Watch yourselves out there, Striker. I’ve got a feeling this is a lot bigger than we even know about yet. If we can stop them now, Colton Rivers’s life won’t have been lost in vain. If those weapons get loose in Mexico, a lot of people are going to die.”

  “We’ll get them,” Bolan said.

  “Good luck, Striker.” Brognola ended the call.

  Bolan put down the phone and Merice tapped him on the shoulder. She showed him her handheld. A red dot on the screen was heading due east. “That truck is on the move,” she said.

  “We’ll leave my vehicle here,” Bolan said.

  “I thought my truck was too obvious,” Merice said dryly.

  “We’ll have to risk recognition,” Bolan responded. “They’re probably going off-road somewhere, and the Conquest can handle the terrain. Let’s see what rabbit hole this takes us down.”

  The GPS took them northeast out of Sierra Vista, following the two-lane blacktop of East Charleston Road. Based on the tracking dot, Bolan estimated they were about ten minutes behind the truck. When the red dot reached Tombstone, it turned northwest on Highway 80. Shortly thereafter, the blip disappeared from the main roads. The truck had gone into the mountains.

  “That’s near the Sheepshead Dome,” Merice said. “Part of the Dragoon Mountains.”

  Bolan looked at the overlay on her handheld. “You know the area?”

  She nodded. “I’ve done some hiking near there. It’s rough country, and there are a lot of caves.”

  “Let’s see what we can find,” he said, guiding her SUV to the last place they’d seen the tracker dot. “My guess is they’re using GPS jammers wherever they’re holing up. In this case, the lack of signal is actually a clue to their whereabouts.”

  “Makes sense,” Merice said. “There’s a little public park and historical marker about a mile up the road. We can cut over from there.”

  Bolan followed her directions, then turned in on the dirt track she indicated. It made the road to Tony’s house look like a well-kept interstate, but the Conquest handled it with ease. He guided the vehicle to a large series of boulders that could give them some cover and parked.

  They climbed out of the SUV and made their way past the boulders and closer to the bottom of the hillside.

  Using her binoculars, Merice whistled softly. “Take a look at that,” she said, pointing and handing them to Bolan.

  Through the field glasses, he saw the slightest glint of sun shining off something metal. “Could be anything,” he said. “But it’s the best lead we’ve got. Let’s go in for a closer look.”

  * * *

  THEY RETURNED TO the SUV and checked the position of the device against the satellite feed. “It looks like we can cut back down a bit, then up and across the ridgetop,” Nadia said.

  “Let’s go hunting,” Bolan replied, getting back into the truck. “You drive.”

  “I was wondering how long it was going to take for you to give me a turn,” she said, sliding behind the wheel and turning over the turbo diesel engine. “Thought maybe you were some kind of driving chauvinist.”

  Bolan chuckled. “Not at all. With those tiny legs of yours, I figured you could do with a rest.”

  “Oh, you are funny,” she said, pulling the Conquest out and guiding it back down the road a distance, then cutting upward, finding paths through the rigorous mountain terrain that only a goat might know about. They reached the top of the ridgeline, then doubled back toward where they suspected Bricker had set up shop. In the distance, Bolan spotted several mine tailings and remembered Tony using the old dynamite to help their escape.

  “I have an idea,” he said. “Do you think the truck can make it to bottom of this ravine and then up onto that hill? I think they’ve hidden something in that set of caves over there.”

  “Yeah, this baby can get just about anywhere.”

  They crept across the ravine, using the turbo booster to climb the last ridge. Rather than get out and lie on their bellies to scope the area, they sat in the air-conditioned Conquest and scanned the hillside using the truck’s camera and listening devices.

  “I could get used to doing surveillance this way,” Bolan said.

  “It beats the hell out of lying in the mud or the snow,” Merice agreed.

  The camera began taking pictures and they zoomed in on their target with the long-range telephoto lens. The caves below had long ago expanded to accommodate the old mining town in the valley. At one time, they might have been used to store equipment or even to serve as a shelter for the teams of men who worked in the mountains. Now, Bolan and Merice could just see the back ends of trucks parked inside and even spotted crates being moved around. From the valley floor, these caves would be invisible. A thin dirt track led to them, and Bolan spotted two men guarding the pathway, no doubt in place to discourage anyone thinking about taking a hike in the immediate area.

  “Well, I’d say we found their storage warehouse,” Merice said.

  “Looks like it,” he replied.

  “Cooper, how do you suppose they’re getting from here down to south of Tombstone where Border Patrol spotted them?”

  “This whole area is damn empty,” he said, shrugging. “My best guess is that they go almost completely off road from here, waiting until there’s so little traffic that getting noticed is rare.”

  She nodded. “So, now what do you want to do?”

  Bolan studied the situation once more. “We’ll wait for dark, then go in, unless the trucks start to move out before then.”

  “What about Bricker and Kingston?” she asked.

  “If they leave, we’ll let them go—for now,” he decided. “Stopping the weapons is more important.”

  “That’s a long wait,” Merice said, turning in her seat and reaching into the humidor behind her. She pulled out two cigars, Nicaraguan by their look and smell.
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  Bolan raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” she asked. “If I have to sit and wait for nightfall, I might as well pass the time pleasantly, and my guess is you’re not much of a small talker.” She wiggled a cigar in front of Bolan. He ignored it, and she eventually pulled it away.

  “Fine,” she said. “More for me.”

  “I’m not much for small talk,” Bolan said. “But I won’t even remember how to do real surveillance after this mission.”

  She laughed, lighting her cigar. “You don’t strike me as a man who forgets much of anything.”

  Bolan looked once more at the caves, then nodded slightly. “You’d be right about that. I’ve got a long memory.”

  Chapter 15

  The daylight hours ticked by as Bolan and Merice waited, watching the cave complex where Bricker was storing the weapons and ammunition. It was nearing dusk when he finally appeared along with two men, Kingston trailing in their wake.

  “Here we go,” Bolan said. “You’ve got the electronic ear situated?”

  “Yep, and the gain is cranked. There isn’t enough interference out here to present a problem, so we should be able to hear them fine.” Merice powered it up.

  “Are you sure you want to do it this way?” Kingston was asking his boss. “We’ve gone to a lot of work to set all this up...”

  “Sureno is a liability now, and I don’t like liabilities,” Bricker said. “If he and his roving band of moronic mercenaries hadn’t attacked that Border Patrol team, no one would have had the slightest clue what we were doing.”

  “He said that his man Jesus felt like there wasn’t any choice.”

  “Bullshit,” Bricker snarled. “Salazar is a blood-thirsty killer of the first order, and he was testing his muscles. I heard about some of his exploits in the Middle East and Africa. He was a favorite of the warlords looking to tune up their tribesmen.”

  “So, where does that leave us?” Kingston whined. “Just shit out of luck?”

  “Sureno may not know or care about which weapons are killing which people in Mexico, but here in the States, the government gets kinda picky about it. He’s sloppy, and cutting him loose is no big loss. I already have a deal ready to set up a little farther south. That will keep things on that side of the border and our asses out of the fire.”