Hostile Borders (10 page)

“So,” Reaper said, “we have new-issue military ammunition having been fired in weapons known to be used by Mexican forces. Sounds a lot like a bunch of stolen hardware in the wrong hands south of the border.”

“More likely a rogue bunch of Mexican soldiers,” Hausmann said. “Mexican military forces don't get paid all that well. But they don't commonly sell their guns or ammunition on the black market. Instead, they rent them out complete with operators. More than a few
soldiers have supplemented their incomes by hiring out to guard drug shipments across the border. There's commanders of units who hire their men out as private security forces to the drug lords. And they've been coming across the border for years. More than one Border Patrol unit has come under fire from guns in the hands of the Mexican military all along the border.”

“And now it looks like they're coming after you,” Reaper said. “We're going to need some help on this one.”

“Local law enforcement can't do a damned thing about them,” Hausmann said. “Even the Mexican military has the average sheriff's car badly outgunned. Before a SWAT or U.S. military unit can be called in, they cut back across the border and the government denies the incident. The feds haven't been able to do anything about the problem diplomatically. And the U.S. government sure as hell isn't going to authorize an armed invasion of Mexico. And that's about what it would take.”

“Who said anything about authorized?” Reaper said. “But let's see where these blood trails lead before we go charging across the border.”

There were some areas in the brush where the ground was torn up and the leaves were heavily spattered with blood. These obviously were the spots where the dogs had grabbed hold of individual gunmen. Fired brass, especially 9mm brass, was all around the area. Dozens of rounds had been fired in all directions. It looked like it was only the darkness of the night and the black coats of the dogs that had saved them from being shot and killed.

As far as either man could tell from the volume of blood all around, the gunmen may have accidentally shot each other in the confusion. Even though the gunmen wouldn't have shown either of them mercy, neither Reaper or Hausmann cared to think about what it must have been like for the gunmen when the slashing teeth and powerful jaws of the rottweilers had come up from the black of the night.

The trails of blood spatter and bootprints in the dirt and gravel headed south along the pathway on the riverbank. This was the direction Reaper and Hausmann traveled as they followed the trail. The two men had their rifles in their hands as they left the Prowlers behind them.

Both Reaper and Hausmann had some experience following a trail and reading signs in the dirt. Their skills were strained trying to figure out just how many gunmen had been facing them at the ambush. At least one man had been bleeding heavily, and the prints looked as if he had been carried by one of the other men in the group. One set of prints ran straight in the dirt while another walking right alongside had long scuff marks from both feet. Others stepped into the prints of the men who had walked in front of them, confusing just how many sets of footprints there were.

Finally, the footprints all stopped just a few hundred yards farther away from where the ambush had taken place, in a small clearing in the brush, where the heavily cross-hatched tracks of several all-terrain vehicles began. The tread marks were too close together to be from a jeep or other full-sized vehicle, but they were
spaced too far apart to be from a four-wheeled bike or the like. What was obvious was that the gunmen had climbed aboard vehicles and were well out of the area.

“We need someone with better tracking skills than you or I have,” Reaper said, “if we're going to follow this track from the RTVs and make any time.”

“I know just the guy,” Hausmann said. “He's a Border Patrol agent who's probably one of the best trackers in the area.”

“I thought you said you were on the shit list for every law enforcement department around here,” Reaper said, “especially the Border Patrol.”

“That's pretty much the case,” Hausmann agreed. “But the man I'm thinking of used to be a close friend of both Sam Duran and Victor Langstrom. He never thought Sam was guilty of killing Langstrom, refused to even consider the idea. He's about the last friend I still have on the Border Patrol. He may not want to come right out to the house though. He still has to work with all of his fellow officers and they don't quite share his opinion of me. But now with Sam having been murdered, I'll bet he'll help us if anyone will.

“Let's get back to the house and give him a call. We can meet him up in Tombstone and ask if he can help us here.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Reaper said. “You look like this sun is about to beat you into the ground anyway.”

“I will admit I've had better days out here,” Hausmann agreed.

The finger slowly slipped through the white stones piled inside the black dish. The stones rustled and rang faintly as they brushed against each other and the dark porcelain.

“Amazing,” Masque said, “they look like little more than bright pebbles. They show no color, shine a little like lead at best, and even feel a little oily to the touch. Yet they are considered so valuable that even today men, women, and children are held as slaves and die to dig them from the clay of the earth. More still give up their lives in order to try and own them. There is so much death around these tiny rocks that I understand they're called Blood Stones.”

“We do not use such a loaded term for them,” Youssef Daumudi said from where the Arab sat in an upholstered leather chair. “They are simply a valuable commodity. Much like that white powder you move across the border in such huge amounts. Only these un
cut and unpolished stones are much less bulky than cash—paper money, and vastly lighter than the gold we have more traditionally used. Each of those green-pea-sized “pebbles,” as you call them, is roughly a carat in size. They are worth about $500 U.S. each, some more, some less. That small mound of stones there you could hold in the palm of your hand, barely more than a few ounces in weight, is worth about $150,000 U.S.”

“What you have there is only about three hundred carats' worth of diamonds,” Ammand Humzan, the other Arab in the room, said. “They are in a raw, unpolished state, but as such they are much easier for us to move from place to place. It is only when they are cut and faceted that their true beauty shows through.”

“Of course for our cause,” Daumudi said, “a great deal of their beauty is in their ability to refill our finances. The Americans and their investigative programs have seriously depleted our available funds in the United States. Even our traditional hawalas, the centuries-old banking system of our people, have been breached and stripped of their funds by the Americans and their Operation Green Quest.

“The American people could never even use a hawala system of their own. It is a bank based on trust and honor. There is none of the paper trail that is so popular with Western law-enforcement agencies. Gold has been the preferred medium of exchange in the past, but the weight of that metal has eliminated it from practical use. A carrier could move perhaps eighty pounds of gold in a specially made vest, but that's only
about half a million dollars' worth. Cash would be useful, but it has its drawbacks as well.”

“Yes,” said Masque, “I've run into that problem a number of times in my own business. The North Americans can be so astonished when they stop a shipment and find it's money instead of drugs. There have been occasions when we've had to move pallet loads of cash all bundled up in plastic, to try and launder it into useful funds.”

“So you understand our problem,” Humzan said. “Laundering funds has become more and more difficult with the increasing investigations going on within the United States. It is only the incessant internal squabbling among the different law enforcement agencies in the U.S. that finally forced the U.S. Customs people to end Green Quest only a year ago when they became part of their department of Homeland Security. But the damage done by that operation as well as other unforeseen difficulties have forced us to seek other means to move operational funds into the United States. That is what has finally brought us to you.”

“The results of our previous dealings with you have proven very satisfactory,” Daumudi said. “So we have decided to expand our business considerably.”

“I still feel that working more closely together would be to our mutual benefit,” Masque said. “After all, I have exposed some of my most valuable routes into the United States to your people. And now you ask me to show you even more. Trust should be a two-way proposition, gentlemen.”

“You should understand,” Humzan said, “that there
are relatively few of us available to conduct operations inside the United States. Though our numbers are small in comparison to our brothers elsewhere in the world, our determination and faith make our power great. But, we cannot afford a loss of our faithful by exposing them unnecessarily.”

“It is completely understandable,” Masque said, “that there are some things you feel you must keep secret for security's sake, of course. But my people are concerned with our security as well as yours. My security chief there,” Masque nodded to where Santiago was standing on the other side of the room, “has proven himself more than competent at setting up a security force, as well as developing an intelligence arm inside the United States.

“It was through the observations of this intelligence force that we were able to learn about such places as the Mysteri Jewelers.”

Pausing for a moment, Masque was impressed with the impassive look the two Arab terrorists maintained on their faces as he mentioned the name. Only a narrowing of the eyes on Daumudi's face gave any outward sign of recognizing the name.

“That is a chain of wholesale and retail diamond merchants,” Masque said, “or so I understand. Their retail stores are in so many major cities: Washington, D.C., New York, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, and where was it? Oh, yes, Las Vegas, Nevada.”

“Enough!” Daumudi almost exploded. “It is obvious that you must have had our people followed. One of our men was almost exposed when he tried to make a
contact in Las Vegas. Was it your people who put him at risk?”

“That isn't something I was aware of,” Masque said as he looked pointedly at Santiago. “None of your people were endangered by anyone working for me. If they were and I find out about it, they will not be working for me, or anyone else, much longer.”

The ex-SEAL remained standing in a relaxed position near the door into the room. His arms were crossed, and his hand only inches away from the 9mm Glock 18C select-fire machine pistol sheathed in his shoulder holster. The selector switch of the weapon was set to full automatic fire and it was loaded with a nineteen-round magazine. If the situation went against him, Santiago knew that he could sweep the room with a single long burst from the machine pistol before reloading with one of the extralong thirty-one-round magazines hanging down from the holder on the opposite side of his holster. Firing at 1,200 rounds per minute, the pistol would put out a spray of nineteen rounds in under a second.

Using such a small automatic weapon correctly took a lot of training and discipline, something Santiago was willing to commit to its use. The sudden firepower of the machine pistol could help keep his options open if things went bad. He had grown used to Masque's fits of temper, though he was still very careful about them.

“But I wouldn't worry about your men being easily found out,” Masque continued. “The U.S. government doesn't even know that they are in the country, what they are doing, where they are going, or even what
they look like. On the other hand, my men have those facts, and more, at their disposal. You shouldn't be concerned about any mistakes on our part. The people we have in our employ are among the very best available—or so I've been assured.”

From where he was standing by the door, Santiago relaxed just a little as he listened to Masque's calmer words. Though less concerned about the situation at least for the moment, Santiago kept his arms crossed and his right hand within a short reach of his weapon.

The negotiations between the drug lord and the al-Qaeda representatives had been going on for some weeks. Though the Arabs had presented themselves as being from another organization, Santiago's research and Masque's own style of diplomacy had forced the men to admit their true affiliations. With Masque's own great hatred of the United States, the fact that the two Arabs had close ties with al-Qaeda were actually points in their favor as far as he was concerned.

The terrorists had been making use of Masque's smuggling routes to move people and materiel into the United States for over a month. So far, the numbers of people had been small and they were easy to hide among a group of illegal workers crossing into the States. The amount of baggage the terrorists had been carrying along with them hadn't been very great either, little more than a tiny bag or two of raw diamonds and some currency.

Now the terrorists wanted to take a much larger quantity of diamonds across the border—five million dollars' worth. The package was less than four-and-
a-half pounds of stones and would fit inside a large purse, or even a standard shoebox with lots of room to spare. That package was going to be carried across the border by a high-ranking terrorist operative. But the al-Qaeda were less than satisfied with the smuggling routes that they had been allowed to use up until then. Now they wanted access to the most secure route Masque had available. And the drug lord wasn't sure he wanted to risk exposing one of his major assets just yet. So Masque was playing for time with the terrorists while he made his decision. Santiago only hoped that Masque realized just how dangerous a game he was playing and exactly who the people were that he was leading along.

Both the terrorists and Masque had intimated that there was an even bigger and much more important package coming up that had to go through the pipeline. Whatever this item was, Masque was keeping Santiago in the dark about precisely what was being discussed. In spite of the trust that supposedly existed between the two men, when Masque started keeping secrets from his chief of security, it was time to question the relationship.

Not knowing all the facts of a situation made Santiago very uneasy. He had stayed alive as long as he had in a very cutthroat business by knowing as much about a situation as he could, and planning accordingly. Santiago knew very well the value of timing, and how important it was to be able to just cut his losses and run. Those familiar alarm bells were ringing faintly in the back of his head. This would be a good time to make
sure that his private avenues of escape were open and ready.

Those were actions Santiago had to do during his own private time. At the present time, paying close attention to what was being said between his boss and the terrorists was what was most important.

“I know you have been using other routes to get some of your people across the border,” Masque said. “You have a woman agent, from South Africa by way of London, I believe, who has been crossing fairly regularly into the United States across the Rio Grande River into Texas.”

This time, the hard stares were from both of the Arabs in the room as Masque again showed that he knew another of their secrets.

“Please, gentlemen,” Masque said, “there is no need to be shocked. None of my people followed her. You think we are a single-product business? That everything I do is involved with the drug trade? My cartel uses our contacts within the government to supply the majority of illegal documents all along the border. Your agent simply used one of my sources and it was brought to my attention.”

Though he had no way of knowing it, Masque had now come very close to death in his dealings with the two al-Qaeda men. The woman he was speaking of was one of the highest level al-Qaeda operatives working between Mexico and the United States. Faridari Achmed Goolharm had been establishing the lines of communications between cells in the United States for years. She had crossed the border hundreds of times,
and she would have to be warned that at least part of her cover was blown. But that was for a later time. Dealing with this drug lord and getting their materials across the border undetected was of the utmost priority to Daumudi and Humzan. Besides, they were unarmed in the presence of the drug lord, and his guard dog standing at the doorway was obviously on the alert. It would be better to appease this criminal drug merchant and make use of his facilities. He could always be dealt with in a satisfactory manner later, after their mission was accomplished.

Masque had continued talking while his fate was decided by the two Arabs sitting in front of him. He was oblivious to their intent stares and just carried on with his view of the situation.

“The gentleman who used to control this part of the Mexican border met with a very unfortunate end when he refused to join with my organization,” Masque said. “Felix Zapatista thought he was invincible after he had eluded a nineteen-month-long investigation of his drug smuggling into the United States. He thought his techniques made him better than anyone else when it came to moving product across the border since the Americans had only broken his pipeline a few times in more than ten years.

“His secret was simple really, he liked tunnels. The Rio Grande River acts as a natural barrier against tunnels along the border in Texas. And the lack of facilities, cities and towns and such, along the border on the U.S. side in New Mexico made tunnels impractical on that part of the border. But here along the Arizona bor
der, they proved very successful indeed. It was his downfall that he felt it unnecessary to share his good fortune with his peers. That problem has been eliminated and the facilities are now in my hands.

“So we have been running both immigrant workers who could afford our fees and drug mules through our tunnels. There are a few along the California border, but the Americans have become more sophisticated in finding them. Here, not even their ground-penetrating radar and seismic tests can find our best tunnels. Our most secure route into the States is a geological rarity. Something that may never be found again. And you want us to risk our most valuable asset for your people?”

“During our first jihad against the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan,” Humzan said, “our mujahideen well learned the value of caves and tunnels. We could only survive in some areas and drive the invaders from our land by using the vast network of underground passages that Allah, All Praise be on His Name, put there for our use. We could move for miles under such cover, and you say there is something like that available for us here?”

“It is a combination of natural and man-made tunnels that we have used to move very large loads across the border,” Masque said. “And it is completely undetectable to the Americans.”