Hostile Borders (15 page)

Though they were listening to Santiago's words, Daumudi and Humzan were looking about at the gleaming points of the stalactites extending down from the ceiling, some of them touching the tips of the sta
lagmites that stretched up from the floor to meet them. With the engine stopped, there was no sound in the great open cavern except for the dripping of water and the sound of the men's breathing.

“It was that professor's poor fortune for Felix Zapatista to learn about his discovery. The Zapatista cartel had dug dozens of tunnels underneath the border. But they were only a few dozen feet at most below the surface. A number of them have been found over the years, especially when the authorities used sensing equipment and earth-penetrating radar.

“But this cave is huge and natural. It is too deep to show up on most types of scans. Zapatista had it excavated and improved. And he installed this electric train. Over several years, he's moved tons of cocaine and marijuana through here.”

“It is truly beautiful,” Daumudi said. “You leave these lights on all the time?”

“It is much easier to notice a burned-out bulb or break in the lines when we leave them on all the time,” Santiago said. “That way we notice when they go dark before we need to turn them on for a trip.”

“Where does this cave come out?” Humzan asked.

“You shall see,” Santiago said. He signaled to Rodriguez and the small train started back up on its way.

The group of cars moved more than a mile along the floor of the cavern before the Arabs began noticing a terrible smell in the still air. The mercenaries all ignored the stench. They well knew what it was.

“There is a charnel pit over there,” Santiago said pointing to a black opening in the floor a short distance
away. “It was first used by Zapatista to get rid of the bodies of the Indians he used to build his tunnel and lay the rails. There were some recent additions to the bodies of some people who had used this tunnel without permission. We ran out of lime to spread over the bodies is all.”

“Security for this tunnel has been breached?” Daumudi said.

“No,” Santiago said, “you can be sure all of the leaks have been plugged. Only my men and I work the train system now. Zapatista had trusted others who are no longer a problem.”

The train continued down the track, pulling a lingering trace of the stench of decaying flesh along with it. Finally coming to another small trestle, the train began moving up as well as ahead. The mouth of another tunnel loomed in the cavern wall. As the train was swallowed by the tunnel mouth, Santiago turned to the Arabs.

“Welcome to the United States,” he said.

Once back at the ranch house, Reaper, Manors, and Hausmann took off their 5.11 tactical vests and laid their weapons down alongside them on one of the couches in the poolroom. Sitting down at the bar, Reaper took out the map, paper, and sample of material he had picked up in the barn. Pouring the dust and blue material into a clean ashtray, Reaper poked about in the stuff with the point of his Emerson CQB-7 knife.

Having stepped out of the room, and been followed by the rottweilers and bulldog, Hausmann went into the house proper. Coming back a few minutes later, he was holding a small book and a powerful hand magnifier loupe. Handing the magnifier to Reaper, Hausmann stepped behind the bar and drew three mugs of cold beer from the tap. Passing out the beer, he leaned down on the bar top with both elbows.

“So, Sherlock,” Hausmann said, “made any sense of the clues yet?”

“Geology isn't exactly my field,” Reaper said as he held up the ashtray and examined the material through the magnifier. He set down the ashtray and the loupe and picked up his beer.

“This stuff looks like some kind of rock chips or flakes,” Reaper said, indicating the ashtray. “It sure isn't any bits of paint, no matter how blue it is.”

“Let me take a look,” Hausmann said.

Pushing the magnifier and ashtray across the bar top, Reaper lifted his beer mug to his lips and took a long pull. Having watched the little exchange between the two men, Manors continued sitting at the end of the bar, quietly drinking his beer.

Grunt, the youngest of the rottweilers, shoved his big head up underneath the Border Patrol agent's left arm. Flipping up the arm with his muzzle, Grunt pointed out his opinion that the arm in question would be put to much better use rubbing his head rather than just being there. Manors started to scratch behind the big dog's ears as he watched the other men.

Lifting up the ashtray, Hausmann held it close to his eyes while standing over a lamp at the end of the bar. Through the magnifier, he could see that the chips of material were sharp-edged fragments, far too thick to be paint flakes. They looked like shattered pieces from much larger crystals.

Setting the magnifier and sample down, Hausmann started flipping through the pages of the small hard-cover book he had opened on the bar.

“So, Watson,” Reaper said, “is the game afoot?”

“So you've read Doyle,” Hausmann said. “Well, I
don't know about the game, but I think I know what this blue stuff is.”

“Hey,” Reaper said, “you really do know geology!”

“I wouldn't exactly say that,” Hausmann said. “More of a practical working knowledge. When I was a kid, I wanted to strike it rich finding a gold mine in the mountains. Never did find that big strike, though, or a little one for that matter. But I did learn something important.”

“What's that?” said Manors, his interest peaking at the conversation.

“That a smart man doesn't necessarily know everything,” Hausmann said. “Or even knows a lot. A smart man does recognize when he doesn't know something, but he knows how to look it up.”

Pushing the open book across the bar to Reaper, Hausmann turned it around at the same time so the big SEAL could see the page it was turned to.

“According to the
Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals,
” Hausmann said, “this stuff is azurite. Basically copper carbonate. Here's the text,” Hausmann said as he pointed to the book, “and there's a color picture on plate ten. This might be an old copy of the field guide, but I don't think the rocks have changed very much.”

“That's where I know that stuff from,” Manors said. “They have all kinds of crystals of azurite and malachite on display over in Bisbee at the Mining and Historical Museum. The building the museum is in used to be the office of the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company years ago.”

“Bisbee?” Reaper said looking up from the book. “Isn't that near here?”

“About fifteen miles southeast of here,” Hausmann said. “There's still some active mines around there. And a lot of old ones. A bunch of old copper mines.”

“So these ATVs could have come from Bisbee?” Reaper said. “Why would they come from there?”

“I can't think of a reason,” Manors said. “Bisbee isn't right on the border. It's about eight miles north of Naco, and that is on the border. Lots of illegals and drug runners break through the border around Naco. There's a sister town with the same name just across the border on the Mexican side.”

“That doesn't seem to show any really strong connection between Bisbee and our ATV tracks,” Reaper said. “Why would they come from there? It would make a hell of a lot more sense if they came from Naco or some place right on the border itself. Are there any mines around Naco? Any right up close to the border?”

“There are played-out mines all around the countryside here,” Hausmann said. “Copper, lead, tin, manganese, uranium, zinc, even gold and silver have all been taken out of the ground in Arizona. Copper, silver, and tin have all been mined a lot in the local area.”

“Any way to tell where this particular azurite came from?” Reaper said. “That could narrow the search area down for us.”

“Maybe by a laboratory analysis,” Hausmann said. “But I don't know how we would get a criminal lab…Hey, wait a minute. The Blue Star!”

“You're right,” Manors said. “The Blue Star, that fits perfectly.”

“Okay,” Reaper said, “anyone want to tell me what the Blue Star is?”

“It's a closed mine,” Manors said. “A copper mine they shut down back in the seventies I think.”

“And this mine fits our bill?” Reaper asked. “It's down by the border?”

“Less than half a mile from the border,” Hausmann said. “But that's not the big deal about it. It's right next to the Heart Ranch. She doesn't own the mine, but Valentine Dupree leased the land the mine is on just a few years ago. She claims to be setting up a sanctuary for the endangered Arizona ridged-nosed rattlesnake and the Yaquia black-headed snake. She's an absolute loon about snakes, especially rattlesnakes—so no one goes anywhere near her place.

“She runs an organic food company down there that always struck me as just barely holding on. There's just not much of a market for that stuff around here. There's something of a market in some of the bigger cities, especially over in Taos, New Mexico. But she always seems to have enough money to keep going. It wouldn't surprise me at all if she's into selling drugs along with her nuts and twigs. Pot would be something she would think shouldn't be illegal, or at least that the laws don't apply to her.”

“Sounds like just the kind of person we should go see,” Reaper said. “Maybe just to take a look at her snake sanctuary. Manors, you'd say one of those semi trailers we saw down near that barn could have
left the tracks we saw inside the building?”

“Easily,” Manors said.

Reaching out to where he had set down the old road map, Reaper picked up the creased piece of paper. Carefully unfolding it, he turned it out along its most heavily worn folds. One section of the map was much dirtier than the others, and the paper folded easily to put the dirty section uppermost.

“That's kind of interesting,” Hausmann said.

“What is?” Reaper said.

“That part of the map shows the country around here and down to the border. That X-like mark there down near the bottom is the Blue Star mine.”

“I think it's time to saddle up again,” Reaper said.

The other men just nodded and moved to where they had left their gear.

Their weapons and vests back on, all three men went out to where they had left the Prowler.

“Isn't that going to be a hell of a long ride in that thing?” Hausmann said. “Going to stand out a bit, too, isn't it?”

“Got a better idea?” Reaper said.

“How about the best of both worlds,” Hausmann said as he tapped on a key pad next to the garage door.

The left-end door of the three hinged up, exposing the interior of the garage. In front of the men was a large dark gray truck, the chrome fittings gleaming in the moonlight.

“I think this will take care of us,” Hausmann said.

“Looks big enough,” Reaper said. “How's it fitted out?”

“She's a 2003 Chevy Silverado 1500 regular cab half-ton pickup,” Hausmann said. “It's got four-wheel drive and an 8.1-foot-long Fleetside long box bed. So it will carry your Prowler easily enough. That thing's only about what, seven feet long?”

“Ninety inches,” Reaper said. “That's seven and a half feet.”

“Okay,” Hausmann said. “Still, she'll carry it with a little room to spare. And I got the biggest engine they had available for that year, the 5.3 liter V-8. That's 300 horsepower, enough to move us, the Prowler, and our gear right on down the road. We just cover it up with a tarp and it won't even stand out around here.”

“Someday,” Reaper said, “I have to introduce you to a partner of mine back in Detroit. Keith Deckert is a gear head and I think the both of you would get along fine.”

With the use of a couple of eight-foot-long planks and some care, the Prowler was driven up into the bed of the Chevy pickup. The rear gate had to be removed for the operation, but it had been designed for that so there wasn't any problem. There was room on either side of the Prowler for the planks to be laid into the bed of the truck. It took a big tarp to cover up the relatively tall RTV. Once covered, the truck looked like it was just hauling another piece of ranch or farm machinery.

With the Prowler ready to go, Hausmann headed back into the garage to enter the armory at the rear of the building. This was a cinder-block room with a poured-concrete roof and floor. The entrance to the room was closed off by a steel door with a combination lock dial.

Spinning the dial quickly and rotating the locking
lever, Hausmann pulled the vault door open and quickly stepped inside the room. He punched a numeric code into the keypad to the right of the door, shutting off the alarm system as well as disarming the CS tear gas disperser in the ceiling. With the room safe to enter, Hausmann told Reaper and Manors to “come on in.”

The center of the room was dominated by two very impressive weapons—a three-inch “six-pounder” 1855 Napoleonic muzzle-loading cannon and a Model 1874 .45–70 Gatling gun. The brass-barreled cannon was on a short wheeled carriage, while the six-barreled Gatling gun was mounted on a brass and wood tripod. The wood of the weapons had a deep walnut color, the brass was polished to a high gloss.

“Those things antiques?” Reaper said, indicating the two weapons.

“No,” Hausmann said as he opened a cabinet on the far side of the room. “They're both reproductions. They work, though. The cannon has a steel bore inside a cast-brass body. Loud as hell on the Fourth of July. Takes forever to polish them, though.”

Reaper just shook his head as he and Manors looked at the racks of weapons that lined the walls. There was a wide variety of hardware, from antiques to ultramodern, flintlocks to rifles, swords, spears, even a couple of bows. Stacked up below the racks were cardboard and wooden boxes, most with orange warning stickers on them indicating that they were full of ammunition. There were also a number of odd-sized green-painted wood boxes Reaper recognized as those used in the older Army to store ordnance. For the mo
ment, he had no desire to know what was in them.

As Reaper and Manors looked about the room, Hausmann pulled a desert-camouflage pattern backpack from the cabinet he was rummaging in. The pack was a Spec-Ops brand T.H.E., Tactical Holds Everything, model. With the pack hanging partially opened from his left arm, Hausmann was pulling some materials from a drawer lower in the cabinet. He stuffed a pair of Steiner Military/Marine 10×50 binoculars into the bag.

Turning to Reaper, Hausmann said, “Why don't you go into the dojo and pull a couple of bottles of water out of the fridge?”

The dojo was the workout room on the other side of the armory. Beyond that room was the machine shop and another roll-up door leading to the area behind the garage. As Hausmann filled his pack, Reaper took his suggestion and went to get the water.

Along with the binoculars, Hausmann put a Bushnell Trophy Compact twenty-to-fifty-power 50mm spotting scope into the pack. The powerful telescope with its wide objective lens came with a small folding tripod. When Reaper returned a moment later, Hausmann took the three one-liter bottles of water from him and put them into the bottom outside pocket of the Spec-Op's pack.

“That everything you want to take?” Reaper asked with a smile. Personally, he thought the optical equipment was a good idea but wanted to needle his friend a bit.

“Yup,” Hausmann said.

“You're sure now?”

“Any way we can mount the Gatling on the Prowler?”

“No,” Reaper said. “I think we're done now.”

A little humor could lighten a moment. Reaper just shook his head at Hausmann's attempt at it. After securing the door to the armory, the men all headed back out to the truck. Firing up the truck's engine, Hausmann spun the wheels as he pressed down on the gas, sending gravel flying as they took off out of the parking area.

There were not a lot of different routes down to the location of the Heart Ranch or the Blue Star mine. Taking a side road off State Route 92, the men traveled for several miles without seeing another vehicle or even the lights of a house. They were just about as far south in Arizona as you could get without being in Mexico. Finally, Hausmann pulled the truck over to the side of the road at a locked gate that closed the road just before it reached a sharp curve.

“Well, this is something new,” Hausmann said. “I don't remember this gate ever being here.”

“So just where are we?” Reaper said.

“Just about there,” Hausmann said, “the road to the ranch is on the left just past that curve. The ranch house is only a few hundred feet from the road inside a stand of trees. About a quarter mile past that on the right is the road leading to the mine.”