Hostile Borders (16 page)

“How far is the mine from the main road?” Reaper asked.

“Maybe a couple hundred yards,” Hausmann said. “It's just on the other side of that ridge line on the right
there. You can't really see anything of the mine itself from the road.”

“You know,” Manors said, “there's a branch of the San Pedro, a stream really, we passed there about a half mile back that runs below the far side of that ridge. We could probably drive that little Prowler right alongside the bank almost up to the mine if we stayed quiet enough.”

“Oh, we can be really quiet,” Reaper said. “Let's head back to that stream.”

Once at the stream, Reaper could see that the fence line that had been running on either side of the road stopped before it reached the water. The bridge wasn't much more than a couple of culverts under the roadway. A flash flood after a heavy rain would be a completely different situation. The junk that moved along in a flood was probably what had torn down the fence line.

The pickup was able to traverse the rough ground along the side of the road and up the streambed without much trouble. Stopping the pickup after it was well out of sight of the road, the men got out and unloaded the Prowler. The same planks they had used to load the small vehicles aboard had been stuck into the bed of the truck to be used at that time. With the planks and the Prowler's own motors, one man could have loaded or unloaded them. As a final detail to make sure that everyone could find the keys to the pickup, Hausmann put them under the gas cap cover.

Reaching into one of the upper pockets of his 5.11 vest, Reaper pulled out an odd-looking clip and at
tached it to a plate on the front of his TC2002 helmet. Dismounting his PVS-14 night-vision monocular from his M4A1, Reaper snapped it onto the clip he had attached to his helmet. Tilting the monocular down put it in front of Reaper's right eye. Now he could look through it and see well enough in the dark to drive the Prowler without using the headlights. For Hausmann and Manors, it would just be a spooky ride in the dark.

With the two men back in their side seats, the Prowler moved out into the dark. The rough terrain was no obstacle for the little vehicle, though the riders got tossed around a bit. They had traveled close to half a mile to the south when Reaper stopped the Prowler at the edge of a four-strand barbed wire fence. Off to the left was a sign hanging on the upper wire of the fence. The sign read:

 

HEART REPTILE SANCTUARY
NO TRESPASSING

 

“Cut it,” Reaper said to Hausmann.

Getting off the Prowler, Hausmann pulled a black Gerber Model 600 needle-nose multiplier from the upper left pocket of his 5.11 vest. Snapping his hand down hard, he slipped the pliers head down out of the handles where they locked into place. The cutting jaws of the pliers easily severed the tough barbed wire.

Having held the wire just next to one of the supporting posts Hausmann cut it between his hand and the post. With his hand holding the loose end of the wire, he was able to keep down the noise of going through
the fence. Lowering the wire, he went through all four strands and then waved the Prowler forward. Collapsing the multiplier, Hausmann slipped it back into the pocket of his vest as he climbed back into the side seat of the Prowler.

The three men and their vehicle hadn't traveled more than a quarter of a mile before Hausmann slapped Reaper on the shoulder. They had been approaching the top of the ridge line when Reaper brought the little vehicle to a stop and they all climbed out. Getting down first on all fours and finally crawling on their bellies the last few yards, the trio slowly came up to the top of the ridge and looked down the other side.

They had hit the target almost perfectly because Reaper had been able to see a glow through his monocular as they had come up to the ridge. Only a couple of hundred yards from them was the small building surrounding the mouth of the Blue Star mine. It wasn't much, but the lighting around the building was still a hell of a lot to see at a supposedly abandoned mine. So was the big truck backed up against the front of the building.

The rock walls of the mine tunnel closed in on the small train as it moved along the tracks. The clicking of the wheels as they passed over the joints in the rails could be clearly heard as it echoed off the walls.

“This part of the mine tunnel was flooded years ago when they cut into an underground stream,” Santiago said for the benefit of Daumudi and Humzan. “It blocked the tunnel and they finally abandoned the mine. The same tremors that opened the cavern wall back at the Crystal mine changed the flow of the water. It used to go down that hole back in the cavern floor. Now, that underground stream has just disappeared.”

As hardened as they were, the two al-Qaeda terrorists suppressed a shudder when they thought of the horrible smell that came up from that black hole in the ground behind them. Wherever that water had gone, it no longer washed the hole clean.

“The professor found that this was the other exit the
bats used,” Santiago said. “During the day, parts of the cavern are full of them. At night, they're out hunting. This tunnel also had to be improved when the rails were installed and that trestle built.”

The train continued up an incline for hundreds of yards. To the Arabs, it seemed as though they had been moving through the tunnel for miles in the amount of time it took them to travel the 1,800 foot length of the tunnel. Rodriguez slowed the train engine as it approached an open-sided elevator in the middle of the tunnel. The tracks continued through the elevator and extended down the tunnel on the other side.

The train rolled over the tracks and stopped on the other side.

“Normally, if we're moving a load,” Santiago said. “We would unhook the last car and lift it up on the elevator. We have vehicles in the upper tunnel that can pull the cars much more efficiently than the mules they used in this mine more than a hundred years ago. Once the cage returned, the engine would push a car into it and the process would be repeated. When all the cars were back, the train would be reassembled and the engine would just push them back to the other mine. Simple enough.”

In spite of their blank expressions, the two terrorists were greatly impressed with what they had seen. It was obvious that Masque could deliver on what he had promised as far as crossing under the border went. What else could be done was yet to be seen.

The elevator platform was easily big enough to hold all of the men at once. Long gates were pulled down
from overhead to close off the edges of the platform. When Rodriguez moved the controls, the platform began to smoothly rise up to and through the ceiling of the tunnel. As the edge of the rock went past the platform, the solid walls of the shaft seemed to close in on the elevator.

In spite of the relative size of the elevator, this was the kind of place that would bring out even a well-buried hint of claustrophobia in a person. Both of the al-Qaeda terrorists had spent a lot of time in the caves of Afghanistan, but even they felt the psychic weight of the millions of tons of rock pressing down on them from above.

As the elevator came level with an upper tunnel, Rodriguez moved the controls and stopped it. Latches swung down that met sockets in the tunnel floor and the rails in the elevator perfectly matched the ends of rails that continued on down the tunnel.

“This is the main tunnel of the original copper mine.” Santiago said. “Years of ore cars moving along the floor have paved it with crushed copper minerals. This is the area where the lights are turned on only when we need them. It wouldn't do to have an abandoned mine show lights to anyone going by.”

“People can simply travel past this mine?” Humzan said. “We were told it was a secure site.”

“It is a secure site,” Santiago said. “We control the surrounding area and use vehicles that have a solid cover for being here. But we cannot control the overhead travel of a plane or helicopter.

“In fact, insisting on using your own vehicle to
transport your man to his destination is taking an unnecessary chance. We have a good system in place and it would have been much better if you had taken advantage of it. It worked well enough when your man crossed the border by another route last week. He was taken by one of our trucks all the way to Las Vegas.”

“We will consider using it again in the future,” Daumudi said. “For the time being, it is better if we use our own devices in this country. You say we are actually in the United States right now?”

“A little less than half a mile north of the border, actually,” Santiago said. “This is one of the longest tunnels of its kind in the world.”

“The rail system is indeed worthwhile,” Daumudi said, “but Allah in his all-powerful wisdom and mercy saw fit to supply us with tunnels and caves that went on for dozens of kilometers in the mountains of Afghanistan. Now, just what are these?”

The group had continued walking up the tunnel as they were speaking. Turning a corner, they had come on to a pair of dark green John Deere 6×4 Gator utility vehicles. The short, flat vehicles looked a little like shrunken military Humvees, the replacements for the jeep, but they acted more like ATVs in their ability to move over rough terrain.

“We use them to move the loaded cars from the elevator to the mouth of the tunnel,” Santiago said. “They are called Trail Gators. Something like the model being used by the U.S. military. We have found them quite useful for moving about the area and maintaining security as well.”

“Whoever was using them last seems to have run into a bit of difficulty,” Humzan said as he noted the dried blood in the open-back beds of both Gators.

“That was a mistake,” Santiago said. “It will not happen again. You may have noticed the individuals who caused those stains back in the cavern.”

“Individuals?” Daumudi said. “We saw no one.”

“Perhaps I should have said smelled them,” Santiago said with a smile.

Daumudi ignored the answer.

A large truck had been backed up close to the mine's entrance. The green outline of a stylized heart symbol took up most of the roll-up door on the rear of the truck.

“What is this truck?” Daumudi said. “And why is it here?”

“Your confederates in this country have not yet arrived,” Santiago said. “This truck is backup transportation in case something has happened to your people. Masque wanted to be certain that all options were available to you if needed.”

Opening the satchel he hadn't let out of his hands once during the entire trip, Humzan reached in and removed a cellular phone. It was just a generic prepaid phone, one of a large purchase of such phones that had been made by al-Qaeda operatives in the U.S. more than a year earlier. The phones were almost impossible to trace. This particular one would be used for the present operation only and then discarded.

Dialing a number, Humzan listened and then spoke into the phone in a flurry of Arabic. The conversation
was a short one as Humzan snapped the phone shut and returned it to his satchel.

“Our people were slightly delayed in their trip here,” Humzan said. “They estimate that they will be arriving here within the next half hour.”

“Very well,” Santiago said. Turning to the man who had been the driver of the lead Suburban, he called out in Spanish, telling him to take one of the Gators and go wait at the front gate. The man went back to the Gator and started its engine. As he drove past, Santiago handed him a single large key. The man continued on his way out of the mine, moving slowly to ease past the truck by the entrance. He quickly disappeared into the darkness beyond.

“We keep the gate locked, of course,” Santiago said, “especially at this time of night. During the day, our trucks can simply blend in with the normal traffic flow. They are such a recognized part of the local community that they are rarely if ever stopped by the regular authorities or the Border Patrol.

“We have built-in compartments at the front of the truck beds that can hold a number of men or large amount of materiel comfortably. Even if you knew what you were looking for, the compartments would be very hard to detect. You would have to cut your way into it from behind the cab of the truck. That is not something that the U.S. law-enforcement community is likely to do.”

As the men looked out into the desert a few minutes later, they saw the headlights of a vehicle come up the road toward them.

“Ah, our brothers have arrived,” Daumudi said.

After looking intently at the oncoming lights, Santiago suddenly turned to his men.

“Take these men back into the mine,” he said.

“What?” Daumudi said. “These men are our brothers in struggle, our fellow mujahideen.”

“Not unless they drive Lincoln Navigators,” Santiago said. “I know who this is and I don't want her seeing you. So don't argue with me, just go, now!”

“We do not hide from women…” Humzan started to say.

“I said now!” Santiago commanded.

The two Arabs decided against arguing further. This was Santiago's area of knowledge and not theirs. Humzan thought about the Soviet Stechkin APS machine pistol he had in the satchel next to the bags of diamonds. The big weapon held twenty rounds of 9mm Makarov ammunition in its magazine and was capable of full-automatic fire. At a cyclic rate of 750 rounds per minute, the Stechkin would empty its magazine in a little over a second and a half. If Santiago was trying some form of scheme to steal the diamonds or turn Humzan and Daumudi over to the Americans, Humzan would make sure most of that first magazine went into Santiago himself.

The weapon Humzan had hidden away wasn't necessary. Either of the heavily armed mercenaries would have kept him from ever drawing it against their captain. The huge green Lincoln Navigator SUV pulled up next to the truck in a swirl of dust and spray of gravel. The driver's door swung open and a tall, thin, blond woman stepped out.

As she stormed up to him it was obvious that the woman knew Santiago. And her attitude demonstrated that she was more than used to having her own way.

“What is this?” Valentine Dupree shouted. “This is the second time inside of a week that there's been activity at this mine that I haven't been told about. How can this be kept a secret if people are coming and going every night? I would have never allowed this to happen…”

“Be silent!” Santiago shouted at the woman, cutting her off in midtirade. “Do not presume to speak to me in such a manner. I will have you cut off at the knees. Is that perfectly understood?”

Obviously, it was not understood, but it was shocking. Dupree was not used to being talked to in this manner. Normally, she was the one who just bowled people over with her pushy manner and rude behavior. She just stood there stunned for a moment with her eyes wide and staring—the whites showing in a big circle. For a moment, her mouth just gaped like a beached fish trying to breathe air.

“You cannot speak to me in such a manner!” she started to say as she tried to recover her composure. “This is my property and you will do as I say.”

“I think you have a dangerously inaccurate view of the situation,” Santiago said in a low voice. “We have allowed you to make a profit selling what we have delivered to you. In no way does this put you in charge of anything at all. You may run your business as long as it is convenient to us. But do not think for a minute that we wouldn't get rid of you like a snuffed-out match if it served our purpose.

“You may think you are some kind of political dogooder in this country, selling your organic trash and protecting the slithering little animals. To me, you are just another burned-out ex-hippie drug dealer selling pot—nothing more. It would be very unwise for you to consider yourself above the situation. We can always get another front person to run this ranch.”

Before Dupree said a word, two of Santiago's men stepped forward, both holding their Galil SARs in a threatening posture. She knew that at a single word from their commander, she would be cut down in a hail of fire and bullets. The woman was of course against any civilian ownership of vile assault weapons in the United States, or any guns for that matter. As she looked at the two very deadly appearing men and the lethal hardware in their hands, she sincerely wished that there were hundreds of armed neighbors behind her at that very moment.

For the first time, she realized just what kind of people she was dealing with. These were not the sort of men who would be swayed with stupid phrases and repeated platitudes. And there was no question that they couldn't be intimidated by her personality. She was lost in a quagmire of her own making and sunk in it up to her neck.

“But, but,” she sputtered, “there can't be all of this traffic here at night. People will notice the coming and going. First there was that unscheduled truck that left here last week, then the men taking the truck a few nights ago. Now this. They will wonder just what is going on and the authorities will start asking questions.”

“Then you will have to give them answers they can understand,” Santiago said in a much softer voice. He had intimidated the woman and set her in her place, now it was important not to cause her to panic. People did stupid things when they panicked, and he didn't have the time or desire to deal with the results.

“You do not have to worry about the truck being taken out tonight,” Santiago said, “there will be no further exposure of the mine, our operations, or your company's connection with them. Now, we have people coming here right now. It would be better if they didn't see you. That way we can protect you and your valuable contribution to our organization.”

As Santiago was talking to Dupree, he was gently guiding her back to her SUV. She put up no resistance as he pulled open the door to the Navigator and held it for her.

“Please,” Dupree said, “we must be careful about all of this.”

“We certainly shall be,” Santiago said, and he shut the door.

As the big SUV turned around and headed back the way it had come, Daumudi and Humzan came up from their concealment in the back of the tunnel.