“Hernando, come in. Hernando, do you read?”
Nate didn’t even hear the hiss of static, but instead caught a rattle of something broken inside the radio. He dropped the useless device and hoisted himself up the shelves while ignoring his throbbing elbow and knee.
Scrambling up and over the final row of boxes, Nate began creeping in the direction he had last heard the shotgunner fire from. It had now gone ominously silent.
Geez, I could really use that radio now, he thought, since he had no idea who was dead or alive, who was shot or not. He couldn’t even hear any sirens in the distance, and wasn’t sure when any backup would arrive. For all he knew, he was on his own.
He heard the noise as the shotgun slide racked again and another boom thundered through the cavernous warehouse. Nate homed in on the sound, climbing over the uneven terrain of boxes and crates, his pistol always pointing toward the direction of the shotgun fire. At one point he had to leap from one rack to another. He barely made it, dangling from one arm for a few tense moments.
When he was safely positioned again, he took a second not only to listen, but also to try to calm his jackhammering heart.
Should be close now, Nate thought, peering over the edge to see if he could spot the gunner in the gloom of the warehouse. In the sudden quiet, the faint scream of sirens reached his ears, and he knew if they didn’t take this guy soon, he would bolt. He reached the end of a row and looked over again. Spotting a crouched form, he raised his pistol and aimed, but pointed it toward the ceiling when he saw Hernando moving cautiously through the racks.
Nate instinctively reached for his radio again, silently cursing when he remembered it was on the floor. He considered trying to get the other agent’s attention, but didn’t want to risk giving away his position.
Standing slowly, he looked in all directions, wondering where in the hell their common enemy was. The slam of a door at the front of the warehouse drew his attention, along with Hernando’s, and another loud blast echoed as the jumpy shotgunner loosed more buckshot in that direction. This time it sounded as if the guy was directly below him, and Nate stepped to the far side of the rack in time to see the man taking cover behind a pile of boxes, his scattergun aimed at the end of the row. Nate glanced over to see Hernando appearing from around the end, squinting to see the smuggler in the gloom.
Nate extended his gun and yelled, “Drop it!” The shotgunner blinked in surprise and raised the scattergun. Nate squeezed the HK’s trigger twice and two 165-grain hollow-points smashed into the man’s chest, dropping him where he crouched.
Hernando ran up and kicked the shotgun away as the sirens finally echoed off the buildings as cars pulled up. “I got mine on the other side. You?” he asked.
“Number three’s sleeping off a kiss from my boot up front. The other two probably lit out for the front.” Nate clambered down the rack, sliding the last several feet.
“Cuff him, and I’ll clear the store.” Running from rack to rack, he reached the set of double doors, which now sported several bullet holes and a spiderwebbed Plexiglas window. “Carter? Juan?” he called out.
“In here!” Carter replied.
Still keeping his pistol ready, Nate eased the door open, not wanting to walk into another ambush. The storefront looked like a war zone, with damaged cardboard display racks lying on their sides amid fluttering car-parts bro-chures. A black puddle of oil slowly grew from rows of blasted, leaking containers. As Nate walked forward, he heard Carter’s voice counting steadily.
“One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and-five.” Pause.
“One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and-five—come on, dammit, breathe! Where’s the damn medics?”
Nate ran through the racks to the far side of the store, where the damage was even worse. The counter had taken so many bullets and shotgun blasts that it had broken in two, the pieces leaning against each other. An overhead fan lazily stirred the smoky air. Nate spotted two bodies right away, one behind the counter, the other near the door, brought down while trying to make a break for it.
Seeing his two remaining men on the floor in the center of the room, however, chilled Nate’s heart. Agent Juan Menendez lay unmoving, his side a soaked mass of blood.
Next to him, his partner leaned over and performed chest compressions, stopping after every fifth pump to breathe into his partner’s mouth.
“We need those medics in here now!” Nate shouted over his shoulder as he ran to them. “Stay on mouth-to-mouth—I’ve got this.” Locking his arms, he began chest compressions, leaning in to drive the wounded man’s breastbone down and manually keep his heart pumping blood. “Come on, Juan, you still haven’t given me that damn barbeque recipe yet, and I ain’t lettin’ you go until I get it!”
The two agents continued CPR until the medics arrived a few minutes later, but Nate knew it was a lost cause. Juan had shown no response to their ministrations, and even electric shocks directly to the heart had done nothing. In the end, the agent was taken out in an ambulance with the lights flashing on its way to the hospital, but Nate was pretty sure they would call it on the way. He put his hand on Carter’s shoulder. “Sorry, man.”
“There’s still a chance—they might save him at the hospital….”
“Yeah, he might pull through—Juan’s a tough old bastard.” What else could he say? he wondered. “Come on, we better get back and clean up the rest of this mess.”
He helped the shaken Carter through the ruined shop and into the back room, where apparent chaos was unfolding. Uniformed El Paso police officers were everywhere, cordoning off the area, taking pictures and trying to keep some semblance of order. “Aw, Jesus Christ.” Nate shook his head as he surveyed the scene.
“Nate, over here!” George, who was being pulled out on a guerney, was holding on to the side of the garage door while the medic tried to dislodge his hands. “I didn’t want to leave until you’d secured the scene,” the big man said.
“Okay, I’m here now, so settle down, George, and let them take you to get checked out.” He made sure his partner was on the way to the hospital, then turned to the rest of the men and women on the scene, holding up his badge. “Everyone listen up! I’m Customs and Border Protection Agent Nathaniel Spencer, and this is my crime scene, so would all of you please clear out so our guys can process it, thank you very much!”
The police officers filed out, grumbling at missing out on the bust. Nate and Hernando made sure all of them were gone, then turned to the half-loaded truck.
“Well, let’s see what we got,” Nate said. Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, he grabbed a crowbar and pried open a large crate. The stenciled lettering on the side claimed it contained a pair of automatic transmissions. Clearing out the packing material, he saw two shiny metal casings, as promised. He pushed one to see how heavy it was. The round metal housing shifted easily under his hand. “Looks like they’re importing something more than metal here.”
He scrounged up a wrench from the warehouse and unscrewed bolts until the housing came apart. Instead of the gears, clutches and bands that would have been inside a normal transmission, this one was filled with dozens of bags of white powder. “Hey, Carter, Hernando, take a look at this.” The other two agents walked over. “Must be five kilos in here easy, and more in the rest, I’ll bet. We got ’em dead to rights.”
Hernando smiled and nodded, while Carter just looked numb. They all glanced up as more footsteps approached, and several other agents came in, including the crime-lab group.
One of the agents, a tall, bony redhead, took off his mirrored sunglasses and surveyed the scene. “Heard something about a war breaking out over here, and look who we find—Shootin’ Spencer.”