“General, we’ve got to get out of here,” the private pleaded. His hands shook so badly he dropped the sticks he was holding.
“Great day in the morning, get a hold of yourself, private!” the General yelled. “You’re shivering like a hound dog crapping a pinecone.”
“We’ve got to abort the mission!”
“Belay that babble, private! Now, what the hell is the matter with you?”
“I found one of those Mexican devil coyotes, sir.”
“Is it alive?”
“No, sir.”
“Then bury it and get my punji sticks in place. Fire Team Leader Charlie,” the General called to the other side of the camp, “get your man under control and help him dispose of whatever he found.”
Private Zulu led his Fire Team Leader to the site where he found the mangy dead coyote.
“Just a coyote,” Fire Team Leader Charlie said as he examined the dead beast’s carcass.
“Like hell it is,” Private Zulu responded. “It’s a vampire coyote—you can tell by the teeth and the smooth skin.”
“You mean a chupacabra?”
“Just like the one we saw last night. The ones those border patrol folks said come out this time of year. You think it was the same one?”
“Nah. Besides, I think they were just pulling your leg.”
“No way, these things are real. Just look at it. Pure evil, I tell you. I think we’re supposed to burn it so it can’t come back to life during a full moon?”
“No way. That’ll just stink up the campsite. I’m surprised you don’t want to keep it. I mean, an actual chupacabra,” the Fire Team Leader said sarcastically. “There must be some kind of reward for one of those.”
“You think?”
“Sure. My cousin Larry once got a guy to pay two hundred dollars for a plaster cast of a Sasquatch footprint. He put an ad up online and he had six phone calls the first day.”
“Your cousin found a Bigfoot print?”
“Hell, no. He faked it. Just needed the money for some deer tags.”
“How much do you think I could get for this?”
“Well, if it is what you say it is, probably a whole lot more than two hundred.”
“You don’t think it can come back to life, do you?”
“This thing?” Fire Team Leader Charlie said as he kicked the stiff animal with the toe of his boot. “Nope. He’s a goner.”
Private Zulu returned to camp and gathered a blue plastic ground cloth and a roll of duct tape before returning to his find. Finding out the dead creature was worth money helped alleviate his fears as he gingerly rolled the carcass up in the plastic sheet and taped it tightly shut with an entire roll of tape. Hoisting what appeared to be a giant silver bale, he returned to the campsite and stashed his prize on the back of his ATV. With the carcass securely in place, he returned to hunting punji sticks with renewed vigor as he thought of his soon-to-be-claimed fortune.
It was late afternoon as El Barquero sped toward the city limits of El Paso. He had passed the location where he would spend the night hidden, waiting for the shipment of drugs to be delivered. First, he needed to gather gear and weapons for the evening.
El Barquero had spent almost the entire drive from the rundown house where he’d left Memo’s dead body thinking about the Padre. He knew the Padre was aware of his sideline job stealing from the cartels in the pitch-black cover of the desert night. Why didn’t the Padre have him killed at the farmhouse with those other two men? Could it have been three sets of legs swinging from the rafters of the barn? El Barquero wanted desperately to kill the Padre. Anger seethed in his mind as he squeezed the car’s steering wheel with his crushing grip. No, getting away was the smart thing to do. For some reason, the Padre wanted to toy with him. El Barquero would let the Padre have his fun for now. The Padre was smart and powerful, but he was arrogant. That would be El Barquero’s advantage. The time for revenge would come, but first, one last shipment. It was risky, and El Barquero didn’t like taking unnecessary risks, but he needed this last one. He knew he’d never see the second half of the payment for the National Guard arms delivery, sealed up tight in a large shipping container now making its way slowly across the Gulf of Mexico. This last robbery would have to make do while he disappeared for a short time. He needed resources to fund his getaway, maybe to Central America or maybe to Colombia, before he returned to kill the Padre.
El Barquero pulled his car off the highway and into a parking lot in front of a series of self-storage units on the outskirts of town. Shutting off the engine, he scanned the area to make sure he was alone. Walking to a storage unit near the end of the row, he used a key from his pocket to open the lock. He pulled the metal door closed behind him and used the flame from his lighter to illuminate the small rectangular room. In the back of the storage unit rested a large metal case four feet wide and seven feet tall. Spinning the combination lock on the door of the case, he rolled the tumblers until they fell into place. Opening the door he examined his store of weapons. The case was filled with pistols, assault rifles, knives, ammunition, and explosives. He even had a crossbow with a high-powered scope, although he rarely used it. El Barquero had three weapons dumps like this spread across the Texas-Mexican border. He never knew when he might need to resupply.
The job tonight would be tricky. Three mules and two couriers waiting in a jeep, and all of them would be armed. He ignored the large fifty-caliber sniper rifle resting in the black foam lining in the back of the case; it would be too noisy and impractical for tonight’s work. Instead, he reached in and retrieved a small black submachine gun. Pulling around the gun’s folding stock and snapping it into place, he examined the HK UMP. A deadly submachine gun, this model fired approximately six hundred rounds of forty-five-caliber pistol ammunition a minute, a little slower and a little less accurately than the gun’s nine-millimeter cousin, but the stopping power was much more effective, and he planned on working up close and personal tonight.
El Barquero raised the machine gun to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. A vertical grip directly in front of the magazine helped significantly with the weapon’s accuracy, allowing the user to keep the weapon pointed directly at its target even if firing fully automatic. Reaching down into the bottom of the storage case, he produced a black tubular suppressor for the weapon and attached it to the gun’s short barrel. He knew he would need to reduce the sound of his weapon as much as possible with five men to deal with. He loaded a black rucksack made of ballistics material with spare magazines for the machine gun, extra ammunition for his pistol, night vision goggles, a knife with a boot clip, and the two curved scythe-like blades with short leather-wrapped handles. When the rucksack was loaded, he shut the weapons container and locked it. Loading a magazine into the HK, he chambered a round. Folding the stock back up against the gun’s receiver, he slung the compact weapon over his shoulder by its detachable carrying sling.