That was enough backstory for Bwana. The past didn’t matter, the now and the future did. Family? He was Roger’s family.
Roger didn’t know what woke him, but one moment he was in a deep, dreamless sleep and the next he was awake. He lay still, allowing the night and forest to envelop him. He turned his head towards Bwana and saw the dark shapeless shadow of his bag. He glanced at the dull green numerals on his watch. Two a.m. He lay still, listening, trying to sense what had woken him.
It wasn’t any sound, he decided, nor was it any presence.
‘Yeah, I can feel it too,’ murmured Bwana from the other side of the banked coals.
Roger grinned soundlessly and got up from his bag, Bwana doing the same; two wraiths rising, the still air bending itself around them — habits nurtured in the Special Forces, practiced in far-off dusty lands and now like breathing to them.
The woods had gone silent; the customary sounds of the nightlife deadened — that had woken Roger and Bwana.
Their camp was north of Pena Blanca Lake, in Peck Canyon, and was located in a thicket, caution and the habit of blending in guiding their choice of camp. They were right in the middle of Peck Canyon Corridor, a route for herding illegal immigrants from Mexico to the United States; the Corridor stretched from border crossing points, across the Pajarito Mountains, Atascosa Mountains, and the Tumacacori Mountains… Peck Canyon divided the Atascosas from the Tumacacoris.
The border between the United States and Mexico, about two thousand miles, had steel and concrete fences at places and infrared cameras and sensors at others, supported by about twenty thousand US Border Patrol agents and drones in the air.
This still didn’t deter the flow of illegal immigrants. About half a million of them crossed into the United States each year, many of them guided by coyotes — smugglers who were often armed — who shepherded the illegal immigrants across the border for a fee. Many criminal gangs organized and controlled the flow of illegal immigrants across the border, and most of the coyotes worked for some gang or the other. What the physical and the virtual fence had done was move the flow of immigrants to remote, inhospitable terrain such as Peck Canyon Corridor.
Roger and Bwana were fully aware of the immigrant traffic in the region but hadn’t encountered any during their camping.
Roger crossed to his kit and buckled his Kimber Target II in his shoulder holster, slipping extra mags in his pockets. He strapped a Benchmade to his ankle, slung a pair of night-vision goggles around his neck and stuck a comms set in his ear. He looked across at Bwana, and he was tooling up similarly; Bwana was a Glock man, a Glock 21 tucked away in his shoulder holster, and as Roger looked on, he slung a Heckler and Koch MP7A1 compact submachine gun over his bag. Bwana didn’t believe in doing things by halves.
They looked around, and Bwana pointed to a very faint glow in the skyline about a mile back and headed off at a rapid pace, Roger following. The silence grew louder as they approached, and then as they slowed, they heard it.
It was the shuffling of a large body of people moving stealthily in the night.
Bwana glanced at Roger and quickened his pace, making as much noise as a shadow. He slowed down and faded into the bole of a tree, Roger finding another large trunk to shelter behind — they were two hundred feet away from the human mass.
The dim lighting they had spotted was caused by high-intensity flashlights held by six guards, who were in a rough U-formation around forty people. The bright beams were carefully turned away from the mass of people, and Roger couldn’t make out the details. He looked at Bwana, who shook his head. Coyotes, he thought. There goes our sleep, just our fucking dumb luck.
They let the group get a lead and tracked back to scan for a rear guard — there was none.
‘Illegals crossing the border,’ murmured Bwana. ‘Thing is, do we let them go or do we play the heroes?’
‘Let’s warn the Border Patrol,’ replied Roger, and they slowed down further, and Roger powered up his phone. ‘Shit, hardly any bars on this. How about yours?’
Bwana checked his phone and shook his head. Roger dialed a number and held it to his head and then gave up after a while. ‘No ring going out.’
He fished out the sat phone they used to communicate securely with Broker and Bear, and shook his head disgustedly when he saw they’d forgotten to charge it.
They followed the group for over a mile and noticed two other coyotes in the front who were acting as scouts. All the coyotes were heavily armed, and even in the darkness, through the distance, they could see the dim outlines of AK-47s and AR-15s on the three closest to them.
‘Is that standard wear for coyotes?’ muttered Bwana.
Roger shrugged; the weapons didn’t bother him. ‘How long are we going to follow them?’
‘You got anything better to do? Other than sleeping?’
Roger shook his head silently, and they pressed on. It was dark and cloudy, but the light reflecting off the walls of the canyon gave them enough visibility to follow. They weren’t able to make out the details of the group from behind, but noticed that they were of average height and some of them were female, from the long hair. The coyotes took care not to direct the light on the group as they hustled the group along at a rapid pace. They prodded the slow ones with their rifles or slaps and muttered curses. One slap felled an illegal to the ground, and the coyote grabbed an arm, dragged him upright, and slapped him again to prod him on.
Roger tightened inside and drifted closer to the group, a hundred and fifty feet separating him from them.
The group turned around a large rock outcrop that narrowed the track, and they lost sight of the mass momentarily. They slowed down their pursuit… it was a good place for an ambush. Roger tried his phone again and after a while put it back in his pocket in disgust. Bwana crept forward, hugging the far end of the ravine, and peeked beyond the outcrop. After a while, he made a hand signal, and they surged forward.
The main body of people was flagging — they had probably been on the move all night, and the heat and the pace was telling on them. The coyotes were growing increasingly angry, and the frequent sounds of slaps and curses punctuated the air. Bwana looked across at Roger expressionlessly. He would have the same expressionless face if he was breaking the arms of the coyotes.
Roger looked at the group, looked back at the trail, and what had been gnawing away at him became stronger. He came to a halt and dug into another pocket and drew out a military compass and checked his bearings. He pictured their location in his mind and placed the compass on it and then zoomed in and out on his mental map.
He frowned, looked up to signal Bwana.
Three shots rang out.
Chapter 14
There was a haze of dust in the air, further dulling the visibility. But the aftermath of the shots was clear, even from their distance in the dark.
Two illegals lay on the ground; a couple of others hunched over them.
The coyotes were loosely strung out and were threatening the group of illegals with their guns. All eight of them. The rest of the illegals were huddled together, cowed.
Roger couldn’t make out the expressions on their faces, the darkness and distance rendering the faces into pale blobs, but none of them were showing any signs of aggression. Roger and Bwana hugged the rocky outcrop, invisible against its dark shadow beyond the dim light of the flashlights.