Eli awoke, slipped off his sleeping bag, stepped out of the tent, and stretched.  Coker had exited the tent a couple of minutes before he did.  In an uncharacteristic move, Coker had slipped out quietly, making no effort to wake Eli.  Once Eli had centered his spine, he walked over to the fire.

Coker had cranked up the banked fire, put the grill over it, and had started cooking.  Eggs and bacon sizzled in a big fry pan, and their coffee pot was set off to one side, putting out an aroma straight from java heaven.

Eli sat in one of the camp chairs by the fire.  He spent a moment just enjoying the smells of the fire, the grub and the coffee.  While he waited for the victuals to be ready for consumption, he pulled out his Borg-looking headpiece, put it on, and fired it up. The headset was online in seconds.

Eli checked all the numerous sensors that he and Coker had emplaced.  The sensors ran the gamut from audio, video and seismic.  Eli checked the near real-time satellite feed of the objective area, using a bird’s eye view to scan for any changes to the objective area since they had completed installing the sensor array.  He ensured that all the various mines they had emplaced were in ready status, though not yet armed.

Eli had also emplaced sensors that built for him an electronic range card that would be shared with Coker.  Target Reference Points, various range markers and dead space that either he, Coker or both of them could not reach with direct fires.  Coker and Eli had walked the dead space, emplacing mines in locations judiciously selected to ruin the day of anyone who thought he had reached a protected area in which to cower.

From the satellite view, the icons for all the various sensors and mines looked like a big, amorphous blob.  Zooming in using the mapping software resident in the RLST’s CPU, the picture quickly resolving to show the integrated system Eli and Coker had carefully emplaced.  Eli found the integrated electronic range card simply amazing.  

Then, because electronics were simply amazing right up until they weren’t, Eli had put it all down on paper.  He had broken the array down into two paper products.  The first was a standard range card, that contained all the data and reference points he and Coker would use for their direct and indirect fire weapons.  The second was an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance card.  The ISR card had all the non-weapons-related information surrounding and resident in the box canyon that Eli had begun to think of as Our Canyon.  Finally, he had drafted up a matrix that had the individual identification numbers of each bit of tech and remote weaponry they had out on the ground.

If the RSLT went down, and they lost their ability to use their tech as a single, integrated system, their headsets would still give them a limited ability to directly employ the tech. The loss, for whatever reason, of the RSLT would significantly increase the suck factor, but it would not be catastrophic.  Eli closed down the various windows on his heads-up displays, powered down the headset and removed it.  If there were to be any action, it was still days away.  Still, Eli could feel the hormonal combat cocktail beginning a low, almost undetectable simmer both in his gut and at his extremities.

As he came up for air from his virtual immersion, Coker handed Eli a big tin cup of coffee.  Eli blew softly across the top of the cup, then took a tentative sip.

“Day-um,” said Eli.  “That’s some hella good joe, there.”

Coker shot his trademark wolfman grin, picked up a black coffee bag from a spot near the fire, and tossed it to Eli.  “I figured that since we’re on short final, it was time to break out the good stuff.  And the blend is definitely appropriate.”

Eli caught the bag and looked it over.  The bag bore the legend of Black Rifle Coffee Company, the roast was Blacker Than Black.  Eli snorted and tossed the bag back to Coker, then took another hit of coffee.

“Chow’s up,” announced Coker.  Eli grabbed a metal mess plate and scooped some hard fried eggs and bacon onto his plate.  Then he walked over to one of their food coolers pulled out a long loaf of Cuban bread, and tore a hunk off the end.  Eli threw the rest of the loaf to Coker, sat the log, and began wolfing down his food.

Between bites, Coker said, “Alright.  Where we at and where we going, ranger?”

Eli finished chewing, swallowed, and took a swig of coffee.  “The sensors are in place.  The array is up and working.  Weapons and ammo sorted out and packed to be lugged up to fighting positions.  Leo’s fighting position checked out.  His boxes are loaded up and emplaced, chained to that eye-bolt that goes through the foundation.  His escape trail up the cliff backing up the cabin checked out.  He’s got a four-wheeler cached and camouflaged on the far side.  The hides for our four-wheelers are built, just waiting to occupy.  Food and water are stashed at all three fighting positions.”

“Awright,” drawled Coker.  “What do we have left to do?”

“Once we get the word that Leo is inbound, we secure his weapons in his box.  Then we lug our weapons and ammo up to our positions, hunker down, and await events.”

“Ayup.  And are you going to have to lug all that mortar ammo up your hill alone?”

“Negative, Coker.  Because you’re a benevolent dictator, you’re going to help me move hump the rounds up.”

“Y’know, Eli, sometimes I look in the mirror and I think to myself, ’Self, you’re just too good a guy.’”

“Oh, yeah,” said Eli. “That’s the worldwide Coker consensus.”

“What kind of threat to OPSEC or mission do you assess our good friend Amos, the desert thief, as?”

“Minimal.  Since we booted him our of our laager site and I backtracked him, I’ve been buzzing him a couple times day and night.  I been revving the engine when I’m close enough that he can’t miss it.  More ’n a couple times I’ve fired the shotgun into the hill when I’m near his cabin.  Also put down enough sensors and mines between here and there that if he moves this way we’ll know it.  Then we can decide what we need to do to dissuade him.  If he won’t be dissuaded, then that’s on him.”

“And how come we don’t just take the little fella out, and ensure that he is definitely not a threat?”

“We’re here to kill the bad guys.  We’re not the bad guys.  We’re the good guys.”

Eli saw Coker’s expression go dark. He also noted that Coker tried to cover by reaching out to the fire and pouring himself more coffee.

“Coker, we’re the good guys.  Right?”

“Right.” Mostly.

***

Leo pulled into a little one-horse town about 10 miles outside of Pima Lamona County.  He had reconnoitered the town days earlier and it had the two things he needed right at that moment: a drive-through car wash and a little mom ’n pop store that sold trac phones.

Leo pulled up in front of the car wash and purchased the cheapest wash available.  No wax.  No windshield rain repellant.  Just water, soap, and air.  Leo pulled forward at the flashing of a green light and the blast of an air horn. He stopped at the flashing of a red light and another air horn.  Immediately upon stopping, he turned off the ignition, exited the vehicle, and jumped onto the hood.  Leo leaned back and rested his back against the windshield, almost like a guy taking a nap in a park, leaning up against a tree.

The pre-wash soak felt like a soft, misting Seattle rain as the big frame of the car washing apparatus moved along the length of his vehicle.  Leo kept his eyes and mouth tightly shut as the next pass deposited a load of foamy soap upon the vehicle.  Leo raised his face to the descending suds in order to get the soap into his beard.

Now, thought Leo, as the faded maroon strips of cloth spun up for the actual wash, comes the fun part.  The spinning cloths, top to bottom, side to side, ran over the car and gave Leo a soft but energetic pummeling as he reclined against the windshield.  Next came the rinse.  Then, when the big u-frame car wash machinery began to blow air drying air, Leo sat up and lifted his knees by sliding his heels to his butt, trying to ensure that as much surface area as possible was dried out by the multiple blow dryers on the u-frame.

As soon as the greenlight/air horn combo went off, telling him to move out from the car wash, Leo jumped down, cranked up the Escalade and pulled out.  As he did so, he dropped the windows of the vehicle so that the dry New Mexico air could finish wicking the moisture of the wash away.  The car wash method was a field expedient way of making himself presentable.  He knew that his clothing, beard and hair wouldn’t withstand close forensic examination, but the car wash would leave him perfectly presentable to the casual observer.

Leo next drove to Kelso’s, the mom ’n pop store he had recce’d earlier.  He bought beef jerky, water and Gatorade.  He also purchased two trac phones, and when he got back to the car he opened the packaging of both phones and activated them with Visa gift cards.

Leo had seeded Pima Lamona and its surrounding environs with about ten thousand dollars worth of Visa gift cards with varying amounts carried on them.  Whichever way he had to move, he had access to quick, untraceable credit that he could dig up and use on the fly.  A month or so after the mission, he’d have a sub-contractor—who would have no idea for whom he was working—police them up and cache them.  Later, another ill-informed contractor would make the pick-up and send them to a dead drop PO Box.  No sense in wasting money.

Leo picked up one of the burners and sent a text to a memorized number.  The text merely said Inbound, followed by the number of the second burner, transcribed into a loose cypher.  Then he chucked the burner out the window as he moved down the highway.

***

Coker and Eli’s mission phones both buzzed with an incoming text, relayed by the RLST.  Coker looked at Eli and said, “We’re up,” then both men moved to their loaded-down four-wheelers.

***

One of the cartel phones on the seat next to Leo went off.  Leo accepted the call without saying a word.

“Cintron, donde estas?”

“Cintron is no longer at this number,” said Leo, and hung up.

After a couple of beats, one of Cintron’s gunsels phones went off.  Leo answered, weathered a thirty-second torrent of furious Spanish, and then said, “Cintron ain’t at this number, either.”

A full five minutes passed before another phone, this time the one belonging to Cintron’s driver, starting ringing with a salsa music ringtone.  Leo answered and without waiting said, “Same answer, bud,” and ended the call.  That should get things stirred up.

***

Six and a half hours after hearing the same gringo answering Cintron and company’s phones, Guillermo Allende Aponte approached Guzman’s home office and knocked diffidently on the door.

“Adelante!”

Allende slipped into the office and approached the desk.

“So,” said Guzman, “where is Cintron?”  Guzman didn’t query about the soldiers traveling with Cintron; they were as replaceable as the mangos in the wicker basket on the floor by his desk.

“It’s not good, jefe,” said Allende softly.

Guzman just gave him a flat stare.

Allende continued, “Cintron and his men are all dead.  Cintron…jefe, they cut Cintron to pieces.  Fingers from hands, hands from arms, arms from the body.  All of him.”

“We learned this from the cops we own up there?”

“No, jefe.  They have been detained by the American federales.  We heard this from a source at Homeland Security.  It’s being viewed as a cartel gang war.  Our source knows what the federales know, so it’s probably some gringo crew.  Cintron said something about bikers.”

“Hmmpf.  Start gathering soldiers.  I want to send an army after this crew.  We take them out, then we start on their families, to show what happens when we are crossed.”

“We already have some men working north of the border we can call on.  As for an army?  It will take some time to get extra men across the border.  Maybe in a couple of days—“

“I own that border!” thundered Guzman, standing so abruptly that his chair fell over.  “I own that damn border, and it is for things like this that I pay so much for it.  Get men across the border tonight.  I want them provided with vehicles by tomorrow.  Also, when we find this crew, I will also cross, to make sure that our honor is restored and our vengeance is absolute.”

Guzman turned and contemplated a little prayer nook in the wall to the side of his desk.  He considered the statue of the blessed Virgin Mary, trying to calm himself and thinking bloody thoughts.

“Now, how do we find this crew?”

Allende shrugged, “Jefe, the same one of them answered all their phones, so we are working on that.  But, the killers of Cintron took the Escalade he was using.  It has OnStar.”  

***

This is, thought Eli, the most cush hide site ever.  After receiving the text from Leo, Eli and Coker had finished off their preparations by installing arms and ammunition, then cached their four-wheelers. Sitting under his camo net, Eli had figured out that he could use the RLST and his XMSAED-17 (Experimental Military Situational Awareness Enhancement Device, Version 17) headset to surf the web, watch Netflix, access his Kindle app.  The decadence of the modern-day machine gunner.

Eli also spent a lot of time without the headset.  After the frenetic pace of getting the sites built and prepared, Eli appreciated the opportunity to just sit quietly and learn the terrain.  With every scan, he identified a new subtle ridge or depression, a new fold in the seemingly flat pan of the box valley.

Intermittently, Eli and Coker would don the headsets and compare notes on their observations, updating or slightly adjusting their graphics after having the time to study the terrain with no pressing agenda.  It was the least boring hide time Eli had ever experienced.

***

Leo kept a leisurely pace driving the SUV to the canyon he had picked out, especially once he was off of paved roads.  His extra burner had been silent through the drive, which meant that the plan still held.  

He pulled into the box canyon, and aimed the SUV at the cabin on the backside cliff.  He drove slowly to minimize the amount of dust that the vehicle kicked up, more to keep from breathing in dust when he finally stopped than out of any requirement for stealth.  He rolled to the left side of the shack and softly hit the brakes to come to a full stop, then killed the engine.

Leo got out of the vehicle, yawned, stretched and scratched.  As he did so, he scanned the skyline of the canyon.  Even though he knew approximately where Coker and Eli were hootched up, he saw no sign of them.  Good.

Leo entered the shack and looked around.  Sandbags lined every wall, stacked just below waist level.  At 1.5-meter intervals, there were slight gaps in the top lay of the sandbags, with firing ports cut into the walls.  Leo opened the back door of the cabin and exited.  The crack that gave him about a one-foot trail all the way to the top of the cliff was well hidden.  The lower edge of the crack had about a four to eight-inch lip on the outside edge, making the little trail nigh invisible to anyone that didn’t already know it was there.

Because there was zero chance that the cartel boys were anywhere near yet, first thing Leo wanted to do was proof his escape route.  He quickly walked the trail to the top of the canyon,  observing those places wide enough for him to go prone and take cover.  As he reached the top of the canyon, about 30 meters above the cabin, Leo crouched lower and lower.  On his belly, he high crawled across the top of the canyon, identified the down climb trail, and followed it.

At the bottom, Leo copped a squat and studied the wash that led to the just-wide-enough arroyo (which in most countries where he operated, he would’ve called a wadi) which gave him multiple covered egress options away from the canyon.  He saw the location of the four-wheeler that was his nominal escape vehicle, although it was camouflaged so well that he only found it because he knew where to look.  Leo re-traversed the hill and cliff and went back to the cabin.

In the cabin, he opened both of the bolted-down tuff boxes.  One held his weapons, tech and panoply.  The other held chow, water, sleep gear and a personal hygiene kit. Leo donned his body armor and ensured it was comfortably fitted.  Then he checked each magazine holder for both his long gun and his sidearm, then each magazine.  He donned his Ops-Core helmet and ensured that the chin strap was sized correctly.  With all of his kit on, Leo began checking and loading his weapons.  First, he checked the three different blades located at convenient places on his armor.

Fighting knife on his pistol belt, off-hand side.  CQB knife on his chest.  Hideout knife on the rear of his armor, accessible to both hands.  Leo had two pistols that he loaded and chambered.  His Glock 21 went in a tactical drop holster on his right hip, while the Glock 30 went onto the left upper quadrant of his body armor.

Leo reached into the box and pulled out his modified M4.  He had needed to make some adjustments (differently configured bolt, new upper) for the 6.5mm Grendel rounds he’d be using.  Also, the standard AR-15 30-round magazine only held 26 Grendel rounds—a trade-off Leo made without hesitation.  He’d opted for the heaviest of the Grendels, the 144 grain.  Ballistic performance wasn’t as good at long range as some of the lighter versions of the round, but—for Leo at least—this wasn’t going to be a long-range fight.  Besides, he wanted to be hitting the cartel guys upside the head with a Louisville Slugger, not a wiffle ball bat.

Leo loaded the M4, but didn’t chamber a round.  He checked his red dot sight and his AN/PEQ-15 laser aiming device.  The “Peck” 15 could put out either a visible or IR laser.  Traditionally a night fighting device, Leo had proofed the technique of using the Predator that would be overhead to read the Peck’s IR laser, transmit the information to the RLST, which would then push an aiming dot onto the display on his headset.  The Predator could only pick up the laser on those ellipses of its orbital oval when it was opposite the Peck’s signature, but Leo figured it might come in useful if Eli’s fires were kicking up as much dust as he thought that they would.  Leo slipped a night vision monocular into one of his gear pouches and gently leaned the M4 against the wall of the shack.

Finally, Leo looked into his weapons box and sighed.  There rested the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon that Coker had foisted upon him.  Welp, waste not, want not.  Leo loaded a 200 round box of 5.56mm into the SAW, swiveled the bipod legs down and placed the weapon at the center of the front wall, barrel facing out.

Leo picked up the tech box and placed his headset over his left eye and ear, held it there for the few seconds it took for his body heat to meld the XMSMAED to his face and then powered up the unit.  He installed the mic in his hair near the top of his skull.  He pulled up the comms suite and asked, “How are we doing, Petunias?”

Coker said, “Coker is up.”

“Eli is up.”

“Good, anything I need to know about?”  Leo was an old hand at the XMSAED, so as he talked to the men hidden on the skyline of the canyon, he drew the mesh pinkie ring onto his finger and began calibrating it to the headset.

“NSTR,” said Coker.  Nothing Significant To Report.

“Copy,” said Leo. “ Give me a couple minutes to get oriented to the sensor array, then we can chat.”  Leo toggled through the various options in the headset’s displays.  He checked the sensors, then the sat feed, then started zooming in on the maps.  After running separately through the icons for seismic, audio and video, he turned the graphics for sensors off.  Next he pulled up the remotely employed weapons, mostly various types of mines.  He quickly grasped the reasoning behind each belt of remote weapons.  Next he toggled on the voice activation feature of the mic, and ran through all the verbal commands he’d trained onto his system.  Satisfied, he came back up on comms.

“I see what you guys did and why you did it.  Good work.”

“Yeah,” said Coker, “but look at me ’n Eli.  We’re awesome.”  Eli snorted, forgetting for a moment about the voice activation of the mic.

After about a minute of dead air, Coker asked, “So, how’d the whole breakout and setting the bait go?”

“Eh,” mused Leo, “it was what it was.  No biggie.” 

Uh-huh, thought Coker, sure.  No one does that kind of thing without it leaving a mark.

“We’ll talk about it, post-mission,” said Leo.

Yes we will, thought Coker.  You gonna need some help excising that kind of trauma.  

In the shack, Leo pulled out some bedding and a bottle of water from the comfort box.  He shotgunned half of a liter bottle of water and laid out the bedding.  He shucked off his body armor and its attached pistol belt and placed them carefully on the top of the panoply box next to his leather jacket.  He pulled off his chaps, folded them, and set them down on top of his jacket.

“I’m going to catch some bag.  I’m taking off the headset, but the mission phone will be up if you need me.  We get Predator coverage starting at 2359 hours this evening.  Pred will stay up until we’re either mission complete or we assess our playmates are going to be no-shows.”

***

Through that night, the rest of the next day and into the next evening Eli rested and hydrated.  Whenever he slept, he ensured Coker was up, checked out with Coker, then checked back in when he woke; Coker did the same.  He ate as required, but only small increments of the one MRE he had opened up.  He regularly toggled through the sensor array, both with hand-issued commands and voice commands, as much to build on his speed and proficiency with the tech as to maintain situational awareness.  He didn’t check his watch or the digital chronograph in the headset, because time really had no meaning.  He was in the hide until he wasn’t.

A couple of hours before dawn on his third day in the hide, he felt his mission phone softly thumping on his chest from his shirt pocket.  Instead of reaching for his phone, he placed his headset over his face and activated it.  The Predator had two pickup trucks bumping slowly toward the canyon.  The trucks hadn’t yet hit the first sensor belt, which was about 500 meters out from the mouth of the canyon.

“Team.  Eli.  You picking up the feed?”

Coker, “Affirmative.”

Leo, “I’m up.”

Coker, “I see three COAs for the inbound vehicles.  Course of Action One: The personnel in these trucks are the assault force, and they’re going to drive right up to the canyon and drive bat-outta-hell for the cabin, hoping for a quick takedown.  Course of Action Two:  They’ll drop a dismount element just before the entrance to the canyon, who’re going to try to ninja up close to the cabin, and then take it down.  Course of Action Three:  They’re a scout element for a larger force.  They’ll stop at the mouth of the canyon, drop dismounts who will move forward, put eyes on, and observe and report.  Leo?”

“Concur,” said Leo.  “COA1, me ’n Coker take them out when they get close, Eli on overwatch.  COA2, me’n Coker got the dismounts, Eli drops mortars on the vehicles.  COA3, good times are a-comin’.  If it’s COA3, I’ll go out after sunrise and provide a signature.  How copy?”

Eli, “Copy all.”

Coker, “Copy.  I’ma have the ass if it’s not COA3.”

“Thank you for your editorial comments, Coker.”

Eli moved over to the area he had set up a mini-mortar pit.  More area than pit.  He pulled a weatherproof tarp off of the mortar and rounds.  He couldn’t see the mouth of the canyon from his position, but he had sensors there.  He oriented the mortar tube for a direct lay based on the azimuth and distance pushed to him by the sensor he chose.  Okay, now we wait.  Eli sat just behind the crest of the cliff-like hill his position was on, equidistant from the mortar tube and the M240 Supergun.  As he had on the range back at the National Test Center, he had snapped in end-to-end the belts of three 200 round cans of the 7.62 Saboted Light Armor piercing rounds.  He could throw out 600 SLAP rounds from the Supergun, with no worries about overheating or malfunctions, before he had to reload.

Through the auspices of the RLST, the three operators watched the two pickup trucks move closer to the mouth of the canyon.  When they reach the mouth, each pulled to a different side of the entrance.  There seemed to be a little bit of milling around as the cartel guys got themselves sorted.

Eli queried the Stingray resident in the RLST.  “I’ve got eight cell phones in the mouth of the canyon.”  Eli told the RLST to push the icons for those cell phones to their common operating picture on the mapping software.

“Let ‘em keep their cell connectivity,” drawled Coker. “That way, they can call up daddy and tell him they found the big bad wolf.”

“Wilco.”  Since Eli was a supporting effort for all three possible COAs in their current situation, running the enablers resident in the RLST automatically fell to him.  As the mission evolved, the least busy operator would have primary responsibility for management of the RLST.  

Eli watched each enemy icon as the dismount teams moved forward, each of their positions triangulated based on input from all of the sensors in the mouth of the canyon.  Once the threat broke through the mouth, there would be less density in the sensor array, which would be fine.  Probably.

As the sky lightened with the coming dawn, the dismount teams seemed content to seek concealment and stay static just inside the canyon.  Dawn broke.  

When the sun crested the eastern edge of the canyon, Leo exited the cabin in just a pair of ranger panties with a towel over his shoulder and a bucket of water on hand.  Eli checked Leo’s signature with just his naked eye.  He could see the headset on Leo’s face, but doubted that would make any difference or tip-off any scouts.  He wouldn’t have known what’n heck it was on Leo’s mug a few short weeks ago.

Leo opened the rear hatchback of the Escalade, placed the towel and the bucket in the SUV, and began to give himself a bucket bath.  Eli grinned as, from 375 meters away, he heard Leo break into song.  The tech in the Predator picked up three of the eight cell phones near the mouth of the canyon making calls.

When Leo was done with his bucket bath, he dumped the rest of his water over his head with a whoop.

“Hey, Leo,” said Coker.  “Go back inside and get a little more water and come back out and brush your teeth.”

“You think they need more time to eyeball me?” asked Leo.

“No idea.  But I know you, and there is no doubt you’re sporting dragon breath right now.”

Leo threw a desultory curse at Coker, but went inside the cabin and came back out with another bucket, brushing his teeth.  After a couple of minutes, he spat, rinsed out his mouth, and did another water dump over his head with another whoop.

“Now,” said Leo, “you got any other hygiene tips for me?”

“Well, I did leave you a home Brazilian wax kit in the comfort box.  If that’ll float your boat.”

This time the curse Leo tossed at Coker was not quite as desultory.

Through the comms package, Coker asked the unknown Predator driver via text to push the UAV’s altitude up another couple thousand feet, so that they could get a wider angle view of the area.  Coker also established a brevity code to inform the operator to drop the Pred back down to battlespace management altitude.

The day wore on.  Eli used the time to hydrate and consume chow in small units.  If and when—looking more and more like a when—the show kicked off, Eli didn’t want to be waddling around, feeling like Mr. Creosote.

Just past noon, Eli’s check of the Pred feed, on its far periphery, showed a line of vehicles pulling off the hardball road, onto the rutted corduroy road that led, eventually, to the canyon.

He started counting vehicles and types as they turned off, before he lost them in the dust plume they kicked up as soon as they got off the asphalt. Eli toggled over to an IR view from the Pred feed, and dust was no longer an issue.

“You all seeing this?” asked Eli.

“Yup,” said Coker.  “Looks like they got the band back together.”

“Time-distance says they’ll be here within the hour.  Wonder why they never do larger ops like this at night?” muttered Leo.

“ ‘Cause night ops are scary,” said Coker, “and they require training.”

“Point,” replied Leo, “plus, they can only confirm one target on their objective.  Not worth the pain of trying to do a hit at night.”

***

Allende looked back at Guzman from the shotgun seat—which was appropriate, as he was carrying a shotgun.  “Jefe, so far we’ve only seen one man at the shack.  Should we not push the people we have there already to get the one, then wait for intelligence on the rest of this crew?”  Allende flinched as the volcanic rage in Guzman’s glare focused on him.

Guzman was holding a gold-plated Desert Eagle .50 in the crook of his left elbow.  His thumb gently caressed the top of the gun.

“If there’s only one, we take one.  If there’s more, we take them too.  Then we find the rest of the crew.  I want thousands of pieces of empty brass littering the valley floor.  That way, the ones who are not there will know we are coming for them, and that there is no escape.”

***

Estaban Gomez Palma looked at his little brother sitting on the bench across from him in the back of the box truck.  The two Guatemalan brothers looked alike, short, swarthy and stocky.  Their broad, hooked noses, wide mouths, and unaccountably sharp-looking teeth were testament to the native blood from which they were descended. When they were growing up, Estaban had regaled little Joaquin with stories of the daring exploits of the Mayan warriors who were their forebears.  Of course, Estaban had made almost all of it up, but the stories had enthralled his little brother.

Toward the end of his two-year conscription, Estaban had volunteered to try out for the Kaibil, Guatemala’s premier commando unit.  The Kaibil were incredibly fierce and almost inhumanly tough.  They were fanatical in their dedication to the unit, and other military personnel spoke in hushed tones about how the Kaibil were “muy mystico.”  Esteban just knew that the Kaibil were the closest thing in this world to the Mayan warriors of the past.

The proudest day of Esteban’s life was that day when he had completed the grueling Kaibil school and, with the few others that had successfully completed the rigors of the course, was allowed for the first time to sprint up Cerro del Honor, the Hill of Honor.  Upon the top of the hill were seven altars, each dedicated to one of the Kaibil’s seven values.  At each altar, the newly inducted commandos quietly prayed to live up to those values.  When moving from one altar to the next, the “wolf cubs” chanted the motto of the Kaibil, “If I advance, follow me.  If I stop, urge me on.  If I retreat, kill me.”

Esteban had flourished in the Kaibil.  Being fearless was an expected, common trait for the Kaibil, but Esteban also had an innate understanding of tactics, an ability to think on his feet and adapt to fluid situations, and—surprisingly to Esteban, who had always been a loner—a flare for leadership.  He had advanced quickly up the ranks, becoming one of the youngest sergeants the unit had ever had.  Esteban loved his job, loved his unit.  He loved the raids and ambushes against the narcos, which were always fights to the death.  Then came that raid, and Esteban’s world came unspun.  

The platoon commander, a lieutenant, was a damn poor example of a Kaibil.  He was a relation of a highly placed, powerful government minister.  Having a nephew that was a Kaibil would increase the minister’s political cachet, as well as set the nephew up for a prosperous political career himself.  The nephew had not been given any favor or slack during the Kaibil course; that had been non-negotiable.  However, once he had fulfilled the requirements of the course, he had put zero effort into being a better soldier, a better leader or a better Kaibil.  His eyes were always on the political horizon.  He was frequently recalled to Guatemala City in order to attend some kind of political event or other.  He always did so in full Kaibil regalia. 

The chain of command placed Estaban in the lieutenant’s platoon to mitigate the platoon commander’s lackluster performance and competence.  Esteban was usually successful in doing so.  Finally, though, there had come a time when the lieutenant, flush with successes that were mostly because of Esteban, had refused to listen to any of Esteban’s suggestions or recommendations.

The stupid bastard had put two squads on line, the third squad in file, and the weapons squad behind all of them.  The lieutenant had traveled with the weapons squad, so that he could “direct devastating fires upon the narcos.”  How you gonna do that, Esteban wondered, while your whole platoon is in front of the weapons squad, masking any fires they could put out?  

The objective was a little farm in a big clearing in the jungle.  The formation had to cross 80 meters of open field to get to the finca.  Esteban had hastily issued orders to the two frontline squad leaders.  If they were compromised on approach, they were to take direction solely from him and ignore that malito teniente.  Esteban stewed while they broke cover from the jungle and began to move on line toward the finca’s few buildings.  Of course, we’re going to get compromised, it’s 80 damn meters of open field.  Estaban didn’t much believe in relying on luck, but he was praying for it now.

Halfway across the clearing, weapons at the farm opened up.  He saw two, three, four go down as he screamed at second squad to lay down a base of fire, and first squad with me and bound!  Bound!  Bound! Esteban led first squad in a wide, looping bound.  There was no cover to make use of, so he and his men sprinted, counting on second squad’s fires to make the narcos at the farm keep their heads down, or at least to prevent their fires from being effective.  After a short sprint that felt like forever, he had first squad dive into the dirt and start pouring fire onto the farm.  Esteban stayed on his feet, where the men could see him.  He pointed a blade handed arm back to second squad and windmilled his arm screaming bound!  Bound! Bound!  God bless them, they did it.  They got up under fire and bounded at a sprint, looping the opposite direction of first squad.  Scant seconds later (had Esteban and first squad’s bound been so fast?  It had felt like forever) second squad was diving into the dirt and providing fires, and Esteban was getting first squad into its second bound.

Bounding in opposite, looping directions opened up a lane for third and weapons squad to provide some much-needed fire support.  Esteban had zero confidence that that useless lieutenant would figure out the fires opportunity, but weapons squad was run by Sergeant Reyes; a good man who knew his guns. Sure enough, in moments Esteban heard the three big M240s of the weapons squad open up.  

The guns were alternating six- to nine-round bursts, “talking to each other.”  All of the Kaibil out in the meadow heard it.  The beautiful sound added to first and second squad’s momentum and they picked up the tempo of their bounding assault on the farm.  When Esteban and first squad were on their bellies about 15 meters from the edge of the farm compound, Esteban took stock of the farm’s perimeter and saw crumbling stone wall alternating with split rail fences.  Wouldn’t even slow his boys down.

There were seven men left in first squad after the first fusillade, and the squad leader was one of the fallen.  That was why Esteban had grabbed them, put them into a bound, and stuck with them.  He didn’t want a vacuum of leadership to put them out of the fight.

Esteban had three squaddies to his left and four to his right.  He pulled his bayonet and showed to the men on the left, then the men on the right, then he affixed it to the end of his carbine.  All the squaddies followed suit.  Next, he pulled a yellow smoke grenade from his assault vest and showed it left and right.  Each of the men nodded with grim determination.  

When Esteban threw his smoke grenade at or over the perimeter, and the thick yellow smoke began to billow, second, third and—most importantly—weapons squads would stop their fires on the farm.  Also when the smoke grenade went off, Esteban and first squad would haul ass to the smoke, through it, and appear on the other side like vengeful demons and kill every damn narco on that farm.

He pulled the pin from the soup-can-shaped grenade, and tossed it out in front of him so that all the men knew it was coming.  Esteban got up on one knee, his straight left arm pointed where he wanted the grenade to go, the right with the grenade pulled back behind his ear.  The pose would not have been out of place on a Grecian urn, except with a javelin instead of a grenade.  Esteban let fly with the smoke grenade.

Esteban knew he heard the spoon ping away, just as he knew he heard the spring-loaded striker ignite the grenade.  Smoke was already pouring forth before the grenade even hit the ground.  As soon as he heard the lull in fires and the stoppage of the heavy guns, Esteban was up and sprinting for the low farm wall, there was not a doubt in his mind that the other members of the squad would follow him.  They cleared each their wall or fence, were on line sweeping the objective.  There looked to be five, maybe six narcos on the farm, and four went down in seconds.  Esteban felt the thrill of victory begin to sing in his veins.

Heavy weapons fire tore into the line of assaulting Kaibil.  Esteban saw two men go down before the reports from the gun registered.  He hit the ground without hesitation and screamed at the rest of first squad to do the same.  As he plucked another yellow smoke from his vest, he saw members of first squad falling more so than diving for the dirt.  He pitched another yellow grenade, and after a few seconds, the heavy gun stopped its death chant.

Esteban got up to have the remnants of the squad continue the assault.  There were no mission-capable remnants.  Every man was either dead or sore wounded.  Estaban finished the assault alone, There had been only two surviving narcos on site.  The Kaibil sergeant shot one to death and bayonetted the other.  As soon as the objective was clear, Esteban called forward second squad to form a perimeter around the farm, and third squad to thoroughly search it.  He also called forth the platoon medic and his assistant to triage and give aid to the wounded that could be saved.  He pulled a couple of Kaibil from third squad to find wounded, render buddy aid, and move them to a central location.  The casualty collection point was the low-slung barn on the farm compound.

Sergeant Reyes, the weapons squad leader came running up to Esteban.  There were tears in his eyes.

“Esteban, I had the guns lift fires when the yellow smoke went off.”  Reyes blinked several times and wiped dripping nose snot with his sleeve.  “I was on the other side of the gun line when the teniente grabbed a gun and told them to pour fire, pointing where it should be.  I ran across the line and tackled the gunner away from the weapon.  Then all fires ceased…and the teniente yelled at me.”

“I figured it was something like that.”

“How many, Sergeant Gomez?  How many were hit?” asked Reyes, his anguish plain on his face.

Esteban sighed.  “Everyone in first squad but me.  The medico is still sorting out who is alive, who is dead, and who is dying.”

Estaban saw the teniente walking up to the farm.  Reyes had already moved up the guns to reinforce the perimeter.  The platoon commander was a lone figure, walking up the road.  As he approached the men on the perimeter, the teniente clapped troops on the shoulder, telling them what a great victory they had won.

The discipline of the Kaibil is formed with steel, forged in fire.  But sometimes, steel can be brittle.

When the platoon commander reached Esteban, the sergeant said, “Congratulations, sir.  You managed to kill or wound every man in first squad.”

The teniente was taken aback.  He had never expected to be dressed down for his actions on the guns, let alone dressed down by a mere enlisted man.

“It was a miscommunication, sergeant.  These things happen in the heat of combat,” said the teniente.

Esteban leaned his weapon up against the knee-high stone wall of the perimeter.  He began unfastening the plastic clips of his assault vest.

“A miscommunication?” sneered Esteban.  “What miscommunication can there be in yellow smoke?  Yellow smoke is always our signal to lift or shift fires.  Always.”  Esteban carefully folded his vest and placed it on the top of the wall, next to his weapon.  “How could you, even you, screw that up?” Esteban removed his belt knife and his boot knife, laying them both on his vest.

“See here, sergeant, your insubordination will stop now!”

Esteban sighed and looked toward the heavens. “No,” he said softly, “Not quite yet.”  He struck the lieutenant.

Upon joining the Kaibil, Esteban had trained fanatically at Temv-Ka, the Guatemalan fusion martial art that was the chosen fighting style of the Kaibil.  As he had garnered rank, he had always trained however many men were assigned to him as frequently as possible in the art.  This, Esteban felt, helped bind the men to the legacy of the Mayan warriors who had once conquered and held all of Central America.  The lieutenant had never joined those training sessions.

Esteban applied heavy blows to the lieutenant’s body.  Because the officer wanted his pretty-boy face on political posters, Esteban broke his nose and knocked his teeth out.  When the lieutenant covered his face and turned away, Esteban assaulted his kidneys, so that for the coming weeks, the officer could be reminded of the blood his men had shed every time he urinated.  Finally, Esteban destroyed the man’s knee, so that he could never walk patrol with the Kaibil again.

The sergeant had the platoon radioman call the trucks that were their ride home, pre-positioned about half an hour away.  When the trucks showed, Esteban loaded the dead and wounded and the rest of the men and, sitting shotgun in the lead truck, began the six-hour movement back to Poptun, home of the Kaibil.

When they returned to base, Esteban gave detailed instructions to sergeant Reyes of the weapons squad, the next ranking NCO in the platoon, on the care of the wounded, the disposition of the dead, and the re-arm and re-fit procedures of the platoon.  That done, Estaban Gomez Palma marched to the company headquarters, asked to see the company commander, and waited at parade rest.

When he was told the company commander would see him now, Esteban marched into the office, formally saluted, and asked for permission to speak.  When permission was granted, Esteban told the whole story, leaving nothing out, to include the savage beat down he had administered to the lieutenant.

At the conclusion of the recital of the day’s events, Captain Garza, the CO, leaned back in his chair, sighed, and looked out the window for a beat.  Then he turned his attention back to Esteban.

“I understand what you did and why.  You have to know, Sergeant Gomez, that there is nothing I or anyone in the chain of command can do to change what is about to happen.”

“Yessir.”

“You have a long, hard road in front of you, Sergeant.”

“Kaibil!”

“Report to the stockade.”

Esteban was flogged daily during the short weeks in which he was tried and convicted.  He was drummed out of his beloved Kaibil and the military.  As a civilian, he was sentenced to two years.  That was actually a much lighter sentence than he expected.  He spent his two years as a model prisoner, always keeping his nose clean.  Well, as clean as possible.  There were three assassination attempts against him, orchestrated, no doubt, by the minister.

Upon release, Esteban was quickly recruited by Los Zetas, former Mexican special operators who, disillusioned with their military careers, started their own drug business.  Part of that business was to hire out muscle to other, more well-established cartels.  Esteban’s skills were greatly appreciated by Los Zetas, but he was not of La Raza, so he could never be top tier in the organization.  Eventually, he drifted over to the Sinaloa cartel.  He had brought his little brother along with him, selling him as spotter to Esteban’s sniper.  Esteban knew that at best, he was a decent long-range marksman, not a sniper, but the yutzes in the cartel didn’t know any better.

Baby brother Joaquin smiled at him.  All of the horrific acts they had committed had only increased the vast emptiness inside that Esteban had suffered since he was ripped from the Kaibil.  Joaquin, though, always had a smile and seemed somehow to put away the violence that now defined their lives.

Their truck banged to a stop and dust billowed into the back of the box truck.  Esteban, Joaquin and a Mexican two-man sniper team jumped out, then the truck rumbled on to enter the box canyon.  The job of the two sniper teams was to seal off the rear of the convoy, ensuring that nothing got in while the rest handled however many were in the canyon.

***

Eli watched the vehicles enter the canyon.  He had half expected them to just file right in a drive straight to the cabin.  Instead, it looked like someone down there had a tactical clue.  First, two pickups entered, broke left and right, and started tracing the walls of the canyon.  Next came two SUVs, that came abreast of each other, then with about 15 meters between them, began a slow approach directly to the cabin.  Eli kept count, and when the full formation seemed to be in the canyon, sounded off.

“I’ve got ten vehicles total.  Two pickups, five SUVs, and three box trucks.  One of the SUVs is riding pretty low, might be up-armored.  No one has dismounted.”

“Confirm,” said Coker lazily, almost dreamily.  Eli knew Coker had entered the sniper zone, controlling his breathing and lowering his heart rate.

“Copy,” said Leo. “I’m cutting their phones now.”

The loss of communications generated an almost immediate effect.  The vehicles in the valley seemed to all lurch at the same time.  After about thirty seconds, the two lead, online SUVs that were about 75 meters from Leo’s cabin began disgorging gunmen.  The two men who had been in the front passenger seats of the SUVs began giving frantic hand and arm signals to the other vehicles, trying to get them into some sort of coherent formation.  “Soldiers” started exiting the box trucks, forming raggedy lines out on the canyon floor.  None of them looked up or around, just at the cabin.  Like there was no possibility of someone or someones being in the canyon rim around them.  Not the best situational awareness, fellas thought Eli.

Eli watched gunsels piling out the back of the box trucks.  It looked like there were ten to twelve riding in the back of each truck.  One of the cartel guys from the lead SUV started yelling toward the cabin.  Eli could hear the adamant cadence of the words, but couldn’t quite make them out.

“What’s he saying?” asked Eli.

Leo responded, “I need to give up, blah blah blah.  Things will go poorly for me if I don’t, blah blah.  My family and everyone I’ve ever known will suffer if I don’t surrender, blah.  Getting ready to initiate.  Don’t feel like listening to much more.”

“Copy,” said Eli.

“On your mark,” said Coker.

Eli moved to the mortar pit and, by the handle, heaved up the mortar tub so that it was on direct lay with the cartellapalooza on the canyon floor.  He checked his shells, laid out in sequence, and mentally rehearsed the order of rounds and shifting his aim to the various targets below.

Eli heard the basso crack of Leo’s Grendel round as it tore into and through the speaker.  Follow on rounds began to strike the gaggled up crowd.  Return fire from the cartel started sporadic and then began to build in volume and coherence.

Eli heard the harder, flatter report of Coker’s SR-25 add its voice to the choir.  The crescendo of gunfire built, then Eli got the call from Leo, “Fire mission, mortars, time now.”

“Roger,” said Eli.  Not exactly a standard call for fire, but, Eli figured, this wasn’t a standard fire mission.  Eli pulled the safety pins from the nose cones of six mortar rounds.  He put the 40-inch mortar tube in direct lay towards the front trace of the cartel formation, right between the two lead SUVs, and dropped his first round down the tube.  The mortar was set for trigger fire instead of drop fire.  First round out was going to be HE-quick, or high explosive, point detonated.  Next up would be the white phosphorus, which was going to ruin a bunch of guys’ day.  Then the HE-proximity fuse, which would air burst and definitely contribute to the cartel thugs putting their heads down.

Eli pulled the trigger and pushed out his first round.

“Shot, over,” he said, to let Leo know that rounds were inbound.  He also started the mental countdown clock on the time of flight of the round.  

“Shot, out.”

Eli aimed and shot the next two rounds of his salvo.  The high-arcing mortar rounds had about a 27-second time of flight.  Eli’s countdown told him there were five seconds until his first round impacted.

“Splash, over.”

“Splash, out.”

The first round almost initiated a panic in the cartel hirelings.  The explosion itself, which shot dust laterally across the battlefield, blinding many of them.  The explosive pressure threw some around like dolls, and many were pierced by the hot, jagged fragmentation that moved supersonically across the field.  Eli had aimed the Willie Pete round directly at one of the box trucks.  While the personnel it carried had been disgorged from the back of the truck onto the canyon floor, those personnel were still standing around in a loose cluster.  Eli immediately heard screams as soon as the WP round went off, and it only took about three seconds before the box truck’s fuel ignited and the truck went up in an impressive fireball. Eli quickly assessed the effects of the three rounds, then launched another three where they would do the most damage in terms of producing casualties and sowing confusion.  Once he had alerted Leo and Coker that the splashdown from those rounds was five seconds out, he moved to the super gun.

Eli cranked the gun’s charging handle, locking the bolt to the rear, then pushed the charging handle fully forward.  He lifted the feed tray cover, placed the first round of the first belt onto the feed tray itself, then slammed the feed tray cover shut.  Eli took a moment to look at the vehicles arrayed in the canyon.  His mind worked the most efficient fire patterns with which to shut down their vehicles.  Then he started working the gun.  

Eli started at the rear of the cartel formation; dead vehicles there would help act as stoppers against fleeing vehicles squirting out of the canyon.  He didn’t worry about personnel—the mortars had disrupted the cartel’s ability to maneuver on Leo for the moment—and sent ten-to-twelve round bursts into the engine compartments of vehicles on the field.

As he traversed the chaos of the canyon, smiting internal combustion engines, he noticed that anyone on the canyon floor who looked like he was effectively rallying or giving guidance to the cartel troops was being ballistically culled from the herd.  Eli noticed the next vehicle on his punch list was the low-on-its-suspension, probably-up-armored SUV.  He decided that that ride needed a little extra love and attention.

***

Guzman, Allende and the driver all jumped when rounds started impacting the hood of their SUV.  The rounds went through the additional plating secured to the engine compartment like they were made of cheesecloth.

“I thought this vehicle was protected!” screamed Guzman as he dove for the floor of the rear passenger compartment.

“It is, jefe!” yelled Allende, trying to squeeze himself into the floor of the shotgun seat, “This must be some type of military-grade weapon!”

Guzman felt the old, familiar rage tug at his guts.  “I don’t remember asking for an armored car that would stop criminal bullets but not military bullets.  I wanted a damn armored car!”  As he screamed this last, rounds tore into the windshield.  The Lexan bullet-resistant glass starred up and didn’t seem to even slow the incoming rounds.  The driver—Guzman couldn’t remember the man’s name—got shredded.

Guzman pounded on his phone, trying to get it to work to no avail.  Guzman cursed again and hugged the gold-plated Desert Eagle in the crook of his arm.  He wanted to expiate his frustrations by killing somebody.  Anybody, really.  Huddled on the floor of his not-as-armored-as-he-thought vehicle, Guzman took a deep breath.  This slaughter couldn’t go on.  He had to get this situation turned around.

***

Esteban had heard the mortar (mortars? He thought there was just one) and the machine gun going off.  It had to be up on the rim of the canyon.  That couldn’t be good for the men in the canyon.  They should probably be moving on that position now, but Esteban had learned that initiative wasn’t really appreciated in the Sinaloa cartel.

Hilario, the boss jock in charge of holding the mouth of the canyon, came running up.  “You and you!” he yelled, pointing at Esteban and Joaquin and a pair of Mexicans that comprised the other sniper team.  “Whatever that is up there, shut it down!  Whoever is up there is going through our guys like a buzz saw!”

The two Mexicans laughed and then began loping around the outside perimeter of the canyon.  Esteban nodded at Joaquin, and they trotted after the first sniper team.  Whoever is up on the rim knows what he is doing, thought Esteban.  Sometimes it is better to be lucky than to be good, and sometimes it is better to be second than to be first.

Joaquin, even though he went first, as he carried an AK-47, not the more cumbersome Dragunov sniper rifle his big brother carried, knew that Esteban set the pace.  Esteban followed the Mexicans, but ensured that he and his brother stayed a good ten to fifteen meters behind them.  After about 500 meters, they seemed to be nearing the machine gunner’s position.  Before them, there was a large rock formation, rising out of the desert hardpan like the dorsal fin of a giant, Kaibil eating shark.  They would have to go either left or right to scramble up the backside of the canyon’s wall.

***

“Eli, sensors show four targets moving at your six,” warned Coker.

“Roger, I’ve reconfigured the claymores for command detonation, going to try for all four with one shot.”

“Copy,” replied Coker.

Eli continued pouring fire from the 240 while he tracked the icons on his heads-up display.  In a few seconds, he would know whether they were going right or left around the big rock formation to his rear, then he’d fire the appropriate claymore.

***

Esteban saw the Mexican sniper team break right onto the narrower path that would bring them to the scree on which the machine gunner was firing into the cartel.  The narrower path made for a tight channel to have to traverse.  Esteban thought If I were up there, I’d make sure I covered my six with— 

Esteban surged forward, grabbed Joaquin by the collar, and drove both of them into a small arroyo dug out by the rains of this area.  As they landed hard, their world was rocked by an explosion.  Probably a mine, and the mine was probably a claymore.

***

Eli detonated the claymore when sensed he was going to get the best blast effects possible.  He was sure the two lead targets were down.  Probably the trail pair, too.  But that had to be verified. 

The explosive wave of the claymore mine had overloaded all of his seismic sensors near the targets; they would have to re-boot and re-initialize with the RLST.  No time.  The ellipse he could see from the Predator’s feed was masked by its position at the far side of the objective area.  Eli got off of the gun and picked up his little Radical Arms AR pistol.

“This is Eli, I’m moving to confirm the kills now, be back ASAP.”

He received acknowledgments from Coker and Leo as he slid downward to the narrow path on his left.  The stock of his weapon was locked into his shoulder, the barrel pointing at the narrow path.

***

Heartbeats after the blast, Joaquin popped to his feet.  Looking at the results of the claymore blast and yelled to Esteban, loud enough to be heard over the ringing in both their ears, “We’re going to have to get some more Mexicans!”  Then Joaquin took off at a sprint for the narrow path to the right.

Esteban cursed.  He had trained his brother well in individual skills, but had been unable to instill any kind of tactical sense into the lad.  He staggered to his feet and ran pell-mell for his damn fool brother.  

***

Eli heard someone holler, but he couldn’t make out the words.  From what he could vaguely hear, it sounded like Spanish.  Eh, thought Eli, I’m a French speaker.  He continued his careful heel-toe walk on the tight path, expecting contact.

A twenty-something kid came caroming around the corner.  It was a sloppy run, and the kid had his AK carried in a sloppy port arms.  Eli shot him, five rounds fast.  All five rounds went into the lethal bowling pin of head and upper torso.  The kid went down. 

The next guy around the bend was definitely not a kid, even if he was only a few years younger.  His weapon—is that a Dragunov?—was well welded into his shoulder, the barrel only slightly offset to avoid flagging the goofy kid.  The second runner made a slight adjustment and fired off two rounds as Eli sent two his way.

Eli took both rounds from the Dragunov in the plates.  He had heard that 7.62 rounds to the plate hurt like getting hit unarmored by a baseball bat.  Untrue.  It felt like getting hit by a freight train.  The massive force of the rounds had compressed all of Eli’s innards.  The overpressure of his internals caused a furious exhalation, elephant sneeze in a tit-mouse’s body.

Eli fell to a knee.  The Dragunov guy stumbled.  Dragunov guy was trying to bring his weapon to bear on Eli, but Eli’s rounds had taken him in the chest and the arm with which he held his weapon.  Still, the guy was working it.

Eli pushed up into the guy.  He ran the short barrel of his AR pistol down the barrel of Esteban’s longer rifle to push it aside, and felt the weapon fire from a reflexive trigger pull.  Rotating his body to the left to keep the adversary’s barrel down and away, he reversed the torque in his body to blast three hard, sharp elbow strikes into his adversary’s face.  As the man fell away, Eli felt the guy issue a hard shin strike to the thigh.  It hurt and jangled up the nerves in that leg.  But Eli’s leg stayed strong enough for him to keep rotating as Esteban fell back, turning so that his barrel was tracked on the Dragunov guy’s center of mass.  Eli put two in his chest and one in his head.  Then Eli fell back on his ass.

Eli violently coughed up blood and sputum.  He rolled to his side to let gravity help him push the detritus out of his airway.  Intellectually, he knew that the over pressure that had ripped through his torso from the rounds stopped by his plates had caused the mucus lining in his throat and palate to rip free, disgorging blood into the pipes he needed to breathe.  Viscerally, he felt like he was drowning in his own blood.

Eli coughed and spat again, trying to clear his airway.  He tried to stand and fell back down.  Okay, he thought, beginning to crawl on hands and knees back to his firing position, looks like it’ll be a minute before I can stand up.  As he crawled forward and up, the patrol-slung little AR on his chest seemed to find all kinds of ways to poke and jab him.

Coker called out over comms, “Eli, you good?”  Eli’s brain sent the message “working on it,” but when it issued from his lips the response seemed far less intelligible.  Eli kept crawling.  He could hear the tempo of weapon fire down on the canyon floor pick up.

Leo sent out, “when you get a chance, could use some fire support down here.”  Eli wheezed out another “working on it.”

In the milieu of fires down on the canyon floor, Eli heard as he continued crawling, the hard, flat reports of Leo’s 6.5mm Grendel rounds halt, quickly replaced by the higher-toned, waspish thwapping of an M249 squad automatic weapon.  Oh, man, thought Eli, Coker is never gonna let Leo live that down.  Still, the reports of the SAW meant that Leo really needed to push out a lot of fire to beat back the cartel.  

Eli redoubled his efforts at crawling.  After a couple of meters, he found he could stand in a cramped crouch, and stumble up the hill.  His ribs and sternum were on fire, lighting up with every breath he took.  As he crested the hill to his shooting position, Eli checked his heads up and saw that the cartel guys had managed to get themselves coherent and were firing and maneuvering on Leo’s sandbag reinforced cabin.  He also saw that all the sensors at his six had re-booted and were back in the array, and that his six looked clear.

Eli grabbed three white phosphorus rounds and pulled the safety pins from the noses of all of them.  Next, he grasped the handle of the mortar tube and dropped a round in.  Set for trigger fire, the heat bringing mortar was just waiting for a stroke of the trigger to send out the Willie Pete.  

Eli’s vision was still swimming as he looked at the canyon floor.  His eyes seemed to be operating independently, and were having a difficult time synching up.  Still, can see good enough for this.  The Willie Pete would burn anything it came into contact with, and keep burning until the phosphorus was thoroughly expended by the oxygen it had contact with.  Also, the billowing white cloud of white phosphorus would obscure Leo’s little hut, keeping anyone on the canyon floor from placing accurate fires on the little shack.

Squinting through his tearing eyes, Eli got the tube lined up close enough for government work and squeezed the mortar’s trigger.  As the mortar thwumped and Eli dropped his second WP round in, he broadcast “Shot over.”

“Shot out.”

Eli pushed out his next round, and then the third.  He had worked the rounds left-to-right from his perspective, covering the front-line trace of the cartel gunsels trying to dig Leo out of the cabin.  Eli’s internal countdown timer seemed to still be working fine, and he announced, “Splash, over.”

“Splash out.”

Leo should be diving for cover to let the mortar rounds work their magic.  All the WP rounds hit right at about Eli’s aim points.  Good, that didn’t suck.

Just to keep the cartel off-balance, Eli dropped a couple of proximity fused rounds behind the Willie Pete.  You can run, but you just gonna die tired.

Coker chimed in, “You back among the living, little brother?”

“Think so.”

“What’s your status?”

“Not optimal, but getting close.”  

Eli linked two more boxes of 7.62 SLAP rounds, got behind his gun, and began putting out super gun fires.  He saw someone spill from the SUV he had assessed as armored, as he began to traverse his gun over, Coker called out, “Restricted target.  He’s mine.  Time for sniper games.”  That guy had a red outline plunked down on both his icon that the CPU generated from sensor feeds, and on the real-time video from the Predator.  Eli shrugged and moved his gun’s point of aim toward a group of cartel guys that were clustering together.

***

Coker knew that, while the surgical fires of a sniper were always helpful to a desperate fight, the psychological effects the sniper generated were even more valuable.  He saw the tubgut, stocky guy carrying a gold plated pistol spill out of the armored SUV, and start waving his hands around and obviously giving directions, the huge pistol pointing every which way.

Coker hit the guy with a restricted target designation to the RLST and tracked him.  Golden gun guy ran up to what was obviously one of his subordinates and energetically issued some directives, the subordinate obsequiously nodding, as though the two weren’t just standing upright on the battlefield.  When the subordinate turned to convey his leader’s guidance, Coker put a round through his melon.  

The leader golden gun guy stumbled to another subordinate and began issuing what were probably the same orders, waving that pistol around so that it flagged all of hell’s half acre.  Coker exhaled three-quarters of his breath, waited ’til he was between heartbeats, and ended that guy, too.  After the third minion was taken down, men started to actively avoid having any contact with their leader.

Coker didn’t know if the minions were consciously assessing the upwards push on actuarial tables that they got from interacting with their leaders, or if it was the result of some sort of unconscious trend analysis, or if it was just battlefield mojo, but the minions seemed to get the point.  Talking with the Boss was a death sentence.

***

Guzman was in a frothing-at-the-mouth fury.  Simply because some who got near him died, his men were actively avoiding him.  All of the leverage he had over them, the lucrative pay, the hideous reprisals on the men and their families for disloyalty, it all amounted to nothing when anyone coming within three meters of him was killed.

“You stupid pigs can’t listen to me?  Can’t talk to me?  Then just follow me!”  Screamed (well, maybe more shrieked) Guzman.  He started walking toward the cabin, firing at it with his Desert Eagle.  Because he was firing single-handed, and because he was stomping with stiff legs, few of his rounds came near the cabin, let alone any of the firing ports through which the rounds could have traveled to reach the interior.

***

“Target restriction is lifted,” Coker’s voice stated over comms.

“Copy that,” replied Leo, watching the boss guy with the gold-plated gun stagger towards him.  Every couple of steps, the boss guy would shoot in the general direction of the cabin, the recoil pulling his arm straight up over his head, before he tromped on and in a couple of steps fired again.

If he were hitting the cabin or anywhere near it, Leo couldn’t tell.  Well, thought Leo, fact is, Coker could about drive anybody crazy.  Leo watched with morbid fascination the screaming, red-faced leader approach.  Coker was still taking down anyone that looked like he might possess a wee spark of initiative, and Eli was pounding the ground with SLAP rounds.  The ranks of the cartel were decimated, and there was zero fire incoming at any of the three operators’ positions.

‘Bout time to call it.

Leo put the red dot of his HoloSun sight onto the golden gun guy, too, a moment to marvel at the fact that the spitting, screaming guy was just walking up on his position, and then drilled the guy with 6.5mm right through the sternum.

“Okay, children, it’s about time to unass the objective area.  Eli, drop all remaining mortar rounds on the hardpan.  Don’t waste rounds, but don’t be too picky, either.  Shout out when your rounds complete.

“Both of you cover my egress.  When I’m on my four-wheeler and moving, Coker pull out.  Coker move to Eli’s position, and provide overwatch, since he has the most equipment to recover.

“Eli, you blow everything that ain’t that 240 and scoot down to Coker’s position.  Meet you guys at the vehicles.”

After both men acknowledged, Leo made sure he was fully reloaded, and then stacked his weapons box on top of his sundries box.

Almost a dozen mortars rounds hit the canyon floor, and Leo heard Eli announce, “Rounds complete.”

“Roger that,” said Leo, “moving.”  He put two thermite grenades on top of his boxes, pulled the pins, and let them start their burns.  He slipped out the back door, and, staying low, followed the path up over the hill hand down.  He gunned his four-wheeler into life, and said, “I’m clear.”  Then he moved out toward the trucks.

***

Eli piled up all the equipment that wasn’t the supergun or the one can of ammo he was holding back, planted demolitions, and carefully time cord so that the whole thing would go up and burn.  The gray-green time cord hand yellow bands every foot or so, declaring at/about 30 seconds of fuse.  Eli had seven minutes of burn set up.

  Might be something forensically useful afterward, but he doubted it.

When he was done, he pulled his security facing his six o’clock position; not much use watching the canyon floor.  Nothing was moving down there.

“This is Eli, I’m ready to burn.”

***

Coker heard the call and backed out of his sniper hide.  He descended the hill on which his hide was placed.  The barrel of his rifle was cradled in the crook of his non-firing arm, his hand was on the grip of the rifle, trigger finger indexed alongside the upper receiver. His eyes constantly scanned his front and sides.  Exfil is the most dangerous part of the mission.  No sense in getting sloppy now.

Despite his level of alertness, his walk down to his four-wheeler could still be described as a saunter.

When he had reached a position from which he could cover Eli’s withdrawal, he stated, “Coker’s up, overwatch on Eli’s position.”

The response was, “Eli moving, fire in the hole.”

***

Eli picked up the M-60 fuse ignitor, pulled the safety pin, then pulled the firing pin.  With a soft pop, the time cord started burning.  He gathered up all his gear and started down the hill, the super gun M240 held tight to his chest.  Is it wrong to love an inanimate object?  When he got to the bottom of the scree leading to his four-wheeler, he pulled the camo nets off the vehicle, stowed his gear, and cranked up the motor.

“Eli, ready to move.”

After a moment, he heard Coker’s voice.  “Roger that, fall in behind me.”

Coker tore through the little wadi, and Eli followed, headed back to the trucks.  Four minutes later, right on time, a large explosion went off on Eli’s old firing position.

***

Leo loaded his four-wheeler onto the trailer of one of the trucks, shook Eli’s hand, gave Coker a bro hug, and took off.

Eli and Coker loaded up on the second truck, and pulled out.  There wasn’t much use trying to talk on the bumpy dirt road.  When Coker finally pulled them onto a nice, smooth hardball, he looked over at Eli.

“How you feeling?”

“Kind of like I been mule kicked.  It’s not as hard to breathe now, though.”

“It’ll get better, but it’ll take a couple days.  Getting schwacked in the plates inn’t ever any fun.  Once we swap out trucks, I’ll drop you at the airport.  I’ll also call your Sergeant Major, let him know you’ll be off a step for the next week or two.”

Eli nodded.  Coker gave him the detailed brief on how he was going to get home.  Eli listened and breathed.  He tried to make each breath a little deeper than its predecessor, with limited success.  

***

Deep in the bowels of Homeland Security Investigations, Gabriela and Dan Harper watched the Predator and satellite feeds of Operation MESA VANTAGE for the third time.

“HSI mobile units and state law enforcement are moving in.  As soon as we get positive ID of some of the corpses down there, we’ll rope in DEA.  We’ll retain primacy of the case, and we’ll be able to bury any forensic “oopsies” left at the scene…though I doubt there will be much, if any.  Asset BRICKHOUSE knows his business.”

Gabriela shook her head.  She had never seen anything like the carnage wreaked in that box canyon.  There wasn’t a single good man in that whole crop of corpses in the canyon.  Still…

“Boss, after all this, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to need a couple days of personal time.  Get my head back on straight.”

“Sure,” said Harper, putting his feet up on his desk and rewinding the video for one more review. “Take as much time as you need,  Even a week or two.”

“Thanks, boss.  I need it.”  Gabriela turned and walked toward the door.  As she grasped the handle, Carter said, “Oh, and Gabbie?”

She turned toward her boss.  “Yes, sir?”

“Tell Leo I said ‘hi.’” 

Gabriela smiled at her boss.  “Will do.”

***

Gabbie pulled off onto the field.  Leo was there, bassackwards on his bike, elbows on his handlebars, staring up at the clouds.

“Hey, Caveman.”

“Hey yourself, Amazon.”

“You up for a cross country ride?”

“Sure.  Wherever you want.”

The two bikes pulled out, side by side.

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