A minute ticked by, then two. The six armed men let down their guard. Two went to the middle vehicle. The other four inspected the damage on the front one.
“Still clear,” M said in his earbud.
Butler tracked the pair of men going to the middle vehicle. When the right rear window rolled down, he said, “Take them.”
Cortland’s first shot blew the top off the head of one of the four front guards. Butler’s shot hit the guard standing by the open vehicle window, dropping him in his tracks.
The other cartel men were screaming now, ducking, trying to figure out where the shots were coming from.
Cortland’s second, third, and fourth shots finished the rest of the guards on the debris pile. Butler tried to swing with the other man running away from the middle Escalade toward the one in the rear.
He could hear that SUV spinning its wheels, trying to go in reverse, but the bumpers were locked for a few moments before they freed. It didn’t matter. Purdy drove a Ford pickup around the bend, blocking any retreat. Vincente stood in the pickup bed aiming an AR rifle over the top of the cab.
Vincente shot the last armed guard as he tried to get in the rear Escalade. Big DD barreled down the far hillside toward the middle vehicle, his own gun shouldered and ready for business.
Big DD’s first shot blew out the middle Cadillac’s driver’s-side window and sprayed the passenger window with blood. Butler’s second shot got the man who’d driven up on the debris.
Big DD swung his weapon at the rear passenger window of the middle rig, shouting, “You shoot, you die! You shoot, you die!” The big man wrenched open the rear door and stuck his rifle inside.
“Don’t!” a man shouted in English. “No guns!”
“All of you, out. Now.”
The first man to emerge from the middle Cadillac was dressed in a military uniform and held his hands high. The second man out was slim and elegant with black, slicked-back hair; he was wearing a business suit and dark glasses. The third man wore a plain white shirt, jeans, and a Miami Dolphins baseball cap.
“You will die for this,” the suited man said in a thick accent.
“Not if you can help it,” Big DD said.
Vincente ran to him. They turned the men around, zip-tied their wrists, put duct tape over their mouths, and hustled them to the pickup.
After Big DD restrained their ankles, Vincente got a tarp, covered the prisoners, and slapped twice on the hood of the pickup. Purdy threw the truck in reverse and began to back away from the carnage.
“Pull out, Cort,” Butler said.
“Not yet” came the reply a split second before the driver in the third Escalade jumped out and tried to aim an AK-47 at the retreating pickup.
Cortland shot him through the side of his chest.
“Now I’m pulling out,” Cortland said.
“Pickup in three hours for you, two for me,” Butler said and ran in a crouch to his backpack, where he began dismantling his weapon and the spotting scope.
Three minutes later, he was heading northeast across a broken desert landscape toward his pickup spot some six miles away. The sun was barely above the horizon but he could already feel the inferno building.
Chapter
57
Boston
John Sampson, Ned Mahoney, and I drove north from Logan Airport the following morning. Forty minutes later we pulled into a campus of anonymous concrete-and-glass office buildings near the New Hampshire border.
The largest building on the campus sat toward the back and was shaded by towering spruce trees. We parked near the trees and got out, knowing we had ten minutes before our appointment.
“I was impressed with the memo and supporting information Bree got us,” Mahoney said as we walked. “I still am. Damn impressive.”
I smiled in agreement. Bree had taken an offhand comment by her boss at Bluestone Group and in a matter of hours had gathered enough information to warrant phone calls and an early flight north.
“We’re still on something of a fishing trip,” Sampson said, rubbing at his wounded side and still limping slightly as we reached the front door.
“But this is a good pond, I think,” Mahoney said.
We entered and found ourselves in a tight lobby with steel walls on three sides and bulletproof glass on the fourth. Behind it sat a woman in her forties with the biceps of a professional arm wrestler. The nameplate on her blue polo shirt read RIGGS.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” Riggs asked.
We held up our credentials. Mahoney said, “We have an appointment to see Steven Vance and Ryan Malcomb.”