Tom Clancy's Act of Valor (24 page)

Dave Nolan spoke just enough Spanish and
Sargent Primero
Lopez just enough English for them to get a feel for not only each other but the capabilities of their special operators. Senior enlisted leaders the world over are very good at getting to the point, and when it comes to the issues that relate to risking their men in battle, brutally honest. Nolan could have this same conversation with an Israeli
Rav Samal Rishon
or a German
Hauptfeldwebe
, and with the same results. There is something about the prospect of mortal combat that causes men who must lead other men into danger to be candid and truthful. Up the chain of command, politics might enter into the equation, but not at the troop level. In the U.S. and other armies, they call it ground truth, and that was what was taking place between Chief Nolan and Sergeant Lopez.

“So what do you think of these guys?” Engel asked after they were off by themselves. He watched as Sergeant Lopez and De la Ribandeo, over by their vehicles, seemed to be having the same conversation.

“They’ve seen a lot of combat and probably have more trigger time than our guys do. Tactically, I doubt they are as good as we are, but they’ve been in a fight, and it seems they know how to fight. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by integrating our guys with theirs unless we’re dealing with local noncombatants. But if it comes to a fight, I believe they’ll stand tall. How about their jefe?”

“I’m not sure, but I think he’s okay. More to the point, what do his troops think about him?”

“They seem to like him. He’s obviously a dandy and a blue blood, but they call him
El Lobo
, “the wolf.” It seems he’s been known to show up before a raid and jump into the assault element. He’s a fighter. He’s also the number two guy in the GAFE. I guess the commander is a regular-army colonel who no one ever sees. But the operational teams see a lot of this guy.”

While the other SEALs continued to mingle with the GAFE soldiers, Nolan and Engel were joined by A.J. and Ray.

“What’s your take?” Nolan immediately asked them.

“I think they’re all right,” Ray said. “They seem to have both a respect and a hatred for the druggies. For them it’s personal. It’s like if the Taliban or al-Qaeda controlled some of our neighborhoods in San Diego, and we had to fight them here, not over there.”

“And speaking of neighborhoods,” A.J. offered. “I talked to a couple of them who grew up right here in Mexicali. They say that the border-crossing routes are drug turf, and there’s no way to get to the actual crossing points without being detected. I guess half the kids on the streets have cell phones, and they’ll know we’re coming long before we get there. He says they probably already know we’re here, and they’ll know when we leave.”

Engel digested all this. “What about helicopters, coming in low and fast?”

“They don’t like helos,” A.J. continued. “The bad guys have RPGs {uys

“So Cedros Island was a cakewalk?” Nolan asked.

“We’re up against the varsity here, Chief,” Ray said. “The druggies have good weapons, they’re not afraid to die, and there’s lots of them. So it could be anything but a cakewalk. I don’t know what they pay these GAFE guys, but it’s not enough.”

“So what we’re talking about here,” Engel summarized, “is opposition that’s every bit as dangerous as anything we go up against in Kandahar or al-Anbar.” Both Ray and A.J. nodded.

“And without the support we have over in the sandbox,” Nolan added.

Engel looked over to where Juan, Sergeant Lopez, and the other members of the GAFE were gathered. They were all smoking and laughing. De la Ribandeo seemed to move easily among his men. Then his satellite phone began to vibrate. He stepped away to answer it.

“Engel here.”

“Sir, its Senior Chief Miller. I understand you’re now on border patrol.”

“Border patrol standby, Senior. We have a target but no target location. Any luck on your end?”

“I’m not sure. I again took our friend through his conversations with Shabal, and it seems Shabal purposely kept a lot from him. He did overhear him while he was on a coded cell phone, talking about a milk factory. Something about getting them all to the milk factory. It’s not much, but it may be something. If I get anything more, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Senior. Keep me posted.”

Nolan was at his elbow. “Anything?”

“I doubt it, but we’ll see.”

They made their way over to where De la Ribandeo and his sergeant were talking. The tall GAFE leader took out a gold cigarette case and offered one to Engel, then to Chief Nolan, but both politely declined. It seemed as if all the GAFE smoked, while none of the SEALs did. Lopez gratefully accepted and De la Ribandeo made a show of tapping his cigarette on the case before lighting it.

“Sir, I mean, Juan,” Engel began. “I just received a call from one of our intelligence people. He had little for us except for the mention of a place called ‘the milk factory.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

Engel and Nolan watched this register. Lopez, in spite of his dark complexion, seemed to grow a shade lighter. De la Ribandeo drew heavil {o drd Std">Ey and thoughtfully on his cigarette and exhaled slowly.

“It means,” the GAFE commander said easily, “everything. We know the place, and your ‘intelligence people,’ as you call them, could not have given us a more difficult objective. It’s an abandoned milk-processing and packaging complex. And it is indeed a border crossing, the location of a border-cross tunnel complex. Your terrorist friends could not have chosen a better location from their perspective, nor a more difficult one from ours. It’s in an area totally in their control. We seldom go there, and the local police never do. And there’s no way to get there undetected. There are concentric rings of well-armed security retainers around the milk factory. The element of surprise, which I know you are so fond of, is not an option here. We’ll have to fight our way in.”

Engel considered this. Maybe, he thought to himself, and maybe not. He had an idea how they might go about this. Normally, he would have liked to have gone over this with Chief Nolan in private, but there simply wasn’t time.

“Do you have a map of the city?”

Sergeant Lopez pulled a dog-eared, laminated map from his jacket and spread it on the ground. The four of them squatted around it.

“We are here,” De la Ribandeo pointed, “and the milk factory is here, just south of the border. And the whole area underneath it is a warren of tunnels. There’s a good chance that while we are fighting our way to this place, those whom you wish to capture will be filtering out the other side and on their way north.”

“How would you go in?” Engel asked.

“In those,” indicating the battered Explorers. “We do not have up-armored Humvees, and if we did, it would only announce our presence that much sooner.”

“How about if we went in two or three of those,” he said as he pointed toward the dump.

It took a moment, then a broad smile began to crease De la Ribandeo’s handsome features. “And I thought you were only about your expensive equipment and the huge salaries they pay you. I see now that you SEALs are clever as well.”

“Juan, do you understand what a blocking element is?”

De la Ribandeo drew himself up formally, but there was still a twinkle in his eye. “I am a graduate of your Infantry Officer Basic School at Fort Bragg
and
I have earned my Ranger Tab.”

“That is good to know,” Engel replied. “Now, here is what I propose . . .”

*  *  *

Deep inside the underground warren beneath the heavily guarded compound above, Shabal and his recruits worked feverishly to complete the last assembly of their vests and make preparations to deploy through the tunnels and into the United States on the fina {s oht="0">l leg of their journey to inflict jihad on the hated Americans.

Shabal alternated between urging his recruits to hurry and make the vests ready for wearing—due to their destructive power, they didn’t dare travel with them fully assembled—and reviewing the map with Sanchez.

The recruits were bent over some old wooden tables Shabal had Sanchez bring down. The tables were positioned under the few fluorescent lights hung from the concrete ceiling. The lights cast a cool, white glow as the recruits used several tables to assemble their vests, treating them with the same care a parachutist might pack his chute. Every time Shabal urged them on they just grew more and more nervous, and it actually slowed their assembly.

On another nearby table, Shabal and Sanchez reviewed the hand-drawn map of the tunnel maze.

“Here, Shabal,” Sanchez said, alternately pointing at the map and to a darkened passageway to their right, “Here is the passageway you must all travel down. It is a little more than 150 meters long.”

“I see,” Shabal replied.

“Then, you must break up into smaller groups. There are three smaller tunnels that go deeper and then actually cross the border, here, here, and here,” he offered, pointing to the primary smuggling routes on his maps.

“Then these are the ones you use most? Are they secure?”

“As I told you at the safe house, this is our business, and we are good at it. No one we have sent through these tunnels has been stopped at the U.S. side of the border—absent some gross stupidity, like hitchhiking on a major highway. But you must decide who goes through which one, though I do advise you to use all three—as a precaution.”

“Yes, I will decide that when I give each of them their final assignment,” Shabal replied, waving a number of envelopes at Sanchez, envelopes that contained the name of an American city and an exact location where each martyr was to detonate his or her vest, as well as ample American currency to travel and fake identification for each one. Each envelope also carried a precise time that they were to make their attacks—the same time in each case. Above all else, Shabal had told them time and again that this must all be done simultaneously.

As the first recruit finished the final vest assembly and donned her deadly vest, Shabal walked over to her and handed her an envelope.

“Open it, please.”

The woman opened the envelope and gasped at the amount of money it contained. Then she pulled out the postcard. It read: W
ELCOME TO
L
AS
V
EGAS!

“You will be there by tomorrow night, my dear.”

“B {ard be thereut . . . but . . . how will I get there?” she began to protest.

“It’s all in your envelope. A taxicab stop is close to where you will emerge on the U.S. side of the border. Follow the map and the instructions in there. The taxi will take you to a bus terminal. It will be a long bus journey, but you will get there safely. The MGM Grand—the picture of that hotel complex is also in your envelope—is your target. Look at it carefully once you are on the bus. There is a major convention at the hotel. You will be on the convention floor at the time indicated. Now, I must go check the others.”

Shabal checked each of his recruits in turn, wanting to hurry but also knowing that once they passed through that first long tunnel and branched out into separate ones, his ability to give them instructions was over. He had trained them all for almost a year, and now it came down to this . . . hurried instructions just before the last leg of their journey.

“I urge you to hurry,” Sanchez shouted as Shabal was checking one of the last of his recruits. “We can’t linger here too long.”

*  *  *

Forty minutes later, they were in two dump trucks and charging through the residential districts of Mexicali. De la Ribandeo drove the lead truck, with Ray riding shotgun. Both wore old work coats over their body armor and combat vests. Some thirty yards behind them, the second dump truck followed, with Lopez driving and A.J. riding in the passenger’s seat. The GAFE squad, less three of their number, rode in the dump bucket of the lead truck. With them were Sonny and the two Team One SEALs. The other Banditos and three of the GAFE were in the second truck. The trucks were equipped with canvas roll-top appliances that helped to keep refuse from flying out from a loaded bucket on the way to the dump. It provided concealment while allowing the SEALs and GAFE to peer out from underneath the canvas covering. As they approached the abandoned milk factory, they began to see idle teenagers on the streets, then teens with guns. Finally, there were armed men on rooftops with guns and bandoliers of ammunition.

Ray, riding with De la Ribandeo in the lead truck, had an old stocking cap pulled over his ears to hide his earphones and partially cover his lip mic. “Boss, you copy?”

“Right here, Ray.”

“We are entering an armed enemy base camp. I’ve never seen so much security, at least not out in the open.”

“I hear you. How much farther?”

There was a pause, then, “The GAFE leader says about three more blocks, unless we get stopped. Get ready.”

“Okay, guys,” it was Nolan coming on the net, “let’s get our game face on and stay sharp. This is probably going to be a dick-dragger.”

The security gunmen gave them puzzled looks as they rolled past, but no more than that. De la Ribandeo, with a cigarette dangling from his lips and {hist="0" an Uzi in his lap, smiled and waved to everyone. This guy, Ray thought, is a gamer. As they approached the main entrance to the milk factory complex, an old stretch Mercedes rolled out to block their path. De la Ribandeo slowed as if he were going to stop, then slipped the transmission into low range and mashed the gas. He hit the Mercedes on the nearside quarter panel and spun it off to one side. Two guards were taken out along with the car. As he drove past, De la Ribandeo killed another with his Uzi. The dump truck was through the gate before Ray could get his M4 up and into action. As they roared past, the guard who dove to the right of the gate to avoid the oncoming truck rose and began shooting at the rear of the fleeing truck. But he only got off a few rounds. A.J., coming in the second truck, saw it all. He leaned from the window and put two rounds in the guard’s back.