Viper Team Seven (The Viper Team Seven Series Book 1) (24 page)

Thursday, March 20
^th
– 0500 hours

Washington D.C.

The Marines’
Hymn
began to ring on Parks’ cell phone just as he buttoned the last button
on his uniform shirt. Instead of immediately picking it up, he just listened to
the skillfully played song for another second while singing the words to
himself and admiring its truth and inspiration.

He finally answered
it.

“Major Parks,”
he said.

“Sir, this is
the White House operator,” a female voice stated. “Please hold for the National
Security Advisor.”

Parks’ eyes went
wide. Why was the NSA calling? He didn’t have to guess for long.

“Keith, are you
there?” Smith asked with a sense of urgency in his voice.

“Yes sir, I am.”

“Gather your
team and meet me in the Situation Room. You’re going in.”

The line went dead.

*          *          *

Siraj brushed a
twig out of his face and glanced up to see a chopper combing the overgrowth
with its spotlight. There were now four of them circling above, and who knew
how many ground agents were surrounding them. They had to get out of this stuff
quickly. Common sense told him that some kind of team would be coming in for
them soon. But how could they escape?

“Mr. Siraj, we
have to get out of here,” a terrorist concluded. “The Americans know we are
here. They’ll be coming in after us before too long.”

Siraj adjusted
his goggles and checked his pistol to make sure it was loaded. “Is everyone
ready?” he asked as he looked at his partner’s bloody leg.

Everybody agreed
that they were.

“Then let’s go
while we still have time and they still are ignorant of our exact location,”
Siraj ordered as he led the way.

The thick brush
and salt cedars shielded the terrorists for most of their journey. Sometimes
they were forced into the open, but for the most part, they were covered as
they successfully dodged the searchlights. For that, Siraj was grateful.

Then up ahead, a
clearing loomed. It had to be crossed if the terrorists wanted any hope of
escaping to Santa Teresita. It was only about a hundred yards long but there
was no way around it. Beyond that was a mound of uprooted trees, dirt, and
shrubs that bordered a sandy road. Though the terrorists could not see the road
due to the mound, they could hear a vehicle driving up and down it, in search of
them. It seemed to come by every two minutes or so.

Siraj calculated
their chances. He knew they were close to the neighborhood. He also knew the
Border Patrol agents were
in
the neighborhood looking for them. Those
weren’t very good chances. Finally he decided his team needed a better look at
the other side of the mound before they could game out a plan.

He heard the SUV
drive by on the road and counted to thirty so they would have some distance
between them and the Patrol vehicle. Then he dashed for the mound. His team was
caught off guard but they quickly caught up.

Siraj never
looked back. He watched the mound come nearer and nearer until he was right on
it. He climbed to the top, then hesitated. What he was seeing on the other side
was not what he had expected. He had anticipated the neighborhood to be
directly on the far side of this dirt road but that was not the case. The road
was in front of him and beyond that was a deep canal, presumably an irrigation
ditch. Beyond the ditch was another dirt road that ran several yards behind the
neighborhood of Santa Teresita. From what he could see as he looked up and down
the road in front of him, it U-turned around the mouth of the canal and came
back down on the far side of the ditch right behind the neighborhood. He wasn’t
sure if that made things better or worse. Then he thought about what was beyond
that U-turn. There was so much vegetation that he couldn’t tell from where he
was.

Siraj felt the
others dive onto the mound next to him. Then he looked back down the road and
saw the SUV turn and come straight for them. It was only a minute’s drive away,
less if the driver spotted them and came faster. He knew he had to move. But
where? Maybe he could stay low and hide behind this mound.

The roar of a
chopper’s rotors beat the air behind him and Siraj peered back to see it
shining its light where the terrorists had begun their dash.

Great,
he
thought to himself.
Now we have a chopper behind us, a SUV coming at our
front, an irrigation canal blocking us from the neighborhood, and about a
hundred yards to the nearest cover at the U-turn of this road
.

He knew they couldn’t
stay where they were, and he also knew they would never make it to cover. Not
in forty-five seconds. The sand was too thick, and with his lame team member,
the SUV would be sure to spot and kill them. He also knew they couldn’t run
back to where they had been. The chopper denied them of that luxury.

That left only
one option: the canal. He figured it would be full of water. Slimy, dirty,
irrigation water but water nonetheless. His men could make it there in time, hide
in the water, and the Patrol SUV and chopper would never find them. But what
then?

Siraj decided to
take one step at a time. He’d figure out what to do next when he got to safety.
But now, his number one priority was to get to a safe place.

Again he took
off without warning. The others struggled to get up, and sprinted after him.
The SUV was almost on them now. Siraj closed the distance to the ditch fast and
upon his arrival he dove down the steep bank, desperate to escape the oncoming
vehicle. The other men followed suit.

Siraj felt water
hit his face and seep into his mouth. He knew he’d made it, but what about the
others? He rolled onto his back and glanced up to see a man jump from the bank
and clobber him with his full body weight. Siraj went under the shallow water
and accidentally took in a mouthful. It was awful tasting. He kicked and
flailed until the terrorist rolled off him. Then he surfaced again and began to
cough up the putrefying liquid.

That’s when he
saw the SUV’s headlights on the bank above him. He heard it stop abruptly and
then the sound of a door opening and slamming shut reached his ears.

He didn’t wait any longer. No verbal commands were given to his team, no
hand signals, nothing. He just dove straight down into the water and felt his
head hit the bottom.

*          *          *

Agent-in-charge
of this BORTAC team, Kyle Washington, ran his hand down the stock of his 12
gauge shotgun. It was a Remington 870 with a 14” barrel. Perfect for the shrub
in which he had to fight. Half of his twenty men toted similar shotguns while
the others carried M4A1 carbines.

Each man sported
a shrub-green flight suit, and all but one was wearing a Kevlar ballistic
helmet. That one exception was him. He never wore a helmet unless he had to,
and right now as he was in this Border Patrol transport chopper headed to Santa
Teresita, he didn’t have to. He hated the way they clung to his head and made
it feel like he was carrying a bowling ball on his shoulders. Since the sun
wouldn’t be up for about another hour, everybody had night-vision goggles
strapped tightly around their faces.

“
Estimated
time arrival, five minutes,
” the pilot yelled back over the roar of the
rotors.

Washington casually turned back to his twenty-man team and nodded. “Five minutes. Get
ready,” he ordered.

The plan was for
this chopper to touch down right outside of the overgrowth and empty its
occupants. The instant Washington’s boots hit the sand, he was to dive in with
his team and go on the hunt. His orders: find the terrorists and take them out.

The orders were
not lengthy and they definitely were generic. But that was all he had to work
with and the rest would be up to the quickness of his mind upon engagement.

Washington looked out the chopper’s window into the night that, through his goggles, was a
dark shade of green. He could see lights in the distance. Lights from a town.
He looked further and saw the lights of several Border Patrol helicopters swarming
around.

The chopper
decreased altitude as it passed over the neighborhood. Washington took in a
long, deep breath and looked over the condition of his men. Everyone seemed to
be ready. So was he.

The palms of his
hands began to sweat as he saw the designated landing point approach. He was
scared, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. He was always scared. If everyone was
true to themselves, they’d say the same thing. No one wanted to die. No one
wanted to leave their loved ones behind. Death was frightening. There were no
two sides to it.

“
Get ready,
”
the pilot instructed. “
We’re landing.
”

The stir that followed
among the team was short lived. Everyone quickly checked their weapons, goggles,
and equipment, and then prepared to go.

Washington felt the chopper go down, down, down, until it hit the sand, and then the pilot
gave the thumbs-up.

It was time.

Without a word
spoken, Washington flung open the door and leaped for the ground. His men
followed his lead. He searched left and right for a sensible way into the
thicket but none was found. He decided to plunge in headlong.

The twenty men
crashed through the cedars and shrubs, guns pointed in front of them, until
they were deep in the overgrowth. They were either going to find and kill these
terrorists or drive them out.

After a while,
they found a small road winding through the mess, and they followed it. They
quickly and thoroughly searched the area, and suddenly, Washington stopped and
gave a hand signal for his men to do the same.

On the side of
the little trail was a faint path of broken and smashed branches and shrubs
leading deeper into the overgrowth. Washington examined the path and concluded
it had to have been manmade. It looked as though a hasty group of terrorists
had plowed it during their escape.

His heart beat
wildly. He gripped his shotgun tighter and began to slip his right forefinger
from the trigger guard to the trigger. They were in there. He was sure of it.
There was no way they
couldn’t
be.

Cautiously he
took a step toward the path, then another, and another. His eyes flashed from
side to side as he began to walk on it, searching for any sign of life. The
choppers’ lights above him attempted to pierce through the unyielding thicket
from the air, while he could hear the sound of SUVs driving on patrol in the
distance. It comforted him just to know they were near.

The team was on
high alert and ready for anything. They were good at their business and being
ready was what made them so good.

Washington was looking a few yards ahead when his second-in-command
grabbed his shoulder roughly and forced him to a stop. The deputy’s eyes were cast
to the ground and he knelt down. Washington did the same and that’s when he saw
it. Blood. Lots of it. It was fresh too from what he could see. A shudder ran
up his spine. His team was close, unpleasantly close.

*          *          *

Parks entered
the Situation Room and snapped to attention. The Directors of the CIA, FBI,
Secret Service, and National Intelligence were seated around the conference
table along with the National Security Advisor, the Vice President, and the
President.

“Come in,
Keith,” the President said after he’d left him standing at attention for over a
minute.

Again, Parks
uniformly walked over to the seat on the President’s far right and sat down. He
waited.

Finally the
National Security Advisor turned his head and looked him squarely in the eyes.
Parks could see how bloodshot Smith’s eyes were and how tired the man was, but
still, he was here on duty.

“Keith, we may
have a show for you to attend,” Smith began.

Parks thought
that was a crazy way of saying that a terrorist had been found but he listened
intently.

“I’ll put it to
you plainly. Nine guys jumped the border just east of the Sunland Park Port of Entry
in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. They had an engagement with a Border Patrol agent,
shot him up, then ran into his partner just as they were beginning to leave the
scene, and convinced him to grab the wounded man and get out of there. Then
they ran. They ran far. About six miles. Right now they are on the outskirts of
a neighborhood named Santa Teresita Acres.”

Parks’ eyes lit
up with recognition. He knew where that was. He’d driven through that
neighborhood several times when he was stationed at Fort Bliss. He loved that
place. Actually, he had considered buying a house there but had thought better
of it when he saw the price tag. Were terrorists really there?

 “The Border Patrol
said that the terrorists didn’t make it into the neighborhood – they still
aren’t sure why the terrorists wanted to go there in the first place. Apparently
they’re holed up in a large thicket just behind the neighborhood,” Smith
explained. “The Patrol can’t find them with choppers. I was told they’re
sending in BORTAC to take out the terrorists.”

Parks knew all
about BORTAC. He’d worked right alongside them for counter-drug affairs when he
was with JTF-North at Fort Bliss. He knew the team leader, Kyle Washington.
Parks and Washington had worked closely and were good friends. Maybe he’d see him
again while on this operation.

“Unfortunately,”
Smith continued, “we’re still waiting on the results of that mission. But,” the
NSA paused and rubbed his weary eyes, “I’m not going to send you guys in unless
BORTAC fails. We do have a special assignment for you though.”

“Mike.” The
President signaled for the D/CIA to go ahead with his briefing.

“Yes, Mr.
President.” Cummins turned to Parks. “Since this ordeal is taking place within
the Department of Homeland Security’s ‘Constitution Free Zone’ of a hundred
miles from the Mexican border, the CIA is taking charge of this operation. My
guys at Langley have been working hard to get intelligence on this situation, and
right now, we’re suddenly getting flooded with it. Now, my Director of Intelligence,
Nancy Kano, is working her tail off to wade through it all and get some sort of
confirmed lead as to where, why and how these terrorists made it into the United States. I think you need to look at some of her stuff.” Cummins coughed and
continued. “We rated BORTAC’s chance of success on their mission very low, which
means we have to have a plan B. That’s you. Now we just can’t throw you in, we
need intelligence on where these terrorists are heading. So, in a nutshell,
your team is going to do the cleanup work should BORTAC fail.”