Travis Starnes
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Border Crossed - Chapter 5
🕑 Added 2023-09-08 14:14:00 +0000 UTCTaylor and Whitaker’s black SUV pulled to a gravelly stop on the shoulder of the state road, dust billowing around it in a choking cloud as they both stepped out to look over the area.
They’d gotten an early morning start after a few hours of sleep, which made it midday when they reached their destination. The problem was, Taylor had only identified a section of interest on the map. In person, it was a desolate stretch of scrub brush and wire fences, for all intents and purposes a lifeless patch of earth that could have been on the moon as much as in west Texas.
On top of that, it was hot. It reminded him of being in Iraq, the way it felt like your skin was sizzling on a hot plate and your blood might boil any minute.
“So, what now?” Whitaker asked, looking over the hood of the SUV at him.
“I don’t know,” Taylor said, reaching into the vehicle and pulling out a pair of binoculars.
He scanned the horizon, searching for … he had no idea what. Shimmering waves of heat made everything as far as he could see look distorted. He looked past Whitaker and the SUV, back the way they came, and down the path of the road, and saw nothing for miles. It wasn’t until he looked across the roadway that he thought he saw something. Far off in the distance, he thought he saw what looked like a few buildings. A ranch, maybe.
“Is there anything shown on the map in this area?”
“Yeah. Something called the McMertry Ranch is supposed to be out here somewhere. These guys have thousands of acres, although what the hell their animals could be grazing on is as much your guess as mine.”
“I think I see it. Maybe they’ve seen something.”
“Maybe. It’s that or we go wandering through the desert until we pass out from heat exhaustion.”
“Yeah, right,” Taylor said, climbing back into the SUV.
He hadn’t thought it out right when they left, but this really was their only play. Anything the cartels were doing out here would be obscured, or it would have been picked up by one of the drone or Cessna flights the border patrol did over the area looking for crossings and such. If it was more than a few guys, though, the locals would know it. These were people who lived in the middle of nowhere by choice. In a place like this, the only way that would work was if you knew your neighbors, the few there were, and you worked together. If something happened to one of them, the only help they would get would be from the rest of them.
Taylor drove until he saw an arch with an M in the middle of it, that he assumed stood for McMertry, over a dirt road that headed off in the direction of the buildings he’d seen. Turning onto the road, he drove slowly, partially because of the uneven nature of the roadway and partially because people in places like this tended to be suspicious of strangers.
Sure enough, an older man in a button-up shirt, well-worn jeans, and a cowboy hat stood at the end of the accessway, hands on his hips, watching them closely as they pulled to a stop in front of him. Although this wasn’t work Taylor would ever want to do, he’d grown to appreciate the type of person that did. Direct, blunt, and without time for small talk and nonsense, he found dealing with them preferable over most of the people he dealt with regularly in D.C.
The man looked them up and down as they got out of the SUV, taking in Whitaker’s no-nonsense pantsuit and Taylor in his dusty brown leather jacket and jeans, probably trying to put the two pieces together.
“Don’t you two make a pair,” he said, hands at his hips.
“Are you Mr. McMertry?” Whitaker asked.
“That’s right. State your business.”
“I’m Agent Whitaker and this is Taylor. We’re hoping you can help us.”
“Depends,” the man said.
Whitaker looked to Taylor. He knew she found his way of talking frustrating, and this guy had taken it to a science. Taylor actually thought he could learn a thing or two from him and knew it must be killing Whitaker. Of course, it was also his idea that brought them out there, so he was the more logical one to ask the questions.
“Sir, we have reason to believe there may have been increased drug or migrant trafficking in this area recently. Have you noticed anything unusual in the last six months? An uptick in large truck traffic, maybe heading to a particular location nearby?”
The rancher thought for a moment, shrugged, and said, “Not much in the way of large trucks, no. Nearest large state road is ten miles west and they hardly ever use that. Mostly stick to the ten if they’re going east or west. Anything going north or south would be out by El Paso. Not much out here but ranches and scrub.”
“So nothing you can think of as odd, out of place, or notable has happened over the last two or three months?” Whitaker asked.
“Things stay pretty much the same round here all the time. Only thing that I guess I would say is odd, is all the vehicles coming in and out of the old Ortiz place. I didn’t think of it right away, ’cause you asked about large trucks, and there haven’t been any of those. Mostly it’s personal vehicles and smaller box trucks, like the kind folks can rent in the city. It isn’t constant enough to be notable, really. There’ll be nothing for a few weeks, then a wave of vehicles, then nothing for another stretch. I guess I assumed they were making something up there that took time to produce, or maybe they stored up something and shipped it out when they got enough. I’d say dairy, except this isn’t exactly dairy country, but there’s all kinds of stuff these days that we didn’t have when I was a kid. Hell, half my barn is robots these days, so I figure there are all types.”
Taylor and Whitaker exchanged a glance. While the farmer’s explanation made a kind of sense, the activity also fit pretty close with shipments over the border, and the time frame was just right. The only part that didn’t fit was that they were pretty far inland, and Taylor had never heard of a tunnel this long before. It would have taken some pretty impressive engineering and even more impressive spycraft to keep the border patrol, who constantly looked for signs of tunneling, from noticing.
“You said this was owned by someone named Ortiz?” Taylor asked.
“Not anymore. They sold, ohh, eight or nine months or so ago and headed back down to Mexico. They were both getting on in years and I think, the way the ranching business has been gettin’ lately, they just didn’t want to do it no more.”
Taylor and Whitaker exchanged a glance for the third time. A couple with ties to Mexico would fit into the puzzle they were building.
“Did you know them well?” Whitaker asked.
“Sure. Emanuel was older than me by about fifteen years or so and was running their farm when I was still in grammar school, so he’s been around basically my whole life. His father moved up in the late fifties and bought the place, but the cancer took him when Emanuel was about twenty-two, leaving the place to him. He married a girl from back in his parents’ hometown, and she immigrated in the eighties, then they got married. They started looking for buyers almost two years ago, but as you can imagine, there isn’t a lot of demand for this kind of land. Only people who ever really want land around here’s the government, and they usually try to just take it through eminent domain, rather than buy it at a fair price.”
“So after several years, a buyer just popped up. Do you know anything about this buyer?”
“Not really. Never met them. Hell, I don’t even think it’s a them. I think it’s some company or another. Emanuel said they sent some fancy lawyer down here to negotiate. Their money was good and it wasn’t like he had any other offers, so he sold. I guess I woulda done the same in his place. They left it empty for a while, then we started seeing the trucks and what not coming and going. Never did see no one moving in though.”
“So you haven’t talked to them?” Taylor asked. “What about any of your other neighbors? Maybe over the phone?”
“Nope, not a peep. It’s kind of a mystery, really. We’ve all been wondering. I mean, it’s not that unusual to have a corporation buy up property when you’re a farmer or a rancher, but usually, you at least get to know the managers they send down. But nope. No one ever came out to talk to us, and without an invitation, you don’t just walk onto another man’s land. Even if that land belongs to shareholders or whatever. It’s just how things are done down here.”
“Could you point out where their farm is located,” Whitaker said, handing over a road map of the area.
This area of the map was pretty barren, but at least it showed the state road they’d just been on, which was good enough to find another farmstead like this one.
“Sure,” the farmer said, sidling over and taking the map from Whitaker. “The road onto their property is about five miles this way and the farm itself is set back about half a mile or so from the road, a lot like mine is. There used to be a stand of mesquite trees right at the turnoff, but I haven’t been down that way in a few months, so don’t take my word on it.”
“That’s good enough for us,” Taylor said, giving the man a sharp nod. “Thanks for your time.”
“Sure. If you folks figure out what they’re doing over there, maybe come let us know. Give me something to share with the wife, make her feel important next time she talks to the other old biddies.”
“We’ll try,” Taylor said, giving the man a smile and climbing back into the SUV.
“Sounds promising,” Taylor said, as he swung the SUV around and left the rancher behind.
“The Mexican couple may be nothing. They might be Mexican, but if they were born here and lived here that long, it doesn’t strike me as all that likely that they were some kind of cartel plant or anything,” Whitaker said.
“No, they probably weren’t, but that doesn’t mean the cartel couldn’t have bought the property. The fact that they were still in touch with relatives back in Mexico gives the cartels a way to hear about the property, and the timeline fits. Yeah, it’s not big trucks, but personal trucks, SUVs, and box trucks could do the job of driving contraband out here. They’re also off the beaten track and well away from the border, so it wouldn’t be hard to skip border patrol, making this a lot safer and more profitable way to smuggle in drugs.”
“That tunnel would have to be miles long and pretty deep to reduce the chance of a cave-in on some farmer’s property. They wouldn’t know if a rancher might dig a well or anything.”
“It already has to be deep to get under the Rio Grande. Just have to dig it further in a straight line. Just because the cartels aren’t a government, don’t doubt they could pull something like that off. You should have seen some of the built-out cave networks the Taliban and Al Qaeda built into the Afghan mountains, and they didn’t have anywhere near the kind of funding the cartels have. This is completely within their ability to do.”
“Maybe,” Whitaker said. “But I don’t see how they could do it without anyone noticing.”
“That side of the border in Mexico is pretty damn near chaos, and this side, it’s in the middle of nowhere, in an area I don’t think the border patrol was paying that much attention to. I think it’s possible. It’s at least worth checking out.”
“Sure. Let’s just not get our hopes up. Okay?” Whitaker said.
They followed the farmer’s directions until Taylor saw the dirt road and a small thicket of mesquite trees right before it, just like the farmer mentioned. Pulling in behind the trees, Taylor killed the SUV's engine.
Pulling the binoculars back out, he scanned through the trees, making out a small clapboard farmhouse and a few outbuildings, including what looked like a fairly new and large garage. It was actually almost large enough to call it a warehouse, although it wasn’t quite that big.
Whitaker checked her sidearm and said, “We need to call this in, get backup.”
“All we have is a farmer’s suggestion of heavier-than-normal traffic and a farm that used to be owned by a Mexican family. Sullivan already hates the idea that we could be right that there’s something out here, and he’s definitely not going to think that this information is substantial enough to send backup for. I doubt he’d agree that anything short of a truck labeled Armenta Cartel or Los Cabrera del Norte is solid evidence, he’s going to say it’s thin. Besides, any backup is at least three hours away. Are you suggesting we sit here for three hours and hope no one sees us, or maybe drive away and come back later, and hope someone’s still home?”
“Fine,” Whitaker said, opening her side door. “But if you get shot, you’re filling out the paperwork.”
They went to the rear of the SUV, pulling out vests and a pair of Colt M4 Carbines. Normally these carbines were only assigned to FBI HRT and SWAT teams, Taylor and Whitaker had been in enough scrapes that Joe had decided to go ahead and allow the pair to be issued them. They’d actually had the option of choosing between several makes of guns, but of the weapons the FBI allowed them to carry Taylor preferred this one, since it was very similar to the M4A1 he’d carried in the army. Although it was little less durable with a slightly lighter barrel, it was close enough to feel familiar when he picked it up.
“Not a lot of cover between us and them,” Whitaker said as she slid a ceramic plate into the front of her vest.
“Yeah, but I don’t see anyone on watch, and in an area this empty people tend to not look out that much. The scrub is pretty high, so if we move slow and stay very low, we should be okay. At least we have my stuff and not the FBI-issued black vests,” Taylor said.
Taylor understood from an intimidation standpoint why all the FBI gear was black. They tended to roll up to a location in force and a lot of their standoffs were in urban areas where the perpetrator knew they were there, so they didn’t need to blend in all that much. Old habits die hard, though, and he usually kept a set of gear borrowed from the army for himself and Whitaker. He couldn’t do much about her pantsuit, but it was mostly earth tone, so they should blend in well enough.
“Let’s go,” he said, shutting the back door of the SUV.
One of the good things about having your spouse as your partner is that you know each other inside and out. They’d worked together long enough that they didn’t need a lot of conversation on how to handle this. He started out and she stayed about ten feet behind him, so they didn’t bunch up. They stayed low, almost crawling, keeping their heads the height of the scrub, and moved slowly towards the house, Taylor never taking his eyes off the buildings.
Occasionally, he’d see a figure walking between the buildings, but no one ever looked in their direction, or really out at the landscape at all. About ten minutes of slow, knee-killing work later, they were at a wooden rail fence that surrounded the property.
Seeing the coast was clear, the pair slid over the fence and worked their way towards the newer, garage-looking building.
“No windows,” Whitaker whispered. “I guess they don’t want anyone seeing what they’re doing in there.”
“Also means they can’t see us coming up on them out here,” Taylor pointed out.
“Work around front?” she asked.
“Let’s do the house first. I don’t want to get inside a building I can’t see out of and have a bunch of guys come in behind us.”
“Right,” she said, nodding for him to take the lead.
They slid around the side of the garage, and their luck promptly ran out as two men, one with brown-wrapped packages in his arms and the other carrying two suitcases, both with rifles strapped to their backs, came out of the house.
The pair froze as they locked eyes with Taylor and Whitaker.
“Freeze. Hands in the air,” Whitaker said in a commanding tone, standing and lifting her rifle, with Taylor following suit.
For a moment, nothing happened, then the men dropped what they were carrying, their hands flying to the guns on their backs. It was a stupid move. They never had a chance but they went for it anyway.
Three gunshots rang out, two from Whitaker and one from Taylor, dropping the two men into the dry dirt.
For a second, the echo of those reports hung in the air, and then chaos erupted. Men burst from the house and more out of the garage, coming around the corner. All of them armed.
Taylor and Whitaker backpedaled, getting behind the building as the first bullets impacted into its wooden side or the dirt where they’d been standing.
“Shit,” Whitaker said, leaning out and squeezing off two shots, too rapid for her to aim and mostly intended to keep the men back.
“Hold them here, I’ll circle around,” Taylor said, getting a nod from Whitaker as she fired two more shots blindly around the corner.
Taylor turned and sprinted around the side of the garage, gunfire erupting behind him as Whitaker engaged the cartel members. He rounded the other rear side of the building in time to see two men running toward him, clearly trying to get behind Whitaker and him. Unfortunately for them, they had not been drilled to always run with their gun at the ready in a combat situation, and their weapon muzzles were pointed at the dirt when Taylor suddenly appeared in front of them.
Sighting down his rifle, he fired twice in quick succession, dropping the men into the dirt as bullets tore into their chests. Taylor never slowed down, stepping quickly over their bodies and rounding the front corner of the building in a crouch, giving him a perfect view of the front of the house and the men taking cover behind the side directly in front of him. There were already a couple of additional bodies in front of the house, showing that Whitaker had not been idle during the time he’d been circling the garage.
Taylor fired, again and again, killing the men closest to him and another by the house, driving the rest back inside for cover. Whitaker was paying attention because her rate of fire increased as she started peppering the front of the house with bullets, keeping the heads of the men inside down.
Taylor pulled his mostly empty magazine and replaced it before moving again. Stopping by the open door of the garage, he leaned in to ensure it was clear. He’d assumed it would be empty since there were no clear vantage points to fire from inside the garage, but he was wrong.
The large garage was packed with stacks of more brown-wrapped packages, thirty-gallon drums, and crates of all sizes. That wasn’t what was most notable, however. The thing that instantly caught his attention was a ramp descending into darkness with what looked like railroad tracks down the center of it.
That and the two men running up the center of the tunnel entrance toward him. Again, with weapons not at the ready.
Amateurs, Taylor thought as he fired, bullets slamming into their chests, sending them sprawling. The one on the right, surprisingly, survived, his hand moving toward his dropped weapon after a beat. Taylor fired twice more, causing the man’s body to jump and then go still.
Seeing that it was clear, or at least as clear as a building with a tunnel could be, Taylor backed out and went to the corner of the garage, firing several shots into the bullet-ridden house as he looked toward the other end of the garage, seeing Whitaker’s weapon sticking out.
“Take the house,” he hollered, firing into the building again as she dashed toward him.
As soon as she got close, Taylor sprinted to the door, the two of them hitting the porch at the same time. He was still a little concerned about that tunnel, since who knows how many guys might be down there, but he couldn’t stay behind to watch it and let Whitaker take the house by herself, and he knew she would feel the same if he told her to stay and watch it. Which only left clearing the house fast and getting eyes back on the tunnel with as little delay as possible.
Whitaker at least paused a beat to let him go through the door first. It was hanging open, and the bottom hinge had taken a bullet, causing the door to hang awkwardly. They went through the door fast, Taylor watching to the left of the doorway as Whitaker went through the doorway to the right. There were stairs leading up, but you always cleared the downstairs first, and then the upstairs, to ensure you didn’t leave any surprises lurking behind you.
The room to the left was some kind of sitting room, although this one had stacks of boxes in it. What it didn’t have was bad guys. Whitaker must have been less lucky because he heard two shots from what sounded like a handgun almost as soon as he cleared the room he was in. There was still another open doorway, which meant Taylor had to hope she was the one firing and she’d gotten whoever she was shooting at.
It was a good thing he didn’t turn around because the goon in the far room, which looked to be a kitchen, had also heard the shots and came running through the doorway just as Taylor got to it. He had a surprised look on his face as Taylor fired, removing the expression forever.
The rest of the kitchen was clear, although there was one more doorway heading into a room that looked to be the opposite corner of the house. His question about Whitaker was answered almost at the same moment as she came through the remaining door.
“How many?” he asked.
“One. You?”
“Same. I’ll go up the stairs first.”
She grimaced but nodded. She may have been the one with law enforcement experience, but Taylor had cleared more buildings in his life than she would if she lived twice as long, not to mention all of the additional training he’d had for this kind of situation.
They circled back to the stairs and made a slow ascent, weapons trained at the top in case someone tried to take advantage of their momentary vulnerability. Thankfully, there was no one up there.
“Now we call it in,” Whitaker said.
