Payback

Lassiter nodded. He remembered the place. He’d used the abandoned park from time to time as a staging area for raids into Mexico and Central America.

One of the Wolves escorting them pulled up alongside Lassiter’s window and motioned for him to lower it. The percussive rumbling of the Harley nearly drowned out the biker’s words, but Lassiter could still make them out: “Take the next right.”

Up ahead he saw a dirt road that intersected with the highway.

Lassiter used his radio to relay their turnoff to the semi. “You guys pull over, but stay on the main highway. Set up sentry positions,” he added. “Morris and I will make the exchange down that road, then come back to meet you. Remember, our orders are to take the semi to the GDF facility outside South Tucson afterward.”

He waited until his guys in the Peterbilt truck gave him a “Roger that.”

The lead biker swerved onto the dirt road and glanced back to make sure the van was following. Lassiter didn’t fully trust the bikers, but he had dealt with them enough times to know this was how they operated. Besides, he had his insurance. He nudged the Beretta 93R on his hip for reassurance and rubbed his fingers over the plastic grip of his M-4. He usually left the rifle in the van on these high desert transactions, but there was no way he was going in unarmed. The van jolted as the wheels left the pavement and hit the dirt surface of the side road. The other Harley swung in behind them.

While Lassiter didn’t care about turning over the drugs to the motorcycle idiots, having the weapons along at this point, albeit back on the highway, didn’t seem like a prudent move. Of course, he reminded himself, that wasn’t his call. Or his concern. He was just following orders. It had to be Godfrey’s bright idea, his master plan. He’d been using the Wolves motorcycle gang to transport weapons south of the border for the past year, in exchange for the drugs and money to run their secret, dirty little operations. The deal with De la Noval, set up through the bikers, had been the largest they’d attempted. So large, the Wolves said, they’d have to use helicopters to transport it in. A handy little excuse for dropping Lassiter and his team on the unsuspecting drug lord and his cronies.

They were expecting a large cache of weapons, after all. And that’s what they got. Lassiter smiled. He and Morris had gone perhaps half a mile, with the headlights of the van illuminating the cloudy wake of dust the lead motorcycle was raising, when Lassiter spotted a group of motorcycles parked in a smoothed-out circular patch perhaps a hundred yards distant. A headlight flashed momentarily, and he assumed it was a signal. They came to a stop, and Lassiter waited for the dust to settle before he stepped out.

The terrain was typically barren. Short sprouts of cactus and sage speckled the undulating landscape, which stretched away into the darkness.

Four bikers were leaning on their hogs, each wearing the distinctive burning crosses with the white wolf’s head in the center. The one closest to them pushed off his seat and sauntered forward.

“About damn time you got here,” he said.

Lassiter could see the biker was missing a few important teeth. The guy was maybe six-three and had no shirt on under his leather vest. His fat belly jiggled as he walked.

“You got the stuff?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Lassiter said. “You got the money?”

The biker rolled his tongue over his gap-toothed grin. “First we test it.”

“Be my guest,” Lassiter said. “But then we count.”

The biker spit onto the ground off to his side. At least he knew enough not to get near Lassiter’s boots.

“Do that again and I’ll break your neck,” Lassiter said in a calm, but firm voice.

The biker tried to smile, but his bravado was obviously shaken.

Morris brought the suitcase from the rear of the van. The biker held out his hands.

“You got something for us?” Lassiter said.

The biker frowned and then snapped his fingers. One of the other guys got off his motorcycle and undid some bungee cords fastening a suitcase to the rear seat. He walked forward holding the bag.

The third biker stepped up with a small, clear plastic case about the size of a matchbox. It contained three small tubes. He reached into his pocket and came up with a Buck knife, which he flipped open. The blade shone in the moonlight.

“Well, open the motherfucker,” the lead biker said.

Morris looked to Lassiter, who nodded.

After Morris unzipped the suitcase, he lifted the lid. It was full of neatly wrapped, bricklike blocks sealed in plastic.

The biker with the knife reached for one.

“Take one from the bottom,” the first biker told him.

“Show us the money first, asshole,” Lassiter said.

The gap-toothed biker glared at him momentarily, but Lassiter knew it was all bluff. If this idiot had any sense at all, he’d know when to rein in his tough-guy act.

Gap-tooth motioned for the second man to open the suitcase. It was full of rubber-banded hundred dollar bills.

“Make sure there are no flash rolls,” Lassiter said.

Morris grinned as he moved forward. Suddenly, his body made an uncontrollable jerking motion and his hands went to his chest. By the time Lassiter heard the sound of the report he was already dropping to the ground.

Gap-tooth and his friends weren’t so lucky. They looked around and started to draw their weapons, but more shots sounded. One by one they went down, in rapid succession.

Two snipers, Lassiter estimated. The shots had come in too quickly to be from one weapon. The snipers were using night-vision scopes, he figured.

He rolled over, wedging himself into the dirt so he could get to Morris.

His hands found the kid’s neck. No pulse. He swiveled the head toward him. Open, dead eyes stared back.

At least it’d been quick, Lassiter thought. The bullet had hit him in the back and exited the front. A massive tear in Morris’s shirt indicated a big exit wound. It had been made by a large-caliber round. Lassiter brought the radio to his mouth and said, “Condition red. We’re under fire here, over.”

No response.

That probably meant that whoever it was had already taken out his two men with the semi.

Another shot ripped the dirt a few feet from Lassiter’s head.

You missed, asshole, he thought. That was your first mistake.

He reached into the pocket of his cargo pants and grabbed the cylindrical object there. He rolled onto his back as his fingers found the plunger, and he closed his eyes.

He felt the pop and then heard the rushing release. Seconds later the popping sound told him the Starlite flare had ignited high overhead, and he rolled to his feet, running all-out toward the expanse of low hills to the west. From the trajectory of the rounds, that had to be where the snipers were. And if his luck held out, they were temporarily blinded by the star-light, star-bright flash.

For once, he hoped his adversaries had been using night-vision goggles.

As he passed the van, he paused to rip open the passenger door and pull out the M-4. If he was going to have a chance, he’d have to settle it rifle to rifle. Snapping off the safety, Lassiter continued his run. Ahead of him something moved.

Your second mistake, asshole, he thought as he brought his M-4 up and fired.

The shadowy figure jerked in the fading light of the descending flare. His spotter next to him obviously panicked and turned to flee. Lassiter’s second shot got him squarely in the back.

Time to zigzag, Lassiter thought as he made an abrupt right turn. If he was setting up the ambush, that’s where he would be. The light from the flare was almost totally diminished now, but perhaps a hundred feet ahead he saw two more men moving in the darkness. He flipped the selector switch to full-auto and sprayed their position. They did a pell-mell dance of death before falling.

Lassiter got to their location and flattened out, grabbing the elongated barrel of the Barrett sniper rifle. It had a mounted night-vision scope. The spotter had a set of goggles on his face. Lassiter aimed the Barrett toward the black silhouette of the semi and used the goggles to survey the area. Three figures moved by the truck. A van had pulled in behind it. Someone had been tailing them, but who?