Aim And Fire - Cliff Ryder

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two men had hauled the bodies of the luckless illegals and their coyotes several dozen yards off the side of the road and had cleaned up the truck as best as they could before leaving the scene. The third man had met up with the other two a few miles down the road, and they proceeded together to their destination.

      The farmstead they pulled up to had once been a thriving ranch in the middle of the south Texas plain. It had been abandoned decades earlier, and was now a waypoint on the illegal-immigration highway. Every so often the Border Patrol would stake out the place, and the three men had stopped a few miles away and watched the buildings for two hours until the sun came up. During their surveillance, they took turns performing the predawn prayer.

      When they were satisfied no one was there, they drove the truck up the long driveway, past the leaning, windowless, two-story house, its drab wooden siding stripped clean of every speck of paint by decades of dust storms. At the sagging wooden barn, two of the men got out and walked to the door, machine pistols in hand, and checked the interior. Finding it empty, they waved the truck forward, closing the doors behind them.

      The temperature inside was already stifling, but the men didn’t notice as they pulled on latex gloves and got to work. In one corner was a green tarp, underneath which were cans of spray paint and other supplies. After moving the long box out of the back of the truck, one of the men washed out the back with a strong bleach solution, then soaped it down, as well, finally rinsing it clean. Meanwhile, two of the men wiped off the thick layer of dust, then covered the truck’s lights, windows, bumpers and trim with paper and tape. After the cargo bay was clean, the third man prepped the cans and laid out large decals to complete the truck’s transformation.

      When everything was ready, they spray painted the truck, starting at the front and moving back, taking breaks every few minutes to let the fumes dissipate. Gradually the panel truck turned from white to a flat gray, which dried quickly in the heat. Two of the men methodically covered every inch of metal with the paint, while the third scrubbed blood spatter from the cab’s interior and covered the bullet-torn bench seat with a blanket.

      At noon, they stopped to pray again and eat a lunch of flatbread, hummus and cold falafels. Afterward, they checked the paint job, and stripped off the paper. The third man measured carefully and applied the decals, making the truck appear to be just another vehicle that belonged to one of the hundreds of private companies in El Paso. Lastly, he switched the license plates with ones that had been supplied along with the paint and other materials. He sent the other two to dispose of everything left over, warning them to travel at least a mile away from the building before digging, and to bury everything at least four feet deep.

      Once they were finished, the three men walked around the truck, examining their handiwork. The driver nodded with satisfaction, and motioned for the other two to open the double doors. He drove to the end of the driveway, then went back and helped the other two sweep away the tracks leading from the barn to the road. Taking one last look around, the driver was satisfied that everything looked exactly as it had when they had arrived. He got into the cab, joining the other two men, and drove away, heading down the highway toward El Paso.

      4

      Nate Spencer pushed through the doors of the Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations that evening after staying at the parts-shop scene for several hours, making sure every scrap of evidence had been bagged, labeled and processed correctly. He was greeted by enthusiastic applause from most of the day shift, with a few holdouts, notably Billy Travis, glaring at him instead.

      Shaking his head, Nate held up his arms to quiet the clapping. “Hey, it wasn’t just me out there, but Hernando, Carter, Ryan and, most of all, Juan Menendez. All of them helped bust these guys and recover more than one hundred kilos of uncut cocaine—the biggest haul this year, I might add.”

      “Yes, but unfortunately, it cost the life of one of our own.” Chief Patrol Agent Roy Robertson had been leaning against the door frame of his office, but now he walked into the center of the assembled men and women. “I’m sorry to tell you that Agent Menendez passed away an hour ago after participating in the successful raid on the smuggling ring. The funeral will be held on Saturday, and all off-duty personnel are expected to attend. Agent Spencer, I’ll want your report on my desk by noon tomorrow.”

      The celebration suddenly over, Nate caught Travis’s eye, who shook his head with a frown. Reaching up to scratch his cheek, he flipped the other man off, then turned and went to his desk.

      A stack of printed e-mails was there, along with a note.

      Here you go—the encryption was a bitch! E-files are on your computer. You owe me—Claire.

      Nate made a mental note to buy her dinner sometime, then leafed through the messages. It soon became obvious that the device had passed through several hands. Only a few dozen of the messages were from Jesus, the driver they had arrested from the smuggling group. The majority of the e-mails were from a man named Arsalan Hejazi to an address simply titled “freedomfighter” at a common Web address. Several were copied to Jesus at an El Paso e-mail address. Nate read the most recent message.

      Dear Yousef,

      Our plans are progressing well. Soon we will have everything we need to strike at our enemies. Our men are coming to you soon across the southern border. Be strong, and keep working toward our common goal. Allahu Akbar.

      Attached to the message was a list of machine parts and pieces, none of which were immediately recognizable to Nate except for one—the chemical symbol for plutonium. Is this a list of parts for a bomb? he wondered. Nate reread the message, something about it niggling at the back of his mind. The name of the sender—he couldn’t quite grasp it.

      He searched through the detritus in his desk drawers, looking for a notebook from one of his older case files. Scrabbling among the copies, he came up with his logbook from the previous year. Flipping through it, he looked through his notes until he came across the entry he was looking for.

      Almost a year earlier…another warehouse. Nate had been involved in a large bust that had brought in the FBI and ATF, as well. A fringe group of Muslims had been suspected of stockpiling weapons on the Mexican border in preparation for an incursion into the U.S. An informant had given them the address, and the three U.S. law-enforcement departments had swooped down on the place. But the terrorists had been forewarned, and had detonated explosives inside the building, demolishing it and also blowing themselves up. The ringleader had been a man named Sepehr al-Kharzi, a longtime member of al Qaeda, and a most-wanted member of the organization. Nate had seen him go into the building—had actually looked into the son of a bitch’s expressionless brown eyes, he recalled—before it had vanished in a huge fireball. While they had uncovered evidence of an underground escape tunnel, there was no evidence that anyone had used it, and it was presumed that al-Kharzi had been vaporized along with the other terrorists. However, as Nate stared at a copy of the terrorist’s wanted poster, he saw a familiar name among the known aliases al-Kharzi used—Arsalan Hejazi.

      Nate checked the date of the sent e-mail. Three months ago. He leaned back in his chair, absorbing the information. Flipping through the rest of the e-mails didn’t reveal an answer from the mysterious Yousef, nor any more communication from al-Kharzi, Hejazi or whatever he might be calling himself nowadays.

      Nate got up and headed to Robertson’s office. His superior was on the phone, and held up a finger while he finished. “Yes, sir…no, everything was done by the book. There won’t be anything of the sort. Yes, sir, I will, sir. Thank you, sir. Goodbye.” He hung up the phone and frowned at Nate. “If that’s your report, it’s the fastest typing I’ve ever seen from you.”

      “Yeah, you’ll have that soon enough. Look, I found something in the evidence from the bust, and wanted you to have a look.” He placed the printed e-mail on Robertson’s desk.

      His boss picked it up and scanned the brief message. “And?”

      “Arsalan is an alias for Sepehr al-Kharzi, the terrorist.”

      “Yeah—isn’t he the one that died in the warehouse explosion last year. So?”

      “This

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