Sincerely,
Avery Bartholomew Pendleton
P.S. – Any information you can send me regarding how to exchange Fred’s significant WOW gold balances for nonsequential, unmarked twenty-dollar bills or bearer bonds would be greatly appreciated.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It Wants Khaf
The large white delivery truck headed north toward the U.S./Mexican border. Originally, it had been a beer truck, and it still looked vaguely like a beer truck, but in reality it was more like a tank. The glass in the driver’s compartment was bulletproof, and the run-flat tires were designed to continue operating even when shot with large-caliber ammunition. The gas tank was armored and self-sealing, and the cargo bay was reinforced with steel plate armor. It had horizontal firing ports that could be opened to allow gunmen inside the truck’s storage compartment to fire on assailants. A trap door on the roof of the cargo bay opened to allow a fifty-caliber machine gun to be raised via electric motor and employed against other vehicles. The modified truck was extremely heavy. A customized, more powerful engine and stronger, more durable shocks and brakes offset the increased weight. The truck was closely followed by two black SUVs with tinted windows. The three-vehicle convoy barreled down the highway.
Cesar had contacted El Barquero early that morning. Cesar’s sources said that the Padre wanted a shipment of weapons, mainly heavy arms, moved closer to the border, and Cesar had a description of the delivery vehicle and the route they were taking. The only problem was they didn’t have much time.
The weapons were to be used for fighting with the rival cartels that threatened the Padre’s precious smuggling routes into central Texas. The other cartels had recently become more brazen. Everyone knew what had happened in the Veracruz harbor. They thought the Padre was becoming weak. In the wars between the different drug cartels of Mexico, weakness was always exploited as an opportunity to expand. Turmoil within the leadership circle of a cartel created a vacuum that had to be filled quickly. This was the first time in many years that anyone could imagine challenging the Padre in his own territories. However, the other cartels were not working together as they should have. They were just racing forward individually to test the Padre’s vulnerability. The Padre needed to teach them a lesson, and he planned to use the latest military-grade weapons manufactured by the United States to do it. His enemies would be outgunned. Once their men had pulled back from his territory, he could get back to rebuilding his narco-empire.
Ten miles ahead of the armored truck, El Barquero stood on the southbound access road of the highway. The access road led down from an overpass across the route the weapons shipment was taking. Its elevation gave him the ability to see for miles across the pancake-flat terrain to the south. With a high-powered sniper’s monocular/range-finder, he scanned the horizon and watched. The highway traffic was light. According to Cesar, the shipment would pass this way soon. Cesar’s men were to follow the vehicle at a distance. Cesar himself would be trailing a few miles back in a helicopter. The news of the shipment had come so quickly that Barquero and Cesar didn’t have time to coordinate communications equipment. Barquero barely had time to gather his weapons and find suitable transportation for the mission. He was going to be on his own to stop the transport initially, but that was okay with him. Cesar and his men would be close behind, and Cesar had never let him down. In fact, Cesar had bailed him out of a number of tight spots back in the old days. Barquero wasn’t worried; Cesar always brought the cavalry in right on time.
Through Barquero’s monocular, a large, white delivery truck appeared on the distant horizon. It was almost two miles away. He didn’t have much time. He ran for the truck parked alongside the road. The dump truck he had stolen from a construction site was still full of gravel. Putting the vehicle in gear, he pulled onto the highway. The heavy load of crushed rock made gaining speed difficult. He stood on the accelerator, slammed on the clutch, and shifted through the gears with urgency. He could see the delivery truck approaching from the south. The divided highway had two lanes running in each direction. Between the north- and southbound lanes was a small median. It was made of concrete and was the height of a street curb. Barquero pulled into the left-hand lane and continued to accelerate. The armored truck was two hundred yards away. Barquero tightened his seatbelt and pulled on a race-car driver’s crash helmet. This is going to suck. One hundred yards. He gripped the steering wheel tightly and checked his rearview mirror to see if anyone was following him. Fifty yards. He cursed and pulled the steering wheel hard to the left. The dump truck leapt over the low median and bounced into the oncoming traffic. The delivery truck driver had no time to respond; his foot barely touched the brake as Barquero’s gravel-laden dump truck crashed head-on into the Padre’s delivery truck. At the moment of impact, Barquero let go of the steering wheel and crossed his muscled arms in front of himself. He had been trained to let go of the wheel during a collision, as the impact of a crash can rip the steering wheel violently to one side, literally breaking the driver’s arm. The impact of the crash spun both vehicles clockwise. The rear of the dump truck clipped the front end of one of the SUVs, which was following too closely behind the delivery truck and was unable to stop. The second SUV had been far enough back in the convoy to witness the dump truck cross the median at full speed. Its driver slammed on the brakes and slid past the spinning tangle of vehicles in front on him. His SUV came to a halt on the side of the road. The impact between the two trucks was incredibly violent, but incredibly short. The mass of the two heavy vehicles slamming into one another brought them to a quick halt. Dust from the gravel in the bed of the dump truck clouded the scene like a smoke screen.