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.
Barquero pulled off his helmet and unfastened his seatbelt. As he climbed down from the cab of the dump truck, he realized he must have fractured several ribs during the impact. Wincing from the pain, he pulled an assault rifle from the cab with him. Chambering a round in the HK417 battle rifle with attached under-barrel grenade launcher, he approached the SUV that his dump truck had clipped. The vehicle was on its side. Barquero fired a burst into the front section of the car. The driver he was aiming at stopped moving. The men in the back were already dead. To his right, past the armored delivery truck, three armed cartel soldiers were climbing out of the second SUV and spraying automatic rifle fire in his direction. Barquero fired a forty-millimeter grenade at the vehicle. It exploded, sending all three men flying into the road. Barquero chambered another grenade into the launcher before firing it at the bulletproof windshield of the delivery truck. The window exploded. Barquero filled the cabin with a long stream of automatic rifle fire. Nothing inside moved. Gravel dust continued to swirl and cover the roadway. Traffic behind the wreckage slid to a stop. Horns blared.
Swapping out the magazine in the HK, Barquero strode to the rear of the delivery truck. There were most certainly men inside with the shipment, but even his grenade launcher wouldn’t open the reinforced rear doors of the truck. Reaching into his black fatigues, he pulled out a shaped charge of plastic explosive. He placed it on the doors. Just as he was about to arm the charge, he heard the sound of something rolling across the top of the truck. Looking up, he caught the image of three cylinder-shaped objects rolling off the top of the truck as they landed on the road next to him. Barquero dropped his weapon and dove for cover away from the explosives just as they detonated with a deafening bang and a blinding white flash. Barquero rolled onto his back and tried to get up. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. A dull ringing filled his ears. He couldn’t stand. Suddenly, the rear doors of the armored truck swung open. A man in a military uniform stood in the opening and removed a pair of earplugs. Even through the fog that filled his head, Barquero recognized the man.
“Cesar,” Barquero said as his world continued to spin. A man with long dark hair stepped up beside Cesar and removed his earplugs as well. He waved his hand forward as two cartel soldiers with assault rifles leapt down from the cargo bay. The first one slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of Barquero’s head, then handcuffed him. The second one injected him with a syringe. The world slipped into blackness for Barquero. The last thing he saw through his spinning vision was Cesar and Carnicero laughing together. Another SUV that had been following a mile behind the convoy pulled up along the shoulder of the road, past the growing line of stalled traffic behind the carnage. It parked next to what was left of the armored truck.
“Put him in the SUV,” Carnicero ordered his men. “We’re taking him to the farm,” he said to Cesar. “Do you want to come with us? The Padre plans on having quite a bit of fun with this one.”
“No, I have to get back to work. There’s my ride,” he said, pointing to a military helicopter approaching low from the southeast. “What about the armored car?”
“Leave it,” Carnicero replied, viewing the damage to the front of the vehicle. Barquero’s dump truck had nearly demolished the engine compartment of the white truck, and the grenade had destroyed the cabin. Thick black smoke and orange flames engulfed the mangled front of the vehicle. “It’s worth losing for capturing this big bastard.” He watched his men load the large man into the back of the SUV. A horn from a motorist blocked by the wreckage blared. Carnicero pulled a gold-plated forty-five-caliber pistol from his waistband and fired several times at the car. “Shut up!” He fired twice more for good measure. The noise stopped. “Here’s an advance on your money,” he said, pulling an envelope from inside his jacket. “The balance will be deposited in an offshore account.”