Invasion USA (24 page)

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Authors: William W. Johnstone

Like the two halves of the Red Sea after God had parted it, Hiram Stackhouse and his SavMart army came crashing down on
Mara Salvatrucha
.
The gang members panicked and tried to escape, but there was no place to run. Main Street was blocked in both directions, and some of the trucks had split off to circle around and block the side streets as well. They pushed together the cars that had carried the gang into town and crumpled them like tissue paper. Some of the gang members were caught between vehicles and screamed as tons of metal crushed them to jelly. As soon as the trucks came to a stop, the rear doors on several of them rolled up and members of Stackhouse's security force leaped out, wearing body armor and carrying automatic weapons. Their guns spurted fire as they mowed down Montoya's men. The members of M-15 tried to fight back, but for a change,
they
were outgunned. Hiram Stackhouse himself was in the middle of the fighting, unwilling to ask his people to do anything that he wouldn't do. The old Colt revolver in his hand bucked and roared as he traded shots with the enemy.
In front of the hardware store, Tom went after Montoya.
He dropped his guns and lunged at Montoya, ducking under the swipe of the machete in the man's hand. He could have gunned down the M-15 leader, but he wanted to do this with his bare hands. He owed it to his folks, who had died a horrible death at Montoya's orders. He owed it to everyone who had died because of this man's greed and arrogance. He got his left hand on Montoya's wrist and his right hand on Montoya's throat. Banging Montoya's hand against the edge of the limo door, Tom forced him to drop the machete.
Montoya's knee came up toward Tom's groin. Tom twisted aside and took the blow on his thigh, but it was still enough to stagger him. Montoya got his right hand free and slammed a punch across Tom's face. Tom was driven down to one knee, but he kept his grip on Montoya's throat and pulled the man with him. Montoya bulled into him, driving him over backward. Both men sprawled on the hot street, rolling over. They broke apart from each other and came up trading punches. Tom's side was numb now where the bullet had creased him earlier, and his shirt was wet with blood. He could feel himself losing strength. Montoya couldn't win now, couldn't even escape. Hiram Stackhouse had seen to that. But Montoya's sunglasses had come off, and Tom could see the insane hatred in his eyes. All that mattered to Montoya now was killing this gringo who had dared to defy him. When Tom slipped and went down on one knee again, Montoya slammed a vicious kick into his wounded side. Tom cried out in pain as he rolled across the pavement. The world swam crazily in front of his eyes. He came to a stop and pushed himself up on hands and knees and looked back over his shoulder. Montoya had snatched up the machete from where it had fallen in the street and was coming at him, the long heavy blade lifted high, poised to come down in a killing stroke.
“Tom!”
Bonnie cried.
He looked toward her, saw something spinning across the pavement toward him, something she had just thrown in his direction. His eyes locked on it, saw the black grip with the twin lightning bolts, saw the blade flickering in the sun as it turned around and around. His father's knife, the one Herb Brannon had taken off the dead German officer in Berlin, the officer Herb had killed to save his own life and perhaps the lives of countless others, because there was no way of knowing how many lives one man's existence touched in his time on this earth . . .
Montoya screamed incoherently as he loomed over Tom and the machete started to come down.
Tom reached out, felt the knife's grip slap into his palm, twisted and came up and drove the blade right into Ernesto Luis Montoya's belly. Montoya froze, the machete stopping in midstroke. Tom stood up, pushed the knife deeper with the last of his strength. He sagged back to the street as Montoya took an unsteady step backward, still clutching the machete. He looked down at his midsection in shock and horror as crimson began to spread on his white suit.
Then blood began to bloom like flowers all over the suit as the defenders of Little Tucson who were now gathered on the sidewalk in front of the auto parts store opened fire. The shots all blended into one thunderous roar as Bonnie, Lauren, Louly, Walt, Pete, Wayne, Ed, Francisco, Chet, and all the others, even Callie, filled Montoya with so much lead that the thing that finally crashed to the pavement next to the limo didn't even look human anymore.
El Babania Comida
would eat no more babies.
Bonnie was at Tom's side. She helped him up. Most of the others were wounded, too. They stood with their arms around each other, offering support and comfort. They waited there as the firing around town died away and Stackhouse's security force began the mopping up operation. The old man himself came striding along the sidewalk, a proud grin on his face. He lifted a hand in greeting and said to Tom, “Yep, a can o' whoopass, just like I told you. Works ever' time.”
As he looked around at the battleground Little Tucson had become, Tom couldn't argue with that. But he could have added one thing, if he'd had the energy.
A can of whoopass . . . in the hands of an American fighting for freedom.
That
would do it. Every time.
Epilogue
In the aftermath of what became known as the Battle of Little Tucson, well over a thousand lawsuits were filed. The ACLU lost every one in which it was involved.
The President immediately declared the town, indeed all of Sierrita County, to be a disaster area and promised that plenty of federal aid would be forthcoming. Many of the residents refused the offer, explaining to reporters that they wouldn't feel right accepting aid now from the government that had turned its back on them earlier. When told about this, the President pursed her lips and glared for a second before managing to put a phony smile of concern back on her face.
The FBI launched an investigation of the whole affair. So did the Border Patrol. So did Congress. Reports were expected eventually . . . although probably not until after the next election, at the earliest.
The story led every newscast in the nation for a week. Then something happened somewhere else, and it was bumped back to the second segment, then the third, and then the news anchors didn't talk about it anymore. It was old news, which meant it wasn't news at all.
The people of Little Tucson who had left came home. Broken windows downtown were replaced, and bullet holes were plastered over and painted. The dead were buried, the wounded were nursed back to health. Sometimes in the night, people cried out as nightmares haunted their slumber. The lucky ones had someone there to reach out and hold them as they drifted back into a more peaceful sleep.
One day, Tom Brannon saw Carla May Willard on the street and smiled as she waved at him. He didn't blame her for leaving. He was just glad she was back. Little Tucson was her home, after all.
Fred Kelso had the snazziest wheelchair in town, and when Dusty Rhodes retired, Fred took over one of the dispatcher jobs for the sheriff's department. He was good at it, too.
Lauren Henderson retained the post of acting sheriff, but as soon as election time rolled around again, she was going to run for the office. There wasn't much doubt that she would win, too.
Buddy Gorman was in a rehab center in Phoenix. Tom went to see him at least once a month, even though Buddy was blind and only remembered who Tom was part of the time. It helped Jean, though, and anyway, Tom just felt like it was something he needed to do.
Business was better at the auto parts store for a while. Tom was the hero of Little Tucson, after all. But SavMart still sold motor oil and air filters for less, and after a while things settled back into the same old pattern.
Little Tucson went back to sleep, you might say. The Patriot Project was disbanded. There were still illegal immigrants, of course, but the problem wasn't as bad as it had once been. The Border Patrol could handle it for the time being. Folks had their own lives to live again, work to do, steaks to grill, TV to watch, kids to play with. But no one ever forgot completely.
No one ever would.
 
 
The villa overlooking the Pacific was the most luxurious in all of Acapulco, a city of luxury. Señor Hector Garcia-Lopez sat beside his pool under an umbrella and looked at the man his majordomo had just brought out to see him. The man was tall, with a face like a hawk and skin the color of old saddle leather. He wore robes and a head cloth, and the heat of the Mexican afternoon seemed not to bother him at all. Like Señor Garcia-Lopez, the visitor's dark beard was shot through with gray. They were like two old wolves, Garcia-Lopez thought, even though they came from opposite sides of the world.
“I was very disturbed to hear of my nephew's death,” the visitor said. “The man responsible for it . . . ?”
“Is dead,” Garcia-Lopez said. “You have my sincere apologies. Montoya was a useful tool at one time. I had no idea how truly mad he had become.”
“I do not blame you, señor. And I do not absolve the Americans of their guilt in this matter, either. But I can wait to take my vengeance until the proper time. Like all my countrymen, I am very skilled in waiting . . . and hating.” The visitor smiled thinly. “But for now, we have a business to rebuild, is it not so?”
“Yes, of course,” Garcia-Lopez said, but as he looked across the table at the hawk-faced man, he almost felt sorry for the gringos because of the fate that awaited them sooner or later, especially the citizens of Little Tucson. They probably thought it was all over . . .
When the proper time came, they would learn.
It was never over.
Lt Colonel Art Jensen is the commanding officer of the 3
rd
INF BN 32
nd
INF RGT, 7
th
Infantry Division. He is ex-Special Forces and Airborne. He is also the direct descendant of mountain man Smoke Jensen himself.
Art Jensen is named chief of the DOD's Special Function Unit—Black Ops, a unit whose mission is so secret that only the President, the secretary of defense, and the secretary of homeland security know of its existence.
His mission is this: to track down and eliminate with extreme prejudice Middle Eastern terrorists operating in the USA—the reputed “fifth column” that threatens America on a daily basis. To this end, Art must infiltrate mosques and get inside the terrorists' lairs, because they're planning an attack somewhere in America that will dwarf 9/11.
 
 
Turn the page for an exciting preview of
BLACK OPS:
American Jihad
,
the first in an explosive new series from
William W. Johnstone and Fred Austin
 
Coming in May 2006 wherever Pinnacle Books are sold
1
Somewhere in Iraq
 
The three prisoners, two men and a woman, were brought into the room. They blinked at the bank of bright lights, but they couldn't rub their eyes because their hands were handcuffed. Next to the bank of lights was a video camera, mounted on a tripod.
There were six others in the room, but all six were wearing hoods so they could not be identified by anyone who might view the videotape later. One of the hooded men stepped in front of the video camera and began reading.
“Some time has passed since the blessed attacks against the global infidelity, against America, where our glorious martyrs sent more than 3000 infidels to a fiery hell. Since that time, Americans have conducted a vicious crusade against Islam.
“It is now evident that the West in general, and America in particular, is doing Satan's work on earth, trying with bombs and the deaths of millions of innocents, to destroy the Muslim faith.
“But we are not without our own weapons, and we stand here before these cameras, with three pawns of the great Satan America.”
The camera panned slowly across the faces of three terrified prisoners.
“One is Italian, one is Jordanian, and the woman is Iraqi. All are collaborating with the enemy in their fight against our people and our faith. It is for that reason that they have been condemned to die.”
The hooded terrorist folded the paper and nodded toward the woman. Another hooded terrorist stepped up behind the woman and, quickly, drew his knife across her throat.
The woman cried out, though her cry was quickly silenced. The terrorist grabbed her by the hair as he continued to saw away at her neck. Two other terrorists held her up until, finally, the head was completely severed.
“
Allah Akbar!
” the terrorist shouted, holding the woman's severed head aloft, blood pouring from the stump of her neck.
In quick order, the heads of the other two prisoners were also severed.
Finally, the three disembodied heads were put on a table while the camera focused on them, remaining for an extended period of time on each one. The eyes of the Jordanian and Italian were closed, but the woman's eyes were opened in horror.
The lights went dark and the camera was turned off. Not until then were all the hoods removed.
“You took a great chance in coming here,
Al Sayyid
,” one of the men said, using a title of great respect when he spoke to the terrorist who had read the fatwa.
“I will do what must be done to rid our region of the American infidels,” the reader said.
 
 
Redha, Qambari Arabia
 
He sat in the van and watched as the school bus stopped to let her off. She was a pretty girl, a blonde as so many Americans were. She laughed, and shouted something back to the bus as it drove away. Her name was Amber Pease, and she was the daughter of the commandant of the Marine Guards at the U.S. Embassy.
She was fourteen years old, and in her short skirt and uncovered head, her tight shirt and bare arms, she looked like a whore. Didn't the Americans understand the sensitivity of the Qambaris? They knew that women in Qambari Arabia were required to wear burkas but they made no effort to comply. Well, he would see to it that this little harlot paid for her heresy.
 
 
It was every parent's nightmare, learning that his child was missing. All the children on the bus reported seeing Amber get off the bus, and two said they had seen a man lead her into a white van. Both children had thought the incident was unusual enough to report it to their parents.
“It was an old Ford van, and it had a big rusty spot above the left tail light, and the license number was 37172,” Randy, the twelve-year old son of one of the embassy staff said.
“How do you know?” The military policeman asked.
“I wrote the number down in my notebook,” Randy said. “Mom and Dad said you should never get into a car with someone you don't know, and I didn't think Amber knew the man.”
Even as the Embassy was providing the Qambari police with information on the van, as well as a description of the man who had taken her, the police found Amber.
“I'm sorry, sir,” Captain Hardesty, the military police captain in charge of the investigation told Colonel Pease. “But, we are going to need an official identification. You are going to have to look at the body.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Colonel Pease nodded, indicating that he was ready. The MP took him into a room at the rear of the police morgue, then pulled back the cover. Pease looked at her, nodded, then turned away with tears streaming down his face.
“How was she found?” he asked.
“You don't really want to know, sir,” Hardesty replied.
“How was she found?” Colonel Pease asked again.
“She was,” Captain Hardesty started, paused, took a deep breath, then continued. “She was found nude and spread-eagled, with her underwear stuffed in her mouth.”
Colonel Pease was quiet.
“We'll get the son of a bitch, sir,” Hardesty said. “We have two eye witnesses; we have a make on the van and a license number. We've given the Qambari Police good, solid leads. We're going to get the bastard who did this.”
“Thanks,” Colonel Pease replied.
 
 
With the Americans in Fallujah, Iraq
 
“Hot damn! We've got ourselves a real juicy target here,” Sergeant Baker said as he peered through the thermal sight of a Long Range Acquisition System (LRAS), mounted on a Humvee.
“What have you got, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Colonel Art Jensen asked.
“I've got five Hajs, with weapons, in a building.” Sergeant Baker answered. He chuckled. “Look at the poor dumb bastards. Ole' Habib thinks I can't see him. Well he can run, but the son of a bitch can't hide.”
It was 0230, pitch black, and the mujahideen insurgents, called Hajs, or Habib by the Americans, were wearing black to fade into the dark interior of the building. They were shadows within shadows, unable even to see each other from no more than a few inches away. But with his thermal imaging optics, Sergeant Baker could see them as clearly as if they were standing in the middle of the street in broad daylight.
“Give me the numbers, Sergeant,” Colonel Jensen said.
“Yes, sir, numbers coming up,” Sergeant Baker replied, punching them in.
Art looked at the numbers, then keyed the mike.
“Boomer Three, this is Tango Six. I have a fire mission.”
The radio call sign, Tango Six, identified Art as the Commanding Officer of the 3rd Infantry Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division.
“Go ahead, Tango Six,” Boomer Three responded.
“Coordinates 09089226, direction two zero two degrees. Range niner fi-yive zero meters.”
“Ordnance is on the way, Tango Six.”
Art looked in the direction from which the fire mission would come, and he saw a few sparks as the mortar rounds climbed into the sky. A second later, a dozen loud booms rattled the neighborhood as a great ball of flame erupted at the target building. The flame was followed by a huge, billowing cloud of smoke and dust.
“Tango Six, can we have a BDA?” the disembodied radio voice asked.
“Battle damage assessment?” Art repeated. He chuckled. “Nothing to assess, Boomer, you brought some heat. The building is gone. Thank you.”
“We have enjoyed doing business with you, Tango Six.”
“Tango Six out.”
Art thought about the five insurgents who had just died. They died because they could not comprehend a technology that could find them from a mile away, then unleash a deadly barrage from mortars that could fire for effect without ranging. In the current operation, scores of insurgents had died, simply because they took one curious peek over the ledge to see what was going on outside. That one, brief second of exposure was all that was needed to kill them, and anyone who was with them.
The sun rose the next day on a city that was nearly deserted. The melodic call to prayer, enhanced by a loudspeaker, intoned in the morning quiet.
Allah u Akbar, Allah u Akbar
Ashhadu all llah ill Allah
Ash hadu all illha ill Allah.
Ash hadu anna Muhammadan Rasululaah
Ash had anna Muhammadan Rasulullaah.
Hayya lasseah, Hayya Lassaleah
Hayya lalfaleah, Hayya lalfaleah
Allanu Akbar, Allahu Akbar
La llaha ill Allah.
Art stood behind a wall looking over the city with a pair of binoculars. Behind him, Captain Chambers was staring at images on a TV monitor. The images were being projected from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV, circling over the city.
“Anything coming up on the monitor, Mike?” Art asked.
“No, sir,” Chambers answered. “Everyone seems to have his head down this morning.”
A Humvee drove up behind them and stopped. Two men got out. One was carrying a video camera, and both were wearing sleeve flashes that identified them as TV reporters.
“Is Colonel Jensen here?” one of the men asked.
Art nodded. “I'm Colonel Jensen.”
“I'm John Williams with World Cable News,” the one who asked the question said.
“Yes, I recognize you,” Art said.
“Oh, you've seen me then?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think of the coverage WCN has given the war?”
“Not much,” Art said, candidly.
“Oh?” Williams replied. “And may I ask why not?” The expression on the reporter's face, and the defensive timbre of his voice showed his irritation.
“Your headquarters is where? Atlanta? The last time I checked, Atlanta was in the United States, yet your network seems determined to find anything negative you can about our effort over here.”
“We are a world news organization, Colonel,” Williams said. “You do understand the concept of ‘world' don't you? We are beyond the chauvinistic hubris that is so prevalent among our sister networks.”
“Yes, you and Al Jazeera,” Art said. “What do you need, Williams? What can I do for you?”
“I've come down from headquarters to be embedded with your battalion.”
“Do I have a say in this?” Art asked.
“Not really, Colonel,” Williams replied, smugly. “Unless you want to butt heads with a general.”
Art sighed. “All right. Just stay the hell out of the way.”
“Oh, and Colonel, if you would, please put the word out to your men that I am here to work, not to sign autographs,” Williams said.
“I don't think you will have any trouble with that, Mr. Williams,” Art said in a cold, flat tone of voice. “I doubt that you have that many fans among the troops here.”
Art turned back toward the street and lifted his binoculars to his eyes. He swept his gaze, slowly, from side to side, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
He saw nothing.
“Colonel, the UAV has made a second pass, still no sightings,” Captain Chambers said from his position at the monitor.
Art lowered his field glasses. “All right,” he said. “Tell A Company to saddle up. It's time to put out some bait.”
“Yes, sir,” Chambers replied. He spoke into his radio. “Goodnature Six, this is Tango Six. Get ready to move out. All other units hold your position.”
A series of “Rogers” came back.
“Where will the CP be, Colonel?” Chambers asked.
“In my Humvee,” Art replied. “I'm going to lead the convoy.”
“Yes, sir, I'll be right behind you.”
Art shook his head. “No, you take the three spot, Captain Mason will be behind me. Oh, and, take them with you,” he said, nodding toward Williams and his cameraman.
“Uh . . . it isn't all that necessary that we actually go out on patrol with you, Colonel,” Williams said nervously. “We can get everything we need from here.”
Sergeant Baker was chewing tobacco, and he spit on the ground, barely missing Williams' boot.
“So, what you are saying is, you are a pussy. Is that it?” Baker said to Williams.
“I'm not . . . ” Williams started, then he sighed. “I would be glad to accompany you, Colonel.”
“You and your cameraman can ride with Captain Chambers and Sergeant Baker,” Art said.
“That's my Humvee,” Baker said. “Over there.” He pointed.
The sound of a dozen or more engines starting disturbed the quiet morning air. Art walked over to his own Humvee, got into the right seat and settled down. His machine gunner stood in the back, freed the gun to slide around on the ring, cleared the headspace and activated the bolt.

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