“What’s the problem, Hal?” he asked.
“Well, the good news is that you’re going somewhere warmer.”
“Anywhere is warmer than here,” Bolan said.
“True enough,” he admitted. “The situation is this—one of our field assets in Phoenix got in touch with us two days ago. She was contacted by a U.S. Border Patrol agent named Colton Rivers.”
“Hmm...there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while,” Bolan said. “He’s one of their field ops guys on the border. We crossed paths a while back when I dealt with that rash of agent kidnappings.”
“Same guy,” Brognola said. “He didn’t know how to find you, so he asked around and eventually connected with me.”
“So, what’s going on that Rivers thinks he needs help from people like us?”
“The smuggling situation down there has taken a turn for the surreal. He was out with a team in the desert near Douglas and they were ambushed by illegals from the other side.”
“That’s probably not all that unusual,” Bolan replied. “It’s a war zone, Hal. A quiet one, but still war.”
“If that were all, I wouldn’t be talking to you. There’s more. The weapons the illegals were using were U.S. Army issue. Not surplus, either. Someone is selling them military weapons, and if it’s hot down there now, a cartel armed with God-knows-what could turn that quiet war-zone into a full-scale disaster area.”
“That’s attention-getting, all right. Does this have anything to do with the whole Fast and Furious mess the ATF created? If so, isn’t it the government’s problem?”
“I don’t think so,” Brognola said. “Most of that has been cleaned up, and those were small weapons. These are .50 caliber machine guns, mounted on all-terrain dune buggies. The men were armed with standard-issue assault rifles, too.”
Bolan whistled. That was heavy hardware. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll call Rivers now if you can forward me his number. Where am I landing in the U.S.?”
“Phoenix, by way of Dallas,” Brognola replied. “According to our Naval contacts, you’ll be on the ground in Arizona in less than twenty-four hours.”
“All right,” Bolan said. “I’ll need a vehicle and a basic field set—you know what I need.”
“It will be waiting for you at the airport. Do you want me to organize backup for you? I can hook you up with a Phoenix-based agent, Nadia Merice.”
Bolan considered it for a moment. “Not just yet,” he said. “Send me her dossier and contact information. Let me go down and assess the situation first. If I need her, I’ll get in touch.”
“You’ll have all of it shortly, Striker. Keep me informed, please. We don’t want this spiraling out of control.”
“Will do,” Bolan said, then hung up the phone. A few moments later, the number for Colton River came through as a secured text message. He dialed it.
“Rivers,” the vaguely familiar voice answered.
“Agent Rivers, Matt Cooper,” he said. “I heard you were trying to find me.”
“Cooper! I didn’t think I’d be able to track you down. Not really.”
“It’s a small world,” Bolan said. “What can I do for you?”
Colton quickly explained his situation, and it lined up with what Brognola had told him. “I know you’re not...well, official, but I think that’s just what we need. Especially if official people are involved.”
Bolan lay back in his seat and listened, rolling the information over in his head. Rivers was a good man, and he was obviously in a bit of a panic. He’d stopped talking, but Bolan was unwilling to speak for the moment. The silence made the agent nervous.
“Cooper, are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he said, staring out the window. Below, the edge of the ice was giving way to the choppy waters of the Southern Ocean.
“Thank you, Cooper. I didn’t know who else could handle this kind of thing.”
“It sounds sticky. We’ll talk more when I get there,” he said, then disconnected the call. Brognola was right about at least one thing, he thought—he was going somewhere warmer.
The contrast between the stark, icy white of the Antarctic and the brash gold and tan of the desert had been more than a little startling. After a long flight into Phoenix, Bolan had picked up a car and driven east, passing through Tucson, then cutting south through Sierra Vista and finally arriving in Douglas, Arizona. The dry desert winds blew tumbleweeds across the highway as Bolan drove into the outskirts of the small town.
It was a bit eerie—a town with main streets that hadn’t seen much in the way of updating since the seventies. The only modern storefronts he saw were those of a Wal-Mart and a McDonald’s, which he passed without slowing. Douglas was positioned directly on the border with Mexico, and the flow of immigrants—both legal and illegal—was enough to make Caucasian people a minority. On the other side of the border was Agua Prieta, a much larger city, with much bigger problems. Drug trafficking and illegal immigrants were big business in Agua Prieta, and many honest cops on that side were killed with disturbing regularity.
Bolan pulled up to the gas station where he was meeting Rivers and waved off the entrepreneurs selling fresh tamales out of the trunk of their car. Bolan didn’t try to hide the fact that he was carrying, and he kept a wary eye on those milling about. Enough crime occurred in this one little corner of the universe to keep county, state and federal law enforcement busy every day of the year. It wouldn’t do to become a statistic.
Bolan continued to eye the comings and goings when a car pulled up to one of the pumps. The music was blaring loud enough that the bass thrummed through the gas station until the car shut down. Three guys in white tank tops stepped out of the souped-up Malibu from the eighties that looked like it was halfway through its restoration. One guy went into the gas station while the other two lagged behind and went to the old lady selling tamales.
“Hey, grandma, we could use some food.”
“Five dollars for five.”
“No, grandma, we just want the food.”
They moved forward and Bolan felt like he was watching a bad movie as the two men approached her. Their harassment of the old lady wasn’t entertaining at all.
Bolan approached and tapped the closer of the two on the shoulder.
“What do you want?” he asked Bolan.
“You’re going to leave this lady alone.”
He lifted the edge of his T-shirt to reveal the .38 he was carrying in his waistband.
“I think I do what I want.”
“Oh, well, you should have said that from the beginning.”
The thug started to turn when Bolan caught his shoulder and spun him around, using the added momentum to drive his fist into the man’s face, shattering his nose and dropping him to his knees. Bolan whipped the Desert Eagle out of his holster and trained it on the other man before either of them knew what had happened.
“Now, explain to me what it is you want to do. After all, we decided that you get to do what you want. I just thought there should be a little more discussion on what that might be.”
“I’ll leave, I’ll leave.”
Bolan