En El Medio Read online

  "No friggin' way." Preacher spoke into the phone.

  "What's that?" The voice on the other end of the line asked. And right on cue, more men were out on the street, streaming from other houses.

  "Blow number one." Preacher moved the phone away from his mouth and spoke into the walkie-talkie. Two seconds later, a shot was fired and an explosion rocked the neighborhood. Seven houses down, flames and debris shot into the air and a smoke plume went up. Another gasoline-wrapped propane tank did its job.

  "Are you coming out?" Preacher returned to the cell phone.

  "Nope."

  "Ok then, I guess we'll come get you. I'll have to assume that Chacon is dead and we'll make the double assumption that the Juarez Cartel's number two was out at the desert facility and didn't make it either. Makes for an interesting situation, don't you think?"

  "Interesting indeed." The kid severed the line. And almost immediately the action picked up. From his hidden recess position, Preacher watched as two vehicles exited the garage of a house three down. And out of the house two more past that one, came a group of five men armed with automatic rifles. Looked like AR-15s with extended magazines. They moved with precision, military precision.

  Damn. This thing was over. The kid would have to wait. Time to cut and run and get the hell out of town.

  "Sorry Stan, need to get out of here. Blow the last one."

  A moment after the explosion went up, Preacher broke from his position and headed east, away from the squad armed with automatic rifles. He had the silenced Beretta in his gloved right hand and the M-4 he'd snatched earlier in the morning in the left. As he hugged the buildings, he thought about this little mission. There were two reasons he was here. He'd promised Meadows no questions asked when the lieutenant came to him with any request. Boredom was the other.

  Boredom. How stupid is that? Seven months ago he was in a hospital bed in Lisbon, Portugal after nearly catching and then nearly being killed by Braden, the ultimate mole. Since then, he and Marta had returned to paradise that only exists when they are together. And now she was pregnant, expecting a baby.

  Damn.

  Focus.

  He shot up 600 feet and looked back down at the live-action map below. Meadows was on a building rooftop 240-yards to the west. He was likely looking at him now through his scope. He had the route mapped out. It would undoubtedly take him through a number of the men who'd fanned out from the houses surrounding the Castle. So be it. The sun was almost up. No more shadows to hide within. He turned right and saw his immediate future. It involved killing, like usual.

  The secret to surviving an onslaught by superior forces is to do the exact opposite of what most humans do. Most, when face-to-face with five armed men, drop or dive or run and hide. Wrong. A young Preacher, just 21 and sponging up every kernel, every morsel shared by Mikel Fuchs, one of this planet's supreme killing machines, learned this lesson during the first month at Harvey Point. Superior numbers are only that. Numbers. Fingers on triggers. Terrified humans with fear and uncertainty filling their brains.

  Preacher took off at full sprint toward the group of six. When the first one turned and spotted him and opened his mouth to shout, he was the first to die. Focus.

  A running Preacher used to be a lousy shot. Terrible even.

  But years of training and the magic that seemingly takes hold when Preacher puts on a pair of leather gloves gives the moving target the advantage. He'd also learned from Marta to keep his arm bent, not straight. The bend of the elbow joint allows the hand, wrist and extended arm to function in a hydraulic fashion. Less bounce, better aim.

  His first shot struck the first armed man in the neck. Before the bullet reached its target, he'd moved his aim to the second man where he sought center mass and placed two bullets through the chest. He stepped slightly left and then right as he put bullet four through the thigh of the third guy. Not a great shot. He corrected and ended this man's life with a shot that found a home in a forehead. The fourth, fifth and sixth members of this group had spun and began firing at him.

  He jutted further right while raising the M-4. He sprayed in an arc and hit one of the men in the shoulder and arm. He was taking a bead on the last man standing in the group when the poor guy's head exploded out through his left eye. The kill shot that entered the back of the man's head had started a little over 240 yards away. Preacher moved across the street littered with dead men, snatching up a couple of AK-47s lying there.

  Shots came his way from the right and rear as he ran. His route took him out of their sites. After running 90 yards, he veered left onto Avenue Miguel Hidalgo. Voices yelled behind him. Engines roared. Tires squealed. Guns fired.

  Early morning traffic passed by as he turned right to head south. The Toyota truck with Meadows behind the wheel pulled onto the street from an alley 60 yards ahead. Preacher reached it and jumped into the truck bed. Meadows slammed on the gas before he was in. Preacher tossed the M-4 to the side and grabbed up one of the now seven AK-47s lying in the bed. He sat on his butt and aimed the weapon to the rear. No vehicles closing in behind them, yet.

  The phone in Preacher's jacket pocket rang. He scanned the sightlines behind and then reached to answer it. "Bueno."

  "Where are you going Mr. CIA? Not very brave of you." The kid was gloating a bit. Understandably so. "I thought you were going to blow up el Castillo? Maybe it is just you out there."

  "Maybe." Preacher yelled over the roar of the engine and tires finding the asphalt.

  "Doesn't look like you had much of a plan. You blow up our warehouse in the desert and then shoot up one of our crews and then nothing. Is that it? Are you done?"

  "Keep this phone close, Felix. I'll call you right before the bullet hits you between your eyebrows. Want to be sure you can have that cute little smile on your face. The same smile you had when you put a bullet in the back of your father's head. Be cool." Preacher pressed the talk button and put the phone back in his pocket.

  He stuck his head through the truck's rear window Meadows had opened. With his eyes closed to look over all map options, he issued driving instructions. He was up at 1,500 feet examining the spider web of roadways below. "You'll take the second left and then in a quarter mile, turn right."

  "They're not going to let us get to the border crossing." Meadows shouted over his shoulder while ripping the steering wheel to around to swing the truck into a left turn.

  Preacher was tossed around by the radical driving and cracked up a little. "Hey Parnelli Jones, smooth driving. Dang, I'm glad you fly planes better than you drive."

  "Christ Preacher, get serious will you? These fellas are lookin' to kill us." Meadows' thick Texas accent came through.

  "Funny how that happens, huh?" Preacher stuck his head back through the window. "See where vengeance gets you? Turn right up ahead."

  "That takes us away from the border."

  "Exactly. Never do what's expected brother." He looked back over his shoulder, a truck appeared. "Stop when you make that next turn."

  "What, no way."

  "Do it." Preacher moved back to the rear of the truck bed. He steadied himself with his right hand and grabbed up three AK-47s in his left. When Meadows swerved around the right turn and slammed on the brakes, he hopped out. A two-story grocery store on the corner provided a physical and visual barrier for their pursuers. Preacher stuffed the silenced Berretta inside his belt on his back, set down one of the AKs and brought the other two up to each shoulder.

  When the pursuing Chevy Suburban came around the corner, Preacher stepped out and annihilated the windshield and then the passenger windows as the vehicle sped past, now out of control. Always take out the driver. First rule.

  He turned to the second vehicle, dropped the AK from his left hand to get better aim with the remaining assault rifle. He took a bead on the front windshield where the driver would be and put a dozen bullets through the glass. He then dropped to a knee and picked up the other AK. He had a few seconds before firing, so he
took the time to roll his head, loosening his neck. He brought the gun up and prepared to end more lives.

  Taking in this particular scene from on high, he expected more, expected better. He assumed the passengers in these first two vehicles were members of that ex-military squad. He dropped to his belly and looked from the first vehicle to the second, waiting for boots to appear. He glanced back over his shoulder to see Meadows standing with his deadly rifle in hand and elbow resting on the top of the truck bed sidewall. Impressive.

  Meadows spotted the next vehicle coming around the corner and followed Preacher's lead by putting three shots through the windshield. The driver's life ended there and the vehicle coasted into a telephone pole.

  Boots stepped down on the other side of the second vehicle. Preacher fired bullets into feet and ankles and the heads and bodies when they fell into view, just as he had done earlier this morning at the incident just outside of town. Death was repeating itself today.

  He was up and on his feet and running. When he reached the other side of the second vehicle, he picked up an AK-47 from one of the dead men and immediately sprayed the windows of the third just to be sure no one fired at him.

  Forty-two seconds had elapsed since he'd hopped out of the truck and began his surprise attack on the pursuers. The same clock in his head that had kept time around the high school track and streets and trails running track and cross-country in Tulsa, Oklahoma kept perfect time. He needed to wrap this up and move on.

  He looked back down the street, opened the door of vehicle three and found a couple more cell phones. He stopped at vehicle two and found one more. He grabbed these and a few more automatic rifles and ran back to the Toyota and leapt into the bed as Meadows jumped back behind the wheel. Fifty-eight seconds. They were moving a second later.

  Chapter 4

  Good thing too. Because the particular space in the universe the truck had occupied a half-second earlier turned into a cauldron of heat and fire and rocketing debris.

  "Holy shit!" Meadows shouted in his Texas twang as he rammed his foot down on the gas pedal. The rear of the truck had been lifted up off the asphalt. Spinning tires squealed when they came back in contact with the street below.

  Preacher was low enough in the truck's bed that the exploding, expanding debris field and shock wave missed him for the most part. Meadows got caught with a spray of concrete and asphalt through the shattered rear window, but kept his foot on the floor. After a few seconds and a few hundred yards separation from the site, Preacher stuck his head up and looked back. Hell of an explosion. He looked up and saw why.

  Leaning out of a helicopter swooping in was a man holding the empty husk of an RPG. As Meadows took the vehicle around a turn in a wide swinging arc, Preacher kept his eye on the chopper. That thing didn't lift off in the last four minutes since all this fun started. It was up there already. Could be more of them coming.

  Leaning out of the other side of the whirlybird was a guy with an automatic rifle.

  "Damn. This just escalated a bit." He said to himself. "Chopper up there." He shouted to Meadows. He grabbed the nearest weapon and aimed it up at the helicopter and let loose the remaining rounds in the oversized magazine. The bouncing, careening truck bed did not provide the most stable platform from which to fire a rifle. Still, more than a few of his shots found their target, including the windshield of the chopper and the leg of the guy leaning out the left side.

  "Comin' down here was a mistake. Shouldn't have taken this mission." Meadows yelled over his shoulder through the now shattered rear window. Preacher glanced at him and saw the blood streaking down the pilot's neck from shrapnel. He thought through the words Meadows had just used and read a little subtext in them. Mission? Thought this was a vengeance trip. Huh.

  "Yep. No bueno. Should have talked you out of this instead of cheering you on." Preacher shouted back. "We need to take out this bird, split up and hightail it over the border."

  Preacher steadied himself against the sidewall of the truck bed as Meadows did some nifty driving through the early morning Juarez traffic. As he flew around a tight left turn, the truck passed a police cruiser. The officer immediately put his lights on and threw the Ford into gear. Another chase on.

  This was to be expected. Can't have a rolling gun battle with an excessive body count in the streets of Juarez without the authorities getting involved at some point. They wouldn't be able to outrun all this in the light of day. Needed to get off the streets. Hole up and get a plan sketched out.

  He stuck his head through the cracked spider webbed rear window. "Gonna need you to use your impressive marksmanship and take out this chopper. Find an alley we can swing into and you can set up."

  He turned back to the helicopter and saw the pilot swinging it around to give the guy on the other side another shot with his RPG. "Nope." Preacher rose to a knee, took aim and focused on the tiny little space in the universe occupied by this human's head. For a second and then another, he blocked out the world and movement under feet and rocking and spinning and acceleration and sliding and saw nothing more than the skin on this human's forehead 133 yards away.

  He squeezed the AK-47's trigger with a sweaty gloved right forefinger, absorbed the explosions and multiple recoils in his shoulder. Shell casings smacked and rattled into the truck bed. Tires squealed on the asphalt below. A Michael Bolton song from the 80s laid down a background track. Lots of 80s playing in his head this morning.

  But the entirety of existence was borne by the wrinkles on a man's forehead floating in the air 130 yards away. Preacher saw past the rifle's site to this target and saw nothing else. He emptied the oversized magazine and watched as a human absorbed multiple bullets and began to fall from the air toward a rooftop below. But what happened during the fall was the best part.

  This particular human reacted to numerous bullets piercing his body by contracting a number of muscles, including the librical muscle in his forearm, which by the way, is attached to the forefinger. As Preacher watched the man fall from the chopper, he thought about the median nerve. This wonderful little electronic superhighway inside humans transmits impulses from the brain, through the brachial plexus just off the spine, right down the arm to the first two fingers.

  Michael Bolton was a strange choice for his jukebox brain. But his 1983 debut album was actually a hell of a good rocker. Preacher hummed the chorus as he pondered the falling human's final median nerve impulse that cause the guy's right trigger finger to contract and fire the rocket-propelled grenade.

  The best thing was that the triggerman's twisting, turning body involved his right shoulder with the RPG tube falling first. This movement brought the aim of the RPG upward. When the finger squeezed, the rocket grenade fired up into the spinning blades of the whirly bird. The explosion was awesome, truly awesome. A chopper with no rotor blades overhead is a rock. And it falls like one.

  "Dumb friggin' luck." Preacher fell back on his butt and watched in slow motion as the body fell followed by the rapid descent of the chopper down into the street behind them. The police officer slammed on his brakes as the helicopter crashed down. The flaming helicopter carcass blocked other vehicles pursuing them.

  "Guess I don't need you deadeye dick." He laughed to Meadows. "Just drive Stan. Get us the hell out of here."

  "Head to the van?" Meadows asked.

  "Yep. If no one is on us, that is. Need to ditch this truck."

  Chapter 5

  Something was wrong.

  He stuck an arm out across Meadows' chest. Stopped him in place. Preacher couldn't see what exactly was out of place, but something was. He stepped back into the midday shadow of the doorway. Meadows did the same.

  The two of them had changed. Each looked completely different. Preacher shaved off most of the beard that had been growing for months and cleaned off the brown shoe polish he had applied to face, neck and hands yesterday. The mustache that remained looked seriously cheesy. Meadows went a step further and shaved his head after removi
ng two weeks of facial hair growth.

  Preacher had, as per usual protocol, selected a couple of hideouts in the hours after arriving in Juarez two and a half days ago. One was an abandoned warehouse; the third floor of the building was ratted out and perfect. Supplies, including bottled water, towels, a charged electric razor, clothes and food were stashed here and in the second fallback location three blocks away.

  He selected the spots in the middle of the night, the time the Black Angel had prowled the streets and hills and empty buildings of Europe and Russia during that dark year. He found that being out in a city in the wee hours easily brought back that ghost he had been.

  Keeping the constant pull of addiction at bay when drugs, especially the sweet nectar that is heroin, we so readily available on the streets and alleys of this border town, was challenging.

  Meadows stayed quiet as Preacher scurried the streets ahead of him, like a creature born in and for the night. A creature made for one purpose - to track and kill others.

  Meadows learned almost immediately after drafting Preacher into this off the books and out of bounds mission that some beings are simply different, simply dangerous. Preacher was one of these. At times light and funny and ebullient, Preacher was conversely dark and morose and completely unemotional in dispatching other humans into the next life.

  The pilot now stood back and squinted into the early afternoon glare, trying to see what had spooked Preacher. He looked out at the van Preacher had purchased from a shadowy character beside a car lot three hours after arriving in Juarez. It was sitting on a dirt patch on the edge of a small field about 60 yards from the building they stood within.

  "Someone has been here. Several someones." Preacher nodded.

  "How, where?" Meadows tried to see what he was looking at.