Читать книгу Aim And Fire - Cliff Ryder - Страница 10

The three bearded men drove through the desert landscape, dotted with the hardy scrub vegetation and stunted trees that looked relatively familiar to all of them. No one commented on the similarities to home, however; they were all completely focused on the job at hand.

After the slaughter on the deserted road where they had been pulled over, one of the men had loaded the bodies of the two Border Patrol agents into the SUV, driven it into the middle of the desert, wiped it down and set fire to the vehicle. Meanwhile, the other two men had hauled the bodies of the luckless illegals and their coyotes several dozen yards off the side of the road and had cleaned up the truck as best as they could before leaving the scene. The third man had met up with the other two a few miles down the road, and they proceeded together to their destination.

The farmstead they pulled up to had once been a thriving ranch in the middle of the south Texas plain. It had been abandoned decades earlier, and was now a waypoint on the illegal-immigration highway. Every so often the Border Patrol would stake out the place, and the three men had stopped a few miles away and watched the buildings for two hours until the sun came up. During their surveillance, they took turns performing the predawn prayer.

When they were satisfied no one was there, they drove the truck up the long driveway, past the leaning, windowless, two-story house, its drab wooden siding stripped clean of every speck of paint by decades of dust storms. At the sagging wooden barn, two of the men got out and walked to the door, machine pistols in hand, and checked the interior. Finding it empty, they waved the truck forward, closing the doors behind them.

The temperature inside was already stifling, but the men didn’t notice as they pulled on latex gloves and got to work. In one corner was a green tarp, underneath which were cans of spray paint and other supplies. After moving the long box out of the back of the truck, one of the men washed out the back with a strong bleach solution, then soaped it down, as well, finally rinsing it clean. Meanwhile, two of the men wiped off the thick layer of dust, then covered the truck’s lights, windows, bumpers and trim with paper and tape. After the cargo bay was clean, the third man prepped the cans and laid out large decals to complete the truck’s transformation.

When everything was ready, they spray painted the truck, starting at the front and moving back, taking breaks every few minutes to let the fumes dissipate. Gradually the panel truck turned from white to a flat gray, which dried quickly in the heat. Two of the men methodically covered every inch of metal with the paint, while the third scrubbed blood spatter from the cab’s interior and covered the bullet-torn bench seat with a blanket.

At noon, they stopped to pray again and eat a lunch of flatbread, hummus and cold falafels. Afterward, they checked the paint job, and stripped off the paper. The third man measured carefully and applied the decals, making the truck appear to be just another vehicle that belonged to one of the hundreds of private companies in El Paso. Lastly, he switched the license plates with ones that had been supplied along with the paint and other materials. He sent the other two to dispose of everything left over, warning them to travel at least a mile away from the building before digging, and to bury everything at least four feet deep.

Once they were finished, the three men walked around the truck, examining their handiwork. The driver nodded with satisfaction, and motioned for the other two to open the double doors. He drove to the end of the driveway, then went back and helped the other two sweep away the tracks leading from the barn to the road. Taking one last look around, the driver was satisfied that everything looked exactly as it had when they had arrived. He got into the cab, joining the other two men, and drove away, heading down the highway toward El Paso.