Blood & Tacos #1 (8 page)

McCreary and his men hunkered behind the same rise where they'd spied Wrangler
Plains the day before. Fall was coming, and the faint trace of their breath
rose above them in the chill, dawn air.

"You men don't have to be here," McCreary said. "We're defying orders. If you double-time it back to base, they might not notice you're gone."

"Too late now, Captain," Hawker said. "You know we'd follow you to hell and back."

"That's right, Cap," LaRoy said. "Ain't no Commie bastards gonna rape your town, no sir."

Whitefeather breathed a patient sigh. "Don't worry about your wife, Captain. We're on my former hunting grounds now. The earth speaks to me. The Great Spirit will keep her safe."

McCreary was moved beyond words. But it wasn't time for emotion. They had a job to do: to rescue Sunny, and, God willing, to kill some Ivans in the process.

"Captain!" Hawker hissed, squinting through his scope. "A work detail! Ten… no, twenty civvies!"

McCreary raised his binoculars. A couple dozen people walked out to Bill Dolan's wheat field. They carried scythes and hoes. Old-fashioned tools. McCreary thought he recognized a couple of them. There was Ida Grange, who'd owned the diner on Route 283. She wore a plain gray dress, the likes of which McCreary had never seen. And Bill Dolan himself, dressed as strangely in drab clothes, like something out of
Fiddler on the Roof
. He wore a wool cap. McCreary could only make out a faint red shape, front and center on the cap.

A star.

"Captain," Whitefeather said, squinting into the distance, "Company."

McCreary moved the binoculars back and forth. "Where?"

"Five guards," Hawker said, "To the right? See ‘em?
… Mexicans. And two Russians with 'em."

Sure enough, a squad of five Mexican soldiers, unshaven, their fatigues crumpled and disheveled came into view. Fifty yards away stood a pair of Russian privates, distinguished by their light blue shirts, shouldering their AK's, smoking cigarettes and laughing.

"Backstabbers!" LaRoy muttered.

"Let's move into position," McCreary said. "Whitefeather, you and LaRoy circle around. You handle the Mexicans. Hawker and I will take out the Russians."

"I don't know," Hawker said. "It's not the objective. If we shoot and miss—"

"Then don't miss," Whitefeather said. "When the Mexicans start to dance, sir, that'll be your cue." The big Indian and LaRoy were already moving through the tall grass like a couple of leopards.

McCreary and Hawker had plenty of cover as they moved. A rusted combine. Three boulders. A pumphouse. Before too long, they crouched unseen only five yards from the Russians, who chattered away in their dirty, oily language. Beyond them, McCreary could see the Mexican guards, lounging next to their truck. One had his hat down over his eyes. The others leered at a group of teenage girls. The biggest soldier, with a huge, black mustache, catcalled one of the girls in Spanish. She didn't look up, only hoed the ground faster.

McCreary raised his M-16 and aimed it at the Russian on the left. Hawker had his rifle up, peering unnecessarily though the sight. At this range, Hawker would have been automatic with a blindfold. Maybe he was just being cautious.

The big soldier moved toward the girl.
"¡
Señorita!"
McCreary heard him say. "
E
res hermosa
.
Venir aquí!"

His last words. The soldier's head silently exploded. The sound arrived a half second later. The Russians jerked to attention like startled antelope.

Then, everything happened fast.

The big Mexican fell to the ground like a headless sack of tamales. His men jumped to their feet. Two of them grabbed for their rifles—then began their silent, jiggling dance of death. The remaining two ran toward town.

McCreary drew a bead on the nearest Russian's chest and fired. The M-16 kicked against his shoulder with a reassuring
thump
. The Russkie was dead before he hit the ground. A millisecond later, Hawker fired at the Russian on the right—and missed.

The scrub oak tree behind the Russian split in two. Hawker's Russian looked around with big, cowardly eyes. He could see neither McCreary nor Hawker—and turned to run.

Goddammit, Hawker!
McCreary thought. He raised his rifle and dropped the Russian with a single shot to the back of the head. McCreary felt the slightest tug of sadness. The Russian kid had looked all of nineteen, and now he lay dead in the dirt, with the front of his head replaced with an exit wound.

McCreary tried to quash any regret:
They invaded my home. Not just my country. The Commies are in my home town. Sorry, Ivan: You had to die.

Across the field, Whitefeather and LaRoy chased down the remaining Mexicans. LaRoy tackled the slower one and drove his Ranger's knife into the back of his head. He jiggled in the dirt like a beetle in some sadistic kid's bug collection. Whitefeather had caught the other one. McCreary, far out of earshot, knew what was happening: The big Comanche was drawing his knife across the Mexican's throat, but whispering words of a hunter's respect into his ear as blood flowed from his body like a sacred stream.

"I'm sorry, sir," Hawker said. He looked seriously dejected. "I've never missed in my life. Too close quarters, I guess. But that's no excuse."

McCreary patted him on the shoulder. "It's all right. I never make mistakes, you know?"

"You're a good man, Capt. McCreary," Hawker said softly. "I won't let you down again."

"I know you won't," McCreary said. "Let's join the others."

Whitefeather and LaRoy were already at the girls. "It's all right," Whitefeather said to the tallest one. "We're Americans, like you!"

"That's right, miss," LaRoy said. "Head up that road. There's an American base not ten miles away. They'll take you in and keep you safe. You'll see!"

Here came Bill Dolan, running toward them, with Ida Grange on his heels, holding her skirt up from the ground. They'd dropped their tools and looked relieved to see them. Actually, that wasn't right. They didn't look relieved. They looked
scared.

That wasn't right, either. They looked
angry.

Dolan and Ida yelled incomprehensibly. LaRoy tried to calm them.

McCreary arrived at the group. Sure enough, that
was
a red star on Dolan's cap. And why was Dolan yelling at them… in Russian?

"Chto vy delali?"
Dolan cried out
. "Eti soldaty byli nashi druz
'ya! Vy uzhasno bandity!"

"This doesn't make any sense," Whitefeather said, drying his knife on his fatigues.

Just then, fifty Russian soldiers rose from the summer wheat, surrounding them. Each soldier brandished an AK-47. The rifles' magazines curled toward McCreary's team like black fangs. A faint breeze blew, hissing through the grain menacingly. McCreary felt awash in an ocean of dread. Even the wheat had turned against them.

"Captain McCreary," an accented voice said from behind a tree. They all turned. Out stepped a tall, Russian officer. He wore plain, pressed olive-colored combat fatigues. Only the three pale stars on his shoulders betrayed his rank. "Thank you for joining us on such a fine morning as this."

"Who the hell are you?" LaRoy asked.

"I am General Yuri Azov of the Soviet Army," the general said. "And you will do well to check your tone with a superior officer, Private LaRoy, of Lewisburg, West Virginia."

"How do you know my name?" LaRoy asked.

The general ignored him. McCreary dropped his M-16 on the ground as the general and two soldiers approached. He motioned to the others to do the same. They obeyed—except for Hawker, who kept his sniper's rifle slung over his shoulder.
Good old Hawker,
McCreary thought.
A sniper to his dying day.

"How I know is not important," the Russian general said. "Not nearly as important as the honors we will bestow upon Lieutenant Hawkerov …
of the KGB
."

The sniper that McCreary had known as Hawker clicked his heels, stood at attention, and gave the general a crisp salute.

"Lt. Hawkerov," the general said, "thank you for bringing Captain McCreary to enjoy the benefits of our worker's paradise. And thank you for delivering my note, as well! Such a brave, loyal son of Kiev!"

"Hawker!" McCreary cried softly. The sniper glanced at McCreary for the briefest of moments. What was that in his eyes? Was it shame? Were Communists even capable of such an emotion?

"I am happy to do my duty for the Motherland," Hawker said in English.

"As am I," the general said.

Azov raised his pistol. McCreary recognized it as a Nagant M1895. A seven-shot, gas-sealed revolver, issued only to the top Communist Party members. Azov was the real deal. And he demonstrated it by shooting the sniper in the chest. Hawker—
Hawkerov
—crumpled like the traitor he was.

McCreary's mind spun. "W-why?" he asked, just as a rifle butt struck the back
of his head.

McCreary regained consciousness, pain glowing bright yellow in his skull. He
tried to move his arms, but couldn't. They were stretched behind his back. He
opened his eyes to sunlight streaming through tall windows. McCreary recognized
the office of Mayor Todd Houston. Same oak paneling, same fancy desk the size
of a Mississippi River barge. But the walls were adorned with posters, of proud
workers facing the sky under the same backward Cyrillic letters that Hawker
had translated the day before—

Hawker. Goddammit, Hawker!

Whitefeather and LaRoy were similarly seated, their arms tied behind their chairs. They were awake. LaRoy had two black eyes. The scrappy little private had apparently tried to fight them off. Whitefeather didn't appear to have a scratch on him. The Russians probably knew better than to tangle with the big Indian.

Other than two Russian guards at the door, they were alone.

McCreary scanned the room. His eyes stopped on a huge oil painting, five feet high and three feet wide, hanging on the wall behind the desk.

The painting looked like something out of the 1700s. It showed a blonde woman in a blue dress, her hair tied behind her head, standing in a field of flowers. A basket of blossoms hung from her elbow. In the distance, a Russian church with three onion domes sat under yellow clouds and a red, setting sun. McCreary couldn't take his eyes off the woman.

Sunny!

The door to the office opened. General Azov wore a more ceremonial uniform, whatever it was that the Russians called their Class A's. His boots shone and thumped on the old oak floor, every step a gunshot.

"I see you're awake, Capt. McCreary," the General said.

"You seem to know me quite well," McCreary intoned. His skull throbbed with every syllable.

"I've known all about you for years." Azov said, pulling an olive-colored folder off his desk and opening it. "Captain Jacob McCreary, United States Air Force… born on March 2, Texas Independence Day … Eagle Scout… joined the Air Force's Pararescue division for training, but forced out with a knee injury obtained when rescuing a comrade from a tangled parachute line. … Reassigned to the 91
^st
Missile Wing, where you performed with distinction."

"Hey, how do you know all that?" LaRoy asked.

Azov continued. "Before assuming command of this glorious invasion of your … doomed empire, I was second-in-command of the KGB. It was my job to know about every American missile officer. I know every detail, Capt. McCreary. I've followed your career. And your personal life. I was amazed at the similarities of our ambitions. Of our character. And most importantly, the fact that our wives appeared so… identical. So naturally, I studied you. And her. With great interest."

"What's that supposed to mean?" McCreary asked.

"Oh, Captain. We shall deal with that soon enough," Azov said, "We are discussing a clash of civilizations. Mighty empires, meeting on the field of battle! Our Chinese allies, tired of being a third-rate power. Mother Russia, impatient that it has taken seventy years to bring capitalism to its knees. And so, we have Chinese Plan Chang Alpha 7. To erase the threat posed by the American nuclear arsenal. And it worked with 99.9999 percent accuracy."

Azov walked to Mayor Houston's liquor cabinet. McCreary remembered the cabinet from the day he'd made Eagle Scout at 17, the day Sunny had given him that chaste kiss on his cheek. That day, the Mayor had toasted young Jake McCreary with a shot of whisky. The Russkie general had replaced the mayor's Kentucky gold with bottle after bottle of Stoli.

The general poured himself a glass. "Our plan was foolproof, except for you.
You
, Capt. McCreary, commander of the only American nuclear assets that were able to leave their silos on time.
You
, who drilled your men to check and recheck their systems at all hours.
You,
whose computers were constantly resetting themselves, as per your orders. And when our blessed day arrived, it was your men who possessed the necessary reaction times." The tone of his voice darkened. "Still, of the five Minuteman III missiles that you launched, four were destroyed by our laser-based missile shield—"