Olympus Device 2: The Olympus Device Book Two (31 page)

“I’m concerned as well,” Zeta
admitted. “We should know the outcome of Tio’s efforts shortly. If he has not returned here by dusk, I’ll pull us back over the border and into our native land. We can deal with the Federales later.”

The mere fact that the
colonel had a plan that didn’t involve certain death seemed to settle the younger man down. Zeta was about to move on when excited voices began shouting at the roadblock.

Just as he’d expected, the invaders had barricaded the road at the onset of Laredo. Dusty pulled the
SUV to the side and stepped from behind the wheel. The rail gun’s scope provided an excellent view of the armed men scrambling into positions. For a moment, Dusty was tempted to fire the weapon, the concept of anyone holding American soil offending to the Texan.

“But that’s not what I’m here for,” he whispered as he lowered the
rail.

Walking beside the open door of the SUV, he reached inside and pulled the transmission into gear. The engine’s idle was enough to mo
ve the heavy vehicle forward at a snail’s pace.

Twenty steps later, Dusty felt like he had the slow rolling Suburban headed in a reasonably straight line. He took his hand from the wheel and stepped aside, watching his message as it
headed toward the roadblock just over 500 yards ahead. The terrain on both sides of the road was flat and featureless, so even if his aim was off, he was sure its meaning would be understood.

He watched the SUV
travel for a few moments, and then he proceeded south, trotting through a new subdivision, toward the Rio Grande.

Zeta lowered the binoculars and ordered, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

He turne
d toward the lieutenant and instructed, “Send a man out to retrieve that truck. There’s a body taped to the hood, and I want to verify its identity.”

The Suburban had rolled off the road, coming to a sto
p against the curb some 200 yards shy of the cartel’s barricade. Still, it was close enough for Zeta to view the corpse secured to the hood. A feeling of fear began to rise in the officer’s gut.

A few minutes later, one of his
soldiers drove the police SUV to the barricade. Zeta walked over, holding up Tio’s head by the hair.

“You failed… you incompetent son of a bitch… you failed. Now we all may die,” the frightened
officer hissed.

Pivoting on hi
s heel, Zeta shouted, “Everybody back across the bridges! Now! Hurry! Tio is dead, and the Americans will be coming for our heads!”

Radio broadcasts sounded throughout Laredo, the military walkie-talkies carrying the order to
withdraw. The meaning was clear to even the lowest private – something had gone badly wrong, and it was time to flee.

Men began scrambling, trying to carry looted booty and their weapons at the same time. Commandeered trucks and cars raced through the streets of the town, tires squealing as their engines raced south… to the bridges
… to safety.

Colonel Zeta tried to maintain order and discipline, but it was nearly impossible. His men were frightened, the flush of the easy victory suddenly replaced by the enormity of their foe. The
U.S. military forces would be coming, and they would be pissed. Not a single man expected anything less than a merciless, crushing response.

To
ward safe passage on the other side of the Rio Grande they fled, bustling, shouting groups of men who acted as though they were being chased by Satan and an army of demons. Zeta followed, a zombie-like trance replacing the enthusiasm of a dream fueled by revenge. Not only had he allowed his sister to perish horribly, now the souls of all of these men would haunt him forever.

Despi
te the profane deflation engendered by their failure, Zeta’s training refused to abandon discipline. Passing a squad that was trying to hotwire a flatbed truck, he ordered them to cease the effort and retreat. Another group, intent on one last looting pass at a jewelry store, was shouted into submission. His radio transmitted stern orders to maintain a rear guard.

Zeta continued
driving slowly toward the south, his last mission in life to save as many of his men as possible. Deep down inside, the colonel was a defeated man. He no longer feared death, no longer cared about himself. Glancing down at the pistol he had used to execute the insubordinate ass at the jail, Zeta smiled. He’d use the same weapon to end his own life as soon as his men were safely across the border.

Dusty pulled down the fire escape ladder and climbed. He found himself on the roof of a two-story building overlooking the valley and downtown Laredo. The fiery red of the late afternoon sun colored the great river’s water with a dark crimson hue, a stark contrast to the pale steel and concrete structures of the five paths crossing over the waterway.

He lifted the rail gun and studied the scene below, n
oting clusters of armed men here and there. They all appeared to be hurrying – in a rush toward the south. It dawned on Dusty that they were trying for the bridges. He noted the still-smoldering booths of the border patrol, the pillars of smoke thin and anemic compared to other, larger infernos raging across the skyline.

Sighing, he realized there wasn’t anything he could do about the
destruction to the city itself, the carnage of its citizens, and pillaging of its assets that had befallen the innocent south Texas town. There wasn’t any doubt her populace had been devastated by events that he felt were somehow related to his presence. He cringed when he noticed two bullet-ridden police cars, the bodies of the officers still lying where they had fallen.
Those men probably had families, wives and children who will be shattered by the loss,
he observed.

His remorse was cut short by a rumbling roar overh
ead. Dusty looked up to see two fighter jets screaming down the river, small American flags discernable on their tails. “Those look like the same ones that shot at me,” he mumbled. “This is madness… pure insanity.”

With bright fire trailing from their engines, the two fighters passed low
over the bridges and then executed a gradual turn to the north. Dusty watched in horror as a ball of flame appeared at the base of one of the spans, the eruption soon followed by the smoke plume of a missile arching toward the sky and chasing the planes.

White-hot
puffs of flares began spitting from the jets as the pilots hit the afterburners and launched decoys. Dusty held his breath as he watched the pilots bank hard in an attempt to distract, avoid, or outrun the incoming projectile. He exhaled in relief as he watched the warhead miss the two planes, its exhaust spiraling out of control into an empty sky.

Returning his attenti
on to the ground below, he detected what clearly were officers trying to organize the panicked invaders. Men were pointing, shouting, and hustling everywhere. The flurry of activity appeared to be absolute bedlam.

“Why aren’t you going across the bridges?” Dusty whispered. “Why are
n’t you running back home?”

A quick scan of the nearest crossing answered the question, two large military helicopters visible on the Mexican side of the bridge. “They don’t want y
ou back home,” he mused. The trespassers on the U.S. side were pinned between a rock and a hard place.

“I’d choose the hard
place if I were you,” Dusty smirked. “One hell of a rock is about to fall on your head.”

No sooner had the Texan made that observation,
than a deep rumble sounded from the north. Dusty could perceive several small, black shapes as they appeared on the horizon, their number increasing with every passing second.

Evil looking
attack helicopters darted over Laredo, their wasp-like bodies bristling with rockets and guns… nothing short of delivering gory revenge in a hail of firepower on their agendas.

The
y swooped over the city low and fast, over a dozen of the heavily armed war birds acting as if they were daring anyone to shoot at them. They got their wish.

Three trails of white smoke whooshed up from
the city streets, each shoulder-fired anti-air missile arching toward one of the gunships. But the helicopters didn’t try to outrun the incoming warheads; instead they maneuvered in a manner opposite that of the fighters. Going low and barely skimming above the urban landscape, the darting craft sought to confuse the incoming seekers.

Two of the three shots mi
ssed their targets, but a third found its mark before the pilot could react. Shaking his head in sorrow, Dusty watched as the burning hulk of machinery impacted the ground and exploded in a huge fireball.

The surviving birds didn’t retreat. Before their dea
d comrades had even made contact with the Texas earth, they turned and began to unleash a relentless and unforgiving hailstorm of rockets and chain-gun fire.

A wall of soil,
blacktop, and debris erupted from the ground, the entire area housing the anti-air teams avalanched with incoming fire. There was no way anyone could have survived the counterattack.

More noise from the north drew Dusty’s gaze away from the battle below. He sat in awe of what appeared on the horizon.

The sky grew dark with incoming helicopters. There was no way to count them all; Dusty was absolutely convinced that the entire U.S. Army was on its way to Laredo.

He watched
, fascinated as a formation of four Blackhawks landed in a low, grassy knoll in a schoolyard, their open bay doors disgorging a steady stream of infantry. More and more of the copters appeared, their wheels barely touching the ground before discharging their heavily armed cargo and then lifting off to make room for the next wave.

Again, gunfire drew his attention away from the spectacle of the assault, the distant drifts of shouting and shooting men
adding to the orchestra of helicopter turbines.

Dusty focused his optic, quickly realizing that the invaders were now shooting at their own countrymen across the open expanse of one of the bridges. They were trying to fight their
way back into Mexico and escape the full anger and might of the United States military.