Ballistic(144)
The lead vehicle arrived directly behind the cement truck as the canyon narrowed in a turn. There were just a few feet on either side of the narrow blacktop road, which was surrounded by steep, rocky inclines that made passing impossible. The lead driver flashed his lights continuously and honked his horn. The cement mixer was increasing its speed but not fast enough to satisfy Calvo’s three expert security drivers. Words were exchanged over the radio between the Suburbans about the slowdown.
Calvo remained unaware.
“I need you to let me know if Daniel comes to you and begins asking too many questions about where I am. I can call him at any time and give him some story. Don’t try and fool him yourself. He can smell a lie just like his father could.”
The canyon narrowed further, and the cement truck accelerated to barely forty miles an hour. The lead motorcade driver leaned on his horn now, swerved his truck from left to right behind the mixer, and the front passenger rolled down his window, hefted his M4 rifle, and waved it outside so that it could be seen by the cement truck’s driver in his passenger-side rearview.
Calvo glanced up at the persistent honking as he spoke.
“Nothing, just traffic.” He looked down at a notepad on his lap. “Yes, I will give them the coordinates of the super lab. As soon as we see the norteamericano’s body I will contact—”
In the lead vehicle the front passenger had removed his seat belt and positioned half of his body out the window now, angrily waving the rifle in the air. The driver flashed his lights and began cursing loudly as they arrived at the most narrow portion of the mountain canyon. He reached for his radio to warn the other vehicles to be ready for—
Right in front of him, the big cement mixer slammed on its breaks, skidded to a stop. A two-foot-wide high-pressure stream of wet concrete shot from its five-foot-long chute, and the lead Suburban drove right into the gravelly mixture before braking. It slid hard into the rear of the mixer, airbags deployed, and concrete covered the hood and windscreen. Hundreds of gallons of the gray sludge sprayed the vehicle and splashed onto the narrow road around it.
The bodyguard who had been hanging out the window flew completely from the Suburban; his back snapped, and his weapon slid forward, all the way past the front wheels of the cement mixer.
Just behind this the driver of Calvo’s SUV screamed “Hold on!” Nestor looked up from his phone, out the windshield, and into the morning glare ahead, just as his truck’s brakes locked and the SUV slid into Truck One.
Calvo’s phone flew out of his hand, and he slammed into the seat back in front of him. The bodyguards on either side of him did the same.
The leader of Calvo’s detail sat in the front passenger seat of Truck Two. As he recovered from the impact, his M4 rose from between his knees, and he grabbed his walkie-talkie and shouted to the rear vehicle. “Truck Three! Back! Back! Back!”
The rear driver jammed his Suburban in reverse, and Calvo’s driver did the same.
Nestor climbed back into his seat just as his truck went into reverse, throwing him forward again. The bodyguard on Calvo’s right grabbed him and covered him with his body. While doing so, both he and Calvo saw a flash of light on the rocky cliff above and just slightly behind them. The boom of an explosion came a fraction of a second later, and an instant after that, Calvo and his protector watched helplessly as the explosion blasted stone and dirt away from the brown scrub on the cliff. Boulders the size of easy chairs broke from the cliffside and tumbled down towards the convoy, knocking flat shale shingle and trees and dirt free on their way down.
Someone in Calvo’s truck screamed, “Watch out!”
The massive landslide missed Nestor’s vehicle. As the driver slammed on his breaks, the intelligence chief of the Black Suits crashed shoulder-first into his leather headrest, the man who had thrown himself over Calvo’s body collided into him. Calvo looked out the back window just in time to see the rear vehicle in the convoy catch the brunt of the mass of rock and dirt and dust and greenery; tons of falling rubble slammed into the Suburban, spun the massive armored vehicle 180 degrees on its axis before burying it along with the six men inside.
Wet concrete continued pouring onto the first vehicle in the convoy. The driver recovered from the impact with the cement mixer, pushed the deflated airbag out of his way, and jacked the truck’s transmission into reverse. The truck’s wheels spun, but it found purchase and began backing up; men in the truck around the driver shouted and screamed, and the SUV backed hard into the grille of Truck Two. Seconds later the cement mixer itself reversed, backed through hundreds of pounds of gray sludge, and crashed into Truck One.