Cut to the Bone(107)

“I can’t see them,” Garcia said, crouching to avoid the gringos’ return fire. That they had survived two grenade blasts was a very dark omen. “The flames from the Jeep make the night scope useless.”

“I think they’re heading there,” Ortega said, pointing at the boulders behind the disintegrating Jeep. “If their phones still work . . .”

Garcia snapped out orders. The men started toward the boulders, firing then dropping flat to the ground then firing again, moving from tree to cactus to rock.

Charvat’s eyes flickered open as he coughed up blood.

“Welcome back, Jefe,” Davis said between trigger bursts. “Thought you were gonna make me do all the work.”

“Did I pass out?”

“A few minutes. You were bleeding like a stuck pig.” He nodded at the shirts he’d knotted around the chief’s thighs. “We’re behind the boulders now.”

Charvat sized up the terrain, nodded. “You saved my life. Thanks.”

Davis answered with a rifle burst.

“Won’t last, though. Them boys’ll be coming over quick enough,” Charvat said, struggling to sit up. “We gotta bring the fight to them.”

“‘We?’ ” Davis said.

Charvat looked at his legs, which were sticking out at odd angles. “Aw, hell. Just position me face-out so I can slow them down.”

Davis moved the broken agent. Charvat blanched, then rallied. Davis handed him three spare magazines, ninety rounds in all. “All right, I’m heading out,” he said.

“Screw this up, I won’t hire you,” Charvat said.

“Now you tell me?” Davis said.

Charvat grinned. The movement welled fresh blood over his lips. “Go get ’em, Capone.” He pushed his AR through a crack between two boulders and launched a bullet stream. The killers responded in kind. It sounded like a machine gun festival.

Davis slapped Charvat’s shoulder twice and charged up the goat path as narcos pockmarked the boulders with hundreds of high-powered bullets. The stocky desert fortress kept the American rifles from being silenced.

“Can you aim your grenades into the sky?” Garcia said, curving his hand to show the arc. “And drop one right behind those rocks?”

“Sí, Jefe,” Manuel said, working out the angles in his head.

Davis spotted a narco racing down the path from the other end. He slipped into a hollow in one of the high rock ridges and pulled out his knife, not wanting to tip his location with gunfire. He forced his breathing shallow and waited, waited, waited . . .

He leaped from the hollow and wrapped his arm around the gunman’s upper neck, squeezing like an anaconda. The narco kicked and gurgled, slamming them both against the sharp rocks. Davis, however, had size and leverage, and drove the blade into the side of the lower neck. A second later he ripped it straight out the front, the honed steel severing both windpipe and jugular. Blood spurted as if carbonated. The gunman’s AK clattered to the rocks.

Davis shoved the corpse into the underbrush, then looked for a good sniping position. Heard the whoomp of the launcher pouring rockets at Killer Bee. He found a decent spot and dug in prone behind his gun, praying Brian’s rock shields held.

Charvat’s eardrums popped as rock knives carved new divots from his back. But he was still alive. He peered through the crack and saw several bandits creeping his way. He stayed silent, letting them draw closer. He slowly laid his sights on the closest man.

“Fill yer hand, you son of a bitch,” he growled, channeling his best John Wayne.

“Get down!” Garcia barked as his compatriot’s blood wetted the ground like a summer squall. The sharp crack of an AR-15 sounded a microsecond later. “They’ve got us in range!”

“This is the Border Patrol,” he heard a hard voice bark. “Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air. If you do not, my men will kill you. This is your final warning.”

Garcia laughed, impressed. “That one has balls the size of grapefruits,” he said to Manuel. “Blast them off.” Manuel nodded and reloaded. He’d spotted the rifle flash that killed his amigo, and knew exactly where to lay his next grenade-

The right side of his head exploded.

“Vaya con dios, asshole,” Davis muttered as he moved to the next target.

“Sniper at three o’clock, Jefe!” Ortega shouted, whipping his bullet stream to his right. Rock chips flew as if chain-sawed. “They split up! One is in the hills to our-”

Davis watched his bullet rip out the mustached killer’s throat. He moved the muzzle to the tall, rangy Mexican wearing crossed ammo belts, the one the dead man just called “Boss,” and fired. Garcia darted sideways, escaping death by millimeters.