The Territory (Josie Gray Mysteries #1)(53)
The front of her car faced the Buick, so Marta swung open her door immediately, crouched, but instead of running behind her own car and staying as Jimmy had instructed, she ran to the passenger side of the lead car. She wanted to take down the driver herself while the agents took care of the truck passengers. It appeared there was only the driver. No passengers. She hoped she hadn’t miscalculated.
Squatting behind the window of the rear passenger door, she banged on the window and yelled for the driver to step out of the car. With the sirens blaring and the truck and both four-wheelers idling behind the lead car, she doubted the driver could hear anything.
The truck’s driver threw it into reverse, gunned the engine, and hit the front of Jimmy’s ATV with the horse trailer as he made a break for Mexican soil. The impact was negligible, as he had little traction in the water. She watched Jimmy give a thumbs-up to Sanchez, which Marta assumed meant he had not been hurt by the truck. She heard gunshots and ducked, then heard the hiss of the tires on the pickup being deflated.
Guns drawn, Jimmy and Sanchez both left their ATVs simultaneously. Sanchez approached the driver’s side of the truck and Jimmy the passenger side. As both men yelled for the occupants to exit, the doors of the truck opened slowly. Two men wearing jeans and dark-colored Tshirts began exiting the truck and were then dragged by the agents out into the water.
While they were securing the truck, Marta turned her back on the two agents, crouched, and moved around to the driver’s side of the car from the back. Her heart banged against her chest as she yelled again for the driver to step out, hands in the air. She was certain the vehicles were transporting weapons, drugs, or both and whoever was driving had a much different outlook on life and death than she did. She yelled in Spanish again for the driver to open his door, and then silently prayed to God to keep her safe for her daughter.
Marta shone her flashlight in the car with her free hand and confirmed there was only one person. Jimmy and Sanchez had both men cuffed and were shoving them noisily through the water toward her. Her main concern was that they were all targets until she secured the man in the car. Marta lifted her metal flashlight high above her head and came down hard on the driver’s window, shattering the glass into the car. She slid the barrel of the gun in through the broken window and connected with the man’s head. He threw his hands up and leaned toward the steering wheel.
“All right, all right!” he screamed.
Marta slowly pulled her gun back out the window, unlocked the car door, then opened it. Hearing the man use English, she shifted her response to English as well. “Slow now. Put your hands and feet out first so I can see them.”
She watched as he shifted his body so his hands and then feet appeared in the opening.
“You have any weapons on you?”
She heard no response and yelled the question again, hitting one of the man’s hands with her gun.
“No! No guns in here,” he yelled.
“Then you ease out of the car. Slowly.” As he slid out of the car with his hands and feet in front of him, it gave Marta time to look more closely into the car’s interior: it was empty except for what looked like a coat or duffel bag on the backseat, too small for a person to hide under.
*
Within ten minutes, all three men were handcuffed and lying facedown in the dirt. Marta pulled out driver’s licenses and wallets from pockets while Jimmy drove Marta’s jeep and then the truck and horse trailer up out of the water and onto dry land.
A grassy opening about fifty feet wide separated the river from the road, but they needed to block vehicle access to help control the situation. While Sanchez set up flares and turned his patrol car sideways in the middle of River Road to block traffic, Jimmy used chain link cutters to break the locks on the horse trailer.
Jimmy called out to Marta. “Josie was on it. There’s enough firepower in here to blow that jail to pieces. You better get ATF and request the bomb squad. Border Patrol backup is on their way, but we’re going to need as much help as we can get. These guys had big plans with this kind of firepower.” Jimmy walked gingerly back around the trailer. “This stuff makes me nervous as hell. I bet there’s a half ton of TNT alone.”
As Jimmy inventoried the truck and Marta searched the Mexicans, Sanchez rigged spotlights on top of eight-foot portable poles that he’d stowed in Marta’s truck. He flipped the switch on a small generator, and it cast a surreal light over the vehicles and the men lying in the grass.
Jimmy stepped away from the trailer and approached Marta. In the bright light, Jimmy’s face appeared pale and dripped with sweat. Marta thought he had the wide-eyed look of an adrenaline junkie. “We need to stand clear until ATF gets here.” He pointed to the men lying on the ground. “What do you have?”
“The driver of the lead car has an American accent but no identification on him. The two men who were in the truck both have Mexican ID cards.” Marta stuck her foot out and with it poked one of the men in his hip. “This one is confirmed Medrano. I know the name.”
“A Medrano. Go figure. You fellas headed over to our jail?” Jimmy stood above the men who lay on their chests, their heads turned to the side. “Try and bust your kinfolk out tonight, huh? That load of explosives just might send you away for the long haul.”
Sanchez left the generator and walked over to join Jimmy. “We’ll need a special Medrano wing at the jailhouse.”