Page 35 of Vaquero
With a flick of his thumb, the front legs of his tripod fell into place. He removed the lens cap to his scope. Steadied his aim. Checked windage, distance, and elevation. Took a deep breath. Let his lungs deflate slowly, like a mediation. Which, for him, it was.
Next came his mental prayer heavenward.Madre de Dios, please pray to your Son for me. Beg Him to guide my hand that I may end the terrible injustice this wicked man has done to your people. Help me save the innocent souls gathered behind me. Bless Meg and her children, wherever they are. Bless Dom especially. And bless me, dulce Madre de María. Please. No matter how this fight ends, bless me to die with honor.
Another breath. One last thought of Meg and… Julio leaned his eye into his scope and located Domingo’s baby brother’s ugly, wicked face in his crosshairs. The man seemed to be looking straight at Julio, as if he sensed a predator watching him.
Look at me, Senor Zapata. See me. Know I have come here to kill you for crimes committed against God and mankind. Tonight, you die.
Oz laughed as if he hadn’t a care in the world. As if he were untouchable.
Julio’s right index finger settled into his rifle’s trigger loop, then squeezed the metal loop halfway toward him. Finally. It was time to release the first hound of hell.
Domingo’s brother sweetened the deal when he unwittingly stepped between the fuel pumps in the background and the business end of Julio’s rifle. Looked like he wanted a picture taken of him with his new Russian friends. Still grinning. Still thinking he was safe.
When that was the last thing Orlando Zapata would ever be again.
*****
Packing one loaded rocket launcher on her right shoulder, with a squeaky-new M16 rifle holstered at her back and two more empty launchers with warheads waiting at her feet, Meg took a knee several yards from the munitions-packed cabin. The night was black, the air still and stifling hot. All the action in the gravel pit seemed to be centered around a pig on the spit in the middle of this hell-hole Orlando Zapata called home. Or whatever he called it. His headquarters. His mine. His gravel pit. Didn’t much matter as long as he was dead when the sun came up. And he would be. Meg knew that for sure. Then she could continue her search for Pepe. She had to find him.
The launcher itself was fully extended with the warhead locked in place. Ready to fire. She’d already pulled the warhead’s arming pin. She had no intention of changing her mind, and there was no way to telescope the warhead back if she did. Its folded fins were spring-loaded and ready to fly.
Her left elbow rested firm and steady on her left knee. While supporting the launcher with her weaker left hand, she flipped the sight reticule on the launch tube up with her right. She was good to go. The launcher itself was now trapped between her shoulder and her cheek, as if she were talking on a bulky telephone. All she had to do now was line Zapata in her sights, wait on Charlie’s signal, and blow that bastard to hell. Didn’t even have to target Oz’s head to get her part of the job done.
They’d carefully planned a two-pronged attack. Charlie was on top of the cabin roof, ready to snipe the bastard who murdered children. All she had to do was wait for Charlie’s signal. Then, while he turned Zapata’s head to mist, she’d blow the rest of him, and anyone who got in her way, to Hell.
Check. Check. And double check.
“Arm your weapon, soldier,” Charlie ordered from the cabin roof behind her.
Man, he was as bossy as ever. Still, she nodded her compliance, and let him think he was in charge. Holding the launcher firmly, she pulled the arming trigger into ARM position. The only thing left was for her to squeeze the trigger bar. How easy was that?Okay then.
She’d reconned enough of the gravel pit to know there were no Brazilian slaves yucking it up with Oz and his guys over there at the barbeque. Only some tall, uniformed, white guys she’d never seen before. Also armed to the teeth, they were most likely more mercenaries come to die in the land of, duh, Oz. What a fun play on words. Oz, as in the“Wizard of Oz”,surely wouldn’t see the flying monkey coming at him that Meg was about to unleash. But he would melt like the green witch in that old-time movie.
Meg nearly smiled. But killing wasn’t funny, and the warhead on her shoulder would leave damned few of Oz’s buddies alive. If any. Yet that was her plan and her heart’s desire. Kill the man who’d kidnapped her kids and who’d left Dom to die. End anyone who tried to protect him.
Disgust at what Zapata had done to Dom and other children slithered up her spine like a warm, friendly snake. But this snake she liked. The one across the pit from her. The cold-blooded monster, now staring at the tunnel where Meg was certain she’d find the enslaved Brazilians and maybe Pepe. Zapata? That snake had to die. Because, as quiet as those two tunnels were, she wasn’t sure she’d find anything alive in them. Even the guards he’d posted outside the nearest tunnel weren’t worried. All five were ringside and porking-out on roast pig now. Laughing. Guzzling what had to be nasty, warm beer.
Okay then… Ready. Set.
Only now… She wiped the sheen of sweat dripping off her forehead out of her eyes. This brilliant ambush plan sounded so much easier in the cabin, when they were deciding who would do what. She’d been pumped full of righteous rage then. She’d known she was right, damn it.
But out here in the dark, standing under all those stars in the universe overhead? Finally faced with the full weight of ending a life, even one so despicable? Meg faltered. Every last speck of her almighty self-righteousness had fled the instant she’d shouldered the LAW. Her heart thumped like a living beast, so loud that she could hear it once she’d snuggled the tank killer like a close friend. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think straight. Didn’t feel like rejoicing at what she damned well knew was the right way to end Orlando Zapata’s reign of terror.
Yes, he’d be dead, and yes, he deserved the death sentence she was about to send him. But to be his executioner? To be the one taking his life, even a life so foul? Mind numbingly frightening. Overpowering. She’d never felt so supremely capable or powerful, yet so lost and alone at the same time.
This action was final. He’d never see another sunrise. He’d never breathe the rich bouquet of a new Brazilian morning. Trevor had always said that killing your enemy took a part of your soul. That the more people or animals you killed, the more of your internal light you gave to the devil. It was karma in all its glory. There was always a trade-off. A balance.
All at once, the life and death decision wasn’t between her and Oz. It was between her and God. Meg swallowed hard, praying for strength to see this judgment call through. To free the world of one of its worst, brutal aggressors. If that meant she’d have to sacrifice a part of her soul to save children like Dom, she was willing to let it be her. Wasn’t she?
Am I?
“Talk to me, Trevor,” she whispered to the sleek tube with its deadly cargo beneath her cheek. “If you’re so smart, tell me what to do. Do I end him or—?”
“On my count of three.” It seemed Charlie Brown, not her brother, Trevor Duncan, was speaking for the Lord tonight.Okay then…
With a deep breath,Meg took that as her sign from heaven. Shehadbeen called to end Zapata. She was the one. Shecoulddo it.
Leaning her cheek into the launcher, she sighted Orlando Zapata, standing all smug and domineering across the pit, in her reticle. One of his soldiers held a camera to his face.Oh, look. Oz wants his picture taken with those tall, pasty white guys.
