Pasqual had his face to the rear window, “The passenger got out. He’s trotting towards us.”
Hunter dug her phone out of her rear pants pocket and called Art. He picked up on the first ring as Hunter said, “You better be close.”
“We’re walking to you, see us?” She did, and the four men with Art had seen the sicario as well. They spread out, letting the killer see their M-4s. The killer stopped, turned, and trotted to the Navigator. As soon as he was inside, the black SUV cut out of line and crossed the median to go into Mexico. Hunter noticed both men were already on their phones.
Art walked with one stiff leg to Hunter’s open driver’s window, “You two all right?”
“We’re good.” She leaned her head out the window to look at his leg, “Nice walking cast. Kinda gives you a gait like Chester, on the old Gunsmoke TV show.”
“Dennis Weaver, when he was young.”
“That’s him.”
Art said, “We’ll walk you through inspections and customs, then you can follow us to the airport and leave your pickup there. We have Lincoln’s helicopter to take us to El Paso for the briefing.”
Pasqual said, “We are flying?” His voice cracked.
Chapter 6
Art said to Pasqual, “We’ll be fine. They can’t get to you now.”
“You don’t know him.”
Hunter asked, “Who?”
“El Japonés. His reach is far.”
Art said, “What’s his real name?”
“Haruto Hiyoki.”
Art typed on an iPad, waited a full minute before getting a response. “It says he was an associate of the Aum Shinrikyo terrorist organization when he was in his early twenties. He vanished like a ghost after the sarin gas attack on the subway in Japan.”
“He’s not a ghost anymore.” Pasqual said, “He’s in Mexico, has been for a year. And in Argentina before that.”
Art said, “I’ll run a full check on him when we land at Fort Bliss.”
They arrived at the Presidio Airport and the helicopter ten minutes later. Pasqual trembled as he entered the craft, and Hunter and Art looked at each other, puzzled but silent at the man’s actions.
As the rotors started their movement, Hunter looked out the window and saw what looked like a gliding buzzard in the distance. She narrowed her eyes, realizing the buzzard was coming fast.
As the rotors spun to liftoff speed, the pilot worked the stick and she felt the copter rise. Looking again for the buzzard, she noticed it coming ever closer, like on a line, and as they rose into the air, Hunter realized with a shock that it was a drone approaching them.
She yelled at the pilot, “Drone!”
He swiveled his head but didn’t see it, “Where?”
“Your nine o’clock!”
He saw it and worked the stick and pedals. The copter spun in a half-circle evasive maneuver as Hunter watched through the side window. The six-foot long drone smashed into the tail rotor in a small explosion.
The copter shook from the impact and slid sideways through the air as it spun like a top. The tail rotor was gone, along with a portion of the tail.
Hunter braced against her seat, glancing out the window toward the ground. They were a hundred feet in the air, spinning, pitching, and yawing li
ke a bucking bull as the copter fell from the sky.
The copter hit on one skid hard enough to click Hunter’s teeth together, collapsing the skid and driving the body of the aircraft hard into the pavement. Rivets popped out like bullets from a gun and some of the seams on the metal skin split apart as the noise of the engine screamed like a wounded animal.