“What do you want to do? That’s about six million. We can’t afford to lose that much.”
Ellis turned the scope and looked away from the Agents and into the distance. He’d spotted the two men earlier, and now returned them to the scope’s view. It was the Terlingua residents he’d seen many times, they ran the water truck, did odd jobs around the area: Santino Robles and Bobby Sotomayor. They were finishing work on repairing a ranch fence.
“We won’t.” He folded the small tripod legs on the scope and slid it into a carrying bag. “We need to boogie, get closer to them.”
“What’s your plan?”
“There’s a place on the road where it narrows, they’ll skirt a steep, sloping area, goes down about a hundred feet to the bottom.”
RL raised his eyebrows in a question.
“I’ll shoot out a tire and send them over the side. The Agents will see it and stop to help. They will have to climb down to the wreck, and that’ll let us access the vehicle and the drugs, plus free our guys, including Ben and Anselmo.”
“I saw that kid, Adan, there, too.”
“We’ll take him.”
“And do what with him?”
“When we have him away from the Agents, we’ll figure it out. Either way, he’s going with us.”
RL nodded, and followed Ellis off the hill to their four-wheel-drive Suburban, where Ellis drove and RL readied the rifle. Ellis drove fast, but not so fast as to raise too much dust. He didn’t want the Border Patrol Agents to see it and become suspicious.
RL asked, “How are you gonna play it?”
I need to get in front of them so I can shoot one of the front wheels dead center. If I shoot them from the side, it makes a hole like an arrow and the tire goes down slow. Shoot ‘em from the front and the bullet goes through the rubber and hits the rim, exploding like shrapnel, and the tire disintegrates into pieces, especially with the hollow points. That tire will jerk the vehicle off the road and down the slide like it was pulled with a winch truck.”
“Gonna be fun to watch.”
“Yes, it is.” Ellis drove faster and angled across several dirt roads to reach where he wanted. He took the rifle, two leather sandbags that made for accurate shooting, and a blanket to get into prone position and not put himself on thorns and stickers. They set up at the last bend in the road, where narrowed from two lanes to one right after the steep slope. RL set up the spotting scope and watched the road. He sighted the pickup truck’s trail of dust and knew it was only a few minutes before things happened. They would be less than thirty yards from their quarry when Ellis took his shot and sent the pickup over the side.
**
Santino sat in the passenger side of the pickup, humming a tune.
Bobby said, “What is that, ‘Man, I Feel Like a Woman’?” He drove the truck on the narrow, one-lane road, the wheels close to the outer edge.
“No way, Brah. That’s Johnny Rodriguez, singing one of his oldies. Great stuff.”
“Which one?”
“You didn’t recognize it?”
“Nope.”
“Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico.”
“That’s not what you were humming.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I told you, that Shania Twain song.”
Santino snorted, “You’re tone deaf.”
Bobby took his eyes off the road for a moment and glanced at Santino, thinking of a smart comeback.
A shudder went through the pickup and bits of rubber flew into the air. The pickup jerked hard to the right and Bobby yelled, “Hold on!”