Invasion USA Read online

  Little Tucson had two banks, the First State and the Savings Bank. Fred grabbed the mike, keyed it, and said, “Settle down, Cecil! Which bank?”

  “The Little Tucson Savings Bank!”

  That was at the other end of Main Street. Fred figured he could make it in two minutes. The cruiser’s engine was already running. He slammed it in gear and hit his flashers as the tires peeled out. He left the siren off, though. No need to let the bad guys know he was coming.

  “I’m on my way,” he told Cecil. “Better call Buddy on the landline, just in case he ain’t monitorin’ the radio.”

  Sheriff Buddy Gorman would be at home by now, having worked an all-night shift. Buddy wasn’t the sort of boss who dodged the hard shifts and kept all the cushy ones for himself. He took his turn, regular as clockwork.

  Fred racked the microphone and concentrated on his driving. There wasn’t much traffic on the streets of Little Tucson at this time of the morning, but there was some and the last thing he wanted to do was get into an accident on his way to the scene of a major crime. Little Tucson and vicinity didn’t have all that many major crimes to start with.

  Not until lately, anyway.

  But there had already been two murders this week, and now the bank was being robbed. Had to be those bastards from M-15. If somebody had done something about the troubles along the border a long time ago . . . if somebody had tried to put a stop to the illegal activities of the earlier incarnations of the gang before it got so powerful . . . then the evil sons o’ bitches might not feel they could waltz in anywhere and get away with whatever they wanted. The country hadn’t seen such arrogance on the part of criminals since the days of Al Capone and his fellow mobsters.

  It had taken Eliot Ness and the Untouchables to bring that crime wave under control. But if things had been then like they were now, Eliot Ness would have been reined in by the Feds and slapped with lawsuits by the ACLU. Capone would have laughed in the faces of the Untouchables, knowing that his victims were their own worst enemies because they had turned their fates over to a bunch of incompetent, uncaring bureaucrats who were more worried about political correctness than about right and wrong. Yeah, Eliot Ness would have been up a creek, all right.

  But as Fred Kelso pressed down on the cruiser’s accelerator and sent the powerful car rocketing along Main Street, he thought that maybe, just maybe, he had a chance to make a difference, just as Ness had done.

  He entered the block where the Little Tucson Savings Bank was located at 9:24.

  Thirty seconds earlier, Carla May Willard turned her Nissan onto Main Street. She saw flashing lights several blocks away and slowed down as she realized they were coming toward her. Even though Main Street was four lanes wide, two going in each direction, she pulled toward the sidewalk to give the emergency vehicle plenty of room. She couldn’t tell yet if it was a police car, ambulance, or fire truck.

  Then the lights turned sharply off to the left side of the road. They were on a police car, Carla saw, but it wasn’t coming toward her anymore, so she sped up. She didn’t want Andy to be late for Bible School, either, although it wouldn’t be any big deal if he came in a few minutes later than the other kids, she supposed. Still, it never hurt to keep him happy, because if he was cranky he could make her life a living hell.

  Two men came running out of the bank’s front door and piled into a Ford Explorer just as Fred skidded the cruiser into the parking lot. He couldn’t block both exits, so he slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a stop so that it slanted across the opening that would be easier for the Explorer to use. To get out the other way, the driver would have to back up awkwardly and avoid several parked cars. Fred hoped the tactic would give him a slight advantage.

  He caught only a glimpse of the robbers before they disappeared into the big vehicle with its darkly tinted windows. That was enough, though, to tell him that each man was carrying a canvas bag—and a gun. He hoped that nobody had gotten hurt inside the bank, but he knew he couldn’t count on that. The members of M-15 were notorious for being trigger-happy. They shot first and didn’t give a damn who got hurt. Fred knew he couldn’t afford to take chances or give them any sort of break. He drew his sidearm as he threw open the door of the cruiser. Crouching behind the door, he aimed at one of the Explorer’s rear tires and opened fire.

  The Explorer’s driver didn’t try to back around and use the exit on the far side of the parking lot. Instead he got out of the space quickly and gunned the vehicle toward the deputy’s cruiser. Fred kept firing, aiming at the windshield now as the Explorer came at him. He saw the glass spiderweb under the impact, but it didn’t shatter. The driver twisted the wheel and sent the Explorer bumping over the curb and across the cactus garden toward the street. A tall saguaro went down under the impact of the Explorer’s grill.

  One of the robbers was in the back seat now, firing toward Fred as the Explorer turned broadside to him. The high-powered slugs slammed into the door of the cruiser but didn’t penetrate it. However, the bullets knocked it back against Fred, and it hit him so hard he was stunned and lost his balance as he crouched there. He slid down to the pavement. His legs stuck out from under the cruiser door.

  Bullets chewed into them, tearing flesh and breaking bone. Fred jerked and jittered and screamed as the rounds practically sawed his legs off at the thighs. The gunner quit firing as the Explorer’s rear wheels bounced over the cactus garden and the powerful vehicle surged onto the street.

  Fred slumped to the side, falling out from behind the car door. He didn’t know if he had any bullets left in his service revolver or not, but he managed somehow to lift the heavy weapon, steady it with both hands and pull the trigger, as he felt himself losing consciousness. The gun blasted, so he tried again, operating purely on instinct now. Dimly, he heard the explosion of another shot.

  Then he didn’t hear anything. He had passed out from shock and loss of blood.

  He had no way of knowing that his final bullet had struck the rear window of the Explorer, penetrated cleanly, zipped past the ear of the robber in the back seat, hit the headrest of the driver’s seat, gone through that, and caught the driver in the back of the head, shattering his skull and boring on through to burst out the front in a grisly shower that coated the inside of the windshield with blood and brain matter. The man slumped to the side and turned the wheel as he did so, sending the Explorer rocketing straight at the sidewalk.

  Carla let out a little cry of surprise as she saw the big vehicle suddenly careen over onto her side of the road. Instinctively, she slammed on the brakes to keep the Explorer from hitting her head-on. She knew her little Nissan would crumple like tinfoil in a crash like that. Andy yelled in alarm as he was thrown forward against the seat belt. Thank God she had forced him to buckle it.

  In front of her, the Explorer jumped the curb, crossed the sidewalk, and slammed into a storefront that housed the office of a certified public accountant and notary public. The building’s front wall collapsed around it in an avalanche of glass, broken masonry, twisted metal, and dust. Carla sat there in her stopped car, its engine still ticking over, and stared at the destruction. She wondered if the Explorer’s driver had suffered a heart attack. Something had caused him to lose control of the vehicle. She reached for her purse, thinking she would get out her cell phone and call 911.

  Before she could get her hands on the phone, two men came running out of the cloud of dust that seemed to envelop half the block. They carried bags and something else—guns, Carla realized with a shock. Their faces were streaked with blood from cuts they had received in the wreck.

  And worst of all, they were running straight toward her.

  Too late, she tried to throw the Nissan into reverse and get out of there. The men were already beside the car, waving their guns at her and yelling in Spanish. One of them yanked the back door open and jumped in. “Emily!” Carla shrieked. “Don’t hurt my baby!”

  The other man jerked the front passenger door open and shoute
d at Andy, “Get out!”

  “Leave us alone!” Andy yelled back at him. “Mom! Mom! Do something!”

  The man grabbed Andy’s arm and twisted. Andy cried out in pain. Carla said, “Leave him alone!” and leaned over to swat at the man.

  He jammed the muzzle of the bulky gun he held against the side of Andy’s head. “Tell him to get out, or I’ll kill him.”

  Carla never would have guessed that she could be so scared, so consumed with horror, and still keep functioning somehow. She knew she had no choice but to cooperate. “Andy,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm, “get out.”

  “But Mom—”

  “I’ll be all right, but you have to do like I told you and get out.” She knew she wouldn’t be all right. These madmen would likely kill her. But that would be fine as long as they didn’t hurt her children. All her frustration, and her weariness were forgotten now. All that mattered was that her children survive this insane ordeal. As Andy shakily unbuckled his seat belt and started to get out of the car, Carla added, “Take your little sister with you.”

  “No time,” the man said. He grabbed Andy again and pulled him out of the car, Andy yelling as he fell heavily to the sidewalk and rolled over a couple of times. The man lunged into the front seat, jabbed the gun toward Carla, and grated, “Drive!”

  She took her foot off the brake, put it on the gas, and stepped down hard on it. The Nissan surged forward.

  In the back seat, Emily wailed, not sure what was going on but able to tell that something was very wrong.

  Carla’s hands were so tight on the steering wheel she thought it might break in her grip. She knew the men had to be criminals of some sort, which meant she and Emily were now hostages. Hostages almost always died in these sorts of things, didn’t they? But the ones who survived cooperated with their captors. She said, “I’ll do anything you want, take you anywhere you want to go. Just don’t hurt my baby.”

  “Shut up,” the man in the front seat snapped at her. “Make a block and then go back east.” He reached over and jerked the wheel in her hands. “Now!”

  Carla spun the wheel and skidded through the turn. She made a block, turned again and then again, came back out on Main Street and headed east. In the rearview mirror, she saw smoke and dust and running people and flashing lights. She hoped the lights meant that the police were coming after her.

  She drove fast but not recklessly. Main Street was also the highway that ran through Little Tucson. As Carla drove past the Baptist church, she saw the cars in the parking lot and knew that Vacation Bible School had started for the day. And Andy was late. She bit back a sob. She didn’t want to annoy the gunmen by being weepy.

  A cold ball of fear rolled around in her stomach. No one seemed to be following them. Was it possible that in all the confusion, the authorities didn’t know that the two gunmen had carjacked her? Maybe nobody was even looking for her. Maybe no help was on the way.

  No, that couldn’t be. Andy would tell them what had happened. That is, he would if he could talk. He had been lying awfully still on the sidewalk the last time Carla had seen him. Maybe he had hit his head when the man threw him down and was knocked out. Maybe he was—

  She wouldn’t let herself think anything worse than that. She couldn’t. She prayed that her son was all right. She hadn’t prayed for a long time, not since the night Danny had walked out on her. That night she had gotten drunk for one of the few times in her life, and even though she knew it was wrong, she had asked God to smite the heartless son of a bitch. He had it coming for leaving her and the kids.

  God hadn’t answered that prayer, of course . . . or maybe He had answered it by leaving Danny unharmed. Carla didn’t know. All she cared about now was that He answer this one by making sure that Andy and Emily were all right, no matter what happened to her.

  They had left the town behind and were headed now for the Sierrita Mountains. Once they got up in the mountains, there were lots of little roads where the men could force her to turn off the highway. It got isolated in a hurry up there. No one would be around, no witnesses to whatever the men wanted to do.

  The one in the back leaned over the seat and asked the inevitable question of the one in front. “You think we got time to fuck her?”

  “Yeah, man, we make the time, fine piece o’ gringa ass like this.”

  Carla’s pulse hammered inside her skull. Of course they were going to rape her. She had known that in the back of her mind all along. They were criminals, evil men. They wouldn’t hesitate.

  “What about the little one?” the man in back asked.

  Carla had to struggle mightily to keep from giving in to hysteria. Emily was just a baby. Surely even men as heartless as these wouldn’t do anything sick to a little baby.

  “We don’t need her, man. Toss her out the window.”

  “No!” Carla screamed. The wheel jerked in her hands and the Nissan fishtailed back and forth across the road.

  “Shit!” the man in front bellowed as he reached for the wheel, grabbed it, and brought the car back under control. He smacked the gun in his hand against the side of Carla’s head. “You crazy bitch! I was jokin’! Nothin’s gonna happen to your baby as long as you do what we say.” He kept steering. “Now settle down, damn it!”

  Carla took a deep breath and forced her frenzied nerves to cooperate. Her head hurt, and she felt a thin trickle of blood worm its way along her cheek from the little cut that the gun had opened up when the man hit her. “All right,” she said. “All right. You know I’ll do whatever you say. You don’t have to threaten me, or hurt me or my baby.”

  “Okay.” The man let go of the wheel. “The first side road you come to, turn off. My amigo and I wanna screw you. That all right with you?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Make her say it,” the one in back put in.

  “You heard him. Tell us what you want.”

  I want you both to die and burn in hell for all eternity!

  Carla said, “I want you to . . . to screw me. Both of you.”

  “That’s just what we’re gonna do, baby.”

  A dirt road turned off to the left about a hundred yards ahead of the Nissan. Carla began to slow down. This was good, she told herself. In a bizarre way, it was a lucky break for her that the carjackers couldn’t wait to rape her. They hadn’t reached the mountains yet, so it was just possible that someone passing by on the highway might see her car parked on the dirt road and come to investigate. She told herself she was crazy for thinking there was even a chance, but the human mind was a stubborn thing. It refused to give up hope.

  “Of course, after we’re done with you, we may have to go ahead and kill you and the kid,” the man in front added casually. “But you treat us nice and make us both happy, we will make it quick.”

  Carla’s vision blurred as tears welled up in her eyes. There was no hope. She was going to die, and Emily was going to die, because no one would show up to save them. She turned onto the dirt road. She was going to her death, but she was too numb now to even do anything to try to stop it. In a matter of minutes—long, agonizing, degrading minutes—these beasts would be through with her, and they would kill her and Emily with as little thought or concern as stepping on an ant. How could this happen? How could the world be so cruel and unfair? Why weren’t there any heroes left to come along and save the day in the nick of time?

  Why?

  4

  On the CD player in the F-150’s dashboard, Chris LeDoux sang about how the cowboy was still out there ridin’ fences. “You just can’t see him from the road,” Tom Brannon sang along when the song got to that part.

  He knew he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. His wife Bonnie had told him that often enough. Brannon didn’t care. He liked singing along with his favorite songs. But out of consideration for others, he confined it to the times when he was alone in the pickup.

  He was east of town, driving toward Little Tucson. He had been out to see his folks, who still lived by t
hemselves on the family spread at the edge of the Sierritas even though they were getting on in years. Herbert Brannon had to use a walker to get around most of the time now. His wife Mildred took care of him and wouldn’t hear any talk about putting Herb in a home or some such foolishness like that. But her health wasn’t as good as it had once been, either. Tom didn’t know what he was going to do about the situation, but the time was coming when he would have to do something. He had a couple of older sisters, but one of them lived up in Flagstaff and the other over in California, in Bakersfield. He was the one still close to home, so he was the one who had inherited the job of looking after their folks. He tried to check in on them at least three times a week.

  The spread wasn’t a working ranch anymore, of course. All the stock had been sold off long ago. But it was home to Herb and Millie, and naturally they didn’t want to leave it, even though it would have been easier on Tom if they lived closer to town. He had a business to run, too. Luckily, he had a good manager in Louly Parker and a couple of dependable part-time employees. They kept the auto parts store running pretty smoothly. Of course, business wasn’t what it had once been. Ever since the SavMart had moved in on the western edge of town, Tom’s sales had declined. He had enough loyal customers to keep him going, though, at least until they all died off. When that happened . . . well, he could always go to work for SavMart himself. If they didn’t need anybody in the auto parts department, he could stand at the door and say howdy to folks when they came in. He wondered idly if he ought to practice asking, “Need a buggy?”

  That was when a flash of red caught his eye, and he noticed the little car parked on the dirt road, a couple of hundred yards north of the highway.

  A frown creased Brannon’s forehead. He saw a faint haze of dust hanging in the air along the dirt road. The red car had just driven along there and stopped within the last few minutes. Brannon had to wonder what the driver was doing out there. There was nothing around at that spot, no reason for anybody to stop.