Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) Read online

  Mexican Heat

  (Nick Woods, No. 2)

  By Stan R. Mitchell

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  Copyright © 2014

  Third Edition

  Edited by A.S. and Emily Akin

  Cover by Danah Mitchell

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by U.S. Copyright Law. For information, see website below.

  Learn more about Stan R. Mitchell and his

  other works at http://stanrmitchell.com.

  Foreword

  To Danah, my perfect wife. Thanks for believing in me.

  To James and Sheila Michel. Two wonderful friends who helped me through one of the darkest periods of my life.

  And to Capt. Eaton, United States Marine Corps, and Sgt. Major Hill, United States Marine Corps; two men who epitomized leadership and strength, and who made an unforgettable impression on me.

  Prologue

  Nick Woods pulled off the interstate tired, uncomfortable, and hungry.

  He stopped at a large gas station that sat just off the exit. He was making good time, working his way through the backwoods of South Carolina, but he was due a stop.

  Nick needed gas, he needed to piss, and he needed a Mountain Dew and a Snickers.

  He parked his ’97 Jeep Grand Cherokee by a pump and closed the door gently. The SUV had nearly 200,000 miles on the odometer, but it still ran well and he treated it like a queen. Frequent maintenance and plenty of love had kept it in top shape, just like the old Colt 1911 .45 automatic pistol stashed under his seat.

  The Colt .45 had been hidden in a cave and carried under some tough conditions when a lot of bad men were hunting him just a few years earlier. It had killed many of those men (and one woman, though she was armed just like the men). Following such excellent and trusty service, Nick had decided to keep it for sentimental value.

  But unlike the old 1911 under the seat, the newer pistol on his hip, a Kimber 1911 .45, carried no sentimental value. It was kept for use. Instant use.

  The Kimber was also customized and upgraded in almost every way: green Tritium 3-dot night sight, adjusted trigger pull, and higher quality springs to reduce recoil. Of course, like any good gunman, Nick had loaded a round in the chamber prior to loading the seven-round mag into the pistol, so he toted eight rounds of .45 caliber ammo instead of seven.

  Under his blue jean jacket, he also had two more magazines of seven rounds for the gun. Twenty-two rounds total, plus an emergency .38 pistol strapped to the inside of his left ankle, and a one-hand opening knife clipped to the right pocket of his jeans.

  Nick had been accused of being paranoid, and he knew it to be true. It was also true that he had needed every weapon on him -- and more -- several times, so he didn’t mind being labeled paranoid. He understood that to mean “prepared.”

  Nick stood by the door of his red Grand Cherokee, pausing a moment before walking away. The vehicle provided cover and held a number of better weapons than what he could carry with him concealed. Like his M14. And his 12 gauge pump loaded with double-ought buck. And of course his trusty, scoped M40 bolt gun in .308/7.62.

  Besides the weapons, the Jeep was his best chance of getting away if things suddenly got hairy. And Nick never walked away from escape possibilities lightly. He shuddered at the memory of hundreds of Soviet troops hunting him in the mountains of Afghanistan a decade earlier.

  Nick shook his head to erase the terrifying thoughts, and, breathing deeply, set to burying the pains of so many old war wounds. He looked about and refocused on the present. He scanned the gas pumps nearest him, looking quickly in a 360 around him as unobtrusively as possible. He gave the thick woods opposite the gas station a once over and finally took a long look at the customers in the gas station.

  Some of them waited in line. Others picked junk food off the aisles. No one looked frightened or frozen in fear, as if a hold-up was underway. So far, so good.

  Taking another deep breath, Nick adjusted the Kimber .45 on his hip and walked toward the door. He dreaded the people he’d have to interact with, having spent the better part of two years in solitude up in the mountains of Montana.

  There, he had expected the government to double-cross him again. The deal they made was very similar to one they made many years ago, and that one certainly didn’t end up sticking. Nick Woods had been sold out -- twice, actually -- and he fully expected the government to come after him in Montana.

  But a damn strange thing happened: they never came. He’d been prepared, waiting for them with an almost eager, expectant intensity, but the dawns and dusks passed with him hidden behind his guns, no one in sight.

  He’d grown tired of waiting and realized he probably needed to be around people again. He was mentally losing it, becoming crazier and lonelier by the day, and thus a big reason for this cross-country trip was to tear down his paranoia and get him comfortable being around people again.

  Anne would be proud, Nick thought, to see him making such progress.

  I’m trying, baby. I’m trying.

  He smiled at her memory and wished she hadn’t been taken so soon. Or, “shot in self-defense” if you wanted to believe the bullshit police report from the FBI.

  He didn’t believe it, and in the end what the report said didn’t really matter: Nick had gunned down the pencil pusher who’d killed her that night.

  Nick pushed this bloodshed -- that brutal, ugly rifle shot against the FBI agent -- from his mind, just as he’d pushed the screams from Afghanistan out of his mind moments earlier.

  As Nick headed toward the double doors of the gas station, motion brought him fully to the present. A gray, unmarked police cruiser pulled into the gas station, slow and unthreatening. But Nick still paused, unsure. And suddenly he was aware that he had stopped mid-stride and stood transfixed on the cruiser.

  The driver seemed to be watching him from behind the tinted window. Nick stood frozen, watching the car. Unmoving. He looked guilty as hell, and he knew it.

  No question, he was guilty as hell. He had no concealed carry permit and he had two loaded weapons on him, not to mention the locked and loaded long guns in the Jeep. And once they found his rucksack with the thousands of rounds, the grenades, and the Claymore mines -- all stuff he’d bought off a man he strongly suspected typically armed drug cartels and militias in the Midwest -- he’d be completely toast.

  Not that they’d ever get him in cuffs. Nope. No siree.

  Nick considered drawing and rushing forward and blowing the man’s head off as he watched the officer through the tinted driver side window. Nick couldn’t let him get on his radio, so if the man made one move toward the radio in the console, Nick would have to act. He was only twelve feet away and Nick couldn’t let him call in the cavalry.

  But then the man did the damndest thing. He eased the car into a parking space and motioned Nick over. It was the damndest thing ever, and Nick kept his eye on the man with his peripheral vision and scanned the woods beyond the cruiser.

  He saw nothing out there, and though the hair on his neck hadn’t stood up, Nick wasn’t the type to take chances. He yanked the pistol from his hip so fast that it was a blur. A motion practiced so many thousand times that it would take a slow-motion video to pinpoint each individual movement.

  But now the man’s head was centered in Nick’s sights and a woman was screaming. Folks scurried and hi
d and frantically dialed cell phones. Nick saw this movement around him, but kept his focus on the man in the cruiser. He could feel all the eyes on him and his mind raced, wondering how fast the 911 calls happening all around him would get the local boys on the scene.

  He’d want his M14 and pack before they arrived, and he’d take his chances in the woods. Otherwise, they’d just pit-maneuver him on the interstate with their powerful pursuit cars.

  As Nick considered his moves, he noticed the man was saying something behind the tinted window. He strained to hear and picked up the man saying his name.

  “Nick Woods, it’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.”

  Nick leaned forward a bit and saw fear and pleading in the guy’s face, and he heard the words again, clearer this time, “Nick Woods, it’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.”

  Nick advanced toward the car -- fast and agile for a man who looked too country to be a runner. But a runner Nick was. And he was damn near a ninja, as well. A martial arts addict, he could jump and roll and strike and kick with the best of them.

  And now he stood at the window, his pistol six inches from the glass and the man’s head. The man looked beyond frantic now.

  “Don’t shoot,” he screamed. “Don’t shoot. I need to talk to you. Just talk.”

  Nick grabbed the door handle with his left hand while keeping the pistol in the man’s face. He ripped the door open, moving his pistol out of its arc, before stepping in closer and placing the pistol against the man’s forehead hard enough to drive him on his back. Nick was now leaning in the car, the pistol pressed with all his might against the man’s cranium.

  “Motherfucker, you squirm one inch and I’ll blow a hole out the back of your head. Now, you have ten seconds before I drag you from this car and throw your ass in my Jeep. What do you want? Why were you looking at me? How did you know my name?”

  “Nick,” the man said, struggling against the console in his back and the pistol being pressed hard into bone. “I’ve just come to talk with you.”

  “Talk,” Nick said, not letting up.

  “My name doesn’t matter, but I volunteered to make contact with you. Nick, we need your help.”

  “Last time you all needed my help, you sold me and my partner out five hundred miles inside Afghanistan. Forgive me if I’m a little hesitant to sign up again.”

  “That was a rogue operation run by a dishonorable man. You have to trust us on that.”

  “I’ll decide who I trust,” Nick said, remembering the shredded body of his spotter. And then flashing to the sight of his wife lying dead in the grass, her white gown ruined by blood and mud.

  “Nick, let me up and I’ll call the police off before they get here. Whether you accept our offer or not, you don’t need to be on the run again. You don’t need any more dead cops to your name.”

  Nick considered the idea, and realized he either needed to blow the man’s brains out or take him hostage. Either way, the clock was ticking, and the cops were certainly racing on their way to the gas station.

  “Get up and don’t try anything stupid,” Nick said, grabbing the man by his throat and jerking him up. They exited the police cruiser awkwardly, both men aware of the loaded gun and the danger each posed to the other.

  They stood now -- the man with his hands up; Nick with his pistol covering him.

  “Everyone, calm down,” the man said, looking toward those around him. “This is simply a training exercise. An anti-terrorism drill. There is no need to panic. My friend here is playing the part of a quote terrorist.”

  He looked back at Nick and said, “Let me get my phone out of my jacket pocket and I’ll get the cops called off.”

  “Do it slowly,” Nick growled.

  The man, who wore a black suit and looked about thirty, reached inside the jacket and slowly pulled out a cell phone. He dialed three numbers, which Nick assumed was 911.

  “Yes, ma’am. I am a member of Federal Task Force Apache. Code Number 894673-736492.”

  He paused, then said, “Yes, ma’am. Please call Gen. Compton to confirm, and then please call off the responding units before we have any blue-on-blue accidents.”

  The suited man closed his phone, pointed to his inside coat pocket, and said, “May I?”

  Nick, .45 pointed at his center mass, said, “Slowly. Damn slowly.”

  The man replaced the phone and said, “If you’ll let me lock the car, we’ll take a ride in your Jeep and talk.”

  “Car doesn’t need to be locked. It’s a police cruiser. Nobody’s going to touch it.”

  Nick waved the pistol toward his Jeep.

  “Let’s go, hoss. And you better pray I don’t decide to shoot you between here and there.”

  They walked to Nick’s Jeep Grand Cherokee and the man opened the passenger door, slowly climbing in and sitting down. Nick followed and stayed behind him, about four feet away. Just enough distance to make sure the man didn’t get cute and try something stupid.

  “You got any weapons on you?” Nick asked.

  “Hell, no,” the guy said. “We were afraid that would set you off.”

  Nick could tell he was telling the truth.

  “Any cuffs?” Nick asked once he was seated and buckled in.

  “I’m not a cop. I work for the government.”

  Nick never hesitated, expecting that very answer. With no give away, Nick swung the pistol and cracked the man in the head with its barrel. The strike knocked him out, his head falling forward and body slumping. The seat belt kept him in place, mostly, and Nick pushed his right arm in and closed the door.

  Nick holstered his pistol and smiled to those watching, none of whom were sure whether this was a prank, the real thing, or just a realistic training exercise.

  Nick smiled. “Nothing to see folks. He’s just a good actor and playing along. I love these rubber guns, they look so real. Y’all have a good day.”

  By the time the agent woke up, Nick had driven a short distance to the next decent-sized town, rented a room at a rundown hotel, and carried the agent inside, binding his arms and legs to a chair.

  “About time,” Nick said when the agent came to.

  While the man had been knocked out, Nick had made preparations for an assault, though he didn’t anticipate one. No police or government personnel had followed him or tried to stop him once he hurried out of the gas station, so it looked like the agent was telling the truth.

  Nick had already learned the hard way a couple years ago that when the government really wants you, there’s not a hell of a lot you can do. In that instance, they had brought out the drones, teams of special operators in Blackhawks, and who knew what else.

  Still, serious preparation had saved Nick’s neck on more than one occasion, so he had placed a C-shaped Claymore mine four feet from the door, dragging a dresser behind it to help protect him from the backblast in such an enclosed space. The wire from the Claymore ran back to a bedpost, which he’d knotted it around so no one would trip on it and knock the Claymore down. Or worse, twist it around so that it aimed away from the door and toward Nick and the agent.

  The clacker for the Claymore lay on the bed, along with Nick’s M14, shotgun, and pack. The pack itself was crammed with magazines, shotgun shells, and other necessary gear.

  Nick sat on the bed next to the gear, sipping on a Mountain Dew he’d bought at a vending machine from the hotel, near where they kept the ice. Besides getting the Dew, he’d also taken his much-needed piss that he’d missed out on at the gas station, which was the number one reason he’d stopped there in the first place. He still didn’t have his Snickers bar yet, but he always kept stowed away in his pack a good dozen or so packs of peanut-butter-and-cheese crackers. He was nearly finished scarfing down a pack of them when the agent awoke.

  The man had a hell of a wound on his head, and blood had coagulated in his hair and run down and ruined his suit. But that was the least of the agent’s problems, Nick hoped the
man knew.

  “You wanted to talk, let’s talk,” Nick said. He downed the final cracker and then hoisted the M14 and aimed it toward the agent.

  The man shook his head in a feeble attempt to fully wake up, and he pulled his arms against the ropes with a strain. Nick knew his arms had to hurt like hell. Nick had tied them behind the agent so tight that he’d need to loosen them in ten minutes or so to get the circulation flowing.

  Right now, the ropes were almost as tight as a tourniquet.

  The man swallowed hard and gave up on straining against the ropes. He seemed too shocked to say anything and Nick wondered if he honestly thought this meeting was supposed to have gone down across a table at a Waffle House. Maybe share some coffee and buttered toast and just be the best of friends.

  Fat chance.

  Nick rose from the bed, spun the weapon, and butt-stroked the man in the head. About half-power. He wanted to get his attention, not fracture any facial bones.

  “Listen up, hoss. This isn’t a fucking game. I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer them. If you delay answering them, or if I sense you’re lying, you’re not going to like it. How’d you know my name?”

  The man, a baby-faced guy who looked fit and squared away in his suit, said, “I’ve read and memorized your file. I was the only one who would volunteer to approach you.”

  “Why were the others afraid?”

  The man looked incredulous. He looked as if he was trying to find a way to soften his answer. Nick didn’t want softened answers.

  “Just say it,” Nick said.

  “Everyone thinks you’re crazy.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “No. I think you’ve reacted exactly as I would have, given everything you’ve been through.”

  “And you still believe that?”

  The man -- two nasty wounds to his head, an M14 aimed at him, and his arms probably numb and tingling -- clearly had some doubts now. He looked off and swallowed.