The Devil You Don't Know (American Praetorians Book 4) Read online

  The Devil You Don’t Know

  Peter Nealen

  This is a work of fiction. Characters and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Real locations are used fictitiously. This book is not autobiographical. It is not a true story presented as fiction. It is more exciting than anything 99% of real gunfighters ever get to experience. Enjoy.

  Copyright 2015 Peter Nealen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, to include, but not exclusive to, audio or visual recordings of any description without permission from the author.

  Alone and Unafraid, Praetorian Security, and the Praetorian Security Logo are all trademarks of Peter Nealen. All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America

  http://americanpraetorians.wordpress.com

  Chapter 1

  “We’ve picked up a tail,” Larry announced.

  I didn’t have a good angle on the rear-view mirror from the passenger side, so I twisted around in my seat to get a look behind us. Unfortunately, from the middle of the pack of SUVs and box trucks we were driving in, it was hard to see much behind us on the freeway. “Where?”

  He glanced at the rear-view again. “About two car-lengths behind the rear vehicle. White F-150. He’s been there since about half a mile from the warehouse.”

  I craned my neck and finally spotted him, as Larry drifted closer to the shoulder to give me a better view. There wasn’t much to see; it was a white F-150 keeping pace behind us. That was a little strange; we were doing about fifteen under the regular speed limit, on account of the two box trucks we were escorting. Still, that wasn’t enough to go on yet. “You sure? This is the main road to Mexico.”

  “He’s been staying close,” Larry said. “Changing lanes when we do. I don’t know, man. I’d say about seventy-five percent certain. My spidey sense is tingling.”

  I can’t really say just what was so funny about a six-foot-five, two hundred seventy-five pound bald man with a huge, bristling “scary murder hobo” beard covering half his face talking about his “spidey sense,” but I couldn’t help but crack a grin as I continued to watch the truck behind us. That was when I noticed another one hanging back behind it. I glanced over at the speedometer again; yeah, we were doing about sixty. A guy in a pickup truck pacing us at that speed was definitely suspicious, especially considering that just about everybody else we’d seen since leaving Tucson had blown past us like we were standing still.

  Of course, if Larry was getting the heebie-jeebies, I was generally inclined to listen. I'd known Larry off and on for the better part of a decade; we'd been teammates as Marines, working with Filipino Recon Marines way back when, and then founding members of Praetorian Security. (Though the name had been changed a few months ago to Praetorian Solutions for marketing reasons that were completely opaque to me.) I'd been through the hairiest parts of my life so far with the big, bald galoot, and I trusted him with my life.

  So far the trucks trailing us weren't really doing anything squirrelly, aside from following us. There could be a perfectly simple, innocent explanation. They might just be going the same way, without being in much of a hurry. But we were escorting this cargo for a reason, and I wasn't going to dismiss any possible threat.

  I studied them for a few more moments, then faced forward again, settling in my seat and keying my radio. “Security halt, one hundred meters.”

  Nick was driving the lead vehicle, and replied with a terse “Roger.” There wasn't really a turnout to use, but the shoulder on this part of I-19 was plenty wide enough. I wasn't planning on anybody dismounting without a good reason, anyway.

  Nick steered his black Yukon off the road, followed by the front box truck. The truck's driver obviously didn't want to pull off the road; he kept driving straight as long as he could without passing Nick's vehicle, but finally swerved off, bumping over the rumble strips to stop just behind Nick's bumper. The rest of the convoy eased off the freeway and rolled to a stop.

  The two pickups didn't stop, but they did slow down as they passed us. The lead truck had its windows rolled down, and the guy in the passenger seat mean-mugged us as they drove by. He was Hispanic, shaved bald, and wearing a white wife-beater, with tattoos covering every inch of his arm and crawling up his neck. He watched us with a machismo sort of challenging stare until he was past. Once they got ahead of Nick's SUV, the trucks accelerated, and were out of view in moments, going around a curve and getting lost in the scrub on either side of the interstate.

  “Well, that was about as subtle as a brick through a plate-glass window,” I observed. “Looks like you called it, brother.” Larry nodded as he kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the two trucks. Keying the radio again, I called, “Give it a couple minutes, then we'll get back on the road. Keep your eyes peeled, gents. Looks like those two trucks that just passed us were taking an unhealthy interest.”

  I got acknowledgements from the other two security vehicles. I avoided sneering at the term “security vehicles.” They were nice SUVs, sure—two Ford Expeditions and a GMC Yukon. But they were unarmored and we weren't carrying anything heavier than 12-gauges—and it had taken some serious politicking (as well as, I was sure, plenty of back-door palm-greasing) to get us permission to make the run in to Mexico with even that much. We'd even had to violate our company policy and carry 9mms—the Mexican authorities don't like any pistols bigger than that. I had an old and well-worn Browning HiPower on my hip, under my cover shirt.

  If circumstances had been different, I would have turned down a contract to escort two box trucks into Mexico without a moment's hesitation. Mexico wasn't a good place for PMSCs, particularly ones with our reputation and operating procedures. But we'd been asked to take the job by very...persuasive people.

  I waited for two more semis to blow past us before I signaled Nick. “Let's go,” was all I said. He didn't reply, but pulled out onto the freeway and accelerated. Behind us, Jim had pulled out as well, but was taking his time getting up to speed, blocking traffic so that the rest of us could get moving.

  I was keyed up, now. Granted, it wasn't like I'd been all that comfortable in the first place; assurances aside, I hadn't been sure we wouldn't wind up in a Mexican prison for the weapons. But now there was a credible threat that wasn't the Mexican authorities, and we weren't even over the damned border yet.

  We got back up to our earlier road speed and continued south. The sun was blazing in a perfectly blue sky, and dust was blowing out of the scrub and across the road. Arizona reminded me of parts of Iraq. I'd gotten comfortable in Wyoming over the last year, and being back in the desert was reminding me why.

  My team, about half of which had still been left and was now in this little convoy, had left Iraqi Kurdistan a year before, after one of the hairiest missions I'd ever been on. It had taken us up against the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham, now merged with the Caliphate of the Arabian Peninsula and calling itself simply The Caliphate, but it had also put us at odds with some who might once have been considered our own.

  A rogue group of former Special Operations contractors, known only as The Project, had been supporting and advising ISIS, ostensibly as a proxy weapon against Iran. We'd been hired, under the table, to shut the partnership down.

  And we had. We drove a wedge between ISIS and their infidel supporters, and let them do most of the dirty work. But the survivors we'd eventually had to deal with ourselves. After getting out of a brutal siege in an abandoned Iraqi factory, our Ops chief, and my old friend, A
lek Mahoe, had sent us home for a year on The Ranch, to recover.

  “Recovery” had turned into training, at least after about two months of drinking, lounging, drinking, hobbies, drinking, and fishing had gotten stale. We got back to being ready to work a few months before we were supposed to get off the bench, and so this job had come up.

  Of course, it hadn't been Harmon-Dominguez International that had first contacted us. We wouldn't have taken the job, looking at the restrictions, if they had. No, some contacts we'd made during the Iraq mission against the Project had gotten involved. That had gotten our attention. As soon as I was told I was going into Mexico with nothing but a 12 gauge shotgun and a 9mm, I'd regretted it, but we were committed by then.

  Green Valley's cookie-cutter subdivisions loomed up on either side of us as we drove. I didn't really expect an ambush there; too much likelihood of local law enforcement getting involved. Of course, I wasn't all that impressed with the tactical acumen of gang-bangers, and those two in the lead truck had all but had a neon sign overhead saying, “I'm a gangster.” I still didn't relax as we drove through the little municipality. My hand stayed on the jacket-draped 870 between my leg and the center console, and my eyes kept sweeping the houses and the scrub.

  The hit came only a few miles outside of Green Valley. We'd been hanging back behind a pair of Old Dominion semis, pacing them. As the semis rolled past the rest area outside of Green Valley, one of the two pickups we'd seen earlier darted out and T-boned the trailing truck.

  The truck jack-knifed across the road, the trailer swinging around to block both lanes as the driver struggled to maintain control, doubtless rattled by the impact. Smoke rose from squealing tires, and it looked for a second like he was going to be able to hold it, but then the right side tires came off the pavement and the truck rolled on its side, the trailer skidding on the asphalt a little farther before coming to a halt.

  Nick reacted immediately, swerving toward the median, aiming to get around the stricken tractor-trailer and out of the kill zone. It was exactly what he should have done, and it would have worked if the driver of the box truck behind him hadn't panicked.

  He didn't lose control right away, but he swerved so hard, while stomping on the brakes, that when his tires hit the gravel of the median, he lost it. He'd slowed down enough that the wreck wasn't that catastrophic, but the box truck tipped over and slammed on its side. And just like that, we were stuck.

  Even as the dust cloud billowed up from the impact of the box truck spilling over, more pickups and a couple of Crown Victorias of all things came tearing out of the rest area. They didn't do a drive-by, but swerved to line up side-on with the convoy. Windows down, the thugs inside the vehicles opened fire.

  I'd had about five seconds to take in what was happening. So had Larry. It was enough.

  Larry cranked the wheel and stomped on the brake, spinning our Expedition to face the storm of gunfire. In the unarmored SUV, the only hope we had to survive was to put the engine block between us and the bullets. Both of us were wearing low-profile plates under our shirts, but there are plenty of ways to get shot around plates, especially when you've got a bunch of Uzis, Tec-9s, and a couple of AKs blasting at you.

  The SUV almost tipped over, but Larry was good enough to keep it under control. I had the jacket off my 870 and was bringing it up even as I ducked down below the dash to avoid the slashing fragments of metal and window glass as the windshield shattered under the hail of bullets. I could hear the engine screaming as more rounds tore up the radiator, but that engine was keeping us from getting perforated along with it, so I didn't mind. I got my head just high enough over the dash to point the shotgun, and opened fire myself.

  I'd loaded the 870 with rifled slugs. It still wasn't going to reach out as well as a rifle at this range, but it was better than buckshot. I got the front bead in the vicinity of one of the windows that was spitting flame and fired. It wasn't a good shot; it was more of a “get something heading downrange at those assholes” shot, but it got the message across. I don't think they'd been expecting to get shot at. The fire slackened a bit as they ducked for cover.

  Larry had his own shotgun up and resting on the steering wheel now. He cranked three shots off as fast as he could work the SuperNova's pump. Fortunately, there wasn't much of a windshield left to hinder the slugs.

  More thunder announced the guys in Jim's Expedition opening fire. I glanced out of the side window to get a picture of where Jim's guys and the rear box truck were. The box truck was halted halfway on the median, in a still-settling cloud of dust. That driver, at least, hadn't tipped his truck over. Jim's SUV was pointed at the bad guys, just like ours, and Jim and Little Bob were leaning partway out of the side windows, blasting away with their shotguns. I caught a glimpse of Ben and Derek piling out of the back, staying low, cradling their own weapons.

  Rather than sitting there trading shots with the bad guys, Larry stomped on the accelerator, sending our increasingly shot-up Expedition lurching toward the ambushers. We were only a few feet away now.

  The abused, wounded engine screamed and smoked as we surged forward and slammed into the Crown Vic in front of us. I rocked forward with the impact, recovered, and shot the dazed, tattooed gang-banger across the crumpled hood from me in the face. I shifted fire to his buddy, who was blinking blood, hair, and bits of brain and shattered bone out of his eyes, and gave him the same treatment. Larry extinguished the car's driver and passenger with a pair of shots so close together they almost sounded like they made a single noise.

  The pickup in front of the Crown Vic suddenly surged ahead, as the shooters in it apparently decided that they had bitten off more than they could chew. Larry thumbed four more slugs into his shotgun faster than I could load two, and cranked off another pair of shots, shattering the pickup's rear window even as it fishtailed away from us, its rear tires spinning on the gravel. I concentrated on the third pickup behind the car full of rapidly cooling corpses, smashing the rest of my shotgun's tube through the windshield and into the driver and passenger, both of whom were trying to get a shot at me while taking shelter from the fire coming from Jim's truck.

  A few more shots, and then everything went quiet, aside from the Crown Vic's horn blaring from the ruined head of the driver lying on it.

  “ACE reports,” I croaked over the radio, as I shoved eight more rounds into my shotgun then laid it on the dash and started checking Larry for wounds. He kept his own shotgun trained outward until I was satisfied he hadn't been shot, then returned the favor. None of us ever trusted ourselves to know for sure that we hadn't been shot; we always had a teammate check. Once Larry took his hands off me and nodded, I kicked open my door and swung out onto the asphalt.

  A look around revealed three shot-up hostile vehicles, not counting the pickup that had sacrificed itself to wreck the semi and create a blocking position to hold us in the ambush kill zone. There was no sign of the driver at first, until I noticed a bloody body lying face-down on the road, only a couple paces from the wreck. He hadn't made it back to his homies.

  The three rear vehicles of the ambush force weren't in much better shape. They were all riddled with holes, their window glass shattered and splashed with blood. Larry stepped out of the Expedition, reached in, and levered the dead thug off the steering wheel of the Crown Vic, silencing the horn.

  Both Expeditions were probably not going anywhere anytime soon. I counted about twenty bullet holes in the hood of ours before I gave up. Smoke and steam were billowing out of the engine compartment; the gunfire had done plenty of damage even before we'd used the vehicle as a weapon. Jim's truck didn't look like it was in much better shape; smoke was pouring out from under the hood and fluids were dripping rapidly out onto the road.

  “Vic One, up and up,” Nick announced over the radio. A split second later, Jim rogered up with the same call, except that his vehicle was down. Nobody was hit. That was good. Now to check on our cargo.

  I slung my 870 and let it hang in
front of me as I walked toward the lead box truck, where it was lying on its side in the median. Harold Juarez, the senior Harmon-Dominguez rep on this little convoy, had crawled out once the shooting stopped, and was already on his phone. The driver was shakily pulling himself out.

  I went to help the driver get down from the sideways cab. Harold was standing in front of the truck, talking earnestly and quickly. I'll admit I took the opportunity to listen in as I helped the driver down to the ground. The poor guy was shaking, and looked a little sick. Good thing he'd had the transmission between him and the shooting; he really wouldn't have liked what had happened only two lanes away. I steered him away from the carnage as I got him down.

  “I know,” Harold was saying. “What you don't understand is that it isn't just the office that's going to be pissed if this shipment's late. We're talking about Alonzo Reyes here.”

  That made me take notice. Alonzo Reyes. This job just got a hell of a lot more interesting. Renton hadn't been blowing smoke, after all.

  I got the driver sitting down against the truck and checked him for injuries. He was shaken up, but that was all. Harold was still talking, urgently demanding a replacement truck be brought down from Tucson as soon as possible. In the short time I'd dealt with him, Harold had been a friendly, personable sort, but had always seemed nervous, especially when anything threatened to disrupt the schedule. Now I had some idea why.

  “Harold,” I called. He didn't notice, but kept talking. “Harold!” He looked up. “Are you all right?” I asked. “Are you hurt?”

  He stared at me for a second, as if it took a moment for the question to sink in. “Yes, yes, I'm fine,” he said. “I'm trying to get a replacement truck down here so we can get back on the road.”

  “Not going to be that easy,” I said. The sirens were already starting to sound in the distance. “Local law's on the way, and I've got two security vehicles totaled. We won't be back on the road for a little while. At least a day, maybe two, depending on how the sheriff's feeling.”