Border Wars: Aztlan Assault

By Jack Hawkins

Border Wars - Aztlan Assault is part of the continuing story of Black Jack Hawkins, the border war with Mexico and the false flags flown by both sides.
Criminal Cartels - Bounty Hunters - Soldiers and Spies

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jack Hawkins
• Release date: Mar 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310043901

Jack Hawkins

Born in nineteen hundred and fifty-five, putting 'Black Jack' Hawkins formative years right there, smack dab in the middle of the turbulent Vietnam Era. One of the four hundred students at Mercersberg Academy, in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, when the National Guard shot and killed four students at Kent State, in Ohio.Then in the late seventies and into the eighties 'Black Jack' lived the expatriate adventurer lifestyle in Central America, defending truth, justice and the American Way. Following the philosophical trail blazed by Smedley D.Butler, Major General, USMC, (ret). The players changed as the years marched on, but the song remained the same.There were years spent in the Sierra Ancha mountains of Arizona. Riding horses, roping wild cattle and living the life described by Edward Abbey and Zane Grey. Out back of beyond in the Arizona wilderness, around Pleasant Valley, which is where they had the war. That is another story, all together, well told by Zane Grey in ""To the Last Man".Spent a lot of time reading, not much writing.Learned about 'Bounty Hunting' by happenstance, long before 'Dog' made it a television show. Discovered it was kind of fun, suitable for an adrenaline junky.The truth is out there you just have to go find it.Send me a note @ [e-mail]

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The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Plato, The Republic

It was barely dusk as the dark blue bus left the main gate of Laughlin Air Force Base, heading into the setting sun. The driver, thankful for his Oakley sunglasses, was taking fourteen members of the base band to a charity event being held at the Val Verde Winery in Del Rio, CA. The sun wouldn’t be a problem for much longer, he’d be turning south, on Loop 79 That would provide some respite for a while, and the sun would be setting soon enough. The dark blue Air Force motor pool bus made the left hand turn and was heading south, but soon was headed west again after turning right onto State Route 277. This stretch of highway was an easy drive, even into the setting sun. There was nothing out there but the roadway asphalt and sage brush. It was just before he reached the edge of town when the black Chevy Suburban pulled up alongside of the bus, opposite of the driver’s window and honked its horn.

The bus driver, Airman Peter Johnson, looked over and down as the dark tinted window of the SUV powered downward. Behind the window was an Air Force Captain, dressed in combat fatigues, who pointed to the side of the road and shouted Pull Over!. Although Airman Johnson could not hear the words, he could read the Captain’s lips. He looked ahead and saw a wide spot in the shoulder and began slowing down, braking and pulling off the roadway. Johnson brought the bus to a halt and the Suburban pulled off ahead of the bus, with about half of the SUV still the road, in front of the Air Force bus. The Captain got out of the Suburban, standing just shy of six feet tall with blond hair that was a bit long for an officer’s, Johnson thought and wow, just look at the mustache. The Captain double timed towards the driver’s window, which Airman Johnson opened.

I need you to follow me! Was the terse command issued by Captain ... Airman Johnson looked down and saw the name tag ‘James’.

Why, Sure thing Captain! . . . What is going on? . . . Where are we going? Johnson was curious, as this type of thing had never happen to him before.

Don’t worry about that, Airman, just follow me now, we need to get moving!

The Captain dressed in combat fatigues, the Airman Battle Uniform (ABU), complete with web belt, holster, hand cuffs and pepper spray, turned and hustled back to the Suburban, which started moving slowly forward as Captain James got in and closed the door. Airman Johnson put the bus in gear and started following the Suburban. Now there were shouts from the back of the bus, questions of what was going on, and of course, why had they stopped and where were they going now. Johnson did not have a clue. He was a driver not a decider.

The black Suburban with dark tinted windows with the Air Force bus following dutifully behind exited Hwy 277 onto Brodbent Road and continued west, past some large ranch houses, that looked to Airman Johnson like they were five acre estates. He had never been down this road before, and the questions and shouts from the back intensified in volume. After about a mile the Suburban’s right turn indicator came on and it pulled onto a dirt road which led to a large open area at the base of a small mountain.

The sun was gone, dropping below the mountain and the light was fading fast, Johnson had turned on the headlights of the bus when they exited Hwy 277. Now he was stopped in a dirt field, the gas engine idling, the vibrations of the engine felt throughout the bus. Airman Johnson was still taking some verbal abuse from some of the passengers, with everyone wondering what was going on, as he kept his eyes on the black Suburban, with Texas not Federal license plates on the bumper.

The passenger side doors opened and Captain James and another man wearing an Air Force Battle Uniform exited the vehicle and trotted towards the door to the bus, which Airman Johnson opened. When two men from the Suburban reached the open door of the bus, the one from the rear seat of the Suburban stepped up onto the landing of the two steps up to the passenger level of the bus. There were Master Sergeantstripes on his ABUs, and the background noise from the passengers suddenly ceased. The man look like a Latino and stood about five foot nine inches, a real firebrand from the intensity in his eyes Johnson thought as he took off his non- service issued Oakley sun glasses to better access the situation presented by these two ‘Lifers’.

Without a word the Master Sergeantstepped up to the next tread, pulling a FN Five-seveN pistol from his holster. Pointing it directly into Airman Johnson’s face, the driver started to raise his hands when he was shot between the eyes.

The 5.7x28mm bullet developed by Fabrique Nationale of Belgium is a high velocity round designed for NATO military use. It inflicts maximum tissue damage by consistently turning base over point, ‘tumbling’ as the bullet passes through the body. The back of Airman Johnson’s skull disintegrated and the majority of the bone and his brain tissue sprayed out through the bus’s open window. Tracking to his left the Master Sergeant then shot the passenger seated directly behind the driver, the female E-4 dressed in her Blues uniform taking a round in the chest, blowing through her sternum and destroying her heart.

By now the Master Sergeant was at the top of the steps, and turned towards the rear of the bus. Behind him the Captain had started up the steps, a pistol in his hand. Moving down the aisle way, the Master Sargent’s eyes were hidden behind a pair of gold rimmed Ray-Ban Aviator style sunglasses. He was shooting each passenger in the head or chest in quick succession as each entered his field of fire. The Master Sergeant was followed in close order by the blond Captain. He was also firing at the passengers as they came into his field of view. Within thirty seconds the two shooters had reached the back of the bus, with a total of fifteen bodies in their seats or down on the aisle.

A third man, also wearing the Air Force Battle Uniform, came onto the bus carrying a handful of Halloween style masks in the stylized image of Guy Fowlkes, the now famous symbol of Anonymous , formed of modern injection molded plastic. Having entered the bus after the two shooters had eliminated all of the living passengers, the third man shot a lot of pictures, close ups of each victim.

Then, together, the three men picked up those passengers that lay dead on the floor of the bus and set them in the available empty seats. Pictures were taken of them as well. They began moving with some haste, placing the masks on the corpses, and positioning the bodies as if they were having a fine time.

When all of the victims seated and situated, each wearing their US Air Force ‘Blue Uniform’ and the silent smile of Guy Fowlkes, the third man activated the video function on the camera. He panned the camera right and left, then right again as he backed down the center aisle of the bus, towards the front door of the bus.

In just a few minutes each of the bus passengers had passed from the land of the living to become a nameless, anonymous victim, each wearing one of the Guy Fowlkes masks, the very image of Anonymous . The photographer, as he was stepping off the bus, was reminded of Hermes, the Greek God that fulfilled the role of the messenger and conductor of souls to the Underworld. Fitting, he thought, for the role these anonymous casualties of war were about play, as their souls were headed to Hell.

All three then hustled back to the waiting black Suburban. Climbing in the driver hit the gas and spinning the tires which spewed dust and gravel everywhere, pulled back onto Brodbent Road, retracing their route, returning to Hwy 277.

The Suburban rolled south on Texas Highway 277 through the night before pulling off the pavement into a roadside picnic area about twenty-five kilometers outside of Del Rio, Texas. Climbing out of the vehicle each of the four Airmen, the three from the bus and the driver of the Suburban, walked to the rear of the SUV. There they open the rear doors and started taking off their uniforms. Each of the men reaching into one of the opened gym bags laying on the floor of the SUV for their civilian attire. The uniforms were stuffed into an Army style duffle bag which was then tossed against the rear seat when it was full.

The four men got back in the Suburban which pulled swiftly back onto the pavement, heading south again, away from Del Rio and onward to Eagle Pass, Texas and then towards the border crossing at Piedras Negras, Mexico where their air transportation south to Lagos de Moreno waited for them. The man in the front passenger seat took his phone and texted the prescribed code for mission accomplished with no complications to the preprogramed number.

CHAPTER 2

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

It had been a long time since I had even thought of McGee.

He was about as old as my father, both of them having served in the Korean War, both had been shaped by that experience. At the time I thought it was about all they had in common. McGee lived down in Florida on a house boat, he’d told us, on board the Busted Flush. He was up in Pennsylvania on a salvage job (asset recovery is the current terminology for that type of operation). He seemed to be larger than life, not just physically, although he was bigger than either Gramps or my dad. He exuded a force, a field of positive energy that even as a child I could feel and appreciate its importance.

We kept in touch through the ensuing years. First Gramps was the conduit to accessing McGee. Then, growing older I started calling on him myself. Last time that I had heard directly from McGee he reported a daughter he had never known he had, had found him. A girl named Jean. She had boarded the Busted Flush and became the focal point of his life and times. They had come together in the early Eighties. I had not heard from him since. Oh, occasionally I’d hear something about him, but it was pretty well established that he had retired, moved to Cedar Key, Florida and gone fishin’.

So it came as a surprise, receiving that single post card. One of those post cards that come to your mail box, at the post office. It was that kind of post card. I hadn’t even seen one in years. There was a picture of a baby blue fishing boat basking in the fading light of an orange sunset. ‘A straight forward message written in a neat, female hand, Need you in Cedar Key. No phone number, no return address. Just a name, neatly printed, Jean McGee. What should I do, what could I do? A quick Google search and I knew there was an airport in Cedar Key, not much of an air strip, but the Gray Ghost, my Cessna 337 Sky Master, only needs 750 feet of smooth ground. With the complete Horton STOL-Craft kit , inclusive of the wing leading edge cuffs, stall fences, droop wingtips, and vortex generators on rear engine cowling, why, the Ghost can get her ass on or off the ground in a hurry. The Ghost is powered by twin turbo-charged Continental engines and both are low hour units, six hundred-ninety and one hundred-fifty hours. Those Continentals provided for a cruising speed of nearly 210 knots. A stock Sky Master loads out with 90 gallons of fuel and provide for a range of about 1100 miles, the Ghost packs up to 150 gallons which can take her 1700 miles, in favorable conditions.

I grabbed the two traveling duffel bags and headed to my plane, the ‘Gray Ghost’. She’s a 337 Cessna Sky Master, painted a gun metal blue gray, a color that fades into the background in the low light conditions around dawn or dusk and against dark stormy skies. I walked over to the hanger, only a few hundred yards from the main ranch house, and completed the pre-flight in no time. Even though the Ghost was built the same year I graduated from High School, nineteen hundred and seventy-three, no expense has been spared in rebuilding what has turned out to be a superb aircraft. The USAF flew the 337 Sky Masters back when I was in the Army, and even before that, in the ‘Nam. Calling it the O-2, it is a highly survivable airframe, with the twin Continentals mounted in-line, fore and aft, providing for easy maneuverability and handling, a rarity in a dual engine aircraft, especially at low speeds.

I taxied to the end of our ranch runway, twelve hundred feet of decomposed granite, pushed the throttle open, while standing on the brakes, feeling the Ghost vibrate in seeming anticipation of takeoff. It was almost like she was alive. I released the brakes and accelerated quickly, wheels up and climbing at about 650 feet per minute, leisurely got to 10,000 feet, turned east and headed for the George T. Lewis Airport, in Cedar Key, Florida.

I stopped in Midland, Texas to refuel and take a piss break. The Midland Airpark was the perfect place for it. The people there are friendly, not really very intrusive. The gas man, a tall lanky Texan with grease stains on his overalls was trying to get a gander at the avionics package in the Ghost. It was equipped with both a Garmin GNS-530 WASS Nav/Com/GPS - #1 and the GNS 430 WASS Nav/Com/GPS #2.

We had combined with the GTX-330 Transponder with traffic indicator. The Ghost does just fine in IFR situations. The GDL-69A with an uplink weather and satellite radio along with a HIS was included. The S-TEC 55x autopilot with altitude pre-select, auto trim, GPSS, glideslope coupling, vertical speed and heading bug tracking is state of the art. The JPI EDM-760 Graphic Engine Monitor completes the Ghost’s avionics package. She cannot fly herself, but she comes damned close.

I have had the Ghost’s door windows tinted, so there was not much for the Texan to see, until I opened the door and gave him the guided tour.

The four passenger seats that are usually in the rear of the plane, are back in the hanger at the ranch. In their place, my two duffels and a cowboy bedroll are strapped securely to the floor. If you’re not an aficionado of classic aircraft, the Ghost appears to be Plain Jane at first glance. But on close inspection, the upgrades and improvements are right out in the open, to those that know what they are looking at. Well, most of the upgrades are out in the open, the weapons are in hide-out compartments, one in the port side of the cabin, the other under the floor, where the second row of seats would normally be.

I taxied and rolled out to the runway, throttles up, brakes off, rolling and wheels up, leaving Midland, Texas behind. Taking a heading of East-South-East, the next scheduled stop was in Gulfport, Mississippi where some old friends operate Shade Tree Field. It is just one of the nicest grass strip airports in the country. The flight east was uneventful, as was the landing, just at dusk on the emerald green grass of Shade Tree Field. There was a short reunion with Bobbi Gentry, at the office, a cup of coffee and some small talk.

I made no mention of flying on to Cedar Key, or of Jean McGee.

Lord have mercy, but it gets humid down in Gulfport. Bobbi offered a lift to the motel. I told her I’d be sleeping with the Ghost, but I would take a lift to a local restaurant. I hadn’t had a good meal in the past fourteen hours. Did she want a bite to eat, too?

We went to a place right there close to the field, formica topped tables, straight back chrome chairs with vinyl cushions. Those red and green seats were spread out happenstance at the six tables in the dining area. Bobbi gave a shout out towards the kitchen. I ordered two of their daily Specials along with two iced teas. Little wonder there are so many fat asses in Mississippi. . . they came out with two plates, huge heaping servings of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy with corn bread on the side.

So, tell me Black Jack Hawkins why is it you haven’t hooked up with another wife? You’re slim, trim and not very grim. Surely there is a woman out there in Arizona that would have you! Seriously, you’re still in your fifties, there’s no need for you to be flying solo.

Oh, Bobbi, what I’m lookin’ for is lady to be a wing man, I don’t need another co-pilot trying to fly my plane. There’s a big difference ‘tween the two, you know. It’s pretty simple, easy enough to understand, seems to me.

Come on, Jack, don’t try to BS me, of all people, I understand you all right. She was laughing. Your hair is thick, it’s more black than gray and I know you don’t use Grecian Formula on it. You’re still five-eleven and look to be shy of two-hundred pounds. That mustache hides the scar on your upper lip, and there’s not a gray hair in it, they’re all on you chin! She reached across the table and patted my cheek, "You love being footloose and free. You’re worse than my Bill Jack that way, why when you’re not flyin’, you’re off in the mountains, horseback. You’re just selfish, not wanting to share.

That’s not true, Bobbi, it’s not about sharing my stuff, it’s just haven’t found the woman that would take the whole package, as it is. Now granted, there really hasn’t been any reason to go lookin’ for that woman, either. It’d be terrible to find somebody that thought more of me than I do, they’d have to be crazier than rabid rabbit. The very idea, it’d be guaranteed to be disappointing for her, when she got to know me. So my thinking is that it’s better to leave while things are sweet than to let ‘em go sour on the vine. You know about my experiences with relationships going sour,

You are such a bull shitter Jack Hawkins, I’m not talking about you sharing your stuff. Hell, you’d give up most all of your stuff for a good cause, you’ve never been that materialistic. What you don’t want to share is you, yourself. It’s not about your possessions, it’s about your heart. Some things never change, do they?

Thirty minutes after we walked in, I paid the tab, left the girl at the counter a $5, and Bobbi and I left the diner. Back at the airfield I arranged for the Ghost to get fueled at dawn. ‘Got one of the camp chairs out of the luggage compartment and set down under the wing. A portable lamp with magnets on the base makes for a nifty reading light. Sat up for an extra couple of hours, reading William F. Buckley Jr, "The Story of Henri Tod".

It is a dated tale, but Buckley wrote with an adroit East Coast sense of patrician style that I find entertainingly different than Clancy and the rest of today’s spy novel authors. After a couple of hours of light reading, I opened the bedroll inside the plane, it kind of looked like rain.

I did a pretty complete inspection of the Ghost come morning. Fluid levels, tire pressure, checking the nuts and bolts. Bobbi’s cousin, Sid, came out with the fuel truck and we topped off the tanks. There was nothing left to do in Gulfport, so I went wheels up at about 07:30hrs. Again the heading was East-South-East.

Cruising altitude was 7,500 feet, flying cross country well out of any commercial flight paths. Most of this leg of the flight was over the Gulf of Mexico, which is when it is reassuring to have a twin instead of a single engine aircraft. Flying over open water, with no land in sight anywhere on the horizon. . . now that can be cause for heartburn when piloting a single engine aircraft.

CHAPTER 3

The revolution in global communications thus forces all nations to reconsider traditional ways of thinking about national sovereignty.

George Shultz

The fifteen bodies, each wearing the image of Guy Fowlkes, the public face of Anonymous would not be discovered for 12 hours, when a Val Verde County sheriff deputy stopped to investigate, after receiving an anonymous tip on the 911 line of an Air Force bus full of dead bodies, idling in a parking area normally used by hikers and bikers.

It caused a local commotion, but in Mexico it was hardly mentioned. In the United States, the killings lit a slow burning fuse that was about to ignite a fire storm. For the moment, though, the message was being intentionally muted. No mention of the masks would be made to the media until nearly twenty hours after news of the incident became public. The investigating authorities were not releasing any information with regards to the masks. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) had initially claimed jurisdiction and attempted to freeze the FBI out of the investigation. This tactic worked for the first eighteen hours.

Homeland Security claimed the case was of greater significance than just an Air Force problem and the Secretary of the Air Force agreed to a Joint Task Force. Almost immediately the fact that fifteen murdered Airmen on the bus were all wearing Guy Fowlkes masks was leaked to the media.

* * * *

In the courtyard of the main hacienda of a two hundred and fifty hectare estate in the hills south west of the of Lagos de Moreno, Mexico stood Roberto Valdez, a solidly built man of olive complexion in his mid to late forties. Tall amongst his peers at five foot ten inches and one hundred ninety pounds, his black hair was cut short with some evidence of greying visible at the temples, full eye brows over brown eyes and a full bush of a mustache on his upper lip. Here, he received the six letter text code from the Hector Hernandez, the leader of Strike Team Eagle.

Turning to the man standing next to him he said, This entire Anonymous problem in Acuna, they have forced my hand. ... Pablo, I expect there will be a spike in the Anonymous activity from the Acuna district. We need full implementation of the internet source recognition programs.

Yes sir, the back links to their blogs are in our hands. By utilizing our active access to the North American Defense network interfaces, we can have their physical locations in almost real time.

This report came from Pablo Sanchez, a man a couple of inches shorter than Valdez, but he appeared to be wider across the shoulders. Sanchez had recently been an platoon leader, a Teniente in one of the five paratrooper companies that had been under the command of Coronel Valdez. Now, in as surprising a turn of events as could be imagined, Pablo Sanchez was a ‘retired’ Major and the executive officer of the Las Operaciones Encubiertas Controlan el Centro, OECC, in English, the ‘Covert Operations Control Center’.

We need to know who and where they are, Pablo, that is paramount. If the locals cannot handle it, we may have to put boots on the ground we can and we will. These Anonymous leaks, these hackers, and now with these Zeta operatives being arrested in the United States, it is bad for Mexico.

Pablo was