The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [78]
"In other words, Pete, you're saying that when we kill these people we're training for," Brian observed quietly, "you want us to be able to do it and walk away so that we can get away with it."
"Would you prefer to be caught?" Alexander asked.
"No, but the best way to kill somebody is to pop him in the head with a good rifle from a couple of hundred meters away. That works every time."
"But what if we want him dead in such a way that nobody knows he was killed?" the training officer asked.
"How the hell do you manage that?" This was Dominic.
"Patience, lads. One thing at a time."
There were the remains of some sort of fence. Ricardo just walked through it, using a hole that did not look recent. The fence posts had been painted a rich green, but that had mainly rusted off. The fencing material was in even worse shape. Getting through was the least of their problems. The coyote went a further fifty meters or so, and selected a large rock, then sat down, lit a smoke, and took a drink from his canteen. It was his first stop. The walk had not been difficult at all, and clearly he'd done this many times. Mustafa and his friends did not know that he'd brought several hundred groups across the border along this very route, and had only been arrested once-and that had not amounted to very much, except for stinging his pride. He'd also forfeited his fee, because he was an honorable coyote. Mustafa went over to him.
"Are your friends okay?" Ricardo asked.
"It has not been strenuous," Mustafa replied, "and I have seen no snakes."
"Not too many along here. People usually shoot them, or throw rocks. No one cares much for snakes."
"Are they dangerous-truly, I mean?"
"Only if you are a fool, and even then you are unlikely to die. You will be ill for a few days. No more than that, but it can make walking rather painful. We will wait here for a few minutes. We are ahead of schedule. Oh, yes, welcome to America, amigo."
"That fence is all there is?" Mustafa asked in amazement.
"The norteamericano is rich, yes, and clever, yes, but he is also lazy. My people would not go there except that there is work the gringo is too lazy to do on his own."
"How many people do you smuggle into America, then?"
"I, you mean? Thousands. Many thousands. For this, I am well paid. I have a fine house, and six other coyotes work for me. The gringos worry more about people smuggling drugs across the border, and I avoid doing that. It is not worth the trouble. I let two of my men do that for me. The pay for that is very high, you see."
"What kind of drugs?" Mustafa asked.
"The kind for which I am paid." He grinned and took another swig from his canteen.
Mustafa turned as Abdullah came up.
"I thought this would be a difficult walk," his number two observed.
"Only for city dwellers," Ricardo replied. "This is my country. I was born of the desert."
"As was I," Abdullah observed. "It is a pleasant day." Better than sitting in the back of a truck, he didn't have to add.
Ricardo lit up another Newport. He liked menthol cigarettes, easier on the throat. "It does not get hot for another month, perhaps two. But then it can be truly hot, and the wise man takes a good water supply. People have died out here without water in the August heat. But none of mine. I make sure everyone has water. The Mother Nature, she has no love and no pity," the coyote observed. At the end of his walk, he knew a place where he could get a few cervezas before driving east to El Paso. From there, it was back to his comfortable home in Ascension, too far from the border to be bothered with would-be emigrants, who had a bad habit of stealing things they might need for the crossing. He wondered how much stealing they did on the gringo side of the line, but it was not his problem, was it? He finished his cigarette and stood. "Three more kilometers to go, my friends."
Mustafa and his friends fell in and restarted the trudge