Brown, Dale - Edge of Battle by Brown Dale

Author:Brown, Dale [Brown, Dale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, War & Military, Drug traffic, War Stories, Action & Adventure, Mexican-American Border Region, United States, Suspense Fiction, Drug traffic - Mexican-American Border Region
ISBN: 9780060753085
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2007-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

who are you?”

“¿Usted no me cree, Coronel?” the pilot asked in good Spanish,

smiling. “If I’m an American agent, perhaps you are captured—

but if I leave you here in this burning wheat field, in five minutes

you are definitely captured.”

“Answer me!”

The pilot smiled again, then lifted the dark visor. “Believe me

2 5 6

D A L E B R O W N

now, Colonel? Now get in, sir.” Zakharov smiled broadly, then

scrambled inside and hurriedly pulled on shoulder straps. The

helicopter lifted off and stood guard. One by one the other heli-

copters alighted. The CID unit was strapped onto the landing

skids of one helicopter; Richter and the Russian commando

boarded the other two helicopters, and soon all four Mexican heli-

copters were speeding southward at treetop level, crossing the bor-

der into safety just moments later.

He n d e r s o n , N e va d a

A s h o r t t i m e l a t e r

The recorded commercial message abruptly cut off, and Bob

O’Rourke’s voice, shaking and unusually muted, came on mo-

ments later: “This flash message has just been handed to me, ladies

and gentlemen, from the news wire services. Just minutes ago,

down near the California-Mexico border near El Centro, a U.S.

Marine Corps helicopter was shot down by a Mexican Air Force

fighter jet. The two crew members were killed instantly. Yes, you

heard me correctly: reports are that a U.S. military helicopter was

shot down by the armed forces of the republic of Mexico, just mo-

ments ago.”

O’Rourke paused briefly, making no attempt at all to muffle his

labored breathing. He had bandages on the left side of his face

from the incident in the Arizona mountains with the American

Watchdog Project, along with elastic bandages securing a broken

rib, from when Georgie Wayne jumped on top of him; his left arm

was in an elastic bandage too from a strain, which he always put

in a sling whenever he knew he was going to be photographed. He

looked every inch the combat veteran he wanted to appear to be.

“Eyewitness accounts made by the Imperial County Sheriff’s De-

partment and the U.S. Navy report that law enforcement agencies,

assisted by military search teams from Naval Air Facility El Cen-

E D G E O F B A T T L E

257

tro, were searching for terrorists discovered farther north near Ni-

land, California, who were trying to escape across the border into

Mexico. The terrorists were armed with sophisticated weapons in-

cluding shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons and sniper rifles, and

they had apparently attacked other law enforcement pursuers

with these weapons. But when an armed Marine Corps Super

Cobra helicopter gunship tried to corner the terrorists just a few

miles north of the border, it was shot down by an air-to-air missile

fired from a Mexican Air Force F-5 Freedom Fighter jet, made in

the U.S. and sold to Mexico for air defense purposes. One, perhaps

two terrorists are believed to have escaped across the border.

“The death toll—the American death toll—in this whole in-

credible bloody ordeal is five, with two California Highway Patrol

officers killed and one seriously injured when their helicopter was

shot down by the terrorists, and three U.

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