One Down: Citizen Warrior Series - Book 2 Read online

  Inspired by True Events

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  CITIZEN WARRIOR SERIES-BOOK 2

  ONE DOWN

  by J. Thomas Rompel

  ABOUT THE COVER

  The upside-down U.S. flag is an official signal of distress and danger. It was chosen for the cover to symbolize the author’s belief that we are living in the most vulnerable and dangerous time in the history of the United States of America. It is not meant to be disrespectful, and it is not officially recognized as any type of disrespect when displayed for the right reasons. To the contrary, here is the relevant part of the US Code of Laws regarding how to fly the flag when in distress:

  THE UNITED STATES FLAG CODE

  Chapter 1 of Title 4 -

  The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

  COPYRIGHT ACKNOWNLEDGEMENT

  Citizen Warrior Series-Book 2

  Self-Published by J. Thomas Rompel, 2019 ©

  Website | www.jthomasrompel.com

  Email | [email protected]

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  1-7348798191 edition

  Copyright © 2019. All rights reserved.

  J. Thomas Rompel

  NOTICE

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, recording, photocopying, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and/or the above publisher of this book. Request to the Publisher for permission should be emailed to: [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Monday, 4:25 p.m. X-7 Ranch Arizona/Mexico Border

  LOOSE ENDS

  Monday 6:18 P.M. Hermosillo, Mexico Juan Ortiz’s Hacienda

  Monday 9:37 pm X-7 Ranch

  Monday 9:48 P.M. San Miguel, Mexico

  10:14 P.M. Arrival

  Tuesday, 6:35 a.m. San Miguel, Mexico

  Tuesday, 8:43 a.m. San Miguel, Mexico

  Tuesday 5:47 p.m. Tucson, Arizona

  Tucson, Arizona Tuesday 9:13 p.m.

  Tucson, Arizona, 8:35 a.m. Wednesday Morning Dilemma

  Prescott, Arizona 9:05 a.m.

  Prescott, 7:58 p.m. Dax P. LeBaron

  Thursday, 7:35 P.M. Tucson International Airport

  Madkhal Mosque, Tucson, Arizona 8:33 P.M.

  February 2nd, San Miguel, Mexico

  One Year Later Hermosillo, Mexico

  2:41 P.M. United States Congressional Office of Representative, Arizona Forth District, Prescott, Arizona

  Thursday, January 25th, 10:58 A.M. San Miguel, Mexico

  Davis Monthan Air Force Base U.S. Border Patrol Tucson, Arizona 1:05 P.M.

  1:39 P.M. Arizona/Mexico Border, Two Miles East of San Miguel, Mexico

  January 26th, Friday 8:45 A.M. Prescott, Arizona

  January 26th, Friday, 11:50 A.M. Tucson, Arizona

  Hermosillo, Mexico 12:07 P.M. Friday Juan Oritz’s Hacienda

  Saturday, 12:00 Noon, Lion’s Liar Restaurant Tucson, Arizona

  2:05 P.M. Tucson, Arizona

  2:34 P.M.

  6:52 P.M. Carter Thompson’s House Tucson, Arizona

  9:18 P.M. El Conquistador Resort Tucson, Arizona

  9:34 PM Kim Rogers House

  10:37 P.M. Groucho’s Bar Prescott, Arizona

  A Warehouse in Benghazi, Libya Asal

  Sunday 12:00 Noon, Carter Thompson’s House Tucson, Arizona

  FBI Field Office, Tucson, Arizona

  Washington, D.C. Ocean Prime Restaurant

  Sunday, 10:00 P.M. Tucson, Arizona Carter Thompson’s House

  11:18 P.M. The East Bound Ramp To I-10, Tucson, Arizona

  Monday, 12:22 A.M. Grimm Ranch U.S. / Mexico Border

  12:47 A.M. Overwatch

  The Porch

  The Fence Line

  Double Time

  The Closet

  1:06 A.M. SCANNING

  Rocks, Fence, Dirt and Cactus

  1:08 A.M. Mexican Highway 101

  Steady

  Wired

  Reality Check

  1:11 A.M.

  Bad to Worse

  Contact

  On the Corner

  Tango Down

  Exfiltration

  Four to Two

  Wake Up!

  Missing

  1:32 A.M.

  Monday, 7:48 A.M. San Miguel, Mexico

  8:12 A.M. Washington, D.C. N.S.A. Headquarters

  Congressional Intelligence Committee Meeting Room, Washington, D.C.

  Monday, 8:37 A.M. Carter Thompson’s House Tucson, Arizona

  12:01 P.M. Lion’s Den Restaurant, Tucson, Arizona

  1:13 P.M. Tucson, Arizona

  2:10 P.M. I-10 Rush Hour Traffic Two Miles South of Phoenix, Arizona

  2:21 P.M. F.B.I Field Office, Tucson, Arizona

  The Congressman’s Office Washington, D.C.

  F.B.I. Field Office, Tucson, Arizona

  Prescott, Arizona

  TUESDAY, 8:33 A.M. F.B.I. Field Office, Tucson, Arizona

  10:23 P.M. Grimm Ranch The Wait

  10:43 P.M. Mind the Bedbugs Don’t Bit

  Wednesday 12:48 A.M. Grimm Ranch

  12:51 A.M.

  Outside

  12:54 A.M. Voices

  Living Room

  1:01 A.M.

  1:03 A.M.

  Assault

  The Sea of Cortez Seventy-Seven Miles Southwest of Guaymas, Mexico 3:34 A.M.

  Wednesday 7:30 A.M. F.B.I. Field Office, Tucson

  9:38 A.M. X7 Ranch Road

  10:10 A.M.

  10:33 A.M.

  Tuesday 4:18 P.M. Guaymas, Mexico

  Wednesday 10:18 A.M. Colonel Doug Redman’s House

  Wednesday 2:48 P.M. Davis Monthan Hospital ICU, Tucson, Arizona

  Thursday 5:16 A.M. La Paloma Hotel, Room 42 San Carlos, Mexico

  8:24 A.M. Hermosillo, Mexico, Juan Ortiz’s Hacienda

  Location, Location, Location

  8:38 A.M. Madkhal Mosque, Tucson, Arizona

  5:38 P.M. Nogales, Arizona

  5:43 P.M. South Tucson

  5:44 P.M. I-19 15 Miles North of Nogales, Arizona

  Bum Rush Nogales, Sonora

  5:53 P.M. Nogales, Sonora Mexico

  6:03 P.M. Nogales, Arizona North Grand Avenue and West Crawford Street

  6:11 P.M. No Time

  6:19 P.M. Exchange

  Engagement

  Next Day 9:00 A.M. F.B.I Field Office Tucson, Arizona Ben Nottingham’s Office

  3:00 P.M. CARTER THOMPSON’S HOUSE

  5:38 P.M. North Bound I-10 18 Miles South of Phoenix

  One Month Later Prescott, Arizona

  Mi Nidito Restaurant Tuesday 12:00 Noon Tucson, Arizona

  Have feedback for the author?

  Author Bio

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to John, Marcy, Jan, Sarah and a couple of others who will go unnamed for taking the time to read my draft manuscript. I’m grateful for their clear and honest feedback. To my son Tommy and daughter Trisha who have always been and continue to be an inspiration to me. To my lovely wife Linda and her continued love and encouragement. To all the men and women in our military and law enforcement who have given of themselves so we can enjoy our God given freedom. And to all the Citizen Warriors who are out there jus
t waiting to be called if needed! Keep up the good fight!

  “Beware of the quiet man. For while others speak, he watches. And while others act, he plans. And when they finally rest… he strikes.”

  Anonymous

  Monday, 4:25 p.m. X-7 Ranch

  Arizona/Mexico Border

  Standing on the porch Harold looked down at the short Mexican cartel member at the bottom of the steps he’d just shot in the chest. Feeling the warmth coming off the barrel his eyes travel from the dead man to his rifle. The blood and sweat stained wood of the stock bore witness to where his hands rested every day carrying it into combat for two years as a young man. Love you M1 Garand, saved my ass plenty of times in Korea and you did the trick here.

  Turning to his right, down and behind him he looks at the two larger men lying motionless on the porch. One of the men he and his wife dispatched; the other silenced by his eighty-two-year-old wife Agnes with three shots to the head from her Ruger 10-22 rifle. The aroma of pot roast his wife has cooking on the stove drifts through the front screen door blending with the smell of the spent gun powder. A ghostly fading cloud of smoke hovers around him. He smiles thinking about his wife’s fearlessness, marksmanship and the surprise ambush she executed through the screen door.

  Just a week before the three men laying before him came racing up the dirt road from the south and onto his driveway in the black Suburban parked in front of him. They’d caught him off guard. Their threats had angered him and also what they had done to his beloved dog Sally. Because he was out manned and out gunned, he’d kept his temper in check.

  Then, as now, the two larger men were armed with AK47’s and the short one with a gold-plated Colt 1911 tucked in his waistband. The short man, who called himself Reggie, told Harold they’d be using his road anytime they wanted. To seal the deal Reggie, backed up by his two thugs, threatened to torture and kill the elderly couple if they contacted the authorities. Before leaving, to underline the seriousness of their intentions, one of the larger men shot and killed their beloved aging dog Sally.

  Harold at eighty-three years of age was still a tall man at six-feet-three inches. Though not as filled out as he once was, he was lean and still strong. His big hands had the look and feel of old dried out leather with the strength of vice grips. His gray hair thinned a long time ago giving way to a pronounced receding hairline accentuated by a weathered face that had seen the best and worst of times as a rancher.

  Turning around, he stepped over one of the men lying face down in a pool of blood on the porch and put his rifle back on the table next to the chair he was sitting in when they came charging up his drive.

  Hmm….do I eat supper now or dispose of these assholes first?

  “Honey, how soon before supper is ready,” Harold called in through the screen door to Agnes.

  “You got plenty of time, do what you need to do. I’ll keep the roast covered and warm in the oven. Don’t fret about washing down the front porch and steps. I’ll do it while you take care of business,” Agnes hollered back to him.

  God, how I love that woman!

  Harold and Agnes in their sixty plus years of marriage had lived through a lot, mostly all good. The only time since high school they’d been apart was when Harold went off to fight in the Korean War for two years as a proud and hardened Marine. Other than that, they’d been inseparable. They’d wanted to raise a large family but ended up having just one child. Their son, Eric, lived in New Mexico. He and his wife had given the senior Grimms three grandchildren, two boys and a girl.

  “Ok honey, thanks. Can use all the help I can get,” Harold said back to Agnes with a sarcastic chuckle.

  He again looked down at the two sprawled on the porch and back down at the shorter one who was half on the bottom of the steps with his back lying in the dirt face up.

  Ok, where to begin?

  LOOSE ENDS

  Harold closed the doors on the big Suburban after checking to make sure the keys were in the ignition. He walked around to the side of the house, hopped in his nineteen-seventy-six white Ford pickup and drove it around to front of the porch. He knew he could handle picking up the small guy and throwing him in the bed of his truck. The other two big men up on the porch presented a bigger challenge. He stepped up and grabbed one by his ankles and dragged him down the steps so he landed next to the short one who had called himself Reggie. He repeated the process with the other man on the porch. Standing back and looking at the three of them lying prone on their backs and parallel to each other, he smiled taking in a deep breath. I wonder if those little fourth of July flags are still in the kitchen drawer? He turned to his right and headed to the equipment building five hundred feet away.

  Once there, he opened the two large doors, walked in, hopped in the thirty-eight-year-old front loader, fired it up and rumbled back in the house's direction. Disposing of the three could wait. First, he wanted to help Agnes wash down the front porch and steps before the blood dried. After that he’d have dinner with Agnes, and then, while his hot meal was digesting, he’d use the front loader to hoist the bodies up and into the bed of his pickup.

  Once having completed that task he’d drive to his gate crossing that separated his ranch from Mexico, cross over and take the road heading south for a half mile. He’d catch one of the dirt trails off of it, go back in as far as he could with his truck and dump the bodies. He’d then return, park his pickup and drive their Suburban back to the same area, leave it there and walk back home. Just a few years prior he would have had Agnes follow him in the pickup, but she no longer had the strength to work the clutch and gearshift.

  With any luck, it would be a long time before anyone found them......that is, if wildlife didn’t get to them first.

  Harold knew that it was a long shot......that no one would find them until they were a pile of dry bones......because the infamous head of the Magdalena Cartel was the short man’s uncle.

  One thing was for sure; violence along the border was getting worse and the weak, politically correct politicians in Washington weren’t doing anything about it. No one was doing anything about it. Their pleas for help from law enforcement had fallen on deaf ears. They’d stopped asking for help two years ago after reconciling to the fact they were on their own.

  Over the years, the trespassing on their property had grown worse. On nine separate occasions, while they’d been in town buying provisions, someone had burglarized their house and ransacked it. They’d accepted the harsh realization they were on their own. For certain, this was their country, their land, their ranch......they wouldn’t give it up to the criminals. Every night, after putting his head on the pillow, in the dark lying next to Agnes, Harold prayed the good Lord would keep them safe.

  It was around eight-thirty that night when Harold came walking back up the drive. He grabbed his rifle and made his way inside the house. Just as he did something inside the leather backpack he’d taken with him vibrated. Before leaving the Suburban on the other side of the line, Harold had searched the entire vehicle. In the vehicle, he found a laptop computer along with another pistol. He took the laptop and put it inside his backpack along with the three cell phones he’d taken off of the dead Cartel members and the two AK 47’s used by Reggie’s thugs.

  Pulling the backpack off his shoulder, he reached into it seeing the light of one of the phones at the bottom of the bag. Grabbing it he looked at the screen.

  “Tio.”

  Humph, uncle, huh? Harold put it back into the backpack.

  Monday 6:18 P.M. Hermosillo, Mexico

  Juan Ortiz’s Hacienda

  Juan Ortiz, who had never pretended to himself or others to be a patient man, looked at his watch for the eighth time in two minutes. Why the hell haven’t I heard from Reggie?

  “Pablo, call el Capitan Sanchez in Agua Prieta. Tell to him bring ten of his men and meet us in San Miguel in four hours. Then I want you to call my cousin Mario and let him know we’re coming to pick him up. We leave in fifteen minutes,” ye
lled Juan to the man whose official title was the ‘Caretaker,’ but who’d done so much more, in silence, with deadly efficiency, for over twenty years.

  It alarmed Juan because two days before he had sent his nephew Reggie and two others to check on the three men in San Miguel in charge of overseeing his drug and human trafficking operation. He had sent them because neither he nor Reggie had heard from the men since Thursday. Juan’s cousin Mario Quintana was to check in with Reggie at the end of each day. In the event he didn’t speak with him, Mario was to contact Juan right away. Juan had called his cousin earlier in the day only to find out he hadn’t spoken with Reggie for two days. Hearing this sent Juan into a two-fold rage: not only had his nephew neglected to call but Mario had not followed his instructions.

  Monday 9:37 pm

  X-7 Ranch

  “Harold, come to bed.” Agnes called from the upstairs bedroom. “Be right there, just tidying up.” Harold said closing the door to the hidden room under the staircase.

  When his grandfather built the house in the late 1800s, he’d made a small room under the staircase with a hidden door to access it. During that time of the original homesteading, there were threats from renegade Apaches and Banditos from Mexico. His grandfather used it once as a safe hiding place for the family during the Pancho Villa days. Growing up as a kid, Harold used it as his “secret” fort. Even his closest friend didn’t know about it. The only people who knew it existed were Agnes and their son Eric. Items from Harold’s father, Harold and Eric’s youth along with two small chairs occupied the space. The three cell phones, laptop, notepad and the two AK’s now lived there.

  “What a day, honey, I’m bushed,” Harold said making his way over to the corner of the bedroom where the laundry hamper sat. After changing into his nightclothes, he went over to Agnes’ side of the bed and leaned down and gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

  “I love you, you ok?” he said as she reached up and hugged him.