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      Special thanks and acknowledgment to

       Nick Pollotta for his contribution to this work.

      CONTENTS

       PROLOGUE

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

       CHAPTER NINETEEN

       CHAPTER TWENTY

       CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

       CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

       EPILOGUE

       PROLOGUE

       Sonora, Texas

      Loose gravel crunched under the tanker truck’s tires as it slowly rolled out of the darkness.

      “Hold it right there!” the guard called out, raising a palm. With a stern expression, the big man stood at the entrance to the brick kiosk. “Right there, I said!”

      With hissing air brakes, the massive vehicle rocked slightly as it came to a complete stop directly in front of the locked gate of the electrified fence. Coiled lengths of razor-sharp concertina wire along its top glistened in the reflected glow of the headlights.

      On the side of the tanker was the name and logo of a famous fuel company, but the guard knew that was probably false. Everything short of an ice-cream truck had delivered materials to the desert warehouse. After working there for a year, nothing surprised the man anymore. Although dressed in civilian clothing, the U.S. Marine corporal was wearing a canvas military gun belt with a .45 Desert Eagle pistol at his hip.

      Keeping a hand near his weapon, the Marine could see there were two people inside the cab, a big man sitting behind the wheel and a woman resting her head against the passenger-side window. The raven-haired beauty appeared to be sound asleep; he could hear her softly snoring.

      Cautiously loosening the Desert Eagle, the corporal cast a wary glance at the delivery schedule tacked to a corkboard inside the brick kiosk and saw there wasn’t a shipment due to the government warehouse for another couple of days. That wasn’t unprecedented. Set behind the electrified fence, the massive Quonset hut that served as a warehouse was little more than a junkyard for spare parts and obsolete equipment. Whenever anything got upgraded, or outright replaced, the old equipment was sent here, to be labeled, numbered, indexed, stacked, listed and forgotten. There wasn’t anything inside the warehouse worth stealing unless a person was looking for antiques. Everybody in his platoon considered standing guard here a punishment detail. Death by boredom. Although exactly who it was the soldier had annoyed he honestly had no idea.

      “You folks lost?” the corporal asked, smiling politely. His relief had told him how a bunch of folks with cameras had stopped by once foolishly thinking this was the entrance to the famous Sonora Crystal Caves. It took him a full hour to convince the civilians that this was just a warehouse and not a tourist attraction. Civilians, he thought, were just about as useless as lips on a brick.

      “Nope, not lost. Got a priority delivery,” the driver said, flipping down the visor and pulling loose a sheath of papers held in place by a rubber band.

      The corporal tensed at the action. But the driver stayed inside the cab and held the papers outside the window.

      “A delivery at this hour?” the corporal asked suspiciously, slightly easing his stance.

      The driver shrugged. “Hey, I just work here, brother.”

       A fellow Marine, eh? The corporal smiled. “I hear that.” Accepting the papers, he quickly checked the documents and everything seemed to be in order. Just another load of miscellaneous equipment for the junkyard.

      Tucking the papers into the pocket of his shirt, the corporal grabbed the stanchions supporting the sideview mirror and pulled himself onto the corrugated steel step and looked inside the cab. He didn’t want to, but regulations were regulations, even out here in the middle of nowhere.

      The driver raised both hands to show he was unarmed, and the corporal gasped at the sight of the sleeping female passenger. The buttons on her blouse were undone, the full breasts naked and exposed. One of the nipples was pierced, the steel ring glistening in the amber dashboard lights like gold.

      “Okay, you’re going on report, asshole,” the corporal growled unhappily. “Bringing a goddamn hooker on a delivery run—” Suddenly he stopped talking and grabbed his throat with both hands, red blood gushing between his fingers.

      Falling away from the truck, the Marine hit the ground hard, his head cracking against the pavement. Everything whirled for a moment, then he heard the door to the truck open. The corporal clawed for the Desert Eagle at his hip. As the gun cleared the holster, it was kicked from his grip and skittered away into the darkness. Then the driver knelt to stab him in the chest with what appeared to be a long sliver of glass wrapped in thick cloth.

      The pain triggered adrenaline and the corporal savagely swung up an elbow to knock the makeshift knife aside, then he rolled over to frantically scramble for the kiosk. Gotta make it…only a few yards, he thought. There were more weapons inside a locked cabinet near the minifridge along with a full medical kit. But more importantly, there was the alarm button on the desk. The telephone was useless; talking would be impossible with his vocal cords cut. With that realization, a wave of cold flooded the corporal, and he knew this wasn’t some thrill-crazy lunatic, but a planned attack on a military site. Suddenly getting another pistol was replaced by the grim determination to hit the alarm button.

      Stumbling into the kiosk, the corporal could see the alarm. But a heavy feeling was filling his body, and breathing was impossible, his chest aching from the need to pull in one more sip of air. Releasing the hand from his throat, the soldier saw crimson blood arch into the kiosk and instantly knew that a major artery had been cut with the first expert slash. Death was close. He had only a few seconds remaining. Summoning his last vestiges of strength, the corporal staggered toward the alarm button…but something pulled on his collar, hauling him back into the deadly night.

      Tumbling to the hard ground, the dying soldier vaguely saw the grinning truck driver standing over him for a single moment, then the glass knife came down, stabbing into him again and again. Searing agony filled his universe, to be replaced with a soothing blackness that engulfed the Marine forever.

      Standing erect, the frowning driver cast aside the glass knife and it shattered on the concrete steps to the small kiosk. “Sorry, brother,” the big man muttered in guttural Spanish.

      “Was he alone?”