Chapter 3

As the Win DX field team was making a flight plan, Brian contacted them on the secure phone. They were booked into the Rio Pescado Fishing Lodge for some R&R for a week. After that they would again go back to the villa to see what might have been left behind. Their adversaries hadn't found the surveilance equipment, or picked up the transmissions. They had just recently missed Mustafa, Najef Said and the four men who never reached Las Vegas.

They were abuzz that the Israeli Massad was involved. Bud took that as a compliment to their effectiveness. Brian did have a contact in the Massad, from his days with Air Force Intel, but had heard nothing from Benjamin for several months. He thought he would soon, now that the terrorists thought his group was responsible.

Meanwhile Bud, Deke and Grady flew to the Rio Pescado to relax. One thing the men had in common was the love of the outdoors and enjoyed their fishing trips. It was a relaxing interlude to let off some of the stress of living in the mud and snow they had been enduring the past week. Here the group would pass the few days until they returned to make another attempt to get Handley.

(Flashback)

As the Win DX team organized and trained at the Olmstead Ranch, they began to see the need for a secondary site where they could conduct live fire excercises away from human ears and eyes. Chris agreed that she definitely didn't need a neighbor showing up with half a cow one day asking questions. Ted consulted with her, as she would need to finance the acquisition.

By now, the structure of Win DX was established. Chris Olmstead was by virtue of the employer, in charge of all things monetary. Ted Morrison ahd assumed the position of the Unit Commander, both by his prior rank of Major, and his natural leadership ability. Brian headed up the Win DX Intelligence group with Lance Mercer, and Sabrina Saleh. Jason Nolan, and Luke and Sandy Garrett were in Research and Development for the Win DX teams. The Ops team was made up of Bud Robinson, Grady Polk, Deke, and Fred Olson when he came on board. Patricia Daniels was head of Flight Operations, although, Luke, Bud, Ted, Chris and Lance also flew the planes.

Within two hours of being asked to find a more remote site, Sabrina brought Ted a printout of the two properties for sale that met all of their criteria. One was south of Vaughn, New Mexico, and the other was an old ski resort that had burned down in 1997 southwest of the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in northern New Mexico, north of Albuquerque.

Both areas were remote, but the one south of Vaughan was all Prairie and rolling hills instead of mountains and forest. The former ski resort had not been rebuilt after the fire because of the remoteness. It had a 2000-foot asphalt airstrip that needed repair, and the trees would shield the activities from the air. It was also the more expensive of the two.

The other aproperty was made up of seventeen sections of land. (For those from the city, a section is 640 acres.) It bordered on being what one could call desert, being home to rattlesnakes, tarantulas, scorpions, the occasional Mule Deer and herds of Pronghorn Antelope. For now the Grand Caravan could land on any one of several ranch roads that wound through the place. After costs and privacy were considered, this was to be the second Operational Post. The Ranch was purchased with cash, and named the Antelope Hills Ranch.

The old house was torn down and three doublewide manufactured homes were brought in temporarily. In two weeks' time, a construction crew had cleared a 4200-foot long runway. After all of the outside crews had left, Luke Garrett announced that he had a sealant that would give the airstrip the equivalent protection of oil topping it, but would remain clear and glare free. The sealant was also mixed with tiny glass-like beads that from as low as 2000 feet in the air, it would look like the surrounding grasses. In order to facilitate finding the airstrip from above, Win DX's own DME/VOR and ILS transmitters and recievers were used.

A steel reinforced concrete block hangar was built; large enough to hide a small cargo plane or jet, and the dirt from the excavation was mounded up on the sides giving the appearance of a hill. On top of this, the sods salvaged from the excavation and sagebrush were planted. The nearest paved road was some 9 miles from the airstrip, and the nearest neighbor was over five miles away. The perimeter was posted with signs that said, "Posted: Rattlesnake Sanctuary; Survivors will be prosecuted." To re-inforce this, every time one was caught, it was released outside the fence.

Chris and Pat preferred to kill them on sight, and for the first month, killed as many as three a day. A local named Bobby Hightower; a Mescalero Apache was hired to patrol the ranch. Bobby would take the skin and meat from the snakes that were killed and make belts boots and hatbands among other items to be sold at a gift shop near the reservation several miles to the south. The meat was sold as well.

One day in August of 2002, Bobby brought three illegals he caught crossing the ranch to Bud, who was on his way out to test a new laser rifle that Jason sent that would theoretically kill out to two miles. The quarters were about a mile north of the airstrip, and Bobby knew to never bring anyone around the airstrip.

"What do we do with trespassers?" Bobby asked.

Bud asked, "Are they just Mexicans?"

"These two are I think," Bobby answered, "the other one was carrying these," and handed Bud a Muslim prayer blanket and Quaran.

"I'll be right back," Bud said. "Keep em here while I go get Sabrina."

Sabrina was taking a nap, having been up a considerable part of the night with some Arabic translation. As you have noticed on the news, our night is day in much of the Mid-East. It would take her a few minutes to appear, and she looked none too happy when Bud interrupted her rest.

Bobby spoke Spanish, such as it was spoken locally, and had asked them where they were headed. None of the men spoke. "Usually they will talk some," Bobby told Bud. "These bad hombres, they don't talk."

"What do you normally do with them?" Bud asked.

"Usually I call the Sherriff," Bobby replied. "The second time I catch them, well, I give them a trial by ordeal. They spend three days in a pit with rattlesnakes. If they are innocent, they come out and I give them a lift back to the border. Usually they are guilty as hell and don't survive the first night. Then I just dump em in the desert. If they autopsy them, they find snake bites and rule that as the cause of death."

One of the men mumbled, "Dios mio." The other two just glared at him, knowing he was about to break down. Sabrina came out with a pitcher of iced tea, and some glasses, giving the appearance of a house servant. She poured Bud a tall glass, then Bobby, and herself, while the three men watched with parched throats.

"Oh, baby, that hits the spot," Bud said.

"It sure does, ma'am," Bobby added.

"Maybe if you gentlemen will tell us why you are crossing posted private land," Bud began, "you can have a glass too."

Bobby repeated it isn Spanish, but the younger man that expressed distress at the thought of the rattlesnakes, was the only one that looked like he would say anything. The mustached one in the middle grabbed his arm as a warning. Sabrina snapped, "Let go of him!" in Arabic, and he looked suddenly at her then let go and sneered his contempt.

"Take those two to the pit, Bobby," Bud told him.

The middle one broke and ran. He had gotten but twenty feet when he suddenly staggered, then reached to the base of his neck where a tranquilizer dart was imbedded Then he fell to the ground. Sabrina quickly reloaded the CO2 dart pistol. A six by six cement pit was built beneath one of the houses, and this is where the Middle Eastern man awoke two hours later, in total darkness. A motion detector in the room triggered a recording of first one, then two, and finally five Western Diamondbacks "buzzing" depending on how much he moved. If the prisoner was perfectly still the recordings stopped one by one.

The more he moved, the louder they became. To either side of him were six molded rubber snakes to insure he would step on one. When he did, it triggered a coiled spring wire built into the snake, causing it to recoil away or towards the person. It generally didn't take but one bump from these in the pitch black to cause hysterical screaming, and a willingness to be more sociable. Such was the case after this man stepped on one of the rubber reptiles and had it slap smartly against his leg.

Sabrina asked him again in Arabic if he would like to come out and talk. The man babbled that he needed a doctor. Deke and Grady fetched him with bright lights, which blinded him while Grady made a pretense of hosing the snakes away from the heavy steel door. He was actually hosing the floor because the prisoner tended to lose control of bodily functions when he became aware of the proximity of the snakes.

Doctor Fred Olson came into the room where the man now lay on a hospital type bed. In his syringe, he had Sodium Pentathol, which he told the man was anti-venin. Within an hour he had disclosed how he and the guide (the younger man) were to lead them to Santa Rosa where they were to meet a contact along Interstate 40 at a Truck Stop. From there, they were to take the silver case they had covered when Bobby spotted them, and go to the Pantex Plant near Amarillo where they would detonate it by a cell phone. Pantex is a Nuclear Weapons Plant.

Without Sabrina to translate, we never would have found this out. The cell phone they were to detonate it by was hidden with the case, supposedly a suitcase nuke, which Bobby, and Grady went to retrieve. Until Luke and Jason could disarm it, it was placed in a vault built deep in a cave, where it could not be remotely detonated in the interim. For now at least, if it was detonated, it was several hundered feet underground.

There were several caves on the ranch. All but the one were infested with rattlesnakes by the entrance. That cave had been cleared out. Bobby was starting to ask some questions by then and it was plain that they either include him, or terminate him. He admitted that he indeed did have a snake pit, then proceeded to show it to Ted. Anyone that went in there was not coming out alive. Bobby was sworn to secrecy, and made a member of the Win DX team.

Further interrogaton of the first man revealed he was named Ahmad Rashanjani, and he was Sudanese. His accomplice was Jawad Abdullah, a Saudi. Niether could be let go alive, but Fred was sure more information could be gleaned from them. Like their contact at the truck stop for instance. The younger man was simply a guide for illegal aliens and was dealt with later. Eventually they became Bobby's guests and ended up feeding the ants in Coahilla, Mexico after the rattlesnakes finished with them.