Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) by Mark Wandrey (great books for teens TXT) 📕

giving orders. “Victor, get their truck out of here. Head along the main highway. Drive fast, make it obvious. When they stop you, say you stole it. I’ll take care of the federales. Chico, go get another truck. Make it as new as possible, with enough room for our friends here. The rest of you, go be lookouts. We cannot appear to be a crowd. These punta will be here soon if we don’t cause a distraction.”

He turned to Sato and Rick. “As soon as the other truck arrives, we’ll take you to my place. I’ll get you to America if it’s the last thing I do.”

Sato turned to Rick and gave him a shit-eating grin. Rick sighed. There’ll be no living with him now.

* * * * *

Chapter Eleven

Sato was blown away at the speed of Don Gutierrez and his arrangements. He, Rick, and Dakkar were in the back of a covered pickup truck inside 15 minutes. He didn’t see them drive their truck away, or the locals acting as lookouts while the three made good their escape. The only problem was, inside the bed of the truck, he had no idea where they were going. The ride took longer than arranging it had—half an hour. During the intermittently bumpy ride, Sato had plenty of time to wonder what came next. Gutierrez seemed to have a lot of friends and respect in the community, but how would that equate to getting them to the United States?

He imagined riding a thousand kilometers in the back of the same truck, or in a cattle car, split up in the trunks of three rusty old cars, or even in a horse-drawn wagon. The image of the latter made him quietly chuckle.

The truck rumbled to a stop, and the rear doors to the bed were opened. A pair of young men looked in on them with as much curiosity as they looked out. Sato could see they were parked next to a large building he thought was a barn. The young men reached in and helped him out. Once he was standing on the gravel next to the truck, he realized it wasn’t a barn. It was a hangar.

He tried to find Don Gutierrez. There was no sign of him. “Is this an airport?” Sato asked one of the young men. The man didn’t respond, instead pointing to the nearest door of the hangar. He checked his pinplants’ navigational information and, to his surprise, found he couldn’t pin himself.

“Is your navigation messed up?” Rick asked.

“Yes,” Sato confirmed. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Not with tech you’d find in southern Mexico,” Rick said.

Sato began to suspect there was more to Don Gutierrez than met the eye.

The two young men unloaded Dakkar’s support tank, joined by three older men on a forklift, who loaded the tank onto a cargo pallet—a pallet of a design Sato found familiar.

Don Gutierrez appeared in the hangar doorway, smiling and bidding them to come in. Sato glanced at Rick, who shrugged. As usual, his armored bodyguard wasn’t overly concerned. He followed Rick’s lead once more.

“Welcome, my friends. Come inside, please. I’m certain the alien drones are distracted, but I don’t know for how long.” They did as he asked, passing through the doors and finding themselves in a building more modern than they’d been expecting. In fact, two women sat at desks with modern slates projecting Tri-V spreadsheets.

“Don Gutierrez, what business are you in?” Sato asked.

“Shipping,” the man said with a serious expression.

“Your facility looks quite old and worn,” Sato said. “Plus you’re jamming the Republic’s GPS system, which is supposed to be impossible.”

“Impossible, of course,” Gutierrez said, the look on his face never faltering. “If you would both sit and enjoy some refreshments, I need to complete your travel arrangements.”

Sato sat, amazed at the man’s presentation. He felt like he was waiting to board a commercial flight, instead of a hidden modern hangar in remote rural Mexico. Even so, they both sat in two of several comfortable chairs scattered along one wall of the office.

“What about our…friend?” Rick asked.

“The container is in the hangar waiting for loading. Is the Santo del Mar okay for a few hours?”

“Yes,” Sato confirmed. “How long before we join him on your plane?”

“Not long,” Don Gutierrez said and smiled. “Trust me, you are safe here.” Without further explanation, he left through another door.

“You know he’s a smuggler or something,” Rick said. He spoke quietly but didn’t use their pinplant link.

“Or something,” Sato agreed. He was experiencing a growing feeling of déjà vu, but unlike a few times before, the feelings weren’t accompanied by memories, not even fractured and confusing ones. My mind is really a mess. It was becoming plain just how bad since Nemo installed the new pinplants. “I guess we just wait.”

Rick nodded and took one of the seats. The plush leather armchair gave a slight creak as Rick settled into it. The Æsir armor wasn’t incredibly heavy, but it weighed twice as much as an adult man by itself. “Comfy,” Rick quipped as he sank deeply into the chair.

Sato gave a little chuckle and passed the time looking around.

“Why don’t we get the bud, I mean Dakkar, pinplants?” Rick asked.

“You can’t until they’re mature enough. They’re a perfect copy of the original, but with fewer neural links. Takes time for it to grow to full size and the capacity to accept the hardware.” Rick nodded in understanding, and Sato wondered how he knew the information without thinking about it.

The sea was as blue as it was possible to imagine the color, with tiny whitecaps whipping across the bay, and a sailing ship slicing through the water only a kilometer offshore. He looked down at the support unit to see the Wrogul slithering out of the surf and