Edge of Battle

CHAPTER 7

U.S. FEDERAL COURTHOUSE,

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

LATER THAT DAY

“I’m very glad to see you, Señor Ochoa,” Annette Cass, the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of California, said. She had met the deputy consul general of the United Mexican States’ consulate in San Diego, Armando Ochoa, just outside the security screening station at the federal courthouse in Los Angeles. She waved at the security guards at the X-ray machine and metal detector and breezed past them before they could remind her to follow their security precautions. “I hope we can come to an agreement on settling the questions before us.”

“As do I, Miss Cass,” Ochoa said. “My government and my office wish to see all of the unpleasantness we have experienced settled and forgotten as soon as possible.”

Cass escorted the Mexican deputy consul to her office and had her assistant fetch him coffee. “As I said before, Mr. Ochoa, my office still has not resolved the jurisdictional questions related to border security and the treatment of detainees suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border,” Cass said. “With the recent attacks by the Consortium, Congress successfully passing a war resolution against them, and the perceived similarity between the recent attacks on the border and activities by the Consortium, the military has a pretty strong hand in this debate.”

“I understand, Miss Cass,” Ochoa said. “I am confident this will soon be resolved so there will be no more hostilities between our countries.”

“We’re all hoping for the same thing, sir.” Cass withdrew a folder from a drawer in her desk. “I have been authorized to offer you a settlement on your own claims against my government for your treatment, Mr. Ochoa: formal apologies from the Secretary of Defense, Brigadier General Lopez the man in charge of the military operation, and Major Jason Richter, who was the officer in charge at the scene at the time of the offense; a guarantee of full reimbursement for any medical bills you may incur for a period of five years from the date of the incident; and a lump sum cash award of twenty-five thousand dollars. All my government asks in return is a strict gag order on the terms of our settlement.”

The deputy consul took the offer form and looked it over. “I myself believe that this is an exceedingly generous offer,” Ochoa said, “but of course I must confer with the consul general first before I can accept.”

“I understand. I’m sure all sides will be as fair and flexible as possible.”

“Of course.” Ochoa paused for a moment, then: “So Brigadier General Lopez is still in charge of the border security operations along the U.S.-Mexico border?”

“Yes, sir. As I’m sure you know, the dynamics have changed in response to the recent killings in Arizona, but I assure you that the whole face of the operation has been toned down considerably. According to my briefing, the National Guard units currently being deployed on the border are completely subordinate to the U.S. Border Patrol. The Guard’s job is merely to assist the Border Patrol in conducting surveillance, nothing more. They are prohibited from making arrests and will not impede or interdict any person unless that person is actually observed committing a serious crime. I would be pleased if you would pass this information along to the Mexican embassy in Washington.”

“But of course,” Ochoa said. “But there are other serious concerns.”

“Oh?”

“As troubling as the presence of heavily armed National Guard troops on the border is, Miss Cass, my government is extremely concerned about those robots, the TALON devices…”

Cass appeared greatly relieved. “TALON? They are no longer involved in Operation Rampart,” Cass said, waving a hand. “They are back doing…well, whatever they were doing before, chasing down bad guys, real bad guys like the Consortium, not in any way bothering Mexican citizens.”

“Ah.” Ochoa put on his best pained expression. “Then may I please ask you to comment on a recent report I received, Miss Cass, from an immigrant advocacy agency in Indio, California, that claimed that Major Richter was recently spotted at the U.S. Border Patrol sector headquarters?”

Cass’s eyes bulged, and her mouth opened and closed in confusion. “I…I don’t know anything about this, Mr. Deputy Consul, nothing at all,” she said. “I was assured by the FBI and the Department of Defense that Task Force TALON was no longer involved whatsoever in border security operations. Perhaps your informants were mistaken, or Richter and Vega were involved in some other task…?”

“I am sure you are correct, Miss Cass,” Ochoa said, “but it would be very unlikely for the consul general to approve a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department with this question still lingering. Perhaps there is some way to check, perhaps with the commander of the sector headquarters?”

“Of course,” Cass said. She picked up the phone on her desk. “Get me the Border Patrol sector commander in Indio right away.” She turned to Ochoa. “Please remember, Mr. Ochoa, that this conversation and this information are highly confidential.”

“Of course, Miss Cass. You have my solemn assurance that I will divulge nothing of this conversation. The consul general need not know anything about this phone call, only of the results of my negotiations regarding the settlement offer.”

“Thank you.” She turned to the phone: “Yes, hello, this is U.S. Attorney Annette Cass, southern district of California in Los Angeles. Who is this…? Special Agent Roberts, I’m conducting an investigation involving the recent incidents at the Rampart One border security facility…yes, that’s it, that’s the incident…no, I know no one from your sector was involved. The reason I’m calling is to follow up on a report I’ve received that claimed that Army Major Jason Richter had a meeting at your headquarters recently, perhaps as early as yesterday.

“I…say again…? Yes…no, I understand. I’ll be waiting.” Cass hung up the receiver. “A routine security procedure,” she said to Ochoa. “He’ll call the office back in a few minutes to verify that he wasn’t talking to the media or some other person. Shouldn’t take more than a minute.”

“Of course. A wise precaution.”

The phone rang a couple minutes later: “This is Cass…yes, I’m expecting his call…this is Cass…Special Agent Roberts, thank you for calling back so fast. Okay, what do you have for me…he was there yesterday. I see. My reports were accurate then…you didn’t? You didn’t request a meeting with him? Then why were they…what? I see…that’s incredible…well, that’s good news, that’s great news. But I still don’t see how Richter and Purdy are involved. Any involvement on their part could be extremely serious to any legal or diplomatic initiatives with the Mexican government. Who authorized them to…oh. I see. No, I wasn’t informed…I know, we’re all supposed to be on the same team, but apparently it doesn’t apply both ways between investigations and the prosecutors’ office—or the White House, at least when TALON is involved. I shouldn’t have to play phone tag to find out information from my own department…well, I appreciate your assistance, Mr. Roberts. Thank you.” She hung up the phone with a disturbed expression.

“So it is true, Miss Cass?” Ochoa prompted her after a few silent moments. “My information was correct—TALON is still involved in some way with border security operations?”

“I wouldn’t be too hasty to come to conclusions, Mr. Ochoa,” Cass said with an edge in her voice. “Richter and Purdy definitely were at the Indio sector headquarters, but the purpose of their visit and their involvement with the Border Patrol is still unclear.”

“Unclear? But did you not just speak with the man in charge…”

“The special agent in charge of the sector didn’t know what was going on,” Cass explained. “Apparently there are some witnesses who survived the shootings near Blythe, California a few weeks ago. I don’t know why, but TALON was asked to assist in the search for other witnesses that may be in the area. They’re out looking for them in the Indio sector now.”

“Is that not a job for the FBI, Miss Cass?”

Cass looked pained, even embarrassed. “The FBI is involved—apparently the director of the FBI as well as the director of Customs and Border Protection contacted the special agent in charge and notified him of this activity, but there are very few other details. I will probably need to contact someone in Washington, perhaps the Secretary of Homeland Security himself, to get to the bottom of this.”

“This is highly irregular, Miss Cass,” Ochoa said. He could easily tell that Cass was lost in her own thoughts: he was quickly being dismissed from her attention and would be gone in moments if he didn’t do something. “¡Esto es absurdo!” Ochoa barked. He shot to his feet and asked indignantly, “What is going on here, Miss Cass?” His sudden movement and shrill tone startled her—the first time he had ever seen this tough lady surprised. “I came here as a gesture of good will, seeking to put the past episodes of violence and mistrust behind us and start afresh, but instead I am being stonewalled and given misleading and evasive information. Exactly what is the meaning of this, señora?”

“Mr. Ochoa, I assure you, I would like to cooperate with you, but I’m in the dark as much as you are,” Cass said, flustered and confused. “The U.S. Attorney for the appropriate district is usually notified of any ongoing federal investigations, especially if it involves multidepartment operations. I don’t like being given only half the facts like this, and I’m going to get some answers.” She stood, walked around her desk, and extended a hand apologetically. “Unfortunately, I won’t have any answers for you this afternoon, Mr. Ochoa. I will be sure to notify you as soon as I’ve…”

“¡Esto es indignante! I have never been treated so disrespectfully since…since I was assaulted by those soldiers at Rampart One!” Ochoa said hotly. “You will be hearing from the consul general about this, and so will your State Department! Good day to you, madam!” He ignored her proffered hand, spun on his heel, and left the office.

Annette Cass stood in the center of her office with a blank expression on her face—but only for a moment. “Laura! Get me Director DeLaine on the phone! I want answers, and I want them now!”

It took several minutes, during which time Cass fired off several angry e-mails to the Attorney General, her assistant prosecutors, and several judges who might become involved in this case, complaining about what she had learned that afternoon. Finally: “This is Director DeLaine.”

“Miss DeLaine, this is Annette Cass, U.S. Attorney for the southern California district.”

“How are you, Annette?” Kelsey DeLaine said, her voice businesslike and neutral, not friendly but not yet confrontational.

“I’m angry, that’s how I am, Miss Director. I just learned from the commander of the Border Patrol sector field office in Indio, California, that Richter was there. The indications were that the FBI is conducting an investigation regarding the shootings near Blythe. Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

“It’s an FBI investigation, Annette. You’ll be brought in as soon as we need support from your office.”

“Miss Director, I’m not sure if you’re fully aware of how we do things out here, but it’s customary to bring the U.S. Attorney’s office in right away, at the beginning of any investigation, even if there’s no requirement or…”

“And I’m not sure if you’re aware of how I do things, Miss Cass,” Kelsey interjected. “It’s simple: when I need you, or if the field office in San Diego who’s coordinating this investigation needs you, we’ll call you.” Cass was momentarily flustered into silence—she was not accustomed to being blown off like that. “Anything else for me, Annette?”

Cass quickly decided that confronting the director of the FBI was not going to gain her anything at this point. “What is going on out here, Miss Director?” Cass asked. “I’m asking for a little heads-up, that’s all. If there’s anything I can contribute, I’d be happy to do so, but I need a little background info first.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be annoyed because Richter is out walking around free and clear and still in your district?”

Cass silently swore at DeLaine. “Of course, I’m concerned about his activities, Miss Director,” she admitted. “I’ve still got U.S. marshals in the hospital with serious injuries, and no one is being punished for that. It’s still my opinion that Richter is part of the problem, not the solution. But I also hate surprises; I’m sure you do too. I have sixty prosecutors and a staff of five hundred standing ready to assist and support other local, state, and federal agencies in their work, especially the FBI. I’m accustomed to being asked for support, that’s all. I’m trying to help, Miss Director.”

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line; then: “All I can tell you right now, Annette, is that we received information that there are witnesses to the murders at Blythe.”

“Witnesses? That’s great! Who are they? Migrants? Border Patrol?”

“One of the Border Patrol agents on the scene that we reported as killed survived,” Kelsey said, hesitant to talk too much and anxious to end this call. “We debriefed him at our office in San Diego. He reported that there were not one, but two smugglers at the scene of the shooting. The second one, a kid named Flores, is missing. Richter and the surviving agent are going down there to try to find him.”

“Why the Border Patrol and TALON? Why not the FBI?”

DeLaine hesitated again, afraid she was talking too much, but hurried on: “The Border Patrol agent identified one of the men at the shooting scene near Blythe as possibly being Yegor Zakharov.”

“Zakharov! The terrorist? He’s back in the U.S…. ?”

“That’s what we’re looking into,” Kelsey said. “The shooters at Blythe could have been Consortium. If it was Zakharov and the Consortium, Task Force TALON has the authority to go after them anywhere in the world.”

“Well…yes…yes, I agree,” Cass said, mollified. “This is all new information, Miss Director. Thank you for sharing it with me. My office will do anything we can to help. I hope they find Flores.”

“Thank you, Miss Cass. I am the point of contact for all matters dealing with TALON. Don’t hesitate to call if necessary.”

“Yes, Miss Director.”

“This is all confidential information, of course, Annette.”

“Of course.” The phone connection was broken…

…but another connection—a small listening device planted under the front edge of Cass’s desk, directly opposite of where Ochoa had been seated—was still very much alive.

BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA

A SHORT TIME LATER

The streetwalkers were so easy, especially the older ones who thought they knew how to handle their johns. Act macho and smooth during the initial exchange; change to acting indecisive and unsure during negotiations to reel the girl in; then act apprehensive and a little scared as each date began in the hotel room. A few drinks, some tense necking, some clumsy stripping and play-acting to get the john hard, and then let her get on top and have the reins so she might think this was going to be an easy “wham-bang-thank-you-ma’am” date.

Then, when she was ready to wrap it up and leave—turn the tables, quickly and violently. Make her fear for her safety within seconds, and then her life within a minute or two. Delight in watching her transform from an experienced pro to a quivering, whimpering, begging child. Anything goes at that point—she was ready to accept anything, agree to do any perversity or act, as long as she believed she had a chance to survive and get out of that room alive and relatively unhurt.

They were usually gone in the wink of an eye when he was finished, and they didn’t stop for several blocks. They would notice that the money was fake then, but most wouldn’t have the courage to go back for it. A few had their pimps and enforcers go back to try to collect—that’s usually when he would pick up a new gun, maybe some nice jewelry, and some traveling cash before leaving that part of town, before the cops found the badly mutilated bodies he’d leave behind.

Yegor Zakharov had just finished one such encounter—his second of the evening—and was on his way back to the place he had left his car when his satellite phone rang. He read the decryption code on the display, looked up the unlock code on a card in his pocket, entered it, and waited until he heard the electronic chirps and beeps stop. “¿Chto eto?”

“Tell me your men did not enjoy it, Colonel,” the voice of Ernesto Fuerza said.

“Fuck you. My men and I are not your wet-workers.”

“But they did enjoy it, no?”

“What do you want?”

“The Americans are putting a thousand National Guard troops per week out on the border over the next few months,” Fuerza said. “The Mexican government and the Hispanic community in America will explode long before that. The revolution is well underway, thanks to you.”

“I am happy for you, zalupa.”

“Within days the backlash will start,” Fuerza went on. “The editorials in the liberal newspapers will start to moan about the cost and the ugliness of armed troops on the peaceful borders; the human rights groups will be at fever pitch within a week, filing lawsuits and making their case on every TV show in the world to protect the immigrants and condemn the neofascist government; and Hispanic people from all over the world will start to fight, with the radicals and revolutionaries leading the fight, soon to be joined by the common people, and soon after that by the politicians, headline-grabbers, and even actors. The American government will be on its guilt-ridden, confused, beleaguered knees in no time.”

“What the fuck do you want?”

“To give you a reward, my friend. I have information that you might find very gratifying.”

“How much is it going to cost me?”

“Not a penny, tovarisch.”

“Another ambush, to be broadcast on the damned Internet?”

“You may do with the information as you wish, my friend—it is entirely up to you.”

“So? What is this reward?”

“I know exactly where your friend Major Jason Richter is right now, Colonel.”

“What? Where?”

“I knew you would be pleased,” Fuerza said. “He is searching for you in the migrant community of the Imperial Valley, just a few hours south of you, with a Border Patrol agent by the name of Purdy. It is just the two of them, and they are not being supported by anyone, especially not the U.S. attorney in San Diego who would certainly throw anyone from Task Force TALON in prison if she could. They appear to be out on their own—they are no longer part of Task Force TALON, Operation Rampart, or any other organization I can discern.” Fuerza gave him details of how and where they were to be spotted.

“This had better not be a setup, Fuerza,” Zakharov warned, “or I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting you down so I can take great pleasure in stripping the skin from your body, a bit at a time.”

“Call my satellite phone number at any time and ask me for assistance, Colonel,” Fuerza said. “I will be close by, and so will my men.”

“Then let us take them together, you and I.”

“I am not so foolish as to face this robot enemy of yours, Colonel—I will be happy to leave him all to you and those heavy weapons I sold to you,” Fuerza said. “My target is much more vulnerable: a survivor of our rendezvous near Blythe. I wish to keep him from talking to the authorities, so I will be in the same area looking for him.”

“I warn you again, Fuerza—you had better not double-cross me, or you had better pray that they kill me, because if you send me into a trap and I’m still alive afterward…”

“Do not worry, Colonel—I promise, this is not a setup,” Fuerza insisted. “I wish to do business with you again many times in the future. And as you undoubtedly know, there is a price on my head as well, almost as great as yours—I will certainly never be allowed to keep any reward money.”

NILAND, CALIFORNIA

TWO DAYS LATER

Maria Arevalo rose before daybreak every morning without the help of an alarm clock—the sound of trucks, buses, farm equipment, and sleepy men getting ready for another hard day at work was her only wake-up call. Careful not to disturb her three children, sleeping either in or around her bed, she tiptoed to the kitchen to put on a large pot of coffee and began making breakfast. Her husband had already left for the day’s work; the children could sleep in another couple hours before they had to get ready.

She lived in a two-room shack in a remote corner of a relatively small two-thousand-acre lettuce and cilantro farm near the town of Niland in the Imperial Valley of southern California, just east of the southern tip of the Salton Sea. During most of the growing season, Maria worked the fields with her husband, but in the summer she made meals for the thirty or so migrant farmworkers here. It was hard, exhausting work alone in the tiny kitchen, but she preferred it to being in the blazing sun all day with the others, doing “stoop labor.”

Breakfast was scrambled eggs with tomatoes, peppers, and scallions, potatoes, refried beans, beef and chicken tacos, gorditas, coffee, and water. Maria charged four dollars per man per day for breakfast and lunch; she gave 20 percent to the owner for the use of the shack, paid for the food, and kept the rest for herself and her family. The men ate well and it was easier, faster, cheaper, and safer than going home for meals; the owner and farm foreman liked it because the men stayed on the job site and they could keep an eye on them; and Maria liked it because she loved cooking and her only other option was to work in the fields herself.

By the time everything was cooked and loaded up into large pans for the trip out to the fields, it was time to get the children up and dressed. Fortunately Maria’s older daughter, at age eight and a half, was more than capable of helping her younger brother get ready, while Maria handled the infant daughter. At seven-thirty a small rickety bus arrived to take the boy to the community day care center, and a few minutes later the older daughter caught a station wagon filled with kids to go to summer school to brush up on her English and math before beginning second grade in the fall in the Imperial County public elementary school. The infant stayed with Maria; she tried to give her as much attention as possible, but unfortunately the baby stayed strapped into her car seat for most of the day, with a little battery-powered fan to help keep her cool and to keep pesky flies and mosquitoes away.

About that same time a forty-year-old milk delivery truck pulled up to the shack, and an older gentleman wearing the ever-present green bib overalls and old crusty work boots greeted Maria. “Buenos dias, señora. ¿Como esta?”

“You are late, old man,” she said irritably in Spanish.

“Perdon,” the man said. He stepped out of the truck along with a younger man in tattered jeans, two layers of faded flannel shirts, sunglasses, thick horn-rimmed glasses, and ratty sneakers and began loading up the food, urns of water and coffee, and cardboard boxes of clean place-ware.

Maria was irked that the younger man took so long adjusting the lids to the water urns, but finally everything was secure and tightly strapped down for the bumpy ride into the fields. “Let us be off.” Maria made sure the stove and oven were off, locked the door to the shack behind her, and climbed aboard the truck. She changed a diaper and fed the baby on the way to the fields.

Ten minutes after eight the truck rumbled to a stop on the side of the private dirt access road beside Highway 111, and Maria beeped the horn. The two men hurriedly set up two folding tables and started setting out the pans of food and the urns of coffee and water, with Maria busily behind them, stirring the pots and arranging everything just so. As they worked, the men started walking in from the lettuce field toward their waiting breakfast, wiping sweat from their faces and dirt from their hands—they had already been hard at work for hours, and everyone was ravenous. A few minutes later a worker on a tractor pulling a trailer full of boxes drove up, jumping off the tractor excitedly and chatting with the others in line as he waited for his turn.

The workers moved down the line quickly—the faster they got their food, the more time they had to rest. Maria and her helpers were constantly rearranging the pans and urns as the workers jostled their way through the line—the workers tried to help, but Maria’s helpers politely but firmly reset things themselves, greeting each one and wishing them a good day.

“Usted parece fuerte,” one of the workers said to the young helper standing behind the urn of water as he helped himself to a cup of water. “Usted debe estar fuera allí de ayudarnos.” The helper smiled and nodded. “Venido. ¿Usted puede tomar mi lugar, okay?” The helper only nodded again, keeping his eyes averted. The worker looked at him with some aggravation. “¿O usted tiene gusto quizá de trabajar en la cocina como una mujer?” The helper only nodded again, then headed back to the truck. “Hey. ¡Vete a hacer punetas, amaricado!”

“Watch your language, José,” Maria scolded the worker. “Go back and sit with the lettuce if you want to swear.”

“Well, that asshole is just ignoring me,” the worker named José said. “What’s his problem?”

“Maybe you’re scaring him, you big bully,” Maria said playfully.

“Where do you find these pendejos, Maria?” Jose asked. The urn of water was almost empty, so José had to tip it forward to fill his cup.

“I will gladly hire anyone willing to put up with the likes of you, José. Now get out of here and finish your meal before you make him cry.”

“I would like to see him cry, Maria,” the worker said, laughing. The helper was just coming back from the truck with a full urn of water, carrying the heavy seven-gallon metal jug with both hands. “Maybe he would not do so well out in the field after all—looks like he can barely carry that jug. You need some help, pedo?”

The worker wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing, and as he tipped the urn farther and farther, the lid slipped off. The young helper noticed what was happening, and in a flash of motion dropped the urn of water he was carrying and lunged for the lid. But it was too late. The lid fell, but was prevented from hitting the table by some wires. José lifted the lid and examined it—and that’s when he noticed what looked like a tiny camera lens built into the lid.

“Hey! What’s this…?” The young helper snatched the lid out of José’s hand. José glared angrily at the helper—and then realized that he had blue eyes, something not often seen out in the fields. “Who the hell are you?”

“¿Problema, amigo?” the older helper asked, stepping over to the younger man and pushing him toward the delivery truck. “You, pick up that water and stop being so damned clumsy.” To the worker he said in Spanish, “Don’t worry about him, amigo. He is my wife’s cousin’s boy.” He tapped the side of his own head. “He is a little slow, you know what I mean?”

But as he spoke, he realized he recognized the worker named José…and at the same instant, José recognized him too. Paul Purdy closed his eyes, but it was too late. He could only mutter, “Oh, shit…” before the whole place erupted into sheer bedlam.

“Purdy…puneta! It’s Purdy!” José turned toward the others squatting next to the road eating. “¡La Migra! ¡La Migra! ¡Inmigración!” Workers scattered in all directions, dashing through the cilantro and lettuce fields as fast as they could.

“Smart move, Purdy—the men can spot a federale a mile away, especially if he has blue eyes,” Maria said with a smile and a shake of her head as she started to pack up her pans. “Why did you hire a gringo to go undercover with you in a migrant farm? Are you crazy?”

“I got the best help I could find, darlin’,” Border Patrol Agent Paul Purdy replied with a smile as he began to unzip his overalls.

“You know, I’m never going to be able to work in this part of the county again, Purdy—everyone will think I work with the federales now,” she said.

“I told you I’d make it good, Maria,” Purdy said as he climbed out of his overalls and retrieved his utility belt, badge, bulletproof vest, police jacket, and sidearm from the truck. “I found a job for you out in Twentynine Palms…”

“Twentynine Palms? You mean, working at a military base? No way, Purdy!”

“I found schools for your kids and a job for your husband…”

“I said no way.”

“Okay, Maria. Oh, did I mention…?”

“What now?”

“It comes with a green card.”

“¡Acepto!” Maria said immediately.

“I thought you might. My boys are taking your kids to the church right now, and they’ll move you to a place up there and keep an eye on you until our operation is over. Trust me, will you? Have I ever steered you wrong, love?”

Maria smiled, shook her head, and waved her hand down the road. “Just go, will you? Unless you’re going to leave your blue-eyed assistant with me to help clean up?”

“Sorry, sweetie. He’s got work to do,” Purdy said. He turned to Richter. “Any hits on that gadget of yours, Major?”

“Stand by,” Jason Richter said, hopping into the milk truck. With Maria’s baby daughter looking on with interest, Jason pulled out a small tablet PC computer and awakened the screen, which was flipping through pictures of each of the migrant workers who had come up to the tables for their morning meal. The DDICE, or digital distant identification and collection equipment system, digitally scanned every person who walked within thirty feet of the fine line scan digital imager on top of the water urn, measuring and cataloging hundreds of different physical parameters in a matter of seconds. The system then compared the collected information with a database of known suspects, and would alert the user if there was a match.

“C’mon, Major, we don’t have all day,” Purdy said anxiously, scanning the fields where all the workers had scattered. “In about two minutes they’re all going to be gone.”

“Still processing.”

“Nuts to that,” Purdy said. He continued scanning the fields until he found what he was looking for—one worker who wasn’t running, hiding behind the front of the tractor, watching. “I got him, Major. Follow me.” He turned on his walkie-talkie and ran out into the lettuce field. The young migrant worker looked confused. “Hold it, Victor! ¡Parada! It’s me, Purdy! ¡Espera! Dammit!”

Jason looked over in amazement. “How did you know that was Flores? How did you know he wouldn’t run?”

“I told you, he knows me—they all know me,” Purdy said. “They know I’m not out here to screw them.” Thankfully Victor Flores stopped a few yards later—Purdy had run less than fifty yards but was already feeling winded. But then Flores starting looking around—not like he was searching for a better direction to run, but searching for something else. “Hold on, Victor. It’s me, Purdy. I’m here to help you. Wait and I’ll…”

Suddenly Flores turned and bolted down a row of lettuce—just as an immense geyser of mud and shattered lettuce erupted in the spot near where he was standing. “Shots fired, shots fired!” Purdy shouted into his walkie-talkie. “Get some help out here, Richter!” He drew his service automatic and flattened out on his stomach, with nothing but a row of lettuce to shield him. To Flores, he shouted, “¡Consiga abajo! Victor, get down!” Victor ran a few more yards before half-jumping, half-tripping face-first into a plowed furrow.

Back at the delivery truck, Jason keyed another handheld communicator: “Talon Two, this is One. We’ve got a sniper out here somewhere on Highway 111. Bring in the Condor and see if you can draw some fire.”

“On the way, One,” Ariadna Vega responded. She had not returned to Washington with Kelsey, but instead had returned to the Condor airship’s control trailer parked at Montgomery Field to assist Richter and Purdy in the search for Flores.

Jason ran around to the back and opened the double doors. At the very bottom of a set of steel shelves along the right side of the truck, he pulled a rectangular container out of the back and let it fall to the ground. “CID One, deploy,” he said. As Maria watched in surprise, the container began to move, and within a minute it had unfolded itself into a nine-foot-tall two-legged robot. “CID One, pilot up,” Richter said, and the robot assumed a stance with one leg extended behind it, crouched down, and its two arms angled back to form a railing. Jason hopped up behind the robot and slid inside it. A few moments later, the robot with Richter inside got up out of its crouch and sped off with amazing speed into the lettuce field.

Jason reached Purdy in a flash, covering him as best he could from their unseen assailant. “Where’s Flores?” Purdy shouted.

“I don’t think we need him to find Zakharov anymore, Paul—looks like he found us,” Jason said. He activated the robot’s on-board radar sensor, which picked up every object within a two-mile radius. There were several trucks parked on another dirt road on the other side of the highway, plus a few dozen workers in the fields beyond and the fleeing workers behind him. There was one person running away closest to them—he assumed it was Flores. “I’ve got Flores. I need to find where that…”

At that instant the radar tracking computer issued a warning—it had picked up a high-speed projectile fired from the highway directly at Flores. The tracking radar pinpointed the origin of the bullet as well as its unfortunate terminus. “I’ve got the shooter,” Jason said. “Flores went down. Wait until I reach the truck, then help Flores.” He ran off again.

The target truck, a three-quarter-ton pickup with a large camper on the bed, was about a hundred yards away, parked on the side of the highway instead of on the dirt road like the other nearby trucks. The robot’s magnifying visual sensors picked up a man with a sniper rifle propped on the hood of the truck—a Russian sniper rifle. It could only be Yegor Zakharov.

“Richter!” Purdy shouted, gesturing at the man crossing the highway. “It’s Zakharov! Get that bastard!” Richter started to run at the vehicle—once he picked up full speed, he would reach it in seconds.

But at that moment, the back doors of the camper flew open, and two men with what looked like guided missile launchers leaped out, arrayed themselves on either side of the pickup, aimed, and fired almost simultaneously.

The first round hit squarely on the left side of the robot’s chest, and the force of the blast of the missile’s three-pound warhead spun Jason around and up into the air like a child throwing a rag doll out of a speeding car. The second missile missed by less than a foot, but its proximity fuse detected the miss and detonated the warhead a few yards behind Jason, adding a second tremendous concussion to the first. The robot flew several yards in the air, spinning and cartwheeling madly within the cloud of fire and smoke of the double blasts, before coming to a smoldering stop on the side of the highway.

“Oh, man!” Purdy gasped. The robot was lying in a heap on the side of the highway, blackened and still smoking. He got up and started running toward Richter, but soon realized he had his own problems here: the two soldiers had run back to the camper and were retrieving two more antitank missiles; Zakharov started to walk across the highway toward the robot with a large sniper rifle in his hands. He crouched down on one knee, leveled his pistol, and took aim.

But in a flash Zakharov fired the rifle without even raising the sights to his eye, firing from his hip. Purdy felt the air gush out of his lungs in an explosive “Whufff!” His vision exploded in a cloud of stars, his head spun, the pain radiated through his chest and across his entire body, and he pitched over backward into a row of lettuce.

“You must be Border Patrol Agent Purdy, the clever and enterprising veteran I have heard so much about,” he heard Zakharov say a few moments later. “I am pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah?” Purdy grunted, barely able to speak. “Now you can do me a big favor and kiss my ass, Zakharov.”

“I have a much more productive use for your ass, Agent Purdy.” Zakharov pulled Purdy to his feet, helped by his two missileers, and together they dragged him about thirty feet in front of the stricken CID unit. Two more soldiers appeared from the camper, automatic rifles at the ready. Richter was slowly getting to his feet—he was obviously struggling through some internal damage, but he still appeared to be operational. “Is that you in there, Major Richter?” Zakharov shouted. He slung his Dragunov rifle over a shoulder, pulled out an automatic pistol, and pointed it at Purdy’s head. “I have a proposition for you, my friend. Come out of there.”

Richter was now on his hands and knees, trying unsuccessfully to put his armored feet under him, but he was able to look up. “Either shoot me or run, Zakharov,” he said, “because if you’re still standing there yakking in fifteen seconds, I’m going to tear you into tiny little pieces.”

Zakharov shouted an order in Russian, and immediately the two soldiers with the antitank missiles activated and pointed them at Richter. “I am going to ask you one question, Richter,” the Russian said. “My demand is simple: get out of the robot and collapse it for transport, and I promise you and Purdy will live. Refuse, and you die. The next word you utter will determine whether you live or die. You have five seconds to respond.”

“Don’t do it, Richter!” Purdy shouted. “He’ll kill us anyway!”

“Okay, Zakharov, I agree,” Richter said immediately. “Put the guns and missiles on the ground and let Purdy go.”

“No conditions, Richter,” Zakharov said. “Do as I tell you, or die.”

“You want the CID unit in one piece, Zakharov? You put your weapons down. Otherwise go ahead and fire those missiles.”

Zakharov hesitated, then smiled, nodded, and barked an order to his men, who disbelievingly safed and lowered their weapons and laid them on the ground. Zakharov was the last to relinquish his.

The soldiers released Purdy, who painfully hobbled across the road. “Now get up and nail him, Richter!” Purdy screamed. “Get him, or we’re dead!” But moments later the CID unit assumed its load stance, the hatch on the robot’s back popped open, and Jason Richter climbed out. “Oh, shit…” Purdy retrieved his pistol from the field and aimed it at Zakharov; as he did so, the soldiers retrieved their rifles as well. “You’re under arrest, Zakharov!” Zakharov merely smiled, casually picked up his pistol and Dragunov rifle, holstered the pistol, and slung the rifle over his shoulder. “Don’t move!”

“Don’t, Paul,” Jason said. “He won’t go far with it, and he’s too stupid to figure out how to operate it.”

“Stop, Richter!” Purdy shouted. “I’m warning you, he’s not just after the robot!”

“We got no choice, Paul.”

“Richter, don’t…!”

But Jason jumped off the robot, then ordered, “CID One, stow.” The robot began to collapse, intricately folding itself down to the size of a large steamer trunk.

“Wise move, Major,” Zakharov said. He picked up the antitank missile canisters, ordered two of his men to pick up the stowed CID unit, then pulled his pistol from his holster and aimed it at Richter. “But I have decided that I need both of you to come with me now. Drop your weapons.”

“Screw you, Zakharov!” Purdy screamed, and he started shooting and at the same time diving for cover into the shallow ditch at the side of the road.

Jason ducked, ran backward, and reached down to the remote CID control unit on his wrist to enter auto-defense commands to the robot, but Zakharov was too fast. A bullet caught Jason in the right thigh, and he went down. “Grab him and the robot and let’s get out of here!” Zakharov shouted in Russian. “Move!” He fired a shot in Purdy’s direction as his soldiers scooped up Richter and dragged the folded CID unit toward their camper.

A sudden unexpected movement caught Zakharov’s eye, and he looked up into the morning sky—at the sight of an immense bird zooming down at him! “What in hell is that?” Swooping down toward the melee, still several hundred feet in the sky but moving in with breathtaking speed, was a massive aircraft with long, gracefully sweeping wings and a bulbous fuselage. It was one of the Condor unmanned reconnaissance airships, barreling almost straight down at them like an eagle about to capture its prey.

“Don’t stop! Get them into the truck!” Zakharov shouted. “I will take care of this thing!” Zakharov began firing his rifle at the airship, but it kept on coming at them. He reloaded a fresh magazine of shells and took aim again. The airship started to wobble, slightly at first and then more wildly as more and more helium escaped from chambers throughout its structure.

At that moment he felt a bullet whiz just centimeters past his head. He didn’t even have to look to know who fired that shot. “I have had enough of you, Agent Purdy,” Zakharov said. “Time to end your tired old existence.” He unslung his rifle from his shoulder, raised, aimed, and…

…at that moment another motion caught his eye, and he turned to see a wounded Victor Flores driving the farm tractor right at him! It looked like most of Flores’s right shoulder was gone and blood covered almost his entire torso, but he was still conscious and shouting epithets as he barreled toward the Russian. He dodged as fast as he could and swung the Dragunov around, but the large right tire clipped him, nearly running him over.

“A brave move, young man,” Zakharov said. He swung his rifle around and fired at the passing tractor. A cloud of red gore exploded out of Victor Flores’s chest, and he slumped forward, dead before he hit the steering wheel. The tractor continued on across the highway, overturning into a ditch on the other side.

Zakharov’s right hip was throbbing, and he was angry enough to chew nails. “¡Pidar!” he swore. He was seriously hurt, and he realized he had to get out of there before the police showed up. He started hobbling toward the camper, holding his side…

…when he saw something that surprised him—the farmworkers running out of the fields, carrying shovels, picking tools, rakes, and anything else they could use as a weapon. “¡Consígalo! ¡Mátelo!” they shouted, raising their tools and fists into the air. “You kill Victor Flores—now we kill you!” Farther down the road, Zakharov could see several other farmworkers rushing his pickup truck.

“Let’s get out of here, Colonel!” one of the commandos shouted. He turned his submachine gun toward the farmworkers and fired a burst. They took cover behind the camper, then started rocking it, threatening to overturn it in moments. Gunshots erupted from inside the cab as the driver fired at the crowd from inside the truck, but before he could fire again one of the workers poked him in the face with a shovel, knocking the gun out of his hand, and then the others were on him.

Zakharov drew his pistol and fired. Three farmworkers went down, and the rest turned and fled into the fields for cover. Zakharov scared the others off with shots from his sidearm, got into the camper, and he and the last three commandos sped south down Highway 111.

Back in the lettuce field, a small crowd of farmworkers along with Maria Arevalo slowly approached Purdy. The Border Patrol agent was awake but lying down, grimacing in pain as he smoked a cigarette. “You okay, Purdy?” she asked.

“The bastard broke my damned sternum, I think,” Purdy said, “but I’m still alive. I remembered the shock plate this time. Something to tell the grandkids when they get older, I guess—Grandpa was shot by the world-famous terrorist mastermind Colonel Yegor Zakharov, and survived. I hope.” He reached up and grasped Maria’s hand. “How about granting a dying man’s one last wish, eh, gorgeous?”

“You must be hallucinating, old man,” Arevalo said with a smile, dropping his hand in mock disgust. “Or should I ask my husband what he thinks of your request?”

“You broke my heart again with the ‘H’ word, baby,” Purdy said. “Where’s that Russian?”

“Got away,” Maria said.

“Dammit, Richter deserves to get tortured for tryin’ to make a deal with that snake,” Purdy muttered. He pulled out a cellular phone, praying he could get a signal out here and relieved when he got one.

“DeLaine.”

“Miss Director, this is Purdy.”

“What’s happened, Purdy? You don’t sound good.”

“I got real bad news. We ran into Zakharov, and he was ready for us. He got Richter and his robot.”

“He what? Where’s he headed?”

“DeLaine, you need to get the Border Patrol, the California Highway Patrol, the Imperial County Sheriff’s Department, and every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine from El Centro to help you cover all the routes between Niland, California, and the border—you’ll need everyone you can scrape up,” Purdy said. “They were heading south on Highway 111 toward Brawley and El Centro. My guess is Zakharov is headed for the border. He’s got three guys and some heavy weapons with him. Get the Highway Patrol with infrared scanners to look in the fields and orchards, and have them seal off Highway 98 and Interstate 8 tight.”

“I’m on it, Purdy.”

Purdy ended his call, then painfully walked over to the tractor across the road. A small group of workers had pulled the body of Victor Flores out of the wreckage and onto the ground. His bullet-torn body made him look even younger than he was. If he ever had a son, Purdy thought, he hoped he would have half the courage of this young man.

He knelt beside him and brushed his hair and cheeks, hoping that he could see some sign of life, but his wounds were simply too massive. “Zakharov, you are one cold son of a bitch to shoot an innocent kid like this,” he said angrily. “If it’s the last thing I do, you are going down.”

“¿Qué dijo usted, Purdy?” one of the workers asked him.

Purdy shook his head—it was between him, Victor Flores, and God, he thought. “Una promesa a Victor, señor,” he said. He gave the young man another pat on the cheek. “Gracias por salvar mi vida, amigo,” he said. “Thanks for saving my hide, buddy. Don’t worry about Zakharov—I’ll get the bastard for you.”

Zakharov ditched the camper at a rest stop on Route S30 near Calipatria for a Dodge Caravan minivan driven by an older retired couple, and they headed east toward the Coachella Canal through endless fields of crops in the fertile Imperial Valley. At the intersection of Routes S33 and 78, fearing that the elderly owners of the minivan would have had time to report the theft, they transferred all of their remaining weapons and equipment to a battered farmer’s pickup truck that had the keys left in it, ditched the Caravan, and continued south.

As they drove away, Zakharov snapped off the satellite phone. “Dammit, I am not sure if I’m getting through to anyone—there’s a connection, but no response,” he said. “Fuerza had better answer me, or I hunt him down next. We are only twenty miles or so from the border, but they will certainly have shut down the highways and border crossing points.”

“There is a steel fence on the border twenty miles either side of Calexico—they will certainly deploy every Border Patrol agent in this sector there,” one of the commandos said.

“We go east around the fence,” Zakharov said. “We will make better time on the highway than in the fields, and we will get off and cross the border as soon as we are clear of the fence.”

Instead of getting on Interstate 8 near Holtville, they took the Evan Hewes Highway, which paralleled the freeway, being very careful not to go too fast or do anything to attract attention; Zakharov slumped down in his seat so he wouldn’t be recognized. Soon they saw one, then two, then several California Highway Patrol interceptors, lights and sirens flashing, cruising both sides of the interstate highway. A few minutes later, they saw a gray military helicopter fly overhead. “A Navy helicopter, probably from El Centro,” Zakharov said. “They want us very badly, I think.”

It appeared they made the right decision by going east instead of straight south, because most of the police action seemed to center near Bonds Corner and Highway 98, close to the border. But Zakharov’s military-trained sixth sense told him that even this dusty highway was no place to be for very much longer. “We need to get off this road,” he said, after trying for the umpteenth time to make a connection with his satellite phone. “We are violating all the rules of tactical evasion. The police will have the highways closed off soon. We will hide this truck and go to ground until nightfall, then find a way across the border.”

The highway was so straight and flat that it was easy to see several miles ahead, and soon Zakharov saw what he had feared: a roadblock set up ahead, both on the interstate and frontage road. They turned north off the highway at a farm access road and stopped at a portable restroom set up at the edge of a field. The men began arming themselves, preparing at any moment to jump out of the truck and fight if necessary. They were surrounded by fields of durum wheat and alfalfa, which would provide cover from ground searches but no cover at all from the air. “Our only option is to try to escape in the fields,” Zakharov said. “We have perhaps an hour or less before the roadblocks are set up on the highways and the searches can extend into the…”

But at that moment they heard the sound of a helicopter approaching. They took cover inside the truck. A gray HH-1N Huey helicopter with the words “U.S. NAVY” on the side could be seen flying at a moderate speed down Evan Hewes Highway, in the same direction they had been traveling. The noise from the Huey search and rescue chopper got steadily quieter…before becoming louder again. They did not need to get out and look to know the helicopter was coming toward them.

On Zakharov’s orders, one of the commandos unpacked the long green fiberglass box in the back of the pickup and hurriedly got the weapon ready to fire. It took less than a minute, and soon he had the SA-14 Strela antiaircraft missile launcher ready and was hiding with the Porta-Potty between him and the oncoming helicopter. Zakharov made sure the commando had the weapon powered up and steered him south and east toward the sound of the helicopter’s rotors, then stepped out onto the dirt road with his sniper rifle in his hands. “Zhdat’,” Zakharov said. “We do not want that thing crashing down on top of us. Be patient. He will try to get away. That is when you nail him.”

Seconds later, the Navy helicopter appeared, just a few hundred yards away. It had descended to just a hundred feet over the fields. As soon as he clearly saw the pilot’s white helmet, he raised his pistol and fired a round into the helicopter’s windscreen. He had aimed it quickly and didn’t expect to hit anything, but he must’ve hit the pilot because the helicopter veered sharply backward, wobbled from side to side, spun almost an entire revolution, and dove almost to the ground before the copilot managed to take the controls.

Zakharov raised a fist at the commando, hoping he knew that it was the signal to stop and that he would not waste a missile on the stricken chopper. They piled aboard the pickup truck, with Zakharov driving, one commando in the cab with Richter, and the other commandos in the back with the SA-14 MANPADS, and raced down the dirt road north. A few minutes later, a commando pounded on the roof, and Zakharov came to a stop. The missileer dropped down off the cargo bed, crouched below the front of the truck to conceal himself the best he could, and took aim on another helicopter coming toward them.

“If you get a clear shot at the engine exhaust, shoot,” Zakharov ordered, and he began jogging back down the road away from the truck.

This time it was a U.S. Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter chasing them. Zakharov could see its twenty-millimeter cannon sweeping back and forth along the fields as the crew looked for targets—but he was relieved to notice that the four weapon pylons were empty. He had to take a chance that they hadn’t had a chance to load an ammunition canister for the cannon either. Zakharov aimed and fired a round from his pistol at the helicopter. He didn’t expect any damage, nor did he get any indication of it, so he started trotting back south along the dirt road toward the helicopter.

As he surmised, the helicopter merely tracked him, but did not attack—it had no ammo. When he walked underneath the helicopter, it slowly pedal-turned around and began to descend, preparing to “dust” him—inundate him with sufficient prop wash that would stir up enough dust and dirt to make it impossible to move or see.

Zakharov could sense his man ready to fire, so before the swirling, blinding dust and dirt got any worse, he started running faster toward the highway—and as he did there was a brilliant flash of light behind him, followed by an incredibly thunderous boooom! and a gush of heat. Zakharov ran until he could run no more, then dove to the ground. The Super Cobra, hit point-blank by the SA-14 missile, careened to the east of the dirt road in a death’s spin and crashed-landed into the alfalfa field beyond.

Zakharov jogged back toward his truck, dispatching the Super Cobra’s pilot with a shot to his chest as he tried to climb out of the cockpit. In moments his commandos had picked him up, and they raced northward along the dirt road deeper into the fields.

But soon the dirt road ended. Not daring to head west toward Brawley and Naval Air Facility El Centro, they headed east through the fields until they were stopped by the Coachella Canal. They turned north toward the nearest bridge they could see, about a half-mile away. Just as they began heading toward it, however, two more helicopters could be seen rolling in on their position from the south and southeast, another gray Marine Corps Super Cobra and a blue, white, and yellow California Highway Patrol H20 Aerostar patrol helicopter.

“What weapons are left?” Zakharov asked.

“None, except a couple grenades and our personal weapons,” one of the commandos said. Zakharov nodded grimly. They’d brought all the weapons they could gather on short notice and could carry, knowing they would have to fight the TALON robots—they did not expect to take on U.S. Marine Corps helicopters too. “What should we do, sir?”

“We stay together and fight,” Zakharov said finally, checking the ammo supply for his pistol: three rounds left in the magazine, plus two more ten-round magazines—not much at all, but perhaps enough. “They are not going to take us alive.” He motioned to the smoke and fire caused by the destroyed Super Cobra. “I am betting none of their helicopters are armed, so that is our chance. I will try to bring another helicopter down—the smoke and fires will intensify, and the confusion will grow as the authorities try to guess what weapons we have. We can jump across to…”

“You two on the road, drop your weapons, raise you hands in the air, turn around, and kneel down!” they heard from a loudspeaker on the CHP helicopter. “You will receive no more warnings!” The message was repeated in Spanish.

“Come and get us, filthy Americans!” one of the commandos shouted, and he pulled a grenade from a pocket and threw it toward the helicopters. But milliseconds later, the commando disappeared in an incredible cloud of red gore—and then Zakharov heard the loud, chilling brrraaappp! sound of the Chain Gun firing, sending fifty twenty-millimeter shells dead on target in one second. There was nothing left of the commando but bits of his boots.

The grenade sailed in front of the CHP helicopter, missing it by several dozen yards, but the mid-air explosion had the desired effect—Zakharov could hear the helicopter’s engine whine louder and louder as shrapnel was sucked into the turbine and started to shred the compressor blades; the helicopter spun, then dipped, then smacked hard into the alfalfa field.

“Forget the robot!” Zakharov shouted. “Grab Richter! We’ll use him as a human shield!” Zakharov turned and started running toward the bridge across the Coachella Canal, but he hadn’t gone more than a few steps when he heard the Super Cobra’s cannon fire again. He waited for the slugs to pierce his body…but they were just a warning shot, the shells impacting the ground behind him where he had stood just seconds earlier, hitting so close that he could feel the ground shake. He froze, his pistol out of sight in front of him. He had one grenade in his coat pocket and if he could get a lucky shot off with the pistol…

Just then there was another warning burst of fire, just a meter to his left, the shells whizzing by so close that he felt as if he was being sharply patted down by a police officer. He had no choice: he slowly lifted his hands, the pistol still in his right hand. The cannon roared again, this time close enough to his right arm to blacken his sleeve. Zakharov screamed, and he sank to his knees, clutching his thankfully uninjured right hand, his arms and legs shaking so violently that he thought he would pass out if he didn’t fall down first. Off in the distance he could hear sirens—the police, moving in for the arrest.

It was over. Well, he had managed to avoid capture for many months; he had attacked the U.S. government in its own capital; he had caused untold thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars in damage—and it had finally taken no less than a U.S. Marine Corps Super Cobra gunship to stop him. Even Task Force TALON’s high-tech robots couldn’t…

Suddenly there was a bright flash of red and yellow light behind him, and moments later he was knocked onto his face by a tremendous blast of superheated air and a concussion shock wave. He thought that maybe the Super Cobra pilot had received orders to just kill him and not waste time and money on a trial—but he was still alive. Amid a series of explosions and the sounds of crunching metal and jet fuel–fed fires, Zakharov fumbled for the grenade in his coat pocket, then rolled onto his back, ready to toss the grenade at the approaching police cars…

…when he realized he was lying in the midst of an inferno. The Super Cobra helicopter had been blown from the sky—it had been completely obliterated in mid-air. The whole field around him seemed to be on fire…

…and at that moment he saw two jets flying overhead, less than a thousand feet aboveground, both Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter air defense fighters. Both were in green, brown, and gray jungle camouflage colors; the leader had one air-to-air missile missing from its wingtip pylon, while the wingman still had both of his missiles, which appeared to be AIM-9L Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles. Had those American jets accidentally fired on a Marine Corps helicopter? He knew the U.S. Air Force and Navy flew the F-5 as an “adversary” fighter, its pilot trained to mimic air-to-air engagement tactics of various enemy air forces; certainly the Navy base at El Centro had several F-5s in its “Aggressor” squadron. But it was incredible that it would accidentally shoot down one of its own aircraft! Zakharov’s head was swimming in confusion. What was going on…?

No, they weren’t American jets, he realized—they were Mexican jets! The Mexican Air Force flew two squadrons of F-5E Freedom Fighter jets as air defense interceptors, one squadron in the south and one over the capital. What in the world were they doing here, firing missiles at American helicopters in American airspace?

Through the smoke and fires raging all around him, four more helicopters arrived—small single-pilot McDonnell-Douglas MD530 light counterinsurgency attack helicopters, their official markings blacked out on the sides of the fuselage, each fitted with rocket launchers and machine guns on their landing skids. While three of the helicopters hovered nearby on patrol, pedal-turning in all directions on guard for any pursuit, one set down on a road intersection across the canal. Zakharov didn’t hesitate—he ran as fast as he could across the bridge. The right side door to the helicopter had been removed, making it easy for him to climb aboard.

“Coronel Zakharov?” the pilot shouted in Spanish when the Russian climbed inside.

“Sí!” Zakharov shouted. The pilot’s face was obscured by the helmet’s smoked visor. “Who are you?”

“A friend. Get in, quickly!”

Zakharov pulled his sidearm and aimed it at the pilot. “I said, 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 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 helicopters 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 helicopters were speeding southward at treetop level, crossing the border into safety just moments later.

HENDERSON, NEVADA

A SHORT TIME LATER

The recorded commercial message abruptly cut off, and Bob O’Rourke’s voice, shaking and unusually muted, came on moments 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 moments 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 Department and the U.S. Navy report that law enforcement agencies, assisted by military search teams from Naval Air Facility El Centro, were searching for terrorists discovered farther north near Niland, California, who were trying to escape across the border into Mexico. The terrorists were armed with sophisticated weapons including 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 incredible 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.S. Marine Corps officers killed and one slightly injured when their choppers were downed, one by the terrorists and one—I still can’t believe this has happened, folks—one by a Mexican Air Force fighter jet. One terrorist was killed by the Marine Corps after he attacked the CHP helicopter; the other terrorist, as I said, escaped in the carnage and confusion.

“This horrible incident follows the initial discovery of the terrorists in Niland, California, a farming community about forty miles from the border in the Imperial Valley agricultural region. Four armed terrorists opened fire on Border Patrol agents, injuring two. The terrorists also attacked several farmworkers, killing seven. The farmworkers killed two of the terrorists with farm tools before the others escaped. The terrorists stole two vehicles as they made their way toward the Mexican border.”

O’Rourke paused briefly, taking another deep, audible breath, before continuing: “We don’t yet know who the terrorists were—what nationality, what religious persuasion, what group or cell they belong to. They could be home-grown terrorists, or they could be Mexican, or they could be the return of the Consortium that created so much death and destruction in this country last year. But in the end it doesn’t matter. The threat is real, it exists, and we need to deal with now.

“Is there any doubt in your minds now, my friends, that America is in a real shooting war with terrorists—and that the Mexican border is now their primary avenue of infiltration and escape? Is there any doubt of the Mexican government’s duplicity, if not their complete and total involvement, in terror attacks against American law enforcement, attempting to coerce our lawmakers into enacting more open immigration legislation? A more important question here is: how should the United States respond to this horrible, bloody attack?

“There is no question in my mind, ladies and gentlemen, that the U.S.-Mexico border should be considered hostile territory, and any persons found crossing the border or even approaching the frontier should be considered hostile enemy combatants, not just illegal migrants. Every one of those one million illegal immigrants who make it into this country every year should be considered threats to American peace and security and possible terrorists and insurgents. If the intruders are wearing uniforms, they should be stopped by all means necessary, including use of deadly force, and if captured they should be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. If they are not wearing uniforms, they should be imprisoned and treated as spies and saboteurs, not subject to the Geneva Conventions; and if found guilty of any crime against the United States, they should be executed. No exceptions!

“I call on President Samuel Conrad to declare a federal state of emergency in all of the border states, and to immediately dispatch the National Guard to seal off the borders and use all means necessary, including deadly force, to repel anyone approaching the border. Full air defense measures should be instituted, including round-the-clock air patrols and Patriot air defense weapons, to prevent any more incursions into U.S. airspace.”

O’Rourke paused once more, and his producer Fand Kent saw something in his face that made her skin crawl. She hit the intercom button: “Bob, what are you going to say now?”

“You know what I’m going to say, Fonda,” he said darkly.

“I’m going to commercial. Let’s talk about it first.”

“No.”

“Bob, take a deep breath, and send us over to commercial,” she said, quickly cueing up two minutes of recordings. “I’ve got two minutes in the computer right now, and then we can go to news a little early and put in another ninety seconds…”

“I said no.”

“Bob, we need to discuss this first,” Kent insisted. She picked up the phone. “I’m calling the general manager.” But there was no need—he was already in the booth with O’Rourke moments later. He had cut off the intercom, so she could barely hear. Their voices got louder and louder very quickly, and soon O’Rourke pushed the GM away, yelling at him to get out. The GM turned to Kent, said and indicated nothing, then left.

Bob O’Rourke readjusted his headphones and microphone, and when he resumed, his voice was shaking even more: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Bob O’Rourke, and you’re listening to The Bottom Line. I am reacting to the recent news of an attack on U.S. military and law enforcement by unknown terrorists and by the Mexican Air Force. I…I am trying to remain calm and think rationally, but frankly I think the time for thought and introspection is over, don’t you? America has been attacked, again, and this time it has come not from some shadowy underworld figure from Russia, but from our neighbors to the south. America is under siege, and the enemy is Mexico.”

O’Rourke grabbed the microphone and rose out of his seat, his voice quickly rising in intensity. “You know something, my friends? Do you want to know what I think? Do you want to know the truth? The truth is I don’t believe President Conrad is going to do a damned thing about this brutal attack. He will call for investigations, maybe put a few more Border Patrol agents or troops on the border to try to show how tough he is, but in the end it’ll be business as usual. President Carmen Maravilloso of Mexico will claim it was all a horrible mistake, beg forgiveness, blame the United States for increasing tensions on the border with Task Force TALON and the National Guard, and maybe fire or imprison some low-level bureaucrat or general. After a week or two, it’ll be over and forgotten—except of course by the grieving families of those officers and Marines slaughtered by the terrorists and the government of Mexico. In short, my friends, Mexico will get away with murder, and again our government will prove that it is either unable or unwilling to protect its citizens and its borders in the name of political correctness and expediency.

“I therefore urge my fellow Americans to do everything you can to protect yourself, your families, your community, and your place of business,” O’Rourke went on. “You have to do more than just be aware of your surroundings—you have to act to defend yourselves and your property. There are enemies in our midst, my friends, dangerous criminals and murderous terrorists that will do anything, especially steal and kill, to escape justice or carry out their plans of destruction. They have sneaked in across our borders with ease by the millions because our government has refused to seal the borders, American employers have skirted the law simply to increase their profits, and the Mexican government wants the money the illegals bring back into their country and they don’t want the burden of finding jobs and creating a better life for their own people. The result of this conspiracy of neglect, greed, and corruption is death in our own backyards, with no end and no solution in sight.”

“No, Bob,” Fand Kent spoke into the intercom. “That’s far enough. Don’t go any farther…”

“I urge my fellow Americans to do everything in their legal and Constitutional powers to help law enforcement track down, capture, and bring to justice anyone who might be in this country illegally,” O’Rourke went on, ignoring his producer’s pleas. “If you are legally allowed to bear arms, I urge you to do so—you might be the only person who stops a terrorist or illegal from stealing your possessions or committing murder and mayhem in your schools, churches, and the places you frequent such as restaurants and supermarkets.

“I also strongly urge my fellow citizens, everyone concerned about terrorism and the out-of-control rise in illegal immigration in the United States, to report anyone you might think is an illegal alien to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” O’Rourke went on, shaking his head at his producer. He gave ICE’s toll-free telephone number and Web site address. “You can anonymously report anyone you feel might be in the country illegally, but I will tell you now that if you make an anonymous report, the government will put your report at the bottom of a very large stack of reports, which means it will probably never be investigated. That’s because anonymous reports are always considered retaliations by other illegals, most often warring gangs or families. Don’t be afraid to give ICE your personal information—that way, your tip will much more likely be acted on. If you have any doubts or questions, contact my producer Fand by e-mail or phone and I’ll help you get it straightened out.

“One more point: do not, I repeat, do not waste your time trying to contact local law enforcement about illegals living or working in your neighborhood. Ninety-nine percent of local law enforcement agencies in the United States will not do anything with the information you give, citing such nonsense such as states’ rights, localities not required to enforce federal law, lack of resources, fear of civil rights lawsuits, and similar cowardly dodges. States and municipalities are required to care, educate, feed, provide medical, welfare, and legal services to all their residents, but for some bizarre reason they will not ask for proof of citizenship or residency; and unless the illegal person has committed a crime, they will not call Immigration and Customs Enforcement to have the person deported. There’s something twisted and backward about that policy, and we’ll discuss that on a future show.

“If you feel these persons are a threat to you, your family, or your community, then by all means dial 911 and report it,” he went on, “but your responsibility is to protect your life, the lives of your family, and your property, so I urge you to do so to the utmost extent your state and local laws allow. You are making a big mistake if you expect the government to protect you. We have the right in this country to keep and bear arms, guaranteed to us by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and if you do not take advantage of this right, at best you may someday lose this right—and at worst, you could lose your life to someone who values neither your rights nor your life. Don’t be stupid, naïve, passive, or impartial. Do what you must to protect yourselves and the ones you love, right now. This is a war, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s about time we started taking the fight to them.

“Of course, I predict the government will whine and cry that my message this morning has resulted in a flood of bogus and paranoid-fueled reports that they are completely unable to contend with—and it’ll be all my fault,” O’Rourke went on. “That excuse is unacceptable. If the alphabet-soup list of civil agencies we have to secure our borders, control immigration, and combat terrorism can’t deal with the problem, we need to make sure that the government does whatever is necessary to deal with it, or we need to take matters into our own hands. I don’t care if they call in the National Guard and have soldiers link arms and create a human wall of protection on the border—they need to do something about the illegal immigration problem, now. No more excuses, no more deaths, no more political correctness! President Conrad needs to get off his backside and get some troops out here immediately to secure our borders and hunt down these terrorists, or the American people will!

“The Bottom Line, my friends: the time to start taking back our country and securing our families, homes, and neighborhoods is now. You may think that what has happened this morning is thousands of miles away from where you live and work, and that it will never affect you because you live in Iowa or Connecticut and you don’t live on the Mexican border, but you’re wrong. Illegal immigration hurts all of us, no matter where you live, and sooner or later the violence that we saw in the Imperial Valley of southern California will spread all across our country, wherever illegal immigrants live and work, and then you’ll realize how long the violence and trespass has been with us, and how badly it affects our lives every day.”

“I’ll have more about this deadly, bloody morning in the great United States, the latest acts of terrorism on our own soil, right after these messages. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.”