Shepherd One

CHAPTER FIVE

Night had settled.

Team One of the Arab league could see the boundary marker dividing the United States from Mexico, a simple barbed wire fence held in place by hitching posts, which hardly seemed worth the effort since it didn’t appear to be much of a deterrent.

In the far distance the glittering lights of Naco, Arizona winked intermittently.

The three Arabs hunkered down next to the aluminum case, each man listening for anything out of the ordinary that would give fair warning as to what really lay beyond the fence line other than the coyote standing on a rocky escarpment silhouetted against the moonlit night. In the darkness its eyes radiated something mercuric, that stark oddity of quicksilver flashes against a darkened shape. After a brief study the coyote released a quick series of yelps before trotting off into a grove of tangled brush.

In the lighted phase of the gibbous moon, the Arabs continued to wait, sit, and listen, their patience a learned virtue.

Now the silence became as unsettling as the coyote’s cry, because everything seemed far too easy with Arizona less than sixty meters away without a hurdle to provide them a meager challenge to stop them. Which is probably why this area had become a popular crossover point for illegal aliens over the years; the possibility of getting caught was minimal.

Getting to his full height of six three, Abdul-Ahad quietly ventured several feet forward with a noticeable limp, his bad leg acting up after the long journey across the desert terrain after the van was held up in sand, then took to a knee between the divides of two sand dunes and held up an open hand, the signal to his team to hold their progress.

In the distance the lights of Naco continued to burn and twinkle as an incentive of a new beginning for those who crossed over. Yet the Arab discerned something was amiss, the one-time elitist of the Republican Guard sensing a peculiarity only a seasoned soldier could intuit.

After closing his eyes and letting his hand fall in defeat, he considered how close his team had come to fulfilling Allah’s wishes. Unfortunately, he and his team would enter Paradise much sooner than anticipated.

Reaching into the cargo pocket of his pants, the Arab withdrew the BlackBerry controller of the nuclear weapon and flipped back the lid, revealing the lit face of the keypad, knowing all too well what was waiting for them in the darkness.

With a finger poised over the pad and waiting to strike the keys to initiate the device, Abdul-Ahad thought, I know you’re out there… I can feel you..

And the man intuited correctly.

As if on cue a row of floodlights positioned along the crossbar of a Border Patrol Jeep kicked on, bathing Abdul-Ahad and his team in bitter brightness.

“Border Patrol! Get down on the ground! Get… Down… On… The… Ground!” And then in Spanish, same thing: “¡Patrulla de frontera! ¡Consiga abajo en la tierra!”

Sorry, Padre, I don’t speak Spanish.

In an instant Abdul-Ahad began to type with a pianist’s speed and dexterity, his fingers never missing a mark as the password set in Russian characters began to show up on the display window, the device talking to the payload as the frequency worked its way across cyberspace to initiate the weapon’s triggering mechanism inside the aluminum case.

“¡Patrulla de frontera! ¡Consiga abajo en la tierra!”

And then a warning shot, a quick burst in the air from an automatic weapon by the Border Patrol, an illegal maneuver against policy, but one that caught Abdul-Ahad’s attention nonetheless.

“Majid, Qusay, hold them off.” His Arabic came in a rush, his tone bearing the weight of urgency as he fell behind a small sandy rise and away from any direct line of fire. “I need time!”

Majid and Qusay ambled forward in the soft sand aiming their side arms before firing in quick succession, the shots taking out half the spotlights while others coughed up sparks when they hit the Jeep’s metal bumper.

Abdul-Ahad’s men were pretty much on target as they were able to drive four officers from the Jeep’s cab, and to the useless cover of sage before they hunkered down into the prone position to return fire. Bullets zipped passed them with the sounds of angry wasps, each man in the patrol knowing that a particular sting may prove fatal should it find its mark. And then they returned their own volley, the cacophony of gunfire carrying north to the Arizona town.

Abdul-Ahad’s team moved beyond his position, giving him a protective front line as he brought them closer to Paradise, as three of the ten characters needed to begin the countdown of the nuclear payload surfaced on the BlackBerry’s screen.

… Now a fourth character… Six more to go…

His fingers continued to strike the plate in blurred fashion.

… A fifth character… Another step closer to Allah…

Several meters ahead Majid and Qusay’s aim remained true, keeping the officers pinned until Qusay’s torso suddenly erupted into a wellspring of red as bullets stitched across his chest, his wounds opening and paring back like the petals of a rose bloom as the impacts lifted him off his feet and carried him backwards. Majid never wavered, knowing all risks hold the possibility of getting caught before the mission was completed. When his weapon ran dry, he expertly released his empty magazine and quickly seated another, then fired at the muzzle flashes. All around him pieces of earth kicked up as bullets trailed along the sand, the strikes getting closer to Majid, who maintained his position on a bended knee.

Abdul-Ahad tapped the keyboard at a frantic pace, the characters on the LED screen appearing much too slowly for his liking with six of the ten characters in place. Next to him a bullet hit the sand. But the man carried on without reacting, his fingers continuing to move with pinpoint accuracy.

From minimal cover, an officer lying in the prone position leveled the sight of his assault rifle and drew a bead against Majid’s temple, his breathing now shallow and controlled, his patience forced until the moment he pulled the trigger.

In a measure of time that seemed much too slow and surreal, Majid’s face above the jaw line scattered to the winds, leaving nothing but pulp, gore and glistening bone, as he fell back on the sand with his arms splayed outward in mock crucifixion.

“Surrender your weapon!” someone shouted. It was the same voice that Abdul-Ahad heard earlier, the command voice who quickly translated into Spanish, “Entregue su arma!”

… Eight characters, two more to go…

“¡Ésta es su oportunidad pasada de entregar su arma, o… abriremos… el… fuego!” This is your last opportunity to surrender your weapon, or… we… will… open… fire!

In what was left in the feeble lighting — of the lights that had not been cleared or doused by Abdul-Ahad’s team — the Arab went for his sidearm stuffed in the waistband of his pants. All he needed was a few precious moments to punch in the last two codes that would make this part of the world a no-man’s-land of blistered earth for the next ten thousand years. It would be a symbol of Allah’s power. And his will to die for the cause a symbol of his peoples’ faith.

The moment he directed his weapon to fire off a few rounds to keep them at bay, there was a retaliatory burst of gunfire, clean and precise, the bullets punching fist-sized holes into Abdul-Ahad’s chest, which drove him back and knocked the BlackBerry from his hand.

And then an awkward silence followed — a momentary lasting of something intangible that hung in the air like a shroud — like that brief moment of uncertainty of whether or not the situation was totally contained.

With measured prudence the agents pressed ahead with their weapons directed to points forward, and policed the area by motioning the end of their weapons from left to right, each man scoping his surroundings for insurgents.

When the bodies were checked and confirmed dead and the area cleared, the officers lowered their weapons and stared at the bounty.

Undamaged in the firefight with its shell dulled and coated with a misting of fine dust, lay the aluminum case like some obscene Ark mired in the sand. Next to it laid the Blackberry.

“Drugs?” The question was obviously rhetorical since the transportation of illicit narcotics was generally considered the norm.

Sergeant Cary Winslow, a seasoned vet of quiet demeanor and heavy moral value, labored to a knee, grabbed the BlackBerry, then gave it a once over and noted the eight symbols markedly similar to Russian print in the display window. Snapping the faceplate shut, he then fit the unit into his shirt pocket and made his way to the aluminum case.

In the glow of the spotlight he could tell that the outer shell was burnished to a chrome finish, but had lost a lot of its luster having been layered with a fine coat of desert sand.

“How many kilos you think something like that holds, Cary?” Officer Roscoe Winchell was basketball tall and appallingly thin. When he spoke he did so with a Mid-Western drawl, even though he was born, bred and raised in upper New York. “Looks like a cartel run.”

Winslow didn’t answer. Instead, he undid the clasps and lifted the lid with all the prudence of releasing the ills of Pandora’s Box. What he found inside was not what he expected. Beneath a Plexiglas shield were three spheres surrounded by electronic plates, panels and a hard drive.

“OOO-wee,” remarked Winchell, removing his cap then scratching an itch at the edge of his scalp before returning it. “What you reckon that be, Cary?”

Winslow fell back, his eyes remaining fixed. In better lighting one would be able to see the sudden gray creeping across his face or the goose bumps racing along the length of his arms. As someone who was trained to detect anomalies crossing the border, Sergeant Winslow immediately fastened the case and ordered his team to back away. “I need all personnel to maintain a perimeter,” he ordered.

“What is it?”

“You never mind, Roscoe. You’ll find out soon enough. Right now I want you to get on the mike and call headquarters. Tell them to contact the FBI immediately. Tell them we got us a Dante Package.”

“A what?”

“A ‘Dante Package!’ Now go!”

The deputy was off and running. In the background the other deputies stood silent and mute.

With less than one year away from retirement, Sergeant Winslow shook his head in non-belief and looked skyward. Stars glittered like fairy dust and the smell of the desert air was crisp and clean and unadulterated. And then he closed his eyes. They did it, he thought. They finally tried to get one across.

And then he reconsidered. After sweeping his gaze across the feebly placed borderline with its crooked posts and barbed wire fencing, there was no doubt in his mind that at least one nuclear device crossed over the boundary.

He had no doubt at all.

‘Dante Package’ was the code name for a low-yield nuclear weapon packaged to be mobile, such as in a suitcase or a backpack. During the Cold War, Russia processed dozens of such devices that looked like a five-gallon drum fitted into a canvas backpack. But what the members of the FBI, NSA and Cisen — Mexico’s CIA counterpart — were looking at was anything but.

This device was state-of-the-art, a far descendant of the Cold War version.

Within a brilliant cast of lighting, provided by a perimeter of lamps set up in a perfect circumference around the scene, the aluminum case was spotlighted as the centerpiece of attraction, with the dead Arabs lying supine in the blood-stained sand next to it.

The marginal wind, however, cooled off the landscape, as if to settle the scene.

At three-thirty in the morning the deputy director of the FBI’s Phoenix field office didn’t bother with the tie or expensive shoes, but wore jeans, sneakers, and a tan shirt that was tucked in just enough to reveal his belt badge. Beneath the armpit of his left shoulder he wore a pancake holster with the stock of his sidearm in easy reach.

For six minutes John Abraham stood as if deliberating, his eyes fixed, staring, absorbing everything at the scene and making a mental note before approaching the case and the bodies of those who surrendered their lives to protect it.

Alongside him several NSA officials stood silent, deducing, with every member clad in formal dress attire and conservative hairstyles that were perfectly coiffed. And Abraham had to wonder how this was possible given the short notice to be on the premise, like him. In marginal adherence to his appearance, he tucked the tail end of his shirt to somewhat conform to his law enforcement constituency.

Far be it if NSA should show up the FBI, he considered.

Two men in hazmat suits ventured into the established perimeter zone, the soles of their boots making tracks in the soft sand reminiscent of the lunar imprints left on the moon’s surface. With Geiger counters in hand the men swept their wand over the aluminum shell.

Just a minimal amount of Geiger ticks, nothing more.

Getting to a knee, one of the hazmat officers undid the clasps of the aluminum case and opened the lid while his colleague continued to wave his wand slowly back and forth.

The ticks remained at minimal, the threat of radiation emission at safe levels. Whatever concerns there might have been regarding toxic levels were summarily dismissed.

“Clear.” The call came from the primary hazmat officer who maintained constant communication with his team through a lip mike to the site’s Comm Center, which was a cube van parked beyond the perimeter lights.

Abraham moved forward, as did the principals from the NSA and the Mexican National Security and Investigation Center, with each man gravitating toward the case from all points of the perimeter.

Passing the bodies of the dead Arabs without so much as a glance, the officials circled the device and studied its contents. In the light the burnished spheres lined side by side beneath the Plexiglas shield gleamed imposingly.

“As you can see,” said Valente DeMora-Cuesta, a top-ranking official from the Mexican National Security and Investigation Center, also known as Cisen, waved his hand back and forth to prove a point, “this is Mexican territory.” The man was truly Napoleonic and short, his demeanor radiating a cocky arrogance, in which he forced the importance of his position by reminding the Americans that on Mexican soil he was the primary official. They weren’t buying it, however, even when DeMora-Cuesta tried to force the issue in perfect English that a challenge would be met if they contested his decisions. “This weapon belongs to the Mexican Government and will be appropriated in the name of Mexico.”

Abraham chortled. “Yeah, right. Whatever.” The American border was less than sixty meters away.

DeMora-Cuesta’s arrogant vein never subsided. “Need I remind you that you are on Mexican territory, a sovereign country?”

“Your territory has become a sieve allowing such things to happen to our nation. We need this device to learn how to dismantle it safely, in case others have gotten onto American territory. We need to track its point of origin and find the core group that’s marketing nuclear weapons.”

“Not our problem,” he commented. And then in Spanish, barked a command to his team to gather the weapon.

“I wouldn’t do that,” said Abraham.

“What you want on Mexican territory matters little to me.”

As DeMora-Cuesta’s team neared the aluminum case John Abraham nodded to the NSA principal, who whispered something into his lip mike. Within moments, personnel wearing black body armor, helmets and face shields advanced from the perimeter line manning assault weapons with attached laser scopes, the crimson lines crossing the distance between them and the Cisen team as multiple red dots from their scopes settled on the center of DeMora-Cuesta’s body mass. Within seconds the members of the Cisen team were pinned in the crosshairs of two dozen elite soldiers.

“You wouldn’t dare,” said DeMora-Cuesta.

“We can do this one of two ways,” said Abraham. “We can either do this my way… Or we can do this my way. You decide.”

DeMora-Cuesta scanned the area; totally surrounded, the commandos drawing a bead. “To raise a weapon against Mexican officials is an obvious violation of the covenant between the United States and Mexico. Our government will certainly file a grievance with your government. And you, Mr. Abraham, along with everyone here, will be named.”

“I don’t think our government gives a rat’s ass, since they’re the ones who sent us here with the objective of acquiring this device in the first place.”

DeMora-Cuesta reluctantly conceded, bowing out of the circle of officials and motioning to his team to follow him beyond the lit perimeter. There was no doubt in Abraham’s mind that he was going to call for backup. It was an easy read.

The NSA official chortled. “I like your style, Abraham. You should become one of us.”

“I’m very happy where I am,” he answered.

“Yeah, well — I should contact headquarters since our friend here is obviously on his way to call in a detachment to counter our strike team. This could be fun.” And then he was gone, heading for the Comm Center.

Abraham watched the Cisen group exit the area before leaning over the device and noting the three spheres, the computer boards, and the two phallic cylinders opposing one another with their tapered points less than an inch apart. Probably the strike pins, he considered.

His next business of conduct was to examine the bodies. The Arabs he noted were clean shaven, an indicator they were preparing themselves for death by cleansing the body before entry — a martyr’s belief. It was also a learned pointer he was trained to look out for while coming up through the ranks of the Bureau working in counterterrorism.

Ignoring the Arab who had his facial identity erased after being struck by the impact of the bullet from an assault rifle, Abraham left the area as NSA associates quickly prepped the case for safe travel to Area 4 of the Nevada Test Site.