The First Commandment

CHAPTER 33

It was late afternoon when Scot Harvath reconvened in the Sargasso conference room with Tim Finney, Ron Parker, and Tom Morgan. The resort’s chef had prepared a late lunch and the men made small talk as they ate.

Once the meal was finished, Morgan began the presentation. “I want to do a brief overall primer and then get to specifics. Agent Harvath, I am assuming you may know a lot of this, but I think Mr. Finney and Mr. Parker will benefit.”

Harvath politely signaled for Morgan to proceed.

“In the wake of 9/11, a lot of people got rolled up in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. According to my sources, detainees come from more than fifty countries, only forty-one of which have actually been released to the press.

“The largest number of detainees come from Saudi Arabia, followed by Afghanistan and then Yemen.”

“No surprise there,” responded Finney.

“Indeed,” agreed Morgan as he activated his laptop and the screens throughout the room glowed to life with the first slide of a hastily assembled Power-Point presentation.

“How does Mexico tie in?”

“For some time, both American and Mexican intelligence agencies have been aware of highly specialized, paramilitary training camps throughout Mexico, a number of which are located within a day’s drive of our southern border.

“The camps are operated by a group of former Mexican military special forces troops, known as the Zetas, who deserted in the mid-1990s to work as enforcers for high-paying drug cartels.”

Morgan advanced to the next slide — a collage of surveillance photos. “The camps are frequented by a variety of Arab as well as Asian nationals, including Thais, Indonesians, and Filipinos.”

“Representatives of all the world’s Islamic radical hot spots,” remarked Finney. “It’s a regular terrorist Disneyland down there.”

Morgan nodded and advanced to his next slide. “I have a colleague in D.C. who has said for years that via the Zetas, terrorists are exploiting the ability of the drug cartels to smuggle men, weapons, and explosives across our porous border with Mexico. As investigations continue, I think someday in the future we will be able to prove that men and materials involved in the attacks on Manhattan over the Fourth of July weekend came into this country via our southern border.”

“If we knew about all of this before, why didn’t we do anything? Build a fence, take out the camps, anything but just sit here while we were being invaded?”

Morgan grimaced and said, “For that kind of question you need a political analyst. As far as American intel people and a few enlightened members of Congress are concerned, the barbarians aren’t at the gates, they’ve already blasted their way through. In addition to Al Qaeda cells in northern Mexico, we’ve seen activity by Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, among others. They’re all down there.”

The former NSA man advanced to his next slide. “Not only are they down there, but they have absolutely no fear of anyone moving against them. Their balls are so big they’ve actually begun building mosques like this one outside Matamoros, Mexico — only a few miles across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas.”

Harvath had heard all of this before and had seen the evidence. The congenitally corrupt Mexican government had neither the desire nor the guts to take a stand against the Zetas and the drug cartels. They couldn’t care less about the clear and present danger the two groups posed to American security.

Finney was aghast. “What the fuck, Scot? Is this for real?”

It was one of the few things about his country Harvath was ashamed of, and his failure to respond spoke volumes.

“Why doesn’t the president or Congress do anything about this?”

“It’s complicated,” replied Harvath.

“So is prostate surgery, but you do it regardless of how much of a pain in the ass it is. The alternative is unacceptable.”

“Listen, I agree. The terrorists, the drugs, the tidal wave of illegal immigrants. I’ve got friends on the Border Patrol. This is criminal, and we’ve only got ourselves to blame. As far as I’m concerned, how can we call America the most powerful nation on earth when we can’t even secure our own borders? We’re being overrun, and if we don’t get a handle on it immediately, we’re going to wake up real soon to a very different America — one that even the most liberal among us isn’t going to enjoy very much.”

“So what are we going to do about it?”

Harvath loved Finney, but now wasn’t exactly the time to be solving this particular problem. “Short of loading up your Hummer with cinder blocks, mortar, and gas money to get to the border,” he said, “there isn’t much we can do.”

“Actually,” said Morgan, focusing his attention on Harvath, “that’s not exactly true.”