Foreign Enemies and Traitors

by Matthew Bracken

  Without saying anything else, Malverde removed a green nylon wallet from his back trouser pocket and handed it to Boone, who tossed it over to Carson at the dinette.

  “Let me know if there’s anything interesting in it,” Boone told Carson. “Okay now Lieutenant, we’re going to have an in-depth discussion on the subject of honor. We have all day, until our next ride shows up, or until a rocket center-punches this trailer and blows us all to hell.” Boone dropped back into his vinyl-upholstered lounger. Dolan had found Gatorade bottles full of drinking water, and handed one each to Boone and Carson, and finally one to their prisoner. Malverde immediately unscrewed the plastic cap and took a long drink. The position of his chair meant that he had to look toward Boone, his inquisitor, or turn his head to avoid Boone’s gaze. Boone could split his attention between cleaning the parts of his rifle, and his prisoner.

  Carson slipped on his reading glasses and spread the contents of the wallet across the dinette table. Carson and Dolan were still dressed as NAL soldiers, exactly like their prisoner. “Well, according to his North American Legion ID card, his name is Antonio Deguello Malverde. He has some other cards from San Antonio, Laredo and Houston. Library cards, driver’s license—the usual. Looks like he’s an alumnus of the University of Texas at El Paso. Oh, and his North American Legion name is bullshit. On his UTEP alumni card, it says his name is Anthony J. Delgado. Hey, this is a good one: Antonio Jesus Delgado is a member of FECHA—that’s the Aztlan student front. I guess he switches between Anthony and Antonio, depending on who he’s trying to impress.”

  “Jesus?” Boone pronounced the name Hay-Zeus, and burst out laughing. “Antonio Jesus Delgado? Tony, if you’re going to assume a nom de guerre, you can’t keep cards with your old name right in your wallet. It defeats the whole purpose.”

  “And Deguello Malverde is bullshit too,” said Carson. “Deguello is the tune the Mexicans played at the Alamo—it was their ‘no quarter’ song. The Texans called it Cutthroat. Drums and bugles. It was Mexican psyops—it was supposed to scare their enemies shitless. I guess Deguello is a play on Delgado. Malverde is bogus too; it’s a tough-guy name, like Scar-face or Rocky. Literally, it means ‘bad-green.’ Jesus Malverde is sort of the patron saint of bad guys in Mexico. They have statues of him all over the place, but he’s just made up. Just like young Lieutenant Malverde.”

  “So, Tony,” Boone asked, “when you join the North American Legion, do you get to pick a new name? Sort of like the French Foreign Legion? I imagine that’s handy for all of the criminals who enlist.” Boone pulled a rope-like bore snake through his rifle’s barrel to clean it.

  The young officer appeared sheepish, embarrassed about the public exegesis of his chosen alias. “You don’t have to take a new name. It’s optional.”

  “There you were, studying at the University of Texas El Paso,” said Boone. “So how did you wind up in Tennessee? Come on, Tony, don’t be shy. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re pleading your case here, LT.”

  Doug Dolan stood in the passageway to the kitchenette. All three men watched their captive squirm in his chair in the corner. The entire living room space was very small; none of them was more than eight or ten feet away from the others. The morning sun cast a beam of orange light through a curtained window onto the prisoner.

  “I wasn’t some rich gringo. I was accepted at the university, but I had to pay for it. To pay for it, I joined Army ROTC.”

  “Well, that’s good, that’s fine,” said Boone, nodding his head agreeably. “That’s very honorable, even if you joined for the tuition. So far, so good. But that doesn’t explain how you wound up in Tennessee, in a North American Legion uniform.”

  “I really had no choice! When I graduated, the North American Legion was just forming. Almost all of my graduating ROTC class joined. There was a lot of pressure to join the Legion.”

  “Tony, stick with the truth, you’re not a good liar. You belong to FECHA, and even I know that’s a radical Aztlan group. So how hard did they have to twist your arm to join the North American Legion? And besides, the Legion is less than a year old, and you’re already a first lieutenant. The times don’t match. You’d still be a second Louie, a butter bar. When did you graduate from UTEP?”

  “In June. Why does that matter? There was a rapid promotion policy in the NAL, and I was promoted to first lieutenant after only six months.”

  Boone said, “So joining the Legion was a good deal for you. Better than if you stayed in the regular U.S. Army. Quicker advancement—and that means more pay.”

  “So what? These are hard times. We’re in a depression. I wasn’t some rich gringo, born on third base in scoring position. I had to make the best deal for me.”

  “Come on Tony, don’t play the oppressed Hispanic peon card on us. Compared to most Mexicans, you’re practically from Norway. Have you looked in a mirror lately? What are you, about six feet tall? I’ll bet your bloodline goes straight back to Cortez and Coronado.”

  “That might be, I wouldn’t know, but that doesn’t mean my family had extra money lying around for college. I still had to make the best deal I could for myself, for my own future. The Legion was the best deal going when I graduated.”

  “But was there honor in that deal, Tony?” asked Boone. “Was there honor? Tell me something: when you graduated from college, you were commissioned, right? There was some little ceremony with your ROTC buddies, with flags and so on. There was something about ‘Raise your right hand and repeat after me’?”

  “Yes, I took the oath.”

  “Now, I know that El Paso is not exactly part of a typical state anymore, but when you were in the Army ROTC, it was still a farm team for the United States Army, right? Not for some secret Aztlan army, or the North American Legion? Your Professors of Military Science were United States Army officers?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, when you took the oath, you swore to defend the Constitution, correct?”

  “Yes, we all did.”

  “Against all enemies, foreign and domestic?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts, Tony. You swore an oath to defend it! But here you are today, in some kind of bullshit multinational foreign legion. Soldiers like you are guarding Americans in concentration camps. Other foreign units are marching Americans into ditches and shooting them. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes, and I’ve got proof. So tell me, how exactly does joining the North American Legion square with defending the Constitution of the United States? Honor, Tony, we’re coming back around to honor. When you swear an oath, you’re honor-bound to keep it.”

  The lieutenant had a ready answer, and he was eager to explain. “But the new constitution superseded the old one. There was a constitutional convention, remember? Now we have a new constitution, and I’m still defending it. And President Tambor, he signed the multinational peacekeeping treaty. It’s the law now, so it’s part of the constitution too. That’s why we have foreign peacekeepers and the North American Legion in Tennessee. It’s all legal, every bit of it. I’ve done nothing wrong! Everything I did was legal.” Lieutenant Malverde made eye contact with each of his captors in turn, as if they were jurors.

  Boone scoffed at him. “That’s not how we see it, Tony. Your so-called new constitution is bullshit. It’s a lie from start to finish, the biggest lie in history, and any soldier who claims he swore to defend that lie is a goddamn traitor.”

  “Oh come on, you can’t just pick and choose your own constitution! There was a constitutional convention, and now we have a new one. The new constitution is the supreme law of the land.”

  “Never!” shouted Boone, standing up again, his head brushing the low ceiling. “That convention in Philadelphia was a giant fraud; it was nothing but bullshit from start to finish—just like your so-called new constitution, and your North American Legion.”

  “But that’s just your opinion. The president and the Congress and the Supreme Court, and most Americans, they all say othe
rwise. And they outrank you by a million times.” The lieutenant paused, as if summoning up his courage. “Anyway, how can you say which constitution is legal? How can that be left up to you? How can you pass judgment on the president and the Supreme Court? You’re just a couple of rebels with guns, hiding in a trailer.”

  Boone was taken aback by the directness of the lieutenant’s counterattack, and he settled back down into his easy chair. “That may be so. But high-ranking traitors are still traitors. I don’t care if they live in the White House, or if they work at the Pentagon or in the Capitol. Treason is still treason, no matter how you dress it up with lies and false constitutions.”

  Boone had cleaned the three main sub-groups of his rifle; the barrel, lower receiver and bolt group. After a quick inspection, he reassembled them into his SR-25 rifle, which he reloaded with a full magazine and laid across the arms of his chair, above his lap. It was only one more weapon among the dozen or so in the room, but when it was put together and reloaded, it brought a new level of menace to Boone’s words.

  Lieutenant Malverde stared at the rifle, glanced to Carson and Doug Dolan, and somewhat reluctantly pressed on. “Then you’re advocating complete anarchy. Everybody gets to pick which laws they’ll obey? There has to be one set of laws for everybody.”

  “There was, Tony, until traitors threw out the real Constitution and passed a fake one at a bogus convention. But we’re getting nowhere with this discussion. Outside this trailer, you traitors run the show. That’s obvious. You have the helicopters, the Predators, and the foreign mercenaries. But in here, today, we rule. And as the president of this court of inquiry, I just have one more question to ask.” Boone paused, staring directly across the tiny living room at his prisoner. “Where were you born, Tony?”

  Lieutenant Malverde shook his head, confused. “What difference does that make?”

  “All the difference in the world. Where were you born?”

  “In Texas. In Laredo, Texas.”

  “So, you’re a natural-born American citizen, for sure?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “No, not ‘of course.’ Plenty of illegal aliens snuck into this country and went to our best schools. Thousands. Hell, millions. And I know the North American Legion will take anybody who claims he’s Mexican. So it’s not ‘of course.’ But you say you really are an American citizen, and you were a legal citizen when you were commissioned and you took your oath?”

  “Yes, I’m a citizen, but so what? No human being is illegal. What difference does it make if I’m a citizen or not?”

  “Well, Tony, it makes a big difference to me. Here’s the deal. The real deal. Listen to me carefully: we shoot foreign invaders. It’s nothing personal with them, they’re just here. We understand that. It’s a war, they’re in our country, and we shoot them whenever we can. But traitors? American traitors?” Boone stared hard at the lieutenant. “Tony, we hang American traitors.”

  Malverde said nothing; he appeared to be in shock, incredulous. After a long hesitation he stammered, “Y-you have got to be joking. You’re just trying to scare me.”

  Boone was stone-faced. “Do I look like I’m joking? I’m not joking, I assure you. I’ve just seen hundreds of Americans machine-gunned in a ditch. Men, women and children. I was in that ditch a few hours after they were shot. They were shot dead by foreign mercenaries, but the people who invited those murderers into this country were all Americans—just like you. American traitors. And we just drove past a concentration camp—excuse me, a ‘FEMA relocation center’—and the guards on the inside looked like Americans to me. American traitors. But outside, the guards were wearing North American Legion blue berets, just like yours.”

  Boone wasn’t finished. “And here you sit, a natural-born American citizen, a commissioned United States Army officer—but I don’t see the stars and stripes on your shoulder, Tony. Instead of Old Glory, you’re wearing a badge with three stars for three nations. ‘Three Nations, One America’ might sound good to some people, but to us, it’s just one more goddamn lie they’re trying to shove down our throats—and by God, we won’t take it! The United States is still one sovereign country—not just one-third of North America! And that means all fifty of the United States, no matter what the president and the Congress say. You swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States, not to the North American Union.”

  “But…but West Texas isn’t under the old constitution any more. After Philadelphia, after the Aztlan Agreement, the Southwest is—”

  Boone cut him off. “Tony! You’re back to that false constitution again! That bullshit doesn’t fly in my courtroom. Stick with the real Constitution, the original Constitution. The only Constitution. Now, please explain to me how it was that you swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, but now you’re wearing those North American Legion badges on your uniform and you have a Legion ID card in your wallet.”

  Lieutenant Malverde seemed to have given up hope of convincing Boone of his reasons, and Boone was clearly the only one in the trailer whose opinion mattered. He looked at the loaded SR-25 rifle lying across the arms of Boone’s chair. His inquisitor could turn it 90 degrees and pull the trigger anytime he chose. “What difference does it make what I say? You’re just going to kill me anyway,” he mumbled, shaking his head and slumping forward, his forearms on his knees.

  “Not necessarily. But you do pose a problem—you can identify us. You know what happened back in Carrolton. You even know about this shitty little junkyard safehouse. So you’re a problem for us. We can’t just let you go. Offhand, I’d say that you need to make yourself valuable to us. You’re what, Tony, twenty-two or -three? Hell, at twenty-three I made all kinds of mistakes. Big ones. Fortunately, none of them were fatal, or we wouldn’t be having this little chat today. You actually seem like a pretty nice guy—except for the treason thing. But there’s no getting around it, treason’s a big deal, considering that we’re in a civil war. Especially with foreign mercenaries running around Tennessee, shooting women and children. That sort of raises the ante. So treason counts very large in my book. And let’s face it, you’d be a prime witness against us. So you need to provide me with something of value, something to put on the other side of the scale when we weigh the evidence. Otherwise…”

  From his position standing in the kitchen passageway Doug suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, no—we can’t just kill him! He’s our prisoner. He’s a prisoner of war. We can’t just kill him.”

  Boone turned toward the kitchenette, surprised at Dolan’s unexpected outburst. “Then you’re okay with him pointing the finger at you and sending you to the gallows?”

  “I didn’t say that. But we can’t just kill him. I won’t be a part of it. I’ve been down that road, and I won’t go down it again.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “We could tie him up, and then we could call somebody later on. Once we’re in a safe place.”

  “But there is no safe place, and this trailer is valuable to us. More valuable than Tony here, I’m afraid. This is war, not a game. This is realworld, not an exercise. If he’s debriefed by the traitor government, he’ll blow this place and we’ll lose a valuable asset.”

  “Then we could take him with us and let him go later, when we’re somewhere else.”

  “But he’d still know about this place, and about us. It’s not like he’ll forget. We can’t erase his memory. He’ll be debriefed.”

  “Then we could take him with us and keep him for a while. Then we could use him for a prisoner exchange. Trade him,” Doug suggested.

  “Take him with us to where?” asked Boone. “Where is our safe territory, our home base? We have no sanctuary. We don’t even have a base camp. Do you think we’re running POW camps in a dirty war?”

  “Well,” said Doug, “we could send him back to West Texas, if he swore on his word of honor to leave Tennessee and never come back. They did that in the first Civil War all the time. It was called honor parol
e. They didn’t just shoot prisoners, not even when they were captured on raids in enemy territory. Not the rebels, and not the Yankees. They didn’t do it.”

  “That’s foolish,” Boone replied. “We could never trust him to keep his word.”

  “But at least it’s an option! They did that thousands of times in the Civil War. Don’t just automatically rule it out.”

  “Maybe they did that in the last Civil War. But it’s different today.”

  Doug asked, “How is it different?”

  Boone looked at the lieutenant, and then at Doug, and said, “They had honor back then. Both sides. A man’s word of honor really meant something. And prisoners could practically walk home. It’s a long way back to Laredo. Do you think he can make it there without being picked up as AWOL from the Legion? What’s he going to do then? How can he explain himself, an officer leaving his post? That’s desertion in any army. No, I’m sorry, we can’t just let him go.”

  During this exchange the prisoner had been staring at the floor, his elbows on his knees, holding his head. Then he turned his face back up and looked at each of his three captors, trying to catch their gaze but finding them turning away. “I would do it, I swear to God I would do it,” he said in a hush, with more than a hint of desperation in his voice. “I’d go back to Texas and never come back here. I would just disappear—gone. I don’t belong here, this isn’t my fight!” He extended his hands, wrists held together. “Tie me up, like he said. Tie me up and leave me here. Leave me anywhere—or take me with you, whatever you decide! When you let me go, I’ll catch a bus or a train back to Texas, and I’ll never cross the Mississippi again as long as I live. I’ll hitchhike, I’ll walk. I give you my word of honor. I swear to God, I swear on my mother.” Malverde slumped forward in his chair again, trying to hide his fear.