Edge of Battle

by Dale Brown

“And that would sure make you look good, in or out of the FBI, wouldn’t it?”

  “I’m not doing this to make myself look good,” Kelsey snapped. “Sure, it would be a great legacy for me to bring that force up to full operational status as quickly as possible before I leave the Bureau. But I really believe in Task Force TALON too. I think it can be as big and as important as the U.S. marshals—heck, I think it could eventually replace the U.S. marshals.”

  Jason had to admit to himself that he had never thought of TALON in that way before: TALON becoming its own federal law enforcement agency. He had only thought of it as a tool of the FBI or the armed forces, like choosing a different gun or vehicle to do a specific task. “Are you willing to take the added scrutiny?” he asked.

  “‘Scrutiny’? I call it ‘universal condemnation,’” Kelsey said, only half-joking. “But to answer your question: yes, I’m willing to take it. To tell the obvious truth, I’m already tainted by my actions with TALON—I’m not long for the directorship. I was nominated because of what I did to help hunt down the Consortium. But I don’t play well with Congress, the Attorney General, or the Washington bureaucracy, the three players that you need to win in that town. So I might as well help TALON hunt down whoever is invading America now, then take my retirement and head off to a nice comfy private sector consulting job.”

  She took off her sunglasses and looked around. “And this would be a nice place to base my consulting firm,” she added. “Nice weather year-round, far enough away from the ocean to avoid the fog, but close enough to still enjoy the coast; great airport, great facilities. Nothing against Clovis, New Mexico, but this area puts it to shame.”

  “I’m surprised to hear you talking like this, about getting out of government service and hanging out a shingle,” Jason remarked. “Doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I can read the handwriting on the wall, Jason—my honeymoon with Washington is just about over. They’ll want a more experienced, hard-nosed man in the directorship soon. I think it’s smart to make plans. If you’re smart, you’ll do the same.” She looked at him carefully and added, “Maybe even join my team.”

  “You and I…working together?”

  “I didn’t say that. It’s my firm—you’d be working for me.” That, Jason thought, was the no-nonsense, plain-talking Kelsey DeLaine he knew. He saw the surreptitious glance that Ariadna gave him and knew that she was thinking the same thing. “But I’d put your real talents to good use, and I’d guarantee the pay, benefits, and perks would be well worth it.”

  “Sounds like you have it all worked out, Kel.”

  “Times change—you gotta change with them,” Kelsey said. “Think about it.”

  As she stepped ahead to greet the woman standing just outside the FBI field office, Ariadna walked up to him and said under her breath, “You, in a suit and tie, working for her?”

  “‘Times change—you gotta change with them,’” Jason parroted.

  “I’d rather go back to Fort Polk and eat crawdads.”

  “Now you’re making me hungry.”

  Kelsey was met by the Special Agent in Charge of the San Diego field office, Angelica Pierce, a tall and striking brunette with bright blue eyes and an unmistakable upstate New York accent. “Welcome to San Diego, Miss Director,” Pierce said, shaking first Kelsey’s hand, then greeting the others. “I understand you’ll be heading out right away, and I know you’ve had a long night. Everything’s ready; coffee’s waiting.”

  “Thanks, Angelica,” Kelsey said. “I appreciate your office’s hustle on this. Your support has been outstanding.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Pierce responded. Her tone became much more serious—pleasantries were over, time to get down to business. “We’re at full security posture, as you know, which is why you had to park so far away from the building. We won’t be bypassing entry security either; sorry in advance for the delay.” They surrendered their ID cards before entering the building, then entered an entrapment area together while low-power X-ray scanners scanned for weapons and explosives, then entered the inspection area one at a time, where they were hand-wanded with metal detectors to locate their weapons. Everyone but Jason and Kelsey were surprised that Ariadna was carrying a weapon, her standard SIG Sauer P220 .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol—but everyone but Kelsey was surprised as they watched cheerful, friendly, smiling Janice Perkins go through security: she was carrying no less than three guns, including a remarkably small Heckler & Koch .40 caliber UMP submachine gun on a shoulder rig under her coat.

  “Sheesh, I never would’ve guessed,” Jason remarked. “Wonder how well armed your bodyguards would be?”

  “Janice is my bodyguard,” Kelsey said. “She can take dictation, type eighty words a minute, can make any computer turn cartwheels, and can put thirty rounds inside a twelve-inch diameter target at sixty feet on full auto. She’s also an attorney. She was a JAG in the U.S. Marines before joining the Bureau.”

  They took an elevator down one level to a detention facility, checked their weapons in with the jailers, then entered an interrogation room, with a long metal table bolted to the floor, several chairs, and two walls with one-way mirrors on them. Coffee and sandwiches were brought in, which Richter, Vega, and DeLaine hungrily devoured. A few moments later there was a knock on the door, and an agent brought in an older white male, with several days’ growth of gray facial hair and unkempt gray hair, wearing an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit. The agent made sure the inspection shutter on the door was closed, removed the prisoner’s handcuffs, and closed the door behind him on his way out.

  Special Agent in Charge Pierce went over and shook the man’s hand. “Welcome, Paul,” she greeted him. “Hope you don’t mind the masquerade. We have too many folks in this facility that might recognize you.”

  “No problem at all, ma’am,” the man replied.

  Pierce turned to the others in the room. “Paul Purdy, this is FBI Director DeLaine, her assistant Special Agent Perkins, Major Jason Richter of the U.S. Army, and his deputy Dr. Ariadna Vega. Folks, this is…”

  “Paul Purdy? The U.S. Border Patrol agent who was reported killed by those terrorists near Blythe?” Kelsey asked. She stepped forward and shook his hand. “Glad to see you’re really alive, Agent Purdy.”

  “No one more’n me, Miss Director,” Purdy said in a rather “aw-shucks” down-home southwestern country twang—not Texas, not southern California, but somewhere in between. Kelsey was immediately certain Purdy had adopted the accent to make anyone he encountered underestimate him—she had to be careful, she reminded herself, not to do that.

  “What happened?”

  “They shot me in the back as I was helpin’ the migrants we caught out of my patrol truck,” Purdy said. “Like an idiot, I didn’t have a shock plate on the back of my vest, like I do in front, and the bullet knocked the wind outta me. I landed face-down in a ditch, and I guess they left me for dead. I came to in the hospital.”

  “And you announced to the world that he was killed?” Jason asked. “Why? To keep his family safe?”

  “Paul was a BORTAC agent and used to do some undercover work in his early years in the Border Patrol, and his Spanish is very good—we thought about having him go undercover again,” Pierce said.

  “BORTAC?”

  “Border Patrol Tactical units,” Pierce explained. “The top one percent of the Border Patrol, chosen to undergo special training in covert surveillance, high-risk captures, hazardous warrant service, assault, and special weapons. They put members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Teams, U.S. Marshals Special Ops Group, and most big-city SWAT units to shame sometimes. Purdy was one of the Border Patrol’s top BORTAC agents in the early years of the program.”

  “My family’s pretty small and spread out, and I’m definitely not made of money—the terrorists should have bigger fish to fry, Major,” Purdy said. “I’m not one for hidin’ out, either—if they want to get to me, let ’em come. I’ll be ready for ’em next time.” Jason smiled a
t the guy’s tenacity—he was ready to take on the Consortium all by himself. Purdy looked at Richter and Vega. “You the people trying to use those big robot things on the border, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right, Agent Purdy,” Ariadna replied.

  Purdy reached out and shook both their hands. “Thank God we’re finally getting some firepower to back up our patrol forces,” he said. “Every swingin’ dick on the wire is dead meat otherwise.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but we’ve just been reassigned,” Jason said. “My team’s been taken off the project—just regular Border Patrol units and a few National Guard out there now, although they are better armed and have better surveillance equipment now.”

  “That’s just because your gadgets scare the livin’ shit out of everyone, especially those pasty-faced pencil-pushers in Washington.” He paused, looked at Kelsey in embarrassment, then decided he really meant it and shrugged. “No offense, ma’am.”

  “I think you well deserve to speak your mind, Agent Purdy,” Kelsey said.

  “Tell the major and Director DeLaine who you think attacked you, Paul,” Pierce prompted the rough-looking Border Patrol veteran.

  “Russians,” the old guy said simply. Kelsey’s mouth dropped open in surprise; Jason nodded knowingly. “Expert, well-trained, and stone-cold killers. They popped my partners and the other migrants as casually as if they were squashin’ cucarachas.”

  “Are you sure, Agent Purdy?” Kelsey asked.

  “Sure I’m sure, ma’am. I spent four years in Air Force intelligence before I joined the Border Patrol, two of ’em in West Germany. I spoke with plenty of Russians—I learned to speak it pretty well, if I do say so myself. Another one of the terrorists yelled at the one speakin’ Russian, telling him in Spanish to quit talkin’ Russian.”

  “You were right, Jason,” Kelsey said. “It’s got to be the Consortium, trying to infiltrate back into the country—except this time they’re sneaking across the border instead of using fake passports.”

  “There’s no ‘trying’ about it, ma’am—I’d say they had at least a dozen, maybe two dozen, inside Ernesto Fuerza’s truck, fully armed and equipped like front-line infantry,” Purdy said. “They mowed down their targets as easy as waterin’ the lawn. Who knows how many more of those trucks made it across? We only nab one out of ten pollos on a good day. If ten more trucks like that one made it across that night, they’d have an entire company of shock troops or Spetznaz—Russian special ops forces—in the country right now. I didn’t see anyone come out of Flores’s truck except Hispanics and one other…”

  “Fuerza was there?” Ariadna Vega interrupted incredulously. “Ernesto Fuerza? Are you sure, Agent Purdy?”

  “Sure am, Dr. Vega,” Purdy said. “The one smuggler I’ve never been able to nab—I’m not sure if I could hold him either, since every civil rights and immigrant rights attorney in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico would sign on to represent him. The Hispanic community thinks he’s Mexico’s Fidel Castro or Yasser Arafat and will eventually lead them to a pan-American homeland, free of persecution. To me he’s just another coyote. I personally recovered dozens of kilos of drugs during one bust, but he got away…”

  “He says he’s not a drug smuggler anymore,” Ariadna said.

  “Once a drug smuggler, always a drug smuggler,” Purdy said. “The money is just too good to ignore. I wouldn’t make the mistake of giving him the benefit of the doubt if I were you. And now that he’s been seen traveling with a bunch of Russian commandos, I’d say he might be into infiltrating terrorists and guns into the U.S. too. I’d love to put that bastard away for good.” Purdy smiled at Ariadna’s grim expression. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Doc, but Fuerza is a serious bad guy. I don’t think he’s the freedom fighter everyone makes him out to be.”

  “He has done some remarkable, important things for the migrant community, Agent Purdy,” Ariadna said. “I’m not questioning your knowledge and experience, but I’m pointing out that the good he’s done can’t all be discounted.”

  “Oh yes it can, missy,” Purdy said. “First of all, the ‘good’ you’re talking about—helping foreigners sneak into the country illegally—is against the law. Maybe we should be changing the law to make it easier for workers to come to this country legally, but until it is changed, Fuerza is breaking the laws that I swore to uphold, and I’m going to stop him.

  “Second: maybe back whenever he supposedly renounced his evil days of drug smuggling and switched to migrant smuggling he did it because he really did want to help his fellow Mexicans find a better life in America. But that was then. These days, he takes on any client and any cargo as long as they got the cash. It looks to me like he brought in terrorists with serious heavy weaponry—and those terrorists used a bunch of migrants as human shields to gun down my buddies.”

  “But you didn’t see Fuerza shoot anybody, did you?”

  “No, but he certainly didn’t warn my buddies that they were about to get blown away now, did he?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know they were going to…”

  “Sure, Doc—a guy loads a truck up with a squad of guys in body armor and automatic weapons, and he’s just going to take them to the local farm so they can go pick some vegetables,” Purdy shot back acidly. His features softened a bit when he saw Vega’s expression turn from defiance to hurt and shame. “Hey, Doc, I’m not tryin’ to pick a fight with you, okay? A lot of folks all over the world, including some very smart politicians, lawyers, and talkin’ heads on TV, think Fuerza is a hero. I just can’t help but notice that I don’t see those people out on the wire with me and my guys very often.” He smiled reassuringly. “But you’re out here, Doc, and I respect that. We’ll make a good team, and we’ll see what we see.” Ariadna nodded and tried to smile, but her face looked grim and she averted her eyes and said nothing.

  “What else do you remember about that night, Agent Purdy?” Kelsey asked. “You mentioned Russians—can you give us a description?”

  “Just of one of them, the one that I think came in with Flores—I couldn’t ID the military ones that jumped out of Fuerza’s truck, ’cause they were wearing balaclavas and helmets,” Purdy said. “Big guy, about six-two, square and solid but not fat, shaved head, wearing sunglasses.”

  “Zakharov,” Jason breathed. “It has to be.”

  “Zakharov? Yegor Zakharov?” Purdy asked incredulously. “The guy who planned those terrorist attacks on Kingman City, San Francisco, and Washington? He was right in front of me? My God, I actually saw Yegor Zakharov…I even got a bead on the motherfucker until his troopers started shooting up the place!”

  “Are you sure about your description, Agent Purdy?” Kelsey asked.

  “Positive, ma’am—I hit him square on with my lights, and he turned and faced me as soon as I did. Zakharov came with Flores in his Suburban with a small group of migrants, and Fuerza brought the big truckload of terrorists.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute—you keep on mentioning this Flores,” Jason interrupted. “Who’s Flores?”

  “Flores. Victor Flores. He was the second smuggler in the group.” He looked questioningly at Special Agent in Charge Pierce. “You didn’t recover the body of a young kid, seventeen or eighteen years old, near the shot-up Suburban?”

  “No,” Pierce said. “You never mentioned him.”

  “I assumed he was among the dead,” Purdy said.

  “There was a young boy killed, maybe eleven or twelve, but not a teenager…”

  “When I arrived on the scene I arrested a coyote named Victor Flores,” Purdy backtracked excitedly. “He was separate from Fuerza. Fuerza brought the big truck with the commandos in it, the one that the second Border Patrol unit rolled up on. I rolled up on Flores and his Suburban. I know the kid—I’ve caught up with him many times, but never arrested him. But he was there. I had handcuffed him to the door of his Suburban but cut him loose just after the shooting started.” He looked at the others in surpri
se. “He must’a gotten away!”

  “There’s another witness out there,” Jason said. “Another guy who could positively ID Zakharov.”

  “ID him? Hell, I think Flores brought him into the country!” Purdy exclaimed. “When I rolled up behind Flores, before I hit my lights, Zakharov had just finished talkin’ with Flores and was walkin’ with Fuerza toward Fuerza’s truck. It looked like a meet.”

  “They must’ve come in separately—Zakharov with Flores, and the commandos with Fuerza,” DeLaine said. “Good operational security technique.”

  “But if you didn’t recover Flores’s body, he might still be around,” Purdy said. “We gotta find him before Zakharov or Fuerza do.” He looked at Pierce and DeLaine. “Give me another chance at them, ma’am, Director. Let me out of here.”

  “If it’s the Consortium, and they find out you’re alive, they’ll kill anyone in their way to get to you,” Kelsey said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I didn’t sign up for the Border Patrol to be safe, ma’am,” Purdy said. He looked over at Richter and Vega. “Put me in with these guys. I’ll help them track down Zakharov and whoever is in on this.”

  “We’ve been shut down, Agent Purdy,” Ariadna said.

  “Well, open back up again,” Purdy said testily, suspicious about all the resistance he was getting from the supposedly gung-ho Army guys. “Your robots are the only thing that can stop these nutcases from killin’ more agents. Those Russians are just as well equipped and effective as any U.S. Army light infantry unit I’ve ever seen, and they’re gettin’ stronger every day. They’ll blow any Border Patrol agents away easy.” He turned to Pierce and said, “I can help track those terrorists down. I know the migrant worker community, ma’am…”

  “They know who you are. They won’t cooperate with you.”

  “They know I’m fair and don’t try to bust their balls, ma’am,” Purdy said. “They probably don’t know how dangerous those Russians are—if the migrants knew who they were hiding, they might welcome our help in shutting them down.”