Edge of Battle

by Dale Brown

  “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 h
is 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 a
ntitank 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.”