Edge of Battle

by Dale Brown

  “I could do it now, Zakharov,” Jason said, the robotic voice slow and measured, “and no one would say a damned thing about it.”

  “I could have slaughtered Vega’s entire family…!”

  “Everyone expected you to do it. We were prepared for it, believe me.”

  “But I did not do it, Major. I spared them, turned myself in, and helped you get Díaz.”

  “You think you’re a big hero now?”

  “There is so much more I could tell you, Richter,” Zakharov said. “I could give you information that would put you within reach of thousands of the world’s greatest criminals. Your task force could capture them, and then you would be the hero. All I am asking for is my freedom. I will give you my information. You check it out and verify its credibility. Then you fly me to a wadi in the Sahara or a deserted island in Indonesia, and we both live out the rest of our lives free from ever having to deal with one another again.”

  The robot suddenly turned away from the CV-22 and ran quickly out of the Internal Affairs Ministry compound, heading east until it came on an open area of the Bosque de Chapultepec. Then, to Zakharov’s complete amazement, the robot dropped him. Zakharov was on his feet in an instant, looking around in the darkness. The brilliant lights of Mexico City illuminated the horizon in all directions except to the west; the light surrounding the Castillo de Chapultepec, the now-vacant Mexican president’s residence, could be seen a short distance away.

  “What are you doing, Richter?” Zakharov asked.

  Jason said nothing for several long moments; then, Zakharov heard him say: “Run.”

  “What?”

  “Run, Colonel,” Richter said. “I’ll give you five minutes. You might be able to make it to the Castillo, probably to Constitution Avenue, and once you cross there you’ll be in the heart of that residential neighborhood. Run.”

  Zakharov took several steps backward and looked around himself again. Yes, he thought, he could easily make it to Constitution Avenue, and immediately he’d be in the San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhood, a mixture of wealthy homes and upscale businesses—perhaps even sympathetic Russian expatriates or oil company executives that he once did business with. The robot was good out in the open but bad in narrow alleyways and terrible indoors…yes, he might just make it. Go, he told himself, go, now…!

  But as he stepped back, he saw the muzzle of that twenty-millimeter cannon tracking his head, aimed right between his eyes, and he knew that Richter had no intention of letting him go. He would let him run a short distance, then open fire. Like he said, no one in Mexico, the United States, or most anywhere in the world would blink an eye over his death.

  Zakharov turned, dropped to his knees, and raised his arms to his side. The robot grasped his arms and pulled him effortlessly off his feet.

  “Smart choice, Colonel,” Jason Richter said, as they headed back toward the Internal Affairs Ministry complex. “Smart choice.”

  EPILOGUE

  SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

  WEEKS LATER

  The speeches and proclamations were finally concluded. Underneath an arch of balloons and flags of Mexico and the United States fluttering in the cool breeze, the new president of the United Mexican States, Alberto Rojas, and the President of the United States, Samuel Conrad, stepped off the dais and into a new building erected just outside the Tijuana-San Diego border crossing and up to a special kiosk.

  While TV cameras and dozens of reporters recorded everything, Rojas stepped up to the person behind the counter—Director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection James A. Abernathy himself—shook hands, and gave him his Mexican identification card and birth certificate. Abernathy handed the documents to a technician, who scanned the documents into a computer and gave them back. Rojas then stepped onto a designated spot on the floor, smiled as a digital photograph was taken, then pressed the thumbs from each hand onto a digital fingerprint reader. Finally he took a white capsule from a dispenser, held it up for all the reporters to see, swallowed it, and downed it with a glass of champagne.

  Following Rojas, the President of the United States did the very same procedure, including downing an NIS capsule. He then raised his own glass of champagne to Alberto Rojas and took a sip. Immediately afterward, the new Mexican Minister of Internal Affairs, Minister of Justice, and Minister of Foreign Affairs repeated the procedure, followed immediately by their American counterparts, and they toasted one another for all to see. Then the dignitaries watched as thousands of Mexican migrants started to follow the identification procedure. After a few minutes of photos, the dignitaries moved on, letting the Customs and Border Protection officers get to work processing the thousands of Mexican citizens returning to their lives and jobs in the United States.

  “It doesn’t solve a damned thing, does it?” Mike Tesch asked over the command channel as he watched a televised image of the proceedings on his electronic visor. He and several other members of Task Force TALON were piloting Cybernetic Infantry Devices just a short distance away, out of range of the TV cameras but ready to respond in case of a terrorist incident during the ceremonies. “Those who want to sneak into the United States illegally will still do so; those who hire illegals will still do it; smugglers who help them sneak in will still help them. Stuff like the Nanotransponder Identification System just punishes the law-abiding persons.”

  “It doesn’t punish anyone, Mike,” Jennifer McCracken radioed back. “NIS is just a twenty-first-century ID card, that’s all. ID cards aren’t meant to solve anything.” She paused, then added, “It’s a start. There’s still so much to discuss, still so much legislation to write, still so many compromises to make. But it’s a start.” Just then, there was a beep in her headset. “Go ahead, TALON,” she replied.

  “Condor has spotted a situation about seven hundred meters northeast of your position,” Ariadna Vega, in the control center for the Condor unmanned aerial reconnaissance airship, which was orbiting over the border area during the ceremonies. “Might be a demonstration on a street corner—I see some garbage on fire and about twenty individuals. Move a few blocks from the target on the west side of Route Nine-Oh-Five and stand by to assist the sheriffs department if necessary.”

  “Copy, TALON,” Jennifer responded, and she started running alongside Interstate 5 north to her staging area.

  Something made Ariadna look up from her console in the Condor monitoring and control center at the Pecos East headquarters of Task Force TALON at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. She turned and saw Jason Richter watching her. “How long have you been there, J?” she asked.

  “A few.”

  No one said anything for a few long moments; then: “Looks like the ceremony is almost over,” Ari said. “No problems. I’m having Jennifer check out a minor disturbance—she’ll be backup for the San Diego County Sheriff’s.”

  “Good work.”

  Silence again; then: “You got my resignation, didn’t you?”

  “You can’t leave, Ari.”

  “The Justice Department already said they’d drop the false statement charges if I resign.”

  “Screw ’em. You can fight it. We’ll back you up all the way.”

  “No, I can’t, J. It was wrong what I did. I love the United States, and I love all the opportunities I have…”

  “You’ve earned them, Ari, and more. A lot more.”

  “…but I got them by lying and cheating. I’ve slapped the faces of millions that follow the law and immigrate to this country legally.”

  “That was over twenty years ago, Ari. You were a kid…”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I love this country…but I’m not an American. I don’t have any right to pretend I am. I’m no better than all those poor migrants who pay coyotes thousands of dollars to sneak them in. I don’t deserve special treatment. I don’t deserve to be here.”

  Her words bit into Jason’s brain like a punch to the head hard enough to create a lump in his throat. “So what are you going to do?”<
br />
  “What all those thousands of people are doing,” Ariadna said, nodding toward her monitors. “My folks and I are going to cross the border back into Mexico, get at the back of that line, and go through the NIS registration process. Then we’ll go home and wait for whatever the government is going to do with us.”

  “That means you’ll be back here, doesn’t it?”

  Ariadna shook her head. “No, J. I’ve had enough of this. I chickened out on you and on TALON, Jason. I had a job to do when we started Operation Rampart, and I didn’t do it, for nothing but my own selfish reasons.”

  “But we all know why you…”

  “That makes it even more humiliating for me!” she cried. “I let you down, I let everyone down. It’s horrible to think I could have even stopped all this by doing my job back when we started. I will never live it down. I will never forgive myself.”

  Jason fell silent, then stepped over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “So what will you do?”

  “I volunteered for a migrant outreach program being started in southern California,” Ariadna said. “A private Hispanic group wants to encourage migrants to come out of the shadows and register with the NIS program, so they’re setting up a service to bring them in, help them bring the proper ID, take them to the border, facilitate getting them registered, then drive them back home. Once that’s done…I don’t know. Maybe go into teaching. Cal State Northridge looks like a nice school—maybe I’ll apply there, if the regents aren’t too mad at me for busting the place up.”

  “You’d make a good teacher,” Jason said. “But…I think you’d make a better security consultant.”

  “A what? Security consultant? Sounds bogus to me.” She turned and looked quizzically at her longtime friend. “You’re not talking about Kelsey DeLaine’s consulting firm, are you?”

  “I heard she handed in her resignation to the President.”

  “Her and me, in the same outfit? I think that would be hilarious if it wasn’t so scary.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him carefully, then asked, “You’re not thinking seriously about joining her, are you, J?”

  “I don’t know,” Jason admitted. “I’m already out of TALON as of today—Bruno made sure of that. I suppose I could go back to the Infantry Transformational BattleLab at Fort Polk; Army Special Operations Command wants to talk with me about using CIDs in special ops…” He shrugged. “But Kelsey’s group will be right there in San Diego, and it’d mean big bucks. I might be promoted to lieutenant colonel someday, but it’s unlikely I’ll go any higher than that. Maybe I’ll take her up on her offer—get started with the rest of my life now, while I’m young and hopefully not so stupid.”

  “Work for Kelsey DeLaine?” Ariadna turned back to her monitors. “Sounds like a plan, J,” she said stonily.

  “Or…”

  “Or what?”

  “Sergeant Major Jefferson told me that he’s forming a training corps to give the National Guard some high-tech surveillance and infantry systems, leading up to integrating the Guard completely into the Homeland Security role and eventually merging them completely into the Department of Homeland Security.” She half-turned to him. “This group is being set up at Los Alamitos Joint Reserve Forces Training Center, which I learned just happens to be…”

  “A couple hours’ drive from San Diego.”

  “True.” He felt her shoulders slump, and he reached down and wrapped his arms around her. “But…it’s just about a half hour from Cal State–Northridge, if the traffic’s not too bad on the 405. Right?” He felt her entire body tense up, and he thought, You idiot, you just blew it—but moments later he felt her hands touch his, then she reached around and squeezed her arms tighter around him. “I’ll stay in for my twenty and maybe shake things up a little bit in the National Guard. Sounds like fun, huh?”

  “But what about…about you and Kelsey?”

  “Ari, it’s always been you, and only you,” Jason Richter said. “But we worked together, closely together, and dating you or becoming your lover would’ve complicated everything—our careers, our lives, our relationship. I didn’t want to risk losing you.”

  “But now…?”

  “Now…I realize that if I don’t tell you how I feel, I’ll definitely lose you,” Jason said. “Besides, I suddenly find myself without a job and with my career and reputation pretty much down the crapper. I’m a good catch, huh?”

  She laughed and pulled him closer. “I’m still going to go down and register, Jason,” Ariadna said softly. “I think I owe it to…to all the ones who didn’t make it across…you know, to do the right thing.”

  “Then I’ll go and stand in line with you and your folks,” Jason said. “It’ll give me a chance to get to know them, no?”

  Ariadna rose to her feet, embraced him, and gave him a long, deep kiss. He could feel her softly weeping in his shoulder as she held him closely.

  “So, Dr. Vega,” Jason asked, “does this mean that maybe I’m not the last man on earth anymore?” Another hot, passionate kiss gave him all the answers he needed.

  UXO MANAGEMENT AREA, TWENTYNINE PALMS

  MARINE CORPS DEPOT, CALIFORNIA

  THAT SAME TIME

  In a remote corner of the sprawling one-thousand-square-mile Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms Marine Depot in the Mojave Desert of southern California was a maze of hundreds of low concrete bunkers, surrounded by twenty-foot-high razor-wire chain-link fences, guard towers, lights, and K-9 patrol areas. Formerly a weapons storage area for nuclear weapons, the area had been converted for use as the Marine Corps’ primary unexploded ordnance disposal site in the western United States. Using a sophisticated computer-coded tracking system, every bullet, shell, bomb, or explosive charge ever used by the United States Marine Corps since 1997 could be accurately tracked from creation to detonation. And if it wasn’t used in training or on the battlefield, it ended up here: the UXO Management Area not only cataloged and tracked munitions and explosives, but also disposed of unused ordnance in an environmentally friendly manner.

  The one-thousand-acre UXO Management Area was highly automated and needed only a very small staff to run it, mostly civilian contractors with a Marine first lieutenant or captain overseeing a company-sized cadre of administrative staff and guards. The civilians monitored the equipment and computers and provided support services such as facilities maintenance and prepared meals for the small Marine force.

  But in one of the three hundred and seventy weapon storage bunkers scattered across the barren desert landscape was one bunker that had its own chain-link fence enclosure and its own guard post. Although all of the bunkers were air-conditioned to keep the explosives stored inside stable, a thermograph of this bunker would have showed it several degrees cooler than most of the rest. Inside, the bunker was divided in half by steel bars. On one side of the bars was a simple desk and storage cabinets for the guards posted outside…

  …and on the other side of the bars was a stainless steel cot, bedstand, washbasin, and toilet. This was the secret prison cell for terrorist mastermind Colonel Yegor Zakharov, his holding cell set up for him while he awaited trial in federal court.

  Zakharov’s schedule since his arrest and detention at Twentynine Palms was pretty much the same every day: six guard shift changes per day, where the Marine guards would check in on him, then handcuff him and search his cell; and three meals per day. Once a week he was taken outside to a portable shower to bathe. As a federal prisoner awaiting trial he was allowed to have law-books and documents, but they were closely cataloged and taken away from him at night. He was allowed no TV, no radio, no books.

  The evening meal and shift change occurred at the same time, so the oncoming Marine guard and the contractors with the meal would arrive at the same time. While the contractors waited outside in a pickup truck, the oncoming Marine guard would inventory and log in his weapons, ammo, and equipment in the bunker, receive the prisoner status briefing from the offgoing guard,
check in with the security headquarters via radio to assume responsibility for the post, take the keys and passcodes from the offgoing guard, and then the offgoing guard would formally relinquish his post and depart. The new guard would then handcuff the prisoner, conduct a search of the cell and the prisoner, take away all of his books and papers and lock them in a cabinet, and then go outside to get the meals for himself and the prisoner.

  “Hold on, comma es-tay you-stead hot, Maria?” the Marine guard said in pidgeon Spanish as he walked over to the pickup truck. “Boners tarheels.”

  “It’s ‘¿Cómo está usted hoy, Maria? and ‘buonas noches,’ Sergeant: ‘good evening,’ not ‘good afternoon,’ and your pronunciation is terrible as always,” Maria Arevalo said with an amused smile. “When will you ever learn Spanish?”

  “I said it the way it was meant to be said, Maria,” the Marine sergeant said with a smile. “C’mon in out of the heat.”

  “I must go.”

  “O-kay, darlin’,” the Marine said. “I’ll see you later. Ay-dos!” Maria rolled her eyes in mock frustration at the Marine’s clumsy attempt at Spanish and headed back to her pickup truck.

  The Marine reported by radio that the meals had arrived, the contractor was heading back to the admin area, and he was about to open the bunker door. He rang the outer buzzer, then looked through the viewfinder in the door to be sure the prisoner was up against the back wall as he was supposed to do whenever he heard the bell, punched in the code to unlock the door, and went inside with the meal. “Chow time,” he said. He put the cardboard meal container on the small metal table, then turned to close the bunker door…

  …and he never saw the baseball bat hit him on the side of his head.

  Zakharov scrambled to the steel bars of his cell and looked on in astonishment as he saw the Marine guard hit the ground and a woman rush inside to check him. “¡Usted es un ángel!” he said happily. “I hope you brought explosives, my dear, because to use his key code to unlock this cell you have to call the security office first, so unless you can do a deep man’s voice you will need a…”