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  “Sir, it sounds to me like we have a meeting of the minds, if not a full consensus,” Chief of Staff Kinsly said to the back of the President’s head. “Defense says he can’t support a major mobilization or move of the National Guard for border security; Homeland Security doesn’t seem to want them anyway, at least not as part of their roster, but suggests some limited assistance; Justice is in favor of increased Border Patrol manpower. I suggest we draft resolutions and start putting together a plan of action to push these resolutions through Congress. In the meantime, we gradually draw down the National Guard forces on the border in order to quiet the tension ratcheting up around here.”

  “I’m in favor of drafting resolutions to support more detention facilities, additional funding for the Border Patrol, a guest worker program, more sanctions against employers who hire undocumented aliens, and all the rest, Mr. President,” National Security Adviser Jefferson said, “but I feel we need to make those moves in an atmosphere of strength and resolve, not weakness. General Lopez’s move to put those Guard forces on the border so quickly after the Arizona incident was a bold, audacious, resolute one—we shouldn’t lose the advantage of surprise and shock it gave us.” He paused for a moment, then added, “And if FBI Director DeLaine thinks she can use Task Force TALON to help her track down any terrorists that may have sneaked across the border, I think we should give it to her.”

  “Your loyalty to that group astounds me, Sergeant Major,” the President said. “They’ve done nothing but be a royal pain in the ass to everyone involved ever since that bastard Chamberlain put them together—a move, need I remind you, designed from the beginning to make the government look bad. They’ve done nothing but look bad since day one.”

  “Sir, they may look bad, but they’ve been highly successful in their given mission,” Jefferson said. “They may not do the job neat and pretty—no truly effective combat unit or special ops team is known for their tidiness—but they get the job done. They took on the Consortium and other terrorist groups all around the world, and they caught three hundred percent more illegals crossing the border than the Border Patrol.”

  “Mr. President, I’m not going to try to support or condemn TALON,” Kinsly said. “I have to admit they’ve had some spectacular successes—unfortunately, their heavy-handed blunders have only served to obscure those successes, at least in a political and public relations sense.” He swallowed when he noticed Jefferson’s glare, but went on: “Speaking as your chief political adviser, sir, I believe TALON is a much bigger liability than they are an asset, because it makes you appear as if you’re not in total control.”

  “Well, sir, I’m not a political adviser,” Jefferson said, “but let me try to approach this problem from a political direction: should TALON be placed in the control of the FBI? Right now TALON reports directly to me, which means they report to you. If that’s too politically distasteful, then putting them under Director DeLaine’s authority might be a good thing. It’s an added layer of political insulation from this office.”

  “You sure are sounding like a political adviser, Sergeant Major,” the President remarked.

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult, sir,” Jefferson said.

  “It’s a warning: don’t get in over your head.”

  “Message received, loud and clear, sir.” Jefferson looked at Kinsly and asked, “Does Director DeLaine suffer from the same adverse political appearance as TALON? My guess is, she does not.”

  Kinsly shook his head. “In fact, Director DeLaine polls out extremely well with the public, Congress, and the media,” Kinsly said. “She’s talented, knowledgeable, well spoken, professional, experienced, articulate, and considered a team player by a majority of respondents.”

  Jefferson rolled his eyes at the mass of polling data being so easily regurgitated by the White House Chief of Staff—he couldn’t help worrying if that’s what he spoon-fed the President on a daily basis, and how many decisions were made from this office on that basis. “I suppose it doesn’t hurt that she’s young, good-looking, curvy, and unmarried,” Jefferson added sarcastically.

  The Chief of Staff looked uncomfortable. “In fact, she tested out well in all those areas too,” he admitted.

  Jefferson shook his head sadly. “Goes to show you what the American public really cares about.”

  “Point taken, Sergeant Major—now drop it,” the President said irritably.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  The President fell silent again, but only for a few moments this time: “Tom, issue instructions to General Lopez that he should plan for a complete withdrawal of National Guard forces from the border within sixty days,” the President ordered. “I’ll leave the decision as to which weapons he wants to use to him, but it is my clear desire to use the absolute minimum firepower necessary for self-defense. We’re trying to secure the borders from illegal entry, not defend against a massed armored invasion.

  “I want to see a draft resolution for a temporary worker program on my desk by the end of the day today, ready to present to Congress for sponsorship,” the President went on. “I want the bill to include tough penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers after the law goes into effect. I also want draft resolutions for emergency funding for twenty thousand additional Border Patrol agents, a greater number of detention facilities and judges to hear immigration and deportation cases, and more provisions for detaining more OTMs and making sure they appear for immigration hearings. I’m going to table discussions—for now—on having the Guard transferred to Homeland Security and changing the Constitution to prohibit granting citizenship to children born in the U.S. of illegal immigrants, but you can leak it to the press that the White House is looking into those two topics for near-future legislation.”

  Kinsly had his PDA out and was wirelessly transmitting notes furiously to his staff. “Got it, Mr. President,” he said.

  The President then turned to Ray Jefferson. “Okay, Sergeant Major: convince me that the FBI needs TALON.”

  “One name: Yegor Zakharov,” Jefferson responded immediately. “Agent Paul Purdy may not have made an absolutely positive ID, but I believe that’s who we’re dealing with. I think forensic evidence from the shootings in Arizona will reveal Zakharov’s handiwork—as we know, he’s an expert marksman, with a rare and easily identifiable Russian sniper rifle as his weapon of choice. If Zakharov and the Consortium are still in the U.S., it’ll take more than an FBI Hostage Rescue Team or a police SWAT unit to take him down. We’ll need either a Delta Force company, an entire SEAL team, a Marine Special Purpose Force platoon—or one Cybernetic Infantry Device.”

  The President paused, looking carefully at Jefferson, studying him, trying to think of another question that the senior Army non-commissioned officer wasn’t prepared for, but finally gave up. “Tom, I want a video conference with the Attorney General, FBI Director DeLaine, and Major Richter as soon as possible.”

  “Sir, I would advise against that,” Kinsly said evenly. “The assaults on the federal officers, the killing of that migrant, and the multiple killings at Rampart One are still fresh in people’s minds. Now you want to put those robots on the streets and give them an FBI badge…”

  “And a judge’s warrant,” the President added. “That’s exactly what I want to do.” To Jefferson, he said, “Sergeant Major, I’m not relieving you of responsibility for Task Force TALON. You keep them under tight control, or you bring them in and shut them down. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jefferson replied.

  At that moment the President’s assistant entered the Oval Office and gave Kinsly a folder. The Chief of Staff reviewed the cover letter quickly, his eyes widening in concern as he read. “Tom…?”

  “Transcript of another videotape message by that Comandante Veracruz guy,” Kinsly announced, “distributed to several U.S. and international media outlets, reporting details of the killings in Arizona and calling for a general uprising and retaliation agains
t the U.S. government. The cat’s out of the bag, Mr. President, and Veracruz announced it before we did—that’ll make it look even worse for us.”

  The Oval Office erupted into sheer bedlam. Kinsly gave the folder to Jefferson, who speed-read through the transcript. “Detailed, accurate account…no doubt in my mind the Consortium, or Veracruz himself, staged the ambush.”

  “That’s absurd!” Kinsly said. “We’re not going to respond to this horrible incident by stating that Veracruz allowed his own people to be killed, when the evidence so far shows that Americans did it! That’s political suicide!”

  “It’s the only explanation, sir,” Jefferson said.

  “How could Veracruz do it? What did he do…analyze every weapon those vigilantes carried and used only those same weapons to shoot the migrants?” Kinsly asked. “That’s stretching credibility, Jefferson.”

  “It’s no secret what weapons they carry, Mr. Kinsly—it’s all on their Web broadcasts and ops report they publish online, in exact detail,” Jefferson said. “It’s possible…”

  “The fact is, Jefferson, that when the tape gets broadcast on TV, everyone will believe what this Veracruz guy says,” Kinsly argued. “And the media will broadcast the tape, even if they don’t check its authenticity first. The American Watchdog Project will be called racist murderers, and we’ll be blamed for allowing them to be out there doing the Border Patrol’s job—or, worse, charging that they’re working with the Border Patrol to execute illegal migrants.”

  The President thought for a moment; then turned to Ray Jefferson. “Sergeant Major, get TALON moving out there to find this other eyewitness so we can prove that Zakharov is still in the country and working with Veracruz…”

  “But, sir,” Kinsly protested, “if the press sees those robots out there, and they’re even seen anywhere near the illegal immigrant population, it’ll look like we’re organizing a government-sponsored vigilante terror campaign against them, first with the Watchdogs and then with Task Force TALON. We’ll be roasted alive by the press and…”

  “If it is Zakharov out there attacking the Border Patrol and working with Veracruz to incite violence, we’re going to need all the firepower we can get,” the President said. “I’m not going to run and hide while some Russian terrorist and some drug-smuggler punk create a nationwide race riot in the United States. Task Force TALON may be America’s bull in the china shop, but they get the job done. I just hope they can find Zakharov and Veracruz before it’s too late.”

  He turned to Jefferson and jabbed a finger. “But they do it by the book, Ray—that means search warrants and rock-solid evidence before they go in the field. I don’t want any repeats of the Rampart One fiasco, Sergeant Major, or the robots get sent to the trash compactor, and you and Richter spend what’s left of your military careers distributing deodorant in Djibouti. Get on it.”

  OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE

  UNITED MEXICAN STATES, PALACIO NACIONAL,

  ZOCALO, MEXICO CITY

  THAT SAME TIME

  “He dared put the military on the border without consulting me—twice!” Mexican president Carmen Maravilloso said angrily, nearly tossing the phone on the floor in anger before her aide Pedro could collect it and safely put it out of reach. “How dare that man ignore me? I am the president of the United Mexican States!”

  Women in general and especially women outside the home were never very highly regarded in Mexico, and female politicians even less so, but Maravilloso—her given surname was Tamez, but she changed it when she became a national news anchorwoman on Mexico’s largest television network years earlier—fought to change that perception. Maravilloso’s entire political life had been a struggle, and she used every trick in the book—personal, feminine tricks as well as political—to get an advantage.

  After becoming one of Mexico’s most popular and recognizable television personalities in both news and variety entertainment shows, she married a young, up-and-coming politician seven years her junior and helped him ascend from virtual political obscurity to become first the governor of Mexico’s largest state, then president of the United Mexican States. Like Jacqueline Kennedy in the United States, Carmen Maravilloso was just as popular as her husband, not just in Mexico but around the world. She liked being around the rich and powerful and could hold her own in just about any forum anywhere in the world, from attending the Little League World Series in Taiwan with Fidel Castro, to a state dinner at the White House, to conducting a surprise guided tour of the presidential palace with one hundred astonished visitors.

  The Mexican revolutionary constitution prohibited the president from running for reelection until six years after leaving office, and since that law had always been assumed to apply equally to the president’s spouse, everyone believed Maravilloso would go back to being a television personality after her husband’s six-year term ended. She had different ideas. Her surprise candidacy was immediately challenged by her political foes, and the question went all the way to the Mexican Supreme Court, where the twenty-five-judge court ruled against her in a hair-thin majority: in order to prevent the establishment of a nepotistic quasimonarchy, no member of a president’s immediate family could run for president within one full term, six years, of the president leaving office.

  But that didn’t stop her either: Maravilloso requested and received an annulment of her marriage from the Roman Catholic Church, on the grounds that her husband defied the Church’s wishes by not wanting children. It was widely thought that the situation was the reverse, but her husband did not contest the pleading—convinced not to do so, it was rumored, with a secret eight-figure tax-free divorce settlement.

  In a country that had the fourth-lowest divorce rate in the world in which the Roman Catholic religion was recognized as the official state religion in the constitution, this shocked the Mexican people—but delighted most of the rest of the world, including women in the United States of America, who saw Maravilloso’s candidacy as a boon to women’s rights and a slap at the powerful male-dominated macho culture in most of the Third World. Although this development too was argued in front of the Mexican Supreme Court, popular opinion in favor of Maravilloso’s courage and dedication was loud and insistent, and the court refused to consider the case. Maravilloso won her election in a landslide.

  She was a woman who was accustomed to getting what she wanted, and no one—especially no male, not even the President of the United States—was going to deny her. Carmen Maravilloso was in her early fifties but looked younger by at least ten years, with long flowing black hair, dark eyes usually hidden behind designer sunglasses, and a slender, attractive figure. She was a tough, no-nonsense politician, known for occasionally lighting up a Cuban cigar and letting an expletive or two “slip” past her full red lips when the opportunity suited her.

  “How dare he do this without consulting us?” Maravilloso screeched. She lit up a Cohiba Exquisito and wielded the thin cigar like a dagger, aiming it at everyone she spoke to. She aimed it first at the Minister of National Defense, General Alberto Rojas: “I want twice as many soldiers on the border as the Americans have. How many can we send there?”

  “Madame President, they have as many troops just in the state of California as we do in our entire army,” the general said. “We cannot outgun them.”

  “They are only National Guard troops…”

  “I am talking about the National Guard, madam,” he said. “California is the most populous state in America and can field a vast number of paramilitary forces—even though heavily committed around the world, their national guard outnumbers even our regular military forces in every category. You do not want to escalate a military confrontation, señora.”

  “Then we will take our case to the United Nations Security Council and to the Organization of American States,” Minister of Internal Affairs Felix Díaz said as he breezed through the doors to the president’s office. “This situation is becoming an international crisis, Madam President, and we should res
pond accordingly.”

  “Minister Díaz!” Maravilloso exclaimed happily. “We were afraid you were dead after your stunt the other day, riding around in your helicopter and inciting riots.”

  “I thank you for your concern, Madam President,” Díaz said, smiling and bowing. Tall, young, and impossibly handsome, he hailed from several generations of rich, powerful hacienda owners dating back to the original Mexican land grants from the royal court in Madrid, Spain. His family had managed to keep the majority of their lands by aligning with whichever side had more power at the time—the military, the Catholic Church, the revolutionaries, the Communists, the Spanish, the Bonapartists, even the Americans: whoever could benefit the Díaz family the most received their political and financial allegiance…until power shifted again.

  Díaz was educated in the finest private schools in Mexico, attended the military academy at Chapultepec, went to undergraduate flight training in Arizona, then served four years in a variety of flying units in the Fuerza Aerea Mexicana, the Mexican Air Force, including one year as squadron commander of an air combat squadron of F-5A Freedom Fighter air defense jets and AT-33A propeller trainers modified for counterinsurgency missions.

  While commanding the 202nd Air Combat Squadron in Santa Lucia, Díaz helped organize and conduct a series of exercises with the Cuban Air Force, where he flew his F-5s against several different models of MiG fighters and fighter-bombers. He received considerable attention from generals and defense ministers from around the world for his political as well as flying skills. He served out his military commitment as the Mexican air attaché to the Caribbean and Latin America, shuttling all over the hemisphere almost on a daily basis on behalf of the Mexican government.