Edge of Battle

It was all captured on international television, live.

“Oh…my…God…” the President breathed as he watched the ghastly sight on his TV monitors. All of the major broadcast, cable, and satellite stations were playing the live video now.

“Mr. President, we’re going to need to clear that airspace so we can get emergency medical units out there,” Ray Jefferson said. “I suggest we request the California Highway Patrol respond first until we can get the National Guard out there.”

“Do it,” the President said in a whisper. He moved to the window behind his desk and stared out the window. Jefferson picked up a phone to issue instructions.

“Falcone…he’s getting out of the robot,” White House Chief of Staff Kinsly remarked. “This is the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen on television. I still can’t believe what I just saw.”

“Falcone has got to be prosecuted,” Attorney General Wentworth said. “The Mexican government…no, the world will demand nothing less.” A moment later, he asked, “So what’s he doing now, Jefferson?”

“Sergeant Major, have that man placed under arrest,” the President said, still staring out the window into the Rose Garden.

“No need, Mr. President,” Jefferson responded.

The President whirled around and stared in utter disbelief at his National Security Adviser. “What did you say to me, Jefferson?” he roared. “I ordered you to place Falcone under arrest! He’s got to be a lunatic! Even if he didn’t kill any of those people, he precipitated this entire episode by his actions! He’s going to go to prison for a very, very long time. He…” The President stopped, finally noticing that everyone else in the Oval Office was staring at the TV monitors. “What in hell is going on?”

“We’re about to see the last casualty in this debacle, sir,” Jefferson said stonily, sadly.

They all watched as Frank Falcone wandered, seemingly dazed and disoriented, through the piles of battered and bloody bodies around him and his Cybernetic Infantry Device. He stopped, zipped his flight suit all the way up to his chin, then stood limply, his arms hanging straight down, his head bowed. After a few moments, he looked up, reached down, retrieved a blood-covered M-16 rifle from the ground, pulled the charging handle to make sure a round was in the chamber, checked that the safety was off, turned it around, inserted the muzzle in his mouth…and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 4

WHEELER

RIDGE, SOUTH OF BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA

DAYS LATER

The man jumped when he saw the American military officer blow his head off on the taped replay being broadcast again on TV, but the next thing he felt was…intense amusement, almost glee. “Yop tvayu mat! Usrattsa mozhna!” he swore in Russian, being careful not to be too loud—these motel cabin room walls were paper-thin. The men and women behind him were stunned into silence, not daring to believe what they’d just seen on TV. “That guy must have really been fucked in the head—of course, now he does not even have a head anymore!”

“Chto sluchilos’, Polkovnik?” Ernesto Fuerza, known as Comandante Veracruz, the man standing watch by the back door and windows, whispered in good Russian. “What is it, Colonel?”

“I am watching the self-destruction of the American idiots trying to put military forces on the Mexican border, Comandante,” Colonel Yegor Viktorvich Zakharov said. “They cannot seem to get out of their own way. That poor bastard, Falcone, was probably the only one committed enough to do the job, and he has just blown his silly head off with an M-16 assault rifle—and not because of anything he did, but because he felt sorry for the prisoners he killed who were also stupid enough to shoot themselves trying to escape!”

Fuerza got another one of the men in the room to take his post, then stepped into the room—not to watch TV, but to watch Zakharov. The ex–Russian military officer always wore sunglasses, with the right lens slightly lighter than the left; he would occasionally dab under his left eye also, so he obviously has suffered some sort of injury. He drank like a damned fish, mostly chilled vodka or anything he could get his hands on, but he never seemed drunk or even impaired. He definitely liked his women too—he enjoyed the company of any number of prostitutes who always seemed to be nearby at every camp, hostel, or safe house they visited.

“Some of those ‘stupid’ prisoners were my people, Colonel,” Fuerza said irritably.

“Which ones are you referring to, Fuerza—the ones that were stepping over old men and women as they tried to escape, the ones that listened to your president’s brave orders to try to release those prisoners with two armed soldiers guarding them, or the ones who decided it was a peachy idea to attack that robot?” Zakharov’s demeanor was still ebullient, but his mood had changed—everyone could feel it. He definitely didn’t like being challenged.

“Fuerza, ‘your’ people are dead because they were stupid. They were free, for God’s sake—in twenty minutes or less they could have strolled back across the border to safety, and all the Americans would have done was wave bye-bye to them. Instead they decide to turn back toward the prison they just escaped to release some criminals that they would never associate with anyway. Are those the ones you feel sorry for?”

“Colonel, all those people want is freedom and prosperity in exchange for hard work,” Fuerza said. “Coahuila—what they now call Texas—Nuevo Mexico, and Alta California are home to them, even though a U.S. flag flies over the land. It belongs to us—it will always belong to us. It will one day…”

“Fuerza, please, you are boring me,” Zakharov said, downing another shot of vodka. “I really do not give a shit about your struggle or about your claims. Your followers may believe that nonsense, but I do not. You call yourself Comandante Veracruz as a reminder of the bloodbath that accompanied the American invasion of Veracruz in 1847; you strut around like some wild-eyed Muslim fanatic inciting the people to rise up and take what is theirs. But it is all for show. You get your picture on the cover of Time Magazine and you think you are a hero. In reality, you are nothing but a drug and human smuggler with a simple, effective message that has captivated the imagination of some otherwise mindless Americans. I cannot abide patriots or zealots— criminals, I can deal with.”

“Then I have a deal I wish to discuss with you, Colonel,” Fuerza said.

Zakharov looked to refill his glass, found the vodka bottle empty, then tossed the shot glass away with disgust. “What do you have in mind—gunning down more Border Patrol agents and corrupt sheriff’s deputies? Becoming a drug dealer, like you?”

“You want money—I have plenty of it,” Fuerza said. “What my men and I need is training and protection. You have experienced professional soldiers, and you want to bring more of them into the United States. Until your army is ready for whatever havoc you intend to create here, I have need of your services.” He searched a box of supplies on the floor, found another bottle of vodka, retrieved the shot glass, and gave them to Zakharov. “Napitok, tovarisch polkovnik.”

“I do not drink warm vodka, and I do not make plans with drug dealers,” Zakharov said, putting the unopened bottle in the tiny freezer section of the cabin’s noisy old refrigerator. He looked over at a corner of the cabin, where a man was setting up a plain white bedsheet and adjusting some lights, and shook his head with amusement. “Time for another videotape, I see?”

“It is the best way to keep the people of the world aware of our struggle on their behalf,” Fuerza said. “One Internet message can travel around the world in an hour these days.”

“It will also be the best chance for the American FBI to catch you,” Zakharov said. “They can analyze the tiniest background noises in a recording and identify the characteristics of any digital or audio recording; they can