Edge of Battle

pinpoint any IP address in the world within moments; they can trace the origin and path of any package put in the mail anywhere in the world. Why give them any more clues to investigate?”

“The reward is worth the risk, Colonel,” Fuerza said confidently. “We get dozens of new recruits, tens of thousands of dollars in cash donations, and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of free publicity every time we post a tape on our Web site, and even more when it is rebroadcast by the Mexican and American media. My messages are even rebroadcast overseas on Al-Jazeera and the BBC. We have received donations from as far away as Vietnam.”

“I will be sure to stay as far away from you as possible while your messages are uploaded to the Internet and mailed out to the media—sooner or later the FBI is going to swoop down on you, just like they did to Bin Laden and al-Zarqawi. You cannot avoid scrutiny if you decide to play out in the open.”

“As far as assisting your operation, Colonel, we will remain secret and concealed,” Fuerza said, “but as for my battle, I prefer to do my fighting out in the open.”

Zakharov took the bottle of vodka from the freezer and downed another shot. “Oh, really? Is that why you wear that fake hair, wear sunglasses even indoors at night, and disguise yourself to look like three or four different nationalities?” He saw Fuerza frozen in surprise and smiled. “You actually think no one sees you are wearing a disguise? It is good, but not that good. You look like some ridiculous Hollywood cross between Pancho Villa and Muhammar Qaddafi.”

“This disguise is my affair, Colonel,” Fuerza said. “The Mexican people need a symbol of our struggle for freedom, and I find it easier and more effective to do it in disguise.” Zakharov shrugged. “I have found using the media to enflame public opinion works much better in this country than the gun. The revolution is coming, Colonel. The power of the people is absolute and real.”

“Courageous and defiant…to the last.”

“‘My ne mozhem ubedit’sja iz nalichija koe-chego, chtoby zhit’ dlja togo, esli my ne zhelaem umirat’ dlja etogo.’ ‘We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.’ Ernesto Che Guevara,” Fuerza quoted in Russian.

“Your namesake, I gather? How touching.”

“He recognized early on that the source of most of the oppression and poverty in the world is imperialism and capitalism, and the number-one proponent of both is the United States of America,” Fuerza said. “Ernesto Guevara was one man, a man of education and privilege, a trained physician who could have had anything in life he wanted —yet El Che chose instead to go toe to toe against the American Central Intelligence Agency to fight capitalistic aggression in South and Central America and the Caribbean…”

“Until he was sold out by Castro and captured by the CIA in Bolivia.”

“El Che dared to criticize Castro for selling out to the Soviets for money—in doing so, he became a martyr to the socialist movement,” Fuerza said. “His truth has been borne out by history: Cuba is nothing but a stinking Communist shithole exploited by Castro; Mexico is little more than America’s whore because the government sold the workers out just to line their own pockets. El Che is a hero to us all. I hope to be half the man he was.”

“Well, who knows what Guevara could have done with videotapes and the Internet,” Zakharov said. “But Guevara’s problem was he expected too much from the people of the Congo and Bolivia…”

“Not the people—the people were solidly behind him. The corrupt government in Brazil fought him; then, when El Che’s revolution looked like it might successfully overthrow the government, the Bolivians paid Castro to betray Guevara. But Castro didn’t have the guts to assassinate Guevara himself, because El Che was as much a hero of the Cuban workers’ revolution against the corrupt Batista regime as Castro himself. So Castro ratted him out to the CIA, who was more than happy to do Castro’s wet work for him.”

“Thank you for the history lesson,” Zakharov said drily. “Where are the damned weapons you promised me?”

“Five thousand dollars a day for you, a thousand per day for your men, free travel across the border, and all the weapons you want,” Fuerza said. “A few security and enforcement chores, keeping the rival cookers and the corrupt cops like Nunez back there in line. That is all.”

Zakharov looked as if he wasn’t listening, but a few moments later he shook his head. “Ten thousand a day for me, two for my men…and one hundred thousand dollars as a signing bonus.” Fuerza’s eyes widened in anger. “Take it or leave it, Comandante. Or else go back to using your own banditos and paying off corrupt cops to secure your drug empire. They do such a good job for you, no?”

Fuerza thought for a moment—actually, he thought about whether he could get away with executing Zakharov, but the Russian’s men were too loyal to try to pay off and turn on their leader, at least right at this moment—then nodded. “Prevoshodnyj, tovarisch polkovnik,” Fuerza said. He extended a hand, and Zakharov clasped it. “Spasibo.”

“You do not have to thank me—you have to pay me,” Zakharov said.

Fuerza watched as Zakharov turned to look at the television again, and he could almost feel Zakharov’s body temperature rise when the helicopter cameras tracked a man and two women running from an enclosure out to where the dead officer that had piloted the robot lay. “Who is he, Colonel? He is the one you want, is he not?”

Zakharov half-turned toward Fuerza and chuckled. “You are very observant, Comandante,” he said. “Yes, that is Major Jason Richter, commander of Task Force TALON, the one that defeated my forces in Egypt and Washington. With him is his assistant, Dr. Ariadna Vega, Ph.D.”

“Ariadna Vega? That is the name of a famous guerrilla fighter during the Mexican War of Independence,” Fuerza said, his face transfixed in surprise. “She is one of the most celebrated women in Mexican history.”

“Well, she’s one tough minino, that’s for sure,” Zakharov said. “I all but killed her in Brazil, and she was back in the fight just a few days later. The other one is Richter’s former partner and now the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kelsey DeLaine. Learn their names and faces well—they will undoubtedly be after both of us. They must be defeated at all costs.”

Fuerza was staring at the television until the camera zoomed in on the decapitated body, cutting Vega from view. “So. Was Richter the one who shot out your left eye, Colonel?”

“He did not shoot out my eye, Fuerza,” Zakharov snapped. “He missed by a mile— the bullet ricocheted off my helicopter’s rotor, and a fragment lodged in my eye. A hack doctor in Havana told me the eye had to be enucleated or the uninjured eye would sympathetically shut down.” He removed his sunglasses, revealing an empty eye socket. Fuerza did not—rather, dared not—look away, afraid of appearing squeamish at the sight of the horrible injury. “I took one of his eyes in exchange for the one he unnecessarily took from me—unfortunately, his did not fit me, and it was too late to give it back to him.”

“Why do you keep it open like that?”

Zakharov chuckled. “It puts great fear into my adversaries, Comandante, forcing them to look into another man’s skull.”

“But the pain…?”

“The pain helps keep me focused on my objective.”

“Which is?”

“Acercamiento de camion, capitan,” the lookout at the window said. Everyone drew weapons, including Zakharov. Fuerza went to another window and watched as the pickup truck with a camper—a familiar sight in this part of rural southern Bakersfield, at the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains. They trained their weapons on it carefully, looking for any signs of danger, even after the driver flashed the headlights in a coded “all clear” signal. Fuerza requested and received a coded “all clear” from his lookouts around the perimeter before signaling that it was safe to approach the cabin.

While two men kept watch on either side of the camper, three more men began unloading. They brought in two coffin-looking fiberglass canisters and several wood and metal boxes of assault rifles, pistols, and ammunition. The men quickly opened the crates and distributed guns and ammo to each other to check over, while Zakharov and Fuerza concentrated on the “coffins.”

It was their best and most potent weapon since beginning this operation months ago: a Russian-built advanced man-portable air defense system, known in the West as an SA-14 Gremlin and in the East as a 9K34 Strela-3. An advanced version of the venerable SA-7 Grail MANPADS, the SA-14 had a larger warhead, a broader detection and tracking window, better countermeasures discrimination, and improved reliability. Each coffin