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
“…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?”
“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, “
“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
