Stephen England
Day of Reckoning
Dedication
To every man, and to every woman who came home from the war with wounds impossible to see and harder to understand. To those who live with the daily reality that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” It is to you that this book is dedicated. May God watch over you and protect you even as you have stood watch over this nation.
Epigraph
“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
"Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
Glossary
APB — All Points Bulletin
BOLO — Be On Look Out
CAIR — Council on American Islamic Relations
CI — Confidential Informant
CINCLANTFLT — Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet
CLANDOPS — Clandestine Operations
CO — Commanding Officer
DCIA — Director of the CIA
DCS — Director of the Clandestine Service
DD(I) — Deputy Director(Intelligence)
DEA — Drug Enforcement Agency
DOA — Dead On Arrival
DoD — Department of Defense
DHS — Department of Homeland Security
ECHELON — NSA surveillance program
E&E — Escape and Evade
FISA — Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
FLIR — Forward Looking InfraRed
FSB — Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation
HHS — Health and Human Services
HRT — Hostage Rescue Team
IED — Improvised Explosive Device
JSOC — Joint Special Operations Command
JTTF — Joint Terrorism Task Force
LEO — Law Enforcement Officer
LVMPD — Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
NCS — National Clandestine Service
NRO — National Reconnaissance Office
NSA — National Security Agency
PAC — Political Action Committee
PD — Police Department
PDA — Personal Digital Assistant
PHOTINT — Photographic Intelligence
POTUS — President of the United States
PTSD — Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
ROE — Rules of Engagement
SAC — Special Agent-in-Charge
SAD — Special Activities Division
SDR — Surveillance Detection Route
SIGINT — Signals Intelligence
Sitrep — Situation Report
SOP — Standard Operating Procedure
SVR — Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation
TACSAT — Tactical Satellite Phone
TOC — Tactical Operations Center
Prologue
No one came to Big Bend. At least that was the joke. The national park had never been a favorite with vacationing baby boomers, and with the recession…even that trickle of visitors had dried up.
That left the coyotes, Emmanuel Gutierrez thought, clucking gently to his mare as she picked her way over the rocks, edging around a cluster of prickly pear. Coyotes…not the four-legged kind, but the smugglers, guides for illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande a few miles to his south.
He’d spotted the fire nearly an hour before, an uncautious flame flickering into the night sky — no doubt a coyote and a group of migrants heating up a meal before traveling on. It was a cold, cloudless night, the moon shining down on the rocky terrain, the temperature hovering just a few degrees above freezing. His Remington 870 shotgun hung in a loose scabbard from his saddle, within easy reach of his hand — a non-lethal “beanbag” round in the chamber, five rounds of 00 buckshot behind it.
The thirty-five-year-old Border Patrol agent had seen it all. Four years on the U.S.-Mexico border, two deployments to Afghanistan in the years before that. He’d left friends in the Helmand.
“You in position, Zac?” he asked, toggling the switch of his radio as he moved into the sagebrush. He and his partner had separated, moving in on the encampment from both sides.
“Almost, Manny. Looks like we’ve got nine, maybe ten males. I’ll move in on foot and challenge them. You back me up and stay mounted if anyone does a runner.”
“Roger that,” Gutierrez replied, a brief smile touching his lips. Someone always thought they were smart. Always.
He could hear the low hum of voices as he crested the ridge, looking down the slope into what amounted to a boulder-filled gulch.
Come on, Zac, he thought, drawing his Remington from its scabbard and laying it across his lap. Silhouetted against the night sky, there was every chance that the migrants would spot him.
And then he heard his partner’s voice from down the gulch, raised in a brusque command. Saw men scramble, throwing water over the fire.
The metal glint of a gunbarrel in the moonlight, materializing from under a coat. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” he called out, kicking his mare into a trot as he rode down the ridge, the Remington in his hands now, leveled. He saw the man look up, seeing the rider for the first time.
Saw him hesitate, his face visible through the rear “ghost-ring” tactical sight of the Remington. A split-second of indecision, hanging between them in the night. Not long enough.
The gun came all the way out, a long gun. Warning over. Gutierrez flicked off the button safety of his shotgun, the twelve-gauge recoiling into his shoulder as he squeezed the trigger.
It was too dark to see whether he had hit the man, but nothing could have stopped what happened next. A sound like a string of firecrackers exploding, the migrant’s rifle erupting in flame. Fully-automatic, the agent’s mind registered, even as a hail of bullets began to tear up the ground around his rearing horse. He knew a Kalashnikov when he heard one.
Something struck Gutierrez in the leg, white hot pain shooting through him as he toppled backward off the horse, landing in the dust, his leg bending beneath him. He screamed a curse, fighting against the panic that threatened to overcome him.
It was Afghanistan. Had to be. Their convoy under attack, the sound of the Browning on the roof ripping through the air. Mujahideen moving in — air support twenty minutes out.
But it wasn’t the Helmand — there was no air support on the way, no Ma Deuce on the roof of the Humvee providing suppressive fire. They were alone.
He could hear automatic weapons fire from down the gulch — coupled with the lighter crack of Zac’s M-4. The sounds of war. Ignoring the pain shooting through his bleeding leg, he raised himself up, reaching for his shotgun. Another burst of fire spattered against the rocks around him and he collapsed back into the shelter of a boulder, pressing his radio to his lips.