“Compliments of the doctor,” she said as the first electrical barb shot free of the barrel and connected perfectly with the dark-haired woman’s right shoulder. The ten-thousand-volt jolt shook the secretary in almost hilarious spasms until she dropped to the tiled flooring. The next two happy women were taken down without even as much fuss as the first. All three lay at the base of the window. Charlie stood and walked over to Sarah and looked down.
“I guess you were the first one to go down… I win.”
“Do you have the music Jack gave you for the PSYOP portion of this screwed-up plan?”
Charlie felt his pockets in his wrinkled black suit. “Of course, that was my only responsibility.” He felt his pocket again and brought out the encased compact disc. He blinked when he thought he remembered it being in a different colored case — this one looked like one of the CD cases from his own collection. He shrugged his shoulders and then replaced the disc in his pocket as he turned for the warden’s office. “Well, shall we start the dance?” he asked Sarah as he moved.
“Let’s just hope the participants in this little shindig are ready, because all hell is about to break loose.”
Outside, the dabbling of applause from the balcony announced that, indeed, the festivities were about to begin.
The three young boys had every possession they owned in two overstretched garbage bags. They crossed the border early this morning and waited until the U.S. Border Patrol’s change of shift. They had waited in the shadows and now moved easily from small arroyos to deep cuts along the worn trail coming in from Mexico. The three had the promise of ranch work farther north in Alvin.
“This is the safest time to move over empty land, Jime,” the oldest of the three said as they came to the rising end of an arroyo, where they stopped. “There’s no green-suited boogeymen out here. Just two miles and we can reach the main highway and once there we will wait until near dawn and then jump the Northern Pacific all the way into Houston.”
“The emptiness of this place gives me the creeps,” the youngest said as he waited in the shadows for his two friends to move to the next cut of arroyo for cover.
“Yeah, that’s why it’s a good route to take, not many would chance crossing with no water until you reach Brownsville.” The oldest immigrant looked at the young and inexperienced boy and rubbed his head, knocking the green ball cap off. “Besides, the Americanos don’t have the equipment to cover every square inch of desert. There’s nothing out there but us and the open road. Now let’s go.”
The three young men climbed the rise, readying themselves for the sprint over into the next arroyo. When the oldest stopped dead in his tracks at the top of the rise and the other two ran into him their world became instantly surreal. Evidently the Americans had recently allocated far more funds to this area of the border.
“Pinche vato,” the oldest said as his eyes widened at the sight before him.
Between the arroyo they had just left and the second sat three U.S. Army Apache Longbow AH-64 attack choppers. The six men who crewed the gunships were standing in front of the giant attack birds and were looking straight at the three illegal immigrants as they stood atop the rise in shock. The weapons officer of one of the ships raised a gray-colored gloved hand and waved at the three, who simultaneously felt their hearts drop. The oldest boy swallowed hard as his right hand slowly came up in greeting.
“Oh, yeah, there’s nobody out here,” said the youngest.
Suddenly the aircrews below heard the loud beeping coming from their communications gear. The three aircrews ran to their Apaches. The three stunned boys watched as their four-bladed rotors started spooling up. Once more their hearts stopped when all three twenty-millimeter chain guns on the nose of each attack ship started rotating as the weapons officers made sure their main armament was functioning correctly.
“Madre de dios,” mumbled the oldest as the first Apache lifted free of the Texas scrub and then the other two birds quickly and noisily followed suit. All three rose, dipped their noses hard forward, and then shot into the air, hugging the ground as the United States Army crossed the border of a friendly nation for their role in Operation Alcatraz. The boys didn’t know that five miles away to the east another group of helicopters was lifting off and heading to the same coordinates. Only these ships were a lot larger.
It was the youngest of the three who spoke. “I think I want to go back home.”
The secretary of state waited to deliver his prepared speech to the man who was now being escorted into his large office. The older man smiled, trying to disarm the man before he even sat down. He rose and moved to the front of his desk to greet the visitor.
“Mr. Ambassador, so nice of you to come on such short notice.” He shook the smaller man’s hand and then gestured to the other occupant in the room, a well-dressed younger gentleman in a perfectly pressed black suit. “I don’t believe you have ever met the director of our FBI, Brenton Branch.” The large black man stood and offered his hand, which the stymied ambassador from Mexico slowly took with apprehension. “Please, sir, have a seat. We have much to pass on and very little time to do it.”
The ambassador to the United States from the nation of Mexico was perplexed as he had only met the American secretary of state one time, and that one time was not a pleasant experience. The old man was just plain mean in his estimation.
“Directly to the point, Mr. Ambassador, the FBI has come into some rather disturbing intelligence concerning one of your major headaches. Mr. Richie Gutiérrez.”
The ambassador froze at the mention of his name.
“Yes, we thought that would get your attention right off the bat. I’ll let the director tell you.”
“Sir, we in the United States government understand that you are having one hell of a time containing this Gutiérrez and his rather lucrative business. Now if this is because you are unable, or unwilling”—the secretary of state gave a wry look at the head of the FBI—“does not concern us at this time.” The director held up his hand as the ambassador started to protest the insult hurled at his government. “We have asked your government for three days to act upon this man for the kidnapping of an American citizen, one Xavier Morales, age twenty-five.”
“My government cannot act on information provided by a foreign nation without adequate investigation. I am afraid my hands in this matter are virtually tied, Mr. Secretary.”
“This is not a meeting that was intended to consult you or your government, Mr. Ambassador. We are here to simply inform you of a covert military action intended to free our citizens from illegal internment.”
“Covert military action?”
“Simply stated, you won’t act, so we will, sir.”
The secretary of state was relieved when he saw the wheels start turning in the young diplomat’s head. He had been briefed that many in the Mexican government were in favor of moving against Gutiérrez and his cartel and smash them with an iron fist, but there were too many men in government who owed the cartel’s leader enough to become one of his puppets. But the United States knew that there was a newer, bolder form of Mexican citizen rising from the old — and this man and many others was one of them. The ambassador saw what was happening; the United States was giving his government and the current administration in Mexico City an out. They wouldn’t have to raise a hand to assist, nor to apologize if something went wrong. Enlightenment crossed his features like a window being opened to the world. He caught on and caught on quick.