Drone

There were a few setbacks. A Claymore mine exploded on a popular camping trail in Yosemite, killing a newlywed couple. An empty one-hundred-pound bag of rat poison had been found adjacent to a water reservoir near Birmingham, Alabama. A car racing past Temple Emanuel in St. Louis, Missouri, fired an RPG and hit the building, but fortunately it did little damage and no one was inside at the time of the attack. However, a U.S. Marine private at home on leave from active duty in Afghanistan saw the attack and chased the vehicle as it raced up I-270. St. Louis police units joined the chase and shot out the tires, slamming the car into the guardrail. The three Bravos inside came out shooting and were killed by a river of lead.

The LEO community began to suspect that a significant corner had been turned in the hunt. They didn’t know how right they were. But Ali Abdi knew. His rogue teams were required to report in on a regular basis by means of a covert encrypted cell-phone network that the Iranians had deployed throughout the United States. Fewer and fewer teams reported in, and fewer and fewer media reports about terror acts were going out. That was all Ali needed to know. His latest plan to provoke an American invasion of Mexico had failed.

The Iranian commando had just two more cards to play, then he’d have to resort to last-ditch measures. He prayed it wouldn’t come to that, but he was more than willing to pay that price since the reward would be his triumphant entrance into heaven.

Washington, D.C.

Senator Diele hung up the phone, fighting the desire to shout for joy. His Democrat counterpart, Cleeve Gormer from Ohio, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, had eagerly agreed to Diele’s proposal and guaranteed he could deliver a majority vote on the Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee if they acted quickly.

Gormer hated Myers’s guts. She had sided with the Pentagon when the army requested the Lima Army Tank Plant to temporarily quit manufacturing M-1 Abrams tanks that it said it no longer needed for wars it had no intention of fighting anytime soon. Gormer was furious. It didn’t matter to him that the army estimated it would save the taxpayers over $3 billion to shutter the facility for just three years. The LATP provided hundreds of highly paid jobs in Gormer’s district. Like most politicians, he viewed military spending as another source of constituent employment and, hence, his own source of job security. Luckily, he’d managed to defeat the generals on this issue, but he swore retribution on Myers if he ever got the chance and Diele had just offered it to him.

There was a soft knock on his door.

“Come.”

Diele’s personal assistant, a pretty young freshman intern from Brown, entered with a tray larded with fried eggs, bacon, hash browns, and coffee, and set it in front of him at his desk. She was a beautiful girl and his eyes raked over the curves of her body. But the era of incriminating Facebook and Twitter posts had curbed Diele’s animal appetites for volunteer staff. Instead, he thanked her politely and she left.

Diele’s mouth watered. This was a real workingman’s breakfast. Not like the prison fare of oatmeal mush and tepid green tea his haggard wife served him at home these days.

Dolores Hidalgo, Mexico

It was a warm September evening in the provincial city, and the night was exceptionally special. September 15 was the eve of Mexico’s Independence Day, the night on which the warrior-priest Father Hidalgo uttered the grito from his pulpit, declaring Mexico’s independence from Spain. Father Hidalgo had called for the abolition of slavery and led a peasant army to its first victories against the ruling Spanish government. He was the George Washington of Mexico, “the Father who fathered a nation.”

But tonight President Barraza—ever the showman—would be the one to utter the cry from the pulpit of the Hidalgo church instead of the local priest. The symbolism was as subtle as a telenovela romance, but perfect-ly effective for the bold young president to project his growing defiance and contempt toward the colonial aspirations of los norteamericanos. At Hernán’s urging, he’d been stoking Mexican nationalism ever since the Aztec Dream attack and promoting the conspiracy theory that the Bravo attacks in the U.S. were part of an elaborate plan to justify an American invasion of Mexico.

Antonio was just as glad that Hernán had elected to stay home in Mexico City to enjoy the festivities with his own family this evening. Lately, his brother had become increasingly grim and too unpleasant to be around. The president was thankful, however, that his wise and efficient sibling had arranged for a live national television broadcast of the event tonight.