Drone

“Any chance that more Bravos have crossed over to our side?” Myers asked.

“Again, no telling. They shouldn’t have been able to the first time. But with the heightened alert, I’m confident we’re probably okay,” Donovan said.

“Probably okay? That’s hardly reassuring.”

“I told you I’d always shoot straight with you. I never promised I’d always hit the target.”

“Fair enough,” Myers said. She turned to the rest of the group. “I’m rethinking the border closing. Thoughts?”

“My father taught me that you can break a man’s fingers one at a time,” Strasburg said, holding up a splayed hand and then clenching it. “Unless he first makes a fist and beats you to death with it.”

“Meaning?” Jeffers asked.

“It’s always better to present all of your controversial ideas at one time. It makes them much harder to unpack. If President Myers dribbles them out one at a time, they can each get broken, and the cumulative effect is devastating.”

Strasburg turned to Myers. “You’re about to make an address to the nation. That will give you an opportunity to show your enemies your fist. I suggest keeping the border question tucked safely away until then.”

Myers nodded in agreement, but her thoughts had turned somewhere else.

Yucca Valley, California

The high-desert altitude kept the nights cool, even during the summer months, and a good dusting of snow was common every now and again during the winters. Not like Palm Springs down on the valley floor where the humidity wrapped around your lungs like a hot, wet blanket this time of year, even after sundown.

Yucca Valley’s claim to fame—true or not, it didn’t really matter to the locals—was that an old Rat Pack love nest was located there, a Mid-century Modern that squatted on the very top of a hill on the edge of town. The helipad for the helicopter that flew in the girls and the dope was still visible from one of the main drags through the sleepy little desert town.

Old motor lodges, coin laundromats, and a dozen used-car lots littered the sides of Twentynine Palms Highway, which snaked north from I-10 out of L.A. up the steep mountain passes to the high desert. Yucca Valley was the perfect location for an enterprising drug operation, feeding the insatiable maw of Southern California addictions to the south or running shipments through the nearby Marine base, which, unfortunately, had a few bad apples willing to deal locally and transport globally.

Whereas the resort of Palm Springs featured multimillion-dollar estates, manicured private golf courses, world-class restaurants, and frequent visits by Hollywood celebrities, its uglier, deformed, and acne-scarred sister city up in the high desert had a slightly more modest appeal. It wasn’t the Pizza Hut, the Walmart, or even the Starbucks that had tempted so many to make this a permanent home. In fact, these civilizing institutions nearly killed the place.

The reason why most people found purchase in the stony ground was because of its desolate isolation. Joshua Tree National Park was nearby, but the land around it was equally beautiful, cruel, and unforgivingly dry. The area had long been home to survivalists, painters, ex-con bikers, dishonorably discharged vets, child-support deadbeats, religious fanatics, and other reclusives. There were even miners still working a few active claims up in the hills.

Pearce and Early alerted the county sheriff about a possible national security exercise occurring that night, but only at the last minute—a courtesy call, nothing else. Gunfire wasn’t entirely uncommon around here; the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base was just twenty miles up the road.

Castillo’s men had relocated to Yucca Valley to take over a meth lab situated in an abandoned silver mine up in the hills above the town. A pair of surveillance drones had been tracking the three of them for the past thirty-six hours. They normally lived in a big five-bedroom rancher with a saltwater pool closer to town, but tonight they were in the meth lab cooking up a new batch.

Sergio Navarro had actually located a schematic of the operation from an old U.S. Bureau of Mines microfiche that had only recently been digitally scanned and archived. The good news was that there was only one way to access the mine, a single point of entry and exit. Perfect for a napalm attack or even a mass burial beneath the rock and dust. But Cruzalta opted for neither. He and his handpicked team wanted bloody vengeance, up close and personal.

Cruzalta had invited Pearce to come with him on the mission, but only as an observer. Pearce accepted. He wanted to study Cruzalta’s tactics and small-unit operations firsthand. He knew there was always more to learn in the world’s most dangerous game, and Cruzalta was one of the best players around.