“Because the Mexican narco cartels own many of the local law enforcement officers and politicians, it’s extremely hard to penetrate their organizations. Despite the threat these terrorists pose to our Western way of life, some of the crime lords—not all of them—look the other way because the money’s so huge. Ryan’s going to give us a report about some activity along our southern border that we think is related to the Rio Grande cell. After that, we’ll get up to speed on what we learned from Stone McBride’s daughter.” He nodded to the Border Patrol chief.
Ryan Switzer clicked the remote that controlled the projector, and a map of Mexico’s northern border filled the screen. “Thank you, Scott. I promise to be brief. Everything I’m about to report is in your packets. We’ve plotted the last six months’ worth of incidents. The last thirty days are noteworthy.” He used the laser pointer to illuminate a series of plotted locations on the map. “As you can see, there’s a pattern.” He zoomed in to the Texas border and made a circular motion with the pointer. “There’s a hole right here. Anyone care to guess where the Rio Grande cell is located? Yep. Right in the middle of the hole. It’s clear that whoever’s behind these incidents wants us to divert asserts and patrols away from this area of the border. We’ve also considered it’s a ruse, designed to make us think something’s going to happen in the hole when it’s not. Now we know otherwise.
“As you all know, less than a week ago, a national park ranger and one of my senior agents were ambushed after they responded to an arson fire at the old Santa Elena crossing site right here. We believe El Lobo was the shooter, and he managed to hit the park ranger from eleven hundred yards. Her vest saved her life. While my agent carried the wounded ranger away from the ambush site, the shooter scored a hit on him. He’s going to be okay.” Ryan put some levity in his tone. “He took a Forrest Gump shot.”
That got some smiles, but no one laughed.
“We sent a small team across the border, found the sniper’s shooting position atop a ridge, and recovered close to fifty spent casings, all of them from a Lapua Magnum. It’s also worth noting that the effective range of a Lapua is over a mile. I’m having my staff work up a topographic map and redline all areas where my agents will be the most susceptible to sniper fire. As you can imagine, it’s a massive project. Despite the risk, we aren’t going to let El Lobo interfere with our job of guarding the fence. We also found something else at the shooter’s nest.” The screen changed to a photograph of a small piece of paper with a hole punched through it and the image of a black scorpion burned into its surface.
“This was stabbed into the sand with a mesquite branch. El Lobo obviously knew we’d find it.” The screen showed a close-up of a blackened scorpion brand, about an inch in length. “It’s El Lobo’s signature. The scorpion image is identical to the one branded into the lower back of one of my agents several months ago after she’d been assaulted. Her partner was murdered outright, but she endured two days of pure hell. The details aren’t necessary right now. They’re in the file.”
The screen went dark.
During Switzer’s brief pause, Benson said, “We want El Lobo’s head on a platter, but we’d prefer to take him alive, as we’d like to know how exactly the Rio Grande cell came to be. Contacts, money transfers, and any connections to other cells . . . lone wolves or otherwise.”
Benson nodded, and Ryan continued. “At this point, we think El Lobo’s basically a gun for hire, although many of the cartels want him permanently on their payrolls. As far as we know, he’s resisted all the offers and remains a freelancer. Before my agent was shot, the worst we’d faced over the last ten days was an explosion that sent a burning pile of tires across the border. My agents weren’t injured, but they could’ve been.”
Ryan took a seat, and Benson took over again. “Now, about Jin Marchand. Her file is included in your packets. She used her phone to dictate a very detailed report of the massacre inside Mabel’s. She also used it to video a confession by the surviving gunman. The details of how she forced him to talk aren’t included. Needless to say, he didn’t give up the information without being physically tortured.
“Now, before we continue, Kelley’s going to bring you up to speed on a recent event that we think is directly related to the attacks yesterday. President Trump has already authorized immediate military action, and you’ll soon know why. We’re going to act quickly, within the next eighteen hours.” Benson held up a hand at the groans and body language offered around the table. “I know that’s an impossibly short amount of time, but that’s all we’ve got. Everything will be clear to you within the next few minutes. Kelley?”
His principal deputy director thumbed the remote, and the image of a mining operation, like that of a giant circular borrow pit, filled the screen.
“Here’s what’s not in your packets,” she said. “Ten days ago, the Jong Doo military research facility came under attack by unknown forces. North Korea’s denying it happened, but we have photographic evidence to prove otherwise.” She triggered the next slide, a side-by-side comparison of the before and after imagery. “Here is actual footage of the explosions, picked up by our Pave Fire Three satellite just before it slipped below the horizon. As you can see, the heat flares correspond to Jong Doo’s primary and secondary entrances. The North Koreans did an excellent job disguising the entry points inside old-looking warehouse buildings, but the explosions were so powerful, they blew the roofs open. Fortunately, the duty officer at NORAD had the presence of mind to pan out and look for warm engine blocks or people on foot leaving the facility. Three human heat signatures were detected, running toward the eastern tree line. Unfortunately, Pave Fire Eight didn’t clear the horizon in time, and we didn’t reacquire the people on foot.
“Jong Doo isn’t your run-of-the-mill underground military facility. It’s a state-of-the-art bio- and chemical weapons development laboratory complex. We learned of its existence several years ago, just before one of Rebecca’s operations officers turned up missing. She’s now one of the unnamed stars on the CIA’s memorial wall.”
Benson watched Rebecca shift her weight slightly. It didn’t take much imagination to know her officer died badly over a long period of time.
“Thank you, Kelley,” Benson said. “The man Ms. Marchand captured and interrogated provided some valuable information. Had the attack in Mabel’s gone as planned, we wouldn’t know of the catastrophic threat we now face. And I mean catastrophic. The attacks in San Diego and DC were not intended to be suicide missions. All seven gunmen intended to return to Mexico and rejoin their comrades in the Rio Grande cell.” Benson stood and leaned on the table. “The captive told Ms. Marchand that there were going to be thousands of dead Americans within the next few days. Not dozens. Not hundreds. Thousands.” He let that soak in. And based on the expressions around the table, it had.
He looked at Kelley and pursed his lips. “What we’re about to show you will turn your stomachs, and I wouldn’t blame any of you for closing your eyes, but you need to understand the gravity of the crisis we’re facing. Make no mistake about it. We are in crisis mode. Four days ago, a thumb drive was found on an intercepted ISIS courier near the Syria-Iraq border. The courier was killed, so we haven’t been able to determine how he got the thumb drive or what he planned to do with it. All we know is that he was heading deeper into ISIS-held territory at the time he was intercepted. Yes, the president has seen this video.”
There was absolute silence in the room.
The video began with four emaciated people in gray jumpsuits manacled to a steel table inside a small white room. Three men and one woman.
“Those are North Korean labor camp prisoners,” said one of the directors under his breath.
“Yes,” Benson said. “That’s our assessment as well.”
Armed guards then entered the room through a thick door with a round small hatch. The prisoners held perfectly still while the guards removed their handcuffs from metal rings bolted to the table. It was c
lear the prisoners were accustomed to being restrained.
Everyone knew what was coming when the guards left and a flashing, strobelike beacon came to life. Even though he’d seen this footage numerous times, Benson found himself holding his breath.
A gas grenade was dropped through the round hatch. Its spring-loaded safety handle flew free, and three seconds later, the can began spinning wildly on the floor. On the wall above their heads, a large digital timer began counting seconds—presumably in Korean—its red symbols menacing. The prisoners reacted defensively, shying away from the grenade, but they had no place to hide.
The grenade made a loud hissing sound as the compound spewed in every direction.
“Kelley, please mute the sound. We don’t need to hear it.”
The IC directors watched in stunned horror as the chemical agent took effect. At the thirty-second mark, they looked itchy and irritable, as though being pestered by a swarm of flies. Things went downhill from there. A minute into the video, they’d become nothing more than savage animals hell-bent on tearing each other to pieces with their teeth. At two minutes, they were all on the floor, convulsing in death spasms.
“Dear Lord,” Ryan said. “Please tell me this is an enactment.”
“It’s not. We’ve had it analyzed by our video experts, and it’s real.”
“So what the hell are we going to do about this?” Ryan asked.
Sounding like chaos, everyone started talking.
Benson didn’t take Ryan’s emotionally charged question personally. It was, after all, a fair thing to ask.
Benson held up both hands. “That’s why we’re all here, Ryan. If we play out the scenario and connect the dots, we’re looking at direct evidence of a North Korean WMD connection to ISIS. Based on the explosions at Jong Doo, the intercepted thumb drive, and the intel from Ms. Marchand’s captured gunman, we can almost certainly conclude the WMD grenades are in the hands of the Rio Grande cell, just five miles from our border. Now to answer Ryan’s question, we’re going to eradicate these murderous fanatics from the face of the earth. I’m already working on a plan. In the meantime, Rebecca’s specialists will be interrogating Jin Marchand’s captive extensively. And by interrogating, I do not mean that we’ll be torturing this man with physical abuse. We’ll use drugs, subterfuge, sleep deprivation, and visual and audio disorientation. There will be no more physical abuse. We don’t do that on my watch. Everyone clear on that?”
Everyone nodded.
“Here’s where things rise to the level of direct military action. Each chemical grenade—and we don’t know how many they have—has the potential to kill hundreds. If what our captive said is true about the Rio Grande cell’s goal to kill thousands, it’s reasonable to believe they have more than just one or two grenades. As early as tonight, El Lobo could be escorting ten to fifteen radical Islamic terrorists across the border, each carrying one of those grenades. We’re in a bin Laden type of situation, but this time, we aren’t waiting weeks and months to act, nor do we have weeks and months to plan the strike. We’ve got hours.
“In the meantime, we’re tending to our captive’s wounds, showing him compassion, and dispelling all the garbage he’s been brainwashed with over the years. These people are fueled by hatred, and reflecting it back onto them only hardens their resolve. Don’t think for a minute the stolen chemical weapons were simply given to the Rio Grande cell. Whoever’s funding this attack probably paid millions to get the WMDs smuggled into Mexico. That’s where El Lobo comes in. We need him alive to determine who the ringmaster and financiers are, assuming they could be different people. Clearly whoever’s in charge has a strong connection to ISIS. Our objective is simple, but its execution is complex. As the intelligence community directors, you’re going to make sure every agency inside the IC is working with every other agency. Can we keep this out of the news indefinitely? No. We have no idea if other copies of the WMD video are on the loose. Time will tell, and it’s clearly only a matter of time before it gets posted on YouTube. Once that happens, we’re either going to be seen as heroes or goats. I’d prefer heroes.
“I’ve ordered breakfast sandwiches and lots of coffee from the mess. Our chow should be here any minute. Text your wives and husbands and let them know you’ll be sequestered until further notice. We’re locking ourselves in this conference room until we have a working plan to attempt ahead of my fail-safe backup plan. No, we aren’t nuking the Rio Grande cell. If we can covertly get in, seize the WMDs, and get back out, great. If that fails, I want all the logistics of a massive conventional airstrike in my pocket. Basically, I want the ability to carpet bomb the entire Rio Grande cell and reduce every building—and person inside of them—to quarter-inch pieces. Clear?”
Everyone nodded, but no one said anything. Now wasn’t the time for dumb questions.
“I know what you’re thinking. It’s Mexican soil. I’ll remind everyone that the compound where bin Laden was holed up was Pakistani soil. I don’t need to tell you how the president feels about any of this. Despite how things are portrayed in the mainstream media, the president has a very solid relationship with President Menendez, and I’ve been in regular contact with my counterpart down there over the last sixteen months.
“President Menendez is no fan of El Lobo. Mexico’s justice department has been trying to link El Lobo to several murders of local and state lawmakers who’ve openly voiced their desire to see El Lobo arrested and brought to trial. It’s a reign of terror down there. Menendez ran on the promise to do something about the corruption plaguing his country. He knows we’re going to take action, but he doesn’t yet know what we’re going to do, or when. He’s agreed to keep this under wraps with the exceptions of several key cabinet positions that have to know—his defense secretary and several others. If we pull this off covertly, Menendez saves face, but one way or the other, the Rio Grande cell is going to be destroyed. Metaphorically speaking, there’s a turd in our neighbor’s pool, and we’re going to sanitize it with prejudice.”
CHAPTER 24
Two and a half hours after Nathan’s close call with alcohol, he and Harv were still talking. Neither of them could’ve slept, even if they’d wanted to.
Had this been his normal routine back in La Jolla, he would’ve climbed out of bed or risen from the floor—depending on how his dreams went—by 0530. After that, he’d take a twilight jog around the neighborhood, followed by giant schnauzer training and playtime, the three S’s, foreign language study, and then morning chow.
Harv’s pattern was nearly identical.
Harv got up from the living room couch and looked out the window. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been this angry.”
“I have.”
“You’re used to it.”
Nathan joined him at the window. “You are bent this morning.”
“I feel terrible for your mom. They really loved each other. How long were they married?”
“Sixty-two years,” Nathan said, hardly believing it.
“Yeah, that’s a bad deal. She was ten years younger, right?”
“Eleven. He was her summer camp counselor. They first met when she was fifteen, but they didn’t date until she was in college. Their second meeting was a one-in-a-million-chance encounter.”
“Tell me.”
“He knocked her onto her ass running toward the men’s room in a department store. He had a bladder infection. She’d just come out of the women’s room and, bam, down she went. They recognized each other right away, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“You owe your existence to a bladder infection?”
Nathan laughed. “I’m afraid so.”
“What are your thoughts on Jin? You know, about her wringing information out of the captured gunman?”
“I’m okay with it, but let’s hope Lauren never finds out.”
“Somehow I don’t think Jin will disclose that.”
“My sister had a hellish life, Harv. Growing up underprivileged in North Kore
a is as bad as it gets. She spent four years in a prison labor camp and told me she literally ate whatever she could catch to stay alive. Rodents, insects, whatever she could find. It’s a miracle she was able to conceive after the brutal assaults she endured. I hate thinking about it. The guards at those prisons are the most depraved and sadistic tyrants on the planet. They’re embodied evil in its purest form.”
“Yeah, they’re not accountable to anyone. I hate to say this, but it’s crappy to keep Lauren in the dark. She should tell her daughter she’s okay.”
“We both know this kind of thing isn’t new to Lauren. My sister’s disappeared before, often for days at a time without calling. Look, it’s easy to judge her, think of her as a bad mom, but she’s doing the best she can. Considering the abuse she endured, I think she’s done a damned fine job as a mother. I totally understand her reasons for . . . withdrawing at times.”
He knew Harv wouldn’t respond, but sensed his friend wanted to say, You mean like you used to do to me? Like Jin, there’d been times when he hadn’t wanted any human contact at all.
Harv had been a godsend and still was. If Harv hadn’t rejected his attempts to shut him out, he might’ve killed himself and become another statistic in a veteran suicide file.
“Thanks for not saying it, Harv.”
“Ancient history.”
They watched a police cruiser with its light bar on race down the street. No siren, though.
“We have to remember that Jin never got any counseling for her PTSD. She didn’t have anyone to fall back on, like I did with you. She dealt with her demons alone. Truthfully, it’s a wonder she’s as balanced as she is.”
Harv nodded agreement. “Lauren’s finally old enough to understand her mom’s history, what she went through.”
“She doesn’t resent her mom anymore, at least not like she used to. Their level of trust isn’t where it should be, but they’ve made a lot of progress. We’ve talked about this a lot, Harv. Lauren doesn’t want to be bitter. She wants to appreciate the good times they’ve had and not dwell on the bad times.”
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