Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista

by Matthew Bracken

  Ranya had not been specifically invited to join them, neither had she been given any other instructions, so she sat near Basilio Ramos, on his right side. She didn’t partake in their discussions, which were conducted in Spanish too rapid and colloquial for her to follow in detail. Wearing dark wraparound Oakley-style sunglasses, she was able to discreetly study the men around her, or tune them out, as she chose.

  She was confused by Basilio’s on-and-off, hot and cold reaction to her. Ranya marked it down to his shifting priorities—when he was with his mini-battalion, she was an unneeded accessory. When he needed a rifle expert, he would call upon her. Now, amidst his subordinate officers, her function seemed to be purely ornamental. She was el Che’s current amiga, a living, breathing symbol of his alpha-male macho supremacy.

  Today at least, she was able to pop open her own can of Tecate beer, and not worry about something being slipped into it. After her experience with the strawberry margaritas, she had decided that she would not drink anything which did not come directly out of a tap, or which she had not opened personally.

  A wooden gazebo on the former headmaster’s back lawn had been enclosed with wire mesh and converted into an aviary. Inside, a raptor was perched on a T-shaped stand, tearing with its cruelly-hooked beak at the remains of a small furry creature pinned in its talons. The reddish-brown bird was probably a Harris hawk and not a falcon at all, Ranya decided. No doubt a battalion mascot—and another decorative prisoner like herself. Was the bird ever allowed out for hunting, she wondered? If the hawk was allowed to fly free, would it return to a master’s gauntleted hand? Or would it disappear forever, back into the wild?

  Four of the Zetas, including Chino and Genizaro, sat at a separate table thirty feet behind the Falcon leaders. Ranya noted that they were sipping non-alcoholic soft drinks. They were once again wearing their tan combat vests, with their carbines resting close at hand. Even within the walls of the academy, Basilio’s security detail was plainly taking their duty seriously.

  The conversation among the leaders alternated between animated commentary on the soccer game, and an informal after-action debrief of the day’s activities. It was decided that in the future major battalion convoy movements should be accompanied by the Piper or another aircraft overhead, equipped with video and infra-red cameras. The consensus was that the isolated sniper and his motorcycle would have been ferreted out by an aircraft on patrol, or even by a UAV drone if one was available. An aircraft waiting on the ground even five minutes away was too slow in its reaction time to be of any use in warding off danger.

  Ramos and his subordinate leaders spent several more minutes discussing the need for more airplanes and helicopters to be tasked in support of the battalion. The fuel for the extra flying hours this would demand would have to be found, somehow. Ramos assured his lieutenants that he was going to personally take the matter to his superiors, and demand they be provided the airplanes and helicopters they needed in order to conduct their missions properly. Their Spanish was fast, diversely accented and full of colloquialisms Ranya couldn’t catch, but the gist of their discussion was perfectly clear.

  They also discussed the merits of confiscating the houses on the culde-sac in Warner Ranch, where the sniper Jan De Vries had been killed. Most of the houses were already vacant or still unfinished, and the cul-desac had potential as a battalion stronghold in far western Albuquerque. It would benefit battalion morale to begin providing selected troops with concrete, tangible rewards for their efforts toward the liberation of Nuevo Mexico.

  Ranya sipped her cold cerveza in silence, hiding her thoughts behind her dark sunglasses, brooding. She was getting nowhere. Her son was only a few miles away, and she was stuck, trapped, a virtual prisoner. When the attention of the group turned to the soccer field, after a bold takeaway and a fast race toward the distant goal, she leaned in towards Basilio Ramos, and said, “I need to speak to you.”

  “What? Go ahead.”

  “In private,” she replied, so that only he could hear.

  “Eh? Oh, yes. Come on, let’s go for a walk. I’ll show you around our new Falcon Academy.” He picked up his brown beret from the table, put it on and carefully adjusted it, and they left the informal officer’s assembly. The four Zetas rose at the same time, slinging their carbines to hang in front at the ready. They spread into a wide box, the four corners a hundred feet from their Comandante.

  Once they were alone (except for his ever-present shadows), Ramos switched to English. “You know, most of the people who live in this city have never seen the inside of this place—it was only for the rich. For la gente, the ordinary people, the New Mexico Academy was known only by its outer walls—if they even knew it existed.”

  They strolled side-by-side on a paved walkway, which meandered between brick faculty homes and a half-dozen enclosed tennis courts. His hands were joined behind his back, hers were at her side.

  “If they were so wealthy, then why did they give up their academy?” she asked.

  “Well, the richest families began leaving New Mexico when Deleon was elected, and the school lost many of its students. Then there was a new tax put on properties over 100 acres inside of the city. Frankly, the law was passed to allow us to confiscate this place, and a few others that we needed. But even without that law, we can basically take any property we need.”

  “What about the Constitution?”

  “What Constitution? The gringo Constitution?” Ramos smiled, and laughed. “Who bothers about that anymore? Don’t worry—the gringos are too busy putting out fires in their big cities to worry about what we do here. This academy was an important symbol of Anglo power in New Mexico. It was important to take it away, as a lesson to the oligarchs. Look around you: the rich gabachos enjoyed baseball, tennis, handball, racquetball…there’s even an indoor swimming pool! Nothing was too good for those rich boys! I’ll tell you something, my troops have never lived so well. For my men who come from dusty little villages and crowded barrios, this Falcon Academy is a paradise. Now, what did you want to discuss?”

  What indeed! Was last night’s ardor already forgotten by him? She had planned her words on the return drive, while half-listening to his officers discussing the day’s events. Now that she could address him alone, her words came haltingly. “Basilio, I have to know what I am, who I am. To you, and to the battalion. Outside of New Mexico, Ranya Bardiwell is hunted by the gringo federales. Here, I have no name, no identity. I can’t live like this, I just can’t! Who am I? What am I? I have killed for the Milicia, and I have taken up arms for the battalion, but still I am nobody. How long can I exist as your shadow, as only the Comandante’s amiga?”

  He turned in front of her, his hands on his hips, cocked his head and smiled. “It’s not so bad to be my lover, is it?”

  She looked briefly into his eyes, hazel like her own, and then away. “I don’t know. Basilio, that wasn’t me, last night. I must have been very drunk. No—I’m sorry—I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, I don’t regret it, what happened, but still… That’s not how I am. Not who I am. You must think I’m very cheap, after last night.” She folded her arms across her chest, turned and stared at the captive hawk caged in its gazebo aviary.

  “No, of course not…”

  “You have to lead your battalion—I understand that. I respect that. There are many important missions coming for the Falcons, I know that. But I want to join the effort too, and to do that, I need a name of my own, so that I can win my own place in the people’s struggle.”

  “I understand. We can give you a new identity, that’s not a problem. Most of my men have new identities.”

  “I don’t belong with your men, with the Falcons. There must be other units where I could fit better. Perhaps as a translator? Or with the student Voluntarios? Or even as an ordinary Miliciano.”

  “Hmmm… Well, you can’t simply join the Milicia, just like that. First, you need to go through their training course to qualify, and that means six weeks in the no
rth, in the mountains. It’s very rugged, even brutal. I’m sure you can handle it; there are some female Milicianos, but…frankly, not all of the regular Milicianos are the best troops. And forget about the student Voluntarios: most of them are trash, completely useless. We tolerate them only for the propaganda value their presence brings to the revolución. Very soon we’ll be sending most of them home.”

  “Then I would prefer to join the regular Milicia, to earn my own brown beret.” Ranya had thought long and hard about her best escape options, and was making this offer as a gambit, to transform the current status quo. She hoped that by volunteering for the Milicia, she would clearly demonstrate her dedication to the ‘people’s struggle.’ By volunteering, she would prove her ideological reliability, and increase the chances that she would be allowed to slip from her gilded cage. It was certain that as long as she was merely “el Che’s woman,” she would not be able to escape the encircling grasp of his bodyguards, wherever they went.

  “Yes, of course, you could do that. A new Milicia training class begins Monday. If that’s what you really want…”

  “Yes, it is. It’s what I want, very much.”

  “Well then, we’ll need to get you a new name and identity papers. Fortunately, this is standard procedure. We control the entire process now, from birth certificates, to driver’s licenses, to registering to vote. Everything. In the meantime, you are welcome to stay at my house.”

  “Thank you Basilio…but I have to tell you, that after last night…I’m…I don’t know how to put this. After five years in the camps, without a man, and then last night… I’m afraid I’m really rather…”

  “I understand.”

  “I couldn’t…”

  “Don’t worry. I really do understand.” He turned, and they resumed their walk together. “Ranya, would you like to go out to dinner again? If you’re going to go up to the camps for Milicia training, I can assure you, you will not enjoy the meals. You may even wish you were back in your old camp in Oklahoma.”

  She laughed. “Oh, no, there’s no chance of that! Thank you Basilio. Yes, I would very much enjoy going to dinner with you.”

  “Well, I’m finished here anyway. Let’s go back to my house, and you can do whatever you need to get ready for going out.”

  They returned to the patio area near the soccer field, walking side by side but making no public display of affection. Ramos was in uniform, and he had his appearance as Comandante to maintain. His junior officers and NCOs respectfully stood up as he approached.

  “Caballeros,” Ramos began in rather formal Spanish, “I have an announcement to make. Our Arab friend ‘Señorita X’ has enjoyed her time with us so much, that she is joining the Milicia. She will begin her training next week!”

  His officers and NCOs broke into grins and actually applauded. “Oh, she’ll make a fine troop! She’s already a dead shot! She should be an instructor, not a student!”

  ***

  Ramos excused himself from the group. He quietly told Ranya, “Come on, let’s go,” and they headed for their vehicles with his four bodyguards in tow. When they reached the parking area by the gym, he said, “We’ll take a Suburban, but this time I’ll drive. I like to be unpredictable. It’s better for my health.”

  His four Zeta bodyguards, in an identical black SUV, preceded him through the main gate and out of the Academy. This security vehicle circled through the quiet residential neighborhood outside of the wall, and then looped back and gave the ‘all-clear’ on a walkie-talkie. Only then did Comandante Ramos pull out to follow them. Ranya was sitting across from him in the front passenger seat.

  Ramos noted the time on the console’s digital clock, it was five PM. Alone with her again, he spoke in English. “Don’t get the wrong idea, but I like to check the gringo radio stations. I want to know if they’ve heard what happened today.”

  He switched the radio to the AM band, and then he tuned in an English-speaking talk radio station. They caught the national news headlines first. The Compton fire in Los Angeles was still inexplicably raging out of control after a week, destroying several square miles of the city. This was tentatively blamed on an incipient three-way civil war between Hispanic, African-American and Asian gangs. Lawlessness and anarchy were spreading across greater Los Angeles, with a flood of desperate refugees fleeing the zone of total destruction in Compton. Martial law had been declared, and Marines from Camp Pendleton were being sent in to restore order. Fortunately for the national economy, the vital railroad tracks and fuel pipelines leading out of the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles had not been seriously damaged by the fires.

  The standoff and siege of the Muslim Quarter was ongoing in Detroit. The Imams were asking for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent to be allowed in, to witness that children and the elderly were dying of hunger. Police marksmen were picking off armed Muslim gunmen inside of the barricaded enclave, and in return police cars were the targets of snipers and improvised explosive devices. So far, the President was resisting enormous pressure to send in regular infantry troops, and terminate the insurgency by force of arms. The grim specter of an impending “American Fallujah” lay over the nation.

  The private ownership of more than five ounces of non-jewelry and non-numismatic gold had been outlawed. The new amnesty period for redeeming gold coins and bullion (at the fixed exchange rate of $1,000 per ounce in “New Dollars”) would not be extended beyond the end of June. The collection of the now-illegal gold was expected to run smoothly, since privately owned gold had already been registered under the previous “gold amnesty program,” which was no longer in effect. The President was glowingly compared to FDR, for having the resolute courage to take these stern but necessary measures, intended to shore up the faltering dollar and stabilize the national economy. A recent public opinion survey showed that large majorities supported confiscating the illegal bullion from “ultrarich speculators and gold hoarders.”

  Meanwhile, “currency regularization” with Canada and Mexico was back on the fast track in Congress, as part of the President’s “North American Community” initiative. The new “Amero” was expected to replace dollars and pesos within one year.

  At six minutes after the hour, local afternoon talk host Rick Haywood began an angry monologue. “We have an update on the story the KNMR radio news team broke this morning. That was about last night’s fatal one-car accident, where three people died when their car ran off of Tramway Road. Here’s what we know so far: a reliable source says that only hours before the fatal accident, the three victims were in a verbal altercation with some of our ‘brown-bereted guest soldiers’ at the Sandia Tramway lift station. The argument was so heated that the ‘brown-bereted guest soldiers’ felt the need to point machine guns at the three Americans—who ‘coincidentally’ were later found dead. That’s the story as we reported it earlier today.”

  Ranya stared straight ahead, trying not to tremble, picturing the three Americans alive at the tramway last evening. She remembered Chuck, the mouthy Texan wearing the cowboy hat, and his two timid local relatives. Murdered, she was quite certain, for embarrassing Basilio Ramos in public. Murdered, no doubt on his orders, on the very night that she had been so charmed by him.

  “And this next part is brand new—it’s another tip from one of our many loyal and patriotic friends still working in law enforcement. The victim’s car was a white Nissan Altima, but when it was towed back out of the ravine this morning, our police source reports that it had black paint streaks along its driver’s side. Just a wild guess, but if you can find enough gas to be out driving today, you might want to look out for a black SUV or pickup, with fresh white paint on its passenger side. Just a suggestion, just a thought, not that it will matter in the long run—except maybe to a few of us stubborn gringos they can’t run out of New Mexico.”

  Haywood paused and took a deep breath, muttered to himself, and continued his monologue. “In other news, or perhaps, just perhaps, it’s related news, there seem
s to have been a serious traffic accident out on west Paseo del Norte earlier this afternoon. It seems that a truckload of ‘brown-bereted guest soldiers’ flipped over for no apparent reason. No reason at all. This accident may or may not be related to the brown-bereted guest soldiers making an armed house call in Warner Ranch shortly after the accident. During the armed house call, one lone holdout gringo seems to have succumbed to acute lead poisoning, along with his dog.

  “As I said, it’s impossible to know for certain if the ‘accident’ on Paseo del Norte is related to the ‘lead poisoning incident’ in Warner Ranch. Some folks have even suggested that the driver of the brownbereted guest soldiers’ truck might have suffered from a severe case of lead poisoning himself, right before his truck flipped over. But of course, there’s no way to really know for sure. And since none of this will be in your local Quisling newspaper or on traitor television, I suppose it’s possible it never really even happened anyway. But hey, what do I know? I’m just your humble radio host, passing along what comes in, broadcasting as always from a secure, undisclosed location…”

  Ramos stabbed the radio on-off button, silencing the talk show host. “Shit! That filthy gringo bastard! Now even the police are calling him with tips—even after we fired all of the gringo cops! Oh, that pendejo! Of all the right-wing reactionary fascists on the radio, he’s the worst!”

  Inwardly, Ranya was applauding this feisty Rick Haywood—he sure had plenty of guts to talk the way he did about the Milicia. She had to suppress her laughter at each mention of “brown-bereted guest soldiers,” so only with difficulty, she mirrored Ramos’s stern visage. She knew that she needed to continue wearing her Marxist mask, to convince him of her dedication to la causa, the cause.