by James Hunt
“How far out are Gallo’s ships?” Ford asked.
“Half a mile, sir,” Kent answered.
“Scramble the jets,” Howard ordered.
Plane directors, arresting gear officers, and catapult officers carried out their duties with efficient mastery. The system in place could launch an aircraft every thirty seconds.
“Confirmed enemy missile launch,” Kent said.
“Deploy defensive tactics,” Howard replied.
A stream of smoke and fire erupted from the missile systems of the two American warships escorting the USS Ronald Reagan. The coordinated launch set a deadly course to intercept the incoming missiles. The missiles twisted and whined through the air at hundreds of miles per hour. Upon their contact with the enemy strike, the sky erupted with fireworks of war. Vibrations from the blasts rippled through the air and into the chests of everyone aboard the ship.
“Launch counterstrike,” Howard said.
A larger, more lethal volley of missiles set course for the attacking Mexican ships. The enemy warships enacted their own countermeasures but became overwhelmed. Red-and-black explosions of heat and steel rocked the Mexican warships. Howard watched smoke plume from the enemy ships. With the majority of the Mexican warships now burning, the American aircraft controlled the sky.
“Good effect,” Kent answered.
The blue western horizon became diluted with fires and smoke. The distress signals coming in from the Mexican ships began to fill airways. But there would be no response. Gallo had only attacked the lone USS Ronald Reagan because he thought the surrounding American ships would not engage. The cries for help over the radio waves would fall on deaf ears.
***
The president smashed the phone from his desk against the window of the Oval Office. The outburst was a result of the reports coming out of the Pacific and Texas. The president’s surrounding advisors remained silent, staring at the shattered phone on the carpet.
“How did this happen?” the president asked.
The joint chiefs, the personnel aides, the vice president, and everyone else who should have answered the president’s question turned their heads to Jones, who was alone in the back corner of the room. Jones needed to choose his next words very carefully.
“Mr. President, I think it’s first important to understand the motives behind these attacks. Perhaps Gallo’s men assumed the USS Ronald Reagan was still operating under the deserter Captain Howard’s command?” Jones asked.
“And I suppose Texas was an accident as well?”
The president’s tone was mocking, and a very noticeable twitch had formed in the corner of his eye. As much power as Jones had in Congress, he still didn’t have absolute control over the presidency. And upsetting the most powerful man in the world was not wise.
“I do not suppose in matters of war, Mr. President. That is not my area of expertise,” Jones said, attempting to sway focus back to the joint chiefs.
“Jones, I’ll be asking Congress for a declaration of war. I expect you to make sure it’s passed.”
“Sir, I understand the need for retaliation, but I would strongly encourage opening a line of dialogue between yourself and the Mexican president. I’m sure there could be some—”
The president slammed his fist onto the table. The loud, resonating thump caused half the room to jump. A red tinge filled the president’s cheeks. “There is no agreement to be reached! They have attacked us by land, sea, and air. I want them crushed!”
“Of course, Mr. President.”
Politicians, generals, and assistants all slithered out of the Oval Office. Amid the hasty retreat, Jones cornered Vice President Johnson out in the hallway.
“Mr. Vice President, I’m hoping this doesn’t change what we spoke about,” Jones said.
“Whatever conversations we may have had were completely off the record, Congressman.
Understand?” Johnson said.
“Of course, sir, but don’t you agree that we now need diplomacy more than ever? This war will bankrupt us.”
“You really expect me to publicly front an alliance with the Mexican government after what they just did?”
“I’m not asking for anything, Mr. Vice President. Simply take some time to think about it.”
“I don’t need time, Congressman. This discussion is over, and do not bring it up again.”
Vice President Johnson jammed his finger in Jones’s face to accentuate his point. Before Jones could utter another word, Johnson was gone, and he was left alone in the hallway outside the Oval Office. He was now the most marked man in Washington. For the first time in his twenty-five-year career in Congress, he was weak.
Years of planning, of putting the right people in place, of establishing the pull and control needed to coordinate such a stunt, had been undone the moment the first shots were fired over the fields of Texas. Jones couldn’t believe Gallo’s actions. All of this over some lost war more than one hundred fifty years ago, during a time when the wetback wasn’t even alive.
Jones dialed Gallo on his cell while walking back to his office. “Pick up, dammit!”
He tried three more times, but each instance only lead to an endless series of rings in his ear. Jones shoved the phone back into his suit pocket and climbed into the black sedan waiting for him outside the White House. Jones’s chief of staff, Ken, was already in the car waiting for him. Jones harshly unbuttoned the three studs on the front of his jacket, closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly.
“What kind of damage are we looking at?” Jones asked.
Ken answered by extending a brown envelope pinched between his bony, liver-spotted fingers. Jones snatched it from him and grabbed the contents inside. It was a single piece of paper with nothing more than a number to call and the time to do it.
“Have they reached out in a more official manner?” Jones asked.
“No. I’m assuming they want to keep this one off the books,” Ken answered.
For the past twenty years, Jones had had a very large benefactor making sure that he had the appropriate funds and contacts to stay efficient in Congress. His backer had also been responsible for the majority of his campaign funds and had blackmailed his opponents during reelection when necessary.
After a short drive, Jones’s driver came around to his door and opened it for him. Jones hurried up the steps to his office, with Ken lagging painfully behind him. Once behind closed doors, he rested the envelope on his desk and unlocked the bottom drawer. He pulled out a burner phone and dialed the number from the message. Two rings later, a voice answered.
“Hello, Jones.”
The voice on the other end of the line was hoarse. He’d never met the person on the other end of these calls, and he hoped he never would. Whatever creatures worked in the shadows for the Strydent Chemical Company only revealed themselves in dire circumstances. And Jones didn’t want to be the reason this particular creature emerged.
“You know I’m working on it,” Jones answered.
“We’re concerned, Congressman.”
“This has been a setback, nothing more. It can still be salvaged.”
“We have already invested considerable capital in Brazil. Without the muscle to back it up, we will lose every last penny.”
“Then I suggest you stop wasting my time with these phone calls so I can get back to work!”
Jones snapped the flip phone shut and threw it back into the drawer. He kicked it shut with the side of his dress shoe, and his pointed elbows thudded against the top of his desk as he collapsed into his chair.
His bony fingers rubbed the dark circles underneath his eyes. Those spots had become increasingly darker over the past twenty-four hours, like thunderclouds gathering before the beginning of a terrible storm.
***
The line of people at the Lubbock City Police Station in Texas stretched out the door. Dozens of armed Texans were holding the restraints of their Southwestern captives. Once inside the police doors, the former United
States citizens fleeing from California, Arizona, and New Mexico were being readied to be sent back to the now exiled territories.
The officer working the front desk of the station was buried behind stacks of documents outlining the personal information of each immigrant trying to sneak across the Texas border, along with the accomplices helping them. Most of them were family members just trying to help get their kids, grandparents, cousins, uncles, or other loved ones out of the mess that was the Southwest.
The chaos of balancing the growing impatience of the line in front of her and the continued ringing of the phone was making her head spin.
“Chuck!” the officer called.
Her voice wasn’t able to penetrate the storm of voices from officers booking criminals, detectives interviewing suspects, and pleas of innocence from everyone who wasn’t wearing a badge. She stood up and cupped her hands around her mouth.
“CHUCK!”
A short-haired, mustached, pot-bellied detective with a mustard stain on his beige tie popped up from his desk with a piece of salami hanging out of his mouth.
“What?” Chuck asked.
“Got a bounty hunter here says he knows you.”
The bounty hunter wore a wide-brimmed black cowboy hat with a rattlesnake hide wrapped around the front. The heels of his alligator boots clicked against the laminate floor. He wore jeans with a knife sheath strapped to his right leg. A white t-shirt was hidden by his Rothco Soft Shell Tactical M-65 jacket.
The bounty hunter kept his head tilted low, only allowing the people around him to see the stubble running along his jawline and chin. The methodical clack of his boots ended once he arrived at Chuck’s desk.
“I want my money, Chuck.”
“Terry, listen. You got the reward money. It’s the same for everybody.”
With one fluid motion, Terry pulled a blade from the sheath on the side of his leg and slammed the tip into Chuck’s desk. The noise silenced the rest of the station and caused a few of the officers nearby to draw their pistols.
“Drop the knife!” the officers shouted.
Chuck started to tremble, and the fat under his chin wobbled along with the rest of him. He looked to his fellow officers and put his hands up. He gave a nervous grin.
“It’s okay, everyone. It’s just a joke. He’s joking,” Chuck said, laughing.
Terry released his grip on the knife, but the blade remained vertical. The officers around him slowly lowered their pistols. The conversation in the room started to pick back up.
“Keep your friend in line, Chuck,” one of the officers said.
“Yeah, sorry,” Chuck answered.
Chuck stood up, ushering Terry into an interrogation room where they could talk. The one-way glass wall was to the left of the entrance, and a small table with four chairs were the room’s only contents. Once Terry was inside, Chuck followed and closed the door behind him.
“Jesus H. Christ, are you crazy?” Chuck asked. “You can’t do that in the middle of a police station. Especially in a climate like this!”
“I brought in four illegals this morning. It’s one thousand dollars a head. The deposit in my account only registered two thousand. You’re two grand short, Chucky.”
“Look, since the Mexicans attacked the other day, funds are being shifted to military applications. They lowered the price of illegal bounties to five hundred this morning because of it. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t give me my money.”
Terry grabbed Chuck by the collar and slammed him against the wall. It was the first time Chuck got a good look at Terry’s eyes. They were dark green. More black than green.
“Look, I don’t have the money, but I did just get another notice for some fugitives that escaped border patrol during the Mexican attack,” Chuck said. “One of them was ex-military, which still gives a reward of five thousand, plus the extra five hundred from the girl he’s traveling with.”
Terry increased the pressure on Chuck’s throat until the cop’s cheeks turned a light shade of purple then released him. Chuck collapsed on all fours, gasping and hacking. Finally, after a few moments collecting himself on the ground, he rose and opened the door.
Chuck led Terry back to his desk and shuffled through the disorganized papers on top. He checked the drawers, then pulled out two sheets of paper and set them down for Terry to see.
“There. One female, aged thirty-seven, one male, aged thirty-three,” Chuck said.
Terry snatched the papers up and examined them with those dark-green eyes. He flipped through the pages, taking in every detail he could. Once finished, he tossed the papers back onto the desk and collected his knife.
Some of the officers kept eyeballing him on his way out, and once Terry was out the front door, Chuck practically fainted into his chair.
One of the other detectives leaned over to him. “Who the hell was that?”
“That was two hundred pounds of vicious, bloodhound, tracking terror,” Chuck answered.
“Bounty hunter?”
“Yeah.”
“God, those bastards have been coming out of the woodwork since the government started offering those rewards to catch folks trying to sneak over the border.”
“Yeah, well, this guy has been doing it for a long time. I feel sorry for these two.”
Chuck looked at Brooke and Eric’s pictures, provided by the DMV’s photos from their driver’s licenses.
“Terry always gets his mark,” Chuck said.
Chapter 2
The sunlight reflecting against the skyscrapers of Dallas beggared relief. A trail of footsteps followed Brooke in the Texas sand. Each step forward sank her boots a quarter inch deep. The weight of her backpack straps pressed hard against her shoulders. She could feel the heat of the sun baking her through the shemagh wrapped around her head.
Once she had awoken earlier that morning, she knew the closest town was Dallas. And if there were a good place to run out of fuel, this would be it. The drought had drained most of Texas’s economy. The cattle industry plummeted, and farmland become desolate fields of dust as the water levels slowly dissipated. However, the state of Texas had found riches in one of its oldest traditions: oil.
Oil reserves once hidden underneath pockets of fresh groundwater were now exposed. Since there was no longer the threat of damaging an underwater ecosystem that didn’t exist, Texas witnessed a massive resurgence in the oil drilling and refining industries.
Upon entering the streets of Dallas, Brooke made sure to adjust the shemagh concealing her face. She couldn’t be sure if the authorities were looking for her or how far their reach would go, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
Lines of cars clogged the streets of downtown as Brooke weaved through the hordes of people walking along the suit-ridden sidewalks. With resources being shifted to protect the water supply, standards had dropped for air quality.
Before she started looking for fuel, she needed to make a call. She entered a small store and purchased a bottle of water with cash, giving her enough change to use the pay phone outside. She slid the coins into the slot and dialed her sister’s number. The phone rang, and Brooke prayed that Amy would pick up.
“Hello?” Amy asked.
“Amy! It’s Brooke.”
“Thank God. Are you okay? Where are you? What happened?”
“I’m fine. Me and the kids are fine. I’m in Dallas right now.”
“Dallas?”
“Yeah, we’re refueling, and then we’re going to head east.”
“Brooke, they’re arresting anyone that tries to come across. It’s been all over the news. Police officers, bounty hunters, people just trying to make a quick buck for the reward money are going nuts. It’s bad.”
“I know. I’m being careful. Look, can you talk to Daniel? See if there is anything he can do?”
“Of course. Should I call you?”
“No. If the authorities are watching things that closely, they’ll be looking at my ph
one records. I don’t want anything to get traced back to you. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, let you know where we’re at.”
“Okay. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Brooke set the receiver down, and the change inside the pay phone clunked to the bottom. She readjusted her shemagh and continued down the busy Dallas streets. It felt like the entire population of Texas was in the city, which was one of the reasons Brooke had come alone. She wanted to avoid bringing the cruiser here to fuel up. It was her best bet for staying below police radar. Now that she was in the largest fuel capital in the United States, the question wasn’t finding gas but how to bring enough of it back to the cruiser.