by Mike Maden
Bill was finishing up a cigarette in the designated smoking area way up high near the rig office, right next to one of the emergency lifeboats, enjoying a million-dollar ocean view. He flicked the butt off the rail and watched it drift down the two hundred feet or so toward the churning gulf waters below, but he lost sight of it before it hit the waves.
A glint of silver caught his eye and he glanced up. Bill had seen plenty of drones when he worked in the Persian Gulf and easily recognized the one circling overhead. Flying low.
He supported Myers’s most-wanted-list policy wholeheartedly, but kept that opinion to himself, since his Mexican counterparts on the rig were mostly against it. When he saw the Reaper, his heart skipped a beat. He was damn proud to be an American, and that little piece of technology roaring around in front of that four-cylinder turbocharged engine up there was yet another proof of American technological dominance.
What he couldn’t quite understand was why it was flying around his rig. He scanned the water around him, searching for a renegade Zodiac or maybe some frogmen who might be trying to sabotage the vulnerable platform, but he didn’t see anything.
He wondered if the Reaper was on some kind of routine patrol. Whoever was flying it must have been new on the job, though, because the wings kept wobbling and the plane yawed back and forth, as if it were fighting a stiff crosswind. He guessed it was a training mission for a young pilot stuck in a trailer in Nevada somewhere.
The Reaper circled lower and closer until Bill could see the big American flag on the fuselage and the two antitank missiles slung under its wings. It was close enough that he pulled out his smartphone and zoomed in on the drone with the built-in video camera.
WHOOSH! A missile roared off of its rack in a jet of flame and smoke.
“Shit!”
Bill nearly dropped his phone. He watched the missile track until it slammed into the side of the big oil tanker, just above the water line. The thin steel skin of the tanker erupted under the force of a warhead designed to penetrate heavy tank armor. Flaming oil gushed out into the gulf, forming a fiery slick near the ship and the pumping boom that connected it to the rig.
Bill raced for the door of his office to call it in when he heard another WHOOSH! overhead. It sounded so different from the first one, he instinctively knew it hadn’t been fired at the tanker.
A massive explosion rocked the oil rig. The missile had smashed into the wellhead assembly, the worst possible location. High-pressure oil and gases from deep within the earth’s crust now burst free and caught fire, creating a seventy-foot-tall blowtorch of white-hot flame. Fire quickly spread onto the main deck, fueled by the fine mist of oil clouding the air. New explosions rocked the steel decking under Bill’s feet as gas welding canisters and storage tanks exploded like a chain of firecrackers, throwing shards of jagged steel whistling through the air.
Within moments, the lower decks were enveloped in a cauldron of fire. Men roasting alive screamed as they threw themselves over the rails toward the ocean below. Fire crews grabbed hoses and fire extinguishers, and charged toward the advancing flames, but it was too late. The rig’s installation manager sounded the alarm. Sirens wailed. The few surviving crew members who weren’t trapped or already dead raced for the bright orange lifeboats hanging in their stanchions, Bill among them, but the sea itself was on fire. Chances were that they would be boiled alive inside the boats like lobsters in a pot.
The Aztec Dream had become a nightmare of the damned.
One hundred and twenty-five miles away, the Iranian drone technician maneuvered the Reaper back toward a hidden Bravo landing strip, his mission with the hijacked American Reaper a complete success.
46
New York City, New York
Oil prices skyrocketed once again and stock markets roiled around the world on the news of the American drone attack on the Mexican offshore oil rig.
Despite her administration’s protests to the contrary, the world firmly believed that Myers had taken out the oil rig in retaliation for the attack on the Houston tank farm weeks before.
Privately, the oil-producing nations thoroughly enjoyed the price spike. Countries like Saudi Arabia had crested their peak oil reserves in recent years; sooner rather than later the tap would run dry. Any boost in revenues, for whatever reason, was seen as a huge benefit.
Publicly, of course, those same oil-producing nations—Venezuela the most vociferous among them—decried the attacks on the PEMEX facility as an attack not just on an oil facility, but on the entire global marketplace, driven as it was by the free flow of petroleum. The Venezuelans claimed that America was just another “fading superpower” that was simply lashing out in a vain, unbridled attempt to crush the emerging Mexican economy. Socialist, Marxist, and racialist explanations were soon forthcoming from the usual sources both inside and outside of the United States.
But it was the UN secretary-general who surprised everybody when he introduced a resolution approving the most recent findings of the self-appointed Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP), whose members included the former presidents of Mexico, Colombia, and Chile, along with luminaries from the entertainment and financial industries. Myers’s unilateral actions had struck a sensitive nerve with the secretary-general and he’d long sought a means to combat them. The Mexican oil rig attack had finally given him the opportunity. Privately, the Russian delegation encouraged the secretary-general in his efforts.
The essential finding of the GCDP was that the War on Drugs was not only a failure but actually fueled other social crises, including the spread of HIV/AIDS. The GCDP was distinctly “antiwar” in every sense and advocated that all international efforts to curb drug use must focus exclusively on the prevention and treatment of drug abuse. The UN secretary-general called for a vote. He wanted the United Nations to formally affirm the GCDP’s finding.
In other words, the UN was voting against the Americans’ highly militarized approach to the drug problems their nation faced. What was particularly stinging about the resolution was that the GCDP findings were presented to the General Assembly by two other GCDP commissioners: a former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and a former secretary of state, both distinguished Americans. The nonbinding resolution passed with an overwhelming majority. Understandably, the United States protested and, ultimately, abstained from the vote.
* * *
The mainstream media picked up the UN story and ran with it, along with interviews with the oil rig survivors, including three Americans. Hospitalized in a medically induced coma, Bill Gordon was so badly burned that both of his arms had to be amputated above the elbows. But it was his video that had identified the Reaper as an American aircraft.
The Mexican government expressed its outrage in no uncertain terms. President Barraza, guided by Hernán’s counsel, began a national tour of historic sites, promoting Mexican nationalism and patriotic fervor. He was careful, however, to play up the victim angle, pledging to “resist as far as humanly possible the natural desire for justice and revenge that the Mexican people are calling for,” which was actually true after the oil rig attack.
The oil rig attack, coupled with the anti-Myers media blitz, fueled further protests in the United States. Whereas before the protestors had numbered only in the hundreds, the new protestors actually numbered in the tens of thousands. The biggest concentrations were in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, and New York, all cities with significant Hispanic populations.
Worse, the protests coincided with a “Day Without a Mexican” strike. As the day unfolded across the nation, America woke up to a new kind of “brownout.” Anglo America discovered that their yards weren’t being cut, their pools weren’t being cleaned, their cars weren’t being washed, and their burgers weren’t being flipped.
This strange rapture of cheap service labor wasn’t limited to the wealthy, either. Even middle-class families were hit by the startling phenomenon. Whole restaurant chains—from the high-end sit-downs to the
lowliest fast-food drive-thrus—suddenly shut their doors. Busboys, valets, checkout girls, fry cooks, sous chefs, and managers hadn’t shown up for work, either.
In Texas, freeway construction ground to a halt. In Iowa and Arkansas, the meat-slaughtering plants shut down. Home building and city services (especially garbage, sewer, and landscaping) nearly collapsed in the major urban areas. In the rural areas, farms and food processors that depended on the backbreaking and mind-numbing labor of pickers, handlers, and sorters could no longer function.
The spirit of César Chávez, the long-dead Chicano community and union organizer who first coined the term Sí, se puede (Yes, we can) forty years before Barack Obama had used it, had revivified, at least among Hispanics, fueled by the organizational and financial support of the Venezuelan agitprop mastermind behind the strike. Spanish-language radio stations and social-media sites spread the word like wildfire: “Yes, we can send a message. You Anglos killed Victor Bravo, you’ve tightened up the border, and you’re harassing us for documents you all know we don’t have, and we’re not happy about any of this.”
The strike threatened to spread and linger through the week, if not longer.
Angry, frustrated, self-righteous middle-class people from both parties, concerned over the well-being of their Hispanic friends, of course, complained bitterly.
Myers’s public opinion polls plummeted.
Washington, D.C.
Myers met with Early over morning coffee minutes before the Presidential Daily Briefing was about to begin.
“We’re sure this wasn’t a Drone Command screwup? I’m not looking to chop off heads, I just need to know,” Myers asked.
“They think it was a hijack. It’s happened before. A few years ago, the Iranians pulled down an RQ-170 Sentinel drone that had been flying over Pakistan. They reconfigured the drone’s GPS coordinates, fooling it into thinking it was landing back at base when it was really landing in Iran.”
“But this is more sophisticated than just swapping out map coordinates, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s got Ashley in a real lather. Someone actually took control of the drone—flew it, fired its weapons.”
“What has she done about it? Or can this happen again?”
“She says they’ve put together a new, more sophisticated encryption package on the satellite uplinks. That should solve the problem. The fleet is grounded until you give the okay.”
“‘Should’ solve the problem? I need better than that.”
“Your only ironclad guarantee against another hijack would be to keep the drone fleet grounded, drain the fuel tanks, and lock them up in storage.”
“That’s not acceptable, either.”
“There’s no such thing as a perfect weapons system. They all have vulnerabilities. You just have to decide if the risk of the vulnerability is worth the mission profile they fulfill.”
“What do you think, Mike?”
“I say keep them flying. If it happens again, then ground them again. Otherwise, the bad guys have taken away our biggest asset, and you’ll be forced back to conventional warfare options if you want to continue the full-court press.”
“Why can’t we track the Reaper’s GPS now and find it?”
“Its GPS system isn’t responding. Probably disengaged.”
“You said the Iranians hijacked one of our drones before. Are they the ones behind this?”
“Maybe. But the Iranians aren’t the only ones with that kind of technical know-how.”
“You mean the Chinese? The Russians?”
“Yeah, or the Indians or the Germans or the French or a hundred private companies right here at home. There’s no telling where the technology came from. Who’s using it is another matter.”
“Cui bono?” Myers asked.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
“It’s Latin. It means ‘Who benefits?’”
“As in higher oil prices?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a pretty short list of countries, but it also includes some Americans who stand to profit personally.”
“All right. Then who benefits from us getting tangled up in a war with Mexico or even all of Latin America?”
“That’s another list. Much longer, by the way.”
“And would some of the countries and names on the first list appear on the second list as well? Who benefits doubly from our predicament? That would be our third list.”
“That’s a very interesting question.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” She took a sip of coffee. “If Ashley feels good about it, keep the drones flying. I trust her judgment better than my own on this matter.”
“Will do. And I’ll keep my puzzler turned on. That third list is gonna be a humdinger.”
Galveston, Texas
Dr. Yamada punched in Pearce’s cell number.
“You okay, Kenji?” Pearce asked.
“I was gonna ask the same about you, brah. Lot goin’ down.”
“I’ve got my hands full.” Pearce didn’t tell him with what. He knew he wouldn’t want to hear he was hunting another human being. “How’s the beach down there?”
“Bah! Don’t call dat a beach. Air humid. Water hot like a bathtub, tar balls in there, too. Three-foot-high pile of seaweed all along the shore, and stinging sand flies. And worse? No waves!”
“You getting settled in okay?”
“Great facility. Everything arrived okay. Putting the puzzle pieces together. We’ll be ready to go for your oil-baron buddies next month.”
“Thanks, Kenji. Good to know there’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.”
“You keep safe, brah. Me and my whales need you.”
47
Hollywood, California
It was another beautiful late-summer evening in Southern California. It had been a warm day, but once the sun went down, a light breeze blew in from the Pacific and the temperature dropped to a pleasant seventy-four degrees.
The cool air was good for the Friday night tourists who packed the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard, still mostly dressed in shorts and flip-flops from their daytime adventures. But it wasn’t so good for Jacinto and his little paleta pushcart, still half full of rum, coconut, and arroz con leche ice cream bars that he had a hard time selling to the gringos, who seemed to want only chocolate and vanilla.
Jacinto wanted to finish the night by selling out his cart, a point of personal pride. Most of the other guys just worked their paletas until quitting time, but not Jacinto. He didn’t quit until he was sold out. Ever.
Except maybe tonight.
The sidewalk was so crowded that he pushed his cart out into the street. There was no parking on the street this time of day, so it was easier to do. The cops wouldn’t stop him with all of the crowds around, and it would cause too much of a traffic jam if they did stop to bother him. He jingled his little bell every few feet and flashed a gold-toothed smile. “Paletas, paletas,” he’d half sing as he made his way toward the big movie house.
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre faced Hollywood Boulevard. Jacinto knew it was probably the most famous movie theater in the world with its Chinese pagoda and all of the hand- and footprints of movie stars out front in the forecourt. Jacinto had been there many times before. He’d even put his hands down on the handprints in the cement to see which hands fit his. He found one once, but he couldn’t read the name.
Jacinto had never seen a movie at this theater because he only watched films made in Spanish, and even then, he could only afford to rent movies, not spend ten or fifteen bucks to buy a movie ticket in places like this one. He also knew he’d never be a movie star, or have his handprints or footprints in the cement out front. But that was fine with Jacinto. He had no desire to be famous.
There was a huge crowd in front of Grauman’s tonight, larger than usual. It was another big movie premiere. He wasn’t sure what the movie was about; he couldn’t read the newspaper, but not because it was in English. He could hardly read Spanish, e
ither. He’d dropped out of school in the second grade to work in the fields with his father and never went back. But that was a long time ago.
The movie was some American movie, though. There were lots of American flags all around, and the movie posters showed American soldiers wearing their war paint and holding guns. Maybe that’s why there were so many people here tonight. Americans liked war movies as much as they liked war, it seemed to Jacinto. Maybe some of these gringos would like some of his ice cream while they waited in line.
Jacinto steered the little pushcart back onto the sidewalk in order to reach the theater. A man dressed like Superman stood in his way, and when Jacinto tried to move around him, a woman dressed like a cat blocked him again. So many of these gringos weren’t just strange, they were rude. It was very crowded and hard to push the cart into the forecourt. But he’d promised he’d try, so he was trying.
“Paletas, paletas,” he half mumbled, knowing that no one was paying attention to him. He was just another little brown ice cream cart pusher in a city full of little brown ice cream cart pushers. Still, it would be good if someone bought at least one more ice cream tonight. Maybe that would be a sign.
He nudged his cart and rang his little bell, and people would sometimes frown at him and sometimes cuss at him. He knew they were cussing because their faces turned so ugly, but it didn’t bother him because he couldn’t understand what they were saying. But sometimes someone would smile nicely at him, and he would smile back, a big toothy grin, flashing his front gold tooth.
Jacinto checked his watch. It was 6:58 p.m. If he could sell just one more coconut bar, that would be the best thing ever, he decided.
“Paletas, paletas. El coco. Muy dulce.” But no one wanted to buy a coconut bar from him.
He thought about Victor Bravo. It made him sad. He knew Victor. They were kids together, even friends. What the Americans did to Victor was wrong. Victor was a good man just trying to help the poor people. What did he ever do to the Americans?