Gordon Ryan - State of Rebellion

“There are still nearly half who are opposed, Roger, but I’m sure you and the brigade boys are willing to bring the recalcitrant ones around so they can see the light,” Dan replied.

Dahlgren nodded. “Only if they see it’s for the good of California. Of course, I can’t spout a lengthy family heritage in this valley like you do, but perhaps my roots and branches are growing in the right direction. You’d be wise to listen to your heart, Dan. California’s your home and your future, if you’re smart. If you get elected to the legislature, you could be a big help to us.”

“And if we remain on opposite sides of the issue?” Dan challenged.

“The train’s moving. Don’t get left standing around the station when it pulls out, or even worse,” he said slowly, glancing toward his pickup and the driver, “don’t fall under the wheels and get run over.”

“You mean like the ATF agents did?” Dan replied. “I’ll try to keep my wits about me, Rog. Now if you’ll excuse us, we better be moving on.”

“Sure thing.” Roger slapped the hood of the Blazer. “And nice to see you, too, pretty lady,” he said to Nicole, who remained silent. Roger climbed back into the pickup, and the driver made another U-turn, his tattooed arm hanging out the driver’s side window as he drove past. Spinning his tires, he heading back up the valley.

“That,” Dan said to Nicole as he pulled back onto the highway, “is our illustrious city manager, Roger Dahlgren. He used to be a fairly regular guy, but reputedly, he’s now a captain in the Shasta Brigade, and from what we just saw, enjoying his new bully pulpit.”

Nicole reached over and rubbed Dan’s shoulder and neck. “I thought only dogs and wild animals had the hair on the back of their necks stand up,” she said.

“Survival instinct, I suppose. He’s getting quite brazen in his approach. I didn’t recognize the tattooed gorilla driving,” Dan said.

“What say we finish the evening in style, Mr. Rawlings, and you take me for a bite to eat and to the world famous Rumsey Valley Almond Festival?”

Dan looked over at Nicole, reached for her hand, and kissed the back of it. “Anything m’lady wants this evening,” he replied, anxious to dispel the tension that hung in the air following Roger Dahlgren’s veiled threat.

“Well, how about a quiet fifteen-minute drive and the strains of the Light Cavalry Overture?” she suggested.

“I knew you were a smart cookie,” Dan said. “Your intelligence is equaled only by your good taste in men.”

Nicole smiled. “The jury’s still out on my judgment, Mr. Rawlings, but the polling has started.”

California Desert

Ninety miles east of San Diego, California

March, 2012

I don’t care if it is four-thirty in the morning,” he hollered, “call him now! I want him to see this first-hand. And don’t touch a thing until he arrives.”

Winston Pierce, deputy director, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, stood in an open-necked shirt and khaki pants, a handkerchief pressed against his nose and face to stifle the odor. The ghastly, overpowering smell, repressed only slightly by the fact that the temperature in the predawn hours had finally dropped, was nauseating. Pierce was surrounded by a dozen border patrol agents and local sheriff’s deputies. The only consolation was the fact that no news media had yet discovered the grisly find.

Parked before him, in an isolated desert warehouse six miles north of the Mexican border, stood a six-wheeled, box-shaped truck, unmarked, with both rear doors open. The interior of the box was illuminated by floodlights glaring from temporary stands, providing sufficient light for officials to go about their gruesome task of identifying-or at least separating-the cargo in the back of the truck. The flies, unaware of the hour, were busily engaged in their own investigation. Invited by their well-developed organoleptic sensors, the insects outnumbered the agents by thousands.

The only ones unaffected by the appalling sight were the sixteen bodies in various states of decomposition, stacked inside the back of the truck. For them, neither the early hour, nor the overwhelming odor, nor the approaching heat of daylight mattered. They were at peace.

Particularly galling to the deputy director were the bodies of a young girl and a tiny, newborn infant, sprawled near the rear of the van. Thinking of his own precious teenaged daughter, Pierce fought to control tears. Many of the other equally experienced officers simply gave up and wept.

When the cellular call was connected to the five-star hotel in San Diego less than fifty miles away, Rodrigo Cordoba, Chief, Mexican Federal Police, was brusquely awakened by the insistent ringing of his bedside phone. In San Diego to attend the same immigration conference at which Deputy Director Pierce was to speak, he had been sleeping off the effects of a night of drinking and was slow to pick up the phone. But Pierce was not about to give up. Nothing he might say in his speech would provide more graphic evidence of the horror frequently associated with illegal border crossings, and Pierce wanted Cordoba to see the carnage firsthand.

“Yes?” Cordoba answered sleepily.

“General Cordoba?” Pierce addressed him, referring to his retired army rank.

“Yes.”

“This is Deputy Director Winston Pierce-from your BCI conference group.”

Awake now, Cordoba sat up, holding his head and looking through blurry eyes at the bedside clock radio. “Ah, yes, Director. What can I do for you this, uh, at this hour?”

“General, I offer my apologies for the early call, but we have come across something I believe you should see for yourself. If it would be convenient, I will have a car outside the hotel in twenty minutes.” Delivered somewhat as a directive, as opposed to a request, the invitation sounded urgent. It wasn’t until he was standing in the shower a few moments later that Cordoba identified the other emotion in Pierce’s voice. It was anger. Pierce was angry, and he was calling Cordoba on the carpet as he might a child, as if to say, “Now look what you’ve done.”

Precisely twenty minutes later, General Rodrigo Cordoba, dressed in a double-breasted Armani suit, silk shirt with French cuffs, gold cuff links, and Italian shoes, was met on the circular driveway outside the San Diego Marriott Hotel by two uniformed agents of the U.S. Border Patrol. Leaving the hotel, Agent Presley, seated on the passenger side, turned to face Cordoba in the backseat and advised him that they had about a forty-five-minute drive. Then he turned again to face forward. Nothing else was said during the ensuing drive into the Southern California desert. General Cordoba gave no further thought to the conference that was to be held that morning, at which he was to have participated in a round-table discussion on the need for joint U.S. / Mexican police action in controlling the increasing tide of illegal Mexican immigration.

Governor’s Office, California Capitol Building

Sacramento, California

The most incongruous thing about Robert Del Valle’s size, apart from his soft-spoken and caring demeanor, was his ability to fold his six-foot five-inch frame into a Porsche 911. That fact was ironic, since the same physical attribute that made him a stand-out, quite literally, in any crowd except an NBA convention, had, over thirty years earlier as he graduated from West Point, precluded his first choice of service.

“You can’t fit in the damned tank,” his assignment officer at West Point had told him when he tried to choose armor. Assigned instead to infantry, he had excelled at his chosen profession, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel and eventually becoming a battalion commander. A family crisis involving his parents had required his resignation after thirteen years of service, and he had returned to the family homestead in Utah. Subsequent events led to a move to California, where he had established a now-successful insurance brokerage firm and affiliated himself with the army through the California National Guard. After fifteen years in the guard and twenty-eight years of total military service, he now commanded, holding the rank of major general.