Mike Maden - Drone

“Yes, sir. But I doubt it.” The major smiled sheepishly and strode away. He had the easy, loping gait of a world-class athlete. It seemed to Britnev that the younger man didn’t wear his humiliation well.

Titov picked up a folded towel from a bench and patted his sweating face with it as he approached Britnev, who noticed a slight limp in Titov’s stride.

“Let’s get some steam, Konstantin. I just had new eucalyptus panels installed. We’ll have a chance to talk further about this Mexico situation.”

Britnev forced a smile. “Thank you, Mr. President. I could use a good steam.” Inwardly, he sighed. It was going to be a long time before he got that cigarette.

Mexico City, Mexico

It was five in the morning when Hernán’s chauffeur pulled out past the tall, bougainvillea-covered walls of his palatial estate in Lomas de Chapultepec, but it was a long drive across town to Tláhuac, one of the most impoverished barrios of Mexico City, a semirural enclave of muddy streets and urban sprawl on the far eastern side of the nation’s capital.

Hernán’s armored Land Rover sped along past Carlos Slim’s mansion just down the street from his own home, but the multibillionaire had a much larger estate, befitting his unimaginable wealth. No one missed the irony that the world’s richest human being lived so close to millions of people living in squalor within the same city limits. In fact, Hernán had used that line in his brother’s last campaign speech. Today was a chance to put a down payment on that veiled promise of structural reform. He just hoped that Antonio would arrive on time. Mexico’s working poor, despite the racist stereotypes of the yanquis , were the hardest-working people on the planet who, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, logged more hours per day in paid and unpaid labor than any other OECD citizen. As a point of personal pride, Hernán didn’t want his brother to show any disrespect to the people he was appearing to help today, but Antonio wasn’t known for being either prompt or an early riser.

Tláhuac, Mexico City

Hernán wasn’t easily impressed, but the fact that so many television and newspaper people were here in Tláhuac at this hour of the day so far from their downtown offices meant that Antonio’s press relations department had gone the extra mile. He could only imagine what bribes and/or threats were levied to generate this kind of media turnout. Catered breakfast in the press-only tent certainly didn’t hurt. No matter what country he had ever traveled to, Hernán found that nobody was more susceptible to the lure of free food than the media.

The locals had turned out in big numbers, too, in their freshly scrubbed cotton shirts and simple print dresses. It was a fabulous and enthusiastic crowd. Lucha Libre wrestling stars were in attendance, along with clowns, balloons, mariachi bands, and bags of candy for the kids. Today it was meant to feel more like a national holiday than a press conference. It was a time for celebration and his rock-star brother did what he did best, all smiles and polished delivery as he cut the ribbon on the new health clinic and school for the neighborhood.

The TV cameras and radio microphones had picked up all the good sound bites, including the one key question Hernán had planted with Octavia Lopez, the super-sexy news anchor of the most watched evening broadcast. Lopez was desperate to change her image from a busty former beauty queen to a serious journalist, and Hernán knew the planted question would please her immensely. He hoped so. Because tonight after the broadcast, in exchange for the favor, she was supposed to please him immensely at the little love nest he had set up near her apartment.

“Is it true, Mr. President, that this clinic was funded in part by Victor Bravo and his drug money?” Lopez asked.

Antonio scowled, as if she’d posed an unexpected “gotcha” question rather than a carefully pitched softball. He was, after all, a trained actor. Hernán had prepped him with a carefully crafted response.

“There is an old saying. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ People think they know who Victor Bravo is. I don’t. Not socially. Not politically. The state police tell me he’s never been convicted of any drug crimes; in fact, he’s never even been arrested or accused of any crimes at all. But that’s modern-day journalism for you, isn’t it? But here is what I do know: the enemy of Mexico is her poverty. And if Victor Bravo or any other person is willing to help my administration fight that battle, then he is a friend of Mexico’s, which means he is a friend of mine.”

On that last note, the mariachis erupted on cue with a patriotic tune and the people cheered as the president made his way through an adoring crowd toward his limousine. Antonio had delivered the riposte perfectly, as befit his previous profession. Hernán’s words in his brother’s mouth would be repeated a thousand times on radio and television over the course of the twenty-four-hour news cycle.

Surely that would be enough of a first kiss to let Victor Bravo know that the Barraza wedding bed was warm and friendly enough. All Bravo had to do was jump in and everybody would have a good time.

Peto, Mexico

Ali had set up the Bravo training camp deep in the heart of the Yucatán jungle a few miles outside the small town two years earlier, before he’d begun his security work under Castillo. Infiltrating not one but two Mexican drug cartels had been the most nerve-racking experience of Ali’s short but violent life, but it was worth it. Quds Force plans in Latin America hinged on the success of his mission, and the last phase of the mission was about to begin.

Ali had brought four trusted Quds commandos to carry out the primary training duties while he was earning Castillo’s trust and setting the trap to lure the Americans into battle. The training camp had already trained three previous cycles of Bravo recruits from around the country.

On the current training cycle, the recruits were locals, mostly poor young campesinos looking for something more than the chance to dig in the dirt for yams or corn on their own miserable little plots of land or, worse, breaking their backs for a few measly pesos a day on the big fincas of the international conglomerates getting fat on NAFTA-fueled contracts. A few could read, a few could write, but mostly they were Ali’s “little chestnuts”—small, brown, and hard, like the ones his grandfather grew in the Zagros Mountains. Ali genuinely liked them for their easy smiles and endless capacity for suffering. Because of his religious scruples, Ali refused to allow female recruits to integrate with the men, though several women had served Victor Bravo’s organization honorably and ruthlessly over the years.

Ali wished he had an imam with him. This could be a field ripe for harvest for Allah. The mission of the Quds Force was to export the revolution worldwide, and imams were essential to that mission. But Victor had his own strange, syncretistic faith and would have opposed Ali if he’d shown up on his doorstep with Muslim missionaries. But Ali was patient. He knew there would be opportunities for the spread of Islam soon enough.

For religious instruction at the training camp, Victor had recruited an aging American Jesuit priest who drummed pagan liberation theology into their illiterate skulls. Father Bob exchanged his liturgical services for an endless supply of filtered cigarettes and the occasional bag of premium weed. When Ali’s Quds Force commandos arrived to begin their training duties, Father Bob began preaching against “religious fundamentalism,” but within a week, he disappeared. Ali reported to Victor that the old priest had returned to New York to tend to an ailing relative. The truth was the American’s throat had been opened by a razor-sharp commando knife and the old infidel’s bones were rotting in the bottom of a nearby swamp.