Mike Maden - Drone

Though it was against his Islamic convictions, Ali allowed the recruits to partake of a particularly potent kilo of genetically modified marijuana. He also issued his men brand-new black fatigues.

They were all sitting together in a circle. One of Ali’s Quds Force trainers, Walid Zohar, a tough young Azeri sergeant, taught the Mexicans an old Iranian army song about love and loss, and the Mexicans in turn taught the Iranians a song about the hardship of the peasant’s life. The drug-fueled emotions ran high as the sun began to set. Ali signaled a technician to set up the video camera. When it was up and running, Ali barked his orders.

“Get your weapons now!”

Stunned—and stoned—the boys looked at one another and laughed. The dope had made them forget that they were supposed to be real soldiers now.

Ali fired his pistol into the air. BOOM!

That got their attention.

“Your weapons! Now!”

The Mexicans scrambled for their AK-47s stacked neatly near the tents, but they crashed and stumbled into one another, cursing and laughing, until all of them had picked up a rifle.

“Line up here!” Ali commanded, pointing to an imaginary line.

Sobering up quickly, the boys formed a line. The four stars of the group lined up in the center, each carrying an RPG and a grenade pack slung on their backs.

“Port, arms!”

The Mexicans slowly but accurately raised their guns diagonally across their bodies. Their bloodshot eyes narrowed with concentration.

Ali began the familiar cadence of the marching chants.

“Where are you going, Bravos?”

“We’re going up north!”

“They put up a fight?”

“We burn ’em all down!”

“I can’t hear you!”

“WE BURN ’EM ALL DOWN!”

Ali turned to another one of his officers, who picked up a rucksack and approached the Mexicans, passing out black balaclavas.

“Put those on. They make you look like warriors!”

The Mexicans pulled them on despite the stifling heat. They stole glances at one another and tried not to laugh. They thought they really looked badass now.

“Port, arms!”

The guns snapped to position faster than the first time.

Ali ran through the marching chants again and again. The video camera caught every shout, louder and angrier each time, as Ali drove them on.

Suddenly, Ali switched his cadence and began chanting in a low voice. “Bra-vos, Bra-VOS, BRA-VOS!”

The recruits mimicked him exactly until they were finally roaring out the name “BRA-VOS!” then they broke out in a spontaneous cheer. One of the Mexicans, completely caught up in the moment, racked a round in his weapon and opened fire. Seconds later, all twenty-four AKs roared into the air, blasting rounds until the mags emptied.

Everything was caught on camera even better than Ali could have hoped for. Lucky for the recruits. Had these been real Quds Force soldiers in the field, Ali would have pulled out his pistol and shot the first man in the face for breaking fire discipline. What he should do now is run them all for miles until they puked their guts out and dropped.

Instead, Ali marched them back to town for showers, beer, barbacoa , and whores. Their skills were minimal but sufficient for the task at hand. He had forged them into a unit loyal to him; a weapon that he could wield in his war in the north, against Victor Bravo’s wishes. But he couldn’t use them yet. Ali still needed a trigger. One that his computer-warfare specialist in Ramazan would soon help provide.

Mexico City, Mexico

They had taken every possible precaution.

Udi and Tamar arrived at the Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City under Canadian passports after a three-hour Aeromexico connecting flight from Havana. But the wearisome journey had begun in Tel Aviv twenty-six hours earlier. Flying Lufthansa to Frankfurt then Air France to London and Aeroflot from London to Havana had kept them off of the American fly lists, which was important, if for no other reason than Pearce had access to all of the DHS databases. They were under strict orders to keep Troy out of the loop. This was a Mossad operation only.

Udi drove the rental car while Tamar called ahead to their contact on a secured cell and arranged for the meet-up later that afternoon at their small, secluded hotel on Sierra Madre, a quiet, tree-lined suburban street not far from the Israeli embassy. That gave them six hours to shower, sleep, and fight off jet lag before Levi Wolf arrived with the guns.

What brought them back to Mexico had caught Mossad by surprise. After penetrating a dozen firewalls and chasing hijacked servers around the globe, they broke into the Quds Force mainframe in Ramazan, Iran, and made off with a file without being detected. When they finally cracked the file, Mossad discovered an agent code name and the location in Mexico City where the video had been uploaded from.

“Maybe we should have told Pearce after all,” Udi said. He knew how much Pearce hated the Quds Force and how he would have wanted to be in on the kill.

“Against orders, love. You wanted to tell him? You shouldn’t have asked for Menachem’s help,” Tamar said. Menachem was their direct superior in Mossad. “We were using his guys for the Facebook upload question and they found it, so now he wants those Quds scalps on his wall for himself.”

They showered together but they were both too tired to fool around. They weren’t scheduled to meet with Levi Wolf for another six hours. Tamar set her watch and Udi called down to the front desk for a wake-up call as a backup. They practically passed out. They’d need every brain cell activated for the snatch-and-grab operation.

The White House, Washington, D.C.

It was Roy Jackson’s first visit to the Oval Office. He was in awe of the room but tried not to show it as he summarized his latest intelligence briefing for Myers and Strasburg.

“Our analysts confirm that the bulk of the Castillo organization has already been absorbed into the Bravo organization. In our opinion, the Barraza administration will soon make an alliance with the Bravos, if they haven’t already done so,” Jackson concluded. “Initial reports are that drug-related violence is already in steep decline.”

“Congratulations, Madame President. Your decapitation strategy is an apparent success,” Strasburg said.

“Then why don’t I feel like celebrating?” Myers asked.

“Because you’ve helped create an unholy alliance. Churchill felt the same way about his partnership with Stalin during the war, but it was necessary in order to defeat Hitler. What matters is that you have achieved your objectives if Mr. Jackson’s report continues to hold true.”

Myers’s face soured. “It’s a nasty business, Karl. I don’t know how you’ve put up with it for so long.”

“It’s sausage making,” Strasburg said. “Blood sausage.”

“I just hope this really is the end,” Myers said.

Strasburg nodded, but said nothing. Hope wasn’t a word in his lexicon.

Mexico City, Mexico

Levi Wolf brought more than guns to the hotel that night. He’d recruited two of the embassy security staff for the operation as well. One was already at the location to keep an eye on things.

The stolen Quds file looked legit. Udi had forwarded it to Wolf before they arrived, and Wolf had staked out the location. There was only one Iranian who regularly occupied a warehouse in the barrio known as Tepito, famous for its boxers, crime, and poverty but especially for its tianguis —the open-air markets that sold everything from counterfeit Chinese software to seedless watermelons to black-market weapons, if you knew where to look.