Mike Maden: Drone

But within a few hours it became apparent that the killers had merely impersonated ICE officers. All of the gear they wore was available for purchase on a hundred websites. The Hummer they’d used had been stolen two hours before the attack and later found abandoned and burned up in a vacant lot just across the Mexican border. Most important, every ICE agent’s location and activity that night had been accounted for.

Responsible media began reporting the new facts as soon as they became available, but Myers’s staunchest opponents resorted to a variety of conspiracy theories and began alleging a cover-up.

“Faye, why haven’t we made any progress on the shooters?” Myers asked. Faye Lancet was the attorney general of the United States and thus the head of the Department of Justice and one of its subsidiary agencies, the FBI.

“Our most reliable informants on the street are suddenly either deceased or irreparably mute. Snitches have an extremely short life expectancy in that part of the world.”

“You make it sound as if South Texas is a Third World country,” Myers said.

“In some ways, it is,” Lancet replied. “The border is still pretty porous these days.”

“Maybe this was just a local neighborhood gang,” Myers said.

Mike Early, Myers’s special assistant for security affairs, spoke up. “Possibly, but not likely. According to witnesses, they were firing machine guns, probably German HK21s.”

“How do you know that?” Myers asked.

“We found six proprietary HK ammo drums on-site, each with a fifty-round capacity. The Mexican army uses HK21s. They even manufacture their own under an HK license.”

“You think the Mexican army is connected to this?” Lancet asked.

“No. But Mexican army guns have a funny way of turning up on the streets, whether stolen or sold.” Early scratched his five o’clock shadow. “Hell, the Mexican army itself has had over a hundred thousand desertions in the last decade. God only knows how many weapons they take with them.”

“The forensics point to two weapons used that night, which is corroborated by at least three survivors who thought they saw or heard two machine guns being fired,” Donovan said.

Myers frowned. “Why couldn’t local gangs purchase some of those weapons?”

“Possible, but highly unlikely. Mexican guns don’t usually travel north. It’s American guns moving south that causes problems down there. Even if a couple of street punks could find a high-end gun seller that wasn’t a Fed, or a Fed informant, it’s clear to me the shooters knew what they were doing. They weren’t a couple of gangbanger lowlifes hosing down the neighborhood like Tony Montana,” Donovan said.

Early added, “They discharged three hundred large-caliber, armor-piercing rounds in less than a minute in controlled bursts—and on target. The bastards were definitely trained.”

“So who wanted to send a message? Why attack a house full of teenagers having a good time? And who’s the message for?” Myers asked.

“Too soon to say who the message was for with certainty,” Donovan said. “Word on the street is that it was a turf issue, and given that El Paso is Castillo Syndicate territory, it’s not too big of a stretch to say that Castillo was the one pulling the trigger.”

Myers fumed. “Castillo territory? El Paso is American territory, damn it. Who does that son of a bitch think he is?” The Castillo Syndicate was the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico, based out of the state of Sinaloa where it originated. Its power was exerted over the western half of Mexico and had extended itself steadily north into the United States and south into Central America for the last decade. Its main competitor was the Bravo Alliance, which controlled the eastern half of Mexico. Both cartels had effectively absorbed all of the other smaller cartels in recent years. It was a classic bipolar system, a vicious stalemate between two equally powerful enemies, like scorpions in a bottle.

“Madame President, if I may.” The deep, resonant voice of Dr. Karl Strasburg chimed in. An old-school cold warrior, Strasburg was the elder statesman of the group, having served as a security advisor to every president since Nixon in one capacity or another. His opinion still exerted a powerful sway on Capitol Hill, and his views were deeply respected in the corridors of both power and academia around the world. His impeccable style and self-effacing manners, coupled with his faint Hungarian accent, gave him an Old World charm that few could resist.

“Please, Dr. Strasburg, share your thoughts.”

“I am embarrassed to say this, Madame President, and I certainly do not ascribe to the idea personally, nevertheless I must point out that you are already seen as a weak president because you are a woman. One thing you must consider is this: if you fail to respond to this vicious and unprovoked attack with vigor, you will only strengthen the unfortunate stereotype associated with your gender in the Latin culture.”

“I have never lived my life according to other people’s views of me, and I will certainly not do that as president, either. If I start overcompensating for the expectations of my gender, I’m only playing into their idiotic stereotype.”

From both a moral and fiscal perspective, Myers was adamantly opposed to any suggestion of going to war if it could be at all avoided. But Strasburg’s line of thinking threatened to undo everything her administration had accomplished so far.

Myers narrowly won both the Republican primary and the general election on a platform of “pragmatism above ideology.” Her primary campaign issue was to institute an immediate budget freeze once elected, and then to pass a balanced budget amendment. She managed to accomplish both in the first one hundred days of her tenure by promising progressives to keep American boots off of the ground in any new foreign conflicts, to close as many foreign bases as was practical, and to bring as many of the troops home as quickly as possible without endangering American lives left behind. Vice President Greyhill’s establishment credentials had also helped her forge the coalition with right-of-center moderates in both parties who feared new runaway social spending at the expense of defense.

Unlike many of her fellow Republicans, Myers viewed big defense budgets as just another example of out-of-control government spending. She knew that defense was necessary; she was no pie-in-the-sky Pollyanna. But how much defense spending was enough? If one new weapon system makes us safe, then two must make us even safer seemed to be the irrefutable schoolyard logic of the hawks.

As a private-sector CEO, Myers had dealt with the armchair bureaucrats in the Pentagon who were as self-interested as any Wall Street investment firm, and just as guilty of “waste, fraud, and abuse” as any welfare department in the federal government.

America’s economic malaise was being fueled by out-of-control government spending of all kinds, including the supposedly untouchable “entitlement” spending programs. As a businesswoman, Myers understood that the national debt was a millstone around the nation’s neck. It was drowning the economy and would ultimately lead to America’s systematic decline. Avoiding unnecessary wars and bloated defense budgets would actually make the nation stronger in the long run.

“The bottom line, Dr. Strasburg, is that I’m not interested in bolstering my street cred with Latin tinhorn dictators. What I want is what’s best for the American people.” She leaned forward in her chair. “What I really want is justice, especially for those grieving mothers in that gymnasium tonight. The question I’m putting on the table right now is, how do we get justice without putting American boots on Mexican soil?”