Greg Bear - Mariposa

Large parts of Texas were on their own track, and nobody in Washington had the guts or the money to stop them.

Kapp pointed out the driver's side window and let out a chirpy whistle. "Got a bird," he said. "Flying low and matching speed. About the size of a crow."

William saw it and shook his head.

"Mexican standoff," Curteze said. "We don't have brown faces, and besides, the border boys don't report to the Rangers anymore."

"If it is a border security bird," William said. "Talos flies a lot of its own surveillance."

After five years of extreme drought, illegal immigration from Mexico had reached catastrophic proportions. South of the Rio Grande, two million people were starving and the U.S. could not afford much in the way of relief aid. The Chinese and Europeans were helping but it was not nearly enough. Under this pressure, Texas went its own way, but mostly tolerated Border Security and ICE.

Even so, the feds did not report to the state and certainly not to Talos's auxiliaries.

"We'll probably end up with bullets in the backs of our pointy little heads," Curteze said.

"Shh," William said, and nodded at the sleeping boy.

Kapp drove on into the darkness. The crow-size drone kept up with them until a mile before the highway, then buzzed off into the night.

Ahead, headlights flashed in pairs-straight on, not the distant lights of traffic. There were at least a dozen vehicles-most the size of pickup trucks-lined up between them and 62.

"We're going to have to park," William said. "Looks like they've laid down a blockade."

"How would they know where we are?" Curteze asked, keeping his voice low. "The birds can't tell us from a rancher-right?"

"This whole thing's a crapshoot," William said. "Half of our plan is they don't want to start a war. Maybe they do. Feds are certainly distracted right now-it might not even hit the national news."

Kapp lurched the truck left, away from the highway, off the ranch road and into the scrub.

The ride got rougher.

El Paso

Joe Mason shook hands with Jane Rowland and Tom Cantor and offered them chairs in his small office. Six-two, with reddish-brown skin, a square face, and thick black hair trimmed to a spiky mat, Mason's eyes were rimmed in red and hauled double loads of dark, weary bags. He was Assistant Field Office Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement-ICE.

"I wouldn't want you Washington types to think all Texans are traitors," he said. "We're the most loyal citizens in the USA. Don't forget it-not while you're in this office."

Steel-barred windows, ubiquitous awards and service plaques, wall-mounted rack of service and Lynx spex, neat desk with empty in-and-out baskets, defined both Mason and his workspace.

"Never crossed my mind," Jane Rowland said.

Tom Cantor sat beside her and leaned forward to scratch his shoulder.

Mason watched them both, wrinkle lines making not quite a grin at the corners of his lips-sussing out their relationship.

Just being around Tom made Jane nervous. His big child eyes gave no hint of either his intellect or his influence. Tom was utterly essential to dozens of clandestine operations. He had carte blanche entrance to so many agencies and yet never let on to anyone about his activities-even if those activities crossed paths.

Secret in one office, more secret still in another.

Not that he ever showed a hint of thinking he could lord it over her. No, ma'am. Ms. Jane Rowland-of the agency that had once split off from an agency that nobody officially acknowledged-was definitely the boss, and Tom Cantor was delighted to be in her employ.

Based on what she knew, that made her even more nervous.

"Airplanes," Tom said, as if that explained anything. His long, scraggly gray hair-wrapped around a high, balding forehead-made him look like a gentle-eyed Rasputin.

Mason finally allowed his smile to crack-and never was the word more apt. That expression looked as out of place as a wide split in an adobe pot. He waved one hand. "We've been sending warnings about Lion City and Talos for over a decade. Used to be no one in D.C. listened-too many oxen hitched to that particular wagon. Now some of these yokels have taken to plunking up our patrol vehicles-and of course they just love knocking down our birds, if they can see them. We've never tied incidents directly to Axel Price… but after a while, you'd be thick not to wonder."

Tom looked up, awaiting a useful point.

Mason took this bug-eyed presence with admirable tranquility. "We installed your transponder in one of our midsize, low-profile birds, with retrieval capability. We use them to pick up surveillance bots. She's out there following the county line, slow as a condor-transmitting to VRI right now."

Mason took down three spex, waved them over a small code plate, then handed two to Jane and Tom. The third set-curved dark lenses, very stylish-he slipped over his nose and ears with all the panache of an Elvis impersonator. "They've cut back half our personnel in the last six months. Our guys have families to support. I don't like to think some of them have gone over to Price, but it wouldn't shock me. We're down to about a quarter of the birds we flew two years ago. Still, if they're not too expensive, I'd love to put those snakes on our team…"

"Not a word," Jane reminded him.

"No, ma'am." Mason smiled. "But I hope you'll give us the next field test."

"Where's your pilot?"

"In Houston," Mason said. "We'll transfer to a local pilot shortly-one of our best. But I'm still wondering-why not just send in Hostage Rescue and pluck out your man?"

"Price would shoot him," Jane said.

Mason soberly absorbed this. "What are we heading for here-insurrection?"

Jane narrowed her eyes. "Your passengers will ping back to the code signal," she said. "That'll make them visible. They have to be picked up quickly."

"Curvalicious," Tom said.

Mason stretched out his arms, then grabbed his jaw with one hand and waggled it back and forth, working out tension. "Already in the program," he said. "Bird is turning over control… now. El Paso will fly the bird."

For the next three hours, Jane and Tom sat in Mason's office, watching the unmanned aerial vehicle's track of the west Texas landscape, drinking coffee.

Jane longed for white tea.

"We're covering their range," Mason said. "Unless they've run out of juice, they're still out there, squiggling around in the dirt and brush."

She pushed her spex down on her nose. "Discouraging," she said.

Mason was commendably patient, low-key-and good at politely keeping track of the one person in the room whose physical reactions seemed off.

Tom was fidgety. His face had worked its way through several phases of comic concentration, with occasional half aware glances at Mason, at Jane-only to smile and relapse into his own world, somewhere out between the stars.

Jane took note of Mason's unease. She touched Tom's arm.

"Tired," Tom said. "Anyone have an Ibuprofen?"

"I'm full of coffee," Jane said, pushing up from her leather-cushioned chair arms. "How about a break?"

"Right," Tom said.

"Down the hall and to the left," Mason said. "Leave the spex here or alarms will go off."

In the restroom, Jane washed her hands-soaped and rinsed three times-then joined Tom in the hall. Tom had not been to the bathroom since their flight. He might indeed be from another planet.

"You're making Mason nervous," she said. "He's like a dog in a room with a quail-and you're the quail."

Tom shook his head. "Can't help it," he said. "I'm being twitched."

"What's that mean?"

"Ever since day before yesterday, somebody or something has been tracking everything I do. My work-my secure networks. Cameras. Traffic lights. I keep thinking Gene Hackman is going to jump out and yell boo."