Don Pendleton - Primary Directive

“That’s a negative, sir.”

“Holy crap,” Blancanales said. “We got ourselves a couple real-life border crossers.”

“Where is that, Sergeant?” Lyons demanded.

The controller punched it up on another computer. “Those are the systems mounted at Pitchfork Point.”

“I remember that area,” Schwarz said, exchanging glances with his comrades. “It’s about twenty miles east of the Columbus, New Mexico, port of entry.”

Lyons looked at his watch. “At least an hour away.”

“Shit, sir!” The controller pointed at the cameras and Able Team noticed his face had gone white as a sheet. “What the hell is that?”

The pair who had vaulted the wall a moment earlier suddenly danced around like a pair of marionettes as red splotches appeared along their upper torsos. All the men of Able Team recognized the kind of destructive force that could only have come from automatic weapons.

“Let’s go!” Lyons snapped.

“T HAT’S RIGHT, YEAH !” Lyons barked into his cell phone for the third time in the past two minutes. “Pitchfork Point, that’s what I just said! What, you don’t speak English?”

“Tell them they need to get out of town first,” Schwarz said.

After another moment of silence, Lyons said, “Fine!” He clicked off and muttered, “Morons.”

“They know where they’re going now?” Blancanales inquired from behind the wheel of their Ford Expedition.

“Doubtful.” Lyons twisted in the passenger seat to look at Schwarz, who had his laptop open and was typing furiously at it. “What are you doing?”

“Working with Bear on a direct feed to my laptop. I just talked to Ricchio back at the TOC. He told me right after that pair got shot to shit that a whole gaggle of illegals came over that wall. This time, though, they didn’t shoot them.”

“Do we even know who they are?” Lyons asked.

“What’s a gaggle?” Blancanales asked to lighten the mood.

“Okay, the feed’s coming up now,” Schwarz announced.

They rode in silence for the next minute, each man in his own thoughts about what might lie ahead.

Finally, Schwarz whispered, “Good God…”

“What is it?” Lyons asked.

Schwarz turned the laptop so Lyons could see for himself. It replayed the shooting of the first two men who came over the wall and then displayed the mass of a dozen or so more who followed a minute thereafter. The last thing they saw astonished all of them. Four Border Patrol agents armed with M-16s stepped into view. Each pair grabbed one of the deceased men they had gunned down and dragged them off camera.

“Impossible,” Blancanales said through clenched teeth.

Lyons shook his head. “It’s unthinkable, I’ll agree.”

“Two things are evident here right off,” Schwarz interjected. “First, those two weren’t wasted by Minutemen. Anywhere the wall’s been completed is strictly off-limits to all but authorized personnel. Second, what about the fact they made entry here in the sight of a newly constructed surveillance system in broad daylight?”

“It signifies an act of desperation,” Blancanales replied.

“Exactly,” Lyons added. “There are plenty of easier places to cross the border. Proved places with fewer obstacles and way more running room. That point couldn’t be more than—what?—maybe half a mile from the access road off Route 9.”

“Something stinks to high heaven, no doubt about it.”

In a drifting, almost contemplative tone, Schwarz said, “It’s almost as if they wanted us to see it, to make us believe the Border Patrol gunned down two crossers and then dragged away the evidence.”

“Okay, but what about the rest of the group?” Lyons said. “Why gun down just those two?”

“I don’t know,” Schwarz replied. “But I’m running the feed again. See if I can pick up something else.”

“Well, we’re not just going to sit here on our asses,” Lyons replied. He engaged the speakerphone and dialed in the specially coded number to Stony Man Farm. The line rang twice and was then picked up by Brognola. “Hal, you getting this?”

“We’re watching it right now,” the Stony Man chief replied. “What the hell is going on down there? Border Patrol officers killing illegal immigrants?”

“We’re as surprised as you, boss,” Blancanales replied.

“Well, I have Aaron and his team checking out every inch of the footage we captured. We also talked to this Sergeant Ricchio while we were working on the wireless uplink. He says they lost the feed less than thirty seconds after the segment we recorded there.”

“Lost it how?” Schwarz inquired.

“I wish we knew. All Ricchio could tell us was that they believe the feeds were cut at the source.”

“So they destroyed the cameras,” Lyons said.

“Impossible,” Schwarz said. “Those things are housed inside boxes made of inch-thick titanium alloy plating. It’d take nothing short of a grenade or missile to destroy them. The only other way they could interfere with the transmission at the source would be through the use of a Wi-Fi jammer or severing the hardwired fusible links providing power. And to do that, they’d need some decent insider information.”

“Whatever the explanation,” Lyons said, “this changes the name of the game, Hal.”

“Agreed,” Brognola replied. His voice faded a moment as he asked, “What’s that?” Another tense moment of silence, then, “Bear’s people just came up with something hot. If you replay the footage of the large group coming over the wall, about the third or fourth player over you’ll see his hand rest on top of the wall as he climbs down. The tunic he was wearing is pulled back some and it exposed a tattoo on his forearm, just above the wrist.”

“Can you make it out?” Lyons asked.

“We’re checking the linguistic database now,” Brognola said. “But what we know for sure is it’s an Arabic symbol of some kind. We’ll send more intelligence along as soon as we have something definite.”

“Not good,” Blancanales said matter-of-factly.

“Definitely not good.”

“This could be a lot more serious than you might think,” Brognola continued. “Like I said earlier, David and Phoenix are in Panama. There was an incident down there two days ago. It hasn’t hit the press up here yet, but I’m sure it will shortly. It seems the Panamanian government may have traded shots with a submarine. We think it might have been sent by our al Qaeda friends.”

“You’re just full of good news today, aren’t you?” Lyons retorted.

“You started it.”

“I assume we’re clear to do whatever we have to on this one?” Lyons asked.

“Unequivocally,” Brognola said. “Find out what’s going on and act appropriately, but be as judicious as you can. We don’t need any bloodbaths down there if we can avoid it.”

“They started it,” Lyons said, and disconnected.

“Now what?” Blancanales asked.

“I guess we won’t really know until we get there,” Lyons replied. “See if we can find some clues from whatever pieces they left behind to pick up.”

“You think those were terrorists crossing onto U.S. soil?”

“I’d wager my next paycheck on it,” Lyons replied.

He turned to Schwarz. “How we fixed for armament, Gadgets?”

“We’re good. Kissinger packed all our usual fare, plus a little extra just in case.”

“I’d say this qualifies as a ‘just in case’ moment,” Blancanales said.

Lyons grunted his agreement. This smelled of a terrorist plot from the get-go and Lyons could feel a conspiracy at the very center of his gut. The al Qaeda terrorists had been spouting off for years about launching another catastrophic attack against America, and maybe they saw their chance in the recent tensions between Mexico and the U.S. concerning illegal immigration. Leave it to a pack of radical terror-mongers to exploit an already hot issue. There were issues about the 9/11 attacks that had driven wedges between the divisions on issues totally unrelated to al Qaeda and its unquenchable hatred for the United States and her allies. Why should this be any different?