Dale Brown - Edge of Battle

“I’m down, sir,” Elvarez said a few moments later. “It’s clear. I can see you now. Keep moving.” Díaz slid faster. “The way is clear to the tunnel to the Métro station, and the train is waiting to take us. Slow down a little, sir, just a few feet more…”

He felt like a turd passing through the colon when he popped free of the fabric fire tube and landed on the gray painted concrete floor. The plain concrete block room was lit by a single lightbulb overhead and was filled with pipes of all sizes. Díaz took a few moments to put his shoes back on, then followed Elvarez outside. “How far is it to the Métro station, José?” he asked. “Are we going to walk, or…?”

He stopped…because his path was blocked by four soldiers in black fatigues, Kevlar helmets, and automatic rifles—American rifles! “Freeze, asshole!” one of the soldiers shouted in English, then in Spanish. “¡Consiga en sus rodillas! ¡Manos en su cabeza!”

Díaz complied immediately, lowering himself to the concrete floor and locking the fingers of both hands atop his head. “I am Minister of Internal Affairs Díaz!” he shouted. “Who are you and what are you doing in my building?”

“Task force TALON, United States of America,” the soldier said. He covered Díaz and Elvarez while two others searched them and took their weapons, radios, telephones, and identification. “You are under arrest.”

“Under whose authority?”

“I have a warrant for your arrest, Felix Díaz,” the soldier said.

“A warrant? An American arrest warrant? Signed by whom—Mickey Mouse?”

“A federal judge in San Diego,” the commando replied. “We’ll take you to see him shortly.”

“On what charge?”

“Murder of federal officers, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and destruction of…”

“¡Cada uno para inmediatamente!” someone else shouted. Suddenly about a dozen Mexican army soldiers ran from the tunnel leading to the Métro station, quickly entered the garage area, and surrounded the American soldiers with rifles raised. “This is the army of the United Mexican States! No one move!”

“Thank God you showed up!” Díaz exclaimed happily, rising to his feet.

“El ministro Díaz, es usted lastimó?”

“No, I’m fine,” Diaz said. He pointed to the TALON commandos. “I want these four men bound and gagged and taken away—and no one is to have any contact with them, understand?”

“Entiendo, señor,” the Mexican soldier responded…and then two of his men spun Díaz around, slammed him up against the concrete wall, and stripped his jacket down over his arms.

“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” Díaz screamed. “I am the Minister of Internal Affairs and the acting president of Mexico! Do as I ordered you or I will have you all shot! ”

“Or drugged…like you did to Carmen, you rancid piece of shit?” Díaz gasped and turned around…and saw none other than the Minister of National Defense, General Alberto Rojas, standing before him.

“Rojas!” Díaz exclaimed, forcing himself to choke down his surprise and panic. “Where in hell have you been? I have had the entire ministry out looking for you!”

“Hiding from you and your Sombras, Díaz,” Rojas said. “Making a few phone calls as well—to my new friends in Clovis, New Mexico.”

“You are helping the Americans? You will hang for that, Rojas!”

“I am not afraid of facing a court-martial for what I have done, Díaz—but I cannot say the same about your own prospects in a courtroom,” Rojas said confidently, “especially with the evidence we’ve discovered here.” He turned and watched as a gurney carrying a body under a white sheet was rolled out of the garage to be carried upstairs. “You didn’t even have the brains to dispose of the body, Díaz.”

“Me? Why would I dispose of the president’s body?” Díaz asked incredulously. “The president was being kept here, secure, until an investigation could be concluded. But I think I know who killed the president: Ernesto Fuerza.”

“Fuerza? Comandante Veracruz?” Rojas exclaimed. “How do you know this?”

“I made the mistake of bringing him and the Russian terrorist Yegor Zakharov to meet the president, as she requested,” Díaz said. “I was told to leave them alone, and I complied with her wishes. The next thing I know, Fuerza and Zakharov were gone, and the president was dead.”

“Why did you not report this immediately, Minister?”

“I initiated an immediate investigation and sent agents out across the country to track down Fuerza and Zakharov. But the government was in disarray, and I took it upon myself to preserve the president’s body and continue the investigation in secret. I dared not reveal any of this to the Council of Government, in case one of them was involved in…”

At that moment one of the Cybernetic Infantry Device robots entered the parking garage, carrying a man by his arms in its armored fists…none other than Yegor Zakharov! “You caught him!” he exclaimed. “Where did you find him?”

“Our friends in the United States had him in custody,” Rojas said. “He told us a very interesting story about you and your alter ego—Comandante Veracruz. If you are lucky, Felix, the judges of the Supreme Court will only sentence you to a single death sentence, instead of dozens.”

“ What? You are not going to believe this man, are you, Rojas? He is an international terrorist, a mass murderer, and the most wanted man in the world! He would do or say anything to save his skin! He will lie, cheat…”

Díaz stopped…when he saw the Mexican soldiers help José Elvarez up. His eyes bulged in horrible realization. “What is going on here?”

“Just helping a key witness to his feet, Felix,” Rojas said. “You are correct, Felix: no judge on earth would believe Yegor Zakharov even if he swore on a roomful of Bibles that the sky is blue. But they might believe your own deputy minister.”

Díaz gulped deeply, his mouth dropping open in sheer numbness. He looked at the faces around him and could not recognize one man who might help him at all. His gaze finally rested on Alberto Rojas. “You win, General,” he said. “But you know that I did all this for one reason: to help our people. Our citizens were dying and being exploited by the United States by the millions . Someone had to do something. Only I had the guts to take the fight to the Americans. I provided the inspiration for freedom and justice that the rest of the government could not.” Rojas said nothing. Díaz took one step toward him and said in a low voice, “You may not like what I did, Rojas, but you know I did it all on behalf of the Mexican people. Yes, I failed, but not for lacking the courage to try.”

Rojas averted his eyes, and Díaz knew he had hit a nerve. “I have the courage for one more thing, General. Give me a gun and put me back in that room and I will save all of you the time and trouble of putting me on trial.”

The defense minister looked at Díaz, put his hand to his holster…then shook his head. “At one time I might have granted your request, Felix—but then I had to walk into your torture chamber and identify the body of my dear friend, President Carmen Maravilloso, lying on a slab in your house of horrors down there,” he said. “You are not a patriot or a revolutionary, Felix Díaz—you are nothing but a murderous piece of human shit.

“You will be taken to the United States and put on trial first, and then if you are not sentenced to death you will be sent back to Mexico to face murder and conspiracy charges here. Get him out of my sight.”