Dale Brown - Edge of Battle

“A few.”

No one said anything for a few long moments; then: “Looks like the ceremony is almost over,” Ari said. “No problems. I’m having Jennifer check out a minor disturbance—she’ll be backup for the San Diego County Sheriff’s.”

“Good work.”

Silence again; then: “You got my resignation, didn’t you?”

“You can’t leave, Ari.”

“The Justice Department already said they’d drop the false statement charges if I resign.”

“Screw ’em. You can fight it. We’ll back you up all the way.”

“No, I can’t, J. It was wrong what I did. I love the United States, and I love all the opportunities I have…”

“You’ve earned them, Ari, and more. A lot more.”

“…but I got them by lying and cheating. I’ve slapped the faces of millions that follow the law and immigrate to this country legally.”

“That was over twenty years ago, Ari. You were a kid…”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I love this country…but I’m not an American. I don’t have any right to pretend I am. I’m no better than all those poor migrants who pay coyotes thousands of dollars to sneak them in. I don’t deserve special treatment. I don’t deserve to be here.”

Her words bit into Jason’s brain like a punch to the head hard enough to create a lump in his throat. “So what are you going to do?”

“What all those thousands of people are doing,” Ariadna said, nodding toward her monitors. “My folks and I are going to cross the border back into Mexico, get at the back of that line, and go through the NIS registration process. Then we’ll go home and wait for whatever the government is going to do with us.”

“That means you’ll be back here, doesn’t it?”

Ariadna shook her head. “No, J. I’ve had enough of this. I chickened out on you and on TALON, Jason. I had a job to do when we started Operation Rampart, and I didn’t do it, for nothing but my own selfish reasons.”

“But we all know why you…”

“That makes it even more humiliating for me!” she cried. “I let you down, I let everyone down. It’s horrible to think I could have even stopped all this by doing my job back when we started. I will never live it down. I will never forgive myself.”

Jason fell silent, then stepped over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “So what will you do?”

“I volunteered for a migrant outreach program being started in southern California,” Ariadna said. “A private Hispanic group wants to encourage migrants to come out of the shadows and register with the NIS program, so they’re setting up a service to bring them in, help them bring the proper ID, take them to the border, facilitate getting them registered, then drive them back home. Once that’s done…I don’t know. Maybe go into teaching. Cal State Northridge looks like a nice school—maybe I’ll apply there, if the regents aren’t too mad at me for busting the place up.”

“You’d make a good teacher,” Jason said. “But…I think you’d make a better security consultant.”

“A what? Security consultant? Sounds bogus to me.” She turned and looked quizzically at her longtime friend. “You’re not talking about Kelsey DeLaine’s consulting firm, are you?”

“I heard she handed in her resignation to the President.”

“Her and me, in the same outfit? I think that would be hilarious if it wasn’t so scary.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him carefully, then asked, “ You’re not thinking seriously about joining her, are you, J?”

“I don’t know,” Jason admitted. “I’m already out of TALON as of today—Bruno made sure of that. I suppose I could go back to the Infantry Transformational BattleLab at Fort Polk; Army Special Operations Command wants to talk with me about using CIDs in special ops…” He shrugged. “But Kelsey’s group will be right there in San Diego, and it’d mean big bucks. I might be promoted to lieutenant colonel someday, but it’s unlikely I’ll go any higher than that. Maybe I’ll take her up on her offer—get started with the rest of my life now, while I’m young and hopefully not so stupid.”

“Work for Kelsey DeLaine?” Ariadna turned back to her monitors. “Sounds like a plan, J,” she said stonily.

“Or…”

“Or what?”

“Sergeant Major Jefferson told me that he’s forming a training corps to give the National Guard some high-tech surveillance and infantry systems, leading up to integrating the Guard completely into the Homeland Security role and eventually merging them completely into the Department of Homeland Security.” She half-turned to him. “This group is being set up at Los Alamitos Joint Reserve Forces Training Center, which I learned just happens to be…”

“A couple hours’ drive from San Diego.”

“True.” He felt her shoulders slump, and he reached down and wrapped his arms around her. “But…it’s just about a half hour from Cal State–Northridge, if the traffic’s not too bad on the 405. Right?” He felt her entire body tense up, and he thought, You idiot, you just blew it—but moments later he felt her hands touch his, then she reached around and squeezed her arms tighter around him. “I’ll stay in for my twenty and maybe shake things up a little bit in the National Guard. Sounds like fun, huh?”

“But what about…about you and Kelsey?”

“Ari, it’s always been you, and only you,” Jason Richter said. “But we worked together, closely together, and dating you or becoming your lover would’ve complicated everything—our careers, our lives, our relationship. I didn’t want to risk losing you.”

“But now…?”

“Now…I realize that if I don’t tell you how I feel, I’ll definitely lose you,” Jason said. “Besides, I suddenly find myself without a job and with my career and reputation pretty much down the crapper. I’m a good catch, huh?”

She laughed and pulled him closer. “I’m still going to go down and register, Jason,” Ariadna said softly. “I think I owe it to…to all the ones who didn’t make it across…you know, to do the right thing.”

“Then I’ll go and stand in line with you and your folks,” Jason said. “It’ll give me a chance to get to know them, no?”

Ariadna rose to her feet, embraced him, and gave him a long, deep kiss. He could feel her softly weeping in his shoulder as she held him closely.

“So, Dr. Vega,” Jason asked, “does this mean that maybe I’m not the last man on earth anymore?” Another hot, passionate kiss gave him all the answers he needed.

UXO MANAGEMENT AREA, TWENTYNINE PALMS

MARINE CORPS DEPOT, CALIFORNIA

THAT SAME TIME

In a remote corner of the sprawling one-thousand-square-mile Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms Marine Depot in the Mojave Desert of southern California was a maze of hundreds of low concrete bunkers, surrounded by twenty-foot-high razor-wire chain-link fences, guard towers, lights, and K-9 patrol areas. Formerly a weapons storage area for nuclear weapons, the area had been converted for use as the Marine Corps’ primary unexploded ordnance disposal site in the western United States. Using a sophisticated computer-coded tracking system, every bullet, shell, bomb, or explosive charge ever used by the United States Marine Corps since 1997 could be accurately tracked from creation to detonation. And if it wasn’t used in training or on the battlefield, it ended up here: the UXO Management Area not only cataloged and tracked munitions and explosives, but also disposed of unused ordnance in an environmentally friendly manner.

The one-thousand-acre UXO Management Area was highly automated and needed only a very small staff to run it, mostly civilian contractors with a Marine first lieutenant or captain overseeing a company-sized cadre of administrative staff and guards. The civilians monitored the equipment and computers and provided support services such as facilities maintenance and prepared meals for the small Marine force.