Edge of Battle (39 page)

“So let me get this straight, Sergeant: I’m escalating ‘this situation into violence’ by trying to park in my
own
parking space, while these trespassers are just exercising their constitutional rights of free speech and freedom of assembly? Is that how you want me to characterize this situation on my show this morning, Sergeant”—he read the officer’s brass nameplate on his uniform—“Wilcox, is it?”

“Mr. O’Rourke, you know as well as I do that these protesters are probably here because of your—shall we say
bombastic
statements on the air yesterday,” Wilcox said. “Don’t play innocent with me, sir, by claiming you don’t understand that the crowd is here because this is where you broadcast your show from; that your actual presence here is riling them up even more; and that you are insisting on parking right in the middle of the protesters in order to take advantage of this dangerous situation and get your face on TV.”

“I resent that implication, Wilcox…!”

“Mr. O’Rourke, I can order you to back this thing up and move, for your own safety…”

“Sergeant, I’m not going to run and hide like a damned coward. If you think this situation is unsafe, I think you should do everything in your power to
make
it safe. If you don’t, I, the people of Henderson and Las Vegas, and my listeners all around the world will hold you and your department responsible.

“In the meantime, I’m going to work. You can arrest me in front of all these TV cameras, so the only peaceful individual out here at the moment will be the one in handcuffs. But if you do, I guarantee you’ll make yourself an enemy to all law-abiding citizens of this country. Or you can do your job and protect me while I go into my building. Take your pick.”

The officer took a deep, exasperated breath and affixed the nationally syndicated radio host with a dead stare, quickly thinking about his options. Finally he looked over the Excursion’s large hood and said to the officer on the other side, “Paul, get the crowd back and let Mr. O’Rourke’s vehicle pass. Then form up and let’s get him inside the building.” The other officer hesitated for a moment, silently asking if that was a good idea, and then faced the crowd head-on, arms outstretched, trying to cut the line of demonstrators in half and move his half off to the side of the driveway. A couple more officers were called in to help. The crowd kept on shouting, but they seemed satisfied to be led back by the police.

It didn’t take long for the media to notice what was happening, and soon they were surrounded by reporters and cameramen. “Bob! Mr. O’Rourke!” one well-known female correspondent for a cable TV news channel shouted. He didn’t look in her direction until she called him “Mr. O’Rourke.” “What are you going to do?”

O’Rourke rolled the window of his big SUV down, revved the engine, then put it into gear. “I’m going to work, that’s what I’m doing.”

“Will the police do anything to help you?”

“We’ll see, won’t we?” he replied, loud enough for Wilcox and the other officers to hear him. “It’s totally up to them. They can protect me, or they can stand by and watch a law-abiding citizen of the United States be assaulted and threatened with bodily harm right in front of them.”

“Do you feel any sense of responsibility for this demonstration outside your studios today?”

“Responsibility? I have nothing to do with any of this!” he shouted from inside his car. “If you don’t want to blame the actual
people
who are out here disrupting free movement in this place of business, blame that Comandante Veracruz character for inciting the crowd like this! He’s the one who should be thrown in jail for organizing this! I’m not going to be inconvenienced because some gangster from a corrupt third-world banana republic wants his name on the news!”

“Do you think it’s wise to drive in there like that, Mr. O’Rourke? Don’t you think it’s dangerous?”

“I trust the Henderson Police Department to maintain order,” O’Rourke said. “If they can’t do it, the mayor needs to call in the Highway Patrol or even the National Guard to help restore order.”

The police found it relatively easy to move the crowd aside, probably because the protesters quickly noticed that they would have O’Rourke’s vehicle surrounded once it got inside the private parking lot. O’Rourke’s car was hit repeatedly by rocks, bottles, empty cans, and picket signs. He laid on the horn several times to
try to move the protesters away. He had to rev the engine several times and creep forward slowly to avoid running anyone over, but soon he was in his parking spot, surrounded by two police officers.

O’Rourke got out of his car and stood on the steel running board of his Excursion, making sure he would stay above the cameramen so he wouldn’t look any shorter on TV, and he surveyed the crowd as calmly as he could. The TV reporters were being jostled a bit, sandwiched in between the crowds behind them and the police in front. Many in the crowd wanted to get on TV just as badly as Bob O’Rourke, while others wanted to get within spitting or yelling range of the famous radio personality. So far the protesters were obeying police instructions and staying behind the invisible line projecting from their outstretched arms. A stray banana peel sailed past O’Rourke’s head—he tried to pretend it didn’t bother him.

“Mr. O’Rourke,” one of the female reporters asked, thrusting her microphone up toward him, “are you determined to go to your studio and do your morning broadcast as usual, despite this demonstration?”

“This is not a ‘demonstration’—this is a near-riot, bordering on complete anarchy!” O’Rourke shouted. “But I am not going to be scared away by a bunch of rabble-rousers! I’ve got a job to do.”

“Don’t you think you should talk to the organizers of this rally?”

“You call this a ‘rally’? I wouldn’t dignify this insane act of criminal trespass, assault, hate crime, intimidation, and conspiracy as a ‘rally.’ And I do my talking on the air, for the rest of the free world to hear—and that’s what I intend to do right now. If you want to hear what I think of these hatemongers, listen to my show,
The Bottom Line,
on your local radio, satellite radio, or on the Internet. Excuse me, but I have work to do.”

He hated jumping off the tall running board, but there was no way else to get inside. Fortunately few in the crowd around them were taller than he was, and the protesters created such confusion that he hoped no one would notice how short he really was.
Wilcox and two other motorcycle patrol officers began clearing a path for him toward the office building, using nothing but their gloved hands to carefully but firmly push the crowd back as he approached the short set of stairs leading up to the semicircular drive and main entranceway. O’Rourke could see several workers at the entrance and waved to them. Just fifty feet more, he thought, and I’ll be free and clear…

But as he reached the drive, the crowd suddenly seemed to surge forward. Both police officers on either side of O’Rourke were squeezed against him, and he pushed them away toward the crowd. The push seemed to anger many of the protesters, who pushed back even harder. A can bounced off one officer’s helmet; a raw egg hit O’Rourke on the shoulder. Forty feet more…

The crowd started to chant, “RA-CIST! RA-CIST! RACIST!” Before long, the chanting turned to shouting, and then to screaming, and soon the words had changed to “¡CA-GU-E-TAS! ¡CA-GU-E-TAS!” which O’Rourke knew meant one of two things in Spanish—“little child” or “coward.”

“Hey, why don’t you just keep on walking home to Mexico or wherever you came from!” O’Rourke shouted in return. “We don’t want you! We don’t
need
you! Come back like real people and not burglars!”

More eggs and vegetables were thrown at him. “Mr. O’Rourke,” Wilcox shouted behind him as he led the way toward the studios, “I’m ordering you right now to
shut up
. You want to address the crowd—do it on your radio show. Now is not the time!” O’Rourke swallowed nervously and fell quiet. Thirty feet…

Suddenly from his left, a large brown malt liquor bottle flew over the crowd, hitting another Henderson police officer squarely on his left temple at full force, and he went down. The protesters surged forward once more, now close enough to grasp O’Rourke’s jacket, pull off his cowboy hat, and spin him around. Now O’Rourke couldn’t see which way to go. Several sets of hands were
grabbing him, threatening to rip his jacket right off his back, threatening to…

The gun!
He had almost forgotten about the pistol in his shoulder holster! Even now he felt little dark fingers reaching for his weapon. If he let anyone grab that gun, there would be a bloodbath—he, then the cops, would certainly be the first ones to die…

He didn’t actually remember doing so, but before he knew it, the big .45 was in his hand. He raised it up over his head and pulled the trigger, startled that it seemed to require hardly any effort at all to do so—and equally surprised that the second, third, and fourth pulls required even less. The crowd jerked down and away as if pulled by innumerable invisible ropes from behind. Women and men alike screamed hysterically. Most of the crowd turned and bolted away, trampling those too slow to get out of the way.

Except for two persons lying on the driveway, the path suddenly seemed to open up in front of him as if two giant hands had parted the crowd, and O’Rourke ran for his office building. Witnesses standing on the steps and in the lobby ran for cover when they saw O’Rourke with the smoking gun still in his fist heading for them. He ran inside the front doors, his thin chest heaving. “My…God, they…they tried to kill me!” he panted. He couldn’t control his breathing, and he leaned forward, hands on his knees, trying to catch his…

“Police! Freeze! Drop the gun, now!”
he heard. He didn’t think they were talking to him, but someone else behind him in the crowd with a gun, so he stayed bent over until he was finally able to…

Wilcox and another Henderson Police Department officer tackled O’Rourke from behind, running at full force. O’Rourke’s face was mashed into the tile floor, his arms pinned painfully behind his back, and the gun wrenched out of his right hand by breaking his index finger.

“This is Mike One-Seven, inside the Green Valley Business Plaza, shots fired, one suspect in custody—it’s fucking Bob
O’Rourke,” Wilcox said into his shoulder-mounted radio microphone after he and the other officer wrestled the gun out of O’Rourke’s hand, twisted his arms behind him, and handcuffed his wrists together. “I’m declaring a code ten-ninety-nine at this location, approximately two hundred individuals. I want them cleared out
now
before someone else decides to bring a gun out here. Over.”

U.S. E
MBASSY
, M
EXICO
C
ITY
L
ATER THAT MORNING

As expected, the streets surrounding the U.S. embassy on the Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City were jammed with thousands of angry protesters. Two separate groups converged on the embassy from the east and west, one carrying signs in Spanish, the other in English. There were only the usual half-dozen Federal District Police stationed at the main and employee entrances of the embassy, none wearing riot gear. By the time the police realized what was happening, the crowds kept reinforcements from being brought in. They were in control.

The U.S. embassy in Mexico City is the largest American embassy in the Western Hemisphere and has one of the largest staffs of any in the world. As befitting a “friendly neighbor” embassy, the eight-story U.S. embassy complex in Mexico City was an “urban” model, situated in the heart of the city and set up to make it as accessible as possible without hampering security. It occupied an entire city block, but it was not centered in the block so it did not have a tightly controlled perimeter on all sides. There was an ornate twelve-foot-high spade-topped wrought-iron fence surrounding the entire complex, but in spots the fence was still very
close to the building, offering little actual protection. The north and east sides bordered an open area with gardens and a small amphitheater, and there was a high wall protecting those sides with trees screening out most of the interior yards.

The main and staff entrances were very close to major thoroughfares—the building itself on the south and west sides was less than five yards away from the sidewalk. Massive concrete planters were placed on the streets beside the curbs to prevent anyone from parking near the building or driving directly into the entrances, but they were designed to stop vehicles, not protesters on foot. The wrought-iron fence had been erected at the edge of the sidewalk, outside of which the Mexican Federal District Police were stationed every few yards. There was a U.S. Marine guard post on one side of the public entrance and a U.S. Embassy Diplomatic Security Service officer and processing agent’s kiosk on the other side. Both were vacant now, with an egg-and feces-covered sign in both English and Spanish proclaiming that the embassy was closed due to “public demonstration activity.”

“Where are the damned
federales?
” the U.S. ambassador to the United Mexican States, Leon Poindexter, growled as he watched a feed from the embassy’s security cameras on the monitors in his office.

“The crowds are preventing any more police from moving in,” Poindexter’s chief of the embassy’s one-hundred-and-twenty-person Diplomatic Security Service detachment, ex–U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Richard Sorensen, said. “They’ll probably have to turn out their riot squads to see if they can disperse the crowd.”

The ambassador ran a hand nervously over his bald head, loosened his tie with an exasperated snap, and stood up and began to pace the office. “Well, if the Foreign Minister wants to meet with me in the Palacio Nacional, he’s going to have to do a better job calling out the
federales
to protect me.”

“The motorcade is ready for you, Mr. Ambassador,” the outer office secretary said from the doorway.

“No way, Marne,” Poindexter said. “I’m not moving from this office until the streets are clear—with the Mexican Army, not just the Federal District Police. I want those streets
clear!
”

“Sir, there is going to be some sort of major announcement on nationwide TV in less than two hours,” his chief of staff said. “It would be advisable to confer with the president before she drafts her speech…”

“Why? It won’t make any difference. She’ll say whatever she wants to say. Hell, anything I tell her will be used
against
me in any speech she gives!”

“Sir…”

“All right, all right,” Poindexter said irritably. “Get the Foreign Affairs Ministry on the phone, and as soon as the Federal District Police or the military gets here, we’ll go over to the…”

“Here they come now, sir,” the ambassador’s assistant said. They looked outside. A large blue school bus with flashing blue, red, and yellow lights moved slowly down the Paseo de la Reforma, with a half-dozen men in green fatigues and white riot helmets with clear face shields, carrying M-16 rifles, jogged on either side of the bus. Behind the bus was a dark blue armored Suburban belonging to the Federal District Police, with gun ports visible on three sides.

Poindexter turned to his aide. “What about the evacuation route…?”

“All set up, sir,” she assured him. “There are DSS units stationed every couple blocks along your travel route, and four locations north and south of the route where they can set a helicopter down if necessary. Medical teams are standing by.”

“This is a damned nightmare,” he muttered. “Why won’t the Internal Affairs Ministry allow us to fly our helicopter in here?”

“They said once the Federal District Police are able to control the central flight corridors in the district, they can’t guarantee safety for any helicopters, and they don’t want to have to deal with a chopper going down in the city,” his aide said. “It could take days for them to secure the Federal District.”

“Jesus,” Poindexter groaned. He looked around at the nervous faces around him. “It’ll be okay, folks,” he said, smiling gamely, trying to be as reassuring as possible. “The
federales
are here, and hopefully they’ll have the crowds under control by the time we’re ready to roll. The best news is that we have sixty DSS agents arrayed along our route waiting for us. Let’s go.”

As they headed downstairs to the parking garage, Sorensen came up to the ambassador. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m recommending we delay this convoy awhile—perhaps an hour.”

“An
hour?
That’s no good, Rick. I need to try to get in to see Maravilloso before she starts throwing more firebombs on TV.”

“As far as I can ascertain, sir, only half the normal contingent of Federal District Police are outside,” Sorensen said. “I called the Internal Affairs Ministry and they said the rest are clearing the first several blocks of the route.”

“Sounds normal to me.”

“The usual procedure is to have one platoon of police outside the embassy to surround the convoy as it leaves the compound. They deploy motorcycles or Jeeps to secure the route ahead of the convoy only after we’ve formed up. We’ve only got half the detail here now—and I can actually see only six. Besides, we don’t have any air support clearance yet.”

“But our choppers are standing by…?”

“Yes, sir, and they’ll launch with or without clearance,” Sorensen assured him. “But it’s damned irregular for the president to ask for a meeting and at the same time the Internal Affairs Ministry keeps us grounded. The left hand is not talking to the right.”

“After Maravilloso publicly admonished Díaz for that shoot down near El Centro, I’d be surprised if they even
look
at each other anymore, let alone talk.”

“That kind of friction only makes the situation worse, sir.”

“Rick, I need to get to the Palacio Nacional, ASAP,” Poindexter said. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but Washington is hoping that having the U.S. ambassador camped out in her outer office while she addresses the nation will coerce Maravilloso to say
something to calm this situation down. Now, is there any actionable intel that you’ve received that leads you to believe we’d be in danger if we set out immediately?”

Sorensen hesitated, then shook his head. “No, sir. Just a hunch—that creepy feeling I get when things don’t look quite right. But I have no information on any specific action against us—other than the normal level of threats of violence, of course.”

“Then we go,” Poindexter said. He tapped the bulletproof vest under his shirt. “Wonder if we’ll ever get to the point where we won’t have to wear this shit whenever we go outside the embassy here, Rick.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, sir.”

Poindexter sighed, then clasped the DSS chief on the shoulder. “‘I only regret I have but one life to lose in the service of my country,’ eh, Rick? Nathan Hale.”

“Hale was sold out by a friend, captured by the British, refused a Bible while in custody, tortured, had all of the letters he wrote to his family burned, and was hanged without a trial, sir.”

“You didn’t need to remind me of all that, Rick. Let’s roll.”

The ambassador’s convoy was three armored Suburbans, one in front and one in back of the ambassador’s car. Each Suburban had four heavily armed Diplomatic Security Service agents in it, wearing bulletproof vests and armed with Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns and SIG Sauer P226 sidearms. A GPS tracking system recorded every vehicle’s exact position and would immediately notify the other DSS units along the route of any problems.

As soon as the convoy was formed up inside the parking garage, DSS notified the Federal District Police protective unit outside. The bus moved forward until it was past the gated garage entrance. Once in position, Rick Sorensen stepped outside the steel gate, his jacket unbuttoned so he could have fast access to the MP5 submachine gun underneath. He carefully scanned both sides of the block. The street was cordoned off by Federal District Police in riot gear in both directions, and the street was empty. The police had pushed the crowds back all the way across the intersection
to the other side and blocked off the streets, leaving plenty of warning space. The windows and rooftops within sight appeared clear.

Everything looked okay—so far. Sorensen lifted his left sleeve microphone to his lips: “Bulldog, Tomcat, report.” All of the Marine Corps guards and DSS security agents reported in, followed by the controllers monitoring the fourteen security cameras outside the complex. When everyone reported clear, Sorensen waved to the Federal District Police bus driver to move out, then motioned for the ambassador’s motorcade to follow. He made one more visual sweep of the block. Everything looked good. The crowds were back,
way
back…good. No one in the windows, no one in the park across the plaza, no one…

It was then that Sorensen realized that the Federal District Police bus had not moved. The first Suburban was out of the compound and the ambassador’s car was following right behind, not yet clear of the steel gate—that was another mistake. Either the car was all the way
in
or all the way
out,
never in between. Sorensen glanced at the bus driver’s mirror…

…and noticed there was no one in the driver’s seat.

He immediately lifted his microphone:
“Code red, code red!”
he shouted.
“Contain! Contain!”

The first Suburban, which had cleared the steel gate, stopped in position to guard the entrance, its gun ports immediately open. The driver of the ambassador’s Suburban jammed the transmission into reverse. But just before he cleared the gate he rammed into the Suburban behind him, which was following too close behind. Both vehicles stalled…

…and at the same time the heavy gauge steel car gates, propelled by small howitzer shells to ensure the gates could be closed even without electricity, slammed shut—crushing the ambassador’s SUV’s engine compartment, trapping it between the gates…

…and at the same moment, two hundred kilos of TNT hidden underneath the bus detonated. Sorensen and the Suburban
outside the gate were immediately obliterated by the explosion. The engine compartment of the Suburban stuck in the gates exploded, propelling the SUV backward into the embassy compound and flipping it up and over the third security vehicle.

J
UST SOUTH OF
R
AMPART
O
NE
B
ORDER
S
ECURITY BASE
,
IN
M
EXICO
T
HAT EVENING

Major Gerardo Azueta was awakened by that unexplainable soldier’s sixth sense of impending danger. He quickly swung out of his cot, pulled on his uniform, and slipped into his body armor vest and web gear. He grabbed his M-16 rifle, donned his Kevlar helmet, and hurried outside. He was on his way to the command vehicle, but saw Lieutenant Ignacio Salinas, the duty officer and second in command, speaking with a noncommissioned officer and went over to them instead. It was probably an hour or so before dawn, with just a hint of daylight to the east, but even in the darkness he could tell there was trouble. “Report, Lieutenant.”

“Sir, report from Scout Seven, about ten minutes ago,” Salinas reported. That scout unit, riding U.S. military surplus Humvees, was about thirteen kilometers to the east. “They saw a group of about fifteen migrants captured by what appears to be a civilian border patrol group.”

“Those Watchdogs again?”

“Yes, sir, I think so,” Salinas said. “About six heavily armed individuals in military gear, but they were not National Guard.”

“Status of the California National Guard units in the area?”

“Slight decrease in numbers, sir, especially the TOW-equipped Humvees,” Salinas said. “They were pulled out yesterday evening. Still several active patrols out there, but fewer in number and firepower.”

“Damned renegade vigilantes,” Azueta murmured. “Did you observe anyone getting badly hurt?”

“Yes, sir. Our scouts report some of the men were being beaten and physically restrained, and one woman was being pulled into the back of a truck with several Americans with her—no one else. It appeared as if she was resisting.”

“Sir, we have to do something!” the noncommissioned officer in charge, Master Sergeant Jorge Castillo, interjected hotly. “This is in retaliation for the
accident
near El Centro and the embassy bombing. Are we going to stand by and watch as our women are raped by these
meados…!
”

“Sir, we know which camp they took them to,” Salinas said. “It’s only three kilometers north of the border. We will outnumber them with an extra patrol unit. Request permission to…”

“Denied,” Azueta said. “I will report this incident to regimental headquarters and await instructions.” But as soon as he said those words, he knew he had to reconsider them: even the young lieutenant was itching to get into action. “What’s your plan, Lieutenant—or haven’t you thought of one yet?” Azueta challenged him.