“Fuerza was there?” Ariadna Vega interrupted incredulously. “Ernesto Fuerza? Are you sure, Agent Purdy?”
“Sure am, Dr. Vega,” Purdy said. “The one smuggler I’ve never been able to nab—I’m not sure if I could hold him either, since every civil rights and immigrant rights attorney in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico would sign on to represent him. The Hispanic community thinks he’s Mexico’s Fidel Castro or Yasser Arafat and will eventually lead them to a pan-American homeland, free of persecution. To me he’s just another coyote. I personally recovered dozens of kilos of drugs during one bust, but he got away…”
“He says he’s not a drug smuggler anymore,” Ariadna said.
“Once a drug smuggler, always a drug smuggler,” Purdy said. “The money is just too good to ignore. I wouldn’t make the mistake of giving him the benefit of the doubt if I were you. And now that he’s been seen traveling with a bunch of Russian commandos, I’d say he might be into infiltrating terrorists and guns into the U.S. too. I’d love to put that bastard away for good.” Purdy smiled at Ariadna’s grim expression. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Doc, but Fuerza is a serious bad guy. I don’t think he’s the freedom fighter everyone makes him out to be.”
“He has done some remarkable, important things for the migrant community, Agent Purdy,” Ariadna said. “I’m not questioning your knowledge and experience, but I’m pointing out that the good he’s done can’t all be discounted.”
“Oh yes it can, missy,” Purdy said. “First of all, the ‘good’ you’re talking about—helping foreigners sneak into the country illegally—is against the law. Maybe we should be changing the law to make it easier for workers to come to this country legally, but until it is changed, Fuerza is breaking the laws that I swore to uphold, and I’m going to stop him.
“Second: maybe back whenever he supposedly renounced his evil days of drug smuggling and switched to migrant smuggling he did it because he really did want to help his fellow Mexicans find a better life in America. But that was then. These days, he takes on any client and any cargo as long as they got the cash. It looks to me like he brought in terrorists with serious heavy weaponry—and those terrorists used a bunch of migrants as human shields to gun down my buddies.”
“But you didn’t see Fuerza shoot anybody, did you?”
“No, but he certainly didn’t warn my buddies that they were about to get blown away now, did he?”
“Maybe he didn’t know they were going to…”
“Sure, Doc—a guy loads a truck up with a squad of guys in body armor and automatic weapons, and he’s just going to take them to the local farm so they can go pick some vegetables,” Purdy shot back acidly. His features softened a bit when he saw Vega’s expression turn from defiance to hurt and shame. “Hey, Doc, I’m not tryin’ to pick a fight with you, okay? A lot of folks all over the world, including some very smart politicians, lawyers, and talkin’ heads on TV, think Fuerza is a hero. I just can’t help but notice that I don’t see those people out on the wire with me and my guys very often.” He smiled reassuringly. “But you’re out here, Doc, and I respect that. We’ll make a good team, and we’ll see what we see.” Ariadna nodded and tried to smile, but her face looked grim and she averted her eyes and said nothing.
“What else do you remember about that night, Agent Purdy?” Kelsey asked. “You mentioned Russians—can you give us a description?”
“Just of one of them, the one that I think came in with Flores—I couldn’t ID the military ones that jumped out of Fuerza’s truck, ’cause they were wearing balaclavas and helmets,” Purdy said. “Big guy, about six-two, square and solid but not fat, shaved head, wearing sunglasses.”
“Zakharov,” Jason breathed. “It has to be.”
“Zakharov? Yegor Zakharov?” Purdy asked incredulously. “The guy who planned those terrorist attacks on Kingman City, San Francisco, and Washington? He was right in front of me? My God, I actually saw Yegor Zakharov…I even got a bead on the motherfucker until his troopers started shooting up the place!”
“Are you sure about your description, Agent Purdy?” Kelsey asked.
“Positive, ma’am—I hit him square on with my lights, and he turned and faced me as soon as I did. Zakharov came with Flores in his Suburban with a small group of migrants, and Fuerza brought the big truckload of terrorists.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute—you keep on mentioning this Flores,” Jason interrupted. “Who’s Flores?”
“Flores. Victor Flores. He was the second smuggler in the group.” He looked questioningly at Special Agent in Charge Pierce. “You didn’t recover the body of a young kid, seventeen or eighteen years old, near the shot-up Suburban?”
“No,” Pierce said. “You never mentioned him.”
“I assumed he was among the dead,” Purdy said.
“There was a young boy killed, maybe eleven or twelve, but not a teenager…”
“When I arrived on the scene I arrested a coyote named Victor Flores,” Purdy backtracked excitedly. “He was separate from Fuerza. Fuerza brought the big truck with the commandos in it, the one that the second Border Patrol unit rolled up on. I rolled up on Flores and his Suburban. I know the kid—I’ve caught up with him many times, but never arrested him. But he was there. I had handcuffed him to the door of his Suburban but cut him loose just after the shooting started.” He looked at the others in surprise. “He must’a gotten away!”
“There’s another witness out there,” Jason said. “Another guy who could positively ID Zakharov.”
“ID him? Hell, I think Flores brought him into the country!” Purdy exclaimed. “When I rolled up behind Flores, before I hit my lights, Zakharov had just finished talkin’ with Flores and was walkin’ with Fuerza toward Fuerza’s truck. It looked like a meet.”
“They must’ve come in separately—Zakharov with Flores, and the commandos with Fuerza,” DeLaine said. “Good operational security technique.”
“But if you didn’t recover Flores’s body, he might still be around,” Purdy said. “We gotta find him before Zakharov or Fuerza do.” He looked at Pierce and DeLaine. “Give me another chance at them, ma’am, Director. Let me out of here.”
“If it’s the Consortium, and they find out you’re alive, they’ll kill anyone in their way to get to you,” Kelsey said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I didn’t sign up for the Border Patrol to be safe, ma’am,” Purdy said. He looked over at Richter and Vega. “Put me in with these guys. I’ll help them track down Zakharov and whoever is in on this.”
“We’ve been shut down, Agent Purdy,” Ariadna said.
“Well, open back up again,” Purdy said testily, suspicious about all the resistance he was getting from the supposedly gung-ho Army guys. “Your robots are the only thing that can stop these nutcases from killin’ more agents. Those Russians are just as well equipped and effective as any U.S. Army light infantry unit I’ve ever seen, and they’re gettin’ stronger every day. They’ll blow any Border Patrol agents away easy.” He turned to Pierce and said, “I can help track those terrorists down. I know the migrant worker community, ma’am…”