Lee checked his rearview mirror and recognized the car that followed him from the apartment building was again behind him. He drove right up to the entrance of the Embassy and started out, but two men dashed from two different cars towards him. Lee delivered a roundhouse kick to the head of one that immediately rendered the agent unconscious. The second blocked a wheel kick as two more agents entered the fight. Lee connected with a high punch that shattered the second agent’s jaw in three places. He went down. The third agent managed to deliver a solid body blow to Lee’s lowest rib that broke it. It caused Lee a moment’s hesitation from the pain. Lee delivered a low kick to the agent’s patella, dislocating it. He went down. One left to go, thought Wha. At that instant, a 180-grain bullet from the third agent’s Beretta in the .40 Smith & Wesson cartridge shattered Lee’s left femur. He collapsed to the pavement as the proximal end of the distal portion of the bone ripped through the muscle of his leg. He started to pull his own sidearm, but the agent who shot him placed his Beretta against Lee’s head and said, “If you pull it, you die.” Lee lay still as the agent removed Lee’s gun from the shoulder holster. The fourth agent rolled Lee onto his back and handcuffed him. The agent with the gun in hand handed his set of handcuffs to the standing agent and said, “You better cuff his ankles to keep him from crawling inside while you call for a couple of ambulances. This guy was really good. Jim is out, Dave is out, and I am in agony and can’t stand.” The fourth agent did just that, then called the command center with a request for two ambulances.
“Robert Wha Lee is in custody.”
The OIC at the Command Center immediately put in a call to Fred Gateway and informed him of what transpired.
Chapter 37
“Very good news, Mr. President; the boys at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, just informed me that, in conjunction with the Japanese, we have built two new, identical satellites and have tested them. They named them SUBDUED I and II. It stands for Submarine Detection, Underwater Electromagnetic Distortion. It is based on changes in the magnetic field a submarine creates when it is underwater. The salt water environment interacts with the steel or titanium outer hull, even if it is an anechoic design. The distortion is greatest when the sub is moving, but they can still detect it even when it is lying still. There’s enough distortion created by the chemical reaction between the salt water and the hull that it can be picked up from 125 miles up in space. We are planning to launch them, one here and one from Japan, next week. The Nipponese will use a rocket, while we will place ours in orbit from a shuttle mission. They will have two slightly different orbits, but they will both cover the southern Pacific, Indian Oceans and Arabian Sea.
“The two satellites will talk with one another, so to speak. This will allow an even greater detection and reporting capability. It is having two points of reference on the target. We have arranged a code from the two satellites that both we and the Japanese will monitor. Larry Corning and Diane Foster are the primary movers on this one. I must say, they are quite sharp people. By the way, a serious romance has budded between Dr. Foster and Fred Gateway’s head FBI agent on her protection team.”
What the DCI didn’t tell the President was that a phony code was also shared with each of the suspect members in the laboratory. A slightly different part of the code was modified in each case, so that each suspect was provided with a copy of the code containing a unique identifier. Only Dr. Fisher knew the real, complete code. With nanotechnology, the satellites would identify whichever incorrect code was beamed to them, and report it to DARPA. Not even the Japanese were aware of this imaginative trap.
“That’s very good news, Jim. I presume this technology and these satellites are aimed at detecting those air independent propulsion submarines we have all been so concerned about. Who else knows about this?”
“We’re keeping it limited on a need-to-know basis, Mr. President. There aren’t more than a dozen people in each country, outside the members at this table, and perhaps a similar table in Japan, who know about this capability. Other parts of the satellite were built independently; they are modular satellites and have to be completely assembled in order to function. These new detectors can be built in a matter of a couple of weeks. It is quite amazing. The circuits are actually built by bacteria in a complex web of connections. The satellites will be solar powered, but you can run them on a couple of D sized flashlight batteries as backup. We’ll keep you posted as launch preparations proceed, Mr. President, but right now we’re scheduling them for s shuttle and rocket launch one week from today.
“Other interesting news, Mr. President, is that the Chinese are sending one to three ships out of their harbors every twenty-four hours now. They are all steaming on the same course, or so it appears. They are headed for Malayan ports where they deliver a load of supplies, then pick up a battalion of Chinese troops. The first ships have made landfall on the East African coast, Mombassa, Kenya, to be specific. The troops are securing the ports right now. There is no opposition at all. Ed has more on this.”
Everybody looked at Ed McCluskey, DCI. He nodded a thank you to Jim Neville and picked up the thread of conversation. “The first two shiploads of troops took over warehouses and acted as stevedores, unloading supplies in Mombassa after they established strong defensive perimeters around them. It looks like it will be an extended operation. Initially, there was some minor combat, skirmishes really, as some of the natives attempted to pilfer the supplies. They were shot for their attempts. Trucks are part of the offloaded supplies. The troops on the next convoy of ships loaded the supplies in trucks and started for the interior. It seems there are slight deviations in the courses of the following convoys, going north and south, to Mogadishu in Somalia in the north, Tanga and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania in the south. So, they are establishing four beach heads, roughly eight hundred miles apart by seacoast roads. It suggests that they plan to deliver roughly a battalion of infantry and logistical support every day to each of these three ports. They have a string of over thirty merchant ships now en route to Africa. Those catamarans are obviously built as ocean going fast freighters to deliver men and supplies for another invasion, this time, of Africa. Not a single ship has veered more than five degrees north of the equator, which supports that Mogadishu is their northern target port.
“This strongly suggests that they will drive westward from these three ports, probably with the Congo as their objective. Whether their final objective will be the Congo or the Atlantic coast, we don’t know at this point. Given their previous behavior, it wouldn’t surprise me if they drove completely across Africa, cutting off the entire southern portion of the continent.
“Another interesting development is that the Chinese are moving their regular armed forces off the coast, away from the Strait of Taiwan. We picked up on their movement twenty-four hours ago. They are headed west, but where they will stop, we don’t know. A couple of analysts suggested that they might take over the drive in the Central Asian Republics. It’s been eight months since the Chinese started moving, almost seven in the CARs. They have suffered tremendous losses but don’t seem concerned about the loss of so much manpower, several tens of millions of people. They are closing down on the tip of the Indian peninsula. We have no idea how many people they slaughtered there, or how many troops they still have. Certainly, radiation sickness, diseases, and combat casualties should have depleted their ranks to skeleton proportions.”
“Thoughts, ideas, people? What are they going to do with those troops they are moving away from the coast?”
Ms. Stearns thought for a moment, then looked around. Somewhat reluctantly, she said, “If they loaded those troops on ships from their eastern seaboard, it would be very easy for us to interpret them as an invasion fleet for Taiwan. If they shipped them elsewhere for boarding of ships, it would not raise anxiety here or in Taiwan. In fact, it should probably generate a feeling of relief. That means, it is either a massive diversion maneuver, or they are headed for conquered lands. They could replace the losses in India, the Malayan peninsula, or reinforce or relieve the forces fighting in the CARs. I don’t know how much progress they have made in the Central Asian Republics, but I suspect they have had their hands full with winter weather and guerilla warfare. India is almost conquered, so my guess would be garrison duty in India and Pakistan, or a spring offensive in the Asian Republics.”
“Why not fresh troops for the invasion of Africa, Ms. Stearns?” asked Ed McCluskey.
“That is quite possible, sir. Given the fact that they are taking battle hardened reserve troops that fought down the Malayan peninsula and using them for Africa suggests that they will do the same for troops that fought down the Indian peninsula. Fresh regular troops will be better used in garrison. They don’t seem to mind losing the reserves. From what I have been told, the reserves are only trained in small unit infantry tactics with no heavy weapons training or capability whereas the regulars are. They shouldn’t need troops trained in the use of heavy weapons to defeat the rabble of Africa. The Africans are three quarters starved to death, armed only with small arms, and absolutely riddled with AIDS. There are no trained armies there, only regional warlords ruling over essentially local tribal gangs of teenaged men and women. The Chinese have been supplying them with food and small arms for years to use against one another. They have killed each other off for the benefit of the Chinese. I’ll bet that the Chinese shut down the supply line several months ago. That would further weaken resistance. They wouldn’t waste well trained troops going into battle against such an enemy in such an environment as starving, AIDS and tropical disease ridden central and southern Africa. At least, it doesn’t make sense to me to do so.”
“We received communications from one of our people in Mombassa last night. He commented on how poorly nourished many of the Chinese soldiers looked. He said they looked like they suffered AIDS themselves.”
“My God,” said Roberta Stearns. “What if all of these Chinese reservists have AIDS? They are accomplishing massive world conquest, on two continents anyway, while they rid their nation of all their AIDS infected people, thus reducing the spread of the disease or perhaps even eliminating it, in their society. They are reducing their own population pressure, acquiring new lands for food production, destroying sources of economic competition from India and South Korea and competition for food from India and Pakistan, and acquiring new sources of raw materials, all at the same time. Do we have any data on how serious the AIDS problem is in China?”
“Yeah, as I recall, that’s what Dr. Allison said a couple of months ago.”
Jason Thornton pushed the intercom button on his desk. “Peggy, call Dr. Allison and tell him to have his people put together a couple of pages of facts on the AIDS situation in the People’s Republic of China. We want to know how severe it is. I want it here by 15:00 today.”
“Now, there is nobody to stop them when they control the wealth of southern Africa, Caspian Sea Basin oil, the minerals and oil of Southeast Asia, and they are in a springboard position to seize the Middle East with its oil reserves from two directions at any time they choose. They hold us in abeyance in the meantime, from the Panama Canal which they control. Magnificent! What a game plan,” said General Anderson.
“Not only that, but Taiwan would now willingly join China out of intimidation. China would still have the world’s four greatest markets for their goods and services; the United States, Western Europe, South America, and their own internal market. It will be a unipolar power world, and it won’t be us,” added Margaret Talbott.
“Marge, inform every African ambassador that we believe the Chinese intend to conquer every African nation south of the Sahara. Also inform every European nation and Russia. The world is going to be bipolar or tripolar. We are one pole, I hope Russia joins with Western Europe as the second pole, and China is the third. Ask them to consider what possible outcomes are the results of such a conquest, and what actions, individually and collectively, they are willing to do about it. Don’t bother with the United Nations.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, they aren’t going to hold us in abeyance for long. As of this moment, we are going to take back the Canal Zone. Put your heads together. I am going to stay out of it. The management of our seizure of the Canal Zone is up to you people at this table. Go when you are ready. Jim, as SECDEF, and you, General Anderson, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, have responsibility and total control. Go get the bastards.”
“We will begin by pulling back our naval forces from the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Taiwan and the China Seas. That should put the Chinese at some degree of relief. We’ll let them think we are withdrawing our forces for refitting, rest and recreation back to the west coast. We can take the Canal Zone within seventy-two hours after the operation begins.” Jim Neville smiled as he spoke. Being a Ph.D. research physicist has its moments, but there is always the glimmer of playing the commanding Admiral in a major engagement in every naval officer.
Jason Thornton and United States Attorney General Hugh Collier struck a deal with the governors and Attorneys General of the southwestern states. They could have first trial rights on the suspects. “Why not,” said Thornton, “let the states, in order of the raids conducted, try him first. Then, if all else fails, we will try him in federal court for whatever we can hang on him, from illegal entry into the United States, to gun running, to murder of federal officers.” Hugh Collier ordered the FBI to assist the states in gathering and presenting evidence. He assigned a team of federal attorneys to assist in the prosecution with the strict admonition that the local prosecutors were in the lead. Photographs were taken of each of the prisoners and provided to witnesses. Dozens of witnesses and victims came forward with specific, individual identifications of the perpetrators. Cartridge cases collected from the raids were matched with individual AK-47s by the FBI ballistics laboratory. Fingerprints were taken, as were blood and DNA samples. DNA samples taken from semen collected from rape victims in Ruidoso alone matched more than two dozen of the raiders.
Jesus Gonzalez, whose real name was Jose Aguinaldo, went on public trial in Ruidoso, Texas. Reporters from around the world flooded into the little Texas town. Media networks broadcast the initial hearings live around the world. The Mexican government lodged protest after protest, but many Texas citizens, out of reach and earshot of the television cameras and microphones, whispered not-so-veiled threats into the ears of Latino journalists. Some were as simple as, “Get out of town or we will kill you.” Others were only slightly more subtle. “Get on the right side of this or you will be put in a hole.” Mexican journalists were specifically identified in most cases, but some threats were indiscriminately directed to all Latino journalists. Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, all had teams of reporters as did the Europeans. Everywhere, it seemed Anglo citizens of Texas openly carrying arms were televised.
The Latino journalists tried to hammer the point that with the withdrawal of the U.S. Army along the border, a wave of shooting of poor illegal immigrants trying to cross the border reached epidemic proportions. A wave of tens of thousands of immigrants waiting to cross had built up while the border was being patrolled. Camps holding hundreds of aliens formed in the desert along every possible water course and on every Mexican ranch that had a bank on the Rio Grande. When the Army withdrew, they advanced en masse for the next two weeks. Then, as word spread of mass shootings of illegal immigrants spread throughout Mexico and Central America, the number of those attempting to cross dropped off dramatically. County militias had been quietly organized by citizens all along the border but particularly in Texas. They consisted only of residents well known to each other. Local sheriffs’ departments and small town police departments totally ignored them and officially denied their existence. In fact, many of the county deputies and city police officers of the small towns were among the militiamen. Hundreds of bodies were found from Brownsville to Tijuana.
Some Mexican journalist estimated on live television that perhaps only ten percent of the bodies were found. When queried as to how he arrived at that figure by a Fox Television News Team, he evaded the question. Women as well as men were found shot to death. It seemed that many Latino American citizens were also included in the carnage. It left the impression that sometimes revenge was indiscriminate. One Texan was asked why he carried both a rifle and a pistol. He retorted in a live television interview, “The range is long out here, four, five hundred yards sometimes, on a running target. That’s why the rifle. I don’t leave it in the truck for some wetback to steal. Wetbacks aren’t welcome on my ranch. I sent all my Mexican vaqueros packing. A couple of them vowed revenge. Who are they to tell me I can’t fire ‘em? The handgun is for close-in work, in town, around the ranch buildings and in the truck where you can’t handle a rifle as easily.” Another armed Texan interviewed by a Mexican news team bluntly stated, “If I was you, I would stay real close to town here, except when you’re packing back to wherever you came from.” Another armed citizen smiled into the TV camera and said, “We have a rabies epidemic around here.” Somebody in the local cafe where Latino reporters ate many of their meals said in a loud voice to no one in particular, “Around here, its shoot, shovel, and shut up!”
The Texas State Police provided a bodyguard of a dozen officers wearing bullet proof vests to surround Jesus Gonzalez. They huddled around him to prevent any sniper from having a clear shot that would blow his head off. They transported him in an armored car to and from the jail to the court house.
Jesus Gonzalez realized that he was going to be found guilty and that his only hope of living was that the Mexican government could persuade the Americans to turn him over to Mexico for lifetime incarceration. He realized he would be found guilty as charged, no matter what. The sentence was the only thing in doubt. He knew he could bribe his way out of a Mexican penal institution after several years. He wasn’t naive enough to believe that Mr. Ito or his organization, unaware of Chan’s death, would ever come to his defense, either in the U.S. or in Mexico. He had no doubts they would much rather have him dead. He decided that the only chance he had for leniency was to tell everything he knew. And talk he did. From the witness stand, he revealed the large cash deposits he received from Mr. Ito, all of the guns and the direction provided by the enigmatic Mr. Ito. He attempted to portray himself as a fool, a tool of some sinister organization whose representative was the evil Mr. Ito. He knew nothing personally of Mr. Ito. In Gonzalez’s office however, the FBI found a file with pictures of Mr. Ito, his bodyguards and their vehicle. Blowing up the photograph revealed the license plate number of the sedan. The FBI immediately recognized Mr. Ito as Mr. Chan.
The FBI conducted a raid on the COSCO Shipping Company and seized all their records for the timeframes revealed by Gonzalez that they received the weapons. They found nothing of value. There were no records of any of the shipment of arms, ammunition or anything other than tractors and farm implements to Mexican implement dealers. According to COSCO, Mr. Ito never existed. No one in the COSCO offices recognized the photographs of Mr. Ito. Hugh Collier ordered a massive, close surveillance on COSCO shipping company executives.
The majority of the raiders were held in the temporary holding facility in the desert just north of El Paso, on a far desert corner of the Fort Bliss reservation. It didn’t take long for the observant citizen to figure out where they were. The major question was to try them as individuals or collectively, and what punishment to mete out. It would presume that they were all equally guilty to try them en masse at a single trial. More than two dozen well known trial lawyers volunteered to defend them pro bono. It was more like a gathering of vultures for publicity. Hugh Collier anticipated a media circus would develop that would be overwhelming, out of control and make a mockery of the judicial system, as well as costing tens of millions of dollars. Jason Thornton made the decision to try them en masse at a secret trial.
Hugh Collier selected three volunteer attorneys to lead the defense team. He informed them that once they accepted the positions and formed a defense team, there was no turning back. There was no way they would enhance their legal reputations or make any money on this trial whatsoever. They had to accept the agreement up front without knowing the details or back out now. All of them objected. Collier then informed them that they would not be allowed to represent the raiders. Two acquiesced. Collier had the two sign the appropriate secrecy documents. He impressed upon them that the trial records would be sealed for fifty years. If any of them revealed anything about the trial, wrote any books, talked to their wives or girlfriends, or broke the secrecy agreement they just signed in any way, they would spend the rest of their life in prison, their possessions would be confiscated, legally or otherwise for tax evasion, and if necessary, bad things could happen to family members. It’s not the way I like to conduct business, thought Collier. I have just negated all that the law is supposed to stand for. On the other hand, I have a higher duty to protect the country and its citizens. This is the real world.
Each of the raiders was undergoing a thorough interrogation. All of them denied ever having raped anyone or shot anyone. Those who were confronted with their fingerprints on cartridge cases claimed they were just shooting in the air to scare people. Those whose DNA samples matched those taken from rape victims claimed the tests were false and they were being framed. When confronted with testimony by the victims who picked out their pictures, they denied everything. Some were identified by their tattoos. Almost all claimed that they thought they were joining a guerilla army to resist the Mexican government, but once in, they went along with the raids out of fear for their lives.
“If they are found guilty, which they undoubtedly are, then how do you punish them? Do we incarcerate all one hundred and fifty of them at $50,000 a year expense for each of them? That’s $7,500,000 a year burden on the taxpayers. If we execute them, it will be the largest mass execution in American history and most certainly will raise the cry against American barbarism. Sure as hell don’t hear anything like that about the Chinese slaughtering millions, though. Perhaps we can execute those who are positively identified as rapists and or killers, and turn the rest over to Mexico and let them be their problem. They and the Mexican government will have to understand we will kill them on sight if they ever enter the United States again. Of those we execute, do we do it by firing squad or by hanging? The easiest way is to line them up and machine gun them into a mass grave. That would be a bloody business. If we hang them one at a time, that might be more dramatic, but time consuming. A firing squad is an option, if we can find the men who will man it. Lethal injection one at a time might be the way to go. It would deny any claims of barbarity. I suppose the question is how many will there be who receive the death sentence. I’ll have to see what the President wants to do.”
“No question about it, Hugh. We will invoke the death penalty. So far as I am concerned, those who raped and those who killed will get it. If Texas law doesn’t string up the rapists, find a way to do it. Consider rape the same as murder. I have no problems with firing squad, hanging, or lethal injection. Lethal injection seems to be a slightly drawn out affair, firing squads would be a bit messy, and perhaps hanging them one at a time in front of all the others would be the best way to go. One gallows and hang them two or three at a time would be less bloody and faster than hanging them individually. We wouldn’t have to be concerned about any firing squad members suffering psychological problems that way. Any idea how many will receive the death penalty, and what does the State of Texas say about it?”
