True Allegiance

Still, the news from Texas remained tertiary. And that meant that the operation to clean out drug cartel operatives in Ciudad Juarez continued to operate on the quiet. The Mexican military knew enough to avoid a significant confrontation with the National Guard; there were still honest members among its ranks who wanted the area cleaned of cartel influence. Each day, small groups of National Guardsmen raided Ciudad Juarez, usually by motor vehicle convoys across the border. The cartel members had picked up on the nature of the offensive action and had inserted themselves into heavily civilian areas, cutting down on the ability of Texas forces to strike without facing the prospect of urban warfare. Now, more dangerous search and destroy missions had been authorized.

The American side of the border remained silent.

Until it wasn’t.

The first news of the massacre hit the airwaves three days after the Ciudad Juarez raids began. According to early reports, six people, women and children, had been found dead on the Mexican side of the border. They were protesters, and their bodies had been riddled with bullets. Over the course of the morning, the number increased: six, then twelve, then finally twenty-six people, all women and children, found shot to death on the banks of the Rio Grande. Everyone figured it for a drug cartel hit.

Then the footage came out.

Ellen saw it on the evening news, as the network anchor intoned, “What you are about to watch is very graphic. Younger viewers are advised not to watch.” She then cut to grainy, close-range video of a man in a National Guard uniform, from behind, walking up to a group of tents. “Get out of thar,” the National Guardsman said in a thick Texas accent. “Get out of thar, you little wetbacks.”

A few children, rubbing their eyes, came scurrying out of their tents, their mothers following. Seeing the barrel of a gun, they raised their hands. The screen went white with the fired shots: flash after flash, again and again. When the night vision calmed, the smoking bodies of two dozen innocents lay on the ground.

The screen cut back to the anchor. “Our sources on the ground tell us that this tape has not yet been verified,” she said. “No one has yet claimed credit for this horrific attack. Calls for comment to Ellen Hawthorne, chief of staff to Governor Bubba Davis, have gone unreturned.”

Ellen quickly took out her phone—and sure enough, there in her messages were two voice mails from a 212 area code. Son of a bitch, she thought.

Now the phone rang again.

“Ellen,” said Bubba, “get your ass back to Austin tonight.”

“I want some answers on this, Ellen,” Davis said, pacing back and forth, his thick body tense with energy. “I’ve got the president of the United States calling me every five minutes, and I’m putting him off for as long as I can.”

Ellen gripped her fists. “I didn’t ask for this, Bubba. I did it as a favor to you.”

“Some favor,” he said. “I’ve got two dozen dead kids and their mamas and a boy in a National Guard uniform responsible for all of it. A boy I kept here in Texas instead of sending him to New York like Prescott wanted me to do. Do we know who the little bastard was?”

“Yes,” she answered. “We do.” Before leaving for Austin, Ellen had spent the night questioning all of the command-level National Guard officers she could get her hands on. A consensus seemed to be emerging on the name and nature of the culprit. And it wasn’t pretty.

“His name,” she said, “seems to be James Eastin McLawrence. Buck sergeant.”

“Don’t they all have three names,” Davis muttered.

She passed him a photo of a young man in National Guard uniform. His eyes were open a shade too far, bright blue and off-putting. His mouth was slack. “McLawrence joined the Guard after dropping out of high school and getting his GED. Not a stellar candidate for higher rank. Barely at the bottom rung. He’s full active duty. His parents live over near Lubbock. No friends in the Guard, at least none that wanted to speak with us.”

“What set him off?”

“We don’t have any hard info on that yet, Governor. But there are at least a couple of rumors. One says that he had it out for illegal immigrants ever since his dad lost his job at a manufacturing plant that moved south of the border. Another says he was short on cash and paid by the cartels. The third says he’s just crazy. Simple as that.”

‘That doesn’t make things simple for me. Who’s the cameraman?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Davis leaned back against his desk. “Ellen, I need you to go to New York.”

“Why New York?”

“Prescott wants me there. And I don’t want to go. I can’t go. I’ve shown him up in front of the entire country, and now he wants me there to humiliate me in front of the entire country for this massacre. Hell, he could have a local DA down here draw up charges against me so that they’re frog-walking me when I get off the plane. It’s a setup.”

Ellen shook her head. “I still don’t understand.”

“They won’t touch you because of Brett.”