Gone (Michael Bennett)

Logistics, a municipal airport, and kept the other half of it—the dormitories and surrounding area—for multiple military use, mostly training.”
    “OK, but why are we here?”
    “Let’s get you settled first,” Emily said, swinging into a parking lot.
    She took me through a door and up a flight of stairs, and dropped my overnight on a cot in a little room halfway down the hall. She locked the door and handed me a key.
    “Are you the RA?” I said, taking it. “Where do I get my meal card? Or do I have to report for boot camp? Help me out.”
    “Head’s a couple of doors down, on your left,” she said, all business now. “There’s a general meeting in about an hour. Why don’t we get a bite to eat, and I’ll bring you up to speed.”

CHAPTER 32
     
    BACK DOWNSTAIRS, WE GRABBED a couple of Cokes and plastic-wrapped turkey clubs off a tray in the dormitory’s kitchen. We were taking them outside to a picnic table beside the parking lot when a short, wiry, black-haired man dressed in camo came through the front doors. Though short in stature, he carried himself with a physical grace, like an old-time baseball shortstop.
    “Emily,” the soldier said, smiling as he stopped in front of us. “I thought I heard you come in. And you must be Michael Bennett.”
    “This is Colonel D’Ambrose, Mike,” Emily said. “He’s in charge of this …”
    “Shindig? Fiasco? I haven’t quite figured out what it is myself yet,” D’Ambrose said, shaking my hand. “Have you brought Mike up to speed?”
    “Just about to, over lunch.” She smiled.
    “Excellent,” D’Ambrose said. “Let me grab some grub and join you.”
    “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this until you sign the paperwork,” D’Ambrose said at the picnic table a few minutes later, as he speared some potato salad onto a plastic fork, “but large things are afoot, Mike. Forty-eight hours ago, the president signed a national security directive targeting Perrine as a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. Now, instead of just local and federal law enforcement, my military boys are on board.
    “As of seven this morning, the Department of Justice is now working hand in hand with my covert-ops guys, the Navy SEALs and Delta Force, and the airborne-signal intelligence-gathering unit known as Gray Fox, as well as the CIA and NSA.”
    I stared at him, taken aback. I’d seen investigations ramped up before, but I’d never worked with the actual military.
    “Did this little order suspend posse comitatus? ” I asked, squinting at him. “You know, the federal statute that says the military can’t operate within the continental US?”
    “They finally eject California from the Union?” the feisty colonel said, smiling.
    “The colonel and his men aren’t actually operating on US soil,” Emily said, turning to me. “See, we believe Perrine is hiding somewhere in Mexico. Because of the rampant amount of bribery and corruption in the law enforcement agencies and even the military of our sister republic, the Mexican president has reluctantly agreed to let us into Mexico to act as special advisers in the hunt for Perrine.”
    “Which is not something the Mexican president is ready to crow about, since it’s an election year,” the colonel added. “Because discretion is mandatory, this base is the military’s rallying point for airborne sorties over the border.”
    “OK, I think I’m getting the picture,” I said. “Go on.”
    “That’s just one side of the blade,” D’Ambrose said. “Perrine’s people are now operating in LA, so we’re going to be working with the LA FBI and DEA, and the LAPD as well.”
    “Don’t forget the Mexican authorities,” Emily said. “The federales , and even CISEN.”
    “CISEN?” I asked.
    “The Mexican intelligence agency, equivalent to our CIA,” D’Ambrose said.
    “Exactly,” said Emily. “We’re going soup to nuts, from street cops to the feds to the intelligence community and the army.”
    “In two different countries?” I said, and shook my head.
    “Yep,” D’Ambrose said. “Starting to feel my pain now? You don’t speak Spanish, by any chance, do you?”
    I nodded and looked up as one of the Chinook helicopters went by close enough to land on the roof of the barracks. Half the napkins we had brought went flying as well.
    “This thing is a real mess,” I said.
    “What are you talking about?” Emily asked. “I thought you’d be pleased.