Gone (Michael Bennett)

hot pretzel with mustard on it. He looked it over and then carefully took it by the napkin before he took a bite.
    “I wanted to take this opportunity,” Perrine said, chewing, “to communicate with this task force that has been set up to find me. Ask yourselves honestly, are you truly up for the job? You people have families, people who depend on you. How will you be able to look out for them? What if you come home from work tonight and they have some—what is the term— assembly required?”
    He took another bite, thumbing mustard off the corner of his mouth.
    “I always give people a chance to get out of my way,” he said after licking his thumb. “That is why I am strongly advising you to relieve yourselves of your present duty. You should take this opportunity to transfer, retire, or, better yet, quit. In fact, if I were you, I would leave Southern California with your families as soon as possible.”
    The two dozen of us standing there looked from the screen to each other with the same question etched in every face. Say what?
    “See, ladies and gentlemen, you think this is about drugs, but it isn’t. Why do you think my men are so highly trained, so highly motivated to do whatever needs to be done? I am doing what the cowardly Mexican government will not. Piece by piece, inch by inch, gringo by gringo, I am taking and returning California back to its rightful owners, the Mexican people.
    “What you took by force in 1848, I will now wrest back by force. The revolution has begun. I am formally declaring war on the United States of America.”
    “This bastard,” I heard Rothkopf whisper through his gritted teeth when the video ended. “This goddamned barbaric bastard.”
    Every cop in the room made the same sound then, a kind of growl of shock tinged with rage. Emily had been right. Perrine was rubbing our noses in it. And loving every minute of it, apparently.

CHAPTER 65
     
    SILVER DROPLETS EXPLODED VIOLENTLY in the morning sunlight as Lillian Mara pulled the immense black Ford Expedition up almost against the fence. On the other side of the chain-link, the water in the Olympic-sized public pool churned as the Van Nuys–Sherman Oaks under-twelve swim team did their laps.
    As usual, the other swim moms and dads gave Lillian dirty looks from their poolside camp chairs. She knew what they were thinking. There she was again, the evil, blond new lady in the business suit and big, idling, earth-warming SUV who didn’t even have the decency to get out of her car to watch her kid swim.
    Sometimes she felt like getting out and explaining to them that the truck was actually her mobile office. As the newly transferred assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s LA office, she had to be available 24-7 to juggle case meetings with DAs and surveillance teams and undercover agents, and a secure, private communication link was a priority.
    As if that matters to them , Lillian thought with a sigh. Everybody had an excuse, didn’t they? Oh, well. She guessed she would just have to live with all the mommy-war scorn.
    Lillian sat up and held her breath as a sopping, thin-shouldered ten-year-old blond boy dragged himself out of the opposite side of the pool and headed for the starting blocks.
    “C’mon, kiddo, you can do this,” Lillian whispered, cheering on her son Ian as he got into position. “Bend over more, just a little more. Chin against your chest. You have this, kid.”
    She let out a groan as Ian jumped weakly and, as usual, landed flat with a loud, belly-flopping slap in the water. Then she laughed to herself.
    “Won’t be the first time you fall on your face, little buddy,” she told her baby boy as she watched him thrash intently across the pool. “Take it from personal experience.”
    Her phone, charging on the dashboard shelf in front of the speedometer, began buzzing. She snatched it up when she saw it was her husband, and pressed the FaceTime option.
    She smiled as her goofily handsome husband, Mitch, appeared. He was the head of mechanical engineering at Northrop Grumman and was on a business trip to Brazil.
    She turned up the volume on the phone as a couple of landscapers beside the pool’s parking lot fired up their air rakes.
    “Hey, good-looking!” Lillian yelled. “Wearing your wedding ring still? Well, that’s a relief.”
    “Just got the last of the carnival gals out of the room,” Mitch said, nodding.
    They both laughed.
    As if. Mitch, a hulking former combat marine,