Broken Borders, page 19
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency began funding aspects of this work at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1998.
Smart Dust devices are tiny wireless microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS) that can detect everything from various types of light to vibrations. Thanks to recent breakthroughs in silicon and fabrication techniques, these “motes” are the size of a grain of sand. Each MEMS will eventually contain sensors, computing circuits, bidirectional wireless communications technology, and a power supply. Motes will eventually gather and store data, run computations, but currently can communicate information using two-way-band radio between the MEMS sensor and the receiver aboard UARV choppers approaching one thousand feet in elevation. In silent mode, the UARV could fly a thousand feet above Ramiro or Humberto without probable detection. In the dry desert air, it was also found that the so-called dust particles could effectively transmit to the airborne receivers well above one thousand feet in elevation.
Bobby told the general to stand by and he would call back. He worked his way over to the sergeant in charge and flipped his badge.
“Sergeant, we need you to communicate with the guy who is the leader of this group,” Bobby said, “We have a tiny unmanned helicopter overhead, and we are going to mark his car with it, and then somehow we have to let him go so we can track him.”
The sergeant looked at Bobby like he was crazy.
“Bullshit!” he said, and looked back at the sight of his rifle aiming at the closest car.
Bobby grabbed the stock of the rifle and pulled it off the car with a jerk.
He said, “Sergeant, if I can produce a tiny unmanned helicopter that is hovering up there right now, but you cannot even hear it, if it comes down out of the sky like I said, and you see it with your own eyes, are you going to say ‘Bullshit’ and end up looking like a dufus, or are you going to cooperate fully for the sake of national security?”
The sergeant said, “You show me an unmanned helicopter, and I damned shore will cooperate, but right now I am about ready to call the boys in white coats for you, son.”
Bobby grinned saying, “Thanks, Dad.”
He lifted his cell phone, speed-dialed, and said, “General, I need the UARV to come down and attach our devices to all four vehicles. ASAP, please, sir? Thank you, wilco, out.”
The sergeant grinned, saying, “Talkin’ to yore space-ship, are ya? Beam me up, Scotty.”
Seconds later, Bobby tapped the sergeant’s arm and pointed. Barely discernible was a small unmanned helicopter, but much larger than a remote-control helicopter. The sergeant’s mouth dropped open as he watched it maneuver over each vehicle and release what looked like a puff of dirt blasted down onto the vehicles by the rotor-wash. The noise from the chopper was barely audible, and it rose again into the darkness.
The police leader looked at Bobby like he was a creature from outer space.
He said, “Damn Sam! You boys are way out of my league, but you sure are the real McCoy. I am not gonna end up on World’s Wildest Police Videos looking like an idiot. Whatever you need, Officer, you got our help.”
Bobby said, “For the sake of the War on Terrorism, you might want to keep quiet about what you saw and ask your men to hold it back, too. Can you ask who is in charge and tell them you want to talk?”
The sergeant said, “Shore,” and he reached for the microphone and turned on his PA. “You in the cars, I just want to speak to your leader. We won’t shoot. Just want to talk with you. Will your leader just roll down your window and give us a wave?”
Bobby said, “Great. Look,” as they saw Humberto’s arm waving from car number two, a Ford Expedition.
Bobby said, “Why don’t we back up your cruiser and that other one to let them out, then see if they don’t just take off? We can pretend to be Keystone Cops and not get after them.”
“Good idea,” the sergeant said sarcastically. “Let’s make my department look like idiots.”
“You said you would cooperate fully. I know what I am doing,” Bobby replied.
“Okay,” the sergeant responded hesitatingly.
He grabbed the mike again, saying over the PA, “You, the leader. Bring your car up here slowly, and we will let you through here so you can get out and talk. We’ll move these two cruisers. The rest of you remain in your vehicles.”
He pulled one cruiser back, telling his men that this car was probably going to run, but they did not want it stopped.
The two cars were backed up and the second car, the Expedition, slowly drove through. As Humberto drove through, he noticed that the two police cars were facing each other, and not on an angle toward his car but the other way. They could not just spin and chase him if he took off. The others were on other streets, so they would have to travel around a block or more to get to his car. They also would have to worry about the other cars getting away if they gave chase, so he made a decision.
Humberto waited and told his compadres in Portuguese to tighten their seat belts. When the two cruisers pulled back together, he floored his accelerator and in his rearview, saw two cops starting to get out of the cars, but now getting back in. They tried to move the two cruisers, but almost rammed into each other.
He laughed heartily.
Humberto actually did not grow up in Brasilia. His father was one of the Candangos, construction workers who came from all over Brazil to build the country’s planned capital city. Núcleo Bandeirante was a city built near Brasilia to house the workers who built it. The city was then later called Cidade Livre, which meant “Free Town.” This is where Humberto grew up, but every night after dinner, all he did was listen to his father talk about the many projects he had worked on.
Brasilia was constructed between 1956 and 1960, during the government of President Juscelino Kubitschek, and was inaugurated as Brazil’s new capital on April 21, 1960. Its master plan, or Plano Piloto, was conceived by Lucio Costa, and most of Brasilia’s major buildings were designed by Oscar Niemeyer.
It was originally planned to house 500,000 inhabitants, but Brasilia had seen its population grow much more than expected. Several satellite towns were created over the years to house all the extra inhabitants, which now includes over 2,000,000 if the outlying communities and suburbs are included.
Humberto was never asked anything by his father. He only heard what a great builder his father was and how the man helped create the Cathedral, Dom Bosco Sanctuary, Igreja Nossa Senhora de Fátima (“Our Lady of Fatima Church”), which is usually called “Igrejinha,” and many other buildings.
By the time he was a teenager, he ran away from home, and eventually made his way to Rio de Janeiro, where he met Ramiro Maureo. He wanted to make his own name in life, and so he had by being murderous and daring in O Grupo Grande, but Humberto was certainly not a doctoral candidate.
He headed down the street as if the end of his Expedition was on fire, and Officer Ev Franklin had seen too many episodes of cop shows where the hero disobeys his superior, goes after and dispatches the bad guy, and all is forgiven when he makes his department look good.
Everett Franklin was a young black El Paso police officer with political ambitions. He did not want to be a cop to help people or make a difference. He wanted to save a life or two, make a major bust, or anything of that nature, while TV cameras were around, so he could achieve fame, which could be parlayed into votes. He saw himself as El Paso mayor someday. Maybe then governor of Texas.
On the next street over, he jumped in his cruiser and tore off trying to overtake Humberto. There was some construction along the way, and a natural ramp where workers had put thick planks down over dirt piles so they could push wheelbarrows filled with concrete up to fill in a wall of bricks laid on the corner as a fancy planter. Everett figured he could shorten his drive and add to his splash by soaring up the ramp, and he calculated his flight would take him right over the roof of Car Number 519 parked there. He would land on the street in a shower of sparks and tear off after the bad guy. He would initially make the sergeant mad, but when he overtook and had a shoot-out with the bad guys, he would be a hero to one and all.
Unfortunately, about two hours earlier, the foreman of the construction crew working on the planter had told the men not to use the ramp because the main plank on the right was cracked.
Everett Franklin learned this the hard way. As visions of sugar-plum assignments danced in his head, he headed toward the ramp and into it, not onto it. The board broke when the front tires hit the expedient ramp, and the car pitched on its right side, smashed through the top of the dirt mound, completely turning the left front fender and hood into a nonmusical accordion, and smashed into the front of the driver’s door of Car 519, totaling both cars, and knocking Everett’s four front upper teeth out, which would hardly make for a good appearance during political speeches.
“Dumb ass,” was all that the sergeant muttered as he watched and shook his head. “Somebody call for an ambulance and two tow trucks. Holmes, I want you to get your ass to the hospital and write him a ticket for reckless endangerment, careless driving, and whatever else you can come up with. I wish he would have gone through the damned windshield, so we could write him up for leaving the scene of an accident.”
Northwest El Paso, much better known as West El Paso, or to locals simply as the West Side, is an area of El Paso, Texas, that is located north of the downtown area and on the west side of the Franklin Mountains. It is also a home to some of the more affluent neighborhoods within the city of El Paso, Texas. Many really magnificent mansions are perched high on the mountains, as well as some spectacular homes in the Upper Valley. The West Side is most likely the fastest-growing area of the city, and it was where Ramiro was now driving.
There was much construction going on in the area, and he felt it was time to ditch the ambulance and switch to another vehicle. He also kept looking down out of the corner of his eye at Bo’s magnificent body, especially her breasts every time the car went over a bump. Ramiro thought of her fiery spirit, and this excited him sexually beyond imagination. If he could possess this woman and make her afraid and scream in terror, that would be one of his best conquests ever. Then he would turn her over to the others to use before they slit her throat.
He saw a dirt driveway that was to be paved, and it led to a high mansion under construction up the side of a ridge covered with creosote bush, mesquite, and some gnarled cedars. A locked chain stood guard across the end of the driveway, and several construction company vehicles sat atop the hill. There was no activity, and his sense was that the site was deserted for the day. The house was going to obviously be stucco, and was shaped to follow the contours of the ridge. Ramiro simply crashed through the chain with the ambulance and went up the driveway, parking the ambulance in the large garage with no walls yet on two sides. They all got out, and Ramiro had his men unload the two backpack nuclear bombs and move them over by the construction vehicles.
They put them in a big red Chevy Suburban that was loaded with extras.
Tariq Ubaadah and Abdul Qudoos had been very silent for some time, as Ramiro was paid to get them and the nukes safely across the border, but they knew he had just about outlived his usefulness.
Tariq, in Spanish, asked, “Why are we here?”
Ramiro said, “To switch vehicles, amigo. They will be searching, investigating, and many of my men will talk to save themselves, I think.”
This seemed to satisfy Tariq, and Ramiro went on. “Besides, we need a short break to see if they are looking for the ambulance. The woman can give us some recreation.”
Tariq decided to be patient and said, “So then what? What are your plans?”
Bo knew she was in deep trouble. She was still in great pain from the crash, and looked to her right at her shoulder and saw a nail, apparently from one of the wooden pallets she’d crashed on. It was sticking through her shoulder with the point protruding through the front of her supraspinatus, the muscle at the top of the shoulder that runs from the neck to the deltoid. It was right at the top of the muscle, and gritting her teeth, Bo now raised her shoulder and reached back with her neck twisted as far as it would go, and grabbed the head of the nail with her teeth and pulled it out of the wound. She was in sheer pain, but her adrenaline would not allow her to even think of it, and when she saw the nail she could only think of Bobby Samuels sticking a screw up his rectum to use to pick his shackles when he escaped from al Qaeda in Iraq. He had described exactly how he manipulated the lock like a burglar using a rake and pick. She had to leverage the tumblers by twisting something in the cuff while she used the thin nail to push each tumbler aside.
Bo knew she must escape or she would be brutally raped, probably beaten and tortured, then killed. She guessed correctly that it would happen here at this house. She worked feverishly to push the lock hole against a screw head on the bucket seat, while she held the bloody nail in her teeth and tried to pick the lock. Bobby had told her that some locks such as some cuff locks would actually come loose if you kept moving both rapidly and continuously, so she did this desperately. Tears started flowing down her face, as she did not want to die like so many women who were victims. Bo Devore would never be a victim again. She kept picturing her uncle over her sweating, panting. She cried more, making it hard to see.
Finally, the cuff suddenly sprang free, and she raised her head, saying, “Thank you, dear Jesus.”
She quickly untied her ankles. Now, she peeked out the window and saw the men were headed toward the ambulance again, and she panicked.
“Oh, my God! Help me, God please!” she whispered desperately.
Bo suddenly knew what she would do, and set her jaw firmly.
She reached back and grabbed the mattress pad off the gurney and pulled it over her head and body. Anything would be better than the fate she knew awaited her.
Bo reached up with her right hand and started the ignition, slammed the ambulance into reverse, turned the sirens and flashers on, and shoved her foot down hard on the accelerator. The tires spun, and she flew backward out of the garage, as bullets tore through the side, and the vehicle flew over the lip of the steep hillside. She turned the ignition off, and then Bo lay flat, flinging the mattress over her, and she held the base of both seats and gritted her teeth. The siren died as the vehicle hit and somersaulted backward down the hillside.
Tariq yelled in Spanish, “Forget her! We must go now!”
Ramiro growled, but translated in Portuguese, and they all hopped in the Suburban and flew down the driveway.
Bo held on for dear life as the ambulance rolled and tumbled down the hillside hundreds of feet, and finally came to rest on its roof.
Rudolpho Jorge Santana was one of the key players of the Republican Party in El Paso county. He owned a chain of martial arts schools teaching song moo kwan tae kwon do, freestyle karate, kodokan judo, and jujitsu. He was a former world karate champion with NASKA, the biggest and main tournament circuit, and won Grand Championships at the Battle of Atlanta, U.S. Open in Orlando, Diamond Nationals at Minneapolis/St. Paul, the late Ken Eubank’s Bluegrass Nationals, the Compete Nationals in LA, and John Chung’s Sidekick National Championship in DC.
He was one of the most outspoken proponents of a secure Mexican border, and he spoke about how proud his parents were, after years of study and testing and waiting, that they legally became United States citizens. He felt a fence should be built and all illegal Mexican nationals should be jailed and prosecuted.
His next-door neighbor, Francis Murray, was a member of the Fund for Animals, Operation Greenpeace, the Democratic National Committee, and many other liberal organizations. He felt that all Mexicans coming to America, illegally or not, were entitled to government benefits, should be welcomed with open arms and amnesty. At a neighborhood picnic the two got into a friendly quarrel a year earlier, which escalated into a shouting match, with Francis actually doing the shouting. Rudolpho was too busy laughing after the pacifistic Francis swore he was going to kick Rudolpho’s “ass all over the street.”
The two had not spoken since, nor had their wives. Bo was dazed but unhurt in the totaled ambulance, and the two men arrived at the same time. They smiled and nodded at each other as they looked inside and saw Bo naked from the waist up with various cuts and bruises. Both men immediately removed their shirts and laughed at each other that they both thought of helping her immediately. Rudolpho had the better build and darker shirt, so they both recognized this and Francis replaced his shirt.
He stood and halted other neighbors running up. In the confusion, the red Suburban speeding down and out of the driveway was hardly noticed.
Someone yelled, “I called 911.”
Rudolpho carefully put his shirt on Bo, and she smiled through a veil of tears, saying softly, “Thank you, sir.”
His wife ran up carrying a first-aid kit, and Francis’s wife ran up, too.
Francis’s wife took the kit and softly said, “Why don’t you let me do that, Connie? I’m a nurse after all.”
Connie smiled and said, “Sure, Peggy. Let me know what I can do.”
Bo tried to get up, but her left wrist was still handcuffed to the driver’s seat. This shocked the men and women.
Bo quickly said, “I am a law enforcement officer. I was kidnapped. Somebody please get me a cell phone, and can you get this handcuff off of me?”
Francis said, “I have bolt-cutters,” and ran to his home nearby.
Bo called 911 and said into the phone while the neighbors, amazed, listened in shock and awe, “This is a police emergency. I am Captain Bo Devore, U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Detachment at Department of the Army Headquarters, the Pentagon. Call headquarters at Fort Bliss and ask for anybody in the Task Force headquarters. Tell them where I am and that I escaped. I will put a person on with you in a second to give an address. Tell them the terrorists escaped in a large red SUV. Did anybody get a license number?”
One neighbor said, “That belongs to a construction company on the West Side. I know the owner. I’ll call him and get the particulars.”
