Brose at The Center

by Jennifer Sue

Part 8

The balance of power keeping the Mexican drug trafficking world in relative peace and stability came undone in 2005-2006. Plagued by infighting and power struggles, the Gulf and Tijuana cartels became weakened. The Sinaloa cartel, headed by Joaquan 'El Chapo' Guzman and Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, began to make forays into the territories of the weakened cartels. In 2007, they began their campaign to wrest control of Juarez from Vicente Carrillo and sparked a bloody turf war.

The Sinaloa cartel is the oldest cartel in Mexico, and Chapo and Mayo are no fools. At 53 and 64, they have been in the drug business a long time. They are extremely powerful and managed to avoid the high profiles that ultimately have led to the demise of other cartel leaders during the past two decades. They are more organized, have been around longer and are seemingly smarter than any other group out there. Many believe, on both sides of the border, that the Sinaloa cartel has the tacit approval of the government, pointing to statistics showing that arrests of Juarez cartel members have been exponentially higher than that of Sinaloa Cartel members.

Looking at the history of the drug trade as a whole, periods of violence are always marked by a struggle for control between rival trafficking organizations. When territories or leadership aren't in dispute, the business simply chugs along without much need for violence, save the internal judicial murders that rule a trade ungoverned by conventional law. It's commonly accepted that no number of federal policemen, soldiers or public awareness is going to end the violence in Juarez. It would only end when one cartel wins, probably the Sinaloans.

This is where the Mexican government has to deal with the industry realistically. President Felipe Calderon and his entire administration know that the drug trade isn't going away. U.S. officials know it too. As long as there is a market for drugs in the U.S., there will be an industry to support the demand in Mexico. When that industry funnels tens of billions of dollars into the Mexican economy every year, through investments in business, the greasing of political palms and good old-fashioned trickle-down economics, it's hardly in Mexico's best interest to try to stamp it out.

However, there is the issue of public unrest. With over thirty thousand dead in Mexico since December 2006 the country is being ravaged by drug violence and the situation seems to be devolving. Why wouldn't it be in the government's best interest to go back to the days of peace in the cartel system? Why not help the situation along to its inevitable conclusion instead of dragging it out for everyone? The sooner the most powerful cartel establishes their dominance, the sooner the murders end, and the sooner everything can get back to normal. But as the force of protection for the people, you have to look like you're doing something about all this violence, you have to go after somebody. So why not selectively pursue the weaker cartel? It might seem like a bit of an exaggeration, but it's called realpolitik. Many have posited the eventuality of a Mexican megacartel, most likely the Sinaloa Cartel.

*****

Brose had Putin assist her as she researched where high level Sinaloa Cartel people were locked up in US Federal prisons. One man in particular appeared to be a likely intermediary for what Brose planned. In September 2010, forty year old Fernando Ontiveros-Arambula, a high-level lieutenant in the Sinaloa Cartel, was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined $100,000 on three federal drug charges in connection with a conspiracy to smuggle over one hundred tons of marijuana from Mexico into the United States. Testimony during the trial revealed that Ontiveros-Arambula was a high-level lieutenant in the Sinaloa cartel who fought with members of the Carrillo Fuentes Cartel for control of the Juarez drug-trafficking corridor.

Brose located the man and went to visit him. Quite naturally the Federal Bureau of Prisons was not eager to allow someone from outside the US Department of Justice access to such a high profile prisoner. The DEA wanted to make sure no deals would be cut to release the man. It took a lot of political jockeying to cut through the red tape to get Brose cleared for the visit. Fortunately, she wasn’t deeply involved in that aspect as she might have been tempted to pat her Desert Eagle to emphasize a point.

When he learned of the impending visit, Ontiveros-Arambula, an arrogant man, assumed he was going to meet high ranking officials who would get him quietly released in exchange for becoming a stoolie. The guards led him to a secure room without mirrors or cameras and removed his restraints so that seemed to confirm his thoughts of what was wanted. Little did he know the lengths Brose had to go to have unfettered and surveillance-less access. After he was waiting a few minutes there was a knock on the door and it opened. Needless to say he was quite surprised to see a teenage girl walk into the room alone. The fact she was wearing a be-medaled US Army dress uniform added to his confusion.

"Mr. Ontiveros-Arambula, I'm Warrant Officer Ambrosia Shamrock," Brose stated in a firm no-nonsense manner as she extended her hand.

Ontiveros-Arambula accepted the hand, then squeezed as hard as he could. The two maintained unblinking eye contact as they sized each other up. Brose didn't flinch while merely accepting his powerful grip as they shook hands. When she saw his pupils change size upon realizing his crushing grip was having no effect on her, she began to counter with pressure of her own. Even though he tried to suppress the pain, Ontiveros-Arambula held on but realized Brose was much stronger than she looked and was in fact toying with him. The understanding that this mere teenage girl could overpower him gave him serious concerns.

“Now that we understand each other better," Brose stated as she relaxed and broke the handshake. "We can get down to business. Please, let's sit and talk."

Ontiveros-Arambula was now quite wary of this young girl and did as she suggested.

"I'd like this to be informal," Brose stated as she flashed a genuine smile. "So please call me Brose."

"Okay, Brose," Ontiveros-Arambula declared deciding to play nice. "You can call me Fernando."

"Thank you," Brose smiled. "I assume you heard about the raid into Bolivia that destroyed the Nazi's and AZIF. I led the unit that took out their underground base in the mountains. They called me The Cat."

Fernando's eyebrows rose. He had indeed heard about the attack and The Cat. But this girl was much to young to have led the attack... wasn't she? Then he recalled that the Nazis always had a teenager with them. He'd heard they had mutant powers. "Are you one of those mutants like the Nazis have?"

"I'm not at liberty to confirm that," Brose replied. "But you are free to draw your own conclusions."

Fernando smiled. He liked this girl, not only was she nice to look at, she was feisty as well. "I understand," he nodded. "What do you want from me and what are you offering?"

"We're offering you a chance to help the Sinaloa Cartel," Brose replied. "We don't want you to reveal any information. We simply want to use you as a conduit to set up a meeting with your bosses. We have no interest in destroying the cartels but we will use my unit, the Butt Kickers, to convince your bosses they'd better talk to us. What we want is the Nazis... all of them. I want to finish the job I started. We know the Sinaloa Cartel was using the Nazis as couriers and allowed them access to the cartel safe house network to assist their escape. We know they're somewhere in Mexico regrouping under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel. We'll start shutting down smuggling routes and nailing the mules. We'll only stop when they give up the Nazis. We're not asking them to deliver them to us. We simply want to know where they are so we can take them down with as little collateral damage as possible. That means we don't want to fight the Sinaloa Cartel foot soldiers protecting them. What we want is for them to simply step aside to let us do what we need to do. My unit will be spending the next several weeks in and around Playas, New Mexico. I'd like to meet with the cartel leaders at the border but not at a crossing. Someplace isolated and private along the New Mexican bootheel. They'd stay on the Mexican side of the border while we stay on ours. We'll be able to talk across the border. I've set up a secure comm link so they can reach me to set up a meeting. Here is the frequency. All we want from you is to pass this message on to the cartel leaders."

"That may not be an easy task," Fernando hmmmed. "What do I get out of it?"

"To live," Brose smiled. "We will get to the cartel leadership one way or another. This is the easiest and quickest method. I don't think you would be very well thought of once we do meet and I tell them you refused to pass the information on to them. They'll lose a lot more shipments if it takes a while for us to meet."

Fernando understood exactly what she meant. Other inmates could be ordered to exact revenge. With a nod he agreed to pass the message along. He’d also tell them this was not a joke and not to be fooled by the appearance of the US agents. For the first time, Fernando was almost glad he was locked up and wouldn’t have to face Brose in the field.

*****

Hildago County is in the boot heel of New Mexico. Mexican Federal Route 2 runs just one to two miles south of the US border in the area of the Arizona/New Mexico border. The border between the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua butt against the New Mexican border about sixteen miles east Arizona. The sparsely populated area is a hot bed of drug cartel activity as well as a crossing point for illegal immigrants sneaking into the US. This mostly barren and desolate area had been the historic range of the Chiricahua Apache, the area where Geronimo fought the US and Mexican Armies. US Interstate 10 runs east to west between Las Cruces, New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona about sixty miles north of the border in the New Mexican boot heel.

There are three mount ranges running north to south in the boot heel. On the border with Arizona is the Guadalupe Mountains. In the east of the New Mexican boot heel are the Alamo Hueco Mountains adjacent to the border of Chihuahua state, Mexico and border the eastern side of the extensive north-south Playas Valley. The Playas valley widens as it crosses into Mexico and the Chihuahua desert. Running North to south in the center of the boot heel are the Animus Mountains. The Continental Divide of the Americas traverses these western perimeter mountains of the Playas Valley. About ten miles north of the Mexican Border the Animus Mountains split into two legs about five miles apart forming a rocky valley that joins the Chihuahua desert as it crosses the Mexican border. This international area is sparsely populated and fairly barren. The Chihuahua and Sonoran deserts enter the US here.

Antelope Wells is located on the US-Mexico border on the southern edge of the county in the Playas valley about ten miles east of the Sonora/Chihuahua border. Antelope Wells is a tiny unincorporated community located across the border from the small settlement of El Berrendo, Chihuahua, Mexico. The only inhabitants of the community are United States Customs and Border Protection employees. There are just four buildings: the port of entry building, two houses and a trailer. It is the smallest and least-used border crossing of the forty three ports of entry along the border with Mexico. The crossing is open solely for non-commercial traffic. It is the only port between Douglas, Arizona about sixty five miles due west, and Columbus, New Mexico about sixty five miles to the northeast. El Berrendo, with one resident, is in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, located directly across the U.S. border from Antelope Wells. Geographically, it is in the middle of the Chihuahua Desert.

Playas is a small unincorporated town situated in a remote desert valley forty miles north of the US/Mexico border. Playus is a modern ghost town once again in full bloom as a counter-terrorism training facility. Playas, named after a nearby former settlement along the Southern Pacific Railroad, was a company town for several hundred employees built in 1971 to support a nearby copper smelting operations located ten miles south of the town. The geographic location was ideal due to its isolation from populated areas sensitive to the toxic byproducts of ore smelting. After a brief life of only 28 years, the copper industry plummeted and the smelter’s location at the dead end of a long road became an unaffordable liability and was shut down. Playas contains 259 company-owned homes, a six building apartment complex with twenty five units, community center, community medical clinic, grocery store, a bowling alley, a bar, grill, a rodeo ring, a helicopter pad, a fitness center, a shooting range and a swimming pool were built as well as an air strip and has one thousand two hundred surrounding acres. At the smelter's closure in 1999; all of its residents were evicted within a year, though a skeleton crew of about a dozen employees remained in the area.

The town was purchased in 2004 by New Mexico Technical University (MNT), a science and engineering university that grew out of the New Mexico School of Mines. NMT has done military research for decades and has helped train thousands of police and firefighters. After the 1995 bombing of the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City, it began moving more toward anti-terrorism programs and ratcheted them up after Sept. 11, 2001. The Senate Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee helped the university to obtain the funding from DHS to pay for the purchase of the town and for an operating budget for the first year of operations. The town is now a training and research facility for the university’s first responders and counter-terrorism programs, supported by tens of millions of dollars in federal funds.

The facility has multiple uses and users. The US Department of Defense works with foreign countries on joint anti-terrorist exercises. The U.S. Army and Tech's Energetic Materials and Testing Center conduct joint tests on new sensors that can be used outside a building to detect people, ammunition and weapons inside. The setting provides an ideal classroom to train police officers, firefighters and others in simulated terrorist attacks and other disasters. Trainers set up mock scenarios using Playas homes and buildings and fly airplanes and helicopters over the town. Course instructors are recognized worldwide as top explosives and WMD experts.

The transition from company town to terror town is not only unique, but geographically of interest. Such operations flourish when removed from the public arena. Regular explosions and mock raids designed to resemble biological, chemical, and/or radiological attacks are too provocative for populated areas.

*****

Six weeks after the raid in Bolivia, the Butt Kickers boarded a C-17 aircraft. Brose left her M107 and M26 kits behind to lighten her load. They left at dusk from Peterson Air Force Base located at Colorado Springs, Colorado. The four hundred mile flight took an hour. The flight was logged as a round trip training exercise and no one knew of the team aboard. Once they climbed above ten thousand feet, everyone in the cargo bay donned breathing masks as the area was left unpressurized. Thirty minutes from their drop point, the Butt Kickers began breathing pure oxygen to drive the nitrogen from their bodies. The two greatest hazards jumpers must contend with on high-altitude airdrop missions are hypoxia and decompression sickness. Decompression sickness, or the bends, occurs when nitrogen bubbles form in the blood and tissues after a rapid reduction in surrounding pressure. It's manifested by pain in the joints, and is potentially lethal.

In order for the Butt Kickers to stay together in freefall and once under parachute, they all had to weigh the same. This was accomplished via rucksacks containing their gear attached in front below the waist. The gear was portioned out to get everyone to the same weight. The gear was labeled for ease of being sorted and getting to the right person once they were safely on the ground.

The most hectic time was from the two-minute warning until the jump. The team switched over from the aircraft O2 supply to a small oxygen bottle they carried. They double and triple-checked their equipment, connections and bottle pressure and watched each other for symptoms and signs of hypoxia. They also activated a small red strobe light on the back of their helmets, then secured their face goggles in place and donned their insulated gloves. The interior lights switched to red just before the ramp began lowering and the Butt Kickers bunched up on the lowered ramp. When the jump light flashed green, Brose was the first out as they ran out the back of the big plane. It only took thirty seconds for them to exit with Msg. McNeil bringing up the rear to make sure everyone made it out in good order.

The thrill of free falling from was more than enough to overcome the fear of a night jump and the frigid air at that altitude. At 30,000 feet, the temperature was somewhere around thirty degrees below zero. Without oxygen at that height a person can expect to be usefully conscious about 30 seconds. About fifteen seconds after leaving the plane they had reached their terminal velocity of one hundred twenty five mph with arms and feet fully extended to catch the wind. With the wind chill, this created a temperature of minus eighty degrees. Using the red lights on the back of their helmets, they were easily able to form up staying about ten feet apart. They all had heavy duty illuminated altimeters and GPS indicators. The GPS was locked in on their selected landing site and arrows indicated the drop path while the distance was shown digitally.

The landing site had been chosen carefully. They chose a valley in the canyon between Zellers Peak to the north and Big Hatchet Peak to the south. The site was about ten miles south southeast of Playas. Zellers peak was about nineteen hundred sixty feet higher and a half mile horizontal from the canyon floor at the target in a north east direction. Big Hatchet Peak was about twenty nine hundred feet higher and a mile horizontal from the target site in an almost due south direction. The target site was about a hundred feet east to west and seventy five feet north to south sloping gently downhill. It was the only area that was not dotted with the scrub brush typical of the hills and mountain slopes of the northern Chihuahua desert. As such, it was lighter than the surrounding brush dominated area and would be visible as they neared the site.

They fell for a bit over two minutes. Their HALO parachutes automatically opened at an altitude of three thousand feet above the ground. As soon as they were stabilized, they made sure no one was below them, then pulled the quick-releases to drop the rucksack on a ten foot lanyard cord. The rucksack hitting the ground would give them a split second notice before they too were down. By the time they dropped their rucksacks, they were already below the height of Big Hatchet Peak heading into the canyon.

As they planned, the drop zone was clearly distinguishable from the surrounding area. All managed to land safely inside the target. After gathering up their chutes and shrugging off their jump harnesses, they slipped off their rugged ankle reinforced jump boots and windproof jumpsuits. In less than five minutes, they had gathered and were dispersing their gear. Once that was done, they hid the gear they no longer needed.

The staff in Playas had been told to expect a land based training assault by a crack military unit within a forty eight hour period. In addition to the Playas staff, there were over a hundred military and law enforcement personnel on site undergoing training. All had been told to treat the assault as a terrorist attack. As such, they had set up spotters and were using up to date surveillance equipment to monitor the area. They expected the attack to come from the north or east as that was where the nearest roads were located. New Mexico Route 9 ran roughly east to west about four miles north of Playas. New Mexico Route 81 ran south from the town of Hachita on NM 9 about eight miles east of Playas. The Playas Mountains ran north to south between NM81 and Playas. County roads ran through the western approaches to Playas and provided access to the town. While it was five miles open desert valley, there were numerous small rises and gullies. All approach routes had been rigged with surveillance devices from infrared to regular cameras and motion sensors.

The Butt Kickers moved out by midnight. They headed down the canyon and out into the desert, moving west. They traveled two miles in forty five minutes, crossed NM 81, then followed dirt roads west another two miles. Staying on the roads they turned north traveling six miles to reach the abandoned copper ore processing site by 0300 hours. From here they traveled north on smelter road for seven miles to a side lane called Gravel Pit Road heading to the north east. The lane ended in a wash after a mile, with the gravel pit obviously being the gravel washed down from the Playas Mountains. The sky was beginning to brighten by the time they reached the wash. The unit settled into the shrubs at the sides of the wash to rest until full light. Putin set up a specially designed main transmitter/receiver base linked to a satellite that could be accessed, activated and programmed by hand held satellite communications devices they carried.

Once the sun was up, they leisurely ate breakfast before slowly moving up the wash with Casper leading the way. She slipped into ghost mode and stayed about a hundred feet ahead of the main unit looking for remote sensors utilizing a Center designed counter surveillance device. A small vibrating transmitter detector silently alerted her to any frequency producing device, instantly alerting her when a transmitter was detected. The device could detect frequency ranges of one MHZ to ten point five GHz with a range of fifty feet. Once detected, an extremely sensitive frequency counter automatically locked-on the frequency of any transmitter in the vicinity and immediately revealed its location and operating frequency. This device was instantly able to locate all motion sensing, audio and video surveillance transmitters.

When she found one, she would copy the frequency and it’s monitoring broadcast onto a Center designed satellite communication/signal jamming device. By connecting upward to a satellite they avoided interference with any nearby transmissions and also avoided detection by frequency detectors. From the satellite they linked to the device Putin had set up as they entered the wash. The frequency and broadcast Casper had detected and intercepted would be sent to that main device. Once the device replied it had the info, pressing a button on the detector Casper held would activate the base transmitter to duplicate what the surveillance device was sending. A split second later another device Casper carried would send out a jamming signal with a range of fifty feet to block the surveillance device. Once blocked, Casper headed fifty feet onward to make sure there were no nearby devices. Then Putin would come forward to disable the device without those monitoring it any the wiser. They discovered three motion detectors and one camera capable of infrared or regular vision in the mile they traveled up the wash.

At that point they headed up a side wash for another mile, finding no surveillance devices. Upon reaching Little Hatchet Mountain Road they took a break. At this point they were in the Playas Mountains two miles southeast of Playas and a half mile south west of Playas Peak. Playas Peak was six hundred fifty feet above the desert valley and offered a mostly unobstructed view of the desert floor. The wash the Butt Kickers followed was close enough from the valley center to be hidden by a lower hundred and sixty feet high ridge.

Little Hatchet Mountain Road wound around the base of Playas Peak so was inside the area the look-outs on the top were watching. At 1100 hours the Butt Kickers boldly formed up in columns of two and brazenly hiked one mile up the road straight into Playas in plain view of the entire town. As the Butt Kickers hoped, everyone assumed they were simply a unit already in Playas.

Once into town they continued marching in top military form right up to the main plaza where the offices and main buildings were located. They split up, timing their entries to simultaneously enter each building. The guards inside, where there were guards, were caught completely flat footed. The plaza was secured before any word of the assault could be spread.

Needless to say, everyone was quite stunned. The Butt Kickers, playing their role as terrorists, had simply walked into the main training base for combating terrorist attacks and taken the place without firing a shot when they had been alerted to expect an attack! The Butt Kickers refused to reveal how they had gotten past the surveillance devices but did show them the route they took to arrive on site.

For the next two weeks they took the military and DHS courses offered. The abandoned houses in Playas were used for training in assaulting villages. They learned the ins and outs of house to house combat as well as hostage rescue techniques. The instructors were slightly amused by the unit's name and curious about the young age of half the unit and by their leader but impressed by the cohesiveness and skills the unit exhibited. That they already had combat experience surprised them. In the training final exam, the Butt Kickers blew through the exercise in record time with no casualties and successfully rescued the faux hostages unharmed. Of course, during the training, the Butt Kickers didn't use their talents. During the test, they did. The staff began to understand that the Butt Kickers had earned their name. It was only after the final that the staff was informed that the Butt Kicker's were the unit that had single-handedly taken out the neo-Nazi base in Bolivia. The level of respect the Butt Kickers were shown rose dramatically.

The Butt Kickers announced they were going to do mountain and desert training in the area and would be using Playas as their base. As they were no longer on-site incognito, they knew the staff would talk about the skilled unit. The drug cartels kept paid informants in the areas around the base to keep track of base activities to insure the drug smuggling operations didn't cross paths with a training exercise. The word that the Butt Kickers were there doing mountain and desert training would quickly make it's way through the cartels to the bitter vengeance seeking remnants of the neo-Nazis and their two emerged, which is exactly what was wanted. In addition, the Mexican Government was informed that an anti-terrorist unit was training in the boot heel area and that brief overland incursions into Mexico would be part of the training. The idea was the unit would move into Mexico and test the US border at different locations in the area. The tests would not only be for possible terrorist incursions into the US but also drug smuggling and illegal immigration interdictions. Naturally the Mexicans were not happy with the infringement of their sovereignty but at the same time they could not protest that they had the area under their control as the cartels held sway over the local governments. Reluctantly they agreed to the 'tests'. Again, this was done with the knowledge the cartel informants in the Mexican government and military would get the word to the cartels and thus the neo-Nazis. The bait was set and dangling before the quarry.

For the first week after completing the courses, the Butt Kickers trained in the Alamo Hueco Mountains and desert south of Playas about five miles north and west of the eastern corner of the boot heel border with Mexico. Several times they crossed the border into Mexico and back within a few hours to get familiar with the procedure. The intelligence unit back at the Beta Site monitored the spy satellite data. Since the Butt Kickers carried ID beacons, their real time GPS positions were known. The intelligence people used that data to search the satellite data to discern and then determine the tell tale signatures of individuals in the barren arid region. By the end of the week they were able to trace the Butt Kickers without using the GPS. They also discovered the spies the cartels had in place watching the Butt Kickers and were able to trace their movements from the satellites. As hoped, this soon morphed to the point they spotted the movements of the drug smugglers and illegal immigrants. The Beta Site forwarded the information through the DHS who passed it on to local law enforcement personnel, New Mexican State Police and Border Control Agents who were then dispatched to the real time locations of those who had illegally crossed the border. Soon every illegal crossing into New Mexico was intercepted. Once that was happening, the technique was enlarged to include the entire US/Mexican Border.

The results were stunning. Everyone wondered about the source of the information. All the cartels lost valuable drug shipments and the illegal immigrants were bundled back to Mexico. The Sinaloa Cartel alone knew the crack-down was due to the Butt Kickers and now they had ample reason to also want the Butt Kickers taken down.

*****

The border area the Butt Kickers were training was in the Sinaloa Cartel controlled region. While all the cartels knew the strength and determination of the Bolivian Nazis, to have one small unit take them out on their home turf seemed unbelievable. They were well aware the surviving Nazis wanted revenge at any cost. The Nazis were making themselves major pain in the butts as they fumed and trained in the hidden cartel base in Mexico. The fact the Butt Kickers showed up along the border and almost immediately the drug shipments passing into the US in that area were all being seized could not be a coincidence. All the cartels understood the threat posed by the Butt Kickers.

The initial reaction of the Sinaloa leadership to the sudden interdictions was to attack the Butt Kickers. They now understood the message that had been passed to them by Fernando Ontiveros-Arambula. The Sinaloa Cartel’s enforcers were set up to intimidate and used brutal but quick raids to get what they wanted. While effective thugs and street fighters, they were not trained soldiers. There was no way they could expect to take on the Butt Kickers and win.

*****

The Butt Kickers knew they were having an effect on the drug smuggling and illegal immigrants. They slowly moved their border training west. By the end of the second week in the desert, they were in the White Water Mountains. They let it be known in Playas they would be in the southern tip of the Animus Mountains and San Luis Mountains of Mexico in the Sonora/Chihuahua border region for the next few weeks.

One thing the quads discovered during this time was that one of their favorite treats, Pixie Stix, gave them an almost instantaneous power boost restoring their depleted energy reserves after prolonged use of the talents. The other kinetics tried Pixie Stix with the same results. The almost pure flavored sugar replenished their energy but it was only a short term boost that needed to be repeated.

The Butt Kickers relayed this discovery to the scientists at The Center who immediately began to check it out. Using on site kinetic volunteers they performed experiments. They found the sugar boost did amp up and restore used kinetic power, but the recharge only lasted for a few hours. An additional Pixie Stix fix lasted for a shorter length of time than the first and there was a bit of a crash with the second use. Each successive Pixie Stix fix lasted shorter and the crashes were deeper. They found they could overcome the crash by promptly taking another Pixie Stix hit at the first sign of a crash. They discovered they could go three to four days eating normal field rations before the Pixie Stix boosts began draining vital nutrition from their bodies. Eventually, they had to pig out on normal food to keep them from winding up in the infirmary. The discovery was welcomed and soon every kinetic was carrying Pixie Stix on away missions.

The Butt Kickers melded into a smooth unit during the weeks of intense training. The new emerged members may not have had actual combat experience, but they were thoroughly trained to fight. They were ready for battle. The Butt Kickers established a routine of conducting training exercises to hone their skills.

Every Tuesday they were in the Whitewater Mountains two miles west of the Antelope Wells border crossing. The Whitewater Mountains split in two legs just north of the border. The west leg ends about a quarter mile into Mexico while the east leg ends about three quarters of a mile into Mexico. An arm of the Chihuahua desert projects north from Mexico between the arms for a half mile and about half a mile wide with a reservoir known as the Boggs Defeat Tank. A few smaller individual hills rose up about a mile or two south of the border that served to hide the Boggs Defeat Tank area from view. This would be an ideal location near roads yet hidden out of the way in a mostly barren desolate area. The mountains and canyons surrounding the desert valley soared up to nine hundred fifty feet above the valley floor.

After nearly four weeks, they saw a pick-up driving slowly across the desert having left Mexico Federal (MF) Route 2 a mile south of the border just after it emerged from the highway’s canyon crossing of the San Luis Mountains. It drove north to the border and stopped about a hundred feet short. Pfc. Molina and Brose climbed into one of their Humvees and headed to the border. They stopped about a hundred feet short. Both exited the vehicle and began walking south. Two men left the pickup and began walking north. All four were armed.

The four stopped about ten feet from the border vehicle barricade. The barricade was made of heavy 'X' shaped legs with heavy cross braces parallel to the ground connecting them, somewhat akin to those faced by the Allies during the Normandy invasion. The barrier was about four feet wide and three feet high. About five feet beyond the barricade was the rusted remains of a barbed wire fence ranchers had installed to keep their cattle from crossing into Mexico. The Mexicans spent a few moments sizing up Brose, especially the big Desert Eagle holstered on her kevlar vest.

“My Spanish is not the best,” Brose began. “But Pfc. Molina speaks it fluently. I’m Warrant Officer Shamrock. The Nazi’s call me The Cat.”

One man nodded. “I am Carlotto Geurro. We were told we’d find The Cat here,” he said in English with a Spanish accent. “El Chapo is not happy.”

The other man was fingering his AK47, obviously itching to use it.

“With good reason,” Brose smiled. “But we can easily end his sadness.”

“Obviously you have found a way to discover our efforts,” Carlotto stated coolly. “Do you really expect us to believe you’ll stop if we give up the Nazis?”

“I give you my word,” Brose declared. “It is the people I work for who have figured out how to track you. We are feeding the information anonymously to the local police to make the busts. If you check each hit, at no time was the DEA or any other Federal agency involved. No one knows where the information is coming from. When we get the Nazi’s we stop the info flow.”

“Yes, but you’ll show the other agencies what you do,” Carlotto declared.

“We will not,” Brose replied. “They refused to give us information when we requested it. We had to steal it from the DEA, the FBI, the CIA, and the DHS. If we reveal what we’re doing, we’ll get burned.”

Carlotto smiled. “Now that I can believe. What do you want us to do?”

“I want to meet with Mr. Guzman and Mr. Zambada to discuss the details,” Brose brazenly declared. “With a promise of safe conduct, I will allow myself to be searched for tracking devices and communicators, blindfolded, and taken to the meeting wherever they feel safe. I’ll cross the border here and your people can take me where you will.”

Carlotto smirked. “Ah, but are you not one of those mutants the Nazis use?”

“No,” Brose replied. “I am nothing like those mutants. I will not deny I have unique abilities, but I am not a brainwashed fanatic. I do not lie. My word is good. If you know of the mutants, you also know their range is limited. Place a bomb on me with the operator out of range. Have a camera watch me so he can see what I do. If I try to harm anyone, kill me.”

“Then we face retribution,” Carlotto declared.

“If we wanted to fight you, we would have done so already,” Brose answered. “I want to talk to Mr. Guzman and Mr. Zambada so we avoid unnecessary bloodshed. We want the Nazi’s not the Sinaloa Cartel. Besides, even if we do not give our detection methods to others, now that it’s been done, others will search for the method. I will reveal how we tracked you.”

“The US has been fighting this war on drugs for over fifty years,” Carlotto replied. “By revealing your method you will betray your government. Do you expect us to believe you will do this?”

“You know as well as I do there is corruption in the agencies conducting this so called war on drugs,” Brose declared flatly. “You know they could be doing a lot more to stop the flow of drugs. There are those who use the chaos the illegal drug markets create to stay in power. To me, they are the enemy in the war on drugs, not you. You are businessmen earning a living. Granted, I don’t like the business, but I respect your entrepreneurship. You are merely fulfilling a demand. The key is to stop or at least control the demand, not the drug flow. Eventually, the people of the US will realize that like Prohibition, outlawing illegal drugs will never work as long as there is a demand for them. Eventually, they will be legalized. When that happens, what will happen to the cartels? I wish to talk of this as well as the Nazis.”

Carlotto grinned broadly. “El Chapo wondered what you really wanted. You want to be the cartel in the US controlling the drugs. With your fellow mutants, I think this could be done. I will talk to El Chapo. We’ll be back next week. Be ready to come with us if El Chapo agrees.”

“I understand,” Brose replied. “Tell Mr. Guzman and Mr. Zambada I look forward to meeting them.”

The four parted company. The Butt Kickers were not happy with Brose’s plan but acknowledged it was probably the only way to get to see the bosses of the Sinaloa Cartel. That night Brose reported her progress. Ms Fine was not at all happy to learn Brose offered to be escorted to the drug lords. Kristyn was not happy with the idea, but understood it was a necessary risk and over-ruled Ms Fine.

The next Tuesday, Brose and Pfc. Molina were waiting at the border. This time the Sinaloa people sent an SUV. The same two men stepped out accompanied by a tough looking woman. Brose waited as they approached the border.

"El Chapo is anxious to meet you," Carlotto stated. "Step behind our SUV so you can be searched... strip searched."

Brose didn't hesitate. She slipped off her vest, equipment and weapons. With speed and agility that surprised her soon to be wardens, Brose stepped back until she was thirty feet from the vehicle barrier. Then she sprinted to the border barricade and jumped. Not only did she clear the vehicle barricade, she cleared the old barbed wire fence on the other side. The Mexicans just gaped at her as she landed on her feet.

The woman took Brose behind the SUV where she conducted a full body strip search. The woman, Angelina Rivera, was fluent in English so Brose was easily able to follow her instructions. She would be escorting Brose during the trip. When the search was completed, she allowed Brose to put on her underwear but gave her a jogging suit to wear while her clothes were bundled together. Within minutes they were heading towards MF Route 2, heading west once they reached it. About forty miles later they drove into Agua Prieta, the next Border crossing to the West of Antelope Wells at Douglas, Arizona.

Here they pulled into a large building. Upon arriving the cartel tech people scanned Brose for hidden devices but found nothing. While they were doing this, Angelina went to get some clothes that fit Brose. She came back with a knee length skirt, sandals, and a peasant blouse. Angelina had changed into a similar outfit. The clothes were suitable for an informal meeting. The fatigues and boots Brose had worn when she crossed the border were stored here.

As Brose suspected, there were dozens of vehicles coming and going from the building. Soon, they were in another SUV heading south on MF Route 17. About one hundred ninety miles later they reached the city of Hermosillo where they switched vehicles again and headed south west on MF Route 15. They traveled about two hundred miles before they stopped for the night in the city of Ciudad Obregon. The next morning they drove south for about Four hundred miles toward the resort town of Mazatlan on the Pacific Coast.

During the trip, Brose treated her wardens with respect and they reciprocated. They attempted to get as much information as they could about her mission and mutants. Brose neither confirmed nor denied their questions about the mutants. When they asked about her mission, she simply repeated what she had said the week before.

It was dark by the time they reached their destination, a secure compound near the sea about forty kilometers north of Mazatlan. They set Brose up in a decent room and provided another set of clothes. The trip had been long and tiring.

The next morning, Brose was escorted to a dining patio for breakfast with Joaquan 'El Chapo' Guzman and Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, the heads of the Sinaloa Cartel. They made polite conversation as they sized each other up.

Brose felt a tingling in her brain. Someone was trying to probe her mind! She followed the probe back to the source. A nervous teen was hiding in the hacienda inside the nearest window. The Sinaloa Cartel had emerged!

"Gentlemen, please, your 'mutant' will not be able to probe my emotions," Brose smiled. "For the record, we don't like to be described as 'mutants. The preferred term is 'emerged’. He is standing just inside that window, hiding, which can't be comfortable. Why not invite him outside to join us?"

It was clear she'd surprised them. No one had ever discovered their mutant, not even the Nazi emerged they had probed.

"One of my abilities is to detect any effort to probe or attack my mind or emotions and to block it," Brose explained. “Please, let him join us."

"Jose, the young lady would like you to join us," Guzman called out.

A few minutes passed as the men cautiously eyed Brose until Jose arrived. El Chapo signaled the wait staff to add another place at the table as a shy well built handsome teen tentatively appeared at the door.

Brose struggled to keep her emotions in check as she felt her body respond to the young man. With his wavy long hair and muscular toned body he looked like a teenage version of Fabio. While she had learned to appreciate guys and knew she was attracted to guys, this was the first time someone had this erotic effect on her.

"Ms Shamrock, this is Jose Sanchez," Zambada stated as he waved the nervous teen over to join them. "Relax, Jose, you are not in trouble. Ms Shamrock said she detected you probing her emotions and shut you out. Sit and join us."

"I'm sorry, Uncle Issy," Jose meekly said as he sat in the chair provided. "I only had a brief contact before I lost her. No one has ever done that!"

"Few can," Brose smiled. "Doing so is one of my abilities."

"You come from the place known as The Center," Guzman stated. "The US government takes the mutan... emerged... there to be brainwashed like the Nazis did to theirs."

"The Center does not brainwash us," Brose stated. "It's a place where we are safe and can use our abilities without fear. Technically, we are a branch of the Department of Homeland Security but for the most part, we run ourselves. We try to mitigate the damage that sometimes occurs during a transition and we do what we can to keep emerged from becoming criminals. We do our best to police our own. If the general public discovered we exist, it could easily cause hysteria and panic."

Jose squirmed a bit in his chair as he knew his lie detection ability had led to numerous deaths. On top of that he was uneasy not being able to sense Brose's emotions. At the same time he was drawn to her. The only other emerged he'd been exposed to were those with the Nazis and they were all rather nasty and male. That, he realized, was the difference. The Nazi emerged were tense, evil, arrogant, macho, curt and dismissive. Brose seemed relaxed and self assured without being cocky while facing the leaders of the cartel. Obviously she knew her life would be in their hands yet she came unarmed, completely vulnerable. Maybe that's why he was drawn to her. His role in the cartel was that of a living lie detector, a tool. Sure he was treated well and could get almost anything he requested if it was reasonable. Uncle Issy did take care of him, but there was no love an uncle should show his nephew. In fact, Uncle Issy made it clear he felt Jose was indeed a mutant. There was no doubt that being an emerged was a lot better than being a mutant.

"Perhaps Jose could come back with me to The Center," Brose smiled at the anxious lad.

Before Jose could express his interest in doing that, Uncle Issy spoke. "I'm afraid that would be impossible. Jose is my grandnephew and he's become a vital part of our organization."

Brose figured they used him as living lie detector, just as The Center did. She could tell Jose would join her if he was able, but for now that was not possible.

"We will stop supplying the information on your smuggling efforts," Brose began after they'd finished eating and they settled back on the private veranda. "We will not show any other organization how we do it as we don't trust them. We'll also reveal how we are able to track your mules. In exchange, we want the Nazis... all of them."

El Chapo spoke. "How do we know we can trust you?"

"You don't," Brose said. "But if we were not being honest, do you think I would have put myself in your hands?"

"Carlotto said you want to legalize drugs," Zambada spoke. "The US 'War on Drugs' is more than fifty years old. How do you propose to get the people to accept legalization?"

"With common sense," Brose answered. "We've been fighting this ‘war’ for fifty years and have nothing to show for our efforts except gangs of street thugs or motorcycle clubs armed to the teeth to protect their turf. The violence illegal drugs create is getting worse in the US just as it is here. But then, you know all about the violence since Sinaloa is the major cartel. I'm not condemning you. You are entrepreneurs trying to make your business grow. I can't condone the violence, but under the circumstances I can see how it's evolved to become so deadly."

"What needs to happen is that illegal drugs be made legal and regulated by the government," Brose stated. "The prohibition of alcohol didn't work in the 1920s or 1930s. All it did was finance the illegal alcohol trade. The gangs of today are simply the modern equivalent of the mobsters. The wars between cartels over drug routes is the same as the gangsters fighting over alcohol distribution during Prohibition. Now, alcohol is regulated by the government and taxed. The distribution is done by private individuals."

"The same thing will happen with illegal drugs," Brose declared. "Laws will need to re-written. First, being 'under the influence' must be eliminated as an excuse for any actions. It doesn't matter if it's alcohol or drugs, you took it, you are responsible for what happens. In fact, doing something 'under the influence' should automatically double, preferably triple, the punishment. Providing alcohol or drugs to a minor must become a felony with a mandatory five year jail term per person supplied to be served consecutively. The age of the provider will make no difference. If they provide something for ten kids having a party, the term is fifty years. If the minors get into trouble, the adults who supplied the illicit material will have the sentence the minors receive added to theirs. If a minor commits a crime while 'under the influence, they are to be treated as an adult. All laws and regulations MUST be enforced regardless of age. The laws must be tough to act as a deterrent for being 'under the influence'. A person can get high at home or with a friend. If they are out in public, then they must have a designated driver."

"Regulations regarding sales and distribution must be set up for the distributors," Brose went on. "Taxes must also be set. Treatment programs for addicts need to be made available. The regulations will require the drugs meet purity standards. The Sinaloa Cartel is currently the biggest player. To hold that position, you need to plan for the future. You will need to make yourself legitimate to survive. Your armies will no longer be needed so your expenses should be lower. You'll be able to ship by the truckload. What you need to do now is to finance a campaign to legalize drugs while making anyone who is not using the mood enhancers responsibly face the consequences of their actions. Either they learn or they go to jail for a long time. At the same time, the gangs will no longer have a reason to exist and robbery to pay for drugs should drop. Hire experts in the US legal system to draft a preliminary set of laws and regulations, then get it out to the voting public. They'll need to know the legalization will force users to become responsible users and stop drug driven crime. By supporting this, you will become a major player in supplying the drugs. You'd become legitimate business people."

The two men nodded. Both knew recreational drug use in the US would never end. Life now was tough, they needed personal body guards as much as they needed air to breath, not only for them, but for their families. By becoming legal suppliers, the wars would end. It would require much thought.

"What you say makes sense," Guzman agreed. "But your government would never agree to legalizing drugs."

"For those who started the war on drugs, you're right," Brose nodded. "But most of them are dead. Those born since then have seen the crime and failure of efforts to stop it. Many have tried illegal drugs. If they can see a way of legalizing things, they will accept it, especially if it becomes a major source of tax revenue."

"Now, about the Nazis and our interdiction of your shipments," Brose switched subjects. "I'm sure the Nazis know about our interdiction and will suspect The Center is behind it to ferret them out. We'll need to keep up the interdiction until we strike so they don't suspect anything. That means you need to keep sending shipments. Just make them smaller and use expendable mules."

"We have not agreed to do this," Zambada declared with indignation.

"But by seeing me you have acknowledged the necessity of doing so," Brose replied in a calm voice to appear confident without being cocky. "The sooner we nab the Nazis, the sooner we stop giving info to local enforcement. As we told you, when we get the Nazis we'll give you all the details on how we're able to spot border crossings. The other cartels are being hit too as we can't distinguish who is who so all will be freed from our interdictions. Perhaps you can use the information we give you to stop your competition thus enhancing your position of dominance. Give us the location of the Nazis. My unit can be ready to strike forty eight hours after I return to the US."

"I don't like being forced to do something," Zambada growled. "But you have been honest with us. You initiated the contact and have not tried to hide any weapons or tracking devices. How do we make the arrangements?"

"When I return to the border, my unit will have a cell phone and code word list to give Carlotto," Brose explained. "There will be a speed dial button to reach us. Once you're ready, give us the location and time you can allow us to strike. As we said, we do not want to engage your people, so the guards you have watching the Nazis will need to slip away leaving the Nazis vulnerable. We'll do the rest. The minute we strike, our interdiction will end. When we get out, we'll give you the information about how we did it. We can set that up in advance if you'd like so there will be no delays."

"How many people are in your unit," Guzman asked.

"Including myself, thirty," Brose answered. "When we went after the base in Bolivia, there were only twenty of us."

"Now you're lying," Zambada sneered. "It would have taken hundreds to take that base."

"Using conventional forces, you're probably right," Brose said. "But half of the Butt Kickers are emerged. With our abilities, we easily overcame the Nazi guards."

Zambada still doubted. "What did you do, gas them?"

Suddenly the air was filled with the scent of flowers. "That's exactly what I did," Brose smiled. “My main ability is as an odorkinetic. I just made the flower scent. I can create any gas, any smell, I've ever been exposed to. Your guard over there, tell him I'm going to attack him."

Guzman told the guard who stood at the corner of the veranda that Brose was going to attack him. The man drew his weapon and aimed it at Brose. Suddenly, he shook his head and yawned. In less than fifteen seconds, he slumped to the floor.

"I created a fast acting knock-out gas cloud around him," Brose explained. "I could just as easily have killed him with poison gas. Tell your man to the left to place his lit cigarette on the wall and to step back at least three meters."

Guzman gave the order and the man obeyed.

"I'm going to create a flammable gas cloud above the cigarette," Brose explained.

In three seconds there was a pop and a whooshing ball of flame a meter across burst above the cigarette causing everyone but Brose to gasp and jump.

"I could kill you or any of your people at any time," Brose stated without bragging. "So if that's what I wanted to do, I'd be done by now. The other emerged members of the Butt Kickers have different abilities. Electricity, fire, ice, wind, earth, water, light, dark, empath, damper, dominator, healer, ghost, and technology. Together, we can really kick ass and easily get inside any building. The soldiers in the unit are all special forces or ranger, deadly in their own right. Together, we can easily live up to our name, the Butt Kickers."

Zambada and Guzman were impressed. "So, we are in your hands as we speak," Zambada declared. “Yet another point in your favor. We will cooperate."

"Good," Brose declared with a smile.

"Before we send you back, you are this 'Cat' the Nazis are afraid of," Guzman stated. "Our sources said you are a deadly shot. That twice you took on AZIF raids in the US and destroyed them. We have a place in the hills where it is safe to shoot. We'd like to see your weapons prowess."

"Once I try the weapons to see their accuracy, it should be no problem," Brose smiled. "Pistol, rifle, whatever, I can shoot it. I’d like Jose to go with us. It’ll be nice to have someone my own age to chat with."

Jose was excited and pleased when he was allowed to accompany the group. They set out in an armed convoy, the teens sitting in back talking up a storm about seemingly inconsequential subjects but the two got to know each other. Two hours later they arrived at a ranch in the cordillera. Brose was not surprised to find a gun range. Within moments, she was checking out the weapons. Picking up a pair of nine MM Sig Sauer P226s, she smiled. After making sure the range was clear, in one fluid motion she raised and simultaneously fired the pistols at a target fifty feet away.

"Nice weapons," Brose smiled. "I carry a pair along with my .50 cal Desert Eagle. Can someone bring the target in? If these weapons are accurate, the slugs should have touched just at the bulls eye. There should be twin overlapping holes dead center with a horizontal split on each side as the bullets ricocheted off each other."

"No one can do that," Zambada said as the target was retrieved. "Especially as you didn't aim."

Brose just smiled as she refilled the clips and watched as the shock registered on Zambada's and Guzman's faces when they saw the target just as Brose described it. Jose’s mouth dropped open in awe.

"Have four people take clay pigeons to the left side of the rifle range and four others to the right side. At about thirty meters out have them spread out every ten meters. Have the lines stay at least a hundred meters apart. On your order, have them simultaneously toss the targets into the air at least ten meters high and towards the center. Then have each throw two more as fast as they can."

The orders were given and the eight men each with three clay pigeons took up position. Brose nodded when they were in the proper position, then turned her back to the range with the pistols hanging down by her legs. Guzman called out "GO" when the men had thrown the first targets at his nod to them.

Brose turned and raised both pistols as she began to fire. She blew each target apart, not missing a single one of the twenty four. When she was done, she turned to face Guzman, Zambada and Jose.

"That is impossible," Zambada declared. "Both pistols fired simultaneously at separate targets moving through the air at that range. No... it is impossible."

"Impossible for most," Brose nodded. "But not for me. Now you can see why the AZIF forces I've faced were defeated. I can fire like that on the run. I was a marksman before I transitioned. I'm even better now. I grew up on a hog farm and learned to shoot rats. Now I hunt human rats."

"You can do that with rifles too," Zambada said in wonder.

"I've been practicing with an M107 semi-automatic .50 cal sniper rifle," Brose stated. "I can hit the bulls eye on moving targets at two kilometers."

The men understood Brose was not bragging, simply stating fact. They were impressed... and afraid. They didn't want to ever face The Cat.

After a light lunch, Brose left, headed back to the US. She impulsively hugged Jose and gave him a chaste peck on the cheek. The handsome young man was not far from her thoughts as she was taken north.

Just before sunset the next day, she crossed the border to rejoin the anxious Butt Kickers. Brose made sure Carlotto knew how to use the phone and code before he headed back to his bosses.

*****

Three days later, on September 12, Carlotto called. The phone was in the Beta Site communications room and the crew was aware of the importance of the communication. The message was recorded and sent to the site intel crew. The Nazis would be unguarded on the night of September 15 into the 16th. The cartel people with the Nazis would be leaving after supper on the fifteenth to head to San Ignacio, the nearest large town, to celebrate the Mexican Independence Day.

Cinco de Mayo, or May 5, is not the Mexican Independence Day. Cinco de Mayo actually commemorates the victory of the Mexican Army over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, during the French invasion of Mexico.

The Grito de Dolores ("Cry of Dolores") also known as El Grito de la Independencia ("Cry of Independence"), uttered from the small town of Dolores, near Guanajuato on September 16, 1810 is the event that marks the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence and is the most important national holiday observed in Mexico. The "Grito" was the battle cry of the Mexican War of Independence by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Roman Catholic priest. Hidalgo and several criollos (People of pure or nearly pure Spanish blood born in Mexico deemed to be of lower social status than the elite Spanish born in Spain.) were involved in a planned revolt against the Spanish colonial government and the plotters were betrayed. Fearing his arrest, Hidalgo ordered his brother to go with a number of other armed men to make the sheriff release the pro-independence inmates imprisoned in Dolores on the night of 15 September. They managed to set eighty free. Around 6:00 am September 16, 1810, Hidalgo ordered the church bells to be rung and gathered his congregation and addressed the people in front of his church, encouraging them to revolt. This event has since assumed an almost mythic status. Since the late 20th century, Hidalgo y Costilla’s "cry of independence" has become emblematic of Mexican independence.

Every year on the night of September 15 at around eleven in the evening, the President of Mexico rings the bell of the National Palace in Mexico City. After the ringing of the bell, he repeats a cry of patriotism (a Grito Mexicano) based upon the "Grito de Dolores", with the names of the important heroes of the Mexican War of Independence and ending with the three fold shout of "Viva Mexico!" from the balcony of the palace to the assembled crowd in the Plaza de la Constituciá³n, one of the largest public plazas in the world. After the shouting, he rings the bell again and waves the Flag of Mexico to the applause of the crowd. This is followed by the playing and mass singing of the Himno Nacional Mexicano, the national anthem.

Similar celebration occurs in cities and towns all over Mexico. The mayor rings a bell and gives the traditional words, with the names of Mexican independence heroes included, ending with the threefold shout of "Viva Mexico!", the bell ringing for the second time, the waving of the Mexican flag and the mass singing of the National Anthem by everyone in attendance. The raucous party lasts through the night. On the morning of September 16, Independence Day, The day is marked by parades, patriotic programs, drum and bugle and marching band competitions, and special programs on the national and local media outlets, even concerts. This is where the Mexicans normally with the Nazis were heading. The Nazis would not suspect anything since it was normal for Mexicans to celebrate their independence day.

The Nazis were located at GPS coordinates 24.09084, -106.30408, a wooded ridge surrounded on three sides by a small stream. The camp was on the forested ridge that rose to a height of about twenty meters. The stream and more importantly, its flood plain wound around the east, south and west sides of the low ridge, which was about two hundred meters wide and about six hundred meters long. On the north side, the ridge rose up rapidly merging into the flank of the mountain which soared five hundred eighty meters to the peak two and a half kilometers from the camp. Across the stream to the south of the camp, another mountain soared up about eight hundred meters to it's peak three kilometers from the camp. There were no roads into the remote camp site, only a narrow rutted track.

San Ignacio, the party destination of the cartel people, was eighty kilometers almost due north of Mazatlan. MF Route 6 ended there. The nearest settlement to the Nazi camp was the village of Ajoya, about five kilometers southwest of the camp and eighteen kilometers north, north east of San Ignacio. A winding thirty kilometer long rugged dirt connected the village to San Ignacio. The small village sat in a hilly valley surrounded by mountains. The dirt road that provided access to Ajoya cut through the mountainous region to the small Rio Verde with a wide barren flood plain descending out of the wooded cordillera. The dirt road continued past Ajoya roughly following the river to the north, heading deeper into the mountains. One and half kilometers north east of Ajoya, riachuelo Santiago flowed out of the mountains from the east to join the Rio Verde. Access to the camp site was by traveling a narrow rutted track along side the Santiago.

To get in quickly and quietly, the Butt Kickers would need to do a Halo jump. The site they selected was the rugged ridge top to the north of the camp, nine hundred meters above sea level. Unlike the surrounding mountains, the peak was not forested, just dotted with scattered low scrub. Since it lacked vegetation, the area was clearly visible. The oval shaped open area was the peak’s relatively flat dome about one hundred meters long and thirty five meters wide. A strike force coming down from the mountain on the upstream side of the camp where there was no land access would not be expected so guards on that side would be light.

There were a hundred sixteen Nazi fanatics plus the two emerged in the camp. Numerically, the odds were almost four to one against the Butt Kickers but they discounted the physical odds. Several tentative plans had been drawn up trying to account for various scenarios. Now that they had their target, an intense satellite survey of the area was conducted. There were no doubts the Sinaloa Cartel wanted the Nazis eliminated and were only to happy to let the Butt Kickers do the deed allowing them to save face. What concerned Brose was the possibility the cartel might attempt to eliminate the Butt Kickers after they finished off the Nazis.

Since the strike would not be sanctioned by the Mexican government, the attack needed to be kept under wraps. The hard part would be getting out of Mexico. At the nearest point, the site was about eight hundred kilometers from the US, but that was through the mountainous center of the country. The Pacific coast was fifty kilometers due west of the Nazi camp. But that was through hilly and increasingly populated terrain. Their safest option would be to raft down the Arroyo Santiago and the Rio Verde to it’s confluence with the Rio Piaxtla, then down to the Pacific. Fortunately, The Rio Piaxtla was a growing kayaking and rafting destination for adventure seekers so with a bit of luck, the Butt Kickers could appear to be just another of those groups.

On the fourteenth of September the Butt Kickers once more boarded a C-17 at Peterson Air Force Base. This time, in addition to their normal gear, they would be carrying four deflated rugged rafts. This meant the loads for everyone would be heavier as they balanced their weight. When inflated, each raft would be four and a half meters long and two point two meters wide. The diameter of the inflated tubes was one half meter with side heights of point eight meters and three inflated thwarts. The empty weight was seventy kilograms with a capacity of twelve people

The thousand mile flight took a bit over two and a half hours. The flight was officially logged as a round trip training exercise. Just as they had done when HALO jumping into Playas, the unit landed right on target. It was 2200 hours when they touched down.

*****