Especially in the post 9-11 world, an open border is an open invitation for terrorist activities in the United States. The world is full of individuals that want to harm the American people. One such person is "The Conductor," a sadistic psychopath and a master of torture. As The Conductor's team of Jihadist terrorists infiltrate the Texas border and prepare a weapon of mass destruction, ordinary people and some extraordinary individuals step up to defend their friends, their country, and the American way of life.
OPEN BORDER, PATH TO TERROR
By GARRY NEWTONAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Garry Newton
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4520-5287-8 Chapter One
It was a home invasion. Four men had entered the home with the intent to rob and kill the occupants of the house. Sam was sitting in the chair, discreetly glancing at the open pages of the newspaper lying on the nearby table, knowing there was a loaded handgun hidden under the newspaper. The nearest killer was about five feet away, directly across the table from Sam. The man was turned slightly to the right, facing in the direction of the three other men that were clumped together halfway across the room.
Sam heard a subtle buzzing sound and knew the time was right to act. With one fluid motion, the gun seemed to fly into Sam's hand as if by magic. With two quick and effortless motions of the index finger, twin bullets entered the head of the closest man. Sam sprang to cover while putting another quick double-tap into the chest of the second man, not bothering to stop and observe the effects of the deadly 9mm Luger rounds. Using cover, Sam "sliced the pie," engaging the next two men with two rounds each while simultaneously making sure not to shoot the innocent woman standing near the gunmen.
It was all over in less than six seconds. A total of eight 147-grain, 9mm Luger bullets had left the gun and each had found its mark. Sam knew all the threats had been neutralized and the woman unharmed. It was now time for the paperwork that always followed this kind of shooting.
Chapter Two
Taking a deep breath, Sam thumbed the extended magazine release on the Glock 34, dropping the magazine out of the handgun. Putting the magazine in the left vest pocket, Sam quickly pulled the slide back on the Glock, and racked it forcefully. The remaining bullet flew out of the gun in a graceful arch, enabling Sam to catch the round in mid-air. The slide was then pulled back once again and held open to show the Safety Officer (SO) standing behind Sam that the weapon was cleared of all bullets. The gun was empty and determined to be safe. Upon instructions from the SO, the slide was released, the trigger pulled while the gun was pointed at the berm, and the empty gun then placed in the holster on Sam's right hip.
The "home invasion" had not been real, but rather an International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) scenario where the threats and non-threats were simply cardboard targets and not real, live humans.
When it had been Sam's turn to shoot the fictional, deadly scenario, the SO had given the order to, "Load and make ready." Sam had loaded the Glock according to IDPA rules and had placed it safely on the table with the muzzle facing downrange, covering it with the newspaper provided. Sam had then sat down in the chair provided as a part of the scenario and indicated "ready" to the SO. Sam had waited, listening intently for the first beginnings of a buzz from the competition timer held by the SO behind and to the right of Sam's ear. Hearing the sound that started the scenario, Sam had retrieved the Glock and had shot the Course of Fire, following instructions the shooters had been given during their preliminary walk-through.
A smile lit across Sam's face as the SO called out the time on the timer and then scored the Course of Fire as "one down." This meant three of the cardboard target threats had been shot perfectly with all rounds going into "0 down" scoring areas. The last target had one perfect scored round and one round that went slightly out of the center mass of the target. For a local IDPA match this was an excellent run.
Sam, a nickname for Samantha, was 17 years old and a purebred Texas female to the core. She looked over at her dad and saw that he was smiling. Sam knew he was proud of her. She then looked over at her friends Cisco, Duke, Butch, and the others that had also been watching her shoot. She could tell from their expressions that she was doing very well.
Cisco walked over to her, put his big arm around her shoulder, leaned over, and whispered in her ear, "Good going, Gorgeous." "Thanks, Teddy Bear," she whispered back.
Chapter Three
Her father had taught her gun safety starting at the tender age of seven. Her first gun was a Daisy BB rifle. As she gained proficiency and proved she could handle guns safely, she "upgraded" to a .22 caliber bolt-action rifle. By the time she was 10 years old, Sam was safely shooting larger caliber rifles, including her father's AR-15. She had begun seriously shooting a handgun at the age of 11 and started competing in IDPA handgun competitions at the age of 12.
Sam really enjoyed shooting the scenarios at all levels of the IDPA matches. The threats (or bad guys) shot in the IDPA scenarios were made of cardboard, but the litmus test for any IDPA scenario was "could this really happen in real life?" The Course of Fire she had just shot was a fictional home invasion scenario where four bad guys had entered a home and the shooter had to defend not only himself but a loved one as well. The bad guys were not only planning to rob the home but were also intent on killing its occupants.
By the age of 16, Sam had competed in multiple Regional, State, and National IDPA events. Currently her best performances included placing 9th at the 2006 IDPA Nationals in the Enhanced Service Pistol (ESP) Marksman Division beating 22 other competitors and winning the ESP Marksman Division at the Smith & Wesson 2007 IDPA Winter Championship, beating 43 other competitors, including 17 Sharpshooters and 9 Experts. With this prestigious win, her IDPA ranking rose to Sharpshooter. Those had only been her second IDPA National and her first S&W Winter Championship competitions.
In IDPA, shooters compete against others in their Division and Classification independent of age or gender. Sam had performed exceptionally well both times, much to the good-natured chagrin of other competitors who were much older and possessed a hell of lot more testosterone. At the local IDPA matches Sam frequently competed against and beat many of those in her classification or higher. She was especially proud of the times when she came close to or sometimes even beat the scores of her Dad, an IDPA Master-rated shooter. The local IDPA club where Sam shot for practice and competition consisted of a handful of other young shooters her age and only a few women with the majority of the shooters being men ranging in age from their early 20's to their mid-70's. Cisco, Duke, Butch, and her other shooting friends were mostly her father's age, and of course she thought he was older than dirt.
Sam was born a squalling pink bundle of pure determination. As a youngster, she would play on the swing and flip her long blonde hair, showing the world the determined glint in her eyes. The first time her dad really understood the depth of this determination came when Sam was learning to ride her bike without training wheels. His heart would break a little every time she fell to the pavement. Yet each time she got up, her knees bleeding and her eyes watering, she would refocus her sights on the task at hand and continue onward. She did not and would not give up until her task had been accomplished.
Off she would go, trying again and again. Then, right before his eyes, she not only rode past him, but she did so using only one hand, the other hand waving in triumph. Little did he know just how much she would need that determination one day to save not only her life but also the lives of other loved ones.
Chapter Four
Manuel put up his right hand to signal those behind him to stop. He froze and listened intently to the night sounds around him. The sky was clear and the stars were out in abundance. In the surrounding silence, it was as if each of the individual sounds could be separated and analyzed independently. He listened hard but only the familiar sounds of the Texas landscape came to his ears. Then he heard a soft cough somewhere behind him.
He spun around hard and with venom dripping from his lips, he snarled a whispered Spanish oath, "Shut the fuck up or I'll kill you here and leave your body as a message to others."
Manuel was a coyote, someone that profited from the smuggling of human cargo from Mexico into the United States and more specifically into Texas. He knew that there was rarely any danger of being discovered or caught, but he had not survived this long only on luck. He was tired, irritated, and thirsty, desperately craving an ice-cold beer. Even more, he wanted to deliver this load and get paid.
God, how he wanted a cold beer right now. For the last half hour, he had been daydreaming. He thought back to a time a few weeks ago when he had been relaxing in that bar in San Antonio drinking cold, wonderful tasting beer while watching the current Texas governor's campaign for reelection on the Yankee television. That pitiful man was actually begging to be reelected, claiming he was the only gubernatorial candidate to be "tough on border control," citing examples of actions he had already taken to make the border safer. Manuel had snickered openly as he had watched this politician play cowboy, dressing up in blue jeans and a work shirt, walking around in the ad with a police officer from a border city. This charlatan actually proclaimed that he was doing something about the problem of the open border.
Manuel knew that in reality this pompous hypocrite had only done lip service to the issue. Hell, Manuel thought, this asshole hadn't done anything to deter or halt illegal immigration. Sure, he had sent the National Guard down to the border, but only to make himself look good in an election year. He had not sent one single bullet for the National Guard to use in their efforts to stop illegal immigration nor to even defend themselves. Just how was this group of gringos going to make war on him and his people without bullets? Manuel had automatic weapons and these play soldiers had what, pencils and paper? He would take on that type of fight any day.
A couple of well placed threats by the right people and the Border Patrol agents that were supposed to look for coyotes and drug runners were removed from the field and reassigned to protect the National Guard from grievous bodily harm. The only thing that had really changed was that now the Border Agents were "babysitting" the National Guard. Why? Because the Border Patrol agents were the only ones with bullets. How would it look if some of the unarmed National Guard were killed while holding an empty weapon? This brilliant plan of the governor's actually removed even more of the limited resources away from the border, making it easier for Manuel and others like him to ply their trade.
"Talk about a paper tiger," he had thought as he tilted his head back and drained the last of the cold beer down his throat. "It's an open border and with this man's help, it will stay an open border."
Manuel mentally thanked the US Federal Government for its position on the border issue. The President and the Federal Government of the United States were more concerned about Mexico becoming a Marxist government than whom or what came over the border into the USA. Those in power in the Texas government were no better. They walked on eggshells, afraid that any action concerning the illegal immigration problem might cost them precious Hispanic votes in any upcoming elections. An open border meant that Manuel and his kind could bring whatever or whomever they wanted into the United States of America with almost total immunity.
Manuel's thoughts refocused on the present. His sharp ears continued to strain to hear anything out of place in the night sounds. Finally, he caught the faint sound of a motor coming his way.
"Down," he snapped to his charges.
All the bodies behind him immediately hit the ground, lying flat. All but two of them, that is. These two males looked at each other and then inched themselves slightly away from the others before calmly lying flat on the dry landscape. Both moved their right hands into hidden pockets; fingers locking around illegal handguns with sound suppressors that had not been found by the overconfident coyote when he had frisked them.
In the distance, a panel truck was approaching. Manuel could see large letters on the side of the truck proclaiming the truck was owned by a moving company that could move furniture and household goods across the United States cheaper than anyone else could. Manuel knew he was at the right spot. That was guaranteed by the state-of-the-art GPS unit he had in his pocket, but, he wondered, was this the right truck or a trap? As if on cue, the truck stopped and turned off its lights. Manuel waited as the truck idled in the still Texas night air. The coyote could hear the engine of the truck making popping noises as it cooled down. Then a red laser pointer came on, moving slowly in an arch before shutting off. Manuel waited several seconds before he took a laser pointer from his pocket and pointed it at the parked truck. Manuel pressed the button to give two quick bursts and one long, and then he waited. The driver of the truck mimicked the signal back but added an additional quick dash at the end. One more set of laser signals passed between the coyote and the driver before the truck drove up, stopping in front of the human smuggler and his charges.
"Get up here, now," Manuel snarled in Spanish.
Twelve tired, dirty, hungry Hispanics materialized, rising out of the dry Texas dust like apparitions. Slowly they came shuffling up to the truck.
Manuel counted heads then asked in Spanish, "Where are the other two?"
"Right here," he heard from behind him.
He spun around, startled, and then heard two extremely quick, soft, whispered coughs. The silenced bullets entered his forehead, mushrooming and bouncing around in the soft tissue of his brain, ending his life before his mind could even question what had happened. The night's silence was broken once more by two additional soft coughs from the passenger's side of the truck. The first killer opened the driver's door of the truck and watched as the driver fell out of the cab onto the sharp pointed cactus plants that littered the dry, Texas border landscape. The driver never felt a single prick of the sharp spines of the cactus. He was just as silent and just as dead as his coyote friend was.
The two men turned and pointed their silenced handguns at the dozen terrified, illegal immigrants and watched as they scattered and ran for their lives. A sneer lifted the right corner of Kamal's mouth. The leader looked into the face of his friend, Hassan. In a Middle Eastern dialect, he instructed the second man to retrieve the money from the coyote's pockets. He knew that each of the illegals had paid the coyote a deposit of $2000.00 and he figured that it would be just wasteful to leave $28,000.00 for the four-legged coyotes and buzzards.
Once Hassan and Kamal had checked to make sure that the rear of the panel truck was empty, they got into the cab of the truck and drove off into the night. Two of the six-man terrorist cell were now in the United States and headed for their new base of operations. Over the next week this scenario would be repeated twice more. Soon, all six men of the terrorist cell would be in place. The team knew the basic plan. They would start to work then await further orders. While they knew what the weapon was, they did not know the two most important aspects of the plot; the specific target or the date the attack would take place.
Because of the open border, it was easy for each two-man team to enter the United States. Each team carried an identical weapon package. Just in case the impossible or improbable actually happened and a part of the cell was discovered and stopped at the border, the lethal weapon would still make it into the Land of Satan. In its current state, each weapon package would do little damage. Of course, once the weapon was properly prepared and dispersed by its ingenious delivery system, it was more likely that hundreds of thousands of the infidels would die. Kamal and Hassan knew this strike would make the people of America forget the event of September 11th. They would no longer talk about twin towers in New York. Instead, what would spill from the trembling lips of the American people would be wailings of grief and outrage about this new blow for Jihad inflicted on the American people.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from OPEN BORDER, PATH TO TERRORby GARRY NEWTON Copyright © 2010 by Garry Newton. Excerpted by permission.
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