King of All I Survey
Chapter 60: Lasers in the Jungle Somewhere

Chapter 60: Lasers in the Jungle Somewhere

"We found the PC boards on a desk in a locked office in a secure hangar, just where Flores said they would be," General Gutierrez reported. "We have no idea how they got access. Cameras outside the room showed nothing, we didn’t have any inside."

President Arroyo pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "Could the cameras have been tampered with?"

"No, they are self-contained systems. Older technology with no external network connections, local loop storage in a manned security post," Gutierrez reported. "Either they’re ghosts, or they teleported in as far as we can tell."

"Keep looking, maybe they cut their way in from the roof and patched it or something?" Arroyo suggested.

Gutierrez shook his head.

"Every one of the vehicles they’ve flagged for us has proven to be a hit, searching the others we found nothing. They seem to have good information, even giving us accurate ETA’s of the vehicles in advance. We’re pulling them into a screened area, removing the occupants and contraband then driving them on with one of our drivers so any others watching from a distance might think they made it through the checkpoint, as Flores suggested in her text." General Perez reported.

"We have Hueys patrolling the borders, now that we have some flying again. They have spotted no movement inside Guatemala along the border, but in several places they found bodies. When we landed to inspect them, we found them armed, some known to us as Tihol gang enforcers." Gutierrez told the group. "The bodies had small circular burn marks on their heads penetrating to the brainstems. Looks like the same weapon used to damage the aircraft. Almost certainly a laser of some kind that we’ve never seen used in this type of action. What’s that Paul Simon song ’These are the days of lasers in the jungle somewhere...?’"

The President shot him an irritated look. "Are they shooting down on them or from ground level? Can you tell?"

"According to our people who’ve seen the bodies, it looks like they were fired at from ground level, from behind into the base of the skull. The precise accuracy of every single hit suggests they may have been captured then executed, but the relative positions of the fallen bodies to one another and the limb positions suggest they were still moving and hit unawares. Unless they have incredible targeting accuracy... which they would have needed to sever ignition wires through the fuselage of the planes... I just don’t know what we’re dealing with. I’d say the CIA is pulling high tech toys out of some secret weapons lab. I don’t know who else it could be. Cartels couldn’t do this, Camal de Leon’s group couldn’t do this. The CIA might not want the cartel operations interrupted..."

"The American embassy says they don’t have any involvement in anything that’s going on for whatever that’s worth," added Vice President Sofia Goncalves with a shrug.

Jorge Alvarado, the Chief of the General Staff, pounded the table with a fist again, "Whoever it is, they could kill us all right here in this room for all we know, and there’s nothing we could do about it!"

"Calm down!" The President ordered, "Maybe they could, but they haven’t. Instead, they have offered an olive branch and are working to defend Guatemala from outside forces... and internal enemies, I might add. There’s no reason to think that might change at the moment. I’m more worried about this unknown group from El Salvador, without knowing anything about them, they could be planting car bombs around any of the cities, power plants, wherever they can cause damage. We have to find them before they strike."

---

"He’s right," I said back at the treehouse headquarters. "Things could start blowing up and killing innocent people at any time. Still no luck identifying them, Joe?"

"Not really. I’ve been monitoring unregistered cell phone activity around the area hoping they’d use burner phones, but nothing has turned up outside of the expected gang activities. It is likely they are communicating through code words on high-traffic public message boards, but I haven’t found anything yet. They could also be a self-contained unit that just needed the original call to set them in motion and no further communications are needed. Drones are scanning the entire border region and identifying all weapons or cross-border traffic. We’ve seen nothing that we think might be this mystery team."

"If they have weapons already hidden in storage in Guatemala, they might seem like ordinary people coming into the country. Then pick up their weapons once they’re here." I suggested.

"Yes, that is a likely possibility," Joe agreed.

"What about car bombs? Can you flag any vehicles left in suspicious places? Our low orbit drones should be able to cover that search, right?" Dad asked.

"We have the coverage, but parking is... chaotic at the best of times in most of the populous areas," Joe responded. "I’m looking, and even flagged a few for searches, but nothing. I can’t scan for bombs from low orbit, I need specific targets. Even then, it’s not a reliable check without knowing anything about the type of devices. A laptop battery or a block of explosives, a drum of fertilizer, or a homemade bomb, I’d get thousands upon thousands of false positives, and we’d have to open everything up to know for sure. I’m sweeping for rifles on rooftops, in visible windows, and other likely positions as the drones patrol, but again this is a closer range scan and we can’t be everywhere all at once."

"Instead of trying to find the threat, can we just give them a target and nab them when they show up? Or shield everyone and everything they might hit?" I suggested.

Dad cocked his head, "Hmmm..." he said. I don’t think we can shield everything, but maybe some of the key people, or places. Joe?"

"Without building carbon mesh matrices, it’s difficult to create large stable shield fields. With personal shields, we’re actually using the properties of the skin for field anchoring. With drones positioned at high value targets, we can easily shoot any bullets or conventional projectiles out of the air once they’re fired, but if someone decides to open fire with an automatic weapon in a crowd somewhere, we probably won’t be nearby enough. Certainly, the President’s inner circle is protected from that with the drones we have shadowing them."

"Keep a drone by key infrastructure targets, power plants, tv stations, big fuel tanks, airports... oh my god... shadow any commercial flights in the sky, protect those from attack!" Visions of big planes filled with people being shot out of the sky ran through my head.

"Acknowledged," Joe replied. "The next television broadcast is about to begin."

Rafael and Maribel had recorded another message to be broadcast on every station in Guatemala. It was about to go live, a countdown timer had been running for fifteen minutes, just like last time. We watched from the Status Room as it ticked down toward zero. On another display, we saw the President’s inner circle stop their conversations and stare at the screen, not sure what to expect this time. We hadn’t briefed them on the content. I was pretty sure it was going to cause at least some of them considerable anger.

I mentally ordered a big bowl of buttered popcorn. A few seconds later, when the serving tray whizzed over, I took the bowl, settled back in my adaptive chair and got ready to watch the reaction.

Dad saw the popcorn come flying from the kitchen and smiled, "That looks like a good idea." A few seconds later an even bigger bowl of popcorn floated out on a tray for him.

"Five, four, three, two, one..." We counted down together with the timer on the screen. The words faded out, and Rafael and Maribel appeared on the screen.

They were seated at a table, a blank wall behind them. "Hello again," Rafael began, "Since my last update, there have been some major developments. As promised, every field of coca, marijuana, and opium poppies in Guatemala has been destroyed."

Maribel took over, "To the farmers, I say this. These crops may pay you more than corn or even coffee, but the money you get from them is dirty. These crops hurt people, and the money they generate is used to hurt even more people. We will help you grow crops profitably, when we have all the foreign cartels out of Guatemala. There will be prosperity for everyone. We will modernize the country even as we preserve the old traditions." Rafael nodded along as she spoke, watching her.

Then it was his turn again. "Since we last spoke, I have been working with President Arroyo, Vice President Goncalves, and top military leaders. As penance for my previous sins, I have freely offered them the names of corrupt government officials and those criminals from the drug trafficking operations that I think cannot be redeemed. I have given them the evidence of their crimes so they can bring them to trial before honest judges."

"I have also used my resources to destroy every submarine carrying drugs past our shores. Every aircraft, every truck and car, every burro, every man who carries drugs through our country will be stopped. Vehicles will be taken or destroyed, men will be arrested, burros will be rehabilitated." Rafael paused to smile at the little joke, "From this day forward, no illegal drugs will pass through Guatemala. This I promise you."

The Guatemalan officials watched in rapt silence, only the typing of the President’s secretary taking notes could be heard over the voices on the television. I grabbed a big handful of popcorn and stuffed it into my mouth. The next part would seriously ruffle some feathers!