Reign of Terror

PARTMENT OF STATE,

  Bureau of Consular Affairs, issued the following Travel Warning (in part): “The Department of State has issued this Travel Warning to inform U.S. citizens about the security situation in Mexico ... U.S. travelers should be aware that the Mexican government has been engaged in an extensive effort to counter Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) which engage in narcotics trafficking and other unlawful activities throughout Mexico. The TCOs themselves are engaged in a violent struggle to control drug trafficking routes and other criminal activity. As a result, crime and violence are serious problems throughout the country and can occur anywhere. U.S. citizens have fallen victim to TCO activity, including homicide, gun battles, kidnapping, carjacking and highway robbery.

  According to the most recent homicide figures published by the Mexican government, 47,515 people were killed in narcotics-related violence in Mexico between December 1, 2006 and September 30, 2011, with 12,903 narcotics-related homicides in the first nine months of 2011 alone. While most of those killed in narcotics-related violence have been members of TCOs, innocent persons have also been killed. The number of U.S. citizens reported to the Department of State as murdered in Mexico increased from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011 ...”

  In March 2011 The Texas Department of Public Safety issued an advisory against travel into Mexico during Spring breaks. It said, in part... “While drug cartel violence is most severe in northern Mexico, it is prominent in other parts of the country as well,” said DPS Director Steven C. McCraw. “Various crime problems also exist in many popular resort areas, such as Acapulco and Cancun, and crimes against U.S citizens often go unpunished.

  “So far this year [March 2011], an ICE agent was killed and another injured in a suspected ambush near San Luis Potosi February 15. Two El Paso teens were gunned down February 5 in Ciudad Juarez. In January, a Texas missionary was shot in the head when she and her husband ran an illegal road block in northeastern Mexico.

  “In addition to U.S citizens killed so far this year, preliminary figures show as many as 65 Americans were killed in Mexico in 2010. Kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery and carjacking also are threats in parts of Mexico. Suspects have not been prosecuted in many of the cases. Meanwhile, more than 30,000 Mexican citizens have died [40,000+ through 2011] in drug-related violence since 2006, and the violence shows no signs of abating ...”

  Last Patrol

  Border Patrol Agent Randy Firth was driving down a rugged dirt path in the Texas desert at midnight, patrolling a remote section of Wingo Reserve Road near the Rio Grande River, which was barely a stream separating El Paso from Juarez Mexico. His headlight beams illuminated the dirt road a short distance ahead, but the tall overgrowth on both sides cast eerie shadows disguising ruts and bumps, creating a generally creepy feeling. It wasn’t really flat. There were gentle rises and depressions that limited illumination to no more than fifty feet at times. High beams were useless given the physical conditions and he didn’t want to be broadcasting his position any more than necessary to anyone observing from the mountains a few miles away. Smugglers used spotters to alert them to border agent locations. This part of the border is the most dangerous drug smuggling route into the United States. The night was moonless with few stars visible through the late summer cloud cover. It was a typical cold night in the West Texas desert. The wind was blowing about fifteen miles per hour with gusts much higher. In general, the conditions for surveillance were about as bad as it could be with the darkness and wind noise obscuring people moving through the terrain.

  Firth had joined the Border Patrol three years earlier after serving in Afghanistan as a Navy Corpsman with the Marines. He’d seen his share of bloodshed as a young man still in his twenties. As a Corpsman, he was frequently on patrol with small Marine teams searching for Taliban in the mountains close to the Pakistan border ready to provide medical assistance when needed. Since returning to civilian life in Texas, he’d been attending night school to become certified as an EMT and he’d recently gotten engaged.

  The border environment in this part of Texas was similar to his experience in the military but more dangerous at night. The desert terrain was more rugged in most ways. To him, this was the only life he’d ever expected, growing up in an Army family. His parents settled near Ft. Bliss in El Paso. This was home.

  This night, he was alone in an older government-owned Chevy Blazer. Like all Agency vehicles, it was white with green stripes and large letters, clearly identifying it as “United States Border Patrol.” He stopped at his assigned outpost on a mesa, giving him a slightly elevated view across the border. It really wasn’t much of a useful view with tall desert brush and ravines everywhere. He parked at the assigned spot and killed all lights. Then he sat motionless for more than a minute, allowing his eyes to adjust. He rolled the window down to listen for telltale sounds. It was silent except for a wind noise through the native brush and some occasional sounds of nature. It was unusually cold, so he wore his green uniform jacket, and he pulled his hat low to his ears when he exited the truck. It smelled like west Texas after a short rain with the scent of mesquite and sage pollen filling the swirling air.

  This sector of the El Paso Regional Zone had been used for illegal trafficking since prohibition. It was Firth’s turn in rotation for night surveillance. He hated the night patrols with the desolation anxiety that comes with loneliness in the desert at night looking for armed criminals. He’d been in the mountains of Afghanistan many nights with similar feelings. Walking to the back of his truck in the dark, he opened the tail gate to remove a tripod and night camera system used to scan the area. He could assemble most of the equipment by feel, helping to hide his location. The heavy-duty tripod could raise the infrared camera system almost fifteen feet in the air, giving some measure of surveillance. Still, humans were virtually undetectable if they stayed in low areas and remained quiet. With his portable radio, he called into base, “Ysleta Station this is Agent 4267 on location at Point Juliet, over”

  The response came immediately from the dispatcher, “Copy 4267 on location, over.”

  “4267, out.”

  Having checked in, he set up the infrared (thermal) surveillance camera. The video screen was positioned on the edge of the truck bed by the tailgate and adjusted for minimum intensity. It didn’t take much light to see the video clearly in the complete darkness of this moonless night. Firth adjusted the picture quality, then raised the camera to its maximum height. He panned the cameras left and right with a small motor, looking as far as he could see along the border. There was nothing to see but the brush wafting in the wind.

  After setting up, he went to the front seat and grabbed his thermos of coffee and bag of snacks. He would be at this location for four hours and the only break from the boredom was food and coffee to stay awake. He thought about school and his new wife, and the plans they had for the future. They were looking for their first house now that real estate prices were so low. He would be finished with his EMT training in a few more weeks, then try to find something that paid as well, but less dangerous. He kept his mind active to distract from the danger. He was accustomed to the isolation, but didn’t like it — none of the agents did.

  Several minutes after settling into the routine for the night and returning to the video screen, he rotated the camera system slowly checking for thermal “hot spots” that could be people. This time, with nothing along the border, he continued panning the camera in a complete circle. He was alarmed to see several infrared hot spots behind him. Normally, the Mexicans approached from the south, but this group was behind him, coming from the north. Although unable to discern specific details in the infrared video, the characteristic motion was unmistakably human. It looked like several people were approaching his position. Moving away from the display toward the front of the truck, he crouched in darkness, partially protected. It had recently become common for Border Agents to be ambushed and killed by smugglers. For this reason, th
e Agency had changed procedures and used random positioning of Agents at field locations.

  For part of the southern land border, surveillance was done by remotely operated cameras on towers, but most of the task still fell to Agents on the ground who could also detain illegals. Historically, most of the crossings were by people wanting jobs who posed no threat to anyone. Since the end of worker registration programs, such as California’s Bracero Program, Mexican workers could only find work in America by sneaking across the border. But in recent years, drug smugglers have made it more dangerous for law enforcement because sea and air routes were successfully closed by the Federal Government. Also, since 2001, a small percentage of illegal crossings were by foreign terrorists.

  Randy keyed his microphone, “Control this is Agent 4267. Code Blue, requesting immediate assistance, over.”

  The response came quickly, “Copy 4267, assistance en route, out.”

  Backup was on the way, but it could take more than ten minutes for support to arrive from the station, where eight agents were on alert. Randy pulled his gun from its holster and listened. He