A Time to Die by Mark Wandrey Read Free Book Online Page B

what the boys in intel said to the POTUS in a briefing this morning. Problem is, he doesn’t agree; says it’s just a hiccup down there. We tried asking if he had some diplomatic contacts we’re not aware of, but the President’s staff are playing it close to the cuff. We requested permission to do reconnaissance over-flights. It’s being considered.”
    Andrew nodded in understanding. He hadn’t accidentally been allowed to listen in to the conference call after all. He knew what was coming next. “Andrew, you’re qualified on the ‘D’, aren’t you?”
    “You know I am, sir.” The A/F-18D was the variant of his ride that was fit out for reconnaissance missions. It was actually the first version he’d qualified on right out of flight school. But with the never ending conflict in the Arabian Peninsula, he’d been called upon to fly combat missions from day one. He’d never flown the ‘D’ on a recon mission.
    “We are not being given the go ahead for a flyover of Mexico from states side.” He glanced at a file on his desk and shook his head. “It’s a shame to put you to work so soon after landing here, Andrew. But we have an A/F-18D, one the boys say needs to rotate home. Maintenance issues, you know? And we need to run it through Sao Paulo so a specialist there can take a look at it, then into Ft. Hood for final routing. You up to a long run after a little sleep?”
    “No problem,” Andrew nodded and smiled. “Anything you want, Sir.”
    “Good, get some sleep. Your orders will be waiting in the pre-flight in six hours.”
     
    * * *
     
    Vance pecked away on his aging computer with aging fingers, typing with index fingers only in a plodding but steady pace. He spent more than a few hours every day blogging and making Facebook updates. It was his preferred combat venue in the patriot movement. With thousands of followers on his Facebook page and thousands more through the blog he ran on Wordsmith, whenever Vance did a post more than twenty thousand people often read his words from reposts and shares. He had never gotten the hang of the Twitterverse, as Ann called it. In truth, he really didn’t have the time to be a twit. Or whatever they called it.
    Ann had left that morning for an OB appointment. In the days since he’d found out he was going to become a dad, Vance made some progress towards accepting the inevitable. The problem was his age, of course. Fifteen years’ difference between him and Ann was not insurmountable in the modern era. It would, however, turn heads. Especially her father’s head, and that was bad. Bad enough that he’d never approved of his darling daughter taking up with an aging divorcee. Add to that the fact that he owned about half of San Antonio and was a congressman, and it went from bad to worse. He’d have to tell the man he’d gotten his daughter pregnant. 
    Turning to an update from a page called Truth_Underground.net, Vance hoped it would be interesting enough to make him forget the situation he’d gotten himself into. It was all of that and then some.
    The story from Mexico had been simmering for a few days. The news was treating the situation as a drug fueled attempt to pull off a coup, thereby making themselves the legitimate government and thus able to terminate the Americans’ war on drugs.
    “War on drugs,” Vance snorted as he followed the story, “more like a war on liberty and freedom.” He didn’t agree with some of his more radical Libertarian friends that all drugs should be legal. But he did agree that the drug war was being used as a straw man to assault patriotic Americans freedom.
    This particular story was a first-hand account of a man stuck in Matamoros, Mexico and trying to get back into the United States. The border crossing had been locked down and he was sending streaming video across through a hacked connection every few hours. A new video was being uploaded, and it was going viral in a big way. Over a million views in less than