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shut, he then fit the unit into his
shirt pocket and made his way to the aluminum case.
    In the glow of the spotlight he could tell that the outer
shell was burnished to a chrome finish, but had lost a lot of its luster having
been layered with a fine coat of desert sand.
    “How many kilos you think something like that holds, Cary?” Officer Roscoe Winchell was basketball tall and appallingly thin. When he spoke he
did so with a Mid-Western drawl, even though he was born, bred and raised in
upper New York. “Looks like a cartel run.” 
    Winslow didn’t answer. Instead, he undid the clasps and
lifted the lid with all the prudence of releasing the ills of Pandora’s Box.
What he found inside was not what he expected. Beneath a Plexiglas shield were
three spheres surrounded by electronic plates, panels and a hard drive.
    “OOO-wee,” remarked Winchell, removing his cap then
scratching an itch at the edge of his scalp before returning it. “What you
reckon that be, Cary?”
    Winslow fell back, his eyes remaining fixed. In better
lighting one would be able to see the sudden gray creeping across his face or
the goose bumps racing along the length of his arms. As someone who was trained
to detect anomalies crossing the border, Sergeant Winslow immediately fastened
the case and ordered his team to back away. “I need all personnel to maintain a
perimeter,” he ordered.
    “What is it?”
    “You never mind, Roscoe. You’ll find out soon enough. Right
now I want you to get on the mike and call headquarters. Tell them to contact
the FBI immediately. Tell them we got us a Dante Package.”
    “A what?”
    “A ‘Dante Package!’ Now go!”
    The deputy was off and running. In the background the other
deputies stood silent and mute.
    With less than one year away from retirement, Sergeant
Winslow shook his head in non-belief and looked skyward. Stars glittered like
fairy dust and the smell of the desert air was crisp and clean and
unadulterated. And then he closed his eyes. They did it, he thought. They
finally tried to get one across.
    And then he reconsidered. After sweeping his gaze across the
feebly placed borderline with its crooked posts and barbed wire fencing, there
was no doubt in his mind that at least one nuclear device crossed over the
boundary.
    He had no doubt at all.
     
    #
    ‘Dante Package’ was the code
name for a low-yield nuclear weapon packaged to be mobile, such as in a
suitcase or a backpack. During the Cold War, Russia processed dozens of such
devices that looked like a five-gallon drum fitted into a canvas backpack. But
what the members of the FBI, NSA and Cisen—Mexico’s CIA counterpart—were
looking at was anything but.
    This device was state-of-the-art, a far descendant of the
Cold War version.
    Within a brilliant cast of lighting, provided by a perimeter
of lamps set up in a perfect circumference around the scene, the aluminum case
was spotlighted as the centerpiece of attraction, with the dead Arabs lying
supine in the blood-stained sand next to it.  
    The marginal wind, however, cooled off the landscape, as if
to settle the scene.
    At three-thirty in the morning the deputy director of the
FBI’s Phoenix field office didn’t bother with the tie or expensive shoes, but
wore jeans, sneakers, and a tan shirt that was tucked in just enough to reveal
his belt badge. Beneath the armpit of his left shoulder he wore a pancake
holster with the stock of his sidearm in easy reach.
    For six minutes John Abraham stood as if deliberating, his
eyes fixed, staring, absorbing everything at the scene and making a mental note
before approaching the case and the bodies of those who surrendered their lives
to protect it.
    Alongside him several NSA officials stood silent, deducing,
with every member clad in formal dress attire and conservative hairstyles that
were perfectly coiffed. And Abraham had to wonder how this was possible given
the short notice to be on the premise, like him. In marginal adherence to