This was right after the coup, when the only things playing on the radio were the FM version of Eagle News Network and the robot tones of the Emergency Broadcast System giving citizens instructions on how to protect themselves from their neighbors. Donny was not good at taking instructions from robots or anyone else, not even clients, really, so as he tooled along in his Chinese sedan that had seen better days, he scanned the AM band until he finally picked up one of the Mexican border blasters, this one out of Reynosa, playing some punk-ass corrido that as best Donny could tell was about the coyotes who helped smuggle Americans out. The chorus recited some kind of Spanglish network code mnemonic you could apparently use to get in contact with the dudes IRL. Donny sang along, hoping it would stick.

He was singing it back into his phone when he saw the first convoy coming the other direction. Troop carriers, maybe thirty of them, and a train of those loudspeaker vans with the LRAD cannons on top. Houston, we have a crowd-control problem.

Donny remembered the last time Joyce and he had gone out to Alpine for the long weekend, not that long before the first time she dumped him. On the last night, they got high and drove through the high desert to the Marfa Lights viewing area. They almost ran over some ghostly looking animal that Donny insisted was a Chupacabra and Joyce said was a feral dog. As they sat there listening to spacey music on the station out of Presidio, they argued about the future—the future of America and the future of them as a couple, both of which sounded bleak. Donny said I need to take a leak, which was really his way of taking a break from the low-intensity argument, and when he stepped out into the dark, cloudless night he heard the rumble of a big heavy train blowing down the tracks on the other side of the highway. He watched it until his eyes adjusted and he could see what freight it had: tanks, Humvees, and light artillery, painted that new army green that was almost black, headed east, destination unknown.

After midnight is when the secret cargo rolls.

Not long after the convoy drove by he saw a school bus loaded with prisoners, headed north on the Victoria bypass, maybe to one of the big camps outside of Houston.

In a fight between a lawyer and a tank, who would win?

As the sun came up over Corpus, you could see the miles of refineries along the coastline, and the interceptors taking off from the naval air station. It took him forty minutes to get through the checkpoint there at the I-37 interchange, and when he told them where he was going and why, Donny could see the guy phoning ahead as he pulled away.