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Cameron Nation

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Acknowledgments..................................................viiPrologue Big Tony and Sally Nuts.................................ixPart 1: Who Is Chris Cameron?....................................1Chapter 1 First We Eat, and Then We Talk.........................3Chapter 2 Tuckahoe...............................................14Chapter 3 Forward Observer.......................................22Chapter 4 Sabina's Secret........................................30Chapter 5 Cameron Investment Partners............................43Chapter 6 Samajumia3.............................................55Chapter 7 A Scene from Hell......................................64Chapter 8 Misery Index...........................................83Part 2: A Day in the Life........................................93Chapter 9 The Media..............................................95Chapter 10 Joint Council.........................................100Chapter 11 Tea Party.............................................111Chapter 12 The Eagle Ford Shale..................................118Chapter 13 Reunion...............................................126Chapter 14 Almost Dead and Not Well..............................131Chapter 15 The Speech Heard 'Round the World.....................140Chapter 16 Mexican Vacation......................................148Chapter 17 An Incident...........................................159Chapter 18 Time for Real Change..................................167Part 3: Now We're Moving.........................................173Chapter 19 Liquefied Natural Gas.................................175Chapter 20 Oregon Ducks..........................................184Chapter 21 New Best Friend.......................................199Chapter 22 Blood Brothers........................................208Chapter 23 The Smartest Men in the Room..........................215Chapter 24 The Hardest-Hitting Linebacker........................224Chapter 25 Beautiful Pieces of Art...............................236Chapter 26 George Jetson.........................................245Chapter 27 Gamblers Anonymous....................................254Chapter 28 And Now You Can't Get Out.............................267Epilogue We Did It...............................................284

Chapter One

March 21, 2015

The sun shone brightly in the eastern sky, but it was not the best day to be out along the border. With the late spring morning wind whipping across the rugged south Texas terrain, the thermostat might have read thirty-one degrees, but in actuality it felt more like it was in the teens. Fort Bliss, the largest US Army Training and Doctrine Command installation in the country, was situated adjacent to the city of El Paso. Built in 1849 to protect the southern border from raids by Mexicans and Native Americans, the reservation served its country commendably, with a long history of being a staging point for deploying military personnel to support conflicts around the world.

Strategically located on the southwest quadrant of the military establishment was ground zero. The US Army Corp of Engineers had erected a special six-story viewing tower that was secured directly into the pavement of the J. E. B. Stuart and Cassidy Road intersection. The eight-by-ten-foot rectangular platform protruded above a reception tent and provided a magnificent panoramic view for miles in all directions. The structure was purposely meant to look hastily constructed, but in reality it could withstand gale-force winds.

As you looked east, the arriving and departing flights of El Paso International Airport could clearly be seen. To the north stretched the four-mile-long runway of Biggs Army Airfield. To the west, the city of El Paso blocked the expanse of Puerto de Anapra and the lands thereafter. Five miles to the south clearly showed the catalyst for today's event, Highway 375, snaking along the border with Ciudad Juarez. This Mexican city was home to one of the major hot spots for the crossing of undocumented aliens.

At 10:45 a.m. CST on board Air Force One during the flight from Washington DC, to Texas, Christopher Joseph Cameron was sworn in as the forty-sixth president of the United States of America. He asked that the ceremony coincide with when they flew directly over Austin, or more specifically, his alma mater, the University of Texas.

While his transition team took these unprecedented forty days to work out succession details, his initial order of business was to focus his time on dealing with the escalating problems to the south.

You can't pick your neighbors; you can only choose your friends, the newly minted president thought to himself as he sat as a passenger in the new Stryker 250 armored personnel carrier next to a twenty-three-year-old motor transport officer from Palatine, Illinois.

As the sole vehicle traveling on Cassidy Road, this next-generation military transport was moving at close to full speed of seventy-two miles per hour. Set to be unveiled next month as the centerpiece of the ongoing army transformation, the "Quart," which had a range of 406 miles, operated with the latest C4ISR equipment and an integrated armor package to protect soldiers against a wide array of weapons and explosives.

Since his surprising election win two years earlier, Felix Lozario, the presidente of Mexico spent a considerable amount of time condemning the actions of the United States and, in particular, outgoing President Harloe. With a strong left-wing political agenda, the sixty-one-year-old senior Party of the Democratic Revolution member devoted far more time to railing against US policy than focusing on stabilizing his fragile nation.

Now precipitously close to being declared a failed state, Mexico had been suffering for close to a decade mired in the grip of a never-ending recession. A crippling one-two punch was the culprit. Oil revenue was severely hampered by the precipitous drop in the price of the commodity, while at the same time, the flow of pesos from repatriated undocumented worker earnings decreased significantly with the implementation of the initial phases of the FairTax. This monumental change in the US tax code did what was thought of as impossible, to capture revenue from illegal sources. It was estimated that close to two billion dollars that had previously been sent back to Mexico families now found its way into the federal tax revenue stream.

The knockout blow was the ever-expanding power of the cartels. The ruthless gangs exponentially increased the level of violence throughout the drug-smuggling corridors and continued their extortion of protection money and murder of local families and businesses. Even more concerning was that they now branched out to the political world and supplanted many government officials. This was most prevalent in Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo Leon, the states closest to the US border.

President Cameron arrived fifteen minutes before his invited guest and sat under the olive-colored canvas field tent in front of the viewing platform. He was casually chatting and comparing stories with the soldiers on duty about his time stationed at Fort Bliss before being deployed to Iraq in 1990 versus their current engagements. A table for two was set, waiting with some of his favorite Italian lunchtime selections...