Southeast of San Diego, California, January, 2078, Tuesday…

George Campbell looked at the green figures straggling down the arroyo through his XM25's scope and smiled. His little band of Christian Soldiers were at the right place and the right time.

In spite of a heavy National Guard presence along the southern border of the US, there were also many vigilantes there who had taken upon themselves to help the National Guard. Most of them did little more than turn the illegals into the authorities, only using violence in response to violence. After crossing the desert, it was unusual for the illegals to be violent, even at night. The desert had a way of sapping the strength of even the strongest.

Even at the turn of the century men like Campbell had been alarmed by the illegals coming over the border, for many reasons. Some were concerned about economic issues; their worry was that illegals would steal jobs, fill their schools, or overrun their hospitals. Others were concerned about potential increases in crime; as with any immigration, there was a small percentage of lowlifes who added to an ever increasing level of crime and violence in the US. Even some were concerned about the illegals themselves, about how they would be mistreated or exploited in the migrant workers' camps spread through the west, the cheap labor that kept the eastern states happy about the price of Californian avocados, tomatoes, and other produce.

While George's small band was concerned about all these issues with the exception of the last, their primary concern was that the illegals were Latinos. For the most part that meant they were Catholics. The Latino population was the number one minority in the US. When the illegals became legals, they determined close elections. No politician could ignore either the illegals or the legals, since the legal Latinos often had friends and relatives who were illegals. A prominent social analyst had remarked that WASP politics no longer dominated in the US. Even the President was Latino.

And Catholic. The Christian Soldiers had become the tempered steel of a deadly sword made from the mix of radical Protestants and neo-nazis and annealed by an overall spirit of discontent about where the world was going and who seemed to be in charge. They weren't just anti-Catholic. They were anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-black, anti-Chinese, anti-east-European, anti-Japanese -- anti a lot of people they blamed for their failures in life. But they were especially anti-Catholic.

They were organized with member cells in almost every major American city. They were violent and methodical in the extermination of their enemies. Every strike they made had a purpose, though, not like the random terrorism of some of the other groups that made the average citizen always watch over his shoulder.

This night was a case in point. Latinos and Catholics. Their role on the border was to stop as many as possible, permanently.