They fought America's wars, now they're fighting for their own freedom.
Rebels of the American Hemisphere Book 1
by Neal Alexander
Genre: Thriller
Hugo Ayala has burned his bridges with the Colombian military by denouncing murders committed by his former officers. After surviving a bloody assignment in Yemen with an American security company, he completes U.S. Army basic training. But he's blocked from becoming a green card soldier by new anti-immigration laws. He stays on as an illegal, and joins the American Foreign Legion, an immigration rights group whose members have fought for the USA.
Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining and deporting
thousands of people a day, without due process. But now the communities being
targeted include Hugo and others who know how to fight back. The leader of the
AFL has his own political backers and doubtful motives. As each side ratchets
up the violence, American political unity starts to crack.
This gripping thriller which draws on current events and little-known facts:
- Many non-citizens serve in the US armed forces and as employees of American
security contractors. For example, the second US Marine killed in action in the
Iraq War was Guatemalan. A recent MIT study of these green card soldiers is
subtitled “Between Model Immigrant and Security Threat”.
- Border Patrol agents “have gone from having one of the most obscure jobs in
law enforcement to one of the most hated,” according to the New York Times.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deport people without due process,
including US Citizens.
- A recent Chicago Tribune op-ed describes how current how the current
“struggles over immigration echo the conflict over slavery”. Confrontations in
Texas over immigration have been described as “civil war” in the New York
Times.
After dark, there wasn’t much traffic in Saada. Hugo heard the groaning of a heavy truck on the road behind him, outside the city wall. Then the angrier sound of a faster vehicle coming the other way, then locked wheels scraping against the dirt road. As Hugo turned around to look over the outer parapet, he heard a glooping sound, then saw an Arabian Humvee flip over and down into a ditch full of sewage.
After a shocked split second, Hugo heard shouts from a soldier inside the Humvee. As Hugo ran down the steps to the bottom of the wall, he called over the radio that he was coming to the assistance of the Arabian soldiers. He burst past the policemen, who were edging away from the gate and towards the ditch but were unsure what to do. As he ran in front of the stalled truck, he reached down to his belt and unsheathed his knife. One Arabian soldier was standing at the edge of the ditch, covered in slurry, gazing blankly at the upturned driveshaft of the Humvee.
The head of another soldier was shat up to the surface. Hugo grabbed the arm of the dazed soldier and tried to ask “How many?” in Arabic. The soldier turned his shit-smeared face to Hugo and gradually worked out where he was and what Hugo meant. “One. Driver,” he replied.
Hugo nodded and released the soldier’s arm. He looked at
the Humvee again: luckily it was leaning on the passenger side. Then he took a
deep breath and dove into the cesspool. He thought back to his training in the Colombian
Naval Infantry: imagined he was going into the same pond full of cow shit on
the savanna near Bogotá. Cow shit was cleaner somehow. The effluent closed over
him as he kicked his legs to swim down along the side of the Humvee. He found
the handle to the driver’s door. He didn’t need to force it open, which meant
that the inside of the vehicle was already flooded. The driver inside was
struggling spastically. Hugo couldn’t pay him any heed now: he had to find the
harness that was holding him in. The driver started to grab onto him: his only
salvation. Hugo couldn’t lose the knife, so he wrestled free, heedless of the
risk of cutting the driver. The struggle was using up Hugo’s air, and he forced
himself to stay calm. Now the driver was expiring, flailing aimlessly. Hugo
found the harness, cut it, and dragged the driver out. He took a second to
check that all the driver’s limbs were free, then kicked back up. On breaking
the surface, he snorted out the human waste from his nostrils before gasping
for air.
Book Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mutiny-American-Foreign-Legion-non-citizens-ebook/dp/B0D382HHJY/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212684492-the-mutiny-of-the-american-foreign-legion
About the Author
Neal Alexander was born in Newcastle,
England, and lived and worked in Nigeria and Papua New Guinea before moving to
Colombia in 2004. His is a founder member of Extraliminal Producciones and took
part in the 2006 Cali Festival of Performance Art. He has co-written and
produced short films with Extraliminal including two in Ecuador as part of a
Wellcome Trust Public Engagement award: El Shupa and Kepa Pajta. In 2024 he
published his first novel, The Mutiny of the American Foreign Legion.
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Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49715158.Neal_Alexander
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This looks like an enthralling read. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a really interesting story. Thanks for sharing.
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