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"Your tongue would loosen if I started shooting holes in your colleague's ars," Halcon said with a smile

"You could do that, but let me offer another proposal Tell me what your plan is, and I'll reveal a secret known to no other ive you my word"

And I accept it" Austin had judged Halcon correctly as a alomaniac ould want others to know of his elica The new country that will be carved out of the Southwest states and southern California Those of Hispanic descent will take back as stolen from them by force"

Joe chortled "Good luck, pal I know of a certain superpower that ht object"

"Please give ht of the US and have no intention of going up directly against it"

"Then all those ar?"

"Oh, no, they will be used for military reasons You're of Spanish ancestry, Mr Zavala, so you knohat I learned in the bullring With a few flutters and flourishes of a cape and deft footwork you can vanquish a er and more powerful foe"

"The US isn't exactly a fighting bull," Austin said

"The saroundell I have rants into the old Spanish territories now occupied illegally by the United States, until they are on the verge of outnu the non?Hispanics I have used as, oil, andWith my profits I have sponsored candidates pliant to ht and bribed others Now I can put ive the word The ar will move on the border towns Others will conduct raids in the interior There will be a backlash against Hispanics, ainst the Japanese Aive thelo tormentors, and a reason: to redeem the national pride that America has so often demeaned"

"You're talking bloodshed and chaos"

"My goals exactly! What can the US do, free Albuquerque and Phoenix by nuking the in the boulevards of San Diego? They will know a political settlement follows every arovernors I have elected will sue for peace and suggest that the US turn to one of its citizens of Spanish heritage to act as otiate de facto secession from the Union"

"There's no guarantee your scheme will succeed, in which case hundreds of thousands of people would have been killed for nothing"

"They will have served their purpose as a means to an end"

"Many of those people will be Latinos," Zavala said

"What of it?" Halcon snarled "My conquistador ancestors used warring Indian factions as their allies to defeat the Aztec empire, then made them slaves I will offer those who survive the opportunity to relive the greatness of the past as I restore the glories of two great civilizations, the Indian and the Spanish"