Big mistake. I’d forgotten about all of the detection equipment that lined the border. We must have been triggering dozens of sensors with every step—sensors that were automatically updating our position for the border patrol. I heard the distinctive whine of a low-altitude vehicle ahead of us, saw its spotlight sweeping back and forth as the vehicle’s crew tried to pick us out. Red tracers streaked through the darkness as the LAV opened fire, fragmenting a nearby cactus with its first burst. Within seconds, the spotlight would find us and we’d be dead. And we weren’t even close to the fence yet. Not that the Azzies would respect the sanctity of us having reached CAS ground, were it possible to reach it.