The Power of the Dog

by Don Winslow

  “It’s too dangerous,” he says. “If anything went wrong, you’d be looking at life in prison.”

  “Then let’s make sure nothing goes wrong,” she says.

  She lays out her case—I go back and forth across the border all the time. I’m an American citizen with an address in San Diego. I’m an attractive blonde and can flirt my way through any checkpoint. And, most important, it’s what the Chinese want.

  “Why?” Raúl asks suddenly. “Why would you take the risk?”

  “Because,” she says, smiling, “in return, you’ll make me rich.”

  She waits as her answer just hangs there.

  Finally, Adán says, “I want the best chop-artist in Baja. Maximum security at both sides of the border. Fabián, get our best people in California to make the actual pickup. I want you there personally. If anything happens to her, I hold you both responsible.”

  He gets up and walks out.

  Nora just sits and smiles.

  Raúl follows Adán out into the garden.

  “What are you thinking about, hermano?” he asks. “What’s to stop her from turning on us? What’s to stop her from just taking the money and never looking back?! She’s a whore, for God’s sake!”

  Adán whirls around and grabs him by the front of his shirt. “You’re my brother and I love you, Raúl. But if you ever talk about her that way again, we’ll split the pasador and go our separate ways. Now please just do your job.”

  As Nora waits in the line at the San Ysidro border crossing, Baja’s best chop-artist sits in a chair on the tenth floor of an apartment building overlooking the checkpoint. He’s a little nervous because he’s been asked to guarantee his work—if the car gets busted going across the border, Raúl Barrera is going to put a bullet in the back of his head.

  “Just so you have a rooting interest,” Raúl said.

  He doesn’t know where the car is going, he doesn’t know who’s taking it there, but he does know that it’s unusual for cash to be heading north across the border instead of coming south. He’s built stash-holds all over the nondescript Toyota Camry, and that little baby is loaded down with millions of American dollars. He only hopes that the Border Patrol doesn’t decide to weigh the car.

  So does Nora. She’s not too concerned about a visual search, or even dogs, because the pooches have been trained to sniff for drugs, not cash. Even so, the bundles of hundred-dollar bills have been soaked in lemon juice to neutralize any smell. And the car itself is fresh—it’s never been used to carry dope, so there can’t be any residual scent.

  There is residue of sand, however, carefully left on the driver's-side floor and in the backseat with some damp towels, a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of old flip-flops.

  The wait at the border today is over an hour and a half, which is a pain in the ass. But Adán insisted that she cross on a late Sunday afternoon, when the crossing is the busiest, jammed up with thousands of Americans returning home from weekends at the cheap resorts in Ensenada and Rosarita. So she has ample time to work her way over into the third lane, where the Border Patrol agent coming on duty is on the Barrera payroll.

  It hasn’t been left to chance, though. Raúl stands at the window of the apartment and peers out through binoculars. There are three apartment towers overlooking the border from the Mexican side, and the Barreras own all three. Now Raúl watches his paid Border Patrol agent take his position and look up toward the apartment tower.

  Raúl punches digits into his pager.

  Nora’s pager beeps and she looks to see the numbers 666 on the little display screen—the narco-code for “All clear.” She nods to the driver in the Ford Explorer in front of her. The man is looking into his rearview mirror and now he turns right into the third lane, setting a pick for Nora to turn behind him. The Jeep Cherokee behind her does the same thing, making space for her. Horns honk, middle fingers are raised, but Nora is going to get into that third lane.

  Now all she has to do is wait and fend off the squadrons of vendors who walk up and down the line of cars hawking sombreros, milagros, Styrofoam jigsaw-puzzle maps of Mexico, sodas, tacos, burritos, T-shirts, baseball caps, just about anything you can think of, to the bored people waiting to cross. The border wait is one long, narrow open-air marketplace, and she buys a cheap gaudy sombrero, a poncho and a MY GIRLFRIEND WENT TO TIJUANA AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT to fortify her tourist profile and also because she always feels bad for the street vendors, especially the kids.

  She’s three cars away from the checkpoint when Raúl looks through his binocs and yells, “Fuck!”

  The chop-artist jumps up from his chair. “What?”

  “They’re switching. Look.”

  Raúl peers down. A Border Patrol supervisor is rotating the agents into different lines. It’s a common practice, but the timing is awfully close to be just coincidence.

  “Do they know something?” the chop-artist asks. “Should we abort?”

  “Too late,” Raúl answers. “She can’t turn around.”

  Sweat pops on the chop-artist’s forehead.

  Nora sees the agent being changed out and thinks, Please God, no, not now, when I’m so close. She feels her heart start to race and makes a deliberate effort to breathe deeply and slow it down. Border agents are trained to look for signs of anxiety, she tells herself, and you want to be just one more blond chick coming back from a hard-partying weekend in Mexico.

  The Ford Explorer pulls up to the checkpoint. It’s “chock-full-o'-Chicanos,” as Fabián had put it, again part of the plan. The agent will spend a lot of time checking this car out and be more likely to give her just a cursory look. Sure enough, the agent is asking a lot of questions, walking around the Explorer, looking in the windows, checking IDs. The golden retriever comes out and scurries around the vehicle, sniffing happily and wagging its tail.

  It’s good that it’s taking time, Nora thinks, it’s part of the plan. But it’s also excruciating.

  Finally, the Explorer clears the checkpoint and Nora pulls up. She pushes her sunglasses up on her forehead to give the agent the full benefit of her blue eyes. But she doesn’t say hello or start the conversation—the agents look for people who are overly friendly or eager.

  “ID?” the agent asks.

  She shows him her California driver’s license, but has her passport in plain sight in the passenger seat. The agent notices.

  “What were you doing in Mexico, Ms. Hayden?”

  “I came down for the weekend,” she says. “You know, some sun, the beach, a few margaritas.”

  “Where did you stay?”

  “At the Hotel Rosarita.” She has receipts matching her Visa card in her purse.

  The agent nods. “Do they know you took their towels?”

  “Oops.”

  “Are you bringing anything back into the country?”

  “Just this stuff,” she says.

  The agent looks at the tourist shit she bought in line.

  This is the critical moment; he’s going to wave her through, or search the car a little more, or pull her off into the inspection lane. Options one and two are acceptable, but option three could be a disaster, and Raúl’s holding his breath as he watches the agent lean through the window and look into the backseat.

  Nora just smiles. Taps her foot and hums along with the classic-rock station on the radio.

  The agent leans back out.

  “Drugs?”

  “What?”

  The agent smiles. “Welcome back, Ms. Hayden.”

  “She’s through,” Raúl says.

  The chop-artist says he needs to take a piss.

  “Don’t get too relaxed!” Raúl yells to him. “She still has to get through San Onofre!”

  The phone rings on Art Keller’s desk.

  “Keller.”

  “She’s in.”

  Art stays on the line to get the make of the car, a description and the license-plate number. Then he phones the Border Patrol station at San Onofre. />
  Adán gets a similar call in his office.

  “She’s through,” Raúl says.

  Adán feels better but he’s still worried. She still has to get through the checkpoint at San Onofre, and that’s his fear—the San Onofre checkpoint sits on an empty stretch of Route 5 just north of the Marine base at Pendleton, and the area is rife with electronic surveillance and radio jammers. If the DEA were going to grab her, they would grab her there, far from the Barrera lookout towers or any possible help in Tijuana. It’s entirely possible that Nora is driving straight into an ambush at San Onofre.

  Nora drives north on the 5, the major north-south arterial that runs the length of California like a spine. She drives past downtown San Diego, past the airport and SeaWorld, past the big Mormon temple that looks like it’s made from spun sugar and would melt in the rain. She drives past the exit to La Jolla, past the racetrack at Del Mar, and speeds past downtown Oceanside before she finally pulls over at a rest stop just south of the Marine base at Camp Pendleton.

  She gets out and locks the car. She can’t see the Barrera sicarios who are parked nearby, but she knows they’re in one car or another, or maybe several, to guard her vehicle while she uses the bathroom. It’s highly doubtful that anyone is going to steal a used Toyota Camry, but nobody’s taking the chance with several million dollars in cash in the car.

  She uses the toilet, then goes to a sink to wash her hands and freshens her makeup. The cleaning lady waits patiently while she finishes. Nora smiles, thanks her and gives her a dollar bill before going back out. She buys a Diet Pepsi from a vending machine, gets back in the car and starts driving north. She loves this stretch of highway that runs through the Marine base because once you get past the barracks it’s mostly empty. Just the range of hills to the east and to the west, nothing but the lanes of southbound traffic and then blue Pacific.

  She’s been through the San Onofre checkpoint hundreds of times—most southern Californians have, if they make the trip from San Diego up to Orange County. It’s always been kind of a joke, she thinks as the traffic in front of her slows, a “border” checkpoint seventy miles from the border. But the fact is that many illegals are on their way to the Los Angeles metro area, and most of them use the 5, so maybe it makes sense.

  What usually happens is that you get to the checkpoint, tap your brakes, and, if you’re white, the Border Patrol agent waves you through with a bored sweep of the hand. That’s what usually happens, she thinks as she stops about a dozen cars before the checkpoint, and that’s what she’s expecting.

  Except this time the Border Patrol guy signals her to stop.

  Art looks at his watch—again. It should be going down now. He knows when she crossed the border, when she hit the rest stop. If she didn’t turn around somewhere, if she didn’t get hinky and change her mind, if . . . if . . . if . . .

  Adán paces the office. He also has a timetable in mind, and Nora should be calling in soon. She wouldn’t risk a call near the surveillance at Pendleton, and there’s nothing for her to say until she’s through San Onofre, but she should be through by now. She should be in San Clemente, she should be . . .

  The agent signals for her to roll down the window.

  Another agent walks over to the passenger side. She rolls that window down, too, then looks at the agent beside her, gives him her best beautiful look and asks, “Is there something wrong?”

  “Do you have ID on you?”

  “Sure.”

  She digs through her handbag for her wallet, then holds the wallet open for the agent to see her license. As she does, the agent on the passenger side pushes the tracking device between the headrest and the seat as he leans in to examine the back.

  The first agent takes a long time looking at the license, then says, “Sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am,” and waves her through.

  Art grabs the phone before the first ring stops.

  “Done.”

  He hangs up and blows out a long breath of relief. He has the aerial surveillance in place now, a mix of military-aircraft “traffic” helicopters and private planes, and can track her all the way.

  And when she meets with the Chinese, we’ll be there.

  Nora waits until she’s in San Clemente before she picks up the cell phone and punches in the number in Tijuana. When Fabián answers, she says, “I’m through,” and hangs up.

  Now it’s just a matter of driving north until the Chinese give them a time and location for the meeting.

  So that’s what she does.

  She just drives.

  Adán gets the call from Raúl that Nora is through the San Onofre checkpoint, and goes outside for a walk. Now it’s just a matter of waiting.

  Yeah, he thinks, just waiting.

  Fabián has trucks standing by in Los Angeles, waiting to take delivery of the arms and drive them to the border at an isolated spot in the desert, where they’ll be transferred to different trucks, driven to several different airstrips and then flown to Colombia.

  It’s all in place—but first Nora has to make that first, all-important transaction with the Chinese. And before she can do that, the Chinese have to tell them where and when.

  Art also has men standing by—squadrons of heavily armed DEA agents, Federal Marshals, FBI—holed up in San Pedro waiting for the word. The San Pedro Harbor is huge, and the GOSCO facilities there are enormous—row after row of cargo warehouses, so they have to know, specifically, which one to hit. It’s a tricky operation because they have to lay off until the deal is in place, but then get in there quickly.

  Art’s in a helicopter now, watching an electronic map of Orange County and a red blinking light that represents Nora. He debates with himself. Put a ground unit on her now, or wait? He decides to wait as she takes the 405 North exit off the 5 and heads for San Pedro.

  No surprises there.

  But he is surprised when the blinking red light gets off the 405 at MacArthur Boulevard in Irvine and turns west.

  “What the fuck is she doing?” Art says out loud. He tells the pilot, “Pull in on her!”

  The pilot shakes his head. “Can’t! Air-traffic control!”

  Then Art gets what the fuck she’s doing.

  “Goddamnit!”

  He calls for ground units to hustle to John Wayne Airport. But the map tells him that there are five potential exits out of the airport, and he’ll be lucky to cover even one of them.

  She gets off MacArthur at the airport exit and pulls in to the parking structure.

  Art’s helicopter hovers over the 405, north of the airport. It’s his best hope, that she pulled into the airport to block audio surveillance, is getting the location in San Pedro, and will shortly pull back onto the highway.

  Or, Art thinks, she’s taking millions of dollars in cash and getting on an airplane. He watches the screen but the blinking red light is just gone.

  Nora gets on the cell phone.

  “I’m here,” she says.

  Raúl gives her an address in nearby Costa Mesa, about two miles away. She pulls out of the structure and turns west on MacArthur, away from the 405, then turns onto Bear Street into the nondescript flat gridiron of Costa Mesa.

  She finds it, a small garage on a street full of small warehouses. A man with a Mac-10 machine pistol slung over his arm opens the door and she pulls in. The door closes behind her, and then it’s like the Formula 1 race she once went to with a client—a crew of men instantly jump the car with power tools, take it apart and put the money into Halliburton briefcases and then into the trunk of a black Lexus.

  This, she thinks, would be the moment for a rip-off, but none of these men are even tempted. They’re all illegals with family back in Baja and they know that Barrera sicarios are parked in front of their homes with orders to kill everyone inside if the money and the courier don’t leave that garage quickly and safely.

  Nora watches them work with the smooth, silent efficiency of a first-class pit crew. The only sound is the whine of power drills, an
d it takes only thirteen minutes to disassemble the car and reload the money in the Lexus.

  The man with the machine pistol hands her a new cell phone.

  She calls Raúl. “Done.”

  “Give me a color.”

  “Blue,” she says. Any other color would mean that she’s being held against her will.

  “Go.”

  She gets into the Lexus. The garage door opens and she pulls out. Gets back on Bear and ten minutes later she’s back on the 405, heading toward San Pedro. She drives right under a traffic helicopter circling the area.

  Art stares at the empty screen.