The Traffickers
Page 21
Payne then thought about Skipper Olde.
When Payne had gone back into the Temple Burn Unit, he had been surprised at his own reaction to the news that the doer had indeed pumped thirteen rounds into Skipper.
It didn’t really bother me one bit.
Knowing his chance of survival, maybe I had already dealt with the fact he probably wasn’t—what did Tony Harris tell me he thought?—that Skipper wasn’t going to make it to lunch.
And he sure as hell didn’t.
But my being unaffected . . . something weird about that.
I need to call Amy and ask her.
Amy was Amelia A. Payne, MD. His sister was the Joseph L. Otterby Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.
If she doesn’t have an opinion, which would be the first time that ever happened, then she’ll find me someone who does.
Then another mental image flashed up, and Payne suddenly grinned.
That and see if someone in Amy’s medical circles can give me background on that gorgeous Dr. Amanda Law.
His mind wandered to the Texas Ranger. He checked his wristwatch. It showed three thirty. The airplane had been due in at three twenty-two.
Flight’s late. Nothing new there.
Payne had taken fifteen or so minutes at the Roundhouse to do a fast Internet search on the Rangers. And what little he’d found had been fascinating.
Real Wild Wild West stuff, he’d thought.
He’d copied the information into an e-mail and sent it to himself. Then he’d taken his cellular telephone and used it to check his e-mail, downloading a copy of the file to his phone.
He pulled out his phone now and opened the e-mail: From: SGT M.M. Payne
Date: 09 SEPT 1201
To: MMP (Mobile Email)
Subject: Tx Rangers Notes
Texas Rangers Sergeant Jim Byrth, Continental flight from IAH arriving PHL at 1522 hours, terminal D.
Snippets on Texas Rangers . . .
>>> Began in its first form in 1823. Stephen F. Austin, developing settlements in the Mexican province of Tejas, called for men to “Range” the frontier to protect its people. Officially became Texas Rangers in 1835.
>>> Austin recruited settlers from Europe and U.S. with the promise of land. Settlers agreed to become Mexican citizens, join the Catholic faith, speak Spanish.
>>> Mexican law authorized Austin to form militia to protect settlements. The Rangers were formed to ward off raids by Tonkawa and Comanche Indians and others, to capture criminals, and to “range” against intruders.
>>> “A Ranger is an officer able to handle any given situation without definite instructions from his commanding officer, or higher authority. This ability must be proven before a man becomes a Ranger.”
>>> “One Riot, One Ranger”—In 1896, Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald sent to Dallas to stop an illegal prize-fight. The Dallas mayor met McDonald at Union Station, and said, “Whereʹre the other Rangers?”
McDonald replied, “Thereʹs only one fight. Hell, ainʹt I enough?”
>>> Early Texas Ranger badges hammered out of silver Mexican five-peso coins. Badge is a five-point star within a ring engraved with oak leaves and an olive branch borrowed from the Texas Great Seal to represent strength (oak leaves) and peace (olive branch).
>>> Senior Ranger Captain Frank H. Hamer—commissioned as a Texas Highway Patrolman—went after Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. Tracked Bonnie and Clyde for more than three months before finding them in Louisiana. The outlaws fired—and were killed in the ensuing shoot-out on 23 May 1934.
>>> Present Day: Rangers are a division of the Texas Department of Public Safety. The 134 Texas Rangers (as authorized by Texas Legislature) are posted in seven companies: Waco (headquarters), Garland (Dallas/Fort Worth), Houston, Lubbock, Midland, San Antonio, and McAllen. Administrative office in Austin.
>>> Has been called one of the most effective investigative law-enforcement agencies in the world.
>>> Texas Rangers wear, as living symbols of a unique heritage, boots, white hats, and pistol belts of their predecessors.
Payne noticed movement and looked up from his phone.
There was another group coming out of Concourse D. But all Payne really noticed was a white Stetson cowboy hat seemingly floating down the concourse. It looked to be made of finely woven straw. Its crown was huge. The portion of the round brim over his ears spread out to resemble wide wings.
The Hat, Payne labeled it.
There were, of course, other passengers exiting ahead of and behind The Hat, but all Matt Payne could see of the Texas Ranger was The Hat.
And, boy, does it stand out.
Especially here in the Philly airport.
Should be interesting to see it in Center City. . . .
Payne was standing with five others who were watching the passengers coming out of Concourse D and going their different directions. He saw The Hat make a slow sweep of the terminal as Byrth scanned the area, no doubt looking for him. Then Byrth made eye contact with him and walked purposefully toward him.
With the exception of The Hat and his pointy-toed western boots, James O. Byrth did not look unlike Matthew M. Payne.
Byrth, who appeared to be about thirty years old, stood right at six feet tall and weighed 170 pounds. He was lithely muscled. He had dark, intelligent eyes and kept his dark, thick hair trimmed conservatively short. He wore gray slacks that actually had cuffs and a sharp crease, a stiffly starched white button-down collared shirt, and a single-breasted navy blue blazer with gold buttons.
The Hat stepped up to Matt Payne.
“Marshal Earp, I presume,” Jim Byrth said with utter confidence. His distinct Texas drawl made it only more so.
“That’s interesting,” Payne replied dryly. “I was about to say the same to you. You forget your horse in the plane’s overhead bin?”
Byrth grinned. “No. I checked it. Should be waiting at the baggage claim.”
Wait, Payne thought. How the hell did he pick me out so quickly?
And confidently?
Liz Justice probably gave him a basic description.
But he knew without question that it was me.
“Okay, how’d you make me?” Payne said, holding out his right hand.
Byrth didn’t reply immediately, as if he was considering whether he would.
“Penatekas,” Byrth finally said, powerfully squeezing Payne’s hand as he looked him right in the eyes. He added: “Sergeant Jim Byrth, Texas Rangers, Company A.” He nodded once, and The Hat moved with great drama. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Sergeant Matt Payne, Philadelphia Police Department, Homicide.”
“I know.”
“‘Penatekas’?” Payne repeated, stumbling over the pronunciation.
Byrth nodded again, and again The Hat accentuated the movement.
“One of the warrior bands of the fierce Comanches,” Byrth explained solemnly. “Back when Texas was the Mexican province of Tejas, early Rangers learned from them their various methods of how to tell everything about a person simply by knowing what to look for.”
Payne stared at him.
He’s pulling my chain.
Or is he?
That “Mexican province of Tejas” stuff I read about. And those Comanches were ruthless.
“Fascinating,” Payne said. “What sort of methods?”
“Well,” Byrth began, stone-faced, “they were nomads, and roaming the plains. When they hunted down a buffalo, they had a spiritual ceremony and prayed for its soul. They honored the great animal by letting no part of it go to waste. The flesh they cured for food. The skins became blankets and clothing and other protection. Even the cojones were used for special purposes. The cojones were dried and ground and consumed for the powers to observe. In particular, to observe people, and even more in particular, to observe enemies.”
“Co-what?”
“Co-hone-
ees,” Byrth repeated, this time phonetically. “That’s actually the Spanish word. The Indians had their own, which varied from band to band.”
“And that’s how you knew it was me? With these co-hone-ees?”
Still stone-faced, Byrth stared Payne in the eyes. Payne felt that he was reading him. Then Byrth nodded once. The Hat mimicked the motion.
“Co-hone-ees is Spanish?” Payne said. “For what?”
“ ‘Testicles.’ ”
Byrth grinned.
“Actually, it translates closer to ‘balls.’ ”
Then Byrth wordlessly pulled out his cell phone and punched at its touch-screen.
“That, and then there’s this.”
He held it out to Payne, showing him a big bright glass screen that filled the whole face of the device.
There was a digitized photograph on the screen.
Payne grunted.
He immediately recognized it as one that four years before had run on the front page of The Philadelphia Bulletin. It showed a bloody-faced Officer Matthew M. Payne, pistol in hand, standing over a fatally wounded felon in an alleyway. And it had had the screaming headline: “Officer M.M. Payne, 23, The Wyatt Earp of the Main Line.”
“Your reputation precedes you, Marshal. And, I might add, lives online for all to see.”
Homicide Sergeant Matthew Payne’s eyes went between the phone and Byrth’s face. He shook his head.
Shit. He got me. And good.
Then he burst out laughing.
I think we’re going to get along just fine.
“Nice job, Jim.”
Byrth smiled.
Payne added: “But just remember that payback is hell.”
Now Byrth laughed aloud and said, “Liz Justice said you were a good sport. I’ll deal with the payback.”
[THREE]
D/E Connector Philadelphia International Airport Wednesday, September 9, 3:10 P.M.
Juan Paulo Delgado sat at a rental Dell laptop computer inside the Road Warrior Connection kiosk.
He reached into his camo shorts and pulled out the flash drive. He stuck it in a USB slot on the side of the laptop, and simultaneously hit the CONTROL, ALT, and DELETE keys. When the screen went blank, he held the CONTROL and Z keys simultaneously. The computer restarted, loading the secure program from the flash drive that mirrored his laptop in the safe of his converted warehouse loft.
As the computer booted up, he wondered if there actually was something to what Jorge Aguilar had suggested in his text message.
Did Los Zetas have anything to do with the kid’s disappearance?
The Zetas, led by Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano, were mercenaries working as the enforcement arm of the narco-trafficking Gulf Cartel. They numbered some five hundred men, and were heavily armed and well-trained. The majority of them had been commandos in the Mexican Army’s Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales, which, ironically, went after members of the drug cartels. They were ruthless and fearless. And what they could not or would not do—assassinations inside the United States, for example—they hired others, most notably gangbangers, to carry out for them.
The Gulf Cartel—if not the biggest of the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations (MDTOs), then one of the richest—was based due south of Brownsville, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, thus the source of the cartel’s name. Since the 1970s, the Gulf Cartel had trafficked pot, coke, meth, and smack into the United States. And they taxed anyone who used their “plazas,” or smuggling routes. The Zetas acted as their lethal collection agency for slow- or no-payers.
Thus, Juan Paulo Delgado knew that the Zetas were not to be fucked with.
He also knew that, compared to the gangs to whom the cartel wholesaled drugs for resale in the United States, he was a very, very small player. He operated on the fringes of what to the cartels was a multibillion-dollar-per-year enterprise. As long as he kept paying the plaza taxes that the Gulf Cartel levied on him, and he didn’t step on their toes, and he didn’t try to become a bigger player, he would more or less be left alone with his crumbs.
Which meant that it had been a damned dumb move to pump forty-two rounds—two of 9-millimeter and forty of 5.7-millimeter—into his former business associate in that South Dallas crack house. Not because it was wrong to take out the bastard who owed him for the kilo of black tar smack. But because that property had also been an occasional stash house for the Zetas.
Not long afterward, he’d learned on the street that they were not exactly pleased that El Gato (a) had drawn unwanted attention to the stash/crack house and (b) had made the mess with what once had been their P90 Fabrique Nationale submachine gun.
Like toothpaste from a tube, there of course was no way to put fired bullets back in a gun. The damage was done. But Delgado had a hard time believing that any of that actually warranted the anger of the Zetas.
You never know, though, what sets those fuckers off.
Or whom they’ll hire to pull the trigger.
They could’ve grabbed the kid—or had him grabbed—to send a message.
Or it could be the kid’s just out getting laid. . . .
For two days?
He shook his head, then clicked on the Firefox browser icon to connect to the Internet.
He signed in to his Gmail account. There was nothing new to read except junk mail. He deleted that. He then decided that while he was signed in, he would just send an e-mail to Jorge Aguilar. Typing took less effort than thumbing and, like text messages, the e-mails also went to Jorge’s cellular phone.
He opened a new window and wrote:From: jjd <4.n.dallas.high@gmail.com>
Date: 09 SEPT 1520
To: jorge
Subject: the kid
send someone (maybe Gomez?) to A&M to see if he can find out anything.
we need to know if somethingʹs happened.
Then he clicked to send it, and logged out of Gmail.
He typed PHILLYBULLETIN.COM and hit the RETURN key.
A second later, the screen loaded.
He saw that the image of the Philly Inn ablaze had moved farther down the screen. Now the main image was that of emergency vehicles at the Reading Terminal Market. And below that was a photograph of the Temple University Hospital surrounded by Philadelphia Police Department squad cars and what looked to Delgado to be very likely unmarked police cars.
The red text of the ticker crawling from right to left across the top of the page read: BREAKING NEWS . . . Police Investigating Suspicious Burning of 2 Vehicles Parked in West Kensington . . . BREAKING NEWS . . .
Delgado saw that under the photograph of Reading Terminal Market there was a caption:Gunfire killed two people and injured four others this morning at Reading Terminal Market in Center City Philadelphia. Click here for full story. (Photograph by Jimmy Bell / Bulletin Photographer)
And under the image of Temple University Hospital was also a caption. It read:Temple University Hospital on North Broad Street was the scene of a shooting late this morning, Philly’s second of the day. (See related story by clicking here.) Police said that they were withholding details pending the initial investigation. Witnesses, however, stated that police pursued an armed gunman running from a hospital exit. The gunman fired at the officer chasing him. Click here for full story. (Photograph by Phan Hoang / Bulletin Photographer)
That gunman was El Gigante.
And so it was a cop who chased him . . . and shot him.
Delgado clicked on the link to read the story:ARMED MAN MURDERS BURN VICTIM BEFORE FLEEING HOSPITAL, FIRING AT POLICE
While police remain mum on details of the murder, witnesses claim gunman fired shots at man who shouted “Police!” while chasing gunman from hospital.
By A.A. OʹReilly
Bulletin Staff Writer
Posted Online 09/09 at 11:30 a.m.
Philadelphia—A critically burned man who had just been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Temple University Hospital was shot multiple times by
an unknown assailant this morning, according to a source inside the hospital who asked to remain anonymous.
Witnesses on the sidewalk outside the hospital said that about 10:50 a.m. the gunman ran out of the hospital from an exit door at street level. He then fled eastward down Tioga Street. When the exit door opened again, witnesses said, the gunman fired back at it, narrowly missing a man who identified himself by shouting “Police! Stop!”
“It was absolute chaos,” said Sylvia Morris, who was returning to her job at the hospital. “Everyone on the sidewalk was running for their lives.”
As the gunman ran toward Germantown Avenue, witnesses said, he reloaded his pistol. The man who identified himself as police then pursued him.
A short time later, witnesses said that they heard at least four more gunshots in the direction that the two had run, but that they could not see them at that point.
The gunman was described as being a Hispanic male of tiny stature, no older than a teenager. He wore royal blue hospital scrubs and carried in his right hand a black semiautomatic pistol. He remains at large.
A spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department confirmed that a sergeant from the department had been the one who had chased the shooter. But the spokesman would neither identify the sergeant nor give any details on what happened in the hospital prior to the street chase.