The Grey Man- Down South

by J. L. Curtis

  She chuckled. “Other than missing the warm spot in bed, and Jack’s hormones definitely waking up, oh, and the JA ranch calling about wanting a cow to diversify their bloodline a little, nothing.”

  He groaned. “What did Jack do this time? And do I need to talk to him again? I did that before I left.”

  “I know you did. He’s growing again. I swear I just bought him new shirts and pants, and they are already getting too small. And he smarted back to Hank, who made him clean out the stalls by himself. He came whining to me and I didn’t support him, so he’s pouting right now.”

  “Okay. What’s the deal with JA?”

  “Hank and I decided to sell them that three year old chestnut cow. She’s got a mind of her own, especially when she has a calf, but we’ve got the pedigree documents on her, and JA agreed to five hundred and they will come get her.”

  He laughed. “Good!” He paused for a second, then continued softly, “I’m going to miss you…hell, I miss you already. I love you, Amy. I’ll try to call you every week, like I did before.”

  “I love you too, John Cronin. And you better call, and you damned well better come home in three months!”

  “I will. I love you. Good night.”

  “Love you. Night.” He heard the dial tone and hung the phone up with a sigh. Turning the light off, he crawled into the bed and tried to go to sleep.

  Side Trip

  Morgan and Menendez picked John up at Mariscal Sucre airport and John asked, “What’s this? Both of you? What’s up, other than I can’t breathe again and my blood pressure is up too after that damn approach and landing?”

  Menendez handed John his pistol and holster as soon as they were in the embassy car. “Things have been interesting lately. Yeah, we were hoping the airplane was going to stop before it ran off the end. At least you’re breathing and not passing out. Did you see that older woman fall out?”

  John grunted, “Yeah. She got about ten feet and flop. It’s pretty bad when the aircraft is pressurized to a lower altitude than the airport. At least it wasn’t a long walk from the airplane to customs.”

  As he threaded the holster through his belt loops, Morgan asked, “Did you get called in about reports, John?”

  John got the holster situated, press checked the 1911, slipped the safety on and slid it in his holster while he thought of what to say. “Yeah, I got called in. Met with, I’m guessing, one of your guys and one of our guys in a sealed conference room. They had a list of questions, poly’ed me and I guess were pissed when I just answered them truthfully.”

  Menendez turned around and looked at him. “Were you specifically asked about my reports?”

  John cocked his head. “Actually, now that I think of it, no. Nothing about our AOR over here other than the money trail. It was mostly generic questions about interactions, well, except for a couple of the reports about killing the bad guys. Mostly it was how well we got along with the agency, blah, blah, blah.” He saw Morgan smiling in the mirror and added, “I didn’t say anything about your loaners from the basement either. And they wondered why I got pissed about the money and the reports. Fuckers…”

  Morgan laughed. “Yeah, you get pissed, that throws off the polygraph, they can’t believe you’re submitting honest reports. As far as the guns, most of them are off the books anyway. And you help me, I help you.”

  John shook his head. “Okay, what the hell is going on?”

  “Smuggling,” Menendez said.

  “Uh, isn’t that why we’re down here?”

  Morgan burst out laughing and Menendez glared at him before continuing. “The bosses want somebody to go down to Peru for a couple of weeks. Apparently the coca paste smugglers down there are getting creative, and a good amount of money is going missing between the raids and the reports, maybe including our folks. And I was told to keep you from getting too active for another month.”

  “Creative,” John asked.

  “Yeah, creative. They are apparently smuggling it in via commercial trucks now. Policia Nacional at Macra had an overloaded truck hit the bridge and when they started looking around, there were barrels that had fallen off the truck and broken open.”

  “Chemicals?”

  “Supposedly acid, but they were actually filled with water, and twenty kilos each of coca paste in waterproof packaging. When they checked the truck, there were ten barrels full of water and coca paste on the truck.”

  “Substituted by the shipper?”

  Menendez shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it. The chemical plant where they were shipped from is legit. Our guys aren’t sure how the other barrels got on the truck.”

  “Driver?”

  “Nah, driver works for the chemical company. He’s been there almost twenty years. Straight arrow according to the notes we got.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do? And what about my team?”

  They pulled into the embassy, and Menendez said, “Come in tomorrow morning and I’ll have some points of contact for you. Felix is currently running your team. Go see them tonight, and be ready to go tomorrow by noon.

  ***

  John went by the apartment and dropped off his bag, then drove by the house the team was living in, but it was dark, Dammit. I wonder if they’re out on a delivery or maybe still at the warehouse? He turned around and drove by the warehouse, but it was dark too. And I don’t have a key anymore. It was…hell, I guess either lost or maybe Menendez took it along with my other stuff before I was flown to Texas. Gotta ask him tomorrow. He turned around and drove back to the apartment, took a quick shower, and passed out. He woke up at seven, and drove by the house after he’d cleaned up, but it was still dark, so he went back to the embassy.

  He was in his cubbyhole when Menendez came in and turned the one other chair around. “John, I think this is a good chance to give you time to finish recovering and get some additional training. We haven’t been looking at smuggling, other than out of the country.” He slid a piece of notebook paper across the desk. “Alvarez is my counterpart down in Lima. He can tell you who you need to talk to. The sense I get from his presentations at the regional meetings is that they don’t run the same type of operations we do. I want you to pick his mind, find out what we can do to improve, and bring that knowledge back. Oh, and don’t trust him. There is something hinky down there.” He handed him a plane ticket. “You’re on the twelve oh five to Lima on LAN-Chile. It’s an open return, so come back when you think you’ve got enough information out of them,” he chuckled. “Or Alvarez throws you out. I’ll give you a ride to the airport.”

  John took all the papers and shoved them in his briefcase. “Okay. I went by last night and this morning and didn’t see anybody at the house or the warehouse. Any idea what’s up?”

  Menendez shook his head. “No, Felix doesn’t tell me day to day plans. He’s still off the books, at least for now. But when you get back and up to speed, I’m looking at getting him his own team.”

  “He deserves it. He’s steady and got a good head on his shoulders. And he’s honest!”

  “Noted.”

  ***

  John walked down the boarding ladder of the 727 and shivered in the chill, Dammit, I didn’t bring a jacket. Should have known it’s getting toward winter down here. And I don’t have a clue whether or not anybody is going to pick me up. Gotta get my head in the game before I--. A voice hissed, “Hey sailor, wanna fook my seester?”

  He snapped his head around and saw a grinning, gray haired, blocky Hispanic looking at him. “Julio? What the hell?” He stuck out his hand, only to have the man embrace him.

  “I’m your contact, John.”

  John stepped back. “Oh hell, Alvarez. I never—” He shook his head as Alvarez laughed at him.

  “You always were a little slow. Menendez didn’t say anything about you. Guess he never realized we know each other. Speaking of which, where’s the runt?” He took John’s arm. “Baggage claim is this way. You bring a gun?”

  “Yea
h, one in my bag. Billy is in law school and tormenting Amy and Jack on a regular basis. Ana is doing good too.”

  They collected his bag and Alvarez led him to a car parked in front of the terminal, nodding to the cop and slipping him some money as they shook hands. He threw John’s bag in the trunk and took off with a squeal of tires. “I’ve got you a room at the Continental. We’ll talk either there or in the car. Don’t trust the assholes at the Embassy, we’re leaking like a sieve there. What the hell have you been doing with yourself, and how the hell did you end up in DEA? I thought you had a ranch to run.”

  “Understood. I do have a ranch, Amy’s running it with my hand, Hank. I was bored to tears. When dad died, I got out, if you remember?” Alvarez nodded. “Well, mom died a year and a half ago. So, I’ve got the whole thing, but…I was going nuts. I can’t just sit around and run the ranch. I went through the peace officer’s training in Texas, and got certified, but nobody’s hiring. And Billy found out about the DEA, so I applied, and here I am. What about you?”

  Alvarez shrugged. “Got out in seventy on a medical. Bad knees. Got two replacements at Walter Reed on the initial trial of the concept of knee replacements, and was tired of teaching idiots at Bragg as a civvie instructor. Been with DEA since day one. Been down here going on two years now.” He grinned at John. “Since I’m the supervisory agent, I don’t have to go in the field unless I want to, so I only pick the good missions.”

  John laughed. “In other words, nothing has changed. Still a REMF aren’t ya. You and Lisa?”

  “She left about five years ago. She’s got Juan and Michelle, and I pay the bills. She’s teaching in Fayetteville.” Alvarez grimaced. “And yes, I’m a REMF, but a well-paid one. Somebody’s got to herd the damn cats down here. Since we do mostly monitoring of the pharmaceutical companies producing cocaine for the medical market, I get the brainiacs with no common sense whatsoever. I swear most of them are frikkin accountants! I don’t have but maybe two guys I’d actually trust in the field.”

  “That sucks on all counts. So, I’m supposed to be looking at the smuggling down here, and it sounds like you’re not—”

  Alvarez interrupted him. “I’ll get you with the right people. The Brazilians handle river smuggling, and the Peruvian Special Forces handles the land smuggling. The Guardia Civil handles the border check points. I’ve got contacts for all of them.”

  “Here or?”

  “You’ll have to spend some time on the road, or air, or boat.”

  John sighed. “And I’m guessing you’re not going to go with me?”

  Alvarez smiled broadly. “REMF remember? Actually, your main points of contact are here. There is a cell that operates out of the military HQ here in town. I also need to get you with the PIP and the Guard.”

  “PIP?”

  “Policía de Investigaciones del Perú, the national version of…the FBI. They are a different organization from the Civil Guard, which are different from the Military and special forces.”

  “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”

  Alvarez laughed as they pulled up in front of the Continental. “South American politics, John. South American politics in all their glory and bribery. Room is under my name. Don’t change it, just get the key and bring me the bill the day before you leave. Oh, and speak Spanish the whole time. No English. I’ll pick you up at eight for dinner.”

  “Okay. See you at eight.”

  ***

  Mayor Salazar rapped his swagger stick on his leg as Sergento Cerro strolled back to the guard shack at La Balza. “Well?”

  Cerro nodded. “Mayor, es un contrabandista.” He turned to John. “This one, he is new and nervous. He didn’t pay the right soborno, er…bribe, and we’ve seen this furniture before. The contrabandista think we don’t remember. It is hollowed out, especially the legs of the table. Come, I will show you.” Leading John back out, he casually said, “Arrestenlo,” to the two privates bracketing the man. They grabbed him as he began gabbling and crying he was innocent, as they walked to the back of the truck. Looking up at the massive Corporal standing in the truck bed, he said, “Baje la mesaî hacia abajo.”

  The corporal reached over and picked up a dining table that John knew had to weigh at least 300 pounds and casually slid it down the tailgate. He jumped down and Cerro pointed to one of the legs. The corporal ripped it off the table and handed it to him. “Hold out your hands, please Señor.”

  John did as asked, and Cerro shook the chair leg until paper fell out, then a tightly wrapped two inch by nine inch package wrapped in plastic. “See, Señor, drugs. These are…how you say, amphetamines.” He shrugged. “We will find, oh, twenty or thirty of these packages in this load.”

  John bounced the package in his hand and whistled. “That’s a helluva bite out of somebody’s profit.”

  Mayor Salazar walked over, “As usual, Sergento?” Cerro nodded and Salazar continued, “Señor, for each of these we catch, we probably miss twenty.”

  “Damn… What about the unprocessed pasta de coca? There was a truck that had barrels of supposedly chemicals that got caught at Macra?”

  Salazar sighed as he glanced at Cerro. “Humberto?”

  Cerro nodded. “Probably.”

  Salazar waggled his hand. “Him we know. There are people at the factory who put extra barrels on his truck when he goes to Colombia. He always spends the night with his wife’s family near Paimas and parks the truck at a mechanic’s yard. The barrels are replaced with the pasta de coca there, and he pay the right soborno on both sides.”

  “You know about it and don’t do anything?”

  Salazar shrugged. “We pass it to the Ecuadorian Policia. We do not know what they do with the information. That is more the province of the PIP and Fuerzas Especiales. A lot of pasta de coca is smuggled across the Amazon and transported by mule trains on both sides of the border.”

  John nodded. “I met with the Brazilian Coronel, he told me it is a constant battle with the smugglers, and they are usually long gone by the time they can get troops into the area. He said he’s seen mule trains of thirty-forty mules that are carrying eighty kilos of pasta each.”

  Salazar cocked his head. “You need to talk to my younger brother, Enrique. He is el teniente with the Fuerzas Especiales at Iquitos. There is also an office of the PIP there.” He handed John an envelope. “Your cut of the soborno.”

  John shook his head. “No, give it to the men. I have others taking care of me.”

  Salazar nodded politely as the envelope disappeared into his jacket. “Si Señor. Muchas gracias.”

  Three hours later, John was on the phone with Alvarez. “Julio, I need to get to Iquitos. I’ve got a point of contact with the Fuerzas Especiales up there, El Teniente Salazar. He’s the little brother of Mayor Salazar up here. It would also help if I could get a point of contact with the PIP office there and maybe a ride?”

  “Gimme a day. What is the closest airport up there?”

  “Uh, Jaen I think. But the airport isn’t really at Jaen.”

  ***

  Two days later, John all but crawled off the Peruvian Air Force Queen Air, thankful that at least he hadn’t puked on the airplane. Never fucking again. That…was the worst damn flight. I swear I’ll walk back. He quickly stepped away from the ladder as the coronel stumbled down the airstairs and puked yet again, thankfully by the rear of the airplane. John shook his head as he walked toward the small FBO which was, thankfully, up wind from the airplane. He opened the door to the FBO and saw a younger version of Mayor Salazar in a uniform talking to a rumpled man in a white guayabera, with a pistol on his right hip. They both turned as John asked, “Teniente Salazar?”

  “Si, Señor.”

  The rumpled man interrupted. “Cesar Prado, Policía de Investigaciones del Perú.” Switching to English he said, “Are you more comfortable in English?”

  “John Cronin. I’m good either way. Teniente, your brother said for you to call him.”

  Salazar fro
wned. “May I use English also?” When John nodded he continued, “I wonder what is going on now. I will call him tonight.” He glanced at Prado. “Mi coronel, ah, my colonel has instructed me to bring you to his office. Apparently the General called him about your…desires.”

  Prado laughed. “Señor John, you must have a lot of, how you say, pull. My boss also called telling us to give you anything you need.”

  John smiled. “Me, I’m a nobody. I’m here to learn. And a place to sleep would be nice.”

  Salazar replied, “You have a room in our officer’s quarters. Your bag?”

  “I’m guessing it’s still on the airplane. I bailed out before the puking colonel puked all over me.”

  All three of them laughed and Salazar said, “I will go recover it. What does it look like.”

  “It’s an old B-four bag. Olive green.” Salazar trotted across the ramp as Prado looked closely at him. “I’m ex-Army. Like the bag, it works.”

  Prado chuckled. “Now your attitude and pull makes sense. You are, how you say, connected. You maybe know Julio Alvarez?” John looked sharply at him, and he added, “I was Julio’s liaison for over a year before I came up here to work the drug smuggling. I heard some stories.”

  John shook his head. “Did you get Julio drunk?”

  “More than once. Both of our wives left us and took our children. Julio would talk about Vietnam and a couple of men he served with, a cowboy and a runt from Texas that were both crazy. He called me directly, said to watch out for you.”

  John held up his hands, “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

  Salazar came back with the bag, shaking his head. “The colonel is sick, so he says. He’s the IG and here to inspect the troops. I need to inform my coronel of his sickness, and have a car sent for him. If we could go now, then I don’t have to take him.”

  Salazar disappeared into an office, and Prado handed him a card and waved his hands. “Go, Señor, please come to my office tomorrow. I will await your coming.”

  John took the card. “I will do that, Señor. Would zero nine hundred be convenient?”