by C. S. 96
“I’ll follow you,” I said. “But if I lose you, where are we going?” I was thinking quickly to try and gain the upper hand and at least find out the exact location, though I was certain Tim had received the voice message and was fanning out teams all over San Diego to find me.
“Don’t lose me,” Robbie said without hesitation or emotion. “Oh, and I’d like my son to ride with you.” He smiled. “Just in case you get lost.”
His uncannily quiet son and I stepped out of the car and trudged to the Range Rover; I felt like I was walking to the gallows.
Junior didn’t say much for the duration of the drive. Either daddy had taught him well or there was something seriously wrong with this kid. After about fifteen minutes of trying idle conversation while also trying to glean some information out of him as to where we were headed, I finally gave up.
I remained vigilant throughout, checking to see if we had picked up any tails. We hadn’t, but that didn’t mean there weren’t a dozen hitters waiting for me wherever in the hell we were headed. I also wondered if my quiet passenger was strapped, just in case I decided to make a detour or use my phone. My biggest fear, as it would always be from this case forward, was that the criminals somehow found out I had flipped and was helping to develop a case against them. Cartel members are smart and devious—they don’t let you know the garrote is around your neck until you have trouble breathing and your shirt is covered in arterial spray.
We rolled onto the 101 heading north for at least an hour and then onto the 10 for another forty minutes, finally ending up in Ontario, California.
The town consisted of prefab homes, moderately maintained trailer parks, outdoor malls, motorcycle gangs hanging out in front of dive bars, and a lot of dairy farms. Nice enough, though hardly the place I would search out to raise my kids.
The destination we arrived at was another unimpressive little house on a corner lot. These people like corner properties, I thought. I followed Robbie through a very narrow driveway that was barely able to accommodate the BMW, let alone my wider Range Rover. I carefully followed Robbie to the end of the driveway where a large three-car garage stood in stark contrast to the tiny house. It took up most of what would’ve been a decent-sized yard.
There was just enough space in the back to park our cars.
Robbie jumped out of his car and Junior quickly followed.
Without saying anything, Robbie vaulted the back steps of the house, produced a key ring, and began to unlock a series of deadbolts on the heavily fortified iron door. He couldn’t get in there fast enough, couldn’t get me in there fast enough. He swung the door in and it creaked. I felt like a character in some B horror film. Where inside this house would I find the man in a rain slicker and a hockey mask?
Robbie stood in the doorframe waiting for me to join him. He was smiling. All the while Junior stood behind me, a little too close for comfort.
I started sweating, mentally running through every scenario I could think of for how they might’ve found me out—but there was none, so I had no choice except to walk into this dwelling over a hundred miles away from backup.
This is the part of being a confidential informant, or an undercover agent for that matter, that without question is tormenting: the walk out on the high-rope into the unknown, not knowing if your cover has been blown. Taking me out would be easy and if they planned on that, Robbie and mini-me would be in Mexico days before my body was found, if it ever was.
The Mexican cartels were masters at disappearing bodies for good. And wanting me to disappear would explain why he called me at 6:45 in the morning to tell me I had forty-five minutes to meet him, making it impossible for me to mobilize any of my people or the cops.
Though I’d taken to arming myself with a pocket knife since being banned from carrying guns, I foolishly hadn’t even done that on this morning. This was supposed to be a simple meet-and-greet in a public place, and I’d had to boogie out of my house with zero minutes to spare.
There was nothing I could do to escape this, as the last thing I wanted was to show fear. I’d let Robbie corner me. I flashed him a big smile and said, “A two-hour tour, this surprise better be a good one.”
Robbie said, “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll be surprised.”
Not the words I wanted to hear. I walked up the steps.
Robbie backed his way into the house like a real estate broker excited to show the newlyweds their new digs. I cautiously followed him in, still trying to look as cool and collected as I could.
Once inside my blood ran cold.
The house was completely empty. No furniture, pictures on the wall, utensils, nothing. Dust mites swirled in the air and cobwebs were collecting everywhere.
The downstairs of this tiny home was an open layout where you could see the entire first floor. The kitchen separated the living room with a small ugly Formica island. There was absolutely nothing in this empty space that indicated anyone lived here, let alone visited, the perfect place to whack someone.
The first thing I did was look for anything I could use as a weapon. Without furniture, though, the hunt was fruitless.
WHAM!
Mini-me slammed the backdoor closed and I almost jumped out of my Guccis. I spun on him, hands raised. When he saw me in that absurd defensive position, he smiled.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled. “That’s how people get fucking shot.” I hoped with that statement they would assume I was strapped.
I peered into the living room to see if there were any spots someone would be hiding and also to look for the most clear-cut harbinger of death—plastic drop cloths on the floors.
Robbie jauntily made his way into the living room, waving me in to follow. I did slowly, all too cognizant of Junior bringing up the rear. Once we were in the smallish, empty living room, Robbie pointed to a half-opened door and directed me to go inside.
I stood in the middle of the room not moving, trying to look bored and impatient. I said, “After you, this is your surprise. Why spoil all your fun?”
I scanned the room quickly. The front door was as heavily fortified as the back door and keys were needed to open the locks from the inside. I’d never seen a house lock rigged that way before, and to say it was a bad sign would be an understatement. There was a window directly to my left that revealed a desolate side street. I figured with a full-on running leap I might be able to crash through, but I might just as easily fudge it, end up breaking my spinal cord and being shot to death execution-style by a cartel family member. That was the only plan of escape I could come up with.
Robbie shrugged as if to say, okay, suit yourself, and he moved to the door, pushing on it lightly so it swung open. The room was bare of furniture and dark behind thick blankets duct-taped over the windows. Stacked haphazardly throughout were moving boxes.
Robbie maneuvered himself around a stack and pulled one open—ta-daaaa!
I could not believe what I was staring at. I instinctively took a step backward, blown away. Robbie dug his hand in and pulled out a loose kilo of cocaine. I noticed the stamp on it—the Queen of Hearts. This was real Fuentes-brand cocaine, and to have it still parceled together the way it was meant it was direct from the Fuentes’ showroom. I’d found the top of the pyramid.
I was stunned because since meeting this entire clan, there was always this little voice in the back of my mind reminding how much I’d learned, as a distributor for Tony, that dealers loved to talk themselves or their positions up. All of them had a “connect” to the purest coke or heroin through their “uncles” or “cousins” south of the border.
Suddenly everything came into focus and all of my trepidations melted away. My eyes had adjusted to the lack of light in the room, and my senses came rushing back to me. I noticed the stale odor of mold and nicotine, even the smell of the old pine floors hit me all at once.
Robbie held up a kilo for me to hold, but there was no way I was going to touch one single package. The last thing I wanted were my fing
erprints on that gack or anywhere inside this house.
Feigning excitement—not hard to do in that moment—I said, “Yeah, bro. I can see it. Holy shit! You’re right, I am surprised. You are the fucking man!” I made a play to move away from him by looking inside the other boxes super excited, again not hard to pull off.
Another mental note: Remember the exact address because after we lock these guys up I’m sure one of the houses nearby, with a clear visual of this house, would be rented and a team of agents, cameras in hand, could identify people of interest in the drug war by looking at who came and went.
This snapped me out of the excitement of the moment, remembering my team. They were no doubt frantically searching for me right now. I was completely off the grid, in total violation of the mandate given to me by Tim Dowling on day one. Had a nosy neighbor caught sight of two very expensive cars rolling into the driveway of this obviously low-end abandoned house and decided to call the police I’d be in some seriously deep shit. Yes, I’d left a message with Tim, but I didn’t tell him I was going to a stash house location where there would be mountains of cocaine worth $4 million, and that’s $4 million just to me. Once all of that blow hit the streets in dimes and jumbos of crack cocaine, we’re talking tens of millions of dollars.
Tim or the other teammates could easily conclude that I had lied about a simple meet-and-greet but my true motives were to go to the safe house and work out a separate deal with Robbie before we locked him up—a “double deal.” I’d take half the kilos for myself then I coolly go back to my teammates and set Robbie up for the other half of the cocaine and roll him up. What could he tell them? “Hey, guys, by the way my partner here got away with a hundred or so kilos, you might want to check under his bed.”
I was sure CIs had tried to pull this maneuver before, and the last thing I wanted was to be suspected of it. I had to get out of there immediately and call this in.
Robbie said, “Okay, it’s all there. You fold down your seats, we stack them neatly and I bet we get every kilo in your fat-ass Jeep. Bring them to your warehouse or wherever it is you store them and we’ll see each other in two weeks.”
I was shocked at how carelessly this until-now cool character did business. In all my years I’d never seen kilos just tossed in the open like this without any security, as if they were paving blocks bought at the local home and garden emporium. It was borderline insane.
“Robbie, are you crazy? You expect me to just drive for two hours back to San Diego with 220 keys of pure coke in my car and out in the open? What do you think this is, TJ, where we can just hand a key off to the local cops and get an escort back to the safe house? This is Mickey Mouse, man. This isn’t how I do business.”
Robbie raised up immediately, stepping toward me. “Mickey Mouse? What is that, some kind of joke? I don’t like fucking jokes like that.” He kept coming.
I lifted up my hands, palms out, in deference to him. My back was to the living room and Junior was nowhere in my peripheral vision.
“No, no, no. All I’m saying is that if I took those keys and I got stopped by highway patrol or just some bored rookie, I’d be the biggest Mickey Mouse knucklehead in whatever police station I’d be locked up in. Not only am I looking at thirty years but also being the biggest idiot in the police station for driving a car in broad daylight with all that cocaine in it. No, man, we have to be smart about this. I need to call my partner and set this up properly. Taking it right now, for me, is just too dangerous.”
Robbie asked calmly, “How long before you can make this happen?”
“I’ll call Bing to set everything up.”
Robbie nodded and then pointed at me. “Right now we have a deal.” He jabbed a finger into the room. “That’s yours, not mine. No backing out now. You keep your phone with you and we’ll meet tomorrow. Early, sabe?”
“Understood,” I said.
“We’re moving the material out of here soon to Oxnard, do you know it? That’s where we’ll make the transfer.”
Oxnard was another rough neighborhood about an hour and a half away from where we were that moment. Hector and Raul had lived there for a period of time and that made me a little anxious, especially because they had relatives there.
“You got it,” I said.
Robbie nodded slowly, eyes fixed on mine. I knew there were a million scenarios playing out in his mind.
I told him that it meant a lot to me that he would do this, consignment on our first deal. It showed a true sign of respect for me and my business. I then wrapped my arm around his shoulder and laughed, “You and I, my man, are going to do some serious business together.”
We shook hands once again, and then I moved to Junior, who was watching the whole charade of newfound friendship and patronage. I stuck out my hand and he took it this time without asking permission from big daddy.
Takedown
My heart was beating out of my chest. I’d never done “hard” drugs before, but the elation and high I was on must’ve been similar to a dude mainlining pure cocaine or methamphetamine. I was sweating, actually shaking; it’s incredible what chemicals one’s brain can produce to create this incredible natural rush.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I needed to call Tim immediately, but I wasn’t thinking clearly because I was so hyped on adrenaline. I needed to put some space between Robbie and myself. I wondered who might be on some fixed post outside that house just waiting for me to leave and drop another tail on me. I made some surprise turns trying to make it look like I was lost. I stopped at a street sign looking up at it, though in reality doing a 360 of my surroundings to see if there was anyone following me. I found a large shopping mall and headed into its humongous parking lot, the easiest way to lose someone, hide, or to see if you’re being tailed.
I waited till I knew I was clean, then I called Tim. He didn’t sound happy.
I was too nervous to properly defend myself while getting dressed down for the next five minutes. In his tirade he’d informed me that he had mobilized every agent and cop available to search out my Range Rover.
Once he calmed down and I was able to speak coherently, I finally informed him of what had occurred throughout the morning.
“Wait, wait,” he asked. He chuckled, as if in disbelief.” You actually saw all that dope?”
Knowing how the wheels of justice turn—very slowly—Tim and Al had their work cut out for them. We needed a warrant for the house, and a team to help us make the purchase.
Tim and Al had very little time to put a series of teams together from the DEA office in Oxnard and then have the Alliance Group liaise with them sometime that evening. The initial plan was to mobilize our team and any other agents he could grab up from the San Diego office, stay the night in a motel near, but not in, Oxnard, and everyone would stand down until I received the call where the meet was going to take place.
Tim told me to go home, pack a bag, and then meet him at the hotel once they knew where it was. Before we ended the call he sighed and said, “Listen, Roman, you did good today, but don’t ever lose possession of that company phone again. And beyond that, why are you using an open line on a cell phone? That’s just dumb and careless. Oh, and it would’ve been nice had you given us that number. What in the hell were you thinking?”
He was right about everything, and there was no defense or excuse. I’d been acting on pure adrenaline and desperation. Desperate to make sure this case wasn’t blindsided by anyone’s mistakes. Desperate to wrap this part of my life up and move on.
“Have you begun packing up to move?”
“No, but Inez and I have talked about it.”
“You need to get her and the kids out now. This should’ve been done right after we rolled up Tony. Now it’s a must. Have movers do all that. I’m sorry, man, but this is protocol. They know where you live and tomorrow after the arrest, whether you’re collared with them or not, they’re going to get suspicious. Your house is safe now, but these guys wouldn’t hesi
tate killing federal agents to get to you…”
I called Inez on the drive home, and told her we needed to pack. She instantly understood the gravity of the situation. “We have to think of it as going on a trip,” I said. “We have to tell ourselves that this is a vacation if we have any hope of convincing the kids.”
She groaned.
“We can go wherever you want,” I said.
She said, “Anywhere but Mexico.”
We mobilized in a rather large and swanky hotel in a community called Camarillo in the heart of Ventura County, California, a couple of towns away from Oxnard and located exactly half the distance between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
Because this was technically a DEA case, Al Harding was the lead agent on this operation. For the command station, we used his suite, which consisted of two large bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchenette. It would also be used as the communications hub where everything that was said during the transaction would be heard through the wire Mike Capella would be wearing. There was also an adjoining room of the same size, where the overflow of agents, all here for the tactical meeting, were hanging out and catching up as some agents were brought in from San Diego’s field office as well as customs agents and local detectives. It was a very boisterous locker-room environment. The only men I knew were my teammates and they were busy sharing old war stories with friends they hadn’t seen in years.
The plan for me was easy—or it was supposed to be, anyway. Once I received the call, I’d tell Robbie that I needed about an hour and a half to get to the proposed location. Once we had knowledge of where the transaction was to take place, Al would have his agents, all in appropriate street clothes and driving their personal vehicles—from soccer mom vans to decade-old clunkers—as no one could look out of place, and they’d be positioned nearby “the set,” or the drop-off point. Once I took control of the drugs, I was to drive, scrub myself clean of any tails, find a quiet out-of-the-way location, and park the car. Behind me, Al explained, “if everything goes according to plan”—the phrase didn’t sit well with me—“a backup team that will be following you will pull up next to you and relieve you of all that cocaine, thus securing the proper chain of command.” I’d be arrested, handcuffed, and brought into the DEA’s office in Oxnard to be processed with Robbie, where I could keep an eye on him and be listening if he gave us any clues for how to reach further into the Fuentes clan.