Operation: Dark Angel (Shepherd Security Book 3)

by Margaret Kay

  Powder lifted the bloodied star from the floor beside him. “Looks like you cut it on this.”

  “He fell right into all the statues on the desk.” Madison began to pick up the other nick-knacks that they’d scattered to the floor.

  “Do you have any memory of the events Mr. Valle?” Powder asked.

  “No,” Mendoza groused as he pulled himself to a seated position. He looked around and his eyes met Sophia’s. “You can take care of the cut. I’ll follow up with my own physician. I’m declining any further treatment.” He held his hand towards his daughter and a comforting smile came to his face. “I’m fine, Mija.”

  Luisa Santana released Sophia and the child rushed to her father. He wrapped his uninjured arm around her and held her, whispering reassuring words to her in Spanish. Madison watched Luisa Santana. She didn’t react like a wife, a girlfriend, or anyone who had warm feelings for the man, in the least. Madison deduced that she must be a housekeeper, nanny, sex-slave, or all the above.

  Madison made a mental note to talk with Shepherd about offering her a deal after Mendoza was brought down. Additional proof to wrap him up in a bow could be helpful and Luisa Santana just might be able to provide that info. It was obvious she cared deeply for little Sophia and would want to keep her safe and away from Mendoza.

  The ‘EMTs’ finished up and then departed.

  “Are you sure you are okay, Mr. Valle?” Madison asked as he too prepared to leave.

  Mendoza nodded. “We will talk about the possible placements for next year and return the signed form with our choice.”

  “Yes, by the end of the semester, please,” Sienna said. “If you would like me to set up a tour of the magnet school, just let me know.”

  After Cooper confirmed Mendoza and his family left the parking lot, Garcia and Doc rejoined Madison and Sienna in her classroom. Sienna and Madison straightened the room up. Garcia removed the camera he had mounted. Then Sienna wrote out lesson plans for the remainder of the year. When she closed the door, her heart dropped. She wouldn’t have the opportunity to say goodbye to her kids.

  They stopped by the main office so she could speak with the principal. Sienna felt horrible, when she informed the principal that he would need to bring in a substitute teacher as she would be out the remainder of the school year. She had tears in her eyes as she slid into the back of the SUV that Cooper pulled up to the door when they exited.

  Garcia took hold of Sienna’s hand. He sat beside her in the back seat. He knew that she was sad to leave her kids and her home. But she was also relieved that she would be safe. They had not told her where she would be. Thankfully she didn’t ask. It hadn’t been decided yet. They were going back to headquarters to meet with Shepherd and wait, hoping Mendoza was on his way to Chicago.

  Cooper took a call from Shepherd as they drove. “That’s good news,” he said into the phone. “Roger that. We’ll button things up quickly and meet that timeframe.” After he disconnected, he filled the others in. “Two businesses that fit the criteria for a distribution warehouse in Chicago have been identified. If Mendoza was telling the truth that he is going out of town tomorrow, he very well may be heading to Chicago to meet Juan Carlos and the Juarez Cartel member who is traveling there as well. This could mean a shipment could be on its way. We’re to report back to headquarters immediately.”

  “What about me?” Sienna asked.

  Cooper’s eyes flashed to her in the rear-view mirror. “We’ll secure your house, and have you pack a bag. We’re wheels up at nineteen-thirty. You and Garcia will probably stay in the apartment on nine again tonight.”

  “And after?” She pressed.

  “Sienna, we’ll figure that out. Don’t worry,” Garcia said, squeezing her hand.

  They pulled into her driveway and had done all inside they needed to, in less than an hour. Sienna packed a backpack and a small rolling suitcase. Anthony tossed them in the back along with the equipment, weapons, and other bags of the team members that Doc and Cooper brought out. Sienna was within her house, taking one last look around. The hot water heater was turned off, the air-conditioning set to eighty degrees, and many small appliances unplugged.

  “That’s it then,” she said, wiping her sweaty palms on a dishtowel.

  “You have to feel better about leaving this time than you did last time,” Madison said.

  “Yes, I do.” She gazed at Madison. “This just feels so final again, for some reason.”

  “So, when you left last time, you didn’t think you’d be back?”

  “I left here with who I thought were federal agents, with protective custody the destination, or so they said. So, yes, it felt pretty final.”

  “You never know,” Madison said. “You may be back sooner than you think. Anything can happen.” Madison guided her to the door to the garage.

  Cooper stood in the garage just outside the laundry room door. “You ready?”

  Both women nodded. They watched Garcia and Doc place the last few bags in the back end of the SUV, which had been backed into the garage. Garcia opened the back-passenger door for her and slid in beside her. Madison pulled herself in beside Sienna on the other side again.

  They arrived at Manassas Regional Airport thirty minutes later. Taco and Powder were transferring their equipment from their SUV to the small Learjet. Cooper swung the vehicle in close to the jet. Madison was out quickly and stood by the other side as Garcia opened the door. Madison then escorted Sienna up the steps.

  Sienna sat in the rear seat where she had the two other times she’d been on this plane, waiting as the others loaded it. Finally, Anthony took the seat beside her. The others came on board, including the two men who masqueraded as the EMTs, who she knew were members of their team.

  “Sienna, this is Mike Rogers,” Garcia said, pointing to Powder.

  He reached a hand to her. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” she shook his hand. “You made a convincing paramedic.”

  “I was a Combat Medic Specialist before Shepherd Security.”

  She nodded awkwardly.

  “And this is Jimmy Wilson, Charlie Team’s lead,” Garcia introduced.

  They shook hands as well. “They call you Taco.”

  Wilson chuckled. “Yeah, my callsign.”

  “I saw you both at that power station. I was in the Ops Center with Anthony and Madison.”

  Taco’s eyes shifted to Garcia. “Does Shepherd know you were giving tours?”

  Garcia chuckled. “She’s been allowed to sit in several times.”

  Taco looked back at Sienna and smiled. “Your special to someone,” he said as his eyes drifted back to Garcia and he got a knowing grin on his face.

  Garcia wrapped his arms around Sienna and kissed her cheek. “That’s right.”

  Taco laughed harder as he took a seat beside Powder across from them and buckled his lap belt.

  After they were airborne, Garcia pulled his laptop out. He still had not managed to reset the first question of the cipher. He knew there had to be a way to manipulate it, it was just a matter of finding the right command. He also had not traced the ownership and financials of the New Mountain Enterprises Corporation, either. He knew he should have stayed up most of the night working on both, but he knew Sienna was shaken and needed him in bed with her.

  Sienna woke as the plane descended. Anthony still worked on his laptop. Her eyes met his. “I didn’t think I was tired enough to go to sleep.”

  Anthony closed his laptop. He leaned in close. “I’m glad you did, means we can stay awake later tonight when we go to bed.” There was a definite tone to his voice, a playful, sexy tone.

  Sienna felt the blush heat her cheeks. She moved her lips to his ear. “I’d like that.”

  Quebec

  Garcia was two minutes late getting to Shepherd’s office for the zero-seven-hundred pre-Op briefing.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Shepherd’s sarcastic voice boomed as he entered. “Close the door. You�
��re the last to arrive.”

  A smirk curved Garcia’s lips as he faced the door. He wiped it away before he turned back. He took his seat. All members of both Alpha and Delta Teams were present, as well as Yvette. Shepherd clicked on his laptop and a Chicago map appeared on the large monitor. He clicked again and the map zoomed in on a building near one of the railyards.

  “This target building looks to be our best match. Its location at the Beltway Railyard is at the proper coordinates and given that it is vacant, makes it our primary target.” The faded lettering on the building read ‘Cumberland Tires’. Shepherd clicked a few more times and then continued when a second building came to the screen. “This one fits the criteria for size and location, but it is a functioning business with several racks of inventory cluttering the floor. If they were pushed to the walls, the floorspace would be enough. I have to wonder though, if they would have enough time to process, package, and ship the drugs before the employees reported to work, even if the drugs came in on a Friday or a Saturday night?”

  “That depends on how many people they have working the shipment when it comes in,” Garcia said. “You’re assuming the normal Monday through Friday employees aren’t working the shipment too.”

  Shepherd took a drink of his coffee and considered Garcia’s statement. “True. Given that it appears to be a legitimate business, we were assuming legitimate and illegal operations are kept separate.”

  “Not necessarily,” Garcia said. “That’s in a shitty part of town. I don’t think any business should be assumed as legitimate. Any garage in that area should be a suspected chop-shop. It would make good business sense to double up on the illegal activities out of the one location. The cartel is all about efficiency and optimizing profit, like any other business.”

  Shepherd nodded.

  “What is the status of Juan Carlos and the Juarez Cartel member?” Cooper asked.

  “They are still in transit. Curiously, they are riding motorcycles in.” Shepherd shook his head and his gaze reaffixed on Garcia. “Do you have any idea why that would be?”

  “Just if one of them is showing the other the transportation route. I know we are documenting everything, but we may want to pay attention to whatever route they take as it could be the one the drugs will follow, maybe install some cameras at key points.”

  “And they obviously aren’t in too much of a hurry,” Cooper added.

  “Do we have an ID on that Juarez Cartel Tango?” Jackson asked.

  “Yes and no,” Shepherd replied. He clicked his keyboard and several photos of a long-haired, scruffy-faced Hispanic male in his mid-thirties displayed on the monitor. “He goes by Dingo. DEA has him on a shit-ton of tapes and pics, but they don’t have his real name.”

  “Did you ever hear that name while you were under, Garcia?” Jackson asked.

  Garcia shook his head. “No, and his photo doesn’t look familiar either.”

  “Garcia, you said repeatedly you thought Juan Carlos was shrinking back. Any ideas what the fuck is up?” Gary ‘the Undertaker’ Sloan asked.

  “I can’t believe I was that wrong about him. He acted like a man who had completely disengaged.”

  “Maybe he was trying to, but he got pulled back in when Razor and Saucedo disappeared,” Lambchop offered. “I have to agree with Garcia. There were no indications Juan Carlos was still actively in the game.”

  “Well he is now, and we need to make sure we don’t lose either of these guys,” Shepherd redirected. “Okay, so here is the play. Yvette, Ops will continue to monitor both potential locations as well as the tracker in Mendoza and in Juan Carlos. DEA will surveil him, at a distance and let us know all his movements. We need to be sure they jive with the tracker because we know he will lose the DEA again. It’s bound to happen.”

  The men around the table offered up various remarks and sarcastic laughter with Shepherd’s last statement. It was the DEA who lost him last fall and they couldn’t get eyes back on him since.

  Shepherd gave them a moment to have their fun, but then reeled them back in. “We know Mendoza never flies. That gives us about twenty hours before Mendoza would arrive if he’s heading here.”

  “We’re assuming he is coming straight here. Boss, he could make a side trip almost anywhere first,” Danny ‘Mother’ Trio said.

  “Or the destination could be anywhere else. Chicago could be merely a stopover for Juan Carlos,” Cooper added.

  “Look, we know little shipments happen daily. But going back to what Juan Carlos told us last fall, when Mendoza and the Juarez Cartel meet, a lot of drugs are in movement,” Shepherd reminded them. “That’s the shipment we want.”

  Garcia opened his laptop and clicked away. He was so focused he didn’t notice all conversation stopped in the room. When he looked up, everyone’s attention was focused on him. “That’s the key. A big shipment is in motion if both players arrive in the same place. And by big, we are talking a mechanism for moving it that would be noticeable. Think large container ship or a freighter, or a train with containers, a convoy of trucks, a cargo plane. And all those types of transport happen on schedules. The size, gross tonnage, registry, those things are all noted on the bills of lading or the manifest even if the contents are purposely mislabeled.”

  “What are you researching there?” Shepherd asked. “Put it on the screen.”

  With a few more keystrokes, Garcia took over the monitor. “I have five targets due in the timeframe of twenty to forty hours out, that could hold enough drugs to be considered a major shipment.” The schedules and details filled in the screen. “There are two cargo planes due in from suspicious locations, one railcar with Mexican crude oil, a freighter coming in on Lake Michigan from a remote port in upper Wisconsin, and a shipment of paper coming in on the lake as well. That last one is an anomaly. It doesn’t fit the normal, regular shipment schedule. Those are just what are already in motion. There is still the possibility of multiple trailers full of the product.”

  “Well, we don’t have enough manpower to cover two locations, three men, and five shipments. Not on the ground nor in Ops,” Yvette spoke up.

  “We need to narrow it down,” Shepherd said.

  “Or call in backup,” Cooper offered. “We could bring in the DEA as more than Mendoza’s babysitters, and even have the DEA check out the locations these five transports originated to see if anything looks suspicious there. We have a minimum of twenty hours. Surely we can work to eliminate transports or a location in twenty hours.”

  “I’d eliminate the Mexican crude oil on the front end. Too obvious coming from Mexico and too regulated,” Yvette said. “There are too many eyes on those tanker cars. The weight and volume are carefully tracked because it’s a hazmat. Any deviation from standard measurements would flag at every point. They may have a few sets of eyes paid off, but the cartel cannot have everyone in their pockets.”

  “Agreed,” Shepherd said. “So, we are down to four shipment methods, two locations and as long as Juan Carlos and Dingo stay together, we have two, not three separate human targets. That’s eight observation points.”

  “What are you thinking?” Cooper asked Shepherd.

  “We keep the DEA on Mendoza and we monitor his tracker in Ops. We also have the DEA keep eyes on Juan Carlos and Dingo, even after they arrive in Chicago and we don’t waste our resources there. We set up cameras to cover both locations from all four sides and monitor those in Ops as well. Bringing a truck or railcar into either location will be noticeable on a camera feed. We can quickly redirect personnel to recon either location if that’s the case. Our resources are better used in the control rooms and with the inspection authorities at the port and at the railyard.”

  “The port has over a hundred acres of warehouses and facilities,” Garcia pointed out. “That’s a lot of territory to transfer product if that’s the intention. Same can be said of the Beltway Railyard. That place is enormous and both operations are twenty-four seven.”

  Shepherd nodded.
“We put a team at the Sanitary and Ship Canal, a team at the airport covering the shipping company that those two cargo planes belong to, and I want our largest team to cover the Beltway Railyard. There could be multiple trains in motion that haven’t flagged. A container on a train is easily offloaded to a trailer base and hauled out by any semi if not pulled up directly to that vacant warehouse. I have a gut feeling about that building.”

  “For all communication purposes, Mendoza will be referred to as Mr. Freeze,” Yvette said. “Juan Carlos is the Joker and Dingo is the Riddler. I’ll notify the DEA as well.”

  Madison laughed. “I like the Batman villain’s theme. Does that make you Batgirl?”

  Yvette laughed as well. “I was always partial to Catwoman.”

  Now all the men at the table were laughing. Several made cat screech sounds.