Cartel

by Chuck Hustmyre

  * * * *

  Scott took the stairs three at a time with Garza right be-hind him. They hadn't found Ortiz, and they had just heard more gunfire upstairs. Scott would not be surprised at all to find out that Ortiz was more a prisoner than a protectee, or that the men guarding him had orders to kill him rather than let him be captured by the Americans.

  The top of the stairs opened onto a long hallway running to Scott's right. Midway down the hall a man was backing away from them. When he saw them he opened fire with an M-16. Scott and Garza dove in opposite directions, trying to bury themselves in the thick carpet as .223 rounds ripped through sheetrock and molding barely a foot above their heads. When Scott looked up the man was gone, but he saw a door at the end of the hallway slam shut.

  Scott sprang to his feet, carbine up and ready. "Cover me," he shouted to Garza as he charged down the hall. The door was the last one on the right. Scott passed it and squeezed into the open space at the far end of the hall. He waved to Garza, then aimed his M-6 at the door. Garza ad-vanced down the hallway until he was crouched on the op-posite side of the door.

  Scott shredded the lock with six rounds of high-velocity .223 ball ammo, then kicked open the door and tossed in a Def-Tech stun grenade. As soon as the grenade detonated, Scott and Garza stormed into the room. And froze.

  On the far side of the bedroom, near a picture window, the gunman who had fired at them in the hallway stood with an arm clamped around Sergeant Felix Ortiz's neck and a pistol pressed to his temple. The gunman's empty M-16 lay on the floor.

  Garza shouted at the man in Spanish. Scott, who didn't speak much Spanish, only caught the gist, something like "Drop the gun!"

  Scott took a long step to the left and pressed his right eye to his ACOG scope. He settled the glowing red dot on the gunman's forehead.

  Garza shouted again in Spanish. The man shouted back. Both of them used the word pendejo, which Scott under-stood was the Spanish equivalent of asshole, or maybe dum-bass. He wasn't sure. What he was sure of was that he had a good sight picture. He squeezed the trigger. The man's head literally exploded as the bullet tore through it and plastered the wall behind him with bone fragments, blood, and gobs of brain. The gunman collapsed like an imploded building. He didn't topple; he just sank, straight down.

  Felix Ortiz dropped to his knees and clasped his hands in front of him like a supplicant praying for deliverance. He was sobbing and blubbering in Spanish. Scott couldn't un-derstand a word of it. Garza shoved Ortiz facedown on the floor and handcuffed him.

  Chapter 4

  The three DEA Tahoes sat idling in the front courtyard. Scott stood beside the passenger door of the third Tahoe watching Diego-the team's de facto medic-wrap a pres-sure bandage around the lower part of Lundy's right leg as the agent squirmed and groaned. The wound was a nasty, bloody mess, and the lack of an exit wound meant the bullet was lodged somewhere in Lundy's calf. The rest of the agents were milling around the vehicles, eager to get back across the border. All of them had shed their balaclavas.

  Kat, who sat in the rear seat behind Lundy, squeezed his shoulder. "It was just a ricochet, you big baby. Stop all that squalling. You sound like a girl."

  Before Lundy could respond with a crack of his own-agents never got tired of ragging each other, regardless of the circumstances-Diego tapped a finger on the pressure bandage. "Hold that while I tape it." Lundy held the band-age but didn't put enough pressure on it to keep it from slipping when Diego tried to tape it in place. "I said hold it, goddamnit," Diego snapped.

  Speaking through gritted teeth, Lundy said, "I am hold-ing it, but my fingers are slippery. With my own blood."

  Diego repositioned the pressure bandage. "Hold it tight-er."

  Lundy did as he was told and Diego wrapped a wide strip of medical duct tape around Lundy's lower leg.

  "How bad is it?" Scott asked.

  "He'll live," Diego said, "but we need to get him across the river and to a hospital."

  Scott glanced at the lead Tahoe and saw Ortiz hand-cuffed in the back seat. He thought about how tough this operation was going to be to explain. An unauthorized and illegal armed incursion into Mexico was a potential career killer, especially if you got caught. But getting out clean with a high-value cartel target would be considered a major, if not officially acknowledged, success. Getting an agent shot on the wrong side of the border, though, was almost as bad as getting caught. So as far as his career was concerned, Scott knew there was probably no coming back from this. Still, he had a job to do, and that job wasn't finished until he got all of his people and his prisoner safely back across the border.

  It was time to get moving. Except he was missing one agent. "Where's Garza?" Scott said.

  "Over here," Garza called out.

  Scott turned and saw him on the front porch, leaning over the body of the gunman Scott had killed.

  "Come take a look at something," Garza said.

  Scott walked over and stared at the body. The man's wife-beater T-shirt, which had already been stained with sweat and food, was now drenched in blood so dark it was almost black. Garza lowered himself onto one knee and bent closer, examining a tattoo of a bird on the man's bare shoul-der.

  "What is it?" Scott asked.

  "A diving falcon," Garza said without looking up.

  "Mean anything?"

  "Yeah," Garza said. "Means he's Sinaloa, not Los Zetas."

  "That can't be right," Scott said. "Felix Ortiz works for Los Zetas and we know it was Los Zetas who kidnapped Mike."

  Garza stood and pointed at the tattoo. "Right or not, that's a Sinaloa tattoo."

  "Could he have switched sides?" Scott asked.

  Garza shook his head. "Membership is for life. Leaving a cartel is considered desertion and punishable by death. Even if he got away, no other cartel would ever trust him. The way they look at it, once a traitor, always a traitor."

  "Take a picture," Scott said. "We'll figure it out back at the office."

  Garza pulled his iPhone from his cargo vest and snapped a photo of the tattoo.

  Scott checked his watch. It was 6:30. They had been on site less than thirty minutes. "Saddle up," he shouted to the rest of his team. "Time to go home."

  Chapter 5

  The three-vehicle convoy of DEA agents raced north on Mexican Federal Highway 85. They were twenty miles from the border. Traffic was light on the two-lane blacktop and they passed slower cars with ease. In the lead Tahoe, Scott glanced at the speedometer. Hitch was steady at eighty-five. Scott keyed his microphone. "Lundy, how you holding up?"

  Miller, Lundy, and Kat were in the trail vehicle.

  "I'll live," Lundy responded, his voice coming in slightly staticky over the radio. "Hurts like a son of a bitch, though."

  "Hang tough, buddy," Scott said. "I'll get you a medal and a week on the beach with all the beer you can drink."

  "Well, in that case," Lundy said, "shoot me in my other leg and give me two weeks."

  Scott turned around in his seat. Ortiz sat behind Hitch, hands cuffed behind his back. And not with flexcuffs, but with good old-fashioned stainless steel Peerless handcuffs. Flexcuffs felt temporary. Real handcuffs felt like shackles. They felt permanent. Scott wanted Felix Ortiz to feel the bite of the steel against his skin.

  Next to Ortiz sat Garza, staring out the window, not even giving the Mexican police sergeant the satisfaction of looking at him. But Ortiz had recovered some, Scott noticed. He was no longer the blubbering idiot with a pistol pressed to his head that they'd found in the upstairs bedroom of the villa. He was more relaxed now, maybe even growing a little cocky, although what he had to be cocky about Scott could-n't guess. The prospect of spending the next decade on death row, caged in a six-by-eight cell, waiting for the appeals to run out, and then finally being executed for murder was enough to take the starch out of anyone. So why wasn't he scared? Maybe he just needed a reality check.

  "Sergeant Ortiz, my name is Scott Greene. I'm a super-visory special agent with the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Ad-ministration. You are under arrest for conspiracy to murder DEA Special Agent Michael Cassidy. You have been indict-ed by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas, and we are taking you to the United States where you will stand trial."

  Ortiz smiled and for the first time Scott noticed that one of his upper teeth was silver, one of the canines or bicuspids, whatever the proper name for them was. "No entiendo in-gles."

  Garza slammed his elbow into the side of Ortiz's head so hard that it drove the Mexican police sergeant's head into the side window. Ortiz slumped in his seat, his eyes clamped shut in pain. "Dijo que estas bajo arresto, cabrón. En-tiendes?" Garza shouted. He told you you're under arrest, asshole. Do you understand that?

  Ortiz nodded but kept his eyes closed.

  "Let's get him across the river in once piece," Scott said.

  Garza shrugged. "If you say so."

  "Sergeant Ortiz?" Scott said.

  After a few seconds Ortiz opened his eyes.

  "I was Mike Cassidy's supervisor," Scott said. "You're a documented DEA confidential source. I've read your file. I know you speak English."

  "I'm a police officer," Ortiz said in English. "A federal police officer. La Policia Federal. You have no authority to arrest me."

  "If you're convicted of conspiracy to murder a federal agent, you'll be sentenced to death," Scott said. "Once we cross the border, we have to turn you over to the U.S. mar-shal. I won't be able to help you. If you have something to say...about the murder of Mike Cassidy, now's the time to say it."

  "Like what?" Ortiz said.

  "Anything. Anything that might mitigate..." Scott turned to Garza for help.

  "Mitigar," Garza said.

  "Mitigar your situation," Scott finished.

  Ortiz gave Scott an oily smile and flashed his silver tooth again. "I have nothing to say to you, gringo, except to tell you that you have no idea yet how bad you fucked up. You're going to regret this, I can promise you that. This is not the United States. This is Mexico."

  Garza lurched toward Ortiz and jerked his arm up as if to smack the Mexican cop again and laughed when Ortiz flinched.

  "Break. Break," Kat said over the radio, her tone urgent. "Scott, we have company."

  Scott tried to look through the back windshield, but it was covered with thick desert dust. He keyed his micro-phone. "What do you see?"

  "Two SUVs about a mile back but closing."

  Scott glanced at the speedometer again. Still on eighty-five. If the SUVs were catching up they had to be doing at least a hundred miles an hour. "Can you tell who they are?"

  "Got to be federales," Kat said.

  Scott saw Ortiz grin. He ignored the Mexican and asked Hitch, "How far to the border?"

  Hitch glanced at the GPS in the dash. "Twelve miles."

  "We have to outrun them."

  "Sure thing, boss."

  "Hit the back wiper."

  Hitch flicked on the back windshield wiper and squirted cleaning fluid onto the glass. The fluid turned the dust into mud and the wiper smeared it across the window.

  "I can't see shit," Scott said. He rolled down the passen-ger window and grabbed his Steiner binoculars, then stuck his head out and focused the binoculars on the traffic behind them. At twelve-times magnification he saw the two SUVs. They were gaining. Maybe three-quarters of a mile now. A pair of black Chevrolet Suburbans with limo tint. Yet even at that distance, he could see clearly enough through the windshield of the lead vehicle to tell that the driver was black and the passenger was white. Which meant they were probably Americans.

  Scott pulled his head back into the Tahoe and rolled up the window. He keyed the mic. "They're not federales."

  "Who is it then?" Hitch asked.

  Before Scott could answer, Kat asked the same thing. "Who are they?"

  "I don't know," Scott said into the radio in answer to both questions.

  Then he heard rotors beating the air behind them.

  "We picked up a helicopter," Kat said.

  Oh, shit. "What kind?" Scott asked. He was hoping it was an old Bell 47 or a Robinson. Something they could maybe outrun.

  "Black Hawk," Kat said.

  Hitch glanced at Scott. "Do the Mexicans even have Black Hawks?"

  "Only the ones we gave them," Scott said. He keyed the radio and asked Kat, "You sure it's with the SUVs?"

  "I'm sure," she said.

  Hitch looked scared. "Shit, boss, what do we do?"

  Garza was trying to see through the muddy back win-dow. "Who the fuck are those guys?"

  Chapter 6

  "You think it's Mexican military?" Hitch asked.

  "I don't think so," Scott said. "How far to Highway Two?"

  "Half-mile."

  Scott had twenty seconds to make a crucial decision. He made it in five. He keyed his radio. "Diego, Miller, listen up. We're going to split up at Highway Two. Miller, you go east to El Capullo. Diego, take two west to the World Trade Bridge. We'll keep going north on eighty-five and cross the Juarez Bridge."

  "Roger that," Diego said.

  "You sure about this?" Miller asked.

  "We can outrun the SUVs, not the Black Hawk," Scott said into his microphone. "But it can't follow us all."

  "Ten-four," Miller acknowledged.

  Seconds later, when they hit the intersection of High-way 85 and Highway 2, Hitch kept driving straight. Scott checked his sideview mirror and saw the two trailing Tahoes veer right onto the exit ramp, then split at the next fork, with Diego, Jackson, and Cajun circling left to go toward the World Trade Bridge, and Miller, Lundy, and Kat continuing to veer right in the direction of the El Capullo Bridge.

  "I don't like splitting up," Garza said.

  Scott didn't answer. He held his breath and wondered which way their pursuers would go.

  "Scott, you got one SUV on you," Kat said. "The oth-er...turned west. Going after you, Diego."

  "Where's the helicopter?" Scott asked.

  The radio broke squelch, but for a long few seconds Kat didn't respond. Then she said, "He's coming after us."

  "Whoever they are," Scott said into his microphone, "they must figure that we're taking Ortiz back by the shortest route."

  "And that means us," Kat said.

  Ortiz laughed. "I told you, you were going to regret this."

  Garza reached over and banged Ortiz's head against the window. "Callate la boca." Shut your mouth.

  As they had approached the highway intersection, Hitch had backed off the gas. They were down to seventy now. The traffic was getting heavier as they got closer to Nuevo Laredo. In the sideview mirror Scott saw the black Suburban a quarter-mile back and closing fast. "Punch it," he told Hitch.

  Hitch jammed the accelerator to the floor and the Tahoe leaped forward.

  "How far?" Scott asked.

  Hitch glanced at the GPS. "Seven miles."

  "You won't leave Mexico alive," Ortiz croaked from the back seat.

  Garza pulled his Glock pistol and jammed the muzzle against Ortiz's temple. "You'll die first, asshole."

  Scott turned to tell Garza to put his gun away, but be-fore he could open his mouth Hitch swung onto the shoulder to pass a eighteen-wheel truck. "Try not to kill us before we get to the bridge, Hitch."

  "Working on it, boss," Hitch said as he pulled back into the northbound lane, then swung into the oncoming lane to pass an overloaded pickup truck that was only doing about fifty. They barely made it back in time to avoid going head on into an old Ford station wagon.

  "Good job, Hitch," Garza said.

  Hitch didn't take his eyes off the road. He just nodded.

  Checking the sideview mirror again, Scott saw that de-spite Hitch's best stunt driving, the black Suburban had man-aged to pull even closer. Scott keyed his mic. "Jackson, Kat, give me a sit-rep."

  Jackson answered first. "Twelve minutes out, still got our shadow."

  Nothing from Kat.

  "Kat, do you read me?" Scott said.

 
It was Lundy who answered. "Boss, we got trouble."

  "What kind of trouble?"

  When Lundy keyed the microphone again, Scott heard all three agents in the vehicle shouting at once. The words were too jumbled for him to make out. Then the shouting stopped and he heard Lundy say, "Oh, shit."

  Chapter 7

  On a desolate stretch of Mexican Federal Highway 2, a mile and a half from the border crossing at El Capullo, Kat, Mil-ler, and Lundy ran into a roadblock. Two squad cars from the Policia Federal-the Mexican Federal Police-were stretched nose to nose across the highway. Four uniformed officers stood behind the cars aiming weapons at the ap-proaching DEA Tahoe. Kat could see that two of the feder-ales were armed with M-16s, most likely supplied by the U.S. government. The other two had pistols.

  Miller coasted to a stop twenty yards from the police cars. He smacked the steering wheel with his open hands. "Shit."

  Fifty yards behind the Tahoe, the Black Hawk helicop-ter-another gift from the United States-dropped into a hover fifty feet above the ground, its powerful rotor wash kicking up a cloud of sand and debris that pelted the DEA agents' vehicle.

  "What the fuck are we supposed to do now?" Miller asked.

  Lundy, who was sitting in the front passenger seat with his wounded and bloody leg propped up on the dashboard, said, "We're cops. They're cops. We're on the same side."

  Miller shook his head. "We're not even close to being on the same side."

  "We kidnapped one of their colleagues," Kat said as she slung the strap of her M-6 carbine over her head, getting it into combat position in case she needed it.

  "But we don't have him," Lundy said.

  His voice was high and tight, Kat noticed. He was really scared. So was she.