by Mark Greaney
“I am talking about a larger-scale operation.”
The drug lord shrugged, motioned for Gentry to sit down. Court took a metal chair on the opposite side of the table. Madrigal spoke while a man with an AK-47 popped open a can of Tecate and placed it in front of Court. “I am not at war with de la Rocha. I don’t want war with de la Rocha. There is enough war going on now. DLR has his plaza, and I have mine, and I have enough troubles fighting the army. I’d rather just watch you kill his people without getting involved.” He laughed. “That’s more fun.” The men in the room laughed behind their gun barrels.
Court did not understand everything Madrigal had said; he had a thick Mexican mountain accent peppered with impenetrable colloquialisms, and Court had learned the majority of his Spanish in Spain and South America. A young man was called from across the room; he sat down next to Madrigal.
“My son will translate. We call him Chingarito.”
Court silently translated the boy’s nickname then wondered what kind of man would call his son “Little Fucker.” Court did not ask the question aloud.
The kid was barely sixteen; he wore a ball cap with a gold marijuana leaf emblem stitched on it. He looked somewhat excited to be called to the table for this responsibility. He translated his father’s reticence about war with the Black Suits.
Court switched to English. “Did you know DLR was given intelligence on your contacts in South America by the Central Intelligence Agency?”
The boy translated. Madrigal shook his head. “No. How do you know this?”
“A man in the CIA told me, and DLR himself told me. He wants access to some of your production.”
“He won’t get it.”
“Maybe not. Maybe he will just do what he can to hurt your production. That would strengthen him, wouldn’t it?”
Constantino Madrigal called another man over. Spoke into the man’s ear for a moment. Then he looked back to Gentry. “Daniel de la Rocha’s father was a wise man. A competitor, of course, but a good businessman. Daniel is loco, insane. He has tried to implicate me in the assassination attempt of him by the GOPES on his yacht, and then he tried to implicate me in the assassination of the families of the GOPES officers. But that is his style, not mine. High profile, high body count. Psychological warfare. All that time in the military cooked his brain, made him a mad killer. An unreasonable man. Now they say he worships a street idol from the barrios.” Constantino Madrigal shook his head in disgust. “The business and intelligence end of his operation is actually run by his consigliere, a gentleman named Calvo. Calvo is my enemy, but I respect him. He is smarter than any ten of these stupid pendejos I have working for me.” He waved his arm around the room, and a couple of his men chuckled.
The younger Madrigal relayed all this to Gentry, and then the father continued. “If Calvo found out who I was working with in South America to fabricate the product and to get it to Mexico, and if de la Rocha decided he wanted to go to war with me, it would cost me much time and money. Money, I have, but that is not how I want to spend my time.”
“I can prevent that,” Court said before the son finished the translation.
“By shooting a few of his men?”
“No. With your help I can harass his operation a lot more than that. I can turn his attention to me, away from you, and you can take steps on your side to protect your interests in South America. He won’t even know you are involved.”
When the translation was finished, Madrigal sat quietly for a moment. The man Madrigal conferred with earlier was still standing behind him; the man leaned forward but the narco boss stayed him with his hand while he thought.
His son did not say another word.
Finally, Madrigal looked at Gentry. “You are alone. You are not working for the American government. This I know.”
Court nodded.
“Then why are you doing this?”
“DLR has something I want.”
“The Gamboa woman?”
Gentry was pleased that these rough-looking cowboys up here in a remote mountain hideout knew about Laura. It meant los Vaqueros had an intelligence arm with some access to info on the Black Suits.
He nodded. “I have one mission, and that is to get DLR to release Laura because it is too expensive and dangerous for him to keep her.”
“Young Daniel can be very stubborn.”
Gentry did not blink. “And so can I.”
“What do you want from me?” asked Constantino.
“Intelligence and material support.”
“Men?”
“No. I work alone.”
“What do you mean, ‘material support’?”
“Guns and a pickup truck.”
Madrigal smiled widely. Did another finger of wet cocaine, followed by another swig of canned beer. He laughed as he said, “You sound like a man from Sinaloa.”
Court smiled himself. “So, we have a deal?”
“I was born in a villa in Sinaloa called Mátalo.” Court translated the town’s name silently. The village was called “Kill Him” in Spanish.
Madrigal continued. “The Black Suits are army officers, city dwellers, college graduates. Men from Mexico City, primarily. They are cruel. Sí, they are very cruel. But de la Rocha and his organization are not outlaws. We, los Vaqueros? We are the mountains. We are outlaws. Our people have been fighting and killing for hundreds of years. We’ve been cattle rustlers; we’ve been highway robbers; we’ve raided Indian camps for their women, army barracks for their guns; we’ve robbed banks for their money.” The big man sipped beer and smiled. Mentally, Gentry realized, the man was in a happy place.
“Now it is drugs to the USA, so there is more money involved, but I don’t care. I am a warlord. I don’t give a damn about the money. It is the fight that I love.”
“I’ll fight the hell out of DLR for you, Señor Madrigal.”
Another pause from the narco boss. He stroked his mustache and sipped beer. “We… I mean the leaders of the enterprises here in Mexico, do not touch one another’s families.”
“I am not planning on going after his family. I am only asking for information about his drug operations. It will get very, very bloody. But it won’t get personal.”
Chingarito translated. Madrigal sipped his Tecate and thought some more. Finally, he motioned over his shoulder. “This is Hector Serna. My intelligence chief. I will have the two of you work directly together. Less chance for ratones.”
“Rats?”
Serna’s English was superb. He said, “Informants. All organizations have them. We are no different.”
“So you have access to rats in the Black Suits? People who can give you information on their whereabouts?”
“We monitor the movements of the leadership of Los Trajes Negros; of course we do. They do the same to us.”
“So you know where they are at all times?”
“At all times? No. But if they communicate their movements to anyone who might also be on our pay, then yes, we hear of it. For example, we know the Black Suits will be in Puerto Vallarta tomorrow; they have contacted their people in the local police and have let them know. If they need to go to a hotel for a meeting, if they need a street blocked off for their security, if they need cars moved out of a parking lot so that they can eat at a restaurant adjacent to it — then we will hear of it from our contacts in the local police.”
“Interesting,” said Gentry. Then he looked at Madrigal. “Could you arrange for me to get to Puerto Vallarta?”
“Of course,” Madrigal said as he stood and extended a hand.
Court put out his hand. Shook the hand of a murderer of men, women, and children; a torturer of hundreds; a man who epitomized most every reasonable person’s personification of evil.
“Gracias, amigo.”
FORTY-SIX
At eight o’clock the next morning, Court Gentry sat in an old black Mazda pickup truck in a parking lot in the Puerto Vallarta marina. Twenty yards from his dirty windshield, te
ns of millions of dollars of yachts and other pleasure craft gently rocked in unison on the water. The morning sun warmed a pair of iguanas on the rocks along the promenade. Out his driver-side window, a posh apartment building loomed five stories high. Out his passenger-side window, a long row of tiendas and businesses that had not yet opened for the day sat dark and quiet.
Gentry was on the phone with Ramses Cienfuegos Cortillo. Ramses had hooked up with men in Mexico City he trusted. He was still lying low, but Court had called his old phone number, and a recorded message directed him to a new mobile. Court called that, and Ramses called him back minutes later.
Court had contacted the federal officer to give him a warning. Court let him know he was getting intelligence and support from the Madrigal Cartel, but he wanted his friend in the federal police to know he wasn’t working for los Vaqueros.
As far as Court Gentry was concerned, he was working for Laura.
“Look, Ramses. This is going to get ugly. I don’t know what you have told those around you about me, about you working with me.”
“I have said nothing. I moved my family to a friend’s apartment in Miami, and the people I am working with only know that Martin and I survived the attack on the yacht, but Martin was killed in Tequila. These men know better than to ask more questions.”
“You trust these guys?”
Without hesitation Ramses said, “I trust them. They have all suffered greatly at the hands of Los Trajes Negros.”
“Good.”
“These are honest men. We can help you go after Laura.”
Court paused, looked through the dirty windshield at a middle-aged bald man leaving the apartment building, taking his small poodle for a walk along a grassy strip that rimmed a shopping center just outside of the marina. Then he said, “If you know honest men, let’s keep them honest. What I am about to do… I don’t want to involve them.”
“Just what are you going to do, Joe?”
“I am going to scorch the earth. I am going to murder, torture, defile. I am going to go ballistic on the motherfuckers who have Laura Gamboa, and I am going to get her back by killing everything in my path. I am not going to play by the rules.”
“There are no rules here, amigo.”
“I am talking about the rules of humanity, and I am prepared to violate every last one of them.”
“Dios Santo,” Ramses muttered. “I have never met anyone like you who was… how can I say it? Not on the other side.”
“I am different from other good guys, because I am not afraid to go down to the level of my enemies.
“If you know guys down here, good guys, guys who can still sleep at night… let’s not involve them. I’d rather do what I’m about to do affiliated with Madrigal than with the good guys, does that make sense?”
“You are a good man.”
“Thanks, Ramses, but you won’t say that when I’m done. You are going to think I am the sickest son of a bitch you’ve ever met.”
“You have my number. I will help you in any way I can, and not involve anyone else. If you need something, anything, call me.”
“Thanks.”
Court hung up the phone, watched the man with the dog for a moment, and then opened the door to the Mazda truck.
Forty seconds later the poodle was all alone and barking wildly, his leash wrapped around a signpost in front of a tienda that had not yet opened for business.
* * *
The dank, dark, ten-by-ten storage room smelled of mold. Lizards and spiders crawled the walls and hung from the ceiling, casting frightening shadows when they moved in front of the two-million-candlepower flashlight that Gentry had positioned in the corner, facing the center of the storage room.
There, in the center, sat Captain Xavier Garza Guerro of the Puerto Vallarta police. According to Madrigal’s intelligence chief, Garza was a paid sicario for the Black Suits, and he oversaw the cartel’s security operations here on the west coast of Mexico, from the Guatemalan border in the south to the southern edge of Sinaloa in the north. He had been instrumental in helping de la Rocha’s efforts in the region. Protecting his drug shipments, his production facilities, his safe houses, even Daniel’s motorcade travel through the city was often aided by squad cars with flashing lights.
Gentry ripped the duct tape off the bald man, tearing mustache hair out by the roots. Captain Garza’s left eye was swollen shut, the result of his face’s impact with the pavement outside the storage room. His hands were strapped behind his back; his clothes had been cut off with a long, thin fillet knife.
For the first hour Garza had tried to be reasonable with Court, had given him the locations of the meth labs that he knew about up in the mountains to the east. He thought this might buy his freedom; he felt the man must certainly be working for one of the other cartels, and if Garza could only convince him he would play ball, then whoever had sent this man would see that a well-connected police officer, with knowledge of the inner workings of de la Rocha’s enterprises, would be much more valuable alive than dead.
But then the gringo stepped in front of the light. He showed himself. The kidnapper made no attempt whatsoever to hide his face from his victim.
And the dirty cop knew what that meant.
Captain Garza was fully aware that now his only chance was to connect himself with Los Trajes Negros, to frighten his kidnapper into letting him go.
He shouted, “You lay another finger on me, and DLR will send Spider after you!”
The American reached out a hand, pointed his finger, and pushed it hard into the sweaty forehead of Xavier Garza. He finished the motion with a shove.
Then the norteamericano looked back over his shoulder at the garage door to the storage room. “When will he come? I would very much like to see him.”
“You will see him, gringo!” Garza tried to control his anger. “Look, if you let me go right now, I’ll forget this, but if you—”
“Oh, Xavier… you will never forget this. Not for the rest of your life.” Court looked down to his watch. “You can remember for at least three minutes, can’t you?”
“What do you want?” Garza’s question came out in a scream.
The American shrugged. “Nothing from you, asshole.”
“Nothing? Then what is this? What are you doing?”
“I’m just a force of nature, Xavier. You have lived by the sword…” The gringo turned away, disappeared into a dark corner, returned seconds later with a large metal cleaver. “You will die by the sword. Or, in this case, by the meat cleaver.”
“You are with los Vaqueros?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“With the United States of America.”
Garza cocked his sweaty bald head. “DEA? You are not DEA.”
“No, I’m not.”
Garza thought he understood now. This man was some antidrug avenger. “Look, we are just businessmen. All of us down here. We only provide the supply. You gringos provide the demand. We just respond to that demand.”
“So the guy who makes kiddie porn isn’t responsible as long as there is someone who wants to buy it?”
Garza looked at the kidnapper. “You know nothing. You are just a rich American. You don’t understand our culture!”
“Actually, I’m getting the hang of it. I’m going to chop off your head and put it in a bag. Does that sound a little like your culture?”
“Go to hell!”
“Most likely. But in the meantime…” Gentry sat on a brown box in front of his victim. “Names and numbers.”
“What?”
“Names and numbers. You give me others in your organization, and I’ll do it quick and fast.”
“You will kill me quick and fast?”
“That’s the best deal I can offer you.”
“And if I don’t give you names and numbers?”
Court looked at his watch. Shrugged. “Buddy… I got all damn day.”
FORTY-SEVEN
The Puerto Va
llarta police cars parked in the street at nine p.m. The officers left their vehicles and began directing traffic, forcing it on, ordering it to continue to the next intersection. One minute later the first in a long series of armored white SUVs pulled up in front of the beautiful seaside restaurant.
The Black Suits working the advance security detail went about their rounds in the restaurant. A stern-looking but polite man went with the maître d’ to each table and collected mobile phones while letting the stunned patrons know that their food and drinks would be taken care of. A group of four in the security detail moved through the kitchen with the restaurant manager, checked coolers and freezers, hallways and pantries, bathrooms and loading doors. They frisked the staff from head to toe. A pair of guards armed with .45-caliber Mac-10 sub guns stood in the doorways, two more junior members of the unit patrolled out back with AK-47s.
Daniel de la Rocha sat in an armored SUV with the commander of his bodyguards and his own close protection officer by his side. Emilio Lopez Lopez received the radio call from his advance team unit leader that the restaurant was locked down and secure, so he nodded to his boss, and the driver of the Yukon opened the back door of the vehicle. A team of Emilio’s best guards formed around their leader, and they entered the restaurant. Emilio had his right hand on his pistol in his jacket, and his left hand on his patrón’s lower back. An earpiece connected to his radio gave him updates from his team, and any threat would have Emilio Lopez Lopez shielding his boss, turning him around, and hustling him back to the SUVs in seconds.
Close behind the main scrum of the principle protection force was Nestor Calvo Macias, speaking into his Bluetooth earpiece. Javier “Spider” Cepeda, the leader of the Black Suit’s assassins, was in the crowd, as were a number of local dealers, enforcers, logistics managers, the chief pilot of Daniel’s many aircraft, and a few manufacturing and procurement executives.
Fourteen bodyguards on the premises ensured their leader’s safety, and nineteen other Black Suits all but filled the private dining area in the center of the building.