by Mike Maden
Colonel Cruzalta scanned the road ahead with his field glasses. A wicked hairpin turn following a switchback was about five hundred meters ahead. A steep mountain with loose rocks walled one side of the road; the other side was nothing but air and a thousand-meter drop into the gorge below.
“Obregón. Tell your driver to slow down. There’s a nasty curve up ahead.”
“Yes, Colonel,” echoed in Cruzalta’s headset, along with the Sherpa’s four-cylinder diesel engine whining in the background.
Like all true warriors, Cruzalta was anxious. Only armchair generals and fat-assed politicians thumped their chests and laughed at danger because they never really had to face any. Without fear, courage was impossible. Fear kept a man alive while courage kept him in the fight.
Cruzalta’s orders were to escort the Castillos back to Culiacán, by force if necessary, where an assistant attorney general was waiting to ask questions in the air-conditioned comfort of a federal building. If the twins requested it, Cruzalta was ordered to escort the Castillos back to their resort compound. It was possible that the Castillos would forcibly resist the attempt to bring them in for questioning, but the appearance of elite Marinas should cause them to think twice. However, it had been determined by the president’s office that a minimum of force was preferable in order to avoid any unnecessary provocation. Cruzalta prayed that the Castillo boys were wiser than their youth suggested.
Several hundred meters ahead, an ancient tractor-trailer rig belched clouds of oily smoke from its vertical exhaust pipes. The driver is doing a bad job of downshifting, Cruzalta thought to himself. The trailers were fully enclosed but ventilated. Cruzalta guessed the truck must be hauling cattle down the hill to the slaughterhouses in Culiacán.
Obregón’s Sherpa 2
Loaded out in his combat gear, including a Kevlar vest, Obregón sweated fiercely, but he could sense a slight cooling in the air temperature as they gained altitude.
He glanced up and over at his two o’clock, watching Cruzalta’s helicopter on station, keeping an eye on things. He was glad the old man was up there watching out for them. Cruzalta’s reputation was second to none in the Marinas. He had always led his battalion into battle from the front and he had the wounds to prove it.
Obregón ducked his head back into the crew compartment. The three young soldiers sat grim and determined beneath their camouflaged helmets, rifles locked between their knees.
“You girls ready to dance?” Obregón shouted over the noise.
“Sir, yes, sir!” they shouted back in unison, smiles creasing their fierce, young faces.
“Good. Won’t be long now.”
The Situation Room, the White House
Greyhill frowned. “Okay, now I’m starting to get carsick.”
Early grinned. “Trust me, it’s worse for them, especially the guys in the back.”
“Boys,” Myers whispered. “They’re just young boys.”
Cruzalta’s OH-6 Cayuse
Cruzalta watched Obregón’s lead vehicle enter the southern end of the mile-long tunnel that cut through the mountain. The other Sherpas were close behind. The drivers were tired and distracted after a three-hour ride in the twisting mountains.
“Keep your vehicles spread out,” Cruzalta ordered through his mic, but Obregón didn’t respond. They had lost voice communication inside the tunnel.
The cattle truck entered the northern end and disappeared.
The Situation Room, the White House
Obregón’s video monitor cut to black.
“What’s going on?” Myers asked.
“They’re inside the mountain. The video will be back up as soon as they’re on the other side,” Early assured her.
Myers glanced at the live feed of the compound. The Castillo brothers were outside now in the pool playing a game of volleyball in the shallow end with the two young women, who were now completely topless.
“Better enjoy it while it lasts, assholes,” Early said.
Obregón’s Sherpa 2
Obregón was glad to be in the cool of the wide two-lane tunnel. The sun had been grinding him down for the last three hours. His eyes were still adjusting to the dark. He glanced up at the tunnel ceiling. There were lights up there, but they weren’t turned on. Civilians, he muttered to himself, as he cracked open his canteen and took another sip of water.
Obregón glanced backward at the other Sherpas spread out behind him, each about two seconds apart. That was cutting it pretty close, and in a combat situation he would push them back and keep them spread much farther apart. He could barely see the anxious face of the young private driving the vehicle behind him, clutching the steering wheel with an iron grip. The private’s frowning eyes finally caught Obregón’s and Obregón flashed him a thumbs-up. It took a couple of seconds, but the young driver finally managed a wide, nervous grin.
Obregón turned around. He glanced up ahead. A pair of cockeyed headlights from an oncoming diesel tractor rattled in the dark up ahead. He could just make out the shadows of the trailers it was hauling behind it.
Cruzalta’s OH-6 Cayuse
“Come around,” Cruzalta ordered his pilot. The helicopter had flown in an elliptical pattern all day, racing ahead of the slower-moving convoy, then circling around and catching up with them, keeping an eye on threats in front of and behind his men. The OH-6 had gotten far ahead again and now the pilot circled back on his commander’s order. The nose of the helicopter turned just in time to give Cruzalta a God’s-eye view of the tunnel.
The Situation Room, the White House
Myers was fixed on the helicopter video monitor. Flames suddenly jetted out of both ends of the mountain tunnel.
“Oh my God!” Myers shouted.
Fire continued to boil out of both ends as the helicopter camera plunged toward the tunnel. Cruzalta’s voice shouted over the speakers, screaming for the pilot to land.
Cruzalta’s OH-6 Cayuse
“OBREGÓN! OBREGÓN! COME IN!” Cruzalta shouted as the helicopter rocketed down toward the highway below. Just as the helicopter’s skids hit the hot asphalt, a long-horned bull shrouded in flames charged out of the tunnel entrance. Even above the rotor wash, Cruzalta could hear its agonizing screams as it thundered past the cockpit and hurled itself blindly over the side of the mountain into the gorge below.
The Situation Room, the White House
Myers’s eyes darted over to the other monitor. The laughing Castillo boys were still batting the volleyball around with their girlfriends in the pool, oblivious to the carnage in the hills below them.
“Jesus, what a goat fuck,” Greyhill blurted. He turned to Myers. “Good thing you weren’t directly involved in this, Margaret. It would’ve been your Bay of Pigs.”
The Situation Room, Los Pinos
President Barraza sat in stunned silence, staring at the monitors. He finally managed to speak, his voice cracking with emotion. “This is a disaster, Hernán. Those poor kids.”
Hernán Barraza turned toward his brother. “We sent the best we have. The Americans will realize that, won’t they?” His voice was etched with pained sincerity. He even managed to wet his eyes a little. Hernán had practiced both for hours last night in front of a mirror. Antonio wasn’t the only actor in the family.
The president bolted to his feet. “If that Myers bitch thinks we’re going to do this again, she’s crazy. If that isn’t good enough for her, then fuck her. Do you understand me?”
Hernán Barraza nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. I understand perfectly.”
14
Camp David, Maryland
President Myers admired the tall pines through the large picture window. She loved the presidential retreat nestled in the low wooded hills of Catoctin Mountain Park. It reminded her of her mountain home in Colorado. The main building where she stood was, in fact, a lodge, just one of many reasons she felt more comfortable
here than in the White House.
She needed another meeting with her inner circle. The problem now was secrecy. There had already been too many scheduled meetings with the same people not to draw outside attention, and the Washington rumor mill was in full grind. Myers wasn’t ignorant of the political forces on both sides of the aisle arrayed against her. Just being kept out of these meetings was causing something of a scandal among senior congressional leadership, especially in her own party, Senator Diele the most vocal among them. Myers had discovered early on that Washington, D.C., was just like high school, only with money—other people’s money, technically. Jealousy, cliques, and rivalries were the stock-in-trade for the preening, precious egos that populated the Hill.
“Sorry to drag you out in the woods away from your families on a Saturday, but we needed to talk about yesterday’s fiasco,” Myers began.
“It’s our job, Madame President. No need to apologize,” Jeffers said.
Lancet flashed a sympathetic smile. “I used to have a pastor who said, ‘There’s no rest for the wicked, and the righteous don’t need any.’ So we’re good to go.”
“Thank you. Let’s get to it so we can get you all back home at a reasonable hour. Mike, what exactly happened down there?”
“Near as we can tell, somebody must have dropped a dime on the operation and the Castillos set a trap.”
“What about operational security?”
“There are many honest cops and some truly terrific people fighting the good fight down there, including Colonel Cruzalta and his Marines,” Lancet said.
“You’re sure about Cruzalta?” Myers asked. “We all know there is a tremendous amount of corruption in the police and even military ranks.”
“The people I really trust say that Cruzalta is the best there is,” Lancet said. “Loyal, smart, and incorruptible. He understands what the drug trade is doing to his nation. But you’re right. There is a lot of corruption in Mexico. ‘Plata o plomo,’ they call it. Silver or lead. It’s the cartel’s way of saying either you accept the bribe or the bullet, but either way, you’re going to cooperate with us. And of course, once someone does cooperate, they’re compromised forever. So no matter how secure they think an operation is, there’s always a good chance someone—a clerk, a secretary, a disgruntled traffic cop—is going to call it in when they see the trucks roll out of the gate.”
“The explosion was horrific,” Myers said, her face clouding with emotion.
Lancet nodded. “Castillo employs some of the world’s finest chemists in his labs. Some of them are concocting pesticides and herbicides for his legit businesses, but others are cooking meth. Any of his labs can put together a batch of napalm. Near as we can tell, the poor bastard driving the truck didn’t know he was hauling more than cattle.”
“So, Mike, give me some options,” Myers said.
“President Barraza has shown that there’s a limit to what he’s able to do, at least tactically. And given the political reality today, he’s probably hit the limit on what he’s willing to do.”
“Faye?”
“As we discussed the other day, legally we’ve hit a wall. We still can’t technically prove that the Castillos are guilty of the El Paso massacre, at least not by American legal standards—”
“Setting those boys on fire looked like a confession of guilt to me,” Myers interrupted. “If nothing else, they’re guilty of murdering those Marines.”
“Again, not provable, but I don’t disagree with you. That makes it a Mexican problem, not ours. The El Paso massacre is a criminal matter, with both domestic and international dimensions. American and international criminal law is quite specific about what we may and may not do. We also have extensive treaty obligations with Mexico, as well as Memoranda of Cooperation and Memoranda of Understanding with them in regard to criminal matters. In short, we have no legal standing to pursue this case any further as a legal matter without Mexican cooperation, and we’ve seen what their cooperation has gotten us.”
“Can we set up some sort of a sting? A trap? Lure the Castillos out of Mexico and back up here?” Myers asked.
Lancet shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, we’d have to spend a great deal of money and time to set up a scheme that would be convincing enough and tempting enough to lure them out of Mexico. That means getting a lot more people involved, and that has its dangers, too. The syndicate isn’t without resources on our side of the border, either, except over here, they use more sexo than plomo to get cooperation. Corruption isn’t as bad here as it is down there, but the problem is getting bigger up here, for sure.”
“So I’m asking you both again. What are our options? How do we get justice for the families who lost loved ones in El Paso?”
Lancet shrugged. “You’ve ruled out American troops on the ground. The Mexicans have ruled out further military action on their end. And the law prevents you from carrying out any law enforcement function without the express permission of Mexico, which they aren’t going to give, at least not right now. Maybe in a few years if and/or when you get the new immigration and trade agreements rammed through Congress. Maybe that will give you some leverage.”
“Mike? You agree with Faye’s assessment?”
Early shrugged. “You’ve pretty much eliminated all of the reasonable options, that’s for sure.”
“Then I want the unreasonable ones. Do you have any?”
Early rubbed the stubble on his unshaven chin. “It just so happens I know a guy.”
New York City, New York
September 13, 2004
“You think Early knows?” Annie asked. She was spooning into Pearce, his arms wrapped around her naked torso. They were lying beneath high-thread-count sheets in a penthouse suite overlooking Manhattan.
“About us? If he hasn’t figured it out, he isn’t much of an intelligence analyst,” Pearce said. “Of course, he isn’t a professional spook like we’uns.”
“What do you think he’d say if he knew?” she asked. She rolled over and kissed Pearce on the nose.
“He’d say, ‘Why not me?’”
“Besides that, goof.” She rolled back over off the bed, padding toward the floor-to-ceiling window.
“He’d say, ‘Pearce, you’re one lucky sumbitch. Don’t screw this up.’”
“Lucky? Why? Don’t you get laid very often?” Annie teased.
“Lately, I’ve been doing okay, I guess.” Pearce stretched and yawned. “But what I think he was referring to was the emotional component. I’m usually not very good at that sort of thing.” Pearce rolled out of bed, too, grabbing the top sheet. He stood behind Annie and wrapped both of them in the sheet, pulling her close to him. They gazed out over the amazing Manhattan skyline beneath their feet.
“Oh. So this is emotional for you, is it?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“You’re such a girl.”
“Some girls,” he said with a playful smile. “But I wasn’t looking for it.”
“Me neither,” she said.
“But I’m glad we found it. Found each other.”
“Me, too.”
Pearce kissed the back of her head, relieved.
“So what should we do about this?” she asked.
“I dunno. Go steady? By the way, you never told me how you can afford this place.”
“My dad owns it.” She slipped out beneath his embrace and headed for the kitchen.
“Why didn’t you tell me your dad was rich?” Pearce followed her into the kitchen. The tile was cold on his bare feet.
“I’m a spy, remember? I’m supposed to keep secrets, not give them away.”
“Since when do trust-fund babies go to war?” Pearce meant it as a joke, but it came off as flippant.
“Rich people love their country too, asshole.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean it like that. I
t’s just . . . unusual, that’s all.”
“Coffee?” That was easier for her to say than you’re forgiven.
“Sounds great. And eggs, bacon, and toast while you’re at it. So you’re loaded and you can cook, too?”
“And I bang it like a porn star, in case you hadn’t noticed. But I was thinking more like room service,” she said. “Right now I’m just grabbing some water. Want some?” She yanked open the big Viking refrigerator door.
Pearce admired the view. She was buck naked, bent at the waist, reaching into the refrigerator for a bottled water, her breasts swaying with the effort. She was utterly comfortable in her own marvelous skin, even the patches of it laced with small shrapnel scars.
“Yeah, I want some,” Pearce said. He was getting hard.
“I meant water.”
“That, too. I’m a little dehydrated, if you catch my drift.”
A bottle of water sailed toward his head. He caught it at the last second.
“Drink up. You’re gonna need it later,” she promised as she cracked open her bottle. He did the same. They both took a long pull, just like they were back in the field.
“So, seriously. What do we do about this?” she asked again.
“‘This’? You mean ‘us.’ I like ‘us.’ Don’t you?”
“Is this enough?” she asked.
“For now.”
“And later”? She finished her water and crushed the bottle. Tossed it into the empty sink.