Wilco- Lone Wolf 22

by Geoff Wolak

  I sat and had a second breakfast with Tomsk, Miguel and Tiny, chat about all sorts but not about work. Miguel was driven off to school, soon Tiny driven off with her escort - heading off to prison again, a different kind of school.

  After a call, we sent a car to the British Embassy, a nice air-conditioned jeep, and two hours later the man that David sent was stepping down in a beige suit, his jacket held, briefcase in hand. He appeared to be in his sixties.

  ‘You must be the infamous Petrov, and you’re Mister Tomsk,’ came in a refined accent. We shook. ‘David Pierson, British Government advisor, former Interpol and UN advisor. And the cartels are my speciality.’

  ‘Come inside,’ I offered, soon introducing Joe and explaining his role.

  Our guest studied the maps with interest. ‘It’s a long way from the map of 1980, which is where I started. These days the Knights Templars Cartel are quiet.’

  ‘Knights Templars!’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes, that’s what they called themselves oddly enough.’

  ‘Were they on a religious crusade?’

  ‘No, just … drug dealing murdering idiots. And here, the Gulf Cartel are still there, but subservient to Los Zetas we believe. And back in the day we had the leftist gunmen as well, some funded by drugs. Thankfully they’re gone from the playing field.’

  ‘And Mexicali?’ I asked.

  ‘The dominant force there has changed a few times, and there have been a few coups, and coup attempts. We used to call it Jerusalem,’ he said with a smile. ‘It was a lively place to live, better now, but … not even you would want to walk around those streets.’

  ‘It was worse before?’ I asked.

  ‘In the 1970s and 1980s, yes, much worse.’

  ‘What’s your remit?’ I asked.

  ‘To assist any way I can, but to also gain further knowledge for myself.’

  ‘By being here and talking to us you are breaking a few laws,’ I pointed out.

  ‘London has assured me that I will not be prosecuted, and the UN allowed me to interview many cartel men in prison. It’s nothing new for me.’

  ‘And beer and hookers?’ I asked, hiding my smile.

  ‘I would have to resist, yes, even if they were forced upon me.’

  I called David Finch, then handed over the phone, just to check this guy out. I finally took the phone. ‘So, do I shoot him?’

  My guest’s eyes widened.

  ‘No, he’s genuine. Play nicely, eh.’

  ‘OK, Mister Super Spy Chief.’ I cut the call. ‘You check out, so we don’t need to shoot you.’

  ‘Good to know.’

  I left him with Joe and the team, our guest offering advice on the history of the cartels, how they formed, and when they had their key men arrested and were finally broken up.

  After lunch, Franks and Dick turned up in an air-conditioned jeep, but were expected. After cold drinks and some food they met our two former Tijuana Cartel men and started to ask questions. But first they dangled a carrot, suggesting a general amnesty from the DOJ for cooperation – if so sought by the men.

  Unfortunately, these guys knew little about the missiles and nothing about Terotski that they hadn’t got on CNN.

  When Murphy called he was out of breath. ‘We got us here a boss of some sort,’ he began. ‘Nice clothes and some expensive jewellery.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We had us a six jeep convoy come up the hill, and we hit drivers and men in the back, and this guy jumps out and hides. Mitch said to look for the man in charge, and I figured him, so we grabbed him.’

  ‘Got his phone?’

  ‘Yeah, phone like yours.’

  ‘Grab the weapons, push the jeeps off the road and burn them, fly back.’

  ‘Well, Greenie had an idea, that we stay here and get a tan and see if an even bigger boss turns up.’

  ‘Fine, but send back that man.’

  ‘Helos coming in now, Boss, and he’s all hog-tied. And we got us corned beef an all as we wait.’

  Half an hour later and Khrushchev called. ‘We have this middle manager, but he ain’t talking.’

  ‘Drop him over the border next to a patrol, fit him for an orange jumpsuit and then see if he talks.’

  ‘Was thinking along those lines, yes. Gunna send back the weapons as well, to trace them.’

  Call cut, I wondered about my garden gnome salesman, and had he supplied some of those guns.

  Tinker called at 5pm. ‘We have a team on the cocaine map - or should I say the product map, joint with London, and the numbers don’t add up. We also have an odd pocket of quality Bolivian product showing up in Kansas.’

  ‘That Kansas location, look for a pharmaceutical company nearby licensed to reprocess cocaine.’

  ‘You think a member of staff is selling some in the canteen and making himself popular?’

  ‘Could be. Draw up a local proximity map and have a look. Oh, and any USAF bases nearby, flights to Saudi, kit returning, but keep that to yourself.’

  ‘There may be trouble ahead…’ he sang out.

  ‘Could be lots of fucking trouble if this gets out.’

  ‘What was that film with Mel Gibson?’

  ‘Air America, and they never flew drugs back to the States, just around Asia I think.’

  I stood studying my phone on the patio, and finally called Langley, getting the Deputy Chief, dragging him from a meeting.

  ‘Is it bad news?’ he began.

  ‘Is there a USAF base in Kansas, flying kit back from Saudi?’

  ‘There are three Air Force bases nearby, not sure what they fly.’

  ‘Check on the quiet for that Saudi link, because we found an odd batch of quality Bolivian product there.’

  ‘I’ll look. Quietly.’

  Tinker came back on as I was sat eating on the patio, Tiny and Tomsk with me, Miguel at my side and practising Russian. ‘There are two possibilities. First, there’s a licensed drug company real close by, and second … there’s a military hardware supplier’s re-fit station close by.’

  ‘Who’s the hardware supplier?’

  ‘TLC.’

  ‘Ah. Drop the enquiry, move on to widen the search on Bolivian product.’

  ‘Should we look at TLC?’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  Phone away, I explained it to Tomsk.

  ‘Could have been driven there or flown there, just a coincidence.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I agreed. ‘We need more information.’

  I called Franks, even though he was just down the road in a motel. ‘I need a list of all the drug dealers in Kansas, large and small, and then I want their phone numbers where they’re listed – past arrests. I want aliases and names of unknown dealers. And fast.’

  ‘I’ll get some people on it overnight. What’s it for?’

  ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know. Just get me the detail. Thanks.’

  ‘Carlos might know,’ Tomsk put in. ‘He has people in Kansas.’

  I called Carlos as they listened in. ‘Is that the pussy cat?’

  I heard the grinding of teeth. ‘Petrov.’

  ‘Listen, a batch of quality Bolivian product turned up in Kansas, near Wichita. Find out all you can about where it came from.’

  ‘I have a man there, I can ask him what he knows, and I am surprised that Bolivian product ends up there, it normally goes to Brazil and Argentina.’

  ‘Let me know as soon as you can.’

  ‘I call him now.’

  ‘Thank you, Mister Jackal.’

  Miguel asked, ‘Carlos the pussy cat, because he’s called The Jackal?’

  ‘Yes, I like to tease him. But when I’m rude he knows it’s me.’

  ‘For me too,’ Tomsk complained. ‘No one pretending to be you could be that rude.’

  Miguel laughed. ‘A boy in school sounds like our headmaster, and he gave an announcement over the speaker, that Miss Sanchez was to stop passing wind.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ I aske
d with a smile.

  ‘They still don’t know who it was. The kids don’t tell on each other.’

  ‘A good policy,’ I commended.

  Carlos was back on as we finished eating, cold beers being sipped under the stars, talk of Mexico’s tourist trade. ‘My man heard of a new batch, good quality. It was said to have come from a military man, who was killed in an accident.’

  ‘Which type of military?’

  ‘Air Force.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Phone down, my face gave away my concerns. ‘Air Force man sold some quality Bolivian product and was then killed.’

  ‘He broke the rules,’ Tomsk noted. ‘Sold local and gave the game away.’

  I called back the Deputy Chief, now at home, and I stepped away.

  ‘It is bad news?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Air Force?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shit…’ he sighed out. ‘I can deal with it quietly, but I need more to go on.’

  ‘Air Force man killed in car crash, Wichita. Start there, work backwards, look at his finances, then his phone pattern.’

  ‘I’ll have some discreet men on it overnight.’

  In the morning the news was not good. The Deputy Chief began, ‘All evidence relating to a certain dead Air Force sergeant has been sealed by local DA order.’

  ‘Then the DA is in on it.’

  ‘We have some data on this sergeant, and his phone pattern is odd, damn odd. And he spent time in Saudi.’

  ‘What’s the DA’s name?’

  ‘Sam Michalap.’ He spelt it.

  I wrote it down. ‘Leave it with me.’ I called Miller. ‘Write this down. Sam Michalap, DA in Wichita. By the end of today I want him labelled as dirty, which he is, then all sealed evidence to be looked at.’

  ‘What’s he into?’

  ‘Drugs on Air Force planes.’

  ‘He’s a dead man, that’s official, because both my boss and Delaney don’t want our military tarnished. Gloves coming off.’

  ‘If indeed they were ever on,’ I scoffed. ‘Get his phone pattern, that’s the priority.’

  David Pierson came and joined me after lunch, as I sat on the patio. ‘Can I join you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He sat.

  ‘Are you in the loop?’ I asked.

  ‘I am a trusted servant of London, yes. Major. I was shortlisted to be ambassador to Mexico once.’

  ‘And do you have issues with us slaughtering cartel men?’

  ‘Hell no. I’ve seen what they can do up close, I’ve tallied the bodies week by week as cold statistics and seen the families at the graveside.’ He studied me. ‘It could be argued that the men will be replaced, but it is still worth setting them back, and doing what we can.’

  ‘You haven’t seen me in action.’

  ‘I’ve read the book, seen the reports, I know what you can do, so I would not wish to be a cartel man right now. I know what you did around here, so … no reason why you can’t do that elsewhere, and you’re working with other cartels to fill the void, so maybe there will be a kind of peace in Mexico.’

  ‘Carlos the Jackal has a computerised control system, and he loves his family, he never kills for fun. If he exerts his influence then that’s a good thing. I can’t say I have a personal relationship with Los Zetas, but they are well placed and seem willing to work with us.

  ‘If Los Zetas hack people up for fun I’ll have a word, and they’ll stop doing that … or lose money, and many men.’

  ‘Did you influence Tomsk that way?’ he risked.

  ‘I didn’t need to, Tomsk never killed for fun, and … he was afraid from the start, not the typical drug lord, always worrying if the US Marines would land on his lawn. He stopped worrying when I told him who I was, and that he was safe.’

  ‘Tomsk does seem to be … subservient to you,’ he floated.

  ‘People think that, but we’re like brothers, both in trouble when the music stops. As for the day to day planning … he leaves that to me, and I keep saving his arse.’

  ‘You were never tempted to stay here?’

  ‘I like training men and planning missions. I could never just sit here.’

  ‘You could have walked away with a great deal of money…’

  ‘People keeping saying that. But what would I do, sit on a beach and sip beer all day? I’d go nuts.’

  ‘Well, yes, you do live in the fast lane. You’d find it hard to be me, and enjoy gardening and listening to The Archers.’

  I frowned hard. ‘Are they still going?’

  ‘Yes, since the Second World War. I grew up listening to them. Patterns form habits, and we then enjoy the habit since it’s familiar to us.’

  I nodded. ‘I tend to react these days, not plan things. Intel comes in, some idiot about to kill large numbers of people. And it’s usually one of our own idiots doing it, like Lord Michaels.’

  ‘I had connections to him, knew people who knew him well, and it all came as a shock. Not that he might invest money in dodgy schemes, but the total lack of regard for human life. He seemed to think he was above the law that the rest of us live under.

  ‘And I’ve seen the dead bodies on the streets in this region, I lived through the turbulent 70s and 80s here, the leftist gangs and the drugs cartels. This place is now quiet, whereas you would not have walked around southern Panama in the 1980s.’

  ‘When I first got here it was lively, gangs killing for fun. I put them all in the ground.’

  ‘And built up Tomsk, yet David Finch denies being behind the impetus, as did the late Bob Staines.’

  ‘I was asked to infiltrate the Russian gangs here, and I did, but had to play a role to get their confidence, so I attacked other gangs – a little too well. Tomsk got the money and their drugs and started to grow.

  ‘I got him talking to the government here, and we started to tip off London and Washington, a few drug busts a month. After that both London and Washington realised the benefits of a friendly cartel. I was introduced to Russian arms dealers in Africa, and that then spread, the President of Liberia recruited.’

  ‘And now a big push to make Monrovia a safe place, as here…’

  ‘My crusades, yes.’

  ‘Not London’s crusades…’ he floated.

  ‘They can’t be seen to be telling me what to do, they just hint at it. We have laws we live under, remember.’

  ‘Some powerful groups are lobbying for your man Rizzo to be charged. And they’ll probably succeed.’

  ‘They need to find him, then extradite him.’

  ‘And that would be tricky here.’

  ‘Very tricky, he’s a national hero.’

  ‘But being charged in absentia will tarnish your unit,’ he noted.

  ‘Not to the British public, nor the French or Americans. They hate the cartel men and don’t even know what all the fuss is about. And … I have bigger problems to face.’

  ‘What about the cartels in Miami and Los Angeles?’

  ‘I don’t operate on US soil.’

  ‘But the pipelines could be followed, men found and dealt with…’

  ‘Well … yes, but that would be tipping off the FBI, not sending in a team.’

  ‘Worth keeping in mind, because some of the most brutal cartels are Stateside.’

  I considered his suggestion with a frown.

  At 4pm the Deputy Chief called. ‘Sam Michalap was just picked up by the FBI, for money laundering and racketeering.’

  ‘And will his past sealed cases now be unsealed.’

  ‘Federal judge working on that right now, we should have the files in the morning.’

  ‘Can you email GCHQ the phone pattern of the dead Air Force sergeant straight away?’

  ‘Will do. You have Franks there?’

  ‘Yeah, all snug, and they’ve already interviewed two former cartel men.’

  ‘They’re assigned to the narco team, and senior. Oh, some guy was dropped from a helicopter next to a pa
trol car, just six feet to fall, his hands tied, AK47 strapped to him.’

  I laughed loudly. ‘Does the trick. Where is he now?’

  ‘In custody, Feds all over him, he has a rap sheet a mile long.’

  ‘I hope he likes orange.’ I called Khrushchev. ‘Any progress?’

  ‘Boys are camped out at the road leading to the drugs lab, but so far no one has come to the rescue. Drugs went to Rada, sample sent back, and it’s Colombian coffee.’

  ‘Our two wounded men?’

  ‘Patched up, a few weeks in bed.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Both Wolves, from the first batch.’

  ‘Then they should know better.’

  ‘They’ll get their arses kicked, so the major said.’

  ‘And Running Bear?’

  ‘Is planning a raid for tomorrow some time. Rest of the boys are either on the wire, down time, or training, eight hour stints at each.’

  ‘Tell the major and Running Bear, I want more men out on patrol, targets of opportunity in known gang areas, always a local soldier with them, teams of four at least.’

  ‘I’ll chat to them, they’re sat a few yards away.’

  In the morning a man turned up under escort, our visitor from Mexico City. He had a face that had never smiled, and he looked like a dead body warmed up, the man in his fifties and stocky. He had been sent to us by the Los Zetas leadership.

  I called the number for Los Zetas and checked, and put the man on the phone as Joe listened in, talk of a new car model that both men possessed and now swapped ideas on. We were finally happy that he was who he claimed to be, the big boss of contract killers on the east coast of Mexico.

  I sat him down with Joe and Tomsk on the patio, a cold drink offered as well as coffee, and he spoke reasonable English. But this guy could have been an actor in some cheap horror movie. ‘You are aware of what we wish you to do?’ I asked.

  ‘I hire gunmen, I don’t organise party for children,’ he flatly stated.

  ‘Good,’ I said with a smile. ‘Your target is any Sinola Cartel man, but we are not so interested in the foot soldiers, or unarmed men. We are in interested in more senior men, and armed men. If you shoot an armed Sinola man, and you send us the newspaper story, we pay you. But call and register the hit straight away, we check with the police.