by Andrew Watts
“You know men have been killed on the suspicion that they wanted to become what I am. Yet here you are, saying it to my face.”
The men had come to an agreement. Martinez would take ownership of and operate the newly formed Durango cartel, a tiny offshoot of the Sinaloa cartel. In return, he would pay a cut to Sinaloa and continue to oversee the operations and finances of both cartels. To the chagrin of Vasquez’s family members and longtime partners, Martinez was effectively made second-in-command.
Heir to the throne.
Syed had arranged for Vasquez to be killed during an attempted arrest by the federales one month later.
Williams had been ready for it.
Martinez had been like a favored archbishop finding out that the pope had just died. A scramble. Posturing. Gossip and whispers. Uncertainty. Alliances and plans were made.
Martinez had been panicked. “We must flee. These people don’t accept me. My family…”
Williams had forced him to hold his ground. Williams had spent months gathering loyal gunmen from the ranks of Mexican special operations, similar to the way the Zetas had formed their cadre of elite warriors. His first order of business now was to invite the upper echelon of the Sinaloa cartel—mostly members of the Vasquez family—to a meeting at the Martinez family ranch in Durango. He’d summoned them—both as an initial gesture of authority and as a way to get the upper hand.
The Sinaloa cartel was Martinez’s now.
Williams had done the talking while Martinez had sat at the head of the table, trying to look unafraid.
“I understand that we are outsiders to many of you,” Williams had said, “and I understand that many of you harbor hostility and mistrust towards me. So, I will tell you this: I don’t care. Pledge loyalty to Juan Martinez now. Maintain that loyalty. Because I will always be watching you. And you have seen what I do to those who are disloyal. There is only one cartel now. And Señor Martinez owns it.”
The meeting had broken up with glares and angry muffled voices. But Williams had been telling the truth when he’d said he would be watching. A few days later, Martinez and Williams had been given audio evidence that the eldest Vasquez brother was plotting against them. Williams had known that they could not have anyone in the family killed.
But to members of the cartels, there was a fate worse than death.
The treacherous Vasquez brother had been found hog-tied on the DEA’s El Paso office doorstep. The other family members had quickly gotten the message. They might have harbored an inner hatred for Martinez, but they understood the omniscient and omnipotent presence of Williams. No one wanted to be extradited to America.
That wasn’t to say that Martinez wasn’t capable of extreme violence, just like his predecessor. But he was smart about when and how he used violence as a tool. When members of the Tijuana cartel had refused to pledge allegiance to Martinez as the new head of the Sinaloa cartel, he had rightly begun a war. Three hundred Tijuana foot soldiers were dead within the first two weeks. The leader of the Tijuana cartel was found hanging from a streetlight, his eyes gouged out, a fireman’s axe lodged in his chest.
Like a publicly traded company wanting to appear financially healthy to its shareholders, Martinez needed to appear strong to the masses who propped up his empire. The cartels who would join him, and the thousands of employees beneath him. Each of them feared and respected strength. It was that healthy fear that maintained order in a business enforced by violence.
Williams now sat on Martinez’s patio. As the alcohol relaxed his mind, he reveled in his achievements. He was the puppet master, and his puppet was the head of the largest drug cartel in the world.
The world was his oyster.
As Williams waited for Martinez to join him, he considered his empire. It was quiet here on Martinez’s ranch. Meanwhile, the violent machine that Williams had conquered continued to thrum along. Growing. Producing. Transporting. Selling. Killing. Repeat.
Men and women sweating in the fields and jungles, growing the plants. Just miles away from where he now sat, Williams had observed one of the cartel’s many production fields that afternoon. He had watched as peasant farmers slowly drifted through an endless field of poppies, slicing multiple incisions into each one. From these incisions, a liquid would drip down, to be painstakingly collected by the farmers over the next few days. That was the nectar that would be transformed into heroin.
Creating and selling heroin, meth, and cannabis was a business. Williams and Martinez treated it as such. Their bustling transportation network shipped tons of product into the US each day. Williams had taken from his experience in Afghanistan to help the cartel succeed. Working with the suppliers to the south and in Asia. Managing the sales and distribution network in North America. Paying off the police and politicians. And then there was his security and intelligence apparatus. Williams had insisted on improving the latter. Muscle was nothing without knowledge. Williams had hired experts from around the world to improve his security, and to make sure that nothing that could affect his business happened without him knowing about it.
Martinez sat across from him. Williams presented Martinez with a manila envelope. Inside was a news clipping—an article from the Wall Street Journal.
“Two dead?”
Williams nodded.
“Was that really necessary? It seems risky.”
Williams shrugged. “A message needed to be sent.”
Martinez frowned. “What of Rojas?”
“My sources tell me he is in Texas. I should have a location soon.”
“Rojas’s kidnapping wasn’t approved by the Mexican government. I assume our politicians are raising the appropriate objections over this breach of sovereignty?”
“They are.”
“Why would the Americans want Rojas this badly? Is he worth such a breach of protocol? Is this all just to get to me?”
Williams smiled inwardly. While Martinez was a very bright businessman, he was not immune to the paranoia that came from being at the top of a criminal enterprise. “Perhaps. With your permission, I would like to see if we can’t retrieve him.”
“On American soil?”
“It will be carefully planned. Only my best men.”
Martinez frowned but nodded his approval.
Williams took another sip of whiskey, looking off into the now-darkening night sky.
Chapter 14
Max and Renee had landed in Austin, Texas earlier in the day. Max got them a room at the Westin while Renee went to the store to buy phones and gear.
Max had sent a message to his virtual assistant, a high-end private service he used to keep his black book contact list updated and handle anything from transportation to confidential communications. The service had promised to have Max’s beloved Cirrus SR-22 flown to Texas within the next twenty-four hours. The pilot was instructed to land it at the Austin Executive Airport, pay for parking, fill it up with gas, and find his own transportation home.
Renee had come back to the hotel with boxes of Apple products—a MacBook Pro and two iPhones. She had set up Max’s phone, making sure that it had her security software installed, and then they promptly called Trent.
It went to voicemail. They tried several more times throughout the day before he finally called back in the evening.
Trent said, “Where are you guys? Wilkes told me it got a little rough.”
“It did, but we’re good now. Where are you at?”
“Can I talk on this line?”
Hearing this, Renee gave Max a thumbs-up.
“Renee says we’re good.”
“Roger. As soon as we landed, they brought in one of those HIG teams to work the guy over. The interrogation team is doing their thing now.”
The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), formed in 2009 as a way to combat terrorism, was filled with the nation’s most elite interrogators. Members were pooled from the CIA, FBI, and other governmental organizations.
Max found it interesting
that Wilkes was able to get permission to use a HIG team in this situation. Was that because of the counterintelligence angle, with the ISI being involved? Or was there something Wilkes wasn’t telling them?
Trent continued, “The dude seems scared shitless. Says his boss will have him and his family killed if he talks. But one of the interrogators made a bet with me after the first session that he’d crack within the first day. So it looks good. Are you guys coming down? Wilkes told me I can get out of here…but we’re in the middle of nowhere and I don’t exactly have a ride. One of the feds is making arrangements for us to stay at a local hotel. They’ve got a mobile unit set up for the interrogations but that’s it. I slept in the hangar last night.”
“What’s your location? I’ll come get you.”
“We’re on the coast, in between Houston and Corpus Christi. Someplace called Calhoun County Airport.”
“We’ll fly in tomorrow morning.”
“Sounds good. This thing should still be going on. You’ll see the eighteen-wheeler with the black SUVs surrounding it. Can’t miss us.”
Max and Renee flew to Calhoun County Airport on the coast of Texas the next morning. Trent was right. The airfield was small and desolate. Just a sheet-metal hangar, a handful of general aviation planes, and farmland in all directions. The Gulf of Mexico was a few miles to the southeast. Greenish-blue waves, the beaches filled with tourists.
They touched down and Max taxied the Cirrus to the flight line. Max threw the chocks under the wheels and walked towards the cordoned-off section at the far end of the airport. Men in black, with sunglasses and semiautomatic rifles. A miniature Area 51, right here in Texas.
“Can we help you, sir?” one of the government men asked. The other studied Max and Renee, his hand held loose outside his holster.
Max explained who he was and tried to convince them to let him pass.
The two men looked at each other in confusion. One said, “Sir, this is a restricted area. Please move along.”
Max understood. To them, he was just some random stranger with a story. Their job wasn’t to let people in, it was to keep people out. He thanked the guards and walked away, taking out his phone while he dialed Trent. “They won’t let me in.”
A moment later, one of the doors on the mobile interrogation unit swung open and Trent exited. “Gents, they’re with us.”
The guard swore, looking like he was debating it, but said, “I’d need to hear it from my superiors.”
It took about ten minutes of phone calls and arguing. Wilkes was pissed that Max had flown out there. “Next time you better tell me what you’re up to,” he said. But he made arrangements for Max to enter the interrogation unit.
Walking up the ladder into the large trailer, Max asked, “Where’s Wilkes, anyway? Why isn’t he here himself?”
“I don’t know. He said he had to take care of something else in D.C. But he’s monitoring all the reports out of here.”
They stepped into a dark, quiet room. Swivel chairs screwed into deck plates on the ground. Two men with clipboards and pens sat in the chairs, listening to the prisoner’s interview. They glanced back at Max and Renee, shrugged, and turned back towards the show. A single two-way mirror showed the interrogation room. Sound was being pumped into this section of the trailer via overhead speakers. Rojas sat at a table across from a black man of about fifty—the interrogator.
“What else did you find out?” Max whispered.
“Shh.” One of the men with a clipboard placed his finger over his mouth.
Max, Trent, and Renee scooted to the far end of the small space and watched some of the interrogation.
Rojas and the interrogator were conversing in Spanish. Max caught a few words, including Ian Williams’s name, but that was about it.
Max and Trent whispered as quietly as they could manage.
Trent said, “He says Ian Williams, the tall white dude that snatched Wilkes’s agent in Mexico, has his own agenda. Rojas here claims that Williams influences Martinez, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, to the point of controlling him. He lets Martinez make the legitimate business decisions on production schedules and pricing and all that…but the Brit is the one who handles the darker side of the business. I was surprised to hear he was from the UK.”
Max said, “Yeah. Renee dug up some info on him. Ian Williams is former MI6.”
Another shush from one of the clipboard men and Trent took the hint. “Let’s talk outside for a bit. I’ll get you caught up and then we can come back in.” The three of them went back into the warm Texas sun, walked past the guards, and towards the flight line where Max’s aircraft was parked. They walked about two hundred yards and sat near an empty picnic table on the far side of the airport’s only hangar, the only place with shade. The hangar and flight line were empty. An orange-and-white barricade blocked the street entrance that led to the airport, with a state trooper’s car parked next to it.
“So Ian Williams was MI6?”
“Yeah. Crazy, right?”
“And he’s worked for the cartels for what, a year?”
“Something like that.”
“He used to work in Afghanistan and Pakistan for MI6, but got removed for some type of scandal.”
“What happened?”
Renee said, “The details weren’t available. But the little I could find implied that it involved being too cozy with Pakistani intelligence.”
“Very interesting,” said Trent.
Max looked back at Trent. “Did Rojas know anything about the man that was killed in Virginia?”
Trent said, “To be honest, I had a hard time following that one. As you saw, the interrogator was speaking in Spanish, and mine is only passable. You might want to ask the interrogation team or see if Wilkes will show you the transcripts. What I think I heard was that Rojas confirmed Williams has a hit list that he’s working his way through before this big VIP meeting they’ve got coming up. Rojas thinks that this guy who was assassinated in Virginia was on the hit list.”
“Why does he think that?”
“Because Rojas overheard a conversation between Williams and someone else, talking about the first name in the list being in D.C.”
“A phone conversation or in person?”
“I assume phone, but I didn’t catch that. Sorry, man, I’m operating on fumes here.”
“I thought you were special operations,” said Renee, smiling.
“I retired. Now I take naps,” Trent said.
Max noticed that the silhouette of the driver in the state police vehicle was no longer visible. Odd. He had been there a moment ago, and Max hadn’t seen him exit the vehicle. He made a mental note of it and pressed Trent further.
“Who else is on the list?”
“Rojas says he has another name but was negotiating for something in return. The interrogators are doing their thing, trying to get everything they can before they start promising him stuff. Rojas is trying to see what leverage he has. A few hours ago, he said he didn’t have any names, and that he didn’t know anything about the Pakistanis.”
“So what’s with the meeting? When is it, what is it?”
Trent held up his hand, his eyes squinting back towards the end of the airfield. Max heard the sound of shouting coming from the interrogation unit’s trailer.
Max turned to look, saying, “What is it?”
A sudden metallic boom thundered through the air.
Trent was peering around the corner of the hangar in seconds, his pistol drawn. Max and Renee were slower, deafened and stunned from the explosion. Trent turned back towards them and mouthed something, but Max couldn’t make out what he was saying, his ears ringing.
Then he saw Trent pointing towards Max’s plane.
“What’s going on?” he heard Renee ask, the sounds of the world returning.
Max crept to the corner of the hangar and looked in the direction Trent was pointing. The mobile interrogation unit was a burning heap. Its roof was completely missing,
and most of its trailer wall was torn away. Ripped, singed metal, dust, and at least one hunk of flesh on the ground nearby.
Trent said, “One o’clock. See ’em?”
About one hundred yards beyond the blast site, three oversized pickup trucks had veered off the highway and were now bouncing over the grass field surrounding the airport. The trucks were heading towards the burning wreckage of the interrogation trailer.
Trent said, “How quick can you get us out of here in that thing?” He was again pointing to Max’s Cirrus, which was only fifty feet away.
“What about the people in the trailer? Is there anyone still alive?” Renee asked. She winced as the loud, rapid rattle of heavy machine-gun fire echoed over the airfield. Men in the pickup trucks fired at the two government SUVs parked near the interrogation trailer. Pops in the metal and shattered glass as bullets riddled the vehicles. Max didn’t see any return fire. At least two bodies on the pavement near the vehicles. Neither moving.
Max looked around the airfield, trying to identify all their options.
Max turned to the airport entrance and saw the state police vehicle still sitting there, its blue lights off, with no sign of a driver. Max could just barely make out a spiderweb crack in the rear window.
If anyone was left alive in the police vehicles, they were going to be killed soon. The same was true for anyone left alive in what remained of the smoking trailer. Trent had a single handgun, as did Max, but his was still in the plane. Their enemy had them outnumbered and outgunned, and they had too great of a head start.
If they were going to live through the next few minutes, they had two options. Hide and hope the attackers didn’t make their way over to them, or run to the Cirrus and get airborne before the gunmen saw them.