A Girl Apart

by Russell Blake

  Montalbán’s warning had hit home, though, and she had no intention of going back to her apartment with the cartel hunting for her. She knew several hotels in decent neighborhoods that didn’t charge a fortune, so she drove to the closest, checked in, and locked herself in the room, determined to research El Guapo until she knew everything there was about the man.

  He’d been in the news a lot over the past two years, when he was arrested at a beach hotel without a shot fired. But beyond recent events, she knew little about his background, so she started at the beginning – his birth into a simple farming family, one of four brothers in an area of Mexico’s hill country infamous for its marijuana and opium poppy cultivation.

  Alfonso Camacho Hidalgo had become involved in the narcotics trade as a runner for the first cartel in Mexico, created as a loose affiliation of growers and smugglers for trafficking marijuana into the United States in the 1980s. He’d proven his loyalty and his business acumen at an ever increasing level of responsibility for that group, and when its founder went to prison in a negotiated deal with the Mexican authorities, he’d taken over the most powerful faction that had been formed to decentralize decision making, and ascended to prominence from there.

  The simple farm boy had become one of the richest men in Mexico, and other than one short stint in prison in Juárez in his twenties, from which he’d escaped with the help of two guards, he’d never been apprehended, successfully evading the law for decades in spite of holding the number one spot on Mexico’s most wanted list and the number two position on the FBI’s. His cartel had been associated with the CIA and the American government, its drug shipments into the U.S. overlooked by the DEA in return for supplying intelligence on other cartels and being on the receiving end of assault rifles from the BATF in the notorious Operation Fast and Furious, used to kill both American border patrol officers and hundreds of Mexican police.

  After appearing on a prominent financial magazine’s list of the wealthiest people on the planet for over a decade, El Guapo’s fortunes had turned bad a few years earlier as competitive entities had fought for and won important territory close to the border, curtailing his cartel’s ability to transport tonnage of meth, heroin, and cocaine north to the largest market for narcotics in the world.

  Exactly none of which afforded any illumination as to why his cartel would be willing to pay a fortune for an old arrest document.

  She next turned to articles that featured him as a sort of celebrity – his multiple wives and girlfriends, his rumored holdings in hotels, timeshare developments, super yachts, castles in Morocco and palaces in France, and a fleet of sports cars and airplanes that would make an Arab sheik blush. As she read, she developed a sense of a man who viewed operating the most powerful narco-trafficking syndicate in the world as just another business, with himself as the CEO, making difficult but balanced decisions for the best of his empire.

  Photographs of El Guapo were rare; however, there were a few from his younger years, and she studied them intently, noting that he’d been a handsome man with defined cheekbones and movie star good looks. The later photos from his recent arrest showed a man who’d degraded over the intervening decades, the passage of time unkind, his face heavier and puffier, his eyes porcine, his nose flatter. Part of it had been the result of surgeries to disguise himself, per the articles, but it was clear that any hint of the looks that had earned him the nickname of El Guapo – the sexy one – had faded along with the power of his cartel.

  His fall now complete, he was locked in a six-by-ten cell in a high-security prison, awaiting extradition to the U.S. to face myriad criminal charges, and his health was reportedly declining as quickly as his influence.

  Knowing what she did about how the apparatus in Mexico worked, the part she found puzzling was how the richest man in the country, who had easily evaded any attempts to catch him for decades, had abruptly been nabbed without a fight.

  He had sufficient resources to live anywhere, to do anything, to buy whole countries and operate them for his pleasure, and he finished his reign in a squalid prison cell, eating gruel?

  That didn’t jibe with the system she’d seen firsthand, where the ruling elites did what they liked. The rule of law was a sham designed to protect them from the masses, not the other way around.

  Had he pissed off his rumored CIA partners? Refused to cut them in for a larger piece of the pie and been targeted because of it? That made more sense than that the Mexicans had suddenly become both efficient and honest.

  Still, it didn’t explain the cartel’s interest in the report.

  Her eyes were growing heavy as she stared at her phone screen, hating having to do her research on it. She yawned, worn from her hours of stress, and decided to try to rest, at least for a while – until her vision wasn’t blurring.

  Leah lay down on the bed and plugged her phone in to charge. The riddle of why the two pages were so valuable still nagged at her, and she closed her eyes, her hands burning in spite of the salve the paramedics had applied.

  Forty-five minutes later she sat bolt upright, instantly awake, her mouth dropping open with realization.

  “Of course,” she whispered. “Of course!”

  Daylight came quickly, and when it was late enough in the morning that she wouldn’t be waking anyone up, she dialed Len Rollins’s cell phone.

  “This is Len,” he answered.

  “Len, Leah Mason.”

  “Leah! Wow. Never thought I’d get a call from you at…6:45. What’s up?”

  “This may strike you as an off-the-wall question, but how does the department deal with international criminals?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s say you suspect that a cartel boss is responsible for a local murder. And all you have are fingerprints or an old photo. How would you handle it?”

  “I would run the set through Interpol’s database. If that didn’t score a hit, I would request the prints in question from the Federales.”

  “How long would it take for them to respond with them?”

  “Depends. I mean, these days everything’s computerized, so it’s possible the FBI would already have them in their database. If the perp was a big enough fish, they would.”

  “They get them from the Federales?”

  “Or the Mexican prison system, if they have them.”

  “Do you know how long ago they computerized everything? In Mexico?”

  “I have no idea. But, well, it can’t have been that long ago. They’re behind us by about a decade on most tech.”

  She hesitated. “Can I ask you to do me a huge favor?”

  Rollins’s voice turned wary. “Depends on what it is, Leah.”

  She told him. The resultant pause grew uncomfortably long. When he spoke again, his voice dropped to a hush. “How soon do you need it?”

  “Would yesterday be too soon?”

  “You have his full name?”

  “I do.” Leah gave Rollins the info.

  When he hung up, he didn’t sound happy.

  Three hours later, when he called her back, he sounded only slightly better. “Got ’em. Probably best if I don’t leave a trail on the computers. I can print them out and meet you somewhere.”

  “How about that greasy spoon by the station? It has a decent breakfast, doesn’t it?”

  “Depends on how you like your hamster cooked.”

  “Half an hour?”

  “I’ll be there.” He paused. “Dare I ask why you want this?”

  “If I’m right, you’ll know soon enough. If not, well, I’ll probably hit you up for advice on how to solve a crime.”

  “What’s the crime?”

  “Murder. Assault. Torture. Arson. Probably more.”

  “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “See you in a few. Thanks, Len.”

  Chapter 51

  After Leah met Rollins and confirmed her suspicion, her paranoia went full blown – she now fully appreciated the danger she was in and
knew she’d have to remain in hiding until she could go public with the article. She spent the day at the library, using one of the computers to flesh out the story, and then stopped at an office superstore to scan the document Rollins had entrusted her with, along with the Sánchez report. She organized the entire mess into two thousand words of cogent, factual text, and then called Ridley Talbert at the Examiner an hour before quitting time.

  “Yes, Leah. How’s your time off been treating you?” he asked, his voice jovial.

  “Great. What would you say if I told you I have the biggest story of the decade in the bag?” she asked.

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “I might start soon.” She proceeded to tell him what she had. When she was finished, a stunned silence greeted her.

  Talbert eventually responded, his voice quiet. “And you have these documents? The originals?”

  “That’s correct. It’s not speculation. It’s a hundred percent verifiable.”

  “Hold the line. I need to get Henry Albrucher patched in.”

  She waited two minutes, and then the attorney was on the call with Talbert. “Tell Henry what you just told me. Leave nothing out.”

  Leah did her best to keep her inflection neutral. “You’ve heard of the Mexican drug lord El Guapo? His full name’s Alfonso Camacho Hidalgo.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you know he’s in custody awaiting extradition.”

  “Yes. I read the papers too, you know,” Albrucher said testily.

  “And you know he’s filthy rich. As in buy-whole-governments rich.”

  “Is this going somewhere?”

  “What if I told you that the man in custody, who everyone believes is El Guapo, isn’t?” Leah asked, the question almost conversational in tone.

  “I’d ask you how you know what it is you claim to know.”

  “I have the original of an arrest report from Juárez, from 1986. It has a photograph of El Guapo, as well as his fingerprints.”

  “And?”

  “The prints don’t match those of the man in custody. They’re different.”

  The attorney absorbed her words. “How do you know?”

  “I had a friend in law enforcement pull them for me. It’s not the same man.”

  “And you believe that you’re the only one who’s tumbled to this…conspiracy theory?”

  “Conspiracy fact. I have hard evidence. The original report, stamped and signed. Verifiable as authentic. My theory is that El Guapo wanted to retire, so he did a switch – paid whoever needed to be paid off in order for his prints to be substituted for his double in the Mexican system. He must have planned this years ago – the ultimate exit strategy. Once the system had a different man’s prints established as being his, he was home free. All that had to happen was his double had to be caught in a believable way, and bam, suddenly the most wanted man in the world is off the radar completely. How else could you hope to enjoy your fortune in peace once you were done with the game? It makes sense.”

  “That’s speculation,” Albrucher countered.

  “True. That part is. I’ll make clear that’s my guess about what happened. But what isn’t in dispute is that the prints don’t match. He pulled the ultimate switch and conned everyone. It’s actually brilliant, if you think about it.”

  “One problem with your theory – the man in custody.”

  “The latest reports are that he’s in such poor health he might not live out the year. I have a feeling he found a guy who looked similar and who was dying of something like heart disease or cancer. He made him a deal he couldn’t refuse – the money would go to his family after he departed, something like that – had a little surgery done, and problem solved. The amount it all cost wouldn’t matter. What’s ten, twenty million if what hangs in the balance are billions?”

  Albrucher considered her words. “You understand you’re in terrible danger until that document is in official hands, right?”

  “Yes. But I don’t trust our people either. There are too many rumors about him being involved with our intelligence agencies. The only way I’ll be safe is once the story is out there and the documents are public. I say we put a scanned copy of the original, and the official prints they’re claiming are his, in the article. Then it’s not deniable.”

  “You’re not afraid he’s going to come after you?” Talbert said, speaking for the first time since the attorney joined the call.

  “Why would he? He’ll have his own problems at that point; I’m just the messenger. We can publish it under a pseudonym for all I care, and reveal it was me later. But I don’t think it’s an issue.”

  “It’s a huge story, Leah. Huge. A pseudonym won’t fly.”

  “Then I’ll go into hiding for a while. Whatever. Within a few weeks there will be a worldwide manhunt for him again, and I’ll be a footnote.”

  Talbert paused. “You sure about this?”

  “Absolutely. I’m a journalist, remember?”

  “What do you think, Henry?”

  “Get me the documents. If it vets, it’s a home run.”

  “I’ll shoot you scans in a few minutes,” Leah said. “Can we run this in tomorrow’s edition?”

  “I’ll hold the front page,” Talbert said. “Henry? How long will it take to verify this sufficiently to okay it?”

  “Leah, I presume you have an article already written,” Henry said dryly.

  “I’ll attach it with the report.”

  “If the first pass looks good, I need to meet and see the original before I give a final buy-off.”

  “I’m a little cautious right now. Can we do it at the main police station?”

  Albrucher only hesitated for a moment. “Of course. Ridley?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. You thinking an hour, Henry?”

  “Tops.”

  Albrucher signed off, and Talbert had only one more question for Leah. “So everything you were researching about the Juárez disappearances was extraneous? None of that was relevant?”

  She sighed. “That will be my next article. I still need to research a few of the other missing girls, but from what I can tell, they aren’t missing. They were paid to disappear.”

  “What? By whom? And for what reason?”

  “I’m working on it, boss. One blockbuster at a time, right?”

  Talbert chuckled. “Shoot everything over to me and plan on being at police headquarters in an hour.”

  “Will do. And, boss? Don’t breathe a word of this until it’s on the street, okay? I’d hate to have the building blow up or anything while the morning edition’s going to press.”

  “You really think…?”

  “How far would you go to end the trail if you were one of the richest men in the world and every law enforcement agency on the planet had you in the crosshairs?”

  She heard him swallow. “Fair enough.”

  “Welcome to my world. See you in an hour.”

  Chapter 52

  The next eight hours were the most demanding, and exciting, of Leah’s life. Talbert swore the production crew to secrecy and disconnected all phones and Internet to the building while they were laying out the issue, and personally collected everyone’s cell phones as they arrived for work with a promise to return them in the morning. Albrucher approved the story within minutes of seeing the original police report, and from that point on they were racing the clock to get the story edited and into print.

  The morning edition went to the printer at two a.m., hand delivered on a USB drive by Talbert, who remained at the facility as hundreds of thousands of copies of the paper – ten times more than usual – went through the presses at lightning speed. Leah was in constant communication with him throughout the night, finally dozing off at four, her part in the work done.

  Three hours later her cell jangled by her bedside. Talbert was on the line, sounding drained and more than a little troubled. His tone roused Leah to full wakefulness as her heart rate skyrocketed.
r />   “What is it?” she asked.

  “Your man, El Guapo. I gather you haven’t turned on the news.”

  “What’s going on, boss?”

  “He was being moved late last night – extradited to the U.S. The Mexican accounts have his convoy being attacked by a rival cartel. Rockets, grenades, the works.” He paused. “The van he was in was vaporized. It’s a crater in the street.”

  Leah swallowed hard, her throat so tight she was afraid she’d choke. “They found out. Somehow, they found out.”

  “Maybe. But that’s dominating the news cycle right now.”

  “It doesn’t change my story. They may have gotten rid of the only witness, but the prints don’t match. The story isn’t that the wrong guy is imprisoned – it’s that a billionaire drug dealer got off scot-free.”

  “I know. We went out with the story, but it’s not getting as much traction as we’d hoped – at least, not yet. First edition hit the street an hour ago. Story’s on the wire, but we both know that where it goes from there is anyone’s guess.”

  “It should be the front page on every newspaper in the country.”

  “I agree. It’s great work. But right now, all anyone’s concentrating on is footage of the convoy in ruins. I don’t have to tell you how sensationalism sells.” He cleared his throat. “You’ve had a few calls, so it ain’t over yet. I’ll give you my calling card number. Use it to answer any messages. I don’t want to know where you are. Stay away until the story plays out, just in case.” He gave her the paper’s card number and she wrote it down.

  “You think there’s a risk now that it’s out there?”

  She could hear his breathing as he considered his answer. “If I’d planned the perfect crime, and then some reporter blew it for me and made me public enemy number one, I might hold a grudge.”