Jade was the first to finish up her tasks and leave, followed soon after by Eva and Charles. Ángel remained at his desk, in part because he wanted to be sure Charles was gone before he left, but also because he really wasn’t looking forward to changing motels yet again.
“So, you’ve had a rough week,” said Sakura, coming to lean against Ángel’s desk with Shane by her side.
“You could say that.” Ángel shut down his computer and pushed back his chair.
“Wanna come shoot stuff with us?” Shane asked.
Ángel grinned.
They spent a couple of hours shredding paper targets at a private range, which did wonders to melt away Ángel’s tension. When Shane and Sakura invited him out for a drink afterward, he was happy to accept.
At the casual sports bar they ended up in, neither remarked on Ángel’s request to be seated in a corner booth. They ordered a round of drinks and a few greasy appetizers to share, and settled in for the duration.
Ángel had always been a people person; even the defenses he’d built up over the past couple of years hadn’t changed that. He easily got Sakura and Shane talking, inquiring after Sakura’s boyfriend, with whom she’d just moved in, and Shane’s four-months-pregnant wife.
“Do you think you’ll stay in San Diego after this is all over?” Sakura asked him after an hour or so of friendly conversation.
“Maybe,” Ángel said, though there was no way he was going to stay here, falling back into old patterns and letting Charles jerk him around. The last time had been difficult enough to recover from. “Or I might take the paid leave I’m owed, head up the coast a little.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Shane said. “I’m sure you could use a break after, you know, everything you’ve been through . . .”
Sakura shot him an exasperated look across the table, and Shane flushed, dropping his eyes to his beer.
“It’s all right, you can talk about it,” said Ángel. They’d gone out of their way to include him in their plans that afternoon and treat him like any regular newcomer to their team; he was impressed they’d lasted this long without giving in to their curiosity.
“I’m sorry.” Shane looked back up at Ángel, rolling his bottle between his palms. “It’s just . . . you seem so normal. If I’d spent that long with the cartel, so close to someone like Raúl Esparza, I’d be a hot mess. I don’t know how you’re keeping your shit together.”
Ángel considered this as he savored his last sip of hard cider. “I don’t feel normal,” he said eventually. “You didn’t know me before, but I used to be more . . . carefree, I guess. Less guarded. Now I’m too used to watching every word that comes out of my mouth; I’m inside my head in a way I never was before. It makes me uncomfortable when I think about it. I don’t feel like myself anymore.”
He would never regret taking the assignment. Ángel’s work within the cartel had saved lives—maybe not in any direct, dramatic way, but by disrupting the cartel’s operations, interfering in their business, dismantling their infrastructure piece by piece. Whatever the cost to himself, it had been worth it.
There were days, however, when Ángel ached to reclaim his old self, who he’d been before learning what it meant to live in constant fear and completely alone in every way that mattered.
“Then how can you not be angry with Esparza?” Sakura said.
“It wasn’t his idea for me to go undercover.” Ángel balled up his napkin and dropped it on his plate. “Raúl didn’t respect me—his particular concept of masculinity meant he couldn’t treat me as an equal if he was going to fuck me—but he liked me, genuinely wanted to make me happy. Most of the time, he was very sweet and affectionate with me. I don’t know that I can really articulate how I felt about him.”
He’d tried to, with Paul. It had been Paul who’d listened to Ángel’s frantic confession the first time he called Raúl to come over simply because he’d been so lonely, Paul who had talked Ángel down when he was tied up in guilty knots, Paul who had helped Ángel unpack the complex and twisted emotions created by repeatedly betraying someone who cared for him.
It was Paul who was suffering now because someone in the cartel wouldn’t let Ángel go.
In a soft voice, Sakura said, “What if Esparza is the one who’s stalking you?”
“He’s not,” Ángel said firmly.
“Then who is?” asked Shane.
Ángel didn’t have an answer for that.
The call came just after midnight. Instantly awake, Charles rolled over in bed and snatched his phone off the nightstand. “Hunter,” he said.
“The weapons are on the move,” said Eva.
“On my way.”
Charles was out the door in minutes, headed for the temporary command post they’d set up in a foreclosed house roughly central to the various smugglers’ cars. Though dark and silent on the outside, the house buzzed with quiet activity within, blackout drapes drawn over every window hiding the light and dampening the noise.
He met the rest of his team in the kitchen, where Jade and Ángel sat at a table amid a mess of computers and electronic equipment.
“What’s our status?” Charles asked as he suited up in his tactical gear along with the others.
“Two of the cars are moving west,” Jade said, eyes on her computer monitor. “One of the tagged weapons is with them. The other vehicles haven’t moved; we have eyes on all of them, and teams are moving into place.”
Eva strapped down her vest. “Jade and Ángel will stay here to coordinate. The rest of our team will be taking point on the meet, with Baerger’s team as backup. It’s essential that we do everything we can to avoid fatalities—we need the targets alive for interrogation.”
A few minutes later, they were bundled into two vans en route to the Jackals’ location and keeping in touch with Jade over comms. “They stopped in a gas station parking lot in Point Loma,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s their final destination or if they’re really just getting gas, but I’ll send you satellite images.”
Charles leaned over Eva’s shoulder to look at her tablet. The parking lot in question was shared by a gas station and a convenience store that faced each other over the expanse of asphalt; the property backed up against a marine conservation area that was mostly marshy wetland with some tree cover.
“I’ll want a man up on each of those roofs and a team across the street,” Eva said. “Everyone else will approach in a diffuse formation from the rear. Siren, let me know if there’s any movement.”
The Jackals were still holding position when they arrived. One of their vans cruised down the street, past the parking lot, to drop off Sakura and a couple of Baerger’s guys out of sight; Herbenick, Baerger’s best shooter, circled around to get up on the convenience-store roof. Meanwhile, Charles, Eva, and the rest of the agents entered the wetland from the north, taking a roundabout route toward the back of the lot. Shane split off halfway for the gas station.
Guided by Jade, they slogged along carefully, the wet, muddy ground sucking at their boots with every step. Though the tree line at the edge of the parking lot wasn’t thick, it provided reasonable cover in the dark so long as they stayed low. Fortunately, there was no fence separating the lot from the wetland, just a short brick wall that could be easily mounted. Charles kept himself spaced evenly between Eva and the agent on his other side and crept into position at Eva’s signal, crouching against the wall.
The Jackals had parked their cars near the rear of the lot—six of them, by Charles’s count—leaning against the cars and smoking while they chatted quietly. As the ATF agents reported in to Jade from their various positions, three more cars pulled into the lot. The Jackals’ body language became tense and wary; they tossed their cigarettes on the ground, clustering together to face the new cars, their hands not-so-subtly resting on their guns.
“All teams ready to move at your go-ahead, Valkyrie,” Ángel said.
“Roger that, Phoenix. All teams hold positions
for now. I want eyes on the weapons before we move.”
Eight Latino men spilled out of the newly arrived cars. The best dressed among them, a tall, lean man with a distinct vulpine quality, strode forward to meet the Jackal who broke away from the pack. Charles recognized Buzz, friend to Amber’s boyfriend Johnny—thick and stocky, his sandy-blond hair shaved in his eponymous style.
Buzz and the Latino leader shook hands and spoke a few words before Buzz gestured to the nearest car. As the men moved toward the trunk, one of the other Jackals jumped into the driver’s seat. Both entourages shifted sideways, carefully keeping an equal distance between the two leaders.
“Be prepared to move,” Eva said.
Charles firmed his grip on his rifle, his pulse quick but steady. He drew deliberate breaths through his nose and exhaled through his mouth, the muscles in his legs tensing in anticipation.
The car’s trunk popped open, and after the Jackal inside the car worked his magic, the hidden compartment was revealed. Buzz retrieved the gun case, opened it up, and stepped aside so the other man could take a look.
“Go!”
Charles leaped over the wall, bringing his rifle to bear as the team from across the street closed in, flanking the meet from all sides within seconds. Members of both gangs shouted in alarm, drawing their own weapons.
“Freeze! Federal agents, you are under arrest. Lower your weapons!”
One of the Jackals whirled around and took a panicked shot at Eva, who ducked and rolled out of the way. The crack of a sniper rifle rang out from the gas station, and the shooter went down screaming with a bullet to his right shoulder.
At the fire from above, the gangs crouched instinctively, pressing against the sides of the cars for cover. Buzz looked between the two roofs, his eyes wild and his gun shaking as he aimed it at the nearest agent. His well-known reputation for an itchy trigger finger could blow this up into a full-out firefight.
Charles squeezed his own trigger and put a bullet through Buzz’s knee. Buzz collapsed with a wail of pain.
“Lower your weapons!” Eva repeated. “We have you surrounded.”
An expression of utter, frustrated rage twisted the Latino leader’s face. He slashed his hand through the air and called out in Spanish for his men to comply. As guns clattered to the asphalt and the men lowered themselves to their knees, the Jackals followed suit, lifting their hands in the air.
Charles rushed forward with the rest of his team, kicking away the gun from the closest Jackal and slapping a pair of handcuffs on him.
Their vans roared into the parking lot, followed closely by three police cars with lights flashing and sirens blaring. While the police barricaded the parking lot, Charles and his fellow agents rounded up the gang members, loading them into the vans one by one. Ambulances arrived for the men who had been shot, necessitating a pair of officers be assigned to escort each one.
Half an hour of controlled chaos later, the scene had been contained, and the guilty parties were on their way to the ATF office to be processed. Charles checked in with Eva and was pleased to hear that all of the weapons had been secured and accounted for by the auxiliary teams.
“We just need to open up the second car the Jackals brought with them, and we’ll be set,” Eva said. She waved over one of the crime-scene photographers. “Would you mind?”
“No problem.” Heading for the car with the photographer in tow, Charles switched to a private channel so he could communicate directly with the command post instead of every agent present. “Hey, Siren, I need you to walk me through the steps to get to this car’s stash.”
“She’s occupied,” Ángel’s voice said a few seconds later. “I’ll help you. Which car is it?”
Charles hesitated briefly before saying, “Ford Focus, license plate six-Lima-Victor-Romeo-four-four-eight.”
The video surveillance from the Jackals’ warehouse included footage of them loading the weapons into each car, providing handy instructions for how to access their smuggling compartments. While they waited for Ángel to find the relevant recording, the photographer snapped shots of the car from every angle.
“I’ve got it. You need to sit in the driver’s seat with all the doors shut.”
That was a common first step—there was likely a pressure plate beneath the seat, and requiring the doors to be shut to activate the sequence would stymie most law enforcement during a standard search. “All right, what’s next?” Charles said once he’d gotten in the car.
“Do you have the keys?” Ángel asked.
“Yeah, they’re on the dashboard.”
“Turn on the car and . . . well, he presses one of the buttons on the climate-control panel on the dashboard. I can’t tell exactly which one, though. The angle of the camera isn’t ideal for seeing inside the car.”
Charles shrugged and hit the button that directed the airflow toward the footwells. “And?”
“Open the glove compartment and lower the front driver’s- and passenger-side windows simultaneously,” Ángel said. “From what I can make out, that should reveal some kind of mechanism inside the glove compartment.”
Though Charles did as instructed, it had no effect. “Nothing’s happening.”
“Try a different button on the dashboard, then.”
Charles studied the climate control panel, thinking it through this time instead of choosing a button at random. They’d want something less frequently used, right? No point risking the compartment being revealed accidentally.
He pressed the defroster button and lowered the windows again. This time, a loud click sounded from the glove compartment as a small panel sprang back to reveal a discreet black button.
“Can you imagine the good that people who do this shit could accomplish if they used their creativity to solve problems instead of create them?” Charles muttered.
“They believe they are solving problems,” said Ángel.
Rolling his eyes, Charles said, “Just tell me what I’m supposed to do now.”
“Pop the trunk before you press the button. After that, you should be fine to leave the driver’s seat.”
When Charles got out of the car, he was unsurprised to find the trunk crammed full of random crap. He had to call for another agent to help him and the photographer sort, label, and document each item as it was removed until the trunk was finally empty.
“You need to press down on the bottom of the trunk,” Ángel said. “The button in the glove compartment should have unlocked it, so it’ll slide right open.”
Charles smoothed his gloved hands along the carpeted trunk floor until he found an area with a slight rebound. He applied some pressure, and the panel snapped back and retracted. The bottom of the trunk had been hollowed out all the way to the backseat and loaded up with gun cases.
Charles hefted the first case out of the trunk, frowning when a Ziploc bag fluttered and fell over from where it had been stuffed in between the two cases. He set the gun aside and picked up the bag, turning it over in his hand.
“This is weird,” he said. “Looks like the Jackals were smuggling a set of fake papers along with the guns. I’ve got a birth certificate here, social security card, US passport . . .”
“What’s the name?” Ángel asked.
“Manuel Juarez.” Charles pulled the passport out of the bag and flipped it open.
Raúl Esparza’s photograph glared back at him.
“Let me talk to him,” Ángel said, pacing the viewing room floor.
“Absolutely not,” said Ed.
“Ángel, you can’t go in there,” Eva said. “If this man is really working with Esparza, we have to limit your exposure—”
“Raúl is dead,” Ángel spat.
“I can handle this,” Charles said, stepping forward to intervene before Ángel really lost his temper. “Please trust me, Ángel.”
Ángel narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth.
“Please,” Charles said again. “You’re way too personally invested in this to
conduct an appropriate interrogation. If he knows anything about what’s going on, I’ll get it out of him.”
“Fine,” Ángel said with poor grace. He crossed his arms and turned to face the two-way glass.
At a nod from Ed, Charles left the room and headed next door. The leader of the Jackals’ business associates had proven to be Felix Torres, a US lawful permanent resident with ties to the Alvarado cartel, which was a growing player in southern California. Every other man arrested in the raid had steadfastly denied any knowledge of the false papers Charles had found; Torres was their last hope for a break.
Inside the interrogation room, Torres sat handcuffed to the metal table, the sharp, thin lines of his face thrown into harsh relief by the fluorescent lighting. He met Charles’s eyes with confidence as Charles crossed the room and dropped the fake passport onto the table, opening it to the first page.
“Do you recognize this man?” Charles asked.
Torres glanced down at the picture, then back at Charles. “No English,” he said, his accent thick and heavy.
“Así está bien,” said Charles. “Hablo español.”
Torres’s nostrils flared with displeasure. He considered the passport photograph once more, and when he spoke again, his accent was miraculously much lighter. “I know of this man. I also know that he is dead, so I don’t see why you’re interested in his passport.”
“This passport was found with a set of false papers along with the military weaponry you were inspecting for purchase from the Jackals.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Torres said smoothly. “And as for this . . .” He gestured to the passport. “What is your concern? A dead man has no need for a passport, false or otherwise.”
“That’s a great point.” Charles pulled out the other chair at the table and sat down across from Torres. “Which raises the question of why a brand-new passport with a dead man’s photograph was in a car all packed up to smuggle guns into Mexico.”
“For all I know, you planted it there.”
“Uh-huh,” Charles said. “Or maybe rumors of Raúl Esparza’s death have been exaggerated.”
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