The Cartel Strikes Back: The Ted Higuera Series, Book 5

by Pendelton Wallace

  She smiled at Ted and held his hand a little too long when he shook goodbye.

  Ted parked in the long-term parking lot at Sea-Tac and made his way through security. He did not take his pistol, even though he was licensed to carry, because they have very strict gun laws in Mexico. It would be confiscated at customs.

  In the waiting area, Ted called the ARTCC. After innumerable holds and switches from one person to another, he finally found out that the 737 was owned by Baja Produce Brokers of La Paz, BCS, Mexico. The flight plan was a non-stop to Cabo San Lucas.

  Well, I’m on the right track. That’s where I’m going.

  Ted hung up his phone and returned it to his jacket pocket.

  But why the stone-wall from her mom? She’s hiding something, I can tell. She’s not a very good liar.

  ****

  Maria knew every inch of the road from the airport to the family ranch. Flaco’s battered old Chevy pickup climbed up the steep driveway to the Spanish style house built on a hill overlooking the Ceravalo Passage and Ceravalo Island across the water.

  Maria grew up here. It was all so familiar to her, but somehow, she felt like she was in a dream. Flaco pulled up at the doorway. Her Northwest attire, jeans, boots and a flannel shirt, already felt sticky as she stepped from the truck. Popo leapt out of the bed and was on the ground before Maria.

  “Maria, baby. You’re home!” Mom said as she grabbed Maria in a death hug.

  “Hi, Mom. It’s nice to be home.” Maria struggled for breath.

  Popo nuzzled up to his grandmother.

  “Popo,” Theresa said, as she patted his head. “Good to see you again, too.”

  Flaco brought Maria’s bags through the entryway and headed towards her bedroom. The place looked just the same.

  Terracotta floors and stuccoed walls were typical Mexican architecture. A series of heavy wooden doors with glass windows opened onto the deck that surrounded the house. From the deck, Maria looked out on the water. On the other wall, French doors opened to the patio and pool. A pack of dogs frolicked in the pool.

  “Go on, Popo.” Maria opened the French doors. “Go play with your friends.”

  The big dog barked, bounced out the door and directly into the pool. It was already hot in Baja.

  Expensive art hung on the walls and exquisite statues filled little niches. Ceiling fans turned slowly, creating a small breeze in the house. Already Maria was sweating.

  Theresa led the way to the formal living area.

  “I’ve been so worried. I needed to see you were safe.”

  Mom knew the dope about kidnapping in Mexico.

  “Have you heard anything?” Maria asked, as she sat on the comfortable sofa. “Do you know who took Dad?”

  Tears filled her mother’s eyes as she pulled her knees up to her chest and encircled them with her arms. “We haven’t heard anything. I don‘t know who would do this?”

  “Have you received a ransom note?”

  “No, nothing.” Theresa rocked back and forth in her chair. She was always such a drama queen.

  “I’ve been thinking about this. It isn’t about a ransom. Someone took Dad because they want something from him, from us.”

  Maria knew her mother was not capable of doing what needed to be done.

  “I’m going after them. No one can get away with this. No one can take on the Gonzaleses and come away scot free.”

  “Maria! Are you out of your mind? I want you here with me. I need to know you’re safe. You don’t need to go off on a crusade. Let Flaco handle this.”

  “Flaco? Mom, he couldn’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag. If he can’t solve problems with a pistola, then he can’t solve them.” Maria stood.

  “You know who did this,” Maria said. “I’ll meet with him, find out what he wants. Find out if Dad is still alive.”

  Theresa let out a wail.

  “If we let Flaco handle this, Dad will end up dead.” Maria turned and headed towards the hallway. An icy premonition filled her mind. She would never see her father again.

  “Maria. Where are you going?” Theresa stood and followed after her daughter.

  “First of all, I’m going to change my clothes. I forgot how hot it is here, then I’m going to stay in the condo in town. It will make it much easier to do what I have to from there.”

  “No. It’s too dangerous. You stay here. You have lots of protection around you here. A fly couldn’t get in without our knowing it.”

  Maria bent down to hug her much shorter mother. “Mom, I know, but I need to be close to people, to my contacts. It’s too far to drive in from the ranch every day.”

  “Then at least take Nacho and José with you.”

  “I already made arrangements with Flaco for twenty-four-hour protection, besides, I have Popo. I’ll be fine.”

  “What are you going to do?” Theresa asked.

  Maria wiped her brow. “I’m going to start by contacting El Pozolero.”

  Theresa froze in her tracks. “Do you have any idea how dangerous he is?”

  Maria smiled at her mom. “Does he have any idea how dangerous I am?”

  ****

  Candace had a window office, one of the perks of being the boss’s wife. There would probably be no more of those.

  Far below her, she could see Elliot Bay with its sailboats and yachts. To the left she saw the towering snow-capped Mount Rainier. It was a clear day, not so unusual in May.

  On her oak desk, she had papers, folders and books spread out covering the whole surface. She scratched at her head with the tip of her ball point pen.

  “Hmmm . . .”

  She put the paper she was reading down and reached for the booklet in front of her. It was an operations manual. More specifically, it was the manual for the Michael Angelo machine.

  The cover was graced with a portion of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, God reaching his hand out to Adam. A modern artist painted a spark where the fingers touched.

  Candace read the caption. As God gave life to Adam, Medical Manufacturing is giving life back to thousands.

  But did they? MM was being sued by the family of a man who died while having prostate surgery using the machine.

  Harvey Bernstein assigned the case to her because she was HB&J’s expert on medical matters. They hadn’t even had a medical department before Candace got there. They probably still wouldn’t if not for Harry.

  Candace sniffled and wiped her eyes dry.

  Stay on topic, girl.

  What she learned was disturbing. She had to talk to someone about it, to find a sounding board. That had always been Harry. She sure as hell couldn’t talk to Harvey about it. He was never in favor of her department anyway. He’d probably want to put the kibosh on it.

  What about Chris?

  Like father, like son. She knew Chris was a good listener and deep thinker. After three years of law school together, she had a pretty good idea how his mind worked.

  She got up, smoothed out the wrinkles in her slacks and headed next door. With Harry gone, she was purposely dressing more conservatively these days. She had to get them to take her seriously.

  “Chris, got a second?” she asked, as she came through his office door.

  “Sure, what’s up?” Chris put down a handful of papers and gave her his attention.

  She eyed her stepson. He reminded her so much of Harry, but yet he was so different. His long blond hair was nothing like Harry’s sandy hair. He was as tall as his father, but slender. He didn’t have Harry’s running back build.

  “I’m working on a case. Jefferson v Medical Manufacturing. We work for Consolidated Insurance, who covers MM.” Candace slid into a chair opposite Chris’s desk.

  “Okay.”

  “They have a surgical robot called the Michelangelo Machine.”

  “They’re pretty confident giving it that name, aren’t they?”

  Candace stifled a little laugh. “You could say that. This is a revolutionary machine. Here look.”
She handed Chris the operations manual.

  “It’s on this cart and has four arms. Each arm has a different tool and there are other tools you can interchange for the ones on the arms. There are over two hundred combinations.”

  Chris flipped through the book. “Umhmm . . . so what’s the lure? Why use a robot instead of a surgeon?”

  “To start with, it’s much cheaper. You don’t have to send a robot to med school.” Candace brushed her long black hair behind an ear. “This machine has much more control over movement than a surgeon’s hands. The robot can adjust movements to within a thousandth of a millimeter. No human could be so precise.”

  “So, what’s the problem?” Chris shut the book and dropped it on his desk.

  “I have a bad feeling about this. The company says that a doctor can perform surgery unsupervised after three to five operations. I just found a JAMA study that says the doctor should be supervised two hundred and fifty times before going solo.”

  “Wow! That’s a big discrepancy.”

  “It’s really bothering me. This machine allegedly overheated and burned this patient’s artery. He bled out on the operating table. What the plaintiff doesn’t know is that Consolidated has already settled on five other lawsuits.” She stopped, looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. “Chris, I think there may be other cases out there. Maybe hundreds of them.”

  “Wowza.” Chris leaned forward in his chair. “That’s a lot of liability. What do Consolidated’s lawyers say?”

  Candace looked at the stress free world beyond Chris’s window. It was all so peaceful, so serene. “I haven’t talked to them yet. I just came to this conclusion. I needed a sounding board to help me figure out what to say.”

  “Let me think about this for a minute. Hmmm . . . MM has this magical robot and it’s killing people. MM will never admit it or recall the machine, the liability’s too great.”

  Chris swiveled back and forth in his chair. When his eyes rolled upward, Candace knew he was accessing his incredible memory.

  “They’ve already settled five cases.” Chris turned back to Candace. “They’re paying the families to hush them up. They don’t want the world to know about their flaw. Is it just the overheating?”

  “No, the cases are sealed, but I have access as Consolidated’s attorney. In one case, the mechanical scalpel malfunctioned. In a couple of others, the doctor installed the instruments incorrectly. That goes back to the training.”

  “MM is looking at a huge liability. It could bankrupt the company. They know that their machine is flawed, but they’re not doing anything about it?”

  “They’re working as hard as they can to fix it, but they can’t admit any liability. They’re just hoping to minimize the damage until they get a fix.”

  “Have you talked to Harvey about this yet?”

  “No. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  Chris sat stone silent for a long moment.

  “You know, we’re on the wrong side of this one. We should be starting a class action suit against MM. We should be trying to get some relief for those families.”

  “I know. I’ve thought that too. But Consolidated’s our client. We can’t use what we know to help the plaintiffs. But at the same time, I can’t throw myself wholeheartedly into the defense. My client is wrong. I know it and they know it.”

  Chapter 15

  El Pozolero, who reveled in the sobriquet of the most wanted man in the world, stood on the terrace of his Ensenada de los Muertos mansion, looking out over the Sea of Cortez with his hands clutched behind his back.

  He built the ten-acre estate on the Bay of the Dead, half way between La Paz and Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of the Baja peninsula, on a hill about a kilometer west of Mexico Highway 1. A high concrete fence topped with razor wire surrounded the grounds. Security

  cameras were spaced at intervals that allowed guards to survey the entire estate. The cameras were also strategically placed in the main house itself.

  Men armed with automatic weapons and dogs roamed the premises. Two drones were constantly in the air outside of the fences. El Pozolero had no intention of being recaptured.

  “Is he still alive?” the Jefe asked Raul Rodriquez, his right hand man.

  “Sí, mi jefe.” Raul was a short dark man, much like El Pozolero, with a Pancho Villa mustache and a couple days of five o’clock shadow. “I don’t know for how long though. The doctor tells me his condition is critical.”

  “Hmm . . .” El Pozolero mumbled. “He is of more use to me alive than dead. See that he gets all the medical attention he needs.”

  “Sí, mi jefe.”

  “On the other hand, it makes little difference. Even if he lives or dies, I will get what I want, no matter what it costs them.”

  El Pozolero turned to face his subordinate, who was standing in the shade of a row of potted palms on the terrace. “I haven’t come down on them before because Ricky is a friend. He is a gentleman with a long history here in Mexico. His grandfather was el presidente back in the Thirties. He also has lots of Hollywood friends. It wouldn’t do to get them stirred up.”

  A pretty, dark-haired girl appeared on the terrace carrying a tray with two frosty beers.

  “Now, business necessity says I must have what is his.”

  “Sí, Patrón. But he has many men, many securios.” Securios were soldiers. “We must tread lightly. We can’t afford to be at war with Ricky and the Sinaloa Cartel at the same time.”

  “There will be no war. Cut off the head of the serpent, then you can take over the body. If he or Flaco don’t cooperate with us, we’ll just step into their roles.”

  Raul sipped on his cerveza. “We need his channels. The Sinaloans are cutting off our border crossing in Tijuana. They rat us out to the American DEA, telling them when we are making a delivery. It has hurt us badly.”

  “I know, Raul.” El Pozolero lowered his bulk into a brightly painted pigskin chair. “Ricky uses airplanes. He is almost never caught, hiding his goods in shipments of lettuce and chiles. How original.”

  Raul sat opposite his chief, across from the stretched pigskin-hide table. “How will you handle the girl? She should be here anytime.”

  “Humph.” El Pozolero looked out over the Sea. “She is merely a pawn in this game. You don’t really expect her to play hardball, do you?” He raised his bottle for the last sip. “She wants her father back, she’ll agree to anything to make that happen.”

  A tall, thin man with a long scar on his face, dressed in chinos and a burgundy guayabera shirt, with a Colt .45 Peacemaker strapped to his hip entered the room. “Patrón, the girl is here.”

  ****

  Maria learned from everyone she met. In this case, the lesson was learned from Ted’s sister, Hope, and his boss, Catrina.

  She stood in the gun room on her father’s ranch. Popo wandered the room, sniffing the unfamiliar smells here and there. Why bother taking a gun anyway? She knew that El Pozolero’s men would search her and expect her to be carrying.

  Making El Pozolero take her seriously was part of her plan. She knew she had no credibility as Ricky’s twenty-eight-year-old daughter. She would either be considered a princess or a plaything. She needed El Pozolero to listen to her.

  Opening a drawer on the workbench along the wall, Maria withdrew a .22 caliber Firestorm automatic. It was small and slender, easily concealed, but it had the firepower to stop an opponent using .22 long rifle shells that leave the barrel at incredible speed.

  How to conceal it? Hope used a bra holster that was totally undetectable. Maria looked down at her flat chest. The bra holster might be fine for Hope with her big boobies, hell, she could hide a tank in there, but Maria knew that the gun would poke out under her bra.

  Okay, the thigh holster that Catrina uses. There was no point in putting the gun in her purse. That would be the first thing that the thugs would take away. She strapped the little pistol, along with a spare magazine, to her thigh under a billowing Mexic
an dress and headed to the driveway with Popo in tow. When they took the gun, she still had a little surprise that they’d never find.

  She loved her restored Volkswagen Thing. There were probably more Things built in Mexico than in any other country in the world. The tough little cars just kept running and their rear engine gave them great traction if she had to go off road.

  “No, Popo, you can’t go with me.”

  The big dog had stepped over the door and made himself comfortable in the back-seat.

  Maria opened the passenger door. “Go on. Shooo. You wait for me here.’

  Popo gave her a lengthy look, got up on his long legs and stepped out of the car.

  “Good boy.”

  With the top down on her car, Maria tied a scarf over her head to control her hair. She didn’t want to look like she just put her finger in a light socket when she got there.

  It was about an hour drive from the rancho to Villa Cortez in Ensenada de los Muertos, the Bay of the Dead. On what would have been a pleasant day, the drive passed through spectacular scenery. Maria didn’t notice. All she could think about was her father and her up-coming meeting with the most powerful man in Mexico.

  Two armed guards stopped her at the front gate. She got out of her car while they searched it and ran little mirrors on sticks below it to make sure she wasn’t bringing in any weapons or explosives. The drive curved through a magnificent cactus garden on the way to the house.

  As she stopped in the gravel driveway, a tall, thin man with a gun strapped to his hip stepped out of the shadows.

  “Buenos Días, señorita,” he said. “Will you step out of the car please?”

  She complied.

  “Now, spread your feet and hold your arms out.”

  The pistolero began patting down her long legs. He ran his hands up her thighs and it didn’t take long to find the pistol.

  “So,” the man said as he lifted her skirt to see what was beneath, “You come armed.”