“What is it?” She didn’t bother to cover herself with the sheets, and her naked body made him stir a little.
But duty called and he couldn’t say no.
“Guardado cartel,” he said.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll finally get a chance to bury the bastards.” He headed for the shower. “I’m showering alone this time.” He heard Victoria mumble something as he shut the bathroom door, but didn’t bother to ask her to repeat.
He started the shower and steam filled the room while he leaned on the counter and look at his obscured reflection. His thick dark hair and chiseled jaw were there as always, but so were his green eyes. The eyes that always looked a little sad.
Cocaine traffickers had set the cabin fire that killed his family, of which he was the only survivor. After all these years, he never expected to catch up with the perpetrators, but he could rain hell on other traffickers wherever he found them. And the Eagle Alliance found a lot of them. The Guardado cocaine cartel in Nogales, Mexico, had been a thorn in his side for several years, and they had the blood of a lot of Stone’s colleagues on their hands.
Politics and red tape, from which not even the Alliance was immune, had prevented the cartel’s destruction several times. Now, Devlin Stone hoped he finally had a chance to do what he did best: annihilate the enemy.
Nogales, Mexico
The three-story hotel was brightly colored which served as a nice contrast against the clear blue sky and the desert backdrop, where the rolling hills and cacti dotted the landscape for miles. It was a hostile environment, but if one were to turn the opposite direction from the one in which Manny Valdes drove, one could experience the warmth and industrious Nogales without fear of ever dying of thirst next to a cactus.
Valdes drove the car. Normally he’d have a driver. But this meeting wasn’t exactly on the agenda of the Guardado cartel, even though he was the man in charge of the soldiers in the organization. The cartel boss would not appreciate him taking the meeting, and that’s exactly why he was meeting the two other bosses of rival cartels in the area. Mrs. Guardado wasn’t running the cartel the way Valdes thought it should be run. She was not as thorough as her late husband, and nowhere near as efficient as her late father-in-law.
Cartel leaders tended to have short life spans.
Manny Valdes wanted to shorten Jackeline Guardado’s life by several years.
And, of course, take her seat at the boss’s table.
He couldn’t do it alone, though.
Manny Valdes turned into the empty parking lot—empty save for the two sedans near the entrance with the uniformed chauffeurs standing close. They would be heavily armed, with compact submachine guns under their driving jackets. The other cartel bosses would have bought out the building for the meeting. They could have met anywhere, but this little hotel at the edge of town actually provided more security than another place where Guardado might have a spy.
Valdes stopped the car beside the other two sedans and gave his face a last glance in the rearview. Thick black hair, slicked; mustache trimmed; dark eyes sharp. Valdes left the air-conditioned car for the hot outside. He nodded to the chauffeurs who did not move as he crossed to the entrance.
Valdes did not have security of his own. He had no reason to fear the other cartel leaders. They were forming an alliance. One that would be fully forged once Jackeline Guardado was out of the picture.
It wasn’t hard to find where the other cartel bosses were. Two bodyguards in dark suits stood outside a conference room off the lobby, and Valdes approached them. A quick pat down revealed the automatic holstered under Valdes’ left arm, and they let him keep that. It was asking too much for a man who traveled without security to give up his weapons.
Valdes entered the conference room. It was small, the carpet a dark brown and the walls covered in a light-colored wood paneling. The table was solid oak. Very rustic, bright and clean. One wall was actually three panes of glass that looked in on an office center—copy machines and computers, all unoccupied.
Two men sat at the table. Bottles of water had been placed nearby.
Valdes pulled out a chair and sat down. He regarded the other two faces curiously. Neither man was smiling. Their dark eyes regraded him with something less than friendliness.
“We’re glad you could make it, Mr. Valdes,” said the man immediately to his right.
Jorge Ramirez ran the northern branch of the Beltran-Leyva Cartel and had a 30-million-peso price on his head. His face looked like a rock, with chips and crevices, and his age wasn’t helping. He might have looked rugged and handsome in his younger days, but as gravity took over, he looked less and less like a pinup model and more like an old man.
“You sound like you weren’t sure I’d be here,” Valdes said.
“We weren’t,” said the other man.
Fausto Sanchez glared at Valdes while twisting the cap off a bottle of water. He passed it to Valdes.
“You look a little thirsty.”
Valdes took the bottle and a drink but his eyes never left Sanchez.
Sanchez was the top torpedo with the Plancarte Cartel, which not only covered another part of northern Mexico that Beltran-Leyva didn’t, but also parts of the U.S. It was a quick trip over the border into Arizona from Nogales; Sanchez’s men made many such trips.
“I don’t understand,” Valdes said. “I thought we were here to talk about our progress.”
“Lack of progress is more like it,” Ramirez said. “The cartels have decided that if action doesn’t take place soon, we will have to cancel the agreement.”
“There’s no reason for that, Jorge.”
“Then why is Jackeline Guardado still alive?”
“I’ve not quite consolidated my position,” Valdes said. “Many of the troops are loyal to Guardado, and they will be a threat.”
“You’re soft,” Sanchez said. “Never mind the loyal troops. What does that even mean? They’re loyal to whoever is in charge. When you’re in the chair, they follow your orders. If they don’t, somebody who does follow your orders can kill them.”
“It’s understandable,” Ramirez said, “that you cannot bring down the guillotine on a person you’ve worked with for so long.”
Valdes didn’t move his head. He kept his mouth closed.
Ramirez said, “But if it doesn’t happen soon, the deal is off. And we’ll be putting your head on the chopping block for wasting our time.”
Valdes switched his gaze back-and-forth to both men, and let out a breath.
“Are you giving me a time limit?”
“Do you need one?”
“I’m asking.”
“We’re telling you to do what you’ve been promising for months,” Ramirez said. “You should not require a deadline. But to humor you, you have, what? Five days? Five days should suffice.”
Ramirez looked at Sanchez for confirmation; Sanchez nodded.
Ramirez turned back to Valdes. “Five days,” he repeated.
Valdes drank another mouthful of water and placed the half-full bottle on the table. He left without good-bye, striding carefully outside to his car, grateful to get back in the vehicle. He started the engine and enjoyed the cool blast of the air conditioner. He glanced at the chauffeurs as he turned for the exit, but they remained stoically standing and waiting for their masters to return.
Valdes drove and tried to quiet his anger. They had no right to make demands when he’d come to them with the offer to form a Super Cartel, a drug trafficking triangle that could flood the U.S. and the world with cocaine and have more resources than any other cartel. They’d all be rich. Richer than they already were.
But Ramirez had been correct on one point.
It was tough to murder somebody who had helped you out of the gutter when alcohol and drugs would have turned you into a dead man.
That’s how Jackeline Guardado found Valdes not long after her husband had been assassinated by persons still
unknown. Valdes and Jesse Guardado had been friends since grade school, and Jackeline, in the name of her husband, took Manny into her organization. Gave him a job with authority, helped him regain his respect.
She may have done right by her husband then, but she wasn’t doing right by him now. Not in the way she was running the organization. U.S. and federale raids were crippling their distribution. They had to have a spy in the cartel, somebody informing on them, and Jackeline didn’t see the urgency in digging up the traitor.
She had to go.
Super Cartel. Valdes said the words out loud to himself. A Super Cartel that could bring the Mexican government to its knees and embarrass the United States.
In other words, he had a dream.
And he wasn’t going to let Jackeline Guardado destroy his dream.
Hands tight on the wheel, he headed outside the opposite end of town back toward the Guardado compound.
Five days.
He’d do it in three.
Chapter Four
San Diego, California
Devlin Stone steered the bright red Pontiac Solstice GXP around a tight corner and pressed the gas, then stomped the brakes to avoid crashing into a slow-moving minivan. He weaved around the van, the engine responding with a low grumble that made him smile. The wind skimmed over the windshield and brushed his crew-cut hair. He felt the heat of the sun on the top of his head, the short haircut exposing enough of his skull that he often risked a burn, but he had too much fun driving with the top down to care. He wore a custom-fitted blue Savile Row suit and aviator shades. Flash and dash. He appreciated the finer things.
He downshifted to get more grunt out of the turbo motor for the last straight stretch, his left hand resting on the wheel. The sun shined on his ring—the Eagle’s Head ring, the one taken from his father’s body after the cabin fire. He’d inherited the ring same as he’d inherited his father’s job in Z Section.
After that final burst of power, he slowed and turned the low-slung roadster into the gated entry of the steel-and-glass skyscraper of the Eagle Alliance, the name proudly perched atop the building and, to most people, was nothing more than another corporate office in a city full of them. Those with the inside story, however, knew what went on behind the closed doors.
The Eagle Alliance was founded back in 2001 by a trio of former Delta Force operators who aged out of special ops but weren’t ready to end the party. The PMC helped them get back into the action after 9/11 and the start of the War on Terror, and they worked their magic to secure multiple on-going U.S. government contracts that kept not only the regular forces of the Alliance busy, but specialized agents like Stone as well.
Stone flashed a wave at the young guard in the hut, who waved him through, and Stone powered into the underground garage where he swung into his reserved parking slot.
A short elevator ride brought him to the main lobby, bright sunlight blasting through the glass front. Two security guards sat behind a desk. They rose and said hello and Stone headed for the elevators.
Near the elevators stood the third guard, an older man, his blue blazer buttoned and ID badge pinned straight. He said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Stone,” as Stone pressed the call button.
“Mr. Reed, you should be sitting at the desk.”
The older man smiled. “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
Stone smiled. He liked it when an old-timer schooled young bucks like him. “Indeed.”
The elevator opened and Stone stepped in. The doors slid shut.
Stone rode up to the 20th floor. He left the elevator and his soft leather Oxfords pressed lightly on the beige carpet. He stopped at the receptionist’s desk and removed his shades. The young woman behind the desk smiled. She was Miss Griffiths—Caroline Griffiths—and while she was indeed young, she was the lion at the gate of Director Preston. “He’s waiting, Mr. Stone.”
He looked at her eyes, not the peek-a-boo neckline of her blouse.
“This is a lousy way to end a vacation.”
“I’ve already credited the remaining days to your vacation balance.”
“I’ll get my two-weeks-a-year if it kills me,” he said, and proceeded through the door behind her.
Brad Preston sat in front of a window overlooking San Diego Bay. It was the kind of view to daydream over. Stone often spotted jets landing at nearby San Diego International while Preston ran his mouth about whatever new assignment he was giving Stone.
Today, drapes covered the window.
“Sorry to interrupt your break, Devlin,” Preston said. “But I thought you’d want to be a part of this one.”
“If we can finally take down the Guardados,” Stone said as he sat in one of the chairs before Preston’s desk, “I won’t tell you to go to hell.”
“You’re mellowing,” Preston said. He smiled.
Brad Preston was pushing 70 with a jowly face and full head of white hair but he was like a second father to Stone.
Their first meeting was etched in Stone’s brain. Once the shock of losing his family finally began hitting home, Preston and his wife took Devlin into their home and helped him get back on his feet. It was after a six-year hitch in the Marines, part of which include a stint with the elite Force Recon units, that Stone approached Preston, now Director of the Eagle Alliance, and asked for a job. Preston did one better. He gave him his father’s old job, and his father’s ring, which had been recovered from the man’s body.
“I’m not going soft,” Stone said. “I’m simply hoping the red tape has finally been cut.”
“It has, and it hasn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“Not what you think.”
Preston rotated his desktop computer screen so Stone could see the monitor. He used the mouse to open a file folder and clicked the pictures contained within.
A slide show appeared on the screen, photos of a woman with Sofia Vergara looks and a pink AK-47. Fancy clothes, flashy cars; photos of her and her husband; two children on a bed rolling around in a pile of money. More pictures of the husband, this time lying dead in a street with his chest full of holes and blood seeping from his body. The woman again, alone, emerging from a church after his funeral, determined. Fire in her eyes.
Jackeline Guardado, cartel queen.
“You know her well,” Preston said to Stone. “I don’t have to go into her history. What would you say if I told you she’s had a change of heart, and instead of trafficking cocaine into the U.S., Jackeline Guardado has been informing not only on her organization, but rival ones, to the D.E.A.”
“I’d say bullshit. Those people never change.”
“The change happened after her husband was assassinated.”
“Is that her sob story?”
“More than that.” Preston opened a second slide show. Articles appeared on the screen, stories of massive drug busts and multiple arrests.
Stone frowned. “All from her tips?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re saying we couldn’t do anything to the cartel previously because Jackeline Guardado was working with the U.S. government?”
“Precisely.”
“Has she stopped?”
“No.”
“So why was I recalled from vacation?”
“Jackeline Guardado has come to the end of her usefulness.”
“The D.E.A. wants me to kill her?”
Preston shook his head.
“Bring her in?” Stone said.
Preston nodded.
Stone sat back in his chair, letting out a breath. “No way.”
“The situation in Nogales has changed,” Preston said. “The other cartels are building up their forces, we think, for a takeover of the Guardado network. Too many raids over too long a period of time may have exposed her more than we realize. We need to pull her and her two kids out of there, and fast.”
“How can we even consider letting somebody like her free? Into the witness protection program, I presume?”
&n
bsp; “That’s not our affair. We’ve been hired to extract her.”
“Doesn’t answer my question, Brad.”
“We aren’t hired to moralize. I understand how you feel, believe me, but at least you’ll get to shoot some of the sons of bitches in the process, right?”
“But not her.”
“No, not her.”
Stone pressed his lips together.
“She didn’t kill your family, Devlin.”
“I know that,” Stone said.
“Maybe someday—”
“Those people are dead by now. Forget it.”
“You haven’t.”
Stone nodded. “No, I haven’t.”
Preston turned off the monitor.
“What’s the plan?” Stone said.
“Fly to Nogales. We have a safehouse and local contacts there that will assist. I’ll have Mike Majors and his strike team standing by for your orders.”
Stone nodded. He rose from the chair and straightened his suit jacket. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Good luck.”
Stone winked and left the office. He returned to the garage and his car, where he sat for a few moments trying not to look at his reflection in the rearview mirror. He had a feeling he wouldn’t like what he saw.
What he felt was a weight on his shoulders. Yeah, he might not ever catch the people who destroyed his family, but he could keep other innocent people from experiencing the same tragedy. Unless the bad guys were working with the good guys; after that, the black-and-white turned a little gray. Stone thought he was used to those gray areas, but in such a personal case as this, his vision was a little more clouded than he wanted to admit.
Duty called.
He would do as ordered.
But God help the bastards who stepped into the path of his gun.
Stone returned to the beach house long enough to update Victoria.
They sat on the back deck, each with a bottle of beer, as Stone told the story. Victoria Hood was also an operator for Z Section; they shared the same security clearance, and it felt good to talk out some of his frustration.
Cartel Queen Page 4