Danger Beyond Intrigue: Volume One
Page 42
“I don’t need to lose another child,” Manny said
“You won’t, but leave it to me. I’ll take care of her.”
“Dear God, please Elena, stay out of it.”
“If this cupcake thinks she can murder my brother and get away with it, she’s mistaken.” She said, with a reddening face.
“What’s the plan?” Elmo asked, his arms at his side.
“Armondo, call Detective Mimo Cruz and ask him to pay us a visit here at the ranch,” Manny ordered. “He owes us a few favors.”
“Send the plane for him,” Elena directed.
“Can you trust Cruz?” Elmo asked.
“No, but after he gives us the information, bury him,” Elena ordered.
“Armondo you take care of that,” Elmo directed.
“Anything else?” Armondo asked.
“Start making the funeral arrangements for Nick and start calling the volunteers,” Elmo ordered.
“Mother of God. Dear Jesus,” Manny said making the sign of the cross. “This is going to be bloody.”
“Manny, do you want a sedative?” Dr. Canales asked.
“Yes, tequila.” He said, with an unnatural stillness.
“Anything else?” Armondo questioned, guardedly.
“Conduct an inventory of all our weapons. We need to be prepared,” Elmo ordered.
“Let’s get the word out. This is war. I want at least one hundred men to start.”
“That’s your job Mondo,” Elmo directed.
“We need to find Sasha immediately and her contacts, and start systematically dismantling her organization,” Elena suggested, looking at Elmo.
“Anything else?” Armondo asked.
“Stay here and answer the phone,” Elena replied.
“Armondo, one more thing. Did you say you administered CPR to Nick?” Dr. Canales questioned.
“Yes,” he lied.
“And he was foaming at the mouth?”
“Yes,” he lied again.
“Just so everyone knows, victims of puffer fish poisoning don’t foam at the mouth,” he informed the group, as all eyes were intensely staring at Armondo as he stood nervously staring back, sweating and rocking in place.
“I guess I was just so nervous. I tried to save him. I thought he was foaming at the mouth,” Armondo lied, as Manny stood in silent contemplation, staring at him skeptically, pondering how and when to kill him.
“What’s our next step Elena? Where we going?” Elmo asked.
“L.A.”
About the Author
A former Marine, H.L. Valdez is a freelance writer with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, a Master of Science degree in Counseling, a Community College teaching credential in Psychology. He is a certified Substance Abuse Counselor, a Master Resiliency Trainer, and Emergency Trauma Specialist. He is a former Federal Investigator with the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Labor and Regional Crisis Response Manager for the Department of Defense in Asia, where he has lived for twenty-five years. He has organized and trained Combat Operational Stress Control Teams for the Department of Defense and Marine Corps.
MAIN CHARACTERS
Sasha Nakamura: Director of Field Operations for Yakuza, being promoted to Kobun, one step below boss.
Gina Leung: Triad leader and business partner based in Hong Kong, she holds the rank of Sing Fung, Chief of Recruiting, which is two levels below Shan Chu.
Detective Marco Madrid: Leader of the Crisis Resolution Team, from the New York City Police Department.
Detective Butch Moriguchi: Narcotics Detective with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
Justin Fortune: Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy pilot, Aeronautical Engineer and cross-licensed for helicopters.
Primo Pascal: Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps, Intelligence Officer specializing in Asian Affairs, weapons and explosives.
Dr. Rita Rios: Army Captain, Emergency Medical Room Physician; and pistol shooting champion.
Velvet Valentine: U.S. Federal Marshall, based in Washington, D.C., assigned to the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on narcotics and international operations.
Tony Endo: Yakuza leader and Chairman of the Supreme Council.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Fly: Australian Aboriginal tracker assigned to LT Pascal. Bone: Australian Aboriginal tracker assigned to LT Pascal
Admiral Starr: Fleet Admiral aboard a U.S. Aircraft Carrier in the South China Sea, responsible for weapons and logistical assistance.
Danny Delight: Member of the National Security Council and point-of-contact for the Crisis Response Team.
Dr. Karl Messner: Major in the Army Medical Corps, former lover and co-smuggler of drugs with Dr. Rita Rios.
LT. COL Richard Rose: Friend of Dr. Messner, and whose idea it was to steal heroin shipments from Ana Leung and Sasha Nakamura in Northern Laos.
LT. COL Cropp: Commanding Officer of a U.S. Army long-range reconnaissance outpost on the Northern borders between Laos and Cambodia.
Miko Ito: Homicide Detective with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
Detective Tsutomu Ota: Tokyo Police Department, and assistant to Detective Moriguchi.
Akiko Moriguchi: Wife of Detective Moriguchi.
Michelle: Wife of LT. Primo Pascal
Mike Madrid: New York City Police Detective
Captain Wikens: Leader of the Gurkha Military Police Force in Hong Kong.
Superintendent Ito: In charge of Tokyo Police Metropolitan Police Department.
Montezuma “Manny” Nogales: Father of Nick and Elena, and leader of the Nogales family drug empire who controls thousands of acres of poppy, coca, and sinsemilla farms in Sonora, Mexico.
Elmo Robles: Personal hit man for Mr. Nogales.
Elena Nogales: Sister of Nick, and is an accountant and coordinates communications for the family business.
Nick Nogales: Money laundering expert for the Nogales crime family.
Armondo “Mondo” Monterey: Trusted enforcer and lieutenant for Nick Nogales.
Dr. Fortino Canales: General Surgeon employed by Mr. Nogales.
Miki Kono: Pilot for Japanese Yakuza
Larry Liang: Hong Kong Chief of Police
Hyde Yamano: Yakuza leader in Los Angeles, California
Goon Girls: Prostitute lovers to DeLaGarza’s army.
Terry Ming: Hong Kong Chinese heroin smuggler.
Colonel Tran Ng: Member of the elite Viet Cong “C-10 Sapper Battalion.
Mimo Cruz: Narcotics Chief for the Mexican Federal Judicial Police and on the payroll of Mr. Nogales.
Other Publications by H.L. Valdez
Instant Insights
This self-help book explores the emotional knots men have in relationships. This mobile wisdom guide helps men with mental fitness and developing the techniques for managing and enhancing the romantic value of their relationship.
Recipes for Personal Growth
Practicing resiliency skills increases tolerance to stress and builds mental strength. Being aware of your emotions is called emotional intelligence. This booklet is designed as a quick reference providing immediate answers and guidance to everyday problems. This guidebook discusses how to maintain emotional mental health, manage stressful situations and identify tension-breeding factors, all of which are key elements in maintaining a healthy and well-balanced life style.
Conflict Resolution Fundamentals
Conflict Resolution Fundamentals is a workbook filled with solution focus activities to manage your daily life. This primer applies real life solutions for successful living by promoting self-reliance, emotional stability and inner growth. This approach will strengthen mental toughness, and develop psychological hardening skills by clarifying thoughts, feelings and reactions while achieving a balance in identifying and resolving personal and social conflicts. The aims are to challenge irrational beliefs, increase optimism, mental agility, self-awareness, self-improvement, and self-regulate behavioral responses.
A
ffirmations for Life
A CD with a series of spiritual affirmations set to music to help people cope with and relieve stress. Perfect for Yoga, meditation and relaxing.
America’s Sons and Daughters
Centers on combat veteran’s returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan war with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Published in The International Journal of Emergency Mental Health.
Book Review
Danger Beyond Intrigue is an extraordinarily well-written, meticulously detailed, gloriously descriptive and intriguing story of international drug trafficking. Drug warlords and their most trusted cadre who are pursued by a Crisis Response Team aimed at their destruction. Set amidst the Vietnam War in the 1960’s, Valdez takes us into the Asian drug market from the tribal villages of Southeast Asia to Yakuza leaders and the streets of Tokyo. The strength of the book and a reflection on the author’s own personal life and professional experience as a drug abuse counselor and trauma specialist, are the way he describes the personalities of and interpersonal relations among the many characters in the book. Their human emotions are displayed from the erotica to sorrow; passionate lovemaking to extreme violence unlike any book I have ever read and that no book could match. The story is closer to reality than fiction.
Robert Stuart Yoder, Ph.D., Lakeland College, Japan Branch, Tokyo.
Danger Beyond Intrigue is a fresh, highly detailed look into the global drug scene…gutty, earthy, historical. It’s researched detail lifts it far above the usual police department drug busts, sleazy dealers, and flea-bit junkies writhing in back alleys. The book is related to a central international urgency: the problem of narcotics supply and demand, its control, and elimination, if possible. The book is an epic, massive story with a sprawling canvas, and has a sweep I liken to Alex Haley’s “Roots.”
Mr. Sam Roeca, Screen Writers Guild, Hollywood, California.
The characters and some scenarios are fictitious but historical events and drug trafficking accounts are based on true historical facts. Many accounts are taken from press reports, interviews with Vietnam Veteran’s, case files and personal accounts as a Federal Investigator and Emergency Response Trauma Specialist.
If you enjoyed this book, I would be very grateful if you gave me a review.
In fond memory
To Mr. Robert Lamb, Jr., former Regional Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Community Relations Service, Region X and former Captain of the Atlantic City Police Department: My mentor and guide.