by Tom Clancy
Romero consulted with one of his electricians, who was in the process of extending the power cables into the newer section of tunnel, even as two other men worked on hanging some air-conditioning ducts. His diggers had asked if they could set up a small shrine just in case of an accident—at least they’d have somewhere to pray—and Romero had allowed them to carve out a small side tunnel where they’d set up candles and photos of their families, and where the men did, in fact, come to pray before each shift. These were hard times, and they were engaged in hard work that could ultimately result in their arrests. Praying, Romero knew, gave them the strength to go on.
Romero slapped his hand on the electrician’s shoulder. “How are you today, Eduardo?”
“Very well, very well! The new lines will be finished this evening.”
“You are an expert.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you.”
Romero grinned and shifted farther into the tunnel, careful not to trip over the tracks. He fired up his flashlight and began to smell the cool, damp earth being removed by his men with only shovels, pickaxes, and all the power they could muster in their backs and shoulders.
He tried to deny the tunnel’s use, the millions of dollars’ worth of cash, drugs, and weapons that would move through thanks to him and his team, the lives that would be affected in both unbelievable and tragic ways. He told himself he was a man with a job, and that was all. His daughter needed him. But the guilt clawed away, stole hours from his sleep, and made him shudder at the thought of being arrested and sent to prison for the rest of his life.
“What will you do when this is over?” asked one of the diggers following him.
“Find more work.”
“With them?”
Romero tensed. “Honestly, I hope not.”
“Me, too.”
“God will protect us.”
“I know. He already has by making you our boss.”
“All right, enough of that,” Romero said with a grin. “Get up there and get back to work!”
Calexico–Mexicali Border Crossing
East Station—Northbound
When the main Calexico-Mexicali station got very crowded, and the delay was going to last more than one hour to pass through the checkpoint to enter the United States, seventeen-year-old American high school student Rueben Everson had been instructed to drive the six miles east of the main crossing in order to use the alternate port of entry, the one that handled the spillover during overcrowded times and was known mostly by the locals, not the tourists.
Rueben had been a “mule” for the Juárez Cartel for nearly a year. He had made more than twenty mule runs and had grossed more than $80,000 in cash—enough to pay for all four years of college at the state university. He had spent only about $1,500 of the money so far and had banked the rest. His parents had no idea what he was doing and were certainly unaware of his bank account. His sister Georgina, who’d just turned twenty, suspected something was going on, and she repeatedly warned him, but he just blew her off.
Rueben had first learned about becoming a mule from a friend at a party, who’d responded to an ad in a Mexican newspaper promising well-paying jobs with benefits. Rueben had met with a man named Pablo, who had “interviewed” him and given him about two thousand dollars’ worth of pot to carry on foot across the border. After that job had gone well, they’d supplied him with a Ford SUV whose dashboard and gas tank had been modified to hold huge stashes of cocaine and marijuana. The dash had a secret code you typed in via a remote, and the center console where the radio and A/C controls were located would pop open and rise on motors to allow access to a secret compartment that extended all the way to the firewall. Rueben couldn’t believe how sophisticated the operation was, and because of that, he’d built up the courage to take on larger shipments. The car’s gas tank had been cut in half so that the side facing the car could carry blocks of drugs while the bottom masked the scent of the drugs with gasoline. The tank had then been sprayed with mud to disguise it from the border agents, who used mirrors to check for recent work to the underside of any car. Twice Rueben had been pulled off the line, his car inspected, but during both times he had not been carrying any drugs. That was part of the operation as well—establish a frequent traffic pattern that some agents became familiar with, and a solid alibi, like a job in Mexico while you lived in California. The cartel had covered that part for him, and many of the Border Patrol agents remembered him and his car, so more often than not, he glided on through, just another high school kid who’d found some part-time work in Mexicali.
But today was different. They’d pulled him off the line, and he drove to the secondary inspection area. There he saw a tall, lean Hispanic man who looked like a movie star and whose eyes would not leave him. Rueben parked the car and stepped out to speak with one of the Border Patrol agents, who checked his license and said, “Rueben, this is Mr. Ansara with the FBI. He’d like to talk to you for a few minutes while we check out your car. No worries right now, okay?”
Rueben did as always: He pictured happy thoughts with his girlfriend, eating out, kissing her, buying clothes with the extra money he made. He relaxed. “Sure, man, no problem.”
Ansara narrowed his gaze and simply said, “Follow me.”
They went into the crowded station, where at least fifteen people in dusty clothes sat in chairs, their expressions long. Rueben immediately concluded that they’d all been trying to sneak through the checkpoint and had probably been caught at the same time. Perhaps they’d been hiding within a tractor-trailer’s load or other such large shipment. A mother and two small girls were sitting there, and the woman was sobbing. Six or seven Border Patrol personnel manned positions behind a long counter, and one agent was trying to explain to an old man that anyone carrying as much cash as he had needed to be searched and detained, the money declared.
Rueben steeled himself against the scene and hurried after Ansara down a long, sterile-looking hall. Rueben had never been inside the facility, and his pulse began to mount as Ansara opened the door to what was a small interrogation room where another young man about Rueben’s age sat at the table, brooding. He was a white kid with brown hair and freckles. His arms were covered in tattoos, and he wore a skull earring made of gold.
Ansara closed the door. “Have a seat.”
Rueben complied, and the other kid just kept staring through the table.
“Rueben, this is Billy.”
“What’s up?” Rueben asked.
“Dude, you have no fucking idea,” the kid groaned, still not bothering to look up.
Rueben looked his question at Ansara. “What’s going on? Am I in trouble or something? What did I do?”
“I’ll cut to the chase. They recruit you kids out of the high schools, so we always start there. A couple of your friends tipped us off because they’re afraid for you. I also made a promise to your sister—but don’t worry …she won’t tell your parents. Now, I brought Billy down here to show you something. Show him, Billy.”
The kid suddenly shoved his chair back and propped both of his bare feet up on the table.
He had no toes.
Every one of them had been hacked off, the scars still fresh and pink, and so ugly that Rueben tasted bile in the back of his throat.
“I lost a load worth fifty thousand. I’m only seventeen, so they worked it out so I only got probation. Doesn’t matter, though. They came across the border for me. Caught me one day after class. Threw me in a van. Look what those fuckers did to me.”
“Who?”
“Your buddy Pablo, and his boss, Corrales. They chopped off my toes—and they’ll do it to you, too, the moment you fuck up. Get out now, bro. Get out right fucking now.”
A knock came at the door. Ansara answered and stepped outside to speak to an agent.
“They really did that to you?”
“What do you think? Fuck, dude, you think I’ll ever get laid again? You think any woman is going to be attracted to a guy wit
h these fucking feet?” He threw back his head and started crying, and then he began screaming, “Ansara! I want out! Get me the fuck out of here! I’m done!”
The door opened, and Ansara appeared, waving Billy outside. The kid rose and hobbled to the door, carrying a pair of odd-looking boots under his arm.
The door closed again.
And Rueben sat there alone for five, ten, fifteen minutes, his imagination running wild. He saw himself in prison, being trapped in the shower by fourteen potbellied gang members who wanted him as their little bitch—all because he wanted to go to college and make some extra money. He wasn’t a rocket scientist. The scholarships wouldn’t help very much. He needed the cash.
Abruptly, Ansara returned and said, “Your car has a very unique dashboard and gas tank.”
“Fuck,” Rueben said and gasped.
“You think because you’re not eighteen you’ll just get released or put on probation?”
Rueben couldn’t help it. He began to cry.
“Listen to me, kid. We know the cartel’s spotters are out there, watching all of this. We made it look like we didn’t find anything. You’ll finish your run today. You’ll deliver the drugs. But now you work for me. And we have a lot to discuss …”
BACKSEAT DRIVER
Bonita Real Hotel
Juárez, Mexico
THE ONLY WAY Moore could stop thinking about Rana’s murder was to focus on the moment, on the two men who had been following him. They were now parked across the street from the hotel. They must be bored out of their minds, he thought. They’d been sitting there for two hours, just playing with their cell phones and watching the front door and parking lot. While some aspects of the cartel were highly sophisticated, others, like human surveillance, were crude and rudimentary. A few times they even got out of their Corolla (with a front quarter-panel that was red, although the rest of the car was white) and leaned on the trunk, smoking cigarettes and repeatedly looking in the hotel’s direction. These young studs were geniuses, all right, and Moore could see why they’d been given the flunky job of tailing him. Any sicario worth his salt would never entrust money, guns, or drugs to a couple of stooges like this. When he’d returned, Moore had observed two spotters on the hotel’s roof, both dressed like construction workers, but they were security to alert Corrales and his cronies of any attacks on the hotel itself. Whether they were in contact with his tail Moore wasn’t sure.
Moore had photographed the two punks by the car several times already and sent the pics back home, where analysts identified them and searched Mexican police files for more data. Both men had records, mostly petty stuff—burglary and drug possession—thus neither of them had done any serious time. They were marked in their police files as “suspected cartel members.” Somewhere out there was a Mexican police detective with a keen eye for the obvious.
Moore sent a text message to Fitzpatrick, who replied and said they were not members of the Sinaloa Cartel and most assuredly worked for Corrales.
That was a disappointment, and a problem, because he was trying to goad the Sinaloas into a meeting via his real estate inquiry, but Fitzpatrick said neither he nor Luis Torres had been given orders to pick up the American at the hotel.
Moore pondered that before answering a call from Gloria Vega.
“I’ll make this fast,” she said. “We engaged some cartel members. Fitzpatrick confirmed they were Zúñiga’s boys. Three Juárez guys killed. The police are scared, and Gómez is in deep. He might be the key player and best link to the cartel. He’s carrying two phones, and the read I get from the others at the station is that he’s a god there. I think the best I can do is gather enough evidence on him, then flip him and see how many more he’ll hand us. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no way around it. We’ll have to cut a deal with him.”
“Don’t feel bad about that.”
“I don’t. I just feel bad because he won’t hand us everyone, and this just slows them down. That’s all.”
“Whatever we can do, we do it. Without exception.”
“Yeah, I get that. Or at least I’m trying to.”
Her cynicism was understandable but taxing, so he changed the subject. “Hey, you hear about that big bust in Puerto Rico?”
“Yeah, another huge score for the Bureau.”
“Our time will come, trust me. Just hang tight.”
“That’s not easy. Gómez is a male chauvinist pig. My tongue’s already sore from biting it.”
Moore softened his tone. “Well, if anybody can get it done, you can.”
She snorted. “How the hell do you know?”
“Trust me, pretty lady, your reputation precedes you.”
“Okay, talk soon.” She hung up.
Their call was, of course, encrypted and would not show up on her phone, the bill, or anywhere else, for that matter. If the Agency wanted a communication record to go away, it went away. Period.
Moore got an alert from Towers about a shooting at the Monarch strip club, where their bestest buddy Dante Corrales liked to hang out. Local police had arrived. No one injured, just shots fired, and the gunmen had fled. He mused that in the city of Juárez the TV stations needed to start reporting on the day’s shootings, as though they were temperature and humidity levels.
After checking the window once more to see that his two super-thugs were still down there, Moore slipped on a baggy hoodie to conceal his Glock and shoulder holster, then left his room. He figured he’d drive across town to the V Bar. Fitzpatrick had said that the Sinaloa sicarios often hung out there.
As Moore drove into the parking lot, his thoughts took him back to Rana and the cheesy Batman joke. He’d introduced Rana to the Special Forces guys as his sidekick, “Robin,” and the kid’s frown warranted an explanation, but Moore had forgotten all about that.
As he stiffened and tightened his fists, imagining his young friend’s murder all over again, he wasn’t aware of the man behind him until he felt something blunt and solid—the barrel of a pistol, presumably—jammed into the back of his head.
“Easy,” said the man in English, his voice deep and burred, as though from a lifetime of tobacco use. “Raise your arms.”
Moore rarely disconnected from his immediate surroundings; such a lapse could wash him out of the Special Activities Division, possibly the Agency itself. But losing Rana was like losing a kid brother, and giving in to his frustration and anger had—just that quickly—derailed his focus.
The man checked Moore’s hips, then reached up and almost immediately felt the shoulder holster. He tugged down the hoodie’s zipper, threw back the Velcro strap on the holster, and removed Moore’s Glock.
“Now get in and start it.”
Moore gritted his teeth, cursing himself for the error and feeling his pulse rise against the unknown. He wasn’t sure what the guy had done with his gun, but he could still feel the other one on his head. Too close. Too risky to make a move. He could knock one gun away only to find the other pointed at his chest. Boom. Shot with his own Glock. “You’re the boss,” he said. He slowly climbed into the car, and the man quickly wrenched open the back door and hopped into the seat behind him, pressing the gun once more to the back of Moore’s head.
“Do you want the car?” Moore asked. “My money?”
“No ese. Just do what I say.”
Moore pulled out of the parking lot, and in the rearview mirror he spotted the two guys in the Corolla hopping in their heap to follow.
He also caught a glimpse of the man in the backseat, his beard graying, his curly hair gone to ash. He wore a blue sweatshirt and jeans, and had a gold hoop earring in his left ear. His eyes remained narrow in a permanent squint. He was a far cry from the punks in the car behind them, and his English was surprisingly good. Those fools were already tailing them, though Moore wasn’t sure if they could see he was being abducted, and he wasn’t sure if his abductor was aware of them yet, either.
He drove on for another minute, made a right turn as ord
ered, then said, “There’s a car behind us, the Toyota with the red panel. Two men following. Are they with you?”
The man in the backseat whirled, saw the car, and cursed in Spanish.
“What do we do now?” Moore asked.
“Keep driving.”
“I guess they’re not your friends?”
“Shut up!”
“Look, if you don’t want the car or my money, then what’s the deal here?”
“The deal is you drive.”
Moore’s cell phone began to ring. Shit. It was tucked into his front pocket, and the guy had failed to find it.
“Don’t even think about it,” warned the man.
The ringtone indicated that Fitzpatrick had sent him a text message, and if that message had anything to do with Moore’s passenger, then Fitzpatrick was a day late and a dollar short with his warning.
“Throw that fucking phone out the window.”
Moore reached down into his pocket, set the phone on vibrate by holding down the side button, then threw the phone’s leather slipcase out of the window before the guy could get a good look at it.
“Where are we going?” he asked, sliding the phone back into his pocket.
“No more questions.”
Moore checked the mirror once more, while his abductor stole a look back at the punks following them.
The car tailing them began to accelerate, and the gap narrowed to within two car lengths. The man in the backseat grew more agitated—shifting forward and tossing repeated looks out the rear window. He was panting now, his pistol still trained on Moore’s neck. He’d tucked Moore’s Glock into his waistband. Moore slowed as the light ahead turned red. He glanced around: Wendy’s, Denny’s, McDonald’s, Popeyes, and Starbucks. All five of the food groups. For a moment, he thought he was back in San Diego, with the smog and stench of gasoline and exhaust fumes finding their way inside the air-conditioned car. Bad part of town. Bad guy in the backseat. Just another day on the farm.