DeSantos shoved his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Very convenient.”
“You know about Cleveland National Forest, I assume.”
“Don’t assume anything.”
Thomson rose from his chair and stepped over to a dog-eared topographical map of the region. He circled an area with his index finger. “They grow marijuana right here, in the middle of the forest. We’re not talking a few small plants. One of your colleagues told me DEA seized a million plants last year alone. Just in California. Street value, if I remember right, was something like $5 million.”
Thomson sat down heavily in his chair. “Cortez’s people typically cut down trees and use toxic chemicals, pesticides, and fertilizers that pollute the watershed, dig ditches, and set up irrigation pipes and dams to divert water from streams and rivers. And the bastards are heavily armed, so you’d better not be backpacking near their farm. Lucky for us, that terrain up there is mountainous and rocky, so they’re limited in where and how much they can grow. Problem is that they truck the marijuana here, where they process it, package it, and ship it out all over the country.”
“Another good reason to have the stash houses in Clover Creek.”
“What’s that saying? Location, location, location.”
They shared a chuckle.
“Do you know which houses on the reservation the cartel uses?”
Thomson’s smile disappeared like water droplets in the high desert sun. “The houses, they change constantly. And the drugs are rarely there more than a few hours. We try to keep a watch over areas we know have been used in the past, but looking at the past isn’t usually helpful in predicting where they’re going to store them in the future.”
“Kind of like the stock market,” DeSantos said. “Past results aren’t a guarantee of future returns.”
Thomson looked at him a moment, a blank stare indicating he was not familiar with the reference, then said, “Because we’re understaffed, it makes our job harder if not impossible. We pay some informants, but they have to be very careful. Some have been killed. And we can’t pay them enough, not compared to the cash Cortez throws around. A year ago, someone I grew up with told me he saw suspicious activity around a particular house. Next day, I found him nailed to the front door of that house. His heart was cut out and shoved into his mouth.”
“Sorry to hear about your friend,” DeSantos said. “Cortez is among the most ruthless, I know that. Obviously we’re trying to prevent that from happening to our officer.”
“We do have successes. I don’t want you to think we’re totally at the mercy of the cartel. But if you’re with DEA, you probably know all about the seizures we’ve made.”
DeSantos knew nothing of the sort. Despite the crash course they’d been given, he felt more unprepared for this assignment than any he’d previously taken on—which, at this point, spanned several continents and numbered . . . quite a few. “You know who Arturo Figueroa is?”
“Of course. Why, is he involved?”
“We have reason to believe he is. You aware of any pending activity—tonight, in fact?”
Thomson stood up straight. “Do you have any information—”
“Yes and no. Possibly tonight, but we don’t know where.”
“That’s always the question. Not when, or if, but where. Whenever I hear something, I increase patrols out in those parts. But it’s like a needle in a haystack.”
“Is there a general area they like to use?”
“Sure, I can tell you which sector. But—”
“Even if it comprises a hundred houses, that still might help.” Thomson lifted his eyebrows in a “hey, it’s your call” expression, then pushed off the worn arms of his creaky metal chair and limped forward, carrying his overweight torso to the far wall, where an earth-toned map hung. Thomson stabbed a weathered finger at a particular location, then drew a circle. “Twenty square miles. Like I said, not much help.”
“You have the GPS coordinates?”
Thomson drew his head back. “I can get ’em, sure.”
“Get them.” DeSantos pulled his phone, stepped into the hallway, and started dialing.
TURINO AND HIS TEAM had moved their vehicles two blocks away and had extinguished the house’s interior lights while they completed their work. The marijuana plants they had expected to find in the garage were photographed while the smuggled Mexicans were transported to the staging area. Most of the officers and agents had left, except for a strategically placed surveillance team.
Vail, sitting curbside down the block from the drop house, tried reaching DeSantos, but his phone went to voice mail. She sent a text to the task force informing them of their close call, as well as their assumption that Robby had been snatched by a rival cartel.
She had questions about the “intercartel conflicts” Turino had mentioned, but she wanted to give him room to do his job as quickly as possible. If what he said was accurate, they didn’t want to still be there when any Cortez cartel members arrived.
ONE OF THE PHONE CALLS DeSantos made was to “Benny,” his OPSIG tech guru at the Pentagon. DeSantos provided the GPS coordinates he needed to monitor and asked him to angle one of their satellites over that area. When Benny asked what they were looking for, DeSantos’s response brought a brief silence to the line.
“That’s like a needle in a haystack, Hector. You realize that.”
“So I’ve been told. Just get that satellite over those coordinates and I’ll know what I’m looking for when I see it. That’s what I’m good at, remember?”
“I’ve only got one in position.”
“There are nine thousand satellites in orbit and we’ve only got one over that area?”
“Do I really have to answer that, Hector? I’ll have a better angle in about nineteen minutes, if you can wait.”
“I can’t. Give me what you’ve got.”
“Already done. Log in and let me know if it’s to your liking.”
“Thanks, man. See you when I get back.”
DeSantos walked back into Thomson’s office. “I need a PC with broadband. Tell me you’ve got one.”
Thomson led the way into their communications room, a six-square-foot space crammed with a two-way radio console, a shortwave set, two computers, monitors, and a variety of electronic equipment that spanned decades. He motioned to the far left PC. “It’s yours.”
DeSantos texted Mann and Dixon and told them to sit tight, that he hoped to have some info in a matter of minutes. He then opened Internet Explorer, applied the InPrivate Browsing and filtering modes, and navigated to the assigned, covert website. He entered his login information and a moment later was viewing a real-time feed of the reservation land in question. Using onscreen controls, he made a minor adjustment to the zoom, then began scanning in a gridlike pattern.
Ten minutes later, DeSantos leaned forward in his seat. “There.” He yelled through the open door, “Chief, come look at this!”
Thomson came running down the hall. “Found something?”
DeSantos pointed at the monitor. “Where is this?” Onscreen, despite an oddly sharp angle, they saw a light duty flat nose truck backed up to what looked like a double wide mobile home, and five men loading what appeared to be rectangular plastic-wrapped bricks into the vehicle. A smaller SUV-size vehicle sat beside it.
Thomson leaned both hands on DeSantos’s seatback and squinted at the monitor. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Cocaine, yes. And a big freaking load at that. Where is this?”
Thomson pushed away from the back of DeSantos’s chair. “I’ll take you there. Too hard to describe if you don’t know the terrain. And I want this bust, Mr. DeSantos. They’re not getting away on my watch.”
THEY RAN OUTSIDE. DeSantos jumped into the task force SUV and Thomson into a battered Ford pickup with Tribal Police black-and-white decals. DeSantos told Mann, who was behind the wheel, to follow Thomson’s vehicle, then briefed them all on what he had seen.
“So this is a handoff of coke,” Mann said.
The vehicle swung left and they all leaned right. Dixon grabbed the handrail above the door. “So there are drugs. That’s great. Any connection to Robby?”
“If Figueroa and several other cartel members are on-site, maybe we can grab one or more and sweat ’em. See what we get.”
“But,” Mann added, “you said these cartels are like terrorist groups; they operate in cells, where one group doesn’t know what the other’s doing. So sweating one or more of these guys may not get us anywhere.”
“Figueroa’s the real prize. He’s responsible for some of the cartel’s drug distribution agreements. He’s the one we really need to grab because he’s gonna know more than most.”
Mann slammed on the brakes and the SUV slid to a stop on the pot-holed, gravel-strewn road. Ahead, barely caught in the reaches of the headlights, were a group of animals crossing the street.
DeSantos leaned forward in his seat. “Dogs?”
“Wild dogs,” Mann said as his gaze followed them into the darkness.
“Common on reservations.” He waited for the last dog to pass, then accelerated to catch up with Thomson.
“Did you get Karen’s text?” Dixon asked DeSantos. “She and Turino missed Robby by minutes.”
DeSantos checked his phone, trying to navigate the joystick despite the car’s rocking and lurching jerks. “What the f—” he muttered beneath his breath. “So Cortez no longer has him.”
“Probably not,” Mann said.
DeSantos bit his lower lip, then dropped his head back onto the seat cushion.
Ten minutes later, Thomson tapped his brakes and cut his headlights. Mann reached for his controls and likewise went dark. “I think we’re getting close.”
Everyone sat up tall in their seats and instinctively pulled their pistols.
AFTER LEAVING THE REMAINING two DEA agents on-site to monitor the drop house, Turino and Vail climbed into their SUV and headed back to the DEA field division office.
“You mentioned intercartel conflicts,” Vail said. “What were you talking about?”
“There are a lot of turf battles, power struggles between the cartels. You’ve got traffickers snatching up members of rival cartels and demanding ransom or using hit men to kill enemy lieutenants to settle debts. Messages are being sent—violent ones. Lots of collateral damage to civilians and uninvolved parties. It only used to happen in Mexico, but now it’s going on in the U.S.”
“How does this tie in to Robby?”
“I think I know what happened back there,” Turino said as he navigated a turn.
Vail looked around. She did not recognize the area. “And that was?”
“Cortez is a brazen SOB. He’s gotten where he’s gotten by being excessively violent and aggressive. He’s killed a lot of his competitors. Those who are left are tough in their own right, and either they’ve agreed to leave each other’s turf alone, or for some other reason he’s let them be. But there’s an unspoken rule—since the Kiki Camarena murder, the cartels don’t kill federal agents.”
Vail was familiar with the Enrique Camarena incident—all federal agents were. Her memory didn’t need refreshing by the field division’s wall of remembrance. Back in 1985, a decorated DEA undercover, “Kiki” Camarena, had successfully infiltrated and brought down a number of drug trafficking organizations. But when his cover was blown, he was tortured and then bludgeoned to death. A physician who worked for the cartel repeatedly prolonged his life so the torture could continue. In response, the DEA effectively closed down the border and halted all drug shipments. The cartels realized the price they paid by murdering a federal agent was far too great. They weren’t going to make that mistake again.
“So let’s say for a minute,” Vail said, “that Cortez has decided he lives and dies by his own rules and he has intentions of killing Robby after he extracts information from him. Maybe he’s gotten wind of Velocity and he wants to know when it’s going to go down. And maybe he thinks Robby knows that answer.”
Turino considered that, then slowly nodded. “Cortez has a big ego—they all do—but his is particularly large.”
“I’ve had some experience with narcissists,” Vail said. “They think they make their own rules, that the laws of the land don’t apply to them. Or it could be his way of saying to everyone else, ‘I’ve got a big set of balls, and I’m going to prove it to you.’ If that’s what we’re dealing with here, it’s very possible Cortez gave orders to kill Robby.
“Another problem is that they probably discovered Robby’s a state detective. Even though he was given task force officer status, they may not know, or even understand, what that means. Bottom line is, they probably don’t consider him a federal agent. So in their mind, killing him—”
“Would have no consequences.” Turino turned and a Montgomery Field placard whipped past them. He slowed and brought the SUV to a stop at a light. “If the rival cartel knows he’s a TFO, they’re well aware of the heat it’ll bring if they let Cortez kill Hernandez. They’re not willing to give up their business because of Cortez’s reckless behavior. So they find out where Hernandez is being held and snatch him up.”
“So what is this rival cartel?” Vail asked as her BlackBerry began ringing.
“I can probably narrow it down to a precious few,” Turino said. “Soon as we get back to the office, I’ll show you what we’ve got.”
75
The stars popped above like white dust blown skyward. Regardless, DeSantos wished he had night vision goggles. In the darkness of this rural land, their SUV running with its lights off, he couldn’t see much of anything.
But like a rat sensing a predator, their target picked up their approach. And that’s when it all went to hell.
The traffickers ran for the truck cab, then revved the engine. Another got into the adjacent Land Rover and peeled away in a cloud of loose dirt.
Thomson made a neat maneuver with his pickup—cutting off the truck and pinning it against a cinderblock fire wall. Two other cruisers appeared—Thomson must have radioed them while en route—and surrounded the vehicle.
“Go for that Land Rover,” DeSantos yelled, pointing at the windshield, as if Mann did not see the fleeing vehicle.
As DeSantos spoke, another police vehicle was approaching, its lightbar flashing and its siren blaring. Mann stole a look in his sideview mirror. “I think they’ve got the situation back there under control.”
“That’ll make the police chief happy,” Dixon said, watching the scene unfold through the rear window. “Snagging all those drugs, gotta be a feather in his cap, for sure.”
“That wasn’t a joke,” Mann said, “was it?”
The Land Rover’s brake lights tapped once, then it hung a sharp left. A fog of dense haze kicked up behind it.
DeSantos leaned forward, squinting through the windshield. “Did he just go off road?”
“Hell yeah,” Mann said. “Smart move. He’s got a four-wheeler, we got shit.”
“We gonna lose him?” Dixon asked.
“Very possible,” Mann said as he accelerated and remained on the paved road as long as he could.
DeSantos pulled his phone, hit a key, and waited as it dialed. Vail answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Passing Montgomery Field, about a half mile from the division office. Why?”
“Pull into the airport,” DeSantos said. He waited while Vail issued the instructions to Turino.
“On our way in,” Vail said. “What’s going on?”
“Put me on speaker.”
Vail pressed the button on her BlackBerry and said, “Go ahead.”
“Turino, does DEA have access to choppers?”
“Of course.”
“Get the largest, fastest motherfucker and fly it out to Clover Creek. How soon can you be here?”
“For what?”
“We just intercepted a handoff—kilos of coke. One of the Cortez lieutenants—I’
m guessing it’s Arturo Figueroa—”
“No shit?” Turino said. “Figueroa?”
“He’s in a four-wheeler and we can’t off-road. He’s a smart shit. If we can corral him, we might be able to sweat him, get info on Hernandez.”
“Division has a Super Huey on loan from the Marines, tops out at 185. Best we can do. We can be there in . . . I don’t know, about ten to twelve minutes if I push her.”
“Push her. Before we lose this guy.” DeSantos peered into the darkness, where the dust cloud from Figueroa’s four-wheel drive continued to impair his view.
“Coming up on the hangar,” Turino said. “But I’m gonna need to get permission—”
“No,” Vail said, “You won’t.” She apparently took the phone off speaker, because her tinny voice was instantly clearer. “See you guys in a few minutes.”
TURINO WATCHED as Vail grabbed Robby’s leather jacket and got out of the SUV.
“Really,” he said, following her. “I need permission. I can’t just fly off with a $10 million aircraft.”
Vail headed for the Huey, which sat atop a wheeled dolly outside the hangar. “We’ll call from the air. But we can’t let this guy get away. If he knows something about Robby—”
“It’s not likely, Karen.”
She spun and faced him. “Hell with ‘not likely.’ You’ve been reluctant to take action since you took over the task force, and it’s really beginning to piss me off.” Vail pulled her Glock but kept it angled at the floor. “Now get in that goddamn helicopter or I’ll fly it there myself.”
Turino squinted at her, cursed loudly, then trudged ahead toward the Super Huey that sat outside the hangar in quiet repose, on its mark. He climbed inside, got the engines spooled up and the rotor system online, then slipped on the headset. He radioed the tower and requested takeoff clearance for an “emergency departure”—terminology used to signify a life-threatening or urgent tactical situation requiring quick takeoff and traffic priority. With the Huey vibrating and the rotors thrumping, he turned to Vail, who had also placed the bulky radio over her ears.
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