Bloodline

by Jeff Buick

  “Yes.”

  Garcia tried not to let his relief show, but he knew Landry was more than aware that Escobar had been cut loose without any sort of surveillance, and that Garcia was lucky the man hadn’t decided contacting the DEA was a bad idea and left town. “Mr. Escobar, I’d like to send a car over to pick you up. Could you be ready in ten minutes?”

  “Yes, ten minutes is fine.”

  “I’ll have my driver meet you in the lobby.”

  “Fine.” The line went dead.

  Landry leaned even closer to Garcia. “Don’t ever do something that stupid again, Agent Garcia, or you’ll be enjoying the Russian winters as part of our hand-selected team in Siberia.” He glared at Garcia for a few seconds, then added, “I want you to sit in on the meeting when Escobar arrives. Let me know if there are any changes in his story.”

  “Yes, sir.” Garcia called the front desk and ordered a car to the Comfort Suites to pick up a Mr. Eugenio Escobar in the lobby. ASAP. Landry waited until Garcia had finished the call, then disappeared into the hallway. Garcia grabbed his head in his hands and squeezed. One of the top ten ranking DEA chiefs in the world had just visited his office, and he’d completely blown it. So much for his career. He picked up the Escobar report with shaking hands and gave it a quick glance. At least he’d prepared a decent report, given the low priority he had felt it deserved. Obviously, he had been greatly mistaken about what sort of status the DEA was attaching to Eugene Escobar. He pulled open his bottom drawer and withdrew a neatly folded shirt and quickly changed. If nothing else, he wouldn’t have on a sweaty shirt for his second meeting with Alexander Landry.

  Cathy Maxwell cabbed it straight to EPIC from the El Paso airport, presented her creds at the front reception and was ushered directly into the interview room with the boardroom table and leather chairs, where Eugene Escobar was talking with Alexander Landry and Eduardo Garcia. Landry had left a note with the receptionist that if Maxwell showed up to bring her straight in. They all glanced at the door as she entered.

  “Hello, Cathy,” Landry said, not bothering to get up. Both other men did.

  “Alexander,” she said, her eyes resting on him for a second, then taking in the rest of the room. A young Hispanic man with his badge on his belt, she figured him for Eduardo Garcia, and a fair-haired, light-skinned man in his late thirties or early forties. Eugenio Escobar, Pablo’s cousin.

  “I’m Cathy Maxwell,” she said, extending her hand first to Garcia, then to Escobar. “You must be Eugenio Escobar.” They shook.

  “Most people call me Eugene,” he said, amazed at the viselike strength in her grip.

  “Eugene, then,” she said. “Has Alexander filled you in on who I am?” Both men shook their heads. “Alexander and I worked together quite closely in Colombia thirteen or fourteen years ago when Pablo Escobar was on the run. We worked with our respective teams, Alexander was with the DEA and I was with the Central Intelligence Agency. I’m still with them, Deputy Director of HUMINT. Human Intelligence,” she added when she saw a puzzled look cross Eugene’s face. She turned to Alexander. “What did I miss?”

  “Not much,” Landry said. “Eugene was just filling us in on what he did after his wife was kidnapped.”

  “Please continue,” Cathy Maxwell said, sitting and motioning to Eugene. “I’ll get what I need from the transcripts.”

  Eugene ran his hands through his curly hair. He’d hoped for some response to his request for help, but hadn’t expected top level agents from Washington to fly in on a moment’s notice. “I visited a friend of mine in Porlamar. That’s the largest city on Isla de Margarita. He was involved with the cartels back in the ’80s, taking care of the books for José Rodríguez Gacha until Gacha was killed in ’89. During his time in the business he met Pablo, the Ochoa brothers, Carlos Lehder, and many others. But when The Mexican was killed, he got out.”

  “Lucky man,” Landry said quietly.

  “He admits that,” Eugene agreed. “When I mentioned the name of the man who’s holding Julie and Shiara captive, he knew him. My friend told me that this man still runs a ton of cocaine overland from Colombia to El Salvador, where it’s put onto boats and shipped up the coast to the States. And the man with my wife and daughter was quite tight with Pablo at one time. That told us three things: that the money really does exist, that my wife and daughter are probably in El Salvador, and that Pablo is probably alive.”

  “How does that tie your wife and daughter to El Salvador?” Cathy asked.

  “The kidnappers are prominent businessmen in Colombia,” Eugene said, turning slightly to face her. “My friend was adamant that they wouldn’t drag hostages back to their own country, and that since they had such a strong presence in El Salvador, they’d most likely take them there.”

  “I see.”

  “I left Isla de Margarita and flew to the mainland. I have a friend working in Caracas who is originally from El Salvador. I asked him to check it out for me and see if he could find any trace of them in San Salvador. He said yes. He left Caracas two days ago.”

  “How will you know if he has any success finding them?” Landry asked.

  Eugene held up his cell phone. “We both have new ones. No one else knows the numbers.”

  “Excellent idea, Eugene,” Landry said. “Have you heard from him yet?”

  “No.”

  Landry nodded and shifted slightly in his chair. “Go on.”

  “I flew south from Caracas and visited a cousin in Medellín. His name’s Raphael.” He recited his cousin’s address off for them and all three agents made notes in their respective books. “We talked for a while, then he admitted that Pablo had stayed with him in October ’93, less than two months before he was killed. But here’s the strange thing. While he was staying with Raphael, Pablo ate healthy food, exercised regularly and shaved every day. Yet when he was shot, he was still grossly overweight and had a beard.”

  The room was silent for a moment. Eugene was shocked by the expression on Cathy Maxwell’s face. She looked like a volcano ready to blow. Her teeth were clamped together so hard her jaw was turning white, and pure hatred glowed in her eyes. Then she seemed to relax, to bring her body back under control. Her brown eyes returned to normal: inquisitive and penetrating. She handed Alexander Landry a sheet of paper. On it were two highlighted entries.

  “These two withdrawals coincide with the time frame Eugene gave to Agent Garcia during their first interview.”

  Landry scanned the list, his gaze lingering on the two horizontal lines. “Banque Suisse de Zurich. One of the cartel’s favorite banking institutions a few years back. CIA has been watching this whole page of accounts for all these years?”

  “That’s one page out of thirty. But let’s not be coy, Alexander. You guys have sixty pages,” she answered. “The dates jibing like that give some credence to Mr. Escobar’s story.”

  “Agreed,” Landry said.

  Eugene sat back in the soft leather chair and watched the two key players as they discussed Swiss banking: the ten-digit codes used by Banque Suisse de Zurich, who had access to them and how they triggered the electronic safeguards to open the account for withdrawals. Landry and Maxwell, high-ranking officials in their organizations, had immediately dropped what they were doing to personally visit the El Paso office. They hadn’t sent flunkies to gather information and report back. They had made the trip personally. And quickly. It was certainly more than he had expected.

  When there was a lull in the conversation, Eugene said, “I know what Col. Martinez and his Search Bloc team were up to, but what was the American DEA and CIA involvement in searching for Pablo?”

  Landry weighed the comment, then said, “What is said in this room, remains in this room, Eugene. You okay with that?” Eugene nodded and Landry reached over and switched off the recorder before continuing. “The situation in Colombia during the ’80s was so convoluted it was almost impossible to keep tabs on what was happening. People involved in the drug trade were being
murdered in record numbers, but no one knew who was killing whom. Each time a body surfaced, the list of suspects was pages long. If someone inside Pablo’s organization was killed, we had to consider whether the victim had pissed off Pablo and it was an inside job by the drug lord himself, or if maybe another cartel had taken him out. The guerrillas were notorious for killing the narcos, as both the Medellín and Cali cartels had an ongoing war with Ejército de Liberación Nacional and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionaries de Colombia. But FARC and ELN stayed mostly in the mountains; they didn’t venture into the cities too often. Then there were our guys: CIA, DEA, Delta Force and Centra Spike, and we all had our own agendas. The Colombian police and army had units that operated under the radar and circumvented the court system. But they were totally cowed by the cartels. And after Los Pepes was formed, they killed record numbers of Pablo’s men every day. Add to this that it’s Colombia we’re talking about, and that random murder is a great possibility. It all led to one thing: When a cartel member died, no one looked very closely at who killed him.”

  “Delta Force commandos are top-level U.S. soldiers, but what’s Centra Spike?” Eugene asked.

  Cathy Maxwell answered his question. “The CIA and the National Security Agency were the primary watchdogs during the Cold War. But when hostilities ended between our country and Russia, and the Cold War died a lingering death, both agencies were too cumbersome to perform the covert surveillance needed to stay on top of things globally. Centra Spike was formed to fill the gap. These guys were the best of the best, hand-picked from the SEALs and Delta Force, each with special skills. Communications was the essence of the team; each member was able to operate the most modern tracking and surveillance equipment the military had. Locating and tracking targets was their priority. And once they found the target, they moved in. I’ll give you an example. If the President of the United States happened to be speaking to the right person at a dinner party, and told them that our international position would be much better if so-and-so were to be assassinated, Centra Spike were the guys who went in, performed the sanction, and get out, without anyone being the wiser. They were, and still are, ghosts. It’s not hard to understand why we used them to help us find Pablo Escobar.”

  “Did they find him?” Eugene asked.

  “Several times, yes. But Pablo was a runner, not a fighter. Pinpointing him was difficult, but getting a team in place in time to corner him, even Delta Force or Centra Spike, was next to impossible. We just couldn’t move quickly enough. He slipped through our fingers more times than I can remember.”

  “Did Centra Spike isolate him on the mountaintop at Aguas Frías?”

  “Yes. And I think we could have had him if Col. Martinez hadn’t insisted on bringing in the Colombian army and surrounding the place. He thought large numbers of men were the answer. Turns out he was wrong.”

  “It would appear,” Eugene said.

  “Pablo was damned elusive,” Landry interjected. “Cathy and I had a few good scraps over who was responsible for Pablo slipping past the nets we drew around him. But in the end we had to admit that he was one very lucky guy.”

  “And now?” Eugene said, turning to look at both Landry and Maxwell. “What do you think now? Is Pablo alive?”

  Both agents were silent for a minute, then Cathy said, “Eugene, I know this is difficult for you. You’re emotional, and well you should be. But we have to look at the facts and only the facts. And as of right now, we haven’t had enough time to answer that question. We need more time and more information before we can proceed. Give us a day or two so we can review the 1993 files. The Colombian police could have tampered with the evidence that proved the body was Pablo Escobar. We need to know if there’s a possibility they altered the DNA samples they provided us. We had Pablo’s DNA on file, and we based our conclusions almost entirely on the positive match to the DNA provided by the Colombian police.”

  “I don’t have time to waste,” Eugene said. “It’s already Wednesday. I’ve only got ten days to find Pablo or get the access code to the bank.” He paused for a moment, then pointed at the page with the two highlighted entries. “You already know what bank the money is deposited in. Can you get the ten-digit number from the bank?”

  Cathy Maxwell shook her head. “Absolutely no chance. The banks recognize the CIA as a legitimate arm of the American government, but we’ve tried to use our position in the past to free up information like that and have never even come close. They stonewall us the instant we try to circumvent their privacy laws. Sorry, Eugene.”

  He nodded. “Okay. But at least we have some proof that backs up what I’ve told you.”

  “That’s true. The existence of the account adds credibility to your story. Now let’s go back over the time you spent with your cousin Raphael. We may have missed something there the first time through.”

  Two hours later the group broke up. Eduardo Garcia was assigned to drive Eugene back to his hotel and to stay in the adjoining room. Cathy Maxwell and Alexander Landry left EPIC about ten minutes after Eugene and Garcia, and drove to a nearby restaurant. It was just after six, and they both ordered a drink and dinner.

  “What do you think?” Landry asked as his beer and her rum and cola arrived at the table.

  “I don’t know what to think, Alexander,” she said, stirring the drink with her swizzle stick and taking a small sip. “You’ve got to remember that this is pretty personal for me.”

  “None of us have forgotten the price you paid, Cathy,” he said. “Maybe we weren’t sympathetic enough at the time and I’m sorry. But soon after Escobar sent his sicarios to Boston for your parents, he also killed the Galeano and Moncada brothers. From that moment he was on the run; La Catedral was no longer a refuge, and he fled the prison. Every level of the Colombian government was after him, and our entire focus was finding him, nothing else.”

  Cathy pushed her hair behind her ears, and slowly turned the glass on the coaster. Finally, she said, “He killed my parents, Alexander. He had them tortured and cut into pieces. I thought I had some closure when we got him, but there was always this nagging thought that maybe the Colombian forensics experts had been bought off, that the corpse wasn’t actually Escobar. Now his cousin shows up and pretty well confirms my worst nightmare.”

  Landry nodded. “Who do you think has his wife and kid?”

  “Good question. There are quite a few Colombians with strong ties to Central America. The Alzate family has used Costa Rica and El Salvador as transition points for their cocaine for years now. So has Rubin Tapias, but he’s located more in Nicaragua than El Salvador. Probably Mario and Javier Rastano. They’re the only Colombians I know with strong ties to El Salvador.”

  “Anything the CIA can do to get them back?”

  She shook her head. “Not without indisputable proof. And even then I’d be calling in too many favors. I’d need to know exactly where they are and every detail about the security forces holding them before I could get clearance for a covert op. Even then the director would probably dump it off on Delta Force or Centra Spike. And then we’re back to the same problem we had thirteen years ago.”

  “The leak,” Alexander said.

  “The leak.”

  The server arrived with their entrées and both were quiet as the meals were placed in front of them. Both agents alone with their thoughts. And both thinking the same thing. Back in 1992, when the Colombian government had finally swallowed its pride and asked for American assistance in finding Pablo, there was an informant somewhere inside one of the agencies. Someone working for DEA, Delta Force, CIA or Centra Spike was dirty. They were feeding Pablo Escobar the information he needed to stay one step ahead of the covert forces tracking him. And that was the real reason Centra Spike had never been able to nail him. The voice whispering in Escobar’s ear was never found. The voice was still out there. Somewhere.

  “Probably retired by now,” Cathy said, picking up her fork and knife. She sliced off a thin piece of steak and popped it
in her mouth. “But then again, you never know.”

  Landry was digging into his food with a vengeance. Neither agent had eaten since breakfast. “If we’re going to pursue this, we should keep it contained.”

  “How do you mean, contained?”

  “Just you and I and Garcia. No sense trying to cut him out; he’s already in the loop. We can still access whatever resources we need from our home offices. The last thing we need is for the rat to find out we’re actively searching for Escobar. And if you want my opinion, I think Eugene Escobar may be right about Pablo being alive.”

  “You think we should look into this?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I thought your mind was already made up,” he answered.

  “It is now.”

  Alexander Landry lifted his glass. “To finding Pablo,” he said.

  Cathy Maxwell clinked her glass against his. “To killing Pablo,” she replied.

  Chapter Fourteen

  With the darkness came danger.

  Pedro Parada was no stranger to the nocturnal world of San Salvador. He moved through the rough and tumble district of El Centro with confidence, his body language telling those watching from the shadows that this was not a man to fool with. The suit jacket he had purchased earlier in the day fit him well, and if he buttoned it, the unmistakable bulge of a handgun was visible under his left arm. He had bought it to fit for specifically that reason. What the average thug lurking in the shadows couldn’t see was the second gun tucked into his waistband in the small of his back. Both guns were loaded.

  Pedro’s eyes moved between the street and the alleys with a fluidity that came from a lifetime of practice. He saw every movement and smelled every odor, be it machismo or fear. A rustling noise caught his attention and he turned slightly to the vicinity of the sound. A drugged-out street person crawled out from under a pile of garbage, his hand outstretched for coins. A setup. Pedro’s right hand instantly found the gun butt under his arm and he spun the opposite direction from the guy on the ground. Three men, in their early twenties and armed with knives, appeared from a crack in the wall a few yards behind him. Pedro pulled the gun from its holster and flipped off the safety. He pointed it at the thieves.