This was a world where the most prominent people in the ongoing war against the cartels had a suspicious habit of crashing in aircraft accidents, or getting gunned down in heated assaults, so being the poster boy for the government’s push to eradicate narco-trafficking was slightly below lion tamer or Russian roulette gambler in terms of safety.
Cruz was used to it. He’d long ago reconciled himself to the idea that he would live as long as he lived, but that he’d do everything in his power to bring the groups that had butchered his family to justice in the meantime. He was brutally effective, and though his methods were controversial, nobody argued with the results.
And he was the only one willing to strap on a bull’s-eye every day and go into the office, wondering if today was the day a bomb or a sniper snuffed out his existence. That ensured a certain job security, if that phrase could be used to describe the circumstances in which he lived on a daily basis.
Dinah and Cruz had become an item following his recuperation from the shooting, and she’d taken to staying with him most nights for the last few months, going so far as to move in two large suitcases full of clothes. Cruz had mixed feelings about the situation at first because of the constant threat of danger surrounding him, but Dinah had shrugged it off.
“You have the best protection in the world ensuring you don’t even trip on a crack in the sidewalk. This is probably the safest building in all of Mexico,” she’d reasoned.
It was hard to argue, and truthfully, Cruz didn’t want to do so with any real enthusiasm. This was the first time he’d had a female companion since his wife had been torn from him, and it felt good. Nothing could ever replace his lost family, but if healing was possible, he’d done so, and had resolved to move forward and focus on the future, after having spent years dwelling on the past. Every two months, the department rented a new condo for him, in a different building in a different area of town; his possessions appeared at the new address as if by magic. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it was the one that was keeping him alive, and so both he and Dinah had reluctantly grown accustomed to the disruptive grind.
Cruz admired Dinah’s curves while she stood in the kitchen, wolfing down her breakfast as she rushed to be at her job on time. She was a teacher, and she couldn’t be ten minutes late for work like Cruz could. The class wouldn’t wait, and it was policy that everyone had to be on campus fifteen minutes before school started. At the rate she was going, she wasn’t going to make it. It would be a miracle if she could get across town before the opening bell.
Cruz slurped his coffee and then rose from the table, his breakfast only half done. He approached Dinah and put his arms around her waist, nuzzling her neck as she finished her juice.
“Do you know what today is?” he asked.
“Monday. Now I have to run, Corazon. I’m already way too late.”
“It is indeed Monday, but no, I was thinking more that it’s been exactly six months since you began staying with me,” Cruz nudged.
“Ah. Has it? It really only seems like yesterday…”
Cruz fumbled with his shirt pocket and extracted a small black velvet box, moving it over her shoulders and positioning it on the counter next to her plate.
“Wha…what’s this?” Dinah asked in a whisper, suddenly serious.
“Go ahead. Open it.”
Dinah reached forward with trembling hands and pried the small case open. Inside sat a platinum band with a solitary one carat diamond. Dinah drew in a sharp intake of breath, and lifting the box, turned to face Cruz, who still held her waist, smiling.
“Is this…?”
“I love you, Dinah. It’s time. I’d like you to marry me. I know I’m not perfect, and I have my faults, but…”
Dinah’s eyes welled with moisture as she silently removed the band from the box and slipped the little velvet square back into his shirt pocket. She slid the ring on her finger and smiled through the tears.
“It fits.”
“Yes. I measured one of your other rings. Actually traced the interior circumference and took it to the jeweler. He said you’re a six. Looks like he knew his stuff,” Cruz explained nervously.
She shushed him with a long kiss on the mouth. Tears of joy trickling down her flawless cheeks, she gazed into his eyes and smiled. “Capitan, I accept your offer.” She kissed him again.
They’d come a long way since Cruz had met her while investigating El Rey. He’d have never thought it possible when he’d first seen her, hair gleaming in the sun, radiantly beautiful in the shabby little pawn shop lobby where Cruz and his partner had been waiting. And yet a kind of small miracle had taken place, and she’d been attracted to him, and now, ten months after first setting eyes on her and six months since their first full night together at his place, the most beautiful woman in Mexico was going to be his wife.
~
Once Cruz had been transported to the office in the armored BMW 760 Li that was his official vehicle, the usual crush of reports and urgent requests buried him. One benefit of his line of work was that there was never any shortage of events – the cartels were always up to something – so it never threatened to be boring or uneventful. He probably coordinated at least one major raid per week on a cartel stronghold or suspected drug or arms storage location, and while his group’s success rate wasn’t stellar, it was better than anyone expected. In a hierarchy that was historically riddled with corruption, Cruz’s group was considered above reproach – one of the very few clean organizations in a nation where their adversary wielded enormous financial resources they couldn’t hope to match.
The entire budget for the Mexican army was a billion dollars a year, and the army worked alongside the Federales to battle drug trafficking. The budget for the entire Mexican Federal Police force was thirty-five billion, but that included all duties – only ten percent or so was spent on anti-cartel activities. The rest went to personnel and administration and general law enforcement, and in the way that large government bureaucracies were always inefficient, the Federales were no different than, say, the Pentagon, where hammers cost two hundred dollars.
The actual money that made it to the street level battle against the cartels was a laughable few billion. Contrasted against the estimated eighty to a hundred billion of wholesale value drugs moving through Mexico – cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, marijuana – the army and law enforcement was perennially outgunned and outspent. If the cartels spent twenty percent of their profits on battling law enforcement, the government’s efforts were dwarfed by a factor of six or seven.
The sad reality was that Mexico would never be able to spend sufficiently to curtail the cartels, certainly not as long as its huge neighbor to the north was the largest market for illegal drugs in the world. Everyone knew it – Cruz, the government, the cartels. But that didn’t mean that there couldn’t be successes along the way. Over the last few years, a sustained clampdown in Tijuana, one of the largest gateways for drug smuggling, had devastated the Arellano Felix cartel there, leaving a power vacuum. So wins could happen. Of course, the ultimate futility of the victories was simply that another cartel would step in and take over the territory – in this case, the Sinaloa cartel had radically increased its hold in Tijuana, and nothing much changed except who the money stuck to at the end of the day. Shipments continued unabated, supply in the U.S. was constant, and the cash flowed like champagne in a rap video.
It was easy to get demoralized, but Cruz considered his job as much like that of a doctor. Patients would come and go, and yes, everyone ultimately would die – nobody escaped that final outcome. But in the interim, if he could save some people, or extend their lives, then he counted it as a success. True, one could view the entire exercise as futile – after all, the patients always died eventually – but that perspective wasn’t useful. Everything if viewed in that light was pointless, and nobody would ever get out of bed and do anything if they thought about it too much.
No, better to stay focused on the small, sust
ainable victories and leave the big picture to its own devices.
Cruz hurried into his private office, trailed by his younger lieutenant, Briones, now fully recuperated from the shooting that had almost taken his life during the confrontation with El Rey at the G-20 financial summit. Cruz tossed his satchel on his desk, then plopped down behind it, eyeing Briones warily.
“What’s the damage today? What have we got going on?” Cruz asked.
“The tip we got yesterday about the construction supply bodega seems to be panning out. We’ve had it under surveillance all night, and there’s a surprising amount of traffic for a storage facility that supposedly closes at six,” Briones reported.
“Out towards Toluca, right?”
“Near the airport. Four different SUVs, all luxury, visited between nine p.m. and midnight. Then nothing more until this morning, when what looks like three night guards were relieved by a day shift of two. The strange thing is that they were all heavily armed. I wonder if that means anything?” Briones wondered aloud.
Cruz held back a smile. “Considering that gun possession is a felony in Mexico, you may be on to something. Seems like a lot of firepower to keep some kids from stealing a few bags of cement for beer money.”
“That was my thinking,” Briones said, smirking. They both knew that the bodega was likely a distribution point for the Sinaloa cartel. “Has it seemed to you that we’re getting an awful lot of luck thrown our way lately against the Sinaloans? I mean, I’m not complaining, but over the last few months, I’d guess that ninety percent of our leads have been Sinaloa deals. That’s almost the polar opposite of how last year went.”
Cruz nodded. “My guess is that the other cartels are trying to move against them, so they’re rolling over whenever possible. I’d say this is just a routine power play. Same as it ever was,” Cruz opined. “The continued war of attrition – survival of the fittest.”
“Maybe you’re right. I just thought the timing was odd. It’s like someone flicked a light switch, and it became open season on Sinaloa, whereas in the past they’ve been untouchable.”
“Does it really matter which scumbags we put away, in the end? There will always be more to take their place. For now, it’s Sinaloa. I say good. About time they started going down.” Cruz smiled at his secretary, who had entered with a cup of coffee for him. “What do you think, Raquel? Do you think it matters whether we arrest more Juárez, Sinaloa, Knights Templar, or Los Zetas cartel this month?”
She just shook her head before departing unobtrusively.
Cruz took a cautionary sip and then put the cup down to cool. “Let’s keep an eye on the bodega and have a tactical squad standing by for whenever a delivery gets made. It’s probably coming in as a shipment during business hours, and then the distribution takes place at night. Make a list of all the suppliers that show up, and let’s look for the oddity. I don’t want to take the place and wind up with my dick in my hand. If we’re going to move on it, let’s make sure there’s something there. Clear?” Cruz instructed.
“Yes, sir. I’m way ahead of you. We’ll maintain surveillance for a week, and then once we’ve established a pattern, especially on the night visitors, we’ll go in. We’ve got nothing but time. They have no idea we’re on to them.”
“Very good. What else do we have? Any progress on the Operation Fast and Furious weapons?” Cruz asked.
Fast and Furious was a notorious international scandal where the American Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had allowed thousands of weapons to be purchased in the U.S. and smuggled to cartels in Mexico, which were then used to murder countless people, including cartel members, American border patrol agents, Mexican policemen and soldiers, as well as the usual scores of innocents who were unlucky enough to be in the line of fire. The ATF had allowed the weapons to be shipped to Mexico for years, knowing full well who the customers were, and had lied to Congress about the program.
Briones shook his head. “Most of the weapons have been traced to the Sinaloa cartel, but from there it’s a black hole. Some of them have been recovered, but the majority are still floating around on the street. We got a lead on a warehouse that was supposed to have a few hundred weapons stored, but as you may recall, that turned out to be a false alarm – or the guns had been moved by the time we made it in,” Briones recounted bitterly.
“That’s the chicken ranch, right?” Cruz asked.
The weapons had been reputed to have been stored at a farm that raised fighting cocks for chicken fights. The only thing that their raid had yielded was hundreds of combative birds and a disgruntled owner. Someone had tipped the press, and the laughable image of heavily-armed Federales toting assault rifles juxtaposed against a backdrop of roosters in pens had circulated in the papers for weeks, embarrassing everyone concerned, including Cruz, who had authorized the raid. Briones had led the strike that day, and for the second time in a year, been the public face of law enforcement run amok.
“How can I forget? My cousins gave me shit about being a chicken molester for a month,” Briones muttered.
“All right. Are we done for now? I have a mountain of paperwork I need to catch up on here. Do you need anything? Maybe a warrant to detain and body search some poultry?” Cruz inquired innocently.
“No, sir. But thank you for the support. I’ll let you know as circumstances change on the bodega. Oh, and we got an international inquiry circulated our way on El Rey. Routine. We were flagged automatically on the distribution list.”
“Haven’t heard that name for a while. I suppose we’re the experts on him now that the task force got dismantled…” Cruz observed.
Since the assassination attempt, the three-year-old task force, which had proved completely inept at anything but burning money while delivering zero results, had been closed down, and its responsibilities incorporated into Cruz’s organization. He had two officers who worked part time on the El Rey case whenever the name came up, as opposed to the thirty full-time staffers upstairs who’d been employed at the task force’s peak. The notorious hit man had vanished without a trace after the unsuccessful attempt on the former president and hadn’t been heard from since. Perhaps that was for the best, Cruz reasoned.
“It was just a routine inquiry, looks like. Wanted more information on him. Nothing more,” Briones confirmed. “The probe came through Interpol, and we sent the usual package of data back – the photo, a few of the better sketches, and his dossier. Maybe he’s in South America now? Taken up cattle ranching?”
“As long as he’s not here making our lives miserable. Although I have to admit that aside from his hits on politicians, he was doing the world a favor executing the cartel targets. Some would argue the same about targeting the politicians, too…” Cruz mused.
Briones smiled. He shared his superior’s disdain for elected officials.
“All right. Thanks for the briefing. Let’s get together this afternoon and compare notes. Please close the door on the way out and spread the word that I’ll shoot anyone who interrupts me before lunch,” Cruz ordered.
Briones paused at the door. “Did you ask her?” he inquired softly on his way out.
Cruz grinned lopsidedly. “She said yes.”
“I knew you were in trouble when I first set eyes on her,” Briones finished. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. And you were right about being in trouble. But listen. Keep the news of our engagement to yourself. I don’t want to be the subject of any gossip, and you know how word spreads…”
There were also safety concerns. The image of his family’s heads showing up in a box was still fresh in his mind, and he didn’t want to make Dinah any more of a target than she already was.
“Of course. Congratulations all the same.”
Chapter 5
“Jania – what’s wrong? What is it?” Antonio asked, as her voice trembled over the phone. It was morning, and she was calling twenty minutes before the shop was supposed to open. A first for her. She’d been as reliabl
e as the rising sun…until now.
“It’s my uncle. Gustavo. He’s been murdered.” She choked on the final word, unable to go on.
“Murdered? Good Lord, Jania. What happened? Are you all right?”
“The police found him this morning and called me as next of kin. Someone broke in last night and killed him in his home office. Stabbed him with a letter opener. It’s horrible. The officer wouldn’t go into detail, but…”
“Oh my God. That’s unbelievable, Jania. I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do for you? Anything you need?” he offered.
“No. I don’t think so. It’s just…I mean, he was just an old man. What kind of sick bastard would kill a helpless old man?” Jania seemed confused by her question. Antonio knew better than to try to answer.
“Do they have any leads?” He stopped. “Is this kind of thing common in Mendoza?”
“No. I mean, there are robberies, of course. Just like anywhere. But a vicious murder like this in a good neighborhood…it’s very rare. I’ve never heard of anything like it,” Jania explained.
“So it’s a robbery gone wrong?”
“That’s what the police think. The officer was very nice on the phone. I’ll know more once I go down to the station. They want to take a statement from me. I don’t know how long that will take. That’s one of the reasons I’m calling – I don’t think I’m going to be in today. This is such a shock, and I have no idea what’s involved in claiming the body, or dealing with the cops…” Jania stuttered to a halt.
“Don’t worry about anything here. I can look after the shop in your absence. Take as much time as you need, and don’t come back to work until everything’s settled on your end.” Antonio paused. “I’m so sorry about Gustavo. He was a wonderful man.”
Revenge of the Assassin Page 5