by Kirk Russell
She could wake him. She could touch him, arouse him, and get on top of him. Instead, she watched him sleep. She knew what the rules for agents were. She didn’t even have her pager with her. Her gun was back in the room. She knew all the rules for agents and yet she wrapped the bedspread over them and laid down alongside him and smiled as he stirred, rolled on his side and wrapped an arm around her. She undid his shirt, her fingers working quietly, slowly. She put her face against his warm skin and smelled him and closed her eyes.
She didn’t want to be anywhere else. A couple of tears leaked out from under her eyelids and she moved her hand up very slowly and touched the skin wet with tears. She didn’t want them to wake him. She pressed her hand on his chest. She felt his heart beating. She felt more tears wet the back of her hand and was afraid it was all coming apart now and what should happen with her and John never would. There had been a moment and the moment was sliding by. John was going somewhere else. He blamed himself for Billy Takado getting killed. It was the sketch of Stoval he was carrying. John was on a different road now. She could feel it and pressed her face softly against his chest. She closed her eyes again and tried to make it different, feeling the warmth of his skin and listening to his heart.
SEVENTEEN
The next morning at the warehouse of the distributor, E.J. Jones & Sons, they found employees milling around out front waiting for the owner to arrive and unlock as he did every day. His name was Jim Jones, like the Kool-Aid preacher, and he pulled up in a black Porsche Roadster and sat a long time in the car looking at their DEA jackets. Marquez left him alone and let him adjust to their presence in his own way. Jones was white-haired, well-groomed and acted stunned that the DEA was here. As his employees watched, he made a good run at being indignant.
‘Big mistake,’ he told Marquez and pointed a finger. ‘My father started this business thirty-five years ago and everyone here knows that what we do is distribute for Mexican manufacturers. They bring it to the border and we contract with US trucking firms to get their products where they need to go. You’re wasting more taxpayer money this morning. It’s no surprise we’re losing the war on drugs.’
‘We’re going to search your building, sir.’
Jones unlocked and said, ‘I’ll be in my office.’
‘I’d rather you wait here for the moment.’
‘I’ve got calls to make, but I guess you wouldn’t know anything about running a business.’
‘No, but I’ve wrecked a few. Just stick out here with us for an hour or so.’
Marquez left him with Sheryl and walked row after row of the shelving with shrink-wrapped product on pallets. The air was cool and smelled of concrete and the diesel the forklifts used. Above them, the metal roof creaked and groaned as the day heated. They searched and found nothing. At mid morning, after they knew it wasn’t going to come easy, if at all, Hidalgo drove into Calexico and picked up coffee and a box of donuts. Then they all met in the middle of the building.
‘Maybe I got it all wrong,’ Marquez said, ‘but I really don’t feel like apologizing to this guy yet.’ He picked up one of the extra coffees and looked around at the squad. ‘Let’s go take another look at that room in back where they box product.’
The room held packing machinery and they’d looked it all over earlier, but not opened anything. Marquez put his coffee down and used a knife to cut into a pallet of folded cardboard boxes. He folded back the heavy protective paper, cut the bands, and pried one loose so he could read the label.
‘Here we go,’ he said, and worked one of the folded boxes fully loose. He held it up and showed the KZ Nuts emblem. ‘They package and load here.’
No one responded because the owner had already told them KZ grew and shipped more than almonds. Some of the nuts were grown in Mexico, so no big deal. They were bound to have boxes. Still, the squad came over for a look and Green knocked over Marquez’s coffee.
‘Sorry.’
Marquez watched the coffee drain slowly under the pallet, thinking he really wanted that coffee. Then he heard dripping. The coffee had spilled on a concrete slab, so what was dripping? He got down and looked under the pallet. Couldn’t see that well, got up, walked over to a forklift, drove it back and lifted the pallet away, exposing a hinged steel lid, roughly three feet by three feet. He parked the forklift, walked back and then heard a sound below, a man coughing and voices. Marquez motioned everyone back, grabbed the handle and lifted the trap door.
A man wearing a backpack stood on a metal rung blinking at the light and smiling. Beneath him was another man and Marquez said, ‘Hola,’ and waved them up. One after another, ten came out with their loads of cocaine. They separated them, busted them, got statements and arrested the owner pending charges.
Marquez made a run at getting him to talk, but he lawyered up and when they finished with evidence collection they returned to LA. He got called into Holsten’s office the next day. On Holsten’s desk was a San Diego Union-Tribune article about the bust and the drug distribution system that made use of a restored Coast Guard plane. The Sherpa got a photo and caption, Military workhorse goes bad.
Holsten said, ‘You’re quoted in there. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were running Group Five.’
‘Well, we both know better.’
‘Congratulations on the bust.’ Holsten smiled in a cold hard way. ‘I have several things to talk to you about today. First, we have a strange request from the Mex Feds. A Captain Viguerra is planning a large raid and he specifically wants you and two agents you choose as observers. Do you know him?’
‘I’ve met him a few times. He’s former military but working for the judicial police now. He’s a charismatic guy. His men are very loyal to him. Where is this bust going down and why does he want us around?’
‘I don’t know why he wants you. All of this is coming through the El Paso Field Office and they don’t know either. We’re all hoping you can tell us.’
Sarcasm, the cold smile again, and Marquez knew today was the today. He stared back at Holsten and said, ‘They must have a theory in El Paso.’
‘They think he’s afraid of getting betrayed by someone on his side and that three DEA agents as ridealongs are a form of insurance. It’s not a request I would ever normally consider, but he’s managed through his contacts to get headquarters engaged. There are people in Washington that want us to show we can work with the Mex Feds. So if you want to go I’m going to let you go conditionally.’
Holsten let him digest that. The DEA didn’t send ride-alongs into a bust and he was being very careful to make sure Marquez understood if he went it would be voluntary.
‘In El Paso they’re not sure Viguerra is legit,’ Holsten said. ‘How did you and Viguerra become such good friends?’
‘What is it you want me to do?’
Marquez could have added sir to the end of the question, but there didn’t seem to be any point anymore.
‘I want you to answer my question. How did you become such good friends that he asked for you?’
‘I don’t know him very well, but I heard he wasn’t corruptible and went to meet him when we were trying to get a handle on the Salazars. We heard the Salazars put a contract out on him and I wanted to offer an alliance.’
‘Is this in your reports?’ Marquez nodded and Holsten was quiet and then asked, ‘What do you think of his request?’
‘I’ll do it, but I’m not sure I’d ask anyone else to.’
‘Hidalgo and Green have already volunteered to go.’
‘When does this bust of Viguerra’s go down?’
‘You’d have to leave today, but that depends on what happens with a conversation I want to have with you away from here. Let’s go get coffee.’
So it was going to be the famous ride in Holsten’s car to Starbucks. Marquez waited on the curb for Holsten to pull out of the parking garage. When he got in the car Holsten didn’t waste any time.
‘In my opinion your DEA career is over. Even if you
survive the disciplinary hearings, you’ll never go up.’
Holsten drew a horizontal line in the air and Marquez could almost see the line as he lowered his hand. He felt a tightening in his chest and realized he wasn’t as ready as he thought.
‘You’ll go sideways. You’ll end up transferred to a backwater office and it’ll break your spirit. You’re young so you’ll go sideways for a long time. After that, you’ll quit or sink away.’ Holsten shook his head. ‘What in the hell was going through your head?’
‘A copy of the autopsy report on Jim Osiers got left wrapped in my morning newspaper. When I read it, I had to do something. I drove to Tijuana to a restaurant Billy told me Miguel frequents. I got into it with a couple of wannabes inside, and outside when I was leaving Miguel showed and drew a gun when I started toward him.’ Marquez shook his head. ‘Everybody in the Judicial Police knows Miguel Salazar murdered Jim, and I was there when he shot Billy Takado. He’s walking away from both killings, and I couldn’t handle that. No one cares about a dead informant and Jim Osiers is being painted as dirty. Once he’s dirty the investigation into his murder will end. I couldn’t handle that.’
‘I take that last comment very personally.’
‘You should.’
Holsten’s face reddened.
‘But I’m sorry I let the department down. I let myself down.’
‘I could fire you without any disciplinary hearings, without Internal Affairs or Office of Professional Responsibility investigations.’
‘Then fire me.’
‘I don’t want to fire you. I want you to quit after the Viguerra ridealong.’
‘Why do you give a damn about this ridealong?’
‘I don’t, but my superiors do. After Osiers we have to show the Mexicans we still want to be their partners. It’s connected to the trade negotiations. It’s way over your head, Marquez.’
‘Viguerra is crazy. Don’t send Green and Hidalgo.’
‘I’m not. They volunteered.’ Like fuck they did, Marquez thought, and Holsten changed the subject. ‘What’s happened with you is something I’ve seen happen several times before, in particular with undercover agents right around your level. I’ve seen it happen to the best. They have some success and then the boots get a little too big, the stride a little long. Overconfidence clouds thinking and out in the field they start acting like they run the DEA.’
Holsten, tall spare SAC with his sterile view of the world, laid it out and Marquez riding shotgun, lean and young still, but with far more experience in the field than Holsten, listened knowing that something else had happened to him. He knew as he crossed the border into Tijuana that morning that he was severing his connection with the DEA.
Holsten nosed over to the curb a half block from Starbucks, still wanting his coffee. On the sidewalk before they went in Holsten turned with his lips pursed and shook his head, lamenting, ‘KZ Nuts, the warehouse in Calexico, these are significant busts. You made them happen and it was a very big deal. You saw the Salazar organization developing before anyone else. If you hadn’t gotten scared after Takado was shot and lost your sense of purpose and gone after Miguel Salazar you’d be in a different place. But in our organization there’s no room for those kinds of flaws. I’m guessing you’d rather quit than go through the Internal Affairs investigation, the hearings, the whole show.’
‘I’ll resign, but between you and me you made a poor decision telling me to wait at that pass with Takado’s body. It showed a critical lack of experience, but fortunately for you experience in what we really do isn’t required in the upper levels of management. So I think you’ll be fine.’
He could see how angry that made Holsten and Marquez found it didn’t make him feel any better. He waited outside in the sunlight as Holsten went into Starbucks and ordered. When Holsten came out and they were back in the car Holsten said, ‘I took a cheap shot at you and you took one back. That’s fair, and right now you may not believe it, you may never believe it, but I’m very sorry to lose you. That’s probably why I’m so angry with you. No one I’ve ever known has shown as much promise. No one else in the LA Field Office could have made that KZ bust happen. Between us we’ll work up a good reason about why you’re moving on and I’ll write a strong recommendation letter. I’ll write it this afternoon and we’ll bury what happened in Tijuana and I’m sorry about the call I made after Takado’s murder. Leave your gun in El Paso before you cross the border with Green and Hidalgo and leave your badge there when you get back. I’ll mail you a letter of recommendation.’ Holsten turned, offered his hand and said, ‘You are the best talent I have ever seen. I wish you all the luck in the world with your next career.’
EIGHTEEN
In an El Paso motel Marquez dreamed a memory of childhood. The day was bright and blue and cold. He sat in a chair in an elementary school office that smelled of warm spoiled milk and carbon paper. Through a window he watched an American flag snap back and forth on a pole, and beyond the flag in the far distance he saw snow on the mountains. Behind the counter a typewriter clacked and stopped and a large woman in a blue suit led him into the principal’s office and pointed to a chair. Marquez sat down. His ear stung from where he’d been hit. His right cheek was raw and he had a lump in his throat because he didn’t start the fight. They ganged up on him but the school principal squatted down in front of him now to tell him that wasn’t true.
‘You don’t belong here. You don’t fit and your parents aren’t fit for our community. We were forced to let you go to school, but your family won’t last here and we don’t want you to stay. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re in my office today because you started a fight.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘I want you to get in another fight. Today I’m going to suspend you, but next time I’ll expel you. Do you know what expel means, son? It means I’ll get rid of you.’
Marquez kept the subsequent fights after school and off the school yard, but it didn’t matter. The family moved anyway. They were always moving. ‘We’re nomads following the Great Dope Route,’ his father had said. ‘Like Marco Polo,’ and his mother would giggle, though they had nowhere and no one, and now he was leaving again, leaving the DEA and all of his friends, everything he was connected to. He tossed in the bed and sweated. He pushed the covers back, dozed, dismissed the childhood dream, and much later that morning crossed from El Paso into Juarez with Hidalgo and Green.
They drove over the concrete trench that had once been a river and now was lined with fences. In Juarez dust and litter swirled in wind as they followed Viguerra’s lieutenants to a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Inside the warehouse, Viguerra broke from his lieutenants and greeted them.
‘You’ll ride with me,’ he told Marquez. ‘We’re inviting ourselves to a meeting at a big hacienda.’ His eyes lit with sudden humor. ‘A cartel meeting where one of the things they’re voting on is raising the price on my head.’ He tapped his sidearm. ‘I’ll be voting.’ He winked at Hidalgo and Green. ‘If anyone asks, you must say you are American water inspectors making sure that none of the river that used to flow to Mexico still does. You are here to check for leaks. All of the local people will understand.’
Last time they met Viguerra told Marquez, that yes, it was true, that officially he was of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, but that he thought of himself as a soldier, not a policeman. ‘I think like a soldier and we are in a war, a guerilla war where we are not the ones in power. The drug cartels are the powerful ones. They have control but with the people’s help I fight them as if from the jungle.’
An hour after reaching the warehouse Hidalgo, Marquez, and Green climbed into the Vietnam-era Huey copter that Viguerra intended to use in the assault. In the seats around them were Viguerra’s ‘troops.’ They flew south staying low and flanking dry hills. Outside a military encampment the helicopters landed and unloaded most of the men and equipment, then sat with rotors still running as Viguerr
a walked among his men before they loaded into jeeps and two troop carriers. Marquez rode with Viguerra and Hidalgo and Green rode in a troop carrier.
‘It’s an hour from here,’ Viguerra said.
The assault began at dusk with the cutting of phone and electrical lines and the sniper shooting of two cartel guards in the gatehouse. Two helicopters rose from hills behind the hacienda and with heavy machine gun fire pinned down the guards inside the courtyard gates, then fired rockets into the cars parked there. When the thick wooden courtyard gates blew off their hinges, return fire flashed from the house. Windows shattered. Roofing tiles slaked off and fell three stories on to men fighting below as the helicopters poured fire into the house.
Viguerra’s men fought their way into the lower floors and the return fire died down to sporadic shooting from the upper floors, clearing fire likely as Viguerra’s men moved in and up. Then in seconds everything changed as a missile struck the lead helicopter. It spun, rolled to the right, then dove into the vineyard below the house. A second helicopter went down and the third was burning as it raked through the air above Marquez. Its tail snapped on landing and Marquez left Viguerra and ran down to try to help the men inside get out.
They burned before he got there but he was near the helicopter, sheltered by it when the blast came. The concussive roar enveloped and deafened him. He felt it from the inside out. Splintered rafters, shards of roof tile, and chunks of adobe rained down into the fields around him. A widening billow of gray-black smoke rose from where the house had been and it took him a moment before he could accept what he saw, that the house was gone. He watched a length of the adobe wall surrounding the outer courtyard slide down the slope and topple over.