by Kirk Russell
‘Could be.’
‘Educated?’
‘Yes.’
Marquez sat with the artist late in the day. He had a very good memory for faces and the artist was quite intuitive. With the second sketch she got the man and that sketch faxed east before Marquez left for home.
Two days later, a Kerry Anderson from the Intelligence Division out of headquarters in Virginia showed up to interview Marquez. They sat down in a conference room. Anderson had the faxed sketch with him and a name for the man, Emrahain Stoval. He also had photos but he didn’t show those yet. He pulled them from a manila file and laid them facedown on the table. He wanted Marquez’s eyes drawn to the packet of photos. Wants to control the conversation, Marquez thought.
‘Stoval is a money man and a connector who sits in the background and helps organize and fund various criminal enterprises. He supplies both long and short term loans. If you’ve already got a track record and you need five million dollars to buy cocaine you’ll sell to distributors in the States, you might go to him for a three-week loan. In some cartel operations we believe he gets a percentage of everything. He’s woven in, but at your level you won’t necessarily see him. I don’t mean that derogatorily. I don’t mean any offense.’
‘None taken.’
Marquez took in Anderson’s look, the coat, the starched shirt, receding red hair, bony face, a freckled scalp he touched periodically.
‘He also deals in arms and maintains direct links to hit squads. He’s got a reputation as ruthless in the way that defines the meaning of the word.’
‘Why hit squads if his business is loaning money?’
‘Think about the people he loans to. They aren’t always the most honorable. We think he wants his clients to remember he’s dangerous.’
‘Who’s the “we” you’re talking about?’
Anderson shrugged. ‘I think,’ he answered. ‘I’m the Stoval expert.’
‘Did you fly out here just for this interview?’
‘No, but I would have.’ Anderson flipped over the stack of photos now. ‘Take a look. Some are of poor quality.’
Marquez flipped through twenty or more and returned to one of the early ones, a grainy profile shot at a distance of a man looking at monkeys in bamboo cages. He flipped through them all again before going back to the monkey photo, telling Anderson, ‘Only this one.’
Marquez slid the photo over and watched Anderson slowly nod.
‘Very good,’ Anderson said. ‘That was taken at an animal market in Indonesia. He’s a passionate big game trophy hunter and a constant wing hunter. He’ll travel all over the world to hunt. He also traffics in animal parts.’
‘What doesn’t he do?’
Anderson smiled at that.
‘Who took that photo?’ Marquez asked, and reached for it.
He studied the small dark shape of the monkey behind the bamboo slats. Wildlife had its back to the wall. We treat the earth like we own it, but why would the DEA follow Stoval to an animal market in Indonesia? They wouldn’t.
He slid the photo back and Anderson said, ‘It’s a CIA photo.’
‘What are you doing with it?’
‘Sometimes if it’s in their interest they share with us. Not often, but sometimes. Stoval has provided information to them. They won’t tell me exactly what, but I gather in Mexico it’s been about the Salinas government. The CIA considers Stoval an intelligence asset.’
‘Great.’
‘He gets unobstructed passage in and out of the United States, and knowing what I know about him, that turns my stomach.’
Anderson put his glasses back on. He seemed agitated. He tapped the photo forcibly and his voice rose with emotion, something Marquez didn’t see often from an analyst.
‘Do you know what this is a photo of?’ Anderson asked, and then answered his own question. ‘This is what the devil looks like in the twentieth century. You’ve never met anyone like him.’
When Marquez didn’t respond fast enough Anderson gathered up the photos and snapped his briefcase shut. He handed Marquez a card.
‘We’ll talk more and I’m going to warn you, there’s probably a reason he made contact with you. It’s not chance that he was there in the bull ring. With him, there’s always a reason.’ He tapped his briefcase. ‘Always.’
FOUR
For one hundred thirty years Loreto was the Spanish capital of Baja. Now it was a fishing and tourist town with an airport eight hundred miles from LA. After landing it was fifteen minutes from the airport to the DEA safehouse. The dry spine of the Sierra La Giganta rose behind Loreto and the highway and on the other side where the safehouse was, long beaches faced the Sea of Cortez. Sheryl Javits didn’t know if it was true or what it really meant, but Marquez told her that this part of the Sea of Cortez had more biodiversity than anywhere else on earth. She loved coming here. She called it her vacation assignment. She liked to watch the whales and the birds in the early morning. The flight wasn’t long and the house the DEA leased was simple, small, and on the beach. Weather was usually good.
The problem was Jim Osiers. Osiers pretended he was glad to see her, but he was obviously disturbed Holsten sent her to back him up. Ten minutes after she arrived, he told her he didn’t need her and then acted like he owned the house, like she was some sort of uninvited guest. He didn’t loosen up until she helped him catch up on overdue paperwork. She was killer on paperwork and now they were outside with cold Pacifico beers in their hands, sitting in the lawn chairs, bug zapper on, the night warm and soft, and the only light on the Sea of Cortez starlight. They drank and speculated as they had all evening about Billy Takado’s murder and what had happened to Marquez. She never liked Takado but knew that Marquez did, that he and Billy became friends, so when Osiers said Marquez got too close, she nodded.
‘Never get close to a confidential informant,’ Osiers said, repeating the axiom.
But both of them knew Marquez had a way with people that neither of them had. People like Billy Takado wanted to trust Marquez. Sheryl trusted him and liked working under him. So did Osiers. She took a pull of her beer and thought about her feelings for Marquez. Complicated and private, but with a couple of beers in her and this far away from LA she didn’t have any problem asserting, ‘If the brass blames John, I’ll quit. I’ve never worked under anyone as good as him.’
‘You’re not going to quit.’
‘The fuck I won’t.’
‘And then do what?’
When she didn’t answer, Osiers rolled his eyes. Sheryl went inside to use the bathroom. She left the bath door ajar as she sat down to pee. She felt the beer, her head swimmy, the last few days catching up to her. On her way back out, the phone rang.
A voice said, ‘ Hola, chica,’ and Sheryl, who never forgot the voice of an asshole, said, ‘What’s going on, Rayman?’
‘Something is going down tonight.’
‘What’s that?’
She waited. She listened and part of her turned alert. Baja was one happening place. The sleepy sun-drenched peninsula was very busy and the DEA often worked joint operations with both the ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Mex Feds. Sometimes the US military kicked in and helped track a large transport boat clearing Colombian waters. The Sea of Cortez, the water between the Baja peninsula and the mainland, was the big cocaine pipeline between Colombia and the United States.
The latest thing was a phosphorescent chemical called NK-19 that smugglers used to mark the water for plane drops. They put a big X on the water and a transport boat or a plane dumped a load. Tricked-out speed boats or fastboats picked it up and moved it north. Tonight, at dusk the Sea of Cortez had been smooth as polished glass. Thousands of birds gathered to feed on a school of fish. Carmen Island was a brown line hovering at horizon, and then the darkness came and night was when it happened around here.
Rayman was Raymond Mendoza. More and more the cartels were picking up kids who already held an American passport and spoke Spanish and cou
ld move at will back and forth over the border. Rayman grew up in Santa Monica and attended UCLA where he got most of an undergrad degree in economics before he got bored and quit. Now he was low level inside the Salazar Cartel and either he wasn’t sure about his career choice or the Salazars were behind Rayman contacting them. For her money, it was the latter. Twice they’d given Rayman tip money, but the drops he’d tipped them to were shipments of rivals of the Salazar brothers, meaning so far his tips only hurt the Salazars’ competitors. Still, as long as he delivered they’d keep dancing with him.
‘The shipment coming in tonight is going to get taken,’ Rayman said. ‘It’s big, as big as me, chica.’
‘You’re such a geek. Is it coke?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time and where?’
‘You’re going to take care of me?’
‘Of course.’
Sheryl wrote down the name of the beach, went over it again with him, hung up, grabbed the map and walked outside. Osiers had opened two more beers. Hers was sitting on the patio concrete next to a leg of her chair. He pointed it out so she wouldn’t knock it over and at first he didn’t ask who called. But when he saw the map he put his beer down.
‘Rayman says there’s a load coming in tonight that will get ripped off by the Salazars.’
Osiers frowned and leaned over the map as Sheryl ran her finger up the road from Loreto. She tapped the spot.
‘Looks like that beach at the hook in the road, the one that has the bar and kayak rentals.’
‘Whose drop is it?’
‘Some other Sinaloans, some enemy, some rival, not a name I recognize. I wrote it down. I’ll go get it. He claims it’s going to happen right around midnight.’
‘There have been a couple like that, lately. How did he sound?’
‘I don’t know, like an asshole, like he always sounds.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I just got here. You’re the Baja guy, what do you think?’
‘You should have put me on the phone with him.’
‘You heard it ring. You heard me talking. Why didn’t you get up?’
Osiers picked up his beer again. He took a small sip and then set it on the table as if he was done with it.
‘He told you the Salazars are going to steal the load?’
She nodded.
‘Then that’s the first time he’s given us anything where the Salazars are in action.’
Sheryl got it. She didn’t need it typed out for her. If the Salazars were standing behind Rayman as he talked to her, then the plan wasn’t to let the DEA follow a load they were stealing. Start with that and you could go a bunch of places with it. You could even start believing Rayman. Or you could go really dark and guess that the Salazars knew the standing order right now in the DEA Baja operations was to minimize contact with the Mex Feds until everything got sorted out. Without the Mex Feds they could only follow the stolen load so far. Or even darker, all of the above was true and Rayman was calling to lure them into some plot the Salazars cooked up. Play with that in your head and you have to think about the threat made to Marquez.
‘Should we call home?’ she asked.
‘Call who?’
Osiers knew full well she meant Marquez. This was just male pride, but if she said Marquez’s name now Osiers would scoff.
‘No, we gear up and go,’ Osiers said. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’
An hour later they were in the car driving slowly through little Loreto, then out on to the highway and north into the night.
FIVE
The moon threw just enough light to follow the dirt road without headlights. They parked and then for hours watched the ocean and the waves breaking on the crescent of beach below. The dark shapes of moored fishing boats rocked gently. The beach bar with its blue neon sign and rose-colored lights leaked music. Two vehicles sat out front of the bar, a battered Toyota pickup and a light-colored minivan. Javits studied each again. Nothing had changed and she was tired and doubting Rayman’s tip.
But she did not doubt that Rayman knew she was in Baja before he made the phone call tonight. She brought it up again.
‘Who passed the word that I was coming down here to double up with you?’
‘You’re paranoid because of what happened to Marquez.’
Osiers was weary of talking about it but she kept worrying away at it, trying to get at what she was missing, and they kept watching the dark sea with the arrow of moonlight across it. Her thoughts jumped to John driving back to Tijuana with Takado’s body in the seat next to him.
‘Hear that?’ Osiers asked.
At first she only heard the music and the waves breaking, but now heard the low thrum of a plane, a vibration as much as a sound. Osiers pulled on the night vision goggles, plastic straps snapping against his skin. Whatever was out there was flying without lights. The sound grew closer.
‘Got it,’ Osiers said. ‘I see it.’
Sheryl heard the plane’s engines working as it made the drop and pulled up. Boat engines kicked in and sounded like mosquitoes at this distance. Boats must have been sitting out there waiting in the dark. Now, below them a truck turned of the highway and started along the road toward the beach and the bar. Headlights traced the road. It passed the bar, continued on toward the dock and the beach. A jeep followed a few minutes later and Osiers called it out.
‘I count four in the jeep.’
He pulled the goggles off and asked, ‘Hear the bigger boat, that droning? That’s the ambush coming.’
She saw the lights of the smaller boats way out there. They had found the load and were probably winching it up and now were very scared as the fastboat’s engines rose in pitch and closed in. The fishermen picking up the load were more than likely locals with families here. They were out there making extra money. The narco trafficantes arriving in a fastboat were coming in without lights, closing for the capture and kill.
From up here she and Osiers watched it like a play, a bit episode in centuries of smuggling. They saw the flash of gunfire, heard the shooting, the pip, pip, pip loud enough to be real and far away enough not to be.
‘They’re dying out there,’ Javits said softly.
On the beach the panel truck backed up to the dock and men got out of the jeep with weapons. The bar lights went out. Shooting out on the water stopped and very faintly the scream of a woman carried on the wind and made Javits shudder. Made her wish she was a thousand miles away living a whole different life.
But it was only that one scream and then a brighter light shone out on the sea. That had to be the big offshore boat using a searchlight. There was no more shooting, so they must be getting their pilots on to the fishing boats and starting the boats this way, she guessed. The searchlight went out. The fastboat’s engines droned loud again as it ran south into the night, and the convoy of fishing boats moved slowly this way, their lights rising and falling, their owners left somewhere back in the dark sea.
As they watched the boats come in and off-loading start, Osiers said matter-of-factly, ‘I’m going down to those trees where the beach road hits the highway. Do you know where I’m talking about?’
‘Right where the beach road meets the highway?’
‘Yeah, right there, and I’ll wait in the trees and try to get some plate numbers. Stay here until they pull out and we know what direction they’re going. I’ll radio you to come get me and we’ll call the Mex Feds if we get license plate numbers.’ He paused. ‘You got that?’
‘They could have someone down there watching the road.’
‘No, I watched both vehicles pull in, neither slowed or stopped, and if we don’t get plates and makes on the vehicles, the Mex Feds aren’t going to do shit. I know how they work around here.’
He left before they could argue about it, and she watched him as far as she could. Ten minutes later her radio squawked as he reached the trees.
‘I’m here.’
Javits watched the Jeep and the
panel truck leave the beach and start up the road toward the highway. She glanced back toward the beach. Bar lights remained off, same two vehicles still parked in front. The panel truck and Jeep drove out the beach road and slowed where the road met the highway near the trees where Jim was waiting. When the vehicles turned north and disappeared she started down. As she reached the highway she expected Osiers to radio and she paused there, and then drove slowly down the highway. When she neared the stand of trees and the beach road entrance, the Toyota pickup that had been parked in front of the bar pulled out on to the highway, accelerated and passed her going north. So the pickup hadn’t just been left there for the night. That bothered her and when Osiers didn’t answer the radio she got worried.
She drove down around the curve in the highway and then came back slowly, expecting him to walk out on to the highway shoulder. She cued the radio repeatedly and now turned down the road to the beach, stopped at the trees, and got out. She called, ‘Jim.’ She used her headlights and then a flashlight, and then hurried back to the car.
She drove slowly forward trying the radio. Twenty minutes later she fought to keep her voice calm as she used the satellite phone to call Marquez. Her heart hammered. The phone rang. Come on, John, pick up, please pick up, and then he did.
SIX
After Sheryl’s call, Marquez drove to the Field Office. At dawn he tried again to convince Holsten.
‘You’re not going,’ Holsten said. ‘Hundreds of federales are already looking for him and Highway 1 is shut down both directions. The Mexicans put up roadblocks at Santa Rosalia and outside Lazaro Cardenas last night. They’re stopping vehicles in and out of Ensenada this morning. They’re stopping boats. There’s nothing you’re going to bring to the equation and you’re needed here.’
Just before noon Sheryl called from Loreto, her voice flat and dead as she reported, ‘Jim had a girlfriend in Loreto named Alicia Guayas. She’s nineteen and pregnant. The Mex Feds just took me to meet her. She says it’s his baby and they also claim he has a bank account in La Paz under a false name. The girlfriend told them that Jim is leaving his wife for her. They’re trying to tell me Jim staged his disappearance so he could run off with her.’