by L. D Beyer
“God damn!” he heard as three more agents joined him. He glanced back, grinning. He saw the looks of amazement on his fellow agents’ faces—looks, he knew, that matched his own.
“You got the video camera, Rob?” he whispered.
Behind him, Agent Rob Portman nodded. He held up the camera and flicked it on. Ortega flinched as the red “on” light flashed in his goggles. Damn! he thought. They had forgotten about that. Finding what he needed in the pouch on his web belt, he ripped a small piece of tape off the roll and covered the light. He leaned back and studied his handiwork. Satisfied, he looked up at Portman and grinned, then held up the roll of tape.
“Duct tape,” he whispered. “Never leave home without it.”
“We’re really going to do this?” Portman asked nervously.
“Intelligence says that the factory is empty,” Ortega responded. Then he smiled mischievously. “No guts, no glory.” Before Portman could respond, he turned back to the tunnel. “Camera’s on,” he said into the microphone.
His radio hissed. “Okay, Juan. We have the feed. Looks good.” There was a pause. “Uh, boss? You sure about this?”
Him too? Ortega thought. “Yeah. Let’s do this thing.”
The radio was silent for a moment. “Okay. Take it nice and slow now.”
“Roger,” Ortega responded then whispered over his shoulder.
“Stay right behind me, Rob,” he instructed.
He took a breath, held his gun in front of him, and began creeping forward. Despite his height—he was five-eight—he had to hunch over periodically to keep from banging his head into the overhead supports.
___
Matthew Richter placed his boots in front of the locker then unzipped his tactical suit. As he slid his arm out of the sleeve, he felt a twinge in his shoulder and cursed under his breath. He hadn’t noticed the pain before but, when he thought about it, he realized that he had fallen pretty hard. He grabbed a towel and headed toward the shower.
Camp Smith was located on the Hudson River in Cortland Manor, New York, forty miles north of Manhattan. The FBI, the DEA, and a number of other federal agencies maintained a permanent presence at the National Guard base, and it was a location that Richter’s team used for training from time to time.
Moments later, standing in front of the mirror, he thought about Patty. They were supposed to play tennis tonight. He winced as he rubbed his shoulder. As much as he wanted to see her again, they might have to find something else to do. He turned slightly and noticed the reflection. There was an ugly purple bruise extending down the back of his shoulder to just below the shoulder blade. This was why they trained as hard as they did, he thought. Inevitably something went wrong and they had to be able to react instantly to the ever-changing scenario. They had been in the live-fire room—what his team had dubbed the Play Room—which was a large warehouse-like structure that had mockups and flexible building facades that allowed them to run a variety of training scenarios so that when they were called out on a real raid and were facing armed and dangerous terrorists face to face, the odds were stacked in their favor. Repetition followed by more repetition, Richter thought, remembering something the HRT trainers liked to say. One day it was an aircraft, the next, a school, the following, a mockup of the UN building.
At the end of the week, he knew, they would be training at the NYPD’s fifty-four acre facility at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx. Then, in two weeks, they would travel to the FBI facility at Quantico, Virginia. Repetition followed by more repetition, in every conceivable scenario, Richter thought as he rotated his arm. He winced and shook his head. He was going to need some Tylenol.
The training instructor would have to confirm his suspicions, but he knew what had happened. He had been following the point man, an energetic and capable former Marine, as they scrambled through the dark sewer pipes. Right before Agent Reardon, the point man, hit the ladder, he tripped. Richter, who had been following, perhaps a little too closely, had gone over Reardon’s heels. If he had to guess, the trainers had placed some heavy obstacle below the water line and the unlucky point man, and in turn Richter, had fallen victim.
He finished packing his gear and glanced over at his men. There were the usual jokes and banter, debates over the Yankees’ prospects for the post season, discussions of home-improvement projects, frustrations over a child’s illness. They were good guys, Richter thought, with the typical interests, worries, and problems of all middle-class family men.
As he headed for the conference room, he knew it would be an uncomfortable session. There was no room for anything but brutal honesty in the training debriefs, and the reality was that both he and Reardon had made mistakes today. That was okay when the bad guys were paper targets. But when the bad guys were real? Mistakes got people killed.
___
Ortega and his team crept forward silently with no sense of how far they’d gone except for the occasional radio transmission. The DEA plane flying an oval pattern twenty-five thousand feet above their heads was able to pick up their transmitter, even through five meters of packed earth.
“Two-tenths,” Ortega heard in his headphones. He clicked his microphone—a signal that he understood—but said nothing. Two tenths of a mile, he thought. At a minimum, he knew, the tunnel was three-quarters-of-a-mile long. This they had estimated from the aerial photos and images from Google Earth. But that was assuming, he thought, that the tunnel was a straight line—a direct path from the metal fabricator in Matamoros to the house in Brownsville.
Thirty minutes later, they paused and sat, taking a short break to give their backs a rest. They each selected a column to lean against and sat silently as they continued to study the smugglers’ handiwork. Ortega closed his eyes to give them a rest from the eerie green image in his goggles.
Finding the tunnel had taken some time. Thanks to reconnaissance—satellites or airplanes, he wasn’t sure—they had been able to track the drug shipments to the factory in Matamoros. But the intelligence analysts were convinced that the drugs were not leaving the factory by truck. Each shipment from the factory had been stopped at the border and thoroughly inspected. Yet the drugs were still making their way north. A tunnel was suspected, and when the analysts noted the unusual traffic patterns at the house in Brownsville, they knew they had found the other end.
The house was put under surveillance and when there was a lull in activity, they had quietly raided the house in the middle of the night. A quick inspection of the vacant house had turned up nothing and they went through a second time more thoroughly. It was then they had noticed the faint scuff marks on the tiled floor—marks that remained despite the strong smell of cleaner and the still damp mops in the laundry room. The trail of scuff marks led from the garage to a closet in the bedroom. Stranger yet, even though the house had been thoroughly cleaned, six empty paint cans, long since dried, had been left on top of a heavy canvas drop cloth on the floor of the closet. Underneath, they’d found the trap door.
Ortega opened his eyes, checked his watch, and nodded to his team. They stood awkwardly and Ortega clicked his microphone twice in quick succession and they began moving forward again. After a while, they came to an opening in the wall. He stepped in and inspected it, noting that it was another airshaft. It seemed there was one every tenth-of-a-mile. That would make number six, he thought as he stepped out. A moment later, as they began to move forward again, his radio confirmed his theory.
“Six tenths,” he heard in his earbud.
The team continued forward. A minute later, Ortega stopped suddenly and held his fist up. There were scraping noises ahead. The team stood still, silently scanning the tunnel for the source of the noise. Rats? Ortega wondered. God! He hated rats.
There were two muffled pops and Portman slumped against him, the video camera dropping from his hands.
“We’re taking fire!” Ortega hissed into his microphone as he dropped to his knee and frantically searched the tunnel ahead for the shooter. Without l
ooking, he called over his shoulder. “Get him out of here!”
The two agents behind him began to drag Portman back down the tunnel as more muffled pops came from farther ahead. Ortega pointed his gun forward and fired three times, not sure what he was aiming at but hoping to distract the shooter and buy his team some time. A shot slammed into the framework next to his head, and he dropped to his belly.
“We’re in the air vent,” he heard in his headphones. “Portman’s hit! We need to get him out of here!”
Ortega fired three more times, aiming at various spots in the tunnel.
“I’ll cover you!” He shouted into his microphone as he fired again.
This time he saw the muzzle flash. He heard the scream behind him as he adjusted his aim. He fired three more times then cursed when he realized his gun was empty. As he reached for a new clip, he saw the tongue of flame and heard the roar of an automatic weapon and realized his mistake.
His last thought was of his wife and newborn son.
CHAPTER FIVE
As he stepped out of the Oval Office, President Kendall spotted Chief of Staff Burt Phillips coming down the hall. His face somber, Phillips nodded toward the door. The president turned and stepped back into his office. Phillips closed the door behind them.
“Four DEA agents were killed an hour ago in a shootout with drug smugglers,” Phillips began.
Damn! Kendall cursed under his breath. “Where? What happened?”
“Brownsville, Texas, sir. From what I’ve been told, they discovered a tunnel under the border and were investigating it when they were ambushed. Apparently the agent in charge made the decision to go in with a small team. He didn’t wait for backup.” Phillips shook his head. “They were ill-equipped and outgunned.”
“A tunnel?”
Phillips nodded. “Yes, sir; from a warehouse or factory on the Mexican side to a house in Brownsville. From what I’ve been told, it’s over three-quarters of a mile long.”
“Did we catch any of the smugglers?”
Phillips shook his head. “No. We’ve notified Mexican authorities. They’ve promised to investigate, but…” He shrugged.
“Damn!” the president cursed again. “I’ll need their names and their service records.” He paused, thinking. “And get me some information on their families.” He paused again as he thought of the phone calls he would have to make. “I think someone needs to take a look at DEA procedures,” he added.
Phillips nodded, making a note.
The president shook his head. The violence along the border—at first isolated and sporadic—had been growing. It was time, he realized, to review their approach to the growing drug problem.
___
A hush came over the room and several members of the National Security Council wore strained looks.
“What does that mean?” the president asked. “The government could collapse?”
Watson nodded. “Analysis by both the CIA and the Pentagon suggests that, left unchecked, the cartels will eventually have the capacity—the money, the firepower, and effective control over major cities and infrastructure—to overtake the Mexican government.” He paused, his face grim. “Both think that this could happen within the next five years.”
“You’re talking about a coup d’état?”
“Yes, sir,” Watson responded then paused as a pained look came over his face. He reached for a glass of water. “Excuse me,” he said seconds later when he put the glass down. “They’ve been infiltrating the military for years. We don’t know how many of their officers are on the cartel payroll. The CIA is currently doing an analysis of the top brass, but the initial guess is five percent.” Watson grimaced and took another sip of water. “That’s a conservative guess,” he added.
“They already have their tentacles into the police,” Burt Phillips stated.
Watson nodded. “They do, both the federal police and some of the state and local forces as well. President Magaña has fired whole departments—the Ciudad Juarez force, the city of Monterrey, whole divisions of the federal police—and replaced them with the military.”
“Which may not be any better,” the president concluded. He was silent as he considered the implications. “Could this lead to a civil war?”
“It’s possible, sir,” Watson responded. “But I don’t think the cartels would let that happen. It all depends on how much of the military leadership is in their pocket.” He grimaced again. “I would think they would wait until they had enough to force a bloodless coup.”
The president glanced around the room. “Any thoughts?”
“I think Brett’s right, sir,” Burt Phillips said. “If the country is plunged into a civil war, it’s only a matter of time before the international community reacts and peacekeepers are sent in. They don’t want that. Further, a civil war would also disrupt their drug operations.” He paused. “They’ll wait until they have control of the military.”
The president nodded and studied the faces around him. Most were grim, Watson’s especially so. Kendall paused as he studied his National Security Advisor. There was something else. He looked pale, the president thought and made a note to speak to him later. He turned back to the room.
“I don’t need to tell you that if this were to happen, it would present a grave risk to our national security.”
Heads nodded and there were murmurs of assent.
The president stood, then leaned forward and rapped his knuckles on the table. The sound was loud in the silent room.
“I need to know what our options are.”
___
Several minutes later, the president waved Burt Phillips into the Oval Office. Phillips, the former CEO of Tandem Capital, a consulting company he had cofounded after serving six years as Deputy Secretary of Defense, was a short man, standing just five-foot-seven. Despite his height, he had the wiry body of an athlete and an intensity and directness that commanded respect. Most who met him assumed, incorrectly, that he had served in the military.
“So in addition to North Korea and Iran,” Kendall said as he sat, “we now have to worry about an unstable government right next door?”
Phillips nodded, scowling. “This seems to have escalated pretty quickly.” He joined his boss on the couch.
The president was silent for a moment. “What’s going on with Brett? He seemed a little off his game today.”
Phillips frowned. “I just spoke to him. He’s not feeling well. He’s going home.”
The president arched his eyebrows. The White House had a fully equipped medical facility.
“He wants to see his own doctor,” Phillips responded. He had been Chief of Staff for almost two years and, in that time, had come to understand the president well enough that he often knew what he was thinking.
The president nodded then sat back. Hopefully everything was okay, he thought. And hopefully Watson wouldn’t be out for long. There was too much going on in the world right now, and he needed the man’s guidance.
Phillips leaned forward. “We’ve been working on a counter drug policy,” he said, interrupting Kendall’s thoughts.
The president looked up.
“Including a military option,” Phillips continued.
The president nodded slowly as Phillips went on to explain that Brett Watson had been working with the DEA and the CIA on a more aggressive approach to compliment the new treatment and education programs proposed by the Drug Czar. President Kendall frowned. In his mind, he could still see the three flag-draped coffins being unloaded from the plane two years before in Dover, Delaware. It was just days later, as the three Navy SEALs were buried, that he had quietly suspended the Project Boston operation. While the operation had shown early success, it had been too narrowly focused on dismantling the cartels without any thought given to what would happen in the aftermath. When the cartels began to fight back, with new players rushing to fill the void, it became clear that without addressing the demand in the U.S. and without addressing the systemic fai
lures of the Mexican government, the operation was destined to fail.
He sighed. One thought continued to nag at him. The game had changed. Now, with the looming collapse of the Mexican government, he could no longer sit back and watch as the situation continued to deteriorate. He looked up at Phillips and nodded.
“Okay. Show me what you have,” he said. “The sooner, the better.”
CHAPTER SIX
Matthew Richter turned at the sound of the voice behind him and saw Special Agent Mark Crawford coming down the hall. Crawford, the Commander of the JTTF, was a career FBI agent. He wore a troubled look, which wasn’t surprising, given that the man rarely smiled, not in the office anyway. Despite that, he was a diplomat and deftly navigated the often tense relationship between the arrogant and overbearing Bureau and the ultra-territorial NYPD.
“You hear about the DEA agents?” Crawford asked.
Richter shook his head. “No.”
“Four agents were killed today,” Crawford explained, giving Richter the details of the raid.
Richter grimaced. Although he didn’t recognize any of the names, he had a number of friends in the DEA. They were all good people. While the FBI, with its vast resources, technical expertise, and regimented training, was often seen as arrogant—a reputation not undeserved given the air of superiority the Bureau cultivated within its ranks—the DEA had a reputation for operating more like street cops. They were far less bureaucratic and much more nimble than the FBI, where operations and raids were, if not centrally planned, centrally scrutinized. Whereas DEA agents were given a lot of latitude, FBI agents often had to wait for a final go-no-go decision from headquarters.
In the last two years the cultural differences had become painfully evident and, on the occasion when FBI bureaucracy frustrated him, Richter wondered what it would be like to work for the DEA. Still, he knew, as he thought about the four dead agents, a cautious bureaucracy wasn’t always bad.