Rancho Buena Fortuna

by Bill King

  Then, just over a year ago, the Rancho changed ownership. Its former owner, a Mexican Federal Policeman known as El Coronel, had summoned Chucho without warning to his home down in Monterrey to inform him of the change. He was also instructed to stay clear of the Rancho. Forever. No further explanation. Just stay away.

  El Coronel had a soft spot for Chucho, whom he had taken under his wing as a young boy. The policeman had plans for Chucho so, to soften the blow to his ego, he sent him north to Dallas to learn the ins and outs of the American trafficking business from one of his colleagues. By relocating him four hundred miles to the north, the policeman also hoped to prevent him from doing anything stupid during the transition period.

  Ownership of the property was not the only thing that changed.

  The new owners of the Rancho would no longer focus on drugs and human trafficking. Instead, their goals were strategic. They wanted to carve their own niche by focusing on providing logistical support for terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

  It wasn’t that they abhorred drugs and human trafficking. After all, that was precisely where their original wealth had come from. Instead, they saw the Rancho as a new product line for them, one with even higher margins and a very specialized clientele.

  Besides, the chaos their actions would create would make it easier to carry out their other criminal enterprises in the U.S. with less risk and fewer interruptions.

  The other people who lived and worked at the Rancho knew nothing about Graciela’s past, other than that she was a Mexican girl who had attended some fancy university in the United States. They liked her. A lot. She was taller than most of them and on the pretty side, with dark hair and green eyes, and full of life.

  Except for a few of the older employees, they also knew very little about Chucho, who was already gone by the time most of them had been hired. Still, they knew him by reputation and were glad he was no longer around.

  Those few who knew him best doubted that he would remain banished forever.

  ◆◆◆

  The new nerve center of Rancho Buena Fortuna was The Bunker, which was designed to orchestrate a highly secure, under-the-radar border crossing and staging area for surreptitious assaults into the United States.

  It had been conceived by two criminal plutocrats—one Mexican, the other French—over a quiet dinner in Rio de Janeiro just eighteen months earlier. The concept was to offer their considerable logistical infrastructure and expertise to global terrorist organizations…a 3PL for political zealots.

  Through a series of dummy corporations, the new owner of the Rancho—a wealthy Monterrey attorney—had also secretly acquired seven-hundred-and-fifty acres of land on the American side, just across the river from the Rancho. It was large enough to meet their needs, while small enough to not attract unwanted attention.

  He had turned to a bright young woman, Graciela Montoya, fresh out of graduate school, to turn his vision into a reality. Although she didn’t realize it at the time, she was being groomed for this responsibility since early childhood, when that same Monterrey attorney and his wife generously offered to pay for her schooling. Since they were childless, they had chosen Graciela to carry on their legacy.

  Family ties gave added strength to business relationships.

  Construction of the massive underground complex began almost immediately thereafter, with Graciela—an engineer by training—managing the process, which was made simpler by the remoteness of the area. Most of the original heavy excavation work was done between the hours of dusk and dawn, with the four 26-ton bulldozers hidden inside a dilapidated wooden barn on the Texas side during the day.

  The excavation and construction work were hidden from prying eyes from above by an extensive array of camouflage netting, which had been stolen from the Mexican army. They even maintained an armed security force of forty men deployed throughout the entire twenty-acre project area to prevent any outsiders from stumbling onto the site.

  The complex consisted of a series of underground buildings, most of which were on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande. Once the concrete for the subsurface buildings and tunnels had cured, Graciela buried the entire complex underground, with the Bunker on the Mexican side and the storage and living buildings on the U.S. side.

  Afterwards, she erected a couple of outbuildings on the surface above them to hide any trace of the major construction project that lay beneath. These were farm buildings that one would typically find on a ranch, along with a circular corral like you’d see in any western movie.

  The underground facilities on both sides of the Rio Grande were connected by the main tunnel that extended underneath the river from a long rectangular outbuilding on the Rancho side to an old barn on the American side, a distance of roughly five kilometers.

  The entire project took less than ten months to build, although outfitting the underground operational rooms was still ongoing.

  ◆◆◆

  “Oye, niños, it’s time to get going,” said Graciela, laying her crisp, white linen napkin neatly on her plate. She grasped the edge of the table in front of her with both hands and pushed back her chair, rising to her feet.

  The others quickly followed her lead. One of the men snatched a banana and an orange and stuffed them into the front pouch of his baggy green hoodie for later.

  They walked across the kitchen and stopped in front of a solid oak door, just to the left of a massive, stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator. The man in the green hoodie grabbed for the doorknob and opened the door, revealing the old construction stairs that led down into the basement.

  “When are they going to replace these stairs, Graciela?” he asked. “Every time we walk up and down them, I’m afraid they’re going to collapse.”

  “Be patient. It’s not really at the top of the priority list,” she said. “We’ll probably get to it in the next week or so.”

  Once downstairs, they walked across the large open room to a freight elevator, which took them down another thirty feet below ground. It was dank and smelled musty.

  “Remind me to have a heater installed down here,” said Graciela, briskly rubbing her cold arms as they stepped out of the freight elevator and into an open lobby area. “Well, at least the tunnel lights seem to work.”

  A fifty-meter walk down a tunnel took them to a heavy steel door securing the entrance to the Bunker. As far as tunnels went, this one was almost opulent, not like a dirt tunnel that a prisoner or soldier would dig by hand or with a shovel. This tunnel was well lit and encased in reinforced concrete. The corridor was roughly ten feet high and ten feet wide to accommodate the wide array of equipment they moved in and out. It still had a look and feel of newness.

  Graciela entered the combination code into the square digital pad box located to the right of the heavy steel door. This led into the Bunker, a name they had bestowed upon it in recognition of the room’s stark, bare appearance. When they entered, the members of the previous day’s crew all turned their focus towards them.

  Similar in age and appearance to the incoming shift, they had been down there for the past twelve hours and were eagerly looking forward to some fresh air, breakfast and much needed sleep.

  “Okay, everyone, gather around while Ernesto fills us in on last night’s events,” said Graciela, eager to get on with things. Ernesto was the leader of the outgoing shift. “Begin with the exploding car, please.”

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 3

  A PALL OF GLOOM hung over Pete Cortez as he guided his pickup truck through the main entrance into the Houston FBI complex bright and early on Monday morning.

  The modern, eight-story office building is located in northwest Houston and looked just like any of a thousand similar office building complexes located out in the suburbs of any major city. The well-landscaped ten-acre property is surrounded by an attractive wrought iron fence and the only indication that it isn’t just another high-tech company is the monument sign at the main entrance that reads, discretely,
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, HOUSTON DIVISION.

  His mind was racing as he made his way through the various layers of security and checkpoints into the building. Eventually, he stepped into the elevator and pushed the button marked five.

  Cortez wasn’t looking forward to the next couple of days, and for good reason. After all, he had just gotten back to work after a three-day fishing weekend where he had managed to kill two people, at least one of whom was apparently a high school kid. Even if it was self-defense, the public optics were horrible.

  “Jeez, Pete, did you really have to shoot the kid?” asked Jack Gonçalves, his boss at the Houston Joint Terrorism Task Force. He wasn’t smiling but, then again, he didn’t have a particularly angry look, either. It was more like concern. “Two teenagers dead at the hands of an FBI agent. Even if it was justified, it’s still uncomfortable to explain, especially in today’s toxic environment.”

  Gonçalves—his name was pronounced gone-SALL-vez, with the accent on the second syllable—was a balding man just a shade under six feet tall. He was a West Point graduate who had spent five years in the Army before leaving active duty to join the FBI. That was fifteen years ago, and he was now the assistant special agent in charge of the Houston Joint Terrorism Task Force, or JTTF, as it is most commonly called.

  “Boss, he was shooting at me,” said Cortez, who had chosen to wear one of his new suits to work that day, along with an expensive Italian silk tie his younger sister had given him for Christmas a few months earlier. For Cortez, his choice of clothing was an indication of how seriously he took his current predicament. “It seemed like a really smart move at the time.”

  “I’ve got to tell you, Pete, the folks in Washington are going totally ballistic about this. This is your third fatal incident in less than two years.”

  “Yeah, it was also three opportunities for me to be lying dead on a slab in the morgue.”

  “Pete, you’ve got to understand that they’re going to be gunning for you this time, particularly once the national press gets ahold of the story and runs with it.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand it doesn’t look good.”

  “It’s worse than simply not looking good,” said the ASAC. “There’s a very real possibility this could end your career.”

  Cortez said nothing. He knew that Gonçalves was the kind of leader who would always have his back, but he also understood that in a massive bureaucracy like the FBI, he might not be able to protect him. After all, he had a family to consider.

  “Worst case, it might even result in charges being pressed. Possibly even jail time, Pete.”

  “So, what do you recommend I do?”

  He’d been in hot water before—in fact, lots of times before—but his gut told him this time was different. He hoped the mention of prison was just designed to get his attention, to help him appreciate the seriousness of his current predicament.

  “The SAC wants me to ship you off to some out-of-the-way location until the dust settles on this. Somewhere off the beaten path where the press won’t find you.”

  Given the pervasiveness of today’s technology, he shuddered to even think of what that place might look like.

  “How about sending me out to Laredo?” he offered. “Maybe I can help them find this Chucho guy.”

  “Funny, that’s just what I suggested to the SAC,” said Gonçalves. The Special Agent in Charge of the Houston Division was a crusty Oklahoman by the name of Frank White.

  “When should I head out?”

  “The sooner, the better, but, before you take off, what can you tell me about the guy who got away? Did you get a good look at him?” Gonçalves asked, absentmindedly removing his wire rim glasses and wiping them clean with a black jeweler’s cloth before placing them back on his face.

  “It was daybreak, so the visibility wasn’t great but, yeah, I got a decent look at him,” said Cortez. “He was short, maybe five-six or thereabouts, with a big crooked nose…looked kind of like a parrot’s beak.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, the two kids called him Chucho.” Cortez bit his tongue as soon as he said that. Referring to the recently deceased armed robbers as kids wouldn’t exactly help his cause if this incident were to suddenly go south on him.

  “Could you tell anything from their accents?” asked Gonçalves, whose great grandparents had immigrated from Portugal right after the first world war and had settled in Rhode Island amidst the large Portuguese fishing community. Like most Americans, his ancestors were from somewhere else and, like most third-generation immigrants, he did not speak his grandparent’s native language.

  “Northern Mexico would be my best guess, although the one I took out with the knife sounded like he had spent a lot of time in the States.”

  “An American?”

  “No, I don’t think so, or at least not a native English speaker. He didn’t have any identification on him when I checked his body afterwards, but my sense is that he was probably originally from Mexico and didn’t pick up his English until he was probably about ten or so. Long enough ago to develop a slight Texas twang, but not long enough to completely lose the Hispanic accent.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, mostly at his present predicament.

  It seemed like he had spent much of his seven years in the FBI in and out of hot water. Back when he had been in the Army, there was an old saying that it took ten Atta-boys to overcome one Aw-shit and his personal experience seemed to validate that hypothesis.

  “When do you think I can get my knife back?”

  “A seven-inch dagger is not exactly standard FBI issue,” said the ASAC, smiling to himself as he shook his head. “Carrying an antique commando knife specially designed by the Brits for killing is not exactly the image the modern FBI is trying to portray.”

  “I know, but it’s kind of a family heirloom,” he said, reflecting for a moment on Gonçalves’ characterization of the weapon and conceding that, when you look at it that way, he probably makes a good point. “My grandfather gave it to me back when I was a teenager, on my thirteenth birthday, just before he passed away. It was a keepsake from his days with the OSS during the second world war.”

  “Most people would probably keep their granddaddy’s wartime souvenirs in a glass case or in a drawer. You, on the other hand, choose to use it as a self-defense weapon that seems to find itself as a repeat visitor to various police evidence lockers,” said Gonçalves, taking a sip from his mug of coffee. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ll get it back when they’re done with it. Until then, you need to focus less on the knife and more on finding out about this Chucho character.”

  Cortez nodded his head and got up from his chair.

  “Pete, keep your head down,” said Gonçalves, looking Cortez square in the eye, an almost fatherly tone to his voice. “This situation is probably going to get pretty messy before it’s all over. Let’s just hope political expediency doesn’t win the day.”

  ◆◆◆

  Graciela was sitting at an eighteenth-century Spanish colonial walnut Vargueño desk in the study when a short, stocky man with a parrot beak nose suddenly strolled into the room, surprising her. It was late-morning and she had been lost in thought, thinking about the important meeting she had coming up later that day.

  “Oye, Niña,” he called out brusquely, the broad smile on his face revealing a large gap between his two front teeth. He almost always referred to her as “little girl,” his way of denigrating her status.

  “What are you doing here, Chucho?” she asked in a shocked voice, surprised to see him after more than a year, especially in her private sanctuary at the Rancho. “I thought it was made very clear to you that you are no longer welcome here at The Rancho.”

  Despite her false bravado, she struggled to keep her voice from trembling. He was the last person she ever expected to just pop in unannounced.

  “Be careful how you speak to me,” he said ominously, sauntering over
to the bar and removing a bottle of beer from the small refrigerator. “It could be very dangerous for you. You, above all people, should understand that.”

  Chucho struck terror in the hearts of most people and Graciela was no exception. She had not yet grown accustomed to the enormous power she now actually held, reverting instead back to her former power relationship with him a year earlier.

  “Get out of this house and off of this property,” she said, hoping he would not call her bluff. “Or would you rather I have my security people physically remove you?”

  He took a swig of his beer and sat down heavily on the well-worn leather sofa across from her, letting loose a loud and protracted burp as his rear end hit the cushion.

  “You mean the same security people who kept me from just walking into the hacienda?”

  She was furious with herself because it was she who had decided to lighten the old security precautions because they made the place feel like an armed camp. The most indelible lessons are learned from mistakes and this was a mistake that she would correct immediately.

  “Relax, Graciela, I won’t be staying long,” he said, noticing her discomfort and taking delight in it. “I just wanted to stop by the old place and let you know that I’ll be keeping an eye on you from now on out. If any of your activities happen to extend across the river, you might want to rethink the wisdom of doing so. I now own the north side of the river.”

  He took an extended swig of his beer, emptying the bottle. He tossed it against the massive stone fireplace, where it shattered into pieces.

  She winced at the sudden violence of the act but tried desperately not to show it.

  “Well, I hate to break up this party, but I really need to get going,” he said, rising from the sofa.

  He gave her a stern, threatening look.