“We were going after the money,” she said. “Oscar would go to the garment district and buy a boatload of T-shirts, Nikes, hats, whatever. Tourist shit, mostly for the Europeans and Asians and Americanos going down to Tijuana. He’d pay five hundred K for the stuff and have it sent to one of the commercial distributors down in Mexico. Now the distributor is on the hook for five hundred K’s worth of goods, right? But instead of paying Oscar back, they pay Oscar’s peso broker for it. In pristine pesos. Which the peso broker would then deliver to the cartel, minus his fee. That’s how Oscar got his money to the cartel.”
“Like a cutout for money.”
“And all his invention. This dude from San Pedro in a little stucco house with a view of the Port of Los Angeles. Even after we busted him, he was still plotting. We’d watch the ships come in loaded with illicit shit from all over, drugs and stolen cars, and he had it in his head that he’d be working those dirty Harbor Department guys in no time.”
“Denial.”
“And he wouldn’t set up a meet with the peso broker! And I have the perfect guy for a sting. This Orange County retiree. Ex-biker, strictly old-school, who—get this—just happens to own a T-shirt company. All we gotta do is have the peso broker meet with our guy, do a few runs for smaller amounts. Once our biker is in everybody’s good graces, we’ll arrest the peso broker in Mexico. We’ll have more than enough to extradite. Which should be enough to get him to flip.”
“But Oscar won’t set up the meet. Why?”
She looked at him, telegraphing the next bit.
“I’m not supposed to even see a CI without my partner. But inside of a few weeks, Oscar’s only texting me. I’m the only one he’ll communicate with. Asking, can I come over? Can we talk privately? He gets butt-hurt when I won’t meet him at his place or when I won’t stay. Fixing me these rum and lime and coconut cream things at his place.”
“Ah.”
“And I’m Windex-clear that it’s not in the cards, not in this life.”
“Right.”
“But maybe I’m, you know, even then, saying or suggesting or hinting that it could be? If the situation were different? If our world wasn’t the world?”
“Give him a dream to jerk off over.”
“I’m thinking, let him tire himself out trying to get into my pants. Let him drunk-text me at three a.m. or send me pics of his bare chest and tell me how hard it is to be a gentleman. Let him send me apologies the next morning, say he’s ashamed, his mama didn’t raise him like this. He’s just spinning, that’s what I’m thinking. And he’s gonna tire out.”
“Right.”
“But then we got made.”
He looked over at her.
“By who?”
“So I’m at Oscar’s. It’s late. The usual. Rum drink. Him trying to make a move. Not make a move. Figure out what he’s supposed to do with all this fear and energy and most of all his boner. He wants to fuck his way out of this, you know? Not gonna happen, of course. Of course, of course. But still, I’m letting him be persistent. I’m letting him . . . I’m letting him touch my arm, I’m letting him sit close.”
“Okay.”
“Then there’s this knock.”
“Shit.”
“Oscar leaps up and peeks through the Judas gate and his face goes real scared. Like terrified. But he’s opening the door. He’s too scared to not open the door. So it’s bad.”
“Who is it?”
“The peso broker.”
“Fuck.”
“I never felt so scared in my whole life. Oscar opens the door, and this guy Hector kicks it wide and stands in the doorway and I’m like, it’s over, I’m about to die. The way this Hector is looking at me, he knows who I am. He knows.”
“Fuck.”
“But he says ‘Who the hell is this?’ to Oscar. And there I am with my sweater in my lap . . .”
“You’re dead.”
“I’m so dead. And you know what Oscar says?”
“What?”
“He says, ‘This is Beth. Or Becky or some shit? I dunno, dude. Just come from the bar with this bitch. What do you want?’”
“Hector buys it?”
“They go into the kitchen. They talk. The guy’s gone in ten minutes. Less.”
“Holy hell. So you’re good.”
She turned to look at him. He, back at her. Open, clear-eyed. Not a scintilla of judgment. A knowing.
“I think I’m gonna need another,” she said, handing him her empty. He took her can, stood, and crushed it. Then reached into the sack and cracked a new one open and handed it over in a fluid transaction, never breaking eye contact.
“So when the guy leaves, Oscar slides down onto the floor by the door, and he loses it. And then I did too. We held each other on the couch. He didn’t try . . . anything. We just stayed like that, next to each other all night.”
She sipped her beer and the alcohol warmth spread to her face, she could feel her face redden, there was a euphoria building because she’d almost told it all, she was going to tell everything. It was the alcohol, but also the way Carver was there, quietly, hearing her, waiting to hear her . . . she felt relief, gratitude, an exquisite exhilaration.
This is what it’s like. The telling, the feelings, the giving yourself over.
“The investigation was dead,” she said. “I couldn’t go forward. We couldn’t set up the peso broker.”
He almost seemed to know. About her. About people.
“If Hector has even a halfway decent lawyer, he’s gonna ask what I’m doing at Oscar’s that night. Shoes off, sweater off, cozy on the couch with drinks. A good lawyer will hammer me on these things, question after question about broken or bent regs. I’ll have to explain this misconduct, mitigate it, fucking maybe lose the jury over it.”
“Really?” he asked. “That seems a little extreme.”
“I was an ADA. I know what a team of attorneys can do for a syndicate. Every case I ever worked could be reopened. I can’t have that. And lots of bad motherfuckers possibly getting walking papers.”
“Because you weren’t wearing shoes? Who the fuck cares?”
“You have no idea.” She shook her head. “I was a DA too, in my past life. Cases I prosecuted? Cases I helped prosecute? In particular, cases I worked with my current supervisor.”
She watched him figure it out.
“You two pulled some stunts,” he said.
He was a very good listener. There was no holding back now.
“We did things. I did things. Flimsy indictments to rattle suspects. Buried exculpatory evidence from the defense.”
“Shenanigans,” he said. “Whatever.”
“I obstructed justice. It could be argued that I am now in the employ of the DEA and under the direct supervision of my coconspirator on those cases. A good lawyer would argue that my curious change of employment was in exchange for these misdeeds. This peso broker might not just be the end of my career, it might be the undoing of any conviction I ever touched.”
Carver slid out of the SUV and stood in front of her.
“This is so fucked up.”
She didn’t argue. She didn’t even really disagree with him.
“Anyway, you wanted to know what was Oscar’s malfunction. He was stuck on a case I had to let die,” she said. “I let him languish. I put him off. I ignored him for months and months.”
He paced there as she spoke, waiting for her to finish.
“Don’t. He killed himself because his conscience told him he was a piece of shit. Accurately. Don’t you dare blame yourself.” He shook his head and sighed and leaned against the SUV. “I’m serious. We’re out here dealing with a level of wickedness nearly impossible to fathom. So you worked in some gray areas. No one gets to judge you. Not the lawyers, not the bosses. Nobody.”
“But they do, actually. And now, with this situation . . .” She gestured toward the warehouse, trailed off.
“He called you. You had the huevos to enter the s
ituation!”
He cracked open two more beers and handed one to her, though she wasn’t finished with the one in her hand.
“I get the exact same shit at Langley,” he said. “I have an actual polygrapher. A personal lie detector assigned just to me. So I have to spend a black-site-worthy number of hours answering questions about reports I filled out six months ago. Reports inevitably consisting of me saying the same motherfucking thing I always say. How the Gulf Cartel is deeply embedded with Mexican paramilitaries. Christ, you’d think a multibillion-dollar criminal organization in league with the military of our southern neighbor would garner—”
He stopped mid-rant. Shook his head and scoffed at himself. It was like a switch had flipped, and his manic energy had returned in force. Work. Bosses. His issues with authority.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m glad we’re talking like this. Honestly, I wanted to reset with us. I came in here with a rage-on, and I apologize.”
“Thanks.”
Purple had spread like spilled paint across the sky. She wanted to forget what she was doing here. Cool evening wind blowing off the chemicals. Palms soughed, gulls called. She could smell charcoal supper fires somewhere not too far away. Dusk, odor of salt and the ocean. She thought of the smell of sunshine when she was a little girl, which was the smell of her father’s cigars and his shaving cream and pilsner and the racetrack.
“I already placed my bet,” she said. “I took his call, and then I came down here. It’s not an obligation exactly, but after Oscar . . . my conscience is lit up. Gotta see it through.”
Carver tossed his half-finished beer over his shoulder and went into the back seat of the Explorer. He returned with a laptop. Tapped an enormous password into it, propped it on a duffel for her to see.
“Gustavo, if you’re inclined to make a judgment on him, is what you might call la peor de todas. The fucking worst. Dude’s notches have to be in the hundreds.” He pointed at the laptop screen. “And he’s responsible for this parade of horror.”
Photos of dead people in an excavated mass grave. Some very clear, though at strange angles, probably taken from a concealed body camera. Fuzzy video screen grabs. Multiple pics of buses half uncovered in the dirt, bodies inside. Various stages of decomposition. Dark blotches of soaked blood. Some ligated, some sprawled like cut-down double-jointed puppets.
“Four full buses. Dozens and dozens of construction workers. We found kneepads, tools, boots, shit like that, too. Gear, work clothes.”
He left the laptop open as he talked. She couldn’t turn her eyes away from the slideshow.
“These men were an entire subcontracting company created and funded by your El Capataz in there. All skilled laborers, all dead. And there’s more. Truck drivers, cooks, suppliers . . . basically anyone had dealings with this outfit was deleted. Including several of his direct underlings. And the one left standing?”
She got out and stood. Arched her back. She felt a little drunk, the sky now dark purple and red as a battered eye.
“Why? Why kill everyone and then run?”
“Sounds crazy, don’t it? Like an act of sustained madness. Something that would make a person want to run away. Or kill himself.”
She let her body rest against the truck. Birds swooped and dove and her thoughts stirred and whirled too.
“Construction workers,” she said.
“They built something.”
“A tunnel?” she suggested.
“That’s a theory. This crew had the right skill set.”
“Which is why this is a national security problem.”
A phone rang. His.
“Your turn,” she said, relieved it wasn’t hers. Then she realized that his phone calls could affect her too. That whatever was coming would almost certainly call him first. That she had no one looking out for her, no shield.
He glanced at the screen but didn’t answer. His eye was trained on a vehicle idling outside the gate. A black SUV she hadn’t noticed before.
“Who is that?”
“I dunno.”
They watched the SUV until it pulled out, as though forced away by their attention.
He closed the laptop and went and slipped it in a pocket behind the driver’s seat. He put the phone back in his pocket unanswered.
“I gotta run.”
“Wait.”
He hopped in the cab but left the door open.
“Seriously, who could that be?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But the thing is, you’re never gonna feel like the coast is clear, so if you’re waiting for that, forget it.” He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands, and when she saw his eyes again, he said, “He trusts you. Which means I need you . . . even if the DEA doesn’t. Hold tight, all right? I’ll be back as soon as I can and we’ll figure this out.”
“Fuck.”
“It’ll be fine.”
She nodded. She didn’t have a choice.
“Shit,” she said. “I told you everything about me.”
“Yeah,” he said smiling. “You did.”
She sat outside in the lazy breeze and quiet. When she went into the empty warehouse, everyone had cleared out, no sounds of a remote forklift or even trucks on the roads. Maybe an hour had passed. She leaned, a little tipsy, against a huge pipe. She wished she had a cigarette, though she hadn’t smoked since college. She felt entitled to one. Like someone headed for the firing line.
Her phone was plugged into a wall socket, and lit up where she’d set it on an overturned bucket. A message. She stood away from the pipe and heard footsteps in the darkness. She stepped forward, wincing at the noise her feet made.
The footsteps continued, closing from the dark.
“Hello,” she said firmly. Deep dread at the nonresponse. She scanned her immediate area for something handy. A wrench, a crowbar, but there was nothing. Just a man coming on into the light. Black jacket, dark black hair, jeans. Mild, sleepy eyes. Something neat about him, nothing extraneous. Like a lizard or beetle or maybe it was just the sheen of his hair. She wished she wasn’t so tipsy. She straightened herself.
“Hello,” he said. “My name’s Tomás.”
BAGRAM AFB, PARWAN PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN
MARCH 19, 2004, 19:49
POLYGRAPHER:
So after Tora Bora, you went to the Farm.
CARVER:
Earned my Agency lanyard and then straight back here. Then joined Counter-Terrorist Pursuit Team 796.
POLYGRAPHER:
In Paktika.
CARVER:
Officially in Paktika, yeah. But that first stretch had us all over the map. In Urgun and Khandar and in Paktia. Trying to get good intel, find competent locals to train into militias. Bagged a few dopes for Guantanamo. But nobody that gave us UBL. The Pakistani army was a worthless backstop. Tora Bora just proved al-Qaeda could swoop in and out at leisure.
POLYGRAPHER:
Why couldn’t the Agency pursuit teams secure the border?
CARVER:
The border? Seriously? The border isn’t even a concept in Paktika. No one in any of those border provinces gives a shit about Pakistan or Afghanistan, they’re so wrapped up in their tribal scraps. All the villagers see themselves as Pashtuns first. You can’t secure a country that doesn’t even believe it exists.
POLYGRAPHER:
So what did you do?
CARVER:
Run over IEDs. Get ambushed with rockets. We’d shoot back, of course, pound the hell out of them, chase them deep into Pakistan, but we couldn’t secure shit.
POLYGRAPHER:
What about coalition support?
CARVER:
As if. Whole battalions banked up in the Green Zone playing Xbox. A dozen times we called in air support and got cockblocked by the brass. You’re asking why couldn’t we secure the border? The brass. To them, it was a mortal insult having CIA Ground Branch teams operating in their battlespace. I know these fucking guys. They wanted us to fail.
; POLYGRAPHER:
But then Shipley took over the pursuit teams.
CARVER:
Thank Christ.
POLYGRAPHER:
You’re loyal to him.
CARVER:
He was the one who picked me, you know? Saw something.
POLYGRAPHER:
Something the SEALs didn’t.
CARVER:
I’d have been in Fallujah clearing blocks if it weren’t for him. Holding handfuls of my guts sooner or later.
POLYGRAPHER:
What I’m getting at is—
CARVER:
I know what you’re getting at. That Shipley fingerbanged my insecure little heart.
POLYGRAPHER:
You knew that it was extralegal activity. The stuff you guys did in Paktik took a degree of fealty.
CARVER:
How’s that?
POLYGRAPHER:
So you were always okay with supporting traffickers, poppy warlords, using American manpower and resources?
CARVER:
I don’t decide what works. We were actually making progress. Catching terrorists, stabilizing the region, so the NGOs could teach girls to read and fix cleft palates and vaccinate babies. Peace. That’s what winning looks like, don’t it?
Chapter Fourteen
El Problema
The man followed her to the door, a few steps behind.
“He’s in there?”
Over her shoulder, she looked at him.
“Yes.”
The man stepped in front of her and ran his fingers over the doorway and painted walls. He crouched and looked where the room met the concrete floor and then stepped back and took in the entire box. Then he climbed the storage racks on the right to get a view of the roof, and she saw the holster under his jacket.
Make Them Cry Page 13