Allies

by Wolf Riedel

  The next to arrive had been the old man. The old man, in the sense of the term el anciano rather than in that of a boss or respected elder, had been awarded the unspoken nickname by Tuffy because of his age. In his mid-thirties, Adolfo Herrera—the old man—had been with the gang even before Meraz had taken control. The rumors were that Adolfo had been the one who had taken out the old leadership on behalf of the younger Meraz and for this had been awarded the role of running the clica’s string of putas—a job whose fringe benefits the old man truly loved.

  While the old man’s primary responsibility was managing the gang’s prostitution operations, his secondary specialty was murder. Not the run of the mill street shootings but the more focused deliberate targeted killings. It was this role that had put Tuffy and the old man together.

  Under the new gang’s structure Tuffy had spent considerable time in perfecting techniques in robbery while the growth element within the gang had been concentrating more and more on drug operations. With this larger and more lucrative business came more opportunity for dispute with other, often more established, gangs. Meraz, in consultation with the Cartel’s new Tampa overseer, Enrique “Loco” Hernandez, had decided that the gang’s enforcement arm needed some serious beefing up. Tuffy’s ability to surreptitiously pick out and to hit houses and cars had been noted. “The kid’s got smarts,” Meraz had told Hernandez. “I know he’s got balls too. I think he can do this.” The gang had no shortage of people who could do murder; it did have a shortage of ones smart enough to plan and execute well. Hernandez had agreed and Tuffy had become the old man’s apprentice. The Lewises had been his first actual hit.

  Tuffy watched the old man saunter up the driveway. He too lived within walking distance albeit in his case to the southwest and somewhat further. The trouble with the old man was that even at his age he still wanted to look like a young gangster replete in sneaks, gangster shorts, a wife-beater shirt that showed off his heavily muscled arms and his numerous tats, and a durag on his shaved skull. Good dress for a street soldier or even a puta runner but not so much for an assassin who needed to be able to blend in. Early on Tuffy had dialed back his own appearance; his tats were minimal and his gear and hairstyle more mainstream conservative. He’d also curbed his smart mouth in favor of listening more and speaking less.

  “Carnal!” Tuffy greeted the old man. “How’s it going, brother?”

  “It’s going good, my man,” he replied. “The others not here yet?”

  Tuffy shook his head but then noticed Meraz’s white SUV make its way down the street toward them. The shake turned into a flick of the head in the car’s direction.

  “They’re here’” he said.

  “Just what the fuck did you mean by ‘the girls have been taken care of’?”

  The debriefing had gone well, right up until the point where the old man had casually mentioned that there had been two girls with the Lewises and that ‘they had been taken care of”. Meraz hadn’t reacted but Hernandez had jumped on it immediately sensing that the old man had, in all probability, done something stupid.

  Hernandez was the clear and undisputed leader in the room as well as the overall commander of MQ-27. Born some thirty-two years before in Valle Hermoso, a small town just to the southwest of the border city of Matamoros in the northeast corner of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, he’d been responsible for moving the Cartel’s trade into Texas and around the Gulf coast. Since Hernandez’ arrival, Tuffy had kept his eye closely on him and tried to model himself on the man more than any other soldier or leader in the gang. While Hernandez represented the Gulf Cartel, he had, in fact, come up within that organization as a member of Los Zetas.

  The Zetas originated as a small group of retirees and deserters from the Mexican Special Forces who had been recruited into the Cartel as its leader’s personal bodyguard and enforcement arm. Their role, numbers and prominence grew as war heated up with the Cartel’s most significant enemy, the Sinaloa Cartel.

  The war with the Sinaloas, and their enforcement arm, the Los Negros, had been ongoing for years, but in the last three it had reached a crescendo. More importantly the Zetas had grown so strong that there were rumors that a rift was growing between them and their Gulf Cartel bosses as to who would take the overall lead in the lucrative cross-border drug trade.

  This uncertainty had not drifted down into the ranks of MQ-27. They knew that whatever direction Hernandez led them, they would follow. The man was as intelligent and deliberative as he was intuitive and ruthless. A contradiction perhaps, but nevertheless all qualities that Tuffy had personally observed over the years and ones that he hoped he would be able to emulate in time.

  “What?” The old man’s eyes swiveled back and forth between Meraz and Hernandez; his confusion was obvious. Tuffy held his mouth and looked straight at Hernandez. He was sure he knew where this was going. The question was whether any of this would fly in his direction as well.

  “Don’t be stupid with me,” said Hernandez in a level voice. “Where are the girls now.”

  “In my crib,” the old man still looked confused.

  “Why?” Hernandez’s teeth were on edge.

  “So that I can train them, of course.” The old man looked to Meraz for assistance. It wasn’t forthcoming so he bulled on. “I mean they’re too young to work now so they’ll just be toss-ups for friends and family, but in a year or so they’ll be old enough and trained enough. They look good and we’ll make a lot of cash off them before they’re done.”

  “So let me see if I’ve got this straight,” said Hernandez his voice level. “You’re going to take two girls who were witnesses to their parents’ execution and every day put them into private contact with a dozen johns who come from all over the city?”

  The old man shrugged.

  “You don’t see anything wrong with this business model, Alfonso?” asked Hernandez with a tone of sarcasm that seemed so noticeable that it ought to get through even to the old man.

  “I can control them,” he replied defiantly. “When I get done with them they won’t even remember their own names or that they ever had parents.”

  “Let me make myself perfectly clear, Alfonso,” said Hernandez. “I want them gone. And by gone I mean dead with no trace of their bodies. And I want it done now. Understood?”

  The old man took one last glance at Meraz. Failing to get any support from that quarter, he replied, “I understand.”

  “Good, then go and take care of it,” said Hernandez.

  The old man rose to leave.

  “Tuffy! You stay,” said Hernandez as Tuffy rose to leave as well. He sat back down and quietly watched as the old man left the room.

  Hernandez turned to Tuffy. “You did right to let Luis know about the girls.”

  Early Sunday morning, after having been dropped off by the old man, Tuffy had called Meraz to express his concern after the old man hadn’t killed the girls but instead had taken them with him. Tuffy had wanted to kill them at the house but instead the old man had decided that he wanted them and as a result they had taken one of the Lewises’ cars to smuggle them out in the trunk. That had led to the need to stop to burn the car. All these activities had constituted highly unnecessary risks in Tuffy’s eyes.

  Hernandez turned to Meraz. “That’s the last execution Herrera does for us.”

  “What about the putas?” Meraz asked. “He’s right in one respect, we do get some decent profit out of his operations.”

  “Let him keep that.” Hernandez put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his folded hands. “You and I, Luis, are going to need to rethink our enforcement capabilities. We’ve taken the first steps in starting a war here that now looks like we may be less than ready for. We’ve got to turn that around fast.”

  Hernandez turned to Tuffy. “From here on you’re our primary go-to guy. You report directly to Luis and get your orders only from him or me, Understood?’

  Tuffy nodded and said, “Si, Jefe.”


  CHAPTER 10

  James West Army Reserve Center, Lakeland, Florida

  Monday 05 Mar 07 1600 hrs EST

  Sal put his hand on the door to Mark’s office and shook his head. Winters sat loosely in his swivel chair with his feet up on the corner of his old government issue steel pedestal desk, his laptop in his lap.

  “Surfin’ porn again?” he asked.

  “Wish I was,” replied Mark. “Leastwise I’d be doing something useful. We got nothing out of that autopsy that we didn’t know before other than that the shots probably—quote probably unquote—came from the same gun, probably a nine millimeter, which on cursory examination probably had a left-hand twist, hexagonal, polygonal rifling.” In nine millimeter caliber, six hills and valleys in the barrel rather than the more traditional lands and grooves was suggestive of a Glock. They’d need the Ocala or FDLE’s forensics labs to give them a determinative finding.

  “Tells us nothing really,” said Sal as he sat in one of the two chairs in front of Mark’s desk and put his feet up on the other.

  “Polygonal rather than lands and grooves tells us it wasn’t an M9,” said Mark and pondered it for a minute. “And that’s something, I guess,” he continued. “We should check with ALPHA Company to see if there’s something in nine millimeter in their armory other than M9s. That reminds me any luck getting hold of their First Sergeant?”

  “Naw. The guy’s still MIA. Apparently he trucks for a living and is out on a run. He’s not answering his cell phone and I can’t leave a message ’cause his mail box is full. You’d figure a First Sergeant would have his shit together better’n that.”

  Mark looked up at the person who had stepped into the doorway.

  “Yeah, Roy. What’s up?” he asked.

  “I got another one,” said the short and slight, thirty-something civilian special agent. Roy Thao did not work for Mark but instead was part of the 701st CID Group’s Major Procurement Fraud Unit. The 701st had a Regional Agency in Melbourne in an office building just across the Intracoastal Waterway from Patrick AFB and Cocoa Beach. While not reporting to Mark, the two frequently had cases that crossed jurisdictional boundaries and the two had found that frequent contacts ensured that everyone was on board for the common good.

  Mark waved Roy into the office while Sal took his feet off the empty chair and gave it a cursory dusting with the back of his hand. Roy closed the door behind him as he entered and nodded to Sal. As Mark’s deputy, Sal was the only other agent within the Lakeland office privy to any discussions respecting the MPFU or its cases.

  Roy threw his sports jacket onto the office’s side bureau and settled in. He ran both hands through his hair several times and slowly shook his head back and forth.

  “Got a kid doing some pre-deployment training up in Blanding,” Roy said. “Kid hears from his friends back home in St Pete that his high school principal got a thousand bucks as a bonus for recruiting him. He figures that’s bullshit because the principal had nothing to do with the thing. The kid had just up and decided that he had nothing better to do and had some patriotic fervor in his heart and had decided to mosey on down to his neighborhood recruiter and sign up.

  “At Blanding he asks around the barracks and for the first time finds out about G-RAP and figures if anybody should have gotten a bonus it should have been his aunt who’d been in the Guard during Bush One’s war and had told him all about what it was like. Anyway he was pissed enough to drop a nickel on our hotline and, long story short his case got referred to me.”

  “I think I’ve heard about G-RAP around here,” said Sal. “That’s just a National Guard recruiting program, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Roy. “Back in 2005 we had about a hundred thousand of the Guard called up and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and another fifty thousand out for Hurricane Katrina. The Guard had been sliding in their recruiting goals and were at about three hundred and thirty thousand all told—some twenty thousand understrength—so the Army got the Guard Recruiting Assistance Program ramped up. Basically there’s a bonus of a thousand bucks for anyone who steers a qualified candidate to a recruiter; another thousand if the kid makes it through BCT. Even more for officer candidates. Got a company called Docupak that administers the program for the Army.”

  “I gather the principal made an application for a bonus?” said Mark.

  “Yup,” said Roy. “Talked to Docupak, saw the paperwork, spoke to the kid and am just on my way back from speaking to the principal. It’s a he said, he said type of case. The principal says he knows the kid and was definitely the one who steered him into the army. Got irate with me for questioning the way he executed his patriotic duty. He sure had all the required data that was needed to complete the application for the bonus but he probably would have had it anyway as the kid’s school principal.”

  “Lot of this going on?” asked Sal.

  “It’s my second case. Had another one from Miami where there’s a guy being particularly successful at steering kids to the Guard. Trouble is he doesn’t seem too connected to the kids. It’s early yet but it looks more like there may be a recruiter taking walk-ins and then having a friend do applications for a bonus and getting a kick-back in return. I’m a long way from tying up the knots.”

  “What about the rest of the country?”

  “It hasn’t hit our radar yet,” said Roy. “ I checked into this with home office in Quantico and basically they say there’s very little on this. They’re having some initial discussions with Docupak to see if there are any flags or clusters we should be looking at. Problem is that this has been a very successful program and the Guard’s recruiting has rebounded dramatically. There are thousands of people who have done a great job in getting up the numbers but probably just a few bad apples. On the other hand we’re working flat out already at going after contractor and supply fraud. It’s not like we’re not busy enough.” Roy shrugged and got up to leave. “Anyway I popped in to say hi and to let you know about this shit if anything should float your way.”

  There was a sharp rapping on the office door.

  “Yeah,” called Mark.

  The door opened a crack. “You’ve got a call on the black line, boss.”

  Sal raised his eyebrows and got up to leave.

  “Okay guys,” said Mark. “Thanks for stopping by, Roy. I need to take this.”

  Before leaving the office, Mark had changed into nondescript, worn and slightly oil-stained jeans, a pair of filthy safety boots and a gray long sleeved work-shirt. His ride had been the detachment’s unmarked dirty-white panel van with a roof rack holding several ten foot lengths of six-inch black ABS pipes—closed at both ends with a threaded cap—and an eight-foot ladder.

  The meeting place this time was at the plaza in Plant City, a small municipality of just over thirty thousand—mostly white—residents located just west over the line and within Hillsborough County. Much of Hillsborough contained the urban sprawl of the city of Tampa, but not the numerous small coastal cities and towns that, while frequently considered in tandem with Tampa, were actually a part of Pinellas County. Unlike Tampa, the economic activities in the region around Plant City were primarily agricultural in nature and, as such, its inhabitants filled the role of Tampa’s rural cousins, a designation they bore with pride considering that their labors, particularly strawberry farming, brought in hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

  Mark pulled the van into a slot before a deli sitting at one corner of the plaza’s parking lot. Leaving the van’s doors unlocked, he strode inside to order. He returned a few minutes later with two Cuban sandwiches in a sack and carrying two Cokes. The van’s passenger seat was now occupied by a nondescript young man, his black hair closely cropped to his olive skull, wearing jeans, sneaks and a light blue work-shirt.

  “How they hangin’, Lucky,” asked Mark as he handed him the food and drinks, while he got himself behind the wheel and pulled the van out of the lot.

  “Just fuckin’ great Mark,” Lucky replie
d. “Man, you need another undercover car. I’ve been in this one way too often.”

  “Budgets, Lucky, budgets,” Mark had noted the nasal twang on the phone but had put it down to a bad connection. “What’s with the voice? You got the flu or something?”

  In response Lucky hauled out a large white and, apparently, well used handkerchief, and proceeded to let fly with a flurry of sneezes and honks that would have made a gaggle of geese proud. Mark steered down the road pulling his body as far against the driver’s door as he could.

  “It’s all the fucking tourists that come down here in the winter to visit the mouse, man. They bring every disease known to humanity to the parks and before you know it the local kids get it, spread it around the schools and bingo, their folks bring it into the workplace.” Another round of snorting was followed by a short session with an up & up nasal spray. “I got this one a couple or three days ago and it went right for my sinuses. My head’s like a fuckin’ brick. It’s like living in a fog. Bloody miracle I can function at all.”

  “Why the hell aren’t you in bed then rather than spreading that shit around?” asked Mark already regretting this meeting.

  “Gotta’ keep my ear to the ground,” Lucky said. “There’s been some interesting stuff coming down today.”

  Sergeant Ricardo Lucio “Lucky” Villa—“no relation to Pancho”—was a CID special agent assigned to work undercover within CENTCOM as part of a joint operation with MacDill’s US Air Force Office of Special Investigations Detachment 340 and the Tampa PD’s Narcotics’ Bureau. AFOSI was the USAF’s rough equivalent of CID and Det 340 had responsibility for Air Force related felonies within the region centered on Tampa.

  Tampa PD had developed some information pointing to drug trafficking amongst Air Force personnel on the base. In response AFOSI had groomed a confidential source within the 6th Air Mobility Wing who had pointed the finger toward individuals within 6th MXS—the 6th Maintenance Squadron—of the 6th Maintenance Group and also at CENTCOM headquarters as people of interest.