In Desperation

40

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico / El Paso, Texas

A rturo Castillo positioned the last document in the high-speed scanner.

Across the newsroom, Isabel Luna worked at her keyboard while talking on the phone to an important source.

After their clandestine meeting with Rosalina in the market, Castillo and Luna had rushed back to El Heraldo’s offices.

Now Luna, her handset wedged between her left ear and shoulder as she typed, was stressing the urgency of her information to the only Mexican cop she trusted: her stepbrother, First Sergeant Esteban Cruz.

“I’m sending it now.” Luna signaled Arturo that she’d received his last scan. “Nine attachments, including his photo. I’m certain it’s him. Stay on the line.”

In the time it took for the attachments to transmit, Isabel explained how her source had obtained the documents before Cruz cut her off.

“Got them,” he said.

Luna and Cruz went through each one together. Isabel blinked at the photograph. He was so young, a face to fit any one of the young men she saw in Juarez every day, yet in her heart she knew him.

“It’s him,” she said.

“Are you certain, Isabel?”

“Yes. Based on what I see and based on what I know, this is him. Look at him, posing as a student. He’s killed nearly two hundred people. Think of all the suffering, Esteban. Look at the notes. It’s the sicario, The Tarantula.”

“This photo for the counterfeit passport is the first we’ve ever seen of him. This could be a big break.”

“My source says he crossed into El Paso-” she glanced at the time “-less than two hours ago, maybe. They’d have a record. He could be on his way to the next killing in the U.S. We have to find him.”

“I’ll take care of this.”

“Keep me informed, Esteban.”

At his desk, Cruz cupped his hands over his face, peering over his fingertips at the revelation on his computer monitor.

A thousand thoughts streaked through his mind, but with a Herculean effort he deflected the most painful ones to concentrate on his job.

He’d led the investigation into the murders of the two American ex-cops in the desert, Salazar and Johnson. Judging from Isabel’s source’s documents and based on what Cruz knew from the murders, he agreed.

This was The Tarantula.

And if Salazar and Johnson were tied to the Phoenix kidnapping, as investigators in the U.S. and Mexico believed, then this could mean the cartel has dispatched their sicario to finish things there.

To kill the girl.

Or Lyle Galviera.

Or both.

Either way, Cruz had to act fast. How should he put this break into play? I could take care of it myself. Cross over on police business and find him. I have friends in the U.S. who could help quickly with all I would need. I could resolve it the narco way. No, stop thinking like that. You’re taking things personally and that can be dangerous.

Besides, he was obligated to share the intel with the FBI agents working with his team on the murders. He would do that through proper channels, even though it entailed FBI bureaucracy.

He would do the same with his own bureaucracy.

But he was uncomfortable sharing the information. He feared infiltration. The information could be intercepted by someone on the cartel payroll. There was always risk everywhere. No one knew that better than Cruz and his stepsister. For a moment he pictured his father’s grave in the cemetery.

Then it became clear to Cruz who he needed to call first.

The El Paso Intelligence Center was ensconced on the secured grounds of Fort Bliss in a squat light brick building with beautiful palms at the main entrance.

The EPIC’s parking lot offered a view of Juarez, just across the brown shallow water of the Rio Grande. The staff often changed shifts to the echo of gunfire rising from Juarez, a reminder that while U.S. law enforcement went about its work, the cartels went about theirs.

The installation was the nerve center of the U.S. government’s war on drugs and global crime. It was operated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, supported by personnel from nearly twenty federal agencies, and a number of state, county and local departments.

Using a network of cutting-edge law enforcement databases, it connected the dots in real time to help track the history of a suspected terrorist detained at an airport, or aid a patrol officer who has just made a routine traffic stop, or anything to help an investigation.

Some three hundred analysts, intelligence experts, federal agents and a spectrum of other specialists examined a galaxy of information scraps, pulling them together to provide fast tactical support to investigators across the U.S. and around the world.

One of EPIC’s best analysts was Javier Valdiz, a DEA intelligence expert. A short time ago, he’d received an urgent query submitted by the FBI’s fingerprint lab in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Latent prints collected at an Arizona motel identified Ruiz Limon-Rocha and Alfredo Hector Tecaza as suspects in the kidnapping of Tilly Martin.

Valdiz was coordinating queries related to her abduction when the FBI requested he analyze Limon-Rocha and Tecaza’s backgrounds.

Valdiz had to be careful, as EPIC analysts, depending on their level of security clearance, had access to extremely sensitive intelligence, some of it arising from live, undercover operations.

In the case of Ruiz Limon-Rocha, Valdiz’s research showed that he had been a sergeant and a member of the Airmobile Special Forces Group in the Mexican military. Research on Alfredo Hector Tecaza revealed that he had been an infantry corporal in the same branch of the military. Further EPIC analysis showed that, one year ago, Limon-Rocha and Tecaza were recruited to join the Norte Cartel by an upper-tier member.

Who brought them on?

Valdiz wondered about that just as his line rang. “Valdiz.”

“Esto es Cruz, como es usted, mi amigo?”

“Esteban. Very busy.”

“You may not know, Javi, but I am working on the case of the two American ex-cops south of Juarez. I am not supposed to call you directly.”

“For you, my door is open.”

Before being assigned to EPIC, Valdiz had worked as an undercover agent until a bullet during a gun battle with a cartel put him in a wheelchair. Valdiz would have bled to death in the desert if the Mexican state cop partnered with him had not risked his life to carry him to safety.

That cop was Esteban Cruz.

“What do you need, Esteban?”

“This is urgent.” Cruz explained quickly, then emailed Valdiz the attachments. “We need to get an alert out. We need to intercept this sicario. ”

Valdiz read through the information.

“If our guy entered at El Paso and was going to fly to Phoenix, the flight itself is ninety minutes. Then add at least an hour for security screening and check-in,” Valdiz said.

“They might still grab him at the airport.”

“They might. But if he drove, it is a six-or seven-hour drive. We’ve missed him.”

“Unless he took a train, or a bus.”

“The border guys would have scanned the passport,” Valdiz said. “We can get people to the terminals to check with ticket agents, look at security cameras. We’re talking only a few hours. We can do the same at the airport. Hang on.”

Valdiz took care to submit his analysis on Limon-Rocha and Tecaza to his supervisor to approve and forward to the FBI in Phoenix.

Then he turned to another monitor and launched into rapid typing, working on the alert for the sicario.