Against All Enemies

22 TAKING THE FALL

At about eleven A.M. the next morning, Moore, Zúñiga, and six more cartel members assembled in Zúñiga’s four-car garage with the doors cracked half open. Moore delivered the drug shipment he’d seized and watched as Zúñiga’s men inspected the bricks and did not find anything suspicious — notably, the tiny injection holes made by Moore and Towers as they’d planted the GPS beacons. The Sinaloa Cartel was powerful but not quite as sophisticated as the Juárez, who Moore believed would have X-rayed the bricks and possibly found the trackers.

As Moore had hoped, Zúñiga seemed very pleased with the “gift” and most assuredly had plans in motion to move the stuff before nightfall. He nodded over the bricks, then faced Moore. “Your enemy is my enemy, it seems.”

“When one cartel becomes too powerful, it is everyone’s enemy.”

“I agree.”

“All right. I would like to continue to help. Let me take a few of your men. We’ll all go kidnap Rojas’s son. Like I told you, we’re in this together,” said Moore.

“Mr. Howard, maybe I am crazy enough to believe you now. Maybe I’m going to say okay.”

“It’ll take most of the day to fly down there in one of your planes, so maybe we should leave now?”

“Maybe I haven’t made up my mind.”

At this Moore snapped, and he probably shouldn’t have, but he hadn’t gotten much sleep. He raised his voice to a near shout. “Señor Zúñiga, what else do you need? One hundred and fifty in cash, a huge drug shipment stolen from Rojas? What else? My bosses are growing impatient.”

Torres, who’d been standing nearby, waddled up and raised his own voice. “Do not speak to Señor Zúñiga that way! I will twist off your head!”

Moore glared at the man, then faced Zúñiga. “I’m tired of playing games. I’ve made a good offer. Let’s get this done.”

Zúñiga gave Moore one final appraising look, then reached out his hand. “I want you to kill Rojas.”

Two hours later, Moore, Torres, and Fitzpatrick, along with a pilot and copilot, were packed into a twin-prop Piper PA-31 Navajo on a southeast track toward San Cristóbal de las Casas. The weather was clear, the views spectacular, the company miserable, because Torres got airsick and had twice vomited into his little white sack. If it had been a long night, it was going to be an even longer day, and Moore looked across the cabin at Fitzpatrick, who rolled his eyes over the fat man’s inability to handle air travel. Torres apparently had a massive but delicate stomach, and Fitzpatrick had chided him before they’d boarded the plane about them being unable to lift off because of the “added cargo.” Torres’s revenge for that remark was potent, and currently in the form of a foul-smelling bag of vomit seated between his legs.

Moore closed his eyes and tried to steal an hour or two of sleep, allowing the hum of the props to draw him deeper into unconsciousness …

The lights on the oil platform winked out, and suddenly Carmichael cried, “We’ve been spotted!”

Moore shook hard and sat forward in the airplane seat.

Torres looked back at him. “Bad dream?”

“Yes, and you were in it.”

The fat man was about to say something, then put his hand to his mouth.

High school student Rueben Everson had thought that working for the Juárez Cartel and smuggling drugs across the border was at first a pretty scary proposition. But then they had shown him all the money he could make, and over time, he’d grown used to the whole operation, even carrying large shipments while wearing a mask of utter calm. He’d been clever, all right, not making the stupid mistakes that had cost some of the other mules their freedom. He’d always been smooth when talking to the officers, and he never carried statues or cards of all the saints those fools prayed to in order to keep them safe during a run. La Santa Muerte was the most popular among some thugs, who even built shrines to her. Making the skeletal image of the Virgin of Guadalupe seem like some savior when she looked like pure evil was just kind of stupid to him. Then there was Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, and one fool had even tried to stuff thirty pounds of pot inside a statue of Jude and walk across the border with it. What a jackass. One lesser-known saint was Ramón Nonato. The legend said that he had his mouth padlocked shut to prevent him from recruiting new followers. The thugs liked this idea, and prayed to him so that others would keep silent about their crimes.

Some of Rueben’s colleagues relied heavily on other kinds of good-luck charms: sentimental jewelry, watches, pendants, rabbits’ feet, and other types of talismans, as well as Scarface movie posters. The one lucky charm that made Rueben laugh was the yellow bird Tweety from the Looney Tunes cartoons. At first he hadn’t understood why so many mules and other drug traffickers found the bird so popular, but then he’d realized that Tweety never gets caught by Sylvester the cat, so the little bird had become a hero among thugs. The irony, of course, was that they called themselves “mules” while a bird was their mascot.

At the moment, though, no manner of magic or religion could save Rueben. He’d been caught by the FBI, had met a kid who’d had his toes chopped off over a bad run, and was now forced to work for the government if he was going to avoid jail time. The easy-money runs to save up for college were gone forever. Agent Ansara had been very clear about that. They’d injected him with a GPS tracker and had turned his cell phone into a listening device via the Bluetooth earpiece. He was a dog on a leash.

Earlier in the day, he’d been called by his cartel contact and told to report to Mexicali, where a car was being loaded for him, and while he was standing there, inside the warehouse, a middle-aged man with glasses and hair covered in dust walked over to him and asked in Spanish, “Are you the new one?”

“I guess so. But I’m not new. I just haven’t worked over here before. They usually have me pick it up someplace else. What are you guys doing in here? Digging another tunnel?”

“That’s none of your business, young man.”

Rueben thrust his hands into his pockets. “Whatever.”

“How old are you?”

“Why do you care?”

“You’re still in high school, aren’t you?”

“Are you my new boss?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

Rueben frowned. “Why do you care?”

“How are your grades?”

Rueben snorted. “Are you serious?”

“Answer the question.”

“They’re pretty good. Mostly A’s and B’s.”

“Then you need to stop doing this. No more. You will either die or get arrested, and your life will be over. Do you understand me?”

Rueben’s eyes burned. I understand you more than you know, old man. But it’s too fucking late for me. “I’m going to go to college, and this is how I’ll pay for my tuition. As soon as I have enough money, I will quit.”

“They all say the same thing. I need money for this and for that, but next week I will quit.”

“I just want to go now and get this over with.”

“What’s your name?”

“Rueben.”

The man proffered his hand, and Rueben reluctantly took it. “I’m Pedro Romero. I hope I do not see you here again. Okay?”

“Wish I could help you out, but you will see me again. It’s just the way it is.”

“You think about what I told you.”

Rueben shrugged and turned as one of the loaders marched up to him and said, “Ready to go.”

“Think about it,” Romero urged him, sounding very much like Rueben’s father.

I wish I had, old man. I wish I had.

Rueben drove the car across the border and surrendered the car to a team of Ansara’s men without incident. They dropped him off at a rental-car office, and the man there gave him a ride home in the airport bus. A black Escalade was parked across the street from his house, and Rueben climbed into the backseat once the bus had left his street. FBI agent Ansara was at the wheel.

“Good work today, Rueben.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“The old man was right, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, okay, he was. I should’ve quit before you busted me, but now I’m fucked.”

“No, you did great. You got me some good pics and audio of that man. Now we can ID him and see what’s going on at that warehouse.”

Rueben closed his eyes. He wanted to cry. He could barely sleep now. He dreamed they would come for him during the night, dressed as skeletons armed with knives for carving up his heart. He watched his parents attend his funeral, and while they were leaving, a carload of sicarios raced by and unleashed machine-gun fire on the crowd, killing his parents, both shot in the head and gazing skyward to whisper, “You were such a good boy. What happened to you?”

As a CIA agent, Gloria Vega had worked in more than twenty-six countries, performing missions as brief as eight hours and as long as sixteen months. She’d witnessed her share of bloodshed and corruption, and had been prepared to witness more of the same when she’d joined JTF Juárez and realized she was being sent into a city known as the murder capital of the world. However, what she hadn’t expected was that the bloodshed would occur between members of her own force.

The shouting had reached her desk only five minutes ago, and they’d all rushed to put on their armor, grab their rifles, and get outside. Inspector Alberto Gómez had pulled on a balaclava to conceal his own identity and stood beside her. Each end of the street had been cordoned off by Federal Police vehicles, and Vega estimated that a crowd of at least two hundred officers in black uniforms and balaclavas had gathered and were shouting and screaming to “Bring out the pig!”

And then, before Vega, Gómez, or anyone else could stop them, a half-dozen officers rushed inside the station, and the crowd roared once again. This time Vega heard a name: Lopez, Lopez, Lopez!

She knew that name, all right, and her blood felt as though it’d turned to ice. Lopez was one of Gómez’s colleagues, an inspector with nearly as many years on the force. Vega’s own investigation had concluded that Lopez was clean and trying to do the right thing; he was the man Alberto Gómez should have been. On the flip side, Gómez’s phones had been tapped, he’d been followed by two other spotters that JTF leader Towers had provided to Vega, and she had gathered enough evidence to present to Federal Police authorities to bring down Gómez for corruption and indisputable ties to the Juárez Drug Cartel. Towers, however, wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on that operation, because Gómez’s arrest would tip off the cartel. All the dominoes needed to be knocked over simultaneously.

And so with time to spare, Gómez had turned the situation around before Vega could react. As she whirled toward the entrance door, six men dragged Lopez out of the building, one of them gripping the old man by his shock of gray hair. Once Lopez’s clean-shaven face was spotted by the crowd, the screaming grew louder, and some hollered, “Kill the pig!” The officers surrounded Lopez, and at least two reared back and began pummeling the old man.

“They’re teaching him a lesson before they arrest him,” shouted Gómez in her ear. “He’s been taking money from the cartels and serving as an informant for them. Children have died because of him. And now he needs to pay.”

You fucking hypocrite is what Vega wanted to say. “They can’t do this. They can’t beat him up!”

The group broke into a chant: “Lopez is the devil and must go down! Lopez is the devil …”

The chant continued, and Vega flinched as another officer with biceps the size of her hips struck a hard blow to Lopez’s cheek.

That was it. Gloria Vega, former Army Intelligence officer and CIA operative, now embedded with the Mexican Federal Police, had seen enough.

She raised her gun into the air and fired off a salvo, the rat-tat-tat silencing the crowd. Before she knew what was happening, a hand wrapped around her neck, other hands had wrenched the gun from her grip, and still more hands were dragging her back into the police station. She screamed and tried to writhe out of their grip, but it was no use. They dragged her inside, and there she was immediately released as Gómez passed in front of her and tugged off his balaclava. “What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s not right. What evidence do they have? They can’t beat up the old man like that!”

“He’s in bed with scum. So he is scum!”

She bit her tongue. Oh, God, how she bit her tongue.

“I told you I would try to keep you alive,” Gómez added. “But you make that very hard when you do something like this! Now, listen to me. Lopez isn’t the only one. The other commanders are dirty as well. Today we are going to clean up this house, and you’re either going to help or I’m going to put you in a jail cell to keep you safe.”

She wrenched off her own mask as the shouting outside seemed to reach a fever pitch. “You’d better lock me up for now. I can’t watch this anymore.”

Vega rubbed the corners of her eyes, the frustration burning so deeply that she thought she might vomit. How much more could she take? How long would they have to wait before she could slap cuffs on Gómez and be done with it? He was the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing who needed to swallow a bullet. She imagined herself shooting him right there, cutting off one vein of corruption but realizing that the network was so complex that his death wouldn’t make a difference. No difference at all. Her heart began to sink.

“Gloria, come with me,” he ordered.

She followed him into his small office, where he closed the door so they were out of earshot of the other inspectors and officers. “I know how you feel,” he said.

“Really?”

“I was your age once. I wanted to save the world, but there is too much temptation all around us.”

“No kidding! They pay us nothing. That’s why we can’t do anything. It’s just a crazy game, and we’re all wasting our time here. Wasting our time. What else can we do?”

“The right thing,” he said. “Always the right thing. This is what God wants.”

“God?”

“Yes. I pray to God every day to save our country and save our Federal Police force. He will do it. We must have faith in him.”

“There has to be a better way. I need to make more money than this. And I need to work with people I can trust. Can you help me do that?”

He narrowed his gaze. “You can trust me …”

Johnny Sanchez had parked his rental car on Avenida Abraham Lincoln, which was just five minutes from the Cordova Bridge, in order to take his girlfriend, Juanita, to his favorite restaurant in Ciudad Juárez. The Montana’s Southwest-style interior featured dining on two levels and rich wood accents throughout. White linen tablecloths and scented candles did not go unnoticed by his date, and Johnny made sure they got a table near the gas fireplace. El capitán de meseros (the captain of the waiters) was a young man named Billy, and Johnny had become good friends with him and tipped Billy’s team of waiters quite generously. In exchange, Billy slipped Johnny mixed drinks and oversized portions when he ordered. Johnny asked for his usual, the New York club steak, while Juanita, who’d recently dyed her hair blond and gotten a rather aggressive boob job, would have a taco salad.

As they waited for their entrées, Juanita tugged nervously on the straps of her red dress and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not here. You’re out there somewhere.” She lifted her chin toward the window and the bridge beyond.

“I’m sorry.” He wouldn’t tell her that his mother’s godson was a sicario and that he was now working for the CIA. That would probably ruin their dinner.

She frowned and blurted out, “I think we should leave Mexico.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like it here anymore.”

“You just got here.”

“I know …I came for you. It’s always about you and your writing. But what about me?”

“You said you were going to dance.”

“You want me to show my body to other men?”

“You paid enough for it.”

“That’s no reason.”

“No, but if it makes you happy …”

She leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “Don’t you understand? I want you to say no. I want you to be jealous. What’s wrong with you?”

“I can’t think straight anymore. And you’re right. We need to leave Mexico.” His voice cracked. “But we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Señor Sanchez?”

Johnny turned at the approach of two men wearing expensive silk shirts and pants. They were both in their mid-twenties, neither more than five feet tall, and if Johnny had to guess at their nationalities, he would say Colombian or Guatemalan.

“Who are you?” Johnny asked.

One man lowered his voice and gazed unflinchingly at Johnny. “Señor, we need you to come with us. It’s a matter of life and death.” That was not a Mexican accent. These guys were definitely from South America, somewhere …

“I asked you a question,” Johnny repeated.

“Señor, please come now, and no one will be hurt. Not you. Not her. Please.”

“Johnny, what the fuck is this?” asked Juanita, lifting her voice and thrusting out her chest — which drew the attention of both men.

“Who do you work for?” asked Johnny, his pulse beginning to race.

The man looked at him. “Let’s go, señor.”

Oh, no, Johnny thought. Dante must already know I’ve been tapped by the CIA. They’ve come to kill me.

Johnny’s gun was back in the hotel room. He looked to Juanita, then leaned over and gave her a deep and passionate kiss.

She pushed him away. “What’s going on?”

“Come on, baby. We need to go with them.” He stood, trembling, as the waiter came over with his steak. “I’ll take that to go,” he said.

The two men nodded at him.

And that’s when Johnny grabbed Juanita’s hand and made a mad dash for the door.

He expected to hear some shouting and/or the sound of gunfire as the men who’d wanted to abduct them decided they would have to die instead.

But he and Juanita made it outside and into the parking lot, and when he whirled around, they were not being followed.

“Johnny!” cried Juanita. “What do they want?”

Before he could open his mouth, two small sedans roared up and cut them off. More men — at least six — got out, all similarly dressed, all about the same height and age.

Johnny lifted his palms. It was over. I’m sorry, Dante.

They took Juanita by the throat and shoved her into one car, grabbed him and threw him into the other. Johnny’s head hit the backseat as the driver screeched off, and sometime after they left the parking lot, perhaps a minute or two later, he had become so nervous that he simply fainted.

Johnny awoke some time later, his arms and legs bound against some kind of a pole that he realized was part of a car lift. He was inside an auto-body shop, surrounded by vehicles in various stages of assembly and repair. Dim light filtered in from a bank of windows to his right, with two large steel garage doors rising directly ahead.

The two men who were in the restaurant stood before him, an HD video camera clutched by the slightly leaner man. Johnny sighed. They’d just kidnapped him and were holding him for ransom. He’d make the video. Corrales would pay. Everything would be all right.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he said through another sigh. “I’ll say whatever you want. Where’s Juanita? Where’s my girlfriend?”

The camera guy glanced away from the tiny screen he’d been studying and shouted across the room, “Are you finished yet?”

“Yes!” came a voice.

And then Johnny saw them: two more men wearing black protective jumpsuits, the kind used while painting cars, although they hadn’t donned the headgear. The suits were stained darkly on the arms and hips. One man carried a yellow power tool with a narrow blade extending from the front, a reciprocating saw. Johnny had been to many accident scenes as a local newspaper reporter a few years back, and he’d become familiar with the tools first responders used to extricate people trapped in their cars.

The man with the saw revved the tool’s engine, and as he stepped closer, Johnny realized that the saw was stained with …blood.

“Look, no need for threats. I’ll do what you say.”

With a snort, the guy with the saw rolled his eyes and moved forward.

“Wait!” Johnny cried. “What do you want from me? Please!”

“Señor,” said the man with the camera. “We just want you to die.”