Standoff

Thirty-one

Gomez was transferred to the Scott & White Medical Center in Killeen, the state’s hospital system severely tested by the numbers of wounded. Kim got his ear sewn back on by some world-famous plastic surgeon in Dallas. Casualties were ferried all over the country, everyone wanting to help. The States united.

Calling a spade a spade, the attack on Laughlin AFB was a disaster for US intelligence and law enforcement. The media went crazy, blaming the CIA, the Army, the Texas Rangers, local PD, the State Troopers, Homeland Security, the US President, the Mexican President, the Mexican Army, the Federales — any and all law enforcement and officialdom elected to keep America safe, and some that weren’t. We’d all failed the people, according to the press. And, for once, the press was right.

The body count at base housing, where the cartel had concentrated its forces, was over two hundred and fifty with sixty more wounded, half of which were critical. If there was a consolation it was that these numbers could’ve been far worse.

The only folks who escaped the nation’s anger and disappointment were the Base Security Squadron, whose members accounted for ninety-three of the enemy casualties while losing eighty percent of its numbers, and the rifle platoon commanded by Lieutenant Sommers, whose troops killed or wounded well over two hundred cartel militia, before the lieutenant was himself shot dead in action. The platoon sergeant who took command of the survivors said that the lieutenant killed over twenty-three himself and died protecting the medic rendering aid to the wounded.

There was talk of Sommers receiving a posthumous Medal of Honor, except that south Texas was not, technically, a declared war zone and the army’s involvement in it deemed a ‘police function’ so there would be no medals beyond the Purple Hearts and those for saving life or service. Somehow a Soldier’s Medal for Sommers just seemed totally inadequate.

This had more to do with appeasing the Mexican President than anything else. If south Texas was deemed a “hostile fire zone”, who was America at war with? Mexico? And, of course, this made anyone who had been fighting the so-called War on Drugs shake their heads. I mean, was it a fucking war or wasn’t it?

The number of fatalities quickly became statistics batted around by the media and politicians, a mechanism hiding the tragic reality — innocent American men, women and children had lives, loves and dreams cut short in horrific circumstances by inhumane sociopaths who resented having their supply chain interrupted.

Soon the funerals would begin. The nation was in mourning. After the sorrow, anger would set in. A desire for revenge would surely follow. Plenty of social commentators feared the worst. Bring it on, was my thought on that. Over three hundred cartel militia had been taken prisoner on the ground at Laughlin, hiding in surrounding areas or trying to get across into Mexico. There were plenty of folks out there who wanted them lined up against a wall and shot. And they were the moderates. All that could be extracted from these people was they’d been poor before joining Apostles’ militia, and now they were prisoners. Few of them knew what the plan had been when they signed up, other than it involved the US town of Columbus and the leader was a great Mexican general. The naivety was breathtaking. Apostles knew exactly what he was dealing with. The thousand riders had crossed the Rio Grande west of the town of Manuel Ojinaga, using the mobile ramps to jump the river. Then they’d simply rode up Highway 90 to Laughlin while the world slept, proving again (if it needed proving) that the best plans are the most basic ones.

In some medieval sandpit where inedible food was cooked on fires of camel shit, people danced in the streets. There were commentators in Mexico who thought it was about time Americans got a taste of what they’d been living with for years.

At home, the lawyers were having a field day. This was another 9/11 event. Who were we going to invade now? Mexico? Sections of congress were all for it, which is what anyone with common sense feared. And, of course, I knew with reasonable certainty that was exactly what Apostles wanted.

I reflected on all this as my gloved hand gripped the M4, the ski mask scratching the skin on my face and neck as the sweat leaked from my pores in the dry heat, the thump of the helicopter’s main rotor pounding behind my sternum. Perhaps no one had failed the public more than me. I could have killed Apostles. I could have done it with my bare hands the night we were drinking that fifty-year-old Macallan. A crushed windpipe, a pen through the eye and into the corpus callosum, a smashed glass into the carotid — plenty of ways to do it. Why hadn’t I? What had I been waiting for? A fucking court of law? And then there was Perez. I could have jumped his desk, taken that pearl-handled knife off him and ran the blade across his neck. It would’ve been over in seconds. I wouldn’t have survived, but think of all the folks who’d still be alive today if I’d turned assassin. Could’ve, should’ve, didn’t.

Now, three days after the events at Laughlin, we were raiding Apostles’ Juárez residence. In the Black Hawk with me and the one behind us were Mexican Army Special Forces, agents from SEIDO and CIA kill team members. Teams of similar makeup on the ground were deployed in an armed cordon blocking escape routes on the Campestre’s roads and pathways. Our orders were to take Apostles and Perez alive or dead, along with any other Chihuahua Cartel members who happened to be in the house. But our chances of finding anyone significant in the Juárez house were a little less than zero. Everyone knew that — as did the politicians on both sides of the border keen to lay blame — but we were here anyway. Finally. My role in this force was to positively identify Apostles now that his penchant for using body doubles was out in the open. And of course, I’d stayed in the house so I knew something of the layout of the place. Looking back on it, I wondered if all the meetings I’d had with Apostles had been with the real McCoy. I was starting to doubt a couple of them.

The truth was, we’d all been played for suckers by a master. Psychologists and profilers picking through the disaster believed Apostles’ infatuation with Pancho Villa was genuine, even down to having a psychopath for a right-hand man. The Tears of Chihuahua was to Apostles what Rodolfo Fierro had been to the revolutionary general. Perez liked to flay while Fierro just got a kick out of killing. He apparently once shot a man dead just to see which way he’d fall — forward or backward. The story goes he fell forward. Yeah, that kind of careless disregard for human life sounded familiar.

Ciudad Juárez was still asleep; 4 am according to my watch. The roofs of the city slid by in shades of NVG green. The team leader, a Mexican Army second captain with a wide grim face, whose name was Medina, gave the signal: one minute to target. Men were getting ready to drop ropes, a hefty coil out the door on each side. No one was talking, the NVGs along with the seriousness of the task at hand forcing silence on the group.

The Black Hawk went into its characteristic nose high flare and then settled into the hover. I heard the signal to deploy the ropes and then each of us went out in turn, down the rope and onto the roof.

We stood back as the Mexican Army guys used a charge to blow the fire door off the stairwell. I followed the grunts down the stairs. The top floor housed most of the bedrooms. Doors were opened one by one. I heard a muffled woman’s scream and then a man charged out of a room with a pistol. He was cut down by a silenced round to the chest and another to the head. After that, everyone else threw in the towel relatively quietly. I checked the room I had stayed in and got a surprise: two men in bed together. A familiar blue and white leotard hung from a cupboard door. It was the Blue Mystery and friend. I rousted them outta the sack, told them to get some clothes on. Mr Mystery wasn’t gonna make it easy. Standing there in his bathing suit wasn’t stopping him from getting some ideas — there were two of them and only one of me, even if I was the only one with a rifle. They pegged me for a gringo straight away, despite the NVGs. The lights in the hallway had gone on so I flipped the lenses up. They were talking about tag teaming, putting a sleeper hold on my ass and making me their bitch. I shot Mr Mystery, grazing the meat of his thigh, which took the steam out of that idea. As the ‘hair’ rolled around on the bed, wailing, I had his partner slip the cuff locks on him, and then I did the same to his chum.

One of the Mexican Army Special Forces guys came in, saw the Blue Mystery and left shaking his head. The wrestler realized what this was going to mean in terms of his image and started going on about how his career would be ruined if the TV stations got onto this. I didn’t give a damn about his career or his preferences in the sack. What I did care about was the company he kept and I didn’t mean his pal. That he was a cartel toy was all that mattered to me. I searched the house until I found the rooms Apostles and Perez had occupied. They were the largest rooms and left vacant. Both rooms contained personal belongings, and I recognized a shirt I’d seen Apostles wear and souvenired it for DNA purposes. In the master bathroom off Perez’s room, I took several items including a disposable razor.

In all, twenty-two people were put into security or paramedics vehicles and taken away. Not one was a high-value target. Six were hookers, five were MS-13 gang members, and two were from a drug transport operation — the rest were just people who found making money off the cartel easier than making an honest living, and I included the wrestler and friend in this bunch.

I doubted anyone would be able to give us a lead on Apostles or Perez as, so far, none of the militia captured at Laughlin knew shit from macaroni cheese on that score.

Two days after the Juárez raid I was down in Colombia, involved in a Special Forces mission to infiltrate and destroy the Chihuahua camp on the edge of the Darién Gap. There were militia there, but again no one of high value and the place had already been stripped of most of its intel. What remained had been left for a reason and no one trusted it. The Hacienda Mexico was simultaneously raided by Colombian Police Special Forces and CIA special agents. Nothing and no one of consequence was captured. Apostles and Perez had vanished.

A month after Laughlin, the US Army was still engaged, actively patrolling the border between Texas and Mexico. DEA intelligence reported that the cartels had never been happier, business booming to new levels with corruption rampant in the military cordon. Apostles and Perez were rumored to have made the most of their statement at Laughlin, amalgamating the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and the Chihuahua Cartel into a super cartel, though how and where they were running it was a mystery.

The system dealt with Chalmers the best way it knew how, promoting him to its Asia bureau with title of Director because, of course, he did such a great job of identifying Perez at the Horizon Airport massacre. The most galling aspect of this was that the disposable razor I’d brought back from the Juárez villa is what did it for him — the DNA found on it matched the DNA recovered from Gail Sorwick’s nasal tract, which finally and positively placed the Tears of Chihuahua at that crime scene.

It would only be a matter of time before Chalmers and I crossed paths again and next time I wouldn’t be so accommodating.

As for me, I was taken off the hunt for Apostles and Perez and put back on chasing enlisted men gone AWOL. Fuck that. I took some damn vacation time. And, of course, I packed the Sig.