Cartel (4 page)

"Stop before they shoot us," Scott said. He glanced at the side mirror and saw the Suburban was slowing down. Hitch maintained their speed for several seconds, then jammed on the brakes and slid to a tire-burning stop twenty yards from the CBP officers.

"Raise your hands," Scott said as he pressed his finger-tips high up on the windshield. "Show them we're not a threat."

Hitch and Garza raised their empty hands, palms out. The two CBP officers who were armed with pistols ap-proached the Tahoe, while the third, the one with the M-16, maintained his position and kept the vehicle covered. The two approaching officers split up, one to each side of the Ta-hoe. The one on Scott's side reached out with his off hand and pulled the door handle while keeping his pistol aimed at Scott's head through the glass. The door was locked.

Goddamned automatic locks, Scott thought.

"I'll reach down with one hand and open it," Scott shouted through the glass.

"Slowly," the officer said. He was Hispanic, mid-thirties, obviously with some experience under his belt be-cause he handled himself well.

Scott nodded, then reached down and pulled the han-dle. The lock disengaged and the door opened a crack. The officer jerked it all the way open. "Get out of the car and lie facedown on the ground."

Scott stepped out of the Tahoe but stayed on his feet. "We're DEA agents with a prisoner."

"If that's true then you're even dumber than I thought," the officer said. He had his pistol aimed at Scott's chest. "We would have been totally within policy to have lit your asses up."

"That vehicle behind us," Scott said, without turning his head, "that black Suburban, has been chasing us the last twenty miles. We had to get across fast."

"Let me see your ID"

Scott reached for his back pocket.

"Slow and easy," the officer said.

So, slow and easy, just like he'd been ordered, Scott pulled out his leather credential case, with the gold DEA badge fitted into a cutout on the outside. Then he opened the case and showed the officer his credentials, which consisted of two laminated cards behind clear plastic. The top card had 'DEA' superimposed across it in big blue letters, and the bottom card had Scott's official photograph affixed to it, taken in a suit and tie.

The CBP officer lowered his pistol. He peeked into the Tahoe and saw Ortiz handcuffed in the back seat. "I assume that's your prisoner."

Scott nodded.

"Mexican national?"

"Yes, he is," Scott said.

The officer glanced at the black Suburban, idling fifty yards back. "So who are those guys?"

Scott turned. The Suburban's passenger door was open and the tall white guy was standing outside, staring back at him through his black aviator sunglasses. "Hell if I know."

By 7:30 a.m., the DEA Laredo Field Office was in chaos. Scott Greene had called in his two investigative assistants an hour early to help. Some of his agents were working the phones, calling their contacts in Mexican law enforcement and trying to find the three missing agents. Another agent was manning the DEA radio, periodically calling for the missing agents by last name and call sign. Scott also had an agent repeatedly dialing the missing agents' cell phones and sending urgent text messages. Still another agent was typing up a flash message to DEA Headquarters about the arrest of Felix Ortiz.

Meanwhile, Scott was processing his prisoner, filling out a personal history form, taking mugshots, and getting three sets of original inked fingerprints: one for the FBI, one for DEA Headquarters, and one for the case file, which would stay in the Laredo office. The mugshots were full face, left profile, and right profile. When Scott was finished he shoved Ortiz into one of the four small, cage-like holding cells and slammed the door. The lock engaged automatically.

Ortiz stood at the door and stared at Scott through the wire mesh. "You're in over your head, amigo."

Scott ignored him.

"Three of your agents are missing."

"You have the right to remain silent," Scott said. "I sug-gest you use it."

"You don't know what you started."

"I know I started you on a one-way trip to the needle."

"You have no idea what's really going on here, do you?" Ortiz said. "You gringos think you understand everything, but you don't. You only see what's right in front of you. You don't see the...how do you say? The large...?"

"The big picture," Scott said.

"Sí, the big picture," Ortiz said. "You don't see the big picture. This isn't about drugs. This is about politics. Politics, power, and money. In my country...and in yours."

"I don't have time to debate politics with you," Scott said. "I have work to do." He pointed to the bench at the back of the holding cell. "Have a seat and wait."

Ortiz smiled, showing that silver tooth again. "I'm going to wait right here for my free lawyer, the one you told me about when you were reading me my rights."

"Sit down and shut up," Scott said. "When I get a chance I'll have somebody run you over to the U.S. marshal's office."

Ortiz looked around the small cage. "No hurry, señor. Take your time. I like it here. You have air conditioning."

Scott walked out of the prisoner processing room and into the long hall that ran the length of the office. Almost immediately he bumped into his boss, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Glenn Peterson. The ASAC was in his mid-fifties and looked like he could still swing a ram and take down a door, unlike a lot of chair warmers in DEA middle management, whose most strenuous exertion of the day was going to lunch. But Peterson was pushing up against the mandatory retirement age of fifty-seven and had less than a year left before he was shown the door.

Still, Scott was surprised to see his boss. Peterson's of-fice, along with that of the special agent in charge, the SAC, was at the division office in Houston. It was rare that the suits came down to Laredo, and when they did, long-standing tradition held that they give the local RAC a heads-up. "I didn't know you were coming down," Scott said.

"The SAC sent me as soon as he heard about the clus-terfuck you ran this morning," Peterson said. He wore a dark blue suit with an American flag lapel pin. "I tried to call, but your phone went straight to voicemail."

Scott reached in his pocket for his cell. Out of habit, he had turned it off while he was booking the prisoner. He switched it back on and saw he had several missed calls, in-cluding two from his wife. "Sorry."

"You got bigger problems than missing my call."

"How big?"

"The SAC is on his way down right now."

"I guess he's pissed," Scott said.

"You think?"

"What about headquarters?"

"He's got them stirred up too."

Scott had nothing to say to that. There wasn't anything he could do about the SAC or the pencil pushers in head-quarters. He had three missing agents to find. That had to be his first-his only-priority.

"I admire your guts," Peterson said. "I always have."

"I'm sensing a but coming."

Peterson nodded. "But you stepped into a huge pile of shit with this one."

"We got him, though," Scott said. "We got the man who set up the hit on Mike Cassidy."

"But three more agents are missing."

"I think the PFs caught up with them and are holding them to make a point."

"You better hope that's true," Peterson said. "Because if they don't show up soon, it's going to get really ugly. The Mexican government is already saying they're going to file a formal protest with the State Department. If they do that, then the White House has to get involved. Eventually, your little stunt could end up forcing the president of the United States to call the president of Mexico and make a personal apology. And I shouldn't have to tell you what your career is going to be worth if that happens."

"It's not going to come to that," Scott said. "The Mexi-cans can't hold them for very long."

"They can hold them as long as they want," Peterson said. "And the reason they can hold them as long as they want is because you invaded a sovereign nation and kid-napped a federal police officer."

"That's not exactly how it-"

"What do you think the United States government would do if a group of Mexican police officers came across the border and kidnapped a DEA agent and took him to Mexico?"

"Ortiz set Mike Cassidy up so the Zetas could snatch him off the street. They tortured him, killed him, and cut off his head. And not necessarily in that order. There's a federal arrest warrant out for Ortiz, and I'm not going to apologize for bringing him in."

"There's a legal process."

"Mexico was never going to extradite him."

"The State Department says they were close to a deal."

"Bullshit," Scott snapped. "State's nothing but a gigan-tic circle jerk. Their idea of a deal would be Ortiz serving six months in a Mexican halfway house and getting to keep his job. My idea is he goes to the federal death house and gets a needle in his arm."

"There's a process, and renditions aren't a part of it."

"Headquarters gives renditions a wink and a nod."

"Only if you don't get caught," Peterson said. "Or lose anyone."

"They'll be back." Scott hoped he sounded more confi-dent than he felt.

"I'm too close to punching out," Peterson said. "And I'm way too old to go looking for another job. I'm sorry, but I can't cover you on this."

"That's why I didn't tell you."

"You didn't tell the SAC either."

"If you were in my place, would you have told Bobby Socks about an off-the-books operation?"

Peterson shook his head. "I guess not."

They stood there for a moment, just looking at each oth-er. Then at the far end of the hall, they heard a commotion. Several voices raised in anger. And a pitiful cry of anguish. Then something hard-maybe a fist?-slammed into a wall.

Garza stepped out of the last office and looked down the hall at Scott and Glenn. His face was red, and even at this distance, Scott could see there were tears in his eyes. "They found them," Garza said. "Miller, Lundy...and Kat. They found all of them. They're dead."

Scott Greene stared at the bullet-riddled Chevrolet Tahoe and the bloody, twisted, lifeless bodies inside it. Miller was slumped against the steering wheel. Lundy sat in the passen-ger seat, his bandaged leg still propped on the dashboard. And Kat lay sprawled across the back seat.

The Policia Federal had stretched a cordon of bright yellow crime scene tape around the entire area. Printed on the tape in bold black letters was a repeated warning in Spanish not to cross the barrier. Since the location of the crime scene was in the desert with nothing to tie the tape to, the federal cops had driven long wooden stakes into the sand and wrapped the tape around them.

Outside the perimeter of yellow tape, where they had been warned to stay, Scott stood in helpless rage with the rest of his agents: Diego, Jackson, Cajun, Hitch, and Garza. The ASAC, Glenn Peterson, stood with them. They had driven across the border in two Dodge Chargers, which the ASAC said were less threatening than the blacked-out Ta-hoes, and this time they came over without weapons since Mexican law prohibited U.S. law enforcement agents from carrying firearms in Mexico. Any agent arrested in Mexico for violating the law could expect to spend from one to three years in a Mexican prison, but everyone knew that the chance of a DEA agent actually surviving any sentence in a Mexican prison was essentially zero. So in effect, any sen-tence was death sentence.

As a result, Scott and the remaining members of his team were unarmed and unprotected, wearing nothing but 5.11 cargo pants and plain black T-shirts. Peterson was the odd man out, still in his dark blue suit, though Scott was glad to see his boss hadn't taken the American flag pin out of his lapel. When you're in enemy territory, you need to show the flag. In this case, literally.

The dead Tahoe sat on four flat tires, its hood, grill, and doors punched through with bullet holes. All the glass had been shot out. A puddle of green radiator fluid lay under the engine.

In front of the Tahoe, two marked Policia Federal pa-trol cars sat nose-to-nose across the highway. From the number of .223 and 9mm shell casings on the ground behind the patrol cars and along the sides of the highway, Scott fig-ured the federales had fired more than a hundred rounds into the Tahoe.

At least twenty Policia Federal officers were wandering around the crime scene, both uniformed and plainclothes. Most of them doing nothing. A lone PF photographer was snapping pictures, but even he wasn't getting too close to the Tahoe.

Flies buzzed in and out through the empty windows and blood had leaked out under the doors and pooled on the highway. Most of the blood had dried, but some of it was still dripping. The desert sun was almost directly overhead and sent heat waves shimmering off the blacktop. The inside of the Tahoe must be like an oven, Scott thought, because the cooked-meat smell emanating from it was nauseating.

A pair of ambulances idled nearby, the attendants perched like vultures inside the open back doors, waiting for permission from the federal cops to pick up the bodies.

From where he stood behind the yellow tape, Scott could see that Miller and Lundy had been shot in the head, probably close-range pistol shots to make sure they were dead. He couldn't see Kat's head, but there was no reason to suspect she hadn't received the same treatment.

And their killers were still here: four uniformed Policia Federal officers strutting around the scene like roosters, ac-cepting pats on the back and words of praise from their col-leagues. Scott wanted to strangle all four of them.

"What the fuck are we doing here?" Garza said in a voice choked with emotion.

"Cooperating," Peterson said.

"Cooperating with what?" Garza demanded. "If these assholes are looking for the killers," he pointed to the four PFs who were the center of attention, "that's them right there."

Before Peterson could respond, a uniformed Policia Federal captain approached them. He was in his mid-forties, with a gut that hung over his pistol belt, a couple day's growth of beard, and oily black hair that brushed his collar. "This is a terrible thing," he said in heavily-accented English.