Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (92 page)

***

The Comandante’s radio crackled.
  The
Cocinero Mágico
van was still parked a half block north of Broadway, in the angled parking area on the Harbor Drive service road.  It was Chino’s voice.

“Boss…”

“Yes?”

“I found us a ride.  Do you see the big
barco de velas
?”

“I see it.” Chino had to be referring to the giant sailing ship tied along the sea wall, a few hundred meters farther north.

“I’m near its front.  Look for the
moto
.”

Ramos pulled back onto Harbor Drive.  The sidewalk and the service road across on the bay side were full of pedestrians.  Many of them were sitting on folding chairs or blankets, getting ready to enjoy the fireworks show.  He pulled over onto the service road opposite the clipper ship and parked again. Inside of the van, they prepared themselves for action. Their compact .45 caliber Ingram MAC-10 machine pistols were concealed inside of dark, bulky windbreakers.  Extra thirty round magazines were shoved beneath their belts, inside of their waistbands.  They were already wearing light body armor beneath their shirts.  

Almeria was left in the van to maintain his communications watch, and move the vehicle as needed.  The three men walked separately across Harbor Drive, through the waiting fireworks spectators who paid them no attention whatsoever.

According to signs along the seawall, the century-old clipper ship “The Star of India” had been converted into a floating museum and tourist attraction, and even more spectators were lining its decks tonight.  In front of its bow, almost beneath the end of its long bowsprit, a metal ramp ran straight out from the quayside to a perpendicular floating dock.  The green Kawasaki was parked there on the quay, and the three men walked down the ramp past it.  Tied to the floating dock was a smaller classic sailing vessel, a schooner from the 19th
century that was now a harbor excursion boat.  All the way at the end there was a dark-hulled racing motorboat. HOMELAND SECURITY was painted along its side in tall white letters.

Chino greeted them at the end of the floating dock.  He was wearing a black uniform and a black ball cap with DHS on the front.

“Where’s the crew?” asked Ramos, looking Chino up and down approvingly.  His white sneakers at the bottom of the black pants were his only giveaway.  Chino turned completely around, showing off the HOMELAND SECURITY written across his back in large white letters.

“There were only two of them.  They’re in the little cabin now—I handcuffed them with their own
esposas
. And I’ve got another uniform.”

The Comandante was beaming.  “How did you manage this trick, vato?”

“Oh, it was easy. I guess the idiots thought they were the only ones in downtown San Diego with guns.  I just walked out the dock like a common drunken
borracho
, and I ignored them when they told me to stop in English. Finally I acted like I was going to stagger right off of the end of the dock, and they tried to stop me.  Nice guys, huh?  That’s when I showed them my MAC—that’s all it took.  We went inside the boat, and they took off their uniforms.  Very cooperative.  They’re cuffed and gagged now, but they’re okay.”  Chino laughed, “I guess they weren’t ready to die for their homeland’s security.  So, who wants the other uniform? It’s big, it’ll fit anybody.”

***

Gretchen Bosch pushed Alex
down the ramp and onto the Eldorado, prodding him in the back with her H&K USP .45 caliber pistol.  Once in the main saloon, she shoved him down onto the settee next to Ranya, pulled off her black Kevlar helmet, and dropped it beside them. “Okay kids, snuggle up.  Come on, don’t be shy.”  When they were close enough, their shoulders touching, she reached into a side pouch on her assault vest and pulled out another flex cuff.  “Did you guys ever run the ‘three legged race’? Your right, her left.  Come on, lift ‘em up. We don’t want you running off and getting into trouble.”  She looped the plastic noose over one of each of their feet, and pulled it snug so that their two ankles were tightly joined.

“Where’s Brian?” asked Alex.  

“Is that all you can think of?” replied Gretchen.  “He’s not your kid anymore Al, didn’t you get the memo from the Judge Obregon?”  Then, with her prisoners secured, she turned around and addressed her new boss. She was in an ebullient mood, still flying along after the thrill of her new team’s success with the street takedown.  “Hey Bob,
nice
boat. 
Sweet.
  So, where do you hide the brewskies?”

“Down forward, in the galley.  The fridge is on the left.”  He was still examining their effects, laying them out on the dinette table in front of him.  Ranya’s blond wig looked almost like a small furry animal when he pulled it out of the green bag.

She returned with two Karl Strauss Amber Lagers, twisted the caps off of them, and handed one to Bob Bullard.

She took a long drink, and then turned to Alex and Ranya. “You two really are a pair of fuckups, you know it? Fun is fun, ‘thanks for a wonderful evening’ and all that, but I think we’re going to have to call it a night. Even though you’re a lot of laughs, you’re both getting to be a royal pain in the ass.  Ranya Bardiwell the Arab terrorist, and Al Garabanda, from the almighty FBI…whoop-de-doo, I’m
so
impressed—Not!” She took another long pull from her beer, set it on the dinette table, and began to rip off the Velcro straps and unfasten the plastic buckles holding on her assault vest and her body armor.  She dropped them on the deck, and then sat on the high captain’s chair in the middle of the saloon by the forward windows, swiveling it around from the yacht’s controls to face her captives.

“So, did Bob tell you we’re going for a little boat ride tonight? Yeah, a moonlight cruise, right after the fireworks.  Hey boss, what time do they start?” she asked, glancing at her watch.

“Anytime now,” replied Bullard.

“How long is the show?”

“I think a half hour.  Real Chinese fireworks.  The good stuff.”

As if he had been clairvoyant, a shrill whistling sound split the air, followed by a burst of light, a resounding thunderclap boom, and several echoes.  Through the high pilothouse windows, glowing blue streamers could be seen cascading out like the leaves of a palm tree.  Before the last blue embers faded just before reaching the water, another rocket exploded high above them.  The third rocket continued racing high above the first two before detonating with a ker-umph.

Brian Garabanda came up through the forward galley and he saw Gretchen first, sitting on the high captain’s chair.  He said, “Mommy is sleeping.  Can I watch the fireworks up here?”  His presence was a surprise to the adults, but he was even more surprised to see his father on the settee. “Daddy!”  He ran to him, leaped on his lap, and hugged him around the neck.

Gretchen said, “All right kiddo, you can watch the fireworks.  But after that you have to go to bed downstairs with Mommy.  Is that a deal?”

“O-kay…  But why is Daddy tied up?”

“Oh, um, we’re playing a grown up game kiddo.”

“An FBI game?” Brian looked doubtful and worried while he clung to his father.

“That’s right,” said Gretchen, “A grown up FBI game.  It’s their turn to be ‘it’.”

***

Basilio Ramos drove the blue Homeland Security boat
. He just barely nudged the throttles to keep its speed down.  The Comandante was wearing the other black Homeland Security uniform, with the similarly dressed Chino standing next to him.  Salazar and Genizaro were hidden, crouched down inside the cramped forward cabin with the two gringo crewmembers. The captives were all the way forward, stripped to their underwear, bound, gagged and blindfolded.

The bay was full of security boats with red and blue flashing lights, there to keep the area around the fireworks barge clear of civilian boat traffic. By keeping his speed at just enough to steer, Ramos was able to slip unnoticed past the civilian piers, and around to the end of the main government pier.  Sure enough, a black SUV was parked behind a white SUV, alongside the long white motor yacht.  A smattering of people wearing civilian clothes stood and sat near the end of the hundred-foot-wide pier, looking out and up at the fireworks show.  One rocket after another blasted into the sky, exploded, and launched sparkling starbursts out in colorful streamers.

The white motor yacht was facing the open harbor.  Ramos steered his vessel close to its bow, to come alongside parallel to it, as close to its side as possible.  Chino had already prepared dock lines, and stood in the back of the DHS boat closest to the white yacht, ready to step across with a rope.  Chino’s own MAC-10 was secured to his chest with a sling made of bungee cords. 

The two low doors to the interior of the DHS boat were already open. Salazar and Genizaro, still in their jeans and windbreakers, were waiting for the Comandante’s signal to spring out and go on the attack.

A crewmember on the big motor yacht walked out onto the side of the deck at their approach, hailing them and waving them off. He was dressed casually in jeans and a white dress shirt, open at the neck.  “No, no, not here!” he called out in English.  “Don’t tie up here!”  The man gestured and pointed to the open space on the floating dock behind the yacht, and kept yelling.  Ramos pretended not to understand, and maneuvered alongside the big yacht’s cockpit, the lowest part of its hull, where Chino would be able to step up and across with no difficulty.  As they expected, their Homeland Security boat and DHS uniforms allowed them to approach with a minimum of resistance.  When the cockpit of the DHS speedboat was almost even with the very back of the motor yacht, Ramos waved Chino across, to tie their own stern line onto the larger vessel, and halt their forward progress.

***

Cesar Escoria, the Eldorado’s boat captain
, was relaxing up on the flying bridge, halfway through smoking a fat
grifa
of strong marijuana. There was no better way to enjoy a fireworks show than sitting up on top of the yacht, leaning back in the padded helmsman’s seat, feet up on the instrument console, totally lit, buzzed—
prendido.

Tonight’s sampling of
sinsemilla
came from Sinaloa, courtesy of an amigo who worked for Customs.  The weed and the fireworks were both primo, but tonight’s boat parade on San Diego Bay was disappointing. He remembered the old days, when there would have been hundreds of private vessels out on the bay for a night of partying before, during and after the fireworks. But with the price of diesel fuel and gasoline as crazy as they were, practically the only boats on the water tonight were flashing the red and blue lights of the security services.

Fortunately, the price of fuel was never an issue for Captain Escoria. Tonight after the fireworks show they were going to make a quick run offshore, and the Eldorado would burn a hundred gallons of diesel, more or less. It didn’t matter, because he had a government credit card to refuel the boat.  One of his standing orders from Bob Bullard was to always keep the Eldorado’s tanks topped off.  Tonight the boss was involved in some dirty work, wet ops, a one-way trip offshore for some individuals who would not see the land again.  

Well, that was the boss’s business.  Cesar Escoria didn’t mind one way or the other—that was all up to Bob Bullard.  Catch a buzz, watch the fireworks, feel that booming in your gut, see the reflections of the lights on the water…and then take the boat offshore, under the stars.  The half moon was already sinking in the western sky above Point Loma.  By midnight it would be gone, and the only light over the horizon beyond San Diego would be starlight.

Escoria noticed one of the DHS forty-footers coming around the end of the pier; it was the same type Bob Bullard liked to take out on the weekends.  Probably somebody that knew him from their frequent weekend trips was coming by to say hello, and brown nose the regional director of Homeland Security.  Whoever it was, he wasn’t steering too well, and he seemed to be a rookie by the way he handled the throttles: pushing them and pulling them off, causing the boat to almost porpoise forward with little jumps.  

Now the Fountain racing boat was coming down along the Eldorado’s starboard side, very close.  What was this idiot boat driver up to? The Eldorado’s white hull had a $700,000 linear polyurethane Awlgrip paint job, and that was a lot of money, even in blue bucks, even if the government paid for it.  Was this fool going to just come banging alongside, and with no fenders?  Shit—amateurs!  Cesar Escoria heaved himself up from his captain’s chair, and shambled down to the side deck to see what these DHS clowns were up to.  They were really killing his buzz, these assholes.

“No, no, not here!” yelled Captain Escoria.  “Don’t tie up here! There’s no fenders—you’ll scratch the hull!  Down there, go down there!”

***

The vessels bumped
, and Chino climbed up from the DHS boat’s stern with his rope, immediately looping it over an empty cleat on the Eldorado’s side deck.  Ramos killed the engines and bounded across as Genizaro and Salazar burst from the small compartment, and followed him over into the big motor yacht’s cockpit.

“You can’t—” said the yacht’s crewman, coming back along the side deck from the middle of the yacht.  He was cut short by a burst from Chino’s MAC-10 at a range of only six feet.  Even with its suppressor, the noise was considerable.  Red stains blossomed on the dead man’s white oxford shirt as he twisted and fell forward, hit the teak handrail below his hips, and flipped overboard into the water.  The booming and crackling of the fireworks show continued without a pause, a quarter mile out on the bay.

***

Gretchen Bosch was returning to the main saloon
from the galley with two more ice cold beers, when she felt a bang on the Eldorado’s hull, then heard some footsteps thumping on the deck above her, followed by a chattering metallic piston noise that she instantly recognized. She entered the saloon and looked through the pilothouse windows just in time to see Bullard’s boat captain fall overboard.  She placed both bottles on the dinette table in front of Bob Bullard and turned toward the back of the saloon, already drawing her big H&K USP .45 from the tactical holster where it was strapped around the right leg of her black BDU pants.