Geneva Connection, The (6 page)

Antonio, the gardener who’d tended the grounds of the DEA’s residential compound since they’d lived there, slid open the metal entrance gates. As the car drove through, ten-year-old Merriman smiled at him through the open back window, but Antonio looked away.

“He’s not very happy today,” said Merriman.

“You never know what might be troubling him,” his father said.

“At least he could smile.”

“Try not to judge people, Mark. Life’s hard for many here.”

The Accord accelerated once they reached the freeway and then, as usual, Merriman’s father turned on the radio.

“How long will we be here, Dad?”

“What do you mean?”

“In this country.”

“Well, that depends. Why do you ask?”

“Mom says we’ve never been stationed anywhere longer than three years.”

“That’s right, son. The service likes to move us around. You’re enjoying school here, aren’t you?”

Merriman bit on his upper lip. “It’s okay, I guess.”

They left the freeway and joined the heavy traffic heading into downtown Bogota.

“Put your window up now, Mark.”

Merriman closed his rear window. “Would be nice to try a different school,” he said.

“Something troubling you?”

Merriman shook his head. “Not really. Some of the lessons are hard.”

“Anyway, if I get the promotion I told you about, we’ll be living back in the US for a while. Wouldn’t that be great?” He turned up the radio. “Here’s the weather. All set?” They listened to the weather report in Spanish, a daily ritual. “Okay, what’s it gonna be like?”

“Thunderstorms this afternoon and tomorrow morning. Ninety-five degrees will be the high,” said Merriman.

“See. Your Spanish is improving all the time. The school can’t be that bad. How many boys your age can speak English and Spanish back in the US?”

The car came to a halt behind a line of vehicles at a traffic light. A truck had stopped in the middle of the intersection. Horns blared. Merriman looked out of the rear window. Fists were being waved out of car windows and voices raised.

“Here they go again,” said his father.

Merriman felt something slam into the side of the car, tossing him sideways. When he sat back up, he heard his father screaming, “My God, close your eyes, Mark.”

There was a loud smash against the windshield.

“Dad!” Merriman opened his eyes. A severed head had been thrown at the car, and it had come to rest between the wipers. The eyes were still open.

That was the day Merriman’s father had the first of his heart attacks. In the days that followed, Merriman learned that a Colombian drug cartel had murdered one of his father’s team. The severed head had been a warning to his father, who ran the DEA’s Colombian operations. Antonio, the gardener, was never seen again.

Merriman remembered his father never being the same after that; he became distant and lost much of his love of life. A few weeks later, they were transferred to the US, but his father never did receive the promotion. The episode ended his promising career, and he spent his remaining years, until retirement, in an administrative role back in Virginia.

Chapter 8

M
OTEL
B
UENA
V
ISTA
, so called because of its view toward San Diego, was one of many Tijuana establishments where rooms were available by the hour. Sadly, it didn’t live up to its name; with the tall US border standing only five hundred feet away, there was nothing interesting to see. The white breeze block lower half was covered with graffiti, and the razor-wire top gave it a menacing appearance.

Next door to the motel stood the low-rise Esperanza apartment block. It was an unspectacular construction, with the only thing marking it out being the lime-green render, which added a bit of color to the street. Not that a lick of paint was going to improve the area much. This was a rough part of town where even the Rottweilers wandered around in pairs for their own protection. The block sat some distance from the busy road, allowing residents to park their cars in front of the building. That way, they could keep an eye on them from their apartment windows.

On the curb, at the entrance to the Esperanza’s private car park, was a white hand-painted sign requesting visitors to the motel not to use the residents’ spaces. Everyone ignored it. Cars were coming in and out all day and most of the night, making it difficult for the caretaker, Jesus Cortes, to monitor whether or not they belonged there.

Cortes did his best to keep the area tidy, but it was a never-ending task. Most days he’d have to pick up empty beer cans, discarded cigarette boxes, and other garbage from the block’s kicked-over dustbins. What he hated most was clearing up the stomach-churning used condoms left by the prostitutes working outside the motel the night before. Not every client could afford the hourly room rate. It made him sick. He was a decent man, who refused to be beaten by the poverty of his surroundings.

Cortes was in his fifties, and walked with a stoop, making him look much older. Two divorces, and a life of living on the breadline, had taken their toll. He’d looked after the Esperanza since it was first built eight years ago. He lived alone in a cramped, two-bedroom caretaker’s apartment in the basement of the building. There were no other units in the basement as there was no natural light down there. One of the reasons he spent his days tidying up outside so much was to enjoy the daylight. That and to keep out of the way of his daily visitors.

Every morning, except Sundays, four walking tattoos would arrive between eight and nine with a thump on his front door. He’d be waiting for them. He would let them in and move aside; there was no need for conversation. They had no interest in him, and they made it clear he was expected to keep out of their way. They weren’t the sort of people you argued with. They’d never threatened him, but he knew what they were capable of doing.

The same four men would stay until sunset. They’d be joined by many others throughout the day, always following the same routine. The later callers would arrive in pairs by car so as not to draw too much attention in the car park. To a casual observer, they looked as though they were checking in and out of the motel next door. Each one would bring in with him two large canvas holdalls and would leave with two different bags a few minutes later.

During the day, when Cortes was out working, the second bedroom of his apartment was a hive of activity. The first men to arrive would follow the same pattern. They’d shove to one side the large wardrobe sitting against the back wall then switch on the lights and air-extraction pump. Cut into the wall behind the wardrobe was a full-height door, about the width of two men. Once the lights were on, the narrow-gauge rail was visible at the entrance to a tunnel. A small, hand-powered rail cart sat on the rail, just a few feet inside.

The men worked in two-man shifts, with the first team checking out the tunnel on the initial run of the day. Often, they’d have to carry out repairs to damaged sections caused by earth movements. The whole thing was lined with timber beams, and nailed into them were wooden panels running along the walls, serving as a barrier to keep out the soil and dust. About every hundred yards were small ventilation shafts rising the thirty feet or so to the surface. The men had to inspect these every morning to prevent the buildup of gas and to allow fresh air to enter.

The tunnel ran for almost a mile below the surface. It took the men around twenty minutes to push the rail cart the full length of the track. It was hot, exhausting work. Each two-man team made a return run then handed over to the other pair, alternating throughout the day.

The exit on the US side of the border was in the basement of a single-story house off a quiet lane leading to International Park. The building was surrounded by woods and out of view from the road. The sign on the wall outside read: “Bed and Breakfast—No Vacancies.” No one had ever seen any paying guests.

The holdalls brought into the Esperanza were stuffed with plastic-wrapped, two-kilo packages of pure cocaine. They were handed over to the men in the basement bedroom. The bags received in exchange were crammed full of US dollars. The rail cart made between twenty and thirty round trips a day, delivering cocaine to the US and returning with dollars to Mexico. The men ran a highly efficient shuttle service.

At the end of each week, Cortes would receive a hundred dollars in cash for his cooperation. Without this money, he struggled to make ends meet. He wasn’t proud of this. He understood what was going on in his apartment but, like all the others in his situation, he knew it was best to turn a blind eye.

The Esperanza was one of many apartment blocks along the border owned by the Caruana cartel. Jivaro had a strong preference for new builds and took a close interest in their construction, particularly at the foundation stage, when tunnels could be dug and earth taken away without attracting much attention.

Two years ago, the US government invested in a new range of reconnaissance satellites. These latest units could, on a clear day, focus in on a six-inch area, creating crystal-clear imagery. All of the satellites were controlled by the DEA’s intelligence center in El Paso, Texas. Special Agent Daniela Piechuta was one of a team of twenty agents attached to this division, which was responsible for the remote monitoring of drug cartel activities along the Mexico/US border.

One hundred and fifty miles to the north of Tijuana sat a modern, detached home on a new development in the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles. The house looked much like all the other cookie-cutter houses on the street. These ordinary-looking homes were chosen precisely because they did not stand out. They were used by traffickers as stash houses for the local distribution of drugs and hoarding of cash generated from their criminal activities.

Just after lunch, two men came out of the house and stood talking on the drive right outside the garage. Recognizing a familiar pattern of movement, Special Agent Piechuta rotated the main dial of her console in a clockwise direction. In front of her was a high-resolution thirty-inch LCD screen. As she rotated the control, the image on the monitor became increasingly sharp. Six hundred miles above the earth, a telescope on board the three-hundred-million-dollar reconnaissance satellite adjusted its focus. The two men standing outside the garage appeared on the screen.

A pickup truck pulled onto the drive. Two men jumped out and shook hands with the others waiting outside the house. The four men went inside the garage and, moments later, reemerged carrying two large holdalls each, which they loaded onto the back of the vehicle. They returned to the garage and came out with eight more bags. When they’d finished, one of the men pulled over the truck’s tarpaulin so the bags were no longer visible. The two men disappeared into the house as the truck drove away. Piechuta recorded the whole thing.

An hour and a half later, a black SUV pulled onto the San Diego Freeway at Carlsbad. Inside were three DEA agents. The agent in the front passenger seat was speaking on a two-way radio and giving instructions to the driver.

“We have visual. License number zero-two-one I-H-G on a gray pickup. Two suspects inside,” he said over the radio.

“Copy that. They’re all yours. Good luck,” replied Piechuta.

She’d tracked the pickup by satellite from the LA stash house to Carlsbad on Interstate 5. As usual, it appeared to be heading toward the Mexican border at Tijuana, fifty miles further to the south. It was now the responsibility of the agents in the SUV to follow the truck.

Around four o’clock each afternoon, a small line began to develop at the border crossing into Mexico. The pickup was next in line, with the SUV two cars behind. When the agents were confident the pickup was blocked in, they jumped out of their vehicle, pistols in hand. They rushed over to the truck and pulled open its doors, catching the two Mexican bag carriers off guard. They were rarely any trouble. Bag carriers were expendable and not expected to put up much of a fight if caught.

“Step out of the truck and hit the floor,” shouted one of the agents. The two Mexicans lay face down on the ground as they were being cuffed. Another agent climbed into the pickup and, after flashing his badge to the border guard, drove it over to a special holding area. After the Mexicans were put into a holding cell, the three agents spent the next few hours examining the holdalls, which, as expected, were found to contain US currency, just over three million dollars in total.