Karen Vail 01 - Velocity (36 page)

“Native Americans? How’s
that
work?” Mann asked.

“Pretty damn wel , actual y. You got mostly barbed wire along the reservation’s border with Mexico. Not much of a deterrent—especial y if you’ve got wil ing partners on the other side of the wire. And the smugglers are most definitely wil ing partners.”

“Unbelievable,” Gordon said.

“Gets better.” Turino pressed a finger against the map. “See this here? The Tohono O’odham Nation territory has been a longtime problem for us. It’s huge,” he said as his hand traced the almost circular shape of the land, which covered a substantial portion of the Mexico/Arizona border. “Roughly the size of the state of Connecticut, 2.8
million
acres.”

“The size of Connecticut?” Vail asked over the speaker. “This is reservation land
within
the state of Arizona?”

“Right. And they’ve got only about eighty cops to cover nearly 3 mil ion acres.

You can see the problem. Mules can literal y drive up to the border in trucks and hand over kilos of drugs across the barbed wire fence. Cartel-backed criminal bands of Native Americans take the handoff and drive it to their buildings for storage before it’s transported into Tucson or Phoenix in a stolen van. The locals like it because they get a thousand bucks or more per load. It’s good money and a lot of ’em are unemployed.”

Dixon blew air out her lips. “What are you guys doing about it?”

“We’ve beefed up our presence. The smugglers use radios with rol ing codes and watch Border Patrol with night vision equipment so they can see when it’s clear for them to move their loads. Border Patrol’s countered with trucks outfitted with infrared cameras that can detect heat signatures. Bottom line, the land’s in danger of turning into a militarized zone. But even with that, last year alone was a record year. Over 160 tons of marijuana were seized—and that’s only what we
caught
.”

“Don’t be fooled by marijuana,” DeSantos said. “The people trying to legalize it?

Be careful what you wish for. Pot may seem harmless to some, but it’s real y the driving force behind the whole il icit drug trade. The cartels use the profit from pot to buy coke in Colombia as wel as the ingredients for making meth and heroin.”

DeSantos’s image enlarged as he leaned closer to the webcam. “Take it a step closer to home. Almost half the foreign terrorist organizations—which are involved in investigations with a validated terrorist link—have ties to the drug trade and are responsible for our country’s il icit drug supply. Groups like the FARC, the AUC, and the ELN in Colombia. And the proceeds from drug trafficking end up with groups like Hezbol ah and Hamas. So in a perverse way, like Detective Brix said, the American drug user is the single largest funder of terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.”

“Drugs aren’t the only problem with these cartels,” Turino said. “People. Lots of human smuggling, too.”

There was a col ective sigh from the task force. They leaned back in their seats, sensing the enormity of the situation. Everyone in the room had been briefed at one point or other about some aspect of the war on drugs. But Turino’s presentation, and the fact that it was hitting close to home, made it suddenly more real—and overwhelming in scope.

“Biggest problem is that once they get these drugs into the United States, no matter how or where, they’re transported on our freeways—Interstates 5, 8, 10, 15, 19, 805—they link the southwest smuggling routes to drug markets throughout the United States.”

“I’m beginning to reassess my view of whether or not we can win the war on drugs,” Mann said.

“Can’t think of it that way,” Turino said. “Every operation is a battle. You grab up a bad guy and take a kilo of coke off him, that’s one less kilo of coke going into your child’s nose. Or vein. That’s how we do it. One battle at a time. I’ve devoted my life to it.”

“You mentioned Operation Velocity,” Dixon said. “What is it, who’s running it?”

“It’s a DEA op. We’ve got plans in place for a nationwide sweep that’l involve the Mexican military, FBI, ATF, and ICE. If our recent estimates are anywhere near reality, we think we should be able to take a shitload of drugs out of circulation. A couple thousand pounds of meth, two to three thousand kilos of coke, dozens of pounds of heroin, tens of thousands of pounds of high-potency marijuana. And that doesn’t even include the weapons we’l get off the street. If al goes as planned, we figure we’l be able to grab up between two and three thousand traffickers, cartel members, and money launderers.”

“Two or three
thousand
?” DeSantos asked.

“A lot of ’em in Mexico, but several hundred here in the States, too. It’s one of the most important ops in DEA history, so we gotta make sure al goes as planned. We can’t afford any fuckups. Sebastian—Agent Sebastiani de Medina—was playing a key role in opening up avenues to drugs, traffickers, and money launderers we didn’t even know existed. It looked like TFO Hernandez was going to get us in close to the part of the operation we hadn’t yet penetrated. We’ve done a quick and dirty assessment, and as far as we can tel , the op hasn’t been compromised.”

“Speaking of Robby,” Vail said, “where do you suggest we start looking for him?”

DeSantos’s phone sang a whale song. “Excuse me.” He reached down and turned away from the webcam.

Turino sucked on his front teeth a moment, then turned back to the map. He folded tattooed arms across a hairy chest peppered with gray. “I’m not sure there’s a good answer to that. We’ve real y got nothing to suggest it’d be any one of a hundred different potential hot spots.” He studied the map some more.

“I think we should go to San Diego,” DeSantos said, cel phone stil in hand. “I just got a cal from one of my . . . people. There’s been a tremendous amount of cartel activity out of San Ysidro the past year and a half. Assassinations, kidnappings, beheadings. And Carlos Cortez’s main residence is in a San Diego suburb. My guy says that’s where we should look first. His house.”

“Good enough for me,” Vail said. She nudged DeSantos in the arm. “Can you get us on the next flight out?”

“We don’t have time for that.” DeSantos leaned forward, which distorted the features of his face and nearly shifted him off-screen. He lifted Vail’s telephone handset, then tucked it between his neck and shoulder. “Let me see if I can scare up a military transport. Or—” he lowered the receiver and said, “Turino. You guys get confiscated shit al the time.” He lifted his cel phone and started to press keys.

“You’ve gotta have a jet. I’l give Yardley a cal —”

“No need,” Turino said. “We picked up a Lear 60XR during a raid last year. A real beauty. Find yourself a pilot and you’re good to go. If you fly it right, you’l probably make it without a refueling stop.”

“Probably?” Vail asked.

“We’ve used it a few times for stuff like this,” Turino said, passing over her comment. “Very easy on the department’s budget.”

“Don’t need to search too hard for a pilot,” DeSantos said. “You’re looking at one. If you can give Yardley a shout to alert the ground crew, we’l see you in a few hours.”

Vail reached forward and their screen went dark.

Mann logged off the teleconference session.

Turino folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels. “I saw in your file that you’ve been working with the Napa Special Investigations Bureau on the Crush Kil er case.”

“Right,” Brix said. “NSIB provides support and overflow investigative functions, but their main purpose is narcotics investigation and enforcement. As soon as we were informed about Superior Mobile’s operation, I alerted them.”

“Before I left the office to come here,” Turino said, “we got a cal from them. I’d like to have two of you consider staying behind, working with NSIB to monitor the status of César Guevara and Superior Bottling. You’d be our liaisons.”

“You sure?” Dixon said. “That leaves us a bit thin.”

“With Vail and DeSantos on board, we’l be fine. For a mobile unit, it’s easier logistical y to get around.”

Brix turned to Dixon. “Your cal .”

Dixon’s eyes canted toward the ceiling as she leaned back in her chair. “Redd, you and Burt. Stay here, coordinate with NSIB and DEA.”

Brix and Gordon indicated their agreement with her decision.

“Okay then,” Turino said. “We’ve got a lot to do before our col eagues from Quantico arrive. And we’ve gotta get down south, too.” He flipped his folder closed.

“Redd, see if you can get us booked on a flight down to San Diego. Everyone else, do you have go packs in your trunk?”

Mann did, the others did not.

“Fine. Pack a bag for three days and meet back here in one hour. No later.”

Brix pul ed out his cel . “I’l get us some transportation to the airport, too.”

Turino lifted the handset of the conference room phone. “See you al in an hour, sharp.” He twisted his wrist, stole a look at his watch, and said, “Let’s do it.”

A
puddle of urine covered one corner of the bare cement floor. Across the room, the captive lay curled in a bal to conserve heat. His thoughts were confused, his brain devoid of the necessary fuel to keep the mind churning out the impulses that fired neurons and formed images. Two days without food or water would do that to you. Especial y when coupled with what he had endured during that time.

The duress his body had been subjected to was equal to techniques the CIA had used in the farthest reaches of Afghanistan and Iraq during wartime. He had the scars to prove it—emotional as wel as physical.

Roberto Umberto Enrique Hernandez was a man of the law. That’s what he kept tel ing himself. Though he was determined to withstand anything his captors could put forth, the truth was, he had no choice. And he knew it. But accepting the abuse and succumbing to it were two different things. He needed to find a way out, and if there was one thing he had in abundance, other than pain, it was time to ponder potential escape scenarios. Yet nothing of practical value had come to him. And no opportunity had presented itself.

Undercover work was new to him. He knew about it from his everyday work as a detective, but that kind of exposure was like reading how to fire a gun versus actual y holding one in your hands, pul ing the tension from the trigger, locking your shoulder, and sending the projectile hurtling through the air toward its target. Some things you could learn from a book. Others required the practical experience of trial and error.

Undercover work, he surmised, was like that. But trial and error in this line of work could get you kil ed.

He was given a private crash course with a retired undercover before leaving for California, but sitting in a room in a briefing is not as efficient as living and learning, experiencing and absorbing over a period of time—a break-in period of sorts.

But he did not have that luxury. He knew the type of people he would be facing: the kind he encountered growing up in a Los Angeles neighborhood that was as far removed from Beverly Hil s and Hol ywood as is a minnow from a shark on the evolutionary chain.

Robby’s drive to succeed, to excel in life and in his career, had brought him to this place. There was no one to blame—not even himself. If presented with the same opportunity tomorrow, he would seize it without reservation.

Unfortunately, at the moment, contemplating his next assignment was problematic. That was getting ahead of himself. At present, he needed to focus on finding a way to survive, of getting out of here alive.

THE RUSTED METAL DOOR cracked a few inches and a bar of light fel across the urine puddle. Robby rol ed his eyes upward—not expending the energy to raise his head—and wondered what they had planned for him.

A large man stood at the door—he had earlier told Robby his name was Ernesto

“Grunge” Escobar. Robby easily had six inches on the guy, but their weight was roughly the same. While Robby was lithe and muscular, this guy was square and thick. Escobar’s job was apparently to make sure no one got the upper hand while in his custody. And in his current state, Robby was not much of a threat to anyone.

Escobar was the one who had inflicted the damage to Robby’s body and mind.

He had learned his techniques somewhere, Robby surmised. But that knowledge didn’t make the pain any less intense, the torture any more humane.

“Hernandez,” Escobar said. “Let’s go. Up.” He folded his broad forearms across his chest and waited for Robby to drag his left leg in toward his body, fol owed by his right. He then rol ed onto his side and summoned his remaining strength to push up his torso.

“Food,” Robby said in a low, frail voice. “Water.”

Escobar stood there, looking down at his captive. At some point in the next second, he must have brought his leg back—Robby didn’t see it—but he sure felt it.

Boot to the face. Again. It lifted Robby off the ground and launched him into the adjacent wal . And that’s where he lay when the lights went out.

63

V
ail and DeSantos had been granted a prime flight path and made excel ent time with nary a drop of fuel to spare. DeSantos, chewing hard on a piece of Wrigley’s, kept fobbing off her comments about what they had left in the tank, usual y with a joke that left Vail more frustrated.

But he seemed at ease, so she final y realized that if it was an issue, he would not only tel her but would be concerned himself. It was only when the low fuel warning sounded that the anxiety rose up in her throat like a bacteria-infested meal.

He then explained he had to come in empty because of the maximum landing weight the regional airport required.