Redback (2 page)

‘They picked you up when you crossed the border. They tracked you the whole way. They had officers at the bull ring. Just stay where you are,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you back. I’ve got to talk to Boyer.’

Marquez knew what Boyer, their ASAC, the Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge, would do. He’d kick the decision upstairs to the SAC, Special Agent-in-Charge, Jay Holsten, who ran the LA Field Office, and Marquez could guess Holsten’s reaction.

After hanging up with Sheryl, he worked the seatbelt so Billy’s body wouldn’t slide down anymore. He made sure Billy’s door was locked and then stood outside in the late sunlight looking in at Billy as he waited for her call back. He’d pushed Billy to make the meeting happen. Billy had reservations. Billy worried on the ride over.

‘Holsten does not want you to move the body. That’s an order, John. You’re to wait there. The Mex Feds are on the way.’

‘Tell Boyer and Holsten I’m headed to Tijuana. Ask our agents in Tijuana to drive toward me. I want witnesses when I turn over the car and Billy’s body.’

‘You’re going to make it worse.’

He looked at Billy. Takado just wanted to live his life. He didn’t want to go to jail again. He overplayed his connections with the Salazars and I knew, Marquez thought. I should have seen. I’m sorry, Billy. I’m so sorry.

‘You need to stay where you are.’

Marquez registered that and answered, ‘Tell Holsten that I said it was too dangerous to wait.’

‘John, listen to me, you’ve got to stay there. You can’t move the body. The Mex Feds want you to stay where you are.’

The fuck if he was going to sit here and wait for the guys who’d already burned them once today. He broke the connection and as he pulled back on to the road Billy slid down in the seat. Marquez turned the air conditioner on full and lowered the rear windows halfway.

Billy Takado lived alone. He didn’t have any children. He didn’t have anybody. He was the son of a Japanese father who’d immigrated to the US and a Mexican mother who lived just long enough to see her son do a five-spot for cocaine trafficking. She missed the next bust and Billy cutting a deal with the DEA.

When Marquez came out of the mountains he killed the air conditioner and drove with all of the windows down. The wind carried away the smells. It carried dry mesquite, creosote, and sun-baked desert rock. He kept checking the rear view mirror and up ahead the sky purpled with dusk. He ignored the satellite phone’s ring and kept going until he ran into a Mex Fed roadblock. They pointed their guns and when he resisted handcuffs they got angry.

But they were angry anyway. The big gringo didn’t know what they were up against or what it was to fight the
narco trafficantes
. Americans only cared about Americans and no one liked the Drug Enforcement Administration with its attitude and agents who couldn’t even speak Spanish and came from a country full of drug users yet complained about drugs.

The Mex Feds locked him in the back of a car, and then went through the Cadillac. In Tijuana they interrogated him until 3:00 in the morning and barred anyone from the Tijuana DEA office from seeing him. Tonight, on principle, he was a suspect caught trying to escape with a body, presumably to dispose of it, presumably because he worked for the Salazar Cartel. The officers who questioned him promised that whether or not he killed Takado he would do prison time in Mexico for moving Takado’s body. That much was a certainty, and when they became confident that his Spanish was fluent they worked another more elaborate theory.

At dawn they let him use a toilet and then a sink to wash Billy’s blood off his arms. They returned his badge and gun, but couldn’t find his Rolex or sunglasses, although the captain in charge promised to get them back to him. The captain carefully copied down an address to mail them to. By mid morning the issue between the DEA and the Mexican Federal Judicial Police was reduced to one of miscommunication, a natural problem of working together under difficult conditions.

That said, the Mex Feds voiced doubt about Agent Marquez’s judgment. Fleeing with Takado’s body suggested a lack of operational capacity. They speculated that Marquez’s general decision making had compromised the undercover operation. It was understood that Marquez was unwelcome now in Mexico as a DEA agent. Additionally, it was agreed that Marquez might need to be questioned again as the Mex Fed investigation progressed. They asked that Agent Sheryl Javits also be reprimanded for accusations she made yesterday and Jay Holsten, head of the LA DEA Field Office, agreed to that, though he wouldn’t think of doing that to her. Nor would he ever send Marquez back to Tijuana. They could bring their questions here.

A Mex Fed captain explained the conditions of release to Marquez. As he finished, the captain added that the Cadillac would get returned after the Mexican Federal Judicial Police concluded their investigation. They drove Marquez to the San Ysidro Puerta and he walked to US Customs with the copies of the 52s because he had never told them how they came into his possession.

Two of his squad, Ramon Green and Brian Hidalgo, were waiting at Customs. Like Marquez they were fully engaged in the drug war and on the drive back to LA Marquez recounted how it went down. After listening, Green and Hidalgo rationalized Billy Takado’s death, guessing that Takado’s nervousness was because he knew the man who delivered the papers to Marquez might be present. Point being, that Billy Takado like many snitches may have tried to play both sides. Marquez didn’t see it that way and said so as they drove north in traffic. This was on a bright clear June morning in 1989, the same day the world watched a student in China face down a tank in Tiananmen Square.

THREE

M
arquez’s SAC, Holsten, had the nickname ‘Lockjaw’ for the way he worked his facial muscles when he was angry but restraining himself. Right now, he looked like he was chewing gum as he waited for an answer.

‘Agent Javits relayed the order for you to park and wait for the Mex Feds, but you didn’t do that. You ignored the calls made to you and drove nearly all the way back to Tijuana. Is that correct?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Don’t keep giving me this short answer wounded hero crap, Marquez. You’re feeling sorry for yourself, but what happened is you screwed up and I want to know why.’

Holsten paused.

‘What I should do is suspend you. You gave the Mex Feds a way to paint you into the picture and an excuse not to investigate. They’re telling us they don’t want you in the country again in an undercover capacity, so you tell me how you’ll ever run your squad again if you can’t operate undercover in Mexico. Have you got an answer for that?’

Marquez was quiet a moment, then said, ‘The Mex Feds sent the message yesterday that the Salazar brothers carry more weight with them than we do. They signed off on killing Billy Takado so long as the DEA agent didn’t go down as well.’

‘If the newsflash is there’s corruption in Mexican law enforcement, that doesn’t come close to explaining what happened. Where did they get the personnel forms they handed you? Why did you disobey an order? Do you want to know what the Mex Feds think? They think you didn’t stop and wait because you’re on the Salazars’ payroll and you were driving Takado’s body back to Tijuana so it could be thrown in a vat of acid.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘It’s what they’re saying. They believe you had the Fifty-twos, the personnel forms, with you and nothing was given to you in the bull ring.’

‘Where were they?’

‘They claim they had two officers there who witnessed the shooting but didn’t see anyone hand you papers. They saw Miguel Salazar shoot Takado and then you drove off. When they called us we told them you’d reported in and would wait on a pass in the Juarez. But you didn’t wait and we couldn’t get a hold of you, and that doesn’t work in this department.’

Holsten paused, drew a breath and said, ‘Here’s what I want today. I want the name of everyone who knew about this bull ring meeting, and I want everyone on your squad to voluntarily take a lie detector test over at the FBI office this afternoon. When you get there, ask for Ted Desault. He knows you’re coming.’

‘Why is the rest of my squad getting hooked up to a lie box and why at the FBI?’

Holsten picked up the copies of the 52s off his desk and shook them.

‘There’s a leak and we’re going to find out where it is and I don’t give a damn whose feelings get hurt in the process. Javits has already tested. I’m sending her tomorrow to back up Osiers. Since you won’t be visiting Mexico you’ll work leads here while I figure out what to do with your squad. You shouldn’t have driven on with the goddamned body, John, and you should have answered the phone and called in from the village, not the pass. What did I tell you was the most important thing when I hired you?’

Holsten did his riff on chain-of-command, the glue speech, and it occurred to Marquez that Holsten always referred to Mexican pueblos as villages. Maybe that was about Vietnam where Holsten did three tours. Holsten stood up as he finished, adding, ‘I want the Group Five analyst tested along with the rest of you. I’ve forgotten her name. What’s her name?’

‘Rachel Smith.’

‘And when you leave the FBI office you come back here and sit with a sketch artist. I want something we can work with on the man in the bull ring.’ Holsten’s tone changed slightly as he asked, ‘Where do you think he’s from? Could he be South African?’

‘Could be.’

‘Educated?’

‘Yes.’

Marquez sat with the artist late in the day. He had a very good memory for faces and the artist was quite intuitive. With the second sketch she got the man and that sketch faxed east before Marquez left for home.

Two days later, a Kerry Anderson from the Intelligence Division out of headquarters in Virginia showed up to interview Marquez. They sat down in a conference room. Anderson had the faxed sketch with him and a name for the man, Emrahain Stoval. He also had photos but he didn’t show those yet. He pulled them from a manila file and laid them facedown on the table. He wanted Marquez’s eyes drawn to the packet of photos. Wants to control the conversation, Marquez thought.

‘Stoval is a money man and a connector who sits in the background and helps organize and fund various criminal enterprises. He supplies both long and short term loans. If you’ve already got a track record and you need five million dollars to buy cocaine you’ll sell to distributors in the States, you might go to him for a three-week loan. In some cartel operations we believe he gets a percentage of everything. He’s woven in, but at your level you won’t necessarily see him. I don’t mean that derogatorily. I don’t mean any offense.’

‘None taken.’

Marquez took in Anderson’s look, the coat, the starched shirt, receding red hair, bony face, a freckled scalp he touched periodically.

‘He also deals in arms and maintains direct links to hit squads. He’s got a reputation as ruthless in the way that defines the meaning of the word.’

‘Why hit squads if his business is loaning money?’

‘Think about the people he loans to. They aren’t always the most honorable. We think he wants his clients to remember he’s dangerous.’

‘Who’s the “we” you’re talking about?’

Anderson shrugged. ‘I think,’ he answered. ‘I’m the Stoval expert.’

‘Did you fly out here just for this interview?’

‘No, but I would have.’ Anderson flipped over the stack of photos now. ‘Take a look. Some are of poor quality.’

Marquez flipped through twenty or more and returned to one of the early ones, a grainy profile shot at a distance of a man looking at monkeys in bamboo cages. He flipped through them all again before going back to the monkey photo, telling Anderson, ‘Only this one.’

Marquez slid the photo over and watched Anderson slowly nod.

‘Very good,’ Anderson said. ‘That was taken at an animal market in Indonesia. He’s a passionate big game trophy hunter and a constant wing hunter. He’ll travel all over the world to hunt. He also traffics in animal parts.’

‘What doesn’t he do?’

Anderson smiled at that.

‘Who took that photo?’ Marquez asked, and reached for it.

He studied the small dark shape of the monkey behind the bamboo slats. Wildlife had its back to the wall. We treat the earth like we own it, but why would the DEA follow Stoval to an animal market in Indonesia? They wouldn’t.

He slid the photo back and Anderson said, ‘It’s a CIA photo.’

‘What are you doing with it?’

‘Sometimes if it’s in their interest they share with us. Not often, but sometimes. Stoval has provided information to them. They won’t tell me exactly what, but I gather in Mexico it’s been about the Salinas government. The CIA considers Stoval an intelligence asset.’

‘Great.’

‘He gets unobstructed passage in and out of the United States, and knowing what I know about him, that turns my stomach.’

Anderson put his glasses back on. He seemed agitated. He tapped the photo forcibly and his voice rose with emotion, something Marquez didn’t see often from an analyst.

‘Do you know what this is a photo of?’ Anderson asked, and then answered his own question. ‘This is what the devil looks like in the twentieth century. You’ve never met anyone like him.’

When Marquez didn’t respond fast enough Anderson gathered up the photos and snapped his briefcase shut. He handed Marquez a card.