The Power Of The Dog (21 page)

“I got on EPIC,” Ernie says, referring to the El Paso Intelligence Center, a computer databank that coordinates DEA, Customs and Immigration information. “Miguel Ángel Barrera was a former Sinaloa state policeman, in fact, the bodyguard to the governor himself. Heavy connections with the Mexican DFS. Now get this: He played on our team—he was one of the state cops who ran Operation Condor back in ’77. Some EPIC reports credit Barrera with single-handedly dismantling the old Sinaloan heroin operation. He left the force and disappeared off the EPIC radar after that.”

“No hits post-‘75?” Art asks.

“Nada,” Ernie answers. “You pick up his story here in Guadalajara. He’s a very successful businessman. He owns the car dealership, four restaurants, two apartment buildings and considerable real-estate holdings. He sits on the boards of two banks and has powerful connections in the Jalisco state government and in Mexico City.”

“Not exactly the profile of a drug lord,” Shag says.

Shag is a good old boy out of Tucson, a Vietnam vet who found his way from military intelligence into the DEA, and is in his own quiet way as much of a hard-ass as Ernie is. He uses his “aw-shucks” cowboy persona to disguise his smarts, and a number of drug dealers are now in prison because they underestimated Shag Wallace.

“Until you see him supervising a shipment of coke,” Ernie says, pointing at the photographs.

“Could he be M-1?”

Art says, “Only one way to find out.”

Taking, he thinks, one more step toward the edge of the cliff.

“There will be no investigation of the Barrera cocaine connection,” he says. “Is that clear?”

Ernie and Shag look a little stunned, but they both nod.

“I want to see nothing on your logs, no paperwork of any kind,” he says. “We’re just chasing marijuana. In that connection: Ernie, work your Mexican sources, see if the Barrera name rings any alarms. Shag, work the airplane.”

“What about surveillance on Barrera?” Ernie asks.

Art shakes his head. “I don’t want to stir him up before we’re ready. We’ll bracket him. Work on the street, work on the plane, work in toward him. If that’s where it leads.”

But shit, Art thinks. You know it does.

The DC-4’s serial number is N-3423VX.

Shag works through the tangled paper chase of holding corporations, shell companies and DBAs. The trail ends at an airfreight company called Servicios Turísticos—SETCO—operating out of Aguacate Airport in Tegu-cigalpa, Honduras.

Someone running drugs out of Honduras is about as surprising as someone selling hot dogs in Yankee Stadium. Honduras, the original “banana republic,” has an old and distinguished history in the drug trade, dating back to the turn of the twentieth century when the country was out-and-out owned by the Standard Fruit and United Fruit companies. The fruit companies were based in New Orleans, and the city’s docks were out-and-out owned by the New Orleans Mafia through its control of the dockworkers’ union, so if the fruit companies wanted their Honduran bananas off-loaded, the boats had better be carrying something else under those bananas.

So much dope came into the country in those banana boats that Mafia slang for heroin became banana. The Honduran registry isn’t surprising, Art thinks, and it answers the question of where the DC-4s are refueling.

The ownership of SETCO is likewise enlightening.

Two partners—David Núñez and Ramón Mette Ballasteros.

Núñez is a Cuban ex-pat now living in Miami. Nothing extraordinary there. What is extraordinary is that Núñez was with Operation 40, a CIA op in which Cuban expatriates were trained to go in and take political control after the successful Bay of Pigs invasion. Except the Bay of Pigs was, conspicuously, not a success. Some of the Operation 40 guys ended up dead on the beach, others went to firing squads. The lucky ones made it back to Miami.

Núñez was one of the lucky.

Art doesn’t really need to read the file on Ramón Mette Ballasteros. He already knows the book. Mette was a chemist for the gomeros back in the heroin heyday. Got out just before Condor and went back to his native Honduras and into the cocaine business. The word is that Mette personally financed the coup that recently overthrew the Honduran president.

Okay, Art thinks, the two profiles actually walk the company line. A major coke dealer owns an airline that he’s using to fly coke to Miami. But at least one of SETCO’s planes is flying to Guadalajara, and that doesn’t conform to the official line.

The next normal step would be to call the DEA office in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, but he can’t do that because it was closed last year due to “lack of business.” Honduras and El Salvador are now both being handled out of Guatemala, so Art gets on the horn to Warren Farrar, the RAC in Guatemala City.

“SETCO,” Art says.

“What about it?” Farrar asks.

“I was hoping you’d tell me,” Art says.

There’s a pause that Art is tempted to describe as “pregnant,” then Farrar says, “I can’t come out and play with you on this, Art.”

Really? Art wonders. Why the hell not? We only have about eight thousand conferences a year, just so we can come out and play with each other, on things exactly like this.

So he takes a shot. “Why was the Honduras office closed, Warren?”

“What are you fucking around with, Art?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

Because I’m wondering if the quid pro quo for Mette financing a presidential coup was the new government tossing out the DEA.

In response, Farrar hangs up.

Well, thanks a bunch, Warren. What’s got you so nervous?

Next, Art phones the State Department’s Drug Assist Desk, a title so pungent with irony it makes him want to weep, because they tell him in polite bureaucratese to please go fuck himself.

Next Art calls the CIA Liaison Desk, puts in his request and gets a call back that same afternoon. What he doesn’t expect is a call back from John Hobbs.

Himself.

Back in the day, Hobbs was the head of Operation Phoenix. Art had briefed him a few times. Hobbs had even offered him a job after his year in-country, but by that time the DEA had beckoned and Art went.

Now Hobbs is the CIA’s station chief for Central America.

Makes sense to me, Art thinks. A cold warrior goes where there’s a cold war.

They make small talk for a few minutes (How are Althea and the kids? How do you like Guadalajara?), then Hobbs asks, “What can we do to be of assistance, Arthur?”

“I was wondering if you could help me get a handle on an airfreight company called SETCO,” Art says. “It’s owned by Ramón Mette.”

“Yes, my people passed along your request,” Hobbs says. “That has to be a negative, I’m afraid.”

“A negative.”

“Yes,” Hobbs says. “A no.”

Yes, we have no bananas, Art thinks. We have no bananas today.

Hobbs continues, “We don’t have anything on SETCO.”

“Well, thanks for giving me the call.”

Then Hobbs asks, “What have you got going on down there, Arthur?”

“I’m just getting some radar pings,” Art lies, “that SETCO might be moving some marijuana around.”

“Marijuana.”

“Sure,” Art says. “That’s about all that’s left in Mexico these days.”

“Well, good luck with that, Arthur,” Hobbs says. “Sorry we couldn’t be of any help.”

“I appreciate the effort,” Art says.

He hangs up wondering why the Company’s chief of Latin American operations would take time out from his busy day of trying to overthrow the Sandinistas to call him personally and lie to him.

Nobody wants to talk about SETCO, Art thinks, not my colleagues in the DEA, not the State Department, not even CIA.

The whole inter-agency alphabet soup just spells out YOYO.

You’re On Your Own.

Ernie reports pretty much the same thing.

You put the name Barrera out to any of the usual sources and they clam up. Even the most loquacious snitches develop a case of lockjaw. Barrera’s one of the most prominent businessmen in town, except no one ever heard of him.

So drop it, Art tells himself. This is your chance.

Can’t.

Why not?

Just can’t.

At least be honest.

Okay. Maybe because I just can’t let him win. Maybe because I owe him a beating. Yeah, except he’s beating you. And he’s not even showing up. You can’t lay a glove on him.

It’s true—they can’t get near Tío.

Then the damnedest thing happens.

Tío comes to them.

Colonel Vega, the ranking federale in Jalisco and the man whom Art is supposed to be liaising with, comes into Art’s office, sits down and says sadly, “Señor Keller, I will be frank. I have come here to ask you politely but firmly—please cease your harassment of Don Miguel Ángel Barrera.”

He and Art stare at each other, then Art says, “As much as I’d like to help you, Colonel, this office isn’t conducting an investigation of Señor Barrera. Not that I know about, anyway.”

He yells out into the main office, “Shag, are you investigating Señor Barrera?”

“No, sir.”

“Ernie?”

“No.”

Art raises his arms in a shrug.

“Señor Keller,” Vega says, glancing out the door at Ernie, “your man is tossing Don Miguel’s name about in a very irresponsible fashion. Señor Barrera is a respected businessman with many friends in government.”

“And, apparently, in the Municipal Judicial Federal Police.”

“You’re Mexican, aren’t you?” Vega asks.

“I’m American.” But where are you going with this?

“But you speak Spanish?”

Art nods.

“Then you’re familiar with the word intocable,” Vega says, getting up to leave. “Señor Keller, Don Miguel is intocable.”

Untouchable.

With that concept imparted, Vega leaves.

Ernie and Shag come into Art’s office. Shag starts to speak, but Art signals for him to shut up and gestures for them all to go outside. They follow him for about a block before he says, “How did Vega know we’re running an op on Barrera?”

Back inside, it takes them just a few minutes to find the little mike under Art’s desk. Ernie goes to rip it out but Art grabs his wrist and stops him. “I could use a beer,” Art says. “How about you guys?”

They go to a bar downtown.

“That’s beautiful,” Ernie says. “In the States, the cops bug the bad guys. Here, the bad guys bug the cops.”

Shag shakes his head. “So they know everything we know.”

Well, Art thinks, they know we suspect Tío is M-1. They know that we’ve tracked the plane to Núñez and Mette. And they know we can’t get shit after that. So what’s making them nervous? Why send in Vega to shut down an investigation that’s going nowhere?

And why now?