The Power Of The Dog (86 page)

Long Beach, Art thinks.

Fucking Long Beach. We have to get down there before Barrera’s trucks can get there and load up. He gets on the radio and tells his people to scramble. We have to move this goddamn army down to Long Beach, and do it in a hurry.

Fabián Martínez is thinking pretty much the same thing. He has a freaking convoy on the road now, three semis painted as CALEXICO PRODUCE COMPANY that he had ready to go to San Pedro, and now they have to roll down the 405 to freaking Long Beach.

Pain in the ass.

He sits in the passenger seat of the lead truck with a Mac-10 under his coat.

Just in case.

Two of his best men are in a scout car about half a mile ahead. They’ll go in first, and if they spot anything that shouldn’t be there, they’ll send him a beeper message to get the fuck out.

It’s cold for a southern California night, even in March, and he pulls his collar up around his neck and tells the driver to turn on the fucking heat.

Nora sits in the front seat of the Lexus and waits.

“Do you mind if I turn on the radio?” she asks.

Lee doesn’t mind.

Racing down to Long Beach, Art reformulates his plan.

What goddamn plan? he thinks. That’s the problem. He had a tactical plan for the raid in San Pedro, but now it’s just going to be a make-it-up-as-you-go cavalry charge into God knows what, and that makes him very goddamn nervous.

The best thing to do would be to let the Barrera trucks make the pickup and hit them on the road. But he has to make sure that Nora is all right. So the bust has to be at the warehouse, and now it just has to be smash-and-grab. Go in fast, go in hard.

All the agents have been briefed—they all know that The Border Lord wants La Güera bad, and he wants her alive because she can be pressured into giving up her boyfriend. They know that, Art thinks, but will they remember it in the chaos of a raid, especially if the Barrera people decide to shoot it out?

It has all the potential for a major-league goat fuck, and Nora could end up dead.

He radios back to Shag again to make sure he understands.

Fabián’s scout cars don’t see anything they don’t like, and they give him the 666 signal.

It’s one in the morning and the Long Beach complex is busy with trucks loading freight. Which is very good, Fabián thinks. What’s three more?

He finds Pier 4, then Row D, then Building 3323, an enormous Quonset hut like all the rest. He hops out of the truck and knocks on the office door. He stands outside, stamping his feet, as two Chinese men inspect his trucks—the cabs and the trailers. Then the big metal door of the building slides open.

Fabián climbs back into the cab of the lead truck and leads them in.

Nora startles when Lee’s cell phone rings.

She sees Lee’s hand tighten on the pistol grip as he answers it. She sucks in a deep breath and readies herself to make a grab at his wrist as he hangs up, turns to her and says, “Your people are there. Everything’s okay.”

“Good,” she says. “Let’s get going.”

He shakes his head.

“Not yet.”

Fabián stands talking with the Chinese guy in charge.

“You got your money?”

“Yes.”

“Where is she?”

“In another location,” the man says. “As soon as this transaction is safely concluded, she will rejoin you.”

Fabián doesn’t like it. Not because he cares about Nora Hayden—other than wanting to fuck her in half, he wouldn’t care if she did get smacked—but because Adán does care, and is holding him responsible for Nora’s safety. And these slants are holding her hostage? Not good at all. So he says, “Get her on the line.”

Lee hands Nora the phone. “They want to speak to you.”

Nora takes the phone.

“Give me a color,” Fabián says.

“Red.”

Fabián gives the Chinese guy back his phone, then takes his Mac-10 from his jacket and sticks it in the guy’s face.

“Call your boy back,” he says. “Tell him it’s cool.”

Guns appear from everywhere. All Fabián’s men pull, and all the Chinese guys. Except most of the Chinese are up in catwalks, aiming down, so they have a tactical advantage.

It’s your basic stalemate.

Which disappears when the office door blows in.

It’s just chaos.

Art’s the first through the door, with a phalanx of agents behind him. He throws the switch and the metal cargo door opens again to reveal another platoon of DEA, FBI, and ATF, a whole lethal alphabet soup with automatic rifles, shotguns, Kevlar vests and bullet-resistant visors, nightlights shining from the tops of their helmets.

The agents are yelling at the top of their lungs.

“FREEZE!”

“DEA!”

“GET DOWN! GET DOWN!”

“FBI!”

“DROP YOUR WEAPONS!”

Weapons clatter on the metal catwalks and the concrete floor. Fabián thinks about trying to shoot it out but quickly sees that it’s futile, lets his Mac-10 slide to the floor and puts his hands up.

Art looks around for Nora. It’s hard to spot anything in the chaos, with men running, other men hitting the floor, agents grabbing people and throwing them down. He looks for her blond hair and doesn’t see it, so he screams into his radio mike, “GO!” hoping Shag can hear him over the cacophony, praying it’s not too late.

Beside him, a Chinese guy is yelling into a cell phone.

Art grabs him by the collar, throws him down and kicks the phone from his hand.

Lee hears his boss screaming over the phone.

Nora sees his eyes widen and then the gun comes up, pointed straight at her forehead.

She screams.

Over the dull thump of an explosion.

Blood and bone spray against the passenger window.

Lee’s body slumps back into the seat and Nora turns to see the SWAT sniper standing in the doorway, the door hanging crooked off its blown hinges.

She’s still screaming as Shag Wallace slowly approaches the car, opens her door and gently takes her by the elbow.

“It’s all right,” he’s saying. “You’re all right. Come on now, we have to get you out of here.”

He takes her out of the car, walks her outside and puts her in the front seat of his own car. “Wait here for a minute.”

Shag goes back into the warehouse, gets into the front seat of the Lexus and takes the .45 from Lee’s dead hand. Then he holds it a few inches away from Lee’s forehead, aims it at the entry wounds and pulls the trigger.

He wipes the gun and goes out to his car.

Sits next to Nora and tells her to hold the .45 for a second. Numb with shock, she does what he says. Then he takes the gun back and says, “Here’s your story: Things went sick and wrong. He was going to shoot you. You grabbed the gun, you fought, you won. Do you understand that?”

She nods.

She thinks she understands. She’s not sure. Her hands won’t stop shaking.

“Are you okay?” Shag asks. “Look, it’s all right if you’re not. If you want to stop this right now, just say the word. We’ll understand.”

“Have they arrested Adán?” she asks.

“Not yet,” Shag answers.

She shakes her head.

Art kneels on Fabián’s neck and attaches the plastic telephone ties to his wrists.

“It was that cunt, wasn’t it?” Fabián asks.

Art kneels down a little harder as he recites Fabián’s rights.

“Fucking right I’m going to want a lawyer,” Fabián says.

Art hauls him to his feet, shoves him into one of the DEA vans and walks over to inspect the two cargo containers—twenty feet long, eight feet wide and eight feet high—filled with crates.

His men take them out and bust them open.

Chinese-made AK-47s—two thousand of them—spill out of the boxes in pieces: barrels, magazines, stocks. Other tools include two dozen Chinese KPG-2 rocket launchers, which are considered especially valuable because they are handheld.

Two thousand rifles equals two thousand kilos of cocaine, Art thinks. God only knows how many kilos you get passed through for the rocket launchers, which are capable of shooting down helicopters.

Next they find six truckloads of M-2 rifles, converted M-1s, the standard army carbine. The difference between the original and the M-2 is that the latter can be flipped to full automatic by a single switch. He also finds a few LAWS, the American version of the KPG-2, not as effective against choppers but very good against armored vehicles. All of them perfect weapons for a guerrilla war.

And worth thousands of kilos of coke.

It’s the largest arms bust in history.

But he’s not done.

All of this is worthless if it doesn’t lead to the demise of Adán Barrera.

Whatever the cost.

If Adán slips the noose, the only chance of finding him again is through Nora. You have a plan in place to extract her, but plans have a way of going wrong.

She wanted to go back in, he tells himself. You gave her the option of calling it quits and she made up her own mind. She’s an adult, she can make her own choices.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

Nora drives the new Lexus down the highway to the first exit, pulls into a gas station, goes into the ladies’ room and throws up. When her stomach is empty, she gets back in the car and drives to the Santa Ana train station, dumps the car in the parking lot, goes inside to a phone booth, shuts the door and calls Adán.

The crying is no problem. The tears come easily as she chokes back sobs and says, “Something went wrong … I don’t know … He was going to kill me … I …”

“Come back.”

“The police are probably looking for me.”

“It’s too soon,” he says. Dump the car, get on the train, go to San Ysidro, walk across the pedestrian bridge.

“Adán, I’m scared.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “Go to the city place. Wait there. I’ll be in touch.”

She knows what he means. It’s a code they worked out a long time ago, for just such an emergency as this. The city place is a condo they keep in Colonia Hipódromo in Tijuana.

“I love you,” she says.

“I love you, too.”

She gets on the next southbound train to San Diego.

Plans have a way of going wrong.

In this case, the mechanics back in Costa Mesa are working on the tricked-out little Toyota Camry to get it ready for another run and they find something interesting jammed between the seat and the headrest on the passenger side.

Some sort of electronic device.

The crew chief makes a phone call.