Cold River Resurrection (12 page)

C
hapter
25

Near Hermosillo

State of Sonora, Mexico

Enrico Alvarez walked through the long metal building, a business owner looking at the pride of his labor. Years before
anfetamina cristalizada
was produced in Mexico, the buildings had been constructed as chicken barns.

The drying shed had rows of tables with long thin metal pans holding the finished product, crystal methamphetamine. Once known as a poor man’s cocaine, a niche drug produced by West Coast biker gangs, most of the methamphetamine used in the United States came from labs like the one he owned, Enrico knew. And it was a good business, with many of his countrymen becoming addicted as well.

Enrico had started his tour at his chemical plant, where pre-cursor chemicals were measured and mixed. The methamphetamine chemical plant resembled a modern chemical lab, where the workers wore white coats. Thanks to me, Enrico thought, even Mexico’s El Presidente won’t mess with us.

When they were getting established, they had come to the attention of the federa
les. Enrico had taken two police officers hostage, filmed their last moments, and in a sudden vision of clarity, he had placed their heads on metal poles and put them in the town square. A lighted sign on the poles demanded respect. Then in a moment of genius he had posted the video on YouTube for the world to see. For the police to see. For the El Presidente.

For the other cartels to see. It wasn’t anything new – the Islamo Fascists had been doing it on television for a long time, but it was new
to the drug cartels.

He knew what he was called, what was whispered so quiet
ly as to not be a name at all,
el morbosa
. The ghoul. He had been placed in charge of establishing lucrative meth routes, worth billions of dollars, into Norte America, and to take care of the competition. The competition was fierce, and deadly.

With the drug cartels in Sinaloa and the Gulf going at each other, Enrico and his backers had stepped into the void. And had done so relatively unnoticed until the past year. When they got big.

Thank you United States of America for shutting down the local meth manufacturers in the U.S. Thank you amigos. We now have a market beyond our wildest dreams.

Thanks again, amigos.

Enrico got to the end of the drying shed and stepped into the sunlight. He put on a pair of dark sunglasses, waited for his entourage of guards and bankers, and walked the fifty feet to the next shed. It was identical to the others, at least from the outside. With his sunglasses on, he might have been mistaken for Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian strong man. Enrico’s dark and menacing good looks were not diminished by childhood chicken pox and a knife scar running down his left cheek from his eye to his chin. At five foot seven, he was shorter then Noriega, but had more powerful shoulders and arms.

He dressed as always, blue dress shirt, khaki slacks, black sport coat. He carried an FN-7 in a shoulder holster, the weapon of choice with the American Secret Service. If it was good enough to protect the president of the United States, it was good enough for him.

Two guards ran in front of Enrico, their assault rifles at the ready, and opened the door to the next building. Enrico walked through the door and took off his sunglasses. The nervous gaggle of bankers came in behind him. They had been flown here in a private jet, and would be taken back before the end of the business day. It had been Enrico’s idea to bring the bankers here. They didn’t know exactly where they were, and by bringing them here, it would ensure their cooperation and silence forever.

This was the packaging room. Methamphetamine was meticulously weighed on scales and packaged for transportation to the United States. At the far end of the building, the packages were vacu-sealed in large plastic containers, and then carefully washed and wiped down.

The washing might be unnecessary, since they put so much meth in the United States that their losses to the cops there were not only acceptable, but expected and needed, so the cops there were looked upon as doing something. The percentage of losses to seizures were far less than a grocery man’s produce losses.

Acceptable spoilage.

Enrico Alvarez liked these tours. The bankers were impressed and subdued. As they exited the packaging building, they walked to another, newer building, not one of the chicken sheds, but one constructed specifically for the new drug business. The building had its own guards, surveillance system, and electronic alarms. It was for counting, sorting, and packaging money, and he reserved it for the end of the tour. Even the ones from the wealthiest banks would raise their eyes at the sight of so much money. There were hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in one room. His counting machines, surveillance cameras and surveillance command and control centers were as good as any casino in the world. Enrico had, in fact, attended the G3 World Gaming Trade Conference in Las Vegas this past October, to keep up on the latest in surveillance equipment.

A man wearing a beige linen suit entered behind them and quickly caught up with the group. Enrico turned as he heard his name.
Roberto, his second in command, called to him.

“Ola, Enrico. You’re wanted in the main house. I’ll take over for you here.”

Enrico raised his eyebrows.

“He say why?”

“It’s about the business in the United States, the situation with the bodies on the reservation.”

Enrico nodded.

“All in a day’s work, amigo. A lesson.”

He walked out into the sunlight, thinking that to do something right, he would have to do it himself. Did these people he hired to clean up in Oregon not think that he would notice their failure to bring him the woman from the hospital?

How hard could it be?

He would have to do it himself.

He would go back to this reservation, a critical link in the distribution system. The idea of using places in the United States where local law enforcement can’t go was pure gold. The Indian reservation system with sovereign borders in Norte America was perfect for dealing drugs with just the tribal police to deal with.

He would get this woman, this Jennifer Kruger, bring her back to Mexico. Enrico was a firm believer in showing the troops how to do something.

Bring this woman back to Mexico, here to the factory at Hermosillo.

Maybe put her head on YouTube.

C
hapter
26

Cold River Indian Reservation

The heat came off the rocks and penetrated Smokey’s skin, working its way into his bones. He didn’t have time for a cleansing sweat, so this would have to do for now. He closed his eyes and thought about the events of the past few days.

He had been thinking about the bodies in the wilderness area, particularly the man, Kal-leed. To have an Islamic fascist here on the reservation was not impossible. The upper end of the reservation was only seventy miles from Portland. In the war on terror, Portland played a part. After September eleventh, seven Portland area people conspired to travel to Afghanistan to wage war on the United States. One was killed in Afghanistan and the remaining six eventually pled guilty to a bunch of charges and were sent to prison.

But why dump a body here? Smokey lay back, feeling the heat from the stones.

And then there was the secret al Qaeda training camp that an Islamic entrepreneur tried to set up in Bly, Oregon. That was a joke, but it was attempted. The joke was on them. Smokey had been to Bly. The good ol’ boys in Southern Oregon made the cast of Deliverance look downright normal. The first time someone was seen wearing a kaffiyeh around Bly
, they just wouldn’t have been heard from again.

“Squeal like a pig” would have taken on a whole new meaning.

If Kal-leed was on the terror watch list, who killed him? Was someone going to start a war and use the rez for a dumping ground? It didn’t make sense, unless Kal-leed had pissed off some of his comrades. They might decide to use the rez as a place to put bodies. But that didn’t explain the older bones. And what about the hand that Jennifer found? Where did that come from, and who did the hand belong to?

A better question, he knew, was where is the body now? He hadn’t talked with Jennifer about it, but he wanted to
interview her and see if she could reach back in her memory and discover more about the woman’s hand. Where did she find it? Did she see a woman’s body? Did she see other bodies?

The feds had a role here, but he didn’t know what. From experience he knew that asking them for a straight answer was futile.

They were protected by explaining that he either didn’t have a need to know or have the right to know.

Smokey stood up and opened the flap. He stepped out into the bright day. The mid-morning sun filtered through the forest in white streaks, the tall
Ponderosa Pines looking like shiny giants. The cool air on his skin felt good in contrast to the heat of the sweat lodge.

He started on the path through the woods that led to his mother’s house. He stopped on the trail and looked through the trees back toward the sweat lodge. He could see the white presence of Mt. Jefferson towering through the trees. The snow on Whitewater Glacier sparkled in the sun.

A wild area.

A sacred area.

Someone had defiled it.

He turned and started back to the house.

What would have happened if Jennifer hadn’t found the bodies, hadn’t found the hand? More killings gone unreported? More bodies on the rez?

He needed to talk with Jennifer.

It was time to get some answers.

It was time for her to lead him to the body.

C
hapter
27

Mt. Jefferson Wilderness Area

Hole in the Wall Park, 1100 hours

Stan Perdue folded the map and looked across Jefferson Creek to the reservation lands. He had decided that he wasn’t going to leave until he had proof positive that Bigfoot lived on the re
servation. He felt certain that the sanctuary of the tribal lands had afforded the large bi-ped a place to thrive. Hell, the Indians had plenty of legends that spoke of Sasquatch. Stan had food and supplies in his pack, and he and his girlfriend, Amy, each had a camera.

Even though he ran the Bigfoot Expeditions, Inc., across the country, this little trip wasn’t part of that organization. BFE was for tourists, for those adventur
esome souls who could shell out a thousand dollars each for some quality time in the woods to look for something that they believed existed.

Or wanted to believe.

“You sure we should go over there?” Amy asked. “What about the sign that said, ‘No Trespassing?’”

“That’s just to scare people away. Besides, what are the Indians gonna do, shoot us?”

Stan could see that Amy wasn’t so sure that they wouldn’t. She nibbled at her lower lip, and put one foot forward, tentative, as if Stan would change his mind.

“It will be okay,” Stan said. He sighed. He needed for Amy to go with him, he needed the extra hand
with the gear. Otherwise, he would have gone alone. With her along, he would have to mention her in any journals, articles, and publicity this generated. And he would have to mention her in the best selling book he was sure to write.

He was going to have an encounter with Bigfoot, of that he was certain. He had dropped a good portion of his summer’s profits from the Bigfoot Expeditions for the camera, a camera fitted with the latest night vision device he could buy. He had night vision goggles for both himself and Amy. Since Bigfoot was nocturnal, they would be able to hunt for the animal at night.

Finally, there would be a film to go along with the 1967 Patterson film. Only this would have the latest technology, a digital movie that could be copyrighted and sold. Every time the film he was about to take of Bigfoot was played, be it on the internet or television, his name would be connected with it.

In October, 1967, a man named Roger Patterson filmed an encounter with a seven feet tall upright biped giant in Bluff Creek Valley in northern California. This huge ape
-looking creature was walking at a diagonal toward Patterson, and changed forever the way people thought about Bigfoot.

It was the only film available for over forty years.

Stan Perdue had grown up watching the Patterson film, the several minutes of sixteen millimeter film of poor quality.

The Perdue film, as this was going to be known, would be more famous. It would be of good quality, and if they had some luck at all, they would be able to track Sasquatch for a long time, maybe even off the reservation. He didn’t have a gun for protection. He had a gun used by field biologists that would insert a pellet into an animal, and allow tracking with a laptop computer with a satellite link. .

He could track the animal from his farmhouse a thousand miles away, and use the tracking to write a series of books on Sasquatch.

I’ll be more famous than Jane Goodall.

As famous as Jacques Cousteau.

As rich as I want.

“Okay, Amy, ready to get your feet wet?”

Stan looked across Jefferson Creek, picked out his path a
long the creek bed, and stepped in the icy water.  

They made good time early on, the hike easy around the base of Goat Peak. After an hour, Stan held up his hand and stopped. Sweat ran down his back between his shoulder blades. He leaned forward and loosened the straps to his pack. Amy came up behind him, smiling.

She loved the trail and the wilderness areas, and she loved to hike. Stan knew that she would ease up once they started the hike, even if they were on the reservation. He helped her with her pack. They were overloaded, and he knew it, but it couldn’t be helped. His pack was sixty-five pounds. Amy’s was fifty, at least ten more than she should have had. But she had a good amount of their food, so her pack would be getting lighter.

“Okay, let’s take a break here,” he said. He spread out the map on a rock. Carl, Jennifer Kruger’s boyfriend, had marked his trail. They were going into the Parker Creek area to the camp where Carl and Jennifer had spent a couple of days. From there he would try to find out where Jennifer had been.
She had seen something, and Stan was willing to bet that she had had an encounter with Bigfoot. She either couldn’t tell, or the Indians had convinced her to not tell. Either way, he wasn’t going to let them officially make the discovery. He was the one who had spent most of his adult life chasing the elusive giant. He looked out over the forest spread below them. This was perfect Sasquatch country. The animal could have survived here for thousands of years, with only an occasional encounter with man.

The hike in from the Cabot Lake trailhead had taken them all of yesterday afternoon and evening. They had been on the trail for three hours this morning. Thirteen miles of trail with heavy packs. Amy leaned over his shoulder and looked at the map.

“How much further?” she asked.

“Only about three miles. Another hour, hour and a half. Then we’ll set up camp and rest. Look for Jennifer’s trail.”

“Deal,” Amy said. Stan folded the map and put it in the pocket in his hiking shorts. He picked up Amy’s pack and held it for her. She looked so cute in her shorts and blue hiking shirt, her blonde ponytail and her muscular legs. Stan even liked her tattoos. Maybe she would take on a more important part in his book. He could afford it. She was a great companion.

They started off on the trail and the woods closed in around them. The heat and brightness of the July sun filtered through the trees. Stan had a sudden flash of fear, something he rarely felt in the woods.

What if we don’t make if out of here?

He turned and looked at Amy. She smiled at him and blew him a kiss.

“Move on, buddy,” she said. “I don’t have all day, we have a Sasquatch to find.”

Stan laughed and shook his head. He faced forward and started off, thinking that he was a lucky man. He had a great hiking companion and they were in the wilderness on a wonderful summer day.

He had the thought again.

What if we don’t make it out of here?”

They didn’t.