Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (78 page)

“You’re John and Mary, from New Mexico?” asked the casino rep.

“That’s us,” replied Alex.

“We’ve been expecting you.  Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“Thirsty,” answered Ranya.  “Very.”  She had drunk nothing before the flight, since there were no bathrooms aboard single engine prop planes. You sat down, you strapped in, and that was that until the flight ended.

“Are these all of your things?” the driver asked, looking at their mound of baggage.

“This is it,” said Alex.

“Well, let’s go then.  Whatever you need, we have it.  Whatever you want, just ask me.  I take it you want to avoid the main registration area?”

“That’s right,” replied Alex.  “We’re tired; we’d like to skip the formalities.”

“No problem, I understand.”

They loaded their luggage into the back of the SUV, climbed into the middle seats, and drove away from the runway past a connected line of hangars.  Two winding uphill miles later, they came around a final switchback and saw the brilliantly lit, neon encrusted Golden Arrow Casino Resort and Hotel.  They were in San Diego County, sixty miles east of the city.

36

Thursday July 3

Ranya’s new wig fit well enough,
even though it pulled and itched just a bit.  She shook her head vigorously, and was satisfied that it wouldn’t slip. She studied herself in the hotel room’s wall mirror, admiring the transformation.  The medium-blond hair felt and looked incredibly natural, flowing onto her shoulders.  It was full enough around the sides to help conceal her face from cameras, especially when combined with stylish oversized sunglasses.  No one looking for Ranya Bardiwell with short brunette hair was going to see her today.

Satisfied with her appearance, she went back to the task of packing her new luggage.  The black bag was open, lying across her bed in the casino’s hotel.  The heavy-duty nylon rolling case was more suitable for carrying the heavy load of gold, without showing any outward strain.  Most of the clothes going into the case had just been purchased in the casino’s fashion boutique, including the turquoise-colored tank top she was wearing.  She also bought some souvenirs, including a white sweatshirt with San Diego and a sailboat design on the front.

Because she was wearing her black designer jeans and a form-fitting top, her .45 went back into her leather fanny pack.  Even in the relative safety of her private room, she kept the pistol on her right hip at all times. The do-not-disturb sign was hanging on the doorknob outside, and if she heard as much as a brush against the door, she was prepared to draw.  The room provided shelter but no safety.  It was a cave with no rear exit, a trap, and she was anxious to leave it.  She had thought that she would be able to spend Thursday morning relaxing, but found that she only wanted to get moving.  The city of San Diego was drawing her as if by its own gravitational pull.

The television was set on a cable news channel with the sound turned low.  She half noticed a story showing a team of brightly dressed emergency rescuers being roped down a cliff to some kind of a crash site, at night in the rain. The caption beneath the picture captured her full attention: “Billionaire Philanthropist Peter Kosimos Dead in Colorado Car Crash.”

Ranya snatched the remote control and pushed the volume up, while calling through the suite’s partly open interior door.  “Quick!  Put on TOP News!”

Over the rescue footage, a female reporter’s voice said, “—last night Kosimos was returning from his foundation’s North American headquarters in Aspen, when his Mercedes skidded off of this canyon road in a rainstorm.  The driver was thrown from the wreck and survived the plunge into this ravine, but he was unable to call for help, and walked for several miles before being found.”  A helicopter camera shot showed the rescue team in red and yellow jumpsuits rappelling down a rocky slope in the darkness. Reflective tape on their jackets glowed eerily under searchlights. Kosimos’s black Mercedes limousine was a barely recognizable pile of scrap metal, wheels-up, at the bottom of the canyon.

Alex rapped softly on the inner door of the suite, between their rooms.  “Are you dressed?”

“Yes.  Come on in.”

“Wow—nice hair!  Who’s the blondie?”  He entered her room in his new tourist garb: a gray and brown Hawaiian shirt, and Levis blue jeans. “I saw it already on CNN. Kosimos is dead, so I guess the drone nailed him.  Well, good riddance.  I was wondering how they were going to release the news.  You know we’re onto something big, if they had to fake his death outside of New Mexico. Any mention of Whitman?”

“No, none,” she answered.  “Weasel Dave must have lucked out again. If he was dead, I think they’d have said something by now.”

“Anything on the Blackhawk crash?”

“Not a word.  I guess it never happened.”

“No, I guess not,” he agreed sarcastically.  “Oh, that reminds me—the next helicopter for La Jolla leaves at 11.  Are you going to be ready?”

“I’m almost ready now.”

“Hey, were you okay with paying thirty ounces for the car?  I know that’s a big chunk of change.”

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” she replied evenly.  “If we return it in one piece, I’ll get 25 ounces back anyway.  It’ll be worth it if everything works out—I just hope it’s not a rip off. I mean, how do we know they’ll have a car waiting for us at all?  How do we know we’re not being scammed?”

“Flint seemed pretty sure about this place.  I guess the Golden Arrow has to protect its reputation.  Ripping off high rollers would be bad for business.  Word would get around, and then who would come way out here?”

“Do you think we picked the right car?”  

He said, “Yeah, an Explorer should be fine for what we need.  It’s big enough, but not too big. We don’t want something we can’t park downtown.  The main thing is super dark tinted windows.”

“We’re really on our way now, aren’t we?”

“Oh yeah, we sure are.”

“So far, so good.”

“So far, so good.”  Alex thumped his chest with the palm of his hand. “Hey listen, I’ve only got one vest, do you want to wear it? I feel bad, wearing Kevlar when you don’t have any.”

She held out her arms, showing how her tight aqua tank shirt clung to her narrow waist, and how her bust line was nicely prominent.  A slim line of skin was visible between her leather belt and the bottom of the thin cotton shirt.  “You really think it’ll fit under this, without showing?”

“I guess not,” he laughed.

“Don’t worry Alex, if there’s any shooting, I’ll just get behind you, and use you for cover.”

“Deal.”  He put out his hand, and she shook it.

***

“Thanks for inviting me up, Director Bullard.”

Ramón Devlin, the San Diego Chief of Police, was grinning like an idiot.  He was clearly overjoyed to be in the private office of the Regional Director of Homeland Security.  Devlin looked like a shorter version of former Mexican President Vicente Fox.  Like Fox, he was of Castillian Spanish and Irish ancestry, without any hint of
mestizo
blood in him.

Devlin probably thought he had been summoned to Bullard’s office to be offered a federal position.  He was clearly in brown-nose mode, wearing his full dress uniform.  Everybody knew that being police chief of San Diego was a no-win job, a job you just tried to survive until a better offer came along.  The previous police chief had been assassinated after only five months in the position, and the job had then gone unfilled for another three months, until someone brave enough—or stupid enough— had been found to take it.  Ramón “Ray” Devlin was that man.  It was understood and accepted that anyone who planned to do the job—and live to see his next birthday—would be someone willing to accommodate the Mexican gangs and cartels that now virtually ran most of San Diego.

Bullard stayed seated in his executive chair, behind his massive mahogany desk.  “Great to have you Ray, take a load off.”  Devlin sat across from him, his hat on his lap.  “Look, I want to get to the point. I drove up to Mission Bay to film a new public service announcement this morning, and I saw some things that bothered me.  My CSO took some pictures, and put together this little presentation.”

Jim Holcomb was sitting across the office on a black leather couch, and he pointed a remote control at the opposite wall.  A six-foot plasma TV burst into light.  The first picture showed a green overpass sign, covered with angular slashing gang graffiti.  Every five seconds, another picture appeared.  There was red and black graffiti on the cement sides of a graceful bridge over a sparkling blue harbor, there was graffiti on the side of an upscale Italian restaurant, there was graffiti on the wall in front of a public elementary school.

“Ramón, we’ve got a problem.”

“Oh, I hate graffiti Director Bullard—it’s a scourge.  But those little pricks are—”

“Ramón, do you recognize where these pictures were taken? We’re not talking about Chula Vista or Ciudad Nacional—this was in Mission Beach! Come on!  I mean, I don’t give a rat’s ass what they do in Montclaire or City Heights or any other shit holes over there—if those people want to live like they’re still back in Tijuana or Baghdad, that’s their problem.  But this was in Mission Bay, for crying out loud!  I mean, we’re talking about Seaworld!  Foreign tourism is just about all we’ve got left— what do you think our guests from Japan and China think when they see gang graffiti like that? Ray, I don’t ask for much from you, but can you at least hold the line at I-5?”

Chief Devlin was taken aback, his thick neck and face a bright red above his tight collar. “But there’s fifty rat-holes where they can slip through, and even with all of the cameras our response time—”

“Don’t give me response time Ray, give me results!  Break some heads!  You find those tattooed
maleantes
west of I-5, put the hurt on ‘em! If your cops find a spray can in a car west of the 5 and the guy’s not a professional painter, then slam his hand in a car door.  Come on Ray, I let you run your own show on the other side.  We both know you’ve got your own arrangements over there, and I’m not sticking my nose into your business.  I understand it’s tough just trying to keep the peace over there, much less enforce the law.  I get that.  All I ask, is just keep that gang shit east of I-5!”

Bullard knew that Devlin was in an impossible position, trying to maintain law and order on the wild mesas east of the coastal interstate highway.  Dozens of the densely populated hilltop neighborhoods were cut off by canyons or freeways, and only had one or two access roads.  Single police units never went into these no-go zones on routine patrol; it was far too dangerous for them.  The risk of being cut off from backup and subsequently killed or kidnapped was too great.  Derelict vehicles, steel cables and trash dumpsters would be dragged across the chokepoints, leaving any police units trapped inside.  As a result, the police never went into many areas except on blitz raids, with a dozen or more patrol cars, SWAT units, and helicopters overhead.  The rest of the time, these no-go zones were gang territory, controlled by the most vicious thugs imaginable.

The positive side of this grim reality was that more of his police patrols could be concentrated where they could actually do some good, on the civilized coastal side of I-5.

“But the ACLU will…”

“Oh, don’t get cute with me Ray.  Screw the ACLU—I got dossiers a mile long on all of those goddamn communists, and most of ‘em are perverts too. Don’t worry about that end—I’ll take care of it.  I just want you to put the fear of God back in the gang bangers.  Teach them a little respect.  Look, they already own eighty percent of the city.  Just send them a message: stay the hell out of our side of San Diego! Understood?”

Chief Devlin choked, swallowed, and stammered, “Understood.”

“Now, I’ve been hearing some new rumors about a group called
Los Cazadores
, the Hunters.  The word is, they’re off-duty San Diego cops. Tell me what you know.”

“Uh, well, really nothing!  I mean, it’s just rumors, nothing’s been proven…”

“Yeah, yeah, nothing’s been proven—but somehow gang bangers keep winding up behind dumpsters, with two slugs in the heart, and a bullet hole in the forehead.”  Bullard put two fingers of one hand on his chest, and another just above his eyes.  “And nobody ever hears a shot. Almost like
somebody
was using suppressors…”

“But Director Bullard, there’s never been any direct connection—”

“You’re completely missing my point, Ramón.  Personally, I think the Hunters are the best thing your department’s got going.  Aside from the obvious social benefit, it saves the taxpayers a fortune in court costs and jailing.  Especially if your cops catch any of those little tattooed shits west of I-5. Understood?”

Chief Devlin was shaking, but appeared relieved at the same time. “I…think so.”

“So if you’ve got any Internal Affairs investigations looking into the Hunters, drop them.  Forget it. And if your cops do nothing else, tell them to keep the bad boys out of coastal San Diego! If I see any of those tattoo-faced
cholos
with the shaved heads west of I-5, I want to see them shaking with fear, or pushing a lawn mower, got it?”

“I’ve got it.”

“Great. Thanks for your time, Ray.”

After Police Chief Ramón Devlin’s hasty departure from the director’s office, Bullard leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. “I think I got his attention,” he told his CSO.  “I think we’ll be on the same sheet of music from here on out.  Thanks for putting together the slide show.”

“No problem boss.”

“Hey, anything else come up on that fugitive, what’s-her-name, Bardiwell?”

“Ahh, no—but I’ve seen some other really weird stuff coming out of New Mexico. You know that Peter Kosimos was killed last night?”

“Yeah, a car accident in Colorado.”

“Well, it might not have been in Colorado, and it might not have been an accident.  I’ve been reading some very interesting emails between Wayne Parker’s people, the Kosimos Foundation, and the governor of New