Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (90 page)

He was holding a small pair of binoculars, using them to watch the front entrance of the Fed Tower, two blocks up and across Broadway. Dusk was falling over the city, but with the binoculars, he was easily able to observe each person as they walked out of the building’s revolving doors. 

They had not checked out of the Holiday Inn, but the room was empty, everything was packed into the rear cargo area of the Durango.  If they were successful with their plan, they would be driving directly to the Golden Arrow Casino—with Brian.

The Durango was parallel parked on the side street behind the Santa Fe train station, two blocks from the Fed Tower, and two blocks from the bay.  The SDG&E truck and the traffic cones had not been moved, and Alex had been able to occupy his preferred surveillance location near the tracks.

The SUV’s deeply tinted windows prevented anyone from seeing the two watchers in the vehicle from the sides or the rear.  A nylon mesh curtain made them invisible from the front.  The thin black gauze was similar to nylon stocking material.  It was attached with tiny hooks to the ceiling liner of the Durango above the front seat headrests, and to the backs of the two front seats, forming a tautly stretched thin black curtain across the middle of the vehicle.

Anyone looking into the Durango through the lightly tinted windshield saw nothing behind the front seats but an empty black void, which appeared to extend all the way to the rear of the vehicle.  The mesh was virtually invisible to passing pedestrians, yet Alex and Ranya could easily see through it and out of the front of the “empty” black SUV.

Ranya had been suitably impressed with this surveillance trick. Alex could not have guessed when he pulled the compressed material from its tiny storage pouch, that it would remind her of the black stockings she had used to bind Basilio Ramos to his bed, on the night of her escape from his mansion.  She had never brought up the subject of her time under the Comandante’s roof, and Alex had never asked.

When they were certain that Karin and Brian were coming down their side of Broadway, Ranya slipped out of the SUV’s right side door, and disappeared down the sidewalk toward the bay.  This was ‘Plan A,’ the better of their two options, to be used if their targets walked along the north side of Broadway with the flow of westbound traffic.  Ranya was a blond again, wearing the white San Diego sweatshirt she had bought at the Golden Arrow Casino gift shop. Alex was wearing a plain black sweatshirt over his Kevlar vest. Both were wearing jeans, and running shoes.

A minute after Ranya’s departure, Karin and Brian came walking down the sidewalk on Broadway.  Alex sank down low in his seat, and was motionless as Karin and Brian passed in front of the black SUV, just a few yards away. Karin was wearing tight jeans and her matching silver-studded jean jacket, dressed for the chill night air to come.  Her own blond hair was brushed back and held behind a hair band. Brian was wearing his denim overalls, with a green long-sleeved jersey underneath.  

Karin was holding his hand as they walked past; she was on the curb side of the sidewalk.  They didn’t appear to be talking.  It more than crossed Alex’s mind that he might simply jump out of the SUV and run and grab Brian away from Karin…but he knew that was a foolish idea. They had a good plan, and he would stick to it.

After they passed, Alex pulled down the black nylon screen stretched across the middle of the SUV.  When he could see that no one was following Karin and Brian, he quietly opened his door, stepped out, and slipped behind the wheel in front.  When Karin and Brian were a hundred yards past his position, he turned on the engine.

It was going to happen.  The snatch was going down.

***

Chino knelt by the Kawasaki,
across Broadway from the main entrance of the Pacific Majesty condominium tower.  He was holding a small wrench, pretending to make an adjustment to the engine as the cover for his surveillance.  The bike fit unobtrusively between two parked cars, and he was not hassled during the hour that he pretended to work on it.  

When he saw the blond
gringa
with the small boy walk out through the revolving glass doors, he put his hand into his black windbreaker’s pocket, and pressed the transmit button of his radio three times.  The mother and child crossed Broadway over to his side, and walked right past him while he crouched behind his motorcycle.  He waited until they were a block further down the sidewalk before he put on his helmet, and slowly rode past them, scanning in all directions for any sign of the Zetas’ real quarry: the two traitors, Bardiwell and Garabanda.

***

Two blocks further up Broadway
away from the bay, the
Cocinero Mágico
catering van was waiting in a small self-pay parking lot, which was located in an empty nook between two mid-rise office buildings. When they heard the signal from Chino’s radio, Basilio Ramos turned on the engine and slowly maneuvered out of their space, and made the right turn onto Broadway.  Chino was their scout, their eyes.  If Bardiwell and Garabanda grabbed the child as they expected, Chino would observe the action, and drop into position to follow them.  The van would then stay in radio contact with him on the motorcycle, and follow to wherever the traitors took the boy.  They would ambush them at an opportune moment and location.  Taken by complete surprise, the two traitors would be no match for his Zetas.  Kidnapping and street ambush were specialties of these men, and after their year spent in rural New Mexico, they were eager for action on the familiar streets of San Diego.

***

After Ranya stepped out of the Durango,
she walked rapidly across the multiple train tracks and past the Santa Fe Station.  The area where Broadway and its sidewalks crossed the rails was paved in red brick, built up to be even with the top of the steel tracks.  The long city block between the tracks and Harbor Drive was occupied by a vast parking lot on her side, the north side.  A chest-high chain link fence separated the lot from the sidewalk along Broadway.  The chain link was an integral part of their plan: it would give Karin nowhere to hide, run or escape when the trap was sprung.

A minute later she was at Harbor and Broadway, just across the T intersection from the bay and the federal pier.  After a pause, she turned around, and began to walk back the way she had come, but more slowly. Right away she saw a blond woman up by the tracks, leading a small child by the hand: Karin and Brian.  She timed her pace to meet them in the middle of the long block.

To give her a reason to approach Karin, Ranya had an unfolded map of the city spread between her hands.  She had chosen to wear her new white San Diego sweatshirt, to give herself the appearance of a harmless tourist.  Her .45 was on her hip in her fanny pack, but she had no expectation of needing a weapon to accomplish her mission.  

In the middle of the block she stopped and turned, staring in various directions as Karin and Brian drew near.  Ranya stood between an electric utility pole and the chain link fence, to narrow the space in which Karin could pass.

And now Karin and Brian were only ten feet away, and closing. Ranya tried to appear cheerful but confused, even as her heart was pounding hard in her chest.

Wide-eyed and smiling, she asked, “Excuse me, do you know where Harbor Drive is?”  She knew the question would sound disarmingly brainless. She held the open street map in front of Karin, forcing her to either

respond or walk around, between the fence and the metal pole.

Karin began to say, “Look, I—”

Concealed behind the map in her right hand, Ranya held an unmarked aerosol container the size of an aspirin bottle.  She let go of the map with her right hand, held her breath, put out her arm and from a distance of six inches, she sprayed Karin in the face with Alex’s FBI ‘happy gas.’ The open map fell across Brian’s head, blocking his view of the aerosol attack, and preventing him from breathing the fumes.  Ranya held down the top button for a count of two seconds, following Karin’s moving face while she gasped and choked.  Ranya then slipped the spray can into her partly open fanny pack, and withdrew a small red Spiderman action figure toy. She crouched down to Brian’s level; the child was pushing the map aside and looking up in wonderment between the two blond women.

“Hi Brian! I have something of yours!”  Ranya pressed the toy into his hand.  Brian stared hard with wide eyes at the little red Spiderman, then he looked at his mother, and he looked at the new woman.  A black SUV pulled up to the curb next to them, braking hard.  Ranya stood and jerked opened the rear passenger side door, saying, “Brian, look, your Daddy’s here!  Go see your Daddy!”

The little boy held the Spiderman clutched in his grip, looking up at Ranya, at his mother Karin, and at the black vehicle.  Alex switched on the interior light and excitedly called out through the open door, “Brian!  Hey Brian!  Come here tiger!  Come on, Daddy’s here!”

Brian stared up at his mother—Karin was blinking and coughing, rubbing her eyes.  He seemed caught, unsure, looking up at his mother, at a strange blond woman, and a black car with…his Daddy!

“Get in Brian, go see your Daddy!” urged Ranya.

“Come on Brian, come on, jump in!” called Alex.

Karin rubbed her eyes and peered into the Durango.  “Al? Is that you?  What in the hell…?”

Ranya gripped Brian by the wrist, put a hand behind his back, and guided him up into the back seat.

“Daddy!” he shouted, “You heard my call!  You came!”

A middle-aged couple walked down the sidewalk, unsure of what kind of family drama they were witnessing, but they politely continued toward Harbor Drive without staring.

Ranya climbed in after Brian, and began to shut the door behind her—but Karin was in the space between the open door and the frame! This wasn’t part of the plan.  She’d have to either shove Karin bodily out of the way or pull her inside, and more people were walking down the sidewalk, more potential witnesses…

Karin slid inside the Durango next to Ranya, staring at her ex-husband in shocked wonder.  “Al? Al!  What the hell are you doing here? Do you live in San Diego now?”

Alex was half turned in his seat, appearing stunned to see Karin sitting inside of the Durango behind him, next to Brian and Ranya.

Karin was out of it, totally fried, Ranya thought.  The FBI’s “less than lethal” happy gas had worked as advertised.  But now an idiotically giddy Karin Bergen was inside the car with them, and the right door still hung open beside her.  Ranya said, “Alex—drive, drive, go!”

He punched the gas pedal and the Durango shot forward.  The door snapped shut from the car’s sudden forward acceleration.  Ranya was sitting in the middle, between an astonished Brian, and a blissfully befuddled Karin Bergen.

“Alexandro Garabanda!  Long time no see, Al baby!  Hey, what’s up man?  Are you going to watch the fireworks too?  The fireworks are out there, on the dock. You know, it’s just for us feds—no regular people allowed.  Hey Al, did you know that everybody’s looking for you? Uh-huh, oh yeah Al baby,
everybody
is looking for you and…what’s your name sweetie-pie? Barty-well? Oh yes indeed,
everybody
is looking for you guys!”

***

Basilio Ramos was driving the catering van,
following two blocks behind Karin Bergen and her adopted son Brian. He planned to drive past her, and park on Harbor Drive.  There was still enough daylight to see, but the details were growing a bit indistinct as the streetlights began to blink on.  The mother and child were walking on the sidewalk, alongside an enormous parking lot on the last block before Harbor Drive.  Pedestrian traffic was moderate.  Individuals and small groups clustered at the red lights, began walking together on the greens, and then spread out at their different paces.  

Karin Bergen and her son were halfway along the parking lot; another woman was walking in the other direction, back up Broadway.  A black SUV, moving too slowly, was creeping along in the curb lane not far behind Karin Bergen.  Ramos’s pulse quickened, as he saw the critical pattern emerge.  He accelerated toward the Santa Fe train station, but a slow moving mini-sedan was in front of him, and he was boxed in on the left side by a silver Mercedes.

A bell began clanging, and right in front of the van, traffic gates with red flashing lights dropped across the road—
¡hijo de puta!
  The red train, the light rail, was snaking its way out of the covered train station, heading south in front of him!  He looked ahead, staring over the small car in front. He saw Karin Bergen draw even with another blonde woman on the sidewalk, and then the red commuter train pulled in front and blocked his view completely. 

***

Karin’s unexpected presence
in the Durango was a complication, but Alex knew that they could dump her out quickly enough, once they were a few blocks north on Harbor Drive.  The Durango was still in the right lane, fifty feet from making the turn off Broadway.  He switched on his right turn blinker, meticulously observing every conceivable traffic regulation. The light was green for him on Broadway, to allow him to make the turn without stopping, when a huge blue truck shot through the intersection directly ahead of them, running the red light northbound on Harbor!

But instead of continuing north and out of their way, the Sparkling Alpine Water truck slammed on its brakes, stopping across Broadway, blocking their path.  Before it came to a complete halt, the four rolling side doors of the bottled water delivery truck shot upward into the roof, and they were presented with the sight of a squad of agents, clad in black from their Kevlar helmets to their boots, with black submachine guns leveled at the windshield of their Durango! 

At the same time that the Sparkling Alpine Water truck full of storm troopers seized their attention in the front, a blue van and a black Suburban screeched to a stop just to their left, and more black ninjas spilled out, submachine guns leveled.  An agent took two steps toward their driver’s side window, and snapped it with a glass breaker.  The safety glass cascaded down in a million gleaming pebbles, while another agent did the same to the middle window behind him.  Black-gloved hands snaked down with expert precision, reaching for the inside handles, and yanking open the doors while other MP-5 submachine gun barrels were thrust at their faces point blank.