Rosarito Beach (3 page)

I
can't get the second camera to work.”

“You
make
it work, goddamnit!” Kay said. “I need to be able to see the back of the bar.”

“I'm telling you, the connector—”

“I don't want to hear it, Jackson. Fix it!”

It had been a real scramble to pull a team together on a Sunday, yanking guys out of church and away from family barbecues, getting weapons and surveillance vans, and then breaking into the bar without being obvious about it so Jackson could install the video cameras.

Kay and four other DEA agents were crammed into one surveillance van; Kay was the agent in charge. Everyone was wearing black combat fatigues and body armor. Helmets with face shields were sitting at their feet. They had enough assault rifles, shotguns, and pistols to invade Canada. Kay and her team had been inside the van for almost two hours, and although it was only sixty degrees outside, with the heat generated by five live bodies all the agents were sweating and the van smelled like the monkey house.

A block away was a second surveillance van containing five more DEA agents. When Kay gave the command, they would move into position and cover the small parking lot behind the bar and stop anyone from leaving by the back door. The two vans being used by Kay's team were long-body panel vans with no rear or side windows. One was identified as belonging to a plumber, the other to a catering service. Kay was in the plumber's van, and, because of the locale, it was old, beat to shit, and tagged with graffiti. A hostage negotiator was in his car two blocks away.

“Jackson!” she screamed into her mike. “It's almost five. What in the hell are you doing? I still don't have visual on camera two yet.”

“I'm telling you, this connector—”

“Cadillac's here,” an agent said. He was looking through a low-profile periscope that penetrated the roof of the van and was hidden by a battered ventilation scoop.

“Shit,” Kay said. “Jackson, get out of there. Forget the second camera. We'll have to go with one.”

“Copy that,” Jackson said, sounding relieved. Officially, Jackson was an agent, but he was primarily Kay's go-to guy when it came to computers, cameras, and other high-tech gizmos. He was a geek. He wore a sidearm but barely knew how to fire the thing, and he was scared being inside the bar by himself. Kay could now visualize him scurrying out the back door like an oversized rodent, lugging all his equipment—equipment that obviously didn't work like it should.

“You should have had Jackson check his gear before he went inside,” an agent said.

She looked over at the speaker: Wilson, her second-in-command on this operation and the guy who thought
he
was the one who should be in charge. He was the shortest man on Kay's team—even shorter than her—and he compensated for his lack of height by lifting weights two hours a day. He compensated for male-pattern baldness by shaving his head. As usual, he had this pissy look of disapproval on his face; he would have disapproved if Kay had given him a birthday cake. Or a blow job. Wilson was brave enough—she'd trust him with her back in a fight—but he was a stiff, by-the-book little prick, and he did everything he could to undermine her. She needed to get his ass transferred out of her unit.

“I did tell him to check his gear, Wilson,” Kay said, “and when we're done here, I'm going to suspend him.”

Before Wilson could say anything else, she said to the man on the periscope, “Donovan, move over so I can take a look.”

—

C
adillac Washington—his mother had christened him Ronald—was just stepping out of, what else, his Cadillac, when Kay looked through the periscope eyepiece. He was in his mid-fifties, which made him an elder in the drug business.

Cadillac was short—about five foot six—and weighed almost three hundred pounds. He wore glasses with heavy black frames. He looked like a nearsighted bowling ball with feet, and his appearance struck people as comical until they found out how many people he'd killed. This evening he was wearing a black hoody and black sweatpants with a gold stripe running down the legs. He almost always wore sweatpants, probably because he liked the elastic waistband.

Two other men stepped out of the vehicle: Cadillac's top guys, Tyrell Miller and Leon James. Tyrell and Leon, both about six foot four, had the kind of muscles you get when you spend all day at Pelican Bay lifting weights. Unlike their boss, they were also clotheshorses, wearing expensive suits and shirts. Leon had on pointy shoes made from the hide of a reptile whose species was almost extinct.

Cadillac looked around the street, and for a moment he focused on the plumber's van containing Kay and her four-man squad. Cadillac was paranoid—you didn't reach your fifth decade dealing drugs unless you were paranoid—and for a minute Kay was afraid that he was going to send one of his goons over to see if anyone was in the van. But he didn't—and she suspected the reason why was the tire.

Kay had deflated the left rear tire on the van when they'd arrived on the scene. She figured that if Tito or Cadillac saw the flat tire, they'd ignore the old van. Police vehicles on stakeouts don't have flat tires. Naturally, Wilson had argued with her, saying if they had to go mobile they'd be screwed, but she overrode him. She told him if they had to go mobile it meant the operation had failed and they'd have plenty of time to change the tire.

Finally, Cadillac and his guys walked toward the bar, Cadillac leading the way. Cadillac unlocked the front door and the three men disappeared inside.

—

T
he bar belonged to Cadillac. It was one of his first real estate acquisitions after he started making money selling crack to school kids. The walls were made of cinder blocks and all the windows were glass brick, like you see in old-fashioned bathrooms. You couldn't see through the windows—they barely let sunlight in—and it was like a cave inside the place when the lights were off.

There was a scarred mahogany-colored bar about twenty feet long, ten barstools covered with split red Naugahyde, and four wobbly tables with wobbly chairs in the space in front of the bar. There was a kitchen in the back the size of a walk-in closet, another small room that served as an office, and two bathrooms that were infrequently cleaned. The only hot food on the menu was sandwiches you could microwave.

Kay looked up at the monitor in the van. She could see Cadillac and his guys standing near the front of the bar; Cadillac had turned the lights on. The single DEA camera that was working showed the room from only one angle: looking toward the front door. She couldn't see the back of the bar, where the kitchen, office, and restrooms were.

Wilson, of course, had to point out the obvious. “If we have to go inside to get them and they go to the back, we're gonna be going in blind.”

Kay just sighed and shook her head. She didn't bother to tell him—
again
—that she had no intention of sending men into the bar. Her plan was to trap Tito Olivera inside and then just sit there pointing weapons at the building until Tito realized he had no choice but to surrender.

Cadillac lowered his heavy body into a chair at the table closest to the door, and through the audio system on the functioning camera Kay heard him say, “Where is that spic bastard?”

Tyrell Miller ignored what he assumed was a rhetorical question and walked behind the bar. “Boss, you wanna drink?”

“No,” Cadillac said.

“How 'bout you, Leon?”

Leon James shook his head.

“Well, fuck ya all,” Tyrell muttered, and poured two fingers of Crown Royal into a tumbler.

—

K
ay checked her watch: it was now five-fifteen p.m. and she was beginning to worry that Tito wasn't going to show. Two minutes later, she smiled when Tito Olivera's black Mercedes SUV rounded a corner and parked behind Cadillac Washington's car.

“Tito's here,” Kay said into her mic. “Get ready to deploy on my command.”

Tito's driver, a tattooed freak with a shaved head named Jesús Rodríguez, stepped out of the SUV first and looked around. He was wearing a wifebeater undershirt, so the full sleeves on his arms were visible. Like Cadillac, Jesús noticed the plumber's van with its flat tire and studied it for a moment before he decided it didn't pose a threat.

Ángel Gomez, Tito's other bodyguard, exited the SUV next. Ángel was dressed completely in black, like a Latino Johnny Cash. He was six foot one but weighed only about a hundred and forty pounds, and Kay didn't know if he was so skinny because of drugs or diet. Whatever the case, Ángel was the guy Tito used most often to kill the people he wanted killed.

Ángel opened the back door of the SUV and Tito Olivera—younger brother of Caesar Olivera—emerged from the vehicle. Tito was dressed in an Armani suit that cost more than Kay earned in a month. He was a handsome man in his late twenties with a narrow face and a dimpled chin, and he was not obviously Latino; his hair was light brown and had probably been blond when he was a child. His mother didn't have any Mexican blood in her. Tito reached his hand inside the SUV and helped María Delgato out.

María was wearing a low-cut black cocktail dress that stopped at midthigh and showed off every curve she had. Kay thought the woman was a little top-heavy but had perfect thighs. The way she and Tito were dressed, it appeared they might be planning to go out to a celebratory dinner after Tito finished with Cadillac.

But Kay couldn't understand why Tito had brought María to the meeting. Maybe it was a ploy on Tito's part to put Cadillac at ease. Or maybe he liked the idea of whacking Cadillac with her watching, thinking it would turn her on or make him a bigger man in her eyes. One thing Kay knew for sure: Tito wasn't worried about a witness testifying against him. No witness against the Olivera brothers had ever made it into a court of law. So Kay didn't know why María was there, but she was glad she was. If María was inside the bar when it went down, she'd not only have Tito on video but she'd have an eyewitness. That is, she'd have an eyewitness if she could keep María alive long enough to testify.

—

A
s soon as Tito's entourage entered the bar, Kay said into her mic, “Okay, they're in. Conroy, deploy your team.”

“Roger that,” Conroy said. Conroy was the leader of the five-man squad in the second DEA van. He and his men would take up positions behind the bar to keep Tito's and Washington's people trapped inside—or kill them if they came outside shooting.

“Saddle up,” Kay said to the men in the van, and they checked their weapons for the hundredth time, adjusted their body armor, and put on their helmets. “Comm check,” she said next, and spoke to each agent to make sure everybody's mics and earpieces were working. Before she could tell her men to exit the van and take up their positions outside, Donovan, the guy who'd been watching through the periscope earlier, looked through the scope again.

“We got kids coming down the street,” Donovan said.

Shit
. It was Sunday evening and the bar was located in an industrial area and surrounded by small manufacturers: scrap-metal recyclers, tire retreaders, and auto-body shops. All the businesses were closed for the day and the bar was also normally closed on Sunday. She had no idea why a bunch of kids would be in this part of town.

“How many and how old?” Kay asked Donovan.

“Four, teenagers, fifteen, sixteen, two boys, two girls, all Hispanic. They don't look like gangbangers. Just kids.”

“Donovan, you and Jenkins get them off the street. Then, Donovan, you stay with them until it's safe to let them go.”

“We should call in SDPD to handle them,” Wilson said.

They'd had this discussion before. Wilson had wanted to alert SDPD to the operation before it started—and Kay had adamantly refused. She didn't trust the San Diego cops because she knew the Olivera cartel had penetrated the force. Her plan was to bring in SDPD
after
they had Tito Olivera trapped inside the bar—and then use them for crowd control and blocking off the streets. No way in hell was she going to alert the city cops until after Tito had killed Cadillac Washington.

“Wilson, for the tenth fucking time, I'm not bringing in SDPD until I need them. Donovan, Jenkins, why are you still here? I told you to get those kids off the street.”

Donovan and Jenkins, who probably agreed with Wilson, left the van.

“Donovan might not be able to control four kids by himself,” Wilson said. “And if Tito starts shooting, you're putting those kids at risk.”

“Wilson, when this operation's over, I'm transferring your ass out of this unit.”

Wilson made a snorting sound, and Kay felt like smacking him.

“Okay, the rest of you take up your positions. That means you, too, Wilson.”

The men left the van and took cover behind vehicles and dumpsters on the street, making sure they had clear lines of fire to the front door of the bar. Kay would remain in the van and monitor the video.

Kay was the only one who knew what was likely to happen next. Just like with Maddox and the judge, Kay hadn't told her men about the discussion she had with María Delgato and what Tito might do.

—

T
he first thing Tito did when he entered the bar was take off his suit coat and turn in a circle so Cadillac could see he was unarmed. Since Tito had tried to kill Cadillac twice, Kay figured Cadillac had only agreed to meet with Tito if Cadillac could choose the meeting place and if Tito agreed to come unarmed.

Ángel Gomez and Jesús Rodríguez were not wearing coats, but Cadillac gestured to Tyrell Miller and Tyrell frisked both men to confirm they weren't carrying weapons. Tyrell also looked inside a laptop case that Jesús Rodríguez was carrying.

“They're clean, boss,” Tyrell said to Cadillac.

This wasn't good from Kay's perspective. If Tito and his guys didn't have weapons, who was going to kill Cadillac?