Authors: Jinx Schwartz
Before returning to the main cabin, Nicole looked into the head. In sharp contrast to the rest of the boat, it was left untouched, spotless. Two toothbrushes hung in a chrome holder, toiletries were neatly aligned in plastic holders along polished mahogany walls, and fluffy white towels embroidered with Captain and First Mate hung on brass towel racks. The homey touches stung her eyes.
Jerry and Jaime left the boat, but Nicole, her anger growing, snapped photos of the mayhem inside. She took a few notes and was preparing to climb down the transom ladder when another police car roared into the yard. While Nicole watched from above, an officious-looking man in an immaculate police uniform stepped out, glared rudely at Jerry, and handed Jaime an even more officious-looking envelope.
When the sergeant roared away into his own lingering dust cloud, Jaime broke an old-fashioned wax seal on the envelope and scanned the contents. He looked up at Nicole and smiled. “Come down and join us, Nikki. You will be happy to learn that we may soon get our hands on your sons of bitches.”
For the first time since they met, Nicole gave Jaime a genuine smile.
Nicole opened a bureau drawer in her hotel room, sighed when she spotted the price tag still dangling from her bathing suit strap, then shrugged and jammed it into her carryall with the rest of her stuff. She gave the room a once-over and stepped out onto her sunny balcony. The bay, marina, and volcanic Tetakawi peaks sparkled in postcard beauty. Pointing to the turquoise pool below, she growled in her best Arnold Schwartzenegger voice, “I’ll be back,” and left to join Jaime and Jerry.
She knocked on Jaime’s door and was ushered in by the
comandante
himself, resplendent in full dress uniform. She lifted an eyebrow.
“For impressing the peasants,” Jaime joked.
Nicole sniggered at Jaime’s self-deprecating humor. He had, with one well-delivered quip, made fun of both the over-the-top uniform and a country that still had a caste system.
Jerry, too engrossed on the other side of the room to hear Jaime’s joke, looked up when he heard Nicole giggle.
That’s more like it
, he thought. “Come over here, Nikki. There’s someone you need to meet.”
Nicole turned her attention on Jerry, giving his jeans and gaudy shirt a critical glance not lost on him. “Okay, okay, I’ll go change. But first I’d like you to meet Felipe de la Garza, one of Mexico’s first U.S. trained agents. Felipe, Agent Nicole Kristin.”
De la Garza stood, shook hands with Nicole, and then returned to tapping keys and maneuvering his mouse, while Jerry watched closely. “Nikki, Felipe is logged on to that new closed network on-line information sharing system you and Russ Madden helped set up. Thank goodness someone in our governments—both of them—finally realized we’d better start fighting a united front if we’re gonna do battle with a thirty billion dollar a year drug industry.”
“Up and running? I thought we were still bogged down in bureaucratic folderol.”
“Show her, Felipe,” Jerry said, the excitement in his voice reminding Nicole of a small boy’s.
“Pray do,” Nicole urged, wondering if she and Russ had done the new information sharing data system a disservice by holding back a file or two. Or several hundred. They did not expect the two countries to cooperate so soon, and Nicole was reluctant to just dish out some of the more sensitive files.
Jerry was beaming. “See, it’s working!”
“So I see,” Nicole said. She didn’t sound pleased.
Felipe smiled, not picking up on Nicole’s sarcasm. “I feel very privileged to have this opportunity to serve the best interests of my country.
Our
countries. And to be included in the first group at Quantico to train for this job.”
Jaime, slightly annoyed with Nicole, said pointedly, “Unfortunately, two of Felipe’s classmates were murdered by the cartels. These young men fully realize we are at war, and they are soldiers on the front line.”
Nicole felt a twinge of guilt. She was one of those DEA agents who took issue with training Mexicans like Felipe. Her very words came back to her. “Are you telling me,” she’d said to Jerry, “that we’re going to bring these guys up here, teach them all our secrets, send them back to Mexico, and expect them to risk their lives for a lousy three grand a year?” In retrospect, she now felt she owed Felipe and his fellow agents an apology. Especially since she'd been training agents just like Felipe for over a year, and learned for herself how sincere they were. And how much danger they faced.
There was a light tap on the door and Juan entered with another of those official envelopes in his hand. Jaime scanned the contents and told them, “We leave in an hour. Jerry, is there anything more you need Felipe to relay to your people before we go?”
“No, looks like we’re ready to roll. Or will be when we get to Arizona.”
“Update me, guys,” Nicole said.
Jerry answered. “As you know, Jaime’s people intercepted a phone conversation between some guy in La Paz, on the Baja, and another in Colombia. Not only was there a mention of
Hot Idea
, but a big operation on the Arizona border on the nineteenth of November, two days from now. We’re banking on Washington and Mexico City giving us carte blanche for a bust that will show our Congress, and the rest of the world, that both governments are serious about the drug war.”
Jaime waived the envelope. “My president has given me his full confidence in this matter, and his staff is working with the staff of your president. It is just this kind of operation our governments had in mind when they formed the HLCG.”
“Ah, the High Level Contact Group,” Nicole said in wonder. “Never thought it would fly, but I’m glad I was wrong. It will work, won’t it?” she directed at Jaime.
Jaime opened his mouth to defend the system, when Felipe let out a satisfied grunt, punched the printer button and handed Jerry a printout.
“Well shoot, Nikki,” Jerry said, “they didn’t name it the High Level Contact Group for nothing. We’ve got the authority, from very high levels, to cut through all the crap and get to the perps. HLCG’s first big test.”
“Hallelujah! This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship, boys,” Nicole exclaimed, dancing a little jig.
Jaime watched Nicole’s antics with amazement; he had begun to think she was permanently sullen.
Chapter 27
There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry—George Armstrong Custer
The late afternoon sun heated the Cessna Skylane’s interior, making it slightly uncomfortable until they reached altitude and the air cooled.
Jaime sat in the copilot’s seat, Jerry and Nicole in the back. The pilot, an American living in San Carlos, flew the plane. The HLCG cut through every scrap of red tape delaying the trip, and they were miraculously cleared for a direct flight into the Sierra Vista, Arizona, airport with no customs or immigration clearance required.
“So,” Nicole asked Jerry above the airplane’s drone, “how far is Sierra Vista from Fort Huachuca?”
“They share a runway. Can’t get much closer than that. Our team should already be in place by the time we arrive. With all this high level involvement, the marines have probably been called in.”
“Cavalry,” the pilot said. “Fort Huachuca is the center for Army Intelligence Operations.”
“Is that an oxymoron?” Nicole quipped.
“Hey, watch it, you’re talking to an ex-army guy here,” Jerry protested.
“Two of us,” the pilot chimed in.
“Gee, sorry guys,” Nicole apologized, not looking very contrite. “So what else has Fort Huachuca got to offer besides being a training center for spies?”
“For one thing, the Aerostat.”
“Oh, yeah, that blimp.”
“Not a blimp, Nikki,” Jerry told her, “a blimp-shaped balloon.”
Tom Reeves chimed in with some statistics, “Aerostat is a long helium balloon over two hundred feet long—at a cost of about a cool million per foot—tied to a very long tether. It can see stuff, like low- flying aircraft and bad guys, for a couple a hundred miles. Hell, it probably has us in its sights right now, and soon you’ll be able to see it. Stands out like a sore toe from a long way. Your people pulled some serious strings so we can fly this route without getting a couple of F-16s on our ass once we cross the border.”
“Or shot down,” Jaime said cheerfully. “We’re flying in what's deemed a major cocaine corridor. Off limits to civilian aircraft. And, thanks to your government, my government is now armed with the weapons required to bring down suspected aircraft. Which, under normal circumstances, would be any unauthorized aircraft in this zone. I am certain my people were briefed in time to prevent such an occurrence.”
“How certain?” Nicole squeaked.
“Ninety percent.”
“So we have a ten percent chance of being blown to smithereens by our own artillery? Zapped by friendly fire?”
Tom Reeves nodded and added, “Not to mention the fact that my insurance company probably wouldn’t pay off because I was in a no-fly zone. But then again, I guess that would be my wife’s problem.”
The men laughed, but Nicole looked at the ground and imagined a surface-to-air-missile honing in on them. “You guys can laugh, you’re all old. I want to live a few more years.”
Jerry elbowed Nicole gently. “Watch it, whippersnapper. Besides, we’re pulling your leg. Or maybe engaging in a little wishful thinking. Worst thing that could happen is to draw one of our own DEA tracker planes on our butts. Right, Jaime?”
Jaime gave him a Mexican shrug, said, “Drone,” and Jerry’s face fell.
He and Nicole shared a look. Drones now flew the border, supposedly only as eyes in the sky, but were being used all over the world in attack mode.
“Personally, I hope we unleash the drones, blow the bastards out of the sky,” Reeves said. “We gotta stop this narco crap. My wife and I live most of the year in San Carlos, so we have selfish reasons for stomping out the cartels: our real estate values. If Sonora becomes a drug war zone, no one in their right mind will buy property in San Carlos.”
Nicole settled back, looking out the window. “Look at all those ranches...and cattle,” she said.
Jaime craned his neck and put his forehead on the glass. “Zactly. The pride of Sonora, Nikki, Sonoran beef. You ate it for dinner last night.”
“And it was delectable. To tell you the truth, Jaime, when you insisted I order steak in Mexico I expected to lose a tooth or go to bed famished. A picture of a freckled faced Longhorn bovine as stringy as he was ill-natured came to mind.”
“I am glad you found our beef to your liking. Many Americans buy it because it is lower in fat than your corn-fed herds. Our ranchers are having a hard time of it lately because of drought, though. We hope next year’s monsoon will be normal.”
“Monsoon? Like in India?”
“I do not know about India, but ours starts around the beginning of July. South winds bring moisture from the Gulf of Mexico to Sonora and Arizona.”
Tom Reeves said, “It’s great. The wife and I like to sit out in the afternoons and watch the lightning show. We also can get rain then, which plays havoc with that Aerostat. They gotta reel it in. You better pray for dry weather for your operation.”
Nicole’s eyebrows arched as she shot a look at Jerry. “Amen,” Jerry said, but he, like Nicole, was a little surprised Reeves seemed to know why they were headed to Arizona.
Reeves told them, “I was posted at Fort Huachuca before I retired, then moved down to San Carlos to live most of the year. We still have a condo in Sierra Vista where we spend the summers. Cooler there.”
“In Arizona? I thought all the Zonies moved to San Diego for the summer,” Nicole told him, using the Southern California nickname for Arizonans who invaded their beaches to escape the heat.
“Sierra Vista’s around forty-seven hundred feet, twenty degrees cooler than Phoenix in the summer, and at night the temps drop into the sixties. Then, of course, there’s that monsoon.”
“Sounds nice if you like the desert. Which I do,” Nicole said. “But you still haven’t told us how you got involved in our, uh, flight.”
“Let’s just say I got a call from on high,” Reeves said mysteriously, pointing upward and smiling.
No one pursued his meaning and the cockpit fell silent for the rest of the flight. It was fully dark when they landed at the Fort Huachuca/Sierra Vista airport and taxied to a well-lit hanger.
“Welcome back, General Reeves,” boomed a man in uniform who met the Cessna when it rolled to a stop.
Jerry and Nicole exchanged looks. General?
Reeves saw the look. “Retired. But you know, when the country calls....”
They were escorted to a huge room obviously designated for the Task Force’s war room. People bustled about, phones rang, and monitors glowed at computer stations. In the middle of it all stood Russell Madden, their DEA technician from San Diego.
Spotting Nicole and Jerry, Russell rushed forward. “Welcome to organized chaos. Looks like you really stirred something up. I haven’t seen this much brass since I hung out in San Francisco fern bars. We’ve got a briefing set for ten minutes. Who’s gonna go first?”
“
Comandante
Morales,” Jerry said, nodding at Jaime. “His tip, his operation.”
“Great. Let’s get set up.
Comandante
, do you need any props? Maps, whatever?”
Jaime left with Russell to prepare for the briefing. Jerry and Nicole scanned the room, recognizing several people. “Jesus,” Jerry commented, “there’s enough acronyms in here to start a new language.”
An hour later, Jaime stood behind the podium, looking through his notes while Russell adjusted his mic. The screech of folding chairs being hastily dragged from all over the room finally stopped, and at least a hundred people, in all sorts of attire, settled down to hear Jaime’s briefing. Uniforms of both Mexican and American officialdom were interspersed with black-suited types that looked as though they should be standing behind some head of state, reflective sunglasses shading their eyes. Most of the technicians wore blue jeans and tee shirts.
Exuding good looks, authority, and confidence, Jaime introduced himself to the assembled Task Force.
Watching from the front row, Nicole thought,
It is true. Men in uniform are irresistible.
Then she found herself absently wondering why Jaime never mentioned his wife.
Typical Latino
, she scoffed, thinking of all the heartbreak her Cuban grandfather caused his wife, daughter, and especially his granddaughter. Nicole was crushed when she learned of her granddad’s philandering, and vowed, even in her teens, to never let anything like that happen to her. She’d give Latino men a wide berth. Then Jaime smiled at her, and Nicole chastised herself.
He’s been nothing but polite and professional, girl. Get a grip.
“As you all know by now,” Jaime said, “our governments are cooperating on a precedent-setting scale as a result of the High-Level Contact Group, the HLCG. Please listen carefully while I name everyone, for there will be a test at the end.” Laughter broke the tension in the air.
“He sure knows how to grab his audience,” Nicole whispered. Jerry nodded and glanced at Nicole, realizing it was the first nice thing she'd said about Jaime.
Jaime waited for the laughter to subside. “But, before I list the organizations involved, I am informed this operation has a code name: Black November. We Mexicans also read
el señor
Clancy.”
This time the laughter was louder.
“I shall explain how this operation came about. We intercepted and recorded a telephone conversation between La Paz, Mexico, and Colombia that, on the surface, seemed to be centered around a fishing trip until, in the middle of a sentence, our technician heard mention of a boat named
Hot Idea
. That got our attention, because the owners of that vessel were recently murdered in what turns out to be a drug-related incident. But it was
these
words which are responsible for us being in this room tonight: Nineteen November, Agua P, one hundred twenty K.
“Agua P, or Agua Prieta—black or dark water in English—is, as you all know, a town about forty-five miles from here on the border opposite Douglas, Arizona. The date mentioned in the intercept is simple enough. November nineteen. And we do not believe these men were discussing a hundred and twenty kilos of fish.”
Another round of soft laughter.
“Now, brace yourselves while I list the agencies involved. As I do, will the people from each of those agencies stand? That way if we have any leftovers still seated when I finish, we can shoot them.”
Laughter erupted, then he continued.
“I have already mentioned the HLCG, and since both the Presidents of the United States and Mexico are otherwise occupied, they are represented by...” Jaime consulted the list of names and agencies in front of him, “The INCD: the Mexican National Institute for Combating Drugs; CENDRO: Mexico’s Center for Drug Control Planning; FPJ: my country’s Federal Judicial Police; PGR: Office of the Mexican Attorney General. Also, the Mexican Army, the combined forces of the American military and Homeland Security, including DEA, FBI, CIA, INS, United States Customs, and the Border Patrol. And, of course, we cannot forget the,” he consulted a note, “Arizona Joint Counter-Narcotics Task Force.” He drew a dramatized breath and said ominously, "Anyone left seated?"
His audience laughed again and everyone sat down. “Now, only one hundred and twenty kilos of cocaine with a street value of maybe twenty million dollars might seem hardly enough to merit the attention of so many agencies, but if Black November proves successful, it will be a shot across the bow of the drug trade.” Jaime stopped, grinned and whispered into the mic, “Not to mention a popularity boost for both of our big bosses.”
The audience was amused and entranced. Nicole wondered if Jaime had any political ambitions. He’d be a natural.
“So, with the hopeful eyes of two national leaders focused on Southeast Arizona and Northern Mexico, let us go to work. And two days from now, on Sunday, November the nineteenth, let’s show the world how two great nations go out and get the bad guys.”
“My calculator shows...one hundred kilos of coke would be...bigger than a bread basket? I have operator malfunction,” Nicole griped, throwing down her pocket calculator.
“Oh, it could easily fit in the trunk of any large car, say fifteen cubic feet or so,” Jerry said casually.
Nicole looked impressed, but Jerry laughed and showed her a computer model the techies had printed out for him.
“Cheater. So,” Nicole said, “that amount will be easy to hide. Who knows, maybe they’re planning to run a hundred and twenty ‘mules’ across the border, each one with a kilo in his backpack. Some of those illegals have been found with up to a hundred pounds on their backs. I guess that’s why they call them mules.”
Jaime had joined them and heard Nicole. He sadly nodded his head. “They do that, you know. The Coyotes—vermin, smugglers of humans—take some poor souls from the slums of Mexico and spirit them across the border. Then half the time the poor illegals turn over drugs to their contact on this side and then are left to die in the desert. It is a national disaster, and shame.”
“On both sides, Jaime,” Jerry told him. “Well, maybe this is the beginning of the end for that part of the problem. As for illegal immigration, do you have an answer?”