Border War Page 6

  SEVEN

  John Houghton was glad to get a chance to have lunch with his former partner. He still thought the normally cheerful Tom Eriksen looked a little down, but it didn’t take long for him to decide it was more a result of the typical FBI bungling a personnel matter than it was an emotional reaction to the shooting. John was careful not to sound too happy about his reassignment, and he didn’t let on that he had been instrumental in getting Eriksen back to work.

  The perky Tex-Mex restaurant, which sat near the trendy Union Depot, played the obligatory cheesy mariachi music over cheap speakers, but the outdoor tables were well spaced and clean. The Hispanic equivalent of Hooters, it served the best burritos in the Southwest. The smell of roasting vegetables and sizzling skirt steak reminded John of the family dinners he had enjoyed here just a few months ago. He had come early to down a few beers without the reproachful stare of his FBI friend. John was certain that if he worked for the FBI he’d drink a lot more than he already did.

  * * *

  After they ordered, he said to Eriksen, “One thing you have to promise me you’ll remember and live by.”

  Eriksen shook his head, obviously anxious for the wisdom his experienced partner was about to dispense.

  “Always have meetings or discuss work over a meal. Always. Saves time, and a good cop never gets hungry or gets wet. Remember that.”

  Eriksen gave him a good smile. That was enough. Although he was trying to cheer up the young FBI agent, it was also sound advice.

  John said, “So what are your coworkers like? I know our guy, Andre Sanders, is a hoot. He’d still be running one of our squads if he hadn’t tried to cover for one of his agents who had an accidental discharge with his pistol. The dumbass was cleaning it at home and left one in the chamber after ejecting the magazine. One of his neighbors called the cops when he heard the shot, but Andre smoothed the whole thing over. Then someone ratted him out, and he’s serving his penance over at the Border Security Task Force. You could do a lot worse for a boss.”

  “Everyone over there seems okay. The DEA rep is a tough chick named Lila. I can’t figure her out.”

  John nodded. “I heard she’s on the secretive side. No one knows much about her, but she’s a hard worker.”

  “At least I’m not sitting at home.”

  “I’m glad you’re happy with the assignment. Now we gotta do something to clear up the perception that we shot two guys in Mexico.”

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “I’m working on it right now. I keep hearing a rumor that one of the shitheads found dead was American, not Mexican. There’s also a rumor that the bullet wounds were inflicted from close range. We never got within thirty yards of them.”

  “Where are you getting these rumors from?”

  John smiled. “I can sure tell you haven’t worked in the intelligence squad too long. Rumors come from all sorts of places. Down here everyone calls it border talk. Goes back and forth and everyone hears something about every subject. I’ve worked the damn border here for over twenty years and have contacts on both sides. The second rule most intel squads have is never reveal your specific source of information.”

  “What good does it do us to prove one of the coyotes was American? Or that someone else shot them? It feels like my bosses have already decided I’m a liability.”

  “The first thing it might do is get the FBI off your ass. Maybe you could land back onto a squad that makes arrests. The second thing it would do is keep guys like Ted Dempsey from doing their show live on the border. Our jobs are hard enough without distractions like that.”

  “Dempsey seems to be sincere, and he’s definitely backing us up.”

  “There’s no doubt he’s on our side, but it would be best to move past this whole incident. It doesn’t matter that much to me, but you got your whole career in front of you. You don’t want to be known as ‘the guy from the border shooting.’”

  John could see his young friend apply his considerable intellect to the issue. He still looked tired and a little older than he should. Maybe this was something John should investigate on his own.

  * * *

  Tom Eriksen and his new partner, Lila Tellis, walked through the quiet lobby in complete silence. Eriksen finally realized that as much as he’d talked to Lila Tellis in the last two days, she really hadn’t told him much about herself. He’d shared about his family and his hope to work something worthwhile like investigate terrorism and she only told him that she was originally from Toledo and had been with the DEA four years. She had a very youthful face and a lean and athletic body but he didn’t think she was older than twenty-eight. He discovered she had a serious mistrust of the FBI. His supervisor, Mike Zara, didn’t do anything to convince her otherwise.

  Now they were on their way to the apartment where Dr. Martinez and his wife were living. Last week Lila had debriefed the doctor about his life in Mexico and the work he did for the cartels. He had told Lila stories of how he patched up gunshot wounds, set bones broken in car accidents on the twisty mountain roads, and even delivered babies with only the minimum amount of modern equipment and one old, surly Argentine nurse.

  This was the kind of work she did every day—talking to people crossing the border. She didn’t like to call them illegal aliens. They were just people, usually poor people who were looking for a better life. One of her interests was trying to determine how bad Mexican society in general had become as a result of the drug wars. As part of his indoctrination to the unit, the first statistic she mentioned was that in the last few years almost fifteen hundred people had been killed each year in Ciudad Juárez. A few hundred feet across the border in El Paso there were between ten and twenty-five murders. If that wasn’t an indicator of the breakdown of a society, Eriksen didn’t know what was.

  When they got to the building where Dr. and Mrs. Martinez were being kept by the Immigration Service, Eriksen was surprised at how nice it was. He wondered if all the apartments were rented by the agency.

  One of the things Eriksen liked about his new partner was the way Lila moved with confidence and was a complete professional unless she met someone who needed to be put in their place. That’s what happened when they walked into the lobby of the apartment building and the rent-a-cop tried to keep them from going directly to the Martinezes’ front door.

  The pudgy guy with the red face and crew cut worked himself off the stool near the elevator, holding up his hand and saying, “Hold on there, little lady. I’ve got to announce you before you go up.”

  Lila let the “little lady” comment slide as she smiled and flipped open her credentials that identified her as a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. All she said was, “Official business.”

  “It’s my official business to know who comes in and goes out of this building.” The guy’s attitude made Eriksen check his uniform more closely to make sure he wasn’t some sort of government service officer or cop. But his patches clearly identified him as a private security officer, and an ancient Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver indicated he worked for a cheap company.

  Lila sighed and just stepped toward the elevator. The man reached out and wrapped beefy fingers around her arm. In a fluid motion, she simply reached across and grasped the man’s hand, twisting his thumb one way and his knuckles another. Somehow the fat security officer spun in place and ended up seated on his stool.

  Lila said in an even voice, “The next time you touch a federal agent, you get booked into jail with a broken arm. Is that clearly understood?”

  The man nodded his head as he looked up at her and said, “What’re you, a Terminator?”

  All Lila said was, “Worse, I’m on my period.” She turned to Eriksen and gave him a quick wink.

  Maybe she was human after all.

  A few minutes later they were sitting in the pleasant living room of the apartment shared by Dr. Martinez and his pretty wife. Eriksen still felt like a passenger on this train as he sat bac
k and listened to Lila ask the doctor a few more questions.

  She leaned forward from her spot on the couch and looked the doctor in the eye. He was sitting in the matching chair across an old coffee table with rings from the fifties stained into it. Eriksen realized she was putting the doctor at ease and doing a good job of it.

  Lila said, “I really need to know who you were going to work for here in the U.S.”

  The doctor shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know. I told you this already.” He spoke English with just a slight accent, like many educated people speaking a second language. It sounded more elegant than obtrusive.

  Lila said, “Really? You risk the dangerous trip over here without knowing what company you’re gonna work for? You told me last week that you were coming over to take a job with a decent salary. How could you possibly know the salary and not know who was paying you?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re questioning me like this. Last week you were so pleasant and supportive, and you only wanted to know about my life in Mexico. The Border Patrol and Immigration people have been treating me like a celebrity because of what I did for their wounded man. Why should a DEA agent be so harsh to me?”

  “I’m asking these questions because it could be useful for us to know who’s bringing a doctor across to treat workers. That sounds like a really big human trafficker.”

  The doctor hesitated, then looked across the room to his wife, who was pretending not to listen to the conversation. “Well, it could be really useful to me to get an extra thirty visas for my son-in-law’s family.”

  Lila shook her head and said, “That’s a big family and a lot to ask.”

  “An employer like this would be a big feather in some federal agency’s cap.”

  “And what would a trip back to Mexico be like? Do you think that would put a feather in someone’s cap? That’s a question you might like to ask yourself, Dr. Martinez.” She closed her notebook, stood without preamble, and quietly stalked out of the room.

  If Eriksen were the good doctor, he would probably have shit his pants right about now. This girl was pure dynamite.

  EIGHT

  Tom Eriksen had never watched TV while at work before. This office had an entire room dedicated to three big-screen TVs hanging on separate walls, three computers used for undercover and anonymous Web surfing, and a police scanner that picked up Juárez police activity. Spacious, with beige walls and new carpet, it was called the media room and was probably the nicest space in the office. The door closed snugly so the noise of the televisions or scanner didn’t bother anyone.

  Eriksen was still trying to figure out his exact job description at the Border Intelligence Unit, which was often referred to as the Border Security Task Force. No one seemed to care what it was called. He knew it wasn’t oriented toward operations like arrests and surveillance, but he was just starting to realize how much information came into the center every day. Novels and TV shows made it look like intelligence units did nothing but intercept secret messages and spy on other people, but, in fact, information came from a variety of sources. One of the easiest and most successful was TV news coverage. Fox, both its news and business networks, and most of the other cable channels had reporters and producers posted all over the world. There was no way that even the federal government would ignore efficient and cost-effective resources like that.

  At least that’s how Tom Eriksen rationalized sitting in a task force media room, watching footage of a protest in Mexico about the shooting of Mexican nationals in Mexico by U.S. law enforcement officials. It was an odd experience for Eriksen to watch the show and know that he was the unnamed focus of it.

  Then the giant head of Ted Dempsey filled the screen as he gave an intense promo for a show that evening. “Riots in Mexico, soaring murder rates, and two American heroes under the microscope.”

  From behind Eriksen someone said, “That’s about you, isn’t it?”

  The voice startled him and made him jerk his head. It was the beautiful blonde with the creamy complexion he’d seen earlier, working in one of the communications offices.

  She said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her soft voice matched her delicate appearance.

  The woman said, “I’m Katharine Gleason, but my friends call me Kat.”

  “I’m Tom.” That was all he could manage in the current situation. He’d never thought he was particularly suave with women, but it would be nice to come up with something other than just his first name. Especially with a knockout like this.

  Kat gave him a perfect smile and said, “You think this is purgatory, don’t you? I’ve heard the other law enforcement people call the task force the Island of Misfit Cops.”

  Eriksen said, “I take it you’re not sworn?” Being sworn meant that you had attended a police academy and been “sworn in” as a law enforcement officer. It was usually the difference between carrying a gun and making arrests versus working at computers in the office.

  She shook her head and said, “I’m an analyst with NSA.”

  “No kidding. How’d you end up at the National Security Agency?” He didn’t know much about the secretive intelligence agency.

  “I was recruited out of school.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  Kat smiled again as she eased into the chair at the other end of the table. “Stanford, the Harvard of the West. What about you?”

  “I went to Harvard. The Stanford of the east.” Eriksen found himself forgetting about his problems for the first time in days.

  She asked, “What did you study?”

  “International finance.”

  Kat said, “That’s part of my job.”

  Eriksen said, “What’s the rest?”

  “Can’t talk about it.”

  “Maybe we’ll get a chance to work together.”

  “I seriously doubt it. My mandate is to pass on specific information to Homeland Security. And right now you’re attracting too much attention for the NSA to be associated with you.” She held up her hands. “That’s not me, that’s the agency and policy. In some ways we’re worse than the FBI about maintaining our image.”

  “I doubt that.” He smiled, trying to figure out how to spend a few more minutes with this girl.

  * * *

  Manny had been the chief of operations for Pablo Piña for seven years now. Aside from the remarkable financial rewards, he liked the logistical planning and management. But occasionally he was stuck with a task he didn’t care for. Like this.

  Manny was walking in the busy square in downtown Juárez. Just looking around at the buildings, a visitor wouldn’t know this was considered the “murder capital of the world.” People weren’t running down the street shooting at each other. It might not have the elegance of New York or the glitz of Los Angeles, but the town conveyed a sense of commerce.

  The buildings were not newly painted, and the sidewalks were cracked. The few trees in the park had withered due to a lack of care by the municipal workers. Some people said they were afraid to work in the parks due to the violence. Manny thought it was more likely they were just overworked and a little lazy.

  Manny considered his position in the organization. He respected his boss, Pablo Piña, but El Jefe’s thirst for retribution against Dr. Martinez was foolish and wasteful. Manny appreciated his role as an adviser and knew when to argue with the Dark Lord of the Desert. And when his boss wasted resources like this, he really earned his nickname.

  Few Mexicans could conceive of a man more powerful than Pablo Piña. He ruled the area around Ciudad Juárez with an absolute iron fist. But Manny knew even Piña had someone to answer to. He had never met him, but through years of careful attention to details he had concluded that Piña’s boss was Ramón Herrera. The Pemex board member and industrialist appeared to be above the violence of Mexico and probably thought he was, but the death toll was always tied to men like that. Herrera had no idea how most people lived. Manny was sure he didn’t care
, either. But Pablo Piña was afraid of him, and that was an impressive feat.

  In order to actually accomplish something while dealing with Dr. Martinez, Manny intended to put more effort into finding Enrique—or Eric, as his American friends called him—than he let on. The computer geek could affect business whether Piña thought so or not. Business was all Manny thought about. Grudges were for teenagers and Italians, not businessmen looking for respect.

  They had cocaine and marijuana to run, even the occasional load of farm workers looking for a better life in the United States. Usually he took them across, because his conscience would not allow the coyotes to prey on them like bloodsucking parasites. He had no idea who Martinez had contracted to take him and his wife across the border, but they had stumbled right into a hornet’s nest of border cops. Even if Piña was blind to the realities of business, Ramón Herrera was not. He would ask questions about why the deal with the American company soured if the computer engineer was not found and the information protected.

  Manny knew the protests going on here were being staged. The only odd thing was he didn’t know who was staging them. It could be the government looking for some benefit from the United States or hoping the different U.S. federal agencies back off the border so they could start lining their pockets again, but it had the feel of a more effective guiding hand like one of the other drug lords. It didn’t really affect him, but he found it curious that anyone cared about a couple of dead coyotes and that the federal agencies in the United States would take the shooting so seriously. Here in Mexico cops shot people all the time on purpose and by accident, and rarely had to do much more than apologize to the family if it was a mistake.

  Right now all Manny cared about was getting the product processed and shipped over to their best markets. It took an amazing amount of money to get this accomplished. It was an endless circle. They made money by smuggling drugs. They needed money to buy equipment and men and police (at least in Mexico), and if they had no money the federales would descend upon them, and then no one would work. Hundreds of families would go hungry, and no one in Mexico or the United States would care.