Border War Page 7

  Manny had studied economics at the University of Chihuahua and understood the basics of any economic model. Killing a helpless doctor was not part of the basics. It did nothing for their bottom line.

  Now, strolling in the busy square in the northeast section of Juárez, Manny knew exactly who he needed to come with him to kill the doctor. If it were here, in Mexico, there were dozens of men he could use, but in El Paso, under the watchful eye of a competent police force, he had to be careful. He knew the doctor was still in El Paso. One of his many sets of eyes had seen him. They’d have an exact location soon.

  He plopped down into a comfortable chair at an outdoor café next to a hulking man with short gray hair. The man barely turned his pockmarked face as Manny said, “I could use you, Hector.”

  “When?”

  The man’s voice sounded like it was rumbling out of a troll’s lair. “In the next few days.”

  The man just nodded. After a few seconds of silence he said, “My cousin will come, too.”

  “Can you control him, Hector?”

  The big man rumbled, “He needs the work.”

  Manny just nodded. It was the same story everywhere. Things were getting tight because the government was cracking down. They were bowing to pressure from the United States. He said, “I know. The new senator from Texas is causing us a lot of grief.”

  Hector said, “The woman? Doesn’t she have family in Mexico that can be pressured?”

  Manny just shrugged.

  “Why would her husband let her do something as degrading as politics? And why does she have to pick on us?”

  “The people in the United States are always looking for causes. If terrorism isn’t hot, then immigration is. It just happens that this woman is stuck on both, and that attitude is a lethal combination for a country that listens to singers and actors about politics.” Manny paused and added, “I wish I was going to use you on something important, because that might be good for business. Instead, the boss has us handling a personal vendetta.”

  The big man chuckled and said, “As long as I get paid, I don’t care what the reasons are.”

  * * *

  Ramón Herrera felt secure strapped into the Bell JetRanger helicopter he owned through one of his corporations. The comfortable commercial helicopter was unmarked but fitted with a new system to buffer the interior noise of the rotors. There was also a 7.62 mm six-barreled M134 Minigun that could be deployed from a hidden compartment on the side of the helicopter if there was trouble. The weapon, manufactured by General Electric and capable of firing up to four thousand rounds per minute, would solve most problems Herrera might run across while flying.

  The pilot, dressed in an off-the-rack JCPenney business suit, was a former U.S. Marine helicopter pilot, and the two well-dressed men in the back were part of Herrera’s personal security force. Herrera made the pilot swing over Juárez so he could get a look at the city before landing on the southern edge at the office complex used by Pablo Piña. The sprawling barrios, made up of rickety buildings and shacks pasted together with scrap metal, spilled over the low rolling hills all the way to the Rio Bravo de Norte, which the Americans called the Rio Grande.

  Right now he was gazing down at the protests he had arranged. The crowd of about a thousand gathered near the municipal complex and attracted the attention of local police and army troops as well. It gave the masses something to scream about. If they were focused on the supposed killing of Mexicans by U.S. police, it took their minds off so many other problems. It made Herrera feel like a Roman emperor, giving his subjects entertainment. That idea coincided with him regarding his security force as his Praetorian Guard. But no Roman ever had access to an arsenal like his. Even the helicopter had a .30 caliber machine gun mounted on it.

  The protests served a secondary purpose of reminding the American government how careful it had to be when dealing with issues on the border.

  He had several reasons for being in Juárez today, but his main purpose was to talk face-to-face with his chief thug in the area. Pablo Piña had a leaky organization, and Herrera wanted to know what he was going to do about the snitch that passed on all kinds of information to someone in the U.S. government. It usually had nothing to do with drugs, and Herrera was very disturbed by the inside knowledge the U.S. could use against his business interests.

  Herrera knew he would eventually discover who the snitch was. He had spent too much time and too much money developing sources in the United States. His main target of recruitment was U.S. federal law enforcement officers. He chose them because they were hard to break. Unlike their Mexican counterparts, they made excellent salaries and had outstanding training. They also endured extensive background investigations before they were hired, which meant Herrera had to get to them after they were already in their positions. He was methodical and relentless, taking small steps, but never going too far until he had someone firmly in his grasp. It was the same way the Central Intelligence Agency recruited spies from across the globe.

  He would start with a simple dinner party or a free meal and slowly escalate to a small gift like a leather wallet or expensive sunglasses. Once he got through those steps, Herrera would move on to something bigger, like a woman for the night. The best and quickest way was to offer a woman for the night who was expendable. All he needed was one drunken, pissed-off, twice-divorced federal agent to kill a prostitute and he owned him. It had happened more than once. Or at least, he had convinced more than one man it had happened. Alcohol and barbiturates with the right dead girl could have a great effect on a man’s sense of reality.

  If, on the other hand, one of the federal agents rejected a small gift early on in their relationship, he would just write it off as Herrera being a rich, generous Mexican. He had used the phrase “part of our culture” regarding the gifts on a number of occasions.

  The days of blackmailing with a photograph of an indiscretion or simple embarrassment were long gone.

  It wasn’t like Mexico, where they lived by the motto “silver or lead.” Every cop knew it. You can either take money and do what you’re told, or risk being shot. It was brutal but simple. There were no games, and it didn’t waste time.

  Herrera preferred not to meet men like Pablo in public or at their offices. He didn’t want to be associated with the drug business in any way. If you were labeled a criminal or a “drug lord,” it would greatly interfere with your other pursuits. He had too much work to do with the government and legitimate businesses to be a fugitive like the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin Guzmán, known to the masses as “El Chapo.” Rich and powerful, he was a folk hero to the people of Sinaloa. He was also the most wanted man in Mexico. Of course, that didn’t keep him from walking in public occasionally. It was really all public relations how you were labeled. “Businessman” sounded better than “drug lord.” To Herrera, “freedom” sounded better than “fugitive.”

  Pablo Piña rushed out to greet him at the helicopter like an eager child. His ill-fitting suit told Herrera that Pablo didn’t usually dress for work but was trying to impress him. The landing pad was between his five-story office building and a slum of second-rate businesses that included mechanics and reupholstering shops.

  Herrera kept quiet until they were in the comfort of the air-conditioned lobby of Piña’s building. Then he simply said, “How is the business with Mr. Haben?”

  Piña’s hesitation said it all. Then the ruddy-faced thug said, “Good. It’s going good.”

  Herrera nodded and said, “I wish to expand it.” When it was obvious Piña had nothing further to add and seemed at a loss for words, Herrera said, “I want to talk to you about the potential for informers inside your organization. But I have heard you’re on a particular crusade with more bodies than usual.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Worry about how to dispose of the bodies.”

  Now a smile crept over Piña’s crooked face. It was unnerving, and Herrera suddenly unde
rstood why so many people could be intimidated by him.

  Piña said, “If you have a moment, Don Herrera, I would love to show you our ingenious solution to that.”

  Herrera was intrigued, and in spite of his better judgment, he nodded, then followed Piña out into the parking lot and through a series of short alleys cutting between businesses. His security men trailed him, drawing their weapons to be on the safe side. Herrera liked the fact that they were always on edge.

  He was rarely in places like Juárez. He never got to see things up close. Now he smelled the stale odor of urine and noticed the incredible number of bullet holes in virtually every old building. All different calibers and sizes had shredded some buildings and merely maimed others. Some bullet holes made crazy patterns, almost like clouds drifting across the sky.

  Finally, behind an auto repair business, the group stopped at a wide, open lot with rusted cars lining the six-foot-high cement wall. It was remote and secure. In the middle of several vehicles was what looked like a small swimming pool filled with a dark, bubbling liquid.

  Herrera said, “What’s this, Pablo? Your new Jacuzzi?”

  They both laughed at his little joke, but Piña was obviously enjoying giving his boss a tour. He said, “This is where the bodies go.”

  “They’re hidden in the pool?”

  “It’s not a pool. It’s twenty-five feet deep and is filled with a mixture of acids, lye, and motor oils. Nothing of any value could ever be recovered from a body dropped in here. And none of the thirty-five bodies we have dumped in it are left intact.”

  Just the idea of the acid-filled pool made Herrera’s skin crawl. “It’s a human stew?”

  “Brilliant, isn’t it?”

  Herrera could only nod in agreement. Was this what Mexico had come to?

  NINE

  Tom Eriksen sat in the Border Security Intelligence Unit’s media room and continued to watch TV, but mainly because Kat was sitting with him in the empty room. He knew very little of what the National Security Agency really did. They weren’t the CIA and didn’t use operatives for the most part, but they were the king of communications. They could listen in to anything from a satellite to a couple of kids using tin cans and string. He’d heard stories since he first started with the FBI about tidbits of information from the NSA that helped prevent calamitous attacks.

  All the public focused on was terror attacks that hit the news. They had no idea how many potential attacks were defused well before they came to the attention of the media. The fact was that since September 11, 2001, jihadists and others had continuously attempted to cause havoc with everything from simple plans like driving a tanker loaded with fuel into a crowded building to complex schemes for releasing bioweapons in the subways of New York. In each case, the FBI had uncovered the plot before completion, and certainly some of that heads-up came from the National Security Agency and their ability to listen to conversations halfway around the world.

  His interest in the NSA right now concerned the young woman with a soft, pleasant manner that made him think of a character from a Jane Austen novel. But his attention was diverted back to the TV when Ted Dempsey welcomed the relatively new senator from Texas. She was very pretty, with dark features and a professional demeanor, but the first thing Eriksen noticed was that she didn’t have a Texas accent.

  He said, “Where is she from?”

  Kat said, “Third-generation Texan. Her ancestors are from around Mexico City. She’s from the Dallas area originally, but she lived back east.”

  From the TV, the appealing senator looked like a bank teller as she crossed her legs, leaned toward Ted Dempsey, and said in a very calm voice, “We must close the border until our visitors understand they must sign our guest registry on entry. We live in perilous times and have no idea who crosses our borders. Everyone from criminals to terrorists has easy access. The whole idea frightens me.” She gave Dempsey a chance to agree, but didn’t look like she cared if he did. The senator continued, “As much as fifty billion dollars is laundered across the border. That’s billion with a B. Over two hundred U.S. cities have Mexican drug cartels and Central American gangs operating in them, which are responsible for hundreds of homicides. The sister city to El Paso, Juárez, Mexico, is the murder capital of Mexico—more than fifteen hundred homicides each year. Now they don’t even keep track of them. The U.S. Border Patrol stopped over three hundred and twenty thousand illegal, undocumented border crossers last year. That’s a lot of tax dollars spent on policies that encourage people to risk the trip.”

  Dempsey had to interrupt the monologue. “As to your last point, Senator, don’t we want border officers working?”

  “Yes, Ted, we do, but the seventeen thousand or so Border Patrol agents can be more effective other ways. If we just close the border, even for a short period, we could use the military and have different rules of engagement. Technically the Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts the use of U.S. armed forces to enforce state laws, only applies to the U.S. Army and Air Force. The National Guard could easily be used for law enforcement duties. But I think this is a national security issue and the army could be used with the right support. It would send a serious message to the Mexican government about how serious the U.S. is about security. As a Mexican American, I respect the border as well as the differences between the countries.”

  Eriksen looked at Kat and said, “Where the hell did she live back east?”

  “Jersey. She went to Princeton.”

  “Figures,” he mumbled.

  Then one of the task force members popped his head in the room and said, “There’s someone here to see you, Tom.”

  * * *

  Manny decided he liked sitting at the café with Hector, the large assassin he’d just hired. He was also surprised the giant man had such an interest in U.S. politics.

  Hector said, “This Senator Ramos, she never shuts up. Our politicians are afraid of her. Can you imagine that? I hear from some of our people that some of the radical Islamists we’ve taken across the border are more concerned about her than anybody else. She’s a hard woman.”

  Manny nodded and said, “It would be nice if someone got her to tone down her rhetoric. She should be talked to.”

  “She should be slapped down.” The tenor of his deep voice showed that it was no idle joke.

  Manny shrugged. “Maybe one day soon.”

  The big man said, “I hear she speaks in El Paso all the time.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “It’s my business to know what’s going on close to the border. Why else would you come to me for a job in El Paso? My English is good, but I’m clearly Mexican. You like the fact that I pay attention.”

  Manny nodded as he considered the comment. Then he noticed four men at the same time his companion did. They sat across the narrow, crowded street at a restaurant known to serve the police.

  The big man growled, “I know that black man. He’s an American federal police officer. The other man, the one as big as me, I’ve never seen before.”

  Manny studied the fit-looking man who was just over fifty. His name was Houghton, and he was sitting with two of the commanders for the local police.

  The big man said, “Why does he sit with the local police if he is a federal agent?”

  Manny said, “Relax, he works for the U.S. Customs or whatever they’re called now. He’s concerned with border issues, so it makes sense for him to talk to these policemen. If he were with the DEA, I might worry, but the U.S. Customs cares only about what comes across the border, not what we do here.”

  The big man nodded and said, “I once collected a bounty on an informer for the DEA. They never forgot I snatched their eyes and ears in Juárez. They did everything they could to find out who’d taken one of their informers and sold him to the drug lords. The DEA proved to be dangerous and smart, and they had many contacts on this side of the border.”

  Manny said, “This man Houghton has a reputation for being fair and hon
est. I wouldn’t worry about him. Let us focus on our job in El Paso. I’ll find you tomorrow.” The big man merely nodded.

  * * *

  John Houghton looked at the sheets of paper provided by the two commanders of the Juárez police force. He’d spoken to the men in the Spanish he’d been practicing for more than twenty years on the border.

  The two local cops constantly shifted their eyes, checking for threats. Being seen with two Americans could be dangerous because no one would know who John and Andre were and what they wanted. The food at the small cantina was good, but Houghton noticed no one came into the cantina while they were sitting there. The other restaurants filled up, but they remained isolated at the table with a good, open view of the street.

  John felt like he was accomplishing something now that he had identified the dead man from fingerprints. His name was Vincent DiMetti, and he was a wannabe gangster from Long Island. Somehow that didn’t sound so tough. The Bronx or Brooklyn made tough guys sound scarier, but the phrase “I’m going to get someone from Long Island to visit you” didn’t sound as terrifying.

  Now John had something to go on in his personal investigation into the men who killed the Border Patrol agent and were later found dead across the river. One was, in fact, a Mexican national, but this other fella, DiMetti, had no business being involved in any kind of human trafficking.

  Technically, John was still under investigation for the shooting. At least the case had not been officially closed. He also knew that Tom Eriksen was doing okay. His friend on the Border Security Task Force said a pretty, young DEA agent had become Eriksen’s unofficial partner. Eriksen hadn’t told him about her himself. Maybe he had more on his mind than just police work.

  His two police buddies dropped them off near the main crossing point between Juárez and El Paso. It used to be more open, and the entry to Mexico from the U.S. side had been very easy. Juárez depended on tourists, but they didn’t flood in like they used to. That was a shame, because Mexico was a lovely place and had a lot to offer. Its people were sincere, and the restaurants and cantinas served incredible food. But it was the damn drug war. Murders had increased to an astronomical rate, but the American media had not helped cities like Juárez by covering the carnage day and night. It was almost as if they took glee in saying how dreadful things had become in Mexico while the U.S. was still safe by comparison. The fact that very few tourists had actually been harmed in any way played no role in any of the stories submitted by the networks.