by J E Higgins
Moving farther into the tree line, the mercenaries followed the sounds. They moved carefully, feeling for possible booby traps or even a land mine. Surprisingly, they found none. Nor did they see any signs of guards patrolling the area. Gradually, the sounds became more defined.
After nearly a half hour, they were able to catch a visual of tents and huts. A few more steps and they were able to move into a spot just short of a canopy of trees, giving them a clear view of what looked like a primitive village. But, instead of native tribesmen, they saw an assortment of shacks stocked with machine equipment and looking like laboratories. Men, wearing surgical masks and latex gloves, busied themselves working at long tables. Other men outside dressed in shorts and T-shirts worked with a primitive setup that looked like it was for cooking and then straining.
Protected under a grass-covered roof were plastic-wrapped bricks of white powder stacked neatly on top of wooden carts. The whole camp was protected by trees and thick camouflage netting that concealed it from overhead surveillance. From the air, the place blended in as part of the jungle.
Walking in the middle of the camp, flanked by men vying for his attention, was a man dressed better than everyone else in pressed tan slacks and matching collared shirt buttoned up just short of his neck. He was much older than the picture Crane had seen, and the muscular physique had given way to a fatty bulge protruding from under his shirt, but it was undeniably Santos Guzman.
Guzman moved about like the powerful man he was with everyone he passed bowing humbly. Following closely behind but keeping a slight distance away was a man also dressed fashionably, carrying himself with the eloquence of someone groomed in the upper class of society. Unlike the heavy-set Guzman, this man was rail thin. He looked slightly younger and had jet black hair that was closely trimmed and a pencil mustache he took great care to keep groomed. His dark wrap-around sunglasses gave him a sinister appearance, the very image of a Hollywood villain.
The man kept his distance as they walked, allowing the various people, who must have been foremen, to approach his master. It was only after the brief meetings had finished, that he would move in close to speak into Guzman’s ear. It was an easy guess that the man was Hidalgo Perron, Guzman’s right-hand man that Crane had heard spoken of back in the village.
Kusaki recorded everything with a small camera he had brought. At the same time, McNaulty sketched a rough diagram in his notebook outlining the general setup of the village. Crane continued observing the men, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, patrolling the grounds. They were dressed in clothing similar to the workers and identifiable only by the tactical webbing that draped across their bodies. The rifles were slung cross-wise over their torsos behind their backs as opposed to the tactical ready position. A few of the guards walking around held their weapons at their side dangling from a single hand. All the guards acted bored and inattentive as they walked slowly about talking to each other or workers they passed. They paid virtually no attention at all to the surrounding terrain.
The same was true when Crane looked up and saw men perched in semi-hidden nests in what were probably watchtowers. They sat back lazily looking out into the distance, more interested in the view than any possible threats. Many left their weapons leaning against a post several meters away or lying beside them. It was clear they weren’t professional soldiers. Crane had seen their type. They were probably local hoodlums hired more to keep the workers in line and enforce Guzman’s will. Given a serious gunfight, they were likely to make a run for it as opposed to standing their ground and fighting.
The mercenaries remained in their hide watching carefully as the camp went about its usual routine. The success of their operation would be in gaining the most intimate knowledge possible to be able to develop a plan.
Guzman continued walking about the camp examining the different functions and consulting with the men managing them. Like any CEO of a corporation, he was keen to ensure he was aware of everything that was happening on the ground. Hidalgo Perron was never more than an arm’s length from his boss.
After a few hours, a dark Suburban approached hastily down the trail into the camp. The person driving must have been of importance because it didn’t look as if it was challenged by either the guards at the main gate or anyone else as it continued driving quickly through the camp. The vehicle sped towards Guzman, then came to a grinding halt sending its rear sliding off to the side a good distance. The whole act seemed intentional, geared towards getting everyone’s attention.
The driver side door flew open and was immediately followed by a short round-shaped body leaping out. Dressed in green camouflage hunting pants and sporting a green tactical vest over a black tank-top shirt, the man looked like something out of a cheap action movie or an American fishing show. He leaned back into the truck and produced a Kalashnikov rifle that he held at his side with a single hand. He then swaggered over to Guzman with self-important arrogance. As he did, he shot out occasional orders and corrections to the guards in the vicinity, an act intended to promote his stature. It must have been Serona, the enforcer and head of security.
He joined Guzman and was met with friendly greetings from the older man. Hidalgo Perron stood poised, as if he were a statue, peering indignantly at the unkempt new arrival as if his mere presence was an insult. The look was blithely acknowledged by Serona who smugly responded with his own condescending look. Serona continued speaking to Guzman, as Perron maintained his position and listened.
The conversation lasted for several minutes with the round man speaking excitedly as his boss listened. It was too far away for any of the mercenaries to make out what was being discussed, but by the intense way that Guzman listened without interruption, it must have been a topic of importance. When it concluded, Guzman stood silently, obviously thinking.
The round man got back into his Suburban and was soon driving away just as wildly as when he arrived leaving the other two men alone. As soon as the round man was gone, Hidalgo Perron was at his master’s ear speaking in a soft dignified manner. As with Serona, Guzman listened to his right hand with his full attention as they both started to walk away.
With the show concluded, the three mercenaries backed farther into the vegetation. They now needed to see the camp in its entirety. Between the vegetation and the dark shadows created by the trees, they were able to move undetected with relative ease. They pulled back several meters even deeper into the thick canopy to better mask their movements. When they were far out of hearing range and thoroughly protected by deep vegetation they began stepping out.
They slowly circled several meters around to the west and then just as carefully began approaching the camp that was again well within their view. Like before, Kusaki recorded the terrain by video while McNaulty sketched the location in his notebook. Just like before, they slipped back into the jungle, moving in a westerly direction to get closer to the camp. They repeated this pattern until they had rounded the entire camp, executing a fan method recce.
Once they finished, they returned to their original vantage spot and waited for darkness. Figuring that any operation they carried out would be done at night, it was essential that they saw what the camp routine looked like during the evening hours. By dusk, the workers were loaded onto the trucks waiting to transport them back to the village. In less than half an hour the camp was nearly deserted. The only remaining signs of life were the guards, who apparently came from somewhere other than San Pilliar, and a few men still at work in the laboratory and chemical center.
They were better dressed and groomed than the general workforce. The things they were dealing with seemed to be more complicated, requiring more skill than a jungle villager would possess. Crane figured them for the chief technicians and chemists that handled the more technical aspects of the process.
The last remnants of the day slowly catapulted them into darkness. With it, the black suburban once again arrived racing into the camp coming to another hard stop with the same dramatics as befo
re. The vehicle barely finished moving when the driver’s side door flew open and Serona leaped out.
With his weapon looped at his side, he swaggered about the camp. His bravado was louder and more egregious than earlier. In the absence of his employer, his arrogance was bolder. He shouted to the guards as he waved his free hand wildly about in a series of commanding gestures that they hastily obeyed.
Crane noticed that aside from Serona, the only other guard that seemed to be giving orders was a tall man with long shoulder length hair and a penciled goatee. He walked around, not with a rifle, but with an automatic pistol tucked in a holster strapped to his side. The goatee man was more professional in the way he carried himself, dealing with the guards, and more decisive with the way he gave directions to them. Where Serona was shouting and waving crazily expecting his men to assume what he was trying to get at, goatee was directing floodlights to be turned on which quickly illuminated the entire perimeter of the camp, catching Crane and his comrades by surprise.
The culture of security remained unchanged. Once the adventure of the shift change had concluded, it wasn’t long until the guards began to move about in the same lackadaisical manner as their counterparts on the day shift had done. Serona moved about impressed with himself as he swaggered along, his free hand on his hip. The goatee man moved about doing a last minute check of the facilities, making a pass around the perimeter to see if there were any signs of unusual disturbance in the bushes.
Having seen enough, the mercenaries waited until the atmosphere calmed down before exfiltrating the location. Slowly, they slid back until they were well out of sight, then they began backtracking through the bushes the way they had come.
Chapter 14
Rainn Darson finished adjusting her tactical vest. Making one last check to ensure her Glock .40 was properly seated in the holster across her chest and that the spare magazines for her M-4 Armalite Eagle-15 rifle that she would be carrying for the evening’s engagement were secure. She slipped from the back seat of her van and walked over to where her military counterpart was waiting. Teniente Coronel (Lieutenant colonel) Juan Cassero of the Mexican army, looked far older than his forty years of age. His face was thickly lined and weathered, and his hair the color of cigar ash neatly trimmed around his head.
She had been reluctant to work with the Colonel. She and her team were not impressed after their first meeting with the grizzled military officer at the DEA headquarters in Veracruz. As their counterpart for the operation, they were being strapped to some over the hill burnout the Mexican army no longer wanted. Their mission against the Black Crow had been foisted on the Mexican government through joint pressure from both the Americans and the British. It was not the best way to begin an operation, and everyone figured Cassero was their punishment.
She complained to her superiors who informed her that she couldn’t operate without Mexican support. If not the army and Colonel Cassero, then her next option would be the Federales, an option she was not at all open to take. For years, the bodies of Mexican law enforcement had been known for their immense corruption. In many parts of Mexico, they even took jobs as enforcers and hitmen for the very criminal groups they were supposed to be working against. In Juarez, the Juarez cartel had created their own army of active and former police known as the La Linea to act as their enforcers and assassins. Such practices were common all over and affected all levels of law enforcement. Darson wasn’t about to trust any law enforcement agencies in Mexico.
The presidency of Felipe Calderon had seen the army take the leading role in combating narco-gangs operating in Mexico. His was a more aggressive stance that came in the form of heavier militarized action. The army had proven a much more effective force against organized crime and, therefore, more trustworthy.
Deciding her best chances lay in working with Cassero, she reluctantly capitulated. It wasn’t long until she found her choice to be a wise one. Despite his appearance, he seemed to possess a razor-sharp mind and a streetwise perspective as well as a no-nonsense attitude in the way he approached his mission. From the first day they started working together, he had proven his worth. His team, which had been hand-picked by him, consisted of stout professional soldiers all from the elite Special Forces units and each had clean exemplary records. Hardly the losers and misfits she was anticipating.
His next contributions came in the form of intelligence. Cassero was far more versed in the ways of narco-gangs than she had expected. The Merchant Bank of Veracruz was known to the DEA as the prime money launderer for the Black Crow. She had wanted to gain an order from the Mexican courts to raid it and seize the information pertaining to the cartel’s front companies.
It was only when Cassero pointed out that doing so would mean going through channels that were riddled with informants who would warn of such a raid before the order was even signed that they realized the danger of such an act. He, instead, suggested that cartels were vast organizations unto themselves and still had to keep records of their transactions to keep things straight just like an organization. It would be better to figure out where such records were kept.
An investment official at the bank was suspected as the primary go-between for handling the cartel’s money. Using surveillance capabilities provided by British Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, the British equivalent of the American NSA, they monitored his phone and found he made several calls throughout the week to a cell phone that seemed to go to a mansion on the outskirts of town. Placing it under surveillance, it was quickly discovered to be an office staffed with people working on computers.
The mansion was surrounded by state-of-the-art security cameras and men dressed in suits patrolling the estate discretely carrying concealed sub-machine guns. What was more interesting was that the entire house had no internet connections at all, making it virtually impossible to hack into from the outside. Next to each desk were burn barrels and lighter fluid ready to dispose of any information at the first sign of a raid.
Positive that this was a prime headquarters for the Black Crow operation, the team set about preparing for a raid. Now, decked out in tactical gear that made them all look more like combat soldiers than law enforcement officers, they prepared for their raid. Watching Darson approach, Cassero lifted his eyes from the map he had spread out over the hood of his SUV. He greeted her with a wide grin. “You look prepared agent Darson,” he said in his accented English.
“I like to be fashionable for such evening events,” she replied as she approached.
Cameron Ashler was standing next to the Colonel reviewing the map, apparently applying his own soldierly wisdom to the final details. All day he had been watching the house with some of Cassero’s soldiers establishing an observation post in some thickets that gave them the ability to watch the people entering and exiting the house. For the last few days, he had been leading a series of covert recon missions around the property. It had been through his efforts, proving to be quite the elite surveillance expert that they were able to identify blind spots in the cartel’s security that allowed them to find places to stage the assault force near the house undetected.
When the team arrived, he had been dressed in camouflage attire and a thick ghillie suit that allowed him to disappear into the surrounding scenery and appear out of nowhere as if by magic. Now, like the rest, the Englishman was dressed in tactical gear and dark fatigues, looking more like a commando ready to go on a black ops mission. The fact that he was so comfortable in such an environment added to the notion that he was not some regular police officer. This was a point that for some reason made Darson uncomfortable.
“We’re almost ready to go,” Ashler said gruffly, finally acknowledging her presence. His accent was thick with the hard-streetwise flavor so common in London’s lower east end.
“Good,” she replied.
“In twenty minutes, my man at the power station will have the electricity to this house cut,” Cassero stated. “Once that happens, we’ll have to move quickl
y.”
“I understand.” Darson looked at the two men. “I’ll alert my team and we’ll take up our positions.”
The Colonel nodded in agreement.
“Sounds good to me,” Ashler said, as he grabbed his equipment and began following her. The two moved steadily down a winding walkway that was protected by an impenetrable wall of trees. The house was in a wealthy suburb on the outskirts of the city where all the homes were spaced far apart, separated by lengthy plots of land, protected by high walls of brick and concealed by a vast overgrowth of vegetation.
The two walked from where the unit had set up its tactical operations center (TOC). They came out of the bushes onto an adjacent road that led to a circular path that took them out of view of the estate. A sizeable hill masked the convoy of five tactical Suburbans lining the side of the road. Grouped around the vehicles were several people dressed in the same combat attire worn by Darson and Ashler.
The rest of the team stayed close to the last vehicle. Kenner and Salvaras remained close to the driver’s side, their M-4 carbines slung across their upper bodies held firmly by the pistol grip and the muzzle ready to slip into action. It seemed, by the way they looked, as if they were the ones anticipating being attacked. They continued to shift their eyes toward the men surrounding the leading vehicles with a strong air of suspicion. They both had considerable experience with South American security forces and were acutely aware of how badly penetrated they probably were by corrupt cops inclined to play both sides, often more for the cartels.
Cassandra Holden walked around seeming more irritated than concerned. She looked out of place and appeared to resent having to wear field attire. This was certainly not her favorite part of the job. She would have likely been happier if allowed to wear a suit, interview witnesses, and investigate a crime as opposed to playing SWAT team commando in the middle of the night.
