Lonely Coast

by Jack Hardin

  “Félix,” he continued, “is the reason my team is out here. Plancarte was sending a lot of his product to the peninsula, where it shipped off to Haiti and made its way to Europe. But Félix...he’s excellent at getting stuff over the U.S. border, and those routes give him more control over the whole process.”

  “He took out Plancarte?” Ellie said.

  “Yep. Plancarte was good at business. But Félix is good with people. Highly charismatic. He finally convinced a core group of discontents to form a coup. It worked.”

  “And Pavel has worked for both of them?”

  “I guess. Like I said, Pavel keeps a really low profile. From what I’ve heard, Plancarte took good care of him. But since I’ve been down here, I haven’t heard a lot about El Oso. Hopefully, we can make some headway with that.”

  Up ahead, the monotonous landscape was broken only by an abandoned gas station that sat back off the right side of the road. Cooper turned off the music, slowed, and pulled up beside a rusted gas pump. The wind whistled through the aluminum canopy, and a stray dog hurried out of the building and strode into the desert, looking back over his shoulder. The station’s windows were shattered, and old paint cans, gas cans, and a spool of rusted chain were cluttered near the front door. It all fit the scene: discarded, forgotten, and weathered. But what didn’t fit was the middle-aged man sitting in a metal rocking chair. He was cleanly shaven and had dark, ruddy skin, a long black ponytail, and a small chain earring in his left ear from which hung a tiny golden cross. His eyes were narrow slits.

  His presence there was odd enough, but what concerned Ellie the most was the assault rifle sitting atop his thighs. Its enlarged carrying handle and transparent magazine were the trademarks of the H&K G36. The man came to his feet and approached the vehicle. Cooper unlocked the doors, and the man got in and set his weapon between his knees. He shut his door. “Cooper.” His voice was deep and low.

  Cooper pulled back onto the road, and they continued their course for La Cajetilla. The newcomer didn’t bother to turn around or acknowledge their presence, just looked out the window with an indifferent and self-assured expression that had Ellie thinking there was more to him than met the eye.

  Ellie waited for Cooper to offer up an explanation, but one was not forthcoming. She was about to ask when Hailey beat her to the punch.

  “You haven’t introduced us to your friend,” Hailey said.

  “Oh. Right,” Cooper said. “O’Conner, Fiske, this is Arturo. Arturo, Agents O’Conner and Fiske.” Then he said nothing else, and the only sounds came from the tires rolling hard over the rugged terrain and the air conditioning streaming from the vents like the muted hiss of a snake.

  Ellie demurred, and they rolled into La Cajetilla a few minutes later. The town was made up exclusively of one- and two-story adobe buildings. Most bore no paint, and the wooden vidas that gave them much of their earthy charm protruded out from the rooflines. Cooper turned onto a wide dirt road and passed a corner barbershop and a store selling grounds grains. The town felt deserted. They had yet to see a single person.

  Last night, meth-loving Marco had directed them here, to a crew of local gangbangers known as the Chicos Solitarios del Desierto—the Lonely Desert Boys. The gang didn’t deal in drugs, Marco said, but they did work a small slice of the local weapons market.

  It was as good a place to start as any.

  Cooper slowly approached and then passed a two-story adobe building that had a concrete staircase running up one end. There was a small landing at the top of the stairs where a burly man with a long, hooked nose stood with his arms crossed.

  “Looks like the place,” Cooper said. He parked twenty yards away in an open pan of dirt. Ellie was familiar with the tactic: park far enough away so they can see you coming and minimize any threat that you might pose. It was the silent version of “we come in peace.” He turned the vehicle off, and everyone but Arturo stepped out. He remained in his seat. Cooper started toward the building.

  “Cooper!” Ellie hurried her pace to catch up. He turned and waited. “Hang on,” she said. Hailey stepped up behind her. “Who’s Arturo? And why is he here?”

  “I asked Arturo to come help, being that my team is out of town.”

  “Who is he?”

  Cooper scratched at his chin. “See, I think it’s better for all of us if you don’t ask questions like that. If I wanted you to know he was coming, or if I wanted you to know who he was, I would have told you.”

  “I don’t need you to keep things from us to protect us,” Ellie said.

  “I’m not,” Cooper huffed. “I’m protecting myself. I can’t have one of you running back to your SAIC and telling them how I’m running my operation down here. Just trust me when I say that Arturo’s with me and I trust him. Now can we get this show on the road or do you want to keep yapping in front of Gonzo up there?”

  Something inside Ellie wanted to slap Cooper upside the back of his head. A quick look at Hailey said she felt the same way. “After you,” she said to Cooper.

  As they drew closer to the building, the man up on the landing opened the door beside him, dipped his head inside, and then brought it back out. He reached around to the back band of his drooping shorts and brought out a semi-automatic pistol.

  Cooper was at the base of the stairs now. He raised his hands. “¿Inglés?”

  The man shook his head. Cooper proceeded to speak in Spanish, telling the man that, as he could see, they did not have their own weapons drawn and only wanted to talk. The man shook his head and Cooper cursed, told him that if he wanted to shoot a team of U.S. Federal agents, then U.S. soldiers would be down here hunting him before he could eat his second breakfast. Then Cooper started up the stairs with the man’s pistol still aimed at his head. Ellie held back, waiting to see how it was going to play out. Cooper reached the top step, jerked his head toward the door, and told the man to invite him in. The man hesitated, looked down the stairs to Ellie and Hailey, and then took a step back. He motioned for Cooper to enter.

  “Let’s go, ladies,” Cooper called back as he stepped in.

  The man kept the gun trained on them as they ascended. They followed Cooper inside, where two other men were standing next to a kitchen table with pistols of their owned aimed at their guests.

  Ellie was starting to think there could have been a much better way to do this.

  “¿Inglés?” Cooper asked.

  The man from outside came in behind Hailey and shut the door. All three men wore sagging black shorts and gold chains over plain, oversized white T-shirts. The inside was no different from a typical apartment: living room and dining areas next to an open kitchen. Ellie kept her focus on the mouth of the darkened hallway.

  “A little,” one of the men at the table answered Cooper. He was short but stocky, and like his friends had a fresco of tattoos up his arms and neck. “Who are you? You better talk, rápido.”

  “We are agents with the United States Federal Government. I’m with the Drug Enforcement Administration. These ladies are with the Department of Homeland Security. We need to find someone, and we heard that the Chicos Solitarios del Desierto might be able to tell us where he is.”

  The tension in the room was high. The three gangsters were clearly afraid. It was surely the first time they had ever had visitors like this, and they clearly did not know how to judge it. Ellie didn’t like seeing three guns on display, none of them belonging to her team.

  “Who?” the stocky man said.

  Cooper gave a here-goes-nothing sigh. “El Oso.”

  Ellie couldn’t see the man behind her, but the two on the other side of the room were visibly shaken upon hearing the name. They resettled their pistols and gripped them tighter.

  “El Oso?” the man barked. “What you want with him?”

  “What’s your name?” Cooper asked calmly. “Mine is John. Jimmy John.”

  Ellie nearly coughed out a laugh. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that she was on the pr
ecipice of a shootout.

  “Servando,” he answered.

  “Okay, Servando. Good to meet you. I’m looking for El Oso because he may have hurt some people in a bad way, and my government wants to talk with him. We have no problems with you boys. We just want to know where El Oso is, and we’ll leave you in peace.”

  Servando’s face scrunched into a ball of twisted anger. “No! You are here to come for us! You try to be smart, but I know what you are doing.”

  Cooper held up a finger. “Son, I think your head is a little too big for el culo. Do you really think that three people like us are going to be interested in taking down a small gang in the armpit of Mexico who walk around with their shorts dragging on the ground?”

  “No! You all! Throw your guns onto the floor!”

  “Well, now, I can’t do that,” Cooper said. He lifted his chin and turned his head slightly. “A little help here?” he called out. For a moment, Ellie thought he was talking to her and Hailey until she saw a shadow move down the hall and step out into the living room.

  It was Arturo.

  She wasn’t sure how he’d gotten in but was glad enough that he had.

  The gangsters tensed again, and a newfound fear entered their faces. The man behind Ellie said something urgent to Servando. She picked out the two words that finally brought the full situation into focus: Arturo and sicario. So Cooper had gotten a local hitman, someone who sold his services to the highest bidder, to tag along.

  “Ah,” Cooper said. “So you know my friend. That’s great. So you’ll know that by the time one of you gets a single shot off, he’ll make swiss cheese out of every one of you?”

  “S—swiss…cheese?”

  Cooper rolled his eyes. “Just… you’ll have a lot of bullet holes in you. ¿Consíguelo?”

  Arturo’s expression hadn’t changed. He still had that indifferent and self-assured expression he was wearing when Ellie first saw him on the rocking chair at the gas station. Now, he walked across the room, unmindful of the shaky guns that had swiveled in his direction. He walked right up to Servando and jammed the muzzle of his rifle into the man’s neck. Servando winced. Arturo didn’t move.

  Cooper grinned. “So, Servando. Now would be a great time to call your men off.”

  Servando’s body was frozen, but his eyes moved fearfully to his friends. They lowered their weapons and stood in place with wide eyes trying to forecast what might happen next. “Now, hand those pretty guns over.”

  Ellie, Hailey, and Arturo each received a handgun, and Ellie worked fast to frisk each one. “They’re clean,” she said. Hailey had her sidearm out now. She flicked it toward the couch, and the two men sat at either end.

  “You too,” she said to Servando, who still had a rifle muzzle jammed up his carotid. Arturo took a step back, and Servando rubbed at his neck as he crossed the room and sat between his friends.

  Cooper nodded, satisfied. “Okay, then.” He walked over to the table, dragged a chair back across the floor, and settled it in front of the couch. He crossed an ankle over a knee and leaned back. “Servando. And you two other guys, let’s get down to business. All I want to know is where I might find El Oso. I know you run a little business of your own selling guns and such. I’m not here to mess with any of that.”

  Much of the fear had drained from Servando’s face. Now he just looked upset. “We do not know where he is.”

  “No? So that’s it?” Cooper said. “You just don’t know where he is? So I say ‘okay’ and we just get up and leave? Servando, I’m going to need you to do better than that.”

  “I don’t know,” he said again.

  “Then why did you get so nervous when I brought up his name?”

  Servando looked to both his friends and, not seeming to get any helpful directives either way, decided to answer. “Early this year, we buy guns from him. Not much. Less than cincuenta. And then a few months later, we do it again.” The man on his right leaned over and whispered something to him. Servando nodded. “Yes, we bought from him three years before, when Plancarte was still jefe.”

  “You have a phone number for him?”

  “No. He change number all the time.”

  “Address? Other people who did business with him?”

  Servando shrugged.

  “The money,” Ellie said. “Who handles the money?”

  Servando looked confused.

  “How did the money change hands?” Cooper asked.

  Servando brightened at that. “Yes. Yes. First time we buy from him we pay dinero en efectivo. You say…”

  “Cash,” Cooper said.

  “Yes. Cash. But last time, El Oso want us to pay to some other guy who does his money for him.”

  “And his name?”

  Servando frowned like he couldn’t remember and then his friend whispered to him again. “Ernesto Cárdena,” Servando said. “He works in San Luis Potosí. We had to meet him there and give him the money.

  Cooper slipped his foot off his knee, sat up, and leaned forward. “I want to make sure you’re being honest with me, Servando. If I find out that this Cárdena guy is a fake, or that you lied to me, I’m going to send Arturo back here by himself.”

  Servando shook his head violently. “No. No lying. Cárdena...he is the contable.”

  “The accountant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” Cooper said. “We’ll go have a talk with the contable.” He stood up. “I want to thank you boys for not shooting us. I’ll let you get back to whatever it is that you people do.” He headed for the door, and Ellie and Hailey followed him out and back down the stairs. Arturo moved out to the front landing and waited until they were back in the Suburban before he came down and joined them. Cooper pulled out into the street.

  “Cooper,” Hailey said, “you think the next time you plan on getting us into a stand off you can let us know first?”

  Ellie saw him grin in the rearview. “You liked that, huh?”

  “I get that you’re used to running your own team out here in this dust bowl,” Hailey continued, “but I don’t ever want to be put in a position again where I’m in a planned standoff and I can’t draw my weapon. I’m happy to concede that you know what you’re doing. You were great back there. But I need us to be a team and Ellie and I not just a couple pretty faces following you around.”

  Cooper set his eyes back on the road and said nothing for the next mile. “You’re right,” he finally said. “I’m sorry. I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop.”

  “So what’s the plan now?” Ellie asked.

  “San Luis Potosí is four hours away,” he said. “We’ll go by my office and double-check that what Servando told us checks out. If it does, we’ll go tomorrow.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Cooper and his small team of DEA agents officed out of a building in a secure compound that belonged to the local arm of the Guardia Nacional—the newly formed federal agency that had absorbed units and officers from the federal, military, and naval police. The Guardia Nacional was under the control of the Mexican Armed Forces and was tasked, somewhat generically, with preventing and combating crime.

  After leaving the Lonely Desert Boys behind, Cooper brought his guests back to the office. Ellie was somewhat surprised to see that Arturo had not only stayed with them for the entire ride back but that he too was allowed entrance into the secure building.

  They passed the main reception area to an open, cubicle-less floor filled with cluttered desks set closely together. It was loud and reminded Ellie of an old newsroom. Both civilian and military personnel mingled together, the former dressed in short-sleeved dress shirts and the latter in the dark gray uniforms of the Guardia Nacional. Cooper’s desk was in the far corner. He went to it, set his sunglasses and keys down, and then passed out of the room, turning down a narrow hallway and stopping in the doorway of a small office containing two empty desks. “You two can office here,” he said. “Maria will get your laptops connected to our servers. I’ll
have her email you anything we and our team in Durango have on Petronovich. It’s not much. I reviewed it yesterday before you got here, but you might find something I missed. Once Maria runs this Cárdena guy through our system, I’ll have her get that to you too.” He left them alone, and Arturo trailed behind him.

  As soon as the two visiting agents were alone in their office, Hailey looked at her partner. “I know Cooper is in a different world down here,” she said. “I get bribing Marcos with the meth. But bringing in a sicario? I thought we were about to trade bullets with those thugs back there.”

  “Me too,” Ellie said. “I’m with you. He should have given us a heads up.”

  “What’s Arturo doing back here at the office?”

  “Beats me,” Ellie said. “I think Cooper’s going to have to let us into his thought process. I’m fine with him doing things his way. It’s the Wild West out here. But I don’t like walking blind.”

  “Me neither.”

  They passed the rest of the morning reviewing the documents Maria gave them and spent time on the phone with their support team in Ft. Myers, who were busy researching the accountant in San Luis Potosí. Hailey finally turned up a promising connection to Pavel—a dirty police officer who appeared to be involved with the cartel’s weapons buying process—but the lead quickly dissolved once they discovered that he had been murdered while eating at a local restaurant a month ago. Just before lunch, Ellie’s phone buzzed with a text. It was from Katie, asking her to call when she had a minute. After two hours of reviewing paperwork and staring at a computer screen, Ellie was due for a mental break. She stepped out of the office and dialed her sister.