The Watchman of Ephraim (Book Club Edition)

by Gerard de Marigny

  De Niro had to chuckle.

  “How could anyone forget Freddy?”

  “Yeah, exactly, well Freddy knows everything there is about stealing cars. Back before he was known as Fat Freddy he was known as Fast Freddy …’cause of how fast he could hot wire a car. I remember one time—“

  “John, can you get to the point?!” Ricci suggested.

  “I was, Mugs! Well, Freddy told me that car thieves nowadays transport stolen cars fitted with GPS tracking units inside REEFERS to block the GPS signal!”

  To his delight, Francis could see the light bulbs going off in everyone’s head as he continued, “Guys and ladies, what if the reason we lost Garcia’s GPS signal is because he, or at least his phone, is still on that truck!”

  Ricci thought about it for a moment then walked over and extended his hand to Francis who shook it.

  “We still need to talk about procedures … but … you did good Johnny-F!”

  Despite orders from Ricci, Michelle Wang looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Johnny-F’s hunch gave her new vigor though, as she turned to Karla Matthews.

  “Karla, were you able to turn anything up from our friends at Homeland Security?”

  Matthews passed around copies of a sheet.

  “Cris, I emailed to you what I just passed around.”

  “Got it,” De Niro replied.

  “I was able to get a complete list of businesses, real estate and other holdings suspected to be wholly or partially owned by the Pacifico cartel in Mexico. My contact at HSA asked me if I could tell him the reason for the request so he could narrow the parameters, but I declined, so as you can see, it’s quite a big list. I’m not sure how much it’ll help you prepare a rescue mission though, Charley. They seem to own just about every type of business and they also own everything from mansions to apartment buildings to farms located from one side of Mexico to the other!”

  Ricci handed his sheet to Debbie Lynch and asked her to project it onto the screen.

  “Well, we may be able to narrow it down at least a little, if we take Johnny-F’s hunch as fact. If Agent Garcia is on that reefer and if that reefer got on the National Highway heading south let’s identify any of these holdings that are north, due east or due west and cross them out. Debbie, leave the sheet on the screen and begin to cross out the ones that we know aren’t south.”

  Santappia leaned back in his chair, “Mugs that’ll still probably leave too many to be of any help to me and my people.”

  “I know Charley, but I’ll leave it up to you and Michelle to try and use your instincts to narrow the list down even more. Think of places they would either want to hold Garcia hostage at … or dispose of his body.”

  “That could possibly allow us to omit any buildings with too many people around, like the apartment buildings and stores,” Wang added.

  Ricci nodded, “Exactly. Keep me advised of your progress. Okay, if there’s nothing else, great work John and Karla. Thank you everyone.”

  After everyone filed out, leaving only Ricci and Debbie Lynch in the conference room, De Niro was still on the screen and asked, “What do you think, Mugs?”

  “I think Johnny-F is gonna be a real trial when it comes to following procedures!”

  De Niro laughed, “There never was a rule that boy couldn’t find a way to break, even when we were kids.”

  “I’ll say this though. He’s the smartest guy in the room, no doubt about that! He’s going to be an extremely valuable asset to us, Cris, going forward. You made a great call hiring him.”

  “He didn’t need the job or the money, Mugs. He accepted because he’s a patriot, something to keep in mind …the next time he doesn’t follow a procedure.”

  De Niro saw his brother-in-law nod in agreement.

  “What about Garcia, Mugs, do you think we know enough now to find him?”

  Ricci shook his head, “I don’t think so Cris, not yet anyway. Everything we’re going on is still supposition. We’re gonna need a break …or a miracle to find him.”

  De Niro thought he knew his next answer, but he wanted to ask him anyway.

  “Do you think Garcia’s still alive?”

  Ricci shot a look over at Debbie Lynch. She shook her head, in agreement.

  “No, I don’t Cris, but we may learn a lot from his death, if we can find his body.”

  It made De Niro shutter with frustration. I wanted The Watchman to save lives … and already we may have lost one! I didn’t even get a chance to meet him!

  “Mugs, was he married?”

  Ricci saw Lynch bite her lip from sadness.

  “Yeah Cris, he was. He had two kids with one on the way. I won’t speak to his wife until we either find him, dead or alive, or I decide that we will never find him … and I’ll have to decide that soon.”

  Two kids with one on the way … just like I was … he’s even about the same age I was when I lost Lisa! I’ll make sure his wife and kids are taken care of, it’s the least I can do, if he’s dead.

  “Well, if he’s alive, let’s get him back Mugs and if he’s not, let’s make sure his death was not in vain!”

  “Understood,” Ricci replied then De Niro disappeared from the screen.

  Chapter 20

  “Narcogranja de Pacifico” (Drug Farm owned by Pacifico Cartel)

  20 miles northeast of the city

  Iguala de la Independencia, Mexico

  2:30p.m., Friday, July 15, 2011

  Like all truckers, Pedro hated waiting around, but one thing he knew, when a man like Tuco Ramirez tells you to do something, you do it, no questions asked. Pedro still considered himself primarily a trucker, even though he was recruited by the cartel over a decade ago and had murdered for them many times since. Most of the people he had murdered up to then, he did so by shooting them in the back of their heads, with the victims wearing blindfolds. In order to live with the morality of his actions, he considered them executions, like those carried out by governments and after all, the drug cartels were like governments unto themselves - to him and most others, anyway. They were richer than many countries and they had bigger standing armies than some countries too. So in a way, he was just obeying orders from the government who controlled his ability to stay alive, but this last one was different. This man wasn’t kneeling in front of his own grave like the others, one they would have made him dig for himself. He wasn’t blindfolded, in fact he was looking right into Pedro’s eyes, when Pedro pulled the trigger; and the bullet didn’t enter the back of his head, he’d shot him right between his eyes. Pedro had had trouble sleeping since he did the deed, mostly because whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the shocked expression on Jesus’ face as the bullet entered his brain.

  Pedro was ordered to drive over 600 kilometers south, to a large farm owned by the cartel. He had been there before to pick up loads of marijuana and other drugs that they grew and processed there, but this was the first time he was making a delivery. He had arrived there early Wednesday afternoon but Tuco himself told him that he had to wait, so he plugged his reefer into a portable generator to keep the trailer chilled to 34-degrees Fahrenheit and then spent most of his time sleeping in the sleeper unit of his cab. He didn’t like to mix much with any of the cartel’s soldiers, so he only popped out of his cab to get something to eat from their cantina.

  He tried not to think too much about Jesus’ body wrapped in plastic, lying in that crate behind him but he knew he wouldn’t sleep much until he could get it off his truck. Finally, one of Tuco’s lieutenants knocked on the door of his cab and told him to get ready to follow a pickup truck that had pulled up in front of him. Tuco jumped out of his cab and unplugged his trailer from the generator, then jumped back up and started his rig. As soon as he shifted it into gear he waved that he was ready to go. The pickup led him down a dirt path about two kilometers and then turned onto an even narrower dirt path. Pedro tried his best not to let the overgrowth scratch his cab as he rolled slowly down the bumpy trail. Finally, the pickup
stopped ahead of him and four men jumped out of it.

  One of the men walked over to his cab and asked him to open his trailer. Pedro jumped down and could see that while the other three men had gotten shovels from the back of the pickup, the man that came over to his cab had a pistol tucked into his belt. Pedro unlocked and opened the trailer then the man with the gun jumped up into it. He walked over to the big crate and kicked it then turned to Pedro.

  (In Spanish) “Is this the one?”

  “Yes.”

  “We don’t want the crate; open it so we can get him out.”

  Pedro grabbed his crowbar and joined the man in the trailer. Once he pried the nails up, he stepped out of the way but the man with the gun told him to open the lid, so he did.

  Pedro looked down and saw the man, Jesus, the man he was told was a government agent, lying wrapped in plastic, just as he had left him. He could see signs that blood from his head wound had leaked out creating sort of a red blob where the man’s face should have been.

  The man with the gun barked orders to two of the other three men to grab the body and he told the third one to carry all of their shovels. Then he led everyone to a spot about 50 feet away from the trail, surrounded by overgrowth, that already had a deep whole dug in it with a large mound of the excavated dirt piled next to the hole. He stopped the two men just before they dropped the body in and turned to Pedro.

  “Give me the gun you used.”

  Pedro was hoping he could keep the pistol, as he bought it and the suppressor with his own money, but he knew better than to hesitate, so he took the pistol from the back of his pants and handed it to him. Then he took the suppressor from his pants’ pocket and handed that to him too.

  The man examined the pistol briefly, checking the clip to see if bullets were missing, then he threw the pistol and the suppressor into the hole. As soon as he did, he turned and started walking back to the trail, giving orders over his shoulder to the two men.

  “Drop him in and cover him up!”

  Pedro decided to remain with the men while they buried Jesus. He wasn’t filled with remorse. He knew he had to follow his orders, but he still didn’t like killing people. Pedro hadn’t been to church in awhile, but he thought it would be nice to say a prayer for the dead man and his family. He bowed his head, closed his eyes and folded his hands in front of him. Then he began to whisper to himself.

  “Father, forgive me for I have sinned—“

  His prayer was cut short when a large caliber bullet entered the back of his skull. His entire head exploded like a watermelon would, if it were dropped from a roof. Pedro’s body collapsed just short of the hole. The man with the gun was standing right behind him with smoke still pouring from the gun’s barrel. He used his legs to push Pedro’s body into the hole. One of the men with the shovel laughed.

  “I think he was praying!”

  The man with the gun tucked the weapon back into his belt, with no emotion showing on his face. He took his cell phone from his shirt pocket.

  “Well now he can talk to God face to face.”

  The man hit an auto-dial button.

  (In Spanish) “Tuco, I took care of it. What do you want me to do with his truck? … Okay, I’ll take it to Mexico City and have the cab painted and the trailer switched. Then I’ll assign another driver to it and send it back up to Monterrey.”

  He put his cell phone back in his pocket and addressed the men.

  “After you replace the dirt, I want you to transplant shrubs from nearby. I don’t want this hole to ever be found, understood.”

  Chapter 21

  The Watchman Agency

  Office of the President

  Arlington, Virginia

  4:55p.m., Friday, July 15, 2011

  Mugsy Ricci’s intercom buzzed. Johnny-F’s voice rang out.

  “Mugs, Garcia’s transponder just pinged our grid!”

  Ricci sprung up from his chair.

  “Are you sure? Is it confirmed?”

  “Yeah, we confirmed it. It’s definitely Agent Garcia’s transponder and it’s actively pinging now, it started just a few minutes ago.”

  “John, hold on.” He hit another intercom button, “Debbie, I want to see all department heads in Alpha immediately.” Then he patched back in with Francis, “John, I called everyone together in conference room alpha.”

  “Understood ...”

  Everyone took their seats. A moment later, Cris De Niro appeared on the big screen. Ricci spoke first.

  “Cris … everyone … Johnny-F and his team just confirmed that as of a few minutes ago, Agent Garcia’s transponder began transmitting again and it’s remained active.”

  “Where is he?!” asked Michelle Wang, a combination of relief and anxiety in her voice. “Is he … alive?”

  Francis typed into his laptop as he replied.

  “We haven’t been able to ascertain whether he’s alive or not. He’s not replying to our calls, emails, or text messages … but I can show you where the transponder is.”

  With that, he hit a key on his keyboard and instantly the conference room’s big screen split in two, with De Niro’s image on the left and a map of Mexico on the right. Francis walked everyone through.

  “The red dot is the location in Monterrey where the warehouse is and from where Agent Garcia last reported. And—“

  Francis hit another key on his keyboard.

  “That blue blinking dot is where the transponder is now located. It’s about 600 clicks south-southwest of Monterrey.”

  “John, can you superimpose the locations that Michelle and I narrowed down from that list of cartel holdings?” asked Santappia.

  “Sure,” Francis replied as he continued to type away. After a moment everyone saw about a dozen shaded areas of different sizes and shapes appear on the map. One of the largest shaded areas appeared directly over the blinking blue dot.

  Santappia pulled up the list on his laptop and matched one of the locations listed with the shaded area.

  “It looks like the transponder is located on a farm that’s owned by Pacifico. The farm is about 30 clicks north of the city of Iguala. That puts it approximately 150 miles from the western shore of Mexico, which would be our point of ingress, just south of Petatian. That is, if we can borrow your yacht and EC13513, Cris. Like the Captain said, I worked up plans to infiltrate all of the remaining locations and the one that I came up with for that farm is from the west with an escape route north by sea. Mugsy told me about the Santana with its chopper and I’m familiar with the 135. It has the range and there’s a relatively unpopulated corridor to the west of that farm. We can put down, undetected, behind foothills to the west then hoof it to the location.”

  De Niro checked his calendar. I knew it, I told David he could holiday on Santana for the weekend. I better call him.

  “Let me … get back to you on that.”

  “Is there a problem, Cris?” asked Ricci.

  “I promised a friend of mine that he could use Santana for the weekend. He’s a close friend and long time client from England. He was one of the first investors in my hedge fund, so in a way you can say that he helped me pay for Santana. He’s already on the yacht, I’ll have to break the news to him and call her back to port. I’ll try to reach him now. I’ll let you know.”

  De Niro disappeared from the screen as conversations broke out around the room.

  Ricci brought everyone back to order.

  “Karla, it’s imperative to keep Homeland and the Mexican government out of the loop with this operation, understood?”

  “Captain, the Mexican government would probably allow us to conduct this mission. They could make it easy for us to get in and out of there.”

  “It’s too risky, Karla. You’re right, there are some in their government who’d like to help us, but there are too many leaks and too many on the cartels’ payrolls.”

  Matthews thought then asked, “What about Homeland? Couldn’t they help us?”

  “Not without r
unning it up to State and once that happened we’d be ordered to stand down. We don’t want to find ourselves in that position, isn’t that right Les?”

  Pastak was sitting in a daze. His palms were sweaty and his heart was palpating. This is getting out of hand! What is Agent Garcia doing in the middle of a drug farm owned by one of the biggest drug cartels! I have to contact Fard now and find out if he had anything to do with it!

  “Les are you okay, you look sick.”

  Pastak broke out of his daze and noticed everyone looking at him.

  “No, I’m okay Captain, just something I ate for lunch …”

  “Okay, so am I right not to want Homeland involved? What’s your take?”

  “We absolutely DO NOT want Homeland involved! As a matter of fact, I’m not sure it’s a wise idea for us to even attempt a rescue!”

  Santappia came to full attention in his chair, “What are you saying Les, you think we should just leave Agent Garcia down there?”

  “I’m saying, Charley, that we don’t even know if he’s still alive. In fact, I think we all suspect that he’s not …and if he’s not, what do we gain by going down there?! Nothing but the risk of breaking about a dozen United States and Mexican laws! I think Michelle would even back me up on this – it’s not worth the risk!”

  Michelle Wang couldn’t hide her frustration, “I … agree with Les. It would be one thing to find him holding up in a hotel or hospital… even the morgue, but on a drug farm owned by one of the most dangerous drug cartels … I don’t have to tell you, Charley, they have armies of men guarding those places.”

  “What did I say, I told you Charley, even Michelle—“

  “Michelle doesn’t make that call,” Santappia snapped.

  “Well neither do you!” Pastak snapped back, shouting.

  Both men turned and looked at Ricci. He wanted to hear all of their arguments. Les and Michelle had the more reasonable point-of-view while Charlie was a Marine who didn’t want to leave anyone behind.