by Frank Perry
convey your thoughts, Hunter.”
“Okay, but try to do it in a way that lets her see the benefit to her re-election. What other new platform does she really have? I think you’d be handing her the votes.”
Willis wanted to play a more seasoned role, but started to appreciate Hunter’s council. Thanks Leigh!
They adjourned and Willis said he would call back in a day or two.
Outside the building, Hunter found an open bench in the park leading down to Union Station and called Leigh to report.
“So, Hunter, did Willis bite?”
“I don’t know, Leigh. I don’t think he understands the political angle I gave him.”
She chuckled. “A lot of them don’t understand, that’s why most stay a year and leave in frustration. Some of us learn to speak the language and get to make a career out of it.”
Hunter cupped his hand over the phone, protecting it from the afternoon breeze under the trees that was moderating the heat. “He wasn’t too impressive.”
“Alright, Hunter. Go back to your office and let’s look again at the House side. In the meantime, I’ll call Amy Letourneau. She’s Blithe’s Washington Staff Director. I’ve known Amy for twenty years, and I’ll fill her in.”
“Don’t we give Willis a chance?”
“She doesn’t work like that. She’s cool and will know Willis’ inexperience. She’ll just have a private conversation with Blithe.”
“You know, Leigh, I could never replace you here.”
“I’m not worried, Hunter. You’re not the kind of guy who would stay in DC. You have too much integrity, and I see you more as an action guy.”
He smiled. “As smooth talking as always – thanks, Leigh.”
The Proposition
Mohamed (Mojo) Al-Zeid, born Franklin Redding, was the largest drug distributor in Los Angeles. Working with East LA street gangs, he imported cheap cocaine manufactured in Nicaragua and managed an army of dealers, mostly illiterate Mexicans. His empire had grown in the east to include Ohio, Missouri and parts of Texas and Oklahoma. He had been careful to avoid competing directly with the Peña organization that controlled western territories outside LA. Both Peña and Al-Zeid avoided direct confrontation, but there were occasional conflicts between their dealers when they tried to expand into common areas. Biggest firepower always won.
As a youth, Mojo was expelled from Montebello High School for distributing small amounts of cocaine, using street-gang friends. One of his trade education teachers, who introduced Mojo to a cousin in the Tijuana Cartel, went to prison for drug dealing. After he was expelled, Mojo became a full-time drug distributor.
He soon became the major drug supplier to the LA gangs operating openly by selling barely above his cost, cornering the market in the nineties. He didn’t bypass the Mexican cartels as Peña did with his own ships, and didn’t make the profits Peña could command, but he competed well based on a low-price strategy. In just over ten years, his gross sales were approaching Peña’s, even if his profits were less.
After ten years, Mojo was moving hundreds of kilos of cocaine worth more than a million dollars in a single day. He undercut other dealers and built a criminal empire that spread throughout the Midwest. He spent two years of a three-year prison sentence at Chino State Prison, but managed to keep his grip on the territory and actually grew it, while managing his business from behind bars. It was rumored, but never proven, that some of the prison guards were on his payroll.
He learned how to avoid prosecution after his prison experience. His “office” was now in the back of a stretched black Hummer limousine with blackened windows. The car was specially built to his specifications with half-inch-thick bulletproof windows. They could protect against high-power rifle bullets, hammers, baseball bats, axes, etc. All side and roof panels had special bulletproof Kevlar fabric layered inside and the floor was structured to protect against grenades and other explosives. The gas tank and battery were relocated and armor-protected against explosion. The seven-hundred horsepower engine was protected on all sides, and the tires had solid cores.
Communications were state-of-the-art wireless with both microwave and satellite capabilities. There was a specially-designed console with television, video conferencing, internet, telephone and dedicated two-way communications. Everything was capable of being encrypted.
Mojo normally travelled with two guards in the driver’s compartment and a single body guard in the back who also managed the communications console. Automatic rifles and handguns were stored under the seats. Another custom feature, removed for mandatory state vehicle inspections, were fore and aft machineguns that fired from hidden compartments behind the license plates. The command console provided video weapon sights and reticules for remote aiming and firing of both guns. Ahead of the console was a private compartment with a bar and foldout bed. Except for brief stints at his hillside house, overlooking the ocean in Palos Verde, and his ranch in Nevada, Mojo spent most days cruising the streets around LA, always in motion.
Mojo hated to fly but also owned a newer GulfStream business jet with transcontinental capability, complete with a full bath and bedroom. Today, they drove in caravan with a second armored car from Los Angeles on a seven-hour trip along I-80 to Calexico. It was a small California town, just across the border from Mexicali, the Baja California state capital. Mexicali was the main portal for cocaine shipments to his Al-Zeid gang. One of the keys to Mojo’s success was to keeping his Mexican operations away from the larger drug portals passing through Jaurez and Tijuana.
Mojo had a small gang in Calexico, led by Luis Chavez, to smuggle the drugs around U.S. Customs and Border Patrol personnel stationed at the border crossing. Originally, the Chavez gang would send the entire shipment to Los Angeles for Mojo’s people to repack and send to his mid-point distributors around the country. But for the past three years, as the size of the Al-Zeid cartel grew, shipping was done directly from Calexico, by Chavez, to the distributors farther east. Mojo never liked Chavez nor trusted him. The two-time convicted felon had no loyalty. Over the past year, small amounts of the shipments through Mexico were missing from the shipments sent across country. Chavez had been smart in the beginning by only cutting from the gang in Kansas City, and Mojo made changes there. But then other distributors were coming up short and Mojo figured Chavez was the thief. It could have been some of Chavez’s men, but Chavez was in charge and therefore guilty of stealing from Mojo. In the drug trade, there are no punitive or minor corporal punishment rules.
The trip to Calexico was timed to coincide, more or less, with Mojo’s routine visits to bring money to pay his Lieutenants and his gang. The meeting with Chavez always happened at an unused collective produce warehouse south of El Centro.
As Mojo’s caravan arrived, the rusted chain link gate was open as expected. The warehouse was actually a large open metal roof structure supported by tall creosote poles around the perimeter and down the center, about the size of a football field. The five-acre parking area was bordered with chain link fencing, overgrown with tumbleweed. The ground was unpaved, and tires threw up huge dust clouds driving to the back of the lot. The second black car turned white behind Mojo’s limo.
Chavez and six gunmen were leaning casually against their pickups when Mojo stopped fifty yards away. Chavez and his gang moved slowly toward the caravan, but stopped forty yards away, too far for effective handgun fire. All of Mojo’s men formed together by the limo, before he opened the door and stepped into the blazing desert sun. It was more than a hundred degrees.
Mojo was wearing black slacks and a glimmering silver dress shirt, open at the collar to display an auspicious collection of gold chains. He was a tall man, over six-one, muscular, with a gleaming shaved head. He wore huge dark glasses to reduce glare after the subdued interior lighting.
Four men aligned on either side of him, stepping in cadence as he walked toward the Calexico gang, stopping twenty yards away.
/>
Mojo smiled, showing his perfectly capped, unnaturally white teeth. Hi raised his hand in a weak gesture. “Hola, Lois.”
Chavez didn’t move. “Hola Señor. Dónde está el dinero (where’s the money)?”
Mojo stood erect without expression. “We have something to talk about, Luis.”
Most of Chavez’s men understood English well enough to be alarmed.
Chavez stood defiantly with both hands to his sides, leaning slightly right. He was much shorter, but heavier than Mojo. He wore dirty jeans and a faded open-collar cotton shirt with buttons stretched near breaking down the front. His round face was scarred on both sides and long black hair laid slick across his forehead, disguising another vicious burn, rumored to be from a branding iron. He was in his late-thirties, Mojo’s age, which qualified as a senior citizen in the drug trade.
He answered, “What is that, Jefe?”
Mojo glanced both ways at his me, who drew handguns from shoulder holsters under black sport coats. Chavez’s men were all unarmed and started backing, but their boss stood fast. Mojo answered, “Luis, you’ve been a bad boy.
Chavez sneered. “What you mean, black boy?”
“I mean you been skimmin’ from me.”
“Prove it!”
“You see, Luis. That’s the part about my job that’s easy. I
