by Ross Sidor
“My agents are armed,” Contreras answered, “but are only allowed to defend themselves, and we don’t have a FAST team in-country, so it’ll be a Mexican operation. Captain Padilla’s guys handle takedowns and raids.” He knew Avery wasn’t going to like this. “That’s simply how we do things here.”
The Mexican government didn’t permit the Americans to conduct offensive operations on Mexican soil and had strictly forbidden armed drones or a FAST team. DEA agents were permitted to carry firearms only for personal defense, the definition of which was sometimes pushed in certain situations. When it came to jurisdiction and American cooperation, the Mexican government was extremely protective of its turf.
“What about Felix’s shooters?” Avery asked.
Slayton exchanged looks with Contreras, who cleared his throat and said to Padilla, “Of course that’s up to you, Hector.”
“I’ve worked with Captain Aguilar on training exercises. His input on operational matters is always welcome. Since we are in pursuit of Colombian terrorists, I acknowledge it may be prudent to defer to his men and expertise. Given the threat Miss Moreno presents, I’m unconcerned if she should be taken alive, and if anyone has a shot at her, they should take it.”
Padilla’s next comments were directed to Avery.
“I’ll be blunt. I realize this is an unusual situation, and there is much at stake, so I’m willing to grant you a certain amount of latitude. Frankly, I do not care what you do with this woman when we find her, but I have authority here. Nobody launches an independent operation within Mexican borders. You will take no action without my explicit consent, and I will not tolerate any interference in Federal Police operations or investigations. My word is final on all operational matters. You might be here unofficially, but that doesn’t mean you are free to do whatever you please.”
Basically, Padilla was going to allow Avery and Aguilar some leeway to operate on Mexican soil, so long as they kept their sights strictly on the Viper and stayed in line, but if anything went wrong, they’d bear the brunt of it.
Under the circumstances, it was a lot better deal than Avery had expected.
But then Padilla had experience fighting a dirty, unconventional enemy, and he likely understood that civilized rules didn’t always apply. There were political considerations, too. The Mexican government didn’t want word getting out that Mexico was being used as a transit point for international terrorists. So if the Viper could be discretely eliminated, then so much the better.
“I can live with that,” Avery said.
NINETEEN
An hour later, after arriving at the Federal Police’s regional ops center, Captain Padilla shared his team’s surveillance photos of the target site, and maps of the surrounding streets.
Located near the airport, in a small outdoor strip mall that included a Subway and Domino’s, Café de la Flor was busy with tourists and popular among locals looking for a quick meal. The café offered outdoor seating beneath a terrace, allowing for quick street access, and was also just minutes’ away from a junction of two major highways near the airport. The mall itself occupied a space of some one thousand by four hundred feet, with parking all around the exterior. A wide outdoor walkway cut through the center of the mall, providing pedestrian access to stores and shops, including Café de la Flor.
Silva’s meeting was set for 1:30PM, giving Padilla’s cops and the DEA agents plenty of time to move their assets into place overnight. In the meantime, Contreras’s informant would update them if Arturo Silva’s schedule changed.
Three hundred feet north of the target, across Alberto Limon Padilla Boulevard, a dual carriageway with a central barrier dividing the eastbound and westbound lanes, was the Gamma Tijuana de Fiesta Inn, where Contreras’s agents and Padilla’s officers had already acquisitioned two connecting rooms to establish their tactical command center. The rooms were on the third floor, on the south side of the main building, overlooking the highway and the target area. Padilla and Contreras planned to discretely move people and equipment into the rooms through the night and early morning.
From what Avery saw so far, the Mexican end of the operation was being kept fairly small and was professionally run. Padilla didn’t involve or brief the regional branch of the State Judicial Police. There often existed rivalry and tension between the Federal and Judicial polices, and it wasn’t always clear which agency had jurisdiction in investigating a particular crime, so the agencies tended to operate unilaterally. Padilla openly brushed off Tijuana’s State Judicial Police by saying half of them worked for the cartels and the other half were the thugs of Tijuana’s corrupt governor, and the other men enjoyed scoffing at the expense of their sister service.
The Federal Police are an aggressive preventive law enforcement agency. Its officers are heavily armed with military-grade weapons and wear SWAT- style fatigues. They have been on the frontlines of the Mexican drug war, with authorization to use preemptive lethal force against the cartel leaders.
For additional back up, Padilla called in a favor to arrange for a GAFE assault element with helicopter support to be on standby at Tijuana Airport, just three minutes away.
If Arturo Silva’s guest was identified as a Viper operative—Avery doubted that Arianna Moreno would personally come this far into the city alone to meet Silva—then Padilla was content to let the DEA and the Colombians have him. His officers had enough on their plate with their own enemies, and Padilla didn’t care to take responsibility for Colombian terrorists. In fact, Padilla cared little for what happened to Moreno. First and foremost, he wanted Arturo Silva.
The objective was to identify Silva’s associate, stay on both subjects, and interdict them somewhere less populated, where there existed lesser risk of potential civilian casualties if the situation escalated. There was a lot that could go wrong if guns were drawn at the mall, and Padilla stressed that he had zero tolerance for so-called collateral damage, especially from what he called overeager, gun slinging American cowboys. Civilian lives, Padilla stressed, were to be protected at all costs. If Silva couldn’t be taken alive, Padilla ordered his officers to kill him on sight.
After the briefing, Avery and Aguilar were delivered to the makeshift command center at the Gamma Tijuana de Fiesta Inn, where they became acquainted with the other American and Mexican agents on the task force.
Meanwhile, Abigail Benning set up her Stingray gear in the back of a DEA surveillance van, which was then positioned a block from the target location. She’d have the IMSI-catcher running so that if either Silva or the Viper agent made a call, she’d know who they were talking to, and then triangulate that person’s location.
That night Avery slept on a small, narrow, uncomfortable cot set up in one of the Federal Police’s suites while the Mexicans worked in shifts overnight to continue running surveillance on the target area and plan tomorrow’s operation. Despite the bits of metal poking and prodding his sides, the blaring TV, and the conversation of the DEA agents and Mexican cops six feet away, Avery managed five hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep.
Aguilar woke him up at ten, and they ventured out on foot.
The morning was warm, breezy and sunny. They stopped at Subway and ate at a table near the windows offering eyes on Café De la Flora fifty feet away. They took their time eating sandwiches with salty, rubbery meat, and watched people coming in and out of the café, and familiarized themselves with the environment.
The herd of people died out near 11:00AM, and then Avery and Aguilar followed the sidewalk down the narrow gap between Café de la Flora on the west and Roots, a larger bar and restaurant on the east, allowing them to scope out the former’s sidewalk terrace seating. Both establishments were nearly empty now as their respective staffs prepared for the lunch crowd.
“What do you think?” Avery asked as they walked back to the hotel several minutes later.
“It’s a good spot,” Aguilar said. “No one can leave the target without us seeing them, and we’ll have assets po
sitioned to intercept our targets whichever direction they go. There’ll be heavy pedestrian traffic, which is good and bad. It’ll be easier for our watchers to blend in, but it does increase the potential for casualties.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that.” But Avery knew that in Mexico it often came to that. “Padilla’s guys aren’t going to move in on the targets here unless something goes wrong.”
“I have confidence in Padilla’s people. You really don’t need to worry.”
“Sure.” Avery would reserve judgment until he saw Padilla’s men in action for himself. “But the cartel won’t give a fuck if anyone gets in their way. They’ll waste everyone here if they need to.”
By 1:00PM everyone was in position.
Padilla’s assault unit waited in a panel van in the north side parking lot. Undercover agents were scattered around the mall. Contreras sat with a female DEA agent in the café, posing as a couple having lunch. They occupied a corner table under the terrace, and Contreras had a miniature, short range directional microphone concealed beneath the table, transmitting to the DEA surveillance vehicle, where Padilla and Slayton were waiting.
Marked police cars with uniformed officers waited across the highway, on the dirt field behind the Gamma Tijuana de Fiesta Inn. Like the assault unit, these officers were equipped with body armor over their gray fatigues, and submachine guns.
Avery and Aguilar, each wearing different clothing now to decrease the chances of anyone recognizing them from earlier, were seated at a table in Roots, directly east of the target, from where they had a clear line of sight through the tinted windows and across the narrow sidewalk into the café’s terrace seating area, about thirty-five feet away.
Aguilar ordered a torta and rice, to make them look natural and not like suspicious dickheads sitting there for no reason. Avery’s Glock was holstered beneath a blue windbreaker, and Aguilar’s Beretta was at his hip, concealed by his half-open jacket, with the safety off and 9mm Parabellum chambered.
At 1:13PM, two Mexican men arrived at Café de la Flor and took a table under the terrace. They sipped their water, and didn’t even pretend to peruse the menu. They were all business. Their eyes stayed on the entrance to the café and the pedestrians on the exterior sidewalk ten feet away. From their body language and sense of purpose, and the clothing layered to easily conceal their firearms, they practically screamed cartel gunmen.
The tables beneath the terrace continued to fill up over the next fifteen minutes, and there were more wait staff on the floor now, seating patrons, re-filling glasses, and balancing plates as they made their way to and from the kitchen. The other diners who noticed them knew better than to look at them.
Ten feet from the cartel men, a family of five, including two unruly adolescent children, ordered their meals. Behind them sat a couple in their twenties who couldn’t take their eyes off each other, and to the left of them was a table of three middle aged men in business attire speaking animatedly about real estate development, each fighting to get a word in over the others. Near Contreras and his partner, a group of elderly Mexicans sat down.
Scents and smells emanating from the grill filled the air. As the terrace became more populated, the noise level picked up. Everyone’s conversations blended together in the ears of the surveillance team.
Contreras did a check on his miniature directional mike, making sure it worked as advertised, and was able to discern and separate the young couple’s conversation as they debated whether they should wait for their meal or go straight to her apartment, or his car.
Six minutes later, outside, a Federal Police officer in plainclothes reported the arrival of a Lincoln MKS in the parking lot. When a man climbed out of the rear passenger seat, the cop recognized Arturo Silva on sight.
Silva was accompanied by two other men, bodyguard types. One followed Silva into the café while the other remained behind the wheel of the MKS with the engine running. He was backed into the parking spot, so that he could accelerate forward and quickly get out, while also being able to keep eyes on the entrance to the café and the sidewalk.
At their table in Roots, Avery and Aguilar listened to the radio updates filtering in through their earbuds. They watched Silva emerge from the café interior under the terrace. Silva quietly acknowledged the pair of cartel men already present, and then took another table with his bodyguard.
Avery exchanged looks with Aguilar.
Both men were thinking the same thing; five tangos on site and no sign of the Viper agent.
They’d also caught a good glimpse of Silva’s friends. Avery and Aguilar, both being military men, determined from the Mexicans’ straight backs, confident poises, trim physiques, and intent gazes that they too were likely military, which meant Los Zetas. Like typical cartel shooters, they looked like they were ready for a fight, which, combined with the number of civilians about, was bad news. These guys shot first at the slightest provocation and asked no questions.
Four minutes later, another update came in from one of the DEA watchers. A vehicle had just pulled into the south side parking lot outside Subway. Two men got out and walked north.
In Roots, Aguilar stood up. Patting down his pockets, he announced to Avery, without overdoing it, while expressing the appropriate frustration, that he’d left his phone in the car. The comment was for the benefit of anyone amongst the other patrons who might be watching.
Aguilar went out the door and turned left, going south down the sidewalk between the two restaurants. Walking casually, but purposefully, eyes up and straight ahead, he passed the two new arrivals as they went through the entrance of Café de la Flora. He assessed one of the men as being another Zeta soldier, but, even though he caught barely a two second glance at the man’s face, he easily recognized the taller, older bearded man from the dossiers Daniel provided.
Once out of earshot of the two men, Aguilar tilted his head to speak into his throat mike and confirm the presence of Carlo Ibarra. Aguilar used Ibarra’s tan jacket and graying beard as an identifier for the other members of the team.
Aguilar returned to Avery’s table in Roots ten seconds later.
Thirty-feet away, across the sidewalk, in Café de la Flora, Ibarra’s back was to Avery and Aguilar, and their view was partially obscured by other patrons, but they still had clear line of sight on Arturo Silva, who sat across from Ibarra, facing him. They could easily read Silva’s facial expressions and body language as he gesticulated. He was all business, and Ibarra kept interrupting, shaking his head and gesturing with his hands, obviously on edge and disagreeing about something.
In the surveillance van, Slayton and Padilla listened to the audio feed from the Contreras’s parabolic mike. Ibarra and Silva used vague terms, no specific mention of the Viper or SA-24, but they discussed business, talking about prices and making a delivery to California. To any innocent person seated nearby and overhearing snippets of the conversation, they could have been talking about anything.
Finally, after another fifteen minutes, Arturo Silva and Carlo Ibarra seemed to reach an agreement, though the latter didn’t appear quite as pleased as his Mexican host did. Instead, Ibarra’s face showed a look of resignation.
Both men pulled out their cell phones and placed calls; Ibarra to the Viper, informing her of the agreed price, while Silva called Carlos, who was still watching the Colombian Gulfstream sitting on the desert airstrip, to notify him that the deal was going through and that their client was to be given safe transit over the border.
From the Geo Cell’s surveillance van, Abigail Benning’s team registered both numbers on Stingray, and then went to work to trace the locations of the numbers they’d called.
At Tijuana International Airport’s military section, Contreras’s agents were standing by with un-armed Predator reconnaissance drones to deploy if and when Benning gave them the coordinates.
Then, the unexpected happened, as it invariably did when something was going just too smoothly. An overworked and overstressed
waitress with an overloaded tray of food and drinks carefully maneuvered through the packed floor space of Café de la Flora’s terrace seating, navigating the narrow aisles between the closely packed tables.
As the family of five stood up from their table, preparing to leave, a six year old boy giggled, abruptly and excitedly turned, and ran directly into the waitress’s path. They collided. The serving tray, balanced in one hand, tilted. The waitress brought up her other hand to save the tray as dishes and glasses slid along the inclined surface. She managed to save the tray itself, but not all of its contents. A full pitcher of water went through the air, overturned, and hit the table where the pair of undercover DEA agents was seated, while a bowl of chips flipped in midair, hit the floor, and scattered.
The commotion at once commanded everyone’s attention. Heads turned in the direction of the waitress, who struggled to control her anger, and eyes then shifted from her to the couple, a Hispanic male and a Caucasian female, seated there.
Contreras had pushed his chair back, an automatic reaction to prevent the spilled ice water from pouring into his lap. In the process, his legs parted and the miniature microphone positioned in his lap, beneath a napkin, fell to the floor.
Carlo Ibarra’s eyes locked onto the small dish attached to the black handheld grip exposed on the floor. He frowned, and felt his heart skip a beat. He heard Silva’s voice calmly giving orders to his men, but tuned out his words. When Ibarra glanced up, he met Contreras’s gaze staring right back at him. Ibarra watched as Contreras then tilted his head and spoke into his shirt.
In the adjacent bar, before he was able to piece together what had just taken place, Avery heard the yell in his earbud from Contreras that they were compromised.
“What the fuck is going on over there?” Avery thought out loud to Aguilar, fighting to maintain a calm, external face.
