by Mike Maden
This was the smoking gun his division had been looking for.
The video was dark, shaky, and suffering the pangs of autofocus—the attack had been at night and the scene was lit primarily by a distant street lamp. Nevertheless, the video was generating quite a stir in the blogosphere. The video showed the two killers blasting away with their machine guns, death-metal music screaming in the background. Unfortunately, audio quality was poor because of the cheap microphone in the cell phone that shot the video.
Navarro located the video on the original Facebook post in question and dubbed a clean copy for the DEA’s use. Navarro then reflagged the El Paso automated-search packages in order to catch the rising tidal wave of interest in the video, now surging to several hundred hits and climbing by the minute. It was about to go viral.
At the same time, the search bots were also sifting through the comments on the video posted on various web, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook pages. Just like old-school serial killers needed to keep physical trophies of their gruesome work, psychopaths in the social-media age often uploaded video of their crimes—a kind of digital trophy.
Navarro now had the time to fiddle around with the video clip he’d just copied to his own hard drive. He majored in computer science as an undergrad, but he had taken a couple of filmmaking courses as electives, including a class on nonlinear editing where he had learned to use Final Cut Pro.
Navarro opened his copy of FCP and dropped the video clip into the timeline. He played around with the filters to improve the quality of the image, slowing the shaking and enhancing the sound. He then experimented with the zoom feature. He played the newly edited clip a half dozen times, alternately slowing or speeding the clip. Something began to strike him as odd about the two shooters.
Navarro had avidly followed the El Paso massacre story. He had an aunt and uncle who lived in that city, and two cousins who had recently graduated from the Frida Kahlo Arts Academy. Navarro stopped the video clip loop. Rewound it. He put the two killers right in front of the open doors of the Hummer and paused it again. He studied the shooters. Examined the Hummer again.
That was it.
Navarro snatched up his phone and speed-dialed his supervisor.
10
The White House, Washington, D.C.
President Myers sighed. It seemed as if each new closed-door meeting was more crowded than the last.
Seated around the table were DEA Administrator Nancy Madrigal and Attorney General Faye Lancet, who was the head of the DOJ, under which the DEA operated. The director of ICE, Pedro Molina, sat next to his boss, DHS Secretary Bill Donovan, one of Myers’s closest advisors. Bleary-eyed Sergio Navarro was also at the table seated next to his boss, Roy Jackson, the head of the DEA Intelligence Division. But the rest of Myers’s trusted inner circle was also in attendance, including Mike Early and, of course, Sandy Jeffers, seated to her immediate right. Dr. Strasburg sat strategically across from her.
Protocol, not preference, put the vice president on Myers’s immediate left. If it were up to her, Greyhill would have been seated in the men’s room.
Everyone had hot coffee or bottles of water and iPads on the table in front of them. They listened intently.
Jackson adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. He was a bookish, middle-aged African American just under six feet tall but well over three hundred pounds. He shifted in his chair, a nervous habit. The chair creaked under the enormous load. He picked up the video controller.
“One of my IAs, Sergio Navarro, brought this video to my attention just three hours ago. Whoever shot this was lucky they weren’t killed in the attack. We estimate they were standing about one hundred yards south of the north-facing vehicle at an oblique angle of approximately forty-five degrees. That meant the camera operator was out of the shooters’ line of sight, otherwise they likely would have been gunned down as well.”
“Any idea who shot the video?” Greyhill asked.
Jackson nodded at Navarro. He knew his IA was not only racked with fatigue but also intimidated by this morning’s briefing. The young analyst had never even met the DEA director before, let alone the president and other cabinet officials. But Navarro had made the discovery and Jackson wanted him to get the credit.
“The video was posted to Facebook under a pseudonym,” Navarro said. “I ran the sensor pattern noise profile against SPNs in our database, but we came up short.” SPNs were the unique digital fingerprint that every silicone chip embedded in a digital-camera image. “We’re still working on that.”
“Where was it posted from? Maybe that will give us a clue,” Greyhill suggested.
Navarro leaned forward. “That’s the interesting part. We can’t locate the server. We can’t even identify it. Pretty sophisticated firewall.”
“Isn’t that suspicious?” Myers asked.
“Not necessarily. Whoever posted it was smart enough to know that they would be the only material witness to the killing. They probably wouldn’t have posted it if they weren’t sure they couldn’t keep their identity secret,” Donovan said.
“Which makes them a prime target,” Early added.
Myers referenced her iPad. “What do these comments mean?” She was referring to the viewer posts on the Facebook page.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Spanish. I came up through the Russian desk,” Jackson said.
“You didn’t get them translated? There might be a clue,” Myers asked.
Jackson hesitated. “Actually, yes. Agent Navarro translated them for me. I have it on a separate report.”
“What do they say?” she demanded.
Jackson shook his head. “Just a bunch of crackpot comments. Vile. Not worth the time.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, Mr. Jackson. Read them aloud, please.”
Jackson reluctantly opened another file folder on his iPad and pulled up a sheet of translated comments. “Most of the names are nicknames or posted as ‘anonymous,’ but we’re running them down.” Jackson cleared his throat. “I’ll just start at the top, the most recent posts. The first one reads: ‘The whore’s son deserves it.’ Signed, RicoPico. The next one reads: ‘Man, I wish I had a gun like that. I’d kill me some gringos, too.’ Signed, PanchoVilla247. The third one reads: ‘What was he doing there anyway? Probably hitting the bong and banging his students.’ Signed, AztecaNacion. The next one reads—”
“Thank you, Mr. Jackson. I think I catch the drift. Please continue with your presentation.”
Jackson gratefully closed the document and pulled up the original presentation file folder. “We estimate the person shooting the video was between five ten and five eleven, judging by the height of the image, which means that the camera operator was most likely a man,” Jackson added.
“So I take it we have some good video footage?” Jeffers asked. He was growing impatient. He wanted to see the video.
“I’m afraid it’s not like the movies, sir,” Navarro said. “Most cell phones utilize poor-quality plastic lenses with a fixed focal length and no shutter, and this particular video was shot in extremely low resolution, only 480 dpi, probably because the cell phone was low on memory. The true cost for the whole camera on these phones is less than forty dollars, usually. So the overall image quality we have is very poor. I cleaned it up as best I could, but there just isn’t enough data there for us to enhance the image any further at the moment.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Greyhill said. “Maybe we can send the video on to the FBI lab and see what they can do with it.” He saw Director Madrigal tense up at his suggestion. “You DEA guys have enough on your plate without going into the video business.”
“I think we should see the video now,” Jeffers suggested. He dimmed the lights with a remote control. Jackson hit the play button on his video controller.
Everybody in the room turned their focus to the far wall screen. A title card read REAL
TIME, and then the clip began. The clip started with the Hummer already parked. The doors burst open immediately and the two killers leaped out, each cradling a shoulder-harnessed machine gun. The death-metal music blared in the room’s flush-mounted ceiling speakers.
The assassins advanced in lockstep, shouldered their weapons, took aim, fired. The machine-gun barrels flashed in controlled bursts. The speakers roared overhead so loud it was jarring.
“Sorry,” Jackson whispered in the dark as he thumbed the volume control down.
The cell-phone video camera had been in wide-shot mode. It caught the death of the first victims on the porch, the exploding plate-glass window, the house getting shot up. The camera tracked the killers marching onto the porch, then firing through the broken window until they were out of ammo, then high-fiving each other. The video clip cut to black. Total playing time was sixteen seconds and two frames.
Another title card appeared: HALF SPEED—MOS. Jackson froze the frame.
“In this clip, I would ask you to please observe the precision of the two shooters. Note the way they move, their target selection, their rate of fire.”
Jackson hit play again. The second clip started with the Hummer already parked, but this time the doors burst open in slow motion. The sound was cut out in this clip because the slow-motion effect distorted it too badly.
The two killers exited the Hummer as if they were stepping out of a space capsule into a weightless void that made the flickering, grainy images even more gruesomely surreal. The slow-motion flashes exploded out of the machine-gun suppressor ports like flaming stars, bursting and collapsing and bursting over and over again. The assassins’ slow, mechanical march toward the porch took forever, as did the emptying of the last rounds into the window. The video clip finally cut to black. Total playing time was thirty-two seconds and four frames.
“Mr. Jeffers, if you don’t mind,” Jackson asked.
The lights flicked on. Jeffers set the remote back down.
Jackson began to speak, but he noticed that the room sat in stunned silence. He realized this was the first time that any of them had seen the tape. He’d already reviewed it over a dozen times before the presentation so it no longer had an impact on him. He glanced around the room. It suddenly hit him.
He’d just forced the president of the United States to witness the murder of her own son. Twice. And in slow motion.
Jackson glanced over to his boss, Nancy Madrigal, for reassurance, but her eyes were focused on her hands clasped in her lap.
Myers stared at the blank screen. Her mouth was a thin scar on her emotionless face. Jackson saw the muscle flexing on her jaw line.
The other people around the table glanced mindlessly at their iPads, took sips of water, or pretended to take notes.
A few more agonizing moments passed.
“Madame President, I don’t know what to say,” Jackson stammered. “I’m so sorry.”
Myers turned toward Jackson. Her face softened. “There’s nothing to apologize for, Roy. I’m the one who asked to see the video. Your division has done an excellent job finding it and bringing it to our attention.”
“We’re just doing our jobs, ma’am.”
“So tell us, please, Mr. Navarro, what is the takeaway from these clips, particularly the second one we were asked to observe carefully?” Myers asked.
Navarro took a sip of coffee to clear his throat. “What’s clear to me is that these two men have received specialized training in weapons and tactics. These aren’t gangbangers running and gunning wild on the street.”
That was exactly Mike Early’s take on the flight to Denver. “So these are military or ex-military?” Myers asked.
“Not necessarily,” Navarro said. “I’m only suggesting they’ve received military-style training. I think they’re civilians.”
“Why?” Early asked.
Navarro pointed at his iPad. “If everyone will refer to the freeze-frame photo I pulled from the video—it’s on the first page of the upload I sent out.”
The others pulled up the photo in question. It showed the two masked assailants standing in front of the Hummer.
“The vehicle is a General Motors Hummer H2. The factory specs indicate that a stock H2 is 81.9 inches in height. But if you’ll notice, the tires are oversize, which means there’s a lift package on the suspension. Our best estimate is that another eight inches have been added to the overall height of the vehicle, so that puts it at just about seven and a half feet tall. Please notice where the heads of the two shooters are and that neither of them is standing fully erect. You can enlarge the photos on your screens, if you need to.”
“Wow. That means these guys are pretty tall. I’d guess around six three or six four,” Early offered.
“That’s our estimate, too,” Navarro said.
“So who are these men?” Donovan asked.
“They’re masked, wearing gloves. Combat gear. No visible skin, which means no visible scars or tattoos, if any exist. There weren’t any fingerprints or DNA on any of the shell casings or recovered bullets. It’s almost impossible to make a positive ID at this time,” Jackson said.
“You said ‘almost impossible’ to tell. I take it you have a hunch?” Myers asked.
“More than a hunch. As near as we can tell, these two men appear to be the same height and the same build, and their movements are highly synchronized, above and beyond any practiced training that they’ve had,” Jackson said.
“Synchronized in what way?”
“Like they’re used to doing things together a lot, or maybe even because they share the same build. Their movements are practically mirror images of each other.”
“You mean twins?” Early asked.
“Yes,” Jackson answered. “There are an estimated ten million identical twins in the world and one hundred and fifteen million fraternal twins.”
“Well, that really narrows it down,” Jeffers said.
“Technically, it does. That gets us down to less than three percent of the world’s population. Less than half of that if you only count adults, and half again if you discount women, which is probably a safe bet. Of course, there really is no way of telling who these men are precisely, but since we’re talking about El Paso, that’s Castillo Syndicate territory, and as it turns out, César Castillo has identical twin sons by the names of Aquiles and Ulises. According to records we’ve obtained through our counterparts in Mexico, the Castillo brothers are each six foot three.”
“And I take it we still don’t have any witnesses at the scene who will identify the twins as the shooters?” Greyhill asked.
“No, but Mr. Navarro was able to put them in the vicinity at the time of the incident,” Jackson said.
“How?” Myers asked.
“By pulling up traffic-camera images of both men in Juárez approximately three hours before and one hour after the incident.”
Myers frowned. “But not in El Paso?”
“No.”
“Were they seen inside the Hummer?”
“No. Nor were they in tactical gear. Either by accident or intent, they went to a location outside of traffic-camera range. There, they could have changed into tactical gear, stolen the Hummer, crossed the border, committed the shootings, crossed back over the border, ditched the Hummer and the tactical gear, then returned back to their own vehicle.”
“That’s a lot of ifs,” Greyhill said.
Jackson shrugged. “It’s not conclusive, but it’s another straw on the camel’s back.”
Donovan leaned forward. “So do you think the Castillo twins are the shooters?”
Jackson hesitated. “At the very least, they’re the prime suspects. And they certainly have the means, motive, and opportunity.”
Myers glowered at Jackson. “You were asked a straightforward question. The answer is either yes or no. Whi
ch is it, Mr. Jackson?”
Jackson glanced back at his boss, Nancy Madrigal. Are you sure you want to go through with this? Madrigal nodded in the affirmative. “From an intelligence perspective? The answer is yes. No question in my mind. But without further evidence, it seems to me it would be difficult to obtain a conviction in an American court of law.”
Myers turned to her attorney general. “Do you agree with Mr. Jackson’s legal opinion?”
Lancet leaned back in her chair, processing the president’s question. “A conviction would be difficult, yes, and probably impossible in an American court, based on the lack of hard admissible evidence. But the rules of evidence are one thing; the question of guilt is quite another. I agree with Mr. Jackson’s intelligence assessment. As a former prosecutor, my gut tells me these two men are the shooters. I’m just not sure what that gets us. The question now is, what do we do with this new information?”
“Same problem, same solution. We’ll hand our analysis off to the Mexican government and ask them to investigate further,” Myers said. “At the very least they can bring them in for questioning.”
“It’s one thing to ask the Mexicans to arrest a dealer or a shooter. It’s something else again to ask them to bring in the sons of César Castillo,” Madrigal said.
“I’m the first to admit I’m no expert on Mexican politics, but it seems to me that they would want to cooperate on this matter, just out of a sense of human decency if nothing else. They’ve partnered with us on the drug war for years. All we’re asking for is further investigation. What am I missing?” Myers asked.
All eyes turned to Dr. Strasburg, who’d been as silent as a Buddha until now.
“Madame President, your counterpart, President Antonio Guillermo Barraza, was also just recently elected to office. And like you, he narrowly won a hotly contested race, and he prevailed, in part, because he promised, like you, to give his people a respite. Mr. Molina, would you please tell the president about the AFI?”
The ICE director nodded. “The first thing President Vicente Fox did when he was elected in 2001 to combat the pervasive corruption within the Mexican law enforcement community was to form the AFI, the Agencia Federal de Investigación, the equivalent of our FBI, which actually trained and equipped the AFI. The AFI became the premier antidrug agency in Mexico. But the Mexicans recently dissolved the AFI, which sent a powerful signal to the drug cartels that Mexico intends to stop seriously prosecuting the drug war against them. We suspect cash was probably exchanged in the deal, and maybe even a truce brokered. President Obama’s ‘Dream’ executive order also ended deportation of young illegals, which sent another powerful signal to the cartels: you can start sending your mules across the border again.”
