2300 Paseo Verde
Henderson, Nevada
Hector DeSantos peered out the window, then made an adjustment with the cyclic and collective controls and guided the helicopter into a gentle descent toward the Las Vegas countryside. He hovered fifty feet above his target, then slowly dropped onto the center of a grassy knoll. The helipad was encircled by a decomposed granite path, bordered by wooden benches and decorative lamps.
The Green Valley Ranch Station Casino was a resort in every sense—but it also served law enforcement as a staging area when the need arose. The helipad, composed of well-tended and close-cropped putting green grass, sat at the far end of the complex’s recreation quad.
Upon liftoff from Clover Creek, Vail had explained the task force’s decision to Turino. Turino absorbed her comments without reply, but his face conveyed a look she was unable to read—other than that it wasn’t full of warm fuzzies.
DeSantos powered down the Huey, then followed Vail, Dixon, Mann, and Turino as they met up with an individual who identified himself as DEA Special Agent Mark Clar. The agent ushered them away from the helipad, briskly walking past a hand-laid rock retaining wall and down a tan gravel path.
After passing the spa building on the right, Vail looked ahead—and all around them in a semicircle, for that matter—and took in the splendor of the Spanish tiled six-story resort, highlighted by strategic and dramatic lighting.
To her left, a security booth was manned by a heavyset guard dressed in a lime green shirt and black pants. He nodded as they passed, then spoke into his handheld radio.
The group ran up the two flights of stairs and entered the hotel. They followed Clar to a generous central hallway with a black and gold lighted sign suspended from the ceiling that directed guests to their desired conference room. They passed El Viento, La Cascada, and La Sirena, then stopped beside a room with a wood-framed sign that read “La Luna.” Below the name, an embedded LCD screen displayed images of the room and of the Green Valley Ranch property.
Clar pulled open the right wooden door and motioned them inside.
“Not bad,” Dixon said. “Nice job, Clar.”
“They take good care of us. Fortunately we don’t need to impose too often. But when we do,” he let the door close behind him and shrugged, “we get amenities like this.”
In the center of the room—which shared the design scheme of the corridors—sat a large rectangular table, a red tablecloth spread across it, with gold ruffled sides that stopped just above the carpet. Burgundy chairs stood lined up alongside, and overturned crystal glasses rested in front of each seat, accompanied by notepads and pens.
Suspended above the table was a candelabra with two dozen lamp-shaded bulbs. Against the far wall of the square room was a retractable ceiling-mounted projection screen. A white board on a wood stand rested off to the side. Various pieces of AV equipment sat nearby, at the ready, like a standing army.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Vail said. “Can we get started?”
“The ASAC of the DEA Vegas district office is due any minute,” Clar said. “ASACs Yardley and Gifford are en route, as well. I can touch on a few things, but I’d rather wait for—”
Before he could finish his thought, the doors swung open and in walked a dark-suited woman and man.
The woman’s eyes raked the room, taking in each member of the task force. “I’m Deborah Ruth, Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge, Vegas district office. I take it you’ve already met Special Agent Clar,” she said with a flick of her head toward the man. “Which one of you is Agent Turino?”
“That’d be me.” Turino made introductions to the other individuals. They exchanged nods and stares and half waves.
“Okay,” Ruth said. “I have information for you—for all of you. While you were en route, Agent Sebastiani de Medina received a phone call. Sebastiani—” The door swung open again and in walked Sebastian, followed by Thomas Gifford and Peter Yardley. Ruth pursed her lips. “Excellent timing.” She made sure Gifford, Yardley, and Sebastian were acquainted with the others.
Sebastian looked healthier and stronger than the last time Vail had seen him. From his demeanor, he seemed fully recovered from his ordeal.
“If I may,” Sebastian said to Ruth. He received a nod of approval and said, “About an hour ago, I got a call from a man identifying himself as Sandiego Ortega. Ortega is a lieutenant in the Villarreal cartel. He was talking quickly, said he only had a minute before his partner returned.” Sebastian turned to Vail. “He tried calling you, but it went to voice mail.”
Vail’s hand went to her BlackBerry. “I was in the air.” She pulled the phone and saw the missed call. Shit. But she realized she now had the man’s phone number, so all was not lost.
“Gist was that he had Robby, and that he was safe. He wanted to broker a deal for his return.”
“A deal?” Turino asked. “Cartels don’t make deals for—”
“He wants witness protection. Says he has valuable information for us on Villarreal and Cortez. If we agree to WITSEC, he’ll give us what he’s got and testify against his boss. And he’ll guarantee Robby’s safe return.”
“Why the hell would he do that?” Dixon asked. “He’s gotta know it’s a death sentence.”
“I asked the same question,” Sebastian said. “He said he’s found God and he’s no longer able to live the life. They’d kill him anyway if they discovered he wanted out. He also happens to be a childhood friend of Robby’s. He was the one who convinced Villarreal to break him free.”
“So Villarreal’s behind this?”
“Apparently, from what I was able to get from Ortega, Villarreal was concerned about the blowback from Cortez killing a federal agent. Ortega sold him on the idea of grabbing up Robby, then exchanging him for the DEA giving him some passes.”
Dixon spread her arms. “So we don’t need Ortega. Villarreal will ensure Hernandez’s safety.”
“If he can be trusted,” Sebastian said. “Ortega had his doubts. He said that since no one knew they’d broken out Robby, Cortez would be blamed for his death no matter what happens. And no matter who kills him. Could be that’s Villarreal’s play: kill Robby, blame it on Cortez. Serious heat comes down on Cortez. When the dust settles and Cortez is arrested, his organization weakened, Villarreal steps in and takes his territory.”
“So we’re back to having to trust Ortega,” Mann said.
“Is this true?” DeSantos asked. “Ortega is a buddy of Robby’s?”
“I’ve never heard him mention a Sandiego Ortega,” Vail said. “You?”
Sebastian shook his head.
“How do we know we can trust this guy?” Mann asked.
Yardley stepped forward. “We don’t. But he’s left open his cell signal to let us track him. They’re headed here, to Vegas.”
“Where in Vegas?”
“Ortega didn’t have time to say. But we got an address for Villarreal’s place. And we’ve been monitoring Ortega’s call, listening in on the conversation.”
“Did you hear Robby?” Vail asked.
Gifford cleared his throat. “No. When we stopped listening a few minutes ago, it’d just been a bunch of nonsense bullshit between two guys on the road. Occasionally they’d mention an awareness of Highway Patrol, keeping to the speed limit, that sort of thing. There’s also some muffled talk, but we couldn’t make it out. The lab’s working on it, but I don’t know when, or if, they’ll have anything for us.”
“Of course,” Yardley said, “before we get our hopes up, it’s important to point out we’ve got no idea how long Ortega’s battery will last. Right now, until we find we can trust Villarreal, that cell’s our lifeline to Hernandez. If we lose it, he’ll be on his own unless we can find—” He stopped and looked down at his phone, then pulled a pair of small reading glasses from his suit pocket. “Excuse me a minute.”
Ruth, standing beside Yardley, glanced at her colleague, then picked up the discussion. “Agent Clar’s a man of
many talents. In addition to his fieldwork, he’s got a Ph.D. in digital signal processing and did some terrific work redesigning our wire room capabilities. I’ve asked him to have certain things ready for us.” Ruth nodded at Clar. “Are they?”
Clar, who’d been leaning a shoulder against the wall near the AV control panel, straightened up. “Yes ma’am, ready to go.” He walked to the wall beside the entry doors and fingered a touchpad LCD. The lights dimmed to half strength and a projector splashed light onto the screen.
“Hang on a minute,” Yardley said, his reading glasses perched low on his nose. The glow of his phone reflected off the lenses. “Just got a text from my office. Sandiego Ortega is an American citizen—actually, he’s got dual citizenship. Born and raised in Los Angeles. Mexican citizenship granted in ’95. No record while in the U.S.”
“Robby grew up in LA,” Vail said.
Gifford nodded. “So there’s potential validity in Ortega’s claim. Where in LA did Ortega live?”
Yardley scrolled down the screen on his phone. “Fullerton.”
Gifford nodded. “That’s where R—Officer Hernandez—lived.”
Yardley slipped his phone into a pocket, then motioned to Clar. “Continue.”
“Right. This is what we’ve got.” Clar struck a button on his laptop and an aerial image of the Las Vegas strip appeared. He pulled a laser pointer and a brilliant green pinpoint light circled a specific area, in tandem with the agent’s hand movements. “The cell signal we’ve been tracking entered Vegas twenty minutes ago. They were driving here, in a seemingly random pattern, as if taking evasive maneuvers to make sure they weren’t being followed. Then they went stationary at a point just off South Las Vegas Boulevard, in an area that appears to be a parking garage. Right here.” The green light stopped moving. “The signal keeps cutting in and out, probably because of the steel and concrete in the structure. But it hasn’t moved in about five minutes.”
Vail was starting to perspire, and realized she probably looked ridiculous wearing Robby’s jacket. She pulled it off and said, “They may be waiting for something. Is that garage anywhere near Villarreal’s place?”
“Yes,” Ruth said. “So here’s the plan. The task force will go airborne and assist the search. There’s a helicopter tour business at the airport, right off the strip. They do evening tours of the casinos, so you won’t raise any red flags. You don’t have any identifying markers on that Huey, correct?”
Turino, sitting at the end of the table, a symbolic banishment from the rest of the task force, said, “It’s Marine green. Nothing that says DEA. Against the black sky, we’ll be fine.”
Vail had doubts about the “we’ll” in Turino’s comment, but she let it pass.
“Very good. From there,” Ruth said, “it depends where Hernandez is, where the cartel members are. We can’t formulate a viable tactical plan until we’re sure of where they’re going to be when we move in. We’ve got a SWAT unit on standby, deployed one mile out. I don’t want any cartel spotters catching a glimpse of our rigs hanging around the strip. Even if we move in with their bread truck plastered with fake magnetic plumbing or electrical signs on the side, there’s a chance they’ll be made. I don’t wanna blow this before we have a chance to get close to Hernandez.”
“We’ve got no valid intel whether or not Villarreal truly intends to hand over Hernandez,” Gifford said. “So we’re treating this as a hostile hostage situation until or unless we find convincing proof otherwise.”
“You’ll coordinate with SWAT,” Ruth continued. “When you’ve gotten eyes on the layout of the area and have an estimate of how many there are and where they’re holed up, take up your positions and turn the show over to SWAT. Set down on that helicopter tour business’s landing pad and stay out of the way until the area is secured and Hernandez is safely in custody. Let’s do this right.”
Vail tried not to squirm in her seat. She expects me to sit on the sidelines while they go after Robby? Is this woman serious?
Clar stepped up to the white board. He pulled a cap off the red marker and wrote in abbreviated strokes as he spoke: “First objective. Locate and secure Roberto Hernandez. Second. Identify, locate, and take down members of the Cortez cartel. Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Vegas, the strip is almost always densely packed with tourists. If we pull our side arms and start blasting away, it’ll be near impossible to avoid striking innocents. So third objective. Minimize collateral damage.”
“The order of objectives,” Ruth said, “depends on logic, not priority. Clearly it’s of paramount importance to rescue our man. SWAT has been briefed on Velocity, so they understand our challenges. But I want there to be no confusion: given a choice of securing Hernandez or preserving the success of Velocity, we save the life.”
Vail, Dixon, and DeSantos shared a look. They then turned to Turino in unison, who looked away. Vail’s gaze was particularly harsh.
“It’s our assessment,” Clar said, “that Velocity will not be adversely affected by this op. Cortez knows we’d be looking for Hernandez, so any action we initiate will be seen in that light.”
Exactly. Vail kept an unforgiving gaze on Turino until he turned back in her direction. After a long second of silent anger between them, he looked away.
Clar capped the marker and tossed it down. “I’ve brought along an electronic tracking device that’ll assist us in triangulating Officer Hernandez’s position using Sandiego Ortega’s cell signal.” He rooted around inside a charcoal gray rucksack and pulled out a black PDA-size unit. Its top consisted of a dark, shiny glass display, with brushed aluminum sides. He held it up and said, “Meet LOWIS.”
“Lois, as in Lois Lane?” DeSantos asked.
“As in low output wave imaging sensor. L-O-W-I-S. She’s tuned to the quantized discrete-time signal emanating from the ESN—the electronic serial number—of that phone.”
“I’m no physics major,” Mann said, “but it sounds like a similar kind of technology that allows cell towers to identify particular phones on a network.”
“It does utilize that technology, but it takes it a step further. Mobile phones are like two-way radios. They regularly send out bits of data signals, called ‘pings,’ to the nearest cell tower every two or three minutes. It’s a way for the phone and the tower to know where each other is so they can communicate when a call is initiated. The towers forward the location of that phone back to the network. LOWIS uses a smart ping, a unique identifier that we’ve captured and that she’s now tuned for. Which means she’s like a hound dog on a scent.”
“I’ve never seen one of those,” DeSantos said. “And I tend to come across a lot of fancy technoelectronics the government’s got.”
“This won’t show up in any government agency. Not yet. It’s totally experimental. This is the prototype. I built it myself. Well, myself and a buddy of mine in Russia.”
“One other thing,” Gifford said. “The FBI is in the process of remotely turning off the ringer on Ortega’s phone. Once that’s done they’re going to switch on the microphone. That way, if the phone is powered off, we’ll still be able to listen in.”
“A roving bug,” Dixon said. “Very useful.”
“Very. No fancy hardware required. If need be, they can just call the phone and listen in to what’s being said by anyone in the vicinity.”
Clar held up LOWIS. “Who wants it?”
“I’ll take it,” Vail said.
“Take care of her,” Clar said. “We’ve grown attached.”
Vail took the device. “I think you need to get a life, Clar. But no worries. We’ll treat her just fine.”
Clar ignored Vail’s dig. “Keep in mind that even though she did well in our simulations, that’s far from being battle-tested. I can’t say for sure she’ll work like we want her to.” He looked hard at Vail and said, “You know how women can be sometimes.”
“But,” Mann said, “she—it—LOWIS has got a lock on that cell, and it’s tracking it. Rig
ht?”
“Affirmative.” Clar flung open a flap on his bag. He dug his hand inside and began pulling out black handhelds. “I’ve got two-ways for all of you. They’re set to channel 9. It’s encrypted.”
The task force stepped forward and took their radios—Turino included.
“The Huey’s still hot,” Ruth said. “Another of Agent Clar’s many talents is he’s a certified pilot. Since he’s the only one who knows the intimate workings of LOWIS, he’ll be your escort.”
Gifford waited a beat, then said, “Okay, let’s do it. Let’s bring our man home. And round up the bastards who took him.”
As Vail huddled with Clar, Mann, and DeSantos, Gifford cleared his throat and caught Vail’s attention. She moved over to the huddled suits, who were gathered at the back of the room.
“What’s going on?” Gifford asked.
“Sir?”
“Agent Vail, cut the crap. I know you better than your own father.” He winced, no doubt realizing the insensitivity of his comment and the reference to Vail’s sadistic parent. “Strike that. Point is, I saw the looks you and the task force were exchanging with Agent Turino during the briefing. So I’ll ask you again. What’s going on?”
Vail scanned the faces of Yardley, Ruth, and Gifford. She hesitated a long moment. She did not want to get into this—certainly not now. And she definitely didn’t want Turino leading them on this op. Still, she shook her head and said, “Nothing’s going on, sir.”
“You’re about to embark on a critically important op,” Ruth said. “What the hell is the problem?”
“That’s not a friendly request,” Gifford added. “It’s an order.”
Vail looked off at the wall. Realizing she was losing valuable time, she acquiesced. “Agent Turino.”
“What about him?”
Vail glanced over her shoulder. Sebastian and Turino were huddled in the far corner. Vail turned back and proceeded to outline what she knew. She stressed that they were unfamiliar with DEA policy, and that they were unsure whether or not his actions were above board. When she was done, Gifford, Yardley, and Ruth all wore variations of agitation and disgust.
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