Warriors in Paradise

by Luis E. Gutiérrez-Poucel

  I scooped her in my arms and followed Santi to the interrogation room.

  Talking to the Praying Mantis

  The so-called interrogation room Santi had set up was a small storage area next to the kitchen, with dirty white walls and no windows. There was a metal desk with a lamp and an executive chair. In front of the desk, there was an old, weather-rusted, iron garden chair.

  My uncle placed his large briefcase on the desk and asked us to undress Nancy. I held her up while Santi and Caleb removed her clothes.

  My uncle opened his briefcase, grabbed a little package, and opened it. He put on latex gloves, saying to us, “Please bend her over.”

  He then proceeded to stick a suppository up her anus, telling us, “This suppository contains a psychotropic drug to make her more compliant and to disorient her.”

  We sat her down on the metal chair and taped her ankles to the chair legs and her wrists behind her back. The room was cold. She was utterly naked.

  My uncle looked at us and said, “This woman is a very bad person, probably a sociopath. She has done unspeakable acts under the mantle of the American flag. She is not a patriot. Everything she has done, she has done for personal gain.

  “She is a trained CIA operative, taught to withstand torture. Of course, even a trained spy eventually talks. However, we don’t have time. Speed is of the essence. We need to find your friends before it is too late. I am thus going to employ some mind games and chemicals. It is not going to be pretty, but it needs to be done. If you want to watch, you can stand behind her. But please don’t talk. Once in a while, I will nod, and you will slap her on the side of her head. Any questions?”

  We were all silent. We knew what had to be done.

  My uncle placed two cell phones on improvised bookstands and pointed them toward Nancy. He pressed the record buttons.

  He was ready to begin.

  ***

  He stood in front of Nancy, poured a glass of cold water over her, and slapped her, saying, “Come on, Nancy, wake up. We need to talk.”

  She came to immediately. She blinked a few times and looked at my uncle and said, “I’m cold and I’m thirsty.”

  My uncle walked around the desk, turned on the lamp, directed the light to her face, and sat down on the chair. He nodded at me. I took a step forward and slapped Nancy on the right side of her head.

  Jonathan said, “Nancy, please don’t talk unless I ask you to. We are very unhappy with you. You are in a very serious situation. You have been using your position as an official of the United States government for your own personal gain. We have been investigating your activities for some time now. We know everything about you. Thanks to what happened in Acapulco, my office was finally given the green light to come after you. You haven’t heard of our agency, nor will you. Suffice to say that you are the lowest of lowlife, lower than a terrorist. The crimes that you have committed while working for our country go against everything we stand for in the world. You and your associates had to be stopped with extreme prejudice.

  “I am going to ask you several questions. If at any point in the interrogation I believe that you’re not completely forthcoming, I will have to resort to chemicals that will probably affect you for the rest of your life. Whether I use the chemicals or not is entirely up to you. I have to do my job, and I intend to do it effectively.

  “Are you ready, Nancy?”

  Nancy looked at my uncle and said, “I’m cold and I’m thirsty.”

  My uncle nodded. I took a step forward and slapped her on the side of the head again.

  “Nancy, please answer my questions, and only my questions. If you answer correctly and truthfully, we will give you a blanket and a glass of water. Let me repeat myself: Are you ready, Nancy?”

  Nancy said, “I’m cold and I’m thirsty.”

  “What a pity that you insist on not going along. I would have liked to talk to you in a civilized manner because even though you are a criminal and a murderer, you’re still an American, and even though you disgust me, I have to respect that. But you don’t leave me any other choice.”

  My uncle opened his briefcase. I could see several bottles, vials, syringes, test tubes, and medical instruments. There were plastic bags with pills of different colors: bright red, green, blue, yellow, and white. There were also plastic bags with white and brownish powder.

  My uncle poured distilled water into a test tube. He ground a yellow and a red pill into a fine powder and scooped it into the test tube. As he was mixing the liquid, he said, “Nancy, do you know what this is?” Without waiting for her to answer, he said, “Let me tell you. It is Flunitrazepam, also known as Narcozep, Rohypnol, or, in the vernacular, simply roofies. Which I do believe you are familiar with, since a couple of days back you gave it to three Russians, two Mexicans, two Canadians, and two American citizens.

  “Nancy, do you know what the red-and-yellow pills are? Of course you do! You’ve been helping a known drug lord, the head of a Mexican cartel, Nicanor Toro, to smuggle these designer drugs into the States for several years now, an endeavor that has made you a very, very wealthy person.

  “Nancy, do you know what the effects of these drugs are when administered together? Perhaps you don’t, but I’m sure that you may guess. The Flunitrazepam will make you compliant, while the synthetic drugs will make you hyper and accelerate your metabolism, giving you an urgent need to talk, to communicate with people. One drug brings down the barriers of self-control, while the other one pushes up the need to talk and talk of anything. You are happy as long as you are talking. It becomes a matter of life or death. You cannot shut up.

  “The problem is that this concoction has some serious long-term side effects. But then again, that is the risk of double-crossing your country, isn’t it? It is also the cost of not wanting to answer my questions in a truthful and forthcoming manner.”

  He swirled the test tube, inserted the needle, and aspirated the liquid into the syringe. He stood up, walked to Nancy, and grabbed her arm. “No need to disinfect your arm. I know you are a clean and hygienic woman.”

  Nancy looked at him and spit on his face. My uncle nodded, and I slapped her on the same side of her head. My uncle stuck the syringe needle into a vein in her arm and squeezed the liquid in. He removed the syringe and walked back behind the desk and sat on his chair.

  “This should not take long,” he said.

  In a couple of minutes, Nancy started to quiver compulsively and strained against the tapes. She peed and said laughingly, “Oops! Sorry about that. What is your name? Do you know that you are a good-looking man, in a nasty sort of way? Yes, all you Navy SEALs and special ops guys are full of yourselves. You think you’re divine shit. God’s gift to the world. You didn’t think I would recognize your type. I’ve been CIA for twelve years. I have seen your asses sway all over the place. Would you like to fuck? It is somewhat hot in here! Don’t you think so? Come on. Let’s have some sex. I’ll promise to be gentle with you.”

  “Nancy, whom do you work for?”

  “You know who I work for. I work for the CIA, and my cover at the American embassy is trade attaché. Oh, oh, you mean, who is my real, real boss? Well, he’s an interesting son of a bitch. I don’t know who he works for, but he is a very proper little shit. I’ve never fucked him, even though I’ve tried. I don’t think he’s gay; he’s just not all that interested in sex. He is the division director for Mexico and Central America in the DEA. Now, who he really works for? That is the question, isn’t it?

  “Ha, ha, ha…who he really works for? Fuck! Wouldn’t I like to know?”

  “Nancy, what is his name?”

  “Oh, you also want to know that? Yes, of course. Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking, right? Oops, I just peed again. Hahaha, I just peed again!

  “His name is Alexander Coombs. He’s a New England aristo-cat, sorry, sorry, aristocrat. He studied at Yale at the Center for Foreign Affairs. He then joined the Department of State, which is where I met him. He transferred
to the DEA, where he has been for the past seven years.

  “He’s a perennial bachelor. He lives in a fancy townhouse in McLean, Virginia. I have never seen him with a woman, or with a man. I don’t know what he does for kicks. Perhaps he likes to masturbate or stick a vibrator up his ass. Who gives a shit! I certainly don’t. I am sure nobody knows. He is all about United States, drugs, money, power, and beautiful, young chicks. He considers himself the ultimate patriot.”

  “How do you contact him?”

  “I dial his private cell. Of course, now you want to know the number. What else? Do you want the number, killer boy? Yes, I am sure you do. Here it is.”

  Jonathan took note of the number she recited.

  “Nancy, why did you kidnap the Canadian and Russian girls?”

  “Because my darling boss, Alexander Coombs, asked me to. He requested me to select the girls for that little, fat, double-crossing piece of brown shit, to kidnap and deliver them to him. That is why we kidnapped the girls. So we could give them to our boss.”

  “Nancy, what do they do with the girls?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t ask, and he doesn’t tell me. If I needed to know, he would have told me. As I didn’t need to know, he didn’t tell me.”

  “Nancy, where are the girls now?”

  “I don’t have the faintest idea. He takes them in his fancy jet plane, and I never see them again. And frankly, I don’t want to see them again.”

  “Nancy, how are the drugs smuggled into the States?”

  “Mr. Toro has several reception-and-distribution centers: Lázaro Cárdenas on the Pacific; Veracruz and Tampico in the Gulf of Mexico; and, on the border, Reynosa next to McAllen and Tijuana next to San Diego. The drug-related business is done directly between Toro and Alexander Coombs. I am here to run interference with local authorities and to act as a contact of last resort.

  “The United States will continue to consume drugs no matter what. Therefore, it is a lot better that we control the drug supply, eradicating the criminal element from the chain. True Americans do not want foreigners to exploit our weaknesses; we would rather do it ourselves.

  “That is what the man, my boss, Alex fucken Coombs, tells me.

  “You have beautiful eyes. They say that the nose represents your penis. Is your penis sharp and pointy like your nose, killer boy?”

  Jonathan stood up, walked toward the door, opened it, and stepped out. We followed.

  ***

  Jonathan said, “I think that is all the relevant information that we need. You have been here all night long. Time for us to go. But, before we leave, we have to decide what we’re going to do with Nancy Smith. Any suggestions?”

  Santi said, “She knows all of us. She has witnessed the whole operation since it began. How sure can we be that she’s not going to come after us and call Alexander Coombs the moment we leave?”

  “That is why we recorded the whole interrogation—so we would have some leverage,” said Jonathan.

  “Yes,” said Caleb, “but the interrogation was conducted under coercion and under the influence of drugs.”

  Jonathan said, “It doesn’t really matter how we obtained the information. This is never going to go to trial. This is not a matter for the lawyers. It is a matter for the intelligence and security agencies, and, in an extreme case, for the press.

  “Before we leave, we show her the recording of her confession, untie her, and place her in her car. She is a survivor. She will keep quiet.”

  I said, “It is risky, but I guess it is the best option we have at the moment unless we kill her. However, killing her is also a risky option.

  “My question is, how are we going to deal with Toro’s death and/or his disappearance?”

  Santi said, “We set it up as a shootout between Nancy’s bodyguards and Toro’s. The disappearance of Toro’s bodyguards would suggest that they were somehow involved and ran away. Toro’s people should be calling in during the day, and when they don’t get any response, they will come to an abandoned house and find five dead people. They will take care of the cleanup. That should pressure Nancy to stay quiet and let things play themselves out.”

  “Will we have enough time to get to Washington, DC, and get to Alexander Coombs before he finds out?” asked Caleb.

  Jonathan answered, “We have to assume that the only people who can reach Alexander Coombs are Nancy Smith and Nicanor Toro. So yes, I do believe that we have enough time to contact Alexander Coombs before he finds out.”

  “What if he tries to contact Toro and doesn’t get an answer?” asked Caleb.

  “Well, that is a risk we are going to have to take,” responded Jonathan. “If we leave in the next half an hour or so, we should be at the airport by seven thirty a.m. and in Washington, DC, by one p.m. Let us clean up all evidence of our presence and get ready to leave.”

  ***

  Santi went to talk to Ramon. Caleb and I went to get the money we had found in Toro’s bedroom. There was close to two million bucks, half in one-hundred-dollar bills and half in one-thousand-peso bills. We took the American and half of the Mexican money.

  We went to the kitchen and gave Ramon the rest of the Mexican pesos, asking him to distribute it among the staff and to urge them to leave as soon as possible. We asked him to remind them that Toro’s people would be coming sometime during the day, and they should find an empty house.

  Nobody in the house knew our names. We were safe in that department. We also knew that the police were not going to get involved, so we wouldn’t have to do any major cleanup before leaving. The deaths of Toro’s and Nancy’s bodyguards would never be made public. We were sure that their bodies were going to disappear. Nevertheless, we tidied the bedrooms and bathrooms as best we could.

  Half an hour later, the house staff had left. The only people in the house waiting for us were Ramon and the pilot.

  We went to the see Nancy Smith.

  ***

  As we opened the door to the storage area, we knew something was wrong. The stench was unbearable. She had defecated and wasn’t moving. Jonathan put her fingers to her neck and said, “She is gone, probably a heart attack. That is always a risk with the use of chemicals.”

  “And, of course, the 7,350 feet above sea level of Mexico City didn’t help her much,” added Santi.

  I thought about Nancy and a praying mantis. A large female mantis goes after the largest available preys that she can manage, as they have the most nutrients. However, in this instance, Nancy had misjudged the preys. We had proved too much for her.

  “Help me clean her and dress her up. We will place her with her gun exactly where she shot Toro. That should provide a complete picture of what happened: Nancy shoots Toro, Toro’s guards shoot her bodyguards, Nancy dies of a heart attack, and Toro’s guards run away with the money and drugs.”

  The four of us cleaned and dressed her as best we could. It was horrible and disgusting, but we did it rapidly, efficiently, and without talking. I picked her up and carried her to the living room. I placed her exactly where she had shot Toro. I dropped her as she would have fallen after a massive heart failure. The picture of the layout would tell that she suffered cardiac arrest brought about the stress of the shootout.

  We didn’t think anybody would inspect the puncture marks in her veins. We were sure there was not going to be any formal inquiry, any forensic investigation. It was a risk we had to take.

  We straightened everything and erased our presence in the house as much as we could. We then left for Toluca Airport.

  My backpack looked bulky with everything we had plus Toro’s money.

  “Uncle Jonathan,” I said, “are we going to be checked when leaving Mexico and on arriving to the States?”

  My uncle responded, “I called in a few favors. We are flying in a private plane with high-security clearances. No records will exist of its coming and leaving Mexico or the United States. Nobody will check our documents or our belongings.”

  Our wits and
knapsack were safe.

  Chapter 8: Deeper into the Rabbit Hole

  Friends and family

  I felt more confident with my uncle’s assistance. The three of us were good, but we were far better with my uncle’s contacts, knowledge, and experience.

  Jonathan called the pilot of the jet plane he had borrowed and told him to expect us within the next twenty minutes. As soon as we arrived at the airport in Toluca, we walked through the private departures exit to a military hangar. My Uncle Jonathan just nodded to a Mexican sergeant as we walked toward the plane.

  The pilot and the copilot shook hands with my uncle and greeted us. We took off almost immediately. The jet belonged to a security company owned and managed by an ex–special ops friend of my uncle.

  He kept in touch with his friends and others in the special operations community, retired or otherwise. Those in the special ops community shared similar traits and experiences, which made them special in the sense that they could always relate to others like them. They had trouble connecting with civilians.

  Soon after I contacted Uncle Jonathan, he called a friend who had served with him and my father in army intelligence in Afghanistan. When he told him that he needed to go to Mexico without a paper trail, his friend offered him the plane used for joint black ops in Mexico with the discreet approval of both governments.

  The Warrior Gene

  We were dehydrated and tired. Yesterday and early this morning had been intense. We fetched some nonalcoholic beverages and bags of comfort food. The three of us sat in a row facing my uncle.

  Without preliminaries, my uncle said, “I am surprised how far you have gotten. The three of you have gone up against some very nasty and powerful enemies and prevailed. You have done all that in part because of your army training,” he said, eyeing Caleb and me, “and your fighting skills,” he added, looking at Santi. “You are very unusual individuals. But that is not all. There is something else at play here, something that makes you—when you are together—more than the sum of your individual selves. Together you are a formidable force.