Bloody Basin

by John R Cuneo

  “You know, I think I could get accustomed to riding in that plane every now and then,” said Agent Tygard. “It never gets old,” said Chuck with a smile on his face.

  Detective Gore excused himself and headed toward the restroom, leaving the two men to talk privately.

  “I can’t thank you enough for all your help, Chuck,” said Agent Tygard.

  “I haven’t done anything yet,” replied Chuck. “But over the next week or so, I’ll see what I can find out. I’ll shake the bushes a little bit and see what falls.”

  Detective Gore rejoined the two men, who were still discussing the problem at hand. Chuck gave Detective Gore his business card.

  “I’m available anytime, day or night. If you think something is about to come down, make sure you let Lank or me know as soon as possible, and for the love of God, do not try and take these guys on by yourself. In all likelihood, most of the people working for Salazar and Mondaca are just your typical street punks but knowing the amount of drugs these guys bring into the country and the millions of dollars involved, I can pretty much guarantee you some of his hired help will know what they are doing. Be careful, and don’t trust anyone,” Chuck said.

  Agent Tygard went to the corner of the office where Chuck had a secure telephone line. He called one of his FBI staff members back in Phoenix to get an update on the activities from over the last few days. After the end of the call, Agent Tygard returned to Chuck and Detective Gore.

  “We have the name of the lawyer who forged the documents for José Vega,” Agent Tygard said. “What exactly can you do about this?” asked Chuck.

  “The first thing I’m going to do after I get back to the office is review the field records, and then I’ll charge this son of a bitch with enough to put him away for the rest of his life. If he’s anything like the other lawyers that work for these guys, he’ll turn on them and tell us everything he knows,” Agent Tygard replied.

  “It sounds like you have your hands full,” said Chuck. “So why don’t we go and check over your airplane and get you on your way? After all, I don’t want either one of your wives worrying about you any longer than we have to.”

  The men walked into the hangar, loaded their luggage, and did a preflight on the aircraft. While Agent Tygard and Detective Gore were gone, Chuck had the fuel tanks topped off and the oil levels checked in both of the engines, but Agent Tygard, being a cautious and professional pilot, took nothing for granted and did a thorough preflight inspection himself.

  When he finished, he contacted air traffic control and filed his flight plan for the return trip to Arizona. Chuck moved away from the airplane as Agent Tygard started the engines. He waved to the two men as they taxied out to the active runway. A few minutes later, the aircraft roared to life and rolled down the runway; in seconds, the plane was almost out of sight and on its way back to the Scottsdale Airpark.

  Carolyn and I checked out of our hotel, making sure to pay the bill with cash. We drove to the storage shed location and found an out-of-the-way spot where we could view the entrance. It all looked remarkably like the other storage sheds we had visited so far. We made our way onto the I-40 frontage road to get a look at the outside perimeter of the property and discovered there was no secondary exit onto the streets.

  “This could be a problem,” I told Carolyn.

  We went to a nearby restaurant for breakfast. From our booth window, we observed the amount of traffic that went past the storage facility. The traffic was a mix of commercial vehicles and a few smaller cars. The facility itself was nestled between two warehouses. They had a number of tractor trailers entering their properties on a regular schedule. We also observed there was only one entrance and exit to the storage facility, so we would be exposing ourselves twice to the same camera system.

  I had made sure to wear my Los Angeles baseball cap into the restaurant, and Carolyn was wearing a sweater advertising the Northern California redwood forest. After our breakfast, we went back to the truck and fixed the paper California license plate over the real Arizona plate and put the California bumper sticker on the back window of the cab. I had backed the truck into an obscure parking space to the side of the restaurant, providing us ample cover to accomplish our license plate deception.

  I waited for a break in traffic and then pulled in behind a large tractor trailer that I knew would probably stop at one of the warehouse facilities. I made sure no one was behind us and had Carolyn take her place on the floor of the front seat. As we had done in the past, she was covered with a large blanket that would hide her from any prying eyes and any security cameras.

  At the security keypad kiosk, we had to wait a few moments for a vehicle to exit the storage complex. This only took a minute or two, and it was helpful to see how the process worked. At the keypad kiosk, Carolyn whispered the access numbers to me, and I punched them into the keypad and hit the pound key. There was a large clunk as the security gate opened. I covered my mouth with my right hand and quietly told Carolyn, “So far, so good.”

  We drove into the storage facility property and made our way to our unit. Just as I had done in the past, I looked for cameras and their locations as we drove over to our unit. As luck would have, it there was a camera located on a post just above the unit we needed to enter, and after analyzing the position of the camera, I could not see how it could look directly down at our truck. Feeling comfortable, I told Carolyn to give me the key, which she did immediately.

  “Don’t forget to put your other gloves on,” she told me, and I went into the back seat of the truck and found a box of rubber gloves. I put on some gloves and a pair of disposable shoe coverings. I parked so close to the storage shed that the door to the truck was not able to completely open, so I was working in rather tight quarters today.

  That’s all right, I thought. It gives any passersby less of an opportunity to see what I am doing or identify me.

  Putting the key into the lock was a bit of a chore that morning. The lock was rather dirty, and I had to carefully work the key in and out of the lock to clean it out. Finally, after several tense moments, the key turned, and the lock opened. In a flash, I had the door open and, gazing inside, I saw what appeared to be a large pile of boxes covered with a tarp. I walked into the storage unit and pulled the tarp back.

  Something was quite different about the contents of this locker. The boxes were approximately half the size of what I had expected to find. I thought the boxes contained drugs of some kind. I went back to the truck, and making it look as though I was in search of something, I quietly told Carolyn of my discovery.

  “Maybe it would be smart if we just left and headed back home?” she suggested.

  “We will soon enough. I just want to open one of these boxes and see what’s inside,” I told her.

  I got out my pocketknife and carefully cut the wrappings off the first box I encountered. To my amazement, the box did not contain narcotics but clear plastic packets, each with a gold or silver coin in it. I opened the second, then third box, and they both contained five-ounce gold and silver ingots, each of which were individually wrapped in a hard plastic container. I took one of the boxes to the truck, set it on the floor of the cab in front of the driver’s seat, and showed Carolyn the contents to get her opinion as to what we should do next.

  “How much do you think all these boxes weigh?” she asked.

  “I can only guess that there are at least several hundred pounds of coins,” I told her. “But my biggest question is if we are to take these, how would we get rid of them?”

  “Just start loading?” Carolyn suggested.

  That is exactly what I did. It took a lot longer than I had anticipated because of the size and number of boxes and the weight. I was only able to carry two or three small boxes at a time for fear of dropping them (I certainly did not want to do that). I removed the top two layers—twenty-six small boxes—and placed them in the bed
of the truck.

  It was then I noticed the weight of the boxes had changed considerably. They were much lighter, and I once again opened a box. This time, I found Rolex watches still in their original manufacturer’s packaging. I went back to Carolyn and told her about the watches.

  “All of these high-end watches have serial numbers, so we would never be able to sell them,” she said.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Let me dig through a few more boxes and see if there are any more coins.”

  I disappeared back into the storage unit and moved and shook the boxes to see if anything felt or sounded different. Unfortunately, as far as I could tell, the remaining boxes were full of wristwatches, which were no good to us. I took the four boxes I had opened and placed them in the cab of the truck, then went back into the storage unit and carefully re-covered the stack of boxes with the tarp just as I had found it. After a few minutes of sweeping the floor inside the storage unit, I made sure to secure the door and snap the lock closed. I wiped the outside of the lock clean even though I was wearing rubber gloves; I did not want to take any chances.

  Now it was time to leave the storage facility. We made our way back to the main entrance and waited our turn in line to key in the access code, which we did successfully and without any problems. Before returning to I-40, we found a quiet side road, and I removed the paper California plate from the rear of the truck as Carolyn removed the California sticker from the inside of the rear window. We then carefully entered the flow of traffic on westbound I-40 and did not stop until we were out of Texas.

  It was a quiet and uneventful flight back to Arizona. The men barely said two words to each other, and even as they secured the aircraft in the hangar, there was an uneasy silence between the two of them. They were driving back to Detective Gore’s home when Agent Tygard said, “I suggest you contact a friend of mine who is an expert in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. It may be to your benefit if you spend several hours training and becoming familiar with real-life street fighting and defensive pistol shooting. I know you had some of that training years ago at the academy, but you need to become more familiar if you come up against one of Salazar’s men.”

  “I agree. I’ll contact your friend tomorrow after I report to work,” Detective Gore said.

  Not long after entering Arizona, Carolyn and I turned south on US Highway 191 and headed for the city of St. John’s, where we would stop and get something to eat. From there it would only be a short drive to the property in Pinetop. It felt good to get back to a familiar place, and we both looked forward to seeing the completed shelter. While we were in St. John’s, I took a few minutes and contacted Tom, letting him know we were on our way. I also invited him to dinner, which he readily accepted, telling me he was looking forward to not eating his own cooking.

  Paul arrived in Washington, D.C., and made his way directly to his office, where he had a meeting with his employee, Ivy Stanton, who had been following Fena LaStrange for the last couple of days. He entered his office. “So how was your trip?” Ivy asked.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said. “Just rushing and waiting for the flights that always seem to be late for one reason or another. Did you gather any new information?”

  The woman retrieved a notebook from her purse. “You had better sit down, because this is going to take a while,” said the woman.

  “I stuck to the target like glue, and in a thirty-six-hour period, she met with her male contact twice, both times exchanging packages with him. It was always the same routine: she would come out of the FBI building and make her way to the Metro. During the ride, the man would contact her, and the exchange would take place. Because we know where she lives, I did not track her from the Metro, but I followed her male contact, and both times, he made his way directly to the State Department! Paul, do you know this could really mean trouble for the investigation? It’s no wonder the FBI has been ignoring the situation.

  “I was able to pick up the subject and follow him from the State Department back to the Metro, where he rode it to the Falls Church depot and then hired a cab. That was the last I saw of him, but I did get a name of Delmo Estranho. He just happens to live in a completely restored colonial home on a large piece of private property that backs up to Lake Barcroft within the community of Falls Church.”

  “I think I’ll take a trip out to the country tomorrow,” said Paul, “and I would like you to accompany me, so let’s meet back here tomorrow at ten o’clock. I think the two of us traveling together would be less suspicious than just a lone man traveling by himself.”

  “All right. I will be back tomorrow at ten. Good night,” said Ivy, and left the office.

  Later that evening, Paul was relaxing at home, enjoying a cocktail and watching the evening news. The news network had brought on a government policy specialist who reported that the flow of narcotics into the United States had increased 17 percent.

  “This is based on the number of drug interdictions and seizures that have taken place along the southern border with Mexico. Of course, 17 percent is just an estimate. It could be much higher and based on the number of drug-related crimes reported throughout the country, it is probably closer to 25 percent,” the policy specialist said.

  Because of the nature of Paul’s work and the types of clients he had worked for in the past, he knew most of these people were somehow profiting from illegal narcotics, whether it was transporting or distribution. A lot of people were getting rich. When the broadcast ended, Paul turned off the TV and finished his cocktail. He was looking forward to tomorrow’s excursion and getting a firsthand look at the property owned by Delmo Estranho.

  At first, it had seemed a bit strange to Paul that the male target was not living in the Woodley Park or Spring Valley area. After all, he seemed to have enough money to live wherever he wanted. But after giving it more thought, Paul concluded a secluded location would be of benefit to Estranho’s type of work. One of the downsides of living in a place like Washington, D.C., was that you never really knew who was watching you, from the security cameras on every corner to the neighbor across the street. At one time or another, everyone was watching everybody else.

  In a less than desirable part of the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Fena and her boy toy had just returned to his apartment after enjoying a casual meal at a less than five-star restaurant. As they entered his apartment, the young man made sure to lock the door, assuring their uninterrupted evening would continue in private. Before the young man could make his move toward Fena, she scampered to the restroom and closed the door behind her.

  “When I come out, you better be ready for me,” she called out.

  The young man removed his clothes as he entered his bedroom. In a flash, he was lying naked on top of his bed, waiting for the completely unpredictable sexual deviant to return. The young man was in a complete state of arousal, wondering what sexual exploits he would experience this evening with the luscious Fena LaStrange.

  The sound of the bathroom door opening along with the footsteps coming closer to his bedroom only heightened his state of excitement, but when she appeared at the doorway still completely dressed, he was taken aback by what he saw.

  Fena looked at the young man lying nude on the bed and said, “I see you are ready for me.”

  Then she slowly and deliberately removed her clothing, and as she did so, she placed the garments neatly on a nearby chair. The anticipation for the young man was more than he could stand, and he found himself stroking his hard cock as he waited for the object of his sexual desire to finish her slow, sexual striptease.

  Having placed her blouse and skirt on the chair, she reached behind and unfastened her bra. Her ample, firm breasts came into view, which caused the young man to exhale and moan at the sight before him. Fena looked down at her boy toy.

  “Like what you see?” she asked, simultaneously lifting her luscious tits and pinching her hard ni
pples.

  All the young man could do was continue stroking his hard and throbbing cock.

  “That’s a good boy,” said Fena. “I have something special planned for you this evening.”

  She removed her panties and moved toward the bed, then motioned for the young man to move closer so he was lying on his back with his legs extended out beyond the edge of the mattress. She knelt and spread the young man’s legs, giving her access to his hard cock, which she engulfed quickly and savagely with her hot, wet mouth. This sent the young man into a state of complete sexual shock. Her talented tongue and mouth slowly and skillfully worked their way up and down the hard shaft. As she did this, her hands gently fondled the set of balls that hung beneath the young man’s ample cock.

  Fena continued her oral manipulation until she felt that her boy toy was on the verge of exploding in her mouth. She then produced an elastic strap that she tightly wrapped around the base of the hard cock. The young man came back to reality. What the hell’s going on? he thought. Fena had made her way onto the bed and was crawling up and over his naked body. “I told you I had something special planned for you tonight, didn’t I” she said, and before the young man could respond, Fena was positioned with her knees on either side of his head and her neatly trimmed pussy inches from his face.

  Reaching down, she grabbed the young man by his hair, and without warning, lowered her cunt until it contacted his mouth. She began sliding herself back and forth while riding his outstretched tongue. She increased the speed with which she was gliding over his face while simultaneously lowering herself harder onto his confined and willing tongue.

  The young man moaned and grunted, trying to find a rhythm to Fena’s erratic movements, but there was no rhythm; there was only an animal lust showing that she was in control all the time. Fena was not looking for love. She was just looking for someone to fuck and to control with the power of her perfect body, and she was exceptionally good at it. She would use this guy just as she had used dozens of others to get what she wanted, and right now all she wanted was to come on her boy toy’s face. In time, she felt the power of her intense and impending orgasm building to a level she could no longer control. She lowered herself completely onto his open mouth and released her fluid, covering his nose and chin. After a few moments of quietly enjoying the feeling of her intense orgasm, she stood by the edge of the bed and reached for the covers, using them as a towel to wipe the wet juice from her spent pussy.