by JD Davis
Mel blew out a long breath then looked at Drummer. “Dr. Trudeau played the bass?”
“Oh, darling, he could make a bass guitar talk and sing in two languages. As I remember, he dropped out of Berkley right before he graduated and joined a group called Cherry something or another. Unfortunately they were a one-hit wonder and faded away, but every band in the country that needed a bass player wanted to hire Louie. Anyway, he toured for a year, made a name for himself in the studios, and then disappeared. Next thing I know I’m reading about this high-profile prosecutor in LA who was locking up some very dangerous people. Rumor had it the Hells Angels and the Mafia were arguing over who was going to kill him. Subsequently, he disappeared for several years and the next thing I know I see he’s a law professor at Stanford.”
“And he actually said I was a naturally-gifted prosecutor?”
“Yes, Mel, that’s exactly what he said.”
“Well, I stand by my earlier statement.”
“You mean that we’re all certifiably insane?”
“No, that I am flattered and I mean it. Thank you all; I needed the vote of confidence more than you can imagine, and I have to admit I am having second thoughts about the direction of my career. Regardless, to take on the jobs as assistant DA and unlicensed counsel to sue the federal government, I mean … holy cow! You folks sure know how to entertain the new girl in town.”
“Well, at least sleep on it,” suggested Hobie. “The offer stands and I’m sure we can negotiate a salary commensurate with your current income.”
Mel smiled as she and Joe stood, said goodnight to everyone, and headed for the car.
Back inside, the mood was hopeful.
“You should both be ashamed,” said Lizzie.
“I agree,” said Jillian. “But wouldn’t it be something if these two conniving boys of ours pulled it off?”
“Delightful. Absolutely delightful,” said Lizzie. “And I’m pretty sure Joe wouldn’t mind a bit.”
After saying goodnight, the Chandlers also took their leave and enjoyed the late night ride home. As usual, they had the top down and some seventies rock blaring from the stereo of the convertible BMW.
CHAPTER 11
GEORGE BUSH CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE
Langley, Virginia
Joe figured the Ranger Indoctrination Program, along with his experience, had prepared him for anything he’d face in the field, so the idea of additional training seemed redundant. Stopping at an in-house kiosk, Gabby ordered two black coffees and sat down at a small table.
“Most CIA field operatives spend two years training for their careers and missions. Several people above my pay grade decided this might be more of a military-style op, so here you are, Joe. Today you are going to report to, recently retired, Chief Petty Officer Mac Dumont. After sixteen years and hundreds of missions as a Navy SEAL, Mac finished his twenty as a trainer at BUD/S out in Coronado. He’s a little scary but he teaches our field and clandestine officers some invaluable stuff. He’s put together a program custom-designed for situations like this. Since it’s such a short course, he calls it WOS-E. It’s an acronym for weapons, observation, survival, and evasion. The standard program is an intense three-month training exercise and you are going to get it in five days, so pay attention.”
“No problem, Gabby. I survived seven hours of shopping on Black Friday with my mom. I did recon for lingerie, evaded hundreds of hostile shoppers, and had to disarm an angry housewife who was about to take a swing at my mom with a toilet brush. This will be a piece of cake.”
Gabby looked unamused by the humor as she furrowed her brow and squinted her eyes. “This might be a bit different, Joe. Please pay attention: I do not want you embarrassing me, understood? Unless you crap out sooner, we’ll have your review from Mac by Saturday morning, and if it goes well, we’ll get our orders.”
Their first stop at 6:00 AM was the Office of Asian Pacific, Latin American, and African Analysis. At 6:45, after looking at satellite photos, they walked across a parking lot and hopped in the back of what looked like a cross between a bus and golf cart. By 7:00 AM, they were at the weapons center where Mac was waiting outside. Gabby had mentioned a retired Navy chief, so Joe was not expecting the lean, fit man who shook his hand.
“Welcome aboard, Sergeant. You got nice reviews in your file but I’m not expecting much. If Ms. Mendez will excuse us, we’ll go see if it’s all BS.”
At that, the two men walked away in the direction of automatic gunfire.
At 08:00 AM on Saturday morning, Joe and Gabby were sitting in an office with Lt. Col. Pike who, after reading Joe’s results, looked up and smiled.
“All right, you two are a GO. Chandler, Mac says you—and I quote—‘are a smart, tough son of a bitch who was sneaky enough to shake all of my best observers.’ He said you learned your weapons with exceptional speed,” and once again, he quoted Mac, “In spite of him being Army, I’d go into battle with this soldier.”
Joe was looking down at the file but Gabby was beaming like a proud parent at a teacher’s conference.
Lt. Col Pike continued, “I will be your intelligence liaison throughout the entire op. You will receive as much good information as I can safely get you, and it will be my job to extract you once your mission is complete. Sherriff Monroe Culpepper, down in Tucson, is expecting you both. It looks like we’ve confirmed that your man, Espinoza, was responsible for the death of those sixteen young girls in San Miguel. They were all from Guatemala and the one survivor, a Maria Perez, is currently in the custody of Pima County authorities. It also looks like the sheriff may have arrested the shooter. Apparently, he’s an illegal with a prior arrest and has been deported twice. I want you to talk to them both. From Tucson, you will fly to Cozumel where our people are waiting to meet you. You’ll assume your new identities immediately. You will be traveling as husband and wife on your way to one of those fashionable eco tours in Costa Rica. If there are no other questions, you’ve earned a thirty-six-hour pass. Your flight to Tucson leaves Sunday at 1630 hours. Now go practice being married. Ah, dang it, forget I said that. Go to dinner, do anything but get out of my office before I say something else stupid. Good luck and Godspeed.”
They thanked the colonel and got down the hall at least twenty yards before they both burst into laughter.
“He’s right,” said Gabby. “We should let the Agency buy us a nice dinner and at least one bottle of good wine, don’t you think, Joe?”
“Sure, I guess that would be all right.”
“Wow, don’t sound so enthusiastic. It was simply a casual suggestion, but please don’t feel obligated.”
“No, it’s not that I don’t want to do it. Really, it sounds fun but it’s just that, well, I don’t know.”
“Oh, great. Well, now’s the time Joe, but if you tell me you’re gay, I’m going to be very professional about it but I will be a little disappointed.”
“What! No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just I’ve had all this training for the last three years and, well, I don’t really know anything about being married. And the truth is I don’t want to do something stupid and blow our mission.”
“Joseph Chandler, you are a piece of work. I’ll pick you up at six and you better look nice because I’m wearing a dress.”
Joe was still standing there watching her walk away. He smiled and thought to himself, So, she would be disappointed—good to know.
Dinner was at Giuseppe’s Ristorante, a nice atmosphere with white tablecloths and candles. The food was excellent, as was the bottle of Oregon wine.
“Segundo Vida Vineyards,” said Gabby, reading the label. “Nice call. I don’t think I’ve ever drank Tempranillo. This is very good. Have you had it before?”
“Yeah, once or twice.”
“Oh, that’s right, you’re from Oregon. You should find this place and buy a case.”
“Good idea,” said Joe.
CHAPTER 12
TUCSON, ARIZONA
Chasing t
he sun and picking up three hours on the flight west, Joe and Gabby arrived in Tucson before eight o’clock in the evening. Joe had an amazing sixth sense and his sharp eyes missed very little, but Gabby was the experienced field agent and, as planned, she would handle the questions and interrogations.
Back at the Agency, because he asked, Lt. Col. Pike had told Joe a little about Gabby. She was from a solid diplomatic family in upstate New York and a Yale graduate with a degree in international relations. She made the Olympic biathlon team but, during a family ski trip to Canada, Gabby dislocated her shoulder. Regardless, because she lied about the severity of her pain, she still made the team. She was outshooting everyone but, eventually, the team doctor figured out the seriousness of her injury. Needless to say, she was extremely disappointed. The FBI noticed her first and approached her about a career. However, when Raphael Valenzuela got wind of her shooting skills and her GPA from Yale, the Bureau never had a chance.
On Monday morning, Joe and Gabby were greeted by Sherriff Monroe Culpepper.
“I’m not exactly sure who in the Sam Hill you two are, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know, but I’ve got orders from Ralph to cooperate and that’s good enough for me. That jackass and I go back a long way and I think a lot of him. Get in the car and we’ll grab us a Starbucks on the way to Social Services. It pains me terribly to pay $4.00 for a damn cup of coffee, so I’ll let Ralph pick up the bill. Is that a problem?”
“Absolutely not,” said Gabby. “As a matter of fact, maybe we can buy lunch once we’ve had a chance to visit with your two guests.”
“Okay, sounds good to me. Ralph has a hell of a lot more money in his budget than these greedy county commissioners give me. However, you may want to take your time with this young girl, Maria Perez. I’m sure this whole ordeal shook her; hell, it ought too, but I think she’s street-smart and I get the feeling she’s anxious to bury the man responsible for all this. Two of the younger girls were from her little community in Guatemala. Apparently she’s in no hurry to get back to her grandmother, so she might be of some help. We haven’t got much out of her, but Ralph said to wait on you.”
Gabby told the boys to wait outside and she spent the next hour and a half sitting next to Maria on a big sofa. When he first peeked through the glass door, Gabby was doing all the talking. Later when Joe peeked again, Maria was waving her arms around and talking up a storm. Finally, Gabby walked out.
“I’m hungry. Where can we get some good buttermilk pancakes?”
Joe and Monroe looked at each other and shrugged.
“Get in. We’ll go to Bobos, but nobody breathes a word of this to my wife.”
Halfway through a large stack, Gabby looked up from her plate. “What?”
“I’ve just never seen a woman attack pancakes like a South Georgia trucker. And besides,” said Monroe, “I’d sure like to know what that little girl said.”
Gabby finished off her last pancake, washed it down with the remainder of her milk. “Sherriff, I could tell you but I’d have to kill you.”
Monroe’s eyes squinted as he looked over at Joe. “She’s kidding, right?”
Joe shrugged his shoulders, and they both turned and looked at Gabby.
“Yeah, just kidding, Sheriff. You were right, though: the girl is not stupid, and dropping and playing dead—that was more instinct than luck. Our little Maria has been arrested for pickpocketing tourists in Ixcán, and supported her grandma by running backpacks between sellers and buyers.”
“Drugs?” asked Monroe.
“She thinks so; but she never asked, and no one mentioned it. However, she did see a man killed once during a drop. She said she hid and watched a man pull a pistol and shoot the other man between the eyes. She said it was the same man who killed the girls.”
“Why in heaven’s name did Maria get in that truck?” asked Joe. “Especially if she knew what this creep was capable of? She sounds like a crafty veteran of the streets, so I’m surprised they ever caught her.”
“Yup, I asked her the same thing,” said Gabby. “She was watching when the same man snatched two small girls in an alley as they were playing with an old tire. He asked them to look at something in the back of his truck, then pushed them in and closed the door. Our little Maria jumped on the bumper and held on for dear life. She tried to open the latch but couldn’t. The truck pulled into a warehouse before she could jump off. They held them in a large room with a woman who beat them if they yelled or cried. Maria said she heard the driver tell someone on the phone that he would make the drop and bring back someone named Charley. She couldn’t hear well but it sounded like he was bringing back two men. That’s when they were loaded into a semitrailer without food or water. She said every two days someone opened the little door and threw in a sack of tacos and one gallon of water. She said there was no place to pee. She thinks they traveled from the region of Ixcán to what she believes was Chihuahua, Mexico. She heard men yelling about money and fighting about who was going to take the girls once they got into the United States. Then a man from Chihuahua opened the door and started screaming about how ugly and skinny the girls were. He pulled two little ones out and stripped them and then he yelled some more. He pulled the girls back into the trailer by their hair. That’s when Maria said she heard the man called Tino, the one driving the truck, say that Señor Espinoza would kill the other men if he didn’t get his money and the two ‘Mikes.’ Maria said it was confusing, but she understood they were being traded for two men named Charley and Mike. She said they slammed the doors shut and she was very afraid they would die. I asked her why and she said, ‘Because we all saw the men’s faces.’ No, sir: this girl is not stupid.”
“It wasn’t Charleys and Mikes,” said Joe. “It was motorcycles, two Harley bikes. He was trading the girls for money and two Harley Davidson bikes.”
“Yes, siree,” said the sheriff. “You’re probably right, Joe. We arrested the driver of the truck at a Harley Davidson dealer.”
“What great value our Señor Espinoza puts on the lives of young girls,” said Gabby. “Sheriff, let’s go talk to the driver. Maybe I’ll take him a taco and a bottle of water.”
Sheriff Culpepper nodded and led the way to the exit.
As they were driving toward the correction facility, Joe leaned in from the backseat. “Gabby, are you okay or do you always eat like a professional wrestler?”
Gabby turned with a serious stare. “Only when I’m really pissed, Joe; it’s what I do—I eat buttermilk pancakes. It calms me down so I can think past the anger—anything else?”
“Nope, I’m good.”
For the time being, Tino Alvarez was isolated at the Pima County Adult Detention Center, a minimum-security facility in Tucson, which made every law enforcement entity and government agency involved very nervous. In the meantime, the local sheriff’s department, the FBI, the DEA, and the Department of Homeland Security were fighting to see who would eventually take custody and begin prosecution. However, standing in everyone’s way was Danny Mora, attorney-at-law. Mr. Mora was not only a smart litigator, he was also chairman of the Cesar Chavez Foundation and currently serving on the board of directors for the National Council of La Raza, as well as the Mexican American Legal Defense. And, as expected, because Mr. Mora was involved, things slowed down.
A call was made to Langley and another call was made to Homeland Security and finally, at 4:59 PM, one to Mr. Mora. When he learned his client was about to be interviewed without his presence, he threatened to sue the federal government. After learning a terrorist charge was now on the table and his client would be exempt from his rights to legal counsel, Danny Mora swore loudly, said they wouldn’t get away with it, and slammed down the phone. Of course he was right to be upset, but the bluff made by a first-year clerk at the CIA gave Gabby and Joe the hour they needed. In the meantime, Mr. Mora scrambled furiously to find a judge who would stay the questionable order. That was the primary reason they make the call at five o’clock: like everyon
e else, federal judges are much harder to find after office hours.
The three entered the facility together, and having the sheriff along did not hurt a thing. However, once inside and the suspect was safely cuffed and secured, the sheriff was excused.
“Do you want me to wait as well?” asked Joe.
“No, not this time. Tino’s culture and machismo prohibits him from giving me any respect. I want his attention quickly, and I think it will help if you are in the room. Follow my lead and if you see an opening, follow your instincts. Besides, he’s going to get nervous when his attorney doesn’t show up. Let’s go see if we can scare him into making a deal.”
Tino Alvarez tried to show a little attitude when Joe and Gabby walked in, but you could tell his heart just wasn’t in it. He looked at the two of them.
“I’m not saying mierda, nada … until my attorney gets here.”
“Oh,” said Gabby. “You must be talking about Mr. Mora and I don’t think he’s your attorney anymore. And besides, he’s not coming, so you can stop staring at the door.”
“Why he no come? Why he no my lawyer no more?”
“Well, Tino, it’s like this: since we’re holding you as a terrorist, I’m not sure but I don’t think an attorney will help you. And I think when Mr. Mora learned that there were two eyewitnesses who saw you kill those little girls, I’m almost certain he didn’t have the stomach to see you hang.”
“Nobody saw me shoot esas niñas. Nadie!”
“If you don’t speak English, Tino, if you don’t understand, I will bring in an interpreter, entender?
