In a middle level, they have people who distribute or sell in bigger quantities, and the hit-men, available to kill someone when needed, or to kidnap a politician or important figure, or a member of his family. These middle level people supervise the drug labs and the violent gangs.
At the top, there will be a family or group that runs the cartel. They negotiate the prices and the territories with other cartels. If they do not produce the drug directly, they negotiate the wholesale purchase of the drugs for distribution within the markets they control. They are also responsible for opening new ‘legal’ businesses for money laundering, and new illegal enterprises which have potential.
And the drug cartels have already diversified into other illegal activities: kidnapping, extortion, illegal mining, petroleum theft, and, as you have seen, human trafficking. There are reports some cartels have moved into human organ trafficking.
The cartel must comply with local government rules, pay their taxes and follow all the local regulations. Of course, ‘being compliant’ isn’t about filing tax returns and paying licenses fees and payroll taxes like a legal company. Being compliant is about the fees and bribes you must pay to government officials, politicians, attorneys, police officers, medics, entrepreneurs, and military officers, among others. Each cartel has a similar cadre of these people on their payroll. It is an expense of doing business.”
“So, the entire society is compromised.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. Drug cartels have infiltrated the Mexican government at all levels. Acting politically against them is like trying to bring the entire government down. Our government will praise the courage and intentions of an anti-cartel politician. But off the record they will find any dirt in his past and use it to blackmail him to stop. If they can’t find blemish in his past, undercover federal agents will ‘discover’ contraband or incriminating evidence planted in his car or his home. If all else fails, he’ll be assassinated.”
“So, it’s pointless then. I leave. They follow me back up to California and try to extract their revenge there. I’m a target still. We’ve accomplished nothing here.”
“I don’t believe that’s the way it will play out, Judge. Not if you take my advice.
Anyway, your thug friends across the street in their car have gone. I’ve got to take Luis to the hospital and then to the police station, and report to the Chief. I’ll order you a cab now and we’ll send you back to the hotel to pack. I’ll pick you up at nine a.m. tomorrow morning and give you a ride to the airport. I think it’s time you rejoined your wife in Los Angeles.”
Garcia gave the Judge another soft smile.
“Besides, I think you’ve done enough damage in my town for one vacation.”
CHAPTER 44
At noon the next day the Judge trudged through the customs hall at LAX and up the long curving ramp into the cavernous reception hall of the Bradley International Terminal, past the countless heads leaning over ramparts to peer down at him, waiting for loved ones and friends to arrive from somewhere else. He was tired and he was despondent.
He’d accomplished some few things, he supposed. Miguel was under arrest for the murder of María and Ana. Cristina was ensconced in Casa del Jardín, would begin the process of healing, and would pick up new skills. He’d never been able to locate Felipe Martínez, the enslaved workman at the ASAM plant, but he’d dutifully sent the man’s requested message back to the small village in Guatemala, letting his family know he was alive.
But he’d mostly failed in Cabo. Failed to bring Luis Cervantes to justice. Failed to find the subordinates who’d kidnapped Katy. Failed to find Carla, the third crew member who’d participated in the brutal drowning of Alan Clark and Mary Whittaker. Failed to make any dent in the human trafficking misery inflicted by the Mexican cartels on their own people and the migrants from the south. Failed, failed, failed.
He glanced up again at the eyes peering down at him from the top rail of the ramp.
But then there she was. Katy. All excited. Jumping up and down like the young girl she was, waving one hand in the air and yelling, the other clutching a small bundle bewildered by all the people, lights, noise and hubbub of the entry hall… Ralphie!
Her wide smile, showing perfect teeth, reached up into her aqua eyes. Her pale skin in a soft white cotton dress, her blonde hair trailing out from beneath a large-brimmed white hat. He loved her fancy hats. God, he loved them so.
And then they were together, clinched into a three-way hug, Ralphie recognizing his dad immediately, offering to share a half-soggy cookie clutched with a death grip in his tiny hand, pressing it to the Judge’s lips.
It was so good to be home.
EPILOG
Two weeks later, as the Judge sat at his breakfast table in Palos Verdes, enjoying the view and his morning coffee, Katy came into the breakfast nook, handing the Judge a small envelope with a foreign stamp, Mexican, addressed to the Judge. Curious, she lingered as the Judge used his fingers to tear open the letter.
The Judge pulled out the enclosed card, an old fashioned personal card with initials at the top, the message written in Indian ink in a long flowing hand. A newspaper clipping fell out beneath the card along with two photos. The Judge looked at the photos.
The first was of a small freezer, its door open to display its contents, the backs of two severed and very frosty looking human heads jammed into it for preservation.
In the second photo, the heads had been turned around and then placed back into the freezer. The Judge stared at the frozen face, open eyes and frosty-white eyebrows of Luis Cervantes, his mouth locked in an awful grimace. The other head belonged to Castillo, the ASAM Plant Manager, bearing an equally unhappy expression.
The Judge picked up the card, read it, then looked up grimly at Katy, handing her the card. It read:
Hope all is well with you, Judge.
Our justice in Mexico is not like California. Often very slow, but sometimes moving with lightning speed.
I wasn’t sure you’d heard about this, so I’ve sent the clipping along and two pictures. We found the two severed heads in a freezer last week, just two blocks from the Tourist Zone in Cabo San Lucas.
I hope the unfortunate events of your vacation here won’t deter you from coming back to enjoy the sights, the sounds, and the gaiety that is Cabo. I guarantee you a better time on your return.
Your compadre,
Chief Inspector Garcia.
A Note from the Author
If you’d like to know more about the topics raised in this book, here are some sources:
US Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report 2017: https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2017/.
Human Trafficking Survivor: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/americas/freedom-project-mexico-trafficking-survivor/index.html.
The Pentagon's new drone swarm heralds a future of autonomous war machines, by Kelsey D. Atherton January 10, 2017: https://www.popsci.com/pentagon-drone-swarm-autonomous-war-machines.
Police in India Will Use Drones to Spray Protesters with Pepper Spray: https://gizmodo.com/police-in-india-will-use-weaponized-pepper-spray-drones-1696511132.
Cat Drone: https://www.dronethusiast.com/dead-cat-drone/
How to Escape from Zip-Ties: http://www.itstactical.com/intellicom/tradecraft/how-to-escape-from-zip-ties/.
Man Sentenced to Death for Throwing Couple of Yacht. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Death-Sentence-Delivered-in-Plot-to-Kll-Couple-on-Yacht.html
In Mexico, ‘It’s Easy to Kill a Journalist’: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/29/world/americas/veracruz-mexico-reporters-killed.html?mcubz=0
Two Severed Heads Found Near Cabo Tourist Center: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/06/13/2-severed-heads-found-near-tourist-zone-in-cabo-san-lucas.html.
I hope you enjoyed reading “CABO” as much as I enjoyed writing it, and perhaps here and there it made you smile a little…. Please leave a REVIEW for me on Amazon if it was a positive read.
Davis MacDona
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A grateful thanks to those good friends who helped me to write and edit CABO. Dr. Alexandra Davis, who was the first to see every word; my amazing Editor, Jason Myers, who did yeoman work on the edits and kept me on the straight and narrow; the multiple good friends that agreed to read and comment on the early draft, and Dane Low, (www.ebooklaunch.com), who helped me design the distinctive cover.
Thank You All.
Davis MacDonald
This is a Work of Fiction
CABO is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses organizations, clubs, places, events and incidents depicted in this book are either products of the Author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance or similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or events, locales, business organizations, clubs, or incidents, is unintended and entirely incidental. Names have been chosen at random and are not intended to suggest any person. The facts, plot, circumstances and characters in this book were created for dramatic effect, and bear no relationship to actual businesses, organizations, communities or their denizens.
About Davis MacDonald
Davis MacDonald grew up in Southern California and writes of places about which he has intimate knowledge. Davis uses the mystery novel genre to write stories of mystery, suspense, love, and commitment, entwined with relevant social issues and moral dilemmas facing 21st Century America. A member of the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NATWE), his career has spanned Law Professor, Bar Association Chair, Investment Banker, and Lawyer. Many of the colorful characters in his novels are drawn in part from his personal experiences and relationships (although they are all officially fictional characters).
Davis began this series in 2013, with the publishing of THE HILL, in which he introduces his new character, the Judge. THE HILL, Book 1, is a murder mystery and a love story which also explores the sexual awakening of a young girl, how sexual manipulation can change lives forever, and the moral dilemmas love sometimes creates.
THE ISLAND, Book 2, is set in Avalon, Catalina, and continues the saga of the Judge and his love, Katy, as the Judge finds himself in another murder mystery, and forced to make key decisions about his relationship with Katy. The story explores the dysfunctional attitudes of a small town forced to drop old ways of thinking or face extinction.
SILICON BEACH, Book 3, is set in Venice, Santa Monica, Playa Vista and Marina del Rey, and opens with a sundown attack on the Judge on the Santa Monica Beach. It carries the reader through the swank and not so swank joints on the Los Angeles West Side, as the Judge tries to bring down killers before they bring him down, dealing along the way with the plight of the homeless.
THE BAY, Book 4, is set in Newport Beach, Balboa, and the Orange County Coastal communities, and finds the Judge pressed into service by the FBI to solve a murder of one of their own, as he stumbles into a terrorist plot that could devastate Orange County. The story takes a close look at Islam in its many strains as it exists in our country.
CABO, Book 5, is set in Mexico, and finds the Judge and Katy on holiday in Cabo San Lucas; a holiday which turns deadly as they unravel a stealthy double murder, and go head to head with human traffickers in Baha California.
THE STRAND, Book 6, is set in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach, and tells the tale of a pre-School seeming perfect for the Judge’s young son, until a body is discovered in the locked maintenance room, followed by allegations of ‘sexual child-abuse’ at the school which causes a frenzy in the newspapers and local community. When the DA decides to grandstand on child abuse allegations with press conferences to buttress his re-election campaign the Judge finds himself pressed into service to help defend an old friend, rallying against a corrupt American justice system on a rush to judgment which emphasizes livid press vignettes of false news over accuracy, permits political self-promotion to trample the rights of the accused, and encourages prosecutor misconduct in the name of winning at all cost
The first Chapter of THE STRAND is included at the end of this book. THE STRAND will be published in the Fall of 2018.
All books are available on Amazon on Kindle, in paperback, on Audio-book, and available in other fine bookstores and outlets.
HOW TO CONNECT WITH
Davis MacDonald
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://davismacdonald-author.com/
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THE STRAND
Look for THE STRAND from Davis MacDonald, book six in the Judge series, to be published in the Fall of 2018.
What follows is the first chapter of
THE STRAND
THE STRAND
A MYSTERY NOVEL SET IN MANHATTAN BEACH, HERMOSA BEACH & REDONDO BEACH
“’tis much more Prudence to acquit two Persons, tho’ actually guilty, than to pass Sentence of Condemnation on one that is virtuous and innocent.’”
Voltaire
“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.”
Justice Potter Stewart
CHAPTER 1
The Judge tried not to grind his teeth, preferring to pulverize the brake-pedal with his foot, grinding back and forth across its surface, occasionally releasing it to move forward an inch or three before pushing it hard again. The line of cars slowly crawled forward now and then, with all the speed of a geriatric snail.
Little Ralphie, snared in his raised car seat behind the Judge, pitched so he could see out the front window and both sides like some Oriental Potentate, didn’t mind. He grasped a brown paper bag in one hand with a death grip, his snack bag, and was all big eyes on a tiny swiveling head, watching the people and the bright colored cars and SUVs finally reaching the head of the line and dumping their small passengers.
This was a new system. And a foul system it was. The pre-school had decided that rather than having parents walk their kids onto the premises and into their designated classrooms, it would put a stop to such aimless and generally uncontrollable swarms of adults invading their sacred grounds twice a day, once in the morning and once in the early afternoon. This new system had teachers and assorted staff meeting the little buggers at the designated car drop-off point, helping them out of their car-seats and cars, and escorting them hand in hand into the school.
The plan sounded fine in theory, but was quickly wrecked on the shoals of the reality. Most of the drop-off parents were moms and most of the pre-school staff were female. The resulting adult female interaction was a golden opportunity to use female words, chit-chatting with each other at length, leaving a line of stranded cars and females behind, waiting their turn to use their female words. It was a female thing.
The line of cars seemed hardly to move. It was the last time Katy would sucker him into drop-off duty, he swore to God.
“Daddy.”
“Yes, Ralphie”
“I like Mr. Campbell.”
“That’s nice.”
“He can fly.”
“Oh. Well that’s pretty cool. Have you seen him do it?”
“No. But he told us.”
“I see.”
“He’s teaching us to play ‘Naked Movie Star’.”
“What?” The Judge swung his head around in his seat to look at his small son, eye to eye, suddenly focused.
“Yep. ‘What you say, is what you are,… You’re a naked movie star’.”
Ralphie giggled. “Maybe you’ll play with me.”
“Yes, Ralphie. You’ll have to show me how you play when I get home tonight. Your mother can play too. I’m sure she’ll want to hear all about it.”
Ralphie nodded in satisfaction.
The Judge shook his head. You never knew what his young four-and-a-half-year-old would
come up with next. It was all very… disconcerting.
The Campbell Preschool had been a South Bay institution for over 20 years, the oldest and most prestigious preschool school servicing Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach, the small cities that checkered the beach from Palos Verdes to Play Del Rey along what was called “The Strand”. Many of the sons and daughters of the beach cities’ elite had attended the school. Old Mary Campbell had founded the school but was recently retired. The School was now run by Mary’s daughter, Laura Campbell, and Mary’s son, Harvey or Harry or something…Campbell. The son did the back-office work and taught a few classes, but was rarely seen by the parents. Demand was so great it was difficult to get a child into the preschool. There was a long waiting list. It was rumored the list could be circumvented if you knew the right people.
And the Judge did. He’d known the old lady, Mary Campbell, since his youth when his mother and Mary had been close friends. He’d made a discrete call, and magically Ralphie had gotten an invitation to attend three days later, making the Judge a hero at home. That had been a month ago. And Ralphie seemed to be enjoying himself at the school.
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