The Last Line

by Anthony Shaffer

  Worse … what would happen if people who didn’t know about the nukes found out about them now, and decided to join in the chase?

  “We were informed a week ago,” de la Cruz added. “Your NRO has been forwarding us satellite images of the Zapoteca as she approached the coast of Belize. Unfortunately, your satellites appear to have lost her almost immediately.”

  “Lost her? She should have reached port five or six days ago,” Teller said.

  “The Zapoteca is not in Belize City,” de la Cruz said. “That was her presumed destination, based on her course and speed when she was first photographed. We are checking out other ports along the Yucatán coast.” He hesitated. “We have, of course, informed el presidente.”

  “What is your analysis of the situation?” Chavez asked.

  “We are assuming one of the cartels is behind it, of course,” de la Cruz replied. “Possibly with help from al Qaeda.”

  “What would al Qaeda have to gain by selling nukes to Mexico?” Teller asked.

  De la Cruz shrugged behind the wheel. “Money. What else?”

  “I don’t think so,” Teller said. “If al Qaeda has managed to get its hands on two pocket A-bombs, they wouldn’t send them to Mexico. Their beef is with us.”

  “Disculpe,” de la Cruz said, “but I must remind you, Señor Callahan. The entire world does not revolve around just you yanquis.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Teller replied, “but the world does have to make sense. The drug lords are interested in just one thing—profit. It would hardly be in their best interests to use atomic weapons against their own country.”

  De la Cruz pulled the Escort out into the seething, chaotic traffic of downtown Mexico City. The streets here appeared to be locked in a perpetual traffic jam, vehicles inching along, horns blaring, drivers shouting and gesticulating at one another. It reminded Teller of downtown D.C. in rush hour, maybe worse.

  “The cartels may have those nukes for extortion.” de la Cruz said. “At CISEN, we have been looking at one particular extortion scenario with considerable interest. The cartels have been coming under a great deal of pressure lately, from the government, from our military. This is why they have grown so dangerous, so desperate, these past few years. I can imagine them planting a couple of small nuclear devices here in Mexico City and threatening to detonate them if the government does not legalize their operations.”

  “What, make manufacturing and shipping drugs legal?”

  “Exactly. Or, at the least, they might tell us to turn our heads, to ignore their activities at every level. It would be like holding a loaded pistol to our heads.”

  Teller weighed the possibilities. It did make sense. The different Mexican cartels had been at each other’s throats since the beginning, trying to dominate the lucrative drug pipelines north, but they’d also been engaged in all-out war with both the Mexican government and various agencies in the United States, the DEA and the FBI in particular. For a long time, they’d been able to buy or bribe officials in the Mexican government, police forces, and army, but that had become a lot tougher since 2006, when Mexican president Felipe Calderón had launched the first of his country’s military assaults on the drug lords. If the cartels could get the government off their backs, they would have a lot more freedom and resources to pursue their war on one another.

  If the cartels were feeling the pinch, they might resort to extortion on a new and unheard-of scale.

  “It’s possible,” Teller agreed, “but that still doesn’t feel right to me. I still think it more likely that if al Qaeda got hold of a couple of nukes, they’d use them on us, not sell them to a third party.”

  “So,” Chavez said, “where would you suggest we start, Miguel? It doesn’t have to be someone as big as El Chapo.”

  De la Cruz gave a deep shrug. “The cabrónes are everywhere here. You just gotta look.”

  “Which cartel is calling the shots in Mexico City?” Teller asked.

  De la Cruz gave a harsh snort. “Which one isn’t? Sinaloa, La Resistencia, Knights Templars, LFM … they’re all pretty active here.”

  “LFM?”

  “La Familia Michoacana. Used to be part of the Sinaloan Federation, until they got greedy. We think they’re extinct now, but you never can be sure.”

  “Okay. What about Los Zetas?”

  “Them, too, though they’re more east coast, in the Gulf Cartel’s old territory. All of the cartels maintain at least some presence here, y’know?”

  “Well, if you’re going to buy a few dozen federales or judges or generals, this is the happening place, right?” Chavez joked.

  “There’s one guy,” de la Cruz said, thoughtful. “Juan Escalante Romero. He’s Sinaloa, but the word on the street is he’s been playing with Los Zetas, too. He’s ex-GAFE. Trained at Fort Benning. And he’s tough, mean.”

  “So where would we find him?” Chavez asked.

  “Different places. He’s all over, really. But there’s a Los Zetas safe house we know of, in Iztacalco. He often goes there when he’s in town.”

  “Sounds like we have ourselves an opportunity for a stakeout,” Teller said. “What fun.” He despised stakeouts—hours and hours of unrelenting boredom for the minute chance of a payoff.

  “I’ll drive you by there, if you like. Give you a chance to look the place over, and maybe we can find a good spot for an OP”—an observation post.

  “Sounds good.”

  De la Cruz turned off onto a side street, continuing to make slow but steady progress through the noisy, teeming tangle of the congested inner city. Teller glanced back, trying to spot Procario, but failing. The rental was an inconspicuous silver-gray Ford Focus. If it was back there, it was lost among some hundreds of other vehicles packed into the narrow street.

  He wanted to believe that the CISEN officer was right, that the drug cartels had brought the nuclear weapons to Mexico with the intent of extorting compliance from the Mexican government. The fact that the Zapoteca was involved—again, assuming the weapons were on board her—suggested one or more of the cartels were involved. The cartels would have the money, the ready cash, to purchase a couple of tactical nukes on the open market. Finally, the mere possibility that the former archrivals Sinaloa and Los Zetas were actually working together suggested that something very big was afoot.

  It made a convincing argument.

  He still didn’t buy it. If it was not a coincidence that Sinaloa was cooperating with Los Zetas, neither could it be a coincidence that Hezbollah activity was increasing in the region, or that a known VEVAK agent was operating in Mexico. Suppose they were involved in the smuggling of two tactical nukes into Mexico or Belize? If that were the case, the situation could be quite different … and a lot more serious for the United States. Either Hezbollah or their Iranian backers might be planning on using the drug cartels and their smuggling networks to get those weapons across the border into the United States.

  The same was true if al Qaeda was behind the operation, but Teller still doubted that they were the masterminds here. While not out of the running yet by any means, al Qaeda had been savaged by U.S. intelligence and military operations to the point that they were now just barely hanging on. They might be planning a nuclear strike out of sheer desperation, but it was a lot more likely they were all still lying low in the wake of Abbottabad, waiting for the next predator drone strike, the next SEAL team assault.

  They needed information—solid intel. Until they had it, they were groping in the dark.

  Perhaps this Juan Escalante would be able to shed some light on things.

  LOS ANGELES CITY HALL

  NORTH SPRING STREET

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  1020 HOURS, PDT

  “… and we go live now to reporter Catherine Herridge, on the scene.”

  Guided by the voice of the studio anchor in her ear, the reporter looked at the lens and began speaking with earnest sincerity into her microphone.

  “Yes, Peter. LAPD sources
say they still have no clue to the identity of two men who fired automatic rifles from the roof of a building into the crowd gathered outside city hall yesterday afternoon, killing four and wounding seventeen. Two men were taken into custody, but according to one source, both men carried LAPD badges and identification.”

  On the small monitor set up in front of and below her cameraman, the scene shifted from her face to a tape shot from a news helicopter the afternoon before. Two men could be seen leaning over the wall of a skyscraper, firing indiscriminately into the crowd twenty stories below. Abruptly, a number of uniformed police officers broke out onto the roof. Both gunmen immediately dropped their weapons over the building’s side and turned to face the officers, hands in the air.

  “Officials so far have refused to make any statement about the two, as to whether they were active-duty police officers, as has been claimed, or even whether they are still in custody.”

  The scene shifted once again to a close-up of an angry crowd, close-packed behind a yellow police-barrier tape. One Hispanic man was waving a crudely scrawled cardboard sign reading POLICE BRUTALITY!

  “While the crowd outside of city hall yesterday dispersed as soon as the shots were fired, other crowds have been gathering at points across East Los Angeles since then to protest what they call police brutality, or excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators. Congressman Harvey Gonzales, of the East L.A. Congressional District, has personally issued a plea for calm while the incident is investigated.”

  DISTRICTO IZTACALCO

  CIUDAD DE MÉXICO

  REPUBLICA DE MÉXICO

  1535 HOURS, LOCAL TIME

  They’d parked the Escort on Sur 145, a narrow street in the barrio of crowded tenements, houses, and shacks. De la Cruz had pointed out the suspected safe house used by Escalante and other members of the Los Zetas cartel, a two-story house with a cracked plaster façade and a decaying front stoop.

  “I’d have thought a drug lord could afford something more upscale—something with a Chihuahua at least…” Teller observed.

  De la Cruz shrugged. “In this part of town, it’s best to be inconspicuous. Besides, it’s not his home.”

  “So, how do we know if he’s here?” Chavez asked.

  “Oh, he’s here alright,” de la Cruz said. “That’s his car parked in front of us. See the sticker on the plate? Hoy no circula.”

  “‘No drive today’?” Teller translated. “I don’t get it.”

  “Mexico City has two major problems,” Chavez told him, “traffic congestion and pollution caused by traffic. The hoy no circula program takes some of those cars, the older ones, off the streets.”

  “Newer cars are exempt,” de la Cruz explained. “But cars older than eight years can’t go out on the streets one day a week plus one Saturday a month.”

  “Exacto. His ’02 Chevy has a red sticker, and his license plate number ends in ‘4.’ That means he can’t take it out on the streets on Wednesdays, or on the third Saturday of the month.”

  “And today is Wednesday,” Teller said. “That must be hell on people who have to commute.”

  “It forces people to find other ways to get to work,” de la Cruz replied. “But Mexico City proper has nine million people living in it … and almost twenty-five million people in the metro area. It’s the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. Twenty years ago, they were issuing hazardous air warnings for this city 355 days out of the year. Today … well, things are a lot better.”

  “Yeah, the air doesn’t seem that bad,” Teller admitted. “A little thin, but not bad. I can’t see people in the United States giving up driving, though, even one day a week. I think we’re addicted to it.”

  De la Cruz chuckled. “Don’t get smug, gringo. I’ve seen Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., in rush hour. Mark me, you yanquis will be doing something just like it soon!”

  “Sure,” Chavez said. “Remember gas rationing, back in the seventies? It could get that bad again.”

  “Before my time,” Teller said. The steady erosion of basic American freedoms over the past couple of decades was a sore point with him. He decided to change the uncomfortable subject. “So … tell us about this Escalante character.”

  “Here…” De la Cruz reached into a jacket pocket and produced a smart phone. “You have net access?”

  “Sure.” Teller pulled out his mobile phone. With de la Cruz’s phone acting as a mobile wireless hotspot, he could exchange contact information with the CISEN agent, then download a file from de la Cruz’s phone. He opened it, and began scanning through the information. The attached file photos included several surveillance shots of Escalante, plus one prison photograph, showing front and side views. He was a young man with dark hair, a heavy mustache, and cold, cold eyes.

  “He started off working for Sinaloa,” de la Cruz said. “Strictly mid-level management. He oversaw the shipment of cocaine, mostly, up from Colombia, and passed it on to the smuggling networks in Tijuana and Nogales. When the Tijuana Cartel went independent, they put a price on his head, but he went to work for El Chapo and the Sinaloan Federation. Arrested in ’99 for bribing police officials, but they let him go—a federal judge in Sinaloa’s pocket. He’s loyal to Sinaloa, but the word is that he has personal ties to Los Zetas, so he’s a floater.”

  “‘Floater’?”

  “Sinaloa and Los Zetas are in an all-out war … have been since 2010. But he’s able to cross the lines, kind of like having diplomatic immunity, y’know? Floats from one camp to the other, and neither side is able to touch him. We think he’s been brokering a truce between the two cartels.”

  Teller scanned through the information appearing on his phone’s screen. “A half-million dollar penthouse in a high-rise condo in downtown Mexico City,” he said, reading. “So what’s he doing driving a beat-up white Chevy that he can’t take out on Wednesdays?”

  “Oh, he’s got a Mercedes, too,” de la Cruz said, laughing. “And a Peugeot. And a couple of other hot cars. But … remember what I said about being inconspicuous? A Mercedes would be kind of out of place in this neighborhood. When he stays here, he drives his low-profile junker.”

  “And why does he stay here at all?” Teller wanted to know.

  “A girl, of course,” de la Cruz said. “Isn’t that the way it always is?”

  “Maria Perez,” Chavez added. “She keeps the place as a safe house, for members of Los Zetas when they’re in town. Word is she’s a niece of El Hummer, Jaime Perez Durán. He’s one of the original bigshots of the Los Zetas, so maybe that’s how he ended up in both camps, playing diplomat.”

  “Exactly.” De la Cruz nodded. “Escalante has a wife living in his high-rise, so he can’t take Maria there. So he visits her here at this place two, maybe three times a week. Probably tells his wife he’s staying late at the office. And if it happens to be a Wednesday, well, he has to stay that extra day, right? Or the police’ll pick him up for violating hoy no circula.”

  “Well, things are just tough all over,” Teller said. “Even for drug lords.” He stretched and shifted. His long legs had been folded into the back of the Escort for hours now, and he was getting stiff. “Hey, you said we might be able to find a place for an OP.”

  “Sure.” De la Cruz pointed to a pastel-blue painted house across the street and several numbers north from the cartel safe house. “That house … there. The guy who owns it, Antonio Vicente Lozano, is a police informant. Strictly unofficial, since if his address showed up on an official record or pay voucher, he’d be dead the very next day. But some of us in CISEN pay him a bit every month out of our own pockets to just kind of keep an eye on the Perez house. He lets us know the make and license numbers of cars that show up out front, how long they stay, that sort of thing. That’s how we picked up on Escalante.”

  “Sweet.”

  “See the window on the third story, the one with the little balcony and all the potted plants in front of it? A couple of times, now, Vicente’s let us rent that room for
surveillance.” He grinned. “We’ve picked up some pretty hot action from Maria’s bedroom, let me tell you.”

  “Anything useful?” Chavez asked.

  A shrug. “No mucho. Escalante’s pretty careful about what he says, even around his tragona.”

  “Let’s set it up,” Teller said. “And I think we’re going to need some special equipment from back home.”

  SAFE HOUSE, EAST OLYMPIC BOULEVARD

  EAST LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  1630 HOURS, PDT

  Automatic gunfire sounded outside, and Reyshahri cautiously went to the window. The mob outside filled the street as far as he could see in each direction, and was on the move now, headed toward downtown. The shots had come from a man brandishing an M-16, firing wildly into the air. “Idiots,” Reyshahri said in Farsi. “Those bullets have to come down somewhere.”

  Beside him, Fereidun Moslehi chuckled. “It will attract their police all the sooner,” he said in the same language. “And that is what we want, a confrontation, yes?”

  “Oh, there will be a confrontation. I have no doubt of that.”

  There must have been thousands in the crowd, which was made up mostly of young, angry men, but Reyshahri could see women and even children in the mob as well, marching, shouting, punching the air with clenched fists as they chanted.

  “¡Dignidad! ¡Igualdad! ¡Libertad!”

  Dignity. Equality. Liberty. The sincere and honest aspirations of any people. The signs they carried sported the same sentiments. “¡Justicia!” Read one. “¡Fuerza a las Gentes!” read another. “¡Aztlán Libre!” a third.

  Free Aztlán. That didn’t have a chance, of course. At least … not yet.

  Aztlán was the mythical ancestral home for the Nahua native peoples; the name Aztec literally meant “People from Aztlán.” Beginning in the 1960s, however, the name had been taken up by the Chicano movement and various independence activists to refer to the lands of northern Mexico annexed—some said “stolen”—by the United States after the Mexican-American War in 1847. The idea was a frankly political ploy to give the Chicano independence movement what they felt was a legal right to what was now California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas … the entire U.S. Southwest, in fact, as far north as Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. A number of Latino political action groups in the United States had united under the Aztlán banner—the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, and NOA, the Nation of Aztlán.