“Yeah, but that’s not the interesting thing. They found a cell phone, with Flowers prints on it. And a Snapchat message: a picture of the Criminal Courts Building, with a set of windows circled.”
Chelmin said, “The windows that Flowers put the RPG through?”
“Exactly. And two names: Yours and Spaulding’s. And a time, which was just when they fired that god damned thing and killed everybody in Judge Anthony’s chambers.”
“Who sent the message?”
“It was sent from a prepaid cell phone. Untraceable. But once we had the number, we got the cell tower that it pinged off of when that message was sent.”
Chelmin found himself craving a cigarette again. “Where was that tower, Tom?”
“Santa Ana, downtown Santa Ana.”
Chelmin said, “Curiouser and curiouser. I’m just headed down that way now.”
“Call me when you know anything new.”
Chelmin hung up and called Shawcross, the U.S. Attorney, and was transferred to Gary Finkelstein, his deputy. Without going into many details, he described his conversation with Portillo. “I’d like you to consider charging him federally. I think he’ll take a plea if you offer sentencing consideration. He’s just a kid, Gary.”
“I’ll speak with Portillo, and if he’ll give a statement and accepts a plea, I’m sure we can limit the damage.”
“Thanks,” Chelmin said. “I’ll email you the outlines of what he told me, hopefully today. In the meanwhile, he should be in a segregated area. If the M-9 bosses get wind of his cooperation, they’ll try to silence him.”
“I’ll move him today,” Finkelstein said.
Still sitting in the parking garage, Chelmin called Will and told him about the picture message and hit list on Flowers’s phone.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Will said. “Why would a Marine want to kill me?”
“What if he had a contract from the Prinze family?”
“So then he robs their bank and kills their kid?”
“That part doesn’t make sense,” Chelmin said, “until you realize that there was a cutout. The Marine got the contract. He farmed it out to a bunch of out-of-town gangbangers, which on one level is smart because it removes the link to the Prinzes. But the gangbangers were not told who hired the Marine. Or even that someone had hired him. They didn’t even ask why the Marine wanted this cop dead. So they had no idea if it came from the Prinzes.”
“As frightening as that is, it makes sense,” Will said. “But who sent the message with our names and a picture of the courthouse?”
“Somebody on a burner phone in Santa Ana.”
“Now I’m even more confused.”
“Me too. Will, how are those reports coming?”
“Both done. Waiting for your signature.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“I’ll email them to your phone.”
“Fine,” Chelmin said. “Go take a nap or something. I’ll see you tonight.”
Chelmin’s last call was to Malone. He tried his cell, but the call went straight to voicemail and a message that his mailbox was full and no message could be left.
Chelmin dialed the NCIS Barstow office and got Malone’s secretary, Brenda.
“Hi, Agent Chelmin. Agent Malone is in the field,” she said. “Maybe in San Diego.”
“Do you have access to the Provost Marshal’s registered vehicle database?”
“Sorry, but I would need Agent Malone’s permission for that.”
“OK,” Chelmin said. “Can you tell him that I’d like a list of all white compact pickup trucks, and their owners, that are registered on the base?”
“I will pass that along when I see him, Agent Chelmin.”
“Thank you, Brenda.”
“You’re welcome.”
Forty-six
Will sat at a Barstow PD computer, thinking. Only a few months ago, before he had enlisted, he would have done several things while investigating a murder. Because he was working with Chelmin, however, he had not found time to do some of them.
So now would be a good time, he decided. He asked his father to ask a judge for a warrant to access Kendra’s social media pages.
Then he notified Facebook management that Kendra Farrell had been murdered and that he needed access to her pages and all the hidden data on them. He included his name, title, and the switchboard number at Barstow PD.
He did the same for Kendra’s Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Linked-In accounts.
Then he began browsing the publicly accessible portions of those accounts, taking notes as he went.
Forty-seven
Chelmin left the freeway as he approached downtown Santa Ana. A few blocks from his destination, the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse, he stopped to get a sandwich from a Jack In The Box drive-through. Two blocks from the courthouse, he found a four-hour meter in the shade of a big tree.
As he shut the engine down, Chelmin’s phone vibrated—a text from Will Spaulding.
“Contacted AT&T Mobile about your incoming robocalls. Phone # is blocked, but the source is in Area Code 714, exchange 245, located downtown Santa Ana. They will block incoming ASAP.”
Chelmin frowned. First, a hit on him and Spaulding ordered by someone in Santa Ana. Now anonymous phone messages intended to annoy him while filling his voicemail box, thus blocking any messages that he couldn’t answer—and they came from Santa Ana. What the hell was going on?
Recalling what Spaulding had shown him, he found the voicemail feature and deleted three dozen of the annoying messages.
It was a quarter to one; Chelmin decided to sit in his car and eat a leisurely lunch. He was halfway through a chicken sandwich when he saw Malone walking slowly away from the courthouse, just fifty meters or so from where Chelmin sat.
Chelmin thought that this was peculiar. Malone had told him, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney, that he would be in San Diego, working with NCIS agents on the M-9 gang angle. Yet now he was in Santa Ana, seventy miles from San Diego, walking down the street while talking to a bulky, graying, dark-skinned Latino man.
Chelmin was thinking about following him when his reverie was interrupted by a knock on his window. He turned to find a uniformed meter maid peering at him.
Chelmin rolled down the window.
“Sir, you need to put money in the meter if you’re going to park here.”
“You’re absolutely right, Officer,” he replied. He put the uneaten portion of his sandwich back in the bag, opened the door and got out, then fumbled in his pocket for a quarter but came up empty.
“I’m really sorry, ma’am,” he said, turning to the parking officer. “I don’t suppose you have change for a dollar?”
“You can use a credit card, sir.”
Chelmin lifted his suit jacket to get to his wallet, and the woman recoiled. “A gun?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, pulling out his badge. “No cause for alarm. I’m a federal agent.”
“You frightened me,” she said. Slender and pretty, the uniformed woman appeared to be in her late thirties, her long dark hair tucked up under a helmet. She was suddenly pale, and to Chelmin her breathing sounded labored. And there was something else: The face beneath her helmet seemed familiar. He had seen her before—but where?
“I apologize, ma’am. Didn’t mean to startle you. Do you want to sit down? Some water?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “It’s just that—there was a shooting at the courthouse. About an hour ago.”
“I wasn’t aware. Anybody killed?”
“I don’t know. It was a drive-by, some Mexican boys in a car shot at people on the front steps—I think a few people were hit.”
“You were there?”
“They have a nice cafeteria. I usually take lunch there.”
“You have nothing to fear from me, ma’am.”
Chelmin took out his wallet, found a credit card, and walked to the meter. He peered at it, then saw a slot to insert the
card.
“Sir, put it in slowly and pull it back out fast.”
In half a minute, Chelmin charged two dollars to his office Visa Card.
He turned back to find the meter maid staring at him.
“Sir, is your name Rudolf Chelmin?”
“It is. Do I know you?”
“It’s Cheryl. Your sister-in-law. Former sister-in-law.”
Chelmin had married young, while still in the Marines. After his medical discharge, around the time that he graduated from college, completed physical therapy, and was able to walk with his prosthesis, Chelmin was accepted into the Army’s CID program. He hadn’t been back to Milwaukee since, hadn’t seen or heard from Noreen’s younger sister in almost 20 years. And now, here she was, smiling, with tears in her gray eyes.
He looked at her again and saw the resemblance. She looked much like what Chelmin had imagined Noreen would look like now, had she not been killed.
He opened his arms, and they embraced each other for a long moment.
“Do you live here now?” she asked.
“At Fort Fremont—near Salinas. I’m on a murder investigation. I came to see the local FBI agent.”
“Will that take long, Rudy? We should sit and talk.”
Chelmin shrugged. “We should. But I’ve got a job to do, and so do you, it appears.”
He dug a card out of an inside pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to her. “That’s my cell phone. Are you free for dinner tonight?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, beaming.
“Pick out a nice place, and text me the address. I’ll meet you at 7:00 if that’s good.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Bring your husband, if you like.”
Cheryl frowned. “I’m not married. Haven’t been married for a long time.”
Rudy smiled. “See you at 7:00?”
Cheryl threw her arms around Chelmin and hugged him hard.
“It’s so good to see you, Rudy. I mean it. I’ve thought about you many times since...”
“Since Noreen passed. It seems like a long time now.”
Forty-eight
Barney Lynch, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Santa Ana office, was a banty rooster of a man, five-feet, five inches tall, with broad shoulders tapering to a small waist and a weight lifter’s chest and arms. His head was covered with a short, thick, curly layer of carrot-red hair, and his bright blue eyes glittered through a pair of retro spectacles.
“M-9? The Cascabel Salvadorans?” he asked the CID agent seated next to his desk.
“Those are the rascals,” Chelmin said. “Tried to kill me and my partner in Barstow. Blew up a gas station with an RPG, held up a bank waving machine guns, and finally killed a San Bernardino County superior court judge, the district attorney, a defense lawyer and his client with the same weapon.”
“Funny that you should come here today to ask about the M-9,” Lynch said. “I’d heard about the San Berdoo incident—it was all over television—but I didn’t know about the M-9 link. But here’s the funny thing: Two hours ago, there was a Navy cop sitting in your chair, asking about the same gang.”
“Marcus Malone?”
“You know him?”
“Sure. He’s NCIS, out of the Barstow Marine base.”
“Don’t you guys talk?”
“Spoke to him yesterday, and he said he was going down to San Diego because NCIS has an undercover op going on a Salvadoran gang down that way.”
“I told Malone what I’ll tell you: The expert on M-9 is the Intel sergeant at Santa Ana PD, Rafael Cardenas. He was just here. Left with Malone half an hour ago.”
“Heavy-set guy, salt-and-pepper hair, dark skin, maybe five-feet, eight inches or so?”
“That’s the hombre. Go see him. North a long block to Civic Center Drive, about a quarter of a mile west to Santa Ana PD.”
“Sorry to take up your time, Lynch.”
“Not so fast, Chelmin. I gotta ask you about the San Berdoo dustup.”
“What do you need?”
“Is it true that you dropped two gangbangers with a head shot each at 200 yards with a revolver?”
Chelmin got to his feet. “I can’t swear to the range, but that sounds about right. They were wearing body armor. And I’m done talking about it.”
forty-nine
Sergeant Rafael Cardenas had just entered his office carrying a fresh cup of coffee when Chelmin rapped on the open door.
“Sergeant Cardenas?” he asked.
Cardenas set his cup down on the desk and turned back to look at the visitor.
“Don’t tell me, another Fed?”
“Got me,” Chelmin said.
“Grab a chair, and let’s hear your sad story.”
Chelmin approached the desk, took out his badge, and said, “Chelmin, Army CID.”
“Did you happen to see an Air Force cop in the lobby?”
Chelmin smiled. “I understand Marcus Malone of NCIS was here earlier?”
Cardenas smiled. “You’re tailing him?’
Chelmin shook his head. “I started with the FBI, and Barney Lynch sent me to you. Told me that Malone was there earlier.”
“Malone and I go way back,” he said. “We survived boot camp together, a million years ago. I almost married his sister. Would have, but she wasn’t interested. So, what can I do for you?”
“Well, I’m working a murder case in his backyard, and it suddenly got complicated. You heard about the explosion at San Bernardino Criminal Courts?”
“Sure. Wait—you’re the guy who took down a whole M-9 crew single-handed?”
Chelmin shook his head. “I have a partner. We worked it together.”
“Modesty is good,” Cardenas said. “I like modesty in a Fed. It’s so rare.”
“I interviewed Portillo, one of the two survivors of that crew. He’s in federal custody. He told me that his crew boss, Franklin “Felon” Flowers, took a contract from a Marine to kill a Barstow cop. The Marine was someone who did business with Dalton Ignacio Guerrero. Payment for the hit was an RPG and some automatic weapons stolen from the Marine base.”
“Portillo is pulling your leg,” Cardenas said. “That can’t be true.”
“Why is that?”
“I’ve never known him to do business with a gringo, let alone a Marine. It goes against his nature, not to mention his modus operandi. That crowd trusts nobody but Salvadorans, and not many of them.”
“Then how did Flowers get his hands on a Chinese RPG, four grenades, an M4 carbine, and an M-249 machine gun?”
“He probably met that Marine somewhere or knew someone who knew a Marine that could steal weapons. And he told his crew that the Marine was OK because El Patróne sent him. How would the crew know different?”
Chelmin nodded. It made as much sense as anything Portillo had told him.
“What can you tell me about the M-9?”
“There’s a lot that we think we know and not much that we can confirm.”
Chelmin spread his hands, palms up. “Tell me.”
“OK, but it’s not gonna get you any closer to your phantom Marine.”
“Humor me.”
Cardenas sighed, turned to his computer and punched several keys. “Come around and have a look,” he said.
Chelmin rose, stiffly, and made his way to a spot behind the sergeant. He found himself looking at the title page of a PowerPoint show. It was titled M-9.
“M-9 has about 400 members,” Cardenas began, bringing up the first slide. “All are Salvadorans. About half of these gangsters reside in the U.S. In addition, they have an unknown number of associates—men and women who are in some way affiliated with the gang. Most, but not all, Salvadorans.”
He brought up the next slide. “The M-9 operates internationally. Its base of operations is San Salvador. In the USA, they operate primarily in California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida—states with large numbers of Hispanic residents.
“The M-9 is different
from other Hispanic street gangs. They do not compete for turf with other criminal gangs. They have instead exploited market niches that require considerable sophistication and resources.
“For example, they import and distribute cocaine, heroin, and other narcotics. M-9 does not sell its products retail. Their customers are other criminal gangs who engage in retail distribution.”
“What kind of weight are you talking, Cardenas?” Chelmin asked.
“Several tons a month. They import by land, sea, and air. ATF has found cross-border tunnels with small-gauge rail tracks down the bottom and elevators on both ends, with the terminus concealed inside a warehouse or a home in a residential neighborhood. They use small aircraft and improvised airstrips. They’re rumored to use submarines, for God’s sake. The M-9 sometimes imports cocaine dissolved in gasoline carried in tanker trucks. Lately, they’ve been experimenting with small drones to zip across the border with a kilo or so at a time.”
Chelmin asked, “What about arms? Weapons?”
“Yes. M-9 has at times hooked up with Chinese gangs that bring containers with counterfeit Marlboros, plus AK-47s, handguns, and, a couple of times, RPGs.”
“What would an RPG be worth on the street?”
“Upwards of $20,000 along with some ammo.”
Chelmin nodded. “Go on.”
“The M-9 also engages in human trafficking. They supply women to brothels and to call-girl operations, and on occasion, they bring in well-to-do folks who can’t use official channels.”
“You’re talking about people with criminal records, terrorists, and so forth?”
“Not terrorists,” Cardenas said, “As far we know, they steer clear of that business.
“The M-9 also engages in financing criminal enterprises. They launder other gangs’ money, and they have enough cash to act, at times, like a central bank. They accept deposits in, say, Los Angeles or Dallas and allow withdrawals twenty-four hours later in Switzerland, Grand Cayman Island, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, and elsewhere.”
Cardenas brought up the next slide and paused for a long sip of coffee.
M-9 Page 10
