by Jack Murphy
Drugs brought with them drug culture. Just as the addict made their entire family sick with their addiction, drugs could make an entire culture sick, their very identity seared into the drug mythology. In a country like Mexico where the government was hopelessly corrupt, the criminals were often seen as heroes. They were the underdogs.
In the third world there were few alternatives to the human-destroying authoritarian governments. Some gravitated to the cartels as a way to advance in life, at least until they no longer had a life to speak off, snuffed out by rivals or comrades for growing too powerful. Others allied themselves with the leftist rebel groups. If he had to pick between the two, Commandete Zero and his rebels were clearly the better choice. Say what you would about the Zapatistas, they were a homegrown rebellion seeking some kind of reformation. There wasn't really an equivalency between the rebels and the butchers in the cartels.
Keeping his war belt on, Deckard slung the AK-103 over a shoulder and headed out. He needed a cup of coffee. What he really needed was a few hours sleep but there was a war to fight and Samruk was working on a very limited time line.
Stepping out into the hall, Deckard's footsteps echoed down the empty halls. When he came to Ortega's arms room, he stopped at the door to look inside. Nikita stood with his back to the door. He was running a cleaning rod down the barrel of a massive .50 caliber Barrett Anti-Material rifle. It was one of the many weapons that they had liberated from Ortega.
Sadly, the large bore rifle was nothing more than a show piece to the cartel. It was just an expression of machismo, they hadn't even bothered to attach a scope to it. Nikita would give the rifle a cleaning, get the rifle zeroed, and put it to use. Use the enemy's weapons against them, it was the perfect battlefield recovery.
Nikita slowly turned his head to look over his shoulder at Deckard. His eyes were cold, his face expressionless.
Deckard moved along. Now wasn't the time.
Several months ago they had stood together on the deck of the Crown of the Pacific. It had been a super-cruise liner that had sunk to the depths of the Pacific Ocean. By that point they were both barely on their feet, wounded by the fight of and for their lives. Samruk International had been put through the meat grinder, reduced from a full battalion to only a few platoons.
For reasons that confounded those who remained, they had survived the ordeal. Samruk had pulled off the impossible but it wasn't pretty. Their bodies had slowly healed, but Deckard knew that Nikita's mind had never really left that ship as it slipped beneath the waves towards the ocean floor.
Crossing the courtyard, Deckard looked over the security positions on his way. Pairs of Samruk mercenaries stood guard at intervals along the compound walls. They were still in the process of building up fighting positions with sandbags, bricks, and mortar. RPG launchers and PKM machine guns had been assigned to each position. So far, so good.
Entering Ortega's mansion, Deckard weaved through more of the mercenaries as they moved about. They would be switching out, some of them bedding down for the some sleep, others relieving the guard force so they could get some sleep before heading out on new missions once the intel was developed. Right now their battle rhythm was a little haphazard, but they'd get it figured out. Probably just in time for them to wrap things up and head out, or so Deckard suspected based on previous experience. Inside the OPCEN, he found Cody hard at work behind his computer. Projected on the wall was an organizational chart that attempted to break down the structure of the Jimenez cartel.
Deckard poured some coffee into a Styrofoam cup and took a seat. Scanning the link chart that Cody had made, Deckard knew he was sharper than he had given him credit for. Rather than a typical pyramid type hierarchy, Cody had accurately described the cartel as being largely horizontal.
The big problem with link charts was that Special Operations forces had a tendency to think that terrorist organizations had a strict chain of command and that they were all carefully organized into individual terror squads. This was the result of American military officers looking at terror networks through their own cultural lens. They thought that terrorist groups were organized along the same lines as the US Army.
In fact, terrorist groups functioned around loose associations. Only the most disciplined cells would be rigid or military like in their structure. They were dangerous, but quickly targeted and eliminated by strike teams. It was the disorganized chaos that proved to be a real threat. In Iraq for instance, terrorists from around the world flooded into the country to take part in the Jihad. They circled around linkmen, financiers or ringleaders. Many times they were divided up into task oriented cells. One cell would build an IED, another would set it in place, and yet another would detonate it.
There was no General in charge, not even a Captain, but maybe a lieutenant in some cases. Mexican drug cartels dispensed with the backward aspects of Arab culture, harnessing the power of the free market for their organizational structure. They franchised.
Individuals and small gangs would work on a contract basis, job to job, for the cartels. Often, they were in turn being sub-contracted from another larger player who was the actual link man to the cartel itself. It wasn't uncommon to have various franchised cells running operations who had absolutely no idea who they were working for. They ran drugs, conducted contract killings, and were so compartmentalized that they had no idea who or why they were killing.
As backwards as the Islamic terrorists might have been, they had an ideology. The nebulous cartel structure had none. Even the name cartel was more of an invention of the media than anything. No such organization actually existed.
The Mexican Drug War was the first 21st Century conflict. It was a post-political war waged by non-state actors who had no motivation aside from full-auto capitalism.
Deckard sipped his coffee as his team began to filter into the OPCEN and take seats. Samantha walked in and sat down with her arms crossed in front of her. Frank hobbled along on his crutches until he found an empty chair, his new war wounds competing with the old ones as he washed down some pain killers with coffee. Sergeant Major Korgan commanded the attention of the Kazakh Sergeants as he sat down next to Deckard, his presence filling the room. He was from the old school and in Kazakhstan the old school was the Soviet Union. Pat stood with Fedorchenko, waiting.
Finishing off his coffee, Deckard turned and tossed the cup in the trash. He found himself looking twice, his eyes just picking up something in the corner of the room. It was Nikita. He stood in the only shadow in the room, his back to the wall. The sniper's eyes were locked onto the organizational chart projected on the wall. He was memorizing the names.
“Let's get started,” Deckard said as he got to his feet. “This is going to be a situational report to make sure everyone is on track, so we have several orders of business. First off, the attack on Jimenez' submarine base was a success although we encountered a few complications. The compound itself was very professional. Well hidden terrain wise, camouflaged with some top of the line vinyl, the base was constructed in an organized manner, and the submarine was very sophisticated especially considering that it is essentially a homemade deal. Their only mistake was in being overconfident in how well they were hidden. They only had one guard posted-”
“Thankfully, you didn't let that stop you from burning the place to the ground,” Pat blurted out with a laugh. After Action Reviews took on a different flavor in the unit Pat was from. Delta Force played by their own rules. Deckard was glad he'd talked him into an early retirement and signed him to Samruk.
“Shit happens,” Deckard said with a smile. “The good news is that we captured the submarine for use in future operations and have it cached somewhere safe. Also, we made contact with the local Zapatista rebels. They want the cartels out of their home as much as we do so I've come to an agreement with their leadership. We will be sending a cell of trainers and advisers to work with them. If our advisers feel confident in the intentions and motivations of the Zapatistas they will begi
n conducting operations with them.”
Samantha frowned.
“You cut a deal with the Zapatistas? Through who?”
“Commandate Zero.”
“Holy shit,” she snorted. “You're something else.”
“You disagree with my decision?”
“No, they have popular support and oppose corruption. As a perpetual outsider it seems that you are able to establish rapport with people who the American government and the cartels would never touch.”
“We'll see how it works. These guys could be an asset to us and help act as a stabilizing force once Samruk pulls out of the region.”
“We also took a prisoner,” Fedorchenko reminded him about the man he had knocked out on the submarine.
“Have you gotten anything out of him yet?”
“He told us that the guy you shot in the face on the submarine was Captain Nemo himself. This clown that you brought back was his right hand man. He's Colombian of course and doesn't know the local players.”
“That intel guy I told you about should be here soon,” Frank interrupted.
“Who?”
“You don't remember me telling you about my boy Aghassi?”
“No, I'm afraid not Frank.”
“He'll be here shortly,” Frank said knowingly. “Aghassi could find a whore in a Wahhabi Mosque. Once he starts working the intel piece we will be able to build a real target deck.”
“Our other prisoner did start naming some other local heavies,” Pat added. “They are low hanging fruit but it's a place to start.”
“I don't really care if it's a dry hole at this point. We need to keep up the momentum while we work on developing some better targets and start filling out this chart,” Deckard said pointing to the cartel organization chart. There were a lot of blank slots. “Sergeant Major?”
“Second Platoon is conducting rehearsals and Pre-Combat Inspections as we speak,” the Kazakh reported.
“This isn't a time sensitive target so roll when the men are ready.”
“Understood.”
“Sounds good, Sergeant Major. Make sure the men are getting at least five hours of sleep between guard and combat rotations.”
“We are working out the schedule,” he responded in his thick Russian accent. Korgan had been the first Samruk International member that Deckard had met when he arrived in Kazakhstan for the first time and had liked the man immediately. There had been a Serbian Executive Officer whom he had a different opinion about, but that problem had been resolved.
“There is one more thing,” Cody said in a hushed tone.
“What's that?” Deckard said prompting him.
“The nacrocorridos about Jimenez.”
“I told him that it is nothing to worry about,” Samantha said shaking her head. “We already know that he's an asshole. We don't need to waste time worrying about his crappy folk music.”
“These songs are unique,” Cody insisted.
The narcocorridos were type of Mexican folk music that had become massively popular throughout the country and even into parts of the United States. The songs glorified the violence of the cartels and extolled the virtues of the quick thinking gangsters as they outwitted the authorities. They portrayed cartel leaders as Robin Hood type characters that the peasant class could relate too. They might have sounded silly to gringo ears but they were no laughing matter in Mexican culture. Gangsters even hired musicians to write songs about them, the most powerful cartel leaders paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a hit tune composed from a romanticized version of their life story.
“The nacrocorridos that Jimenez had made about him are flat out creepy,” Cody went on without pausing for breath. “They talk about him skinning people alive, raping dead bodies, weird shit man. Some of them are even about how he worships the devil. The songs refer to him as The Beast.”
“He is trying to make people scared of him,” Samantha stated.
“I don't think so. These folk songs are supposed to help the locals relate to cartel leader. They are to make him popular in the eye of the public.”
“I don't think songs like this would make him very popular amongst a very Catholic Mexican public,” Deckard said.
“I'm just sayin',” Cody continued. “Watch your back out there.”
With the briefing adjourned, Deckard followed Frank out into the courtyard. Everyone was quiet for a moment and all of them were taking advantage of it to catch their breath. Samruk hadn't even been on the ground for a full twenty four hours and they'd already killed one cartel, pissed all over another, and formed an alliance that the US State Department would certainly frown upon.
The Kazakh mercenaries that stood at the sandbagged positions near the gate began getting restless. They aimed down the sights of their rifles at something approaching on the other side of the wall.
Frank's cell phone began to ring.
“Yeah,” he said, taking the call. “Cool. Got it.”
“It's okay,” Frank yelled to the gate guards. “He's one of us. Open the gates!”
Deckard hurriedly translated into Russian before they had a shoot out on their hands.
The mercenaries nodded before one of them climbed down the ladder and swung open the gates. The gates were still a mess since they had blasted their way in earlier but an ad hoc repair job held them closed for the time being.
As the gates parted, Deckard could see a cloud of brown dust roll in along with a beat up 1990's model Saturn sedan. The muffler was being dragged in the dirt behind it. Once the rust bucket came to a halt in the court yard, the Kazakhs swung the gate closed and resumed their post.
“Goddam piece of shit,” the driver coughed out as he slammed the door shut.
Deckard frowned as he and Frank walked over to the newcomer. The car had American license plates.
“Did you drive here?” Deckard asked.
“Sure did,” the driver turned around to face him. He had to look up at Deckard to see him. The newcomer was short with a mop top of black hair and a gnarly looking mustache. “I hit the road an hour after Frank gave me a call about some hot action south of the border. Drove all the way from Oklahoma.”
“You know I would have flown you in, right?”
“Can't do it brother. On the no-fly list.”
“You're fucking kidding me.”
“Well not me but some dude with my name is and those costumed clowns that pretend they are security guards give me a hell of a time whenever I try to fly.”
“What's your name?”
“Ahmed Aghassi.”
“I don't remember seeing him on the target deck.”
“He was some Iranian fuck hiding up in the mountains of Afghanistan who was advising Al-Qaeda cells throughout the country.”
“Tell him the fucked up part Ghassi,” Frank interjected.
“I was on the mission that killed him,” Aghassi said as his eyebrows bobbed over his eyes.
“So you waxed some Iranian with that same name as you out in Afghanistan?”
“Yeah.”
“And his name is still on the no-fly list?”
“Takes a while to get the names of dead terrorists taken off the list,” Aghassi muttered. “Years apparently.”
“What the fuck?”
“You said it brother.”
“Alright,” Deckard said. “Frank vouches for you so let's get the job interview out of the way. Who the hell are you really?”
“Everyone calls me Ghassi. I grew up speaking Farsi at home-”
“Where is home?”
“I told you already. Oklahoma.”
“Which is where you drove from.”
“Yeah, so it's like this, my parents emigrated from Iran and I grew up in the States. I joined the Army as an interpreter and learned Arabic in DLI as a third language-”
“Frank told me you spoke Spanish.”
“I do, I picked it up in High School. So some computer program picks my name out of a hat because of my backgroun
d and language skills and the next thing I know I get approached by some shady dudes at work. That was how I got recruited to the Intelligence Support Activity.”
Deckard nodded for Aghassi to continue. He had worked with ISA numerous times when he was in Army Special Operations units. They did intelligence and reconnaissance work, mostly for SEAL Team Six and Delta Force. Frank had also served in that unit after a stint in the Ranger Reconnaissance Detachment or RRD, although Deckard still suspected that Frank must have lied his way through the battery of psych evals he was required to take as part of the entrance exam.
“You know the deal. Afghanistan, Iraq, and a few other places. I probably worked the intel piece for a few of your missions,” he said to Deckard. “I got out a couple years ago and did contract work.”
“Where?”
“Back in Afghanistan. I lived as a kuchi with a native family.”
“Bullshit.” The kuchis were nomadic people who roamed the wastelands of Afghanistan.
“No really man. I spoke the language, I'm brown, and with a Bin Laden beard I look just like one of them. I had a female Afghani intelligence agent pose as my wife and we took in a couple orphan kids to travel with us in our caravan to complete the picture. We moved all over Southern Afghanistan collecting intelligence for our clients.”
“Sounds pretty rough.”
“You got no idea man, I feel like a stranger in my own country every time I return home.”
“Okay,” Deckard said making a decision. “You're hired. I'll give you a couple hours to come up with a list of what you need and then you can interface with Samantha, our local police liaison, and you can start working on building an intelligence network-”
“That's cool. I will coordinate with her and whatever sources she has. For now just give me a new car and I'll roll.”
“What?”
“Here you go hoss,” Pat said walking up from behind as he tossed a set of car keys to Aghassi. “Take the white Toyota, it will blend in on the streets here.”
