Danger Close (A Breed Thriller Book 1)

by Cameron Curtis

  I stare at Mirasol. “I am going to Juarez. I want you to come with me.”

  Mirasol jerks as though slapped. “Are you crazy?”

  “No. Can you leave the country?”

  Mirasol stiffens. Her face is ghastly pale in the glow of the laptop’s screen. “Do you think I am illegal?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “I don’t mean any offense.”

  The sexual tension from a moment ago is gone. Mirasol radiates anger. “I have a green card, Breed.”

  “All right.”

  Mirasol is young to have a green card. The waiting list is twenty years long. The only way I know to beat it is to win a lottery. I’m conscious of Stein’s offer to trade information about Mirasol. Is Mirasol using forged documents?

  “When are you planning to go?” Mirasol asks.

  “Right away.”

  “You are crazy.” Mirasol shakes her head. “Do you have any idea what it is like over there?”

  I drifted through Fort Bliss. Visited my friends in El Paso. But—I’d never been to Juarez. “I reckon I’ll find out.”

  “There is no law in Juarez.” Mirasol’s voice bears a hard edge. “The cartels, police and army kill each other. For control of drugs and women. There is so much money in the drugs, the cartels bribe everybody. Those they cannot bribe, they kill. The army murder everybody, including the police. It is a war—you do not know whose side anybody is on.”

  Mirasol pauses. Runs her hands through her hair.

  “Why do the army murder police?”

  Mirasol shrugs, a gesture of futility. “Because the police are corrupt. Because the army is corrupt. Police can increase their income five times working for the cartels. Put it this way. If a policeman has a reasonable income, three-quarters to eighty percent of his compensation comes from moonlighting. That means he is paid to be a bodyguard, contract killer, drug mule, or to look the other way.”

  “All right,” I say. “I’ll go alone.”

  We are quiet for a long time.

  Exasperated, Mirasol says, “You don’t know your way around.”

  “You do?”

  Mirasol swallows. “Yes. Breed, why do you want to go to Juarez?”

  “La Cueva. I have to be sure.”

  “Sure of the tunnel?”

  “I need to be sure Keller’s murderers are there.”

  Mirasol twists in her chair, puts her hand on my forearm. I am overwhelmed by her touch. “What then, Breed? You give them to Stein and Garrick?”

  I haven’t thought about what I’m going to do. Autopilot carried me this far. I’ve never articulated my plans to myself or anyone. Now I think there was never a question, never a choice. At a primal level, I have always known what I have to do.

  I shake my head. “Stein and Garrick can do nothing in Mexico.”

  “I promise you the Mexican authorities will do nothing.”

  “I don’t expect them to.”

  Mirasol’s eyes widen. Hard enough to bruise, her grip tightens. “You can’t.”

  I stand and pace. “Those animals killed a mother and an eight-year-old boy. Cut their heads off. You think I’m going to have them put in jail? So they can work out all day and bitch about not getting their ice cream? Think again.”

  Hands flat on her thighs, Mirasol looks up at me. “Breed. They are an army.”

  It’s my turn to be angry. Mirasol says she’s legal to travel. Why is she active in the United States, but not Mexico. Is she committed or not. “Yesterday you told me you were fighting a war.”

  Mirasol clenches her tiny fists.

  “All right. I’ll come.”

  I go back to my room and stuff the Glock into my duffel bag. I’m not ready to risk the border with a weapon. Not yet.

  Sitting on the bed, I pull on my socks and Oakley desert boots. Wonder about Mirasol’s visceral reaction to Juarez. Everybody knows it has a crime problem. It’s one of the battlegrounds on which the drug wars are fought. But—that’s like saying there is a war in Afghanistan.

  To know what it is really like, you have to have been there.

  Mirasol made it clear Juarez is a city of confusion. The kind of city in which no one is safe. She knows what’s going on.

  The DOJ has a file on her.

  28

  Juarez, 2230 Hrs Wednesday

  Mirasol navigates the late evening traffic of El Paso. We are on South Stanton Street, approaching the border crossing at the Puente Rio Bravo.

  “All the films show the Bridge of the Americas,” Mirasol explains, “but there are many border crossings. This one is operated by the city of El Paso. It is open till midnight.”

  The line leading to Customs & Border Protection is not long. There are two cars ahead of us. I watch the Border Patrol procedures. The agents wear forest green uniforms, utility caps, and patches with yellow trim. We are queued on a screening lane. Off to one side is an inspection area.

  I worried that the Border Patrol would bring out dogs and scan every vehicle. Apparently not. At this hour, they must reserve that treatment for those who arouse suspicion. I mention this to Mirasol.

  “Drugs and people are smuggled north,” she tells me. “Weapons and money travel south. The Border Patrol are less concerned with southbound traffic.”

  “And the north?”

  “The drugs, women, and illegals get through. We watched them load people and boxes of meat on the trailer at Bledsoe. Do you think that was meat on the pallets?”

  “They continue to smuggle drugs through these crossings.”

  “Yes,” Mirasol says. “They bribe Border Patrol agents to wave them through. The best time to slip under the radar is when traffic is heaviest. This is not the best time to smuggle. In a strange way, crossing at this hour makes us less suspicious.”

  One car ahead of us.

  Mirasol continues. “Most cartel profits come from drugs. Illegals count for little. Prostitutes a little more. Mestizas with light skin and European features are expensive. Blond girls from Eastern Europe bring top dollar. Children, especially those with light skin, bear no fixed price. Customers bid for them.”

  The Border Patrolman at the booth is of Mexican descent. He speaks flawless English. “Documents, please.”

  Mirasol hands him a Mexican passport and her green card. I pass over my passport and Department of Defense ID. The man scans them into a device. Studies the data that scrolls onto his screen.

  “Where y’all off to tonight?”

  “We are going to Juarez center.”

  “What’s the purpose of your visit?”

  “Pleasure.”

  “How are things working out for you, Miss Cruz?”

  Mirasol doesn’t miss a beat. “I am well, thank you.”

  The Border Patrolman returns our documents. “You folks have a good time. Watch yourselves over there.”

  The system obviously spat up chapter and verse on Mirasol’s green card.

  “What was that all about?” I ask.

  Mirasol shrugs. “Nice guy.”

  I stare ahead at the Mexican border police kiosk. Two border guards, one with an M16 assault rifle.

  “Not long ago,” Mirasol says, “a car with four men drove to a US border crossing. Three were dead, including the driver. The man in the passenger seat held his foot on the gas until the car rolled to a stop. Then he died too. Welcome to the border.”

  The Mexican border guards examine our papers. Ask Mirasol to open the trunk. They look inside, slam it shut, and wave us on. They are careless. At a minimum, I would have used a mirror on a stick to inspect the underside of the vehicle.

  Mirasol turns right, drives the short distance to the city center.

  “Over here,” she says, “we avoid police and army at all costs. We assume there are no good guys.”

  In the distance is a cathedral, at the end of a broad square. Mirasol tells me it is the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. It is the central landmark of Juarez. The city looks clean, with throngs
of people going about a busy nightlife. The lampposts are dirty. They have been plastered with paper handbills that bear photographs of young girls. The handbills are wrinkled and peeling. Many have been defaced.

  “Thousands of young women have gone missing from Juarez over the years,” Mirasol says. “The disappearances go back to the nineties. Their mothers, their relatives, post their photographs here. Pray for information.”

  “Have any turned up?”

  Mirasol’s voice drips bitterness. “No one has been found alive. Bodies are found in garbage dumps, or in the desert. Sometimes they can be identified. Frequently, they are mutilated beyond recognition. There was once a high-profile case. Families had to be told the mutilated bodies they buried did not belong to their loved ones. Imagine the number who have not been told.”

  Mirasol turns off the main avenue and into a side street.

  “This part of the city is called the Mariscal. At one time it was the red light district, full of prostitutes and transvestites. There are still many, as you can see. But it was worse. Now the City of Juarez is buying properties to redevelop the neighborhood. Slowly, they are pushing illicit activity out of the center.”

  We cruise past a derelict building. Three stories, built of hollow cinder blocks painted yellow. The second floor is surrounded by a wide balcony. The railing and posts of the balcony are green. The colors have faded. The glass windows on the second and third floors are broken. The windows on the ground floor have been boarded up. From one end to another, the walls are plastered with photos of missing girls.

  “That is the Hotel Verde,” Mirasol tells me. “It was the headquarters of the Los Aztecas cartel. Los Aztecas smuggle drugs into the US by bribing the Border Patrol. They kidnap young women, many underage. The top floor was a factory and warehouse for drugs. The second floor was a whorehouse, where they held girls captive. When the girls became docile, they were permitted onto the ground floor.”

  “This close to the center?”

  “In Juarez, nowhere is safe.” Mirasol dismisses the Hotel Verde with a shrug. “When the hotel was closed by a scandal, Los Aztecas moved.”

  “What kind of scandal?”

  “The corpses of dead girls were discovered. In garbage heaps, in the desert. Arroyo del Navajo, eighty miles south. Several were traced to the Hotel Verde.”

  Through moderate traffic, Mirasol turns south.

  We approach an intersection. A soldier steps onto the road and raises his hands to halt the traffic. Three cars separate us from the man with a rifle.

  “Shit.” Mirasol’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel. “If they stop us, let me do the talking.”

  Ahead of us, two green Humvees loaded with soldiers pull into the traffic. Once they have cleared the intersection, the soldier jumps into the second vehicle.

  Mirasol relaxes and we continue on our way.

  “Years ago, the president sent the army and the federal police to battle the cartels. The killings increased. People disappeared, taken from the street in broad daylight. The people demanded the army be withdrawn.

  “The current president pledged to fight the cartels with reform and economic development. He is naive. The killings continue, and he is viewed as weak. By everyone, not only the cartels. Now he sends the army and the Federales again. A small start, but a start. Soon the city will be at war once more.”

  The Humvees are new and well maintained. Each has a fifty caliber machine gun on a pintle mount. The troops are clean in digital camouflage uniforms. Kevlar helmets and body armor. M16s and M4 carbines.

  “Trained by the United States army.” Mirasol’s observation conveys her cynicism. “For years, America has been supplying and training the Mexican army to conduct the war on drugs. The Mexican army does just enough to satisfy its sponsors. The corruption goes on.”

  Mirasol deliberately lags behind the other cars in the column. She gives the army plenty of room.

  “Years ago, the Americans trained and equipped the Zetas to fight the cartels. They were a special branch of the army. An elite force. The best weapons, American military tactics. Thoroughly professional. The corruption took over and they plied their trade on their own time. Finally, the Zetas became what they are today. Another cartel.”

  Mirasol’s litany of corruption is depressing. “Aren’t we doing any good?”

  “Not in Juarez. The cartels hired ex-US Army Special Forces to upgrade their communications networks.”

  I heard about that. Chalked it up to desperate operators hired out of Soldier of Fortune magazine.

  No wonder Stein suspected us. I might be attracted to mercenary employment. Retired operators make excellent money working as contractors.

  The Mexican army Humvees turn right. As if by unspoken agreement, the traffic speeds up. The relief on the road is palpable.

  “You know an awful lot about Juarez.”

  “It’s my job.” Mirasol sighs. “In El Paso, people say things have improved in Juarez. That the city is safe for tourists again. The reality is very different.”

  The street is splashed with color. The sidewalks are lined with vendors. Bare light bulbs hang from the corners of their makeshift booths. Their wares are charming. Pottery, toys, colorful clothing and fabrics. The aroma of chicken and beef grilled in the open air is appetizing. Rolled into tacos and burritos, more so.

  “People must live,” Mirasol says. “The city wears the clothing of normality. Fiestas, bars, shopping centers. The people play music, dance and drink. They dream of romance, while all around them gangsters kidnap girls, butcher each other in the streets. People make love on nights like this. Outside their windows, cartels burn their enemies alive in barrels. This is all regarded as normal.”

  Mirasol turns left onto a side street. Drives in the direction of the river. Three blocks and she turns right onto another brightly lit drag. Busier than the last. Street vendors, bars. On the left, with its back to the river, a two-story building. I recognize it immediately.

  “There it is,” Mirasol says.

  La Cueva.

  29

  Juarez, 2300 Hrs Wednesday

  The target is built like the Hotel Verde. The ground floor is cinder block, painted the color of tanned flesh. A garish green neon sign spells Bar Cueva. The second floor is wood frame and drywall. There is no balcony, no third floor.

  Windows on the second floor are shuttered. The shutters are of thick wood, painted green. The windows on the ground floor are clear glass. They offer an unobstructed view of the dim interior, where people dance with abandon. The music is so loud the windows shake.

  “Assume La Cueva is what we think,” Mirasol says. “They will hold girls and store drugs on the second floor. There may be rooms where customers pay for sex.

  “I doubt there is a drug factory on the premises. For this, the cartels have purpose-built labs. They hire professional chemists. They call them black-and-whites. Because they wear white Tyvek suits and black masks over their nose and mouth. I interviewed a woman. She financed her PhD working for a cartel. When she finished her doctorate, the illegal work was so lucrative she made it her career.”

  I digest the information. Hamza and his terrorists will occupy the second floor. Drugs and fair-skinned prostitutes are valuable. Underage girls are valuable. What is the price for Quds Force killers. What devil’s bargain did Bledsoe make with Hamza and the cartels.

  “Where would they place the entrance to the tunnel?”

  “Like any bar, there will be a basement. There, they store wine, liquor, and kegs of beer. It is the logical place to dig the tunnel.”

  “Stairs leading to the basement,” I say.

  “Yes.” Mirasol meets my eyes. “Or a trapdoor.”

  “Let’s drive around the building.”

  Mirasol pulls into the traffic. Cruises past the club. I scan the people on the sidewalk, looking for sentries. There are hard guys at the corners. Nondescript clothing. Concealed handguns. Nothing heavier than a nine millimeter.
I’m sure they have automatic rifles inside.

  This street is lined with kebab shops. One or two have tables and chairs set on the sidewalk. Diners with Middle Eastern features smoke shisha. Suck up carcinogenic toxins.

  Mirasol notices my interest. “Many people from the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe come here. To cross illegally into the United States. Most of these people are waiting to pay their money to coyotes.”

  Quds will feel at home. It will be easy for them to blend in.

  Two blocks past the club, Mirasol hangs a left into a dark alley. Ahead is the dry gulch of the Rio Grande. Beyond that, the US riverbank and the border wall. All shrouded in darkness.

  The alley leads to a narrow road that runs parallel to the river. More like a lane, lit only by bare bulbs mounted on the walls of buildings. There are no other cars in the lane.

  “They will notice us,” Mirasol says.

  “We can get away with it once.”

  Mirasol creeps forward.

  To preserve my night vision, I avoid looking at the brightly lit street we left. Instead, I focus on the backs of the buildings, the river valley.

  The back of La Cueva is dark. There is a rear entrance. Against the wall, bolted to the cinder blocks and supported by steel posts, are fire stairs. There are two bare bulbs, each protected by wire mesh. One is above the back door. The other hangs over the fire door at the top of the stairs.

  A man lounges under the light, smoking a cigarette. He looks up at us.

  He is an amateur. An experienced sentry would not stand in the light. He would stand in the shadows.

  Late twenties. Short, spiky hair, angular features. The man flicks the cigarette away. His hand goes behind his back, reaching for a pistol.

  I hear Mirasol suck breath. She takes her foot off the gas.

  “Keep going,” I hiss. “Don’t. Slow. Down.”

  The soldado is frozen in our headlights. We drive past.

  “Dios mio.” Mirasol is shaking.

  “Easy.” I put my hand on her shoulder and squeeze gently. “We’re all right. Turn left.”