by Bill King
He was sitting in a well-worn black Naugahyde swivel chair in front of a row of video monitors, his fleshy thighs hanging over the edge of the seat. During the day, five or six people normally worked in the windowless room that housed the operations center for the CBP’s Laredo Sector. Tonight, it was just two people.
The CBP had clearly never hired an interior decorator. Six utilitarian workstation desks, all facing the wall, were spread around the room. Each desk had two flat screen computer monitors that were linked together in a secure network Homeland Security had set up several years earlier. A ten-foot long wooden conference table dominated the center of the room, with twelve chairs spread around it. The table was clear, except for two open pizza boxes—now empty except for a few crumbs—that had contained their midnight meal.
“We got us some swimmers down on sector nine-bravo,” said Ramirez, brushing his right hand over his closely cropped grey hair. “Looks like they’re shuttling dope across on a little raft. I count five of them, plus however many are over there on the Mexican side.”
Carlos, a skinny kid in his mid-twenties, had been with the Border Patrol’s Laredo Sector for less than six months. This was his first real assignment following training. His butt firmly glued to his seat, he rolled his chair over a few feet to get a better view of the boss’s screen.
“Woah…hold on a second. It looks like they’re got company,” said the supervisor. He reached for his mug of coffee, which had gone cold after setting on his desk for the past thirty minutes. “A dark SUV…judging from its profile, I’d say it’s probably a Chevy Tahoe or Suburban. That must be their transportation.”
It was a game they played on slow nights, trying to guess the make and model of vehicles under poor visibility. It helped pass the time and kept their senses sharp. Well…sharper, anyway.
In stark contrast to the suffocating humidity along the river, the two CBP agents were sitting in air-conditioned comfort several dozen miles away. They watched intently as a vehicle cautiously approached the smugglers, its headlights off. The driver carefully executed a three-point turn, backing up to about five feet from where the men were standing before coming to a halt. The backup lights and brake lights had been previously disabled to prevent the vehicle from lighting up the area and perhaps exposing their activity.
Two men, both short and stocky, got out of the vehicle and approached the group of men who were standing by the pile of contraband. They embraced each other and shook hands.
“Color me shocked. It looks like they know each other,” said Ramirez, smirking as he glanced over his shoulder at the younger agent. “Jump on the horn and have one of the mobile teams get into position to intercept them at the main road. Once they load up and take off, we’ve probably only got about four or five minutes at most before these guys can reach the highway.”
“Gotcha.”
“Also, let’s have a drone keep eyes on them so we can direct our intercept team to cut them off.”
“Roger that,” the younger agent said, using his feet to propel himself so that his chair rolled back across the room to his own desk. It was another game they played, trying to see how close they could get to their desk across the room on just one push, like a golfer lag putting. “I’ll give them a heads-up now in case anyone needs to take a leak before the excitement starts.”
Carlos reached over and flipped the radio microphone switch to contact the nearest patrol team, which happened to be only about ten miles from the most likely intercept point on the highway.
Ramirez rose to his feet and stretched his arms, while slowly swiveling his hips and torso back and forth. He rotated his head, hoping to loosen the crick from his neck before walking over to the electric coffee pot and pouring himself another cup. Most nights were long and boring, and he liked to tell himself that the caffeine kept him alert during the long evening shifts. In truth, it was probably the constant getting up and going to the restroom that really kept him awake. He returned to his chair in front of the monitors and resumed his vigil.
Another thirty minutes went by, during which the smugglers made two more roundtrips across the Rio Grande. Finally, after they finished cramming the last of the dope into the SUV, they shook hands and five men—everyone but the two swimmers—climbed into the vehicle, which was now loaded with enough cocaine to buy a nice apartment in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. The two swimmers, their soaked clothing sagging heavily from their bodies, turned and began trudging back toward the river for their return to Mexico. Each was carrying a black waterproof dry bag draped over his shoulder, almost certainly loaded with cash.
“Hey, chief,” the young agent called over to Ramirez, who was now monitoring the other sectors. “It looks like they’re about ready to take off. I’ll let the mobile team know to be prepared to intercept.”
Just then, the screen they had been watching turned white.
“Holy shit, what the hell was that?” Carlos shouted.
“Whatever it was, it blanked out the drone’s night vision optics,” said the older man. “See if you can reset the drone camera and zoom back in so we can figure out what’s going on.”
Several seconds later, as the picture adjusted and gradually came back into view, the two CBP agents could see that the SUV that had been loaded with drugs was now engulfed in flames.
“Tell the intercept team to get down there ASAP. I’ll bet it’s the same crew that was responsible for blowing up that SUV out in that sector last week,” said Ramirez excitedly, spittle spraying from his lips. “And, Carlos, tell them to be careful.”
◆◆◆
Chucho stood on a hillside less than a hundred meters away as he surveyed the scene through night vision binoculars. He and two of his men had been observing the activity on the river from a safe distance several hundred meters away.
“Carajo!” he squealed. His excitement was palpable, like a child on Christmas morning. “That was awesome…even better than the last time.”
He glanced over at his two young underlings, each of whom was straddling a dirt bike several feet away from where he stood, mesmerized by the spectacular sight of the vehicle burning out of control. Despite the stifling heat that night, they all wore dark long-sleeved hoodies to help protect their arms and head from the thorny bushes that were thick throughout the area adjoining the river.
“Oye, Rafael,” he shouted to the taller of the two. He turned his head slightly to one side and spat out a chaw of tobacco onto the ground beside him. “You and Tomás get down there and grab the money bags from those other two cabrones before they can retreat back across the river. Oh, and when you find them, kill them. We don’t need any loose ends.”
The two young men—replacements for the recently deceased Paco and Miguelito—smiled and nodded their heads before goosing the throttle and speeding off in the direction of the burning vehicle. Despite the darkness and rough terrain, it took them less than ten seconds to reach their destination. The recklessness of youth, he thought…or maybe it was just stupidity.
Chucho lit a cigarette as he remained standing on the rocky hillside about seventy yards from the burning SUV. He moved his hand back and forth to wave away the cloud of dust that had been kicked up by the two motorbikes, replacing it with the aromatic smoke from his unfiltered cigarette. Using his left hand to block one nostril at a time, he cleared his nose with two titanic snorts, hurtling snot onto the ground several feet in front of him.
With the burning vehicle acting like a flare, he was able to scan the site through his binoculars for any sign of movement from the vicinity of the vehicle. He saw none, at least not at first. Then he noticed the two men with the money bags laying on the ground. Apparently, they had not yet reached their boat before his anti-tank weapon destroyed the black SUV, instead diving for the safety of the ground. The flames from the burning vehicle now made them clearly visible as they cautiously raised their heads to check out the danger.
“Excellent,” Chucho mumbled to himself as he lowered
the binoculars, which hung by a strap around his neck. A grim smirk of satisfaction crossed his face. “Rafael and Tomás will take care of them before they can escape to the water.”
With his left hand, Chucho brushed away several annoying gnats that were attracted by the filthy sweat clinging to his face. He knew from firsthand experience that gnats and an oversized nose do not mix well in this part of the country.
He heard the sharp crack of several gunshots coming from the site of the burning vehicle. So much for the two swimmers getting away, Chucho thought to himself. It would have been nice to recover the drugs, too, but at least they would retrieve the money. Not bad for a night’s work, especially since all they did was watch…and shoot.
“That’ll teach those pendejos that there’s a new jefe in charge,” he said aloud to no one in particular, since he was now alone on the hillside. He tossed aside the empty canister of the Turkish-made HAR-66 antitank rocket launcher he had been holding. The dark green tube tumbled head-over-heals before coming to a rest next to his dust-covered dirt bike, which he had left leaning up against a tree.
Chucho had been like a new man since his return from Monterrey. El Coronel had that effect on people. He was like the Tony Robbins of the drug world, filling Chucho with reinvigorated confidence, making him feel like he could run, headfirst, through a brick wall. This was his big opportunity. He would try to put the subject of Graciela out of his mind and concentrate, instead, on the task at hand.
Putting the American out of his mind was a horse of a different color, though.
El Coronel had tasked Chucho with consolidating control over the South Texas drug traffic between the Rio Grande and Hebbronville, a town of five thousand located about fifty miles northeast of the border. Hebbronville was strategically situated at the crossroads of Texas state highways 16—which ran south down to Zapata—and 359, which went west over to Laredo.
This was the opportunity he had been looking for all his life, a chance to become somebody, to make something of his life, to command respect. That was something he had always dreamed of, something he had never thought possible. To be respected by people. Not just feared, but respected.
After spending just under a year in Dallas—sort of an executive training program for up-and-coming drug dealers—he had spent the past month in South Texas recruiting and training his cadre.
He began with three loyal followers he brought with him from Mexico, with the rest coming from the States. Now he was up to fifteen, even after taking into consideration the unexpected loss of Paco and Miguelito. El Coronel always said that, with an army of twenty loyal soldiers, he could conquer the world. Of course, El Coronel’s army of loyal followers numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands, but twenty was a good place to start. Baby steps.
An important part of expanding his influence on the border region was to establish an understanding among the multitude of illicit smugglers that there was a new sheriff in town and his name was Chucho. That was exactly what he was doing—delivering a message—and the louder that message, the better.
He glanced down at the luminescent face of the gold Rolex on his wrist, which he had taken from an unlucky American tourist in Laredo several days earlier. The tourist had chosen to resist, the final bad choice he would make in his life.
It was now nearly five and the sun would be up in less than two hours. His stomach growled. He was looking forward to a hearty breakfast and a few hours of sleep.
◆◆◆
Chucho and the Laredo CBP were not the only ones watching the scene at the river unfold.
A somber looking man in his twenties, wearing a sleeveless fleece jacket and designer eyeglasses, rubbed his neatly trimmed beard pensively with his thumb and index finger. He was staring at an array of sixteen interconnected flat screen televisions that dominated one wall of the twenty-by-thirty-foot windowless room. He stood silently, his eyes transfixed by what he had just witnessed on the big screen.
The stark room’s bare concrete walls looked like something straight out of one of those doomsday movies. It could have been a security room in any major industrial or military facility in the world…except that it wasn’t. It was a private facility located less than a mile south of the Rio Grande, on the Mexican side of the border. Its existence was known to only a few.
“Mierda! It looks like our crazy avenger is at it again,” said the man in a whispered voice as the fireball of the SUV temporarily blanked out the screen. He looked over at the young woman sitting in front of one of the computer terminals. “Oye, Gina, download a copy of the past fifteen minutes of video onto Graciela’s iPad. I’ll take it up to her room as soon as you have it ready for me.”
“Who do you think is responsible?” the young woman asked.
“I don’t have the slightest idea but if this continues happening, we’ll soon have half the gringo law enforcement in Texas deployed in the vicinity of the Rancho.”
“Maybe the boys on the armed drones ought to get in some live target practice before that happens,” she said.
◆◆◆
Chapter 11
CHUCHO AND HIS TWO underlings made it back “home” just before daybreak.
He and his small cadre of men were renting a rundown old farmhouse about five miles outside of Hebbronville, a small town of just under five thousand located an hour east of Laredo on state highway 359. The house—actually, it was more like a shack—looked like something left over from the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, the type of place John Steinbeck probably would have felt comfortable living in. It had four rooms, along with a small bathroom, and lead paint flakes hung from every piece of woodwork and wall in the place.
“Rafael, go hide the money down in the old cellar,” he said to the taller of the two young men. “Tomás, make some coffee and fix us something to eat. Whatever we have. I’m starving.”
Compared to where he had lived for most of his life, the farmhouse was a step up but, if El Coronel ever saw the relative squalor Chucho was living in, especially in the Land of Opportunity, he would go ballistic. The policeman always told him that where a person chose to live was a reflection of that person’s self-esteem.
Chucho wanted to focus on the mission first, though, putting his personal comfort second. Besides, building a new house or renovating the old one might bring unwanted attention to him and to the dilapidated old farm. Still, he knew he’d better find a decent place to live before El Coronel paid him a visit, which he knew he probably soon would.
His plan was to take over the small towns and the crossing routes between Hebbronville and the border. Once he had accomplished that, he would be ready to take on the crown jewel, Laredo. He figured it would take him at least half a year to solidify control of the rural portion of the Hebbronville Corridor.
Laredo, on the other hand, would probably take him at least another year to conquer. He’d need a lot more men for that task and El Coronel insisted he take the city bit by bit, rather than with a massive onslaught, so as not to attract the attention of law enforcement. What worked in Mexico, the old man would say, quite often didn’t work in the United States.
Chucho was eager to get started, completely oblivious to the fact that he was now on course for a head-on collision with even more powerful—and deadly—interests than El Coronel.
◆◆◆
“I was sitting right here, in one of those nylon portable chairs, fishing and listening to some music, when three men approached me from the trees over there,” said Cortez, standing about three feet from the bank of the river and pointing toward a stand of trees about thirty yards to the north. “I heard a noise in the distance, behind me, so I stood up to figure out what it was.”
Frank Diaz had driven Cortez and Janak out to the incident site in his official CBP vehicle, a white Ford Expedition SUV with the trademark wide green stripe running diagonally up and down the rear doors. The words, BORDER PATROL, were printed horizontally in green in big block letters just beneath the cargo area side wind
ows.
“Were you holding your firearm in your hand?” Janak asked. He already knew the answer but wanted to see the embarrassed look on Cortez’s face when he answered the question.
“No, unfortunately, I was standing there like an idiot, holding my fishing rod in my right hand,” said Cortez, shaking his head slowly back and forth and pointing his finger at the ground by his feet. “My weapon was still in my tackle box, there on the ground, about five feet away.”
“Well, far be it from me to question your choice of weapons,” said Diaz, chuckling to himself. “Is that something they teach you at the FBI Academy to try to put the other guy off guard? You know, something to give him a false sense of security?”
“Maybe he was planning to swat them with it,” said Janak, not even remotely trying to control his laughter. “Or maybe he was going to use the Three Musketeers defense, using the fishing rod as an epee. Were you wearing silk tights and a plumed hat?”
“I’m glad you all find this funny, but those sons of bitches were getting ready to kill me,” said Cortez. “The only reason they waited is probably because the assholes didn’t want to have to clean the blood off my wallet and wristwatch.”
“I still think it’s awfully strange that the leader of the group would just haul ass at the first sign of danger,” said Diaz, gradually regaining his composure. He had spent the past three years assigned to the Laredo Border Patrol field office and, before that, to the Brownsville field office, so he knew the border scene well. “These folks may be the scum of the earth, but they generally aren’t cowards…not like those Antifa wussies with their man buns and skinny jeans.”
