by Bill King
“Will I get to meet El Coronel?” asked Cortez.
“No, unfortunately, I don’t think that would be wise. This is a bad man, Pete, a truly dangerous person, which means that whatever Chucho is doing in the States, it’s not a good thing.”
“Why don’t you all just arrest this El Coronel guy if his corruption is so well known?” Cortez asked.
Sanchez laughed. “You seem to be under the impression that the corruption stops with him. It does not. Not even close. That is why I am hoping that you Americans can do something to bail us out.”
◆◆◆
“Carajo, Rafael, watch what the hell you’re doing,” said Chucho, whistling and waving his arms back and forth, frantically trying to attract his attention. “Don’t wreck the damn boat before we even get it in the water.”
Rafael was seated in the cab of a Chevy SUV, his eyes glued to the side mirror as he attempted, for about the third or fourth time, to back the boat trailer down to the water’s edge. There they would launch the small boat that would take them across the river to the hacienda on the Mexican side.
Jorge, a teenager Chucho brought along just in case they needed an extra gun, was standing behind the trailer trying to help guide him as he backed up. Rafael was having a difficult time remembering that, if he wanted to move the boat trailer to the left, he had to turn the vehicle steering wheel to the right. Hence, Chucho’s agitation.
Finally, they were able to successfully launch the boat into the water and the three of them climbed aboard. Chucho yanked on the rope for the small trolling motor. After four or five pulls, the engine finally sprang to life. He deftly guided the boat to the other side of the river, where Rafael and Jorge hopped out and dragged the front half of the boat onto the shore to keep it from floating away.
The three men casually walked up the gently sloped hillside toward the veranda at the rear of the hacienda, just as Graciela was coming around the corner of the house, dressed in jeans and a blue cotton blouse. She had been working in the greenhouse and was cradling a small flowerpot in her arms. A red ball cap, emblazoned with a green evergreen tree on top of a red S, was pulled down tightly over her head, more to keep her hair in place than to keep the sun out of her eyes.
“May I help you?” she asked coldly, not visibly displaying any alarm at suddenly seeing three strangers on her property, less than thirty meters from her house. Then she recognized Chucho.
“Is that any way to greet the former master of the Rancho?” he asked, his grin revealing a gap between his front teeth.
“The emphasis belongs on the word, former,” she said, still holding the flowerpot in her arms.
Her tone was curt and he noticed she did not appear to be quite as frightened of him as she had been during his last visit.
“Who were the two men I saw you with yesterday?” he asked accusingly.
“Have you been spying on the Rancho?” she asked, swallowing hard. She was trying to remain calm.
“My associates and I were admiring your home from the other side of the river and I thought I would come over and show them around,” he said. “Maybe you could tell us about all the big changes you are supposed to have been making?”
“That is none of your business, Chucho,” she said, beginning to show impatience. Not fear. Impatience. “For the last time, you are trespassing, and I want you to get off my land. Now.”
Chucho pulled up the front of his powder blue guayabera shirt just enough to reveal the pistol tucked in his waistband.
“You might want to reconsider your attitude, Graciela,” he said, a smug smile still on his face.
The smile disappeared instantly when he noticed red laser dots on Rafael’s chest and on Jorge’s chest, both where the heart would be. He quickly glanced down at his own chest but saw nothing.
“Are you looking for your red dot, Chucho?” Graciela asked sweetly. “Yours is on your forehead, right about here,” she said as she touched her index finger to the bridge of her nose, right between her eyes.
Sweat was now beading on Chucho’s upper lip.
“I suggest you gentlemen climb back into your boat and return to wherever it is you came from…and, please, don’t ever set foot on my property again,” said Graciela, returning her attention to her flowers. “Next time, I won’t be so generous.”
◆◆◆
Chapter 17
MATEO CALDERÓN STOOD ATOP the observation deck of the Liberty Memorial, casually gazing over in the direction of the Federal Reserve building. He glanced down at his wristwatch. It was ten fifty-seven. Three more minutes to go.
He tapped a preset button on his burner phone. The call was answered on the first ring.
“We’re ready here,” said Isabela, in Spanish. “How about you?”
“Go time is at eleven, sharp,” he said. “Remember, it’s important that both events happen at the same time. Synchronize using the time on your cell phone.”
He hung up and waited.
At exactly eleven, Calderón tapped a different preset button that called the mobile phone connected to the cannister of chlorine gas, causing the gas to be released into the building’s primary ventilation system. Within less than a minute, people began gasping for air and dropping to the floor. The occupants of the top floors were the first to succumb, as the poisonous gas spread relentlessly downward through the ventilation shafts and throughout the thirteen-story building. Panic ensued, as confused people began screaming and looking around for some clue as to what to do.
Someone on the tenth floor had pulled the fire alarm, thereby giving most of the people in the lower floors enough warning to allow them to make their way down to the ground floor and out of the building before the gas could reach them. By the time the toxic fumes made their way to the main lobby on the ground floor of the building, security guards had already evacuated virtually all of the tourists and office workers.
They were all herded outside and onto the large grassy area, well away from the building. Virtually everyone who escaped had done so by way of the stairwells. Ironically, that was probably the safest place in the building because the ventilation system was focused on the office areas.
First responders began arriving on scene within three minutes, their sirens blaring, followed almost immediately by local media vans. The crowd outside the Federal Reserve building seemed to be growing exponentially, as hundreds of curious onlookers mixed with the workers and tourists who had just evacuated the building, wondering what was going on.
Meanwhile, two hundred and fifty miles to the east, a similar phone call made by Isabela at precisely eleven in the morning resulted in the contents of a similar canister of chlorine gas being released into the main lobby area of the St. Louis Federal Reserve building.
By eleven-thirty that morning, as both the Kansas City and St. Louis communities were still desperately attempting to come to grips with the horrifying attacks that had just been inflicted upon them, both Calderón and Isabela, along with the rest of their teams, were on the open highway, making their way back to Texas.
By noon, the same Al Qaeda offshoot supposedly responsible for the Cleveland attack—Al Saif—also publicly claimed responsibility for both Missouri attacks.
◆◆◆
It was just past noon and Pete Cortez was sitting in the cab of his pickup truck. He was parked in a dirt lot next to a ramshackle plywood hut that specialized in Tex-Mex food to go. Not Mexican food, but Tex-Mex. Apparently there’s a difference, although he wasn’t exactly sure what it was, especially from a taco stand less than a mile from the border.
However, folks on the Food Channel assured him there was a big difference, so who was he to argue. Besides, he had grown up eating Venezuelan cuisine, so both Texas and Mexican food were mildly exotic to him, anyway.
He was shoveling a crispy flauta into his mouth when his mobile phone rang. It was Bobby Janak.
“It’s all over the news that the same terrorists who hit the Cleveland Fed ten days ago just hit th
e Kansas City and St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank buildings,” he said. He was sitting in his office at the Laredo FBI. “This time it was chlorine gas.”
“This crap’s starting to get serious,” said Cortez, taking a swig of his Coke to wash down the last of the flauta before it choked him. His mother had always cautioned him to take smaller bites, but he had never paid attention. “I’d better give Gonçalves a call and see if he needs me back in Houston, or if I can stay here for a few more days.”
“I also spoke with a Texas Ranger buddy of mine,” said Janak, who, as chief of the FBI’s Laredo office for the past two years, had a working relationship with just about everybody in law enforcement in South Texas. “They received a pretty reliable report that your man, Chucho, has been rumored to hang out at an old farmhouse located about five miles outside of Hebbronville.”
“A pretty reliable report about a rumor,” said Cortez. “Sounds authoritative.”
“Asshole.” Janak was a man of few words.
Cortez took a big gulp from his can of soda and swallowed hard, washing down his mouth full of food. To him, food was just fuel for the body, anyway, not something to be savored, and he treated lunch as if he were in a race against time. He tossed the unused containers of salsa and pico de gallo into a paper bag and wiped his hands with one of the napkins he kept piled inside the console between the driver and passenger seat of his vehicle.
“Do they know if he’s there now?” Cortez asked.
“No, he wasn’t sure,” said Janak. “He said they will put the place under surveillance until we tell them how we want to handle this.”
“I think we ought to lock down the place,” said Cortez, cranking the engine and adjusting the air conditioning to blow on his face. He rolled up the truck windows to keep the cool air in. “The sooner we get in there and grab this guy, the better.”
“How about dawn tomorrow?” said Janak. “Sunrise is about seven, so if we time the raid for about four, we might catch them in a deep sleep.”
“Either that or we’ll catch them coming home on an adrenaline high after a night of doing bad things,” said Cortez. “Look, I have to meet with Reggie Calhoun in about an hour. I don’t know how long that will take, but I have a feeling that the guy doesn’t like me too much.”
“I think the lawyers on TV call that personal animus.”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Cortez. “I just know the guy’s a little prick who’s spent too much time in Washington and not much time in the field.”
“I take it you don’t think he’s just going through the motions with this investigation?”
“I thought that initially but, after our first interview, I’m not so sure anymore.”
“Man, that’s way too political for me to wrap my simple brain around,” said Janak. “I’d much rather deal with blood thirsty drug dealers than get wrapped up in the FBI’s politics. At least drug dealers are predictable.”
“Do me a favor and set up a raid for oh-dark-thirty,” said Cortez. “I’ll get back in touch with you once I’m done with Calhoun.”
◆◆◆
It was already a little past two in the afternoon and an irritated Reggie Calhoun had been sitting in the conference room for the past fifteen minutes. He did not like to be kept waiting, especially by someone he felt should be nervously deferential to his investigation. Cortez may think he’s got nothing to worry about, he thought to himself, but I hold all the cards in this one.
He picked up his phone and was about to make a call when he heard the door open. Cortez walked into the room and closed the door behind him.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I’ve got a lead on a high value target and needed to set up a joint operation with state and federal law enforcement.” That was Cortez-speak for I have a real job catching bad guys and you’re just a numbnuts bureaucrat who’s wasting my time.
“Have a seat,” said Calhoun, glaring at him and glancing at the empty chair across the table. “You do know how to tell time, don’t you?”
Cortez took a deep breath. Be cool, he thought to himself. Don’t let this asshat get under your skin.
“Let’s get started, Cortez. I want to ask you about some of your previous instances of using deadly force.”
“This is a pretty dangerous profession, Agent Calhoun,” he replied. “Some situations call for split second responses and my reactions may well determine whether I live or die.”
Calhoun grunted, his expression remaining fixed.
“Just in the last year alone, in addition to the most recent incident, you’ve killed three additional people in two separate instances,” said Calhoun, flipping through the pages of a folder in front of him until he found the page he was looking for. “Most recently—not counting the fishing escapade, that is—you killed an insurance salesman using a personal knife that you apparently carry with you at all times.”
“Yes, and I was cleared of any wrongdoing in that incident,” he replied. “I assume the file in front of you also points out that he was armed with a Glock and was trying to kill me at the time. In fact, he had just killed the poor guy whose dead body lay only a few feet away from us.”
“So, you gutted him using an antique World War Two dagger, just like a hunter would gut a deer he had just killed?”
Cortez shrugged his shoulders. “He had me pinned to the ground and was trying to beat me to death. During the struggle, I managed to pull out my knife and shove it into his gut. It seemed like a really good idea at the time.”
“Was it the same knife you used on the young Mexican boy?”
“That boy was nearly seventeen years old and, yes, it’s a Fairbairn Sykes commando knife that my grandfather kept from his days in the OSS during the second world war,” said Cortez, noticing that Calhoun’s confidence was growing the longer the interview lasted. “He gave it to me on my thirteenth birthday.”
“And you carry this souvenir with you wherever you go?” he asked, adding special emphasis to his pronunciation of the word, souvenir. “Do you have it with you now?”
“No, it’s still being held pending the completion of the investigation,” said Cortez, patting his hand on his left forearm. “But I do have a similar one I bought on Amazon, though, sheathed right here, always at the ready. Like I said, this is a tough business.”
Calhoun flipped through the folder to the next page he had marked with a paper clip.
“About nine months before that incident, you used the same knife to kill two Hispanics in Galveston,” he said, looking Cortez square in the eye. “Two Mexican immigrants, I believe.”
“They weren’t immigrants, they were Mexican cartel drug enforcers, for Christ sakes,” said Cortez, clearly exasperated but trying hard to maintain his composure. “And one of them was planning to kill me and my partner with a rusty old pickax…the same one he had used ten minutes earlier to nearly decapitate the high school football coach lying dead in the corner of the room.”
This time it was Calhoun’s turn to roll his eyes. Only in Texas would this conversation be considered even remotely normal.
“So, you decided to become judge, jury and executioner?”
“Have you ever had a deranged cartel killer waving a rusty axe menacingly in your direction?”
“Perhaps you could have talked him down, convinced him that there was no way he would get away with this?”
“Seriously?” asked Cortez, smirking. “The headless football coach lying on the floor was probably victim number one hundred in this guy’s long list of killings, with me and my partner queued up as one-oh-one and one-oh-two.”
Calhoun paused, realizing he had lost his rhetorical momentum and needed to get it back. He moved on to another incident.
“Gonçalves told me that you saved his life about five years ago, back when he was working undercover,” said Calhoun. “He said that five guys were killed in that incident, three of them by you…again, with your knife.”
“Did he tell you about the circumstances?”
Calhoun loosened his necktie. He looked confident, as if he was about to drop his bombshell. Here it comes, thought Cortez.
“Yeah, he said they were cartel killers,” said Calhoun, his smugness growing as he sensed that Cortez had just stumbled into his rhetorical trap. “Still, I sense a disturbing trend here and I think our young Mexicans on the Rio Grande were just the latest in a long line of callous killings by an FBI agent whose job is supposed to be to protect the people, not kill them.”
“Look, some people are just plain evil and my job, for better or worse, seems to keep putting me into direct contact with these people. When that happens, stuff happens.”
“And with you, it always seems to happen to Hispanics, Cortez. Are you one of those Mexican-Americans who wants to close the immigration door behind you now that you’re safely ensconced here in the U.S.?”
“Look, my great-great-grandfather fled to Texas as a young boy during the Mexican Revolution, more than one hundred years ago,” said Cortez, angry at the implication by this smug little fat white guy that he was a racist. “That’s five generations. Am I a Mexican-American? No, I’m an American whose ancestors happen to have come from Mexico.”
Calhoun opened his mouth as if to say something, but Cortez wasn’t finished.
“In fact, I’m probably more of an American than you are, despite your European ancestry,” he continued, his voice rising in anger. “The men in my family have fought in every American war from the first world war to Iraq and Afghanistan. How about you and your ancestors?”
“That’s not the question at hand,” Calhoun shouted back. Cortez took that to mean that the answer was no.
“Also, I was born and raised in Venezuela, where my father worked for an oil company, so I’ve spent a good portion of my life living as a guest in someone else’s country. Don’t patronize me with your virtue signaling, Calhoun.”
Calhoun abruptly closed the folder and stood up, signaling the end of the interview.
