West of Laredo by Tom Armbruster (novel24 .txt) 📖

pay for the American prisoner's death. Farrington would like to deal with Marker's murder but this expedition with the Mexican Army has taken weeks to arrange and involves some rare intelligence sharing. Farrington figures rightly that there are two deeper explanations for his walking towards the Rio Bravo with the Mexican Army. One is that the Mexican General is responding to pressure from Mexico City. The Americans in the Embassy are pressuring the government to do more about drugs on the border. So, having the Consul General along while the brave Mexican Army looks for bad guys is a nice photo op. Lots of guns, dogs, soldiers with serious looks in cool sunglasses wading through creeks. It would keep Mexico City off the General's back for a while. Or two, they plan to kill him and chalk it all up as an operation that unfortunately went bad. A sniper posted a few hundred yards away could take the shot and "get away" with no problem. That would make the Army look good too, taking risks and hunting for drugs along the border. Especially if a couple of their guys go down in the process. Farrington weighs the odds and decides it's option one--photo op time, but he can't shake the feeling that they are being watched and that the whole day could end badly. Then again, he muses, he is as soft a target as they come. If not today, at tomorrow's tour of the Catepillar plant, or the youth rally, or at the store. Diplomats are always soft targets.


Farrington decides he is simply not a serious threat to the drug gangs' operations or their current bloody turf battle. He might hurt their image. He makes speeches against drugs, attends youth rallies and is doing what he can to bring DEA to Nuevo Laredo. He genuinely hates the drug gangs. He has also seen kids like Jose caught in the cross fire.


So far, the DEA won't come to Nuevo Laredo. They prefer the more glamorous Monterrey and Mexico City. But the drugs flow across the river, call it the Rio Grande, call it the Rio Bravo, every day. And if DEA really wants to slow it down, Nuevo Laredo is the place to be. On his first day on the job, Farrington was asked by a news reporter what the greatest challenge is on the border. He said drug trafficking and the violence that goes with it. The newspaper editor thought that might spark a response from the narcos, so he printed the answer to the question this way. "The new Consul believes increasing tourism is the greatest challenge to the border." The editor had a fine sense of limits, and he was trying to keep the American alive. But his sense was not fine enough. He would be killed a year later for knowing and printing too much.


The Consul arrives home at 9 o'clock. Soaking with sweat, mud, and the Rio Bravo. No drugs found, but he is happy to be alive.

He picks up the phone, "Lee, what have you got on Marker?"

"Sir, I'm going back to Piedras Negras where he was picked up."

"Sinclair going with you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Be careful."


*12*

I was ok with the Consul General. He came to us early in the game and offered any help he could provide. At one point we had a hidden camera on an employee of interest. The CG, who was still under suspicion along with everyone else said, "Look, I know you are putting a camera in visa window number three, but we rotate officers every day, so visa applicants can't be told, 'go to window 3, she's easy,' or whatever. The officer you want to video tape will be in window 5 tomorrow." After that, I was sold, I believed he wasn't in on it.


*13*


Salvatore is not happy. Pickert or Marker or whatever he called himself was nobody. He was expendable, but if the Zetas take control of El Mecanico, Salvatore's new plan will not work. Salvatore is at home. Poolside. A lemon drink and cell phone are on the table next to him. In front of him is a Zeta. In the pool. The man is handcuffed with his hands behind him. The handcuffs are attached to a chain that runs through an eyebolt at the bottom of the pool. The chain then comes up to the deep end, where one Salvatore's men adjusts the tension. Right now the Zeta's just barely able to keep his mouth above water if he strains on his toes towards the shallow end. This particular Zeta is vulnerable to this sort of pressure, since he does not swim.


"Tell me who took Pickert down and why."

The man is terrified, and Salvatore is afraid he'll panic. He nods to his man and the pressure on the chain eases up. The Zeta advances a step into the shallow end and gulps in air.

"Our orders at first were just to have him out of the way for awhile. So we got him thrown in jail. Then the orders changed and they said take care of him. We had three guys in prison ready to take him down. But we agreed with the Deputy that it would be Carlos, "El Carcinero." He's big and strong. He kicked him I think."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Kill him quickly."

"No, you idiot, why did the Zetas kill him."


The man takes a frightened look down to the deep end. He weighs his chances. "OK, we've got a lot of product coming in next week. Heroin, coke, weed, ecstasy, everything. It's our biggest shipment. We were going to cross the stuff this week over the Rio Bravo, but the Mexican Army came out. They had the American Consul General with them too. We probably could have taken them, we outgun them, but that would cause us political problems and could bring the American soldiers to the border. So we decided to go with trucks. A blitz. We’d load up the trucks with coke, weed, pills, everything. We figured ten percent might get stopped. Maybe even five percent.”


“We bribed one of the American Border Guards to leave that dog Sarge in a car in the heat. Killed the dog. That dog could sniff out drugs anywhere. Anyway, we wanted every driver we could get, so we needed visas fast. We took down Pickert and told El mecanico we were the new boys in town. We told him Los Tecos were done. Fucked." The Zeta could feel pressure again building on the chain. He paused. "El Mecanico came through. We got 100 visas. I even got one. The blitz is set for Friday."

"So Los Tecos are fucked, huh?" Salvator sips his lemon drink.

The fear comes back into the Zeta's eyes.

"Let me tell you a secret,” Salvatore says. “You know those foreign guys who pay $10,000 for a visa. I'm not going to charge them anything. Not one penny. For each one, I'm just going to show them a picture. One of you fucking Zetas. And they are going to take you down for me. One Zeta by one. I just need El Mecanico back. Or maybe I'll have a new Mecanico."

Salvatore nods again. The man by the deep end pulled the chain tight, dragging the Zeta three steps backwards and six inches underwater. The man wraps the chain around the aluminum ladder, pulls a lock out of his back pocket and slips the lock through two links and clicks it shut.

Salvatore rises and stares at the Zeta underwater. He lifts his lemon drink as a toast, crunches down a piece of ice and walks away.

"Drain the pool this afternoon, scrub it and refill it over the weekend."

"Si senor."


*14*


The next few days Lee falls into the usual pattern. Reports of births abroad. Meetings. Visa interviews in the afternoon. At the Friday staff meeting Farrington announces that he needs a volunteer. Lee immediately volunteers.


"Great." Farrington says, "Pack your bag for an all expense paid, or at least per diem, three day stay in Monterrey. You've just been drafted to meet work with the White House advance team for a Presidential visit. You'll be control officer for two sites, the convention hall and the hotel. You're off the hook for the rodeo."


Before she can think about it, Lee is in the desert heading south to Monterrey. The windows are all down until a bee gets into the car. Then Lee closes them until the bee crawls on the window opposite hers. She then opens all of the windows and the bee flies out. The landscape is full of cacti and palms, with shapes that remind her of Dr. Seuss.


Lee tours the sites with the White House team, Alex, Susan, and Steve and their Mexican hosts. On the first day they do walk-throughs of the hotel, the convention center and the rodeo grounds. Then they have a nice Cabrito dinner.


It's a lot of running around, but she feels ready for "Game Day." The day of the President's arrival. Lee is already finalizing the correography of the meetings, she's comfortable with her arrangements with security, and they are making progress on the ever-delicate question of who sits where and how many people actually get into the meetings. The White House has the lead on these questions, but they defer to Lee regarding who is who in the Mexican government and her Spanish often helps to clarify options.


On Game Day Lee is in the parking garage as the motorcade enters. The black limo slides up to where the lead advance man is standing. The President gets out, shakes hands all around and