Vail, sitting curbside down the block from the drop house, tried reaching DeSantos, but his phone went to voice mail. She sent a text to the task force informing them of their close call, as well as their assumption that Robby had been snatched by a rival cartel.
She had questions about the “intercartel conflicts” Turino had mentioned, but she wanted to give him room to do his job as quickly as possible. If what he said was accurate, they didn’t want to still be there when any Cortez cartel members arrived.
ONE OF THE PHONE CALLS DeSantos made was to “Benny,” his OPSIG tech guru at the Pentagon. DeSantos provided the GPS coordinates he needed to monitor and asked him to angle one of their satellites over that area. When Benny asked what they were looking for, DeSantos’s response brought a brief silence to the line.
“That’s like a needle in a haystack, Hector. You realize that.”
“So I’ve been told. Just get that satellite over those coordinates and I’ll know what I’m looking for when I see it. That’s what I’m good at, remember?”
“I’ve only got one in position.”
“There are nine thousand satellites in orbit and we’ve only got one over that area?”
“Do I really have to answer that, Hector? I’ll have a better angle in about nineteen minutes, if you can wait.”
“I can’t. Give me what you’ve got.”
“Already done. Log in and let me know if it’s to your liking.”
“Thanks, man. See you when I get back.”
DeSantos walked back into Thomson’s office. “I need a PC with broadband. Tell me you’ve got one.”
Thomson led the way into their communications room, a six-square-foot space crammed with a two-way radio console, a shortwave set, two computers, monitors, and a variety of electronic equipment that spanned decades. He motioned to the far left PC. “It’s yours.”
DeSantos texted Mann and Dixon and told them to sit tight, that he hoped to have some info in a matter of minutes. He then opened Internet Explorer, applied the InPrivate Browsing and filtering modes, and navigated to the assigned, covert website. He entered his login information and a moment later was viewing a real-time feed of the reservation land in question. Using onscreen controls, he made a minor adjustment to the zoom, then began scanning in a gridlike pattern.
Ten minutes later, DeSantos leaned forward in his seat. “There.” He yelled through the open door, “Chief, come look at this!”
Thomson came running down the hall. “Found something?”
DeSantos pointed at the monitor. “Where is this?” Onscreen, despite an oddly sharp angle, they saw a light duty flat nose truck backed up to what looked like a double wide mobile home, and five men loading what appeared to be rectangular plastic-wrapped bricks into the vehicle. A smaller SUV-size vehicle sat beside it.
Thomson leaned both hands on DeSantos’s seatback and squinted at the monitor. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Cocaine, yes. And a big freaking load at that. Where is this?”
Thomson pushed away from the back of DeSantos’s chair. “I’ll take you there. Too hard to describe if you don’t know the terrain. And I want this bust, Mr. DeSantos. They’re not getting away on my watch.”
THEY RAN OUTSIDE. DeSantos jumped into the task force SUV and Thomson into a battered Ford pickup with Tribal Police black-and-white decals. DeSantos told Mann, who was behind the wheel, to follow Thomson’s vehicle, then briefed them all on what he had seen.
“So this is a handoff of coke,” Mann said.
The vehicle swung left and they all leaned right. Dixon grabbed the handrail above the door. “So there are drugs. That’s great. Any connection to Robby?”
“If Figueroa and several other cartel members are on-site, maybe we can grab one or more and sweat ’em. See what we get.”
“But,” Mann added, “you said these cartels are like terrorist groups; they operate in cells, where one group doesn’t know what the other’s doing. So sweating one or more of these guys may not get us anywhere.”
“Figueroa’s the real prize. He’s responsible for some of the cartel’s drug distribution agreements. He’s the one we really need to grab because he’s gonna know more than most.”
Mann slammed on the brakes and the SUV slid to a stop on the pot-holed, gravel-strewn road. Ahead, barely caught in the reaches of the headlights, were a group of animals crossing the street.
DeSantos leaned forward in his seat. “Dogs?”
“
“Common on reservations.” He waited for the last dog to pass, then accelerated to catch up with Thomson.
“Did you get Karen’s text?” Dixon asked DeSantos. “She and Turino missed Robby by minutes.”
DeSantos checked his phone, trying to navigate the joystick despite the car’s rocking and lurching jerks. “What the f—” he muttered beneath his breath. “So Cortez no longer has him.”
“Probably not,” Mann said.
DeSantos bit his lower lip, then dropped his head back onto the seat cushion.
Ten minutes later, Thomson tapped his brakes and cut his headlights. Mann reached for his controls and likewise went dark. “I think we’re getting close.”
Everyone sat up tall in their seats and instinctively pulled their pistols.
AFTER LEAVING THE REMAINING two DEA agents on-site to monitor the drop house, Turino and Vail climbed into their SUV and headed back to the DEA field division office.
“You mentioned intercartel conflicts,” Vail said. “What were you talking about?”
“There are a lot of turf battles, power struggles between the cartels. You’ve got traffickers snatching up members of rival cartels and demanding ransom or using hit men to kill enemy lieutenants to settle debts. Messages are being sent—violent ones. Lots of collateral damage to civilians and uninvolved parties. It only used to happen in Mexico, but now it’s going on in the U.S.”
“How does this tie in to Robby?”
“I think I know what happened back there,” Turino said as he navigated a turn.
Vail looked around. She did not recognize the area. “And that was?”
“Cortez is a brazen SOB. He’s gotten where he’s gotten by being excessively violent and aggressive. He’s killed a lot of his competitors. Those who are left are tough in their own right, and either they’ve agreed to leave each other’s turf alone, or for some other reason he’s let them be. But there’s an unspoken rule—since the Kiki Camarena murder, the cartels don’t kill federal agents.”
Vail was familiar with the Enrique Camarena incident—all federal agents were. Her memory didn’t need refreshing by the field division’s wall of remembrance. Back in 1985, a decorated DEA undercover, “Kiki” Camarena, had successfully infiltrated and brought down a number of drug trafficking organizations. But when his cover was blown, he was tortured and then bludgeoned to death. A physician who worked for the cartel repeatedly prolonged his life so the torture could continue. In response, the DEA effectively closed down the border and halted all drug shipments. The cartels realized the price they paid by murdering a federal agent was far too great. They weren’t going to make that mistake again.
“So let’s say for a minute,” Vail said, “that Cortez has decided he lives and dies by his own rules and he has intentions of killing Robby after he extracts information from him. Maybe he’s gotten wind of Velocity and he wants to know when it’s going to go down. And maybe he thinks Robby knows that answer.”
Turino considered that, then slowly nodded. “Cortez has a big ego—they all do—but his is particularly large.”
“I’ve had some experience with narcissists,” Vail said. “They think they make their own rules, that the laws of the land don’t apply to them. Or it could be his way of saying to everyone else, ‘I’ve got a big set of balls, and I’m going to prove it to you.’ If that’s what we’re dealing with here, it’s very possible Cortez gave orders to kill Robby.
“Another problem is that they probably discovered Robby’s a state detective. Even though he was given task
