machine-gun-wielding PJDF cops poured out of the chopper door and surrounded the startled ranch bodyguards, who quickly threw down their rifles, jutting their hands in the air.
Ophelia ran over to me. 'You okay?' she asked.
'Yeah, but we better check Rocky.'
We moved over and helped Rocky to his feet. He was shaken but unhurt.
'Maravillosol' the little fighter said with a grin.
'How the hell did you find us?' I asked.
Ophelia reached into my shirt pocket and removed her DCST unit. In all the excitement, I'd completely forgotten it was still there.
'You left it on and we backtracked the signal from space.' She grinned at me. 'How's that for your tax dollars saving your ass?' Then she triggered her hand rover. 'Alexa, it's me. I got him. He's safe.'
'Thank God,' I heard Alexa say. 'Get him over here.'
'I'll have him to you in ten.' Then Ophelia turned off her radio.
'Ten minutes?' I said, and Ophelia nodded. 'Where is she?'
'We split up. I was following this signal, but she insisted on following the belt tracker because she was sure that was where you'd be.' She pointed at Cielo Ranchero. 'She's over there.'
Chapter 57
With Rocky driving and Ophelia in the back, we raced one of the Jeeps across the desert sand toward the ranch house.
I could see another green and gold PJDK Schweizer parked in the large plaza out in front of the main house with the rotor just winding down. We streaked under the archway and swerved to a stop as a uniformed Mexican colonel and several helmeted judicial politic! were herding ranch hands into a large rec building. Alexa saw me and ran out of the farmhouse toward us. I jumped out of the Jeep and took her into my arms.
'Thank God you're alive,' she said, holding me close. She leaned back and held me at arm's length. 'When I found this I didn't know what to think.'
She was holding my belt with the tracking device sewn into it. 'I took it off one of those Eighteenth Street gangsters.'
She leaned in to kiss me, but I pulled away. The pain from the exposed nerves in my broken teeth was beginning to saw a hole through the adrenaline. 'Got a little problem with my teeth,' I said.
'Open your mouth,' she commanded.
'You don't wanta see it.'
She reached up and pulled my lip back. 'My god! What the hell happened?'
'Got those rearranged courtesy of the Haven Park PD. But the LAPD is gonna get em fixed up better than before. This time next week, Til have a better smile than Brad Pitt.'
Alexa and Ophelia introduced me to Colonel Felix Mendcz, the head of the PJDF for Baja del Sur. He was a tall, no-nonsense cop with a crisp uniform, a polished Sam Browne and a neatly trimmed mustache. He had worked several joint ops with Ophelia and was trying to help Homeland and the FBI stem the flow of Russian-made guns and Mexican brown that was coming into the U. S. He had taken over command of her operation in Mexico and supplied the helicopters, then led the mission into Mexican airspace.
'It wall be necessary to move fast,' he said in near perfect English. 'To protect this operation, I have temporarily decommissioned the phones for this sector, including cell towers, so they shouldn't have been able to call out and alert anyone. But there is still a risk somebody got through to Mayor Bratano before we closed communications.'
'There's a tunnel that leads from the barn under the border to a warehouse in Calexico,' I told them. 'You need to go through it and bolt down the U. S. side.' I turned to Ophelia. 'I think you'll find a big stash of AK-100 series submachine guns over there.'
'We have to get back up to L. A. in a hurry and organize our takedown in Haven Park,' Alexa said. 'We're going to need a bunch of FISA warrants.'
Rocky and I showed Colonel Mendez where the tunnel was. Six Mexican PJDF1 agents headed into it while Ophelia radioed FBI SWAP and instructed them to move in and close down the Calexico warehouse. Twenty minutes later, the warehouse had been secured and ten more 18th Street gang members had been arrested. Two hundred AK-lOOs and at least a ton of Mexican heroin were also booked into evidence.
Less than an hour later, we were back on the other side of the border, climbing into a U. S. Coast Guard Sikorsky for the helicopter ride back to L. A. Once we were airborne, Rocky sat on the seat beside me, looking out across the expanse of Baja desert.
'The town where I was born is called Progreso. Its over there somewhere.' He pointed south. We all looked in that direction, but couldn't see anything. Just endless miles of brown sand and a cloudless blue sky.
As we flew, I gave Ophelia the names of everybody I had seen committing crimes in Haven Park. It came to about fifteen people. Ophelia was on the helicopter's tactical frequency, talking to a FISA judge. To be safe and to save time, she asked for twenty additional John Doe warrants.
At one-thirty, we landed on the roof of the LAPD Air Support Division on Ramirez Street. I got out of the Sikorsky with Alexa and Ophelia and we hurried over to four police vans that were waiting there, engines idling, side doors open. Before I got in, I turned and said goodbye to Rocky.
'Tuvinmos bueno suerte, amigo,' he said.
'Didn't need luck. All we needed was each other.'
Then he grabbed me and gave me a Mexican cibrazo.
I got inside the police van and we sped off, heading toward the secure situation room in the basement of Parker Center. Alexa and Ophelia were in the lead van ahead of the one I was riding in, drawing up operation plans.
As I watched the city of L. A. fly past my window, it was hard to believe that Haven Park was only six short miles from downtown L. A. and Parker Center. Up until a few hours ago, it had felt to me like that corrupt city existed in a parallel universe, far from the justice I believed in. It had seemed secure from assault, moated by its own laws and the slimy Los Angeles River, policed by men capable of almost anything.
I thought about how quickly some realities change. What had once seemed like a massive criminal conspiracy, controlled by brutal power elitists, now just looked like a collection of sorry losers scattering for their lives like tenement cockroaches when the lights came on.
Chapter 58
The situation room at the Glass House is located two stories belowground in a subbasement. Its designed to be used as a command center during major earthquakes, terrorist attacks or incidents of massive civil unrest. It was also frequently used for secure operations like this one. There was a large computer bullpen, a TV media room and television center, along with a tricked-out communications center that utilized half a dozen satellite uplinks.
When we got there, Chief Filosiani was already in discussions with Homeland Security's special agent in charge, Teddy Fielding. The Homeland SAC was pure vanilla, with a bland face and a comb-over hairstyle. He also had Ivy League manners, no personality and a beige suit. He and Tony Filosiani were huddled over a map of Haven Park, working on the takedown.
Captain Calloway greeted me and told me he was proud of what I'd done. He seemed strangely subdued. He cl just been told that my obstruction-of-justice crime had been orchestrated by the chiefs office. I could see, as I looked into his dark eyes, that he was torturing himself that he hadn't put up much of a fight defending me. However, after what he'd been told, and given my confession, there wasn't really much to fight for. Nonetheless, he prided himself on his dedication and loyalty to his troops and, despite my protest, he wasn't about to cut himself
