He decided to expose his entire résumé to the men who interviewed him. They were impressed. Then he told them about the reward on his head. They were upset. None of their leadership had such a reward offered for their capture, they complained.
Tequila was shared and hands were shaken. He was in. He’d found a new home, and an employer, in the least likely of places.
Chapter Three
Los Zetas Cartel Marina
Carvajal, Tamaulipas, Mexico
Abduwali’s driver slowed the bullet-hole-ridden Mercedes and slammed the steering wheel with the palms of his hands as a farmer tried to coax a burro across the road. The delay encouraged several chickens to wander into the path of their vehicle as well. His impetuous driver chose to use his pistol as a horn to force the issue. He dropped his arm out of the driver’s side window and fired two shots into the air while cursing the man and his animals.
Abduwali hated Mexico. His employers and their lieutenants were arrogant murderers who forced people into drug slavery. He’d made the decision to move forward with the Los Zetas because they’d made him into a partner of sorts. They demanded production and profits. They made it clear they were willing to provide him with a home, a woman, and protection. However, it was made abundantly clear they expected results.
His frustration had grown over the last six months as the level of results, the proverbial goal posts, using an American football analogy, had been moved considerably. He’d heard rumors that the DEA had infiltrated their drug trade in the States and caused a significant cash-flow problem. In addition, the border wall designed to keep their human trafficking and drug movement out of the U.S. had forced them to modify their modus operandi.
The Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico had become an alternate route into the U.S. The usual destinations for their narcotics and human smuggling operations—San Diego, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas—were replaced by Florida and other Gulf Coast states. They were even successful in chartering aircraft into Canada and conducting smuggling operations from there.
The driver, still cursing the farmer and his burro, sped up to the entrance of Abduwali’s office, a simple masonry building with only a few holes in the courses of block for windows. It was more fortress than harbormaster office, as the sign above the door read.
It was merely a façade to fool wayward boaters seeking fuel from the marina. The second floor of the building was Abduwali’s domain and completely out of place for the impoverished region.
Atop the structure were several satellite dishes pointed at the skies, protected from view by eight-foot-tall parapet walls. Abduwali could access internet and communication satellites from different countries at all times, day or night. This was his base of operations, where he conducted his research on secure servers using proxies. He was able to tap into U.S. data, including up-to-the-minute Coast Guard activity and boat movements in the Gulf of Mexico. Another section of the large open space provided him room to plan and instruct his team on each vessel attack.
For months, he’d been waiting for the right opportunity to make his move on his next target. He monitored travel itineraries of the ship. He studied the résumés of its crew to determine whether they would resist. He created large images of the deck configuration to teach his team about the layout, points of entry, and potential security vulnerabilities. His meticulous research was about to pay off in a big way.
As he made the final preparations and studied the weather in the Gulf, members of his team began to funnel into the Los Zetas operations center. Initially, he’d been assigned twenty men, many of whom were part-time members of Mexico’s special forces. These men were underpaid and looked to supplement their income in a way that didn’t kill their fellow Mexicans. Piracy was the perfect solution. Plus, their cut was more than double what they earned from the government annually.
There were some on Abduwali’s crew he wished he could eliminate. They were the drug cartel insiders, inserted among his team to keep an eye on the operation. The Los Zetas were known for their brutality, including torturing and decapitating informants. Ironically, they relied on their own group of snitches to keep tabs on Abduwali.
He’d come to realize his life was never safe as long as he worked for these barbarians. He opened several accounts at Santander Bank in Monterey. For a fee, he was able to launder the drug money he was paid with and exchange it for a paycheck arrangement with a car dealer in the city. He was their highest paid salesman in history and made more than the owner.
Abduwali knew the safest routes into the U.S. When the time was right, he’d evade his piracy team and make his way by boat to desolate Matagorda, Texas. He’d proceed directly to the closest Santander Bank branch in Houston. He’d retire in Minneapolis, just as he’d dreamed about for years while in Somalia.
He’d been stalking the Victory Casino Cruise ship on his laptop since it had set sail from Galveston, Texas, the afternoon before. A tropical storm had developed in the Gulf and was tracking northward toward New Orleans. The large feeder bands of the storm were forcing the cruise ship on a more westerly track, drawing it closer to the Mexican coastline before it headed back across the Gulf toward the Yucatan Peninsula.
He’d monitored social media and learned there’d been numerous cancellations due to the impending storm. In this case, that didn’t bother him as much. It wasn’t necessarily the passengers’ money that he was after. It was the contents of the casino’s vault.
Most casino cruise ships ventured into international waters just far enough to open their tables to passengers. The Victory
