Unfortunately, he didn’t have his wallet — not surprising, given that he’d just been robbed; but he could get his passport brought to him with a phone call to a colleague at the airport. The officers took him into the precinct and processed his statement, and a doctor checked him perfunctorily. No concussion — just a sore neck and a bad headache. He was allowed to make his call, and within a few minutes the shift chief got a phone call from the head of the Mendoza police force.
Four hours later, the Gulfstream lifted into the night sky and banked north, paralleling the Andes on its way up the coast.
Chapter 7
Cruz sat with his advisory team in the conference room, Briones seated by his side, as they strategized on how best to take down the bodega, which they’d been watching for a week. It was obvious to them that the facility was being used as a distribution point for drugs and arms, and the only real questions that remained were ones of timing and logistics.
Briones glanced at his notes. “As suspected, the contraband comes in during the day, apparently from two suppliers, both of which are small construction supply companies that don’t have any other customers. We haven’t been able to get close enough for hundred percent confirmation, but it appears that one of them is dropping off crates of weapons, and the other, drugs. Most likely meth, because the vehicles that are arriving to pick it up at night are well known local meth distributors who specialize in trafficking in the barrios. Could be some marijuana, too, but that’s not a big concern. Guns and meth are,” Briones summarized.
Cruz stood. “We need to coordinate taking down the two vendors as well as the bodega, preferably all at the same time. I’m not nearly as worried about the individual dealers making the pickups. There will be ten more to replace them when we drag them off the street, so the overwhelming priority has to be the supply. Cut off the supply, and most of the problem goes away.” He turned his attention to Briones. “Let’s talk about defenses.”
“It’s relatively low-key. At night, there are only three security men, and we haven’t seen any inside, so neutralize them and it’s a clean sweep. There are usually more men there during the day — workers and legitimate delivery people, so the odds of collateral damage increase with a daytime strike. I’m recommending going in just before dawn, when the night shift will be the most tired, and doing a stealth takeout of the sentries,” Briones concluded.
One of the men at the table shook his head. “It’s not going to sit well with the press if we just gun down the guards with no warning or opportunity to allow them to surrender.”
Cruz nodded. “I’d normally have a problem doing so, but these men are carrying automatic weapons that are illegal in Mexico and are playing host to known cartel street dealers. Our last operations involved considerable police and army casualties, and I’ve about had it with our men being butchered to give these animals a chance to lay down their arms. They almost never do, and all we are doing is giving them warning so they can dig in and kill our forces. I’m done with that. If you’re carrying around an AK-47 and distributing drugs that are killing kids, you don’t need a warning. You need a coffin. That’s going to be our new policy. Zero tolerance.”
The man persisted. “Will the attorney general buy off on that? Doesn’t it violate their rights?”
“On this mission, we will be presenting it as a
The man backed down, shaking his head. “I just don’t want any fallout that could hurt us later.”
“Let me worry about that. Now, Lieutenant Briones will take over and go through the plan for the attack. We’ll hit it tomorrow morning and then get the area cleaned up so that we can take the day crew captive and arrest the delivery trucks as they arrive with their cargo.”
A drowsy rooster crowed in the distance, sensing that dawn was approaching. The guards at the bodega lounged around the back of the building, weary after yet another long night of inactivity, their weapons by their sides as they sat playing cards. Only two more hours to go, and then they’d be off until eight the next night for another eleven hours of tedium.
Two hundred yards away, a pair of marine snipers stealthily moved through a vacated junkyard to a position where they’d have a clear line of fire. Their weapon of choice for the exercise was the M-16 rifle, with an accuracy that was perfect at such a range. They had the guns set to single fire, confident in their ability to dispatch the three men sitting around a white plastic Pacifico beer table near the bodega’s main entry.
Their earbud com lines crackled and a quiet voice told them to be ready to fire if the men moved for their weapons. They steadied their rifles against an old Dodge Dart’s rusting fender and prepared to engage.
A loud voice boomed from the public address system of an armored Federal Police truck that roared around the corner on the dirt road that led to the bodega, followed by three police cars with their lights off.
“Do not move. Do not attempt to reach for your guns. This is the Federal Police. We have you surrounded.”
The men froze momentarily, then dived for their rifles. The first man’s head exploded in a froth of blood and brains, spackling the wall behind him. The second man’s chest shredded in seconds, peppered by smoking holes, the dark stain of exsanguination spreading before he hit the ground. The third guard made it to his weapon as the slug intended for him missed by scant millimeters, and taking cover, fired a burst in the direction of the police truck before a sniper round tore his esophagus apart, taking most of his C3 vertebrae with it.
The assault was over almost before it started. The three corpses lay immobile in the sticky dirt. Briones got out of the lead vehicle, approached the lock with bolt cutters, and made short work of the chain securing the gate in place. A squad of combat-equipped
Half an hour later, the scene had been sanitized, and the only evidence of the slaughter was the hanging gate chain and the line of police vehicles preparing to pull away. A small group of curious locals had gathered up the road, drawn by the gunfire, but the officers quickly dispersed them, warning them to stay away from the area. Most were night watchmen at other buildings, although a few lived in the ramshackle hovels that were a perennial on the periphery of any rural industrial area in Mexico — squatters whose desperation had forced them to construct meager shelters from discarded or pilfered materials, and who lived without the benefit of water, electricity or plumbing.
This human flotsam shuffled back to wherever it called home, driven by the warnings of the police. Nobody wanted to bring any more trouble down on their heads than the universe had already visited upon them, so their curiosity took a back seat to self-preservation.
One man, a security guard at a plumbing supply warehouse a block from the yard, made a surreptitious call on his cell as he made his way back to his lonely watch, murmuring a summary of what he’d seen into the phone before terminating the call.
The day crew never appeared that morning, and neither did the delivery trucks.
As the day wore on, it became obvious that the raid had somehow been leaked to the higher-ups in the scheme, who had taken appropriate measures to cut their losses and terminate operations. It was always a risk for the police, in any incursion, because the industry was always on guard and lived with the expectation that it would have to fold up its tent and move to greener pastures at any moment.
In the end, Cruz and Briones were both stymied by the exercise because while they’d seized thirty-five kilos of methamphetamine, two hundred pounds of marijuana, eighteen automatic Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles and twelve FN Five-seven pistols, they’d failed to stop the driving force behind the operation — the cartel lieutenants who had set up the bodega in the first place. And so, within a few days, the operation would switch to another
