dealer.”
Towers opened the folder he’d taken along and riffled through some documents. “Okay, I had them do some research for me on the Mexican government, since I’m a layman. Listen to this: According to the Constitution of 1917, the states and federation are free and sovereign and have their own congresses and constitutions, while the Federal District has only limited autonomy, with a local congress and its own government.”
“So the states have a lot more power. Why do we care?”
“Because there’s enough right here to keep Rojas from ever seeing justice. The governor of Chihuahua — Rojas’s brother-in-law — has sovereign power and would never give him up to the federal court system. And even if he did, with the chief justice and attorney general in his pocket, Rojas would walk. On top of that, capital punishment was abolished in 1930, except for crimes against national security, so he’d never get the death penalty.”
“Let me understand this. After losing three good people, there’s not a damned thing we can do? Corrales has the evidence. Let’s turn it over to our court system. Get Rojas put up on federal narcotics trafficking and conspiracy charges.”
Towers raised his palms. “Slow down. Think about your leak with Gallagher. He’s talking to Rahmani, and Rahmani’s talking to Rojas. It’ll take two to three weeks to process this evidence, and then we have to hope that the judge finds Corrales credible, even though he’s clearly out for revenge — which doesn’t help our case. And during all that time, we need to hope that your buddy Gallagher doesn’t send word back that we’re trying to indict Rojas, because if he gets tipped off, he’ll disappear. I’ll bet he’s got properties all over the world that no one even knows about. He’ll drop off the grid, and it’ll take years to find him, if ever.”
“We’ve got Sonia on the inside. He can’t go into hiding.”
“There’s no guarantee Rojas will take her along. He’s kept his involvement in the cartel a secret from his own son. That’s made Sonia’s operation extremely difficult. She’s tried repeatedly to gather evidence, get into his computers, but she’s come up short every time. He’s got electronic sweepers throughout the house, so we can’t even wiretap him without him knowing about it. You see, Moore, when we got into this, we had no idea it’d all lead back to a guy like Rojas. I mean, look at Zuniga. He’s much more typical and easy to indict.”
“Like that guy Niebla up in Chicago. They held him in Mexico for eleven months, then we got him extradited.”
“Yeah, because the Mexican government thought he was a bad guy. He had no friends there. He was working with Zuniga, so of course Rojas leaned on his friends to get rid of the guy. But Rojas …Jesus …He’s got the world by the balls. He’s the saint of Mexico, and they all love him.”
Moore threw his hands in the air. “So it was all for nothing?”
“Look, I’ve got fourteen different agencies working on this. We can turn over the evidence to our people and hope for the best.”
Moore closed his eyes, thought a moment, then said, “No, we’re not doing that. No way. We need to move now, and we can’t wait for Rojas. That assassination attempt has him laying low. If we start busting his smugglers and suppliers, he’ll realize what’s happening. We need to get him first.”
“How do we do that and maintain deniability?”
“Let me make a call. Give me a few minutes.”
“You want coffee?”
Moore gestured to the cup in his hand.
Towers gave a snort. “I didn’t even notice that. I am
After speed-dialing a number, Moore got past Chief Slater’s assistant and finally had the man himself. “Sir, it’s my understanding that you were a Force Recon Marine.”
“You say that in the past tense.”
“Hooyah, sir. Once a Marine, I know. We’ve got a terrible situation here, and I would appreciate you thinking about this more like a soldier than a spy, if you catch my meaning.” Moore went on to explain the details, and by the time he finished, Slater himself was cursing.
“So, sir, I think you know what I’m asking.”
“We need to be very clever about this. Very clever. It’d be easier if we could use the Sinaloas or the Guatemalans, but we can’t trust those bastards.”
“Can’t trust anyone in Mexico except for the Navy — that’s why I need you to make that call.”
“I know you trained with those guys, and so did I. They’re good people. There’s at least two commandos there who owe me big-time — if they’re still active-duty. I’ll make the call.”
“Thank you, sir.” Moore thumbed off the phone and set down his coffee. He closed his eyes again and asked the universe to grant him a molecule of justice.
Towers returned, still long-faced, and inhaling the steam from his coffee.
“Good news,” Moore said, drawing Towers’s interest. “Slater’s calling in some favors from the Mexican Navy.”
“So what do you have in mind?”
Moore took a deep breath. “Obviously, we can’t get the American or Mexican governments involved in any of this. Our President needs deniability, and Rojas would be tipped off if we tried to negotiate formally with his government. However, we might be able to do some business with the Mexican Navy’s Special Forces guys. Basically, we hire ourselves a platoon or two that won’t tip off their government. Those guys are gungho and would like nothing more than to take down a scumbag drug smuggler. They’ll get onboard so that when word gets out, it appears the Mexican Navy did the job. Our President can stand at the podium and say we had nothing to do with this.”
Towers smiled. “We just turn their Special Forces guys into mercenaries.”
“I’m telling you, they’ll do it. They’ll say they had to act on their own because of corruption in their government. So, we go down there at the invitation of those guys, we set up a raid on Rojas’s mansion, and we get the bastard. We let Slater pay off the Navy and let them confiscate everything else.”
“You’ll need to get Sonia out of there first.”
“Absolutely.”
“What about Rojas? What do we do with him if we actually capture him?”
“What do you mean
Towers raised his palms. “Hey, slow down. He’s the only guy who knows how all the pieces fit together.”
“Let me ask you something — are we getting enough from Corrales to bring down the cartel?”
Towers squinted to process that. “The little runt knows a lot more than I thought. We’ve got enough to cause major damage.”
“Then fuck Rojas. I’m not worrying about capturing him. My plan is to take him out.”
“He’s more valuable alive, but I’ll concede that keeping him alive would be a security threat and a logistical nightmare. If we turn him over to the Navy, they’ll have to cap him anyway — otherwise, he’ll walk.”
“Don’t overthink it.”
Five minutes later, Moore’s phone rang. Slater. “Good news,” he said. “We just hired some Special Forces from the Mexican Navy. Hooyah.”
38 BY INVITATION ONLY
All the financial news that reached Jorge Rojas’s desk that morning should have lifted his spirits. The Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S&P 500 were all up, and the IPC of the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, which represented thirty-five stocks and was the broadest indicator of the BMV’s overall performance, was looking excellent. The IPC was especially important, because Rojas’s companies represented forty-three percent of that statistic. Indeed, his
