“Persons of interest?” asked Moore.
“Not many,” said Towers. “We’ve investigated the mayor, chief of police, even the governor. You know less- educated guys like Zuniga keep a higher profile, which satisfies their egos, but this guy is extremely well insulated.”
Towers brought up a color-coded flow chart representing the various facets of the Juarez Cartel’s operations. He continued, “The bottom line is this — we need to identify links the Juarez Cartel might have to terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to meth and coke labs in Colombia and Guatemala, and we need to positively link them to their gun-smuggling operations in the U.S. We also need to identify and attempt to expose the cartel’s contacts within the local and Federal Police forces. That’s phase one. Phase two is simple — we take ’em out.”
Ansara began to shake his head. “We have a lot of homework. And I hate homework.”
“Question,” Moore began. “Has Zuniga ever been openly approached about helping to bring down the Juarez guys? Maybe he knows who’s running their operation.”
“Whoa, hold on there, dude,” Towers said, raising a palm. “You’re talking about the United States government entering into a partnership with a Mexican drug cartel.”
Moore beamed. “Absolutely.”
“Sounds like business as usual,” said Vega. “We get in bed with one devil to take out another.”
“Are you being sarcastic?” Moore asked her.
“You have a keen eye for the obvious. You’re right. It doesn’t thrill me.”
“Well, it’s not pretty, but it works.”
“I have to assume we wouldn’t get authorization to do that,” said Towers. “You’ll be able to recruit informants from both cartels, but I warn you those people don’t usually live very long.”
Moore nodded. “I’ve got a few ideas. And Fitzpatrick, I’ll need you to keep your ear to the ground. Any sign of Middle Eastern activity, Arabs, what have you, and I need to know about it.”
“None so far, but you got it. And if you’ve read my report, you know I haven’t met Zuniga yet, so I can’t tell you if he knows who’s running the cartel. I’ve asked Luis, but he doesn’t know.”
“Okay,” answered Moore.
Since Fitzpatrick had already done an excellent job of penetrating and reconnoitering the Sinaloa Cartel, he took over for a few minutes, describing that cartel’s operation, its assets, and its desire to usurp the Juarez Cartel and its stranglehold on the more desirable border crossing areas. But this was information already contained within his report, and he was embellishing as he went.
“Mr. Moore, we don’t know much about your ops in Pakistan,” said Towers, after Fitzpatrick had taken his seat. “They’ve given us the file on Tito Llamas, the guy who turned up in a trunk in Pakistan.”
“I saw that,” answered Moore. “He’s our first link. The cartel’s buying more opium from Afghanistan, but we’re not sure why Llamas was sent there. His death might’ve put a dent in their relationship.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“I can’t imagine any cartel willing to let terrorists cross the border into the United States,” said Vega. “Why would you let them kill all your best customers and risk massive retaliation from the U.S.?”
“What about Zuniga?” Moore asked, turning to Fitzpatrick. “You think he might want to help Taliban guys get through, just to hurt the Juarez Cartel?”
“No way. From what Luis has said, this has been discussed at length. I don’t think any member of any cartel would aid or abet known terrorists. It’d have to be an independent coyote group, guys just in it for a quick score. Something like that. But the cartels have a good handle on those guides. They usually don’t make a move without the cartel knowing about it.”
“Well, then, I can go home,” said Moore with a slight grin. “Because the cartels are protecting our borders from terrorist threats so we can keep buying their drugs.”
“Whoa, slow down there, dude,” said Towers, grinning over the irony. “So the cartels might not willingly help, but the Taliban or Al-Qaeda could enter by force.”
Fitzpatrick sighed in frustration. “All I can say is they’d better bring some big guns — because every time the Sinaloas get into it with the Juarez guys, we always lose.”
“Don’t kid yourselves. The terrorists are already here. They’re all around us. Sleeper cells are just waiting to strike,” said Vega.
“She’s right,” said Fitzpatrick.
“Oh, happy day,” said Moore, with a grunt.
“All right, people, we’ll take it one step at a time. I’ve got some big assets to call in if we need them; otherwise, our limited size and scope is what gives us the advantage. Ansara, we’ll start you off in Calexico. See if you can win over some mules for our team. Agents at the checkpoint there confiscated nearly one million dollars’ worth of coke and marijuana just last week. The cartel hid the stuff in a secret compartment built into the dash, probably the most sophisticated thing we’ve seen. You needed a remote and an access code to open the secret panel. Pretty amazing stuff. They even wrapped the drugs in a layer of hot sauce to try to throw off the dogs. That’s the level of sophistication we’re dealing with here. Vega, you’re going in deep. You know the drill. Flexxx, you just get back home to Zuniga. Whittaker, you’re heading back home to Minnesota. And that just leaves you, Mr. Moore.”
He grinned. “Let’s lock and load. Next stop: Mexico.”
12 ALLIES AND ENEMIES
Ahmad Leghari was a member of the Punjabi Taliban, and he was scheduled to meet up with Mullah Abdul Samad in Colombia. Leghari was twenty-six and dressed in conservative slacks, a silk shirt, and a light jacket. He had one carry-on backpack and had already checked through one other suitcase. He carried nothing suspicious in his luggage. His credentials had been in order, and no one had confronted him thus far. The woman at the check-in desk had actually been friendly and had tolerated his rudimentary French, even after he’d been warned about the airport’s reputation for overworked and rude employees. Moreover, there was no reason to believe he was on America’s no-fly list. His confidence in this regard was justified. The list of roughly nine thousand names was publicly criticized as costly, riddled with false positives, and easily defeated. Numerous children, many under five and some under one, appeared on the list. Conversely, the list had failed to detect terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the NWA flight 253 bomber, and Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square car bomber, in a timely manner. The most notable false positive was the late Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy. The listing “T. Kennedy” caused the politician considerable inconvenience and aggravation when flying. The fact that “Ted” was a nickname, not the senator’s real name, didn’t seem to matter. Kennedy finally got relief by going directly to the director of Homeland Security, an option not available to the average citizen, and a fact publicly noted by the senator himself.
How people got on the list was supposed to be a closely guarded secret, with only pieces of information revealed during American congressional hearings. However, the Taliban had pieced together a working analysis of how some of their people wound up on that list. A first step might be having law enforcement or an intelligence agent glean information and submit it to the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia, nicknamed Liberty Crossing, where it was entered into a classified database known as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE). That information was then data-mined to connect dots and hunt for names and identities. If that process yielded more results, then the intelligence would be passed on to the Terrorist Screening Center, also in Virginia, for more analysis. Each day more than three hundred names were sent to the center. If, at that point, a suspect’s information caused a “reasonable suspicion,” he might wind up on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist used by airport security personnel to add extra screening for some travelers, but yes, he could still fly. The Taliban had discovered that in order for someone to get on the actual no-fly list, authorities had to have their full names, their ages, and information that they were a threat to aviation or national security. While the Taliban couldn’t confirm it, they’d heard that the final decision for adding a name to the list rested with six administrators from the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA). Even if placed on the no-fly list, some suspects were still permitted to travel with escorts, and unless wanted for a specific crime, many on the list who attempted to fly were simply stopped at the
