“The cars?”
“We think they split up after leaving the house, but they all wound up heading south, got onto Second Street, then drove to the airport. We found all four vehicles inside a hangar on the southeast side. They’re not registered to Calexico police. They were all stolen and repainted professionally to resemble police vehicles. The paint was still tacky on a couple of them. Employees have no idea how the vehicles got there and didn’t see anyone. We’ll be hitting up all the auto-body and paint shops in the area.”
“Records of flights out?”
“We’ll get ’em, but the FAA only has docs on two-thirds of all small planes — and you know that if our boys flew out of there, it was on a plane whose registry we can’t track.”
“Right …”
“I want to believe you’re wrong. This is a bunch of mules with a good escape plan. They’ve stolen the drugs and are trying to sell them. It’s nothing more than that.”
“We’ll see what the DNA says.”
“I hope it’s negative.”
Moore snorted. “Otherwise we’ve let a group of terrorists slip right past us, and they’re now in the United States, which, in my humble opinion, is a slightly bigger problem than taking down Jorge Rojas.”
Towers leaned in closer to Moore. “May I remind you that you’re the counterterrorism expert. So I want to know, then, who the hell those bastards are and what they’re doing right now.”
“I’m already on it. And maybe our boy Corrales knows something.”
Towers’s phone rang. Moore listened in and heard enough: big shooting at a pharmacy in Juárez. Local police IDed one of the bodies as Pablo Gutiérrez, the scumbag who murdered that FBI agent who was a friend of Ansara’s.
“So they got Pablo,” said Moore. “Who do you think did it?”
“I think his own people. They’re on the hunt for Corrales, and Pablo was with that gang of sicarios.”
“Well, you know how you find out?” Moore asked. “Everyone around Corrales dies as they home in on their target.”
Within thirty minutes Moore had a video conference with Chief Slater and Deputy Director O’Hara regarding the photos of Gallagher, who they confirmed was not working any deep-cover operation and had, for all intents and purposes, gone rogue. Whether he was on the Taliban’s payroll, the cartel’s, or even the Pakistan Army’s remained to be seen, but operatives there were issued orders to capture or kill him. All of his access codes to the Agency’s databases had been erased within twenty-four hours of his disappearance, but Gallagher was an accomplished hacker, who not only knew his way around the Agency’s computer and communications systems but may not, as Slater had speculated, have been working alone.
The DNA results had come back and had identified Moore and Rueben, but DNA from a third subject had been detected, possibly Middle Eastern or sub-Saharan African. While standing inside the step van, Moore showed one of the techs some of the pictures that Wazir had sent to him.
“Probably this guy,” said the tech, tapping his finger on the photo of Mullah Abdul Samad. “He’d fit pretty closely.” Moore stared hard at the picture for any sign of a necklace or pendant, although the necklace might’ve been tucked under Samad’s shirt.
He turned to Towers. “You’re still not buying this?”
“All right, I’m buying. And now excuse me while I go throw up.”
Moore sighed and said, “Mind if I join you?”
They left the van and headed back into the office building, where ATF Agent Whittaker was waiting for them.
“Back from Minnesota with good news,” he began. “The other part of the weapons cache was seized.”
“Excellent,” said Towers; then he read something from his smartphone. “And I just got some intel right here. Juárez police captured the second cache from the Ford Explorer, and they busted three sicarios and killed two.”
“Did they recover the money?” asked Whittaker.
“I’m not sure. Two guys fled on foot. Money could be with them. They’re still looking for them.”
“You think if the Juárez police bust them with the money we’re going to get it back?” Moore asked.
Whittaker gave a resigned sigh. “Good point. This ain’t Kansas, and it ain’t Minnesota.”
It was five p.m., and Inspector Alberto Gómez had just left the station. He was walking toward his sedan in the dirt parking lot out back. He’d just received a call on his second line from Dante Corrales, who said he was at Zúñiga’s ranch house, that the cartel knew he was there, and that he feared an attack. He wanted Gómez’s federal troops to be put in place to aid Zúñiga’s security team. Gómez had felt torn over that decision but had decided to dispatch two units to the perimeter, four men in all.
The cinder-block wall to his left, repainted last week to cover the splotches of graffiti, had once more been stained by young thugs with their spray cans. He shook his head in disgust, opened the car door, then climbed inside.
He reached down to put the key in the ignition when a hard tap came on the glass. He glanced over and saw a gun, a Glock with a suppressor attached, pointed at his face.
“Open the window,” ordered the man outside, who was dressed in black jeans, a black shirt, and a long leather jacket. Gómez could not yet see his face.
He inserted the key in the ignition, thought of firing up the car and screeching out of there, but a scintilla of curiosity nagged him — that and the fear of being shot in the head. He hit the button, and the window scrolled down, allowing his assailant to press the gun deeper into his head. “You know this is a police station, right?”
“I know. But what I got in front of me is hardly a policeman. Hardly. Your weapon.”
Gómez turned his gaze higher. The man was in his forties, with slightly dark skin, unshaven, with thick black hair pulled into a ponytail. His Spanish was good, but he was not Mexican. A weird light burned in his eyes.
“That’s it,” said the man. “Very slowly take it out and hand it over to me.”
Gómez complied, and the man tucked the pistol into his waistband.
“Open the back door.”
Again, Gómez complied, and the man climbed into the backseat and shut the door. “Drive.”
“May I ask where we’re going?”
“Just pull out of the parking lot and get on the road.”
“And if I refuse?”
The man’s voice turned dark. “Then I’m going to blow your brains out all over this car, and I won’t think twice about it. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Gómez pulled out of the lot and headed down the street, into very light traffic.
“I’m going to ask you a simple question: Did you order her death?”
“Whose death?”
“Gloria’s.”
“I’m not telling you anything.”
“You will. To save your family.”
Gómez stiffened. “Who are you?”
“Just tell me that you ordered her death, and your family lives. It’s as simple as that. It’s too late for you, but I’ll spare them. You’ve spent your entire life providing for them, protecting them, pretending to be a model citizen, when you’ve been in bed with the Juárez Cartel for many, many years.”
Gómez couldn’t help himself. He screamed, “Who the fuck are you?”
“DID YOU ORDER HER DEATH?”
“It doesn’t matter!”
The man fired his pistol just over Gómez’s shoulder, the round punching a neat hole in the windshield, the crack still loud enough to make Gómez wince, his ear now ringing in pain.
“DID YOU ORDER HER DEATH?”
“If I admit that, you’ll leave my family alone?”