He speed-dialed Dante Corrales, his contact in Mexico, and waited for the young man to answer.
“You only call me when there is a problem,” said Corrales. “But there’d better not be a problem.”
“Dios,” was all Ballesteros said.
“Okay. Now try not to bother me again.”
“Wait, I’m not sure it was Dios, but maybe …”
The kid had already ended the call.
Ballesteros had met Corrales only once, two years ago, when members of the Juárez Cartel had come down to both survey his operation and offer security forces and workers to help him increase production. Corrales was an arrogant young man, the new breed of narco-trafficker with no sense of history or respect for those who’d come before him. These young sicarios were more concerned with power and image and intimidation than with making money. They had fantasies of being in Hollywood movies, thought they were Al Pacino. Ballesteros had little use for them, but he’d been forced to accept the cartel’s assistance when the government had tightened its grip on his operation, and nowadays they were his primary buyers.
After another terse phone call with Corrales the week before, Ballesteros had learned that the cartel boss himself would be in the country very soon and that he should not delay the next shipment. He swore and went running back to his house, where he sent two more of his men back to the lab to collect the bodies.
Four old trucks whose flatbeds were covered with heavy tarpaulins had pulled up outside the house, and another team of men was loading the banana boxes filled with bananas and cocaine onto the trucks.
Ballesteros tried to hide his fury and disgust over the murdered men and shouted to his crew to hurry. The boat had already arrived at the dock in Buenaventura.
They drove over the potholed roads and were thrown hard against their seats in the hot cabs. None of the trucks had a working air conditioner, and it was just as well. Ballesteros didn’t want any of his men to get too comfortable. They had to remain vigilant, and Ballesteros himself scrutinized every passing car and pedestrian along the route.
Because this particular shipment was large (seven tons, to be precise), and because his operation had just been struck a blow by the murderers, Ballesteros was wary of another attack and opted to follow this shipment at least until the second or third exchange point.
The crew of a ninety-five-foot Houston shrimp boat hustled onto the dock when Ballesteros and his men arrived. The teams of men began the swift transfer of the cargo, using a gas-powered forklift along with the boat’s inboard net boom to move the pallets of banana boxes from dockside to the shrimper’s hold.
Not far off, near the end of the dock, stood two FARC soldiers watching the entire operation. One gave a nod to Ballesteros, who hustled up the gangway, much to the surprise of the crew. Yes, he told them. He was coming along. And how far was he going? Far enough.
They headed west for about two hundred fifty nautical miles, nearing Isla de Malpelo, a small island with fantastic escarpments and spectacular rock formations glistening in the sun. They would remain in the area until nightfall, conducting routine “shrimping” operations while tailed by a school of silky sharks. Ballesteros remained quiet for most of the day, still haunted by the images of his men.
Finally, a dark shadow swelled like a whale or great white shark off the port bow. As the shadow drew closer, the men on the deck shouted to one another and got to work readying the lines. The shadow rose from the water, taking on a mottled pattern of blue, gray, and black, and then, with seawater washing off its sides, it fully broke the surface …
A submarine.
The vessel glided alongside them, and Ballesteros cried out to the captain, who was rising into the hatch, “This time, I’m coming along for the ride!”
The sub was diesel electric-powered, thirty-one meters long, and nearly three meters high from deck plates to ceiling. It was constructed of fiberglass and could cut through the water via twin screws at more than twenty kilometers per hour, even while carrying up to ten tons of cocaine. The vessel had a three-meter-tall conning tower with periscope and the ability to dive to nearly twenty meters. It was a remarkable feat of engineering and a testament to the creativity and tenacity of the leaders of their operation. The submarine belonged to the Juárez Cartel, of course, and it cost more than $4 million to construct inside a carefully hidden dry dock beneath the triple canopy of the Colombian jungle.
Although two other submarines had been discovered and confiscated by military forces before they could be deployed, the cartel had plenty of money to keep building these vessels, and this was one of four they had in continuous operation.
Ballesteros remembered the days when they’d used slow-moving fishing boats, sailboats, and if they were feeling bold, a few cigar boats here and there. But now they’d made huge strides in payload capacity and stealth. The old semi-submersibles could sometimes be detected from the air, but not this submarine. He was helped onto the deck and would exchange places with one of the sub’s crew members. They would rendezvous with yet another fishing vessel about a hundred nautical miles off the coast of Mexico, offload the cargo, then turn back for Colombia. Ballesteros would not sleep until he knew the shipment had arrived. He descended into the submarine and found himself in a narrow but air-conditioned compartment while the men outside began the transfer.
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Susan Salinas had parked her SUV along a small ditch, shielding it from view across the open desert that swept out toward the curving horizon of mountains. The sun had set about two hours ago, and she and her partner, Richard Austin, had crawled up on their bellies to survey the border with their night-vision goggles, the desert now a fluctuating course of shimmering green. They’d received a tip from one of the local ranchers, who’d seen a truck cutting across the valley, heading toward his land, and that truck had tripped one of the remote electronic sensors put in place by the CBP (Customs and Border Protection).
“Could be those kids four-wheeling again,” said Austin, issuing a deep sigh as he panned to the right while she surveyed the southeast side.
“No, I think we’re going to score big tonight,” she said slowly.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because I’m looking at the bastards right now.”
A slight dust trail swirled out from behind a battered F-150 whose flatbed was piled high with banana boxes tied down with bungee cords and partially covered by torn canvas. No, those guys were not transporting produce through the rough and mountainous terrain of Brewster County, and yes, they’d done a piss-poor job of concealing their stash. Either that or they were just too brazen to care. She zoomed in, saw three men jammed into the front bench seat with movement behind them in the cab. There could be as many as six.
She calmed herself. Salinas had been with the CBP for nearly three years now, and she’d caught hundreds of people attempting to illegally cross the border. The truth was, she’d never imagined she’d be out here on line watch and carrying a gun. She’d considered herself a “girly girl” in high school as the captain of the cheerleading squad and had ambled her way through those locker-lined halls with low B’s. She’d then wandered her way into community college, where she couldn’t get excited about any of the majors. When a friend’s brother had joined the Border Patrol, she’d done some research. Now she was twenty-seven, still single, but loving the adrenaline rush of her job.