“As of seven this morning, the Department of Justice is now working hand in hand with my covert-ops guys, the Navy SEALs and Delta Force, and the airborne-signal intelligence-gathering unit known as Gray Fox, as well as the CIA and NSA.”
I stared at him, taken aback. I’d seen investigations ramped up before, but I’d never worked with the actual military.
“Did this little order suspend posse comitatus?” I asked, squinting at him. “You know, the federal statute that says the military can’t operate within the continental US?”
“They finally eject California from the Union?” the feisty colonel said, smiling.
“The colonel and his men aren’t actually operating on US soil,” Emily said, turning to me. “See, we believe Perrine is hiding somewhere in Mexico. Because of the rampant amount of bribery and corruption in the law enforcement agencies and even the military of our sister republic, the Mexican president has reluctantly agreed to let us into Mexico to act as special advisers in the hunt for Perrine.”
“Which is not something the Mexican president is ready to crow about, since it’s an election year,” the colonel added. “Because discretion is mandatory, this base is the military’s rallying point for airborne sorties over the border.”
“OK, I think I’m getting the picture,” I said. “Go on.”
“That’s just one side of the blade,” D’Ambrose said. “Perrine’s people are now operating in LA, so we’re going to be working with the LA FBI and DEA, and the LAPD as well.”
“Don’t forget the Mexican authorities,” Emily said. “The federales, and even CISEN.”
“CISEN?” I asked.
“The Mexican intelligence agency, equivalent to our CIA,” D’Ambrose said.
“Exactly,” said Emily. “We’re going soup to nuts, from street cops to the feds to the intelligence community and the army.”
“In two different countries?” I said, and shook my head.
“Yep,” D’Ambrose said. “Starting to feel my pain now? You don’t speak Spanish, by any chance, do you?”
I nodded and looked up as one of the Chinook helicopters went by close enough to land on the roof of the barracks. Half the napkins we had brought went flying as well.
“This thing is a real mess,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Emily asked. “I thought you’d be pleased. Action is finally being taken. Perrine is being looked at like the international terrorist that he is. You’re not happy that they’re finally going after Perrine in a serious way?”
“It didn’t have to come to all this, Emily. How many years was nothing done about the border? About the cartels? We let this fester. Now things are so bad, we have to bring in the military? It’s a disgrace. Everybody is goddamn asleep at the switch these days.”
“Not everybody, Mike,” Emily said. “Colonel D’Ambrose has been working tirelessly on this for the last three months. Before that, he and his men at the Joint Special Operations Command helped redefine counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq, bringing in the CIA and NSA to sort through the electronic pocket litter that the Special Forces teams found on the battlefield. There’s no one better on the planet to head up this kind of international manhunt.”
The colonel smiled as he wiped his mouth.
“Thanks for the defense, Emily, but Detective Bennett here is more correct than he knows. I’m disgusted, too, Detective. We needed to keep our house clean, but we didn’t. Letting things go to the point where the exterminator has to come to your house is pretty damn embarrassing.”
CHAPTER 33
After we finished eating, D’Ambrose left for a meeting, and Parker took me over to Building 14. The huge open room on the ground floor was being used by D’Ambrose’s JSOC guys as the multiple-agency task force command center.
There were desks everywhere, several large PowerPoint boards and flat screens, a podium. Everyone on the task force must have been taking a break to eat, because except for a couple of soldiers running some wires through the drop ceiling, we were alone.
We grabbed a couple of coffees from a well-stocked table, and I followed Emily over to a desk.
“We found this footage two days ago at a safe house we raided with the federales in Durango,” Emily said, tapping at a laptop as we sat. “It’s of a dinner Perrine held for his top cartel people. We had it closed captioned. You have to take a look at this.”
I let out a breath as Perrine appeared on the screen. He was wearing an impeccably tailored tuxedo, standing at a podium in what looked to be some kind of ballroom.
The last time I had laid eyes on him, he was in a prison jumpsuit, escaping from a Lower Manhattan courthouse in a construction-crane basket. It made my blood boil to see him back in his stylish finery, dressed to the nines again.
I also noticed that he had gotten his nose fixed. Which sucked. I was the one who had broken it for him in a scuffle we’d had before I placed him under arrest. I had the funny feeling we would have another scuffle before this thing was done. But is that a good thing? I wondered.
I watched as the psychopathic murderer smiled pleasantly, adjusted the mike, and cleared his throat.
“I see myself as a historical figure,” Perrine said from the dais without the slightest hint of irony. “Like Pancho Villa or Che Guevara or the great Simón Bolívar, I am here to continue the Southern Hemisphere’s great tradition of rebellion. Only, I am more honest, more defiant, because I refuse to hide my ambitions behind the bullshit con game that is socialism.
“I do not need to justify my actions. Especially to the Americans. Borders and laws, they cry. Supply and demand is my reply. They disrupt my business while it is their decadent sons and daughters who are my very best customers.
“It is time,” Perrine said. “Time to stop fucking around. That is what I learned during my stay in the great United States. My brief stay.”
The audience broke into applause and uproarious laughter at that one.
I wanted to put my fist through the screen.
“I see the US finally for what it is,” Perrine continued. “Just another rival, just another meddlesome obstacle to our ambitions. Where the Americans are weak, we will show our strength. We will not stop until the border itself is meaningless. We will spur on chaos until it is manifest everywhere, until even the American authorities are as cowed as the Mexican ones. Then and only then will we have free rein.
“And by we, be sure that I do not mean old Mexico. I do not mean the sorry downtrodden, the blessed poor. Fuck the forever-useless, sniveling, ever-present poor once and for all, I say.
“By we, I mean you and me-all the people ruthless and lucky enough to be in this room at this present moment. Tout le monde is ours for the taking, my friends! The world is turning, readying itself for new borders, new laws. I say we write them with the blood of our American enemies. What do you say? Who is with me? Who wants to be a billionaire?”
CHAPTER 34
The screen faded to black, and Parker closed the laptop, cutting off the sound of more applause.
“Wow, I’m impressed,” I said. “That has to be the Gettysburg Address of maniacal narco-terrorists.”
Emily nodded. “One of our informants who was at the dinner said that after his speech, Perrine expertly directed a PowerPoint presentation in which a precise military-insurgency plan of attack on the southwest US was laid out,” she said.