The good old telephone book. The group would be listed. He’d look up the number and make a call at night when nobody would be in the office. They would have a readout on the calling number, so he would use a public phone far from his house. Pacific Beach, say. Yeah.
At home he looked up the Drug Enforcement Administration number in San Diego in the blue-tinged government-listing pages before the business section of the phone book. It showed four numbers: main, registration information, southwest laboratory, and the San Diego County Integrated Task Force. He picked the last one and wrote it down, then checked it twice and put the slip of paper in his billfold.
Then Mahanani sat down at the kitchen table and wrote out exactly what he would say. He put it down, then made changes and wrote it again. The fourth time through he had it the way he wanted it. It went like this: “Hello, DEA, this is a concerned citizen. I know of a drug mule operation from Tijuana to San Ysidro. I got sucked into it. I can show you the whole operation if you grant me immunity and leave my name out of any report. It involves medium-sized shipments worth about a half-million but working on a regular basis. They are extremely hard to detect by border inspectors. If you’re interested, leave a message for me at your number. My handle is the Reverend. I’ll call back in two days and ask for the message.”
Mahanani read it again, made one small change, and folded the paper and put it in his shirt pocket. When to make the call? He snorted. The sooner the better. He grabbed his car keys, his black cap, and headed for his Buick.
In the Pacific Beach section of San Diego, ten or twelve miles from his apartment, Mahanani found a phone booth where there wasn’t a lot of traffic noise and put his coins in the machine. He dialed the number. The phone rang twice and someone picked it up.
“Good evening, this is the DEA county task force.”
Mahanani hung up the phone and drove away from the phone. Not quite 2000. He’d try again later. Was the phone manned all night? He went to a movie, then at a different phone in downtown San Diego tried the DEA number again.
“Hello, this is the San Diego County Integrated Narcotic Task Force. No one is here right now, but your call is important to us. Please leave a message as long as you need to. We’ll return your call as soon as possible. Leave your name and number after the tone.”
The phone buzzed three times, and he took a deep breath and read his statement just as he had written it. Then he wiped sweat from his forehead, hung up the receiver, and hurried to his car. He got in and drove away. The seed was planted. Now he would see what happened.
When he got home, Mahanani saw the red message light blinking on his phone. He pushed the buttons and listened.
“Jack, this is your mother. You’re never home. I never can get you when I call. Why don’t you have a nice safe nine-to-five job like your brothers so I can call you the way I do them?
“Never mind. I want you to put on your calendar the date of the twenty-fourth. That’s a Saturday afternoon three weeks away and I want you to come to our family luau. You missed last year again. Said you were in Europe or Africa or somewhere. You travel so much I can’t keep up with you.
“Never mind. The whole family will be there. With your three brothers and their wives and children, we now have fifteen in our extended family. Two more are in the oven but not quite done yet. Now listen, I really want you to come. I have to show these mainlanders just what a real luau is. Yes, we’ll have the buried pig this year, a fifty-pounder if I can find one that size. Your brother Mark has contacts with a farmer and he should be able to help us. So call back anytime. Call and tell your old mother that you’ll be there. You come on the twenty-third and sleep over in your old room, and you can help us dig the pit. Your father isn’t as well as he was last year. The arthritis is the problem.
“Oh, by the way. I’m inviting a nice girl I want you to meet. I know her from church and she’s lovely, single, and sings in the choir. Beautiful alto voice and so pretty. I keep hoping that you’ll find a girl and settle down and stop all this running around. I know it’s dangerous and I really think you’ve done your share.
“Well, I hoped that you’d come home while I was talking, but I guess not. I just pray that you’re not out there somewhere and getting shot at.
“You be good and take care, and be sure to come on the twenty-third to help me dig the pig pit. Good-bye. Now call me, Jack.”
Mahanani started to call, then looked at the clock. The talk with his mom would take at least an hour. It was already almost 2300. They had an 0730 call in the morning. He felt drained. That secondary inspection lane at the border had almost wiped him out. He was sure that he had been busted big-time. He could imagine being led off in handcuffs, his mother notified, and him being in jail without bail for weeks. It would have been the end of his Navy career and he’d be looking at seven to twenty in prison. He couldn’t let that happen. The next run he took would be his last. And the end of the casino mule-skinning drug runs. He hoped. If something fouled up somewhere and the DEA didn’t nab the whole operation, the ones left would kill him. He knew that.
Mahanani had a long shower and fell into bed. He figured he would never get to sleep. The next thing he knew the alarm went off at 0600.
Blake Murdock had set up a brutal training schedule. His platoon hadn’t been really tested for some time and he wanted to see how everyone stood up. There had been no casualties in the Sierras, but that had been a relatively simple operation. If they had a really tough one, he wanted to be sure the men were ready, so they had to stay in shape and razor-sharp all the time.
They started at 0800 with a warm-up, a twelve-mile run from BUD/S to the end of the Coronado Strand and back. Then they checked out two IBSs and launched them through the surf. They got together beyond the breakers and Murdock called to them.
“We’re going to shoot the surf, ride in on a breaker the way the surfers do. Just be damn sure you don’t let the bow get down and dump us. Surf along the side of the wave if you want to, but then turn and come in with your bow straight for the beach. We’ll do this three times. If we dump one of the boats, that squad has to do a makeup. Let’s roll.”
They headed the fifteen-foot-long Zodiac craft toward the beach. Jaybird watched the swells forming. He would be their caller. He let two swells surge up and go past them without breaking. The third one was larger, carried more water. He watched it, then shouted.
“Paddle hard, now, go, go. We can catch this baby. Flat out, faster, faster.”
The small rubber boat surged forward with the six SEALs paddling. Then the powerful moon-driven surge of the swell peaked and began to break. The IBS was in exactly the right spot, and the nose tipped down just a bit as the water broke and the wave curled and hurled the Zodiac down the five-foot mountain of water. Jaybird guided the craft along the side of the wave for twenty feet using his paddle as a rudder. Then, just before the wall of salt water broke over them, Jaybird turned his paddle as a rudder and angled the rushing boat’s bow away from the wave. The massive rush of seawater pounded just behind them and smashed them forward toward the beach. The SEALs in Alpha Squad gave a hoorah, and surfed in on the surging wave of foam until the craft bottomed out on the sandy beach. The SEALs sat there slumped over their paddles a moment gathering their strength.