Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (97 page)

 
          
“Your
men are trying to rip me off, General,” the man said. “They’re tryin’ to take
my tunes.”

 
          
“Your
. . . what?”

 
          
“My
tunes, man.” The agent swung a huge portable radio/tape player/compact disc
player up onto Fiera’s desk and pushed a button; immediately the heavy booming,
guttural lines of rap music crashed in the air. “You gotta listen to me,
General, you
gotta.
”

 
          
His
assistant took hold of the man’s arms. “Shall I escort this gentlemen out,
sir?”

 
          
Fiera
held up a hand. “It’s all right, Lieutenant.” The assistant gave the American
an angry look and departed. Fiera then said over the blare of the music, “What
the hell are you doing here?”

 
          
“Is
it true about Van Nuys?” the DEA agent asked.

 
          
“I
could be shot for talking to you like this. Salazar has this entire place
wired, I’m sure of it . . .”

 
          
“The
music will scramble his bugs. Answer me. Is it Van Nuys? Is he with Salazar
here?”

 
          
“Yes.
I have not seen him myself but one of my inspectors reported it.”

 
          
“Where
is he staying? How long will he be here . . .?”

 
          
“I
did not ask, and neither did my man. I have as little contact as possible with
Salazar. His men will slice me to ribbons if he suspects I am spying on him.
You’ve got all the information you’re going to get.” Fiera raised his voice
over the heavy rhythm of the rap music. “Now get out of here before I have you
arrested for interfering with a police officer—”

 
          
“All
right, all right.” But before he turned off the music, the agent said in a
lowered voice, “If Van Nuys and Salazar are here, the Hammerheads will be
coming after them. They’re not out of business. Clean up your records and get
out of town. If they ever get Salazar, your government will be asking
embarrassing questions. If the Hammerheads miss, Salazar will be after your
ass. Now confiscate this radio. Your last paycheck’s inside.”

 
          
“And
you will leave that radio here until this matter is cleared up,” Fiera shouted,
immediately taking his cue. “Now shut that thing off!” The DEA agent jabbed the
OFF button. “Til be back as soon as I get the receipt, General. I swear it’s
not stolen, I’ll have the receipt for you tomorrow morning, I promise ...” The
agent put on his sunglasses once again and hurried out. Through the side window
Fiera could see him pedal off down the main street and into the crowd.

 
          
Fiera
quickly opened the compartment in the back of the radio where the electrical
cord was stored and found a tightly wrapped roll of one-hundred-dollar bills
packed beneath a false bottom under the cord. He removed the money and replaced
the cover just as his assistant knocked on the door. “Everything all right,
sir?”

 
          
“That
American tried to make me believe this radio isn’t stolen,” Fiera said
casually. “He claims he will be coming back for it in the morning. If he fails
to return, which I believe will be the case, the radio is yours.”

 
          
His
assistant's eyes lit up as he reached for the “boom box.” “I will put it in a
safe place until tomorrow', sir.” The radio was going straight into his
assistant’s car trunk, of course. No better way to insure someone’s discretion
than making him an accomplice.

 
          
Fiera
stayed a few minutes longer, collecting his personal copies of reports, logs and
journals and packing them in a traveling case. The American was right—this
beautiful little town would not be a safe place for him if the American Border
Security Force was coming for Salazar. The Mexican government would make
inquiries, wondering how a major smuggling ring could operate in Ciudad del
Carmen right under the nose of a senior Customs officer.

 
          
But
the head of the
Medellin
cartel would also be making inquiries. Fiera did not want to be around
when they came for him.

 
          
Border
Security Force Headquarters,
Aladdin City
,
Florida

 
          
Three Hours Later

 
          
The
Hammerheads were in the glassed-in, soundproof room overlooking the command
center—Elliott, Hardcastle, Masters, McLanahan, members of the Hammerheads’
I-Team, including the I-Team’s new chief and Geffar’s old deputy at
Homestead
, Curtis Long, Elliott started off. “Well,
we have a solid lead on both Salazar and Van Nuys. They’re in
Mexico
. But Salazar apparently has some serious
juice now. The Mexican government won’t even consider touching him without a
federal grand-jury indictment.”

 
          
Geffar
spoke what the rest were thinking. “This was the man who put together the
attack on our radar sites . . . killed
forty
persons . . . and the Mexican government won’t help us nail him?”

 
          
Elliott
nodded. “Salazar apparently
works
for
the Mexican government as a so-called military contractor, and the government
protects contractors unless indicted by a Mexican federal grand jury or a
military high tribunal—I doubt if an American grand jury would get him extradited.
Van Nuys holds an American passport so we can get to him a little easier.”

 
          
“And
Van Nuys is with Salazar in
Mexico
?” Long put in. “I thought we had a warrant
out for him. Why the hell wasn’t he picked up when he
entered
Mexico
? The Mexican government is supposed to
cooperate—”

 
          
“Salazar,”
Elliott told him, “seems to own the Customs Bureau, the militia, the police—the
works. He decides who comes and goes. My guess is that Van Nuys had been in
Colombia
with the Medellin Cartel up until now. He
might well be working for them. State and Justice want to make an official
request for help in getting Van Nuys but I asked them to hold off. If we march
in with federal marshals to get Van Nuys, Salazar may dive deep underground
again.”

 
          
Elliott
called up a map of central America on the five-foot briefing screen. “Salazar
runs an air charter service in eastern
Mexico
called Carmen del Sol Airlines in the
coastal town of
Ciudad del Carmen
. He’s managed to bring in most of his aircraft from
Haiti
into
Mexico
, and he’s got access to spare parts, fuel,
weapons, even military hardware—he does contract work for the Mexican Air
Force. Our source says Salazar’s worked on everything from the presidential
shuttle to fighter jets.”

 
          
“First
the Haitians, now the Mexicans,” Hardcastle muttered.

 
          
“Salazar
has the region wired for sound,” Elliott continued. “He’s got people that
inform his organization about every move the Mexican government makes and every
move our agents make. We’ve been getting intelligence on Salazar only because
we’ve gotten down to stuff out of John Le Carre. But our source is no longer
available. Now we have no solid intelligence on Salazar’s and Van Nuys’
exact
location, we only know that
they’re both in Ciudad del Carmen. Our contact reports activity at Salazar’s
charter company ... he thinks several of Salazar’s
largest
planes may be taking off soon—”

 
          
“Which
means he’s planning a big delivery,” Geffar said. “This is the delivery we’ve
been waiting for. But we need more info on the specifics.”

 
          
“I
can give you a plan to put a combined DEA and I-Team unit in Ciudad del Carmen
to begin surveillance on Salazar and his charter air service,” Long said. “We
can’t do anything
too
elaborate or
Salazar will bolt. But we need enough manpower to stop his soldiers and planes
if we turn up anything.”

 
          
“Or
we can grab Van Nuys,” Geffar said. “He’s obviously involved in this. He might
be able to give us the information we need to jump Salazar—”

 
          
“Can’t
trust Van Nuys,” Hardcastle said, looking at Geffar. “He tried to kill you
once, he’ll do it again. He has nothing to lose now. And even if we do grab him
we have no assurance that he’ll tell us anything about Salazar’s operation. I’d
guess he’s more afraid of Salazar and the Cartel than
U.S.
justice.” He turned to Elliott. “Why don’t
we just send the I-Team in and level Salazar’s charter operation? Why don’t we
just go in and grab Salazar?”

 
          
“Not
that easy,” Curtis Long put in. “We either catch him out in the open, or we
stand a good chance of missing.”

 
          
“And
an I-Team raid on the charter operation is out for now,” Elliott said. “We’d
never get approval... Even if we got a grand-jury indictment against Salazar
and then approval from
Mexico
to enforce it, it would be a
Mexican
operation, not a Hammerheads’.
They won’t even let an I-Team cross the border, let alone help their police or
militia.”

 
          
“So
what do we do?” McLanahan said impatiently. “Just continue surveillance?”

 
          
“That’s
our only option right now. Reinforce the backscatter radar with P-3 and E-2
flights ofiF the Mexican coast. If, or when, Salazar tries this big delivery,
we can hope to be ready and waiting . . . Meanwhile, Curt, I’d like a plan from
you to take an I-Team into Cuidad del Carmen to arrest Van Nuys and Salazar
...”

 
          
As
the group filed out of the briefing center Geffar and Hardcastle stayed back.
“Brad,” GefiFar said, “nobody can stand this waiting. We all know tomorrow can
be too late . . . send me into Ciudad del Carmen to find Van Nuys.”

 
          
“Out
of the damn question. You’d be dead the minute you stepped on Mexican soil.
Salazar has informants everywhere—Customs, the police, storekeepers, hotels.
They target Americans for round-the- clock surveillance—”

 
          
“And
even if you did find him, what then?” Hardcastle said. “You going to drag him
by the locks back to
Miami
? With Salazar he’ll be under heavy guard. Even if you did find him,
he’d blow you away before he’d let you take him back to the States.”

 
          
“Listen,”
Geffar said angrily, “we’re wasting time. We know some things now . . . we know
the area where Salazar and Van Nuys are, we know they’re planning a big
operation, a major drug shipment, and we know that we need to get someone in to
find out
specifics.
We can’t send an
I-Team, and we can’t go through official channels—”

 
          
“If
we did decide to send someone in it wouldn’t be you,” Elliott said. “You’re
still hurt, Van Nuys knows you, he no doubt told Salazar’s men about you,
they’ll be on the lookout—”

 
          
“Forget
all that. I think I can turn Van Nuys. I talked to him before Hokum shot me at
Sunrise
Beach
. At the time he was more scared than
anything else. He wants an out... He doesn’t want to deal with Salazar but
figures he has no choice. Salazar owns him, Van Nuys needs money. I tell you he
was ready to deal when I found him out at
Sunrise
Beach
. He was ready to turn over Salazar and what
he knows about the Medellin Cartel in exchange for his freedom. I think he’ll
still deal with me. I know he won’t deal with anyone else. And even if he only
pretends to go along, figuring he can handle any female, and so forth, I’m
ready for that too ...”