The Cartel Enforcers (The Bill Dix Detective Series Book 2) (19 page)

He spent almost a solid hour explaining what the other participating agencies in the operation would have to do to sell the theft. Once he felt comfortable with the plan, he went around the room asking anyone if they had any questions or other ideas on how to improve it.

Dix got to Sullivan, who had been quiet during the entire brief, and asked her what she thought.

Sullivan replied, “I think for the most part the plan is solid, but we may have underestimated how many men Calderon will send. He sent two teams to the safe house to try to kill Pedro. I think he may send a lot more men to the warehouse. Plus the men he will send are not going to be rookies. They’ll probably be the best mercenaries money can buy. With all due respect to your plan, I think we should use SWAT and other tactically trained people to take off Calderon once we’re sure he has the money.”

As Sullivan was explaining her thought process, Dix nodded validating her opinion.

Dix looked around the room. “I completely agree, and unless anyone here has a better idea, I think Sullivan should coordinate the tactical response.” It was agreed that she was the right person for the assignment.

Sullivan watched the reactions of the people in the room and felt a sense of relief and pride. “Ok, I’ll work up the operation plan for the tactical guys.” She was maturing as an agent and she was hopeful Kovach was taking notice. She also hoped Petersen was taking notice.

She wasn’t quite sure why, but she’d been thinking about him all day. She was attracted to him and hoped she’d get a chance to spend some time alone with him before he returned to Florida.

Dix said, “Ok, we know this is going down tomorrow,” he looked at his watch, did the math, and said, “We need to get sleep tonight so we’re sharp. This is going to test everyone’s ability. We’ll only have one shot at this. Let’s try not to screw it up.”

Dix heard the door to the conference room open and saw the junior agent from before enter the room and walk directly over to Kovach. It appeared the junior agent updated Kovach verbally and handed him a manila file folder. Kovach opened the folder and read the contents quickly.

He dismissed the junior agent and addressed the group, “Sullivan nailed it earlier when she said the men Calderon would send would be highly skilled. We just got proof of that. Earlier I noticed a man in a car adjacent to the warehouse that didn’t seem to fit in. As I watched him, I noticed he was surveilling the warehouse. The license plate of the vehicle came back to a rental car.

The rental car transaction video included two men FBI has been trying to track down for three years. As the FBI agent described them to me, they are stone cold killers with Green Beret training. Calderon has brought the best of the best for this one.”

Petersen and Dix exchanged looks of concern. It was the first time both of them began to consider they may be overmatched. As they considered revamping the plan, a man in a Sheriff’s Office uniform with captain’s bars entered the room looking upset.

He walked over to the group and said, “I’m looking for Dix and Kovach.”

Dix and Kovach raised their hands.

Dix said, “I’m Dix” and as he pointed to Kovach he said, “And he’s Kovach.”

“Gentlemen, my name’s Captain Thomas. I just met with the Sheriff and we may have a problem. He’s decided he doesn’t want to let the money walk.”

“What!” said Kovach, “This was all squared away from the top, what changed his mind?”

“He doesn’t feel the reward is worth the potential cost in this case. Losing lives to protect money does not appeal to him, especially since he is running for re-election in a month,” replied the captain.

Dix noticed Romero had a smug look on his face. The rest of the team was dumbfounded. Dix quickly realized the Sheriff was planning to catch Calderon and his men when they hit the warehouse. Problem was Jose Calderon would not enter the warehouse. He immediately began trying to figure out where to get thirty million dollars and someone willing to let it walk away… temporarily. He noticed Kovach was frantically talking on his cell phone as the buzz of the news spread around the room.

Dix said to the captain, “Well, it’s the S.O.’s money so they can do what they wish with it. Is the Sheriff still okay with using the warehouse as the trap location?”

“He is, but none of the regular civilian staff will be there. He wants them replaced with deputies.”

Dix could feel himself getting upset and was pretty sure his face was flush, but wanting to remain professional, calmly questioned, “Has the Sheriff planned an operation like this before? Does he know these last minute changes will get sniffed out by Calderon and this whole thing is a bust? These guys probably won’t even show up.”

The captain got a smirk on his face and replied, “I’m sure he does. Sounds like shutting this operation down
is
his plan.”

Dix was about to implode as Kovach waved him off. The captain left and Kovach waved everyone over to him.

“Okay, the operation is still a go. HSI will front the money. We lose the money, and Sullivan and I won’t have jobs after this.”

Dix was still fired-up and replied, “We don’t have a place to put the money. The captain said the Sheriff basically changed his mind about the whole operation. It doesn’t look like the warehouse is an option at this point either.”

Kovach looked concerned but said, “Relax Bill. I’m sure the Sheriff will change his mind. We’ll have the brass give him a call and settle him down.”

Petersen said, “That seems unlikely based on the fact the captain said the Sheriff is running for re-election in a month. He doesn’t want an international incident to erupt weeks before he tries to run again.”

Kovach thought long and hard. He was aware that several politically connected people were interested in keeping the current Sheriff in power. He knew exactly who to call to put serious pressure on the Sheriff. He chuckled while realizing politics and narcotics were equally dirty and financially driven.

“I’ll try playing nice first, but if the Sheriff sticks to his guns, I’ll call a few of his financial backers and have them pull out. Dix, get the team prepared and continue with the process. The warehouse and the money will be there.” He left while everyone else remained behind.

Dix, Sullivan, Romero, and Petersen remained.

Romero addressed them, “Well that went well.”

Sullivan laughed out loud. “I had no idea you had a sense of humor.”

The group shared a laugh and finished eating their sandwiches. Chewing became labored and each of them yearned for sleep. The silence was disturbed by the ringing of Sullivan’s phone. She answered it and after a brief conversation she hung up.

Sullivan shared the information she received as soon as the call ended. “Okay, I got an update from the two surveillance teams. Sergio left in the Cadillac and was seen going back to the house he left from earlier today. Jose Calderon was followed to his house. The surveillance team noticed a rental car entering the driveway to his place. They’re not sure how the car is involved.”

Romero asked, “Didn’t Kovach just tell us about a rental car he’d spotted and some really bad dudes related to it?”

Petersen walked over to the table where Kovach had been standing and noticed a printout of a vehicle registration. It was registered owner information for the rental car. The group compared the license plates from both incidents; it was the same car. This confirmed Calderon had men watching the warehouse. It was a small piece coming together for the team.

Petersen looked at Sullivan. “Let’s make sure anything significant seen by the surveillance team goes through you. Even if it’s late. You good with that?”

“Absolutely,” She replied as she smiled at him. She was a light sleeper and the rest of the group would likely sleep hard and not hear a thing.

Dix said as he realized day light was long gone, “Ok guys, it’s ten thirty, let’s meet back here at six A.M.” A few grunts and small whines were their responses, but they knew the importance of the operation. If everything was done precisely right, they believed they just may apprehend Jose Calderon. With any luck, he would stand trial and be looking at life in a federal prison.

Chapter 33

Jose Calderon spent the last two hours talking to people associated to the Sheriff’s Office and the San Diego Police Department that were on his payroll looking for information. It seemed there was more police activity than usual at the Sheriff’s Office warehouse he planned to hit. However, based on all that had happened over the last week, he dismissed the activity and continued as planned.

Calderon had spoken to El Hefe. It was clear he was getting impatient. Calderon explained to him that he had already moved the job up a day sooner so if something went wrong, he would have an extra day to make another attempt. El Hefe flatly reminded him that if he was not successful during the first attempt, he would not live long enough to try again. Instead of getting upset, Calderon accepted this and moved on. He also decided he would be more involved with the theft to ensure it was successful. This included taking the risk of personally delivering the money to El Hefe.

He smirked at the thought of killing El Hefe during the exchange and taking over the cartel.
Nine years I’ve waited, I will wait no more
, he thought.

Chapter 34

Smith finished his reconnaissance of the Sheriff’s Office warehouse and was not impressed. He saw a minimum of three entry points, the roof, the roll-up doors, and of course, the front door. He noticed there were four cameras covering the corners of the structure and assumed there would be a silent alarm to the Sheriff’s Office main building a few miles away. Disabling the cameras and the alarm were his first concern because he did not want a shootout with law enforcement.
There’s no need for anyone to die here
.

Smith next considered whether he and the men would attempt some sort of a ruse to get inside or just go straight tactical and storm the building dynamically. Calderon had wanted to go in with full force, but Smith felt he may be able to convince him less force was necessary to accomplish the same thing. Although the building was quite large in square footage, it also had three floors. Nevertheless, he was confident there were enough bodies for the job to be successful. He assumed the money would be stored in a more secure vault inside the warehouse on the first floor. He figured a minimum of two armed men would be watching the money and determined non-lethal force, such as a bean bag shotgun or flash bangs, would disable them long enough to be safely disarmed and unharmed. He considered whether or not both of the guards would have access cards or require palm scans to actually get inside the vault. He’d asked Calderon to use some of his informants to try to discern if his hunch about the card readers or palm scans was right. It was important, because if the guards did not have access, he and the men would need to find another way in.

Once inside the vault, the money would be retrieved and loaded into the waiting armored vehicles. Men would appear to load two bags of money into three separate armored vehicles staged outside the warehouse. This would confuse anyone who may witness the robbery and prevent law enforcement from knowing which armored vehicle to try to take off first. Regardless of the charades, Smith knew at some point live rounds would be fired. He was hopeful simple suppression fire would keep most of the law enforcement officials at bay.

As this was all happening, Smith and two other men would be preparing the concrete floor to blow a hole in it large enough to get to the tunnels underneath the city and drop the sacks of money below. Calderon had told him that he had sent men to work beneath the warehouse round the clock to get access since he learned the money was at the warehouse. According to Calderon, a small c4 charge would be sufficient. Calderon estimated five to six feet of foundation were between the warehouse and the tunnels. He was hopeful the blast would not be so loud that it alerted law enforcement officials of where the real money was headed. From there, he would retrieve the money and drive through the tunnels until he found the subtle mark he had placed underneath a pipe indicating where to turn to reach the recently completed tunnel to Tijuana, Mexico.

Smith did not like using c4. It was unpredictable and inevitably someone would get hurt. He decided some of the men would have to create an explosion at the same time he blew the floor out of the warehouse in another location in an effort to confuse law enforcement.

He chuckled to himself as he thought about the chaos they would bring to the ill-prepared warehouse. He reminisced how he, many lifetimes ago, constantly tried to get the Sheriff’s Office to listen to his concerns about lack of preparedness and the growing threat of cartel violence spilling into the United States. No one listened, but he continued to complain.

Smith left the area and called Calderon.

“We need to meet,” Smith said.

“Why is that, I’m busy preparing for the benefit.”

“You’re paying me to run this side of the operation. We need to discuss what I’ve discovered while doing surveillance on the warehouse. Your benefit planning should not be more important to you than what you want me to do for you.”

“Dammit, I thought you were going to get some rest. Instead, you went to the warehouse. Very well, meet me at my house in an hour. Don’t you ever sleep?”