The Covert Element (5 page)

Soon the project began to fall behind schedule. The world
economy was wallowing in the worst recession since the thirties.
Construction bills began to mount. Delays meant added costs.
Marsden went back to AgInvest seeking additional investment
dollars. To his shock and dismay, AgInvest denied his request.
Credit was tight all over, they said. They needed to maintain capital
ratios to satisfy the Regulators. They were sorry, but Marsden was
out of luck.

Marsden had already poured most of his personal savings into
this project. He couldn’t let it die on the vine.

So he sought a partner. Someone who would inject capital, not
more loans. Someone who would share the risk of the project with
him and help Bellechester Organic get off the ground.

Finally, he found that partner. The man was a wealthy
financier who preferred to keep his name out of the business, his
people said. In exchange for fifty percent of the project, he would
pony up the necessary funds.

Marsden didn’t relish dealing through a faceless entity, but he
had little choice in the matter. So he transferred half of his
ownership in Bellechester Organic to his new partner – a closely-held corporation formed as "Bellechester Investors, Inc."

With the new capital infusion, Bellechester Organic Elevator
and Creamery was back on the road to becoming a reality. His new
partner had been persistent about some design changes to the
creamery building, and expansion of the farm services business –
providing custom harvesting, organic spraying, and sales of farm
supplies. But since the necessary money accompanied each change,
Marsden could hardly complain.

As the day for the Elevator’s grand opening approached,
Marsden’s partner insisted that since Marsden had come up with
the plan, had handled all of the financing, and had engaged all the
construction contractors, it was the least his partner could do to
arrange the hiring of all employees – with Marsden as President
and CEO, of course.

Frankly, Marsden was relieved to shed the hiring function.
Construction was complete. Product and shipping contracts were in
place. The marketing plan for his farmers’ goods was working out
nicely. Profit projections looked promising. The hard part, at least
for Marsden, was over.

As for the Bellechester community . . . construction activities,
and the promise of a viable employer in the village, had stimulated
its economy significantly. A new General Store had opened. A small
Walmart was being discussed among community leaders. And with
hungry and thirsty construction crews in town every noon and
night, Coonie’s was conducting a land office business in beer and
burgers.

Finally, the Grand Opening day arrived. Marsden made a
speech. Coonie’s gave out coupons for a free bag of pretzels with
purchase of a beer. And the first farmers lined up to deliver the
beginnings of the fall harvest.

Bellechester Organic was off and running. And no one living in
or around Bellechester could be happier.

Their savior had arrived.

CHAPTER FIVE

Present day, somewhere in Tamaulipas Province, Mexico.

Master Sergeant Juan Fuentes, U.S. Army Rangers, Retired,
hadn’t been honest with his men twenty years earlier when he told
them that he was returning to Mexico to care for his ailing mother
and to run the family fishing business.

His mother and father had already died by the time of his
return to Mexico. It had always tormented him that the U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service hadn’t seen fit to allow
them to remain in the States, even though he himself was an
American citizen by virtue of his birth within its borders.

Nevertheless, with his parents’ support and encouragement, he
had returned to the United States at age eighteen to become an
Army Ranger . . . to train to fight with the best. During his service to
the American government, he had remained true to his oaths and
done his best to be a model soldier.

At the same time, he also strove to be a model son. Each
month, he had sent a portion of his meager Army pay to his parents,
to help support his family. They needed the assistance not only
because fishing had become a lower class endeavor for all who
could not afford the large commercial fishing craft, but also because
the ever-growing Mexican drug cartels had begun to "tax" the locals
"for their own protection."

At least his family was fortunate in one respect. Their fishing
boats were small, slow, and of poor quality. These attributes made
the boats unsuitable for the drug-running activities in which most
larger fishing operations were forced to engage, simply to avoid
torture or death.

Ever since the Colombians had lost control of the greater
portion of drug trade in Nicaragua and El Salvador, it had become
too dangerous for the Colombian opium farmers to transport their
crops via the land routes through Central America to the rich drug
market in the U.S. So they had turned to the sea for trafficking –
using fishing boats to deliver their harvest to Mexico.

A fisherman’s private vessel would set sail from a Venezuelan
or Colombian fishing port carrying anywhere from twenty kilos to
500 kilos of cocaine in its hold. It would make its way northwest
into the Caribbean until it had reached certain designated
coordinates. Then it would drop its cargo into the sea – usually with
a short range GPS transmitter attached. If the drop was in shallow
water, the product might rest on the ocean floor, perhaps contained
in a metal box heavily wrapped in protective layers of plastic to keep
out both water and inquisitive sea creatures. If the drop point was
in deeper water, the whole package might be left to float, with a sea
anchor attached to limit its movement with the wind.

In either case, within a matter of hours, a second fishing boat
from Mexico would arrive at the prearranged coordinates to retrieve
the package, transporting it back to a Mexican port . . . a port whose
policía
were on the cartel payroll. A port where the drugs could
safely be unloaded and relocated for repackaging and distribution.

Near the end of Master Sergeant Fuentes’ tour in the Army
Rangers, his mother contracted cholera and died. After his mother’s
death, his father no longer feared for his own life. He had seen the
corruption, torture, and murder by which the cartels subjugated his
community. While he knew that, by himself, he could not seriously
harm the forces of the cartels, he could at least cost them some
money.

So late one afternoon, as the fishing boats returned from their
long day at sea, Juan Fuentes, Sr. piloted his shabby wooden fishing
rig,
El Valor
, out of Tampico harbor, lying in wait for the
commercial fishing vessel,
La Esperanza de Dinero
. He had loaded
the bow of his boat with barrels and cans of gasoline . . . enough he
had hoped, to do the job.

When he saw the drug-carrying craft approaching, Fuentes, Sr.
maneuvered the
Valor
so it idled near the
Esperanza’s
path to the
harbor. When he judged the
Esperanza
to be within his reach, he
coaxed the
Valor
to its maximum speed and aimed his weapon just
to port of the
Esperanza’s
bow . . . a location where Señor Fuentes
hoped his
gasolina
could do its work. As he drew nearer, the larger
craft blasted its horn and veered to avoid the collision. But it was
too late. The cast iron Virgin on the
Valor’s
prow pierced the side of
the
Esperanza
, launching the petroleum bomb through its hull.

Señor Fuentes never knew whether his attack on the drug
cartel’s flagship had been a success. But the rest of Tampico
gathered along the shore to watch the flaming
Esperanza
founder,
and with a final deafening explosion, sink to the sea floor, taking its
cargo of nearly a million U.S. dollars worth of Colombian cocaine
with it.

When Master Sergeant Fuentes heard of his father’s death, and
the manner in which he had died, he was both saddened and proud.
He knew that soon he, too, could fight the Mexican drug cartels
with the bravery and honor of his father. That had been his plan in
entering the Army – to train to fight the cartels. Now that his
Ranger training had been completed, he was determined to bring
the fight to the enemy.

Since repatriating to Mexico in 1989, Sergeant Fuentes had
been fighting a guerilla war against the
Los Cinco
(lo-seen´-co)
cartel, the single greatest source of misery to his home town of
Tampico. Owing to his U.S.-funded training in stealth warfare, for
many years Fuentes was able to keep the cartel completely in the
dark as to the source of its constant irritation.

Initially, Fuentes had assaulted small drug convoys as they
traversed unpopulated desert roadways. This tactic had been
effective, that is until the cartels began varying their routes to avoid
his attacks, and enhancing advance security forces to clear a path
for the drug convoys.

Then he began sabotaging the fishing vessels that carried the
drugs coming from South America into Tampico harbor. Boats
would depart port for a pickup in the morning and never return.
There were no SOS signals or radio calls for assistance. The boats
simply vanished at sea.

When cartel investigations into the areas where the boats’ GPS
signals had disappeared from the Harbor Master’s screen found
evidence of the bombings,
Los Cinco
knew it had another unknown
threat it would have to address. It began searching its vessels
thoroughly with teams of ex-military bomb experts before the boats
were allowed to depart for their runs. After the cartel had identified
and defused three of his rigged vessels, Fuentes knew he needed yet
another means of attack.

This time, he moved into the city of Tampico itself. He let
himself be known under the Fuentes name. He even took up fishing
with one of his uncles. Now, he knew, he needed to employ extreme
caution. Any missteps would rain hellfire down on his uncle and his
cousins, not just himself. So he refrained from cartel fighting for a
time – enough time to establish his place among his family and the
Tampico community.

Meanwhile, cartel killings in his Tampico neighborhood
continued. He began to fight back with knife attacks of his own in
darkened alleys. His targets were mainly the
policía
who collected
cartel payroll and refused to pursue cartel criminals. Occasionally,
he would come upon cartel "enforcers" beating men, women, even
entire families in their homes. Despite the risks of being discovered,
he was unable to resist intervening in such attacks on innocents. Yet
he somehow managed to remain invisible to the cartels.

After those early years, his tactics had become more bold, more
elaborate, and ultimately, more effective. He exercised extreme
patience. Months and sometimes years would pass between
opportunities to take out cartel targets. At times, his positions
working for the cartel’s businesses had required that he keep silent
in the presence of unspeakable horrors.

Though he fought his best to hamper cartel activities, it seemed
as though his efforts were always too little. The cartels only kept
growing richer and stronger.

His latest plan had pushed the envelope, perhaps too far even
for Fuentes. No one had confronted him yet concerning its
particulars. Still, he thought it wise that he leave Tampico and
return to the U.S. while he contemplated his next move.

It was then that he had contacted one of his former Team
members in Minnesota to seek assistance. Red Feather was
discreet, honorable, and most of all, capable. He would seek
temporary asylum with Red Feather until he could decipher his own
next move.

But he couldn’t let Red Feather know that he was already in the
U.S. That might cast suspicion on his most recent activities. So
when he finally made the call, he’d had it routed through an
unlisted Mexican number.

For the time being, he would place his trust and hope in his
former comrade-in-arms. Then he would decide what to do next.

CHAPTER SIX