The Last Line (10 page)

NORTH SPRING STREET

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

1520 HOURS, PDT

The crowd had come southwest across the overpass above the Hollywood Freeway just two blocks from city hall and surged down North Spring Street, chanting loudly. “
Libertad, libertad,
give us back our land!
Libertad, libertad,
give us back our land!” Many carried signs and placards, hastily scrawled on pieces torn from brown cardboard boxes.
¡VIVA AZTLÁN!
read one.
JUSTICE! DIGNITY! FREEDOM!
read another.

The crowd was met by a determined line of police officers in front of city hall, across North Spring Street behind plastic riot shields.

“This is the Los Angeles Police Department,”
a voice, hugely amplified, boomed across the mob.
“This is an illegal assembly. You are ordered to disperse now or face arrest. I repeat, this is the Los Angeles Police Department…”

Across the street, on the roof of an office building at North Spring and West Temple, two men armed with M-16 rifles and wearing police body armor took aim at the crowd.

 

Chapter Five

HOTEL HILTON

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO

REPÚBLICA DE MÉXICO

0912 HOURS, LOCAL TIME

16 APRIL

“Señor de la Cruz?”

“Miguel,
por favor.
And you are Señor … Callahan?”

“Mucho gusto.”

“'Chogusto.”

“This is the guy I phoned you about,” Eduardo Chavez added.
“Es buena gente.”

Teller shook hands with de la Cruz, a small, wiry man in jeans and a yellow polo shirt. His grip was strong, and he had a direct, intense gaze.

The CISEN officer glanced around, as if checking the futuristic architecture and profusion of tropical plants for possible eavesdroppers. “It's good to meet you, sir. Your presence here is … most welcome.”

They'd decided to meet de la Cruz in the hotel lobby the morning after their arrival rather than at the airport as originally planned. The change of venue gave them more tactical possibilities—and the palatial lobby of a five-star luxury hotel was less likely than the airport to have cartel spotters.

Security here, Teller was pleased to see, was pretty good, although the plainclothes personnel scattered about the area were a little obvious in their casual nonchalance. A police officer in dark blue and wearing tactical armor patrolled the sidewalk outside the front door, armed with an M-16, and there were security cameras at various points on the ceiling. The Mexican government depended on tourism for revenue almost as much as it did on remittances from Mexican immigrants in
el norte,
and so they went to expensive lengths to make sure those tourists felt safe.

“I have a car outside,” de la Cruz told them. “It's been scanned for bugs. We can talk freely there, on our way to CISEN headquarters.”

“Vámanos,”
Chavez said.

Teller wondered, though, if CISEN HQ would be a safe place to talk. He would assume that it was not.

The three of them left the hotel, crossing the street to a white Ford Escort parked in the hotel's front lot. Teller glanced around, trying to spot Frank Procario, but he didn't see the marine. Not that he'd expected to; Procario, as Teller knew from dozens of exercises at the Farm, was one of the best. Their rental car was in the parking lot; it would be up to Procario to get on their tail and follow them. The wire Teller was wearing would provide a signal that would help Procario stay with them, as well as let him listen in on the conversation.

“So … you're here undercover, posing as a journalist?” de la Cruz asked as Teller slid into the backseat.

Teller's papers identified him as John Callahan, a reporter for the
Washington Post.
De la Cruz knew him only as Callahan, not as Teller. It was safer that way.

“That's the idea,” Teller replied. “Did they fill you in on the mission?”

“You need to find a member of one of the cartels, ideally mid- to high level, and plant some sort of a bug on him.”

Teller nodded. De la Cruz didn't need to know the details. “Right.”

“And I assume that this is connected with the arrival of two, ah … packages from Karachi?”

Teller looked at Chavez in the front passenger seat for confirmation. The Mexicans shouldn't have had access to Trapdoor intelligence.

Chavez returned the glance over his shoulder, then nodded. “Some of us have been sharing information with CISEN back-channel, very informally,” he said. “We figured if those packages
were
wandering around in Mexico, it made sense to have CISEN in the loop, helping to find them.”

“I see.” The news was faintly disturbing. If Mexican police, intelligence, and security services could not be trusted, there was a serious danger here. They still didn't know who was behind the smuggling of the two nuclear weapons, if, indeed, they were on board the
Zapoteca
at all. Who in Mexico would want a couple of suitcase nukes?

Worse … what would happen if people who didn't know about the nukes found out about them now, and decided to join in the chase?

“We were informed a week ago,” de la Cruz added. “Your NRO has been forwarding us satellite images of the
Zapoteca
as she approached the coast of Belize. Unfortunately, your satellites appear to have lost her almost immediately.”

“Lost her? She should have reached port five or six days ago,” Teller said.

“The
Zapoteca
is not in Belize City,” de la Cruz said. “That was her presumed destination, based on her course and speed when she was first photographed. We are checking out other ports along the Yucatán coast.” He hesitated. “We have, of course, informed
el presidente.
”

“What is your analysis of the situation?” Chavez asked.

“We are assuming one of the cartels is behind it, of course,” de la Cruz replied. “Possibly with help from al Qaeda.”

“What would al Qaeda have to gain by selling nukes to Mexico?” Teller asked.

De la Cruz shrugged behind the wheel. “Money. What else?”

“I don't think so,” Teller said. “If al Qaeda has managed to get its hands on two pocket A-bombs, they wouldn't send them to Mexico. Their beef is with
us.
”

“Disculpe,”
de la Cruz said, “but I must remind you, Señor Callahan. The entire world does not revolve around just you
yanquis.
”

“No, it doesn't,” Teller replied, “but the world
does
have to make sense. The drug lords are interested in just one thing—profit. It would hardly be in their best interests to use atomic weapons against their own country.”

De la Cruz pulled the Escort out into the seething, chaotic traffic of downtown Mexico City. The streets here appeared to be locked in a perpetual traffic jam, vehicles inching along, horns blaring, drivers shouting and gesticulating at one another. It reminded Teller of downtown D.C. in rush hour, maybe worse.

“The cartels may have those nukes for extortion.” de la Cruz said. “At CISEN, we have been looking at one particular extortion scenario with considerable interest. The cartels have been coming under a great deal of pressure lately, from the government, from our military. This is why they have grown so dangerous, so desperate, these past few years. I can imagine them planting a couple of small nuclear devices here in Mexico City and threatening to detonate them if the government does not legalize their operations.”

“What, make manufacturing and shipping drugs legal?”

“Exactly. Or, at the least, they might tell us to turn our heads, to ignore their activities at every level. It would be like holding a loaded pistol to our heads.”

Teller weighed the possibilities. It did make sense. The different Mexican cartels had been at each other's throats since the beginning, trying to dominate the lucrative drug pipelines north, but they'd also been engaged in all-out war with both the Mexican government and various agencies in the United States, the DEA and the FBI in particular. For a long time, they'd been able to buy or bribe officials in the Mexican government, police forces, and army, but that had become a lot tougher since 2006, when Mexican president Felipe Calderón had launched the first of his country's military assaults on the drug lords. If the cartels could get the government off their backs, they would have a lot more freedom and resources to pursue their war on one another.

If the cartels were feeling the pinch, they might resort to extortion on a new and unheard-of scale.

“It's possible,” Teller agreed, “but that still doesn't feel right to me. I still think it more likely that if al Qaeda got hold of a couple of nukes, they'd use them on us, not sell them to a third party.”

“So,” Chavez said, “where would you suggest we start, Miguel? It doesn't have to be someone as big as El Chapo.”

De la Cruz gave a deep shrug. “The
cabrónes
are everywhere here. You just gotta look.”

“Which cartel is calling the shots in Mexico City?” Teller asked.

De la Cruz gave a harsh snort. “Which one isn't? Sinaloa, La Resistencia, Knights Templars, LFM … they're all pretty active here.”

“LFM?”

“La Familia Michoacana. Used to be part of the Sinaloan Federation, until they got greedy. We think they're extinct now, but you never can be sure.”

“Okay. What about Los Zetas?”

“Them, too, though they're more east coast, in the Gulf Cartel's old territory. All of the cartels maintain at least some presence here, y'know?”

“Well, if you're going to buy a few dozen
federales
or judges or generals, this is the happening place, right?” Chavez joked.

“There's one guy,” de la Cruz said, thoughtful. “Juan Escalante Romero. He's Sinaloa, but the word on the street is he's been playing with Los Zetas, too. He's ex-GAFE. Trained at Fort Benning. And he's tough,
mean.
”

“So where would we find him?” Chavez asked.

“Different places. He's all over, really. But there's a Los Zetas safe house we know of, in Iztacalco. He often goes there when he's in town.”

“Sounds like we have ourselves an opportunity for a stakeout,” Teller said. “What fun.” He despised stakeouts—hours and hours of unrelenting boredom for the minute chance of a payoff.

“I'll drive you by there, if you like. Give you a chance to look the place over, and maybe we can find a good spot for an OP”—an observation post.

“Sounds good.”

De la Cruz turned off onto a side street, continuing to make slow but steady progress through the noisy, teeming tangle of the congested inner city. Teller glanced back, trying to spot Procario, but failing. The rental was an inconspicuous silver-gray Ford Focus. If it was back there, it was lost among some hundreds of other vehicles packed into the narrow street.

He wanted to believe that the CISEN officer was right, that the drug cartels had brought the nuclear weapons to Mexico with the intent of extorting compliance from the Mexican government. The fact that the
Zapoteca
was involved—again, assuming the weapons were on board her—suggested one or more of the cartels were involved. The cartels would have the money, the ready cash, to purchase a couple of tactical nukes on the open market. Finally, the mere possibility that the former archrivals Sinaloa and Los Zetas were actually working together suggested that something
very
big was afoot.

It made a convincing argument.

He still didn't buy it. If it was not a coincidence that Sinaloa was cooperating with Los Zetas, neither could it be a coincidence that Hezbollah activity was increasing in the region, or that a known VEVAK agent was operating in Mexico. Suppose
they
were involved in the smuggling of two tactical nukes into Mexico or Belize? If that were the case, the situation could be quite different … and a
lot
more serious for the United States. Either Hezbollah or their Iranian backers might be planning on using the drug cartels and their smuggling networks to get those weapons across the border into the United States.

The same was true if al Qaeda was behind the operation, but Teller still doubted that they were the masterminds here. While not out of the running yet by any means, al Qaeda had been savaged by U.S. intelligence and military operations to the point that they were now just barely hanging on. They
might
be planning a nuclear strike out of sheer desperation, but it was a lot more likely they were all still lying low in the wake of Abbottabad, waiting for the next predator drone strike, the next SEAL team assault.

They needed information—solid intel. Until they had it, they were groping in the dark.

Perhaps this Juan Escalante would be able to shed some light on things.

LOS ANGELES CITY HALL

NORTH SPRING STREET

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

1020 HOURS, PDT

“… and we go live now to reporter Catherine Herridge, on the scene.”

Guided by the voice of the studio anchor in her ear, the reporter looked at the lens and began speaking with earnest sincerity into her microphone.

“Yes, Peter. LAPD sources say they still have no clue to the identity of two men who fired automatic rifles from the roof of a building into the crowd gathered outside city hall yesterday afternoon, killing four and wounding seventeen. Two men were taken into custody, but according to one source, both men carried LAPD badges and identification.”

On the small monitor set up in front of and below her cameraman, the scene shifted from her face to a tape shot from a news helicopter the afternoon before. Two men could be seen leaning over the wall of a skyscraper, firing indiscriminately into the crowd twenty stories below. Abruptly, a number of uniformed police officers broke out onto the roof. Both gunmen immediately dropped their weapons over the building's side and turned to face the officers, hands in the air.