An Inconsequential Murder (13 page)

“
Damned pinheads won’t let us board with the hardware. We have to put it in a bag and hand it over to them and they will have someone hand it over to us in Guadalajara.”

“
Aw, man!” said the black man.

“
Come on, let’s go buy a stupid bag,” said the team leader.

In one of the airport stores they found a bag; they heard the boarding call so they hurried to the airport toilettes. There, they locked the door, quickly unstrapped guns and other “hardware” from under their coats and inside pockets of their pants, and put them in the bag they had just bought. They then hurried to the security man by the x-ray machine and handed him the bag.

Once past the security check, they sat in the lounge waiting for the other passengers to board. The black man wanted to smoke but saw the sign that said it was forbidden so he took out a pack of chewing gum instead.

“
Want some gum?” he asked the others.

Chapter
17: The Start of the Project

Although he had an office there, John Wayne rarely went to the consulate. I
n his line of work it was bad business to follow a routine. He knew the cartels had people watching the consulate building and he didn’t want to give them a route they could count on if they ever wanted to “
levantar
” (lift) him, to use the euphemism for sequestering that was in vogue with the bad guys.

John Wayne had adopted his cover name many years ago and he had been so secretive about his own name and people had grown so used it that now no one called him by any other. His tall, lanky frame and habit of carrying two .45 caliber guns enhanced the aura of a Wild West persona, which John Wayne did nothing to diminish.

He often justified his secrecy and his mania for hiding everything about his personal life by recounting what had happened to the man who had been head of the DEA for this region before him. According to John Wayne, his predecessor’s family had been sequestered in order to pressure him into revealing the name of the undercover informant the DEA had infiltrated into the gang’s upper echelon. After he gave them the name, the family
was
let go, but he and the informant had been shot through the head and dumped into shallow graves.

John Wayne
let every official in the consulate know that he preferred cell phone calls rather than face-to-face meetings when discussing business. But, if it was an urgent matter and his presence was really needed, he would reluctantly come out of the cold.

So, when he got the call from
Robert Miller, the head of the Benjamin Franklin Library, who said he needed to see him, John agreed to come in and talk.

Robert Miller was not a man to call a meeting to discuss the weather. His large, ruddy complexion belied the though, rigorous man who had been a CIA station chief in some of the world’s most dangerous places: Beirut in Lebanon, Medellín in Colombia, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, among others. The plaque on Robert Miller’s door said he was in charge of USAID for the region, but everyone in the consulate guessed he was more than that, although what exactly he
was
no one knew for sure.

John Wayne knocked on the door and walked in.

“
Mr. John Wayne,” said Robert Miller as he stood up and extended a huge hand. Before Robert Miller’s physical presence, even John Wayne with his 6'4" felt smaller.

“
Hi, Bob. How’ya been?” said John Wayne.

“
Oh, all right. I could be better if I lost a few pounds,” he said and laughed.

John Wayne smiled and looked at Robert Miller’s shirt collar, which seemed about ready to burst. Indeed he
should
loose a few pounds.

Both men sat down and Robert Miller picked up the phone to speak to the sweet little old lady outside the office who pretended to be his secretary: “Hold all my calls, please, Mrs. Jeffrey.”

“
Hmmm,” said John Wayne, “must be something important you want to talk about—you’ll be bringin’ out the old bottle of whiskey next n’ offerin’ me a drink.”

Robert Miller laughed, “You wish! No, it’s too early in the day for that. I can offer you some coffee or a soda?” This last word betrayed that Miller, like John Wayne, was a southerner.

John Wayne waved his hand. “Naw, I’m ok. Let’s get down to ‘bidnez’,”
he said.

“
All right,” said Miller, let’s.” His large, round face, which was covered with beads of perspiration in spite of the air conditioning, lost all of its mirth and hardened into a serious scowl.

“
I got word from Washington that the other team has started to move.”

“
What are they going to do? Does anyone know?”

“
No, that’s the problem. Our inside man says that something is coming down but he has been kept out of the loop, so it must be big.”

“
Well, what the hell do they want us to do? If we don’t know what they’re up to we can’t counter them.”

“
I know; that’s what I told them,” said Miller wiping his brow. “What they want is for us to move faster with our stuff. What about the info you were going to get? We could leverage that to neutralize the big man.”

Ignoring the “no smoking” sign, John Wayne lit one of his dark cigarillos. He shot a plume of smoke into the air conditioning extractor opening and shook his head. “The hackers got in, all right, but the info had been encrypted by the time they got it, so we have a copy but it’s useless without the means to decrypt it.”

“
Damn,” said Miller, “how did that happen?”

“
Who cares; it happened.”

“
So, what are you going to do now?”

“
They sent a team down to roust the guy who we think did the encrypting—to see if we can get him to help us decrypt the thing.”

“
You’d better be careful; if something goes wrong, we could…”

“
They’re not Agency people; they’re freelancers. They have their own support so nothin’ can link them back to us.”

“
Hmm, but they’re Americans?”

“
Yeah, and real patriots, too,” said John Wayne and he laughed.

“
But, if something happens, you know, they’re Americans and we could…”

“
Listen, this country is swarming with guys from the States; you got your CIA guys, your FBI, our own Agency, and who knows what else…three more guys, who’s gonna to notice?”

“
Where are they now? Are they in place?”

“
They are in Monterrey as we speak. I heard from them this morning and they are coming here to report.”

“
I thought you said they had their own support.”

“
They do but I told them that if they needed something, you know, something out of the ordinary, to call me, or come and see me.”

“
So, what did they want?”

“
I think they want their money, for one—we promised to pay them when the job was done—and they had trouble at the airport in Monterrey. They wanted to carry their hardware on board and security wouldn’t let them so I had to make a couple of phone calls.”

“
But, still why do they have to see you?”

“
The team leader said they had had some sort of trouble up there and he wanted to fill me in on it. It seems their support told them they should.”

“
Oh, hell, I hope it’s nothing bad.”

“
It didn’t sound like it when he called. I’m gonna have them chill in a hotel room for a couple of days before I see them, though. If they’re hot, I don’t want them near me. I’ll see them when I’m sure they’re cool. I’ll talk to them on the phone though and get the lowdown.”

“
OK, so let me know how things went up there as soon as they report to you. Now, about our own plan…”

Miller got up and went to the wall where he opened a small safe and took out a sheaf of papers.

“
Here’s what has been coming down from Washington and elsewhere.” He sat down and handed the printed documents one by one for John Wayne to read.

The communications talked about the big man, Alfonso Echeverría Garza, who was first cousin to the President of Mexico. They had identified the woman, his lover, as Phillipa Everton-Smythe, born Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK, October 21, 1974; Vice President in charge of special foreign accounts for NY Central Bank.

“
I know a lot of this shit already,” said John Wayne impatiently. “So, she has been laundering his money. She carries it up in her bag; we know all that.”

“
Yeah, but it gets better. Read on.”

John Wayne skimmed over the text: Laura Gonzalez de Echeverría Garza, wife, born Mier, Tamaulipas, January 6, 1959. Report from INTERPOL and confirmed
by our (blacked out); has been depositing checks for…in three accounts…using false passports. All passports have the suspect’s picture…different names on…

“
Where is the money coming from; do we know?” John Wayne asked.

“
We know,” said Miller. “Not only has the Gulf Cartel given him moral and logistic support, they are giving him substantial financial support as well.”

“
Can’t we get the Swiss or somebody in Europe to do something about this?”

“
Not yet. There are a lot of people in Washington who want us to keep quiet, keep a low profile. They are about to wrap up the negotiations on the Bilateral Trade Agreement and the last thing they want are stories in the papers about the President’s cousin being in cahoots with the drug cartels or that Mexico is a lawless country where corruption, not the law, governs. There is too much at stake; lots of money to be made by big companies and lots of political points to be won by many in Congress.”

“
So we just sit around and watch them go through with their plans?”

“
For a while. The BTA goes to the Senate for ratification in a week or so. After it passes, we will have a free hand; or at least one of them won’t be tied behind our back.”

John Wayne tossed the papers onto Miller’s desk. “The same old bullshit,” he said and stubbed out his cigarillo on the inside of the wastebasket.

“
Hey, watch out you don’t burn the place down,” said Miller peering into the wastebasket. “Yeah, same old bullshit. So, bottom line, my friend: keep countering them as much as you can but don’t do anything to, you know, let our hand show, as it were.”

“
Yeah, yeah, I won’t.” He got up to go.

“
One more thing before you go. It would be my guess that their first target is going to be our inside guy, or our presidential candidate. Let your people know so they keep their ears to the ground; there’ll be some rumbling soon. If somebody puts out a contract on either of them, hopefully we will hear of it before something happens.”

“
Right,” said John Wayne as he exited Miller’s office.

As soon as the door closed, Miller picked up his phone
and tapped in a number.

“Hi, this is Bob. Look I just had a talk with John, yeah, that John. He said something about the Monterrey operation having had a bit of trouble. Why don’t you talk to his boss, get him on the same page, you know, tell him to let us know as soon as he knows, ok? Why? Because I always like to have both sides of the story, that’s why. Right, talk to you soon.”

Chapter
18: A Meeting with the Widow

Two days after having been told he was off the case,
Lombardo arrived at the Investigations Department’s building and as was his habit, he went to the reception desk to ask if anything had come for him. The policewoman at the desk handed him a sealed manila envelope with his name printed on a label. As he walked to his desk he was still mumbling about the information Dr. Figueroa had given him a few days ago: “Why did someone go to all the trouble of sending three guys to beat up on that little guy? What did they want from him? If it was something important, why not just try to bribe him? He was a working guy; he could’ve used a couple of bucks. Why all the violence? Even the cartels tried money first. It wasn’t until you refused that they shot you and your family. Maybe someone
had
tried already and he
had refused
; hence the beating.”