Viper: A Thriller (29 page)

“Do you know the
location of the meet?” Avery asked.

“Yeah, and
Captain Padilla is already moving his people into position. We’re going to have
the place under surveillance tomorrow, and hopefully you guys can ID Silva’s
visitor when he or she arrives.”

“Shouldn’t be a
problem,” Slayton said. “We know everyone the Viper’s travelling with.”

“Almost,” Avery
said, recalling the foreign operative accompanying her, an invisible they
wouldn’t be able to spot even if he was right in front of them. 

After several
seconds of silence, Avery asked the question that had been nagging at him since
they’d arrived. “I thought this would strictly be a DEA op. We seem to be relying
heavily on local police. How far can they be trusted?”

Avery ignored Padilla’s
gaze setting on him and the disapproving look from Slayton. He knew the local
cops were easily corrupted. He didn’t blame them. Their choices were between
risking their lives doing their job for little money, or take the cartel’s
money and take care of their families. But the worst of Mexico’s corrupt cops
didn’t just turn a blind eye or feed information to the cartel. The worst went
to work directly for the cartels as soldiers.

Before Padilla
could respond, Contreras came to his defense.

“I’ve worked
with Captain Padilla and his men for two years. I’d trust him with my life any
day. He’s ex-GAFE. The TJ cartel put a two million dollar bounty on his head
after he declined their job offer. They fucking hate him. He’s one of the few
cops down here the bad guys actually fear.”

 GAFE is the
Mexican army’s airmobile special operations unit, trained by American, French,
and Israeli counterterrorism units. Before battling the cartels, Padilla conducted
dozens of operations against the left wing, Venezuelan- and Cuban-backed EZLN
and EPR insurgents in southern Mexico. He also led cross border raids into El
Salvador. Padilla personally knew several of the GAFE troops who deserted the
army to join the cartel and form Los Zetas, and he detested them with a passion.

“That’s great, but
can you say the same for all of his men?” Avery said.

“I carefully
select and handpick all of my men personally,” Padilla said. “I have worked
with most of them for years, going back to our time in the army. They’re
patriots who take their oaths seriously. The people under my command practice
the highest operational security, and I have not had a single leak or compromise
from within my unit. If I learned of a cop collaborating with the cartels, I’d
execute the man myself.”

And neither Padilla
nor Contreras added that he’d done just that once before. He’d also had a
fellow cop draw a gun on him once, hoping to cash in on the reward the TJ cartel
offered for him, forcing Padilla to kill his fellow officer. He knew the
realities better than most about the Mexican drug war, and he had no illusions
about the rampant corruption in his country.

It was a nice
speech from Padilla, but Avery had heard something similar from Daniel before
his identity was compromised and the Viper nearly put a bullet in him in Panama.

While Avery didn’t
like the idea of working alongside the Mexican cops, he realized he had no
choice but to deal with it. Pushing the matter and getting on the DEA or
Federal Police’s bad side wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

“What are you?” Padilla
asked Avery. “I know you’re not DEA. You don’t look like a cop.”

“I’m running
security for the DEA and the Colombians’ Viper operations.”

 “That doesn’t
answer my question, which means you are CIA.”

The Mexicans
accepted the assistance and presence of DEA and the US Marshals Service in
their country as an undesirable necessity, but they remained wary and distrustful
of CIA. As often did the DEA agents and marshals, since CIA generally ran its
own, often secretive ops in the country, sometimes at crossroads to law
enforcement’s goals.  

“I’m an
independent contractor,” Avery said. “I’ve done jobs for CIA in the past. I
know what you’re thinking, but I’m not here with an ulterior agenda or on spook
business. I only want the Viper.”

“Mister Anderson
has been a tremendous asset,” Slayton said, using the pseudonym he’d used
earlier to introduce Avery. “We wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for
him.” Shifting his gaze to Contreras, he added, “And he got our agents out of
Buenaventura.”

“What are our
options for direct action when we find the Viper?” Avery asked quickly, before
Contreras could respond. He didn’t want to talk about Buenaventura.

“My agents are
armed,” Contreras answered, “but are only allowed to defend themselves, and we
don’t have a FAST team in-country, so it’ll be a Mexican operation. Captain Padilla’s
guys handle takedowns and raids.” He knew Avery wasn’t going to like this.
“That’s simply how we do things here.”

The Mexican
government didn’t permit the Americans to conduct offensive operations on
Mexican soil and had strictly forbidden armed drones or a FAST team. DEA agents
were permitted to carry firearms only for personal defense, the definition of
which was sometimes pushed in certain situations. When it came to jurisdiction
and American cooperation, the Mexican government was extremely protective of
its turf. 

“What about
Felix’s shooters?” Avery asked.

Slayton
exchanged looks with Contreras, who cleared his throat and said to Padilla, “Of
course that’s up to you, Hector.”

“I’ve worked
with Captain Aguilar on training exercises. His input on operational matters is
always welcome. Since we are in pursuit of Colombian terrorists, I acknowledge it
may be prudent to defer to his men and expertise. Given the threat Miss Moreno
presents, I’m unconcerned if she should be taken alive, and if anyone has a
shot at her, they should take it.”

Padilla’s next
comments were directed to Avery.

“I’ll be blunt.
I realize this is an unusual situation, and there is much at stake, so I’m
willing to grant you a certain amount of latitude. Frankly, I do not care what
you do with this woman when we find her, but I have authority here. Nobody
launches an independent operation within Mexican borders. You will take no
action without my explicit consent, and I will not tolerate any interference in
Federal Police operations or investigations. My word is final on all operational
matters. You might be here unofficially, but that doesn’t mean you are free to
do whatever you please.”

Basically, Padilla
was going to allow Avery and Aguilar some leeway to operate on Mexican soil, so
long as they kept their sights strictly on the Viper and stayed in line, but if
anything went wrong, they’d bear the brunt of it.

Under the
circumstances, it was a lot better deal than Avery had expected.

But then Padilla
had experience fighting a dirty, unconventional enemy, and he likely understood
that civilized rules didn’t always apply. There were political considerations,
too. The Mexican government didn’t want word getting out that Mexico was being
used as a transit point for international terrorists. So if the Viper could be
discretely eliminated, then so much the better.  

“I can live with
that,” Avery said.

An hour later, after arriving at the
Federal Police’s regional ops center, Captain Padilla shared his team’s surveillance
photos of the target site, and maps of the surrounding streets.

 Located near
the airport, in a small outdoor strip mall that included a Subway and Domino’s,
Café de la Flor was busy with tourists and popular among locals looking for a
quick meal. The café offered outdoor seating beneath a terrace, allowing for quick
street access, and was also just minutes’ away from a junction of two major
highways near the airport. The mall itself occupied a space of some one
thousand by four hundred feet, with parking all around the exterior. A wide
outdoor walkway cut through the center of the mall, providing pedestrian access
to stores and shops, including Café de la Flor.

Silva’s meeting
was set for 1:30PM, giving Padilla’s cops and the DEA agents plenty of time to
move their assets into place overnight. In the meantime, Contreras’s informant
would update them if Arturo Silva’s schedule changed.

Three hundred
feet north of the target, across Alberto Limon Padilla Boulevard, a dual
carriageway with a central barrier dividing the eastbound and westbound lanes, was
the Gamma Tijuana de Fiesta Inn, where Contreras’s agents and Padilla’s
officers had already acquisitioned two connecting rooms to establish their tactical
command center. The rooms were on the third floor, on the south side of the
main building, overlooking the highway and the target area. Padilla and
Contreras planned to discretely move people and equipment into the rooms
through the night and early morning.

From what Avery
saw so far, the Mexican end of the operation was being kept fairly small and
was professionally run. Padilla didn’t involve or brief the regional branch of
the State Judicial Police. There often existed rivalry and tension between the
Federal and Judicial polices, and it wasn’t always clear which agency had
jurisdiction in investigating a particular crime, so the agencies tended to
operate unilaterally. Padilla openly brushed off Tijuana’s State Judicial
Police by saying half of them worked for the cartels and the other half were
the thugs of Tijuana’s corrupt governor, and the other men enjoyed scoffing at
the expense of their sister service.

The Federal
Police are an aggressive preventive law enforcement agency. Its officers are
heavily armed with military-grade weapons and wear SWAT- style fatigues. They
have been on the frontlines of the Mexican drug war, with authorization to use
preemptive lethal force against the cartel leaders.

For additional back
up, Padilla called in a favor to arrange for a GAFE assault element with
helicopter support to be on standby at Tijuana Airport, just three minutes away.

If Arturo
Silva’s guest was identified as a Viper operative—Avery doubted that Arianna
Moreno would personally come this far into the city alone to meet Silva—then Padilla
was content to let the DEA and the Colombians have him. His officers had enough
on their plate with their own enemies, and Padilla didn’t care to take
responsibility for Colombian terrorists. In fact, Padilla cared little for what
happened to Moreno. First and foremost, he wanted Arturo Silva.

The objective
was to identify Silva’s associate, stay on both subjects, and interdict them
somewhere less populated, where there existed lesser risk of potential civilian
casualties if the situation escalated. There was a lot that could go wrong if
guns were drawn at the mall, and Padilla stressed that he had zero tolerance
for so-called collateral damage, especially from what he called overeager, gun
slinging American cowboys. Civilian lives, Padilla stressed, were to be
protected at all costs. If Silva couldn’t be taken alive, Padilla ordered his
officers to kill him on sight.

After the
briefing, Avery and Aguilar were delivered to the makeshift command center at
the Gamma Tijuana de Fiesta Inn, where they became acquainted with the other American
and Mexican agents on the task force.

Meanwhile, Abigail
Benning set up her Stingray gear in the back of a DEA surveillance van, which
was then positioned a block from the target location. She’d have the
IMSI-catcher running so that if either Silva or the Viper agent made a call,
she’d know who they were talking to, and then triangulate that person’s
location.

That night Avery
slept on a small, narrow, uncomfortable cot set up in one of the Federal
Police’s suites while the Mexicans worked in shifts overnight to continue running
surveillance on the target area and plan tomorrow’s operation. Despite the bits
of metal poking and prodding his sides, the blaring TV, and the conversation of
the DEA agents and Mexican cops six feet away, Avery managed five hours of blissful,
uninterrupted sleep. 

Aguilar woke him
up at ten, and they ventured out on foot.

The morning was
warm, breezy and sunny. They stopped at Subway and ate at a table near the
windows offering eyes on Café De la Flora fifty feet away. They took their time
eating sandwiches with salty, rubbery meat, and watched people coming in and
out of the café, and familiarized themselves with the environment.

The herd of
people died out near 11:00AM, and then Avery and Aguilar followed the sidewalk
down the narrow gap between Café de la Flora on the west and Roots, a larger bar
and restaurant on the east, allowing them to scope out the former’s sidewalk
terrace seating. Both establishments were nearly empty now as their respective staffs
prepared for the lunch crowd.

“What do you
think?” Avery asked as they walked back to the hotel several minutes later.

“It’s a good
spot,” Aguilar said. “No one can leave the target without us seeing them, and
we’ll have assets positioned to intercept our targets whichever direction they
go. There’ll be heavy pedestrian traffic, which is good and bad. It’ll be
easier for our watchers to blend in, but it does increase the potential for
casualties.”

“Hopefully it
won’t come to that.” But Avery knew that in Mexico it often came to that. “Padilla’s
guys aren’t going to move in on the targets here unless something goes wrong.”

“I have
confidence in Padilla’s people. You really don’t need to worry.”

“Sure.” Avery
would reserve judgment until he saw Padilla’s men in action for himself. “But
the cartel won’t give a fuck if anyone gets in their way. They’ll waste
everyone here if they need to.”

By 1:00PM
everyone was in position.

Padilla’s
assault unit waited in a panel van in the north side parking lot. Undercover
agents were scattered around the mall. Contreras sat with a female DEA agent in
the café, posing as a couple having lunch. They occupied a corner table under
the terrace, and Contreras had a miniature, short range directional microphone
concealed beneath the table, transmitting to the DEA surveillance vehicle,
where Padilla and Slayton were waiting.

Marked police
cars with uniformed officers waited across the highway, on the dirt field
behind the Gamma Tijuana de Fiesta Inn. Like the assault unit, these officers
were equipped with body armor over their gray fatigues, and submachine guns.

Avery and
Aguilar, each wearing different clothing now to decrease the chances of anyone
recognizing them from earlier, were seated at a table in Roots, directly east
of the target, from where they had a clear line of sight through the tinted
windows and across the narrow sidewalk into the café’s terrace seating area,
about thirty-five feet away.

Aguilar ordered
a torta and rice, to make them look natural and not like suspicious dickheads
sitting there for no reason. Avery’s Glock was holstered beneath a blue
windbreaker, and Aguilar’s Beretta was at his hip, concealed by his half-open
jacket, with the safety off and 9mm Parabellum chambered.

At 1:13PM, two
Mexican men arrived at Café de la Flor and took a table under the terrace. They
sipped their water, and didn’t even pretend to peruse the menu. They were all
business. Their eyes stayed on the entrance to the café and the pedestrians on
the exterior sidewalk ten feet away. From their body language and sense of
purpose, and the clothing layered to easily conceal their firearms, they
practically screamed cartel gunmen.

The tables beneath
the terrace continued to fill up over the next fifteen minutes, and there were
more wait staff on the floor now, seating patrons, re-filling glasses, and
balancing plates as they made their way to and from the kitchen. The other
diners who noticed them knew better than to look at them.

Ten feet from
the cartel men, a family of five, including two unruly adolescent children,
ordered their meals. Behind them sat a couple in their twenties who couldn’t
take their eyes off each other, and to the left of them was a table of three
middle aged men in business attire speaking animatedly about real estate
development, each fighting to get a word in over the others. Near Contreras and
his partner, a group of elderly Mexicans sat down.

Scents and
smells emanating from the grill filled the air. As the terrace became more
populated, the noise level picked up. Everyone’s conversations blended together
in the ears of the surveillance team.

Contreras did a
check on his miniature directional mike, making sure it worked as advertised,
and was able to discern and separate the young couple’s conversation as they debated
whether they should wait for their meal or go straight to her apartment, or his
car.

Six minutes
later, outside, a Federal Police officer in plainclothes reported the arrival
of a Lincoln MKS in the parking lot. When a man climbed out of the rear
passenger seat, the cop recognized Arturo Silva on sight.

Silva was
accompanied by two other men, bodyguard types. One followed Silva into the café
while the other remained behind the wheel of the MKS with the engine running.
He was backed into the parking spot, so that he could accelerate forward and quickly
get out, while also being able to keep eyes on the entrance to the café and the
sidewalk.

At their table
in Roots, Avery and Aguilar listened to the radio updates filtering in through
their earbuds. They watched Silva emerge from the café interior under the
terrace. Silva quietly acknowledged the pair of cartel men already present, and
then took another table with his bodyguard. 

Avery exchanged
looks with Aguilar.

Both men were thinking
the same thing; five tangos on site and no sign of the Viper agent.

They’d also
caught a good glimpse of Silva’s friends. Avery and Aguilar, both being
military men, determined from the Mexicans’ straight backs, confident poises,
trim physiques, and intent gazes that they too were likely military, which
meant Los Zetas. Like typical cartel shooters, they looked like they were ready
for a fight, which, combined with the number of civilians about, was bad news. These
guys shot first at the slightest provocation and asked no questions.  

Four minutes
later, another update came in from one of the DEA watchers. A vehicle had just
pulled into the south side parking lot outside Subway. Two men got out and
walked north.

In Roots,
Aguilar stood up. Patting down his pockets, he announced to Avery, without
overdoing it, while expressing the appropriate frustration, that he’d left his
phone in the car. The comment was for the benefit of anyone amongst the other
patrons who might be watching.

 Aguilar went
out the door and turned left, going south down the sidewalk between the two
restaurants. Walking casually, but purposefully, eyes up and straight ahead, he
passed the two new arrivals as they went through the entrance of Café de la
Flora. He assessed one of the men as being another Zeta soldier, but, even
though he caught barely a two second glance at the man’s face, he easily recognized
the taller, older bearded man from the dossiers Daniel provided.

Once out of
earshot of the two men, Aguilar tilted his head to speak into his throat mike and
confirm the presence of Carlo Ibarra. Aguilar used Ibarra’s tan jacket and
graying beard as an identifier for the other members of the team.

Aguilar returned
to Avery’s table in Roots ten seconds later.

Thirty-feet
away, across the sidewalk, in Café de la Flora, Ibarra’s back was to Avery and
Aguilar, and their view was partially obscured by other patrons, but they still
had clear line of sight on Arturo Silva, who sat across from Ibarra, facing him.
They could easily read Silva’s facial expressions and body language as he
gesticulated. He was all business, and Ibarra kept interrupting, shaking his head
and gesturing with his hands, obviously on edge and disagreeing about
something.

In the
surveillance van, Slayton and Padilla listened to the audio feed from the
Contreras’s parabolic mike. Ibarra and Silva used vague terms, no specific
mention of the Viper or SA-24, but they discussed business, talking about
prices and making a delivery to California. To any innocent person seated
nearby and overhearing snippets of the conversation, they could have been
talking about anything.

Finally, after
another fifteen minutes, Arturo Silva and Carlo Ibarra seemed to reach an
agreement, though the latter didn’t appear quite as pleased as his Mexican host
did. Instead, Ibarra’s face showed a look of resignation.