The Last Line (27 page)

“So now one of them's willing to loan you an RQ-4?” Procario said. “Sweet.”

Teller had feared that it might take a long time—a day or more—to track down Marcetti and get him up to Mexico City, but he'd managed to get him on the phone and explain the situation. Marcetti, four of his men, and several crates of equipment from the lily pad had been on the way to Benito Juárez International less than three hours later in a private Beechcraft rented at Chetumal.

Using the Black Hawk DAPs, it turned out, was not even a remotely viable option. The UH-60s were expensive aircraft with a lot of highly classified hardware on board, and there was no way to sideline them for an operation over Mexico City, especially when the local news media were screaming murder over Mexican nationals killed or captured by American troops at Chetumal. Marcetti had thought a moment, then promised to make some phone calls during his flight to BJI.

“We really do appreciate you dropping everything and coming up here, March,” Teller told him. It hadn't taken long after the ISA team's arrival for the three of them to get on a first-name basis. “I just hope you don't land in hot water over this. We're not even supposed to be here now.”

“Hey, glad to help out. I've had the REMFs yank the plug on me a time or two. I don't care where the orders come from, I do
not
leave my people in the field.” He chuckled. “Besides, we were just sitting on our assets down there in Ladyville. They scrubbed the op on the
Zapoteca,
you know that?”

“I figured that,” Teller said. “Everyone's sure the nukes are already on their way to the States. Besides, the bad press down here is making Washington
real
leery of doing anything else to piss off the Mexicans.”

“Right. So we were finishing prepping the DAPs with long-range tanks for a ferry flight to McDill when your call came in. The rest of the team went back with the helos, but a few of us just decided we were overdue for some leave time. No reason not to take it in sunny Mexico, right?”

“Well, we're glad to have you on board,” Procario said. He nodded at the computer display. “And we
really
appreciate your buddy's toy.”

Marcetti's phone call to a friend in the DEA had resulted in an unexpected addition to the team's arsenal in Mexico City.

A Global Hawk.

The United States had been tracking drug smugglers using unmanned aerial vehicles—UAVs—over Mexico for more than twenty years. Most of those overflights had been made with MQ-1 Predators, operating along the U.S.-Mexican border, with the intelligence they picked up shared with the Mexican authorities. Predators had a range of only 675 nautical miles, however, and the nearest was deployed at JBSA—Joint Base San Antonio, 600 miles from Mexico City. A Predator would have been able to arrive over the target, but it would be a one-way flight. Teller could just imagine the news headlines if a Predator crashed outside of Mexico City—or tried to land at Benito Juárez.

The RQ-4A Global Hawk, however, was a whole different breed of bird. Over 44 feet long and with a wingspan of better than 116 feet, it was more than twice the size of the Predator, with greater speed, much greater range, and an astonishing mission endurance of thirty-six hours. By the time Marcetti and his men landed at Benito Juárez, an RQ-4A based at JBSA had been fitted out with a Field Intensity Directive Receiver (or FIDR) keyed to the frequency broadcast by Dominique's ghost-series transmitter, and was being readied for takeoff. With a range of well over 15,000 miles, the Global Hawk had arrived over Mexico City an hour and a half after takeoff. If need be, it could circle above Mexico City for over a day. If it came within a mile of Dominique's transmitter, it would send the signal back to JBSA and to Teller's laptop.

To narrow the search, Teller had provided Marcetti with the Cellmap data showing clusters of cell phones carrying the network-mapping virus. Analysis showed lots of lone signal sources, but twenty-five clusters of two or more targets within the Mexico City metropolitan area; a simple flight plan algorithm was now guiding the Global Hawk above each concentration in turn. Though he was impatient to get started, he and Procario had agreed to wait until after dark to reduce the chances of the Global Hawk being spotted while it was at low altitude. The aircraft was quite stealthy and should be able to avoid local radar, but it had to stay well below 5,000 feet in order to have a chance to pick up the signal. In daylight people would be able to see it, and that could give the game away. For several hours, Procario kept the Global Hawk circling 50,000 feet above the uninhabited slopes of Mount Tlaloc, thirty miles east of the city, waiting for the sky to grow dark.

An hour ago, they'd brought the Global Hawk in, routing it well clear of the airport and bringing it down to just 2,500 feet above the streets. Technically, since this was an unauthorized violation of Mexico's sovereign airspace, the Mexicans would be perfectly within their rights to shoot the UAV down. At thirty-five million dollars apiece, not counting the development costs, the Global Hawk was an expensive toy—far too expensive for the price to come out of Teller's pocket if he broke it.

Fortunately, the authorities were unlikely to bring the eleven–ton aircraft down inside the crowded city. The biggest danger, Teller thought, was running into a small private aircraft, and the Hawk's onboard radar navigation systems should be able to keep it well clear of any such threat.

“
Got
her!” Procario jumped up from the keyboard as a rapidly pulsing chirp came from the speaker. “By God, we
got
her!”

“Jesus!” Teller exclaimed. “That was fast! Where?”

Procario turned the laptop so that Teller could see the screen. “You're gonna shit yourself.”

“I take it,” Captain Marcetti said quietly, “that we have a target now.”

“That's Iztacalco,” Teller said, looking at the aircraft icon positioned above the slowly turning mosaic of city streets. Two tight clusters of blue dots were visible on the map. He leaned forward, translating coordinates. “Shit! It's La Calle Sur 145! The Perez house!”

Procario grinned. “Damned straight. They took her right back to the place we were surveilling the other night.”

The computer was chirping the announcement of the receipt of signal. Procario now jacked a headset into the computer and started listening. “The signal's weak,” he said, “but we're getting it all. Heartbeat … so she's alive. And some muffled sounds that might be conversation in the room with her.”

“Let me hear.”

Procario handed him the headset, and Teller listened. He could hear words in Spanish, a fuzzy backdrop to the steady
the-thump the-thump the-thump
of Jackie's heartbeat, but it was hard to make them out.

“What do you hear, man?” Marcetti asked.

“I'm not sure. Might be an argument.” He listened a moment more. “Two men … and a woman, too. Not Jackie. Maybe the Perez woman? Something about … the woman wants to untie her. One of the men just called her a
puta
 … a whore, and said she shouldn't stick her nose where it's not wanted.”

He strained to hear, strained harder to understand. “Shit. Someone named Calavera is on the way.”

“‘Skull?'” Procario asked, one eyebrow raised. “Seems a bit melodramatic.”

“These people excel in drama,” Marcetti said. “The bloodier, the better.”

“We'd better saddle up and get over there,” Teller said, “before things get
really
ugly.”

 

Chapter Fourteen

VICENTE HOUSE

LA CALLE SUR 145

DISTRICTO IZTACALCO

2231 HOURS, LOCAL TIME

20 APRIL

It had taken less than an hour for the eight of them, traveling in two vehicles, to thread through the city's streets from the Hilton to Iztacalco. Teller and Procario had gone up to the OP house and awakened an angry Vicente.

“¡Diablo! ¿Tienes una idea qué hora es?”
the informant had demanded of the men at his door.

Teller glimpsed a pretty, younger woman in the hallway behind the man, clutching a robe tightly at her throat. “I am sorry, Señor Vicente,” he'd replied, speaking Spanish. “But you can blame it on your neighbors.”

Vicente's eyes had widened, he'd glanced out the door, looking up and down the street, and then he'd motioned the men inside with a hurry-up motion of his hand. “If they discover that I am helping you—” he began.

“With a little luck,” Teller told him, “your neighbors will not be a problem for much longer.”

“God willing,” Vicente said. “But you will forgive me,
señor,
if I believe that when it happens. You Americans, you come and then you are gone. The Mexican police … half of them work for the cartels, and the rest are never around when you want them. But the cartels, and the evil they bring, they are
always
here.”

In the third-story room upstairs, they began setting up their equipment—the triple-M scope and the satcom link back to Langley first. Langley, Teller thought, might not be particularly thrilled to hear from them. He and Procario weren't even supposed to be here now, and Marcetti and his team technically were working for INSCOM. Still, they knew some people at the Agency who would be willing to work with them back-channel, and the satellite feed allowed them to keep tracking the Cellmap data.

Once the connection was complete, Teller brought up the street map showing central Iztacalco. As he zoomed in for a close look, two clusters of blue dots defined themselves, one on the west side of La Calle Sur 145, one on the east. Closer still, and he could see the specific houses.

“So,” Procario said, looking over his shoulder. “Now we know how Grant and Dominique got spotted when they were surveilling the Perez house.”

“An overwatch,” Teller agreed. “Looks like six in the Perez house, and … Christ. Twelve in the other. I think what we have here, March, is an ambush.”

“You're right. So, how do we take them down?”

“We need some tactical intel,” Teller said. He moved the cursor over one of the blue dots in the Perez house and clicked on it. A phone number came up. A long moment passed. Then data scrolled down the side of the screen, personal information on Federico Ortega Noreno—his address in Mexico City, driver's license statics, arrest warrants, prison records …

“Looks like a street-level thug,” Procario said. “Since he turned twenty-one he's been in jail more than he's been free. Theft, breaking and entering, aggravated assault, auto theft, narcotics possession with intent to sell…”

One by one, they identified the owners of each of the cell phones in both target houses. One, Maria Perez, had no police record—though she was listed as a “person of interest” both because she was the niece of a Los Zetas big shot and because she was the
novia,
the girlfriend, of Juan Escalante.

Only one target appeared to be more than a street-level cartel soldier. Enrico Barrón was listed as a deserter from the Mexican Army, was suspected of being a member of the Sinaloan Cartel, and was thought to be a member of Los Matazetas, the Zeta Killers. Except for the desertion, there was nothing on his rap sheet; his army records, though, were reasonably impressive:
sargento primero
—first sergeant—with twelve years in service, eight of them in GAFE, the Mexican Army Special Forces. Like Escalante, he'd been trained in the United States, including both the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Georgia, and Airborne training at Fort Bragg. He'd applied for Ranger School at Fort Benning, too, but the request had been denied.

He'd also gone through the CIA's clandestine ops course at the Farm, supposedly to prepare him for paramilitary operations with CISEN. Graduates of the orientation course did not leave with case officer skills, but they did gain an awareness of “how the magic was made.”

That one, Teller thought, would be dangerous.

The twelve targets at the overwatch house, just three numbers up from the Vicente place, all appeared to be relatively low-level cartel operators. Three had at least some military experience, though, and one, Carlos Mora, was listed as a former sergeant with the Guatemalan Kaibiles.

Another one to watch out for.

Within a few minutes, Procario had the MMMR set up and returning a through-the-walls image of the inside of the Perez house, the black-and-white image displayed on the screen of a second laptop. Procario adjusted the aim of the triple-R transmitters and soon had the unit focused in what appeared to be an upstairs bedroom. “Got her,” he said.

Anxious, Teller leaned over the marine's shoulder, studying the laptop screen. One guard, a male, sat in a chair at the back of the room, an assault rifle beside him as he held an invisible magazine in front of him. That was Ortega. A female lay curled up on the fuzzy crisscross pattern of mattress springs beneath her, arms behind her back, which was turned toward the guard. At the extreme limit of image magnification, Teller could see the metal parts of what appeared to be a ballpoint pen resting vertically between her breasts.

They scanned the rest of the house, top floor to bottom, though the southwestern corner—perhaps a quarter of the building's floor space was, from this angle, masked by the walls of the next-door house to the south. Millimeter waves could penetrate a couple of feet of concrete, but they lost a lot of resolution as they did so, and internal walls and staircases further obscured the view.

Still, the watchers had a pretty good map of what was going on inside. The woman—Maria Perez—was alone in another bedroom upstairs, sitting upright on a bed. Five other people, all male, were downstairs, one moving about in the kitchen—Barrón, according to the Cellmap—and the other four in what was probably a nearby living room, sprawled on chairs and a sofa watching television.