Leo was at Airstrip 8 at four in the morning on Tuesday. It was nothing more than a long, narrow mesa with vehicle access from the west and east. The trail from the west was easier on tires and suspension, however. The mesa was in a shallow canyon with walls of other mesas rising above to the north and south. This was one of the reasons Leo had picked this spot; the higher walls to the sides would limit the visibility of explosions and gun fire. It would really suck to win this one-man ambush and then get arrested.
It took nearly six hours to lay out the trip wires and claymores. If the normal amount of men was dispatched to this drug drop, he would be facing between ten and fifteen armed, seasoned enforcers, along with Nomar himself and maybe one of his lieutenants.
Leo has lobbied several times for Nomar to allow his lieutenants to handle these drops on their own, pointing out the obvious risk factors. As Leo expected from Nomar’s personality, Nomar was a man who enjoyed such advice and enjoyed turning it down even more. He was still young, after all. It was best to be a hands-on leader as long as possible. Leo, of course, feigned disappointment in a dutiful manner.
For several more hours, he hid guns in locations he was expected to be that night, and then walked the area several times, memorizing features such as large rocks which could offer cover, and shallows which could hide him.
By two in the afternoon, he was tired, slightly sunburnt, and confident that he understood the tactical aspects of Airstrip 8. He had plenty of digital photos of the area from up close, as well as several looking down at Airstrip 8
Getting back into his truck, he took off his hat and drank a whole bottle of water in one go while turning on the air-conditioning. It was close to a hundred degrees out there now, and he made sure that he wasn’t suffering from any aspect of heatstroke before he started back down the trail. Blurred vision on these trails could mean a stranded truck.
Once he was back on Interstate 8 heading west, he opened the truck up and pressed the gas on the straight, empty blacktop. He reached 200mph much faster than he expected and there was still room to climb, but he backed down. It was a very well-built hot rod truck. Even with the new paint job and normal tires, though, it continued to remind him of the night he nearly lost Bev to the animal mentality he was currently working against.
Back in El Cajon, he entered the hotel room he rented for a shower and shave. After putting on his black suit (one of eight now hanging in his hacienda room’s closet), he packed up his work clothes and left the room. By five o’clock, he was back in his room at the hacienda.
While making notes of his observations that day, his cellphone rang. It was Nomar.
“Yes?” he answered.
“Are you on the grounds?” Nomar asked.
“For perhaps another couple of hours, then I have plans. What can I do for you?”
“Yes, I know it is your day off, but it would be very beneficial if you could join a meeting in my office area.”
“On my way,” he said, and turned off his laptop, turning on the security encryption feature.
Entering the room, he saw there was a man in one of the visitor chairs in front of the desk. One security man was at the entry door with the door open, and another inside the room close to the patio doors, which were also open.
Two thoughts pounded into Leo’s brain as he studied the man sitting in front of the desk while he approached him. The first was that he didn’t like Nomar very much — in fact, he was quite hostile. And the second was: He’s a cop. Probably DEA. Leo continued to examine the man as he passed him to stand beside Nomar.
“Leo,” Nomar said, “This is Travis, Travis Hale.”
Leo nodded his head. “Coming up on ten years soon, aren’t you? Has the DEA changed much?”
The man was noticeably stunned, and Nomar was beside himself with laughter. “Pay up,” Nomar laughed.
Travis Hale, or perhaps Agent Hale would be more appropriate, pulled out a twenty from his pocket and put it on the desk with a slap.
Nomar snatched it up and kissed the bill. “I love winning bets.”
“Was that all you needed me for?” Leo asked Nomar.
“No, of course not. I wouldn’t interrupt your personal time with that. We made this bet on your way here. Hale is very proud of his undercover abilities. But anyway, he had begun to tell me information he has on Santos Gonzalez when I stopped him and called you.”
“I understand,” Leo told him. He leaned back against the wall behind him, ready to listen.
“Please continue, Hale,” Nomar urged.
“Recently,” Hale said, “Gonzalez purchased a large amount of weapons. We expected them to go to his hacienda, but they didn’t. They crossed the border and then disappeared.”
“They disappeared while you were watching them?” Nomar marveled.
Hale looked a little uncomfortable. “Yes.”
Nomar processed this. “Go on, please.”
“Well, Gonzalez doesn’t have a hacienda on this side of the border and never has, though he has talked several times about advancing into the US. This shipment wasn’t a shipment that would be for sale in the US, except to a paramilitary group about to declare war on the state they were living in.”
Hale looked a little uncomfortable again. “We also recorded a conversation, which was at first a little strange to us before this weapons shipment came in to focus. The conversation was between him and his eldest granddaughter, Kari. She’s what now — seventeen, I believe? Anyway, she is telling Santos that she wants to get married. He’s telling her that isn’t going to happen. She cries and says that she forgave the man a long time ago, after she spoke to the nuns. He tells her that she’s not going to marry a rapist, no matter how many baubles he sends her, and basically ends the conversation with her running from the room in tears.”
Hale added, “It is soon after that when Santos says, ‘I’ll kill that fucking Nomar.’”
Nomar looked up to Leo. “Baubles? What is baubles?”
“Cheap costume jewelry and showy tourist silver,” Leo replied.
Nomar was instantly offended. “I didn’t send her baubles! What is this? I sent her a necklace worth $50k! US!”
“Did you also send a card?” Leo asked.
“Card? It was a diamond necklace!”
“You should always send a card with a gift. Women like that. They’ll keep the card and cherish it much longer than the jewelry.”
“True?”
“Oh, yes. Something with a little poetry inside, and always use a pen with your own handwriting. Trust me, they memorize—”
Hale interjected with, “Gentlemen? I think you are missing the bigger picture. The guns?”
Nomar looked across his shoulder at him. “Guns? No, those guns are broken up and shipped all over the continent by now. Being sold on some street corner in a barrio near you.”
Hale turned a little red. “Look, I’m very good at my job—”
“You think you are very good at your job,” Nomar interrupted. “Which is good. You should have pride in your abilities, but you also think you are good at undercover and Leo spotted you coming in the room. I could see it on his face. Thank you for this other information, though, because it is very important to me. Far more important than a few guns crossing the border. Your payment should be ready on the table beside the door as usual.”
“Fine,” Hale said, leaving the room in a hurry.
They watch the DEA Agent leave, and Leo walked slowly back around the desk in deep thought. “There are two other cartels in this area that he could be after.”
“Either of those rape his sixteen-year-old granddaughter?
“No.”
“No, Leo.” Nomar sighed and stretched out his arms and back. “He’s going to come for me. This marriage thing has somehow backfired. I was worried about her rejection, not his. I can’t quite get myself to believe that after all the work and effort and planning it took to get me to this point, I may lose it all because of one mistake. An honest mistake, as well. There was no reason for her to be near my bedroom area where the entertainment girls were.” Then he shook his head. “No, that doesn’t matter. It certainly wouldn’t matter to me if I was the father, or the grandfather.”
“Wish we knew more of an exact location,” complained Leo.
“Oh, pardon,” Nomar said. “He gave me that before I stopped him and called you. The crossing was over close to Juarez country. Here’s the map Hale supplied.”
“Do you believe that he’ll actually make an assault on the hacienda? SWAT, DEA, FBI — hell, the damn military will be on his ass if he brings in the amount of men those munitions suggest he’s gathering.”
Nomar sighed. “That’s the way they do it in Mexico. They pay the local cops to be somewhere else and then attack with numbers and fire power, using explosives to blow the gates, then storm the house and slaughter everyone inside.”
“Of course,” Leo said, “you and your son, as well as much of the staff, will be at your La Jolla house, or perhaps the Carlsbad estate. The longer Gonzalez is here, the more likely the authorities are going to catch up with him. Hale and every other DEA agent knows those weapons are coming to San Diego.”
Drumming his fingers on the desk, Nomar said. “That is true, very true, and once he makes an assault, they’ll be all over him. This is not Mexico. But since he will obviously have eyes and ears in my staff somewhere — at least one of my guards — I’ll need to move Pablo with some clandestine efforts. The staff, si, to La Jolla, with most of the guard. We’ll keep a skeleton crew here with orders to run like hell at the first sign of trouble. Pablo, however, will need some thought.”
“I could take him to my place. No one here knows where that is. Just put him in the truck and tell him he’s visiting with me for a week. Shouldn’t be much longer than that. Time is not on Gonzalez’s side.”
Nomar stopped drumming his fingers and studied Leo closely. “Still, that is a risk, especially for you.”
“Living is a risk,” Leo told him.
“Well, that’s true as well. The offer is very tempting, because like you say, your personal life is not scrutinized like mine is. I could do the same with Isa as well. This is a good option, thank you, Leo. My mind was building up much more complicated scenarios of getting Pablo into a safe harbor. Simpler is better.”
“And you?” Leo asked.
“Me?” Nomar smiled and reaches for a large black velvet sack. He shook the sack and the objects inside bounced around. Then he reached in and pulled out what looks like a bingo ball with the number 8 on it. “I will be getting ready for a drop at Airstrip 8, and as soon as that happens, which is this Thursday, I’ll be going into hiding as well. I definitely want you at this drop. This is a very important one, and must be handled with extreme professionalism.”
“Same time frames?” Leo asked.
“What? No spiel about me not going there, that it is too much of a risk for me to take?”
Leo said with very little enthusiasm, “No, no, don’t go, stop.”
“That’s better.” Nomar smiled. “Yes, we’ll begin arriving at the airstrip at eleven, and then expect the plane at close to midnight. Same cautions and precautions as always. Don’t mess with something that works.”
“Agreed,” Leo said as he watched Nomar place the bingo ball back into the sack and place the sack back on the shelf. “Don’t fix what isn’t broke. Will that be all? At least for now?”
“Si, yes, I’ve got a few more loose ends to tie up. But, one thing. How could you tell, from the doorway no less, that Hale was a DEA man?”
“Handcuffs in his belt. So he was a cop of some sort. DEA made sense, that’s all. The ten years was based on his apparent age.”
“Handcuffs? How funny. I didn’t notice them.”
“When he was leaning forward in the chair, his shirt rose so that I could see them as I came in. He’s probably so used to them being back there, he forgot he was wearing them.”
“Always the little things, and so obvious they are passed over as unimportant,” Nomar mused. “So, si, off with you. I’ll see you Thursday morning?”
“Yes, say, nine?”
“Perfect.”