The Terror of Tijuana Read online

  “Like from the Jetsons?” Darlene said, laughing out loud.

  “Cogswell’s Cogs. Good memory. Unless a string of CIA memos about favorite childhood cartoons crop up, it should be unique to mine, and your bot can let you know right away if something develops, but…”

  Darlene stopped laughing. “But what?”

  “You may have to develop your mark independently.”

  “Christ, Black.”

  “I know, I know. As impressive as your resources are, you guys don’t really dig doing that. But I know that when you need to, you all can sniff out a lead as well as anyone.”

  “You’re right, but you also know it’s not a part of the gig we like to touch. We prefer a well-defined mark, a quick insertion, and a quick cleaning.”

  “What you prefer is to stop this sort of shit from happening.”

  Darlene remained silent for several seconds. He was absolutely right. This smelled like just the sort of scene that the Crew was designed to handle. And Darlene, personally, did not take kindly to her compatriots being killed on foreign soil. Finally, this was clearly violence against women, and that always brought her to a rolling boil.

  “Fine. Do what you can. I’ll program the bot now, then I’m going to bed.”

  “Yeah, you should probably get some sleep,” the agent said.

  “I said ‘bed.’ I doubt there’ll be much sleep involved now.”

  “Good hunting, Mason.”

  “Back at ya, Blackie,” she said, ending the call.

  It took just a few seconds to code the bot, and then, keeping her word, she climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor of the farmhouse, avoiding the creaking top step, which was right outside girls’ rooms, and tiptoed into her own.

  Wally had left her bedside light on its dimmest setting, and she smiled because it was just another example of how thoughtful her giant of a husband was. He was lying on his side, his back to her, and she could hear his quiet snoring as she slid into bed next to him.

  Despite attempting to move the bed as little as possible, Wally was roused and he rolled toward her. “Busy night?”

  “Looks like we have something going on in Mexico.”

  “More deaths?” There was little that Darlene worked on that she didn’t share with Wally. Although his primary role in the Crew was an eraser, someone who made inconvenient leftovers like bodies and weapons disappear, Wally was very good at catching seemingly trivial details, often ones that she herself had missed, and she used him as a sounding board when developing a case.

  “Yes, more even than I knew. Black reached out tonight.”

  “Yikes. I always get a little nervous when we do business with that particular Company. I much prefer Costco.”

  “You and me both, Wall. Oh, that reminds me: we need paper towels.”

  She gave Wally all the details, then lay silently for a moment, finally letting out a puff of air in a vain attempt to expel her growing frustration. If they didn’t identify a mark fast, more Americans were going to die. More American women were going to die.

  “Are you going to call her?”

  Darlene knew exactly to whom Wally was referring.

  “I think I have to. If we’re going to have to put boots on the street, it has to be her call.”

  “In the morning, though,” Wally said, sliding a little closer and putting his beefy hand on his wife’s arm. “You need to at least rest.”

  She turned to look at him and smiled. He knew she probably wouldn’t be able to sleep with all of these loose ends swilling around in her head, but he also knew that just being prone in the dark had a minimally restorative effect. She’d be fine.

  And when the sun came up, she’d call Nicole.

  2

  Morning in The Garden of Good and Evil

  Summer had come to Denver with screaming vengeance. It was Nicole Porter’s favorite season of the year, and certainly her favorite to be home. The Porters’ house was large and beautiful, featuring exotic mementos from around the world. They had been collected by both Dan and Nicole, mostly back when they had primarily travelled abroad separately.

  But Nicole had made the yard her place to pour passion into the property. All one needed to do was to look at the flower-lined, serpentine driveway, the morning glories that climbed the wrought-iron fence, or the explosion of color that was the front yard.

  Most of their neighbors hired professional gardeners, all with stunning effect, but it was universally agreed that the decorative foliage that painted the front of 2650 Cook Street was the showcase of the block. As Nicole held one of her hydrangea blossoms, cradled gently in the palm of her hand, she smiled at it with beaming love one normally reserves for a child.

  And that somewhat incidental thought meant the end of her reverie. Nicole was still juggling a carnival of emotions regarding her recent adventure, a visit to the city in which Nicole had been born, which involved her daughter, Jennifer June Porter, to a degree Cole could have never imagined would happen. Her baseline affection was still a surplus of anger and an even greater supply of horror that J.J. had been pulled into the situation at all. But that was being orbited by a swarm of other feelings, not the least of which was pride at the way her daughter had comported herself. She got out of a potentially fatal situation and did so in a way that hinted there might be a full dose of freezing water in her veins. In fact, Nicole had taken to calling J.J. “Ice” when they texted. She even changed her name in the contacts list on her phone so that when J.J. called, her beautiful face came on the screen with that word serving as her identification.

  And although she was the Executive Director of Cleanup Crew, as well as the agency’s top assassin, Nicole had never considered the possibility that her daughter might share the same mental make-up that had allowed Cole the success she’d had over her many years in the organization. Yet that was exactly what J.J. had shown. And it was her daughter’s ability to take everything that had happened to her in Greenville, North Carolina with an “Oh well, shit happens!” attitude that was giving her the most conflicted of the concerns.

  She felt her phone vibrate against her left thigh and she reached into the pocket of her khaki “gardening shorts” to retrieve it, completely expecting to see J.J.’s face, even though she knew her daughter was right inside the house. It wouldn’t be completely unlike either of her children to call her phone instead of taking the short walk outside to speak to her.

  Instead, she saw the initials “D.M.” and the stern-faced image of her closest friend and mentor, Darlene Mason. Although the women often called one another just to talk about life stuff and mom stuff, those calls came through with a smiling picture of Darlene and her full name at the top of the screen. The D.M. header and the scowl meant this was a business call.

  “Hey, sister-friend,” Nicole said as she answered the phone.

  “How’s the garden looking today?” Darlene asked.

  Nicole smiled at the fact that her comrade knew the sunshine would have caused the pull of the flowerbeds to be too enticing to ignore. “Everything is bursting with color.”

  “I need to make a run into the city and check things out. It always makes my heart happy when I look at your garden.”

  “Why, love? Is your heart not happy?”

  “Mmm. No. Not by a longshot.”

  Nicole was already walking toward the house by this point. She preferred to conduct her business from her home office, not the front yard. Passing through the entryway, she saw her daughter beta testing a new game from DSOFT, the company that her husband Dan had founded and still owned, though he’d removed himself from day-to-day operations, along with her younger brother Tony. “Say hi to Aunt Dar-Dar,” she called to them as she passed, holding the phone up so Darlene would be able to hear their reply.

  Their response actually sounded somewhat muddled, as J.J. shouted, “Hi Auntie Dar-Dar” at the same time Anthony said, “Hi, Darlene!”

  “Hi, ya little shits!” Darlene replied. Nicole didn�
��t have the phone on speaker, so the kids couldn’t hear.

  “Auntie Dar-Dar says she loves you,” Nicole shouted back as she approached the stairs that led down to her office. Once inside, with the normal-appearing but completely soundproof door closed, she got right to business.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Do you remember a month or so ago when I told you I’d spotted a couple of bumps in Mexico. College girls?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, the road has gotten significantly bumpier. The total is up to eight now.”

  “EIGHT!” Nicole shouted, testing the efficacy of the door. “That’s too goddamn many, Dar.”

  “Two was. Eight is obscene.”

  “So have you closed in on a mark? You must be swimming in evidence by now.” Nicole was already planning what clothes she’d bring for a summertime south-of-the-border cleaning.

  “No. Not even close.”

  Now Darlene had Nicole’s full attention. “Seriously? I’d expect you to be all over this.”

  “Believe me, I have been. But on paper, the only thing connecting these cases has been the victim profile: all American college girls. The means of execution have been completely different, each killing has been in a different city zone…”

  Nicole interrupted her. “Still all in Tijuana?”

  “All in Tijuana, so that’s two common threads, I suppose.”

  “I suppose. Have you reached out to any official sources?”

  “No, but one reached me. Syd ‘Aswad.”

  “Hmm. Wow. Tons of implications there, huh? The Company tends to call us only when the situation is so sticky that there can be no government DNA left behind.”

  “Exactly. Although there are obviously a lot of potential political ramifications, both Black and I are pretty convinced it’s a personal thing. Aside from the first killing…”

  “Sniper, if I am recalling correctly,” Nicole injected.

  “You are. Aside from that, the M.O.E. have all been decidedly personal.”

  “So has the CIA developed any leads?”

  “No. Black is very frustrated by the lack of any clue-like continuity. He’s… he’s expecting us to do the groundwork.”

  Nicole groaned. “Augh! We don’t do groundwork!”

  “Coley, you know we do when we have to. And I truly feel like we have to in this case.”

  Nicole fumed silently for several seconds then finally acquiesced. “It sounds like it, doesn’t it?”

  “How’s your Spanish?”

  “Sabes que mi español es impecable,” Cole said.

  “Yes, your Spanish is flawless.” The controller laughed. Then, switching gears and catching Nicole slightly off-guard, she said, “How’s J.J. doing?”

  “Still the Ice-Queen, that one. We haven’t really talked about Carolina since the semester ended.”

  “I’ve meant to call her and congratulate her on making All-American.”

  “The softball superstar would probably appreciate that, Dar. But, yeah. She seems fine.”

  “Okay. Sorry for changing the subject, I just worry.”

  “I know you do, sweetheart. You always have. You worried me right out of Greenville.”

  Darlene laughed. “Good damn thing I did. Things were about to get sticky for the Lake Hartwell Mauler.”

  “At any rate, I guess I’m going to Mexico.”

  “Do you want to? Or would you prefer I sent someone who despises snooping a little less than you.”

  “I do hate to leave Denver in the summer.”

  “I can very easily divert a Hispanic cleaner from California. Blend in a damn sight better than you, Blue-Eyed Blondie!”

  Nicole ignored the poke as she considered this. “Who?”

  “Probably Alvarez. He has a lot of family still in Mexico. He might actually enjoy it.”

  “Hmm. Family in Mexico is not necessarily good. Could be used against him easily.”

  “Cruz, then.”

  Nicole smiled. “You just like assigning Manny Cruz so you can Facetime with him and look at his rakishly handsome brown visage!”

  “Stop. You know I only have eyes for Wally.” She paused. “He is hot as fuck, though.”

  Now the cleaner laughed out loud. “Concur. Cruz, then. Send him in to see what’s seeable. But keep me on speed dial.”

  “You know you’re already on speed dial, girly.”

  “It was an expression meant to convey that I want constant updates.” Cole laughed.

  “Okay. Gotta go. Need to make a Facetime call.”

  Darlene disconnected, and Nicole drew in a deep breath. What had gone unsaid in the conversation was the fact that an inordinate amount of the crime in the city of Tijuana, especially the violent crime, was cartel related. All the more so since the long-standing Tijuana Cartel had begun to lose business to a new group being called the Diablo Cartel, although officially, the group had not exposed itself sufficiently to reveal who was pulling the strings. But the movers in the CDT (Cartel de Tijuana) had needed to up their game a little to match the gruesome nature of some of the killings attributed to the ECDD (El Cartel del Diablo).

  There was always a possibility that one or two of the American girls had been involved with some sort of drug deal gone wrong, either with The Devil or the old guard, but it was statistically improbable that all of them had, and from Darlene’s use of the term “extremely personal,” she knew the killings probably had nothing directly to do with drugs at all.

  Nicole walked out of her office, back upstairs, and outside without speaking to the kids as she passed them, still mashing controller buttons like maniacs, and she stepped back outside. Immediately, the warmth of the sunlight wrapped its arms around her, and the fragrance of the flowers filled her nostrils. She did hate to leave Denver in the summertime. But, she thought to herself, I’d better be sure my go-bag is ready.

  3

  Cara Rota

  Emmanuel Cruz was indeed one fine-looking man, but it was a fact lost on him. Manny never really thought about how he looked in terms of his prosaic life. Most mornings, he would come out of the shower, run a quick towel over his curly head of hair, and then would not consider it again. He kept it cut in a style that made use of the curls and never needed to be tended to. Likewise, he only bothered with his facial hair once per week, when he ran an electric trimmer over his granite jaw and kept his beard at bay in the form of sexy stubble than had moistened the undergarments of more than one passing woman.

  His clothing was stylish but not impeccable. His shirts weren’t starched, his work-casual slacks not obsessively creased.

  Manny wasn’t fastidious, but the result was as effective as if he had the Queer Eye crew on permanent retainer. He just never looked bad.

  He had been in Tijuana for four days now and had been to dozens of places, including all of the crime scenes. He’d talked to as many people as he could, hoping to find the hidden nugget in their stories that might tie the killings to a single person, as Darlene had been convinced they were.

  Cruz wouldn’t allow himself to say that the work to this point had been successful, but it hadn’t been a complete wash either. Within the last twelve hours, he had started to garner a couple of scraps that he’d thought promising.

  One was the realization that three of the murders had occurred near Tijuana night clubs known to be popular less with the border-hopping co-eds from UC San Diego or one of the other twenty or so schools just fourteen miles north and more with the children of American businessmen, diplomats, and other high-rollers. In his experience, this wasn’t a group of people he cared much for. Too much sense of entitlement for his taste. And while he wasn’t likely to break bread with any of them, he wasn’t about to let any more die if he could prevent it.

  The understanding, however, led him to consider that there might be an actual motive attached to these killings. Sadly, even now as he sat in his room at the Hotel Lucerna Tijuana poring over his hastily scrawled notes, some newspa
per clippings, and a slew of online noticias, he had to admit he wasn’t yet close to finding it.

  The other grain of information was the mention of a fellow called Cara Rota, which he assumed was a derogatory nickname, since it translated roughly to “Broken Face” in English. He’d heard it twice, both times in the area where two of the killings had occurred. It was the same zone in which he was staying now, the Zona Urbana Rio. This area was the site of the first killing and the one that Darlene had indicated was a well-concealed “suicide.” In both of those cases, it had been blue-collar sorts who had mentioned the name, who apparently was a fairly well-known character in Tijuana, especially what remained of its seedier side. Here was where streetcleaners and hotel housekeepers still lived. In both the sniping death and the suicide, which had been an opening of the veins in a tub of hot water (just the sort of thing Cleanup Crew was often called in to deal with where CUC storefronts existed), when asked if they’d seen anyone who seemed out of place, a couple of people had mentioned Cara Rota.

  “He is very easy to spot, especially if you’ve ever seen him before,” said a maid from the nearby Real Inn, where Maxwell Dandridge’s stepdaughter, Christina Cardwell, had been found. As the maid had described Rota, she had continually crossed herself, concluding by saying, “Una cara así debe ser la obra de Satanás.”

  A face that had to be the work of Satan, Manny mentally translated. The coincidence that the new cartel in Tijuana was also identified with the devil was not lost on him, though he could think of no reason, other than the obvious, why there would be any connection. From what he’d gathered, Cara Rota the son of an alcoholic and heroine-addicted prostitute, was little more than a petty street criminal, more likely to be found stealing food than killing American women. He was simple-minded – harmless. It was most likely just a fluke.

  But still…

  He had so little to go on aside from this that he decided to follow up on the lead.

  Although Cara Rota himself was well-known, his dwelling place was not. Both of the people he’d talked to said they heard he lived in a boarding house around the Centenario district. Some internet inquiries showed him three popular places to rent a cheap room in or near Centenario. One was over a tattoo parlor. This seemed like a good place to start, but after a long discussion with a dark-eyed and well-illustrated young artist named Adriana (who tried very hard to talk Manny into her chair), he realized this was the wrong place. Most of the rooms, she explained, housed the other tattoo artists, and the two that did not were currently vacant. He thought about asking to see them, thinking Broken Face might be squatting, unbeknownst to the staff, but after speaking with Adriana, he didn’t feel she was the sort that missed much. She would know if someone was getting something for free that she intended to use for profit.