thugs and murderers, prepared to sell their services as assassins and mercenaries to Leftist governments in the region. Washington has designated it a terrorist organization.”
The display on Chalmers’ iPad moved through a voyeuristic parade of gruesome killings.
“A few years ago, FARC was all but wiped out, chased from Colombia by successive government crackdowns that began with the victory against drug lords Pablo Escobar, José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Carlos Lehder, and the demise of the Medellín Cartel. Today, while restricted to the Ecuadorian jungle bordering Colombia to the east, the mountainous jungles and forests on the Panamanian border in the north and the ismuth known as the Darién Gap, FARC has found a new reason for being. It’s now Colombia’s biggest reseller of cocaine and marijuana. And its primary customers are the Mexican drug cartels – the Beltran-Leyva, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Chihuahua Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, the Juárez Cartel, Los Zetas, La Familia and so on. We –”
I interrupted: “And all this is somehow relevant to me because … ?”
“There’s something big going on,” said Chalmers. “And that’s why the CIA has been called in.”
“Golly gee willikers,” I said. ‘The CIA?’
“Are you sure this jerk’s the right man for the job?” Chalmers pleaded.
“There’s no one righter,” Arlen replied.
“Righter for what?” I asked.
“You’re a cop killer, Cooper,” Chalmers sneered. “And where you’re going, credentials don’t come any better than that. Now, can I get on with this?”
Credentials? Where you’re going? I had a sudden feeling that being cuffed by Gomez and put into the care of the Texas Department of Public Safety might not be such a bad option after all.
Chalmers squeezed his remote at the iPad and continued the show-and-tell. “The war on drugs launched by former Mexican President Felipe Calderón in ’06 has claimed more than seventy thousand lives to date. That number is greater than all US combat fatalities in the Vietnam War. Mass graves are continually being discovered, children are being used as hit men, beheadings and dismemberings are commonplace. Just across the Rio Grande, kidnappings, murders, maimings and revenge killings are being committed on a daily basis, and in pretty much all population centers big and small. Americans of Mexican descent are being targeted by the cartels and used to commit a range of violent crimes on both sides of the border. Within Mexico, whole police forces have either capitulated or been wiped out; entire units of the Mexican Army have deserted to the cartels …”
I yawned.
“Keeping you awake, Cooper?” Chalmers snapped.
Aside from the fact that none of this was news to me, I had been up since 4 am. And pretty much from the moment I opened my eyes I’d been assaulted, chased, shot at, framed, hunted or cuffed. “It’s been a long day and the real shitty part is – it’s barely half over,” I said.
“Then why don’t I just go and ask room service parked in the Charger outside if they’ll go get you a pillow?”
“Can we get to the meat?” Arlen suggested to Chalmers.
I wasn’t sure I appreciated that allusion.
The spook took his annoyance out on the remote and stabbed it at the iPad. One file closed, another opened.
“A few weeks ago, El Paso CBP and DEA agents intercepted a shipment of cocaine worth around thirty million dollars.”
The screen illustrated Chalmers’ narration with some shots of the raid itself, mostly agents slicing open bags of chicken shit to reveal the packages of cocaine within, tightly wrapped in clear plastic with warehouse batch numbers clearly visible.
More old news. I stifled another yawn.
“Forensic analysis confirmed that the cocaine was Colombian and Ecuadorian, and the chicken manure Mexican,” Chalmers continued. “Unconfirmed HUMINT on the ground in Panama has traced the shipment back to this man, Juan de
The display on Chalmers’ iPad moved through a voyeuristic parade of gruesome killings.
“A few years ago, FARC was all but wiped out, chased from Colombia by successive government crackdowns that began with the victory against drug lords Pablo Escobar, José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Carlos Lehder, and the demise of the Medellín Cartel. Today, while restricted to the Ecuadorian jungle bordering Colombia to the east, the mountainous jungles and forests on the Panamanian border in the north and the ismuth known as the Darién Gap, FARC has found a new reason for being. It’s now Colombia’s biggest reseller of cocaine and marijuana. And its primary customers are the Mexican drug cartels – the Beltran-Leyva, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Chihuahua Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, the Juárez Cartel, Los Zetas, La Familia and so on. We –”
I interrupted: “And all this is somehow relevant to me because … ?”
“There’s something big going on,” said Chalmers. “And that’s why the CIA has been called in.”
“Golly gee willikers,” I said. ‘The CIA?’
“Are you sure this jerk’s the right man for the job?” Chalmers pleaded.
“There’s no one righter,” Arlen replied.
“Righter for what?” I asked.
“You’re a cop killer, Cooper,” Chalmers sneered. “And where you’re going, credentials don’t come any better than that. Now, can I get on with this?”
Credentials? Where you’re going? I had a sudden feeling that being cuffed by Gomez and put into the care of the Texas Department of Public Safety might not be such a bad option after all.
Chalmers squeezed his remote at the iPad and continued the show-and-tell. “The war on drugs launched by former Mexican President Felipe Calderón in ’06 has claimed more than seventy thousand lives to date. That number is greater than all US combat fatalities in the Vietnam War. Mass graves are continually being discovered, children are being used as hit men, beheadings and dismemberings are commonplace. Just across the Rio Grande, kidnappings, murders, maimings and revenge killings are being committed on a daily basis, and in pretty much all population centers big and small. Americans of Mexican descent are being targeted by the cartels and used to commit a range of violent crimes on both sides of the border. Within Mexico, whole police forces have either capitulated or been wiped out; entire units of the Mexican Army have deserted to the cartels …”
I yawned.
“Keeping you awake, Cooper?” Chalmers snapped.
Aside from the fact that none of this was news to me, I had been up since 4 am. And pretty much from the moment I opened my eyes I’d been assaulted, chased, shot at, framed, hunted or cuffed. “It’s been a long day and the real shitty part is – it’s barely half over,” I said.
“Then why don’t I just go and ask room service parked in the Charger outside if they’ll go get you a pillow?”
“Can we get to the meat?” Arlen suggested to Chalmers.
I wasn’t sure I appreciated that allusion.
The spook took his annoyance out on the remote and stabbed it at the iPad. One file closed, another opened.
“A few weeks ago, El Paso CBP and DEA agents intercepted a shipment of cocaine worth around thirty million dollars.”
The screen illustrated Chalmers’ narration with some shots of the raid itself, mostly agents slicing open bags of chicken shit to reveal the packages of cocaine within, tightly wrapped in clear plastic with warehouse batch numbers clearly visible.
More old news. I stifled another yawn.
“Forensic analysis confirmed that the cocaine was Colombian and Ecuadorian, and the chicken manure Mexican,” Chalmers continued. “Unconfirmed HUMINT on the ground in Panama has traced the shipment back to this man, Juan de
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