Bloody Basin Page 4

  Little did anyone know just how out of control things were about to become. Back in Florida, with Mateo only gone a few days, his men had started to shoot up the competition, and in the crossfire, several civilians were injured. The local police and the politicians who protected the gang were extremely nervous, and of course, they wanted no part of the spotlight or newspapers. One of the local lawyers that represented Mateo and his organization was already in contact with officials in Washington, D.C.

  Agent Tygard knew that he could trust the boys back at the impound yard and the coroner’s office to keep things quiet for a day or two, and he also knew that he and Agent Gore would have to move very quickly to stay on top of the situation. Agent Tygard had a sneaking suspicion that he would need the help of some old friends to put this case to bed. If this was the last official investigation in his career, he was going to make damn sure that there were no loose ends left for anyone to follow.

  He suddenly found himself thinking back to his military days before joining the agency. Back then you would identify the target and hit it with everything you had, but that was a long time ago. He and several of his old friends had stayed in touch over the years. Back in the day, they had been a sanctioned hit squad for the government. If a criminal even suspected that these guys were after them, they would turn themselves in and do jail time rather than suffer their wrath.

  Considering who the victims were, Nicolas Salazar and Mateo Mondaca, some immensely powerful and important people would be concerned once the names went public. Agent Tygard could only shake his head in disbelief that he might have to call in some favors, and if he did, they had better be damn sure that they took their targets out and made them disappear forever.

  In his mind, he recalled one of the cases he and his men were assigned. He had only been with the agency a year or two when they tapped into his experience. Before the agency, Lank Tygard had been a special operations field officer in the army’s black task force. He and his team would hunt down everyone from ex-Nazi officers to international spies and assassins. They were particularly good at their job so much so that the FBI had approached him and his team to work for the U.S. government, and when they left the army, they became federal agents.

  The case that he was thinking of involved a human smuggler and serial killer that would enter the country through Canada. He would kidnap young girls and smuggle them to the Middle East for the purpose of slavery and the sex trade. This person would drug and smuggle up to nine young girls at a time out of the country and never leave a trace. Before Tygard and his team got involved, they estimated that this person had smuggled at least one hundred young girls out of the country.

  The team began to watch every point of entry coming into the country via Eastern Canada. It didn’t take them long to notice a pattern of unmarked tractor trailers coming through an entry point into Vermont. One of the team members got a job working on a maintenance crew that cleaned restrooms and weigh stations at the checkpoint.

  The man on the crew was Paul Rossi. He was five foot ten and weighed about 185 pounds, but when he put his mind to it, he could clear out a barroom. One evening, Paul was working, and his supervisor did something very unusual: he told Paul to take the rest of the night off. Paul was somewhat surprised by this, and at the insistence of the supervisor, told him, “Okay, thank you.”

  However, Paul did not really leave. He just went to his car and waited to see what was going to happen, and that was when they first identified the unmarked tractor-trailer passing through the custom station without ever stopping. Four days later, Lank Tygard and his team followed the truck to a warehouse outside of Cleveland, Ohio.

  There, waiting at the warehouse, was their target. He had already kidnapped and drugged four young girls and was in the process of transporting them back to Canada and to a private shipping vessel that would take them out to international waters, and then they would have been gone. As they watched the tractor trailer back into the warehouse, the team, which consisted of Tygard, Paul Rossi, Chuck McGowan, and Bill Baker, waited for the warehouse doors to close before they moved in.

  Without firing one shot, their target and his crew of five were dead. The four girls were taken to a local hospital and returned safely to their families. The target and his crew of five had been quickly and professionally dispatched to the bottom of Lake Erie, never to be heard from again. As time went by, the political atmosphere of the country had changed, and the team’s methods were considered too extreme for those in charge.

  It had not been long before Bill Baker left the team and made a new life for himself in New Zealand. The last anyone heard, Bill was a cattle rancher and married with three children. Chuck McGowan had been the next member of the team to leave. He had settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and started a remarkably successful construction company that worked almost exclusively on American Indian reservations. The last to leave the team was Paul Rossi. He had stayed in the Washington, D.C., area and started a very lucrative yet still somewhat shady personal protection and investigation business. His customers were politicians and diplomats that, well, let’s just say did not exactly work within the law.

  Lank knew that he could trust these men with his life. He also hoped that it would not come down to that, but in this situation, these people would be able to go where he could not. They could talk to people on a completely different level than he could as an agent for the FBI.

  But for now, he and Detective Gore were on the front lines of this case. He trusted Gore with his life. He had known Adam since he entered the Police Academy and been hired by the DPS. One of Tygard’s assignments had been talking to new recruits. That was where he had met Adam Gore. He could tell right away from the questions this young recruit was asking that he was going to be a good police officer, so he had made it his business to help mentor the young man.

  Gore, on the other hand, loved working for the DPS and had no intention of moving to the FBI. He was smart enough to know that when Agent Tygard said something, he should listen. Over the years, they had worked together on numerous cases.

  Both of their wives worked in the medical field. Lank’s wife was a medical doctor that owned a small yet lucrative medical practice, and Adam’s wife was an operating room nurse at one of the large Phoenix-area hospitals. The two couples were also friends on a social level, going to dinner and enjoying each other’s company at business gatherings.

  Agent Tygard shook his head, stay focused, he thought. Let’s not get sloppy, and let’s get this figured out.

  Chapter 4

  The Notebook

  It was a beautiful Arizona morning. The sun was up, and the family was still asleep. I was in the kitchen, sitting at the table and waiting for my coffee to stop percolating when Carolyn inquired as to what I was making for breakfast.

  “Anything you want, sweet pea. After last night, you probably need a good breakfast,” I told her, and gave her a quick wink.

  “Well, if that’s how you feel, would you mind making me an omelet with toast?”

  “Coming right up,” I told her, and with that, I started to cook breakfast. It did not take long for Philip to make an appearance, also putting in his breakfast order. Soon we were all together at the kitchen table, enjoying another one of my spectacular cooking creations. No really—everything I cook is a creation. You would love it.

  “So, what’s on everyone’s agenda for today?” Carolyn asked.

  Philip was the first to chime in. “I’ve got to go down to the new computer lab on campus for a few hours later today.”

  Carolyn asked if I would like to go with her to a local craft store to pick up some material for a quilt she was working on. “Sure,” I told her. “What time do you need to go?” “Not until one or two o’clock. I have some paperwork that I need to catch up on.” “Sounds good,” I said. “I was going to get the oil changed in my truck and then have the tires checked, and I can do t
hat this morning. Then we can go shopping this afternoon.”

  “Great,” Carolyn said. “It seems like we all have something to do today.”

  Actually, I’ had the oil changed in my truck two days ago. After breakfast, each of us moved around the house, doing our own thing. I went into the garage and put on the old shoes I had set aside for today’s trip to the storage shed. I went back into the house for a moment, gave Carolyn a hug and kiss, and then headed out the door. I drove over to the storage facility without incident, pulling up to an access gate that was located at the rear of the main building. I put on my gloves and baseball cap as I approached the access panel.

  Well, here we go, I thought, and I put in the code. To my amazement, the gate opened. Holy crap.

  I noticed there were no cameras around the access panel or anywhere near the gate, for that matter. The old man was right. The place was jumping with activity: U-Haul trailers, people moving about…This just might work.

  I drove into the complex and made my way to the storage unit. Several groups of people were moving boxes in and out of other units.

  Perfect—I was just another packrat to anyone that is watching. I pulled the truck directly in front of the door to the storage unit. Not wanting to act suspicious, I just got out of the truck and walked to the door as if I had done it a hundred times. I reached into my pocket and took out the key, wondering if it would fit—and why shouldn’t it? Everything else was working. The information I had gotten out of the notebook was correct. Just as if I had done this before, the key fit perfectly into the lock. With a twist of my wrist, the lock popped open. Lifting the handle on the metal door, I swung it open and looked inside. Against the back wall, something was covered with a tarp. Crap, I thought. I knew it. A load of dope! I walked into the storage unit and carefully pulled back the tarp, under which was some sort of metallic-looking woven cloth. I wonder what this is for. It must be important, I thought, so I neatly folded the cloth and put it in my truck.

  To my surprise, there were twenty-four unmarked moving boxes. Each of the boxes was taped shut and wrapped with plastic.

  Once again, I thought, Crap, boxes of dope. I had to admit that at that moment, I thought about putting everything back where I had found it and leaving. Nevertheless, I had come this far, so I had better look and make sure. I took out my pocketknife and sliced the plastic and tape on one of the boxes. I lifted the top off a box, and my jaw dropped.

  Holy crap! The box was full of neatly wrapped packages of cash. Each of the boxes I discovered weighed about thirty-five pounds and was full of hundred-dollar bills! As if on autopilot, I loaded the boxes onto my truck, one after another. I filled the bed of my pickup. I even put boxes inside the cab just to even out the load.

  I looked at my watch, knowing that Carolyn would be wondering why it was taking so long to get an oil change and tire check. I called her from a pay phone, saying that I was stopping off at one of my friends to drop off some tools. That bought me more time. I emptied the storage shed. At the end of the aisle was a large, empty fifty-five-gallon drum that contained brooms and shovels and the like. I grabbed a broom, then swept out the storage shed. All the time, I wore my gloves, so I knew I would not leave any fingerprints. When I was finished, I closed the door to the storage unit, replacing the lock and snapping it shut. I looked around, and no one even gave me a glance. Perfect. Let’s get the hell out of here, I thought. A few minutes later, I was on the road.

  I had rented my own storage unit from a facility in my neighborhood. I had paid cash for a three-month rental and given the name of my consulting business, so any paperwork that might come to my home would be looked at by me and no one else. My storage unit was a ten-foot-by-ten-foot walk-in space. I unloaded the boxes from my truck and stacked one on top of the other across the back of the unit. This storage unit, like the other, was in a very low-security environment watched over by an older retired couple. I could get in and out of the unit 24/7, and the door on the unit allowed for two locks.

  I took the large piece of metallic material that I found in the other storage unit and draped it over the boxes. Something told me this was important, so I knew I would do some research on it as soon as I could.

  It was a short drive back to my house, and while listening to the news, there was another story regarding drug dealers in Florida having a shootout with the police, leaving several of them dead. As if they were reading my mind, the newscasters commented that the deaths of these drug dealers would, in the long run, save the government millions of dollars in court costs and manpower that would’ve be used to prosecute them.

  All I could do was smile at the news and wonder if my intervention was directly tied to the implosion within the drug world. I sure hope that it was.

  “Hello, this is Tygard.”

  “Hey, did you hear the news?” Detective Gore was checking in with his FBI friend to see if he had any information on the latest news broadcasts out of Florida.

  “All I know is that several of Mateo’s men got into an argument, and when the shooting was done, five of them were dead.”

  “It sounds like this could get out of control.”

  “Yes, I agree,” said Agent Tygard. “I think it’s time we put out some more information about the two people we have in custody here in Arizona.”

  “I think I know where this is going,” said Detective Gore. “If our friends in California and Florida—not to mention south of the border—even suspected that Mateo or Nicolas were still alive and talking to us that we really turn up the heat.”

  “Let’s meet tomorrow at the usual place. About seven o’clock?” said Agent Tygard. By the usual place, Tygard meant a small diner on Scottsdale Road that they would frequent when they needed a secure, quiet place to talk.

  Early Monday morning, I was up making coffee and waiting to get the house to myself again so that I could read more of the journal I found. Little did I know that just down the street from my home, Agent Tygard of the FBI and Detective Gore of the DPS were meeting for breakfast.

  “So, what’s your plan?” Lank asked Detective Gore.

  “I was going over my notes last night, and as we both know, our friend Nicolas came here with his family about 1956. The family traveled from Guatemala and settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Nicolas’s family was involved in low-level crime, but it seems that his father wanted Nicolas to get an education.

  “When the time came, Nicolas went to school here in Arizona at Northern Arizona University. It was not far from home, so the old man could keep track of Nicolas. The family also has contacts across the country along Interstate 40, with members living in Amarillo, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Flagstaff, Arizona, not to mention several other cities across the country.

  “So, I was thinking that if Nicolas was stashing money and drugs, it could be a long Interstate 40.” Detective Gore wondered how he could quietly gather information about the time that Nicolas lived in Flagstaff.

  Then Agent Tygard chimed in, saying, “I have a friend that lives in New Mexico. I’m going to ask him to keep his ears open about the Salazar family. Sometimes it’s easier to pick up information from a civilian than it is to go to an informant.”

  “I like where you’re going with this,” Detective Gore said to Lank.

  “You know Flagstaff is a small town. Everybody knows everybody, so I was thinking that it would be easy to get information from Nicolas’s former school. You know—what kind of student was he? What did he do for fun, did he work when going to school, what kind of friends did he have?”

  “Let me work on the Flagstaff information,” said Detective Gore.

  Agent Tygard and Detective Gore were enjoying their breakfast, mulling over the plan they would employ together for gathering more information about Nicolas Salazar.

  “You know, Lank, I was thinking that there must be quite a few retired FBI agents living all along
the I-40. I wonder if any of them would like to get back into the swing of things and do a little snooping in their off time?”

  “That’s a great idea, Adam, and that’s exactly what I meant when I said I had an old friend in New Mexico. There must be several dozen old bastards that would just love to do some snooping for us.”

  So that was the plan. Agent Tygard would put the word out—quietly, of course—to all the retired FBI agents living along the I-40, and Detective Gore would use his contacts to dig up everything he could on Nicolas Salazar and his time in Flagstaff.

  “When I get back to the office,” said Agent Tygard, “I’m going to place ads in the personal columns of some of the free newspapers that’ll say something like ‘Nicolas needs your help. Contact the boss for instructions.’ Then I’ll put an ad in one of the Florida newspapers saying something like ‘Mateo wants to meet with Nicolas to resolve their issues.’

  “When their buddies read the ads, they’ll go crazy not knowing if these two guys have turned and are working for the government or just hiding from the people, they might owe money to. Either way, it will certainly shake up the drug world for the next few days.”

  Detective Gore finished his coffee, and he and Agent Tygard paid their bill. Gore mentioned that he had to go downtown and check the John Doe statuses of the two friends at the morgue.

  “Be careful,” said Agent Tygard. “I don’t want you sticking your neck out too far. After all, I am the one retiring in six months. You still need to work for a few more years.” “I hear you loud and clear, Lank. If I have any problems downtown, I’ll call you ASAP.”