Velocity (Karen Vail #3)(74)

“I remember reading something about that.”

“They negotiated a compromise,” DeSantos continued. “They carried out an experimental project with a small number of Mexican trucks traveling on U.S. freeways. They found that Mexican truckers got into fewer accidents than their American counterparts. The findings were challenged because it was such a small sample size and because those Mexican trucks went through more rigorous inspections than normal since they knew they’d be part of this study. But because of political pressure, they expanded the program.”

“And because of that,” Yardley said with a tinge of hardness, “the volume of Mexican trucks on U.S. freeways increased exponentially. Customs and Border Protection can’t possibly inspect all of them. Guevara capitalized on that. And he took steps just in case.”

“Like hiding the drugs inside the synthetic corks,” Vail said.

Sebastian took another gulp of Powerade. “Yes. But that’s not all. It wasn’t just about the corks. These cartels, they’re flush with money and time and imagination. They worked on ways of maximizing what they were doing while still taking advantage of the front of being a mobile bottler. And they came up with liquid cocaine.”

Vail leaned forward. “Liquid cocaine?”

“That’s what they transport in the wine bottles. Cocaine hydrochloride is soluble in alcohol or water. Cortez uses alcohol because it’s easy to recover the drugs. You heat it to 50 degrees Celsius, or just let it sit out in the sun. The alcohol evaporates, leaving the coke.”

Vail shook her head. “Damn.”

“Damn effective is what it is,” Sebastian said. “There are about eight thousand grams of coke in a case of wine. And if you’ve got a semi full of cases, that’s a huge amount of contraband being moved around without being threatened or even challenged.”

“Brilliant,” Vail said. “They can move the cocaine around the country under the cover of shipping cases of wine, and short of opening the bottles and testing the liquid, we’d never be able to detect the drugs.”

“Exactly. Even the random screening they do at certain border ports of entry can’t pick it up. We generally use fluoroscopy, and fluoroscopy can’t detect liquids containing illicit drugs. And if it’s sealed inside a bottle, drug-sniffing dogs can’t pick it up, either. So we’ve experimented with CT scans—computerized X-ray tomography—to measure the mean opacity of what’s inside the bottles. Differences in the opacity of dissolved drugs can be detected without having to open the wine and destroy the product if it’s legit.

“But it’s extremely expensive to deploy these CT machines. You’d really need a hospital nearby to make it work. But Guevara’s already found a way around it. That liquid cocaine, it’s got what’s known as X-ray attenuation. The way he explained it to me is that when a case of wine contains identical liquid contents, the bottles have the same mean attenuation when scanned with the CT equipment. If the attenuation readings of some bottles differed from the others, that’d set off a red flag. Filling the bottles with liquid cocaine gets around that.”

“So he’s a smart shit,” DeSantos said.

“All these cartels are. You’d be surprised at the stuff they come up with. Baseball hats made of cocaine, chocolate bars, decorative globes, jet engine turbine gears—anything that can be innocently imported is a potential gold mine for them. It’s only limited by their creativity.”

Is that what John Mayfield was referring to when he said there’s more to this than you know? But how is Mayfield connected to Guevara? And what’s that got to do with the murders in Napa? Ray Lugo? And the Cortez cartel? C’mon, Karen, add it up.

“Then there are the labels,” Sebastian said.

“Labels?” Vail asked. “How can there be drugs in the label of a wine bottle?”

A thin smile crept across Sebastian’s face. “The adhesive that holds the label on the bottle is actually black tar heroin. Very sticky and an ideal glue. The label itself is made of LSD blotter paper. It’s so fucking potent they have to cover it with a plastic film so they don’t get it on their hands. And because it’s so potent, one wine label can be sliced into multiple small pieces that are placed on the tongue. It dissolves, giving the high. Again, well thought out. Maximum yield.”

Vail ruminated on that for a moment, then jumped from her seat. Sebastian flinched. “Sorry,” Vail said. “Would you excuse me for a few minutes? I’ve gotta make a call.”

DeSantos leaned back and looked at her over the top of his tiny glasses. His face said, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

But Vail had an idea by the tail—and she needed to firm up her grasp before it had a chance to escape.





51


Vail pushed through the door while simultaneously pulling out her BlackBerry. Dialed Roxxann Dixon.

“I’ve got something, Roxx. You in a place you can talk?”

“I’m sitting in the conference room with the task force.”

“Perfect. Call me back so you can put me on speaker.”

Seconds later, her phone buzzed. “Okay,” Vail said. “I think I’ve put a lot of this shit together. All these parts that were dangling out there, things I couldn’t add up because they didn’t seem to make sense. I think I’ve got it. Or most of it.”