Hunt Them Down(2)

That was the plan, anyway. But how often did anything go according to plan?





CHAPTER TWO

Chicago, Illinois

Luke Moore of HJ-TV Chicago News wasn’t at his first rodeo. He disliked the DEA agents, and he knew they despised him back. They were a bunch of bullies with guns, just like the local PD. Dangerous bullies with guns. And Luke would make sure they didn’t break the law. If the big guy in the passenger seat thought Luke would stay inside the vehicle, he didn’t know Luke’s reputation very well. They might have guns, but Luke had his camera. He had started tweeting about the raid the moment they left the regional DEA office. The hundreds of likes and retweets coming in from his half a million followers melted his last barrier of intellectual resistance against sharing everything live on social media. Once at the warehouse and outside the SUV, he’d be in the perfect position to capture anything these bullies did. His bosses might slap him on the wrist since sharing live content of this operation was strictly forbidden, but he would be quickly forgiven if the ratings were there. And Luke knew they would be. They always were when he was bashing the police in the pursuit of justice.



Ramón Figueroa was eating a bag of barbecue potato chips when his phone rang. He licked his fingers clean before answering.

“Yes?”

“The DEA is on its way.”

Figueroa sat straighter in his chair. “What? Are you sure?”

“You know that reporter, Luke Moore—”

“I know who he is!” Figueroa snapped back. Moore was a local reporter well known for his bias against the police.

“Moore is live tweeting about a raid he’s part of. He mentioned a link to the Black Tosca’s cartel.”

Fuck.

“How long do we have?”

“About fifteen minutes. Tops.”

Maldita. Figueroa banged his desk with the palm of his hand. He’d have to leave a lot of product behind. But that was the cost of doing business. It would set them back a month, no more.

“We’ll move to site two. I’ll call you when we get there.” He hung up, removed the battery from the burner phone, and grabbed his suppressed AR-15.

Figueroa hurried down the stairs and jogged to the lab, where Edmundo and Juan—his two team leaders—were supervising the addition of cutting agents to the heroin.

Both men turned when they saw their boss barge in without a mask.

“DEA will be here in less than fifteen minutes,” Figueroa whispered. “Get the rest of the guys, and pack everything you can in the trucks. I want to be out of here in five. Leave everything else behind.”

Edmundo pointed at the dozen workers cutting the heroin. All of them were women between the ages of fifteen and twenty who had, in one way or another, fallen into the hands of the cartel. They were slaves, victims of human trafficking. As an added humiliation, they were forced to work naked.

“Them too?”

Figueroa shook his head. “No. We’ll load the trucks ourselves.”

“As you wish, boss.” Juan raised his rifle.

Figueroa pushed the barrel back down. “Their blood will contaminate the heroin. Usher them into the corner. Do it there,” he said, pointing to a space at the opposite end of the lab.

Edmundo approached the workers and barked orders in Spanish. The women looked nervously at Figueroa, knowing something awful was about to happen. But what could they do? They were naked and unarmed, but it was human nature to hold on to hope.

Maybe, just maybe, if they did what they were told, everything would be all right.





CHAPTER THREE

Chicago, Illinois

Hunt was less than half a mile from the warehouse when the lead sniper broke the air.

“Alpha One, Sierra One, over.”

“Go for Alpha One.”

“I have movement at the drive-ins. Six males of Hispanic origin climbed into the vans. One of them is Ramón Figueroa. Some of the men are armed with what seem to be AR-15s.”

Hunt’s hopes of a victimless raid evaporated quickly.

The intelligence provided to his team hadn’t indicated any other commercial operations going on at the warehouse. It made his next tactical decision much easier.

“Sierra One, you’re clear to engage on your authority. Don’t let the vans get away.”

“Sierra One copies. All Sierra elements are clear to engage on my authority.”



Figueroa closed the door and started the diesel engine. Site two was another warehouse ten miles away. Two of his men would ride with him. He had ordered Juan, Edmundo, and a third man to take a separate route. It had been his decision to have only five men with him on Lawrence Avenue. By keeping a low profile, he had hoped to extend his stay longer than the ninety days he usually remained at a given place.

He wished he could have brought the girls, but fifteen minutes wasn’t enough time to get them dressed and to secure them in the back of each truck. And they were cheap anyway. Much cheaper than heroin. His associates would have no problem sending more girls his way. He knew the drill.

Born thirty years ago in a lower-middle-class family near Reynosa, Mexico, a city about eleven miles south of McAllen, Texas, on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, Figueroa had watched his parents work for an American-owned aluminum vents factory. It hadn’t taken long for him to figure out that the Americans were doing business in his hometown because of the low labor rates the hardworking Mexicans were willing to accept. Not Figueroa. In town, he’d seen men who lived a far easier lifestyle, had more money, and drove shiny black cars. That was what he wanted for himself too. His initial job working for the local kingpin had been menial, but his loyalty and his willingness to do what he was told without asking questions had helped him work his way up the ladder. Within two years, he’d been tasked with accompanying shipments of young girls to the United States. Half a decade later, and with a shiny black Escalade parked in his underground garage, Figueroa was the Black Tosca’s representative in Chicago.