Broken Borders, page 17
“Based on the above points, it became necessary that these matters should be treated one by one:“1. To improve the image of the resistance in society, increase the number of supporters who are refusing occupation, and show the clash of interest between society and the occupation and its collaborators. To use the media for spreading an effective and creative image of the resistance.
“2. To assist some of the people of the resistance to infiltrate the ranks of the National Guard in order to spy on them for the purpose of weakening the ranks of the National Guard when necessary, and to be able to use their modern weapons.
“3. To reorganize for recruiting new elements for the resistance.
“4. To establish centers and factories to produce and manufacture and improve on weapons and to produce new ones.
“5. To unify the ranks of the resistance, to prevent controversies and prejudice and to adhere to piety and follow the leadership.
“6. To create division and strife between America and other countries and among the elements disagreeing with it.
“7. To avoid mistakes that will blemish the image of the resistance and show it as the enemy of the nation.
“In general and despite the current bleak situation, we think that the best suggestions in order to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces into another war against another country or with another of our enemy force, that is, to try and inflame the situation between America and Iraq or between America and the Shi’a in general.
“Specifically the Sistani Shi’a, since most of the support that the Americans are getting is from the Sistani Shi’a, then, there is a possibility to instill differences between them and to weaken the support line between them; in addition to the losses we can inflict on both parties. Consequently, to embroil America in another war against another enemy is the answer that we find to be the most appropriate, and to have a war through a delegate has the following benefits:“1. To occupy the Americans by another front will allow the resistance freedom of movement and alleviate the pressure imposed on it.
“2. To dissolve the cohesion between the Americans and the Shi’a will weaken and close this front.
“3. To have a loss of trust between the Americans and the Shi’a will cause the Americans to lose many of their spies.
“4. To involve both parties, the Americans and the Shi’a, in a war that will result in both parties being losers.
“5. Thus, the Americans will be forced to ask the Sunni for help.
“6. To take advantage of some of the Shia elements that will allow the resistance to move among them.
“7. To weaken the media’s side, which is presenting a tarnished image of the resistance, mainly conveyed by the Shi’a.
“8. To enlarge the geographical area of the resistance movement.
“9. To provide popular support and cooperation by the people.
“The resistance fighters have learned from the result and the great benefits they reaped, when a struggle ensued between the Americans and the army of Al-Mahdi. However, we have to notice that this trouble or this delegated war that must be ignited can be accomplished through:“1. A war between the Shi’a and the Americans.
“2. A war between the Shi’a and the secular population (such as Ayad ’Alawi and al-Jalabi.)
“3. A war between the Shi’a and the Kurds.
“4. A war between Ahmad al-Halabi and his people and Ayad ’Alawi and his people.
“5. A war between the group of al-Hakim and the group of al-Sadr.
“6. A war between the Shi’a of Iraq and the Sunni of the Arab countries in the gulf.
“7. A war between the Americans and Iraq. We have noticed that the best of these wars to be ignited is the one between the Americans and Iran, because it will have many benefits in favor of the Sunni and the resistance, such as:
“1. Freeing the Sunni people in Iraq, who are (thirty percent) of the population and under the Shi’a rule.
“2. Drowning the Americans in another war that will engage many of their forces.
“3. The possibility of acquiring new weapons from the Iranian side, either after the fall of Iran or during the battles.
“4. To entice Iran toward helping the resistance because of its need for its help.
“5. Weakening the Shi’a supply line.
“The question remains, how to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is not known whether America is serious in its animosity toward Iraq, because of the big support Iran is offering to America in its war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Hence, it is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger and to convince America and the West in general of the real danger coming from Iran, and this would be done by the following:“1. By disseminating threatening messages against American interests and the American people and attribute them to a Shi’a Iranian side.
“2. By executing operations of kidnapping hostages and implicating the Shi’a Iranian side.
“3. By advertising that Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons and is threatening the west with these weapons.
“4. By executing exploding operations in the west and accusing Iran by planting Iranian Shi’a fingerprints and evidence.
“5. By declaring the existence of a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups (as termed by the Americans).
“6. By disseminating bogus messages about confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that there are attempts by the Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the West and against Western interests.
“Let us hope for success and for God’s help.”
Bobby knew that O Grupo Grande was dangerous, but was simply another tool to be used and manipulated by al Qaeda, which by 2006 was being characterized by much of the American media as split up with no major chain of command. This was ridiculous, but for right now, the man of the hour was Ramiro, along with what Bobby considered his gang-banger punks. Ramiro was a mover and shaker himself, from a criminal point-of-view.
A major drug smuggler and coyote had a construction company and had purchased the warehouse and adjacent lots years before, while his brother had moved to El Paso legally, also years prior. He was the U.S. connection, and the two brothers both had warehouses, one on each side of the Rio Grande. Both had worked heavy construction for years, and both had specialized in road construction, particularly working mountain regions in Western mountain states.
Using heavy construction equipment such as backhoes and bulldozers, even a road grader, they purchased the property next to each warehouse, so they could control the neighborhood, so to speak. They started projects in the lots next to each building as if they were digging foundations, and they then started a large tunnel, which traveled literally under the Rio Grande River. Working toward each other, they met in a few years’ time, and the tunnel became one of the biggest conduits for drug importation into the United States of America. The brothers not only stepped up their drug trade, but also got a percentage of every batch of drugs being taken through the tunnel. They were the highest-priced, but most effective coyotes in the El Paso area, and the word was they were the people you dealt with if you felt like your name was on a list with the Border Patrol.
Ramiro Maureo, when he learned all about the virtual gold mine of a tunnel, affected its purchase easily. He set up a meeting with the two brothers in a nice restaurant in Ciudad Jaurez. In the meeting, he produced a legal document prepared for each to sign. Jessan lived south of the border and Javier lived north, and each had the deed to each property in their chosen location. A third brother, Jorges, worked for them as their head of security. He, too, attended the meeting. Ramiro had his nasty gang-bangers all over the restaurant, and after enjoying a nice meal of pollo asado, tamales, and a dessert of flan, he produced the bills of sale and other legal documents and announced that each was selling their real estate to him, as well as all their heavy equipment.
Jessan started laughing and looked at his bodyguards, and they began laughing. Then he looked at Javier, and he started laughing, followed by Jorges laughing, too. Then Ramiro pulled out his ever-present Desert Eagle .44 Magnum automag and shot Jorges right in the forehead, with the back of his skull and a lot of brains landing on the plate of a young woman eating tamales and fried tomatoes. She began screaming until Ramiro gave her a shushing gesture. As soon as each bodyguard started to move, Ramiro’s men, wielding either guns or switchblades, killed them. Then Ramiro pointed his .44 at Javier and then Jessan, as they both stared at the carnage around them.
Ramiro, in Spanish, said, “I was going to pay you, but now the price is your lives. Sign and you leave and can leave town. Don’t sign and you both die. If one signs and one does not, both die. You will then pack and must leave this part of Mexico.”
Both anxiously signed the contracts and fell all over themselves running out the door.
Ramiro put the papers in a folder and slowly walked out the door, stopping to pull some Cuban cigars from the pocket of one of the dead bodyguards. Paola, still alive then, hung on his arm strutting like a peahen at an NBC network convention.
After that the O Grupo Grande gangster boss simply took over the major drug smuggling trade into the U.S. as well as ferrying illegal Mexican border-crossers back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico. He had large homes, estates actually, in both countries, as well as another home in Bel Air, California. He increased the take for the gang by literally tens of millions of dollars per year, and was a hero to all his wealthy gang members.
The tunnel itself was crude but large, big enough for a road grader to be able to go back and forth between the two sides. Very far underground, it was not detected by Border Patrol seismographs, and was deep enough and carved through bedrock so that it did not leak water where the river basin ran above it. It had lights and ventilation and was like a toll road for the O Grupo Grande with diamonds and gold as the toll.
In each warehouse there was a large room with a garage door and a door for people, with cans of paint outside and a large air-pressure tank. There were numerous signs, in Spanish in Juarez, of course, which read: PAINT BOOTH DO NOT OPEN DOORS. Of course, inside was the tunnel entrance and no paint or painting material at all.
Ramsey said, “Look, up ahead. Way up, about four vehicles up there are smoking it in and out of traffic. I bet that’s them.”
Bo glanced at him, saying, “Good eye,” in kind of a flirtatious way, and Bobby felt himself getting jealous again.
He did not have time right then, though, for anything other than total concentration.
Ramiro turned right again, off Ignacio Meija, heading north, with his vehicles following somewhat behind, but still keeping up by weaving in and out of cars. The ambulance had stayed in the lead the whole time with flashers and sirens going, and the rest of the cars followed closely behind. So far, Bobby and the others had seen the several speeding cars in the distance, but were always just out of sight so they could not see the ambulance.
To make matters worse, Bobby and Bo now had another matter to concern them. In the distance, several Mexican police cruisers were now giving chase because of the shooting of Zorion Duarte in the middle of the busy road. Neither of the military cops, nor the FBI agent, were carrying any identification allowing them to be involved in a high- speed chase on Ciudad Juarez streets in pursuit of anybody. Bobby pictured the international incident as they drove, the interrogations, the delays, the bad guys making it across the border and into the U.S. and detonating nukes in two U.S. cities. Bobby remembered the horrors of September 11, 2001, and all the mental images. He pictured in his mind’s eye what the death toll would be like with two nuclear devices being detonated in two major U.S. cities. He saw the carnage in his imagination, and it made his back shiver unwillingly. He glanced out of the corner of his eye, embarrassed, to see if anyone noticed the movement. He simply could not allow them to be caught by the Mexican police, and he could not afford to be held up at the border.
Bo and Ramsey were also processing pretty much the same thoughts as Bobby. The three were cops, too, and had a singleness of purpose, and that was to catch up to the outlaws before them.
The pursuing cars slid around the corner off Ignacio Meija just in time to catch a glimpse of the last al Qaeda vehicle turning into the lot behind the warehouse. The gangsters roared into the big warehouse garage doors, and Ramiro pushed the remote to lower the doors again. They pulled up to the tunnel entrance inside the faux-paint booth, and the gang leader jumped out to eliminate the menace they had seen in their rearviews.
Ramiro ran back and got several of his men to jump out and take cover positions for an ambush. One was armed with an Uzi, another with an SKS converted to automatic, and still another with a scoped .308 sniper rifle, who started for the ladder to climb up into the high trusses honeycombing the upper part of the entire warehouse building.
Ramiro ordered one man into the driver’s seat of the ambulance, and told him to pull down into the tunnel and wait for him. He then instructed the drivers following to pull into the booth and enter the tunnel behind the ambulance.
The gangster leader waited by the pedestrian door of the paint booth pulling apart the M-72 LAW (Light Anti-Tank Weapon) cached by the door. He opened the hinged end, and pulled the disposable rocket launcher apart with the plastic sight popping up by its spring-loaded mechanism. Made popular during the Vietnam War, the LAW could only be fired once, and the small rocket would hit a tank, bunker, or whatever with an explosive charge that generates immense heat that can literally instantly bore through the armor of a tank and use the tank’s steel to also turn into molten projectiles to ricochet around the insides of the armored vehicle.
He pulled the safety clip out, rested the small metal tube on his right shoulder, wrapped the fingers of his right hand over the trigger with his thumb under the tube, and sighted through the clear plastic pop-up site.
Outside, Bobby, Bo, and Ramsey and a couple others were in the lead vehicle. They slid to a halt at the large warehouse door and all jumped out, but the unsettled dust was too obvious and the tracks in the dirt went right through the large now-closed door. This indeed was the place.
Bobby told Angel Valenzuela to hop in the back, and he jumped behind the wheel, yelling to the others, “Hop in!”
Doing it himself, he hollered, “Buckle up!”
In the excitement, all Bo thought of was having her M4 at the ready, and she did not replace her own seat belt. In the confusion, nobody noticed.
Bobby spun the car around in the dirt lot in a large circle, yelling, “Hang on!” and he steered into the skid and, straightening the car out on a head-on course with the large door, he floored it.
He slammed into the door with the large Hummer, and the door flew into the warehouse, crashing out and falling down in before them with a loud bang.
Ramiro, the patient and experienced killer, waited and squeezed the trigger as they passed over the door, aiming at the license plate, automatically knowing the car’s speed would put the vehicle forward slightly before the rocket hit. As Ramiro calculated, it hit right through the grille with a crash on an angle from just inside the right headlight, through the engine block, and exited out the driver’s side below the rearview mirror and missing the driver’s leg by inches. There was a loud explosion as hot molten steel from the block being hit pierced the gas tank, and the car engine compartment was about destroyed by red-hot fragments flying all around.
The Hummer went up and spun to its left, and the passenger door flew open, as Bo came flying out, her M4 boomeranging through the air at the same time. The auburn-haired beauty was tough and a survivor, and her immediate thoughts were to survive this. She was preparing for a shoulder roll, and saw she was fortunately going to miss the concrete floor, but unfortunately about to hit on wooden shipping crates. She hit with a crash, doing a shoulder roll, and felt several splinters dig into the flesh in her back and shoulders, also having the wind knocked out of her and banging the back of her head.
Bo rolled up right to the feet of Ramiro Maureo, who grinned at her while evilly pointing his Desert Eagle at her face. Bo Devore thought for certain she was dead. They were pursuing this man, and were not only in the middle of a high-speed chase of a murder suspect, but a shoot-out as well. He was a cold-blooded, cold-hearted killer. This man had plunged a knife over and over into the abdomen of his lover, simply to get brownie points with two al-Qaida men. Bo immediately thought of all this, and felt he would dispatch her with a head shot and keep running, so she did the only thing she could think of doing. Bo gave Ramiro the finger and spit on him.
He laughed, and she saw the arc of the Desert Eagle streaking down at her left temple. Then everything went black.
Bobby and Ramsey both crawled out of the twisted wreckage at the same time, blood seeping from several wounds. They were groggy and both shook their heads to clear them. With horror, they saw the limp body of Bo Devore slung over the wide shoulders of the giant Ramiro as he disappeared into the large paint booth.
Bobby crawled into the twisted burning car, and crawled back out dragging a Mexican undercover agent who was knocked out cold. He also had two plastic bottles of water from the ice chest in the vehicle. Bobby unscrewed the cap while moaning in pain and poured the icy water all over his head. He tossed a bottle to Ramsey, who did the same.
It now hit Bobby full force what had happened. Bo was a hostage. He never would have carried her during a shoot-out if she was dead, so she had to be unconscious. He grabbed his own M4 and ran toward the paint booth. Bobby kicked the door in and swung his rifle from side to side, his eyes frantically searching for Bo and somebody to shoot. He reached over and pushed the electronic door opener and ran into the massive tunnel, oblivious to anything but rescuing Bo, even if he had to run to America to do it.
Ramsey was shocked seeing Bobby run through the door on foot, but he jumped up and ran out the big door to get the other vehicles to continue the pursuit. He took over the lead SUV and sent the men that were in it back to the other cars. He and Bobby would ride in the front in case of any more LAWs, but he did not want to ask Mexican nationals on the U.S. payroll to ride “point” after the rocket attack. It was not that he was being noble, just practical. His reasoning was simple. He asked himself how many Mexicans or any other foreign nationals, even if very dedicated, would actually lay their lives on the line to nail criminals fighting against American authorities.
