Daniel Gadanz’s eyes narrowed as he read the brief transmission. “Oh my God,” he whispered.
PART 4
CHAPTER 32
Troy and Travers knelt side by side beneath a fruit-laden orange tree a short distance inside the eastern border of the sprawling plantation, studying satellite images that were spread out in front of them on the dry ground. It was warm down here in Florida in the middle of the huge orange grove, and the heat was a welcome relief for Troy after the bitter cold he’d been dealing with sixteen hundred klicks north in DC.
He closed his eyes, stretched, and took a deep breath beneath a cloudless sapphire sky and a bright yellow high-noon sun. He loved the outdoors. Especially beneath a sun like this, because nature’s rawest and most compelling scents were so much stronger inside its comforting warmth. The smell of the earth, the plants, the fruit, even the ocean in the distance were all blending into a single amazing aroma. For some reason his love of life and its basic smells right here, right now, seemed more intense than ever before.
“I say we move,” Travers spoke up as he gestured down at the images of the plantation. “It looks pretty straightforward as far as I can tell. We’ve got a few outbuildings and the main house, and we’re done. It’ll take our guys fifteen minutes tops to crash and take control of the buildings, even if they are guarded. No one inside can possibly stand up to what we’re about to throw at them.” Travers tapped the paper on the ground in front of him. “The only thing that could be an issue is a tunnel system. That can always be a problem for an attack like this. But even here in the middle of the state the water table has to be high, just a few feet below the surface, so underground stuff should be a nonissue.” He glanced over at Troy. “We don’t want to give the people in there any chance to spot us and run. It’s time, man.”
“Yup.”
“I mean, it would be better to wait until dark so we’ve got more cover, but that’s six hours off. There could be more attacks, more civilians could die. I couldn’t handle knowing we might have prevented that. We’ve got to go in now.”
“Pull the trigger.”
Travers tapped out a message on his cell. “Here we go,” he muttered as he pressed the send button. “Battle on.”
Multiple personnel carriers were standing by a few miles away, ready to transport two hundred heavily armed special-forces troops to the plantation for the assault — along with three Apache attack helicopters, which would probably break most of any resistance ahead of them before the troops even arrived. The information Jacob Gadanz had provided early this morning in the townhouse, in exchange for his family’s protection by federal authorities, had led Travers and Troy directly to this location. And supposedly to Gadanz’s younger brother, Daniel, who Jacob had sworn was here and was protected by a decent-size force, though he couldn’t give them much on numbers or firepower.
So they weren’t taking any chances. They were going to overwhelm whoever was on the plantation and ask questions later, maybe. This mission was far too crucial to the country not to take that approach, for several reasons, it turned out.
“This is pretty amazing,” Travers said.
“If what Jacob told us is accurate, I’m with you.”
“He was feeding us straight dope,” Travers said confidently, checking the satellite images once more.
“Maybe.” Some guy who was desperately bargaining for his life and his family’s well-being didn’t seem like a candidate for a have-faith award.
“I spoke to a friend of mine at the DEA on our flight down here.”
“And?”
Travers’s phone pinged softly — he had the volume turned way down. “Here they come,” he muttered, reading the return text. “Cavalry’s inbound.”
“And?” Troy asked again, louder this time.
“And my guy at the agency said they’ve been trying hard to crack a cocaine distribution syndicate that’s gone viral recently, particularly in small and medium-size towns east of the Mississippi. He said the ring was already a force in the major cities. But according to a few low-level dealers they’ve pinched off the streets, and at least one mid-level associate who cooperated in order to reduce a major felony possession charge, the man at the top put a Brazilian guy named Emilio Vasquez in charge of the eastern half of the country about two years ago, and he’s tripled revenues in the territory since then. My guy said Vasquez is as vicious as they come and leaves dead bodies wherever he goes. But despite the blood trail they can’t catch up to him. He always seems to be one step ahead of them.”
“You think Daniel Gadanz is really the head of the syndicate?”
Travers shrugged. “The DEA guy told me a story about a son taking over a Miami drug-smuggling operation from his father back in the early nineties. It sounded very similar to what Jacob told us this morning about Daniel taking over for their father. The names are different, but the city and the years are the same. My guy said it was a small-time operation in Miami back then, just like Jacob told us their father’s was. But the son blew it out, made it into a huge deal, just like Jacob told us Daniel did.”
“Jacob didn’t tell us anything about Daniel and him changing their last name.”
“We didn’t ask,” Travers reminded Troy. “And that’s exactly what you and I would have done.”
“I guess.”
“Here’s the most important thing about it. Here’s the name that does match. Senior people at DEA believe the man who took over that Miami operation back in the early nineties is now the number-one distributor in the United States for Carlos Molina.” Travers paused. “And that was the name Jacob mentioned. Carlos Molina is—”
“I know who Carlos Molina is,” Troy cut in. “He’s the biggest cocaine producer in all of South America. He wouldn’t join any of the cartels down there a decade ago, and now he rules. Everybody else in the blow business is terrified of him at this point. I get it.”
“Even the Mexicans,” Travers said in a hushed voice. “That’s something that ought to make the little hairs on the back of your neck stand straight up.”
That was an eye-catcher. For a lot of Mexican dealers, beheading rival faction members who they’d captured was SOP. But Molina’s people in Mexico were rarely touched. And when they were, hell rained down swiftly on the guilty party.
“I can’t wrap my mind around why Daniel would fund these death squads,” Troy said. “For me, that’s the major disconnect about this whole thing.”
“Revenge for his father,” Travers answered. “Isn’t that what Jacob said? The Feds grabbed his father off the street in Miami one afternoon twenty years ago during a thunderstorm, and the family hasn’t heard from him since. Daniel never got over it. It happened right in front of him as the rain was coming down, and the Feds laughed at him as they were driving his father off. He saw what the Feds did to his father, and he feels like he’s getting back at them now. He’s making them look like idiots because they can’t do anything about the Holiday Mall Attacks or all the subsequent shootings.”
“Yeah, but I can’t believe Carlos Molina would be happy about Gadanz doing that. Ultimately, it brings attention to the syndicate when it’s uncovered, even to Molina’s operation in South America. I mean, that’s exactly why we’re here. Attention’s the last thing Molina wants. Why would Daniel Gadanz want to piss off his biggest supplier like that, especially a guy like Molina?”
“Think about this, Troy. The death squads are distracting local cops all around the country, not to mention keeping the Feds completely busy, too. It’s a huge business opportunity for these blow cowboys. It’s an opening that’s getting wider and wider the longer it goes on. Street dealers are free to trade, domestic trafficking is easy, even shipments from south of the border are probably being mostly ignored because manpower’s been moved away. The death squads are creating a massive distraction all the way around, and the syndicate’s taking advantage of it. Think about all the nose candy Molina can skate across the borders with no problem while the good guys are trying to find the death squads.”