“Have you matched it to a make and model?”
The man’s blue eyes glinted. “We’ve done better than that. We’ve gotten a description of the vehicle it belongs to. A 1998 Econoline four-wheel drive van that’s been seen in the vicinity of known crossing points. The coyote smuggles the illegals across the border on foot, the van picks them up and they vanish.”
Joe digested the bit of news. “Coyotes,” or guides who took money from people wishing to enter the United States illegally, were known for their ruthless cunning. With nearly two thousand miles of southern border for the Border Patrol to protect, they were too often successful at finding ways to get their clients across. It wasn’t uncommon to hear of the guides taking the money and then beating or killing their customers. “When you say they vanish…”
Dawson looked grim. “I mean their families never hear from them again. We haven’t found any bodies. They just disappear. The Mexican government has looked into it, but they haven’t found any unidentified remains, either.”
“A coyote wouldn’t take them over the border, just to kill illegals here,” Joe interjected. “So what does that leave? Slavery?” It was one thing for the criminals to take a few thousand dollars for sneaking people into the country. It was quite another to bring them in and then hand them over to human traffickers to be exploited in the sex trade, farm fields or as household labor.
“Possibly. And there have always been coyotes offering reduced fees for clients willing to act as mules. But in the last year we’ve been hearing of one getting the illegals to carry loads of a purified form of crystal ice purchased from a cartel down there. And the last time we saw that tread, we found traces of ice at the crossing nearby.” Dawson shrugged. “Right now that’s all we’ve got.”
Excitement rose, simmered. This was the connection, finally, to Quintero, Graywolf and Lee. Joe could feel it. He remembered the bottled water, blankets and food wrappers that had littered the cave. Exactly what would be needed to hide a bunch of illegals until the next stage of their journeys. “Maybe it’s time to flag that syringe as a priority,” he said to the captain. He was willing to bet that they’d find traces of Rohypnol or some other tranquilizer used to render the aliens helpless before transporting them to their captors.
“You read my mind,” Tapahe replied. “I’ll call the lab. You contact the other members of the task force and see how quickly you can get them here.”
The table around the conference room was crowded, despite it being a Sunday evening. John Honani, the Hopi DEA agent, sat silently amidst the buzz in the room. FBI agent Delmer Mitchell was trying, unsuccessfully, to add creamer to his coffee without it splashing on his stained suit. Dawson was back, along with Manny Lopez, a Customs Service supervisor coordinating that agency’s cooperating officers. Quentin Tarken was another fed, apparently working with Mitchell. Joe had never met him before.
Because he knew Arnie would never let him hear the end of it, Joe had called him, and the man had been only too eager to leave the overly solicitous care of his wife. When everyone was finally seated, Joe said, “I think the easiest way to bring everyone up to date is to let individuals discuss their part of the case. Then we’ll talk about the newest developments.” He turned to Honani. “John, do you want to begin?”
“We’ve had an informant in the Contreres cartel feeding us information on their expansions of super-labs,” the man began. “They took advantage of the States’ new controls on ingredients for homemade meth by cranking up the production of the purer, more lethal crystal ice we’ve seen flooding the country. Joe and Arnie were investigating an influx of the drug here, and because we had reason to believe some of the Contreres supply was ending up in these parts, we decided to coordinate our efforts.”
Joe’s mind drifted as each task member briefly relayed their role in the investigation and information on the case. Surveillance on Graywolf hadn’t yielded a thing so far, and Joe was beginning to question whether he was attributing the kid with too large a part in this deal. They could ill-afford to waste resources. It took a lot of manpower to watch him round the clock, with officers on foot and in cars. So far they’d established his routine of going to work in the headquarters of his father’s construction firm somewhere close to noon, and leaving again around five. Nice hours if one could get them. From there he visited with friends, all of whom were being checked out, or went back to the family home, located on one of the largest privately owned pieces of property on Navajo Nation lands.
The Graywolfs enjoyed a standard of living unrivaled on the reservation, which probably accounted for the kid’s spoiled manner. Riches in their culture weren’t traditionally attributed to money or material goods but measured in family and connection to their past. That had been one of Charley’s teachings that Joe had taken to heart, much to Heather’s dismay. Toward the end of their marriage all she’d talked about was the promise of better opportunities off the reservation.
His attention snapped back to the conversation at hand, as Dawson was winding down. Joe gave a succinct description of his efforts and the events in the last several days, ending with the notebook pages he’d perused in Niyol Lee’s bedroom.
There was a moment of silence as the members digested the information. “And the last date in his book…when was that again?”
“Two days from now,” Joe answered. “The other dates seemed to be correlated within a day or two of a deposit in his savings account. It’s not a stretch to believe that Lee is getting paid well for providing a service, and he has dual citizenship, allowing him to move freely between here and Mexico.”
Rising, he passed out copies of the composite sketch of the man.
“If your witness can make a positive ID of Lee as the guy who shot at her, we’ve got enough to go in and search Lee’s parents’ home. Seize the bankbook, notebook and anything you might have missed.” Tarken rubbed his jaw, dark with five o’clock shadow.
“Maria Lee would probably give it to us without one,” Joe said, ignoring the obvious slur on his abilities. “But why tip off Niyol more than we already have? Right now he doesn’t realize we know something is going down, so there’s no reason for them to change their plans. It seems more productive for us to figure out where it’s going to happen, or at least where they’ll be bringing the illegals so we can nail them then.”
“There are thousands of places on the reservation that would hide a vanload of aliens and several hundred kilos of meth.” This from Manny. “With the slot canyons, cliff dwellings and caves in the area, we could search for months trying to find where they moved their operation.”
“I think we can rule out any public area,” Arnie put in. “Too risky. The area has to be remote, yet vehicles have to be able to get in and out. Somewhat close to a road, because a van, even four-wheel drive, isn’t going to do cross-country for long stretches.”
Joe glanced at the man approvingly. Even with his absence in the last few days, they remained on the same wavelength. “Exactly. Last time they had it all planned out. Accessed an isolated spot where they could have some privacy. A perfect system, actually, because they made sure they weren’t going to get sheepherders wandering through there with their flocks, either. It’s too soon for them to have arranged another place like that, so they had to move quickly, maybe to an area not so perfect.”
“Or they may just cancel this run until they find someplace perfect.”
Joe looked at Tarken curiously. He seemed more truculent than helpful, and Mitchell, in his presence, didn’t speak up much. “You’re forgetting the guy we saw leaving on the ATV. He had it piled with parcels, which makes sense if the van was full of people. They were moving shop not cutting and running.”