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“Just about to, over lunch.” She smiled.
“Excellent,” D’Ambrose said. “Let me grab some grub and join you.”
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this until you sign the paperwork,” D’Ambrose said at the picnic table a few minutes later, as he speared some potato salad onto a plastic fork, “but large things are afoot, Mike. Forty-eight hours ago, the president signed a national security directive targeting Perrine as a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. Now, instead of just local and federal law enforcement, my military boys are on board.
“As of seven this morning, the Department of Justice is now working hand in hand with my covert-ops guys, the Navy SEALs and Delta Force, and the airborne-signal intelligence-gathering unit known as Gray Fox, as well as the CIA and NSA.”
I stared at him, taken aback. I’d seen investigations ramped up before, but I’d never worked with the actual military.
“Did this little order suspend posse comitatus?” I asked, squinting at him. “You know, the federal statute that says the military can’t operate within the continental US?”
“They finally eject California from the Union?” the feisty colonel said, smiling.
“The colonel and his men aren’t actually operating on US soil,” Emily said, turning to me. “See, we believe Perrine is hiding somewhere in Mexico. Because of the rampant amount of bribery and corruption in the law enforcement agencies and even the military of our sister republic, the Mexican president has reluctantly agreed to let us into Mexico to act as special advisers in the hunt for Perrine.”
“Which is not something the Mexican president is ready to crow about, since it’s an election year,” the colonel added. “Because discretion is mandatory, this base is the military’s rallying point for a
irborne sorties over the border.”
“OK, I think I’m getting the picture,” I said. “Go on.”
“That’s just one side of the blade,” D’Ambrose said. “Perrine’s people are now operating in LA, so we’re going to be working with the LA FBI and DEA, and the LAPD as well.”
“Don’t forget the Mexican authorities,” Emily said. “The federales, and even CISEN.”
“CISEN?” I asked.
“The Mexican intelligence agency, equivalent to our CIA,” D’Ambrose said.
“Exactly,” said Emily. “We’re going soup to nuts, from street cops to the feds to the intelligence community and the army.”
“In two different countries?” I said, and shook my head.
“Yep,” D’Ambrose said. “Starting to feel my pain now? You don’t speak Spanish, by any chance, do you?”
I nodded and looked up as one of the Chinook helicopters went by close enough to land on the roof of the barracks. Half the napkins we had brought went flying as well.
“This thing is a real mess,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Emily asked. “I thought you’d be pleased. Action is finally being taken. Perrine is being looked at like the international terrorist that he is. You’re not happy that they’re finally going after Perrine in a serious way?”
“It didn’t have to come to all this, Emily. How many years was nothing done about the border? About the cartels? We let this fester. Now things are so bad, we have to bring in the military? It’s a disgrace. Everybody is goddamn asleep at the switch these days.”
“Not everybody, Mike,” Emily said. “Colonel D’Ambrose has been working tirelessly on this for the last three months. Before that, he and his men at the Joint Special Operations Command helped redefine counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq, bringing in the CIA and NSA to sort through the electronic pocket litter that the Special Forces teams found on the battlefield. There’s no one better on the planet to head up this kind of international manhunt.”
The colonel smiled as he wiped his mouth.
“Thanks for the defense, Emily, but Detective Bennett here is more correct than he knows. I’m disgusted, too, Detective. We needed to keep our house clean, but we didn’t. Letting things go to the point where the exterminator has to come to your house is pretty damn embarrassing.”
CHAPTER 33
AFTER WE FINISHED EATING, D’Ambrose left for a meeting, and Parker took me over to Building 14. The huge open room on the ground floor was being used by D’Ambrose’s JSOC guys as the multiple-agency task force command center.
There were desks everywhere, several large PowerPoint boards and flat screens, a podium. Everyone on the task force must have been taking a break to eat, because except for a couple of soldiers running some wires through the drop ceiling, we were alone.
We grabbed a couple of coffees from a well-stocked table, and I followed Emily over to a desk.
“We found this footage two days ago at a safe house we raided with the federales in Durango,” Emily said, tapping at a laptop as we sat. “It’s of a dinner Perrine held for his top cartel people. We had it closed captioned. You have to take a look at this.”
