Border Crossed - Chapter 8

The apartment complex was asleep when Taylor and Whitaker pulled into the lot. They made their way to Salamanca’s darkened apartment, which was just as quiet as everything else.

“Let me take the lead,” Whitaker said.

Like the motel, this was more of the traditional law enforcement job than what Taylor was good at, and it didn’t seem likely they’d need to beat answers out of the newly widowed Mrs. Salamanca.

“Assuming there’s anyone here,” Taylor said, waving an arm toward the door as if to say, after you.

“They have a kid, and it’s almost one. She’ll be home,” Whitaker said, rapping her knuckles against the door frame.

Whitaker was forced to knock several more times before a light came on in the apartment, followed a minute later by the door opening a crack, a disheveled woman in a bathrobe peering out.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice openly hostile in spite of it being rough with sleep.

“Mrs. Salamanca? I’m Agent Whitaker, with the FBI,” she said, holding up her badge. “I’m very sorry, but your husband was killed tonight.”

Whitaker had once explained to Taylor the best way to deliver bad news was fast and to the point. Hedging and trying to break the news slowly didn’t decrease the pain from the news, and only gave the person anxiety before they heard the news, or even made it harder to understand what they were being told. Taylor wasn’t sure he agreed that just saying ‘your husband was killed tonight’ was the kinder option, but this was her area of expertise.

As expected, the news hit the woman like a ton of bricks. She staggered back slightly, grabbing the door frame for support. When she recovered, her eyes were wet with tears.

“Fucking cops,” she said. “You people won’t be happy until you kill everyone who stands up to you.”

She tried to slam the door closed, but Whitaker had stuck her foot in the doorway as soon as it had opened, making it impossible to shut the door.

“Mrs. Salamanca,” Whitaker asked, ignoring the comment. “Do you know where your husband was headed tonight?”

“Go to hell,” the woman said through clenched teeth.

Whitaker gave a tired sigh and said, “Look, I can see narcotics in plain view behind you. Now, I honestly could give a shit about simple possession. I’m here because your husband tried to kill cops tonight, and I need to find out why. If you want to make this difficult, I can do that, too. You have two choices: you can either answer my questions, after which I’ll go away and leave you alone, or you can continue being a problem and I’ll arrest you and call CPS to come and pick up your kids. I know you’ve had your run-ins with the law before, but it also looks like you’ve been clean since they were born. I know you want to be a good mother, so don’t go screwing it up now.”

“Fuc… urrrk,” Salamanca started to say, the word being interrupted when Whitaker’s arm shot out, grabbing the woman’s wrist and pulling her outside her apartment.

Her shoulder slammed into the door, knocking it open and forcing Taylor to take a step back. Whitaker stepped to the side, pulling Mrs. Salamanca with her, spinning the woman around and twisting her arm up behind her back, slamming her into the wall hard.

“You’re under arrest for possession of a controlled substance,” Whitaker said in a hard voice, all traces of compassion gone. “You have the right to remain …”

“All right, all right!” Mrs. Salamanca said in a pained voice. “Just … leave my kids alone.”

Whitaker didn’t let go right away. Instead, she leaned in close, pushing her body weight against Mrs. Salamanca’s, pressing her harder into the wall, putting her mouth close to the woman’s ear.

“I don’t want to cause your family any more pain than you’ve had already tonight,” Whitaker said in an almost whisper. “But I need answers, and I need you to give them to me. I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to answer my questions. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” the woman said.

Whitaker stepped back, releasing the woman, who turned around slowly, cradling the arm that Whitaker had been twisting.

“I’ll ask again; where did your husband go tonight?”

Mrs. Salamanca’s face was still hard, giving Whitaker a death stare, but she said, “I don’t know where he went. Some old friend of his came by earlier and they talked for a bit. I didn’t hear what about. After maybe fifteen minutes, Tuco came and told me he had to step out for a couple of hours. Said he’d be back late.”

“What did this friend want Tuco to do?” Whitaker asked.

“I don’t know!” Mrs. Salamanca said, throwing up her hands. “I think his friend had some kind of work for him, but I don’t know the details.”

“Not good enough,” Whitaker said sharply. “We need more to go on than that. A name, a description, anything.”

Mrs. Salamanca shook her head. “I don’t know his name. Just someone Tuco knew from his time inside.”

“I want to be clear; if you can’t give me something I can work with, I’ll have to assume all this lands on your husband, and I’ll have to assume you were in on it too,” Whitaker said. “You’re doing good, don’t screw up now.”

“But I don’t know who he is,” the woman said, slightly panicked. “He didn’t tell me anything, not even his name. I don’t know how to find this guy.”

“It doesn’t have to be about him specifically,” Taylor said. “Anything that can lead to him will work. A license plate. A phone number. Anything.”

“Umm, I … he called Tuco,” she said, starting to wring her hands. “Maybe around eight-thirty, just before he came over. I guess to see if Tuco was home. Can’t you look up his phone record or something?”

“Maybe,” Whitaker said, looking back at Taylor. “We’ll look into it, but if we can’t find a record of this call, we’ll be back.”

Whitaker and Taylor turned and walked away, leaving a silently fuming Mrs. Salamanca in their wake.

Hearing the door slam behind them, Taylor asked, “Get a subpoena for the cell company?”

“Easier than that,” Whitaker said, pulling out her phone and dialing a number.

Holding her phone up to her ear, after several beats, she said, “Detective Morris? It’s Agent Whitaker. Do you still have Tuco Salamanca’s cell phone from the effects you pulled off his body? Yeah. Yeah. Good, I need you to pull call records off it.”

She fell silent for several minutes, with the occasional muted voice being audible through the phone.

Finally, she said, “Just the incoming calls around eight PM, yeah. Specifically any at eight-thirty or so … uh-huh … uh-huh … yeah … okay … Could you trace … nice.”

“He’s calling to get a trace on the phone,” Whitaker said, cupping her hand over the cell phone.

“That’s going to take a while,” Taylor, who’d started to get used to how slow law enforcement actually was, said.

“They were already in the process of doing it for all of the phones they collected. A judge signed the warrant thirty minutes ago, and they already faxed it to the company. He’s checking to see if they got anything.”

“That’s convenient,” Taylor said.

“Sullivan got involved after I called him, before we left. They’ve already got some blanket approvals in place for the task force and had a judge available for warrants and subpoenas.”

That made more sense to Taylor. Local agencies tended to be more reactive than proactive, which usually made them slower getting through any bureaucracies. One of the benefits of task forces, that Taylor had seen, was pre-staged assets to get around some of that bureaucracy, or at least speed it up. It was nice to have the system work for them for once.

“Yeah, I’m still here,” Whitaker said after several minutes. “Really? Wow. Okay, we’ll check it out.”

Hanging up, she turned to Taylor and said, “The call was from a Dallas number, but the phone is still on and pinging here in El Paso at a warehouse on the east side of the city.”

“All right! Let’s go check it out,” Taylor said.

***

Taylor pulled the SUV to a stop across the street from a clearly abandoned and deteriorating warehouse, which looked like it had been neglected for years. It was early in the morning and a commercial area, so it wasn’t a big surprise that it was quiet.

The surrounding area wasn’t much better, with vacant lots strewn with garbage and sagging chain-link fences crowned with spirals of razor wire. Just the kind of place where people who didn’t want to be seen or overheard would meet.

Taylor looked over at Whitaker’s phone one more time to confirm the cell phone was still pinging from this address.

“Doesn’t seem like anyone’s home,” Whitaker said drily, opening her door.

“Yeah,” Taylor said, following suit.

Just as they got out of the car, the silence was broken by the crack of a gunshot. Although sound in areas like this tended to echo, it wasn’t hard to figure out where the shot actually came from. Taylor and Whitaker both drew their weapons and ran toward the warehouse in a low crouch.

They stopped next to a side door into the warehouse, and Taylor looked back at Whitaker. They’d done this enough times they didn’t actually need to talk. Seeing her nod, he gently tried the handle to see if the door was unlocked, so he didn’t make a lot of noise yanking on a locked door. Feeling it give, he gave Whitaker one last look and flung it open, going left as she went right.

Dim light filtered through grimy windows, illuminating the cluttered space full of decaying machines and rusting containers. Although he’d been prepared for what they might encounter on the other side of the door—more gunmen, maybe shooting at them, maybe shooting at each other, or maybe just an execution—he hadn’t been prepared for the scene in front of him.

A little ways further into the warehouse stood Ryan Matthews, his still-smoking gun pointing down at the fallen body of another man, a pool of blood expanding from the body.

At the sound of the door opening, Matthews turned toward them, his face switching from focused to a slight grin as he recognized Taylor in turn.

“Well, isn’t this awkward?”

Before Taylor could respond, Matthews raised his pistol and fired. Taylor dove to the side, the familiar sound of a bullet cracking overhead. Without hesitation, he rolled behind a stack of pallets. Looking over, he saw Whitaker had done the same thing, although she managed to get her gun up and return fire. Getting to his knees and peeking out, Taylor saw that Matthews had taken cover behind another stack of pallets across the aisle.

Another crack split the air as a bullet shattered a pallet near his head, forcing Taylor back behind cover.

“Give up, Matthews!” Taylor shouted, ducking down.

Matthews responded with another shot, this one clipping the top of Taylor’s makeshift barricade. Taylor glanced across the aisle at Whitaker, who moved to the right behind a metal shelving unit. She saw his look and gave a slight nod.

They’d done this before, too, and knew they needed to flank Matthews, keep him from barricading himself. Taylor darted left to the next stack of pallets, careful to stay low. He could feel the cold concrete tearing at his jeans as he slid into place on his knees. There was a clang from Matthews’ direction, probably him moving deeper into the warehouse, trying to reach an exit.

Taylor moved again, keeping pace, weaving between rusty barrels and empty containers. He paused behind a forklift with flat tires to catch his breath. Across the way, he heard gunshots from where Whitaker should be, followed by a crashing sound somewhere between them. From where he was, he thought he saw a side door, down near the end of the warehouse, likely where Matthews was headed.

Taylor craned his neck, trying to see Matthews or Whitaker. After a moment, he spotted her, almost parallel to him, concealed behind a shipping container. Taylor pointed at the exit and held up three fingers, and she gave him a nod.

On three, they both broke cover, sprinting directly for the door. Taylor hurdled a pile of wooden planks, landing hard on the other side, finally catching sight of Matthews, who spun around. He fired, the bullet whizzing past Taylor’s shoulder.

Taylor dropped and rolled as Whitaker returned fire for him. Inside the old metal building, the gunshots were almost deafening. Taylor came up on one knee and fired, but the bullet ricocheted off a support beam as Matthews slipped behind it. Cursing under his breath, Taylor darted forward, using the maze of rusted machinery and debris for cover as he tried to cut Matthews off.

As he moved, he caught glimpses of Whitaker on the other side, mirroring him. They were so close now, just one stack of crates between them and Matthews. He must have realized it too because suddenly he broke from cover, sprinting towards the side door.

There was still too much in the way to get a clear shot, so Taylor took off after him, dodging over and around obstacles. He raised his weapon, trying to draw a bead on Matthews, but there was too much stuff in the way, and his former friend was too fast, moving in a zig-zag pattern.

Taylor took off again, but just as he started to close the gap, Matthews made it to the door, flinging it open so hard it banged against the outside wall. Taylor poured on the speed. As he cleared the doorway, Taylor saw Matthews diving into the open rear door of a dark sedan. More importantly, though, Taylor also saw the pistol the driver was pointing out the window of the car. Just in time, he managed to jump back into the warehouse, almost colliding with Whitaker. The sound of bullets impacting the wall near the door and some metal crates inside the warehouse behind him told Taylor what a close call that had been.

“Call for backup,” Taylor went through the door again, weapon raised and in a low crouch, only to be greeted by the rear of the sedan tearing out of the parking lot. He raised his weapon and squeezed off a few shots at the fleeing car, but he knew it was futile even as he was doing it. The sedan fishtailed around the corner, its taillights disappearing behind a building.

“Dammit!” Whitaker ran up next to him, breathing hard. “Did you hit him?”

“No, he got away clean,” Taylor said.

Holstering their weapons, they reentered the warehouse and made their way through the maze of machinery and now bullet-riddled containers, back to the body still lying near the door they’d arrived through.

The man lay sprawled on his back, eyes staring vacantly upward. A pool of dark blood had spread out from the single gunshot wound in his chest. Taylor did a quick pat-down, looking for identification or anything else useful, being careful not to disturb the body for when the medical examiner arrived. In an inner jacket pocket, he found a smartphone.

Turning the device on and seeing it had a passcode, Taylor kneeled down next to the body, staying clear of the blood, and placed one of the man’s limp fingers on the button. He wasn’t sure it would work since he was pretty sure it used some kind of bioelectric conductivity, but he hoped his finger on the guy’s finger would be enough.

“Try face recognition,” Whitaker said.

Taylor looked at the device for a moment and handed it to her. He wasn’t unfamiliar with technology, but this was her area of expertise. She hit a few buttons, pointed the front of the camera at the guy’s face, and, after a moment, turned the now unlocked phone back toward her.

After hitting a few more buttons, she said, “Yeah, this is the phone we were tracking.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming,” Taylor said. “Matthews set this all up. Hired these guys to take us out at the motel so we wouldn’t dig any deeper. Probably set up the bombing of that immigration checkpoint when we started looking around to try and get us off the scent. He’s been playing us from the start.”

“There was no way we could have known. He didn’t do anything to draw suspicion to himself and even backed us up when Sullivan was trying to shut us down,” Whitaker pointed out. “Besides, who knows when Matthews got compromised? He might not even have been involved when they first brought him in.”

“I doubt it. It’s why we should have caught onto it. The bombings started not long after he joined the task force. I’m always telling everyone else not to be blind to coincidences like that, and here I just looked past it.”

“So did everyone else,” Whitaker said. “The problem now is that everything the task force has done so far, including our finding the tunnel, is compromised. He almost certainly called his friends before Sullivan even showed up at the tunnel site, let alone called the Mexicans to check out the other end. They probably cleared everything out before the authorities got there.”

“At least Matthews is exposed. He may have warned them to get out of the tunnel, but he gave us a new lead to follow. Him.”

“True,” Whitaker said and pulled out her own cellphone. “I need to call Joe first. A mole inside Sullivan’s team changes everything, including our original mandate. You call Sullivan and get people on the way while I find out what he wants us to do.”

“Right,” Taylor said.

He appreciated everything Whitaker had said, but he was still pissed that Matthews had been able to fool him so completely. He was getting slow in his old age.