Page 42 of Operation: Silent Angel
Yvette just stared at him in disbelief. He had to be lying. Face-to-face meetings brought increased risk. In this digital age, face-to-face meetings were unnecessary. Something more was going on.
Mac shook his head. “No, I don’t. You’ve had a parade of people through here for the last several days. Unless this has all been about stoking your over-inflated ego, which I don’t think it is, something else is going on.”
“Coop, you and Xena need to pick the Perezes up and interrogate them. Let’s see what they have to say.”
“They’ve just turned around and are heading back towards the resort. We’ll follow them and take them down as they enter their hotel room and conduct the interrogation there.”
“Perfect, Coop,” Yvette broadcast. “Keep us informed.”
“Roger that,” Cooper responded.
“Who else might you have forgotten about?” Mac asked Ruiz.
“No one, that’s it,” Ruiz said.
“Who is personally picking out product tomorrow? Where and when?” Mac asked.
“You have been busy, know a lot more than I would have given you credit for,” Ruiz said, dodging the question.
“The man with the New York accent who called you this afternoon,” Garcia brought him back on topic.
“Right, him,” Ruiz said. “He slipped my mind. He’s a new customer, a referral from a regular customer, that honestly, I wouldn’t have agreed to see if I wasn’t under the gun, so to speak, from Solomon wanting an expedited payment.”
“What do you mean by an expedited payment?” Mac asked. This guy was infuriating, dropping little morsels of info like breadcrumbs. The problem with Ruiz was deciding whether that trail of breadcrumbs was actually leading somewhere or not.
“I wasn’t due to pay him until next month, but then all of a sudden, poof, he appears wanting an expedited payment within the next twenty-four hours.”
“And if you don’t pay him?” Mac asked.
“I’m sure he would inform my cartel friends of all the info I’ve shared on them and their activities with him over the years.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Garcia began. “Not only are you feeding the DEA intel on cartel activities, you’re also being blackmailed to pay cash for doing it?” He wasn’t buying it.
“And I’m being given a very wide berth to conduct my own business in the process,” Ruiz said. “Let me break this downto a level that even you can understand. Nothing and no one are moved, bought or sold in Mexico without cartel approval. Nothing crosses north without cartel approval and them profiting from it. The U.S. agencies, such as the DEA and CIA, know the score. They know they cannot stop all cartel operations because, let’s face it, it’s a matter of supply and demand. As long as there is demand for drugs and people on the U.S. side, the supply will be there. So, certain players have learned to capitalize on the system. Why not collect intel and cash from me while allowing my operation to flourish? With the info I supply them, they take down rising, lower-level thugs. This helps the established cartel leaders. The DEA gets some product off the streets to look like heroes in their jobs, and everyone makes a lot of money in the process.”
“You’re playing everyone against each other?” Mac said.
“Not against each other,” Ruiz said. “It’s a symbiotic relationship. There is a status quo that we all operate under. As long as everything is equalized, there is peace. It’s only when something gets out of whack that we see cartel shootings and chaos.”
“You pay the DEA agent protection money to allow you to continue to do business,” Garcia said, disgusted.
“Protection money is one cost of doing business on both sides of the border,” Ruiz said.
“Your business is destructive. You traffic people, human beings. They are not product,” Lambchop spat.
“People are a commodity, just as drugs or weapons are. They are a product desired by people who can afford to pay for them, be it for slave labor or for sexual gratification,” Ruiz answered. “You’re not going to stop it. Me not providing the product will not stop the demand.”
Lambchop’s hands were fisted at his sides. Yvette was sure he wanted to take a swing at Ruiz. She didn’t want to stop him.
“How did Moreno and Christy Dyer fit in? And what were your plans for her this evening?” Mac asked.
Ruiz shot him an incredulous grin. “Isn’t that obvious? You people really are thick. The cartel leadership has excellent intel. Do you really think the familial relationships of Colombian political leaders are not widely known? Bella Sanguino disappears, and the following week Moreno, her uncle, is reaching out to me, an expert in making people disappear. You don’t think that I knew what he was up to? Had he come to me wanting to buy her back, that would have been less suspicious than pretending to all of a sudden to want to become a dirty politician. And Christy Dyer, dangling a pretty American girl in front of me, well he couldn’t have been shocked when I took what I wanted.”
“You do know who her father is, don’t you?” Mac asked.
Ruiz laughed. “Walt Dyer is no longer a problem for me or anyone else. Some friends of mine in Colombia have taken care of him.”
Yvette closed her eyes for a moment. She didn’t want to be the one to tell Christy they believed her father was dead. She only reopened her eyes when Garcia spoke.
