Chapter 12

JJ Reodondo

From his home/headquarters in the dry scrub-lands outside Juarez, JJ Reodondo could contact any of his small army by email or cell phone, except for his new operation in the canyon lands to the southwest. There simply wasn't any internet or cell phone coverage that far out in the desert, and radio was just too public. Oh well, there wasn't anything for Pepe to do just now, except get ready. The girls should be arriving within a couple of weeks. Mr. Pig from Asia would be arriving to pick them up ... and hand over the half-million dollars shortly thereafter.

He had his other businesses to look after. His primary occupations were two: he was a middle man between the high volume manufacturers of drugs – primarily marijuana and cocaine – and the distribution network of dealers and pimps he'd put together in Texas and New Mexico; and he ran a series of drug stores in Mexico, from which he skimmed large volumes of prescription narcotics, which were also placed for sale through his networks in Texas and New Mexico. The distribution of drugs into the U.S. was a high risk operation requiring most of his time.

The kidnapping of young girls, on the other hand, required minimal muscle, and practically no risk. The girls would be drugged and 'stored' under the false bottoms of delivery trucks, unconscious for almost all of the trip to the small cabin near the canyon. They would stay drugged until they were delivered to Mr. Pig, a fat Asian crime lord who was on the far end of a heroin supply line that JJ wanted to cultivate.

This Pig, like the Norte Americano Pig who had bought the first two girls, would do something very destructive to the girls – and within the year, would come back for more. It was a nice, safe, repeating business, with customers who had plenty of money. The Norte Americano supplied guns, and JJ was a good customer. The Asian would supply heroin. It would be small quantities at first, but that would grow in time. And there was always a supply of girls from the U.S.

Yes, it was a good business, and he wouldn't have to haggle with those bastards in Houston or Phoenix for the distribution rights in his own territories.

JJ flipped open his laptop and accessed his offshore accounts in the Caymans, entered his passwords, answered the secret questions. The figure was approaching two hundred fifty million USD. That would buy a lot of tacos. He laughed and signed off.

His emails to the men he had sent to San Diego were shorter, just inquiries, really. The answers were even briefer: two of the snatches were on schedule for San Diego, one location had to move, and a contingent from San Diego was going to Phoenix to handle that pickup. It would be even easier there.

A complication, nothing more. This time next week, he should have three little girls, sleeping peacefully in the belly of a tomato delivery truck, returning to Mexico with its cargo hold filled with empty crates. A few days after that, he would exchange the girls for a nice pile of American cash, and some heroin samples.

Things were coming along nicely. He pressed a button, and two short buzzes sounded in the anteroom.

The door opened and his bodyguard appeared.

"Si, Patròn?"

"I won't need you anymore today," said JJ. "Ask my sister to come down."

"Of course, Patròn."

He wandered over to the massage table in the adjoining room, leaving a neat pile of his clothes as he did so. His sister, when she arrived, did likewise. She climbed up on the table with JJ, straddled his thighs and began to rub almond-scented massage oil into the broad muscles of his chest.

"Life is good to us, no es Hermana?" he said, placing his hands on her waist.

"Oh, Si, mi Hermano. La vida es muy Buena."

Almost five thousand miles away, the computers in a woolen sweater factory in Edinburgh, Scotland began humming at 2306 hours, long after the workforce had gone home for the day. They were tracking the exact amount of dollars in an account at a bank in the Cayman Islands, and all the wire transfers that had been made in and out of that account for the last six months. The total was $247,832,421.53 US, and the funds going into that account came from all over the southwest United States.

At 2338 hours, the data processing equipment of 'Scotland's Premier Sweaters, Ltd., ' returned to their assigned tasks of planning the patterns the knitting machines would work tomorrow.

Edited By TeNderLoin and an unnamed person who doesn't want a credit