Chapter 477

It was 0700 when the C5 touched down. Everyone was in good spirits. I watched them bringing their new gear off the plane.

“The after action report will wait until Monday,” Vicky told the men.

The six trucks were driven into one of the smaller hangars; the guns and drugs went with them. I pulled the battery cables off of them to kill the GPS, if they had one. The hangar was doubly locked and I had Dad install a hasp for padlocks that only we girls had keys to.

We had breakfast in the airport restaurant watching the ZNN News about a new cartel war near the border and the new travel restrictions.

The Mexicali’s were reporting that twenty-four bodies had been recovered at the site so far and expected more as the rubble cooled.

Mexican drug lord Diego Juan Fernando and his two sons were unaccounted for. The cartel power struggle in the area was in full swing; bodies were being found in several areas. As usual, when you killed one rat there were more to take their place.

We took the five duffle bags into Lorrie’s private office, dumped it on the floor and began counting and stacking it on table. When we were finished there was twenty-five million in 20s, 50s and 100s stacked on the table. It would join the Prince’s money in the safe that had already been laundered.

We counted out five grand for each of the men that went on the mission - including Robert’s man - and ten for ED and Bill.

Vicky took the things that Ed had given her and put them on the table. They must have had rings on each finger; big heavy gold and diamonds. There were several large gold and diamond bracelets and necklaces that must have weighed a pound.

“Put them in a plastic bag and into the safe at the office,” I said. “No one needs to know we have it.”

The Mexicali’s may not know where Diego Juan Fernando and his two boys were but I was sure they were in the rubble. No other person would be walking around with that kind of display of wealth and power.

I wondered why Fernando and his sons were staying at the villa. Was this gun and drug arrangement with terrorist that big a deal? Was it a sign of many more to come?

I took six calls from task force members before noon wanting to know if I had seen the news and my opinion on the matter.

“Too soon to tell,” was the only opinion that I had.

We separated the phones the teams had brought back; it was easy to distinguish which ones belonged to the Saif’s gang by looking at the call logs.

I called Eric again. “Don’t you ever sleep or quit?” he asked.

“Only when necessary; I have a bag of cell phones that was collected last night; they are ringing like crazy. Do you have a DEA investigative team working today that can make use of them while the information is still active?” I asked then added, “I will keep the ones from the terrorists.”

“Yes, at the Washington main office. I’m here now and not in a position to come get them. Can you bring them over?” he asked.

“If I cannot find someone else, I will,” I replied.

Up in the gym there was the usual Saturday crowd of people with plenty of government employees, including several DEA who readily volunteered to carry them over and hand deliver the bag to Eric. Apparently brownie points carry value at the DEA. The 200 cash I handed him didn’t hurt either.

At 1600 the screen monitoring the terrorist call announced the first call was in progress; one of the phones on the table started ringing. Saif was making the call. Over the next hour all six phones were called by Saif.

At midnight Saif called all the phones again then he called Rafi Quastri. That call lasted ten minutes while they tried to sort things out.

Rafi Quastri was confident that things were still fine; the group was not to come over the border until 3 AM and then they would have better phone reception.

My mates had gone to bed long ago. I walked through the tunnel, quietly showered and joined Jenny.

Jenny and I made up for being apart so much in the morning. We finally had to cool it when the boys started jabbering away.

Sunday morning we cooked a big breakfast; we had invited all the family yesterday afternoon. It was the first big family breakfast that we had had in a while. It would take days in the gym to work it off but it was worth it. It was the kind of time I needed with family and friends.