GRAHAM HAD LOST TEMPTING DASH. EVEN WORSE, HE’D BEEN FLOATING the bill for feed and boarding for José’s horses for several weeks. His frustration over the overdue bill, which had already reached $36,000, was mounting when he received a call from a man in Laredo who said his name was Victor Lopez and that from now on he would be helping Nayen. Lopez said he had the money they owed him. But Graham would have to come to Laredo to pick it up. He told Lopez he’d take a look at his schedule and then get back to him. But he had no intention of going anywhere near the border; it was too close to Miguel and the Zetas for his comfort. As soon as he hung up the phone he called Lawson.
Lawson picked up the vibrating cell phone on his desk. Since their argument at the Omni, he and Graham were still nursing some raw feelings. But Graham had dropped any pretense of leaving, much to his relief. Lawson listened closely as Graham told him about the call from a new guy named Victor Lopez summoning him to the border. He wanted guidance on what to do. It would be suspicious if he refused to pick up the money, especially after he’d been complaining to José and Nayen for weeks about not getting paid.
Any chance that the DEA was going to help the FBI connect the drug money in Mexico with the horses was now definitely off the table. Lawson hadn’t spoken with Hathaway since their heated exchange on the phone. But now they had this new guy, Victor Lopez, promising to deliver $36,000 in cash to Graham. Lawson could see the potential. It would be solid evidence to help them make the link between the drug money and José. “Tell him you’ll do it but you can’t go yourself because you’re too busy,” he told him. “You’ll be sending a trusted employee instead. We’ll take care of the rest.” Graham readily agreed to the plan, no doubt relieved that he didn’t have to go himself.
After Lawson hung up the phone, he turned around in his chair to run it past Hodge. He was encouraged by the new development, because evidence from the money drop would help get a busy prosecutor’s attention when they pitched the investigation at the U.S. attorney’s office later in the month.
It hadn’t been easy to convince Hodge to go to Oklahoma City to do the surveillance on Blues Ferrari. Lawson was beginning to worry that once Hodge left, Villarreal would assign another agent as lead on the investigation. Lawson wanted Perez, but Villarreal had yet to appreciate her many strengths.
Lawson told Hodge all about his conversation with Graham and about Victor Lopez and the money drop. But Hodge was less than encouraging. He didn’t think they could get the approvals they needed in time for the surveillance. “That dog ain’t going to hunt,” was how he put it to Lawson. This was one of Hodge’s favorite phrases, which he repeated often when he thought something was insurmountable.
But Lawson wasn’t going to give up that easily. He walked over to Perez’s desk on the other side of the office. She was sitting at her computer, working on the Title 3. He was glad to have her back from maternity leave.
“¿Qué onda, güey?” Lawson said, smiling. His greeting was northern Mexican slang for “What’s up, dude?” The phrase was so commonly used in day-to-day Spanish on the border that he’d picked it up and now used it whenever he felt like it, to the amusement of the rest of the squad.
“Oh no.” She laughed. “I hope you’re not saying that to all the girls at the clubs.”
Lawson propped himself up against her desk. “What? You mean they won’t find it sexy?” he said.
“Oh yeah, you should definitely use it,” she said, laughing again. “Pinche güey is also very sexy.”
“How’s the Title 3 coming?” he said.
“It’d be a lot easier if Fernando Garcia didn’t drop his phone every couple of weeks. By the time I pull the phone records he’s changed his number.”
“I’ve got some good news,” he said.
“It’s about time.” She smiled again.
Lawson told her about the phone call with Graham and the setup to have Victor Lopez deliver the money. The problem was, Hodge didn’t think it was possible to get the approvals in just a couple of weeks.
“Let me guess,” she said. “That dog ain’t going to hunt.”
Lawson nodded and smiled. Hodge said it so often that it had become a joke around the squad room.
“We used to do this kind of thing all the time in Miami,” she said. “You could get an undercover to pretend he works for Graham.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” Lawson nodded. “Then we bring the cash back to the office and document it.”
“We follow the money,” Perez said, “and it will lead us to Miguel.”
FOR SOMEONE COMING FROM across the river in Nuevo Laredo, the plaza in front of La Posada Hotel was a logical place to meet. The historic and imposing Spanish-style hotel clung to the bluff above the Rio Grande like an ancient citadel. In the nineteenth century it had served as a convent, and its white stucco walls had withstood bullets in the Mexican Revolution. Now La Posada served as a point of pride in Laredo—it was the closest thing the city had to a fancy hotel. It was also within walking distance of the bridge into Nuevo Laredo. And the plaza across the street, ringed by palm trees, had been a meeting place for countless border transactions since before Texas had joined the Union.
Victor Lopez had designated the time and place. Graham told Lopez that his farmhand, in a dark blue pickup truck, would be there at the plaza waiting. There would be bales of hay in the bed of the truck, so Lopez couldn’t miss him.
Lawson sat nearby in his unmarked Chevy keeping his eye on the undercover and waiting for Lopez to appear. An agent from another RA had volunteered to be the undercover. He wore a transmitter so Lawson would overhear everything that was said during the transaction. Perez, in another unmarked vehicle parked near the Catholic church on the far end of the plaza, also kept watch. If the undercover got hurt or the money got ripped, they would move in fast to pull him out.
It was late January and unusually cold, so Perez had to keep the car and the heater running to stay warm. Three undercover task force officers circulated around the plaza, sitting on benches or pretending to wait for a taxi or bus at the curb. But mostly they kept moving just to stay warm.
Perdomo and Hodge had parked near the international bridge, where they would alert the team once they spotted Lopez crossing the bridge into Laredo. An hour and a half passed, but there was still no sign of him. “What the hell?” Lawson said over the radio to the guys near the bridge. “Have you seen him yet?”
“Nada,” said Perdomo.
Lawson phoned Tyler Graham in Elgin to ask for his help. “Hey, could you phone Victor and ask him what’s going on? He’s almost two hours late.”
“All right,” Graham said. In a few minutes he called back.
“He says one of his friends was stopped by a Customs and Border Protection agent on the bridge. But Victor says she’s only got $9,000 on her so there’s nothing they can do to her.”
“Shit,” Lawson said. Now was not the time for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to be doing its job. From what Graham had told him, he guessed that Lopez was using several women as mules to bring the money across the bridge. Each one of Lopez’s “friends” was carrying cash under the $10,000 limit, which meant they weren’t required by law to declare it to a U.S. customs agent at the bridge. Concealing the cash and bringing it across in $9,900 increments or less was what the feds called “structuring of funds,” and it was illegal. This was why the customs agent was suspicious. If another one of Lopez’s friends got popped on the bridge with $9,000 in cash in her purse, their money drop would never happen. They needed to do something quick. Lawson radioed the others with the update.
Perdomo’s voice crackled over the radio: “I’ll go talk to CBP.” Through his binoculars, Lawson could see him walking fast toward the bridge, which was choked with cars and pedestrians waiting in line to enter the United States. He knew it would take time to convince the CBP agent on the bridge to let his quarry go. It could be another thirty minutes, easy.
Finally, Perez and Lawson spotted someone who they suspected was Lopez walking swiftly toward the plaza. Stocky and in his late twenties, with a buzz cut, Lopez was wearing a navy blue windbreaker over a red hoodie and lugging a black duffel bag.
“Here he comes,” Lawson said over the radio. Perez peered through her binoculars to get a better look as Lopez walked briskly toward the hotel. The undercover agent was sitting in his blue pickup at the curb. Lawson snapped photos as Lopez approached. The agent unlocked the passenger door and Lopez ducked inside the cab of the truck and dropped the duffel bag on the passenger side floor. The undercover nodded and said, “Thanks.” There wasn’t anything else for Lawson to hear on the transmitter other than the muffled noises of the agent checking inside the duffel bag for the money. After waiting for hours, it was all over in less than five minutes. Lopez turned and quickly walked south toward the bridge and Mexico.
Lawson, Perez, and the others followed the undercover back to their office. When they got there they counted the money in the duffel bag, which came out to $36,000, just as Lopez had promised. Perez photographed the cash, and then they put it in the safe. In the morning, they would deliver the money to Graham in Austin. And Nayen and José would never suspect that their new employee had just handed Miguel’s money over to the FBI. The money drop had worked out better than Lawson had hoped, with the mules bringing the cash across the bridge to Lopez in Laredo. Now they had proof that José had used structured funds from Mexico to pay his mounting expenses at Graham’s farm.