THE NIGHT BEFORE THE RAID, PEREZ CHECKED INTO HER HOTEL ROOM IN San Antonio. She didn’t expect to get much sleep. It was late in the evening and the temperature had barely gone down after a sweltering summer afternoon. The air conditioner in her room rattled on. Her mind kept relentlessly playing over the details of the raid in the morning. They would hit the homes and racetracks just as the sun was coming up. She debated whether there was any point in going to bed. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Just after midnight her cell phone rang. A panicked agent in New Mexico, responsible for keeping watch on Fernando Garcia, said the horse trainer wasn’t at home. Lawson had been closely monitoring José Treviño’s cell phone, tracking his movements. They’d had a scare earlier in the afternoon when José had nearly missed his flight back to Oklahoma from Los Angeles, which would have meant disaster. But at the last moment he’d made the flight. Besides several agents on the ground in four states, they had two planes conducting surveillance in New Mexico and California to make sure everyone was accounted for when the raid went down first thing in the morning. The news that Garcia was missing rattled Perez. Had he been tipped off? She dialed Lawson in Oklahoma.
Lawson was pacing the sidewalk outside his hotel, too keyed up to sleep, when Perez called. He’d arrived late in Oklahoma City, only to find three hundred agents waiting for him at the National Guard Armory downtown. He hadn’t known that he would be briefing the roomful of agents, which immediately made him feel anxious. Throughout the morning and afternoon, FBI and IRS agents and police had been filtering into Oklahoma City trying not to look conspicuous as they checked into blocks of hotel rooms for the night. The expansive armory was the only place large enough for all of them to meet. Lawson had never stood in front of so many people. It helped having Pennington there next to him.
The two reminded the assembled agents that it was the Zetas who had killed Jaime Zapata, a federal agent with HSI, and nearly killed his partner, Victor Avila, in February. Lawson had friends in Laredo who had worked closely with both agents. During his first weeks in Laredo, he’d seen the pair in the hallway before they were transferred to Mexico. Now one of them was dead. The Zetas were the most brutal cartel in Mexico, Lawson warned. José was the elder brother of Miguel and Omar Treviño, two of the cartel’s leaders, and the raid on family members in Lexington, including their elderly mother, could have deadly repercussions. The U.S. Department of State had drafted an advisory, to be released after the raid, warning U.S. travelers to Mexico of an “enhanced potential for violence.”
On the outskirts of Oklahoma City, Henry Maldonado, the head of asset forfeitures for the IRS, had assembled his own army. He’d mobilized more than a dozen cowboys with horse trailers and told them to be ready at daybreak for his text. He didn’t tell them where they were going or give them too many specifics on the job, only that they should be prepared for anything and would have plenty of security. Once Pennington and his task force took possession of the horses, the IRS would have to number and photograph each horse. They also had to identify the most valuable of the herd, which would be hauled away by the cowboys waiting with their trailers.
As Lawson walked circles on the sidewalk he listened to Perez, who sounded stressed as she explained that Garcia couldn’t be located in Ruidoso. They planned on hitting his house at daybreak, but the agents doing surveillance on his home said his car wasn’t in the driveway.
“You think he suspects something?” Perez asked.
“If he did, José would be out of here already. But he hasn’t moved,” Lawson said.
“I’ll keep you posted,” Perez said.
“Alma?”
“Yeah,” she said, stifling a yawn.
“I wish you were here,” Lawson said.
“Me too,” she said. “But I’m glad you’re there. It was yours from the beginning and you should be there.”
“Thanks,” Lawson said. He didn’t know what else to say. “Good night,” he said and hung up the phone. Perez cared as much about the case as he did, if not more. A good agent always wanted to be there at the takedown, because that’s when things could get sloppy, important pieces of evidence overlooked. No one knew the case better or was more invested than the case agent. He would see things that even the evidence team, who were trained professionals, would miss. It was just human nature. When you’d poured nearly three years of your life into something you tended to pay attention to even the smallest details. They had sacrificed time with their families. Lawson’s girlfriend was close to breaking up with him, and Perez had missed out on her kids’ birthdays, Little League games, and preschool performances. It wouldn’t all be for nothing if they arrested José and his brothers. But to do that everything had to flow smoothly during the raid. There couldn’t be any mistakes.
In San Antonio, it was Perez’s job to coordinate the twelve hundred agents and personnel involved in the simultaneous raids in Texas, California, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. They would be hitting Ruidoso Downs and Los Alamitos and the residences of Garcia, Nayen, Huitron, and José’s ranch in Lexington. Of the twelve hundred personnel, three hundred would be at the raid in Lexington, and the rest would be spread out at the other locations. Perez would be tracking and entering every new piece of evidence in a secure database, coordinating search warrants, and running down new leads alongside a team of representatives from the DEA and IRS, and with Doug Gardner from the U.S. attorney’s office.
Even though they had indicted Miguel and Omar, the two were still out of the FBI’s reach in Mexico. But Perez and Lawson hoped not for long. Their main priority, besides arresting José in Lexington, was to locate all of his cell phones. When Lawson entered José’s house he’d have a phone technician with him from one of their evidence teams. Rarely did one come across a drug kingpin’s number, but the agents knew that José spoke with his brothers regularly. Once they had Miguel’s number they could track him to his exact location. But it would have to be fast; as soon as word of the raids spread, he and Omar would drop their phones. The agents had only a matter of minutes. A strike team of Mexican soldiers was already waiting on standby. This time Miguel wouldn’t get away.
Lawson went back to his hotel room. He was restless and ready to hit José’s farm. In less than four hours, they would assemble at the armory again and then set out for the hourlong drive to Lexington. Lawson thought about his dad and what he would think about what his son the FBI agent was about to do. He would have been proud in his typically understated way. “You’ll do all right,” he’d say. More than a year had passed since his dad had died, and Lawson still couldn’t bring himself to delete his number from his cell phone. As he lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling, he wished he could call him one last time.
IT WAS STILL DARK outside when the convoy left for Lexington. Anyone awake would have thought that Oklahoma was under siege. But the agents had not wanted to take any chances. They were also sending a message of overwhelming force. SWAT police in marked vehicles led the long convoy of unmarked federal vehicles and two mine-resistant, ambush-protected troop carriers. At the rear of the convoy were more SWAT team members in marked police vehicles. Lawson and Pennington rode toward the front of the convoy. As they left the outskirts of Oklahoma City, Perez sent Lawson a text from the command center in San Antonio. “Here we go. I wouldn’t have traded you as a partner for anything.”
It made him feel better that he was about to finally confront José—a moment they had both anticipated and imagined for so long—and Perez wouldn’t hold it against him. She’d never held grudges, which he appreciated. In another text, Perez also let him know that Garcia had finally shown up at his home. All of their targets were in place now.
The SWAT team drove up the long gravel driveway to José’s ranch. Lawson and Pennington waited in their vehicle in the driveway until the SWAT gave them the all-clear. Overhead, a surveillance plane circled the property to make sure there were no surprise ambushes or escapes. The plane had barely made it to Lexington; upon takeoff the pilot had radioed that he might not be able to land. He’d struck a deer as he taxied down the runway and damaged his landing gear, but had decided to go through with the mission anyway.
“This is the FBI. Come out with your hands up!” one of the SWAT officers shouted through a megaphone as the other officers surrounded the ranch house. The one-hundred-acre ranch had several buildings, including five barns and an office, but Lawson wanted to hit José’s house first before he could destroy the cell phones and other evidence. José came out of the house followed by his wife, Zulema, and three of his children—José Jr., who was no longer a teenager, and two younger children. José and Zulema had their hands in the air and looked confused. The sun was just beginning to rise and they were still in their pajamas and disheveled from the abrupt awakening. José’s mother was staying in a mobile home behind the ranch house. A SWAT team member escorted the elderly matriarch to the front of the property along with the rest of the family. Lawson, Pennington, and the other federal agents were given the all-clear to enter the ranch after the SWAT searched the barns and homes on the property. José and his wife were handcuffed. Lawson immediately went in with one of the evidence teams to search for the cell phones. He knew he had very little time.
As they searched José’s room, Lawson got a text from Perez that the other raids were going as planned. In California, the FBI and DEA had arrested Nayen at his upscale condo near Los Alamitos. One of the FBI agents noted that his BlackBerry had no battery in it, which would slow down the recovery of any useful phone numbers. Lawson doubted there was anything there anyway. After the Los Alamitos raid, Miguel, Omar, and the whole crew had immediately dropped their phones.
The rest of the Waco Treasury Taskforce had split into two teams tasked with the seizures and arrests at Ruidoso Downs and Los Alamitos. In California, Brian Schutt arrested horse trainer Felipe Quintero, and Steve Junker with the help of Kim and Billy Williams picked up Fernando Garcia in New Mexico. Outside Austin, Chevo Huitron was handcuffed by local FBI agents and driven to a nearby courthouse to be arraigned.
But it was still too soon to feel any sense of triumph. Lawson needed to find José’s cell phones and time was running out. Lawson and the phone technician dug through drawers and closets, while Pennington went out to search the office in the barn. Finally Lawson’s persistence was rewarded. In a drawer filled with socks and underwear he discovered a BlackBerry and several thick rolls of cash. It was all crisp, clean hundred-dollar bills—the kind that Miguel preferred. The phone technician powered up the BlackBerry and searched the contacts. There was just one phone number, and he could tell by the long prefix that it was Mexican. Lawson felt his adrenaline racing with the find. Because the phone was hidden, had just one number, and was a BlackBerry, Miguel’s usual method of communication, all the signs were encouraging. They would need to move quickly to triangulate the cartel leader’s GPS coordinates before Miguel tossed his phone. Lawson quickly texted the number to Perez at the command center so it could be relayed to the analysts and their strike team in Mexico.
As they searched the ranch, the New York Times story on José Treviño and Tremor Enterprises was already reaching tens of thousands of readers. Ginger Thompson, the Times reporter, had her exclusive, which made for a blockbuster story that was soon picked up by other media outlets around the world, especially in Mexico, where an in-depth investigation into the Treviños would have been unthinkable because of government collusion and corruption.
After the evidence team had combed through José’s office in the barn, Lawson and Pennington wanted to give it one more sweep. Lawson needed to get to a nearby FBI office where he would finally meet with José face-to-face, but first he wanted another pass at the evidence. Lawson rifled through the file cabinets looking for anything useful. He pulled out a check from Tremor Enterprises made out to Francisco Colorado for $400,000 that had never been cashed. “That’s gold,” Pennington said. Lawson tucked the check away in an evidence bag and gave it to the team.
Altogether, the evidence team had hauled away a hundred boxes filled with horse records, financial documents, and other evidence. They also seized several computers that José used for his business. Finally satisfied, Lawson drove to the FBI office in Norman, halfway between Lexington and Oklahoma City, where José and Zulema had been transported. He’d been trying to imagine this meeting for years. When he got to the office, they had José sitting in an interrogation room waiting for him. José had been allowed to change into a pair of jeans and a work shirt. He still acted like they had nothing on him and that it had all been a mistake. Lawson sat down across from him with task force officer Ernie Elizondo, who spoke Spanish, in case there was a language barrier, but he knew José’s English was good, so he proceeded.
“I want you to just listen before I read you your Miranda rights,” Lawson said. “We’ve been working on this a long time, it’s not something we just started two or three months ago. If there’s anything you can say to shed light on the situation and help yourself I would appreciate it.”
José nodded. “I understand my rights,” he said.
Lawson read him his rights, then passed the consent form over to José, who refused to sign it. “All my life I’ve worked hard . . . ,” José said. “I’m an American and I respect the uniform of law enforcement.” But law enforcement had made his life hell, he said, because of his brothers Miguel and Omar. “I can pick my friends and associates, but I have no control over picking my family,” he told Lawson. He said he didn’t keep in contact with his brothers anyway.
“What about your horse farm? Aren’t the horses owned by Miguel?” Lawson asked.
José shook his head. “I’ve worked very hard to become successful,” he said. It was all because of Tempting Dash, which he’d bought for a cheap price, and had won him a lot of money. Everything he had today was founded on his initial winnings from the champion horse. “It’s unfair for you to connect my success to my brother.”
Lawson hoped he could rile up José enough that he’d let something slip about Miguel that they could use to locate him. He’d given José a chance, told him that this wasn’t just some lightweight investigation, so he might have a come-to-Jesus moment and offer up some information that could help their case. But that wasn’t José’s style.
“Why would Ramiro Villarreal sell you Tempting Dash for almost nothing after the horse had been so successful?”
“I don’t know why Ramiro sold him so cheap,” José said. He told Lawson he had no idea that Villarreal had worked for his brother Miguel. Nor did he know that Tempting Dash had raced in Mexico either.
Now he was really starting to insult Lawson’s intelligence. “What about Carlos Nayen?”
“He’s a client of mine,” José said.
“We know that Carlos works for Miguel.”
“You should talk to Carlos and Miguel about that.”
Lawson could see he wasn’t going to get anywhere. He’d offered up a taste of what he had, but José wasn’t going to budge. It was time for him to show José just how deep he was in it this time, and that he wasn’t going to walk away like he had before. “We know that Miguel sends the drug proceeds to Carlos Nayen so he can pay the expenses for your operation.” He pulled a copy of a spreadsheet out of his pocket and put it down on the table. “You took this to a meeting with Miguel and Carlos in Mexico.”
“That would be the business of Carlos and Miguel. It’s none of my business,” said José, hardly glancing at the paper.
“We have proof you took it to them personally,” Lawson said. He could tell he had gotten to José this time by his blank expression. José was trying to think of what to do or say next.
“I don’t have anything more to say,” José finally said with a defiant look, and sat back in his chair. The interview was over. Lawson stood up from the table, and folded up the copy of the spreadsheet. He knew the next time he talked to José it would be through his lawyer. He hoped they’d have better luck in Mexico.