Glenn Peterson was walking up the steps of the building that housed the DEA Laredo Field Office when his cell phone rang. He pulled the phone from his suit pocket and checked the screen. The call wasn't from someone in his contacts, and he didn't recognize the number. He thought about letting it go to voicemail. The time on the screen showed he had just five minutes until his meeting with the SAC and the two suits from headquarters.
Funny, he thought, that he called them suits. He was an ASAC, which made him a suit too. He just didn't think of himself as one. A suit was a paper pusher, a chairborne ranger. Most of them had downsized their duty pistols and kept them in their briefcases. He carried his full-sized Glock .40 caliber on his hip. Where an agent carried it. And he was pretty sure he could still kick down a door if he needed to.
His phone rang again. He punched the ANSWER but-ton. "Peterson."
Scott Greene said, "I need to talk to you."
Peterson stopped just outside the glass doors. "So talk. How'd the meeting go with Benny Alvarez?"
"I need to talk to you in person."
"No can do, amigo," Peterson said. "I'm walking into a meeting with the SAC and two pricks from OPR who are here to tear you a new asshole." A pretty woman in a dark suit walked past him and frowned at his vulgarity.
"I found something," Greene said. "And I'm pretty sure it's the key to this whole thing."
"By whole thing you mean..."
"Everything."
Peterson trusted Greene and knew he was a top-notch agent. If he said he had found something, then he had found something pretty damned important. "What is it?"
"Not on the phone," Greene said.
"At least give me an idea."
"A video."
"Of what?"
"You can see it yourself when I bring it to you. But it's the reason four agents are dead and our only witness got snatched away from us."
"You're selling it pretty hard," Peterson said.
"It's enough to sink the government of Mexico. Maybe ours too."
"Must be some video."
"Subtitled with your three favorite letters: C-I-A."
Peterson took a deep breath. This was the last thing he needed six months before mandatory retirement put him on the beach permanently. But it was the job. The job he'd signed up to do, and, in fact, had taken an oath to do. Be-sides, he hated the fucking CIA. "I'm staying at the Radis-son. Room seven-eighteen. Give me two hours to wrap up with these ass-hats."
"See you then," Greene said. Then the line clicked dead.
Peterson walked across the brick apron between the top of the steps and the building. He stood next to a row of con-crete planters and scrolled through his telephone contacts. He tapped a number and pressed the phone to his ear. A few seconds later the line rang. The call was answered on the second ring. A man's voice said, "I'm walking into a meet-ing."
"Me too," Peterson said.
"Mine is with the attorney general."
"If I hadn't strapped you on my back like a rucksack and carried you through four years at the Naval Academy, you wouldn't have been a Marine, you wouldn't have won a Silver Star, and you wouldn't be a United States senator."
The man laughed. "You're right on all counts. But I still have to get to a meeting."
"I think one of my guys just found the smoking gun you're looking for."
There was a pause. Then the man said, "I'm listening."
"I haven't seen it yet," Peterson said, "but he's recov-ered a video. He says it's enough to take down the Mexican government. And maybe ours."
"Who is he?" the man asked.
"The new RAC in Laredo."
"Didn't you just lose three agents in Laredo?"
"There's a lot more to that story."
The man on the other end of the line was silent for a moment. Then he said, "When are you going to see what's on the video?"
"He's bringing it to me in a couple of hours."
"And you trust him?"
"He worked for me in New Orleans," Peterson said. "He's a good agent. He says he's got something big, I believe him."
"If it's good, will he testify in front of my committee?"
"Send him a subpoena."
"I don't want to be embarrassed by an agent taking the fifth over and over. Like those assholes at ATF and the IRS did."
"He's solid," Peterson said. "You ask him a direct ques-tion, he'll give you a direct answer. And it'll be the truth."
Another pause. Then the man on the other end of the line said, "All right. I'll give my staff a warning order in case your guy comes through with something good."
"I may need some cover on this," Peterson said. "I'm six months from pulling the pin and too old to start looking for a new career."
"There's always politics," the man said.
"I'd rather be a prostitute."
"Same thing," the man said with a laugh. Then he hung up.
Glenn Peterson stared at his phone. He was pretty sure he had just unleashed a shit storm.