Kyle didn’t so much wake up as come to. He was disoriented and felt awful. Something akin to a hangover with an elephant sitting atop your body. His joints hurt, his head spun, and the nausea was so intense he felt he might be sick.
It was only then he realized a man had been standing behind him this whole time. The man yanked his hair back and pried open one of his eyes, then flicked on a penlight to examine the pupils.
Kyle was exhausted and had a deep, ingrained feeling of panic, as if needles were jabbing into his heart and lungs. He had somehow descended into what could only be described as severe depression. It was deep and dark and carried with it a feeling like he’d never pull out. But mixed into the depression was anxiety stronger than he’d ever felt, and he gasped at the air.
The long-haired Latin man pulled open the steel door, which again scraped across the cement, sand and grit crunching underneath. Kyle had no sense of time. He couldn’t tell whether Diego Rojas reentered the room a moment later or hours later.
Rojas checked Kyle’s pupils himself and a deep smile formed on his face. “Muy bien,” he said. “I believe now you are ready to talk? But before we get to that, Agent MacKerron—”
“I’m not an agent,” Kyle murmured back, but his words were barely intelligible.
“Of course you are,” Rojas said through a grin. He held out a syringe for Kyle to see. It was filled with a clear, dark liquid. “One of my specialties. I studied chemistry during my undergraduate work at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, but it wasn’t until I did my masters at UC Berkeley that I really came into my own.” He walked a slow circle around Kyle. “My chosen field of study was chemical and biomolecular engineering, and I was very good. What we’ve been injecting you with is a cocktail of my design. As a DEA agent, I am sure you are aware that Colombian cartels no longer focus solely on cocaine. We have a far more diversified portfolio than ever before. Everything from extortion, illegal gold mining, gambling, and this,” he held the syringe to the light, “synthetic drug cocktails.”
Kyle mumbled something unintelligible.
Rojas listened, then shook his head. He looked at the other man. “Bring me my bag.” When the man returned, Rojas removed a vial and inserted a new syringe into it and drew a dose of clear liquid. He stuck the needle into Kyle’s shoulder and squeezed. “Epinephrine,” he said. “Adrenaline.” He waited a few moments until Kyle’s eyes brightened. “There we are. Now where was I? Ah, yes, what we’ve been injecting you with is a combination of four ingredients. Synthetic, liquefied crack cocaine, heroin, and two of my new favorites, scopolamine and 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, truth serums.” He smiled and continued walking a circle around Kyle. “We’ve been experimenting for the last few years and honed it to perfection. You are both addicted to the narcotics and willing to tell me anything I ask.”
Kyle’s chest heaved up and down with morbid pain flooding his body.
“The misery you are suffering right now can be stopped, all with this needle.” He inserted the needle into a vein in Kyle’s arm. “In this dose, I’ve decreased the heroin and cocaine. You are getting a strong bolus of my truth serum cocktail. Why don’t we begin? But first, let me tell you why you are here. I want to know everything you know in your investigations of my competitors, the Oficina de Envigado cartel.”
A mild euphoria permeated Kyle’s chest and he felt like a million pounds had been lifted off him. The nausea and extreme joint pain also subsided, as did the other symptoms. And in all of this, he felt free, like he was floating.
Kyle struggled, but the power of the drugs overwhelmed him and there was no point fighting the inevitable. The truth began to pour out. “I’m CIA,” he laughed, though Diego Rojas’s intelligence information said otherwise.
“The drugs are almost at full effect,” Rojas said, not realizing Kyle was telling the truth.
Warmth and unadulterated joy washed through Kyle’s body. “I came down here to penetrate the Oficina de Envigado, and it’s been a blast,” he said through drooping eyelids and a smile.
Gustavo Moreno, Rojas’s intelligence officer, walked into the room and leaned against a wall.
“And how many other DEA agents are on the island?” Rojas said.
“Why do you keep asking about DEA? I told you, I’m—”
“How many others on the island?” Rojas smiled to play into Kyle’s drugged euphoria.
“Others? There aren’t any others, man. It’s just me. Hey, can we go to the beach?”
Rojas glanced at Moreno and shook his head. His agitation was building. “And how about our friends in the United States?”
“Oh, yeah, got lots of friends back home.”
Rojas started to raise up but caught himself. “No, I mean communications monitoring, signals intelligence. Eavesdropping, Agent MacKerron. To what extent is the NSA or others at FortHuachuca in Arizona listening in on the operations of my friends at Oficina de Envigado?” Rojas knew the truth. If his competitors in the Envigado cartel were under the watchful eye of the United States through secret monitoring, then his own cartel, Los Rastrojos, had either been compromised or wasn’t far behind.
“Oh, those guys at NSA are great,” Kyle said. His eyes glazed. “Them? Nah, if I had found more, they would have joined the party, but not until then. You think NSA doesn’t have enough to do sniffing out terrorists? They don’t have time for this drug business.” Kyle laughed and slumped over. The guard pulled him upright. “And what else did you say? Oh yeah, FortHuachuca. Yeah, no, those boys don’t ask me for permission before snooping.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, they got a lot of stuff pointed this way though. Always looking for drug runners trying to sneak their plane or cigarette boat under the radar. Always trying to intercept cellphone calls between members of a cartel. You know, crap like that.”
Gustavo Moreno handed Rojas a manila file folder and Rojas opened it. Moreno said, “FortHuachuca, Cochise County, Arizona, Patron.”
“Hey,” Kyle interrupted. “Didn’t they call Pablo Escobar, El Patron? The boss?”
Moreno said, “That’s about fifteen miles north of the Mexican border.”
Rojas spoke as he read, “Over eighteen thousand people are employed at the military base. Home of the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade. And I do love the US military’s use of acronyms, don’t you? United States Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, NETCOM. Army Military Auxiliary Radio System, MARS.”
“Hey, man. MARS, like outer space,” Kyle said. “What’s in that needle you gave me? I feel awesome!”
Rojas did not look up from the intelligence report. “Yes, I’m sure you do. But the effects won’t last long. The Information Systems Engineering Command, ISEC. The United StatesArmyIntelligenceCenter. What? No acronym? How disappointing. And, I’ve saved the best for last. FortHuachuca has,” he looked at the report, “a radar-equipped aerostat, one of a series maintained for the Drug Enforcement Administration. How very fascinating.” He looked at Moreno.
Moreno said, “An aerostat is a type of helium balloon that is lofted to elevate radar and other surveillance monitoring systems, Patron.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “They’ve got some pretty cool shit.”
“The intelligence community and the DEA seem to be very well aligned, do they not? A series of radar and listening devices maintained for the DEA. I’ll ask you again, Agent MacKerron. To what extent are the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the United States eavesdropping onto my island?”
“Oh, man, I don’t know. Like I said, those military boys don’t ask for permiss—”
“I don’t care whether they ask your permission or not!” Rojas screamed.
“Dude, so hostile. I don’t work with those guys. I don’t know what they’re up to.” Kyle’s chin lowered to a rest on his chest. Then he popped up. “And besides, don’t you cartels just change up your routes whenever Uncle Sam is getting close? What’s the big deal, man?”
Rojas shook his head and said to Moreno, “We have to assume we’ve been compromised. The timing could not be worse.” He turned on Kyle. “What’s the big deal, you ask? Changing routes is not a problem, Agent MacKerron. But this is a much bigger issue. I’m afraid you’ve gotten in way over your head and have no idea what is at stake. Now, tell me about the operations of the other cartel, Oficina de Envigado. How many people have they moved onto my island?”
“Best I can tell, about sixty. But you know,” Kyle said as he looked through the haze of his stupor, “sometimes I lose count. Don’t take this the wrong way, but some of those guys look alike. Kind of hard to tell them apart,” he laughed.
“Sixty?” Rojas said as he glanced at Moreno. “Were you aware of their numbers?”
Moreno looked at the tops of his polished dress shoes.
“And who have they moved into position to run the organization here?”
“Well,” Kyle laughed. “It’s sure not a guy named Montes Lima Perez. Got his ass shot off and kicked all to pieces by a girl. Yeah, this girl—”
“It just happened, Moreno said. “An informant at the Royal Police Force said he’s in the intensive care unit. Montes Lima Perez was number two on the island, their top security man.”
“Someone is making a play?” Rojas said. “Trying to muscle in on their organization? Are you telling me we’ve got a third player on the island? Now, at a time like this? We can tolerate no disruptions to our plans. Everything is riding on our ability to keep things quiet.”
“It’s too early to tell,” Moreno said with his palms raised toward Rojas. “We will have information about the girl within the hour. I’ve got a friend at Caricom’s Joint Regional Communications Centre.”
“Hey,” Kyle said, “You like acronyms, right?” He turned to Moreno. “Tell him about the CIP and the JRCC,” the last syllable rolling off his tongue like a song.
Moreno, whose expression never changed, said, “Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Programmes, or CIPs. JRCC is one of Caricom’s intelligence agencies. They monitor the movements of persons of interest, including those who may be a high security threat to the safety and security of the region. They’ll be aware of the girl and who she’s working for.”
“Wonderful,” Rojas said, though his voice was showing telltale signs of a growing impatience. “I want to know who she is. I can’t afford to have a drug war in the streets, not now. We’ve got to keep everything quiet, or else . . .”