Hunting El Chapo Read online

  “SEMAR is ready to go. All Chapo needs to do is pop out of his rathole and come down for a meet one last time,” I told Brady.

  “From the moment he gets to Duck Dynasty, he’s fucked,” said Brady. “On that lagoon, he’ll have nowhere to run.”

  THERE WAS NO turning back now—I’d told SEMAR everything they needed to know, and on January 19, the marines began making their first movements, flying into the base at La Paz and moving ground troops into the local Sinaloa bases in El Castillo, La Puente, and Chilango.

  That same night, at 10 p.m., Brady called me.

  “Goddammit,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “You’ve gotta see this. Just coming in.”

  It was a brand-new line sheet. Lic-F to Chapo.

  “Sergio just met with the one from the water that has the special team in MEX. He’s giving him ten rolls a month.”

  I felt a hollow ache hit my stomach. “Ones from the water”—code for the marines. And the “special team in Mexico City”—possibly Furia’s brigade. Had our entire operation just been compromised? Ten rolls. That meant the contact was being paid $100,000 a month for intel. I tried to put my anger into words, but I couldn’t.

  “Hold on. It gets worse,” Brady said.

  By now I had pulled up the line sheets and translation on my own laptop.

  Lic-F: Ahorita llegaron 3 rapidas del agua al castillo, puros encapuchados (son fuerzas especiales del agua) como que quieren operar en culiacan. Al rato nos avisa el comandante ya que platique con ellos a ver que logra saber.

  “Three fast ones from the water arrived at El Castillo, all hooded ones (they’re special forces from the water). Like they want to have an operation in Culiacan. The commander is going to let us know later once he talks to them.”

  Lic-F: Estan reportando 4 trillas grandes en la calma. Hay que estar pendientes pues no vayan ha querer cruzar el charco.

  “They’re reporting four helicopters in La Paz. We need to stay alert in case they want to cross El Charco.”

  “They’re all over us,” Brady said.

  “‘In case they want to cross El Charco,’” I repeated aloud.

  El Charco—the pond. I knew that was code for the Sea of Cortez, separating the Mexican mainland, including Sinaloa, from the long, thin peninsula where the La Paz base was located.

  LEAKS. GODDAMN LEAKS. The steady drip, drip, drip had now turned into a deluge.

  “Jesus,” I said under my breath.

  “He knows every move we’re making,” Brady said.

  I reread the messages two more times, then stared at the multicolored swirl of pin-markers on my Google Map.

  The ones from the water.

  Hooded ones.

  Stay alert.

  Crossing the pond.

  Lic-F was reporting every military movement immediately to Chapo. I stared again at that long peninsula, at the La Paz base, then back at the heart of Culiacán. My pattern of pin markers blurred into a fiery kaleidoscope.

  “Drew?”

  The silence hung between us for a long time. Then I heard my voice, repeating, as if in a trance.

  “Yes. He knows every move we’re making.”

  Part III

  La Paz

  “DREW?”

  I heard Brady, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer.

  Standing at the window, I could feel the heat rising in my chest—my neck and face were burning with frustration and anger.

  I always tried to play the diplomat—“Switzerland,” as Brady had said. I had been good at fostering smooth relationships and interagency collaboration; when there were flare-ups, it seemed like I was always talking people off the ledge. I never lost my cool. Getting angry never served the purpose of advancing the investigation.

  But now I was on the verge of exploding.

  I clenched the BlackBerry tighter in my palm.

  “Someone in that room could be dirty,” Brady said.

  Chapo had a high-placed contact in Mexico City on the take for $100,000 per month? The level of corruption—the degree to which Guzmán had compromised the military and law enforcement brass, not just in Sinaloa but even in the nation’s capital—suddenly seemed insurmountable.

  The faces of the admiral, the captain, and the lieutenants quickly flashed through my mind. Just hours before, we’d laid it all out for them in the Kiki Room, and one of them could be corrupt?

  Which one?

  I was standing in the shadows of my living room in La Condesa, phone to my ear, looking out at the parked cars on the dark street below. As I stood there, peering out the window, seeing the ghostly trace of my face’s reflection in the cold glass, I suddenly sensed that I was being watched.

  Who was sitting in those parked cars below?

  The new Charger.

  The old Toyota.

  The phone—was it even secure?

  Someone could be listening to every word.

  “What do you want to do?” Brady asked.

  I took a long breath before answering.

  “There’s no other option,” I said. “We have to confront the admiral—now. Get down here.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, I drove my armored Tahoe to the Mexico City International Airport and scooped Brady up curbside.

  “We gonna pull everything back?” asked Brady. “Not work with SEMAR?”

  “No. Without the marines—let’s be honest—it can’t be done. We gotta go see the admiral personally—at his shop.”

  “They’re still warning Chapo on the lines,” Brady said, and handed me his BlackBerry to read.

  “We have to be very alert, like a pregnant bitch, dude,” wrote Cholo Iván, the fierce sicario who ran the town of Los Mochis.

  “We’ve never seen this many troops at this base—ever.”

  “Something strange is happening—be on alert.”

  “The fast ones, sir. The fast ones.”

  I DROVE DOWN to the south end of DF, swerving, gunning the Tahoe through the gaps in the congested traffic the entire way. At the SEMAR base, we passed through a single gate—manned by two young marines armed with automatic rifles—and were escorted upstairs to a large briefing room. As we approached the top of the stairs, I realized I hadn’t slept or eaten in twenty-four hours. I was too unnerved by the thought of sitting down and facing the admiral; I still had no idea who the source of the leaks could be.

  The conference room was surrounded on both sides by offices. The meeting was supposed to be private—just me, Brady, and Admiral Furia—but there were marines all over, coming and going from all the offices. Everyone was dressed in battle dress uniforms (BDUs), even the young marine serving us coffee and breakfast cookies, and a large projector screen displayed all the intel I had provided the day prior. Admiral Furia was sitting at one end of the long oak table, looking calm, in another one of his pristine white naval dress shirts. Brady and I sat at the corner next to him.

  Brady and I exchanged concerned looks as additional officers entered the room. There were now twice as many officers sitting around the table as at the first meet at the US embassy. I didn’t recognize any of these SEMAR brass. This was not a private meeting.

  “Look at this shit,” Brady whispered to me. “This place could be full of leaks . . .”

  We were there to discuss a top-secret operation to capture the world’s most wanted criminal, but the room was as bustling with activity as the flea market on Reforma that my wife and I took our sons to every Sunday morning.

  “Yeah, too many fuckin’ eyes and ears,” I whispered back, but the admiral was impatiently gesturing for us to get on with it.

  “We’re here to discuss the compromise of intel,” I began. “We’ve received messages that show the target”—I refrained from using Chapo’s name aloud—“is seeing everything that’s happening with your people up in Sinaloa and La Paz. Basically, he’s getting realtime updates. Someone from an elite group of SEMAR in Mexico City is providing the information.”

&nb
sp; I showed Admiral Furia the messages.

  The hooded ones.

  The fast ones.

  The helicopters.

  In case they cross the pond.

  Furia admitted that he knew SEMAR had leaks. He said it was not anyone from his shop, but he wasn’t surprised that Chapo knew everything that was happening on the Pacific coast. He reassured me that he would do everything he could to find the source of the leaks immediately.

  “Security is paramount to me,” Furia said. “If this operation is going to be a success, we need the utmost in secrecy with this intelligence.”

  I had to stifle a smile. Looking around the room—the number of strange faces, the marine officers coming and going—made that statement laughable. I knew that if Duck Dynasty were compromised, and if Chapo aborted his plans to go to the Ensenada de Pabellones, we’d have no choice but to try to make entry into Culiacán.

  A capture-op in Culiacán—just saying it aloud summoned images of a bloodbath. No one wanted that. The fatal firefight with Macho Prieto and his gunmen was too fresh in everyone’s mind. But at this point, there was no turning back—I’d have to let the admiral know.

  “What more do you have on the target’s plans for the trip? Do you know where he’ll be coming from?” the admiral asked, sipping his café con leche.

  “At this point, yes,” I said. “We have his location dialed in very tight. I’ve got him down to a block radius within Culiacán.”

  “Culiacán? You know where he is at this moment?”

  “Well, yes—I don’t have a street address, but I do know the neighborhood. We’re sure it’s the location of one of his primary safe houses.”

  The admiral exploded, shouting that we were holding out on him.

  “No me cambias mi pañal!” “Don’t change my diaper! And don’t bottle-feed me!” Furia slammed his well-manicured hand on the oak table. “Trust needs to be established immediately.”

  I explained that it was not an issue of trust. I wanted to give SEMAR the very best intel we had. I played the diplomat now, apologized, and told the admiral that I’d provide all of our intelligence to him, exposing the network of safe houses in Culiacán where Chapo seemed to spend the majority of his time.

  Admiral Furia took a deep breath, listening intently. Brady added that we meant no offense and were not being accusatory.

  “Mira,” Brady said, “we know we have dirty people working in our agencies, too. Even in the United States.”

  “No one wants Chapo more than us,” Admiral Furia said. “I want to capture him more than anyone in this room. You Americans may not understand this, but his capture is more important to Mexico than the United States. He’s a stain on our entire country.”

  I was impressed by the sincerity of his emotional outburst. The atmosphere in the room eventually calmed down. The leaks had been addressed, and Brady and I did exactly what the admiral wanted: “abra las cartas” (open the books). We disclosed years’ worth of intelligence, taking the admiral meticulously through every detail of Chapo’s secret world.

  Just before we left the room, I grabbed the admiral’s attention one last time.

  “Señor,” I said. “There’s only one thing that can fuck up this entire operation.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Los primos,” I said.

  The cousins—a well-understood euphemism for the CIA. I knew that the admiral had a couple of SEMAR intel guys on CIA’s payroll, and sometimes they’d provide DEA info straight back to the spooks. The CIA could claim the intel as original and act on it, without coordinating with anyone.

  The admiral summoned two officers—a captain and a lieutenant—and told them, rather theatrically, as if for Brady’s and my ears: “Nothing goes to los primos. You understand? That’s a direct order.”

  DRIVING BACK TO the embassy from the meeting, I called Nico to check in.

  “How’s it going over there, man?”

  “Todo bien, mijo,” Nico said. “These guys are ready to rock. I’ll be flying in on the lead helo, and El Roy and a couple of his guys will be in the one behind me.”

  “Okay, you’ve seen the leaks, right? The admiral’s going to do his best to find the guy passing the intel here, and he’s come up with another plan.”

  While we waited for Chapo to move, it was crucial that SEMAR concoct a plausible counterintelligence story: there were just too many halcones (hawks)—Chapo had a vast network of lookouts spying for him in Sinaloa. And so, SEMAR began spreading the word that they were conducting extensive training missions with helicopters, ground crews, and extra brigades on the Pacific coast, so that the heavy new military presence wouldn’t cause Chapo’s people any more alarm.

  SEMAR had also coordinated government aircraft in La Paz, to further pinpoint the Top-Tier BlackBerry device the moment Chapo decided to break free from his Culiacán refuge and head down to the duck-hunting lagoon.

  BRADY FLEW STRAIGHT BACK to El Paso to work the HSI war room.

  A full week passed without any movement from the secretarios.

  “Anything?” Brady asked.

  “No,” I said. “Top-Tier hasn’t left that goddamn block.”

  “I’d be going nuts. Beyond stir-crazy. Imagine not leaving your house—not seeing sunlight—for a straight week?”

  But if anyone was used to staying holed up in some safe house, it was Guzmán. Chapo seemed to be content staying in one location for weeks on end. His daily drug operations were seemingly not affected by the movements of SEMAR.

  Still another week passed.

  “He’s not coming out,” I said. “Our time’s running short with SEMAR. Nico told me they’ve been conducting ‘training missions,’ flying the helos around Cabo, but even that’s getting old. The marines are anxious.”

  “Hold on—this is just coming in,” Brady said, reading a newly translated intercept. “Chapo’s sending Naris down to Duck Dynasty to watch for any marine activity on the roads.”

  After pinging him, I could see Naris poking around, doing his own detective work. Several hours later, he reported right back to Chapo’s safe house. Brady and I learned that Naris had spoken to some middle-aged rancher who neighbored the Pichiguila Club; the neighbor said he and his sons could hear a daily buzzing overhead. But whenever they looked up, they’d see nothing. Heavy activity at the La Paz base was being reported. By now Chapo was certain that something big was up—poor Naris was posted at the side of the road, eyes glued to the sky, waiting for the hum, like some London air marshal during the Blitz.

  “Chapo may know all the movements of the marines,” I said. “The only thing we still have going for us is that it looks like he doesn’t know who’s being targeted.”

  “You’re right,” Brady said. “If he did, he’d be long gone by now.”

  “And so far, there’s been no mention in the line sheets of ‘gringos,’ right?” I asked.

  “None.”

  “PACK YOUR BAGS,” I said. “We need to re-strategize and motivate the troops. Let’s go meet up with Nico and El Roy.”

  “All right,” Brady said, “I can get down in a couple days.”

  Brady’s wife had just given birth to their son, and I knew it wasn’t an ideal time for him to tell her he had to bounce from El Paso.

  “Sorry,” I said. “No, I mean now now—we gotta keep the momentum up. That brigade’s been there too long. Everyone’s getting fuckin’ antsy.” The marines had been on standby at the base for two full weeks, just cleaning their guns and checking their gear, when all they wanted to do was rip their teeth into Chapo and his organization.

  “We go meet the admiral face-to-face—I’m heading out tonight. Wednesday to Friday. Three days—real quick—we re-strategize this thing. Just fly into Cabo San Lucas; I’ll pick you up there and we’ll roll to La Paz.”

  The name of the air force base brought a smile to my face. It was officially known as Base Aérea Militar No. 9, La Paz, Baja California Sur, but everyone simply called it La
Paz—the Peace. I didn’t know what lay in store, but I was sure that I wasn’t likely to see a moment’s peace for a while . . .

  I SPED HOME TO La Condesa to say good-bye to my wife and boys.

  That night, I sat on the edge of my son’s bed, reassuring him about his birthday party the following weekend.

  “You promise?”

  “I promise, buddy. I won’t miss it.”

  No way was I going to be gone a full week. I kissed my son’s forehead and told him I’d be back in plenty of time for the party.

  Yes, a short trip, I reassured my wife. Three days max. Neither Brady nor I was bringing any tactical gear or guns. I threw a couple of shirts, a pair of jeans, and some underwear into my carry-on and bounded down the stairs and into my black Tahoe.

  ALL BRADY AND I needed to do was devise a plan B with the SEMAR brass in case Chapo never set foot outside of his safe house in Culiacán.

  But there was too much unusual activity down in Sinaloa. Flight after flight left the BAM-9 La Paz base, circling Culiacán, attempting to zero in on the one-block diameter I had provided. Aerial images were fine, but we needed actionable intel on addresses—a few houses SEMAR could strike in lightning-fast raids.

  Meanwhile, I was receiving current imagery of Duck Dynasty on my MacBook. From the photographs, I could see a hive of activity at the newly renovated cabins: workers were assembling a bridge out to a man-made island with a large palapa and working on a specially designed party house. The muddy swamp water that made the lagoon so perfect for duck hunting was obviously not something Chapo and his harem of girls would want to skinny-dip in.

  THE CABO SAN LUCAS International Airport was mobbed with American tourists, flocks of college blondes in sarongs and flip-flops, itching to hit the beach. The guys were in baseball caps, surfer shorts, and wraparound shades, probably already nursing hangovers.