Riven shifted on the chair, looking at both of them before she pushed to her feet, paced the length of the kitchen. “I know you want answers about Colombia.”
McGuire glanced at Patch, reminded himself to keep his voice low, neutral. “I think it’s important we know why you were there. How it ties into Langley screwing us over. He was the one who killed the feed — who set us up to take the fall.”
She bit at her bottom lip as she speared her fingers through her hair before letting her head tip back. She took a few breaths, then nodded. “Fine, CliffNote’s version… About a month before I went undercover, one of the directors in Task Force Sentinel discovered anomalies in Langley’s mission logs. Seems his teams had an unusual number of ops where the shipments weren’t on site, or they encountered resistance when it was a recon-only scenario. And all the encounters involved one cartel — Herrera.”
She took a breath, finally made her way over to the table and slid back onto her seat. “I guess your director knows mine, and since they’re all notoriously suspicious people, they wanted to know if Langley was playing both sides, or if he was just a patsy in all this. So, I got volunteered to infiltrate the Herrera cartel —see if I could work my way up the food chain high enough I’d be able to trace the shipments back to Langley.”
McGuire nodded. “How long were you under?”
A shiver worked through her. “A year.”
“Shit. That’s why you were in that camp that night. You’d gotten close to Herrera.”
“I had to let some shit go that likely stained my soul for all of eternity, but yeah. And I was getting close to the Holy Grail of intel when everything went sideways.” She raked her fingers through her hair, again. “I don’t know what the hell happened. That night was supposed to be a dead-drop.”
Patch frowned. “What’s a dead-drop?”
“For certain clientele, Herrera makes arrangements where the drugs or weapons are deposited at a prearranged site, and he sends his men in after so they can just load the shipment onto their trucks. No physical interaction between the supplier and them. Keeps it all clean. But then Herrera got a call, and the next thing I know, he’s sending out a bunch of hissicarios,your feed pops up on the main monitor, and…” Her voice drifted off, some of the color draining from her face.
McGuire took a chance, reached out and cupped her hand in his. “And you were forced to make a choice.”
She stared at their joined hands, her smaller one trembling within his. “Nothelping you was never an option. Standing by while he and other cartels went at it was one thing. Doing nothing while he killed a black ops squad?” She shook her head. “Nothing’s worth that, especially not what was left of my soul. Though, it did mean that I had limited time to pull some of the intel I’d gathered.”
“What were you able to grab?”
“Nothing concrete enough to put Langley and his political connection in Leavenworth. The first section is a mix of partial shipping manifests, lists of weapons’ serial numbers,cargo container IDs, and transport routes for illicit shipments facilitated by Langley. It’s great if you want to know what was moved. It just doesn’t show who paid or profited from it.”
Patch scraped his chair back. “And the second part?”
Riven sighed. “A list of shell corporations that Herrera uses for financial transactions and logistics. Again, nothing I can link directly to anyone. However, what really worries them is all the shit I saw.” She tapped her head. “I know who controls Herrera’s shadow ledger.”
Patch coughed. “Shadow ledger?”
“Herrera has two ledgers. The primary and the shadow. The primary is the cartel’s operational book. It’s a physical, constantly updated inventory of assets, shipments, and payments to low-level players.”
McGuire nodded. “And this shadow ledger?”
She smiled. “It’s his insurance policy. A high-level record of payoffs to corrupt officials, like Langley, detailing dates, amounts, and the actions they took in return. You double cross him, and he burns your world to the ground.”
“And you know who has it?”
She rubbed the back of her neck. “A hulk of a man known asEl Martillo— it meansThe Hammer. I saw him a dozen times meeting with Herrera outside Bogotá, but we’ve never been able to connect him to any of Herrera’s front-companies stateside.Martillo’sin charge of how the guns, drugs, and money move from the Gulf Coast inland. He’s disciplined, lethal, and extremely paranoid. Which is why he’s in charge of the shadow ledger. He’s the one who records everything.”
McGuire looked at Patch. “Sounds like if we find him, we find this shadow ledger.”
She laughed. “If only it was that easy.Martillo’sno idiot. He knows the DEA has been trying to infiltrate the cartel for years. So, he keeps the shadow ledger locked up in a private,high-security vault in one of his front-companies. Access to this vault’s location is controlled by a weekly, unique passphrase he puts on the final two pages of the primary ledger. This ensures only someone with current, intimate access to the cartel can get their hands on it.”
Patch grunted. “So, we need the primary ledger in order to locate the shadow one.”
“Or at least the current passphrase. There’s just one problem…Martillodoesn’t keep the damn thing in one place. It’s wherever the main point of financial activity is for that month’s shipments so he can record all the information.”
Patch scrubbed his hand across his face. “I think I need a drink.”
McGuire huffed. “I’m sure Savvy can help…”
His cell rang, the incessant buzzing rattling his teeth. He slipped it out of his pocket, placed it on the table. “I swear, she’s like Bloody Mary. You say her name a few times, and she appears.”
Patch chuckled. “I’m gonna tell her you said that.”
