The sour cherry surprise

There were three others there besides Des. The supervising agent, who was a bland, buttoned-down DEA man named Cavanaugh. Capt. Joey Amalfitano, the point man for Connecticut’s Narcotics Task Force, who Des had worked a drive-by shooting with back when she was still on the Major Crime Squad. Everyone called him the Aardvark due to his huge, down-turned snout of a nose. And Agent Grisky of the FBI, who was dead wrong about the purpose of this meeting. It was not a tongue-lashing. Everyone was real polite and professional. Everyone, that is, except for Grisky himself. He was still acting all chippy when he wasn’t busy styling in his tight T-shirt and chewing gum with his mouth open.

It was Cavanaugh of the DEA who did most of the talking. “Master Sergeant Mitry, I’m afraid you’ve stumbled your way right smack dab into the middle of Operation Burrito King.”

Des sat there with her hands folded in her lap, wondering how it was the feds always came up with such cute names.

“This operation originated with some wire surveillance we had going on in Tucson,” he informed her in a clipped, quiet voice. “An informant of ours happened to be meeting a dealer at a fast food restaurant of that name.”

Okay, that answered that question.

“We’ve gotten our hooks into a major drug ring with ties to the Vargas family, Mexico’s largest cocaine trafficker in this country. Lately, they’ve started moving into crystal methamphetamine in a huge way. The why is pretty simple. We cracked down on the sale of over-the-counter cold medicines and other household ingredients that were being used to produce the ice domestically. Felt darned proud of ourselves, too. Trouble is, the Mexican traffickers immediately saw an opening and jumped right in.”

“Nobody ever said they weren’t smart businessmen,” Des said.

Cavanaugh nodded his head. “They mass produce it south of the border, then ship it into the U.S. I am talking about hundreds and hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine crystals that are crossing into this country every day. As to what happens to it once it gets north of the border, well, our investigation has led us to Atlanta.”

Right away, Des felt an uptick of her pulse.

“Atlanta’s their distribution center, okay?” Grisky put in now, chomping away at his gum. “All of the ice shipments headed for the midwest and northeast pass through there, okay?”

Des said, “Okay.” He wasn’t going to be happy until she did.

“Over the past six months,” Cavanaugh continued, “we’ve assembled a joint task force made up of the DEA, the FBI, the Connecticut Organized Crime Task Force and, most recently, Captain Amalfitano and his Narcotics Task Force. U.S. Attorney Stokes has also been involved in an advisory capacity for quite some time.”

“And why did you end up in Dorset?” Des wanted to know.

“Because they did,” the Aardvark told her, slurping from a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Like you said, they aren’t dumb. If they stash a huge quantity of product somewhere like the South Bronx then it’s always at risk. You’re talking about a high-crime area crawling with dealers, users and various and sundry lowlifes. Maybe a rival dealer rips them off. Maybe a strung-out snitch whispers in some beat cop’s ear. Bottom line, their product is never secure and they know it. So they’ve started using stash houses in nice, quiet little towns like yours where there isn’t a whole lot of crime or drug traffic or scrutiny. It’s under the radar there. Who would think to look for three hundred pounds of crystal meth in Dorset, am I right?”

“You’re not wrong,” Rundle wheezed, putting the lie to Des’s theory that he’d fallen asleep behind his desk with his eyes open.

“Just last year,” Cavanaugh revealed, “one of the other Mexican cartels was using a lovely little village in the Pennsylvania Amish country.”

“Yeah, right up until we nailed their sorry asses.” Grisky let out a cocky bray of a laugh.

“And Dorset is ideally situated,” the Aardvark went on. “It’s halfway between New York City and Boston. It’s close to I-95. Perfect locale for a wholesale supply house.”

“Clay Mundy is their point man here,” Cavanaugh said. “He and his sidekick Hector set up the stash house on Sour Cherry Lane, and they’re operating it quietly and efficiently right there under everybody’s noses. That so-called seamless gutter business of theirs is strictly a shell. The only thing Nutmegger uses its vans for is transporting product in and out.”

“I knew they smelled wrong,” Des said. “Neither man has a sheet, though.”