The blast of the powerful bomb hidden inside the camper trailer disintegrated it and mangled the pickup truck while blowing it tens of meters away. The three CBP agents doing the search were instantly killed, along with the old driver of the pickup, while five more CBP agents and dozens of nearby motorists and pedestrian travelers were either killed or seriously wounded. Part of one wall of the border station’s main building collapsed, while all the windows within 200 meters were blown in by the force of the blast. In her gate booth, a terrified Juanita was thrown to the ground when her whole booth shook madly for an instant. Now half deaf, she cautiously got back on her feet and looked with wide eyes at the large crater in the asphalt dug where Inspection Spot Number Four had been. A scream of pain then made her head turn towards the car she had been checking out at the moment of the explosion. What looked like a vehicle rear bumper had been projected with force against the car’s windshield, shattering it and hitting the occupants inside. The man and woman who had been sitting at the front were now inert and covered with blood, while a hysterical young girl sitting in the back was screaming in pain, her face and T-shirt bloodied.
‘’Oh my God!’
Juanita then tried to call by phone the main CBP office in the station but found the line dead, probably cut by the explosion. She nearly panicked then but, seeing the poor girl scream, gathered her courage and grabbed the first aid kit she kept in her booth before stepping out and going to the mangled car next to it, resolved to come to the aid of the unfortunate child. From the wounds sustained by her parents and the fact that they were totally inert, with their eyes wide open and fixed, it was highly likely that both adults were dead. She thus didn’t waste any time to check them out and went straight to the wounded child, speaking to her in a soothing voice while opening her first aid kit on top of the rear bench seat.
226
‘’Don’t worry: I am going to help you, little one.’
‘’MOMMY! DADDY! PLEASE WAKE UP!’
0:37 (Washington Time)
Wednesday, October 24, 2007 ‘C’
CBP Headquarters, Ronald Reagan Building
Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
CBP Commissioner James Walters was
positively boiling with anger when he arrived at the headquarters of his service, situated in the Ronald Reagan Building, on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.
‘’Those fucking drug cartel bastards! To
blow up one of our border stations like this.’
As he was walking towards his office, his senior agent in charge of the night shift approached him at a near run.
‘’Sir, we just got a call from Administrator Tandy, who is presently at DEA19
headquarters. She wants you to call her on a secure line as quickly as possible.’
‘’Very well! What is the latest word from our border station in Laredo, Mike?’
‘’Up to now, the casualty count is eight of our agents and civilian employees killed, along with 23 travelers, and twelve agents and 47 travelers wounded, many of them critically, sir. The border station itself has suffered some serious damage and the station commander has ordered the Juarez/Lincoln bridge closed until further notice.’
Those numbers infuriated Walters even more and he charged like a bull into his office, where he sat behind his work desk before grabbing the encrypted telephone line linking his headquarters with those of a number of other federal law enforcement agencies.
Composing the office number for Karen Tandy, the DEA Administrator, he got her on the line after two rings.
‘’Administrator Tandy!’
19 DEA: Drug Enforcement Administration. The American federal agency in charge of combating illicit drug trafficking and distribution in the United States. It also has sole responsibility for coordinating and pursuing U.S. drug investigations both domestically and abroad.
227
‘’Karen, this is James, at CBP Headquarters. You wanted me to call you ASAP20?’
‘’I sure did, James. We at DEA received less than thirty minutes ago an anonymous phone call which pretended to be from the Los Zetas Cartel21. In that call, the Los Zetas took credit for the
attack on your border post in Laredo.
It also contained a warning for our
government saying, quote, stop your
stupid War on Drugs or you will soon
feel what real war is like, unquote. I
have already passed the content of
this call to both our Department of
Homeland Security and to the White House. The ball is now in the President’s court on how we will react to this outrage. How are your people in Laredo faring, James?’
‘’Rather badly, I’m afraid. Eight of my agents have been killed and another 23
were wounded, while twelve American and Mexican citizens were killed and another 47
wounded. The Laredo-Juarez/Lincoln border station is now closed on a temporary basis.’
‘’And what do you think of that warning from the Los Zetas, James?’
Walters sighed in discouragement at that question.
‘’Karen, as much as I wish that we could make those bastards pay for this outrage, the reality is that the Los Zetas Cartel, like most of the other Mexican drug cartels, counts tens of thousands of armed members, most of them hiding among the Mexican general population, and is awash with weapons. Furthermore, the authorities and police of the State of Tamaulipas, where the Los Zetas mostly operate, are notoriously corrupt and we can’t thus count on them to help us apprehend the authors of this crime. You also have to take account of the fact that tens of thousands of American citizens are inside of Mexico at any one time, either as tourists, workers or business owners. Any direct action we would take against the Los Zetas could result in those American citizens becoming targets for those criminals.’
Karen Tandy, apparently shocked by his negative response, objected at once.
20 ASAP: As Soon As Possible. A term used very frequently in the United States.
21 Los Zetas Cartel: Powerful and extremely brutal Mexican drug cartel established in the state of Tamaulipas, on the border with Texas, with its leaders mostly based in Nuevo Laredo.
228
‘’James, how could you give up this easily to these bastards?’
That question in turn made Walters nearly mad with anger and frustration.
‘’How? Because I keep seeing the bastards we manage to catch being released thanks to the high-flight lawyers the cartels can afford to hire for their important members. Because our justice system is too slow, too clogged and too lenient with those scum. While we play nice and legal with them, they kidnap, torture and kill with near impunity, while half of the Mexican government and police is in the pocket of the cartels. So, excuse me for being realistic here, Karen. Feel free to have me sacked, but I won’t change my opinion on this. What we need to get rid of them is to wage total war against them, and I don’t mean a legal war. We need someone like ex-General of the Army Dows, with powers to use the full might of our military against the cartels, in order to rid us of those blood-thirsty monsters.’
Walters then cut the line, too angry to continue this conversation. At the other end of the line, Karen Tandy looked for a moment at her telephone handset, then slowly put it down. In truth, she agreed with everything Walters had said. Unfortunately, political reality would probably make Walters’ wish impossible to realize.
18:08 (Seattle Time)
1402 South McDonald Street, Port Angeles
