Chapter Eight

MEXICAN BROTHERS

The headline read, MEXICAN NATIONALS WITH DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY RUNS OVER AND FATALY INJURES A 12 YEAR OLD BOY. The story went on to say that two Mexicans, brothers, were drunk, had stolen a car and hit the boy as he crossed the street near his home. Police responding to the report found the car abandoned nearby. The brothers were apprehended attempting to steal another car just a block away from the abandoned car.
The brothers have been arrested and released 3 times in the last 18 months. Cole asked a reporter who had done a story on the fatally injured boy about the story. He told Cole that there was a Mexican government office in Salt Lake City. These brothers worked in the office and were protected by Diplomatic Immunity! The reporter’s cell alarm went off, he said,
“Oops, I’ve got an appointment, help yourself, my notes on these animals are in my desk, bottom left side, the file is marked with a skull and crossbones.”
Cole went into the reporters’ office and pulled out the skull and crossbones file. The notes on the Mexican brothers were on top. Cole paged down through the rest of the file. The reporter was keeping a file on crimes where he knew the suspect was guilty of murder, but had been released because of mistakes made by the police department or the prosecuting attorney. Other times the murderer was released because his attorney had found some loophole where the system released his client. Some of them were released or given a short sentence because the victim was never found or the evidence wasn’t strong enough to convince the jury to convict. Cole went to the copy machine and copied the entire file.

In the notes on the Mexican brothers, Cole saw the name of a bar where these guys went to get drunk. There was another address, probably where they lived. He also had a picture, mug shots, of these legally protected swine. He figured that the bar would be a Mexican bar where he and Aaron wouldn’t be welcome, and would in all probability be asked to leave. “No, the direct approach would probably get them beaten, stabbed and maybe killed.”
“Let’s go see if that address is a house and where it’s located.”
The address was located in a middle class neighborhood. This is the kind of place where both the husband and wife usually work in low paying jobs in order to make enough money to live there. People like these Mexicans move into the neighborhood and most of the neighbors never even see them. They become almost invisible.
Cole and Aaron drove around the neighborhood. There was no one on the streets during the day. There would probably be some activity going on in the evening after work. People would be out taking care of their lawns, having dinner and watching TV.
This was during their lunch hour, so they turned around and came back by the house. Just as they were passing the house, the front door opened and a cigarette was thrown out the half opened door. “We need to come back at another time. It’s time to get to work and we don’t know how many people are in the house.”
“You’re right,” said Cole, “we could go up to the door, knock on the door and be facing 10 armed Mexicans with nothing to say or do. Aaron, since you live closer to this location than I do, how about driving by here on the way to work, then come back by here on your way home for a few days to see if you can see any kind of pattern.”
“Consider it done. If I happen to notice something that needs our immediate attention, I’ll call you.”

After a week of driving by the house that they suspected held the Mexican brothers, Aaron drove by just as a black Chrysler 300 with the windows so dark that a person couldn’t see through, pulled into the driveway. 2 Hispanic men got out of the car, walked up to the house, hesitated just long enough to unlock the door, and went inside.

“Cole, I just saw them come home and go inside. I pulled over at the end of the street where I can watch the front of the house in my mirrors.”

“I don’t think that it would be a good idea to go crashing in there without knowing how many knives and guns they have close enough for easy access. Let’s keep doing this for a couple more days. If they come home at the same time every day, maybe we can break into their house and be waiting for them when they come home,” said Cole
Aaron drove down the street at exactly the same time each day. Each day the Mexican brothers would show up at approximately the same time. No other people were with them when they returned home each day.
Cole listened to Aaron as he told him what times they got home each night. “Next Monday I will leave work a little early. Just early enough to give us a half hour or so to get in the house and prepare a welcoming reception for them. I would expect them to be armed with a knife for sure and possibly a pistol as well. So, we need to surprise them. Aaron, what do you think?”

“Sounds like a plan. Assuming all goes as planned, what do we do as they come in the house?”

“I figure that we should have something heavy enough to knock them down without any struggle. I don’t want them to have time to pull out a knife or pistol. If our pistols had silencers I would feel much better prepared.”
“I liked the hit you put on that big guy. Right to the neck and it was all over.”
“That would work except for a couple of things. I would rather not use the crushed larynx again for awhile and with 2 of them and 2 of us, it would be too easy for something to go wrong. If we both had a short piece of pipe or a tire iron, we could probably take them both out before either of them knows what’s happening. I just happen to have a tire iron that is already broken in.”
Aaron didn’t have a tire iron that would work, but he had a heavy wrecking bar that weighed a couple of pounds. One end was shaped like the prying part of a hammer with two sharp “teeth” with a gap between that could be used to pull out nails; the other end was sharp like a chisel. Either end would do a lot of damage with the weight and the sharp edges.

“I like it. We go next Monday night. We can discuss the plan and go over it step by step next Monday at noon,” said Aaron. “I’ll keep driving by here every day to see if there is a change in the time they come home.”
Next Monday they went over the plan and decided to leave one of the vehicles at a grocery store parking lot 7 blocks away from the Mexican brothers’ home. In the other vehicle, they would ride to the house and park around the corner, then walk to the house. They would get in by going in a back door or window. If they couldn’t quickly force the door open, they would break a window, preferable in a back door, then reach in and open the door.

They parked the car around the corner from the house and put on their gloves. They walked back down the street covering the metal weapons inside their jackets. It was deserted without a person in sight. There were no cars on the street or in any driveway. Cole walked up to the door, and tried to open it, IT WAS UNLOCKED. “PSSSS Aaron, its unlocked, come here quick!”

Aaron jumped up beside Cole in about 3 steps. “Let’s go in, fast.”
They opened the door and went inside expecting to meet a dozen, armed Mexicans. Instead there was a man lying under a blanket on the couch.
“Jose, did you bring me some medicine” said the man who was facing the wall in heavily accented English.”

Before he could turn toward them, Aaron stepped over and planted the wrecking bar teeth in the crown of his head. There was no more movement from the blanket. Aaron pulled the bloody metal bar up and wiped it off on the blanket. “I didn’t know how hard to hit him so I hit him pretty hard.”
“It’s better to hit him too hard than not hard enough. It looks like he won’t be getting up under his own power ever again.”
Cole closed the door and stood watching the street through a small window in the door. “Jose should be here soon.” A few minutes later, a sleek, new pickup with dealer plates pulled up.

“My turn, I’ll stand right behind the door, as he closes it, I’ll step out and club him. You can stand just out of his sight in the bedroom hallway. You’ll know if you need to come help me,” whispered Cole.
A Hispanic man opened the door, stepped in and turned to close the door. As he turned, Cole brought the tire iron down and across his head. He dropped like a stone. Blood was gushing out the wound on the side of his head. “Before we leave, let’s check out the house.”

It was almost like Déjà Vu, on the kitchen table was a pile of plastic sacks with white powder in them, a kitchen aluminum bowl was almost full of smaller plastic sacks with little brown rocks in them, and a duffle bag on the chair was full of money.

“Quick, go through the house, is there another duffle bag?” Cole said as he ran into the nearest bedroom. He saw 2 empty duffle bags and ran back into the front room. Aaron came running in with another full duffle bag. “This one is full of money, mostly $20’s.
“Let’s take the $50s and the $100s in one bag, and put some of the smaller bills in the other duffle bag for a fire. Then we can rig up some kind of explosion to start a fire and we’ll probably be in the clear. Does this house have gas heat?”
“Yes it does.”

“Find me a hammer if you can, I think I saw a tool chest in the closet. I’ll put a bunch of paper on the burner on the electric stove. When it gets hot enough to start the paper burning, there should be gas everywhere, if we can knock the connection off somewhere.”

Aaron took off to see if he could find a hammer, Cole went to Jose, lifted his jacket and pulled out a 9 MM Glock pistol from a shoulder holster. The holster also had a neat round elastic holder that held a 3 inch round piece of what looked like a pipe. “I think this is a silencer,” said Cole. He went over to the blanket; the guy there had a 9 MM Glock in his hand and a shoulder holster with a duplicate silencer. Cole took both guns and holsters and put them in the duffle bag.

Aaron came back with a sheepish grin, I didn’t find a hammer, but my bloody wrecking bar should do the trick, he opened the water heater closet, hit the gas hose connection until it started to leak and came after Cole. “Time to go.”
Cole laid the newspaper down on the hot plate and flipped the electric burner control on high. “OK after you, out the back door and down the alley to your car.”
They walked down the alley. When they reached the car, they threw the duffle bags in the back seat and drove back to the parking lot to get Cole’s car. There was no sign of a police siren or a fire truck, yet.

“Do you realize this is the first time I have directly killed a rabid dog,” asked Aaron?

“How do you feel?”

“I feel like superman!” Aaron handed Cole the duffle bag. “See you at noon tomorrow.”
At noon the next day, Aaron asked, “how much this time?”

“$125,000, I put it in the storage unit with the rest of money. I also put in a bunch of clothes and boxes of stuff that I have been accumulating in the garage. I put the duffle bags in a trash sack. It’s the first of the month, here’s another $1,000. This is a lot of money to have in that storage unit.”

“Did you see on the news last night? There was a fire. The fire was caused by a gas leak and an overheated kitchen stove. They found 2 bodies that were so badly burned that they couldn’t tell if they died from the fire or some other cause. The police found evidence of drugs in the ashes. With the drug residue and also an undetermined amount of money burned in a bag, it points to the house being a major drug distribution point. The house had been rented by the Mexican government and was occupied by their employees. They had no comment on the fire and deaths. The two have been identified as the same Mexican brothers who ran over and killed the young boy several weeks ago,” said Aaron.

“Amazing, I guess crime doesn’t pay after all. I’ve been thinking about the storage unit. If we go and rent a big unit somewhere else, there is a bigger chance for a suspicious manager to go to the mob. I checked in the complex where my unit is and he has an available unit big enough to drive the motor home inside and it has an electrical plug-in. I told him that I needed to have somewhere to park a truck out of the elements so I rented it for a year. It will take me a couple of days, with your help, to fix it up so that it’s reasonably secure.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I want all this money protected by electronic alarms with instant notice to us if a break-in is attempted and an electric fence attached to the door lock to keep out any curious people who come along looking for anything of value.”
“Ok, that sounds good, but what are you talking about?”

“First we have to go to LOWES’s to get some supplies. We will need a roll of barbed wire, 40 eight foot studs, skill saw, screws, electric screw driver, electric drill and bits, the biggest padlock they have, pliers, heavy duty wire cutter, black tape, a roll of coated 20 gauge wire, heavy duty twist–on connectors, and some heavy duty gloves. If they carry diesel powered electric generators we can get one there, if not we’ll have to make another stop. We will also need to stop at an alarm company to get some specialized alarm equipment and a farm equipment store for the most powerful electric fence controller that they have. There is no doubt that we will need additional supplies, but this should get us started.”

Cole attached the studs to the existing wall and ceiling supports and from them put a grid of studs 24 inches apart. To the studs he attached the barbed wire every 12 inches. The ceiling and 3 walls all were covered with the barbed wire. He was careful to avoid the screws in the studs to avoid grounding the electric fence.

“I spent some time at my uncles’ farm where he used an electric fence to keep his livestock inside his fences. A cow will put its nose up to the fence and somehow smell or feel the electricity and stay away from it. Without the electricity, the cows will just walk through the fence. He always used barbed wire so that if the cow touched the fence, the barb would make a better connection for the electricity to hammer the animal. I saw a big, 2,500 pounds, Holstein bull that didn’t like the rocks we were throwing at him; decide to come through an electric fence after my brother and me. He had a chain in his nose and when the chain hit the fence it knocked him down on his knees and he forgot about us.”

“The current comes on and off every few seconds. If it didn’t, it would kill anybody and anything that touched it. Anyway, we will connect the electric fence controller to the barbed wire and also connect it to the door latch. The door is steel and touches the ground; so if the wire touches it, the electricity in the fence is grounded and is useless. I’ve fixed the locking assembly to the door so that it’s insulated from the door. I used plastic pieces and layers of electrical insulation material. The diesel electricity generator is hooked to the system. If the power goes off, the generator will start up immediately and keep the fence going. There’s enough diesel fuel to run the generator for 48 hours. The alarm system is connected to the generator as well and will call both you and I, if the door is raised, the electric fence is shorted out, or if the power switches to the generator.

If a person walks by and touches the padlock, he will get a jolt that could knock him or her down. That won’t faze the controller. If a person were to put a wire around the padlock and stick it into the ground or a bucket of water or something to ground it, it would call us with “INTRUDER ALERT.” We turn off the electric fence with this little remote control, just like your TV set. The controller also keeps track of any shorts. It will tell us exactly each time something touches the wire, or the door handle and the duration. If the manager or someone comes by and just touches it and goes away, we will read it as a hit. If the hit is longer than 5 seconds, it calls us.”

“We have to test it. Do you want to touch it?

“Are you out of your mind? Hell no, after you told me just how powerful a fence like this is, you ask me if I want to touch it?”

“I just thought I would ask. I touched my uncle’s fence once on purpose and once by accident. Both times, it knocked me down as it sent a jolt of electricity through me. No serious damage. I thought that you might want to know how it feels. We’re done, the fence is on, the door is shut and the padlock is on the door. I have on tennis shoes so it might protect me from the full power of the fence.” With that comment, Cole reached out and grabbed the padlock.

The electricity does strange things to the body. All of the nerves and muscles in the body are controlled by small charges of electricity. When you subject the body to a massive charge of electricity, strange things happen. In this case, Cole went flying through the air and crashed into the back of the tank. He lay there on the ground as Aaron laughed hysterically. After a minute or so, Aaron was beginning to get worried when Cole groaned and sat up. “Wow, just like I remembered. This is more powerful, but the electricity that goes through my body is something I will never forget. Are you sure you don’t want to try it?”

“I’m glad that all of our work produced a working alarm system, but no, there’s no way I’m going to test it.”

“I told the manager that I was going to build some shelving and put in an alarm since the unit had an electric plug-in. I am going to warn him not to touch the lock on the door.”

“One final item to add and we’re done. Did you see any safes at LOWE’S?”
“I didn’t see any safes there but I have seen them at Sportsman’s Warehouse.” If some bad guys get through the storage facility security, and our first line of defense, I want them to face the biggest, heaviest safe that Sportsman’s carries. “I don’t want the manager to know that we have a safe in here,” so they laid it on its back under a tarp of the truck. There was enough room in the storage unit to bolt the safe to the back wall and still be able to pull the truck in with 20 feet to spare.
With the safe in place and bolted to the back wall and the cement floor, Cole and Aaron transferred the money briefcases and duffle bags to the safe. It filled up the safe. “We’re going to need another safe, so we might as well get two more!” They went back and bought 2 more safes and bolted them down. “One last test, the fence is off, but the alarm system is active; Aaron, raise the door.” He raised the door and both cell phones rang and displayed “INTRUDER ALERT.” “Hot damn, it works,” said Aaron.