Free The Cartel Enforcers (The Bill Dix Detective Series Book 2) by C.L. Swinney

of his car and made a beeline toward Dix. Dix felt whatever he had to say probably wasn’t good. He broke away from the group to meet Kovach away from the stragglers.
    Kovach angrily said to Dix, “These assholes don’t have anything better to do than a bunch of pull ups with you?”
    Dix fired back, “Doug, why don’t you tell me why you’re really mad. I’m too old to deal with anyone’s BS.”
    “Okay, I will. My bosses moved Pedro without telling me or anyone else. To make it worse, I don’t think he’s even in San Diego anymore. They told me they didn’t believe anyone could protect Pedro, and that I needed to focus on getting these cartel members in custody ASAP or I’d be transferred… maybe even fired.”
    “Well that makes sense, Doug. Two deputies are dead and the cartel almost had Pedro for the second time. There’s someone close to this investigation feeding them information,” replied Dix.
    “If we don’t find that someone soon, this is going to spiral out of control, if it hasn’t already,” Kovach replied as he nervously tapped his fingers on the hood of the car.
    Dix was no stranger to chaos. In fact, he thrived in it. The situation was bleak and he found it very odd that no one supposedly knew where Pedro was. Since he and Petersen were asked to protect Pedro and were not told where Pedro was, Dix surmised the higher-ups agreed there was someone leaking information to the killers.
    He tried to reassure Kovach, “Listen, we’re going to hit the streets to see what we can find out.”
    “Ok, please find me something, I’m getting hammered
    by the brass,” replied Kovach. The pressure from his superiors was slowly crushing him and he was worried about Pedro.
    As the agents and officers headed out to their cars, Kovach asked Dix to stay behind for a second. The two exchanged a few words and Kovach jumped in his car and sped away.
    As Dix got into the car with Romero he mumbled and tried to get his cell phone to power on. Romero noticed he seemed pissed off and thought about asking him about it.
    Dix was able to dial Petersen, but got no answer. He left a message that simply said, “Steve call me ASAP.”
    Dix looked over at Romero and said, “I hope you have some great informants. Kovach isn’t concerned with Pedro any more, he believes the cartel is coming for the thirty-million dollars that was in Pedro’s car.”
    Romero felt his heart accelerate, yet caught his initial reaction, which could indicate his involvement with all this.
    Romero flatly replied, “You bet I do, head toward the border.”
     
     

 
    Chapter 16
----
    Kovach grimaced as he dialed a man he loathed…Jose Calderon. It reminded Kovach how fake he was and what a disgrace he had become to his profession. Their relationship had begun on the legal side of things. Calderon was an informant for Kovach, but Kovach allowed him to get too close. Eventually Calderon set him up during a significant buy-bust operation. Kovach made the decision to save himself and work for the cartel instead of going to prison because the place was full of people he’d put away and he wouldn’t last five minutes on the inside. It was a damned if you do, and damned if you don’t situation. He turned to alcohol as a means to deal with his depression. Over time, he became a functioning alcoholic.
    Jose Calderon looked down at his cell phone and noticed Kovach was calling him. He chuckled as he recalled how he played the Homeland Security Investigations supervisor years ago and now he owned him.
    Calderon answered the phone. “This better be good.”
    “We have two problems. First, Pedro has been moved and I have no idea where.”
    “We don’t pay you for more questions, we pay you for answers. You need to locate Pedro immediately. What’s the second problem?”
    Kovach hated being talked to like a two year old child. He reluctantly tried to provide Calderon answers to stall him.
    “The money has been bagged and stored. It will be