Welcome to the Crime Fiction Files. I’m CIA veteran Carmen Amato, sharing the encounters, experiences and current events behind my crime fiction thrillers, including the award-winning Detective Emilia Cruz police series set in Acapulco.
As a CIA veteran who spent a considerable amount of time in Mexico, I have thoughts about the deaths of two reported CIA officers there. While the media frets about Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum’s response, the real story is in Langley, Virginia.
Please read on.
What happened
In the early morning of Sunday, 19 April, law enforcement officers from the Mexican state of Chihuahua were traveling in a convoy after raiding cartel meth labs. They were reportedly accompanied by CIA intelligence officers.
The lead car, carrying Director of the Chihuahua State Investigation agency Pedro Román Oseguera and agent Manuel Genaro Montes, overturned into a ravine, killing both of them as well as the CIA officers who have not been named.
Put yourself in the shoes of those Americans, in a foreign country in the middle of a dark rural night, on a scary road with strangers you don’t know if you can trust.
What were they thinking as the car slid off the edge of the road, tumbled down a steep incline and burst into flames from which there was no escape?
All because 100,000 people at home die of cartel-supplied drugs every year.
Who did what
President Sheinbaum is bound by a law which prevents foreign participation in Mexican law enforcement operations. The Chihuahua attorney general, César Jáuregui Moreno, attempted to downplay the foreign role, insisting no US officers participated in the raid. He called the US officers “instructors from the U.S. Embassy” who were in the state giving a course on drone operation.
Sheinbaum declared that Chihuahua should have cleared such collaboration at the federal level first and there will be an investigation.
Much of the media turned the story into one about Sheinbaum’s flagging popularity.
Fallen in the line of duty
A shock wave runs through the Agency when one of its own dies in the line of duty. There will be Agency memorial events for these two officers, statements from senior officers to the Agency population, and private ceremonies of grief as well as celebrations of life. Tears will be shed, toasts will be drunk and more.
Although the media is impatient to know names, the CIA’s first responsibility is to the families of the officers. That’s a private dialogue.
(Note: Besides writing the Detective Emilia Cruz series set in Acapulco, I’m part of a group of former CIA officers crowd-writing a thriller entitled MOSCOW SYNDROME. Income from the sales of the book will be donated to the Agency’s fund for family members.)
Stars on the Wall
These officers will not be forgotten.
The author in the CIA lobby, Nov 2016.
Two more stars will be carved into the marble of the CIA Memorial Wall, bringing the new total of CIA officers who gave their life for the country to 142. If unclassified, their names will be inscribed in the book of those who died in the line of duty.
Yet they are all remembered.
#excerpt
All too often, the Detective Emilia Cruz series mirrors real life. Sometimes it’s intentional, but today it’s not. I wrote this scene in DRAGON CARTEL long before the events described above. DRAGON CARTEL releases on 16 June.
In this scene, Emilia is an observer as the Mexican Army raids a suspected drug lab.
But the intelligence is faulty . . .
Held up by lumber sunk into buckets of hardened cement, a crazy quilt of blue tarps served as a roof over a chemical mixing plant. A run of plywood tables held giant plastic vats and metal kettles for stewing and brewing, oar-sized mixing paddles, scales for weighing product, pill presses and a variety of hand cranked machines arranged to make a do-it-yourself assembly line.
“Madre de Dios,” Emilia murmured, accepting a mask and a pair of latex gloves from one of the soldiers. She’d seen a few other drug labs but this one dwarfed them all.
Similarly gloved, Bowen jiggled the lever of a pill press. “Fake aspirin,” he informed Emilia. “They were making fentanyl pills that look like aspirin.”
A generator stood ready to heat an outdoor cooker, apparently powered by the phalanx of propane cylinders waiting against the wall of the bunkhouse. At least three dozen heavy cardboard barrels with metal lids, many stuffed with used plastic wrappers, gave an indication of how much raw material had been processed there.
The scale of production obviously had been immense but nothing suggested recent occupation. Everything under the tent was brittle and dusty. Parked by the edge of the makeshift tent, the tires of the Hi-Lux trucks sagged and windshields were opaque with dust and pollen. Those vehicles had been sitting for a long time.
DRAGON CARTEL hits all online bookstores 16 June!
Read the latest in the series? Get BARRACUDA BAY.
#noticed
READ: DEAD AND BURIED is the latest Cornish Crime thriller, the atmospheric police procedural series. The crime scene is a lithium mine—the stuff powering your cell phone battery! Writing as Berrick Ford, my Crime Conversations YouTube channel co-host Jane Harvey-Berrick serves up another riveting read.
WATCH: We watched The Gray Man movie on Netflix last night. Starring Ryan Gosling and based on the book by Mark Greaney, it’s a breathless action romp with an accomplished cast that includes Ana de Armas, Billy Bob Thornton, Wagner Moura, and Regé-Jean Page. A fight scene while parachuting, chasing a villain in a maze, lots of improbable martial arts, etc. A fun diversion from this week’s sad news.
That’s all for this edition. Thank you for spending this time with me.
All the best, Carmen
P.S. A percentage of book sales and affiliate links go to support veterans and first responder organizations. When you buy a book, invite me on a podcast or recommend this newsletter, you help me help others. Thank you.
MY BACKSTORY— I learned a few things about danger, deception and resilience during a 30-year career with the CIA focusing on counterdrug and technical collection. Now a mystery author, those lessons play out on the page, especially in the Detective Emilia Cruz mystery series set in Acapulco. Starting with Cliff Diver, the series is a back-to-back winner of the Poison Cup Award for Outstanding Series from CrimeMasters of America. I’ve also written historical and political thrillers, essays about the craft of crime fiction, and live with a very large white dog named Bear.
In case you missed earlier newsletters:
Thanks, Carmen. I was never in a position to use the kind of courage those agents and you had to use. I’m not sure I could be that brave. I’m glad you all do that for me and others and that the story can be told so we know.
Love you newsletter! So insightful. Thank you for all your dedication to the writing community and your attention to these important global matters.