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  “And who is the worst?”

  “Miguel Guerra. Son of the Cartel de Tijuana leader.”

  “How do we get to him?”

  Andrea thought for a moment. “I know he’s a fanatical surfer.”

  Peters grinned. “My thoughts exactly. That’s where Carl and Kelly come in.”

  Andrea looked at us. “You are surfers as well as Special Forces?”

  “We can surf,” said Carl.

  “More importantly, they’re hardcore,” said Peters. “That’s something the hijos respect. Do you know how to get them an introduction? Not you personally of course, as Guerra would never trust a journalist. But any tips on how we could go about it?”

  “Guerra lives for surf, power and women. He already has power, but he wants to be recognized as a world-class surfer. At the moment he wins every competition because no one is stupid enough to beat him. He knows that. So you need to get someone who can challenge him, but also get his respect at the same time.”

  Peters looked at Carl and me. “You guys up for that?”

  “Sure,” said Carl, and grabbed my shoulder. “Aren’t we buddy?”

  I nodded with more enthusiasm that I felt.

  Chapter Five

  CARL WAS GUNG-HO, but I’m not sure he realized most of the surfing would have to be done by me.

  He had recently broken a leg and been shot in the shoulder, so would not be as acrobatic on a fast-running board as he thought.

  I am a good surfer. But I had not surfed competitively for several years for the simple reason there are no waves in the Afghanistan mountains or the Syrian desert. So how would I shape up against the hottest locals on their home waters? Not to mention, surfers who had a penchant for killing anyone beating them in a competition.

  My reservations were somewhat allayed when we travelled to Rosarito Beach the next day and spent several hours watching the hijos riding waves. They were adequate, but not spectacular. No doubt that was because they only surfed local swells, and unless you surf everything, from beach breaks, point breaks and reef breaks to barrels and bombs, you never become good. These guys also were arrogant in the extreme as no half-decent surfer would be stupid enough to go up against them. In other words, they surfed in a bubble of their own perceived excellence.

  So yes, I figured I could hold my own, and even with his injuries, Carl reckoned he could do the same. The question was, would we survive doing so?

  We were on the beach when John joined us.

  “How far are you prepared to go with this?” Peters asked Carl.

  “All the way. You’ll have to clear it with my people though.”

  “No problem. We just tell them we need a guy who surfs and looks like Patrick Swayze and we’ll get you.”

  “Patrick Swayze’s dead. May not be such a good analogy.”

  “Yeah. But you’re the reincarnation. That’s a good omen.”

  John looked at Chris and Nick. “How long are you guys staying?”

  Chris shrugged. “No timetable, really. I work in the summer, so I’m officially a vagrant for the next five months.”

  “I’m retired,” said Nick.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard about you. The day you retire is the day pigs break Mach 1.”

  He took the binoculars off me and watched the Mexicans surfing.

  “I’ve been thinking about what Andrea said. About the hijos liking women as much as surfing and drugs. Maybe that’s another way we can set up some sort of introduction.”

  “What do you mean?” Carl asked.

  “You’re going to need a girlfriend, which gives us an excuse to get one of our people into the action.”

  “You mean a DEA agent? Hope she’s better looking than you.”

  “Impossible. But one of our agents fits the bill perfectly. She’s blonde, sassy, and surfs. What we do is bring her out here as your chica, and she casts some flirtatious glances at the hijos. You guys take advantage of that, asking them about surf breaks and generally making them feel like big wave riders, and ease your way into the inner circle. Let’s see where that takes us.”

  I agreed, as I knew localism was almost as rife in Baja as it was in California. You don’t just pitch up and muscle the local dudes off their waves. In fact, more so as in San Diego or L.A. you may get your nose broken, but that’s about it. Here, the hijos would opt for a more permanent solution. Like a cement surfboard. We would have to do it slowly, show them we were good, and make them want to be associated with us. Having a wahine — or surfer girl in beach patois — added a new dimension.

  Carl wasn’t so sure. “Just someone else we will have to look out for,” he said.

  John laughed. “You’ll soon change your mind about that. Anyway, I’ve got some other stuff to do and will be back in three days. So you guys have some fun, because everything is going to start kicking off big time soon.”

  …

  ROOSTERFISH ARE KNOWN as the punk rockers of the aquatic world.

  This is primarily because their dorsal fin consists of seven long spines that mirrors a Sex Pistols’ hairstyle. But the term also sums up their belligerent attitude. As my dad always said, they are in your face, cantankerous, and their most benign expression is a snarl.

  But they are beautiful, which is not necessarily a word commonly found in the same sentence as ‘punk’.

  We rigged up ten-weight fly-rods, with clear, slow-sinking lines and enough backing to stop a train. Which is about the speed a roosterfish takes a fly.

  I was in my element, but for Chris, Carl and Nick, this was as far removed as you could get from drifting in a dory on an Alaskan river. Here physical fitness, stamina and the ability to cast far, quickly and accurately, are not only required, but demanded. Roosters move constantly along the surfline in search of bait fish, and with a freakily-forked tail to accelerate faster that a NASCAR racer, there’s only the tiniest window of opportunity imaginable for a cast.

  This time, instead of Chris being the guide, I was. A fin briefly broke the surface, and I pointed it out to Chris. I then saw why he was such a revered angler. With a rapid double-hauled cast, he placed the fly an inch in front of the fish.

  Then he shoved the rod under his arm and pulled the line in as fast as he could. The fish followed eagerly, then veered away.

  The same happened to Nick. Then Carl. The Americans soon discovered that getting Mexican roosters to follow a fly was simple. Getting them to eat one — not so much.

  They constantly swopped flies, using sardine and mullet imitations of various colors and sizes. But despite my … ahem, excellent tuition, none worked.

  After three hours they were exhausted.

  “I reckon it's time for a cerveza,” said Nick. There was no dissent as we headed for Tecate Jack’s bar near the beach car park.

  “Not fair,” said Chris, slaking his thirst with a chilled bottle of Dos Equis. “I got you into plenty of salmon. Yet you can’t get us even a crippled rooster.”

  “Life’s not fair,” I agreed. “And there is no such thing as a crippled rooster.”

  Back in the apartment, Carl picked up his cellphone that bleeped with messages. He had left it behind as there was no signal on the beach.

  “It’s John Peters. He’s phoned at least five times.”

  Carl pressed the redial button.

  “What’s up?”

  “We need to speak soon. Can I come over?”

  “Yeah. We’ve just got off the beach.”

  John arrived thirty minutes later. With him was a platinum blonde dressed in cut-off shorts and a skimpy tank-top vest. She was carrying a surf board.

  “This is Caysee Miller,” said John. “Your new girlfriend, Carl.”

  Caysee laughed at the look of incredulity on his face. “It’s only a cover. You don’t have to be so terrified.”

  Carl shrugged and grinned. “Not at all. I expected you to look … different. Great to meet you.”

  Caysee was tall, almost six foot, with eyes as blue as a blowt
orch flame. She was no classic beauty, but had the body of an Olympic athlete, with curves complimenting muscles. She could easily grace the cover of any sports magazine.

  Which she had. Surf’s Up used her on several occasions, and sales always spiked. This was no coincidence as Caysee was an exceptional surfer, as well as an undercover agent. For her, those two worlds brutally collided ten years ago. Her father had been a Los Angeles homicide cop, and Caysee came home from the beach one day to be told that the man she adored had been killed by an illegal immigrant crazed on heroin.

  She was sixteen. For the next two years she watched her grieving mother waste away, easing her pain with prescription opioids that pharmacists provided by the fistful to treat depression. Caysee surfed with a singlemindedness that was joyless in its cold intensity. She wanted to win titles, which she did.

  She also took up mixed martial arts with the same ferocity, concentrating on Muay Thai that combined kickboxing with elbows, fists and knees. But she did not fight in refereed competitions in padded rings. Caysee learnt how to eye-gouge, groin crush and break necks in bareknuckle brawls.

  She buried her mother on a Saturday. On Monday she signed up for the Los Angeles police academy with the sole intention of joining the DEA and fighting the drug cartels. She never blamed the hopeless loser who shot her dad. She blamed those who provided the drugs and the gun.

  She arrived in Mexico a month ago. This was her first big undercover operation in the country; to play girlfriend to some allegedly hotshot Delta operator that her boss John Peters knew back from the glory days.

  “There’s a surfing contest at Baja Malibu this weekend,” said John. “We want Kelly and Carl to enter with Caysee.”

  “I thought we were just going to ease in and become friendly, not take them on in a contest,” said Carl “I still have an injury.”

  Peters laughed. “Relax. You’ll fit in just fine. Our backroom geeks are working on your profile as we speak. They’ve dug up the genuine newspaper report of you winning a Coronado Beach championship five years ago, and also posted a fake one of how you conquered all of northern California big breaks, including Mavericks. Then you broke your back in a skydiving cluster-fuck on a surfing trip to Kenya. That put you out of action for three years. So you are a now soul surfer, doing it for Gaia and spirituality and all that stuff. You are in Baja with the love of your life, surfer girl Caysee, and your protégé Kelly, finding your karma again. You are entering this contest just to meet the locals. Not to win.”

  We all laughed. “I’ve been on seat-of-the-pants Black Ops with more credibility than that,” said Carl. That was becoming a standard line with us.

  John shrugged. “You’ll be surprised what our geeks have come up with. You even have a surfing blog already reaching hundreds of followers. Soon you’ll make Kelly Slater look like a dog-paddler. Don’t be surprised if Surfing magazine calls, gasping for an interview.”

  “And Caysee?”

  “You met her surfing the polar breaks in a Canadian Arctic Archipelago. No one had been there before, you hit it off — the extremities of ice-cold ocean and white-hot passion uniting kindred spirits.”

  “John, if I take this job, it certainly won’t because of your poetic turn of phrase.”

  John slipped Carl an envelope.

  “Your orders. And Kelly’s. Signed by your boss, the dreaded Col. Charles Beckenham himself. You are now officially working with me until further notice.”

  Chapter Six

  FUNNY HOW LIFE can be. I save some guy’s life in the desert because that’s what we do in the Unit, and a year later, I’m entering a surfing contest in Mexico on Uncle Sam’s dime.

  We had three days to practice, which Carl desperately needed. But he was not expected to do well, and Peters provided a neoprene corset to give credibility to the broken back story. It also covered the bullet wound, which had healed nicely but still left a nasty puckered scar.

  From my perspective, I was in peak condition after living hard in Syria, and also had spent much of the previous month surfing Mavericks with my dad. Although that was fun rather than competitive, it honed my edge as the winter swell at Baja Malibu was a fraction of the big Northern Californian juggernauts. But even so, the uncrowded Baja barrels where Carl and I practiced, were hollow, fast and powerful, so you needed to know what you are doing before being spat out. It was just what Carl needed.

  However, the contest itself would be held at Rosarito, one of the most crowded and touristy beaches in northern Baja. We were told that this was the hijos summer hangout, mainly due to accessibility of scantily-clad gringas, with Baja Malibu better for winter breaks. But why they were holding a late autumn contest at Rosarito, I do not know. Maybe for the gringa groupies.

  Biggest surprise for both us and the hijos was the skill of the head gringa herself, Caysee. Peter’s had mentioned she could surf. He forgot to add superlatives — she was that good. We knew she had grown up on L.A. breaks, but didn’t know she could surf either regular or goofy-footed with equal dexterity. I had never seen that before, and it meant she always faced the wave, no matter if it broke left or right.

  Saturday came. From the first moment I could see this was an amateur event. The hijo surfers were out in force — or so we were told by Andrea who was mingling in the crowd — but few others. As soon as the organizer saw we were gringos, he doubled Carl’s and my entry fee, but as I said earlier, Uncle Sam would pony up. Caysee wasn’t charged at all, as one of the leering hijos offered to sponsor her. The fact she and Carl were holding hands, or that Carl was as ripped as a boxer, made no difference. It was clear that on this beach, all girls belonged to the hijos.

  If Caysee was a fine surfer, she was an equally good actress. Andrea surreptitiously pointed out Miguel Guerra and it’s a good thing she did, because he didn’t exactly stand out. Small — perhaps five foot three — but athletically-built with long straight black hair cascading to his shoulders. His wide black eyes drooped sleepily, making his expression gentle to the point of being babyish. Offhand, I couldn’t think of anyone who looked less like a narco. Caysee caught his eye and even I was fooled by the open adoration on her face. Miguel couldn’t stop gawping at her.

  The less said about the competition, the better. Except this. After one wave that I carved up better than I had any other in my life and scored a paltry six, I cut Miguel Guerra off as we paddle for a rising set. He grabbed my arm and as I shook it off, he made a throat-slashing sign with a finger. His droopy eyes slitted like a venomous snake’s. His face looked anything but babyish.

  Carl and I were eliminated after the second round, whereas Caysee made it through to the quarter-finals. She should have gone farther, but it was obvious no foreigner was going to win this. Earlier I had described it as “amateur”, but “rigged” would be a more accurate description. However, judging by the rapturous applause as she left, the crowd loved her tiny bikini as much as her surfing prowess. Even the judges gave her a standing ovation.

  To the surprise of no one, Miguel won. I went up with Caysee to congratulate him and apologized for cutting him off, saying what a fine surfer he was.

  Magnanimous in victory, Miguel shrugged nonchalantly, and then turned to stare at Caysee again. The fact she was almost a foot taller seemed to interest him even more.

  “What are you doing tonight? We are having a party and always welcome Yanqui surfers.”

  He spoke excellent English, which was not unusual as I knew he had been born in San Diego and attended a private school there. He had dual citizenship, as did most rich Tijuanans.

  “Hey, we’d love to,” I said, but Miguel wasn’t looking at me.

  “I’ll have to ask my boyfriend,” Caysee said, batting her eyelids to indicate that was not an issue.

  Miguel smiled, took her hand and kissed it. “Bring him along too.”

  He pointed to a towering L-shaped building at the edge of the shoreline. A large sign blazoned ‘Beach Spa Hotel’.

  “I’ve booked
the penthouse. The party starts at ten.”

  We returned to our apartment at Baja Malibu with a question I never thought I would ask; what do I wear to a narco party?

  Like many who have lived either on the beach or in the military, I am sorely sartorially challenged. So is Carl, and to a lesser extent Caysee. Carl argued that as our cover was “soul surfers”, we should wear ripped jeans and T-shirts, or perhaps untucked plaid. But narcos were into bling.

  Carl phoned Andrea. Definitely not bling, she said. We needed to look Yanqui beach bums, and even though the hotel we were going to had a dress code, they would never evict guests invited by Guerra.

  We were fashionably late, which was a good thing as Miguel was higher than a space shuttle when we arrived. One of our pressing problems was how far Caysee should actually go with him. To flirt too outrageously and then say “no” could be a death sentence. No woman did that to a hijo. So there had to be a fine line between a come-on, and actually going the whole way. Caysee indicated that if it came to that, she would do what she had to do. She was first and foremost a DEA agent. She would do what it took to bring down one of the most vicious crime families on the planet. The shock on our faces must have been obvious.

  “Don’t worry. This won’t be my first honey trap gig.”

  Thankfully, it seemed tonight may not come to that. Miguel was too far out of it to pose a threat, although whenever she was in range, he pawed her buttocks. One could argue he was merely putting his arm around her, as that was pretty much their height difference.

  The biggest eye-opener for me, having led a secluded life apart from being shot, stabbed, or bombed — albeit by grenades rather than hallucinogens — was the scale of opulence. Or more accurately, decadence. Every glass tabletop had a line of coke neatly straightened with a razor blade, and the drink of choice was Gran Patrón Burdeos, an amber-colored tequila that sells for an eye-watering five hundred dollars a bottle. And these blingsters were slugging it down like tap water. I suppose after snorting a pure line off a glass table, your senses are numb anyway.