She nodded to someone, and the photos were reduced to five.
“This has not come out yet, but we know quite a bit about these five from a witness who came forward late last night,” she said. “All five are classmates in the graduate chemistry program at Georgetown University.”
That sent a rumble through the crowd. Georgetown? Chemists from a prestigious university running a meth lab?
Bree gestured to a photo of a dark-complected curly-haired man and said, “This is Laxman Dalal. Twenty-two years old. PhD candidate. Born in Mumbai, he went to the University of Southern California on a full academic ride and finished in two years. We believe he was the brains and driving force behind the drug lab.”
From there she gave them a story of four very smart, very driven people who’d been seduced into crime and easy money by Laxman Dalal, a man whom Campbell had described as “brilliant, charismatic, and morally corrupt.”
“Dalal evidently didn’t think the laws applied to him,” Bree said. “By sheer force of brains and personality, he convinced his fellow students, including Alexandra Campbell’s ex-boyfriend Carlo Puente, that they could earn a whole lot of cash by making meth at night, on weekends, and during their summer breaks.”
They got good fast, and their illegal business started to grow even faster. Campbell said it had started in a small garage in Southeast DC, but they’d soon moved to the factory in Anacostia.
“Campbell said her boyfriend showed her bags of money back in March,” Bree said. “That’s when she said she called it quits with Puente. She says she told him Dalal was going to get him killed. And he did. That’s it for me. Special Agent Potter?”
Bree stepped away from the lectern, and the DEA SAC took her place.
Potter said, “Before last year, I would have told you that there was no drug gang brazen enough or capable enough to pull off this kind of massacre. But in the last six months, across northern Mexico and the desert Southwest, we’ve seen a rise in deadly turf wars. Traffickers shot and left for dead. Labs like this one blown up. When I was in the El Paso office, it looked like some group was bent on cornering the market in illicit drugs, forming kind of a supercartel that was willing to kill anyone in its way.”
“We have a name for this supercartel?” I asked. “People involved?”
Potter looked at me, said, “I wish we did, Dr. Cross. In El Paso, it was like chasing ghosts, and then I was transferred here.”
“Did you have any intelligence about that factory?” Sampson asked.
Potter looked at his men, who shook their heads.
“It was as big a surprise to us as it was to you,” Potter said, and then he sighed. “But then again, we’ve been shorthanded. Budget cuts.”
Ned Mahoney cleared his throat, said, “I don’t know about a supercartel, but I think you’re right about brazenness being a factor here. You’d have to be stone-cold to do this, so I think we have to agree from the start that this was professionally done and proceed from there.”
“No doubt,” Potter said. “These guys were highly trained.”
“SWAT level?” Bree asked.
“I think we’re dealing with a group that’s quite a few steps above SWAT,” Mahoney said. “This feels commando-trained, at a minimum.”
“So, mercenaries?” Sampson asked.
“Could be,” Mahoney replied. “There are a lot of private security contractors around, now that Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down. I don’t think you’d have trouble putting together an elite team if the money was right.”
“Hold that thought,” Bree said, and nodded.
Photos of the remaining two John Does, the ones dressed for business, got bigger on the screen.
“We think these two are the moneymen,” she said. “Either they funded the lab’s construction and equipment or they were involved in the sale of—”
Mahoney’s phone started beeping. So did Bree’s. And Potter’s.
They all went for their phones. Bree’s was right in her hand. She scanned the screen, stiffened, and said, “Two more drug labs have been hit. One in Newark. Another in rural Connecticut. Multiple deaths confirmed in both places.”
Chapter
24
Both meth labs had been taken down within minutes
of each other, and with the same attention to detail. All the people inside the drug factories were dead. There were no cartridge casings at either scene. In each case, hundreds of thousands of dollars and multiple kilos of methamphetamine were left untouched.