Meet Omar. He’s a bad man who wants good guns. He’s got razor-cut hair styled like an Aztec warrior, fierce black eyes behind his Dolce & Gabbanas, plenty of gold on him. He’s got an iPod clipped to his Armani jacket lapel, the earbuds hanging around his neck, like he’ll just tune you out if he wants to. He stands in the blazing sunlight in a parking lot of a Barstow strip mall with two men who have what he wants—MAC-10 machine guns, AK-47s, M16s, all full automatic, all in very good condition and all illegal to own, of course, in most states, including California. He told these men he represents “Nicaragua.” They told him they don’t care. Not their problem.
Omar watches as the gun dealers lean over the trunk of his Trans-Am. They begin to count the $15,000 cash and test the five pounds of cocaine he will trade for the weapons. He looks bored. In fact, Omar is anything but bored. His heart is pounding, his palms are damp, and it feels like he’s roasting in the infernal desert sun. The Smith & Wesson five-shot in his waistband seems to weigh a ton.
In fact, Omar is not even Omar at all. He’s an Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) undercover agent named John Torres, and what he’s thinking is, As soon as these guys can count to fifteen thousand, test the coke borrowed from the Drug Enforcement Administration and bring me my guns, then I can say the bust words and we’ll take them down.
Go read how that turned out.
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