Douglas Century - Hunting El Chapo - Taking down the world’s most-wanted drug-lord

I finally got the mount, reached for my belt, and filled Beck’s mouth and eyes with a heavy dose of pepper spray. He howled, clutching at his throat, and I managed to get him handcuffed, on his feet, and into the backseat of the Caprice. We were halfway to the county jail before my closest backup even had a chance to respond. It was the scariest moment of my life—until twelve years later, when I set foot in Culiacán, the notorious capital of the Mexican drug underworld....

DESPITE THE DANGERS, I quickly developed a taste for the hunt. During traffic stops, I’d dig underneath seats and rummage through glove compartments in search of drugs, typically finding only halfempty nickel bags of weed and crack pipes. Then, one evening on a quiet strip of highway, I stopped a Jeep Cherokee for speeding. The vehicle sported a small Grateful Dead sticker in the rear window, and the driver was a forty-two-year-old hippie with a greasestained white T-shirt. I knew exactly how to play this: I acted like a clueless young hillbilly cop, obtained his verbal consent to search the Jeep, and discovered three ounces of rock cocaine and a bundle of more than $13,000 in cash.

The bust made the local newspapers—it was one of the largest drug-cash seizures in the history of our county. I soon got a reputation for being a savvy and streetwise patrolman, skilled at sniffing out dope. It was a natural stepping-stone, I was sure, to reaching my goal of becoming a Kansas State Trooper.

But then a thin white envelope was waiting for me when I drove the Caprice home one night after my shift. The Highway Patrol headquarters, in Topeka, had made its final decision: despite passing the exam, I was one of more than three thousand applicants, and my number simply was never drawn.

I called my mom first to let her know about the rejection. My entire family had been waiting weeks to hear the exam results. The moment I hung up the phone, my eyes fixed on the framed photo of the Kansas Highway Patrol patch I’d had since college. I felt the walls of my bedroom closing in on me—as tight as the corridor of the county jail. Rage rising into my throat, I turned and smashed the frame against the wall, scattering the glass across the floor. Then I jumped onto my silver 2001 Harley-Davidson Softail Deuce and lost myself for five silent hours on the back roads, stopping at every dive bar along the way.

My dad was now retired from the Pattonville Fire Department and had bought the town’s original firehouse—a two-story redbrick 1929 building on the corner of East Main and Parks Street—renovated it, and converted it into a pub. Pattonville’s Firehouse Pub quickly became the town’s busiest watering hole, famous for its hot wings, live bands, and raucous happy hours.

The pub was packed that night, a four-piece band playing onstage, when I pulled up outside the bar and met up with my old high school football buddy Fred Jenkins, now a Kansas City firefighter.

I tried to shake it off, but my anger kept simmering—another bottle of Budweiser wasn’t going to calm this black mood. I leaned over and yelled at Freddie.

“Follow me.”

I led him around to the back of the pub.

“What the hell you doing, man?”

“Just help me push the fuckin’ bike in.”

Freddie grabbed hold of the front forks and began to push while I backed my Deuce through the rear door of the bar.

I saddled up and ripped the throttle, and within seconds white smoke was billowing around the rear tire as it cut into the unfinished concrete floor.

A deafening roar—I had the loudest pipes in town—quickly drowned out the sound of the band. Thick, acrid-smelling clouds filled the bar as I held on tight to the handlebars, the backs of my legs pinched against the rear foot pegs to keep the hog steady—the ultimate burnout—then I screeched off, feeling only a slight relief.

I parked the Deuce and walked back into the bar, expecting high fives—something to lighten my mood—but everyone was pissed, especially my father.

Then some old retired fireman knocked me hard on the shoulder.

“Kid, that was some cool shit,” he said, “but now my chicken wings taste like rubber.”

I reached into my jeans and pulled out a wad of cash for a bunch of dinners. Then I saw my father fast approaching behind the bar.

“Let’s roll,” I yelled through the crowd to Freddie. “Gotta get outta here before my old man beats my ass.”

I RETESTED WITHthe Highway Patrol but started looking into federal law enforcement careers, too—one of my best cop buddies had told me good things about the Drug Enforcement Administration. Until then, I had never considered a career as a special agent, but I decided to take the long drive over to Chicago and attend their orientation. The process was surprisingly quick, and I was immediately categorized as “best qualified,” with my past police experience and university degree. Months went by without a word, but I knew it could take more than a year before I completed the testing process. One fall morning, I was back on my Harley with a bunch of cops and firefighters for the annual US Marine Corps Toys for Tots fund-raising ride. After a long day cruising the back roads, doing a little barhopping, I let slip to Freddie’s cousin, Tom, that I had applied with the DEA.

“No kidding? You know Snake?” Tom said, then called across the bar: “Snake! Get over here—this kid’s applying with the DEA.” Snake swaggered over in his scuffed-up leather jacket. Headful of greasy blond shoulder-length hair, wearing a half- shaven beard and a scowl, he looked more like a full-patch outlaw biker than a DEA agent.

I hit it off with Snake right away—we downed a couple of bottles of Bud and talked about the snail-paced application process.

“Look, kid, it’s a pain in the ass, I know—here’s my card,” Snake said, giving me his number. “Call me Monday.”

Before I knew it, thanks to Snake, I found myself on a fast track through the testing process and received an invitation to the DEA Training Academy. One last blowout night at the Firehouse Pub, then I headed east, breaking free of my meticulously laidout life in Kansas. I drove through the heavily forested grounds at Quantico—chock-full of whitetail deer so tame you could practically pet them—and entered the gates of the DEA Academy as a member of a brand-new class of basic agent trainees.

I had barely settled into life at Quantico when I got a call telling me I’d been selected as a candidate for the next Kansas Highway Patrol class. I scarcely believed what I heard myself telling the master sergeant on the phone.

“Thanks for the invite,” I said, “but I’m not leaving DEA.” By that point, I was throwing myself headlong into the DEA training.

We spent hours on the range, burning through thousands of rounds of ammunition, firing our Glock 22 .40-caliber pistols or busting our asses doing PT out near the lake’s edge—sets of burpees in the icy, muddy water, followed by knuckle push- ups on the adjacent gravel road.

The heart of academy training was the practical scenarios. We called them “practicals.” One afternoon during a practical, I had the “eye” on a target—an academy staff member playing the role of a drug dealer—planning an exchange with another bad guy in a remote parking lot. I parked just out of sight, grabbed my binoculars and radio, and crawled up underneath a group of pine trees.

“Trunk is open,” I radioed my teammates. “Target One just placed a large black duffel bag into the back of Target Two’s vehicle. They’re getting ready to depart. Stand by.”

Alone in my Ford Focus, I followed the second target vehicle to another set.

Time for the vehicle-extraction takedown. I still had eyes on Target Two, but none of my teammates had arrived in the parking lot. Minutes passed; I was staring at my watch, calling my team on the radio; I knew we needed to arrest the suspect now or we’d all flunk the practical.