Текст книги "The Cartel"

Автор книги: Don Winslow

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 34 (всего у книги 42 страниц)

Chuy ducks under, swings his nailed club and shatters the campesino’s kneecap. The campesino goes down face first, then tries to push himself back up, but Chuy finishes him with two blows to the back of the neck.

Forty yells, “This skinny one can fight!”

For a horrible moment Chuy thinks that Forty recognizes him, but the Zeta’s attention goes to other fights. Most of them last a long time—these men don’t have combat skills and their struggles are long, slow, and brutal.

Finally, it’s done.

Half the men are left standing, some of them badly wounded with cuts, broken bones, and fractured skulls.

The Zetas march the ones who can walk back to the bus.

They shoot the others.

The bus drives the survivors farther into the countryside, to a camp that Chuy remembers.

The party goes on that night.

As Chuy and the others sit in a line in the dirt, he hears the women’s screams coming from inside a corrugated steel building. Fifty-gallon barrels are set outside, and every few minutes a body—dead or still barely alive—is shoved into a barrel and lit on fire.

He hears the screams.

And the laughter.

Chuy will never forget the sound.

Never get the smell out of his nose.

Forty walks over to the eleven survivors and says, “Congratulations. Welcome to the Z Company.”

Chuy is a Zeta again.

They don’t send him to Nuevo Laredo or to Monterrey.

They send him to the Juárez Valley.

Valverde, Chihuahua

It’s the nightmare call.

Keller rolls over in bed to answer the phone and hear Taylor say, “One of our people has been killed.”

Keller’s heart drops in his chest.

It’s Ernie Hidalgo all over again.

“Who?” he asks.

“You know him,” Taylor tells Keller. “Richard Jiménez. A good man.”

Yeah, he was, Keller thinks. “What happened?”

Jiménez and another agent were on the highway from Monterrey to Mexico City. No one knows what the two agents were even doing on that road by themselves, in a car marked with diplomatic license plates. All they know is that their car was run down, forced to pull over, and surrounded by fourteen armed Zetas demanding that they get out of the car.

The agents refused, and yelled that they were American agents.

“Me vale madre,” the Zeta leader said.

I don’t give a fuck.

The agents phoned the U.S. consulate in Monterrey, and then the American embassy in Mexico City. They were told a federal helicopter would be there in forty minutes.

They didn’t get those minutes.

The Zetas emptied their clips through the car windows. By the time the chopper got there, Jiménez had bled to death, the other agent was in traumatic shock, badly wounded but expected to live. He’d been medevaced to a Laredo hospital.

“Get down to Monterrey,” Taylor says. “Now.”

“What is it?” Marisol asks.

“I have to go.”

She’s knows better than to ask where. “Is everything all right?”

“No.”

Keller gets on the phone again while he’s still dressing and gets Orduña on the special line. The FES commander picks up on the first ring. “I heard. I’m on my way. A plane is waiting for you in Juárez.”

Marisol is out of bed now, balancing on her cane while she puts on her bathrobe. She looks at Keller questioningly.

“One of our guys got killed,” he says.

“I’m so sorry,” Marisol says.

She’s too kind, Keller thinks, to note that Mexicans are killed every single day and that it’s considered nothing special.

“Yeah,” Keller says, “me too.”

–

Marisol sits at her desk and works her way through piles of paperwork.

The red tape required to manage even a small town is endless, and she wants to finish so that she can get over to the clinic for afternoon hours. She decides to eat lunch at her desk, and calls Erika to see if she wants to join her, but the girl is out in the countryside looking into the theft of someone’s chickens.

Chicken theft, Marisol thinks.

She’s glad for a bit of normalcy.

Maybe Erika can come for dinner.

–

“What was the motive?” Keller asks Orduña as they stand at the scene of the attack. The car has been pushed off to the edge of the highway, its body riddled with bullet holes like a Hollywood movie prop. The blood inside is all too real. “Why would the Zetas kill an American?”

Then he sees the answer.

On the floor by the gas pedal, spotted with Jiménez’s blood—a jack of spades.

The Zetas know that American intelligence has been working with the FES, and this was payback.

They couldn’t get to me, Keller thinks, so they took the first agents they could find. But what were Jiménez and his partner doing on Highway 57, a dangerous road in the middle of the CDG-Zeta war?

Then again, the drug war is getting very real for Americans. A FAST team in Honduras had just been in a firefight with Zeta cocaine traffickers, and several American citizens had recently been killed in the Juárez area. But there hasn’t been an American agent killed in Mexico since Ernie, and Keller knows that the response will be massive.

Maybe the Zetas don’t care.

Maybe they think they’re invincible.

Just a week ago, another mass grave site was discovered near San Fernando, with the story that the Zetas had once again hijacked a bus off Highway 101 and killed most of the passengers.

Stories of grisly torture and forced gladiator-style combat were making the rounds. Hard to know if they’re true, but this much is a fact—the Zetas are establishing a reign of terror over whole parts of Mexico, and Americans have no immunity.

Later that day, while Keller, Orduña, and FES are combing the countryside for the attackers, the Zetas make their position absolutely clear. Heriberto Ochoa releases a communiqué in the press that directly challenges the governments of both Mexico and the United States:

“Not the army, not the marines, not the security and antidrug agencies of the United States can resist us. Mexico lives and will continue to live under the regime of the Zetas.”

–

Chuy’s estaca moved in like morning fog.

They came up Carretera 2 from the east, got out of the vehicle before they hit the army roadblock at Práxedis, and then hiked the countryside, using the riverbank as cover, until they came to the outskirts of Valverde.

Now they wait.

Chuy takes a nap.

Wakes up when an elbow digs into his side and he sees the woman come out of the building, walking with a cane.

The woman police they told him about is nowhere to be seen.

Neither is the North American DEA agent.

Forty told Chuy that he’d get the man out of the way, and he did.

–

Marisol stands at the kitchen counter and chops onions for the stew she’s making. Erika is coming over and she’s already late. Where is that girl? Marisol wonders.

She puts some butter and olive oil in the pan, smashes a clove of garlic into it and turns on the heat to brown the chicken before she puts it in the pot. It’s one of Arturo’s favorite dishes and she wishes he were here to enjoy it. But he’s out doing whatever it is that he does, so he’ll just have to miss out.

Marisol hears something outside.

A car engine. Must be Erika.

Peeking out the window, she sees headlights pass by. For some reason it spooks her. She dismisses it as silly but nevertheless looks to see that the Beretta is on the chopping block, within reach.

The way we live now, she thinks.

And where is Erika? Where is that girl?

She calls her on her mobile but just gets voice mail.

–

Keller turns onto Carretera 2.

After a futile hunt, he’d flown back to Juárez. There’ll be an emergency meeting at EPIC tomorrow, Taylor’s flying in from D.C., and Keller figures he can get an evening in with Marisol before going up. All DEA and ICE personnel in Mexico have already been called back or put under heavy security in the consulates, but Keller decides he’s exempt from that.

He’s been under a death threat since the day he came here, so what’s the difference? He’s been in Mexico—just on this last incarnation—longer than the U.S. was in World War II. When you ask people, “What’s America’s longest war?” they usually answer “Vietnam” or amend that to “Afghanistan,” but it’s neither.

America’s longest war is the war on drugs.

Forty years and counting, Keller thinks. I was here when it was declared and I’m still here. And drugs are more plentiful, more potent, and less expensive than ever.

But it’s not about the drugs anymore, anyway, is it?

He calls Marisol to tell her that he’ll be there for dinner. The line is busy. He’s asked her to get call waiting but she’s so stubborn about “being rude.”

He dials Erika.

No answer. Voice mail.

–

Magda likes her new car—a powder-blue Volkswagen Jetta perfect for navigating the traffic of the greater Mexico City metropolitan area and easy to park, as it is now at the Centro Las Américas shopping mall in the suburb of Ecatepec.

As much as she enjoyed Europe, and as successful as her trip was, she’s glad to be home. And it’s somehow symbolic of the “new Mexico” that her gynecologist’s office is in a sparkling new shopping mall with the Nordstrom, the Macy’s, the Bed Bath & Beyond.

Everything is commerce now, she thinks, even babies.

She wonders how Adán will react to the news she just got.

Or should she even tell him?

A lot of women have children on their own these days, and certainly she has the economic wherewithal to raise a child by herself. The fact that she’s a multimillionaire still surprises her, but certainly she doesn’t need a man to provide formula, diapers, and all the other paraphernalia that comes with a baby. She can hire platoons of nannies, if she wants, and she doesn’t have to worry about some company granting her maternity leave.

After her diplomatic mission to Europe, she’s going to be even richer.

The Italians, the ’Ndrangheta, loved her—more important, they respected her—and she’s confident that they’ll give her new customers not only in Italy but in France, Spain, and Germany as well.

So which good news shall I give Adán first, she asks herself as she slips behind the wheel: that he’s going to make billions of dollars in new money in Europe, or that he’s finally going to be a daddy?

And how will he react?

Will he divorce his young queen to marry me?

Do you want him to?

She’s become used to her freedom and independence; she’s not sure she wants to saddle herself with a husband. At the same time, the son of Adán Barrera—if it does turn out to be a boy—will inherit vast wealth and power. And if it’s a girl? Fuck them all—she’ll inherit a nice piece of change and influence herself.

Her mother is a buchona.

Magda pulls out of the mall parking lot and has only gone a couple of blocks when she sees the flashers behind her.

“Damn it,” she says.

Ever since the arrest that put her into Puente Grande, she’s had a fear of the police. It’s irrational, she has no reason for fear, because Mexico City is Nacho Esparza’s plaza, and she’s protected.

She pulls over, looks in the rearview mirror, and sees two cops get out of the car. One of them comes up, and she winds down the window. The cop wears a mask over the bottom half of his face, but this doesn’t worry her. Most police disguise themselves these days. She gives him her best beautiful-woman smile. “What did I do?”

“Did you know that one of your rear taillights is out?”

“No, I—”

The second cop gets into the backseat and sticks a gun barrel into her neck. “Just be quiet and you’ll be fine.”

The first cop slides in beside Magda and says, “Drive.”

As she pulls out again and drives, she says, “You’re making a big mistake. Do you know who I am?”

The cop takes off the mask.

It’s Heriberto Ochoa—Z-1.

Now Magda is scared, especially when Ochoa gives her directions and tells her to pull off in a vacant lot next to a construction site. A gun is pressed into the back of her neck, so she does it.

“How was Europe?” Ochoa asks. “Good trip?”

God, she thinks, he knows about that. “It was fine.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“You already know.”

“Yes, I do,” Ochoa says. “You’re not going to talk to them anymore.”

“That’s fine. I won’t.”

“I know you won’t. Take off your blouse.”

Her hand shakes as she starts with the top button. It’s black silk. New. Expensive.

“Slow,” Ochoa says. “Tease me.”

She does it.

“Now the bra.”

Magda takes it off.

Ochoa leers at her breasts. “Nice. Does Barrera like to suck on them? I asked you a question—does he?”

“Yes.”

“The skirt.”

Magda unzips it along the side and slides it down her hips. It’s hard to do from behind the wheel, but she gets it done and the skirt pools at her feet. She’s terrified, but underneath that is fury. Fury that men do this, that they can do this, that they do this because they can. She knows it’s not about sex but humiliation, and she is humiliated and it makes her furious. Then she sees the knife in his hand. “No. Please. I’ll do anything you say.”

“Anything?” Ochoa asks. “What do you do for Barrera?”

“Everything.”

Ochoa says, “I’m not interested in Barrera’s leftovers.”

The man in the backseat grabs her by the shoulders and holds her as Ochoa forces a plastic bag over her head. Magda can’t breathe, she sucks for air, but all she gets is plastic in her mouth. Her legs kick out spasmodically, her back arches, her hands grab at the bag and try to take it off.

She’s almost dead when Ochoa pulls the bag off. Magda gasps for air. When she can speak, she croaks. “Please…I’m going to have a baby…”

“Barrera’s?” Ochoa asks.

Magda nods.

He puts the bag back on.

The pain is horrible. Her body spasms violently, she wets herself. And then he pulls it off again.

“The world doesn’t need another Barrera,” Ochoa says.

He leans away and the man in back pulls the trigger.

Two hours later police responding to an anonymous tip go out to the corner of 16th Street and Maravillas, where they find a female body in the trunk of a powder-blue 2007 Jetta.

Her stomach has been sliced open and a large “Z” carved into her chest and stomach.

–

Marisol hears something.

She feels alone, and embarrassed that she also feels a little spooked. It’s the wind blowing through the trees, she tells herself. It’s nothing.

But she jumps when her phone rings.

It’s Arturo.

“I’m about twenty minutes out,” he says.

“Oh…that’s good.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course fine,” Marisol says. She walks to the window and looks out. “Erika is supposed to come but she hasn’t shown up yet.”

“She didn’t call?”

Marisol hears the worry in his voice. “She’s probably with Carlos.”

“Stay in the house until I get there,” Keller says. “Do you have the Beretta?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, it’s—”

“Do you have the Beretta? Go into the bathroom. Lock the door.”

“Arturo, don’t be silly—”

“God damn it, Mari, do what I tell you! I’m going to call you back in two minutes.”

Marisol thinks she sees people in the trees now. Must be my imagination, she thinks. Arturo has made me nervous.

“What?” he asks, sensing her anxiety on the silence.

“Nothing. I just think I see some people is all.”

“Get into the bathroom now.”

She goes into the bathroom and locks the door.

–

Chuy watches the police car roll slowly past.

It’s time.

He hefts his erre.

Chuy has never killed a woman before.

There was a time when that would have made a difference, but it doesn’t anymore. He doesn’t even contemplate the distinction, it doesn’t occur to him that he took an oath in La Familia to cherish and protect women.

Now he’s seen so many killed, and they die like anyone else.

They want this one hurt first.

Taken, hurt, and cut up.

As a lesson.

–

Erika pulls up at Town Hall and runs upstairs to grab a sweatshirt. Then she gets back in her car for the short drive to Marisol’s. She can recharge her phone there.

–

Keller phones Erika.

Still no answer.

He calls Taylor. “Get people over to Marisol Cisneros’s house in Valverde now.”

“Keller—”

“We’ll talk about it later. Just do it now.”

“I don’t have people in—”

“Do it now.” He gets on with Orduña. “I need men in Valverde right away.”

“The closest we have are in Juárez.”

“Chopper them out. Now.”

He gets back on with Marisol.

“Stay on the line with me,” he says. “It’s going to be all right. Stay on the line with me. I’ll be there in five.”

“I hear something outside,” Marisol says.

“It’s probably nothing,” Keller says, his heart racing. “But if they come in, shoot through the bathroom door. Aim stomach high, by the doorknob. Do you understand? Stomach high, by the doorknob.”

“Stomach high. Arturo…I’m afraid.”

“I’m five minutes away.”

–

Chuy sees the woman police get out of the car.

As she reaches back inside to get her rifle, Chuy’s men are already on her. She puts up a fight but they rip the gun from her hands, open the back door of her car, and push her in.

She yells, screams, and punches.

–

Marisol hears Erika.

Screaming, cursing.

She wants to stay inside. Put her hands over ears, close her eyes, and wait for Arturo to come. But she can’t. She pulls herself up off the floor on her cane, and walks out. She hears Arturo’s voice—Are you okay? I’m almost there. You’re going to be fine—and she says. “Good, good, I’m fine.”

Marisol opens the door to the house to see men shoving Erika into her car. Shaking, she raises the pistol and shoots.

Chuy feels the bullet zing past his head. He looks up to see a woman in the doorway of the house, shooting a little pistol at them. Raising his rifle, he goes to blow her away, but then he remembers that Forty wants her alive. Then he hears an engine, turns to see headlights coming at him, and hears shots coming from the car that’s roaring down on them.

So he lowers the gun, climbs into the passenger seat, and says, “Vamanos!”

–

Keller sees Marisol standing in the doorway, the pistol in her hand. She yells, “They have Erika!” and points down the road.

He keeps going.

–

Out into the countryside.

Off the pavement, onto dirt.

Down along the south side of the river under the cottonwoods. He can hear the car in front of him but it’s gaining ground, the sound of the engine fading.

A bullet hits his windshield, spiderwebbing the glass.

Keller keeps going but then the sniper takes out the front right tire. It blows out and he goes into a skid, fishtailing into the ditch. Opening the passenger door, he doesn’t make the mistake of using it as cover, because the professional sicarios shoot through car doors. So he dives out onto his stomach, rolls away from the car, and crawls back to the edge of the ditch.

He can hear the car getting farther away and knows what’s happened. They dropped a shooter off to stop the pursuit.

A bullet comes by his face.

The shooter must have a night scope.

And a high-powered rifle.

All Keller has is his pistol.

And no time if he’s going to help Erika.

He moves to make some noise, waits for the next shot and then yells in pain, and slides back into the ditch. It takes thirty seconds but then he hears the shooter coming toward him.

Keller waits.

The shot could come any second, but he waits until he hears the shooter’s feet crunch on some dry leaves. Then he lunges for the shooter’s ankles. Feels the burn of the muzzle flash on the side of his face, but takes the shooter’s feet out from under him and jumps on top of him, trapping the rifle against his chest.

Keller slams the pistol butt into the side of the shooter’s face again and again until he feels the body go limp. He pulls the SAT phone off the shooter’s hip, hits the button, and says, “I have one of your guys. Bring her back or I’ll kill him.”

He hears a thin, young voice answer casually, “Kill him.”

The line goes dead.

Keller goes back to the car and tries to get it out of the ditch, but it’s no good. Then he walks back to the wounded man.

He’s groggy, but conscious.

That’s good. Keller wants him conscious.

“Where did they take her?!” Keller yells.

“I don’t know.”

I don’t have time for this, Keller thinks. Erika doesn’t have time for this. He picks up the man’s rifle and slams the stock down onto his left leg. The bone shatters and the man screams.

“I don’t know!”

Keller grabs the man’s foot and shoves it toward his chest, driving the sharp jagged shin bone up through his flesh.

The man howls.

“Listen to me,” Keller says. “I’m going to hurt you bad. You’re going to beg me to kill you. But first you’re going to tell me where they took her.”

“I don’t know!”

Keller drives the gunstock onto the broken bone.

“I don’t knooooooowwwwwww!!!”

Keller grabs a piece of the torn flesh in his hands and rips downward, skinning it off the man’s leg.

The man babbles.

He’s a Zeta…He doesn’t know where they took the policewoman…Somewhere out in the countryside…Yes, he does know who the leader of the team was…They call him Jesus the Kid…they were supposed to take the policewoman and La Médica Hermosa…

“Where? Where is she?”

Keller rips more flesh off the leg.

The man vomits.

Cries, whimpers, tries to crawl away, his fingers digging in the dirt, a smear of blood behind him.

–

They search all night.

Marine and army helicopters shine searchlights down on the riverbed. Military vehicles cruise up and down every road and track. Ordinary citizens—if such courage can be described as ordinary—go out in their own pickup trucks to look for Erika Valles.

They don’t find her.

They do find her car, pulled off along the riverbank.

–

Chuy lies in an arroyo and watches all the commotion.

They dumped the car along the river and then dragged the woman police off to the south, through the old cotton fields and then into the desert.

Now she lies beside him.

He’d cut the sleeve off her shirt and stuffed it into her mouth, so she didn’t scream, not too loud anyway.

It’s time to go now, while the soldiers are looking along the river.

Using the arroyo as cover, he leads his team away.

–

They find Erika a little after dawn.

The vultures led them to the site.

Keller squats beside her, then personally collects what’s left of Erika Valles and gently places the pieces of her into a body bag.

He puts the jack of spades he found on her chest in his pocket.

The marines take him to Marisol’s house.

Now there are soldiers on guard out front, now there are federales and Chihuahua state police.

Now.

Colonel Alvarado stands outside the house by a knot of his soldiers. When Keller walks up to him, he says, “I’m so sorry to hear about—”

Keller launches the punch from the ground and hits him square in the mouth. Alvarado falls back into one of his soldiers, then, as his men start toward Keller, pulls his pistol.

Keller pulls his Sig Sauer and points it at his face.

A dozen rifle barrels come up, aimed at Keller.

“Do it,” Keller says. “Tell them to do it. Or my hand to fucking God I’ll kill you where you stand. I don’t care anymore.”

Alvarado wipes a smear of blood from his mouth. “Get out. Get out of my country.”

“It isn’t your country,” Keller says. “You don’t deserve this country.”

He feels someone grab his elbow and turns to swing.

It’s Orduña.

“Come on,” Orduña says. “These pigs aren’t worth it.”

He walks Keller into the house.

Marisol is sitting at the kitchen table, an untouched cup of tea on the table by her hand.

She looks up when Keller comes in.

A look that asks him to give her the world back.

He wishes he could. He’d give anything if he could.

But he shakes his head.

The look on her face is horrific. She grows old in an instant. Then she gets up. “I want to see her.”

“You don’t, Mari.”

“I have to go to her!”

Keller grabs her and holds her tight. “You don’t. I’m begging you. It’s nothing you want to see.”

“I want to take care of her.”

“I will,” Keller says. “I’ll take good care of her.”

Marisol breaks down sobbing. Keller finally persuades her to take a pill, and when she finally falls asleep, he walks outside.

The soldiers are gone, replaced with FES troopers.

“I need a vehicle,” he tells Orduña. “I need a jeep.”

“We can bring the body in,” Orduña says.

“I have to do it.”

Orduña orders a man to bring around a jeep, and the marines help Keller load the body bag onto the back and then strap it on.

There’s no undertaker in Valverde anymore, one of the bitterest ironies of the whole thing. Keller has to drive to Juárez, where the undertakers have become rich in the city’s one thriving industry. He asks Orduña, “Look after her.”

“She’ll be safe.”

Keller gets in and starts west toward Juárez.

The soldiers respectfully let him through the checkpoint, and he delivers the body to a funeral home that Pablo Mora refers him to. The reporter knows all the funeral homes and he and Ana meet Keller at the one he recommends.

“How’s Marisol?” Ana asks.

“Not good.”

“I’ll go,” Ana says.

“That would be nice.”

The funeral director isn’t shocked at the condition of Erika’s body. He’s seen too much of it. He gives Keller this Humpty-Dumpty line that would be sick if it weren’t sincere. “We will put her back together again.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll make her look nice. You’ll see.”

She looked nice before, Keller thinks.

She looked plenty nice.

A twenty-year-old woman brave enough to volunteer for a job in which everyone else had been killed? And they murdered her for it, and cut her up, just to show everyone who’s really in charge.

No, Keller thinks, just to show you who’s really in charge.

He heads back out to the jeep.

They take him on the street and they’re very good.

He hears the footsteps but someone has a pistol jammed into his kidneys before he can pull his weapon, and they move him into the van, push him to the floor, get a hood over his head, and have the van moving again within seconds.

Keller feels the van drive out of the city.

The urban sounds fade and they’re in the country.

They drive for hours. Finally, the van pulls over and Keller tries to prepare himself, knowing that you’re never prepared for this. He hears the van door slide open, then feels hands picking him up, taking him out, and guiding his steps.

The air feels good.

He hears someone give an order and recognizes the voice as that of Colonel Alvarado.

Alvarado works for Adán Barrera, so Keller wonders how long it will be before they force him to his knees and put a bullet in the back of his head.

The hood comes off, and Keller sees Alvarado.

He expected that.

He didn’t expect Tim Taylor.

–

Adán heard a gurgling sound in the distance and then realized that it was close, that it came from his own throat as he heard about Magda.

It was Nacho who brought him the news.

Nacho, the harbinger, the raven, with the discreet bearing and hushed solicitous voice of a funeral director. And yet there was this salacious undertone, this frisson of pleasure as he described what the Zetas did to her.

“I’ll call you back,” Adán said.

He staggered up the stairs.

Did they have to do that? Strip her, torture her, slice her up, carve their filthy calling card into her? Did they have to do that?

He went to the bathroom, knelt in front of the toilet, and threw up. He vomited again and again until his stomach muscles hurt and the back of his throat was raw and then he laid his face in his forearms on the toilet.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to have morning sickness,” he heard Eva say.

He turned around and looked up to see her smiling at him.

“Something I ate,” he said, “didn’t agree with me, I guess.”

“You can’t eat spicy anymore,” Eva said. “I keep telling the cook but she doesn’t listen. We should let her go.”

“Whatever you want.”

Eva ran some cold water, took a washcloth, and held it against his forehead. This was her newest persona—maternal, caregiving, beatific. She’d been honing it since she came back from the doctor with the news that she was pregnant. Two months in, she already had that storied glow, although Adán suspected that was cosmetic.

When Eva had cared for him sufficiently, she went back to bed. Adán brushed his teeth and rinsed his mouth and then went back downstairs.

It’s over, he decided.

This overabundance of caution, this sensitivity to time and situation. It’s time to deal with his enemies, put an end to things, settle them once and for all.

Time to settle with Ochoa.

Time to settle with Keller.

He called Nacho back and gave the necessary orders.

Now he sits and waits for the man to be delivered to him.

–

“How long have you been working with Barrera?” Keller asks. “The whole goddamn time?”

“No,” Taylor says.

They’re standing outside a prefab building out in the country. It could be anywhere in the north, but Keller knows from the length of the drive that they’re probably still in the Juárez Valley.

“Just now,” Keller says. “You’re just working with him now.”

“The Zetas killed one of our guys!” Taylor yells. “And I will stop at nothing…You of all people should understand that. You think I like it? I’ve spent my life fighting scumbags like Adán Barrera, but now it’s either him or the Zetas, and I choose him.”

“So you’ve made a deal,” Keller says. “What am I, the kicker?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Go to hell.”

Alvarado starts in. “You North Americans are clean because you can be. That has never been a choice for us, either as individuals or as a nation. You’re experienced enough to know that we’re not offered a choice of taking the money or not, we are given the choice of taking the money or dying. We’ve been forced to choose sides, so we choose the best side we can and get on with it. What would you have us do? The country was falling apart, violence getting worse every day. The only way to end the chaos was to pick the most likely winner and help him win. And you North Americans despise us for it at the same time you send the billions of dollars and the weapons that fuel the violence. You blame us for selling the product that you buy. It’s absurd.”

And convenient, Keller thinks. “You sided with Barrera and then grabbed with both hands—money, land, power.”

“Just listen,” Taylor says. “For once in your life, Keller, just goddamn listen.”

They take him inside.

–

He’s aged.

Adán Barrera always had a boyish face, but that’s gone now, along with the shock of black hair that always fell over his forehead. His hair is cut short, there are hints of gray, and lines around the eyes now.

He’s aged, Keller thinks, and so have I.

Keller sees bodyguards stand within sight but out of earshot. They’re going to shoot me right in front of him, Keller thinks. Or he’ll do it himself if he’s grown the balls.

Either way, it’s a matter of personal satisfaction for him.

Or it might not be shooting, it might be torture.