Текст книги "The Cartel"

Автор книги: Don Winslow

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 42 страниц)

Still another will be delivering his family.

Such as it is.

He hasn’t seen his sister, Elena, in years. Nor his own nephew, Salvador, Raúl’s son—a teenager now.

No, it’s been too long.

Too long.

The Tapia brothers and their wives are coming (Adán has strictly banned mistresses and whores from the party; this is meant to be a family day), as are a few of the narcos and favored prisoners—friends of Adán’s—in Puente Grande. The warden has been invited, and some of the higher-ranking guards and their families.

Security is tight outside.

Both additional prison guards and Diego’s people patrol outside the main gate. They’ve pulled an armored car sideways across the road to block unwanted vehicles, its machine gun trained to shred any attacker that comes up the highway.

–

Nacho Esparza is not at the party. He’s in Mexico City to deliver a Christmas present.

It’s in a suitcase he carries as he gets out of his car on Paseo de la Reforma in the Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood of Mexico City.

He’s familiar with Lomas, a wealthy neighborhood of businesspeople, politicians, and drug traffickers northwest of downtown and literally above the ring of pollution that keeps the city itself in a soup bowl.

Nacho is as smooth as Diego Tapia is rough, his bald head as slick as his speech. Clean-shaven, immaculate, he favors linen suits and Italian loafers. Today, in honor of Christmas, he’s added a tie.

He walks to the Marriott hotel on Hidalgo and goes into the lounge, which is quiet on a Christmas afternoon.

The government official is already there, sitting in an easy chair by a glass table with a drink set on it. Nacho sits across from him and sets the suitcase down. “You’re aware that certain people want this to happen. Tonight.”

“What certain people want is beyond the scope of my authority,” the official says. “What I can promise is that there will be no interference.”

“So if something should happen with our friend in Puente Grande…”

“Then it happens.”

Nacho gets up.

He leaves the suitcase.

–

A semi truck rolls up to the gate of CEFERESO II.

Two of Diego’s men, AR-15s in their hands, walk up to the driver. They talk for a few seconds, Diego’s men bark some instructions, and the prison guards back off into the shadows of the walls. The blocking truck pulls aside, the metal door slides open, and the semi truck backs its rear door to the entrance.

Salvador Barrera hops out of the truck in his black leather jacket and jeans and looks around with all his father’s bluff arrogance. It almost brings tears to Adán’s eyes. Salvador is his father’s son—thick, muscled, aggressive.

Aggression had been Raúl’s role in the organization. In the terms of cheap journalism, Adán was the brains, his brother Raúl was the muscle. A generalization, of course, but fair enough.

Raúl had died in Adán’s arms.

Well, that’s not quite accurate, Adán thinks as he embraces his nephew. Raúl, gut-shot, died from a tiro de gracia that I fired into his head to end his agony.

Another memory he owes to Art Keller.

“You’ve grown,” he says, holding Salvador by the shoulders.

“I’m eighteen,” Salvador answers, just the slightest trace of resentment in his tone.

I understand it, Adán thinks. Your father is dead and I’m alive. I’m alive and the empire your father died for is shattered. If he were alive, the empire might still be intact.

And you might be right, my nephew.

You might be right.

I will have to find a way of dealing with you.

Salvador turns away to help his mother from the truck. Sondra Barrera has taken on the trappings of a stereotypical Mexican widow. Her severe dress is black and she clutches a rosary in her left hand.

It’s a shame, Adán thinks.

Sondra’s still a pretty woman, she could find another husband. But not looking like a nun waiting for death. A nice dress…a little makeup…maybe an occasional smile…The problem is that Raúl has become a saint in her memory. She has apparently forgotten his endless infidelities, violent bursts of temper, the drinking, the drugs. Among the many names Adán remembers Sondra calling her husband when he was alive, “saint” was not one of them.

He kisses Sondra on her cheeks. “Sondra…”

“We always knew,” she says, “that we’d end up here, didn’t we?”

No, we didn’t, Adán thinks. And if you did, it never stopped you from enjoying the houses, the clothing, the jewelry, the vacations. You knew where the money came from—it never stopped you from spending it.

Lavishly.

And, to my knowledge, you never turn down the package of cash that arrives at your house the first of every month. Nor the tuition payments for Salvador’s college, the medical bills, the credit card payments…

One of Diego’s men reaches up and helps Elena Sánchez Barrera down from the trailer. Wearing a red holiday dress and heels, she looks wryly amused—a (deposed) queen arriving in a slum. “A trailer truck? I feel like a delivery of produce.”

“But safe from prying eyes.” Adán steps up to greet his sister with a kiss on each cheek.

She hugs him. “It’s wonderful to see you.”

“And you.”

“Are we going to stand here proclaiming our mutual affection,” Elena asks, “or are you going to give us something to drink?”

Adán takes her by the arm and leads her to the dining hall where Magda stands nervously beside the head of the table, waiting to greet them. She looks quite fetching in a silver lamé dress that is, strictly speaking, a little too short for Christmas with a little too deep a décolletage, but that shows her to great advantage. Her hair is upswept and lustrous, held in place with cloisonné Chinese pins that give her a touch of the exotic.

“Leave it to you to find a rose in a sewer,” Elena whispers to Adán. “I’ve heard rumors, but…she’s magnificent.”

She offers her cheek to Magda for a kiss.

“You’re so beautiful,” Magda says.

“Oh, I’m going to like her,” Elena says. “And I was just telling Adanito how lovely you are.”

This is going well, Adán thinks. It could as easily have gone the other way—Elena’s mouth is a jar of honey with a sharp knife in it, and she has already gotten through an entire sentence without alluding to Magda’s youth or his lack thereof. Perhaps she’s mellowed—the Elena he knew would have already asked Magda if he helps her with her homework.

And the “Adanito”—“Little Adán.” Nice touch.

“I love your dress,” Magda says.

Women, Adán thinks, will always be women. In the middle of one of the bleakest prisons on earth, they’ll act like they bumped into each other at an exclusive mall. They’ll be shopping for shoes together next.

“I’m leaving my children nothing,” Elena says, displaying the dress. “I’m going to spend it all.”

“Now the party can begin!” Diego yells, making an entrance.

Everyone smiles at Diego, Adán thinks.

He’s irresistible.

Today he’s dressed in his Christmas best—a leather sports coat over a leather vest. A bolo with his purple shirt takes the place of a tie. And he has new jeans—pressed—over silver-tipped cowboy boots.

Diego’s wife, Chele, is a bit more subdued in a silver-sequined dress and heels, her black hair in an updo. She’s thickened in the hips a little bit, Adán observes, but she’s still una berraca—hot stuff.

And a match for her husband, equally blunt. Chele will say anything that’s on her mind, such as her opinions about Diego’s numerous segunderas—she’s all for them. “Better than him wearing me out all the time. Dios mío, I’d have a chocha wider than one of his tunnels.”

She walks up, hugs and kisses everyone, then steps back and looks at Magda from toe to head. “Dios mío, Adán, you’ve become a mountain climber! Darling girl, don’t the pitones hurt?!”

From anyone else, it would have been a horribly awkward insult; but it’s Chele, so everyone, even Magda, laughs.

They’ve brought their children, three boys and three girls ranging from six to fourteen. Adán has given up on keeping their names straight but has made sure that he has a nice gift for each of them.

Adán had questioned the wisdom of bringing children to the prison, but Chele was firm about it. “This is our life. They need to know what it is, not just the good parts. I won’t have them being ashamed of their family.”

So the children, impeccably dressed in brand-new holiday clothes, came, and now line up to kiss or shake hands with their tío Adán.

They’re nice kids, Adán thinks. Chele’s done well with them.

Diego’s youngest brother is a (much) smaller version of him, the classic case of the sibling becoming the oldest brother, only more so. Alberto Tapia’s one concession to Christmas is a red bolo in his otherwise totally narco-cowboy, norteño outfit—black silk shirt, black slacks, lizard cowboy boots, black cowboy hat.

Short as he is—and he’s shorter than Adán by at least two inches—the get-up looks comical on him, like a child playing cowboy. No one is going to say that to Alberto, though, because his fuse is shorter than he is.

Adán worries about Alberto’s violent temper, but Diego assures him that it’s nothing to worry about, that he has his little brother under control.

I hope so, Adán thinks.

Alberto seems convivial today, all laughs and smiles, and Adán wonders if he snorted up on the way here. Certainly his wife did—Lupe’s black eyes are pinned and her tight, short dress is wildly inappropriate. Another example of Alberto’s recklessness, Adán thinks. You sleep with strippers if that’s your taste, but you don’t marry them.

“Just because he bought her tits,” Chele once observed, “doesn’t mean he had to buy the rest of her.” Lupe’s remarkable breasts—cantilevered precariously on her petite frame—notwithstanding, she looks almost childlike, vulnerable, and Adán makes a mental note to be kind to her.

Former stripper or not, she is Alberto’s wife and therefore family.

Martín Tapia is the perfect middle child, as different from his brothers as the tyranny of genetics will allow, and the family joke is that a banker crept in one night and impregnated his mother while she was asleep.

The financial manager and diplomat of the Tapia organization, Martín is soft-spoken, quiet, conservatively dressed in an expensively tailored black suit and white shirt with French cuffs.

He and his wife, Yvette, have just moved to a big home in an exclusive Cuernavaca neighborhood, close to Mexico City to be nearer to the politicians, financiers, and society types whom they need to cultivate for business.

His job is to play tennis and golf, have drinks at the nineteenth hole, go to parties at the country club, be seen at expensive restaurants, and throw soirees at their home. Yvette’s job is to look pretty and be the charming hostess.

They’re both perfect for their jobs.

Yvette Tapia is another former beauty queen—impeccably dressed in an expensive, stylish black dress on her svelte body—the personification of class. Her hair is cut in a short bob, her makeup is subtle, a slash of red lipstick makes it all sexy.

She’s perfect.

“Yvette,” Chele has said, “has the beauty and warmth of an ice sculpture. The only difference is that an ice sculpture eventually melts.”

In Adán’s day, they would have been called “yuppies.” He’s not sure what the word would be now, but they’re politely tolerant, if mildly embarrassed, at being at the prison party. Yvette smiles thinly at Chele’s jokes, Martín finds topics of conversation that he can share, mostly about fútbol.

They can’t complain about the meal.

While it isn’t the nouvelle cuisine they search out in Cuernavaca (they are both self-admitted foodies), but heartier, simpler Sinaloan fare, fresh and beautifully prepared filet mignon, shrimp, lobsters, roast potatoes, and green beans served with expensive wines that even Martín and Yvette can’t find fault with.

Dessert is the traditional flan, with galetas de Navidad, then champurrado and arroz dulce, after which the piñatas are hung and the children go at them with sticks, and the dining room floor is soon covered with candy and little toys.

As the evening settles into the post-feast languor, Adán nudges Elena and says, “We should talk.”

–

They sit in one of the consultation rooms.

Adán says, “The situation in Tijuana—”

“I’ve done the best I could.”

“I know.”

Elena took charge only because she was the last Barrera sibling not in a grave or a jail. A number of their people would have rebelled just because she was a woman. Some of the others were Teo’s people anyway. Once he broke away, they went with him. So did a number of the police and judges, who no longer had Raúl or Adán to fear.

The miracle of it is that Elena has held on as long as she did. She’s a good businessperson but not a war leader. Now she says, “I want out, Adanito. I’m tired. Unless you can give me more help on the ground…”

“I’m in prison, Elena.” They’re in a staredown, as they so often were in childhood. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust me on this,” Adán says. “It will work out, I promise you. I’ll deal with it. I just need a little time.”

They stand up and she kisses his cheek.

–

Diego interrupts playing with his children to take a phone call.

He listens and nods.

The Christmas present is on its way.

–

“May I have a word?” Sondra asks Adán.

Adán suppresses a sigh. He wants to enjoy the party, not endure Sondra’s gloom, but, as the head of the family, he has responsibilities.

It’s Salvador, she tells him when they retreat to a quiet corner. He’s disrespectful, angry. He stays away for nights at a time, he’s cutting classes. He parties, he drinks, she’s afraid he might be doing drugs.

“He won’t listen to me,” Sondra says, “and there’s no man at home to set him straight. Will you talk to him, Adán? Will you, please?”

She sounds like an old lady, Adán thinks. He does his math—Sondra is forty-one.

Salvador is none too pleased when his uncle comes up and asks to talk with him, but he grudgingly follows Adán back to his cell, sits down, and looks at Adán with a combination of resentment and sullenness that is almost impressive. “My mother asked you to do this, right?”

“What if she did?” Adán asks.

“You know what she’s like.”

Yes, I do, Adán thinks. I truly do. But he’s the head of the family so he asks, “What are you doing, Salvador?”

“What do you mean?”

“With your life,” Adán says. “What are you doing with your life?”

Salvador shrugs and looks at the floor.

“Have you dropped out of college?” Adán asks.

“I’ve stopped going to class.”

“Why?”

“Seriously?” Salvador asks. “I’m going to be an architect?”

It’s so Raúl, Adán almost laughs. “Your father had a medical degree.”

“And he did a lot with it.”

Adán gestures to the cell. “Do you want to end up here?”

“It’s better than where my father ended up, isn’t it?”

It’s true, Adán thinks, and they both know it. “What do you want, Salvador?”

“Let me work with Tío Diego,” he says, looking Adán in the eyes for the first time in this conversation. “Or Tío Nacho. Or send me to Tijuana. I can help Tía Elena.”

He’s so eager, so sincere all of a sudden, it’s almost sad. The boy wants so badly to redeem his father, Adán hurts for him.

“Your father didn’t want this for you,” Adán says. “He made me promise. His last words to me.”

It’s a lie. Raúl’s last words were his begging to be put out of his gut-shot misery. He said nothing about Salvador, or Sondra. What he said was Thank you, brother when Adán pointed the pistol at his head.

“It was good enough for him,” Salvador says.

“But he didn’t think it was good enough for you,” Adán insists. “You’re smart, Salvador. You’ve been to the funerals, the prisons…you know what this is. You have money, an education if you want it, connections…You can have a life.”

“I want this life,” Salvador says.

As pigheaded as his father.

“You can’t have it,” Adán says. “Don’t try. And don’t think of freelancing—if I catch anyone selling to you, I’ll have their heads. Don’t make me do that.”

“Thanks.”

“And straighten up,” Adán says, the stern uncle now, and, anyway, he’s bored with this. “Start going to class, and keep a civil tongue in your head with your mother. Are you doing drugs? Don’t even bother to lie to me. If you’re not—good. If you are—stop.”

“Are we done?” Salvador asks.

“Yes.”

The young man gets up and starts to walk away.

“Salvador.”

“Yeah?”

“Get your degree,” Adán says. “Show me you have the discipline to finish your education, stop being a pain in the ass, and then come back to me and we’ll see.”

Salvador is going to get into the pista secreta one way or the other, Adán thinks. He might as well do it through me, where I can at least keep an eye on him.

But not yet.

This will kick the can down the street for a couple of years, anyway. By that time he might find a nice girl, an interest, a career, and not want what he thinks he wants now.

Adán goes back into the party room and looks at his guests—his extended family, or what’s left of it.

His sister, Elena.

His sister-in-law, Sondra, and his nephew Salvador.

His cousins, the Tapia brothers—Diego, Martín, and Alberto—and their wives, Chele, Yvette, and Lupe, respectively. Diego’s children…This is his family, his blood, all that he has left.

Without me, he thinks, they go where a deposed king’s family go in this merciless realm—to the slaughterhouse. Your enemies will kill them just after they’ve killed you. And unless you take back your rightful place, all the death, all the killing, all the terrible acts for which you’re going to hell, were all for nothing.

He’s heard it said that life is a river, that the past flows downstream. It isn’t true—if it flows, it flows through the blood in your veins. You can no more cut yourself away from the past than you can cut out your own heart.

I was the king once, I will have to be the king again.

Life, he muses, always gives you an excuse to take what you want anyway.

–

Adán’s relieved when they’re gone.

When the mandatory oohs and ahhs over presents have been exchanged, the equally obligatory confessions over having eaten too much, the hugs and busses on the cheeks, the insincere promises that we need to do this again sooner, Diego finally manages to herd them all back into the truck and they leave him to the peace of his prison.

He flops face first down on the bed beside Magda.

“Families are exhausting,” he says. “It’s easier to manage a hundred traffickers than one family.”

“I thought they were nice.”

“You don’t have to meet their needs,” Adán says.

“No, only yours.”

“Are they a burden on you?”

“No, I like your needs,” she says, reaching for him. “Feliz Navidad. Do you want your last present?”

“Not now,” he says. “Pack a few things.”

She looks at him oddly. “What do you mean?”

“Just a few,” he says. “Not your whole wardrobe. We can buy more clothes later. Go on—we don’t have a lot of time.”

Diego walks into the cell. “You ready, primo?”

“For years.”

Diego points to his ear—listen.

Adán hears a shout, then another, then a chorus of shouts. Then the banging of wooden bats on steel bars, feet pounding on the metal catwalks, alarms.

Then shots.

A motín.

A prison riot.

Los Bateadores are rampaging through Block 2, Level 1-A, attacking other inmates, attacking each other, creating chaos. The guards are running back and forth, trying to contain it, radioing for reinforcements, but it’s already too late—inmates are busting out of cells, running down the cell block, spilling out into the yard.

“We have to go!” Diego says. “Now!”

“Did you hear that?!” Adán yells to Magda.

“I heard!” She comes out with a small shoulder bag while trying to put on a different pair of shoes, flats. “You might have given a lady some notice.”

Adán takes her arm and follows Diego onto the block.

It’s as if they’re invisible. No one looks at them as they move through the swirling fights, the noise, the guards, and Diego leads them to a steel door that has been left unlocked. He ushers them into a stairwell and they climb to another door that opens onto the roof.

The guards aren’t watching them, they have their guns and lights aimed down at the yard and don’t even seem to notice when the helicopter comes in and lands on the roof.

The rotors blow Magda’s hair into a mess, and Adán puts his hand on her back and pushes her down a little as they step into the open door.

Diego climbs in behind them and gives a thumbs-up to the pilot.

The helicopter lifts off.

Adán looks down at Puente Grande.

It’s been five years of negotiations, diplomacy, payoffs, establishing relationships, waiting for the other bosses to accept his presence, for some of them to die, for others to be killed, for the North Americans to move on and become obsessed with another public enemy number one.

Five years of patience and persistence and now he’s free.

To resume his rightful place.

Erie, Pennsylvania

Outside a diner the next morning, going in for the breakfast special of two eggs, toast, and coffee, Keller sees it.

A headline behind the cracked glass of a newspaper box.

DRUG KINGPIN ESCAPES.

Almost dizzy, Keller puts two quarters in the slot, takes out the paper, and scans the story for the name.

It can’t be.

It can’t be.

The letters spring out at him like shards of metal from a tripwire, booby-trap grenade.

“Adán Barrera.”

Keller lays the paper on top of the box and reads the story. Barrera extradited to a Mexican prison…Puente Grande…a Christmas party…

He can’t believe it.

Then again, he can.

Of course he can.

It’s Barrera and it’s Mexico.

The irony, Keller thinks, is as perfect as it is painful.

I’m a prisoner in the world’s largest solitary confinement.

And Barrera is free.

Keller tosses the paper into a trash can. He walks the streets for hours, past piles of dirty snow, closed factories, shivering crack whores, the detritus of a Rust Belt town where the jobs have gone south.

At some point, late in the afternoon with the sky turning a harsh, threatening gray, Keller walks into the bus station to go where he knows he’s always been headed.

–

The Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters are in Pentagon City. Which, Keller supposes, makes perfect sense. If you’re going to fight a war on drugs, base yourself in the Pentagon.

He’s in a suit and tie now, his only one of either, closely shaved and his hair freshly cut. He sits in the lobby and waits until they finally let him up to the fifth floor to see Tim Taylor, who successfully masks his enthusiasm at seeing Art Keller.

“What do you want, Art?” Taylor asks.

“You know what I want.”

“Forget it,” Taylor says. “The last thing we need right now is some old vendetta of yours.”

“Nobody knows Barrera like I do,” Art answers. “His family, his connections, the way his mind works. And nobody is as motivated as I am.”

“Why, because he’s hunting you?” Taylor asks. “I thought you had a different life now.”

“That was before you guys let Barrera out.”

“Go back to your bees, Art,” Taylor says now.

“I’ll go down the road.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you let me walk out of here,” Keller answers, “I’ll go to Langley. I’ll bet they’d send me.”

The rivalry between DEA and CIA is bitter, the tension between the two agencies horrific, the trust virtually nonexistent. CIA had at least helped to cover up Hidalgo’s murder, and DEA had never forgotten or forgiven it.

“You and Barrera,” Taylor says, “you’re the same guy.”

“My point.”

Taylor stares at him for a long time and then says, “This is going to be complicated. Not everyone is going to welcome you back. But I’ll see what I can do. Leave me a number where you can be reached.”

Keller finds a decent hotel up in Bethesda by the Naval Hospital and waits. He knows what’s happening—Taylor has to meet with higher-ups at DEA, who then have to go to their bosses at Justice. Justice has to talk to the State Department, and then it would have to be coordinated with CIA. There will be quiet lunches on K Street and quieter drinks in Georgetown.

He knows what the arguments will be: Art Keller is a loose cannon, not a team player; Keller has his own agenda, he’s too personally involved; the Mexicans resent him; it’s too dangerous.

The last argument is the toughest.

With a $2 million reward on Keller’s head, sending him down to Mexico is dangerous, to say the least, and DEA can’t afford the media storm that would ensue if another agent were killed in Mexico. Still, no one can reasonably question Keller’s potential value in the hunt for Adán Barrera.

“Give him a desk at EPIC,” a White House official determines, referring to DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center. “He can advise the Mexicans from there.”

Taylor relays the offer to Keller.

“I’m pretty sure,” Keller says, “that Barrera isn’t in El Paso.”

“Asshole.”

Keller hangs up.

The White House official who was listening in explodes. “Since when does some agent tell us where he will or will not go?!”

“This is not ‘some agent,’ ” Taylor responds. “This is Art fucking Keller, the former ‘Border Lord.’ He knows where the bodies are buried, and not just in Mexico.”

“What about the danger?”

Taylor shrugs. “It is what it is. If Keller gets Barrera, great. If Barrera gets him first…It puts other things to bed, doesn’t it?”

Keller knows what happened in 1985. He was there. He busted the flights of cocaine, saw the training camps, knew that NSC and CIA had used the Mexican cartels to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, with full approval of the White House. He perjured himself in his testimony before Congress in exchange for a free hand to go after the Barreras, and he destroyed them and put Adán Barrera away.

And now Barrera’s out, and Keller is back.

If he gets killed in Mexico, he takes some secrets with him.

Mexico is a cemetery for secrets.

–

After more phone calls, more classified memos, more lunches, and more drinks, the powers-that-be finally decide that Keller can go to Mexico City with DEA credentials, not as a special agent, but as an intelligence officer. And with a simple mission statement—“assist and advise in the capture of Adán Barrera or, alternatively, the verification of his death.”

Keller accepts.

But they still have to sell it to the Mexicans, who are skeptical about Keller being sent to “assist and advise.” It touches off a bureaucratic pissing match between the Mexican attorney general’s office, the Ministry of Public Security, and an alphabet soup of other agencies, all variously cooperating and/or competing within overlapping jurisdictions.

On the one hand, they want his knowledge; on the other hand is the notorious, if understandable, Mexican sensitivity about the perception that they’re “little brown brothers” in the relationship, as well as aggrievement over the constant—and one-sided—American insinuations of corruption.

Taylor lectures Keller about it. “Perhaps you missed it when you were off playing Friar Tuck, but it’s a new day down there. The PRI is out and PAN is in. The federal law enforcement agencies have been reorganized and cleaned up, and the received wisdom—which you will receive, Art—is that Los Pinos is reborn with a bright shiny new soul.”

Yeah, Keller thinks. Back in the ’80s, the received wisdom was that there was no cocaine in Mexico, and he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about the all too tangible evidence to the contrary, the countless tons of blow the Colombians were moving through Barrera’s Federación into the United States. And Los Pinos—the Mexican White House—was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federación. Now the official word is that the Mexican government is squeaky clean?

“So Barrera’s escape was a Houdini magic act,” Keller says. “No one in the government was bought off.”

“Maybe a prison guard or two.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I’m not bullshitting you,” Taylor says. “You are not going to go down there and make onions. You assist and you advise, and otherwise you keep your mouth shut.”

A battle of e-mails, meetings, and confidential cables between Washington and Mexico City ensues, the result of which is a compromise: Keller would be on loan to, and under the supervision of, a “coordinating committee” and would serve in a strictly advisory capacity.

“You accept the mission,” Taylor says, “you accept these conditions.”

Keller accepts. It’s all bullshit anyway—he’s fully aware that one of his roles in Mexico is that of “bait.” If anything would bring Adán Barrera out of the woodwork, it would be the chance to get Art Keller.

Keller knows this and doesn’t care.

If Adán wants to come after him—good.

Let him come.

The words of a psalm they used to chant at Vigils comes back to him.

Romans 13:11.

“And do this, knowing the hour,

That now it is high time for us to arise from sleep.”