Читать книгу The Border: The final gripping thriller in the bestselling Cartel trilogy - Don Winslow, Don winslow - Страница 13

Keller looks down at the photo of the skeleton.

Blades of grass poke up through the ribs; vines wrap around the leg bones as if trying to strap the body to the earth.

“Is it Barrera?” Keller asks.

Barrera’s been off the radar for a year and a half. Now these photos have just come in from the DEA Guatemala City field office. Guatemalan special forces found the bones in the Petén, in the rain forest about a kilometer from the village of Dos Erres, where Barrera was last seen.

Tom Blair, the head of DEA’s Intelligence Unit, lays down a different photo on Keller’s desk, this of the skeleton lying on a gurney. “The height matches.”

Barrera is short, Keller knows, a shade under five seven, but that could describe a lot of people, especially in the undernourished Mayan regions of Guatemala.

Blair spreads more photos on the desk—a close-up of the skull next to a facial shot of Adán Barrera. Keller recognizes the image: it was taken fifteen years ago, when Barrera was booked into the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego.

Keller put him there.

The face looks back at him.

Familiar, almost intimate.

“Orbitals match,” Blair is saying, “brain case measurements identical. We’d need dental and DNA analysis to be a hundred percent, but …”

We’ll have dental records and DNA samples from Barrera’s stay in the American prison system, Keller thinks. It would be highly doubtful that any useful DNA could be pulled from a skeleton that had been rotting in the rain forest for more than a year, but Keller can see in the photos that the jaw is still intact.

And he knows in his gut that the dental records are going to match.

“The way the back of the skull is blown out,” Blair says, “I’d say two shots to the face, close range, fired downward. Barrera was executed, by someone who wanted him to know it was coming. It would match the Dos Erres theory.”

The Dos Erres theory, a particular pet of the DEA’s Sinaloa Working Group, postulates that in October 2012, Adán Barrera and his partner and father-in-law, Ignacio Esparza, traveled with a large, armed entourage to Guatemala for a peace conference with their rivals, an especially vicious drug cartel known as the Zetas. There was a factual precedent for this—Barrera had sat down with the Zeta leadership at a similar conference back in 2006, divided Mexico into territories, and created a short-lived peace that fell apart into an even more violent and costly war. The theory continues that Barrera and the Zeta leader Heriberto Ochoa met in the remote village of Dos Erres in the Petén District of Guatemala and again carved up Mexico like a Thanksgiving turkey. At a party to celebrate the peace, the Zetas ambushed and slaughtered the Sinaloans.

Neither Barrera nor Esparza had been seen or heard from since the reputed meeting, nor had Ochoa or his right-hand man, Miguel Morales, also known as Forty. And there was intelligence to support the theory that a large gunfight occurred in Dos Erres—D-2, the military unit that controls Guatemalan intelligence, had gone in and found scores of corpses, some in the remnants of a large bonfire, which was consistent with the Zeta practice of burning bodies.

The Zetas, once the most feared cartel in Mexico, went into steep decline after the alleged Dos Erres conference, further suggesting that their leadership had been killed and that they had suffered mass casualties.

The Sinaloa cartel had not experienced a similar decline. To the contrary, it had become the undisputed power, by far the most dominant cartel, and had imposed a sort of peace on a Mexico that had seen a hundred thousand people killed in ten years of drug violence.

And Sinaloa was sending more drugs than ever into the United States, not only the marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine that had made the cartel wealthy beyond measure, but also masses of heroin.

All of which argued against the Dos Erres theory and for the rival “empty coffin theory” that Barrera had, in fact, decimated the Zetas in Dos Erres, then staged his own death and was now running the cartel from a remote location.

Again, there was ample precedent—over the years several cartel bosses had faked their deaths to relieve relentless DEA pressure. Cartel soldiers had raided coroners’ offices and stolen the bodies of their bosses to prevent positive identification and to encourage rumors that their jefes were still on the right side of the grass.

Indeed, as Keller has often pointed out to his subordinates, none of the bodies of the leaders alleged to have been killed in Dos Erres have ever been found. And while it is widely accepted that Ochoa and Forty have gone to their reward, the fact that Sinaloa just keeps humming along like a machine lends credence to the empty coffin theory.

But the absence of any appearances by Barrera over the past year and a half indicates otherwise. While he always tended to be reclusive, Barrera usually would have shown up with his young wife, Eva, for holiday celebrations in his hometown of La Tuna, Sinaloa, or for New Year’s Eve at a resort town like Puerto Vallarta or Mazatlán. No such sightings have been reported. Furthermore, digital surveillance has revealed no emails, tweets, or other social media messages; phone monitoring has revealed no telephonic communications.

Barrera has numerous estancias in Sinaloa and Durango in addition to houses in Los Mochis, along the coast. The DEA knows about these residences and there are doubtless others. But satellite photos of these locations have shown a decided lessening of traffic in and out. Ordinarily, when Barrera was moving from one location to another, there would be an increase in traffic of bodyguards and support personnel, a spike in internet and cell-phone communications as his people arranged logistics, and a heavier communications footprint among state and local police on the Sinaloa cartel payroll.

The absence of any of this would tend to support the Dos Erres theory, that Barrera is dead.

But the question—if Barrera isn’t running the cartel, who is?—has yet to be answered, and the Mexican rumor mill is full to capacity with Barrera sightings in Sinaloa, Durango, Guatemala, Barcelona, even in San Diego where his wife (or widow?) and two small sons live. “Barrera” has even sent texts and Twitter messages that have fueled a cult of “Adán vive” disciples, who leave hand-painted signs along roadsides to that effect.

Members of Barrera’s immediate family—especially his sister, Elena—have gone to some lengths to not confirm his death, and any ambiguity surrounding his status gives the cartel time to try to arrange an orderly succession.

The Dos Erres theory believers aver that the cartel has a vested interest in keeping Barrera “alive” and is putting out these messages as disinformation—a living Barrera is to be feared, and that fear helps keep potential enemies from challenging Sinaloa. Some of the theory’s strongest adherents even posit that the Mexican government itself, desperate to maintain stability, is behind the Adán Vive movement.

The confirmation of Barrera’s death, if that’s what this is, Keller thinks, is going to send shock waves across the narco world.

“Who has custody of the body?” Keller asks.

“D-2,” Blair says.

“So Sinaloa already knows.” The cartel has deep sources in all levels of the Guatemalan government. And the CIA already knows, too, Keller thinks. D-2 has been penetrated by everybody. “Who else in DEA knows about this?”

“Just the Guat City RAC, you, and me,” Blair says. “I thought you’d want to keep this tight.”

Blair is smart and loyal enough to make sure that Keller got this news first and as exclusively as possible. Art Keller is a good man to have as a boss and a dangerous man to have as an enemy.

Everyone in DEA knows about the vendetta between Keller and Adán Barrera, which goes all the way back to the 1980s, when Barrera participated in the torture-murder of Keller’s partner, Ernie Hidalgo.

And everyone knows that Keller was sent down to Mexico to recapture Barrera, but ended up taking down the Zetas instead.

Maybe literally.

The watercooler talk—more like whispers—speaks of the ruins of a wrecked Black Hawk helicopter in the village of Dos Erres, where the battle between the Zetas and Barrera’s Sinaloans allegedly took place. Sure, the Guatemalan army has American helicopters—so does the Sinaloa cartel for that matter—but the talk continues about a secret mission of American spec-op mercenaries who went in and took out the Zeta leadership, bin Laden style. And if you believe those rumors—dismissed as laughable grassy knoll fantasies by the DEA brass—you might also believe that on that mission was one Art Keller.

And now Keller, who took down both Adán Barrera and the Zetas, is the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the most powerful “drug warrior” in the world, commanding an agency with over 10,000 employees, 5,000 special agents, and 800 intelligence analysts.

“Keep it tight for now,” Keller says.

He knows that Blair hears the dog whistle—that what Keller really means is that he wants to keep this away from Denton Howard, the assistant administrator of the DEA, a political appointee who would like nothing more than to flay Keller alive and display the pelt on his office wall.

The chief whisperer of all things Keller—Keller has a questionable past, Keller has divided loyalties, a Mexican mother and a Mexican wife (did you know that his first name isn’t actually Arthur, it’s Arturo?), Keller is a cowboy, a loose cannon, he has blood on his hands, there are rumors that he was even there in Dos Erres—Howard is a cancer, going around the Intelligence Unit to work his own sources, cultivating personal diplomatic relationships in Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Europe, Asia, working the Hill, cuddling up to the media.

Keller can’t keep this news from him, but even a couple of hours’ head start will help. For one thing, the Mexican government has to hear this from me, Keller thinks, not from Howard, or worse, from Howard’s buddies at Fox News.

“Send the dental records to D-2,” Keller says. “They get our full cooperation.”

We’re talking hours, not days, Keller thinks, before this gets out there. Some responsible person in D-2 sent this to us, but someone else has doubtless put in a call to Sinaloa, and someone else will look to cash in with the media.

Because Adán Barrera has become in death what he never was in life.

A rock star.

It started, in of all places, with an article in Rolling Stone.

An investigative journalist named Clay Bowen started to chase down the rumors of a gun battle in Guatemala between the Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel and soon tripped over the fact that Adán Barrera had, in the snappy hip language of the story, “gone 414.” The journalistic Stanley went in search of his narco Livingstone and came up with nothing.

So that became his story.

Adán Barrera was the phantom, the will-o’-the-wisp, the mysterious, invisible power behind the world’s largest drug-trafficking organization, an elusive genius that law enforcement could neither catch nor even find. The story went back to Barrera’s “daring escape” from a Mexican prison in 2004 (“Daring,” my aching ass, Keller thought when he read the story—the man bought his way out of the prison and left from the roof in a helicopter), and now Barrera had made the “ultimate escape” by staging his own death.

In the absence of an interview with his subject, Bowen apparently talked to associates and family members (“anonymous sources say … unidentified people close to Barrera state that …”) who painted a flattering picture of Barrera—he gives money to churches and schools; he builds clinics and playgrounds; he’s good to his mother and his kids.

He brought peace to Mexico.

(This last quote made Keller laugh out loud. It was Barrera who started the war that killed a hundred thousand people, and he “brought peace” by winning it?)

Adán Barrera, drug trafficker and mass murderer, became a combination of Houdini, Zorro, Amelia Earhart, and Mahatma Gandhi. A misunderstood child of rural poverty who rose from his humble beginnings to wealth and power by selling a product that, after all, people wanted anyway, and who is now a benefactor, a philanthropist harassed and hunted by two governments that he brilliantly eludes and outwits.

The rest of the media took it up during a slow news cycle, and stories about Barrera’s disappearance ran on CNN, Fox, all the networks. He became a social media darling, with thousands playing a game of “Where’s Waldo?” on the internet, breathlessly speculating on the great man’s whereabouts. (Keller’s absolute favorite story was that Barrera had turned down an offer from Dancing with the Stars, or alternatively, was hiding out as the star of an NBC sitcom.) The furor faded, of course, as all these things do, save for a few die-hard bloggers and the DEA and the Mexican SEIDO, for whom the issue of Barrera’s existence or lack thereof wasn’t a game but deadly serious business.

And now, Keller thinks, it will start again.

The coffin is filled.

Now it’s the throne that’s empty.

We’re in a double bind, Keller thinks. The Sinaloa cartel is the key driver behind the heroin traffic. If we help take the cartel down, we destroy the Pax Sinaloa. If we lay off the cartel, we accept the continuation of the heroin crisis here.

The Sinaloa cartel has its agenda and we have ours, and Barrera’s “death” could create an irreconcilable conflict between promoting stability in Mexico and stopping the heroin epidemic in the United States.

The first requires the preservation of the Sinaloa cartel, the second requires its destruction.

The State Department and CIA will at least passively collude in Mexico’s partnership with the cartel, while the Justice Department and DEA are determined to shut down the cartel’s heroin operations.

There are other factions. The AG wants drug policy reforms, and so does the White House drug czar, but while the attorney general is going to leave soon anyway, the White House is more cautious. The president has all the courage and freedom of a lame duck, but doesn’t want to hand the conservatives any ammunition to fire at his potential successor who has to run in 2016.

And one of those conservatives is your own deputy, Keller thinks, who would like to see you and the reforms swept out in ’16 and preferably before. The Republicans already have the House and Senate, if they win the White House the new occupant will put in a new AG who will take us back to the heights—or depths, if you will—of the war on drugs, and one of the first people he’ll fire is you.

So the clock is ticking.

It’s your job, Keller thinks, to stop the flow of heroin into this country. The Sinaloa cartel—Adán’s legacy, the edifice he constructed, that you helped him construct—is slaughtering thousands of people and it has to die.

Check that—it won’t just die.

You have to kill it.

When Blair leaves, Keller starts working the phones.

First he puts in a call to Orduña.

“They found the body,” Keller says, without introduction.

“Where?”

“Where do you think?” Keller says. “I’m about to call SEIDO but I wanted you to know first.”

Because Orduña is clean—absolutely squeaky clean, taking neither money nor shit from anyone. His marines—with Keller’s help and intelligence from the US—had devastated the Zetas, and now Orduña is ready to take down the rest, including Sinaloa.

A silence, then Orduña says, “So champagne is in order.”

Next, Keller phones SEIDO, the Mexican version of a combined FBI and DEA, and speaks to the attorney general. It’s a delicate call because the Mexican AG would be offended that the Guatemalans contacted DEA before they contacted him. The relationship has always been fragile, all the more so because of Howard’s incessant meddling, but mostly because SEIDO has been, at various times, in Sinaloa’s pocket.

“I wanted to give you a heads-up right away,” Keller says. “We’re going to put out a press release, but we can hold it until you put out yours.”

“I appreciate that.”

The next call Keller makes is to his own attorney general.

“We want to get a statement out,” the AG says.

“We do,” Keller says, “but let’s hold it until Mexico can get it out first.”

“Why is that?”

“To let them save face,” Keller says. “It looks bad for them if they got the news from us.”

“They did get the news from us.”

“We have to work with them,” Keller says. “And it’s always good to have a marker. Hell, it’s not like we captured the guy—he got killed by other narcos.”

“Is that what happened?”

“Sure looks like it.” He spends five more minutes persuading the AG to hold the announcement and then calls a contact at CNN. “You didn’t get this from me, but Mexico is about to announce that Adán Barrera’s body has been found in Guatemala.”

“Jesus, can we run with that?”

“That’s your call,” Keller says. “I’m just telling you what’s about to happen. It will confirm the story that Barrera was killed after a peace meeting with the Zetas.”

“Then who’s been running the cartel?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Come on, Art.”

“Do you want to get out ahead of Fox,” Keller asks, “or do you want to stay on the phone asking me questions I can’t answer?”

Turns out it’s the former.

Martin’s Tavern has been in business since they repealed Prohibition in 1933 and has been a haven for Democratic pols ever since. Keller steps inside next to the booth where legend says that John Kennedy proposed to Jackie.

Camelot, Keller thinks.

Another myth, but one that he had profoundly believed in as a kid. He believed in JFK and Bobby, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus and God. The first four having been assassinated, that leaves God, but not the one who’d inhabited Keller’s childhood in the place of his absent father, not the omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent deity who ruled with stern but fair justice.

That God died in Mexico.

Like a lot of gods, Keller thinks as the stale warmth of the cozy tavern hits him. Mexico is a country where the temples of the new gods are built on the gravesites of the old.

He climbs the narrow wooden stairs to the upstairs room where Sam Rayburn used to hold court, and Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson twisted arms to get their bills passed.

O’Brien sits alone in a booth. His full face is ruddy, his thick hair snow white, as befits a man in his seventies. His thick hand is wrapped around a squat glass. Another glass sits on the table.

O’Brien is a Republican. He just likes Martin’s.

“I ordered for you,” he says as Keller sits down.

“Thanks,” Keller says. “It is Barrera’s body. They just confirmed it.”

“What did you tell the attorney general?” O’Brien asks.

“What we know,” Keller says. “That our intelligence about a battle between the Zetas and Sinaloa turned out to be accurate, and that Barrera was apparently killed in the gunfight.”

O’Brien says, “If Dos Erres becomes a real story, we can be connected to Tidewater.”

“We can,” Keller says. “But there’s nothing to connect Tidewater to the raid.”

The company had dissolved and then re-formed in Arizona under a different flag. Twenty people went on the Guatemala mission. One KIA. His body was extracted, the family informed that he was killed in a training accident, and they agreed to an out-of-court settlement. Four wounded, also successfully extracted and treated at a facility in Costa Rica, the medical records destroyed and the men compensated according to the contractual terms. Of the remaining fifteen, one has been killed in a car accident, a second while under contract to another vendor. The other thirteen have no intention of breaching the confidentiality clauses in their contracts.

The Black Hawk that went down had no markings, and the guys blew it up before they exfilled. D-2 came in the next day and laundered the scene.

“I’m more worried about the White House getting nervous,” Keller says.

“I’ll keep them steady,” O’Brien says. “We got guns to each other’s heads, what we used to call ‘mutually assured destruction.’ And shit, when you think about it, if the public found out that POTUS went cowboy and whacked three of the world’s biggest drug dealers? In the current environment—the heroin epidemic—his approval rating would go through the roof.”

“Your Republican colleagues would try to impeach,” Keller says. “And you’d vote with them.”

There’s been talk of O’Brien running for president in 2016, most of it started by the senator himself.

O’Brien laughs. “In terms of sheer treachery, backstabbing and cutthroat, hand-to-hand combat—in terms of pure lethal killing power—the Mexican cartels have nothing on this town. Try to remember that.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“So you’re satisfied this won’t come back on us.”

“I am.”

O’Brien raises his glass. “Then here’s to the recently discovered dead.”

Keller finishes his drink.

Two hours later Keller looks at the image of Iván Esparza on the big screen of the briefing room. Esparza wears a striped norteño shirt, jeans, and shades, and stands in front of a private jet.

“Iván Archivaldo Esparza,” Blair says. “Age thirty. Born in Culiacán, Sinaloa. Eldest son of the late Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Esparza, one of the three principal partners in the Sinaloa cartel. Iván has two younger brothers, Oviedo and Alfredo, in order of seniority, all in the family business.”

The picture changes to a bare-chested Iván standing on a boat with other motor yachts in the background.

“Iván is a classic example of the group that has come to be known as Los Hijos,” Blair says. “‘The Sons.’ Replete with norteño-cowboy wardrobe, oversize jewelry, gold chains, backward baseball caps, exotic boots and multiple cars—Maseratis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis. He even has the diamond-encrusted handguns. And he posts photos of all this on social media.”

Blair shows some images from Iván’s blog:

A gold-plated AK-47 on the console of a Maserati convertible.

Stacks of twenty-dollar bills.

Iván posing with two bikini-clad young women.

Another chica sitting in the front seat of a car with the name Esparza tattooed on her long left leg.

Sports cars, boats, jet skis, more guns.

Keller’s favorite photos are of Iván in a hooded jacket bending over a fully grown lion stretched out in front of a Ferrari, and then one with two lion cubs in the front seat. The scar on Iván’s face is barely visible, but the cheekbone is still a little flattened.

“Now that Barrera is confirmed dead,” Blair says, “Iván is next in line to take over. Not only is he Nacho’s son, he’s Adán’s brother-in-law. The Esparza wing of the cartel has billions of dollars, hundreds of soldiers and heavy political influence. But there are other candidates.”

A picture of an elegant woman comes on the screen.

“Elena Sánchez Barrera,” Blair says, “Adán’s sister, once ran his Baja plaza but retired years ago, yielding the territory to Iván. She has two sons: Rudolfo, who did time here in the US for cocaine trafficking, and Luis. Elena is reputed to be out of the drug business now, as are her two sons. Most of the family money is now invested in legitimate businesses, but both Rudolfo and Luis occasionally run with Los Hijos, and as Adán’s blood nephews, they have to be considered potential heirs to the throne.”

A photo of Ricardo Núñez comes up.

“Núñez has the wealth and the power to take over the cartel,” Blair says, “but he’s a natural born number two, born to stand behind the throne, not to sit in it. He’s a lawyer at heart, a cautious, persnickety legalist without the taste or tolerance for blood that a move for the top demands.”

Another picture of a young man goes up on the screen.

Keller recognizes Ric Núñez.

“Núñez has a son,” Blair says, “also Ricardo, twenty-five, with the ridiculous sobriquet of ‘Mini-Ric.’ He’s only on the list because he’s Barrera’s godson.”

More pictures go up of Mini-Ric.

Drinking beer.

Driving a Porsche.

Holding a monogrammed pistol.

Pulling a cheetah on a leash.

“Ric lacks his father’s seriousness,” Blair says. “He’s another Hijo, a playboy burning through money he never earned through his own sweat or blood. When he isn’t high, he’s drunk. He can’t control himself, never mind the cartel.”

Keller sees a photo of Ric and Iván drinking together, raising glasses in a toast to the camera. Their free hands are tossed over each other’s shoulders.

“Iván Esparza and Ric Núñez are best friends,” Blair says. “Iván is probably closer to Ric than to his own brothers. But Ric is a beta wolf in the pack that Iván leads. Iván is ambitious, Ric is almost antiambitious.”

Keller already knows all this, but he asked Blair to give a briefing to the DEA and Justice personnel in the wake of the discovery of Adán’s body. Denton Howard is in the front row—finally educating himself, Keller thinks.

“There are a few other Hijos,” Blair says. “Rubén Ascensión’s father, Tito, was Nacho Esparza’s bodyguard, but now has his own organization, the Jalisco cartel, which primarily makes its money from methamphetamine.

“This kid—”

He shows another picture of a young man—short black hair, black shirt, staring angrily into the camera.

“—Damien Tapia,” Blair says, “aka ‘The Young Wolf.’ Age twenty-two, son of the late Diego Tapia, another one of Adán’s former partners. Was a member of Los Hijos until his dad ran afoul of Barrera back in 2007, touching off a major civil war in the cartel, which Barrera won. Used to be very tight with Ric and Iván, but Damien doesn’t hang with them anymore, as he blames their fathers for his father’s killing.”

Los Hijos, Keller thinks, are sort of the Brat Pack of the Mexican drug trade, the third generation of traffickers. The first was Miguel Ángel Barrera—“M-1”—and his associates; the second was Adán Barrera, Nacho Esparza, Diego Tapia, and their various rivals and enemies—Heriberto Ochoa, Hugo Garza, Rafael Caro.

Now it’s Los Hijos.

But unlike the previous generation, Los Hijos never worked the poppy fields, never got their hands dirty in the soil or bloody in the wars that their fathers and uncles fought. They talk a good game, they wave around gold-plated pistols and AKs, but they’ve never walked the walk. Spoiled, entitled and vacuous, they think they’re just owed the money and the power. They have no idea what comes with it.

Iván Esparza’s assumption of power is at least ten years premature. He doesn’t have the maturity or experience required to run this thing. If he’s smart, he’ll use Ricardo Núñez as a sort of consigliere, but the word on Iván is that he’s not smart—he’s arrogant, short-tempered and showy, qualities that his buttoned-down father had only contempt for.

But the son is not the father.

“It’s a new day,” Keller says. “Barrera’s death didn’t slow down the flow for even a week. There’s more coming in now than ever. So there’s a continuity and stability there. The cartel is a corporation that lost its CEO. It still has a board of directors that will eventually appoint a new chief executive. Let’s make sure we’re privy to that conversation.”

He’s the image of his old man.

When Hugo Hidalgo walks through the door, it takes Keller back almost thirty years.

To himself and Ernie Hidalgo in Guadalajara.

Same jet-black hair.

Same handsome face.

Same smile.

“Hugo, how long has it been?” Keller walks out from behind the desk and hugs him. “Come on, sit down, sit down.”

He leads Hugo to a chair in a little alcove by the window and takes the seat across from him. His receptionist and a number of secretaries had wondered how a junior field agent had managed to get an appointment with the administrator, especially on a day when Keller had canceled everything else and basically locked himself in his office.

Keller has been in there all day, watching Mexican news shows and satellite feeds covering the announcement of Adán Barrera’s death. Univision broadcast footage of the funeral cortege—scores of vehicles—as it snaked its way down from the mountains toward Culiacán. In villages and towns along the way, people lined the road and tossed flowers, ran up to the hearse weeping, pressing their hands against the glass. Makeshift shrines had been constructed with photos of Barrera, candles and signs that read ¡ADÁN VIVE!

All for the little piece of shit who murdered the father of the young man who now sits across from him, who used to call him Tío Arturo. Hugo must be, what, thirty now? A little older?

“How are you?” Keller asks. “How’s the family?”

“Mom’s good,” Hugo says. “She’s living in Houston now. Ernesto is with Austin PD. One of those hippie cops on a bicycle. Married, three kids.”

Keller feels guilty that he’s lost touch.

Feels guilty about a lot of things involving Ernie Hidalgo. It was his fault that Ernie got killed when Hugo was just a little boy. Keller had spent his entire career trying to make it right—had tracked down everyone involved and put them behind bars.

Devoted his life to taking down Adán Barrera.

And finally did.

“How about you?” Keller asks. “Married? Kids?”

“Neither,” Hugo says. “Yet. Look, sir, I know you’re very busy, I appreciate you taking the time—”

“Of course.”

“You once told me if there was anything you could ever do, not to hesitate.”

“I meant it.”

“Thank you,” Hugo says. “I haven’t wanted to take advantage of that, of our relationship, it’s not that I think I’m owed anything …”

Keller has followed Hugo’s career from afar.

The kid has done it the right way.

Military. Good service with the US Marines in Iraq.

Then he went back and finished college, degree in criminal justice from UT, and then caught on with Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Put up a good record there and kept applying to DEA until he was finally hired.

He could have done it differently, Keller knows. Could simply have walked in and said he was the son of a fallen DEA hero, and they would have given him a job right away.

But he didn’t do that.

He earned it, and Keller respects that.

His father would have, too.

“What can I do for you, Hugo?”

“I’ve been on the job for three years now,” Hugo says, “and I’m still investigating marijuana buys in suburban Seattle.”

“You don’t like Seattle?”

“It’s about as far as you can get from Mexico,” Hugo says. “But maybe that’s the idea.”

“What do you mean?”

Hugo looks uncomfortable, but then sets his jaw and looks straight at Keller.

Just like Ernie would have done, Keller thinks.

“Are you keeping me out of danger, sir?” Hugo asks. “If you are—”

“I’m not.”

“Well, someone is,” Hugo says. “I’ve put in for FAST assignments five times and haven’t gotten one of them. It doesn’t make any sense. I speak fluent Spanish, I look Mexican, I have all the weapons qualifications.”

“Why do you want FAST?”

FAST is an acronym for Foreign-Deployed Advisory and Support Team, but Keller knows they do a lot more than advise and support. They’re basically the DEA’s special forces.

“Because that’s where it’s happening,” Hugo says. “I see kids dying of overdoses. I want in on that fight. On the front lines.”

“Is that the only reason?” Keller asks.

“Isn’t it enough?”

“Can I be honest with you, Hugo?”

“I wish someone would,” Hugo says.

“You can’t spend your life getting revenge for your father,” Keller says.

“With all respect, sir,” Hugo says. “You did.”

“Which is how I know.” Keller leans forward in his chair. “The men who killed your father are all dead. Two died in prison, one was killed in a gunfight on a bridge in San Diego. I was there. The last one … they’re about to hold his wake. The job is finished, son. You don’t have to take it up.”

“I want my father to have been proud of me,” Hugo says.

“I’m sure he is.”

“I don’t want to be advanced because of who my father was,” Hugo says, “but I don’t want to be held back, either.”

“That’s fair,” Keller says. “I tell you what, if someone is blocking your transfer to FAST, I’ll unblock it. You pass the test, you get through training—only half do—I’ll oil the wheels for assignment to Afghanistan. Front lines.”

“I speak Spanish, not Urdu.”

“Be realistic, Hugo,” Keller says. “There’s no way in hell we’re going to let you go into Mexico. Or Guatemala, or El Salvador, or Costa Rica or Colombia. DEA is simply not going to risk those headlines, if something happened to you. And something would—you’d be a marked man.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“I won’t.” I had to tell Teresa Hidalgo her husband was dead, Keller thinks. I’m not going to tell her that her son has been killed. He makes a mental note to find out who has been keeping Hugo out of harm’s way and thank him. It was solid thinking. “You don’t want Kabul, name me something you would want. Europe—Spain, France, Italy?”

“Don’t dangle shiny objects in front of me, sir,” Hugo says. “Either I get moved to the front lines or I leave DEA. And you know I’ll catch on with a border-state police force and you also know they’ll put me UC. I’ll be making drug buys from Sinaloa before you take my name off the Christmas card list.”

You are your father’s son, Keller thinks. You’ll do exactly what you said, and you’ll get yourself killed, and I owe your dad more than that.

“You want to take down the cartel?” Keller asks.

“Yes, sir.”

“I might have a job for you right here,” Keller says. “As my aide.”

“Pushing paper,” Hugo says.

“You think you’re going to take down the cartel by buying a few keys of coke in El Paso or gunning down a few sicarios in El Salvador, you might be too stupid to work here,” Keller says. “But if you want to be in the real war, fly back to Seattle, pack your things, and be here ready to work first thing Monday morning. It’s the best offer you’re going to get, son. I’d take it if I were you.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Good. See you Monday.”

He walks Hugo to the door and thinks, Shit, I just got stood down by Ernie Hidalgo’s kid.

He goes back to the television.

They’ve brought Adán’s body back to Culiacán.

If Ric has to sit there five more minutes, he will blow his brains out.

For sure, this time.

Death would be preferable to sitting on this wooden folding chair staring at a closed coffin full of Adán Barrera’s bones, pretending to be grieving, pretending to be contemplating fond memories of his godfather that he really didn’t have.

The whole thing is gross.

But kind of funny, in a Guillermo del Toro kind of way. The whole concept of a velorio is so people can view the body, but there is no body, not really; they just tossed the skeleton into a coffin that probably cost more than most people’s houses, so it’s kind of like going to a movie where there’s no picture, only sound.

Then there was the whole discussion of what to do with the suit, because you’re supposed to dress the deceased in his best suit so he’s not walking around in the next life looking shabby, but that clearly wasn’t going to work, so what they did was they folded up an Armani they found in one of Adán’s closets and laid it in the coffin.

Even funnier, though, was the dilemma about what else to throw in, because the tradition is you put in stuff that the dead guy liked to do in life, but no one could think of anything that Adán did for fun, anything that he actually liked.

“We could put money in there,” Iván muttered to Ric as they stood on the edge of this conversation. “He sure as shit liked money.”

“Or pussy,” Ric answered.

The word was that his godfather was a major player.

“Yeah, I don’t think they’re going to let you kill some hot bitch and lay her in there with him,” Iván said.

“I dunno,” Ric said. “There’s plenty of room.”

“I’ll give you a thousand bucks to suggest it,” Iván said.

“Not worth it,” Ric said, watching his father and Elena Sánchez in earnest discussion on the topic. No, his dad would not be amused and Elena already didn’t like him. And, anyway, he wouldn’t say anything like that in front of Eva—speaking of hot bitches—who looked … well, hot … in her black dress.

Ric would definitely fuck Eva, who was, after all, his own age, but he wasn’t going to say that, either, not in front of her brother Iván.

“I’d fuck her,” Belinda had said to Ric. “Definitely.”

“You think she goes both ways?”

“Baby,” Belinda said, “with me, they all go both ways. I get anyone I want.”

Ric thought about this for a second. “Not Elena. She has ice down there.”

“I’d melt it,” Belinda said, flicking out her tongue. “And turn it to tears of joy.”

Belinda never lacked for confidence.

Anyway, what they finally decided to put in the coffin was a baseball, because Adán sort of liked baseball—although no one there could remember him going to a single game—an old pair of boxing gloves from Adán’s teenage days as a wannabe boxing promoter, and a photo of the daughter who died so young, which made Ric feel a little bad about wanting to put a dead chick in with him.

So that was that discussion—the more serious debate had been where to hold the velorio in the first place. At first they thought they’d do it at Adán’s mother’s house in his home village of La Tuna, but then they reconsidered that it might be too much on the old lady and also—as Ric’s father had pointed out—“the rural location would present a host of logistical difficulties.”

Okay.

They decided to hold it in Culiacán, where the cemetery was, after all, at someone’s house. The problem was that everyone had a house—actually, houses—in or around the city, so an argument started about whose house they should do it in because it seemed to have some significance.

Elena wanted it at her house—Adán was her brother, after all; Iván wanted it at the Esparza family home—Adán was the son-in-law; Ric’s dad suggested their place in the suburbs of Eldorado, “farther away from prying eyes.”

The fuck difference does it make? Ric wondered, watching the debate get heated. Adán’s not going to care, the guy is dead. But it seemed to matter to them and they really got into it until Eva quietly said, “Adán and I also had a home. We’ll do it there.”

Ric noticed that Iván didn’t look too thrilled about his little sister speaking up. “It’s too much to ask you to host this.”

Why? Ric wondered. It’s not like Adán’s going to be too busy laying out bean dip or something to enjoy his own wake.

“It really is too much, dear,” Elena said.

Ric’s dad nodded. “It’s so far out in the country.”

They finally agree on something, Ric thought.

But Eva said, “We’ll do it there.”

So Ric and everyone else had to drive all the way out to East Buttfuck to Adán’s estancia, up twisting dirt roads, past blockades of state police providing security. Fucking caravans of narcos coming to pay their respects, some out of love, some out of obligation, some out of fear of not being seen there. You got an invitation to Adán Barrera’s velorio and you no-showed, you might be the guest of honor for the next one.

His dad and Elena had made most of the arrangements, so of course it was perfect. Helicopters circling overhead, armed security prowling the grounds, parking valets with nines strapped to their waists.

Guests crowded the sloping front lawn. Tables with white cloths had been set out and were heavy with platters of food, bottles of wine, and pitchers of beer, lemonade, and water. Waiters walked around with trays of hors d’oeuvres.

One of Rudolfo Sánchez’s norteño bands played from a gazebo.

The walkway up to the house was strewn with marigold petals, a tradition in a velorio.

“They really went all out,” Ric’s wife, Karin, said.

“What did you expect?”

Ric had attended the Autonomous University of Sinaloa for all of two semesters, majoring in business, and all he really learned about economics was that a cheap condom can be far more expensive than a good one. When he told his father that Karin was embarazada, Ricardo told him he was going to do the right thing.

Ric knew what that was: get rid of the thing and break up with Karin.

“No,” Núñez said. “You’re going to get married and raise your child.”

Ric Sr. thought the responsibility of having a family would “make a man” out of his son. It sort of did—it made a man who rarely came home and had a mistress who would do everything his wife wouldn’t. Not that he asked her—Karin, while pretty enough, was as dull as Sunday dinner. If he suggested some of the things that Belinda did, she would probably burst out crying and lock herself in the bathroom.

His father was unsympathetic. “You spend more time running around with the Esparzas than you do at home.”

“I need a boys’ night out now and again.”

“But you’re not a boy, you’re a man,” Núñez said. “A man spends time with his family.”

“You’ve met Karin?”

“You chose to have sex with her,” Núñez said. “Without adequate protection.”

“Once,” Ric said. “I don’t have to worry about sex with her much now.”

“Have a mistress,” Núñez said. “A man does that. But a man takes care of his family.”

Although his father would shit bricks sideways if he knew Ric’s choice of a mistress—an out-and-out psycho who is also his head of security. No, Dad would not approve of La Fósfora so they’ve kept it on the down low.

His old man had more to say. “To disrespect your marriage is to disrespect your godfather, and that I cannot allow.”

Ric went home that night, all right.

“Have you been bitching to my father?” he asked Karin.

“You’re never home!” she said. “You spend every night with your friends! You’re probably fucking some whore!”

Whores, plural, Ric thought, but he didn’t say that. What he said was “Do you like this big new house? How about the condo in Cabo, do you like that? The Rosarito beach cottage? Where do you think all that comes from? The clothes, the jewelry, the big flat-screen your eyes are always glued to. The nanny for your daughter so your telenovelas won’t be interrupted. Where do you think all that comes from? Me?”

Karin sneered. “You don’t even have a job.”

“My job,” Ric said, “is being that man’s son.”

Another sneer. “ ‘Mini-Ric.’ ”

“That’s right,” he said. “So someone who’s not acting like a dumb bitch might think, ‘Hmm, the last thing I want to do is run my husband down to his dad and risk cutting all that off.’ Of course, that’s someone who’s not acting like a dumb bitch.”

“Get out.”

“Jesus Christ, make up your mind,” Ric said. “You want me home or you want me out, which is it? One fucking night with you and it turns into a life sentence.”

“How do you think I feel?” Karin asked.

That’s the best she can do, Ric thought. If he’d called Belinda a dumb cunt, she would have shot him in the dick and then sucked the bullet out.

“Here’s the point,” Ric said. “You want to bitch, bitch to your girlfriends over one of your lunches. Complain to the housekeeper, complain to the worthless little piece of shit dog I paid for. But you do not, ever, complain to my father.”

“Or you’ll what?” She got right in his face.

“I would never hit a woman,” Ric said. “You know that’s not me. But I will divorce you. You’ll get one of the houses and you’ll live in it alone, and good luck trying to find a new husband with a kid on your hip.”

Later that night he crawled into bed, drunk enough to soften a little. “Karin?”

“What?”

“I know I’m an asshole,” Ric said. “I’m an Hijo, I don’t know any different.”

“It’s just that you …”

“What?”

“You just play at life,” she said.

Ric laughed. “Baby, what else is there to do with it?”

As an Hijo, he’s seen friends, cousins, uncles killed. Most of them young, some younger than he is. You have to play while life gives you the time to play, because sooner or later, probably sooner, they’re going to be putting your favorite toys in a box with you.

Fast cars, fast boats, faster women. Good food, better booze, best drugs. Nice houses, nicer clothes, nicest guns. If there’s anything more to life than that, he hasn’t seen it.

“Play with me,” he said.

“I can’t,” she said. “We have a child.”

Now that she’s settled into young motherhood, raising their little girl, their marriage has evolved from open hostility to dull tolerance. And, of course, she had to accompany him to Adán’s velorio, anything else would have been “unseemly” in his father’s eyes.

But it didn’t help that Belinda was there, too.

On the job.

Karin noticed her. “That girl. Is she security?”

“She’s the head of security.”

“She’s striking,” Karin said. “Is she a tortillera, do you think?”

Ric laughed. “How do you know that word?”

“I know things. I don’t live in a cocoon.”

Yeah, sort of you do, Ric thought. “I don’t know if she’s lesbian or not. Probably.”

Now Karin sits next to Ric, looking every bit as miserable as he feels, but gazing dutifully at the coffin (Karin does duty like a nun does a rosary, Ric thinks) as befits the wife of the godson.

Which reminds Ric that he became Adán’s godson on the happy occasion of his wedding, an old Mexican tradition in which a man can “adopt” a godson on the celebration of a major event in his life, although Ric knows that Adán did this to honor his father more than to express any particular closeness to him.

Ric has heard the story of how his father hooked up with Adán Barrera at least a thousand times.

Ricardo Núñez was a young man then, just thirty-eight when Adán was brought to the gates of the prison, having been given “compassionate extradition” from the US to serve the remainder of his twenty-two-year sentence in Mexico.

It was a cold morning, Ric’s dad always said when relating the story. Adán was cuffed by the wrists and ankles, shivering as he changed from a blue down issue jacket into a brown uniform with the number 817 stitched on the front and back.

“I made a sanctimonious speech,” Núñez told Ric. (Does he make any other kind? Ric thought.) “Adán Barrera, you are now a prisoner of CEFERESO II. Do not think that your former status gives you any standing here. You are just another criminal.”

That was for the benefit of the cameras, which Adán completely understood. Inside, he graciously accepted Núñez’s apology and assurances that everything that could be done to make him comfortable would be done.

As indeed it was.

Diego Tapia had already arranged for complete security. A number of his most trusted men agreed to be arrested, convicted and sent to the facility so that they could guard “El Patrón.” And Núñez cooperated with Diego to provide Adán with a “cell” that was over six hundred square feet with a full kitchen, a well-stocked bar, an LED television, a computer, and a commercial refrigerator stocked with fresh groceries.

On some nights, the prison cafeteria would be converted into a theater for Adán to host “movie nights” for his friends, and Ric’s dad always made it a point to relate that the drug lord preferred G movies without sex or violence.

On other nights, prison guards would go into Guadalajara and return with a van full of ladies of the evening for the Barrera supports and employees. But Adán didn’t partake, and it wasn’t long before he started his affair with a beautiful convict, former Miss Sinaloa Magda Beltrán, who became his famous mistress.

“But that was Adán,” Núñez told Ric. “He always had a certain class, a certain dignity, and appreciation for quality, in people as well as things.”

Adán took care of people who took care of him.

So it was just like him when weeks before Christmas he came into the office and quietly suggested that Núñez resign. That a numbered bank account had been opened for him in the Caymans and he’d find the paperwork in his new house in Culiacán.

Núñez resigned his position and went back to Sinaloa.

On Christmas night, a helicopter whisked Adán Barrera and Magda Beltrán off the roof and rumors circulated that the “escape” cost more than four million dollars in payments to people in Mexico City.

Part of that was in a numbered account in Grand Cayman for Ricardo Núñez.

Federal investigators came to question Núñez but he knew nothing about the escape. They expressed moral outrage over Adán’s favored treatment in prison and threatened to prosecute Núñez, but nothing came of it. And while Núñez became unemployable as a prosecutor, it no longer mattered—Adán was as good as his word and reached out to him.

Put him into the cocaine business.

Núñez became respected.

Trusted.

And discreet. He wasn’t showy, stayed out of the spotlight and off social media. Flew deliberately under the radar so even SEIDO and DEA—in fact, few people in the cartel—knew just how important he’d become.

El Abogado.

Núñez, in fact, became Adán’s right-hand man.

Ric himself actually spent little time at all with Barrera, so it’s weird sitting there pretending to mourn.

Adán’s coffin is set on an altar built at the end of the great room for the occasion. Piles of fresh flowers are heaped on the altar, along with religious icons and crosses. Unhusked ears of corn, squash, and papel picado hang from a bower of branches constructed above the coffin. Open containers of raw coffee have been set out, another velorio tradition, which Ric suspects had more to do with killing the smell of decomposition.

As a godson, Ric sits in the front row along with Eva, of course, the Esparzas, and Elena and her sons. Adán’s mother, ancient as the land, sits in a rocking chair, clad in black, a black shawl over her head, her shriveled face showing the patient sorrow of the Mexican campesina. God, the things she’s seen, Ric thinks, the losses she’s suffered—both sons, a grandson killed, a granddaughter who died young, so many others.

He knows the expression about cutting the tension with a knife, but you couldn’t cut the tension in this room with a blowtorch. They’re supposed to be sitting there exchanging fond stories about the deceased, except no one can think of any.

Ric has a few ideas—

Hey, how about the time Tío Adán had a whole village slaughtered to make sure he killed the snitch?

Or—

What about that time Tío Adán had his rival’s wife’s head sent to him in a package of dry ice?

Or—

Hey, hey, remember when Tío Adán threw those two little kids off a bridge? What a stitch. What a great, funny guy, huh?

Barrera made billions of dollars, created and ruled a freaking empire, and what does he have to show for it?

A dead child, an ex-wife who doesn’t come to his wake, a young trophy widow, twin sons who will grow up without their father, a baseball, some smelly old boxing gloves and a suit he never wore. And no one, not one of the hundreds of people here, can think of one nice story to tell about him.

And that’s the guy who won.

El Señor. El Patrón. The Godfather.

Ric sees Iván looking at him, touching his nose with his index finger. Iván gets up from his chair.

“I have to piss,” Ric says.

Ric shuts the bathroom door behind him.

Iván is laying out lines on the marble-top vanity. “Fuck, could this get any more tedious?”

“It’s pretty awful.”

Iván rolls up a hundred-dollar bill (of course, Ric thinks), snorts a line of coke, then hands Ric the bill. “None of this shit for me, cuate. When I go, big fucking party, then take me out on a cigarette boat and, bam, Viking funeral.”

Ric leans over and breathes the coke into his nose. “Goddamn, that’s better. What if I go first?”

“I’ll dump your body in an alley.”

“Thanks.”

There’s a soft knock at the door.

“¡Momento!” Iván yells.

“It’s me.”

“Belinda,” Ric says.

He opens the door, she slides in quickly and shuts it behind her. “I knew what you assholes were doing in here. Share.”

Iván takes the vial out of his pocket and hands it to her. “Knock yourself out.”

Belinda pours out a line and snorts it.

Iván leans against the wall. “Guess who I saw the other day? Damien Tapia.”

“No shit,” Ric says. “Where?”

“Starbucks.”

“Christ, what did you say?”

“I said ‘hello,’ what do you think?”

Ric doesn’t know what he thought. Damien had been an Hijo, they were kids together, played together all the time, partied, all that shit. He was as close to Damien as he was to Iván, until Adán and Diego Tapia got into a beef, which turned into a war, and Damien’s father was killed.

They were all just teenagers then, kids.

Adán, of course, won the war, and the Tapia family was thrown out of the fold. Since then they had been forbidden to have any contact with Damien Tapia. Not that he wanted anything to do with them anyway. He was still around town, but running into him was, well, awkward.

“When I take over,” Iván says, “I’m going to bring Damien back in.”

“Yeah?”

“Why not?” Iván says. “The beef was between Adán and Damien’s old man. Adán’s dead, as you might have noticed. I’ll make it right with Damien, it will be like before.”

“Sounds good,” Ric says.

He’s missed Damien.

“That generation,” Iván says, jutting his chin at the door, “we don’t have to inherit their wars. We’re going to move ahead. The Esparzas, you, Rubén and Damien. Like before. Los Hijos, like brothers, right?”

“Like brothers,” Ric says.

They touch knuckles.

“If you guys are done being gay,” Belinda says, “we better get back out there before they figure out what we’re doing. Snorting coke at El Patrón’s velorio? Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

“Coke built this place,” Iván says.

“Selling it, not snorting it,” Belinda says. She looks at Ric. “Wipe your nose, boyfriend. Hey, your wife is cute.”

“You’ve seen her before.”

“Yeah, but she looks cuter today,” Belinda says. “You want to do a threesome, I’ll teach her some things. Come on, let’s go.”

She opens the door and steps out.

Iván grabs Ric by the elbow. “Hey, you know I have to take care of my brothers. But let things settle down for a few days and we’ll talk, okay? About where you fit in?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t worry, ’mano,” Iván says. “I’ll be fair with your father, and I’ll take care of you.”

Ric follows him out the door.

Elena sits between her sons.

She saw a documentary on television, a nature show, and learned that when a new male lion takes over a pride, the first thing he does is kill the previous ruler’s cubs. Her own cubs still carry the Barrera name and people will assume that they have ambitions even if they don’t. Rudolfo has a small retinue of bodyguards and a few hangers-on, Luis even fewer. Whether I want to or not, she thinks, I’ll have to take on a certain level of power to protect them.

But the top spot?

There’s never been a female head of a cartel, and she doesn’t want to be the first.

But she’ll have to do something.

Without a power base, the other lions will track down her cubs and kill them.

Looking at her brother’s coffin, she wishes she felt more. Adán was always very good to her, good to her children. She wants to cry, but the tears won’t come and she tells herself that’s because her heart is exhausted, played out from all the loss over the years.

Her mother, perched in her chair like a crow, is virtually catatonic. She’s buried two sons, a grandson and a granddaughter. Elena wishes that she could get her to move to town but she insists on staying in the house that Adán built for her in La Tuna, all by herself if you don’t count the servants and the bodyguards.

But she won’t leave, she’ll die in that house.

If my mother is a crow, Elena thinks, the rest are vultures. Circling, waiting to swoop down to pick my brother’s bones.

Iván Esparza and his two equally cretinous brothers, Adán’s horrible lawyer Núñez, and a flock of smaller players—plaza bosses, cell leaders, gunmen—looking to become bigger players.

She feels tired, all the more so when she sees Núñez walking toward her.

“Elena,” Núñez says, “I wonder if we could have a word. In private.”

She follows him outside to the grand sloping lawn she walked so many times with Adán.

Núñez hands her a piece of paper and says, “This is awkward.”

He waits while she reads.

“This is not a position I relish,” Núñez says, “certainly not one that I wanted. In fact, I prayed that this day would never come about. But I feel—strongly—that your brother’s wishes should be respected.”

It’s Adán’s writing, no question, Elena thinks. And it quite clearly declares that Ricardo Núñez should take over in the event of Adán’s untimely death until his own sons reach the age of responsibility. Christ, the twins are barely two years old. Núñez will have a long regency. Plenty of time to turn the organization over to his own offspring.

“I realize that this might be a surprise,” Núñez says, “and a disappointment. I only hope that there’s no resentment.”

“Why should there be?”

“I could understand that you might think this should have gone to family.”

“Neither of my sons is interested, and Eva—”

“Is a beauty pageant queen,” Núñez says.

“So was Magda Beltrán,” Elena says, although she doesn’t know why she feels a need to argue with him. But it’s true. Adán should have married his magnificent mistress. The beautiful Magda met Adán in prison, became his lover, and then parlayed that and her considerable business acumen into creating her own multimillion-dollar organization.

“And look what happened to her,” Núñez says.

True enough, Elena thinks. The Zetas suffocated her with a plastic bag and then slashed a Z into her chest. And she was carrying Adán’s unborn child. Magda had confided in Elena and now she wonders if Adán ever knew. She hopes not—it would have broken his heart.

“Obviously Eva is not the person to take over,” Elena says.

“Please understand,” Núñez says, “that I believe I hold this position in trust for Adán’s sons. But if you think that you would be the better choice, I am willing to ignore Adán’s wishes and step down.”

“No,” she says.

Letting Núñez take the throne means shoving her own sons aside, but Elena knows that they’re secretly happy to be pushed. And, frankly, if Núñez wants to make himself a target, all the better.

But Iván … Iván is not going to like it.

“You have my support,” Elena says. She sees Núñez nod with a lawyer’s graciousness at having won a settlement. Then she drops the other shoe. “I just have one small request.”

Núñez smiles. “Please.”

“I want Baja back. For Rudolfo.”

“Baja is Iván Esparza’s.”

“And before it was his, it was mine.”

“In all fairness, Elena, you gave it up,” Núñez says. “You wanted to retire.”

It was my uncle, M-1, who sent my brothers to take the Baja plaza from Güero Méndez and Rafael Caro, Elena thinks. That was in 1990, and Adán and Raúl did it. They seduced the rich Tijuana kids and turned them into a trafficking network that co-opted their parents’ power structure on our behalf. They recruited gangs from San Diego to be gunmen, and they beat Méndez, Caro and everyone else to seize that plaza and use it as a base to take the entire country.

We made your Sinaloa cartel what it is, she thinks, so if I want Baja back, you’re going to give it to me. I won’t leave my sons without a power base with which to defend themselves.

“Baja was given to Nacho Esparza,” Ricardo is saying. “And with his death, it passed to Iván.”

“Iván is a clown,” Elena says. They all are, she thinks, all the Hijos, including your son, Ricardo.

“With a legitimate claim and an army to back it up,” Núñez says.

“And you now have Adán’s army,” Elena says, allowing to go unspoken the obvious—if I back you up.

“Iván is already going to be very disappointed that he’s not getting the big chair,” Núñez says. “Elena, I have to leave him with something.”

“And Rudolfo—Adán’s nephew—gets nothing?” Elena asks. “The Esparza brothers have plenty—more money than they can waste in their collective lifetimes. I’m asking for one plaza. And you can keep your domestic sales there.”

Núñez looks surprised.

“Oh, please,” Elena says. “I know young Ric is dealing your drugs all over Baja Sur. It’s fine—I just want the north and the border.”

“Oh, that’s all.” Elena wants one of the most lucrative plazas in the narcotics trade. Baja has a growing narcomenudeo, domestic street sales, but that’s dwarfed by the trasiego, the products that run from Tijuana and Tecate into San Diego and Los Angeles. From there the drugs are distributed all over the United States.

“Is it so much?” Elena asks. “For Adán’s sister to put her blessings on her brother’s last wishes? You need that, Ricardo. Without it …”

“You’re asking me to give you something that’s not mine to give,” Núñez says. “Adán gave the plaza to Esparza. And with all respect, Elena—my domestic business in Cabo is none of yours.”

“Spoken like a lawyer,” Elena says. “Not a patrón. If you’re going to be El Patrón, be El Patrón. Make decisions, give orders. If you want my support, the price is Baja for my son.”

The king is dead, Elena thinks.

Long live the king.

Ric sits out by the pool next to Iván.

“This is better,” Ric says. “I couldn’t stand another fucking minute in there.”

“Where’s Karin?”

“On the phone with the nanny,” Ric says, “probably discussing the color of poop. It’ll be a while.”

“You think she’s figured out you and Belinda?” Iván asks.

“Who gives a fuck?”

“Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“Look,” Iván says.

Ric turns to see Tito Ascensión walking toward them. About as tall as a refrigerator but thicker.

The Mastiff.

“My father’s old attack dog,” Iván says.

“Show some respect,” Ric says. “He’s Rubén’s dad. Anyway, you know how many guys he’s killed?”

A lot, is the answer.

Triple digits, at least.

Tito Ascensión used to be the head of Nacho Esparza’s armed wing. He fought the Zetas, then the Tapias, then the Zetas again. Tito once killed thirty-eight Zetas in a single whack and hanged their bodies from a highway overpass. Turned out it was a whoops—they weren’t Zetas after all, just your average citizens. Tito donned a balaclava, held a press conference and apologized for the mistake, with the caveat that his group was still at war with the Zetas so it would be prudent not to be mistaken for one.

Anyway, Tito played a big role in winning the wars for Sinaloa, and as a reward Nacho let him start his own organization in Jalisco, independent but still a satellite of Sinaloa.

Tito loved Nacho, and when he heard the Zetas had killed him down in Guatemala he grabbed five of them, tortured them to death over the course of weeks, then cut off their dicks and stuffed them in their mouths.

No, you don’t disrespect El Mastín.

Now the man’s shadow literally falls over both of them.

“Iván,” Tito says, “may I have a word?”

“I’ll catch you later,” Ric says, trying not to laugh. All he can think of is Luca Brazi from the wedding scene in The Godfather, which he’s had to watch with Iván about fifty-seven thousand times. Iván is obsessed with the movie to only a slighter lesser degree than he is with Scarface.

“No, stay,” Iván says, and when Tito looks dubious, adds, “Ric is going to be my number two. Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of him.”

He talks a little slow, like Tito is stupid.

Tito says, “I want to move my organization into heroin.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” Iván asks.

“It’s profitable,” Tito says.

He’s got that right, Ric thinks. Sinaloa is making millions off smack while Jalisco is still slinging cocaine and meth.

“The two don’t always go together,” Iván says, trying to sound like his father. “For one thing, it would put you into competition with us.”

“The market’s big enough for both of us,” Tito says.

Iván frowns. “Tito. Why fix what isn’t broken? Jalisco makes plenty of money on meth, doesn’t it? And we don’t even charge you a piso to use our plazas.”

“That was the arrangement I had with your father,” Tito says.

“You paid your dues,” Iván says, “no question. You’ve been a good soldier, and you got your own organization as a reward for that. But I think it’s better to just leave things as they are, don’t you?”

Christ, Ric thinks, it’s almost as if he’s patting the man’s head.

Good dog, good dog.

Sit.

Stay.

But Tito says, “If that’s what you think is best.”

“It is,” Iván says.

Tito nods to Ric and walks away.

“Rubén got his brains from his mother,” Iván says. “His looks, too, thank God.”

“Rubén’s a good guy.”

“He’s a great guy,” Iván says.

Doesn’t Ric know it. Rubén is Tito’s solid number two, runs his security force in Jalisco and is heavily involved in the transport of their product. How many times has Ric heard his own father say, If only you were more like Rubén Ascensión. Serious. Mature.

He’s made it pretty clear, Ric thinks. Given a choice, he’d rather have Rubén for his son than me.

Tough luck for both of us, I guess.

“What?” Iván asks.

“What what?”

“You got a look on your face like someone just ass-fucked your puppy.”

“I don’t have a puppy,” Ric says.

“Maybe that’s it,” Iván says. “You want me to get you one? What kind of dog do you want, Ric? I’ll send someone out right now to get it for you. I want you to be happy, ’mano.”

That’s Iván, Ric thinks.

Ever since they were kids. You told him you were hungry, he went out and got food. Your bike got stolen, a new one appeared. You said you were horny, a girl showed up at the door.

“Love you, man.”

“Love you, too,” Iván says. Then he adds, “It’s our turn now, ’mano. Our time. You’ll see—it’s going to be good.”

“Yeah.”

Ric sees his father approaching.

But it’s not Ric he wants to see.

Núñez says, “Iván, we should talk.”

“We should,” Iván says.

Ric sees the look on his face, the smile, knows that this is the moment he’s been waiting for.

His coronation.

Núñez glances down at his son and says, “In private.”

“Sure.” Iván winks at Ric. “I’ll be back, bro.”

Ric nods.

Leans back in the chair and watches his best friend and his father walk away from him.

Then he does have a memory of Adán.

Standing on the side of a dirt road in rural Durango.

“Look around you,” Adán said. “What do you see?”

“Fields,” Ric said.

“Empty fields,” Adán said.

Ric couldn’t argue with that. On both sides of the road, as far as he could see, marijuana fields lay fallow.

“The US has, de facto, legalized marijuana,” Adán said. “If my American sources are right, two or more states will soon make it official. We simply can’t compete with the local American quality and transportation costs. Last year we were getting a hundred dollars for a kilo of marijuana. Now it’s twenty-five. It’s hardly worth our growing the stuff anymore. We’re losing tens of millions of dollars a year, and if California, for instance, legalizes, the loss will be in the hundreds of millions. But it’s hot out here. Let’s go get a beer.”

They drove another ten miles to a little town.

A lead car went in first, made sure it was all clear, and then went into a tavern and emptied it out. The nervous owner and a girl who looked to be his daughter brought in a pitcher of cold beer and glasses.

Adán said, “Our marijuana market, once a major profit center, is collapsing; meth sales are falling; cocaine sales have flattened. For the first time in over a decade, we’re looking at a fiscal year of negative growth.”

It’s not like they were losing money, Ric thought. Everyone there was making millions. But they made less millions than they had the year before, and it was human nature that, even if you’re rich, being less rich feels like being poor.

“The present situation is unsustainable,” Adán said. “The last time this occurred we were saved by the innovation of crystal meth. It became, and remains, a major profit center, but there is small potential for growth that would compensate for our marijuana losses. Similarly, the cocaine market seems to have reached its saturation point.”

“What we need,” Ric’s father said, “is a new product.”

“No,” Adán said. “What we need is an old product.”

Adán paused for dramatic effect and then said, “Heroin.”

Ric was shocked. Sure, they still sold heroin, but it was a side product compared to weed, meth and coke. All their business had started with heroin, with opium, back in the days of the old gomeros who grew the poppy and made their fortunes selling it to the Americans to make the morphine they needed during World War II. After the war, it was the American Mafia that provided the market and bought up as much opium as they could grow for heroin.

But in the 1970s, the American DEA joined forces with the Mexican military to burn and poison the poppy fields in Sinaloa and Durango. They sprayed pesticides from airplanes, burned villages, forced the campesinos from their homes and scattered the gomeros to the winds.

It was Adán’s uncle, the great Miguel Ángel Barrera—M-1—who gathered the gomeros at a meeting similar to this one and told them that they didn’t want to be farmers—farms could be poisoned and burned—they wanted to be traffickers. He introduced them to the Colombian cocaine market and they all became wealthy as middlemen, moving Cali and Medellín coke into the United States. It was also M-1 who introduced crack cocaine to the market, creating the greatest financial windfall the gomeros—now known as narcos—had ever known.

Millionaires became billionaires.

The loose confederation of narcos became the Federación.

And now Adán wants them to make opium again? Ric thought. He thinks heroin is the answer to their problem?

It was insane.

“We have an opportunity,” Adán said, “even greater than crack. A ready-made market that’s just waiting for us to take advantage of. And the Americans have created it themselves.”

The giant American pharmaceutical companies, he explained, had addicted thousands of people to legal painkillers.

Pills.

Oxycodone, Vicodin and others, all opium derivatives, all the fruit of the poppy.

But the pills are expensive and can be hard to obtain, Adán explained. Addicts who can no longer get prescriptions from their doctors turn to the street, where the bootleg product can cost up to thirty dollars a dose. Some of these addicts need as many as ten doses a day.

“What I propose,” Adán said, “is to increase our production of heroin by seventy percent.”

Ric was skeptical. Mexican black tar heroin had never been able to compete with the quality of the purer product that comes in from South Asia or the Golden Triangle. More than doubling production would only lead to massive losses.

“Our black tar heroin is currently around forty percent pure,” Adán said. “I’ve met with the best heroin cookers in Colombia, who assure me that they can take our base product and create something called ‘cinnamon heroin.’”

He took a small glassine envelope from his jacket pocket and held it up. “Cinnamon heroin is seventy to eighty percent pure. And the beauty of it is, we can sell it for ten dollars a dose.”

“Why so cheap?” Núñez asked.

“We make up for it in volume,” Adán said. “We become Walmart. We undercut the American pharmaceutical companies in their own market. They can’t possibly compete. It will more than compensate for our marijuana losses. The yield could be in billions of new dollars. Heroin was our past. It will also be our future.”

Adán, as usual, had been prescient.

In the time since just three American states legalized weed, the cartel’s marijuana sales dropped by almost forty percent. It’s going to take time to complete, but Núñez started to convert the marijuana fields to poppies. Just over the past year, they’ve increased the heroin production by 30 percent. Soon it will be 50 and by the end of the year they’ll reach the 70 percent goal.

The Americans are buying. And why not? Ric thinks now. The new product is cheaper, more plentiful and more potent. It’s a win-win-win. Heroin is flowing north, dollars are flowing back. So maybe, he thinks, the Adanistas are right—Barrera lives on.

Heroin is his legacy.

So that’s a story you could tell.