The Cartel (90 page)

See my face on television.

He kicks the ball against the wall again. It feels good, comforting, the simple repetitive action, and it keeps him absorbed until he hears the shout to “fall in.” He trots back to the center of the village where the men are forming up.

The word goes around quickly.

Adán Barrera is in Dos Erres.

—

Adán brings an army with him made up of a hundred of the best Gente Nueva, the ones who have been fighting the war in Juárez, Durango, and Sinaloa, and they’re well armed with assault rifles, grenade launchers, and enough ammunition to handle the situation if things go badly.

Nacho is there, of course.

He’d reached out across complicated layers of connections in the narco-world to get the message to Ochoa that they wanted to discuss peace. It seemed like a ludicrous proposition at the time, given the mutual carnage they were inflicting on each other across Mexico, but Nacho persisted with his trademark patience.

It helped that Ochoa was motivated—his recent European debacle was a major setback. The fighting on all fronts was at a stalemate, and no one could be sure what the new government was going to do.

The Zetas’ strongest card was their hold on the Petén, and Ochoa insisted that the meeting be there, not in Mexico, where Barrera’s tame
federales,
army, and FES could swoop in.

Nacho responded that the Petén was unacceptable, that they would have to find neutral territory in Colombia or even Europe, if it came to that, but Ochoa was adamant and Nacho finally gave in with the assurance that the Sinaloans were welcome to bring as much armed force as they wanted.

The sight of Dos Erres isn’t particularly reassuring, Adán thinks as they roll toward it in a convoy of jeeps and trucks. The place is the visual definition of a backwater—jungles and swamps and a virtually abandoned village.

The heat is oppressive, the humidity more so, the jungle tight and close, and the tension is bowstring taut. Fifty of his fighters are in front of him, fifty more behind as they drive along a dirt road guarded by Zetas dressed in paramilitary garb.

Every man in this parade is a blood enemy to the other side, with grudges, vendettas, and deep hatreds. A casual glance, an untoward word, a rumor. Anything could set if off before—

He doesn’t even let himself think it.

Nothing can be allowed to go wrong.

The convoy stops.

Adán knows it’s just a strict protocol being followed. He can’t meet Ochoa until Nacho meets with Forty. Their conversation takes only a few minutes and then the convoy is directed to a clearing about a quarter mile west of the village proper. The Zetas have chopped away the forest to create a campsite for their guests—tents have been set up and two cargo containers have been converted into living quarters for Adán and Nacho.

Adán’s men go into the camp first in case it’s an ambush, and check the grounds for booby traps and the dwellings for microphones. When they declare it clean, Adán’s jeep comes in and he takes possession of his “quarters”—the C-container with a bed and real mattress, a latrine, a sink, and, thank God, air-conditioning run off a generator.

He has a woman, clearly a local Mayan captive, for a servant. She looks terrified, and he smiles and does his best to reassure her as one of his men brings in his bags. His traditional black suit is clearly out of place here, and he changes into a clean white guayabera, jeans, and tennis shoes.

Reflecting that he hasn’t worn one of these shirts since his wedding, he thinks about Eva and the kids. At his insistence, they’ve all gone to the U.S. on a holiday while he’s away and should now be on the beach in La Jolla. The strange irony that they are under the protection of Art Keller is almost painful.

As is the knowledge that his own life might be in Keller’s hands.

The raid to kill the top Zetas is on for tomorrow morning—the peace meeting he arranged “locked the target in place,” to use Keller’s term. Now it’s just a matter of keeping Ochoa and Forty in place, lulling them into complacency with sweet talk of peace on favorable terms.

If everything goes well, Ochoa will be dead before the sun comes up.

Magda was pregnant, the autopsy had said.

With my child, Adán thinks.

He flops down on the bed to get a little rest before the meeting starts.

Outside, he hears a soft, odd thumping noise.

Rhythmic.

He doesn’t know what it is, and then realizes that someone is kicking a
fútbol
against a stone wall.

—

There are no jokes this time when Adán meets Ochoa.

No banter, no efforts to cut the tension. There’s only mutual hatred but also mutual need, and they sit down at the table quietly.

Armed men stand in an oval around them, out of earshot but within sight, their fingers on the triggers, their eyes on their opposite numbers. This could turn into a bloodbath in a second, Adán thinks.

Ochoa and Forty sit on one side of the table, Adán and Nacho on the other.

Z-1 has aged since the last time, Adán thinks.

The burden of command, I suppose. He’s just as handsome, but in a different way, and for the first time Adán can see the latent psychosis in his eyes. It’s disgusting sitting so close to him, talking peace with this sadistic killer, this mass murderer. The man is Satan, and his familiar Forty is, if anything, worse.

“Let’s get right down to work,” Nacho says.

Basically they agree on an east-west division of the plazas, which reflects the reality on the ground. Adán concedes that the Zetas will retain Nuevo León, Monterrey, and Veracruz, as well as Matamoros, Reynosa, and La Frontera Chica in Tamaulipas. In turn, Ochoa agrees that Tijuana, Baja, Sonora, and even Juárez, with the valley, will go to the Sinaloans.

The sticking point is Nuevo Laredo.

Adán puts up a fight, because to do otherwise would arouse suspicion. At first he demands the city outright, then offers to allow the Zetas to use it for a
piso
. Then he offers to discount the
piso
to three points.

It’s amusing, a small pleasure, to watch Ochoa get angry, and time and again Adán pushes him to the edge of calling off the negotiations, and then reels him back.

Finally, Nacho makes the proposal that they’d agreed upon beforehand. They’d revert back to the old days when the Floreses and the Sotos divided the plaza east and west. The Sinaloans would keep the western part of Nuevo Laredo, and the Zetas the east. That settled, Ochoa moves the topic to Europe and the relationship with ’Ndrangheta.

“I don’t know that I can help you there,” Adán says drily, making a point to smile at Forty. “ ’Ndrangheta shied away from you when you tried to do business with Islamic terrorists.”

“We need a piece of the European market,” Ochoa says.

It’s a risky topic because they all know it could bring up the subject of Magda Beltrán’s murder.

Adán lets it go. “Be that as it may…”

“You need our Gulf ports to do business in Europe,” Forty says.

“Not really,” Adán answers.

But he really does. It would be much more efficient to ship directly from Veracruz or Matamoros. He drags it out, but eventually pretends to reluctantly agree to Nacho’s suggestion that he “factor” Zeta cocaine to the Europeans in exchange for free use of the Gulf ports.

They break for lunch, an awkward hiatus over some mango and an execrable chicken dish.

There’s no small talk. They eat at separate tables, and Adán confers quietly with Nacho, then walks off to call Eva in La Jolla. The boys are fine, playing on the beach, she’s slathered them in sunblock, no they’re not too close to the water, yes, the North Americans are keeping close watch over them.

After lunch they tackle the subject of Guatemala.

It’s a deal-killer, Adán insists. Ochoa must share Guatemala. Sinaloan planes must have free access to landing strips and be allowed to transport their product across the border unmolested. They will, of course, pay their share of police and political protection.

Ochoa balks. Guatemala is his “by right of conquest”—which Adán finds amusing—and if the Sinaloans want to use the territory, they must pay for the privilege, and by the kilo. Adán gets up from the table. “Thank you for lunch. We won’t be requiring dinner.”

“Sit down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Nacho says, “Gentlemen—”

“If I pay you for every kilo of coke that I bring through Guatemala,” Adán says to Ochoa, “I might as well just go to work for you.”

“That would be acceptable.” Ochoa smiles.

Adán is growing tired of the game. But the game must be played, and on the chance that the raid doesn’t come off or fails, he needs an arrangement with the Zetas, so he says, “We’ve bled each other dry, it makes no sense to come to the peace table and try to bleed each other to death financially. I’m offering you a market in Europe in exchange for a supply route in Central America.”

Ochoa confers with Forty and then agrees.

What follows is a long, tedious discussion about security arrangements between now and the end of the present administration. Adán verifies that the AFI and the army will make no overt moves against the Zetas if they will not fire on agents or soldiers.

“What about the FES?” Ochoa asks.

“I have no influence there,” Adán says.

“Then why do they only come after us and not you?”

“Perhaps because you killed their families,” Adán suggests. Perhaps because you’re animals without the slightest restraint. Perhaps because you’re sociopaths and sadists. Perhaps because you crippled Keller’s woman and butchered a young woman he thought of as a daughter. Perhaps because you killed my unborn child. “I can’t help you there.”

Ochoa seems to accept it, and then asks, “What do you intend to do about the new administration?”

“Same thing we’ve done with every administration,” Adán says. “Try to influence it with money and reason. If we pool our resources and present a common front we might gain some ground there. The best thing we can do is to stop fighting. I truly believe that if we give this government peace, it will reciprocate.”

“And the North Americans?”

“Are the North Americans,” Adán answers. “They’ll do everything they can to force the government to come after us. The government will make a show of it but be ineffectual. That is, unless you continue to commit atrocity after atrocity, and continue to do frankly idiotic things such as challenging them with press releases boasting that you rule the country, in which case you force the government’s hand.”

“We do rule the country,” Forty says.

“Which is totally irrelevant to the point I’m making,” Adán says. He tries again. “We can have a business. We can have the most profitable business in the history of the world—outside of oil, which I believe you’re moving into—if we manage it in an orderly way. Or we can have chaos that will eventually ruin us.”

The talks continue, focusing on details of how to disengage on the various fronts, how to announce the cease-fire, how to enforce it and make sure that no small organizations go off on their own and break the truce.

Much of this is delegated to Forty and Nacho.

By the time the sun starts to go down, they have achieved the
pax narcotica.

Adán and Ochoa shake hands.

“We’ve arranged some entertainment for this evening,” Ochoa says. “A small party to celebrate the peace and the Day of the Dead. Some refreshments, some women from Guatemala City.”

“No offense, but I’m a married man.”

“But not a dead one,” Ochoa says.

“But a faithful one,” Adán answers.

He goes back to the camp, takes a hot shower from a Lister Bag hung from the ceiling, and then lies down to sleep under the mosquito netting that the servant opened over his bed.

He knew there’d be a fiesta, but it worries him. More than one narco has been murdered while celebrating a peace with his enemies, so he only let half the men attend the party, withdrew the other half to the camp, and reminded Nacho that the men should stay relatively sober and completely alert.

Adán looks at his watch, the gaudy expensive affair that Eva gave him and which he wore only to impress Ochoa, a vulgar hick who would
be
impressed by that sort of thing.

In twelve hours, he thinks, if everything goes according to plan, my enemies will be dead.

Forty.

Ochoa.

And, with any luck, Art Keller.

If there is a God, Keller will die a hero’s death, gunned down in a firefight against the Zetas in the jungles of Guatemala. There will be a private—secret, in fact—ceremony in the back halls of the DEA building, maybe even the White House, and then he will be forgotten and unmourned.

But every year, on the Day of the Dead, I will arrange for poppies to be placed on his grave.

A private joke, just between the two of us.

—

Ochoa watches the party.

It’s quite a scene, lit by a bonfire in the middle of the Zeta camp, men and women in black-and-white skull masks dancing to the blaring music, women going down on the men right out in the open, or sneaking off to the edge of the light to fuck. His only disappointment is that Barrera chose not to attend.

That will complicate things.

Barrera is a slimy piece of shit, not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. Ochoa knew that “El Patrón’s” peace offering was disingenuous when Barrera didn’t as much as mention his dead mistress, even when practically invited to. If he’d demanded something—some sort or recompense, even an apology—Ochoa might have believed him. Now Barrera will do what he always does: pretend to make peace and then buy off the government to make war.

Except this time, he won’t have the chance. Ochoa watches the party—beer, whiskey, and champagne flow generously, and most of the partiers are snorting cocaine.

Well, the Sinaloan guests are snorting cocaine laced with heroin, and the women aren’t whores, they’re Panteras.

—

Nacho Esparza is having a hard time getting it up, and he doesn’t understand it. Coke usually makes him harder than a diamond, he took a Viagra, and the girl is beautiful—lustrous black hair, big tits, and, under the half mask, full lips that are made for giving blow jobs, which she’s doing now, on her knees the way he likes it.