by Don Winslow
“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.