by Don Winslow
It’s essential that the convoy isn’t spotted, that the raid is a total surprise.
Which it should be, on New Year’s Eve.
Damien is about to announce his presence in a major way. The Young Wolf is on the hunt and about to howl for everyone to hear.
You have to harden your heart, Damien has discovered. When he first found out that Palomas ordered the killing of those kids to cover up his heroin shipment, Damien was dismayed. He couldn’t eat or sleep, his stomach hurt. His imagination tortured him with vivid pictures of the dead students, of bodies smoldering on the garbage pile. He thought about turning himself in and confessing. He even thought about killing himself, putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger.
“Is that what your father would want?” Tío Rafael asked him.
Damien had gone to the old man’s house to get his advice. He didn’t know where else to go—his father was dead, his friends were no longer his friends—he couldn’t very well talk to Iván or Ric or even Rubén.
“You’re safe,” Caro said. “No one can connect you to what happened at Tristeza.”
“But I’m tortured by it.”
“You feel guilty.”
“Yes, Tío.”
“Let me ask you,” Caro said, “did you kill those students?”
“No.”
“No,” Caro said. “All you did, sobrino, was put some product on that bus. You put your trust in the Renterías and they let you down. But you are not responsible for the deaths of those young people.”
To his shame, Damien broke down and cried.
Wept in front of Rafael Caro.
But Caro just sat there and waited for Damien to quiet.
“This business of ours,” Caro said, “gives much and demands much. It offers great rewards and terrible losses. It allows us to do wonderful things but at times it forces us to do terrible things. If we accept one, we have to accept the other. Let me ask you, do you have enough money to live?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother, your sisters, they have money to live?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps you should leave this alone,” Caro said. “Let the dead bury the dead and live your life.”
“I can’t.”
“Then know,” Caro said, “that you have to accept both sides of this thing. Enjoy the rewards, accept the losses, do the terrible things you sometimes have to do. Never shed blood you don’t have to, but when you have to, harden your heart and do it.”
Now Damien sees the narrow valley below and the hacienda almost hidden beneath the opposite ridge. The house is more modest than he’d expected, smaller than he remembered from the times he came here as a boy. The walls of the single-story building have been freshly painted pink, the roof recently redone with terra-cotta tiles. Several outbuildings sit on the valley floor below—a servants’ cottage, Damien thinks, a garage, and a tin-roofed barracks for the guards.
A little farther down the valley, Damien knows, is a thin airstrip and a hangar for a small plane.
Looking through a nightscope, Damien sees that only one guard is on duty, standing by a small charcoal fire and stamping his feet against the cold. His rifle is slung over the shoulder of his fatigue jacket, and he wears a wool knit cap pulled low over his head.
Damien forces himself not to wonder if the man has a wife, a family. Children. Forces himself not to think that this man has a life that he’s about to take.
The Young Wolf has never killed before.
Elena pulls the old quilt up over her shoulders and tries to go back to sleep.
The rooster won’t let her.
A longtime urbanite now, Elena has grown unused to country sounds—the braying donkeys, the rasping crows, the incessant braggadocio of this goddamn rooster. How anyone can sleep through this cacophony is a mystery to her, and indeed, she hears her mother shuffling in the hallway, noisily trying to be quiet.
How many times has Elena tried to convince her to move to a more comfortable situation in the city, to one of the many condos or houses the family owns in Culiacán, Badiraguato, Tijuana, even Cabo? But the stubborn old lady steadfastly refuses to leave the only home she’s known for her entire life. She will come for visits (albeit with less frequency now; she just changed her mind and decided she wouldn’t come up to Tijuana for the holidays, forcing Elena to make the tiresome trip all the way out here) and she will make annual pilgrimages to her sons’ tombs, but she insists on living out here, saying simply, “Yo soy una campesina.”
Elena has never quite believed her mother’s I’m-just-a-peasant act. Surely she must be aware that the family has billions of dollars, that her late sons were the lords of a vast drug empire. She must have some notion why she is a “campesina” with a platoon of armed guards, a “peasant” with her own private airstrip.
But she never speaks of it, dresses in a black frock, shawl, and veil and refuses all entreaties to have the house enlarged, remodeled, made more comfortable. It was a struggle to get her to accept the badly needed paint job (and then she insisted on this hideous pink) and the new roof, even when water was running down into the living room during the rainy season and Elena had to give her a stern lecture on the dangers of mold, especially to old lungs.
And now she is up, always before dawn, as if she had breakfast to cook for a farmer husband, and at times Elena wants to scream at her, Yes, your family were farmers, they grew poppies.
And now she and her mother have something terrible in common.
They both mourn sons.
And, Elena thinks as she gets out of bed (What’s the point of lying awake?), that weak, smarmy lawyer bastard Núñez scolds me for retaliating. He hasn’t seen retaliation. She pulls on her robe. She’s going to destroy them and all their families. Burn their homes, their farms, their ranches, their bones, and scatter the ashes to the cold north wind.
The thought warms her.
Then she hears gunfire.
Damien squeezes the trigger.
The guard falls into the fire, raising a small cloud of smoke and dust.
Pulling the hood over his head, Damien gives a hand signal and the vehicles roar down into the valley and race toward the hacienda as guards tumble out of the barracks and open fire. But his men—well-paid, highly trained veterans—return fire from the vehicles and the guards run back into the shelter of the barracks.
Pumped, Damien hops out of the car and walks to the front door of the hacienda. He’s surprised that it’s unlocked, but then again, if you’re Adán Barrera’s mother you probably don’t have to think about locking your door.
A maid, maybe a cook, stands looking shocked. Then she fumbles in her apron and takes out a cell phone. Damien rips it out of her hand and shoves her against a wall. She screams, “¡Señora! ¡Señora! Run away!”
Señora? Damien thinks as he puts his hand around the maid’s mouth and drags her back into the kitchen. Barrera’s mother wasn’t supposed to be here, she was supposed to be visiting family in Tijuana. The plan was to burn down Adán Barrera’s childhood home, not to hurt his mother. Men have already come in behind him, torching window curtains.
“Wait!” Damien yells, letting go of the cook. “Stop! The old lady is here!”
It’s too late.
Flames crawl up the curtains into the ceiling. Out the window, Damien sees the servants’ quarters going up, the barracks. His men are driving cars and motorcycles out of the garage as its roof is engulfed in fire.
He turns back and sees an old woman in black staring at him.
“Get out,” she yells. “Get out of my house!”
A younger woman comes up behind her, takes her by the shoulders and moves her out of the way. “If you hurt my mother, if there is as much as a bruise on her body . . . Do you know who I am? Do you know whose house this is?”
Damien remembers her from when he was a kid.
Tía Elena.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Damien says, feeling stupid.
Smoke starts to fill the room.
“You have to get out,” Damien says. “Now.”
“Brave men,” Elena spits in his face. “Burning an old woman out of her home.”
Damien hears one of his men say, “Shoot the bitches!”
“Go!” Damien yells. He grabs Elena by the shoulder of her robe and pulls her toward the door. She won’t let go of her mother and they make an awkward knot as Damien pivots behind them and pushes them out the door.
Elena wraps her arm around her mother to try to protect her from the wind and the chilly morning air.
But her mother fights her, tries to go back. “My house! My house!”
“We have to go, Mami!”
Elena doesn’t know if her mother can even hear her over the noise—the wind, the men shouting, the servants screaming as they run across the open ground, the pop-pop-pop of gunfire and the crackle of flames. Crazily, she thinks, she hears the chickens. Not the rooster—it’s finally stopped crowing—but the frantic cackling of the hens as they run around like . . . well, chickens. “Mami, can you walk?!”
“Yes!”
Elena keeps one arm around her mother’s thin shoulders, the other hand gently pushing her head down as scant protection against the bullets zipping past, and then she hears one of their men holler, “Stop shooting! Cease fire! ¡Las señoras!”
A sicario runs out of the barracks toward her, but a burst of gunfire cuts him and he falls in the dirt a few yards from her feet, arches his neck up and yells, “Señora, go!”
The scene around her, lit red by fire, is insanity. Men in flames, human torches, stagger, scream and fall.
The airstrip is too far, Elena thinks. Her mother can’t make it. And who knows if these bastards have already taken it, and the plane, if the pilot is in his quarters or even alive. But she knows she can’t stay here—she doesn’t know who these men are. They could just be incredibly stupid robbers, or they could be Iván’s.
But she can’t stay to find out.
To be kidnapped and held for ransom.
Or raped.
Or murdered.
Or just accidentally shot in this chaos.
The airstrip is her best chance.
She lowers her head and keeps moving.
Fausto sees her.
Damien’s right-hand man spots Elena Sánchez, dressed only in a robe, walking a woman who can only be Adán Barrera’s mother away from the burning compound. He guns the Jeep through the circus of motorcycle riders and pulls up alongside the two women. “Get in!”
“Leave us alone!” Elena says.
Fausto aims his pistol at her chest. “I said get into the fucking Jeep!”
Elena helps her mother up and then gets in herself. And, of course, Fausto thinks, plays the do-you-know-who-I-am card.
“Yeah, I know who you are!” Fausto says. He hits the gas and races toward the airstrip.
The plane’s propeller is already spinning, the plane taxiing to get the fuck out of there. Fausto pulls in front to block it, raises his AK, aims it at the windscreen and yells, “Not so fast, cabrón! You have passengers!”
The plane stops.
Fausto gets out, steps around and helps Elena and her mother down. Then he walks them to the plane, opens the door and says to the pilot, “You were just going to leave them? What kind of coward are you?”
He helps them climb into the plane.
“Why are you doing this?” Elena asks.
Because I’m not a fucking moron, Fausto thinks. Damien can survive—even thrive—from burning down Barrera’s home. But hurting Adán Barrera’s sister and mother? That would turn the whole country against him and start a vendetta that could only end in the kid’s death.
And mine.
“Take off!” he yells to the pilot.
For the next two days, Damien’s men rampage through the valley, burning houses and outbuildings, stealing vehicles and generally terrifying the population in an area that had once been perhaps the safest in the world.
It stops only when the federal government sends in troops, but by that time, Damien’s force—now christened Los Lobos in the media—has faded back into the mountains.
The raid shocks the country.
A little-known upstart attacked the home of Adán Barrera’s mother, sending her running into the dark.
Maybe the Sinaloa cartel isn’t as powerful as everyone thought.
Most people see it for what it is—
Damien Tapia’s declaration of war.
The New Year will bring war.
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Núñez says over the phone. “And your mother, she’s all right?”
He looks at Ric and rolls his eyes. He has the phone on speaker so Ric and Belinda can hear Elena say, “She’s tranquilized, so she’s sleeping now. Yes, we’re here in Ensenada.”
“It’s outrageous, Elena,” Núñez says over the phone. “Totally outrageous.”
“Are you ‘outraged,’ Ricardo? Because I blame you.”
“Me?!” Núñez asks, his voice a perfect parody of hurt innocence. “I assure you, I had nothing to do with this! It was all that young Tapia animal. My God, Elena, he’s crowing about it on social media.”
“You had everything to do with it,” Elena says. “You let someone murder my son and did nothing; why shouldn’t people think that’s it all right to attack us? Your weakness has signaled that it’s now possible to commit an outrage against Sinaloa.”
“We don’t know who was behind Rudolfo’s murder.”
“Your son was partying with his killers just last night,” Elena says. “Do you think I don’t hear about these things? No, you’ve left my family on an island, and now you have the nerve to ring up to express your outrage? Please forgive if I’m not touched. Or mollified.”
“We will do everything in our power to punish Damien Tapia.”
“Our power is exactly the issue,” Elena says. “People are going to rightly ask, ‘If Sinaloa can’t protect Adán Barrera’s mother, who can it protect? Can it protect us?’ If Adán were alive, this young punk’s head would be on a spike already. Then again, if Adán were still alive, this young punk would never have had the nerve to do this.”
“We’re hunting him down.”
“The army?” Elena asks. “The army couldn’t catch a fish in a bowl. No, thank you, Ricardo—I am admittedly aging but not yet entirely toothless. Our family will deal with young Tapia on our own.”
“Don’t play into these people’s hands,” Núñez says. “This is just what they want—to divide us.”
“You did that already,” Elena says. “Call me when you’re ready to act like a real patrón. Until then—”
She clicks off.
“You were at a party with Iván last night?” Núñez asks Ric.
“With all the Esparzas,” Ric says, not backing down. “And Rubén Ascensión.”
“Was that wise, do you think?”
“I’m trying to maintain the relationship.”
“By giving your car to a whore?” Núñez asks. “Were you trying to maintain a relationship with her, too?”
He hears about everything, Ric thinks. All my bodyguards double as snitches. “Is that what you wanted to see in the media today, ‘Sinaloa Cartel Figure Murders Call Girl’?”
Núñez stares at him for a second, then says, “No, you did the right thing.”
Jesus Christ, Ric thinks, that’s new.
“You know this Damien,” Núñez says.
So do you, Ric thinks. You’ve known “this Damien” since he was a kid.
“What makes him tick?” Núñez asks. “Why would he do such a terrible thing? Alienated youth? A rebel without a cause?”
No, Ric thinks, I’m pretty sure he has a cause.
“I know that he’s your friend,” Núñez says. “But you know I have to do something.”
Ric does know that his father is in a tough posit
ion. The whole Sinaloa organization is furious about the affront to Adán’s memory, the insult to the women in the royal family. If the head of the cartel doesn’t do something about it, they’re going to think that he’s weak, maybe not strong enough to be the boss.
But . . .
“I get it,” Ric says. “Everyone’s running hot right now. But let’s remember that Damien didn’t kill them. Shit, he had them flown out of there.”
“After he burned down the house, killed five of their men and vandalized an entire community that looks to us for security,” Núñez says. “I appreciate your loyalty to your friend but—”
“He’s probably done now,” Ric says. “I know Damien, he’s holed up somewhere, as freaked out about what he did as anyone. Let me reach out, bring him in, see if we can work out a way back.”
“What are you suggesting?” Núñez asks. “A time-out?”
I don’t know what I’m suggesting, Ric thinks. “Maybe a fine, restitution? He apologizes, he rebuilds what he burned down—”
“With what?” Núñez asks. “Where is he going to get that kind of money?”
Well, Ric thinks, he had enough money to recruit a small army. “I’m just saying that people have done worse things and gotten a pass.”
“I’m not without feeling,” Núñez says, “for this young man’s past. But his father was a hotheaded madman addled by drug addiction, and he had to go. Now the son has displayed the same sort of erratic, dangerous behavior. Yielding to pity would be a self-indulgent abdication of our responsibilities.”
“Which is your way of saying that you want him dead.”
Núñez turns to Belinda, and now Ric gets why she’s there.
Dead isn’t good enough.
Ric starts the engine. “I’m not doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Torturing a friend, I’m not doing it.” He pulls out of the driveway. “And you’re not, either.”
“You don’t tell me what to do,” Belinda says. “I take my orders from your father.”