by Don Winslow
“Back in Sinaloa,” the host says.
“That’s right,” she says. “There’s another connection—Keller and Barrera had the same priest, Father Juan Parada—later a cardinal—who was killed in a 1994 gun battle outside the Guadalajara airport. My sources say that Keller also blamed Barrera for that.”
“And Keller did bring Barrera down.”
“He did,” she says. “In 1999, Keller arrested Barrera in San Diego—”
“What was Barrera doing there?”
“Visiting his ill daughter in the hospital,” she says. “Keller arrested him and then left the DEA. But he came back in 2004 when Barrera was transferred back to Mexico.”
“And then famously escaped.”
“Right, and Keller was based in Mexico City for several years but never brought Barrera in,” she says. “He was principally known for helping to bring down the infamous Zetas. Then Barrera was killed in Guatemala. Shortly after that, Keller became DEA director.”
“Why are you watching this nonsense?” Mari asks him.
“I’m learning things about myself I never knew,” Keller says.
The media keep digging, disinterring his 1992 testimony in front of the Iran-Contra committee.
The congressional committee was looking into allegations that CIA or NSC or some agency in the Reagan administration had either colluded in or at least tolerated the contras trafficking cocaine to fund their guerrilla war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
Another lifetime, Keller thinks.
He lied to the committee.
Committed perjury.
They’d asked him if he had ever heard of an air-freight company called SETCO.
He’d answered, “Remotely.”
A lie. The truth was that it was Keller and Ernie Hidalgo who discovered SETCO, who had tried to bring it to the attention of his then superiors in DEA.
They’d asked him if he’d ever heard of something called the “Mexican Trampoline.”
No, he’d said.
Another lie.
He and Ernie had uncovered the cocaine-laden flights that bounced from Colombia to Central America to Guadalajara, Mexico.
“How about something called ‘Cerberus,’ Mr. Keller. Did you ever hear of that?”
“No.”
“Did something called Cerberus have anything at all to do with the murder of Agent Hidalgo?”
“No.”
It had everything to do with Ernie’s murder, Keller thinks now. Barrera’s people tortured Ernie to find out what he knew about the operation, run from the vice president’s office, to illegally fund the contras by turning a blind eye to the Mexican Trampoline.
Barrera’s uncle, M-1 himself, had personally funded a contra training camp, and when Keller finally ran him down in Costa Rica, CIA released him.
And Keller lied to the committee.
In exchange, he was given command of the Southwest Anti-Narcotics Task Force with a free hand to take down Adán Barrera and the people who had murdered Ernie.
Which he had done, with a vengeance.
He put away the doctor who had supervised the torture in prison. He put Rafael Caro away. It took Keller years, but he finally put Adán Barrera behind bars.
He even killed M-1—two bullets into his chest on a bridge in San Diego.
But the right-wingers, the administration’s defenders, are playing a dangerous game reviving Iran-Contra. It’s a gun pointed at their own heads.
It’s one thing to attack me, Keller thinks as the days go by, another thing to attack Mari.
The right-wing blogs publish stories about the “radical Dr. Cisneros,” “Red Mari,” bringing up her history of protests against the Mexican government, her support of “left-wing activists” in the Juárez Valley; they even turn her heroism on its head by hinting that as mayor of Valverde she had been gunned down not for her opposition to drug cartels, but because she had “double-crossed” one of them.
Marisol blows it off.
“They’re words,” she says to Art, “not bullets.”
But she worries that the dirt thrown at her could hit her husband and dirty him as well.
“What you have to understand,” one talking head says, “is that Dr. Cisneros is as polarizing a figure in Mexico as her husband is here in the States. To the left, she’s practically a secular saint, a martyr who defied both the government and the cartels. But to conservatives down there, Cisneros is a she-devil, a Communist in bed with subversive forces. You put all that together with Keller, you have quite the combination.”
Another analyst “unpacks” their relationship on television. “Keller and Cisneros met in Mexico during his last assignment there. It’s an absolute love story—he nursed her back to health after she’d been severely wounded by the Zeta drug cartel. Some people say that she’s been a huge, liberalizing influence on him, that a lot of his positions on drug policy, prison reform and immigration come from Dr. Cisneros.”
“Cisneros was back down in Mexico protesting the kidnappings and killings of those forty-nine college students, wasn’t she?”
“She was,” the analyst says, “along with the recently murdered Mexican journalist Ana Villanueva, a close friend of both hers and Keller’s. In fact, Villanueva spent last Christmas in the Keller home here in Washington.”
“And her last article before her death,” the host says, “was an interview with Rafael Caro.”
“The connections just keep going on and on.”
So do the attacks.
Fox News and AM radio are incessant—Keller is a politically motivated liar trying to undo the election results. He’s a nutjob conspiracy theorist, deranged by his guilt over getting his partner killed. He’s a henpecked husband, run by his harridan wife.
“Talk to anyone at the DEA,” one of the radio hosts says, “and they’ll tell you that Art Keller was a terrible administrator. The agency was falling apart under his so-called leadership. And they’ll tell you that he had a liberal agenda. And that’s what we’re seeing now.”
Anything to discredit him, anything to throw shade on the story that he told to the Washington Post.
Then an article appears in an alt-right blog.
The Bridge to Somewhere.
In the spring of 1999, former DEA director Art Keller was involved in a gunfight on Cabrillo Bridge in San Diego’s Balboa Park. Keller, described then as a “hero,” killed Mexican drug lord Miguel Ángel Barrera and arrested the infamous Adán Barrera, then the boss of the Mexican cartel known as the Federación. Shortly after, Keller took a “leave of absence” from the DEA and repaired to . . . wait for it . . . an isolated monastery in the desert of New Mexico, only to reemerge four years later on a renewed hunt for Barrera in Mexico, a hunt that only ended with the revelation of Barrera’s death in Guatemala.
But roll the tape back. There was a second body on that bridge in 1999. Salvatore Scachi, a Green Beret officer with reputed ties to the New York Mafia as well as the CIA. What was Scachi doing on that bridge? No one, including Art Keller, has ever answered that question. And Scachi was killed, not by Keller’s gun, but by a high-velocity bullet fired from a rifle. That case has never been cleared and remains in the San Diego PD cold case file.
But who was the shooter? Where was the shooter? What was the shooter’s relationship to Keller? Another question whistleblower Keller has never answered, nor was he called to answer, hiding out in his New Mexico retreat at the time. No wonder the monks had a vow of silence.
Something happened on that bridge, something the American people deserve to know.
This bridge leads somewhere.
Yes, it does, Keller thinks.
As much as the right demonizes him, the left lionizes him. On MSNBC he’s “principled,” “heroic,” “embattled.” Rolling Stone calls him “the next Edward Snowden,” a comparison that Keller doesn’t find flattering.
But the liberal media are beside themselves that Keller made accusations against Jason Lerner, and th
erefore by extension Dennison. They can’t get enough of what they inevitably label “Towergate,” and as much as reporters are hounding Keller, they dog Lerner and the White House as well.
Questions come up at every White House press briefing—“What about Towergate?” “Is Lerner’s job in jeopardy?” “Will Lerner be prosecuted?” “Is it true that Lerner has accepted loans from Mexican drug cartels?” “Does the president have any financial interest in Terra?” “Did the president know about this loan?” “Did President Dennison tell the attorney general to put pressure on Keller to kill his investigation?” “Did Lerner?”
Dennison responds on Twitter. Fake news. Lies. We’re going to sue.
The furious denials only fan the flames. Serious journalists start to write investigative stories about Terra, the Park Tower financial situation, about Claiborne’s overdose.
Keller wishes they would sue—it would force Lerner to testify under oath.
The Times and the Post lead with new angles every day—lerner upside down on plaza towers, german mega-bank pulled out of plaza towers loan, claiborne had no history of heroin use.
It’s the firestorm Keller had hoped to touch off when he lit the match. If he can incite enough public pressure to demand a special counsel, he has a chance to get his prosecution. Even though he knows that the fire he set is going to consume him, too, because one of the people a special counsel will want to talk to would be Eddie Ruiz, and Eddie will talk to anyone who can cut him a deal.
Keller doesn’t care.
He just wants a special counsel.
Pressure builds on the AG to appoint one. Columnists call for it, Democratic senators and House representatives call for it, the all-important Sunday shows call for it.
But the AG stonewalls.
And counterattacks.
“If Mr. Keller revealed confidential information from a government investigation to the Washington Post or anyone else,” he says, “that is a crime. If he has removed investigative materials, that is also a crime and we might seek prosecution.”
How much does he know? Keller wonders. How complicit is he? Have O’Brien and the rest told him about the Claiborne tapes? This was his shot across the bow warning me not to bring them out?
“Can they really do that?” Mari asks him. “Prosecute you?”
“It’s possible.”
“So you could end up in prison for telling the truth,” she says.
“Yup.”
“Well,” she says, “you wouldn’t be the first.”
Keller has never responded very well to threats. He’d been threatened by the old Federación, the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas—all of which tried to kill him. He’s going to knuckle under because this little cracker bastard holds a press conference?
No.
But the attorney general, David Fowler, refuses to appoint a special counsel.
Two days later, Fowler’s “on the Hill” in front of an appropriations committee that’s asking him about “the wall” when a Democratic senator, Julius Elmore, slips in a question about why he won’t appoint a special counsel in “Towergate.”
“Because there’s no need,” Fowler snaps, “to go outside the normal channels. If Mr. Keller thought that he had sufficient evidence to bring a case, why didn’t he bring it to the last attorney general before they both left office? If he feels that he has sufficient evidence to bring a case, why doesn’t he bring that evidence to me? The only time you would appoint a special counsel is when you feel there is a conflict of interest that would render the attorney general’s office unable to be objective.”
Elmore can barely contain a smile as he asks, “Do you have any such conflict, sir, that would not allow you to be objective in a case regarding the White House or the Terra Company?”
“No, I do not.”
Gas on the fire.
The media howls with indignation. How could Fowler say he didn’t have any conflicts when he was an early and chief supporter of the new president? When he campaigned for him, raised money for him, was a “surrogate” on television for him?
The answer his supporters give is that it didn’t rise to the level of “conflict.” If it did, few attorneys general could ever make a decision in a case involving the White House.
But a few days later the New York Times publishes an article that reveals that Fowler owns stock in an investment firm that lent Terra money on an overseas project. As such, he has direct, personal interest in the financial well-being of the company.
The committee calls him back in.
Elmore asks, “Sir, do you remember the answer you gave when asked if you had any potential conflict regarding Terra?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You testified that you did not,” Elmore says. “But that wasn’t true, was it?”
“There was no attempt on my part to deceive,” Fowler says. “I just didn’t recall . . . I mean, no one can be aware of all the details of your portfolio . . .”
“Which is it?” Elmore asks. “You don’t recall or you weren’t aware?”
“Sir, I deeply resent any implication—”
“But would you say now,” Elmore asks, “as you sit here today, that you do have such a conflict?”
Fowler is trapped and knows it. He admits there might possibly be “the perception of a conflict.”
“Let me ask you, sir,” Elmore says, “did anyone in the administration ask you to put pressure on Keller to shut down the Towergate investigation?”
“Well, sir,” Fowler says, “Mr. Keller was no longer in his job when I took over.”
“That’s not what I asked you, sir.”
“I don’t recall any such conversation.”
“Do you know if Mr. Howard approached Mr. Keller with that same request?” Elmore asks.
“You’d have to ask one of them.”
“So you don’t know?”
“I don’t recall Mr. Howard telling me that.”
“But if any of those conversations that you don’t recall did happen,” Elmore says, “that would be obstruction of justice, wouldn’t it?”
The next day Fowler recuses himself from the Towergate case.
Ben O’Brien isn’t happy.
“That slimy, chickenshit little bastard,” he says. “All he had to do was grow a pair and gut it out.”
Keller set a trap and this dumb son of a bitch walked right into it.
Rollins says, “He’s afraid of a perjury charge.”
“Bullshit,” O’Brien says. “Who’s going to bring it?”
It’s terrible news. Not only does the AG’s flip-flop have the stench of guilt about it, but now the decision to bring in a special counsel will lie with the deputy US attorney general, John Ribello, who isn’t going to stop a bullet for a boss he privately detests.
It doesn’t stop O’Brien from trying. He gets on the horn. “You do what you think best, of course you should do what your conscience dictates, but you know that there’s nothing here. This is a witch hunt.”
The answer isn’t encouraging. “How do you know that, Senator? If you have information pertinent to—”
“Hell no,” O’Brien says. “There isn’t any goddamn evidence. If there was, don’t you think we would have seen it by now?”
“What I’m gleaning,” Ribello says, “is that Keller was reluctant to bring evidence forth because he was afraid it would be compromised or suppressed.”
Is that what you’re “gleaning,” you smarmy Ivy League cocksucker, O’Brien thinks. He says, “No one is talking about suppressing evidence here.”
“I should hope not.”
They’re all running scared, O’Brien thinks. This asshole is smart enough to appoint a special counsel just to get himself out of the line of fire. Dump this steaming pile off on someone else and wash his hands.
And that other smart son of a bitch Keller is sitting on those tapes. A special counsel would subpoena Keller and demand all documents and evidentiary materials.
A
nd what will Keller do then?
What will he say?
The question now, Keller thinks as he wakes up to yet another morning of this, is what will Ribello do?
File charges against me?
Appoint a special counsel?
Both?
Nothing?
They’re all options.
Even if he does appoint a special counsel, Keller thinks as he runs a razor down his cheek, who would it be? If he appoints a Republican Party hack, it will just be a whitewash—the purpose of the investigation won’t be to uncover wrongdoing, but to bury it. It will be a “search-and-avoid” mission, going wherever the evidence isn’t and then announcing that you didn’t find any.
He finishes shaving, then gets dressed for a day of . . .
What?
Sitting around waiting?
Keller has nowhere to go—all the job possibilities are on hold until this thing is over. He could go for (yet another) walk around the neighborhood, haunting the local bookstores, but what had once been a joy has become a pain in the ass, as he can’t go anywhere without being stopped and questioned, by either reporters or just people on the street who recognize him. Some of them give him a thumbs-up, others scowl, others actually come up and ask for autographs.
Marisol thinks he should get security.
“A bodyguard?” Keller asked. “I don’t want that.”
“You don’t know who any of these people are,” she said. “Some nut might want to make a name for himself.”
Keller blows it off. He didn’t get a bodyguard when Adán Barrera had a $2 million bounty on his head, he’s not going to get one now. I can take care of myself, thank you, he thinks. He still carries a 9 mm Sig on his waist under his jacket when he goes out.
Which is less and less.
Keller has to acknowledge that he’s pretty much become a prisoner in his own home. I might as well have an ankle bracelet, he thinks.
He’s pulling on a sweater when he hears Marisol yell, “Arturo, get down here!”
“What is it?!”
“Ribello’s on!”
Keller hustles down the stairs.