The Power of the Dog

by Don Winslow

  He rings for the housekeeper.

  “Coffee, please,” Parada tells her. “For two. In the study.”

  Recently his relationship with Cerro has been one of alternate arguing and cajoling, begging and threatening, as he has petitioned the minister of education for new schools, books, lunch programs and more teachers. It has been a constant negotiation in which Parada has tiptoed on the edge of blackmail, once protesting to Cerro that the rural villages were not going to be treated like “bastard children”—a remark that was apparently worth two primary schools and a dozen new teachers.

  Perhaps this is Cerro’s revenge, Parada thinks as he goes downstairs. But when he opens the door to his study and sees Cerro’s face, he knows it’s far more serious.

  Cerro gets right to it. “I’m dying of cancer.”

  Parada is stunned. “I am terribly sorry to hear this. Is there nothing . . .”

  “No. There is no hope.”

  “Would you like for me to hear your confession?”

  “I have a priest for that,” Cerro says.

  He hands Parada the briefcase.

  “I brought you this,” Cerro says. “I didn’t know who else to bring it to.”

  Parada opens it, looks at the papers and the tapes and says, “I don’t understand.”

  “I have been a conspirator,” Cerro says, “in a massive crime. I cannot die . . . I am afraid to die . . . with this on my soul. I need to at least try to make restitution.”

  “Certainly if you confess you will receive absolution,” Parada answers. “But if this is all evidence of some sort, why bring it to me? Why not to the attorney general, or . . .”

  “His voice is on those tapes.”

  Well, that would be a reason, Parada thinks.

  Cerro leans forward and whispers, “The attorney general, the secretary of the interior, the chairman of the PRI. The president. All of them. All of us.”

  Good God, Parada thinks.

  What is on these tapes?

  He goes through a pack and a half listening to them.

  Lighting one cigarette from another, he listens to the tapes and pores through the documents. Memos of meetings, Cerro’s notes. Names, dates and places. A fifteen-year record of corruption—no, not just corruption. That would be the sad norm, and this is extraordinary. More than extraordinary—language fails.

  What they did, in the simplest possible terms: They sold the country to the narcotraficantes.

  He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t heard it himself: Tapes from a dinner—$25 million per plate—to help elect this president. The murders of election officials and the theft of the election itself. The voices of the president’s brother and the attorney general planning these outrages. And soliciting the narcos to pay for it all. And to commit the murders. And to torture and murder the American agent Hidalgo.

  And then there was Operation Cerberus, the conspiracy to fund, equip and train the Contras through the sale of cocaine.

  And Operation Red Mist, the right-wing murders funded in part by the drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico and supported by the PRI.

  Small wonder Cerro is afraid of hell—he’s helped to build it here.

  And now I understand why he brought this evidence to me. The voices on the tapes, the names on the memos—the president, his brother, the secretary of state, Miguel Ángel Barrera, García Abrego, Güero Méndez, Adán Barrera, the literally scores of police, army and intelligence officers, PRI officials—there is no one in Mexico who can or will act on this.

  So Cerro brings it to me. Wanting me to give it to . . .

  Whom?

  He goes to light another cigarette but finds to his surprise that he’s sick of smoking—his mouth tastes filthy. He goes upstairs and brushes his teeth, then takes an almost scalding shower and, as he lets the water pound the back of his neck, thinks that perhaps he should give this evidence to Arthur Keller.

  He’s maintained frequent correspondence with the American, now unfortunately persona non grata in Mexico, and the man is still obsessed with bringing down the drug cartels. But think it through, he tells himself: If you give this to Arthur, what will happen to it, given the shocking revelation of Operation Cerberus and the CIA’s complicity with the Barreras in exchange for Contra funding? Does Arthur have the power to act on this, or will it be suppressed by the current administration? Or any American administration, as focused as they are on NAFTA?

  NAFTA, Parada thinks with disgust. The cliff we are marching toward in lockstep with the Americans. But there is hope. Presidential elections are coming up, and the PRI’s candidate—who will, perforce, win—seems to be a good man. Luis Donaldo Colosio is a legitimate man of the left, who will listen to reason. Parada has sat down with him, and the man is sympathetic.

  And if this stunning evidence that the dying Cerro brought me can discredit the dinosaurs in the PRI, that might give Colosio the leverage he needs to follow his true instincts. Should I give him the information?

  No, Parada thinks, Colosio mustn’t be seen to be going against his party—that would only rob him of the nomination.

  So who, Parada wonders as he lathers his face and begins to shave, has the autonomy, the power, the sheer moral force to bring to light the fact that the entire government of a country has auctioned itself to a cartel of drug merchants? Who?

  The answer occurs to him suddenly.

  It’s obvious.

  He waits until a decent hour of the morning, and then phones Antonucci to tell him that he wants to relay important information to the Pope.

  The order of Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by a wealthy Spanish lawyer-turned-priest named Josemaría Escrivá, who was concerned that the University of Madrid had become a hotbed of left-wing radicalism. He was so concerned that his new organization of Catholic elite fought on the side of the fascists in the Spanish Civil War and spent the next thirty years helping to entrench General Franco in power. The idea was to recruit talented, elite young lay conservatives who were headed into government, the press and big business, imbue them with “traditional” Catholic values—especially anti-Communism—and send them out to do the Church’s work in their chosen spheres.

  Salvatore Scachi—Special Forces colonel, CIA asset, Knight of Malta and made Mafia wise guy—is a tried-and-true member of Opus Dei. He met all the requirements—attended Mass daily, made his confessions only to an Opus Dei priest and made regular retreats at Opus Dei facilities.

  And he’s been a good soldier. He’s fought the good fight against Communism in Vietnam, Cambodia and the Golden Triangle. He’s fought the war in Mexico, in Central America through Cerberus, in South America through Red Mist—all operations that the liberation theologist Parada is now threatening to expose to the world. Now he sits in Antonucci’s office considering what to do about the information that Cardinal Juan Parada wants to pass on to the Vatican.

  “You say Cerro went to see him,” Scachi says to Antonucci.

  “That’s what Parada told me.”

  “Cerro knows enough to bring down the entire government,” Scachi says. And then some.

  “We can’t burden the Holy Father with this information,” Antonucci says. This Pope has been a major supporter of Opus Dei, even to the point of recently beatifying Father Escrivá, the first step toward canonization. To force him to confront evidence of the Order’s involvement in some of the harsher actions against the Communist world conspiracy would be, at the very least, embarrassing.

  Worse yet would be the scandal that would erupt against the present government, just as negotiations are proceeding to return the Church to full legal status in Mexico. No, these revelations would scuttle the government, and with it the negotiations, and swing momentum toward the heretical liberation theologists—many of them well-meaning “useful idiots” who would help bring about Communist rule.

  It’s been the same story everywhere, Antonucci thinks—stupid, misled, liberal priests help bring the Communists to power, then the reds slaught
er the priests. It was certainly true in Spain, which is why the blessed Escrivá founded the order in the first place.

  As members of Opus Dei, both Antonucci and Scachi are well versed in the concept of the greater good, and for Sal Scachi the greater good of defeating Communism outweighs the evil of corruption. He also has something else on his mind—the NAFTA treaty, still under debate in Congress. If Parada’s revelations were ever made public they would scuttle NAFTA. And without NAFTA, there will be no hope for the development of a Mexican middle class, which is the only long-term antidote for the poisonous spread of Communism.

  Now Antonucci says, “We have an opportunity here to do something great for the souls of the millions of faithful—to return the true Church to the Mexican people by earning the gratitude of the Mexican government.”

  “If we suppress this information.”

  “Just so.”

  “But it’s not that simple,” Scachi says. “Parada apparently has certain knowledge, which he’ll come forward with if he doesn’t see—”

  Antonucci gets up. “I must leave such worldly details to the lay brothers of the order. I don’t understand such things.”

  But Scachi does.

  Adán lies in bed at Rancho las Bardas, Raúl’s large estancia-cum-fortress, off the road between Tijuana and Tecate.

  The ranch’s main living compound, composed of separate houses for Adán and Raúl, is surrounded by a ten-foot wall topped with razor wire and shards of broken glass bottles. There are two gates, each with massive, steel-reinforced doors. Spotlight towers are set in each corner, manned by guards with AK-47s, M-50 machine guns and Chinese rocket launchers.

  And to even reach the place, you have to drive two long miles off the highway down a red-dirt road, but the chances are you’re not even going to get on that road, because the junction with the highway is guarded twenty-four–seven by plainclothes Baja state policemen.

  So this is where the brothers came as soon as possible after the attack on the La Sirena disco, and now the place is on high alert. Guards patrol the walls night and day, squads in jeeps patrol the surrounding countryside, technicians electronically sweep the area for radio transmissions and cell-phone calls.

  And Manuel Sánchez sits outside Adán’s bedroom window like a faithful dog. We’re twins now, Adán thinks, with our identical limps. But mine is temporary and his is permanent, and this is why I have kept the man employed all these years as a bodyguard since the bad old days of Operation Condor.

  Sánchez will not leave his post—not to eat, not to sleep.

  Just props himself against the wall with his shotgun in his lap, or occasionally gets up and limps back and forth along the wall.

  “I should have been there, patrón,” he told Adán, with tears streaming down his face. “I should have been with you.”

  “Your job is to protect my home and my family,” Adán answered. “And you have never let me down.”

  Nor is he likely to.

  He won’t leave Adán’s window. The cooks bring him plates of warm flour tortillas with refritas and peppers, and bowls of hot albóndigas, and he sits outside the window eating. But he will not leave: Don Adán saved his life and his leg, and Don Adán and his wife and daughter are inside that house, and if Güero’s sicarios somehow get inside the compound, they will have to come through Manuel Sánchez to get to them.

  And no one is getting through Manuel.

  Adán’s glad he’s there, if only to give Lucía and Gloria a feeling of security. They were already put through an upsetting ordeal, being woken in the middle of the night by the pasador’s sicarios and hustled off to the countryside without even a chance to pack. The upset had set off a major respiratory episode, and a doctor had to be flown in, blindfolded, then driven out to the ranch to see the sick girl. The expensive and delicate medical equipment—respirators, breathing tents, humidifiers—all had to be packed out of the house and moved in the middle of the night, and even now, weeks later, Gloria is still displaying symptoms.

  And then when she had seen him limping, in pain, it was yet another shock and he had felt bad about lying to her, telling her that he had been in a motorcycle accident, and lying to her more, telling her they were staying out in the country for a while because the air is better for her.

  But she’s not stupid, Adán knows. She sees the towers, the guns, the guards, and she will soon see through their explanation that the family is very wealthy and needs protection.

  And then she will ask harder questions.

  And get harder answers.

  About what Papa does for a living.

  And will she understand? Adán wonders. He’s restless, edgy, tired of being a convalescent. And be honest, he tells himself—you miss Nora. You miss her in your bed and at your table. It would be good to talk with her about this whole situation.

  He’d managed to get a phone call off to her the day after the La Sirena attack. He knew that she’d have seen it on TV or read about it in the papers, and he wanted to tell her that he was all right. That it would be a few weeks before he could see her again, but more important, that she should stay out of Mexico until he tells her it’s safe.

  She’d responded just the way he’d imagined she would, just the way he’d hoped. She answered the phone on the first ring, and he could feel her relief when she heard his voice. Then she’d quickly started to joke with him, telling him that if he let himself be lured by any siren other than her, he got what he deserved.

  “Call me,” she’d said. “I’ll come running.”

  I wish I could, he thinks as he painfully stretches his leg. You don’t know how much I wish I could.

  He’s tired of being in bed and sits up, slowly swings his wounded leg out and gently eases himself to his feet. He takes his cane and hobbles over to the window. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is bright and warm and the birds are warbling and it’s good to be alive. And his leg is healing quickly and well—there has been no infection—and soon he will be up and around. Which is a good thing because there is much to do and not a lot of time to do it.

  The truth is that he’s worried. The attack on La Sirena, the fact that they used federale uniforms and identification—it must have cost hundreds of thousands in mordida. And the fact that Güero felt strong enough to violate the prohibition on violence in a resort town must mean that Güero’s business is healthier than they had thought.

  But how? Adán wonders. How is the man getting his product through La Plaza, which the Barrera pasador has all but shut down to him? And how has Güero won the support of Mexico City and its federales?

  And has Abrego aligned himself with Güero? Would Güero ever have launched the La Sirena attack without the old man’s approval? And if that is the case, Abrego’s support would bring the president’s brother, El Bagman, and the full weight of the federal government.

  Even in Baja itself, there’s a civil war going on between the local cops—the Barreras own the Baja State Police and Güero owns the federales. The Tijuana city cops are more or less neutral, but there’s a new player in town—the Special Tactical Group, an elite group sort of like the Untouchables, run by none other than the incorruptible Antonio Ramos. If he ever allies himself with the federales . . .

  Thank God there’s an election coming up, Adán thinks. Adán’s people have made several discreet approaches to the PRI’s handpicked candidate, Colosio, only to be turned down flat. But Colosio at least gave assurances that he is anti-narco across the board—when elected he will be coming after the Barreras and Méndez with equal vigor.

  But in the meantime it’s us against the world, Adán thinks.

  And this time, the world wins.

  Callan don’t like it one bit.

  He’s in the backseat of a stolen fire-engine red Suburban—the vehicle of choice among the narcotraficante cowboys—sitting beside Raúl Barrera, who’s cruising around Tijuana like he’s the fucking mayor. They’re rolling down Boulevard Díaz Ordaz, one of the busiest streets
in the city. He has a Baja State Police officer driving and another one in the front seat. And he’s tricked out in full Sinaloa cowboy gear, from the boots to the black pearl-button shirt to the white cowboy hat.

  This is no fucking way to fight a war, Callan thinks. What these guys should be doing is what the old Sicilians would do—go to the mattresses, lay low, pick your spots. But this apparently ain’t the Mexican way, Callan has learned. No, the Mexican way is macho—go out there and show the flag.

  Like, Raúl wants to be seen.

  So it ain’t no surprise to Callan when two black Suburbans filled with black-uniformed federales start to follow them down the boulevard. Which ain’t good news, Callan thinks. “Uh, Raúl . . .”