Jones had done that by forging what he privately called his Unholy Trinity, a cabal comprising the ruthless and bloodthirsty Sinaloa cartel, the inept and hopelessly corrupt Mexican government, and the naive and self-righteously hypocritical United States government.
Then Murphy struck, and those jackasses in Los Zetas had found out about Jones's tripartite alliance-he still was-n't sure how they found out-and had assassinated Oscar Ramirez, the deputy attorney general of Mexico and Jones's conduit to el presidente. Worse still, Jones learned that Ramirez had made a video recording of their meeting in Mexico City, which had landed in the hands of a DEA agent. Ramirez could be replaced and the alliance salvaged, but not if that video went public. So Jones had been forced to do a lot of scrambling and had managed to arrange to have the DEA agent picked up.
Yet once again, Murphy had clocked in with his damn law.
Torture works. That's why it's been in use for the last eight thousand years. Everybody talks, eventually. Unless they die first. But if you put Mexican cartel thugs in charge of a delicate interrogation, they are very likely to botch it. Jones knew that, but he found himself short of an experi-enced interrogator. So he had used the resources at hand. But these cartelistas, whose default response to a threat was to skin their enemies alive, dismember them, and hang their bodies from bridges, were not up to the task and had killed the DEA agent before he told them where the video was.
Now the video was in the hands of a second DEA agent and a Mexican cop who just happened to be the south-of-the-border squeeze of the first DEA agent; and now that second DEA agent, who, hopefully, would also be dead very soon, and the Mexican squeeze were both in the fucking wind.
Which is why the man known as Jones was sitting in his leased Ford Focus a block from Scott Greene's depressingly middle-class house in Laredo, Texas, at three o'clock in the morning.
His BlackBerry vibrated. It was Gavin. Jones stabbed the answer button and said, "Tell me you found him, the video is secure, and all leaks are plugged."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," Gavin answered.
"Why not?"
"They went to ground. But eventually they're going to have to stick their heads up. And when they do we'll get them."
"You said that before," Jones reminded him. "I think it was when they were at the post office."
"This time, I'm sure."
"Let me ask you a question," Jones said. "You have ac-cess to some of the most sophisticated technology in the world. You have a nearly unlimited budget. You have men and weapons. Yet you can't find one non-Spanish-speaking gringo who's on foot, with little or no support, no cell phone, and who at most, if he's armed at all, is carrying a pistol that must surely be running out of goddamned bullets by now." The last part Jones practically shouted into his BlackBerry. Then he took a deep breath and got control of himself. "Why is that?"
"Because he got lucky."
"He got lucky?" Jones said. "Is that what you think hap-pened?"
"That is what happened."
"No, let me tell you what happened," Jones said. "Agent Greene didn't get lucky. He beat you. He beat your whole team. He and that chiquita he's running with. They've been one step ahead of you all night. It's time you caught up."
"I have teams in place on his truck and on the cop's house. As soon as he moves, we'll have him."
"And you'll have the video," Jones prompted.
"And we'll have the video."
"Do not..." Even though both phones were encrypted, Jones did not use certain words during telephone conversa-tions. NSA computers scanned just about every call made in the United States now, cell and landline. "...do anything permanent until you have the video. Is that clear?"
"Roger that."
Jones ended the call.
This situation was slipping away from him, and if he didn't get it back under control soon it was all going to go sideways. It was his face on that video, and if it went public, the Agency would hang a rogue tag on him and drop him in-to a hole, probably a black site somewhere in Eastern Eu-rope. The Bulgarians were particularly cozy with the Agency right now. And if he was turned over to the Bulgarians, he could look forward to spending the rest of his short life bat-tling pneumonia and supplementing his daily ration of gruel with cockroaches and spiders.
Or maybe the Mandarins at the Agency would decide to do the full monty on him, shoot him full of dope and drive him off a cliff or into a river. That was how they got rid of employees who really embarrassed them. That or the old as-sisted suicide trick.
Chapter 37
Scott lay on the sofa in the dark, wide awake. Despite his exhaustion, he couldn't sleep. His brain simply wouldn't shut up. He was too worried about Victoria and the kids. The people chasing him, whoever they were, had tracked his cell phone and had probably intercepted the call from Glenn Pe-terson. That was the only way they could have known he was coming across the border to meet Benny.
And if they were up on his cell phone, there was a good chance they were up on his home phone too. So he hadn't called Victoria. She would be worried, but she was used to it after having been a DEA wife for ten years. There had been a lot of nights when he didn't make it home and couldn't call.
"Are you awake?" Benny's voice came out of the dark.
Scott sat up. He could barely make out her silhouette in the doorway. "Yeah."
"I couldn't sleep." Benny crossed the den and sat on the sofa beside him. "I'm worried about Rosalita."
"I'm worried about my kids too."
"How many do you have?"
"Two," Scott said. "A boy, nine, and a girl, six."
Benny smiled but it didn't last. "I don't know what I would do if something happened to Rosalita. Besides tío, she's all I have left."
"Did you talk to her?"
"She was already asleep when I called."
"But she's all right, though?"
Benny nodded. "My friend Maria will take her to school in the morning."
"That's good."
For a while they said nothing. He could feel her leg pressed against his. Scott cleared his throat, suddenly even more awake than he had been. "Your uncle seems nice," he said.
"He's a good man."
"I can tell."
"You saw his tattoos?"
"I did," Scott said, "but they looked old. Like they were from another life."
"He's been a priest for a long time," Benny said. "Since I was a little girl."
"And before that?"
"He was a...what you would call a gangster."
"With a cartel?"
Benny nodded. "When I was little I loved those tattoos. Then I got older and realized why he had them...I tried to talk him into getting them removed, but he said he wanted to keep them because they remind him of what he used to be."
"I'm glad he was here," Scott said. "I don't think we could have made it much further."
"The Church has wanted to close this parish for years, but tío has been fighting them. Most of the decent people have moved away from this neighborhood, but there are still a few of the old ones left. He says if the diocese closes the church, the old people won't have anywhere else to go, and everybody has the right to hear Mass and to receive the sac-raments."
"Is he going to keep fighting them?"
"Yes," she said. "He's very stubborn."
"So he loves his job and he's good at it."
Benny smiled. "Yes."
"And what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Do you like being a cop?"
Benny was quiet for a moment, then said, "I used to."
"Not anymore?"
She shook her head.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I'm responsible for my daughter. I'm all she has. If anything happens to me...That's why I want to take her away from here, away from all this."
"Away from Nuevo Laredo?"
"Away from Mexico," Benny said. "I love my country, but it's too dangerous to stay here."
"Where
do you want to go?"
"My sister lives in Ohio, Cincinnati."
Scott smiled. "Cincinnati, Ohio."
Benny smiled back. "Yes, Cincinnati, Ohio."
"Was Mike trying to help you?"
"I didn't tell him. I wasn't sure then. But after he died...I made up my mind. You remember what they said in the video, plata o plomo?"
Scott nodded. "Silver or lead, right?"
"Here it's not just a phrase," Benny said. "It's a way of life. If you are policía, those are the only two choices the cartels give you."
"There must be other options."
She laughed but there was no humor in it. "The cartels keep files on us. They know where we live, who our parents are, wives, husbands, even where our children go to school. They tell you all that. They tell you exactly what they know." There was a catch in her voice as she said, "Then they ask you, which do you want, our money or our bullets?"
He saw tears forming in her eyes. "Which did you choose?"
She looked at him for a long time, the tears spilling over and running down her cheeks. Then she stood and walked away.
Chapter 38
Father Rodrigo's pickup truck belonged in a junkyard. Or in a museum. Other than knowing it was circa 1950s, Scott could hardly tell a thing about it. Not even the make.
The steering wheel had long ago been changed out, so there was no logo. The door to the glove compartment, where manufacturers sometimes also put their name or logo, was missing, although the glove compartment itself was still there, stuffed with wadded and yellowed oil-stained papers, and an assortment of rusted tools. There was no glass in the side windows, and years of tropical sun and rain had rotted the bench seat. The only mirror was on the driver's door, but the glass was cracked.
Benny sat sandwiched between Rodrigo and Scott as the old pickup truck bounced down Calle Lincoln toward the post office where they had been ambushed last night.
When they were close enough, Scott said, "Stop here."
"We're still ten blocks from the post office," Rodrigo said.
"We should walk the rest of the way."
Father Rodrigo stepped on the squeaky clutch and popped the shift lever on the steering column into neutral. The truck coasted to the curb. "I can take you to the border," the priest said. "It's no trouble."
"You've already done enough," Scott said. "More than enough."
"Whatever it is you're doing," Rodrigo said. "Whatever it is you're risking your lives for, will it change anything?"
Scott had to think about that for a moment. The reason he'd gotten into police work in the first place was a desire to make a difference. It didn't even matter how big or how small. He just wanted to make a difference. To leave the world a slightly better place than he'd found it. Four years as a Dallas cop and ten as a DEA agent had all but beaten that dream out of him.
America's so-called War on Drugs, which had been de-clared in 1971 when President Richard Nixon first used the phrase, and which had been lost on September 11, 2001, to make room for America's new war, the War on Terror, had been, at least from Scott's perspective, an unmitigated disas-ter. After spending hundreds of billions of dollars-maybe trillions, because who could really count that high?-and imprisoning millions of its own citizens, America was still awash in illegal drugs. In fact, more drugs were coming into the country today than ever before, and their price was cheaper.
Still...somewhere deep inside himself Scott could feel a tiny ember of that fire that used to burn so brightly.
Father Rodrigo, without knowing the specifics, was ask-ing if the video Scott had would change anything. So Scott looked the priest in the eye and said, "Yeah. It might." Then he opened the passenger door and stepped out of the truck.
Benny followed him onto the sidewalk. She clasped the bottom of the window with both hands as she closed the door. "Gracias, tío."
Scott reached in and shook Rodrigo's hand.
The priest smiled at them. "Vaya con Dios." Then he stomped the squeaking clutch, dropped the shift into first, and eased out into traffic.
Scott turned to Benny. "I've heard that before, vaya con Dios, but I forgot what it means."
"It means, go with God."
As Scott watched the truck bump and rattle its way down the street, he noticed that embossed on the rusted tail-gate was the word CHEVROLET.
They found a payphone a block away. Scott dug all the change out of his pocket.
"Those won't work," Benny said.
Scott looked down at the quarters, dimes and nickels in his hand.
She pulled a five-peso coin from her pocket and handed it to him. He shoved it into the coin slot and heard it click its way through the guts of the telephone.
"Who are you calling?" she asked.
"I have to get this video to someone who can help us."
"Who?"
Scott punched in the country code for the United States, a Texas area code, and a phone number. Then he glanced at Benny. "Someone I trust."
The line rang.
Chapter 39
Glenn Peterson was walking up the steps of the building that housed the DEA Laredo Field Office when his cell phone rang. He pulled the phone from his suit pocket and checked the screen. The call wasn't from someone in his contacts, and he didn't recognize the number. He thought about letting it go to voicemail. The time on the screen showed he had just five minutes until his meeting with the SAC and the two suits from headquarters.
Funny, he thought, that he called them suits. He was an ASAC, which made him a suit too. He just didn't think of himself as one. A suit was a paper pusher, a chairborne ranger. Most of them had downsized their duty pistols and kept them in their briefcases. He carried his full-sized Glock .40 caliber on his hip. Where an agent carried it. And he was pretty sure he could still kick down a door if he needed to.
His phone rang again. He punched the ANSWER but-ton. "Peterson."
Scott Greene said, "I need to talk to you."
Peterson stopped just outside the glass doors. "So talk. How'd the meeting go with Benny Alvarez?"
"I need to talk to you in person."
"No can do, amigo," Peterson said. "I'm walking into a meeting with the SAC and two pricks from OPR who are here to tear you a new asshole." A pretty woman in a dark suit walked past him and frowned at his vulgarity.
"I found something," Greene said. "And I'm pretty sure it's the key to this whole thing."
"By whole thing you mean..."
"Everything."
Peterson trusted Greene and knew he was a top-notch agent. If he said he had found something, then he had found something pretty damned important. "What is it?"
"Not on the phone," Greene said.
"At least give me an idea."
"A video."
"Of what?"
"You can see it yourself when I bring it to you. But it's the reason four agents are dead and our only witness got snatched away from us."
"You're selling it pretty hard," Peterson said.
"It's enough to sink the government of Mexico. Maybe ours too."
"Must be some video."
"Subtitled with your three favorite letters: C-I-A."
Peterson took a deep breath. This was the last thing he needed six months before mandatory retirement put him on the beach permanently. But it was the job. The job he'd signed up to do, and, in fact, had taken an oath to do. Be-sides, he hated the fucking CIA. "I'm staying at the Radis-son. Room seven-eighteen. Give me two hours to wrap up with these ass-hats."
"See you then," Greene said. Then the line clicked dead.
Peterson walked across the brick apron between the top of the steps and the building. He stood next to a row of con-crete planters and scrolled through his telephone contacts. He tapped a number and pressed the phone to his ear. A few seconds later the line rang. The call was answered on the second ring. A man's voice said, "I'm walking into a meet-ing."
"Me too," Peterson said.
"Mine is with the attorney gene
ral."
"If I hadn't strapped you on my back like a rucksack and carried you through four years at the Naval Academy, you wouldn't have been a Marine, you wouldn't have won a Silver Star, and you wouldn't be a United States senator."
The man laughed. "You're right on all counts. But I still have to get to a meeting."
"I think one of my guys just found the smoking gun you're looking for."
There was a pause. Then the man said, "I'm listening."
"I haven't seen it yet," Peterson said, "but he's recov-ered a video. He says it's enough to take down the Mexican government. And maybe ours."
"Who is he?" the man asked.
"The new RAC in Laredo."
"Didn't you just lose three agents in Laredo?"
"There's a lot more to that story."
The man on the other end of the line was silent for a moment. Then he said, "When are you going to see what's on the video?"
"He's bringing it to me in a couple of hours."
"And you trust him?"
"He worked for me in New Orleans," Peterson said. "He's a good agent. He says he's got something big, I believe him."
"If it's good, will he testify in front of my committee?"
"Send him a subpoena."
"I don't want to be embarrassed by an agent taking the fifth over and over. Like those assholes at ATF and the IRS did."
"He's solid," Peterson said. "You ask him a direct ques-tion, he'll give you a direct answer. And it'll be the truth."
Another pause. Then the man on the other end of the line said, "All right. I'll give my staff a warning order in case your guy comes through with something good."
"I may need some cover on this," Peterson said. "I'm six months from pulling the pin and too old to start looking for a new career."
"There's always politics," the man said.
"I'd rather be a prostitute."
"Same thing," the man said with a laugh. Then he hung up.
Glenn Peterson stared at his phone. He was pretty sure he had just unleashed a shit storm.
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