Gavin's own emotions were running pretty close to the surface too. Those were his men onboard that helicopter. Not friends. He wasn't going to spill tears over them. He'd lost plenty of men and seen plenty more die, but the men in that helicopter worked for him, and so he was responsible for them, for everything they did and everything they failed to do. Just like the U.S. Army Officer's Guidebook said. And he still couldn't reach Ground Two by radio or cell phone.
Jones's hissy fit died as suddenly as it had begun. One second he was kicking and shouting, the next he was stand-ing rigid and lighting another cigarette. But Gavin could see that the CIA man's hands were trembling.
Gavin climbed down from the top of the Suburban. "I sure hope you have a backup plan."
Jones nodded and took a long drag on his cigarette. Then he dropped it and crushed it under his foot. "Yes, I do."
"Mind sharing it?"
Jones pulled open the passenger door. "I'll tell you on the way."
Gavin pointed to the black smoke on the other side of the river. "I hope it doesn't require a lot of assets."
"It doesn't," Jones said as he climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door.
"And you think this one will work, this new plan of yours?" Gavin said once he was behind the steering wheel. "Because this son of a bitch has taken everything we've thrown at him and thrown it right back at us."
The CIA man didn't look at Gavin. He just stared straight ahead through the windshield at the bridge. "You sound like you admire him."
"I respect him."
Jones turned to him. "Don't."
"Maybe that's your problem," Gavin said. "If you gave him more respect, you might be able to figure out a way to beat him."
"Oh, I'm going to beat Agent Greene. You can count on that."
"How?"
Jones turned back to face the windshield and the bridge. "By doing what I should have done as soon as I found out he had a copy of that video."
Gavin turned the ignition and cranked the Suburban's motor. "And what's that?"
"Drive."
Gavin shifted the Suburban into gear, spun the wheel over, and U-turned out of the stalled bridge traffic.
Chapter 69
The prepaid cell phone rang. Scott glanced at Benny. He was driving the stolen Oldsmobile south on Avenida Emiliano Zapata, heading away from the river and away from the cha-os downtown. Benny pulled the phone from her pocket and looked at the screen. Her face lit up and she turned to Scott. "It's tío."
Scott slewed the Oldsmobile to the curb as the phone rang again and Benny answered it.
* * * *
Humberto Larios handed the priest's cell phone to the little girl sitting beside him on the big leather sofa. Tenta-tively, the terrified girl pressed the phone to her ear. "Mamá?" she said.
Larios could hear the excited voice of the policia on the other end of the call saying something to her daughter when he yanked the phone away from the little girl and held it to his own ear. Benetta Alvarez was still speaking, "...come and get you right now. Do you understand?"
Larios didn't say anything. He just let the silence and the tension build.
"Rosalita?" Alvarez said, her tone urgent. "Are you still there?"
"She's still here," Larios said and smiled as he heard the sharp intake of terrified breath on the other end.
"No," Alvarez said in a soft voice, almost to herself.
"She's my guest," Larios said. "Your uncle too."
"If you hurt either of them," Alvarez shouted, "I swear to God I'll kill you."
* * * *
Scott watched Benny's face change in an instant from joy to horror. She gasped and said, "No," softly, almost to herself. Then the person on the other end said something to her that scared her even more. But Benny recovered quickly and shouted into the phone in machine-gun Spanish, way too fast for Scott to understand any of it. When she looked at him he saw tears in her eyes.
* * * *
"Is the gringo with you?" Larios said into the phone.
Alvarez's voice came back flat and scared. "Yes."
"Does he have the video?"
"Yes."
"Shoot him."
"What?"
"Shoot him," Larios said. "Shoot him right now. I want to hear the bullet shatter his skull."
Nothing. No response. Just the static of the open line and the sound of traffic.
Larios grabbed a handful of the little girl's hair and twisted it hard. He let her scream into the phone. Then he held the mouthpiece an inch from his lips. "Shoot the grin-go," he said. "Or the next sound you hear will be me chop-ping off your daughter's head."
* * * *
Benny's face was a mask of pain as tears spilled down her cheeks. Scott switched off the Oldsmobile's motor. "Who is it?" he asked, sure it wasn't her uncle.
She didn't answer him, just moved the phone to her left hand and shifted a little in her seat.
"What's wrong?" he said.
She sobbed and a gout of snot erupted from her nose.
"Benny," he said, "tell me what's wrong."
When she didn't, or couldn't, answer, he reached for her. She shifted in her seat again, and for a moment he thought she was leaning into him so he could wrap his arms around her to comfort her.
But she wasn't.
She was pulling out her pistol.
And aiming it at his face.
He froze.
The muzzle of the Glock was a black hole, and just like the black holes in space, it sucked in everything, including life, and nothing could escape it.
"I'm sorry," Benny said, the words mangled by another sob.
Scott forced himself to look past the gun and focus on Benny's face.
"They have my daughter," she said.
"Who has her?"
Benny lowered the phone. But not the pistol. The end of the barrel trembled slightly. Scott could hear a man's voice shouting in Spanish from the phone.
"Who has your daughter?" Scott said.
Benny wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Los Zetas."
Scott nodded at the phone in her left hand, now resting on the cracked vinyl seat. "And they want the video."
She sniffed and nodded.
"And what else?"
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
The voice on the phone had gone quiet.
Scott stared at Benny's right index finger. It was curled around the Glock's trigger. The knuckle on the end was white with strain. She probably had two or three pounds of pressure on the trigger already. All the slack was gone. An-other two pounds and maybe a quarter of an inch of travel and the pistol would fire a 9mm bullet straight into his face.
Her finger tightened on the trigger.
Part Four
Chapter 70
Scott didn't think. He just acted. Thinking slowed you down. And in this situation, being slow meant being dead.
He slapped the side of the pistol with his left hand a fraction of a second before a blinding flash exploded from the muzzle and seared the right side of his face and neck. The blast deafened him. The window behind him shattered. His vision was nothing but swirling colors. He grabbed Ben-ny and pulled her close, his hands searching hers for the gun. But her hands were empty. The gun was gone. He felt her crying. Somewhere beyond the ringing in his head he heard a man's voice shouting in Spanish. The voice on the phone.
Scott blinked his eyes until they cleared enough so that he could see Benny's face and the tears streaming down her cheeks. He hugged her tight and felt a long shuddering sob rack her body. Then he saw the Glock lying on the seat next to them and the prepaid cell phone on the floor. The man had stopped talking.
He pointed to the phone and drew a finger across his throat. Benny picked up the phone and pressed it to her ear. "Lo hice," she said. I did it. She hesitated, then said, "Esta muerto." He's dead. She jabbed the END button and cut off the call.
* * * *
Jones knocked on the front door. Gavin stood on the walkway a few
feet behind him. Like an obedient guard dog. A woman opened the door. She had blond hair and a trim, athletic figure. Her green eyes were red from crying and her face was puffy. She looked at them but didn't say anything. Jones heard a TV news channel playing in the background. He held up a set of credentials. "Mrs. Greene, we're with the Justice Department. We need you to come with us."
* * * *
"It's my fault Michael is dead," Benny said in a choked voice. She was crying again, and Scott wasn't sure what to do, put his arm around her...or shoot her. So he decided not to do anything.
He had parked the stolen Oldsmobile behind a closed-down mechanic shop off Boulevard Anahuac. They stood across the hood from each other, at opposite front fenders. He was on the driver's side and kept glancing at the blown-out window. If he'd been half a second slower, it would have been the back of his head that had gotten blown out.
Scott understood why she'd done it. Los Zetas, one of the most violent criminal gangs in the world, was holding her daughter hostage and would kill her, horribly and painfully, if Benny didn't do what she was told. And what she had been told was to kill him. Since then, she had apologized several times for trying to shoot him in the face. She was desperate, terrified for her daughter. He said he understood. Still, he was pretty shaken up. It had been that close.
"Why is Mike's death your fault?" Scott asked.
Benny took a deep breath. "I'm the one who told Hum-berto Larios about the video."
"Why?"
She didn't answer.
"Plata o plomo?" he asked.
She opened her mouth to say something, but didn't.
"Those weren't your only options," he said.
"Really?" she said as she wiped the tears from her face. "What were my other options?"
"You're a police officer."
She laughed. "What does that even mean, to be a police officer? That I was supposed to arrest him, put handcuffs on him, throw him in the back seat of my car, take him to jail? Humberto Larios, Z-50, one of the most wanted men in Mexico?"
"Yes."
"Even the Marines can't arrest him."
"That's because they can't find him," Scott said, "but you know where he is, don't you?"
"Sometimes," she said, her voice low, almost a whisper.
"You could have told the Marines."
"And what happens if they arrest him?" she said. "Do you think Los Zetas falls apart? Because that's not going to happen. Someone else would take over, Z-60, Z-70...Z-100. It doesn't matter. And the first thing he would do is kill whoever was responsible for leading the Marines to Larios." She jabbed her finger across the hood at Scott. "Do you know what happened when the Marines who arrested Z-40, El Coronel, Miguel Trevino?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Los Zetas butchered fifty people. Fifty people. Some they skinned alive. Because one of them-one of them!-might have been the informant."
"Then why are you a cop at all?"
"It's so simple for you, isn't it?" Benny said. "Every-thing is black and white. Maybe I should say brown and white. The bad guys and the good guys."
"That's not fair. A lot of good Mexican police officers have died fighting the cartels."
"Not fair?" Benny said. "Let me tell you what's not fair. American agents coming into Mexico to harass the cartels and making us arrest them for you. Then running back across the border in your big cars, to your big houses, to your gated neighborhoods. Because we can't run. We have to stay here. With them. So don't talk to me about what's fair and what's not. Not until you're stuck on this side of the border, until you have to spend every night wondering if tonight is the night they're going to come for you." She leaned against the car, exhausted.
Chapter 71
Scott stared at Benny for a long time. Then he said, "You're right."
She looked up at him. Although she was no longer cry-ing, her eyes were still bloodshot. "About what?"
"I have no idea know what it's like to be a cop here."
"But you still don't think you would take their money, do you?"
"I'd find another way," Scott said.
"Alejandro Dominguez tried to find another way."
"Who's he?"
"A honest man who accepted the job as chief of police in Nuevo Laredo when no one else would. When the cartel offered him money, he refused to take it. His career lasted less than one day. Six hours after he was sworn in as the new police chief, Los Zetas shot him dead."
"Why did you tell Larios about the video?" Scott said. "You said you loved Mike Cassidy."
"I did love him," Benny said, her voice cracking but full of conviction.
Scott believed her. "Then why?"
"Because if Larios found out I knew about it and didn't tell him, he would have killed me and my daughter...or worse."
Scott didn't need her to explain the meaning of or worse. He already knew. Los Zetas operated a string of brothels along the border, where they kept women, and girls as young as twelve, shot full of heroin and turning tricks six-teen hours a day.
"Larios wants the video to come out," Benny said. "He wants to see it on American television. He wants the Ameri-can people to know their government made a deal with the devil."
"So maybe you're wrong," Scott said. "And it wasn't the Sinaloa who killed Mike. Maybe it was Los Zetas who did it because Larios wanted to release the video himself."
"No," Benny said. "There was no need to do that. Lar-ios knew the video would eventually come out, and from the best possible source."
"The DEA," Scott said, realizing just how much sense it made. A video released by a rival cartel could be dismissed as a fake, but a video used as evidence by the DEA in the criminal trial of corrupt U.S. officials...What was it that credit card company advertisement said? Priceless.
Benny nodded.
"Tell me how Mike Cassidy got that video," Scott said.
Benny wiped her nose on the sleeve of her black Polo shirt again. "Do you know what the PFM is, the Policia Federal Ministerial?"
"I know what they are," Scott said. "The Mexican FBI." But he knew more than that. The PFM, known in English as the Federal Ministry of Police, was indeed modeled after the American FBI and created to replace the thoroughly discred-ited, and now disbanded, AFI, the Agencia de Federal Investigacion, or Federal Investigations Agency, which had probably been the most corrupt agency in the entire Mexican government, and that was saying quite a lot because that bar had been set pretty high.
A classified report Scott had read during his tour at DEA Headquarters said that nearly half of AFI's 7,000 agents were under investigation for criminal activity, and that many of those agents were suspected of moonlighting as enforcers for the Sinaloa cartel. The general consensus at DEA was that AFI's successor, the PFM, wasn't any better than the agency it had replaced.
"When Oscar Ramirez was assassinated in Mexico City," Benny said, "because he was the deputy attorney gen-eral, the PFM was put in charge of the investigation. I knew one of the agents, Raul Fuentes. He was an instructor at a training school I went to a couple of years ago. We became friends, and we stayed in touch." She looked hard at Scott. "And before you say anything, he was an honest man and a good policeman."
Scott raised his hands. "Okay."
"Raul was one of the agents who searched Ramirez's apartment. He found the flash drive and after he watched what was on it, he knew he couldn't document it as evi-dence."
"Why not?"
"Because it would disappear."
"So what did he do?" Scott asked.
"He called me."
"Why you?"
"Because he knew about me and Michael."
"He wanted you to give the video to Mike?"
"Yes," Benny said. "To expose the corruption on both sides."
"You told me when we watched it that you hadn't seen it before."
"I hadn't seen it," Benny said. "All I did was arrange a meeting so Raul could give the video to Michael."
"Why didn't Mike show it to you?"
"He sa
id he was trying to protect me."
"But you told Larios about it?"
Fresh tears formed in her eyes. "I had to."
"What exactly did you tell him?"
Benny rubbed her eyes. "Only what I knew, that Mi-chael had a video of a meeting and that if it got out, it was going to be bad for El Gordo and the Sinaloa."
"Nothing else?"
"I didn't know anything else."
"But did he ask?" Scott insisted. "Did Larios ask you what was on the video?"
Benny hesitated as her eyes shifted to her left, to Scott's right. He knew from his training and from years of experi-ence conducting hundreds of interrogations that when asked a question, a person trying to recall something, as opposed to trying to create something, looked to his or her left. Whatever she was going to say, it was going to be the truth. "No," Benny said. "He didn't ask."
"The reason he didn't ask was because he already knew about the meeting," Scott said.
"What do you mean?"
"Los Zetas killed Ramirez."
"How do you know?"
"Because nothing else makes sense," Scott said. "Gutierrez had no reason to kill him. He had just made a se-cret deal with Ramirez and needed him alive. But Larios, if he knew about the deal, would have a very good reason to kill the man who had just agreed to use the power of the federal government to take the Nuevo Laredo plaza away from him and give it to his archenemy."
"How would Larios know about the meeting?"
"I don't know," Scott said. "But there were three people at that meeting, and as Benjamin Franklin said, Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
"I don't understand," Benny said. "What does that mean?"
"It means one of them talked. And it means you weren't telling Larios anything he didn't already know. He had Ramirez killed before either you or Mike knew that video existed."
Benny was looking at him, her eyes red from crying, her nose crusted. "Do you really believe that?"
He nodded. "It wasn't your fault."
Benny laid her forehead on the hood of the Oldsmobile and sobbed so hard her whole body shook.
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