Rip Crew

by Sebastian Rotella

  On Monday evening, Méndez was moved out of intensive care. The nightmares subsided. His condition improved. The wounds in his neck and chest had almost killed him, but the worst pain was in his right arm, which was immobilized, strapped and wrapped. The arm had been pulverized by four bullets, taking the brunt of the impacts because his hands had been raised to shoot back.

  On Tuesday morning, he was groggy but awake. He had his first real conversation with Estela. They clung to each other, cried and laughed.

  “I didn’t die because of you,” he said. “You and the kids. I had to be there for you. I went into a dark room on the other side, but then I came back. For you.”

  “You didn’t die because you are stubborn and incredibly annoying,” his wife said. “A wolf that can’t be killed. My wolf.”

  “They did their worst, and here we are,” he said. “We survived.”

  The children were with Estela’s mother, who had come up from Tijuana. Estela would bring them to the hospital later. Isabel Puente and Valentine Pescatore would visit when they returned from Tijuana, where they had gone to a memorial service for Porthos. Athos and Facundo were tending to Porthos’s family.

  Méndez ate soup and fell asleep. He awoke in the afternoon. His wife had left. Isabel and Pescatore sat at his bedside.

  They were both in black. Isabel wore a long skirt, a short jacket, and a high-necked blouse, her lustrous hair pinned back. Pescatore wore a suit and tie. They looked good—and good together—in a fierce melancholy way.

  Isabel kissed Méndez on the forehead. Pescatore patted his arm. Méndez had never seen Pescatore in a suit before and had never seen him cry before. He commented on the former.

  “Very elegant, Valentine.”

  “I bought it this morning.” Pescatore returned to his chair, regaining his composure. “Isabel picked it out. I wanted to show respect.”

  “How was the memorial?”

  “Lovely,” Isabel said.

  “You shoulda seen it,” Pescatore said. “Cops. School kids. University students. Just plain citizens.”

  “Porthos was known and admired,” Méndez said.

  Because of the Diogenes Group, he thought. Because of me. And look what happened to him.

  “He’s all over the news,” Pescatore said. “The plaza in front of city hall was packed. They called his name, and everybody yelled, ‘¡Presente!’ A big roar went up. Gave me chills.”

  It took a while before Méndez was able to speak.

  “Ay, Porthos. The best of all of us.”

  “All heart,” Pescatore said.

  “He sacrificed himself for me. I don’t know how I can repay that.”

  Méndez spoke in Spanish—he didn’t have the strength for English. Isabel and Pescatore slid back and forth between languages. After some small talk, Méndez got down to it.

  “My dear friends,” he said. “I would feel better if someone would tell me what is going on.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Isabel, it would be like medicine.”

  Isabel said her bosses had relented and appointed her cochief of the task force investigating the Blakes. She told him what had happened after the attack on him. It was quite a story. Méndez concentrated in a haze of pain and medication. While Isabel spoke, Pescatore sat low in his chair with a hand over his mouth. He avoided her eyes. There was a silent dynamic between them: affection, reproach, wariness. Isabel recounted Pescatore’s actions in the Antelope Valley—which sounded valiant, reckless and remarkable—without comment or emotion.

  Perry Blake had been charged in California with the murder of Krystak and in New York for the attempted rape and assault and battery of Abrihet Anbessa. A slew of further state charges were pending. On Monday, federal prosecutors had indicted Blake for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in conspiracy with his father and others. In addition, American, Italian and Mexican prosecutors were sorting out who would charge whom with what in relation to the massacre at the border and the shootout in Italy. The FBI had arrested Walter Blake in Bel Air on the foreign-corruption charges. The investigators were still examining his degree of involvement in the violent crimes.

  “Get this,” Isabel said. “The father wants to cut a deal in exchange for testifying against Perry. And Perry thinks he can help himself by dropping a dime on his father. He says he knows about insider trading, money laundering, political corruption. Going back years.”

  “Let me understand. The Blakes did not order Robles to kill me? He acted alone?”

  “Correct.”

  “What about Italy?”

  The Italian police had arrested a British mercenary living in Naples, an associate of Krystak’s involved in arms trafficking. Krystak had enlisted him for the ambush in Italy.

  “You led them to Abrihet’s brother,” Isabel said. “They knew the brother lived in Italy, but not where. You guys were about to blow things open. Perry wanted to wipe out the three of you and recover the documents. Looks like he told Krystak to use the same script as Tecate, disguise it as a Mafia hit. I think by then Perry was desperate, half crazy. And he only got worse after Robles shot you.”

  Isabel glanced at her phone. She was late for a meeting at the federal building.

  “Isabel, I’m gonna sit with the licenciado for a while,” Pescatore said. “Unless you guys need me.”

  “Stay,” Isabel replied tersely. “Leo, take care of yourself. Sorry, but I have work to do. A big mess to clean up.”

  The final words were directed at Pescatore. Isabel gave Méndez another kiss, her cinnamon-tinged scent a welcome respite from the odors of the hospital and his battered body.

  On her way out, she put her hand on Pescatore’s shoulder. Pescatore put his hand on hers and clasped it tight.

  After she left, Pescatore grinned wryly.

  “Mi querido Valentine,” Méndez said. “My God, you were wounded too. How do you feel?”

  “Sore.” Pescatore patted his left side. “I really haven’t had time to think about it. I’ve been giving statements to multiple agencies, prosecutors. And getting some grief, tell you the truth.”

  “From Isabel.”

  “Yeah, she’s pretty mad. So is the FBI.”

  “And Facundo?”

  “He wasn’t overjoyed. But he’s cool. Practical. He figures it’s the results that count. Don’t get me wrong, I know I made mistakes. For a while, I thought they might charge me with something.”

  “And?”

  “Isabel wouldn’t let that happen. Funny how the government works. She’s sitting pretty because she was after the Blakes from the start. Her bosses are the ones in the doghouse now.”

  “Good.”

  Pescatore sighed. “Look, when Robles gave up Noonan, I ran with that info. I was scared that if I told anyone, the Blakes would find out. I thought the Blakes had pretty much infiltrated law enforcement.”

  “To some extent, you were right.”

  “To some extent. The FBI arrested a lawyer in Washington, at Sylvester Daniels’s firm, and people in government connected to him. Justice, DHS, Congress. A network. He’s an ex-prosecutor. They were passing him sensitive information for the Blakes and interfering with the investigation. The Blakes were paying them with money and favors. Isabel thinks a congressman might get indicted.”

  “Wonders never cease.”

  “The Blakes threw their weight around. But Krystak didn’t really have informants in field offices or anything. Isabel says I should’ve just called the FBI and they would’ve taken care of business. But she understands why I got paranoid.”

  Méndez nodded. He felt a wave of weakness.

  “You okay?” Pescatore asked. “Want to rest?”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  Méndez remembered the moment at the Madrid airport when Pescatore had given him two envelopes.

  “If I may ask, Valentine,” he said. “How are things with Isabel? And, eh, Fatima? I have the impression your life is…complicated.”

&
nbsp; “You got that right. As soon as I can, I’m going to Paris. I need to resolve some issues. There and here.”

  Méndez said that sounded like a good idea.

  “It’s hard to believe, Leo,” said Pescatore. “All these people hurt and killed. All because of one rich sociopath.”

  “In that sense, a simple story.”

  “It messed with my head. I did things I’m not proud of.”

  “Such as?”

  Pescatore looked down.

  Méndez added: “Not that you have to tell me.”

  “I killed people, for one thing.”

  “You didn’t have much choice.”

  “I guess.” Pescatore sighed. “But that’s not all. There came a point when I needed something from Krystak. He resisted. And I lost it.”

  Haltingly, Pescatore described how he had beaten a handcuffed prisoner.

  “I was angry. Out-of-my-mind angry. About you, Porthos, Abrihet. Still, I crossed a line. I don’t know if that’s a line I can cross back. What do you think?”

  Méndez had heard this kind of confession many times over the years, voluntary or under duress. Cops asking him for absolution, or condemnation, or wisdom. Never an easy task.

  “I don’t know, Valentine. I am not going to judge you. You are your sternest judge. And that’s a good thing. What did Isabel say?”

  “She doesn’t necessarily know the details just yet.”

  “I see.”

  Pescatore leaned back with his arms folded. After a while, he said, “It was scary out in the desert. Not just the shooting. The worst part was feeling all alone. Like I couldn’t trust anybody or anything. You know?”

  “Yes. On the morning they shot me, I spoke to an old acquaintance in Mexico—an influential, cynical man. He predicted that the Blakes would never go to jail, that the American justice system couldn’t touch them. I told him he was wrong. But I admit I was worried.”

  “I’m glad you stuck up for the U.S.A.” Pescatore brightened. “Hey, listen. I brought you something.” He pulled a gift-wrapped object from a pocket. “A souvenir,” Pescatore continued. “From when we caught Blake.”

  “How thoughtful. I—”

  Noises in the hallway interrupted. Voices, running feet. Juan and Renata rushed into the room.

  Ignoring the pain, Méndez held his son and daughter as close as he could with one arm. His heart soared. He had never felt so alive.

  His wife came in. She warned the children to be careful with the wires and bandages. But she ended up wrapping her arms around the three of them.

  By the time the family had calmed down and dried their eyes, Pescatore was gone.

  He had unwrapped the gift and left it on the chair.

  A pair of handcuffs.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank my editor, Asya Muchnick; my agent, Bonnie Nadell; and my trusted readers, Carmen, Carlo, and Sal. And, as always, Valeria and my parents, and our family near and far.

  Any expertise I have I owe to the real experts. I’d especially like to thank Alan Bersin, Stefano Dambruoso, and Enrique Degenhart. There are quite a few other people in the Americas and Europe whose help, insights, and experience contributed to this book in some fashion. But they must remain anonymous because of what they do for a living.

  Finally, I want to thank Steve Engelberg, the editor in chief of ProPublica, and my other colleagues there for their support, wisdom, and inspiration.

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  About the Author

  Sebastian Rotella is the author of Triple Crossing, which the New York Times Sunday Book Review named favorite debut crime novel and action thriller of 2011, and The Convert’s Song (2014), as well as the nonfiction book Twilight on the Line (1998). He is an award-winning foreign correspondent and investigative journalist whose reporting has taken him across the Americas and Europe and to the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa. He is a senior reporter for ProPublica, where he covers international security issues. Previously, he worked for the Los Angeles Times, serving as bureau chief in Paris and Buenos Aires and correspondent at the Mexican border. His honors include a Peabody Award, Columbia University’s Moors Cabot Prize for coverage of Latin America, Italy’s Urbino Press Award, and awards from the Overseas Press Club. He was a Pulitzer finalist in international reporting in 2006 and an Emmy nominee for his work on the Frontline documentary “A Perfect Terrorist” (2011). His reporting at the Mexican border inspired two songs on Bruce Springsteen’s album The Ghost of Tom Joad.

  Also by Sebastian Rotella

  The Convert’s Song

  Triple Crossing

  Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics

  at the U.S.-Mexico Border