The Border: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  There’s a gap and then three more SUVs.

  That will be Caro, Ric thinks.

  The lead Esparza car comes into the clearing.

  Now Ric sees Iván in the second car, his brothers in the back seat behind him. It’s odd meeting like this, Ric thinks; we should be just sitting down over a beer. Iván’s bodyguards get out of the lead car.

  Rifle shots come from the trees, cutting the bodyguards down.

  Then the fire shifts to Iván’s car.

  It rattles like a junkie.

  Iván tries to pull his gun but he’s hit and spins in his seat.

  Oviedo’s head snaps back.

  Alfredo drops.

  Their car goes madly into reverse, slams into the car behind it. Sicarios pile out of that car, shooting toward the trees, but they are quickly cut down.

  Caro’s cars reverse, speeding backward up the road.

  Iván’s car lurches forward, disengaging, then turns and races away. Ric sees blood streaming from the driver’s arm like a red pennant. Iván slumps forward against the dashboard, his head bouncing back and forth like a broken doll’s.

  The shooting stops.

  Ric whirls on his father. “What did you do?! What did you do?!”

  “What you wouldn’t,” Núñez says.

  It was Iván all the time, Núñez explains on the endless drive to a house out in the country south of Culiacán. Iván who set up the Candlemas attempt on his life, Iván who tipped Tito to the Oficina meeting.

  “I don’t believe that,” Ric says.

  “Which is why I had to act without telling you,” Núñez says.

  “Caro is going to go crazy,” Ric says. “He’ll keep us out of the syndicate, ostracize us, maybe even move against us.”

  “He will at first,” Núñez says. “But he’s a practical man. With the Esparzas dead, he has to come to us. He has nowhere else to go.”

  “Elena. Tito.”

  “At the end of the day Caro’s a Sinaloan,” Núñez says. “He won’t go with an outsider over his own people. When I explain to him that Iván tried to have us killed, he’ll come around. I’m sorry, I know you thought Iván was your friend.”

  “He was.”

  “He was using you,” Núñez says. “Ric, you would never become el patrón with Iván alive. He would never have allowed it.”

  “I don’t care about that. I never wanted it.”

  “It’s your legacy. Your godfather wanted it for you.”

  “You killed my friend!”

  “And you know the truth,” Núñez says. “When you’re ready to admit it to yourself, you’ll thank me.”

  Thank you? Ric thinks.

  You’ve destroyed us.

  You’ve killed us.

  Iván isn’t dead.

  Neither is Oviedo or Alfredo.

  They’re wounded, they’re shot up, but they’re alive. Their driver made it to a side road, up to a village where the people are loyal to the Esparzas and gave them shelter. Sent for a doctor who patched them up.

  This is the story that reached Caro.

  That Ricardo Núñez swung for the fences and missed.

  Exactly as Caro knew he would.

  There’s an old joke about prison:

  A white-collar criminal—and that’s what Núñez is, still just a lawyer at heart, not a real narco—is confronted by his enormous mayate cellmate, who says, “We have a game here. We play house. Now, do you want to be the husband or the wife?”

  The white-collar criminal thinks through the choices, both of them bad but one of them worse, and says, “I’ll be the husband.” The mayate nods and says, “Okay, husband—now get down on your knees and suck your wife’s cock.”

  This is the position Caro put Núñez in. Whichever choice he made, he’d lose. If he let Iván Esparza cut him out of the syndicate, he lost. If he took violent action against Iván, he lost. Now Caro can go to Núñez’s political friends and say, “Look, he’s out of control. I guaranteed everyone’s safety and he violated that. We can’t trust him.”

  It was a no-lose scenario for Caro—if the Esparzas prevailed, he would ally with them, if Núñez won, he’d make do with the lawyer. Either way, half of the potential rivals in the Sinaloa cartel would be eliminated.

  And Núñez had managed to procure the worst possible outcome—he had violated the security agreement but not killed the Esparzas. Now his enemies are still in place and they hold the moral high ground.

  Núñez has dug himself into a deep hole.

  Now all that’s left is to shovel dirt on him.

  There’s only one loose thread hanging.

  Tristeza.

  That bitch reporter knows something. Even if she doesn’t, even if she’s just fishing, throwing lines in the water to see if he’d bite, she can’t be allowed to spew her lies in the newspapers.

  She especially can’t be allowed to tell the truth.

  Caro puts out the order.

  The indictment was sealed, but it was leaked to Núñez.

  Ric reads it.

  IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA—Alexandria Division—

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  v.

  RICARDO NÚÑEZ

  Also known as “El Abogado”

  Count 1: 21 U.S.C. 959, 960, 963

  (conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine for importation into the United States).

  Count 2: U.S.C. Code 952

  (conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of heroin for importation into the United States).

  Count 3: 18 U.S.C. 1956(h) 3238

  (conspiracy to commit money laundering).

  “The DEA will be coming after me now,” Núñez says.

  “The government will protect us,” Ric says.

  “We might have lost our friends in the government,” Núñez says. “In any case, we can’t take the chance. I’m going into the wind. I suggest you take your family and do the same.”

  “Am I indicted?”

  “I don’t know,” Núñez says. “I haven’t seen an indictment—but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Go. Go now. If we’ve lost our friends in the government, it could mean that the police, the army, maybe the marines, are coming. If you’re captured and extradited, that would be the end. The thing now is to survive until we can straighten this out.”

  Straighten this out? Ric asks himself. How the fuck are we going to “straighten this out”?! It’s been ten days since the ambush on the Humaya, and the world seems to be turning against them.

  Allies won’t take calls. Cops, prosecutors, politicians and reporters who have taken our money, attended our parties, shown up dutifully at weddings, baptisms and funerals don’t know our names anymore.

  Cell leaders in Sinaloa, sicarios in Baja, growers in Durango and Guerrero have openly announced their allegiance to the Esparzas. Others haven’t been so brazen, but they’re wavering under intense pressure.

  Just two days ago, a thirty-truck convoy full of Esparza gunmen rolled into a Núñez-controlled town, kidnapped four of our people and burned buildings and vehicles. Announced that it was a warning for all towns and villages that supported the “criminal Núñez faction.”

  But we haven’t responded, Ric thinks, haven’t retaliated, haven’t shown the strength that could reassure our people. Part of the reason is that Núñez has been in a funk, almost a depression, keeping to his room. The other reason is that the gunmen we’d use to carry out a retaliation aren’t answering their phones.

  And Iván has been all over social media—Twitter, Snapchat, all of it—denouncing the “chickenshit, sneaky ambush.” He’s attacked Ric personally—“My cuate, my good friend, my old pal Mini-Ric tried to kill me. While he was talking peace and brotherhood out of one side of his mouth, the little bitch was ordering my murder with the other. He’s just like his old man—the douche doesn’t fall far from the bag.”

  He added an audio clip from Tupac:
>
  Who shot me? But you punks didn’t finish

  Now you’re going to face the wrath of the menace . . .

  Damien weighed in—“I guess Barrera’s godson takes his legacy seriously. He betrays his best friends just like his godfather did.”

  There’ve been thousands of posts responding, almost all of them supporting the Esparzas and banging on the Núñezes.

  Iván’s now the righteous victim.

  We’re the turncoats, the sleazy cowards, Ric thinks.

  Iván is cool, I’m a bitch.

  His father doesn’t get it, but Ric takes it seriously, knows that losing the social media war could mean losing the actual war.

  And now we’re at war with Iván.

  Not just tensions, a shooting war.

  We’re at war with Iván, we’re at war with Elena, we’re at war with Damien, we’re at war with Tito. We can’t go to Caro to broker peace. As far as joining the syndicate is concerned, well, forget that.

  And now the Americans are coming after us.

  “We still have resources,” Núñez is saying, “we still have friends and allies. It’s a matter of keeping our heads down for a while until we can consolidate our support.”

  Okay, Ric thinks.

  Take your family and go.

  Yeah, except his family doesn’t want to go.

  “I’m not indicted,” Karin says when Ric goes home and tells her to pack. “There are no charges against me. I didn’t try to kill Iván. Why should I go on the run?”

  “To be with your husband?”

  “How can you hide with a wife and kid in tow?” Karin asks. “You can’t move quickly, you can’t move fast. You’d be worried about protecting us.”

  “You’d just be more comfortable at home.”

  “Of course I would,” she says. “So would your daughter.”

  “Así es.”

  “Don’t put this on me,” Karin says. “You made your choices.”

  “You didn’t mind the money, did you?” Ric asks. “You took the houses, the cars, the jewelry, the meals, the suites, the prestige . . .”

  “Are you done?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ric says. “I’m done.”

  He throws a few things in a bag and takes off.

  The Young Wolf isn’t going to be an old wolf.

  Chained to a chair set on a concrete floor in some basement, he’s been around the life long enough to know there’s only one way this ends.

  He feels stupid.

  First for coming to Baja, thinking he could stage a daring raid on the enemy’s home turf. Then for meeting this hot chick, going home with her, accepting a drink. Next thing he knows he wakes up in this chair.

  No, I shouldn’t have come here, he thinks.

  Because I’m never leaving.

  Now the hot chick comes in and smiles down on him.

  “You’re really cute, Damien, you know that?” she says. “It’s too bad what I have to do to you. I’m with Sinaloa, and they said I have to hurt you, really bad, for a long time.”

  Now he knows who she is.

  He’s heard about La Fósfora.

  She’s psycho.

  “You’re still groggy,” she says, “so we have to wait for the dope to wear off. I mean the point is that it hurts, right? Sorry, it’s just, you know, my job.”

  Ric runs to La Paz.

  Belinda doesn’t tell him who she has down in the basement.

  He’d object.

  “I’m going off the radar for a while,” Ric says. He tells her about the indictment, about the pressure on them since the Esparza ambush.

  “I’ll set up security for you,” Belinda says.

  “About that . . .”

  “What?”

  “My father wants his old guy back, Aleja.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” she asks.

  “We can give you more territory.”

  “You’re going to give me what I can just take?” she asks. “La Paz is mine because it’s mine.”

  “Don’t be this way.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Look, I have to go.”

  “Go.”

  Damien watches the girl come back down the stairs.

  Tries to keep his shit together because he knows it’s going to start now. He’s heard the stories about her—acid baths, chopping off people’s arms . . . He wants to go out like a man, not disgrace his name, but he’s scared, really scared.

  He just wants his mother.

  La Fósfora smiles down at him again.

  “It’s your lucky day, Young Wolf,” she says. “I just got off the phone with Tito Ascensión.”

  “I thought you were with Sinaloa.”

  “I thought so, too,” she says. “I guess we were both wrong. Anyway, you get a pass, Damien. You can thank your uncle Tito.”

  She unshackles him.

  He gets the fuck out of La Paz.

  So does Ric.

  He runs.

  The Owl blinks.

  Legendary editor Óscar Herrera, the dean of Mexican newspapermen, sits with his stiff leg propped up on his desk at El Periódico. The Barreras tried to kill him years ago but didn’t finish the job. Three bullets in his leg and hip left him with a limp and a cane.

  Now he stares at Ana and blinks.

  Ana doesn’t blink. She’s worked for Óscar for coming on twenty years and she knows the secret to pitching him a story is to show no doubt or hesitation. He got his nickname because he sees everything, in light or in darkness.

  So she doesn’t back down when he says, “Your story is pure conjecture.”

  “Nothing is pure,” Ana says. “And it’s not a story yet. That’s why I want the time to develop it.”

  “You were just supposed to interview Caro.”

  “I did,” Ana says. “Print it.”

  “You went fishing on Tristeza,” Óscar says, “and came up with an empty hook.”

  “He was lying,” Ana says. “I could see it in his eyes.”

  “Certainly you don’t expect me to print a story based on your psychic abilities,” Óscar says.

  “No, I expect you to let me go out and get the evidence,” Ana says. “The Tristeza story is bullshit.”

  A small-town mayor orders narcos to murder forty-nine students over a protest? she thinks. Doesn’t pass the smell test. The “rival gang” theory stinks, too. Guerreros Unidos are stone-cold narcos, but they’re not the Zetas. They wouldn’t pull the missing forty-three kids—boys and girls—off a bus and kill them because they thought a few of them might be aligned with Los Rojos.

  It’s classic government cover-up—put out competing, contradictory explanations to obfuscate the real story.

  Which, Ana is convinced, is about heroin.

  She’s plumbed all her sources on this, interviewed survivors, other students, teachers. She’s talked to city cops, state cops, federales and soldiers, met secretly with narcos from GU, Los Rojos, Sinaloa and the old Tapia group.

  No one has the whole story, but start to put their pieces together and a picture starts to emerge:

  Damien Tapia stole heroin from Ricardo Núñez.

  GU and the Rentería brothers put the heroin on the buses they’ve been using to move drugs out of Guerrero.

  The students unluckily hijacked one of the heroin-laden buses.

  Palomas was hooked up with GU.

  She gave the orders—get the dope back and kill the students.

  That’s where it falls apart, Ana thinks. If the recovery of the heroin was the motive for stopping the buses, why not just take the drugs back? Why kill all those kids? Why take them away to shoot them and burn their bodies? Why do the police take the kids to three police stations before turning them over to GU?

  Because it was an evolving situation, Ana thinks. Because the cops were getting different orders as events ensued. And the kids were killed, she thinks, not to get the heroin back, but to protect the transportation system. The Renterías, Palomas and
GU didn’t want Núñez to find out they were moving his stolen heroin for Damien Tapia.

  Maybe, she thinks.

  That was part of it.

  Or maybe it was to protect the people behind the transportation system.

  Nothing has come out about any further investigation into the mass murder. Damien Tapia is a relatively small player, only one step up from the Rentería brothers. He doesn’t have serious political influence.

  So who does?

  Who’s covering it up?

  It’s not Núñez—he has the political weight, but no motive for covering up Tristeza. For the same reason, it isn’t Iván Esparza or Elena Sánchez. And Tito Ascensión has nothing to do with it.

  The rumor among the old Tapia people is that Damien was moving his heroin up to Eddie Ruiz. Even if it’s true, it’s a dead end, because Ruiz has no political influence in Mexico and no sway with anyone who matters here.

  Except Eddie was in prison with Rafael Caro.

  The only reaction she got from Caro during their entire interview was when she mentioned Eddie. And the old man, who remembers everything, feigned that he didn’t even know that Eddie was in the cell above him.

  Is that what they thought they were protecting by killing the students? The connection to Caro?

  She lays the theory out to Óscar.

  “A man who’s been in solitary confinement for twenty years?” Óscar asks.

  “He’s an icon.”

  “I’m an icon,” Óscar says, “and I have no power whatsoever. Caro’s ancient history, he has no organization behind him.”

  “Maybe that’s the point,” Ana says. “He’s neutral, he can provide good offices. Rumor has it that he negotiated the release of the Esparza brothers.”

  “Being an éminence grise is not equivalent to political influence.”

  No, Ana thinks, but money is.

  Money and politics are rice and beans.

  And yesterday she got a call from Victoria Mora, Pablo’s widow, now a financial reporter for El Nacional. Victoria is a conservative, a no-nonsense, by-the-numbers business analyst who relayed a story that she didn’t want to investigate herself. She said that there’s talk in banking circles about HBMX forming a syndicate to lend $300 million to an American real estate concern.