The Border: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  Tito knows that killing Manuel Sr.—boss of a small cell who spoke with the woman reporter—would scare people but not terrify them.

  This story will get out and people will be terrified.

  He shouts to Manuel, “See what you did with your big mouth?! See what you did to your own son?!”

  “No! Please!”

  Manuel Sr. begs Tito to spare his son. “Do what you want with me, but don’t hurt my boy. He’s innocent, he’s done nothing.” When he sees it’s futile, he begs for them to kill him first. But one of Tito’s men walks up behind Manuel Sr., and with his thumbs and forefingers holds his eyes open. “Watch.”

  The boy yells, “Papi!”

  Tito gives the signal.

  Another one of his men pushes the plunger.

  The boy explodes.

  Tito’s guys laugh. It’s funny. Like a cartoon.

  Manuel Sr. screams and yells. Tito’s man walks away from him. When he’s far enough, Tito gives the signal again.

  Manuel Sr. explodes.

  More laughter.

  As kids they blew up frogs with M-80s.

  Now they can blow up people.

  The video clip is out on social media within an hour.

  It goes viral.

  Victoria Mora leaves her house in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. She gets into her BMW and sets her briefcase down on the passenger seat. She’s reaching over to pull down the seat belt when the truck roars up behind her, trapping her car in the driveway.

  A man gets out of the truck, walks up beside the BMW on the driver’s side, and rakes it with AR-15 fire.

  The bullets chop Victoria to pieces.

  The man gets back in the truck and it drives off.

  A woman out walking her dog screams.

  The girl is ten years old.

  Her father, an accountant who spoke with Ana, is handcuffed to a heating pipe in the warehouse. A man holds his head and makes him watch while seven of Tito’s men take turns on his little girl.

  When they’re finished, they cut her throat.

  They let her father absorb this for twenty minutes, then they take baseball bats and beat him to death.

  Óscar Herrera is the last one in the office of El Periódico.

  He sent everyone else home.

  Now he writes his last article, announcing that the paper will cease publication after this issue. He cannot allow any more reporters to be murdered. Óscar finishes the column, gets up, grabs his cane and shuts off the lights.

  Keller knows it was Caro.

  Who ordered Ana’s murder.

  Keller and Marisol flew to El Paso and then drove over to Juárez—both American and Mexican officials going nuts that the head of the DEA was coming without the proper security preparation.

  “I’m going,” Keller said.

  In that tone that let people know not to argue with him.

  Federales, Chihuahua state police and Juárez city cops met them at the crossing and insisted that they leave their rental car and get in the motorcade. Keller assented and Marisol didn’t care at all.

  Her heart was broken.

  And her mind set on justice.

  “Who did this?” she’d asked Keller when the shock had worn off a little.

  “We don’t know,” Keller said. “She was digging into the Tristeza matter. She interviewed Rafael Caro.”

  “Is there a connection?”

  “Look, Mari . . .”

  He told her about the syndicate and the loan to Terra, and then that Ana had told him about an anonymous source that connected it all to Caro.

  Mari isn’t stupid. She got it right away. “Victoria Mora.”

  Killed just hours after Ana. And now Mateo is an orphan, both parents murdered by the cartels.

  “Probably,” Keller said. He didn’t add the obvious, that Ana had given her torturers Victoria’s name.

  Ana’s funeral was brutal.

  Pathetic in the true sense of the word.

  The autumn north wind swirled dust and garbage around their ankles at the Panteón del Tepeyac cemetery. The gathering was small: a couple of reporters, a few people who had come down from Valverde, and it occurred to Keller that many of the people who would otherwise have been there—journalists and activists—were already in graves.

  Giorgio would have been there, but Giorgio was dead.

  Jimena would have been there, but Jimena was dead.

  Pablo would have been there, but Pablo was dead.

  Óscar Herrera was there.

  Leaning on his cane, looking old and frail, as if the norteño might blow him away. He said little, only brief muttered greetings, and declined to speak, just shaking his head, when the opportunity arose to eulogize Ana.

  Marisol stood and recited from one of Ana’s favorite poets, Pita Amor—

  “I’m vain, a tyrant, blasphemous, prideful, haughty, ungrateful, disdainful /But I keep the complexion of a rose.”

  Marisol broke down, then recovered. “And I say, in the words of Susana Chávez Castillo—also a daughter of Juárez, also murdered in this city for her social activism in the cause of murdered women—‘Not one more.’”

  A priest said some words.

  A guitarist sang “Guantanamera.”

  The coffin was lowered into the ground.

  That was it.

  There was a little talk about gathering somewhere afterward to share memories but it didn’t come together. The police escorted Keller and Marisol back to the border and they drove to the airport.

  Now Keller watches the president-elect on television.

  “We must end the illegal flow of drugs, cash, guns and people across the border that is fueling the crisis, end sanctuary cities that provide a haven for drug traffickers, and put the cartels out of business once and for all.”

  Except, Keller thinks, you’re in business with them.

  “I’m transferring you,” Keller says to Hidalgo back in the office. “Any spot you want except Mexico, but as far away from me as possible. When I get blown up, I don’t want you to catch the shrapnel.”

  “Too late,” Hidalgo says. “I’m linked with you. The new administration will send me to Bucharest. Howard would send me to the moon if we had an office there.”

  “Then take the new assignment while you have the chance.”

  “I want to see this case through.”

  “No.”

  “Why?” Hidalgo asks. “Because it’s leading to Caro? Because you think I can’t control myself? I can.”

  “There are other reasons I don’t want to put you any closer to Caro,” Keller says. Caro was one of the people who killed Hugo’s dad and Keller is scared to death of putting the kid in the same situation.

  “Don’t punish me for your guilt,” Hidalgo says. “I know my father was two weeks from transferring out of Guadalajara when he was killed. But it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Okay, it was, whatever,” Hidalgo says. “Carry your goddamn cross around but don’t drop it on me. I want to finish what my dad started.”

  “You’re putting me in a tough position here, Hugo.”

  “Boo fucking hoo,” Hidalgo says. He looks at the floor for a second, then looks back up and asks, “I mean, you are going to pursue this, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Hidalgo looks right at him. Reminds Keller of his old man. “You and Ruiz.”

  Keller holds his stare. “Yeah? What about me and Ruiz?”

  “Come on, boss.”

  “You brought it up, not me.”

  “Ruiz was a source of yours in Mexico,” Hidalgo says. “And there are stories that the two of you were together on some covert mission in Guatemala.”

  Keller doesn’t react.

  Hidalgo says, “Then you have Ruiz’s PSI power washed.”

  “You been digging around?” Keller asks. “I have you up my ass now?”

  “I’m on your side,” Hugo says. “I just want to
know where the lines are.”

  “What do you want to ask me, Hugo?”

  “Does Ruiz have something on you?”

  “If you’re wired up,” Keller says, “it will break my heart.”

  “How can you ask me that?”

  “The times we live in,” Keller says.

  “I’m not wired,” Hidalgo says. “Jesus, I’d lie to protect you.”

  “That’s what I don’t want,” Keller says. “We will arrest Eddie Ruiz when he’s taken us to the top of the pyramid, and when we do, he will threaten me with something he knows. And I will not yield to that threat.”

  “And you’ll take Caro down with you.”

  “If I can.”

  “I want in on that,” Hidalgo says.

  “It will destroy your career.”

  “I can catch on with some PD somewhere,” Hidalgo says. “You owe this to me.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “For my dad.”

  “You fight dirty, Hugo.”

  “It’s a dirty fight,” Hidalgo says.

  “All right,” Keller says. “I’ll keep you on this. Ruiz and Caro are eating what we serve them now. So we poison the food, feed them bad information. We’ll do that through you.”

  Hidalgo stands up. “I’m not saying that you killed Adán Barrera. But if you did . . . thank you.”

  He leaves.

  You’re welcome, Keller thinks.

  Now it’s time to take down Caro, Ruiz, Darnell, and Lerner, and, yes, Dennison if it comes to that.

  All those sons of bitches who killed forty-nine kids—

  who killed Ana—

  to cover up their dirty money deal.

  3

  Bad Hombres

  Some bad hombres have come in here and we’re going to get them out.

  —John Dennison

  America is heaven.

  This was Nico’s first thought, over a year ago now, when the migra picked him up, wrapped him in a blanket, put him in their car and cranked the heat up. Then they gave him a hamburger and a chocolate bar, which Nico wolfed down like he hadn’t eaten in days, which he hadn’t.

  This is El Norte, Nico thought.

  Everything he’d heard was true—it was wonderful. He’d never had an entire hamburger before.

  The migra smiled at him, asked him questions in Spanish—What’s your name? How old are you? Where are you from? Nico told the truth about his name and his age, but told them he was from Mexico because he’d heard that was better.

  “Don’t lie to us, hijo,” one of the migra said. “You’re not Mexican.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Listen to me,” the migra said. “We’re trying to help you. If you’re from Mexico, you’re going straight back on the next bus. You’re a Guaty, I can tell from your accent. Now tell the truth.”

  Nico nodded. “I’m from Guatemala.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “My father is dead,” Nico said. “My mother is in El Basurero.”

  “You came alone?”

  Nico nodded.

  “All the way from Guat City?”

  Nico nodded again.

  “On what? The train? La Bestia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  They took him to a building and put him in a cell. It was really cold—the air-conditioning was blasting—and Nico heard one of the migra say, “The kid is still wet, he’s going to freeze in there.”

  Another man said, “I’ll find him something.”

  Nico was amazed because a few minutes later the man came back with some clothes. They were old and too big, but they were clean—a sweatshirt and some sweatpants. Clean white socks and a pair of sneakers.

  “Get out of those wet things,” the man said. “You don’t want to catch cold.”

  Nico changed into the new clothes.

  There was a cot in the cell. He lay down and before he knew it fell asleep. When he woke up, they gave him another burger and a Coke, and a white plastic bag with his old clothes in it. Then they put him on a bus with a lot of other migrants, mostly women with their children.

  A few were Guatemalan, others were from El Salvador or Honduras. Nico was the only kid there by himself, and he sat quietly and looked out the window at the flat, dry Texas plain and wondered where they were going.

  The bus drove through a little town that looked empty, as if everyone just left. Nico saw boarded-up stores and a restaurant with a closed sign. A larger sign showed a slice of watermelon and said dilley.

  A few minutes later he saw a long wire fence with some low white buildings behind it. The buildings looked new. The bus stopped at the gate, where a guard talked with the driver for a second, and then drove in.

  The gate swung closed behind them.

  Nico saw that the buildings were really big trailers.

  Everyone started to get off the bus so he got off, too, and followed them into one of the trailers and sat down on a bench. A guard behind a wooden desk sat and called out names, and those people would go into another room.

  Finally, he heard his name.

  The guard led him into a little room and told him to sit down in a chair in front of a desk. The woman behind the desk had brown skin and big brown eyes and black hair, talked to him in Spanish. “Nico Ramírez. My name is Donna, Nico. I’m your case manager. I’ll bet you don’t know what that is.”

  Nico shook his head.

  “That means I’m going to look after you until we can get you where you belong, okay? So first I have to ask you some questions. Do you have any identification, Nico?”

  “No.”

  “But that’s your real name? You’re not telling me stories?”

  “No. I mean, yes. That’s my name.”

  She said, “And your mother is still in Guatemala City?”

  “Yes.”

  “You made this whole trip alone?”

  “No,” Nico said. “I was with a girl named Flor and a girl named Paola.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “I don’t know where Flor is,” Nico said. “Paola died.”

  “I’m sorry,” Donna said. “How did she die?”

  “She got hit by a wire.”

  Donna shook her head. “Do you have any family in the United States, Nico?”

  Nico didn’t answer.

  “Nico,” Donna said, “if you have family here and you’re not saying because you don’t want to get them in trouble, I don’t care if they’re here legally or not. Do you understand? That isn’t part of my job.”

  Nico thought for a little while. Then he said, “I have an uncle and an aunt.”

  “Where?”

  “In New York.”

  “City?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do you know how to get hold of them?” Donna asked. “Do you have their phone number?”

  “Yes.” He gave her the number.

  “And what are their names?” she asked.

  “My uncle is Javier and my aunt is Consuelo,” Nico said. “López.”

  “Okay,” Donna said. “I’m going to try to call them. Maybe tomorrow I can put you on the phone and you can talk with them. Would you like that?”

  Nico nodded.

  “Now,” Donna said, “would you like to talk to your mother, tell her you’re safe? I’ll bet she’s worried about you. Shall we call her?”

  “She doesn’t have a phone.”

  “Okay,” Donna said. “Maybe she’ll call your aunt and uncle and they can tell her and we’ll figure out how to get hold of her. Now, by law I have to tell you certain things. You’re not going to understand a lot of it, but I still have to tell you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re what we call an ‘unaccompanied alien minor,’” she said. “That means you aren’t in this country legally, so we’re going to detain you. That means we’re going to keep you here. But we’re going to keep you here for as short a time as we can, and then maybe
we can let you go stay with your aunt and uncle. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to ask you a very hard question now,” Donna said. “Do you know what sexual abuse is?”

  Nico shook his head.

  “It means when someone touches your private areas,” Donna said. “Has anyone touched you like that?”

  “No.”

  “And how are you feeling?” she asked. “Are you hurt anywhere? Do you feel sick?”

  Nico didn’t know how to tell her that he hurt everywhere, that his whole body was bruised, cut, sunburned, frozen, hungry and parched. He didn’t have the words to express his sheer exhaustion.

  So he said, “I’m okay.”

  “I’m going to take you to a doctor anyway,” Donna said. “Just to be sure. He’s going to give you a shot called a ‘vaccination’—don’t be afraid, it won’t hurt. And he’s going to test you for tuberculosis, which sometimes happens when you cough a lot. Do you cough a lot, Nico?”

  Nico coughed all the time—he coughed from the smoke of the train, the cold, the dust that got into his nose and mouth and lungs.

  “But first we’re going to get you some clothes,” Donna said. “The ones you have are in pretty tough shape.”

  Donna led him out of the office and down a hallway, and then into a room where there were shelves and shelves of new clothes. Nico couldn’t believe it when she took a shirt and a pair of pants down and then grabbed a pair of socks and a pair of brand-new sneakers and said, “These look about your size. But you don’t want to put them on until you’ve had a shower. Come on.”

  She took him into a large room where there was a shower. “This dial is hot water, this one is cold. There’s soap and shampoo, and there’s a towel. I’ll wait outside, unless you want me to help you.”

  “No.”

  When she left, Nico stripped out of his clothes and walked into the shower stall. It was so clean but it smelled like bleach. He turned the hot dial first and jumped back when the water came out in a hard spray. Stepping around the water, he reached in and turned the cold dial and stuck his finger into the spray until it felt hot but not scalding.