The Cartel

by Don Winslow

  Orduña is not fucking around.

  —

  Diego is pissed off that his guests haven’t arrived.

  Maybe, Eddie thinks, they heard about some of El Jefe’s previous menu items. He’s sitting at the table with Diego, waiting to eat. Five sicarios are on guard around the apartment, more in the lobby.

  “I don’t think they’re going to show,” Eddie says.

  “Why not?” Diego asks.

  He’s stressed out, and Eddie gets it. The army is his protection—if they’ve flipped to Barrera, he’s in deep shit. And now the army guys haven’t shown up and aren’t answering their phones.

  “Fuck this,” Eddie says. “I’m out of here.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I don’t know, man,” Eddie says. “I just don’t feel good about this.”

  “Relax,” Diego says. “I got forty men out there. What are you worried about?”

  “I got shit to do, Diego,” Eddie says. “The waifa’s on my ass about getting a bassinette, baby clothes…I got two dealers in Monterrey need straightening out…”

  “Go ahead,” Diego snaps. “Get the fuck out.”

  “Diego…”

  “How about that watch I gave you?” Diego asks. “You like that, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s beautiful. You’re still wearing the boots, huh?” He kisses Diego on the cheek and gets up. “See you later, Tío.”

  “Later.”

  Eddie takes the elevator down, walks out onto the plaza.

  —

  Keller hears the radio call from the helicopter.

  “Target acquired.”

  “Hold,” Orduña says. “Repeat, hold. Let him go.”

  A long five minutes later, Keller hears him say, “Go.”

  The helicopter takes off, flies over the Lomas de Selva neighborhood, and lands on the roof of the Altitude Building. The roof secured, some of the FES evacuate tenants in the higher floors of the building while Keller and the others move down the stairwell toward the second floor.

  Then the armored vehicles race up to the front of the building and start pouring 7.62mm rounds from the machine guns and M-16 fire into the lobby, mowing down Tapia’s sicarios before they can react. Marines rush into the lobby, secure the wounded, and then head up to the second floor.

  As the commandos burst into the second-floor hallway, one of the men inside apartment 201 throws a grenade out the door. Other sicarios fire out the second-floor windows at the troops outside the building, while the others make a fight of it in the stairway.

  Keller is coming down the stairs behind a marine lieutenant when a grenade clatters into the stairway. The lieutenant takes the brunt of the blast and shards of the fragmentation grenade hit him in the neck above his Kevlar vest. Keller squats to feels his pulse, but there is none—the severed artery quickly bleeds him out.

  Drawing his pistol, Keller fires down the stairway as other FES come in behind him. They’re well trained, alternating cover and motion, and drive the sicarios back into the apartment.

  Diego and his five men make a siege of it, holing up in the apartment. Through his headset, monitoring phone traffic, Keller can hear Diego calling Crazy Eddie Ruiz.

  “Where are you, m’ijo? We’re getting fucked to hell here. We’re about to get taken.”

  “Give it up, Diego. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Fuck that. I’m fighting. Get over here with some men.”

  “It’s no good, Tío. They’ve got hundreds of guys out there. Helicopters. Tanks. Give up.”

  Keller listens to a few moments of silence and then hears Diego say, “Okay, m’ijo, you take care of my kids, okay? I’m going to take some of these pendejos with me. Last bullet for myself.”

  They hold out for three more hours.

  Tipping the tables and sofas on their side for cover, they use up most of the ammo for the AKs and AR-15s. Then all they have left are grenades. The FES, already furious at the death of the much-loved lieutenant, are in no hurry to take more casualties. They just keep up the pressure, keep tightening the noose, and force the narcos to expend ammunition.

  At nine that night, when it’s relatively quiet, Orduña gives the order to finish it.

  A small C-4 charge blows the apartment door off.

  Three FES go through the door, M-16s at their shoulders. Each kills a sicario with a two-shot burst to the chest. Keller sees another one of Diego’s men put his pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger. The last jumps out the window, a burst of fire from a rooftop sniper catches him in midair, and he’s dead before he somersaults onto the concrete courtyard.

  Keller sees Diego go through a back door into the hallway toward a freight elevator.

  I guess he decided not to fight it out after all, Keller thinks as he goes after him.

  The elevator door slides open.

  The two FES inside fire bursts of 5.56 hollow-points into Diego’s chest. He staggers backward into the apartment and falls to the floor.

  But still breathing, still alive.

  Orduña comes in from the hallway. He stands over Diego and then looks at Keller.

  Keller turns his back, then hears two shots. When he turns back again there are two neat bullet holes in Diego’s forehead. El Jefe de los Jefes, La Barba, is dead.

  He already looks like an anachronism—the long hair and beard, the tall frame, once heavily muscled, now as thin as some crippled beast starved over the course of a long hard winter.

  Diego Tapia was from another time, and that time is gone.

  Orduña walks out.

  Keller squats down and pulls off Diego’s boots.

  He removes the monitoring device from the left boot and slips it into his pocket.

  What happens next shouldn’t have.

  Inside the apartment, the FES discipline breaks down. Whether out of revenge, or adrenaline, or the sheer heady relief of surviving, some of the commandos yank Diego’s black jeans down around his ankles and pull his shirt up to his neck, displaying his wounds. Then they take some money they find in the apartment—peso and dollar bills—and toss it on the body, then take photos and videos and start texting and tweeting.

  By the time Orduña, furious, gets up there to stop it, the damage is done.

  The images are out on the Net.

  —

  Keller walks away from Lomas de Selva to find “María Fernanda.”

  Crazy Eddie waits in the Zócalo in the shadow of the fresno trees. He looks cool and fresh in a plum polo shirt, white jeans, and loafers.

  Narco Polo, Keller thinks. He walks up to Eddie and says, “He’s dead.”

  Eddie nods. “Diego wasn’t a bad guy, you know? The drugs fucked him up. And the Skinny Lady. I just couldn’t go down with the ship.”

  “You have a chip with me,” Keller says. “Why don’t you cash it in now? I can bring you in safe.”

  “ ‘Let that pickup man haul in’?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Old song about rodeo,” Eddie says. “No, I ain’t done with my ride yet.”

  “You’re on the list, Eddie.”

  Actually, he just moved up one slot.

  “Right,” Eddie says. “Because that’s what you guys do now, isn’t it? You just kill people.”

  “Doesn’t have to end that way,” Keller says.

  “The Zetas,” Eddie says, “that’s who you should be going after. They’re pure evil, man.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “Fuck you.” Eddie looks around the Zócalo for a second and then says, “You know? Someone’s always going to be selling this shit. It might as well be someone who doesn’t kill women and kids. If someone’s going to do it, you guys might as well let someone like me do it.”

  Keller lets him walk away. Could have taken him right there, but that wasn’t part of their deal.

  —

  Adán looks at the photos of his old primo’s bullet-shredded corpse and tells Nacho, “You’d think
I’d be happier.”

  “We were all friends once.”

  “I think about Chele and the kids.”

  Nacho has no answer for that. He’s fond of Chele, they all are.

  “Drive home the message,” Adán says.

  They talk business for a few more minutes—Martín Tapia might keep up the fight, but will be at most an annoyance. Eddie Ruiz won’t pick up Diego’s fallen banner. He’ll start his own organization, and as long as he stays out of the war, Adán is willing to let him be. Payback for Sal can wait until the war is over.

  When Nacho leaves, Adán goes into his bedroom. Eva is already asleep, or pretending to be.

  It’s odd, Adán thinks, how life gets lonelier.

  The next morning, two bound and beaten bodies of Tapia sicarios are found hanging by the necks from a bridge in Culiacán with a banner that reads THIS TERRITORY ALREADY HAS AN OWNER—ADÁN BARRERA.

  —

  Looking at the photos of Diego’s body, Heriberto Ochoa, the head of the Zetas, is furious.

  And concerned.

  The government has finally figured out that to fight special forces you need special forces. No one saw it coming, and no one—not Diego or Martín, not even Barrera, managed to find out about this new unit, much less infiltrate or suborn it.

  And this FES is very, very good.

  A direct challenge to the Zetas.

  As a special-ops vet, Ochoa recognizes the Lomas de Selva raid for what it was—not a law enforcement operation, but an execution.

  Well done.

  But this, he thinks, looking at the photos that are all over the Internet, this was unnecessary. To strip Diego and mock him, boast about murdering him, and then post pictures of it on the Net?

  The FES needs to be taught a lesson.

  Taught not to behave this way.

  Taught that we’re not going to be intimidated.

  Taught that we’re the ones who intimidate.

  He gives the orders.

  —

  Keller stands to the side as six FES, in their cammie fatigues, with blue vests marked MARINA in white, carry the flag-draped casket of Lieutenant Angulo Córdova from the funeral home in his small hometown of Ojinaga, on the south bank of the Río Bravo in Chihuahua.

  Trumpets and drums from a military band play as the casket is carried through the crowd of family, friends, and townspeople, who quietly applaud as the casket passes by. Middle-class or poor, Keller notices, they’re dressed in their best clothes—the women in plain dresses, the men in jeans and white shirts. They’re subdued and respectful, some weeping quietly, and Keller is struck again by the difference between Americans and Mexicans. Americans take their strength in victories, Mexicans’ strength is in their ability to suffer loss.

  One of the people is Marisol.

  She and Keller look across the coffin at each other.

  He can see her eyes beneath her black veil.

  Keller falls in beside Orduña as the crowd follows the hearse to the little cemetery at the edge of town.

  An honor guard of sailors in dress white marches behind the hearse, the band plays a dirge.

  At least there’s no wife and kids, Keller thinks. But there is a grieving mother, supported, literally, by Córdova’s sister, brother, and aunt.

  Marisol walks behind them.

  The Christmas decorations on the street give the funeral parade an added poignancy.

  Orduña gives a speech at the gravesite. Talks about Córdova’s character, his courage, his service, his sacrifice. When he’s done, an old man in a tattered vest and a knit cap raises his hand and asks to speak.

  “I’ve known this man since he was a boy,” the viejo says. “He was a good boy and a good man. He sent money home to his family. He died for our Republic. Our Republic. We can’t give away our Republic to drug dealers and criminals. I’m sorry this man is dead, but he died fighting these animals. That is all I have to say.”

  Orduña thanks him and then signals the honor guard. The soldiers raise their M-16s to their shoulders and fire three salutes into the air. Then, at Orduña’s orders, they attach bayonets and stand at guard. Two marines take the Mexican flag from the casket, fold it, and hand it to Córdova’s mother.

  A trumpet plays as the casket is lowered into the ground.

  After the ceremony, Keller is unsure whether or not he should approach Marisol. It’s awkward—they haven’t spoken in a long time.

  She solves his dilemma by coming up to him. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You, too,” he says. “I take it you know the family.”

  “Since I was a little girl,” she says. “I’m their doctor now. What’s your connection?”

  Keller hesitates before he answers and then says, “I worked with him.”

  “Oh.” The obvious question is right there in her eyes, but Keller doesn’t answer it. Luckily for him, Córdova’s younger sister walks up. “My mother would like you to come back to the house. Both of you.”

  “I don’t want to intrude,” Keller says.

  There was a wake at the house the night before the funeral, when friends came to view the body and pay their respects. The time after the burial is usually reserved for the family.

  “Please come,” the sister says.

  The house is modest, clean, and well kept. The aunts have laid food out on a table and Córdova’s mother sits in an upholstered chair in the corner. Irma Córdova is a handsome woman, quietly elegant in a black tunic over black pants. Her iron-gray hair is pulled back into a bun. Keller can see where Angulo got his strength. She gestures Keller to come over.

  “You were with my son when he died,” Irma says.

  “Yes,” Keller says. “It was quick. He didn’t suffer at all.”

  Irma takes his hand and closes her eyes.

  “Your son was a brave man,” Keller says. “You should be very proud of him.”

  “I am,” she says. She opens her eyes. “But tell me, was it worth it?”

  Keller squeezes her hand.

  He stays for a couple of hours, talking with Córdova’s family. A few of the cousins are there, and Orduña, and eventually they start talking about Angulo as a boy, and a teenager, and then the funny stories start, and the quiet laughter, and more tears. It’s twilight when Orduña gets up to leave for the long drive to the airport and the flight back to Mexico City.

  Marisol looks at Keller and says, “I’m driving back.”

  “To Valverde?” It’s a long drive. Hours on a dangerous road through dangerous country.

  “Yes.”

  “Alone?” Keller asks.

  She thinks about it for a few seconds before saying, “I could use some company.”

  Keller goes to Orduña to tell him that he won’t be driving back with him.

  Orduña smiles. “La Médica Hermosa? I can’t say I blame you.”

  “We’ve known each other for a while.”

  “I know all about it, Arturo.”

  “You have a problem with it?”

  “Only envy,” Orduña says. “Go with God.”

  When Keller and Marisol go to leave, Irma insists on getting up and seeing them to the door.

  “Thank you for coming,” she says.

  “It was my honor,” Keller answers.

  She takes Keller’s hand again. “Arturo, you do not avenge a murder by killing—you avenge it by living.”

  —

  It’s ninety miles on Carretera 2 back to Valverde—every car and truck potentially full of narcos, potentially deadly, and army checkpoints that are just as dangerous. The soldiers at the checkpoints know Marisol and are prepared to give her a bad time but are confused by the gringo behind the wheel, especially when he shows them the DEA badge.

  “They’re afraid of you,” Marisol says as they pull away from the checkpoint outside of Práxedis.

  Keller shrugs.

  “We don’t think much of the army here in the valley,” Marisol says.

  She tells him t
he whole story—the land seizures, the arrests, the torture. If it weren’t Marisol telling him, he’d think it was an exaggeration, liberal paranoia. But Marisol he believes, even when she concludes, “The army isn’t fighting the cartels, the army is a cartel.”

  Keller tries to take it all in.

  Then Marisol aks, “What were you doing with the FES? I thought you were some kind of policy wonk.”

  “No you didn’t,” Keller answers.

  “No, I didn’t,” she says. “I only hoped.”

  “I can’t do this with you, Marisol.”

  “Do what?”

  “Play the cop-who-can’t-talk-to-his-woman-about-what-he-does scene,” Keller answers. “Played it once already. It didn’t work.”

  “Then talk to me,” she says. “Tell me.”

  He knows it’s one of those moments. He either doesn’t answer, or comes up with some half-clever evasion that won’t fool her, and their relationship is over for good. Or he tells her, and their relationship is…what?

  “I go after narcos,” Keller says. “I kill them.”

  “I see.”

  Cold.

  “And I’m not going to stop until I get Barrera.”

  “Why him so particularly?”

  Keller starts to talk and then he can’t stop. He tells her everything—about his friendship with the young Adán Barrera, how Barrera tortured and killed his partner Ernie Hidalgo. He tells her about Barrera throwing two children off a bridge to their deaths. He tells her about Barrera ordering the slaughter of nineteen innocent men, women, and children to punish a nonexistent informer that Keller invented to protect the real one.

  “So you blame yourself,” Marisol says.

  “No, I blame him,” Keller answers. “I blame both of us.”

  “And this is why you do what you do.”

  “He killed people I loved,” Keller says. “He’s evil. I know that’s an old-fashioned concept, but I’m an old-fashioned guy. The truth of the matter is that he wants to kill me, too, and that’s why I can’t be with you.”

  They sit silently until they get to Valverde. Keller is shocked by the look of the little town—houses and shops boarded up, bullet-riddled stucco, army patrols rolling down the street in green trucks with searchlights sweeping to the front and sides.