by Don Mann
His head was cut off in Guanajuato City, east of Guadalajara, where it was displayed for ten years. It was finally taken down and buried when Father Hidalgo’s goal of Mexican independence was achieved in 1821.
“Mexicans seem to have a thing about cutting people’s heads off,” remarked Akil, referring to a recent spate of Ciudad Juárez drug vendettas that had been reported in the U.S. press.
Suárez, whose mother’s family hailed from the colonial city of Puebla, east of Mexico City, turned to Mancini and asked, “Where did you learn all that?”
“I guess nobody told you that Manny’s really an oral encyclopedia,” Davis answered.
“More like a freak who reads constantly and never sleeps,” Akil added.
“But don’t cross him. ’Cause he’s crazy strong. Bench presses three seventy-five like it’s nothing, even though he looks like a puss.”
They had passed through Immigration and were retrieving their bags.
Grabbing Suárez by the shoulder, Mancini said, “You probably know that Mexican independence is celebrated on September sixteenth, which is the day in 1810 when Father Hidalgo gave a speech called the Grito de Dolores during Mass, which was essentially a battle cry for independence. I can quote a few lines from it, if you like.”
“Are you part Mexican?” Suárez asked.
Davis answered before Mancini got a chance. “Joey Mancini. He’s as Italian as meatballs and spaghetti.”
Akil whispered into Suárez’s ear, “Don’t tell anyone, but Mancini’s our secret weapon. We use him to bore people to death.”
Suárez choked back a laugh.
“Akil thinks it’s cool to be ignorant,” Mancini responded. “He believes that his boyish insouciance makes him more attractive to the random chicks he picks up in bars and hotel lounges.”
Akil: “What the fuck does ‘insouciance’ even mean?”
“Look it up, Akil. Any good psychologist can tell you that you’re compensating for your small dick and latent homosexuality.”
“You wish, Manny.”
Crocker always enjoyed Mexico and had visited almost a dozen times. The last was a cave-diving trip that he had taken with Holly to the Yucatán. Not only were the underground air and cave water restorative, but as they swam and looked up at patches of sky through holes in the caves, Crocker felt that they were in the presence of spirits that were thousands of years old.
There was something deep and mysterious about the country. He wasn’t a big reader, but his interest in military campaigns had drawn him to the incredible True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo—an eyewitness account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Crocker had marveled at how the relatively small group of six hundred soldiers, with fifteen horses and fifteen cannons, had prevailed against an Aztec army numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
Especially interesting was the pivotal role played by La Malinche, the Nahua Indian woman from the Gulf Coast of Mexico who served as Cortés’s guide and interpreter and later bore him a son. Nearly six hundred years later, she was still a controversial figure in Mexico. Crocker had heard that to call someone a malinchista was to accuse that person of being a traitor to their people, or someone who hated Mexicans.
As they approached the exit, his thoughts were interrupted by a large Hispanic-looking man who stepped into his path. “Tom Crocker?” the man asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“Carlos Nieves, FBI. I’ve got a colleague and two SUVs waiting on the curb. You want a lift?”
“How much?”
“A round of beer and a plate of nachos.”
Crocker checked Nieves’s ID and indicated to his men to follow. He’d been told that the man running the joint FBI/DEA task force was named David Lane, so he asked, “Where’s Lane?”
“He’s waiting at headquarters, which is actually in a compound in the Zapopan part of town,” Nieves answered as he helped load the SEALs’ gear into the back of one of the SUVs. “You’ll be bunking in the same compound, in a separate structure. It’s pretty damn posh, with a barbecue, nice patio, even a pool. You bring a suit?”
Crocker shook his head. He wasn’t interested in pools or amenities. The little time they had left was ticking past. As they rode into the city, he pictured Lisa Clark’s face and tried to imagine the stress she and her daughter were under. He considered pulling innocent women and children into conflicts and using them as barter to be the lowest form of cowardice.
Nieves slowed the black Honda Pilot. Looking ahead, Crocker saw a sea of red brake lights covering all four lanes of the expressway.
“What’s going on?” he asked. The sky was dark purple and charcoal gray.
“Looks like a roadblock,” Nieves explained, steering the vehicle onto the shoulder and passing a long line of cars and trucks. He was broad with a big square head, stood six foot three, and must have weighed 260 pounds. Like a lot of really big men Crocker had met, there was a gentleness about him.
“What kind of roadblock?” Crocker asked, looking back to check that the second SUV with Davis and Mancini aboard was behind them.
“I don’t know what you’ve been told about Guadalajara,” answered Nieves. “It’s always been a sophisticated city. Big parks; universities; lots of history, culture, and art; and a real vital tech industry that some people say is a close second to Silicon Valley. Even though it’s the second-largest city in Mexico, it’s been pretty much untouched by the usual drug cartel violence, until last year. Since then the shooting, bombings, and other acts of violence have been virtually nonstop.”
“How do you explain that?” Crocker asked. A billboard to their right advertised The Hangover Part III, showing Ken Jeong parachuting into Las Vegas. The Spanish translation of the title was ¿Qué Pasó Ayer? Parte III (What Happened Yesterday?)
“A war’s raging between the two major cartels for control of the city,” Nieves answered. “The Sinaloans have quietly owned this area for years, buying judges and cops, absorbing local groups, and plying their dirty trade. Their main business, by the way, is crystal meth.”
“Really?” Crocker interjected. “I’m no expert, but I thought it was coke and pot.”
“Crystal meth has the highest profit margin,” Nieves explained, “and the cartels can make it themselves. They don’t have to worry about growing marijuana and poppies, which requires cropland, rainfall, and harvesting. And in terms of cocaine, they don’t have to hassle with producers in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, or middlemen in Central America and Haiti.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Meth is not only relatively easy to produce, it’s also cheap and highly addictive, whether smoked, snorted, injected, or swallowed in a pill. Which explains why worldwide consumption has skyrocketed.”
Crocker flashed back to the image of Carla smoking meth on the edge of her bed and wondered if it had been imported from Mexico. Ahead, flashing blue lights marked the roadblock.
“If it’s the military, they’ll probably wave us through,” Nieves offered. “But if it’s the police, we might be stuck here for hours.”
“How come?”
“Because almost all the police in this country, whether they’re local, municipal, state, or PFM, are corrupt up to their fucking eyeballs. Locals will tell you they fear them even more than the narcos. The army, on the other hand, conducts raids of labs and warehouses, then disappears back into their barracks. They’re all about seizing drugs and burning them in a big bonfire show. But they rarely make arrests.”
“Doesn’t sound like a winning strategy.”
“It isn’t. Not by a long shot.”
Crocker had a practical question: “How do you tell the difference between the police and the army?”
“The army guys look like soldiers.”
“Meaning?”
“They dress in uniforms, act more professional, and generally don’t stick their hands out asking for bribes.”
Crocker nodded. “Goo
d to know.”
As they inched up to the roadblock, Nieves continued. “The Sinaloa cartel is a family-based enterprise run by a guy named Chapo Guzmán. You might have heard of him. He’s also known as Shorty. The little bastard’s in his late fifties and grew up poor on a little cattle ranch near the U.S. border. Today he’s considered the most powerful drug trafficker in the world, with a net worth of over a billion. Forbes magazine has him at forty-one in their list of the most powerful people in the world.”
Soldiers armed with automatic weapons and wearing black masks over their faces signaled Carlos to stop and roll down the window. He obliged with an easy smile, flashed an FBI badge, then engaged two of the soldiers in conversation. Though Crocker spoke some Spanish, the men talked too fast for him to understand.
After the soldiers waved them through, he turned to Nieves and asked, “What was that about?”
“It’s a bad situation. Something like forty people were gunned down by guys with AKs this afternoon.”
“Where?” Crocker asked.
“Downtown.”
“Downtown Guadalajara?”
“Yeah.”
“Who did they attack?” Crocker asked.
“According to the soldiers, a bunch of random people—shopkeepers, a couple tourists, a retired professor feeding the pigeons in the park, students. My guess is it’s part of the Los Zetas campaign to scare the living shit out of everyone and gain respect.”
Crocker had read somewhere that Mexican officials estimated there had been as many as thirteen hundred beheadings and public hangings, and tens of thousands of other drug-related killings, in the past year.
Nieves veered off the highway at high speed and drove down modern tree-lined avenues with office buildings that displayed familiar names—Citibank, HSBC, American Express, IBM, General Motors, etc. The handsome, sun-lit city appeared prosperous and offered a few elegant vestiges of its colonial past.
“Usually these streets are crowded,” Nieves remarked. “People are staying inside.”
They passed a large country club and entered an upscale residential area filled with green parks and squares. Many of the houses were hidden behind high concrete walls. At the gates stood armed guards.
Nieves pointed at a newly constructed house and remarked, “The newer ones with palm trees belong to drug traffickers.”
“How do you know?” Crocker asked.
“Apparently, they’ve got a thing for palm trees,” he answered with a shrug. “Palm trees and diamonds. Diamonds around their necks, diamonds in their teeth, big diamonds in their girlfriends’ belly buttons. Beats the shit out of me. You ever try to make love to a babe with a diamond in her belly button?”
“Can’t say I have,” Crocker answered.
“Me, either. But it’s got to be uncomfortable, right?”
They stopped at a red light in a little commercial area with shops. Through the passenger window Crocker watched a group of young people sitting at an outdoor café laughing and acting like happy, normal—if somewhat privileged—teenagers.
He heard an approaching siren. Seconds later a black Ford pickup filled with men wearing black helmets and uniforms skidded through the intersection. Two of the men stood holding on to the roll bar with one hand and AR15 automatic rifles with the other.
“Who are they?” Crocker asked.
“The Federales,” Nieves answered. “Federal police.”
“They looked scared,” Crocker remarked.
Several blocks later, Nieves turned into a driveway with a tall blue gate, stopped, and honked. A very thin, weathered Mexican man with short gray hair and a crooked smile opened it from inside and nodded.
“That’s our man Ramón. He takes care of the pool and grounds.”
Chapter Eight
In Mexico, you have death very close.
—Gael García Bernal
The accommodations were a couple of notches higher than acceptable—an older-looking two-story structure with a garage built into it that sat under lush laurel trees. It reminded Crocker of the kind of vacation house you’d find on a lake in New Hampshire, with living room, dining room, and kitchen downstairs and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.
Crocker tossed his kit on one of the beds and hurried downstairs to do a quick survey of the house—access through two doors, one at the front of the house, another side door that led to the garage. The lock on the garage door was broken. All of the windows had simple latches and were easy to punch in.
Security sucked, but they weren’t planning to stay long. The refrigerator was stocked with beer, sodas, milk, and eggs. He popped open a bottle of Bohemía, gulped it down, and looked out the front window to the more modern house that sat on the other side of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
They’d only been there ten minutes and he was already feeling antsy.
“What do we do now?” Mancini asked as he plopped down on the sofa, picked up a copy of Esquire someone had left behind, and opened it to a photo of a half-naked Lena Headey—one of the stars of Game of Thrones.
“Nieves said he’d come get us,” Crocker responded, understanding that as long as they lacked their own transportation and had no weapons, they were totally dependent on their FBI/DEA hosts.
“I guess that means we wait.”
Sitting at a desk across the room, Davis slipped a CD into his laptop. The theme from The Outer Limits played, followed by the deep voice of a narrator who said, “Through all legends of ancient peoples, Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian, Semitic, runs the saga of the Eternal Man, one who never dies, called by various names…The hero who strides through the centuries.”
Crocker waved at Davis to turn down the sound. The SEAL science fiction aficionado complied.
Glancing at his Suunto watch, which had adjusted automatically, Crocker saw that the local time was 1944. He opened the large envelope Nieves had given him and started to leaf through the classified FBI and CIA reports. On the first page of one, he read the highlighted sentences: “Mexican drugs cartels have been in operation without much interruption from the Mexican and U.S. government for decades. Their networks are more extensive than any intelligence network in the world.”
The last sentence startled him, so he read it again. Then he saw that the wholesale value of illegal drugs from Mexico sold in the United States was estimated to be about $40 billion.
Crocker was about to repeat this staggering number to Mancini when he heard a knock at the door. Seconds later Nieves entered, carrying a yellow menu. “We’re ordering in,” he announced as if they were a bunch of guys about to watch a football game on TV. “If you’ve never had Oaxacan food, I recommend the chicken mole, which is a rich, spicy chocolate sauce.”
“Screw the mole,” Crocker groaned. “When are we gonna get moving?”
“Relax, dude. Lane’s working on something for you guys now.”
“Don’t call me dude,” Crocker responded, thinking that the best strategy might be to strike fast before the bad guys knew they were in country. “We didn’t come here to fuck around.”
“I know that. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
Crocker’s head was already spinning. Forty billion was more than eight times the entire CIA budget. Returning to the reports, he read about cartel attacks on parties and drug rehabilitation centers, the firebombing of a Monterrey casino that burned fifty-two people to death, the targeted killings of journalists and media workers, the shootings, kidnappings, and mass graves—seventy-two in Tamaulipas on the southern border, forty-nine in Monterrey, another forty in Nuevo Laredo.
He threw down the reports and started to pace from one end of the room to the other as the rest of the team drank beer and snacked on chips and salsa.
Nieves picked up his exegesis on the drug cartel war where he’d left off. “Some say Chapo Guzmán and the Sinaloans have grown fat and happy. I don’t know about that. Maybe he’s gotten so big and powerful he doesn’t care about what happens in Guadalajara. It’s r
umored that about half the ministers in the government are on his payroll. All I know is that about a year ago, Los Zetas, which has traditionally operated along the Gulf Coast, started moving in, and things got ugly. I’m talking gunfights, kidnappings, decapitations, full-scale terror.”
“What’s the difference between the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas?” Davis asked.
“Sinaloa is basically a family-run organization that has grown by leaps and bounds and now employs something like two hundred thousand people. Generally they go about their business of dealing drugs and making money and leave other people alone. El Chapo is like a character out of a popular telenovela—a common man with a third-grade education who has built a global empire and continues to evade capture by the government and the U.S. Songs are written about him; journalists are constantly spreading gossip about which beautiful woman he’s been seen with.”
Nieves cleared his throat and sang the verse of a song in Spanish. “That one’s called ‘El Regreso del Chapo.’ Translated, it says: ‘Short guys are always fierce. That’s how the saying goes. It’s been proved with Chapo Guzmán.’”
“Short guys, Suárez,” Akil cracked. “He’s talking about you.”
At five eleven, Suárez was now the shortest guy on the team. Based on the confused expression on his face, he still wasn’t up to speed in terms of the group’s give-and-take humor.
“Nice song,” Davis offered, “but I still prefer Black Crowes or U2.”
Akil: “Why don’t you just say ‘I’m vanilla’?”
“Black Crowes aren’t vanilla.”
“Bullshit.”
“Tell us about the Zetas,” Crocker said, steering the conversation back to business.
“Los Zetas are a whole different story. Their founders are deserters from Mexico’s elite special forces. They’re brutal, efficient, highly organized, and well armed. They don’t care about their popularity. They’re all about power, influence, and money.”
“What does this have to do with the kidnapping of the Clarks?” Crocker asked.
As Nieves opened his mouth to answer, his phone rang to the theme from The Godfather. He held up to a hand to Crocker and nodded as he listened to the person on the other end. Putting down the phone and rubbing his big hands together, he said, “That was Lane. He’s ready to see you.”
