The Cartel: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  Gordo “running the operation” in reality means that I’ll be running the operation, Ochoa thinks. There are worse things.

  “You know who’s behind this,” he says.

  “Of course,” Contreras answers. “It was the right move.”

  “Hell will wait,” Ochoa says.

  —

  Keller tightens his Kevlar vest.

  Aguilar stares at him. “I wonder who you are sometimes.”

  “You and me both, Luis.” He checks the load on the Sig Sauer, hoping not to use it, and wishes that Aguilar would stay behind the vehicles. I don’t care that much about you, Luis, he thinks, but I do like your wife and kids, and I don’t want the next time I see them to be at your funeral.

  Keller feels that moment of calm he always has before going into a firefight. The fear subsides, the pins-and-needles pricking of anxiety goes away, and he feels this cool rush in his brain.

  His only regret is that it’s not Barrera.

  He gets his weight solidly under his feet and gets ready to push off.

  Then the front door of the house opens.

  Contreras steps out.

  His hands high over his head.

  At least two hundred weapons are trained on him.

  So are a dozen news cameras.

  “Me rindo!” Contreras yells. “I surrender!”

  Vera stares across the street for a moment. Then he yells, “Hold your fire! Don’t shoot!”

  Keller hears a burst of fire, then an explosion from the back of the house. For a second it seems like everything is going to fall apart. Contreras drops to his knees, yelling, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

  The gunfire stops.

  Vera strides across the street. He grabs Contreras by the wrists, turns him, kicks him to the ground, and handcuffs him. “Osiel Contreras, you are under arrest!”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Contreras says quietly. “You and your bosses.”

  Canelas, Sinaloa

  Eva Esparza is seventeen and beautiful.

  Long, wavy black hair, brown doe eyes, high cheekbones, and a figure that is just beginning to fulfill its promise. She’s just a little taller than Adán, who holds her loosely in his arms as they dance to the music of Los Canelos de Durango, a band that Nacho had flown in for the occasion.

  The occasion is a dance to raise support for his daughter’s candidacy for Miss Canelas, which she’ll probably win anyway by virtue of her beauty and charm, but Nacho isn’t taking any chances. He’s sponsored this dance and handed out gifts to the judges.

  Adán wouldn’t be interested in a runner-up.

  A king can only marry a queen.

  Or, better, a princess.

  Adán finds Nacho’s solicitude a little amusing. His ally has at least six families scattered across Sinaloa, Durango, Jalisco, and God knows where else, but Eva is clearly his favorite, Daddy’s little girl.

  Holding her, smelling her hair and her perfume, Adán can see why. The girl is intoxicating, and he’s grateful that Nacho’s favorite daughter inherited his charm and not his looks.

  When the subject first came up, Adán wasn’t exactly sanguine.

  “We’re not getting any younger,” Nacho had said, at the end of a long discussion about the war in Tijuana.

  Adán smelled a trap. “I don’t know, Nacho, you look younger than I’ve ever seen you. Maybe it’s the money.”

  “Don’t let’s kid ourselves,” Nacho answered. “I take the Viagra, you know.”

  Adán let the chance to exchange confidences pass. Erectile dysfunction was not an issue with Magda in his bed, although she was now in Colombia, setting up a cocaine pipeline.

  “Still,” Nacho said, “I’m not making any more children.”

  “Jesus, Nacho, get to the point,” Adán snapped.

  “All right,” Nacho said. “What’s all this for, this empire building, if we don’t have anyone to leave it to?”

  “You have a son.”

  “You don’t.”

  Adán got up from his desk chair and walked over to the window. “I had a child, Nacho.”

  “I know.”

  “The truth is,” Adán said, “I don’t know if I could live with that kind of heartbreak again.”

  “Children are life, Adanito. You still have time.”

  “I don’t think Magda would be interested.”

  “It can’t be Magda,” Nacho said. “Don’t get me wrong, no offense, but she’s been around.”

  “This from you?” Adán asks.

  “It’s different with a woman and you know it,” Nacho said. “No, your wife has to be a virgin, of course, and the mother of your children must be from an important family.”

  Then Adán got what Nacho was really driving at. “Are you suggesting—”

  “Why not?” Nacho asked. “Think about it. An Esparza and a Barrera? Now that would be an alianza de sangre.”

  Yes, it would be, Adán thought. It would lock Nacho in. I would not only get his undying loyalty, but, in a sense, the Tijuana plaza back with it. But…

  “What about Diego?” he asked.

  “Have you seen his eldest daughter?” Nacho asked. “She’ll have a heavier beard than he does!”

  Adán laughed in spite of himself. Diego, always sensitive of his position, might feel threatened if I move closer to Esparza.

  Nacho said, “I have a daughter, Eva. Seventeen years old—”

  “That’s young.”

  “We’re about to hold a dance for her,” Nacho said. “Just come and meet her. If you don’t like her, if she doesn’t like you, it’s one day out of your life. This is all I’m asking.”

  “And what will Eva think about this?” Adán asked.

  “She’s seventeen,” Nacho answered. “She doesn’t know what she thinks.”

  Now, as the music stops, Adán wonders what she is thinking. Here’s this young girl, the center of attention at a party in her honor, and suddenly two hundred armed men in black hoods and masks roar in on ATVs and block off all the roads. Then six small planes land on a field nearby and I get out of one of them, with an AK slung over my shoulder, and now two helicopters circle overhead.

  She’s either totally taken with it all, or totally disgusted.

  And I’m more than thirty years her senior, what does she think about that? I’m guessing it’s not the honeymoon night that she’s dreamed of. She’s probably not even thinking of marriage—she wants to date, go to clubs, hang out with her friends, go to college…

  Adán feels like one of those old-time Sinaloan grandes, exercising his droit du signeur, and it makes him feel creepy. Still, it would be an important marriage. Twenty years or so down the road I’ll be ready to retire, and by then there might be a son, and he would have it all.

  Adán walks Eva over to a table for an agua fresca.

  —

  He’s not as gross as Eva feared.

  When her father came home with the news that Adán Barrera was going to be a “special guest” at her dance, Eva cried, sobbed, threw a temper tantrum, and then sobbed some more. After her father stormed out of the room, her mother held her, dried her tears, and said, “This is our life, m’ija.”

  “Not mine, Mami.”

  Her mother slapped her.

  Hard, across the face.

  She’d never done that before.

  “Who do you think you are?” her mother asked. “Everything you have—the clothes, the jewels, the pretty things, the parties—come to you because of this life of ours. Do you think that God just chose you?”

  Eva held her hand to her cheek.

  “If this man wants you,” her mother said, “do you think you can reject him? Do you think your father would allow his most important ally to be humiliated by his own daughter? He would take you out and beat you and I would hand him the belt. He would throw you into the road and I would pack your bag.”

  “Mami, please…”

  Her mother held her tight, stroked her hair, and whispered,
“Not everyone would cry for you. You would have money, houses, position, prestige. You would be a queen. Your children would have everything. I am going to go pray that this man likes you. You should do the same.”

  Eva didn’t.

  She only prayed that he wouldn’t be hideous, and, in all fairness, he isn’t. He’s not bad-looking for an old man, he’s polite, gentle, and charming in an old-fashioned way.

  Eva can’t imagine having sex with him, but she can’t imagine having sex with any man. Unlike so many of her buchona friends, her parents haven’t let her run wild, go to overnight parties, or on skiing weekends away.

  They’ve kept her under tight wraps, and now she knows why.

  Her virginity isn’t going to be given away.

  It’s going to be negotiated.

  —

  “So?” Nacho asks Adán after he returns from dancing with Eva.

  “She’s charming.”

  “So you’d like to see her again,” Nacho presses.

  “If she wants to see me.”

  “She will.”

  “I don’t know,” Adán says.

  “She’s my daughter,” Nacho insists, “and she will do what I say.”

  Sometimes, Adán thinks, I forget how old-school Nacho really is. “Let’s go see Diego.”

  They find him having a beer at the refreshment table, and walk away to have a private conversation. The big man has a beer in each hand, foam on his mustache, and is feeling no pain. Seeing Adán, he raises one glass. “To fortune-tellers.”

  “For a hundred dollars,” Nacho says to Adán, “you brought down an empire.”

  “Not yet,” Adán answers.

  Unfortunately, infuriatingly, Contreras is still alive, and will doubtless do his best to run the CDG from prison. The sooner the North Americans can extradite him, the better. Still, the situation is different with Contreras at least hobbled. El Gordo is a joke, and the Zetas? Without Contreras they’re just toy soldiers—line them up and knock them down.

  It’s taken months and months of patience. Kissing Contreras’s ass, pretending to believe that he didn’t try to kill you, pretending to tolerate his taking Nuevo Laredo—all to put him at his ease until you could figure a way to topple him.

  A bribe to a fortune-teller, Adán muses.

  It’s a funny world.

  And now everything is ready.

  Well, almost.

  “On another topic,” Adán says, “why is Keller still alive?”

  Diego and Nacho look at each other uncomfortably. Finally, Nacho says, “Now is not the time, Adán.”

  “When is the time?” Adán snaps. It never seems to be “the time.”

  “Not now,” Nacho answers. “Not when you want to make a move on the Gulf. Not while there’s a presidential election—a close election in which we have a lot at stake. We simply cannot afford to antagonize—”

  “I know, I know.” Adán waves his hand as if to brush away the unwanted concession.

  “We know where Keller is,” Diego says. “We won’t lose track of him again. You can have him anytime you want.”

  “After the election,” Nacho adds.

  They talk for a few more minutes, mostly about inconsequential things, and then Adán walks over and says goodbye to Eva.

  He kisses her hand.

  Then he gets back in his plane and flies off.

  Eva wins the pageant.

  —

  The press conference is classic, Keller thinks, watching it on television from the American consulate in Matamoros. Vera presents Osiel Contreras to the public like Ed Sullivan introducing the Beatles.

  Contreras plays his role.

  His hands cuffed in front of him, he looks down at the ground sullenly as Vera makes a speech…another victory for society…for order…a lesson to all those who would defy the laws of the land…this is the way it will always end…the jail cell or the morgue…

  —

  The corpse of one of the Zetas is propped up on a gurney. Two others were wounded. Sadly, one AFI trooper and one soldier died heroically for their country. Their murders will be relentlessly, mercilessly prosecuted.

  One cheeky reporter, Pablo, points out that there was a gun battle in the street following Contreras’s surrender.

  “Pablo”—Vera smiles at the reporter—“some of the Zetas did attempt a breakout.”

  “Well,” Pablo follows up, “they did break out, isn’t that correct?”

  Ochoa, Forty, and Segura fought their way out, Keller knows from the statements of the two wounded Zetas.

  Glaring at the reporter, Vera answers, “Some of these criminals escaped, but don’t worry, we will bring them to justice.”

  Vera moves on to introduce Aguilar, who stumbles through a statement expressing his grief for the fallen, his thoughts and prayers for the families, and his satisfaction that Osiel Contreras will be put through the due process of the law.

  It’s all very good, Keller thinks, but he can’t help getting the feeling that Vera is disappointed that Contreras is alive.

  Keller’s bosses at DEA aren’t disappointed. Champagne corks pop, cake is brought in, congratulatory phone calls go from El Paso to D.C. And to Keller, in Brownsville, where he dutifully delivered Alejandro Sosa to Tim Taylor.

  Taylor hands Keller the phone. “The big boss.”

  “Art,” Keller hears. “Fantastic job. Needless to say we’re all thrilled here. Teach these guys to threaten our agents. Extradition papers are already in the works…”

  Keller mumbles a thank-you and zones him out. Taylor takes the phone back and Keller vaguely hears him taking a verbal bow. When the boss clicks off, Taylor says, “Not everyone here is so happy with you poaching other agents’ hunting grounds, Art.”

  Keller says, “If we think this is the end of the CDG…”

  “No one thinks that,” Taylor answers, “but it’s a huge step. Take out enough of the number one guys, pretty soon no one is going to want the job.”

  Yes they will, Keller thinks.

  They’ll fight for the top job, they’ll kill for it.

  “Contreras’s brother is a cokehead dumbass,” Taylor says. “Not exactly the A Team taking over.”

  “Okay.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Taylor says, “take a minute to celebrate, would you? It’s a good day and we don’t get a lot of them. Let’s at least crack a smile when we do.”

  “Sure.”

  Taylor shakes his head. “Don’t be smug. You just saved your own ass, and you know it.”

  Yeah, they both know it. Taylor wouldn’t dare call him back now, not the guy who just took down Osiel Contreras.

  Keller doesn’t say what else he’s thinking.

  That the Contreras operation wasn’t a successful arrest.

  It was a botched execution.

  2

  Los Negros

  Leave by the Gulf Road

  In the gray dawn.

  —James McMurtry

  “The Gulf Road”

  Nuevo Laredo

  2006

  When Eddie Ruiz thinks back, he likes to think about Friday nights.

  Friday night lights, baby.

  Under a satin Texas sky.

  The crowd chanting his name, the cheerleaders creaming for him under those short skirts, the sweet sharp adrenaline rush of sticking a QB under his pads and driving the bitch into the Texas turf.

  Laredo Uni High.

  (Just across the river, but a million miles away. Just eight years ago but an eon since they were division champs.)

  Eddie loved to hear the QB’s grunt of pain, feel the air go out of him, and with it the heart and the will. Take away his breath, you take away his legs, his arm, his game.

  And you hear your name.

  Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

  He misses it.

  Good times.

  Good times.

  Friday nights.

  Now he sits in Freddy’s, a place where they know Eddie well, unless a stran
ger comes asking for him, in which case they don’t.

  Nuevo Laredo, Eddie thinks, “Narco Laredo,” “the NL,” “the 867,” call it what you want.

  Just a bridge—well, three bridges, four if you count the rail bridge—from Laredo, Texas. But definitely Mexico, in a thin finger of Tamaulipas state that sticks up like Tamaulipas giving Chihuahua the bird.

  Some people call it the Parrot’s Beak, but Eddie thinks that’s stupid.

  What are we, pirates?

  Who has a parrot anymore?

  Anyway, he’s been coming to the 867 all his life. As a kid to visit cousins, as a teenager after games on Friday nights to drink beer and get loaded and party. Popped his cherry with a whore in Boy’s Town (shit, who didn’t?), and he brought Teresa to a hotel down here where she (finally) gave it up to him, where he (finally) got under that sweet short cheerleader skirt and pulled down those panties and got into her and it doesn’t seem possible they’ve been married for coming on seven years now.

  Seven years and two kids.

  How did that happen?

  And he was driving home from the 876 when that other thing happened.

  He was eighteen, in what should have been his sweet senior year, and he swerved his pickup onto the wrong side of the road head-on into that middle-school teacher’s Honda.

  The teacher died.

  They charged Eddie with negligent homicide, but the charges got dropped and he was back at practice when two-a-days started, and it was after that he started dealing weed.

  A shrink could call that a “causal relationship,” but the shrink would be wrong.

  It was an accident, that’s all.

  An accident is an accident, nothing to feel guilty about.

  Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

  No one stopped cheering when he drilled the QB or came up on the run and stuck his man.

  Eddie likes to think about that.

  He looks sharp now. Eddie never could stand that norteño look—the cowboy boots, the hats, the belt buckles big as a baby’s ass. For one thing, you looked like a tool, for another thing, you might as well take an ad out that you were a narco.

  Eddie likes to keep it tight, clean, under the radar.