When the men passed behind the goal, it became clear to him that they were not American. The bigger one seemed Mexican, judging by the helmet of hair, the mix of fat and muscle, the dutiful gait.
The other one looked stern and agile. His beard was black and close-cropped, his head jutted forward, and his shoulders spread the suit. Méndez had seen him before, perhaps in an intelligence report or a mug shot. The realization caused an icy sensation in his stomach.
Not bodyguards. Not cops. Not Americans. What does that leave?
Hit men.
Méndez owned a pistol. The DEA and DHS had helped him get the permit. Federal agents and the San Diego Police updated him regularly on threat information. For months, their assessment had been consistent: no sign of danger as long as he stayed out of Mexico. His pistol was locked in his glove compartment. He hadn’t thought he’d needed it to watch the game, for the love of God.
Athos, his former deputy at the Diogenes Group, had taught him about firearms. He could see Athos shaking his head. A gun is only as effective as the man who carries it, Licenciado. You have to be ready to use it.
The duo gathered speed. Their stares stayed on him.
He told himself it was crazy to think that his enemies would kill him in broad daylight north of the border in front of witnesses. Then he told himself: No, this is exactly how they would do it. The more brazen, the better. It all seemed part of a macabre choreography: the setting, the undertaker suits, the presence of his son. As he had written in more articles than he cared to remember, Mexican assassins paid attention to detail.
Instead of walking around the flag, the men cut diagonally across the corner of the field. This double infraction—spectators weren’t supposed to change sidelines or enter the field—raised the ire of a soccer mom.
“They’re walking on the pitch,” she declared somewhere on his left. “They’re walking on the pitch!”
Her scolding nasal voice startled him into action. Spectators and players were in the line of fire. He needed to move.
Méndez strode toward the corner the men had passed but veered to his right, away from them. His heart hammered. There were bushes and trees near the parking lot. He could reach cover among the cars and retrieve the gun.
A doomed and pathetic plan, he thought.
The main thing was to draw them away from the others. From Juan. He cursed himself for wearing glasses rather than his contact lenses. If he had to fight or run, the glasses might fall off. A sleepy decision in front of the bathroom mirror had worsened his meager chances of survival.
The men changed course to intercept him. The burly one undid a button, his right hand reaching over his belly into his suit jacket.
Méndez stopped and locked eyes with the man. Too far to attack, too close to escape.
The moment had arrived. The fact that he had imagined it so many times did not make it easier.
Here I am, miserable cowardly sons of whores. Do your worst. Fuck your mothers. See you in hell.
It was a good thing he didn’t say it out loud. The burly man produced a business card from an inside pocket. With a deferential grimace, he extended his arm as he closed the final distance between them.
“Licenciado Méndez!” he said in a rumbling Mexico City accent. “Licenciado Méndez, forgive me, please.”
Méndez stood very still. His reaction intensified the man’s discomfort. Despite his girth, he seemed boyish up close. Sweat seeped from his sideburns and glistened on the folds of his neck around the tie knot.
“The secretary—forgive me, the ambassador—would like to speak with you,” the man stammered, sausagelike fingers still proffering the card. “Very urgent.”
The bearded one stood with his hands crossed over his belt buckle. His brow was dry. His gaze did not waver.
This one always looks at people as if he’s about to kill them, Méndez thought.
He placed the face. Mexico City. Gálvez, Galindo, something like that. A federal police commander who had been fired for torturing suspects then recycled into the intelligence service as a chief of internal security. His reputation for brutality and honesty had appealed to his boss, who had once been Méndez’s boss—and who was the last person Méndez had expected to drop by for a visit.
Méndez exhaled. His legs trembled. Relief and embarrassment flooded through him. His first instinct had been correct: bodyguards. His mind had run away from him. The incident had unleashed all the paranoia, all the demons, lurking beneath the surface of his placid new life.
Nadie muere en la víspera, he told himself. No one dies before his time.
He glared at the business card, at the men. Finally, he reached out and took the card. He studied the words, then turned it over and examined the back, as if the blank white rectangle contained a hidden message. After a long moment, he looked up.
“As far as I know, he is no longer a secretary nor an ambassador,” he growled. “He can wait. The game is not over.”
Méndez sat in a suite in a pink Colonial-style hotel that had crowned a cliff in La Jolla for a century.
Sunlight bathed the pastel interior. The picture windows offered a view of the ocean beyond palm trees, a row of slender sentinels. Through the screen door of the balcony, he heard the waves on the rocks and the bark of a sea lion. Suites at the hotel cost a thousand dollars a day. Méndez wondered who was picking up the tab. Mexico’s ruling political party, perhaps, or a company that studded its board with names from the power elite. His host had retired from government service, but Méndez would always think of him by the title he had held while commanding a chunk of the Mexican national security apparatus: the Secretary.
Méndez had done his best to make the Secretary cool his heels. He had watched the rest of the game, then told the Secretary’s bodyguards that he had to take his son home. While the bodyguards waited outside his house in their Escalade, Méndez had showered, put in his contact lenses, and exchanged his blue LAPD T-shirt for a button-down with red and white stripes. He had gone to the kitchen and, forcing himself to keep a leisurely pace, made himself a cup of coffee. Leafing through the newspaper as he drank, he noted that there were no developments in the investigation of the massacre of African migrants in Tecate. Even by the standards of a nation awash in cadavers and cruelty, it was a heinous crime. After covering the breaking story for U.S. and Mexican newspapers, Méndez’s reporters had run into a wall of silence and moved on to other things.
Méndez had little appetite for an encounter with the Secretary. The veteran national security bureaucrat had been his best source before becoming his boss. He had been the political mind and muscle behind the Diogenes Group, unleashing Méndez on an anti-corruption crusade and placing him at the helm of a handpicked unit. The experiment had ended in betrayal. They hadn’t talked since.
Sitting now with a cup of tea at the glass-topped table, the Secretary projected an air of beatific patience. A breeze from the balcony ruffled strands of hair on his domelike skull. He had always reminded Méndez of a priest. Today, he looked like a hunched and aging cardinal.
Cardinal Richelieu. Without the whiskers or women, but with the intrigue and ruthlessness.
The Secretary still maintained the formality that he had always imposed on himself and his entourage, even on weekends. His gray slacks, silver tie, and blue blazer looked like purchases from Bond Street in London, one of his favorite spots for shopping. He had no doubt indulged himself there during his recent ambassadorship to a small European country—the anticlimactic final chapter of an eventful career.
“Life in the embassy was quiet, pleasant, dull; a perfect environment for writing, if I had been inspired,” the Secretary said. “By the way, I must say you look well. Grayer, but healthier.”
Méndez nodded. Another by-product of exile: he was sleeping, eating, and exercising more than he had since his university days. He was still thin, but he had developed strength and endurance. He sipped orange juice, stealing a glance at the unmarked manila envel
ope on the table. The old scoundrel had staged the reunion with his usual wiles. The swoop into town. The summons from the bodyguards. The detail intended to hook any self-respecting cop or reporter: documents.
“You have returned to your original métier,” the Secretary said. “I often read your column in the Mexican press. I understand you publish in English as well. A quixotic website venture?”
“It is an investigative news site. Bilingual. In partnership with Mexican and American media.”
“A tiny operation, I imagine. How do you earn a living?”
“Donors. Grants. Foundations. Some freelance fees.”
“A very American concept. Even agitators need benevolent moguls.”
The Secretary looked toward the entrance of the suite, the sun glinting off his glasses. He produced a cigarette, eyes rolling, enacting a caricature of furtiveness, and struck a match.
“I assume you won’t denounce me to the cigarette police,” he said. “Do you know the anecdote about Franco and smoking?”
Méndez waited. The Secretary blew smoke at the balcony. He said, “The generalísimo held a cabinet meeting. A minister next to him lit a cigarette. Franco looked around and asked, very innocently, very gently, ‘Oh, do they permit smoking in here?’”
Méndez smiled. The Secretary continued, “It was at that moment the Spanish minister realized his career had peaked.”
The Secretary crossed a bony ankle over a bony knee.
“Leo,” he said. “I know it’s not every day we chat. It was urgent for us to talk face to face. Let me start with a question. How informed are you about the current status of the Ruiz Caballero organization?”
Méndez took a breath. It was the topic he had expected and dreaded.
“Obviously, I live in San Diego due to the fact that remnants of the Ruiz Caballero mafia want to do me harm, though they are fragmented and weak. I am kept up-to-date by friends and sources. I know Junior has appealed his court convictions, which seems fruitless. I know that his uncle, despite his unsavory past, has gained control of the Senate.”
“A reconfiguration of alliances. You have heard no other rumblings?”
Méndez scowled. The pomposity was starting to get on his nerves. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
The Secretary inhaled smoke. “What I tell you now is off the record, of course. A political, economic and criminal operation is under way that will benefit Junior and his uncle. It might liberate Junior.”
“Impossible.”
The bloodless lips tightened. “Impossible, you say.”
“It would be a political disaster. Junior was arrested and prosecuted with the participation and support of the U.S. government.”
“In the history of Mexico, the U.S. government has pursued a number of our political figures for serious crimes. Some of them walk the streets and enjoy their riches today. They run for high office.”
“A leading newspaper in the United States published articles about the investigation. It got great attention.”
“Yet Senator Ruiz Caballero dominates the legislature. I’m afraid that journalists have an inflated view of their power. In the end, you are voices shouting outside the palace walls. You are scribblers on the margins of history. You—”
“I get it,” Méndez snapped. “I still don’t see Mexicans or Americans letting a notorious and savage drug lord walk out of prison.”
“What can they do? Interfere in our national sovereignty? Seek extradition? They made a strategic choice to return him to us and aid our prosecution rather than charge him themselves.”
“You really think this could happen?”
“Yes.”
Méndez ran a hand down his face. He was thinking about contingencies. About exile. About his family. He had an impulse to call Estela but he shook it off, chiding himself.
Put it in context. Consider the source. He’s pumping up his importance.
The Secretary reached for the envelope.
“I think you will find this instructive,” he said.
The Secretary put a flourish into handing over the document. His manner said, I am the repository of knowledge and, therefore, power. I have made the magnanimous decision to share a little piece of that power with you.
Méndez had the feeling the man missed this kind of thing.
The report bore the logo, seals, and other authentic markings of a Mexican intelligence agency. It read like an executive summary, nine pages divided into three sections.
The first section assessed Junior Ruiz Caballero’s mafia. The organization had begun to recover from years of disarray, becoming “a lean, mobile, well-armed force that taxes, extorts and robs criminal industries, especially smugglers of drugs and migrants.”
The second section analyzed the political machine of Senator Bernardino Ruiz Caballero, Junior’s uncle, and his faction of the ruling party, a mix of gnarled bosses and young hard-liners.
The third part was the most surprising. A U.S. firm called the Blake Acquisitions Group was in talks to absorb a Mexican conglomerate. Fortunes were at stake. The founder of the U.S. company, Walter Blake, was an old friend of Senator Ruiz Caballero. Blake and his son Perry, who oversaw the corporation day to day, had clout. Although there was opposition to the merger in Washington and Mexico City, Senator Ruiz Caballero had assured fellow leaders of his party that the Blakes could seal the deal with his able assistance. Everyone would get paid handsomely.
The report discussed the roots of the alliance between the Ruiz Caballeros and the American executives. The Blakes had opened doors for the senator in the United States years ago. The senator had steered money into banks in the U.S. Southwest that were connected to the Blake Group. Law enforcement had detected money laundering, but investigations had produced few results beyond a couple of low-level indictments.
The report cited the pending U.S.-Mexican merger as a reason to look into recent shady dealings. Mexican intelligence had begun a discreet inquiry with U.S. agencies. But the document concluded, “It is unlikely there will be meaningful results. Contacts in the United States inform us that the latest federal investigations of the Blake Acquisitions Group have run into aggressive political interference.”
Méndez looked up at the Secretary. “If an analyst had written this for me, I would have told him it lacks specifics.”
“Unfortunately, Leo, analysts no longer write for me. The administration has not seen fit to give me an opportunity to serve the fatherland. I am a dinosaur to the reformers, a reformer to the dinosaurs. I am relegated to a role I abhor: elder statesman.”
The Secretary sighed theatrically. He said, “I can add a fresh item. Something transpired recently that has caused concern among the Blakes and their Mexican allies. Something in the United States. A leak, a whistle-blower, an internal problem. It is unclear.”
Méndez put the folder on the table.
“Interesting,” he said. “But I must ask: Why am I here?”
“Well.” The Secretary’s brow furrowed. “There are grave implications for your safety and the safety of others, myself included. These people do not forgive and forget.”
“Did you come all the way to San Diego just to tell me this?”
“I felt it was my duty to warn you.”
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but you seem to have forgotten how badly things ended between us.”
“I never forget anything.”
Méndez showed his teeth in a smile that was not a smile. His wife called it his Tijuana-wolf look. “You just told me the Ruiz Caballeros are impervious to the, eh, impotent scribblers of the press.”
“Correct.”
“So?”
The cold little eyes gleamed behind the glasses.
“This battle can only be won north of the border. The American angle is different, powerful. If someone investigated the Blake Group, their dirty history, their links to Mexico, their roots in money laundering, that could have a real impact. On Wall Street, in Washington, and, of c
ourse, in Mexico City. The story would have repercussions. Perhaps enough to scuttle this transaction and keep Junior where he belongs.”
“Frankly, I don’t accept the scenario with Junior. His uncle doesn’t want that kind of heat. I think Junior will remain in prison regardless.”
In fact, he almost added, I think it’s a red herring. I think you’ve exaggerated the likelihood of his release and the whole Ruiz Caballero angle to manipulate me into looking into this for other reasons related to politics and finance. Supreme conniver that you are.
“It is still an exceptional story,” the Secretary said, unruffled. “Do you know much about the Blake Group?”
“Not much.”
“I am sure they will appeal to your crusading instincts. I read that column you wrote about how, when it comes to white-collar crime, there is more impunity here than in Latin America.”
If you want to stroke a journalist, quote his work, Méndez thought.
“I didn’t say there was more impunity. I wrote that I have spent my career investigating gangsters, politicians, corrupt cops. When I see what has happened in the United States since 2008, the inability to punish those responsible for the economic collapse, I wonder if I pursued the wrong criminals all these years.”
“An excellent premise for a hard-hitting exposé on the Blake Acquisitions Group.”
“My website covers border issues. I have a handful of collaborators. I don’t have the resources to take on a multinational corporation.”
“Your reports appear in important media. You just won an award from Columbia University. You have contacts, credibility. People in U.S. law enforcement trust you. I can’t think of anyone else, American or Mexican, who is better suited.”
Méndez finished his juice, watching a seagull circle above the palm trees. The old schemer had access to current information. Despite his lament about being in limbo, he was probably acting as an emissary for a political faction.
“You would have to join forces with American media,” the Secretary said. “If I am not mistaken, your English is weak. And a collaboration would heighten the impact. You turn the usual narrative upside down. A Mexican journalist exposes a U.S. corporation in cahoots with the narco-politicians of Mexico. At last, the truth some of us have known for so long.”
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