Triple Crossing
Page 36
The moment was not how Méndez had imagined it. He tried to muster triumph, hatred, jubilation. But he felt hollow. Everyone looked at him expectantly. He had the impression he should say something, but he didn’t know the policeman’s etiquette for the situation.
Junior solved the problem. He yawned. His eyes opened and he croaked: “Méndez.”
“At your orders,” Méndez replied.
“You are lucky.”
“Why?”
“My uncle is getting old. He sold me out. If he were ten years younger, he would have killed you all. The Americans too.” Junior’s glare rested on Isabel Puente. “But now the bastard’s old and tired. So he throws you a bone.”
“Maybe times are changing,” Méndez said.
“Are they? You think you’ll ever get my uncle? Not if you send me to Mexico.”
“That’s where you are going. And, believe it or not, to jail.”
“You are losing an opportunity. My uncle’s the top dog and you know it. You think I’ll survive five minutes in prison if he doesn’t want me to? They’ll cut my throat the first night.”
“It will be a VIP prison,” Méndez said. “You will not even catch cold.”
“Listen to me,” Junior said, his voice turning shrill. “I’m ready to give him up.”
“I’m not in the mood for negotiating just at this moment,” Méndez said.
Balmaceda gave an order. Agents hauled Junior to his feet. He roared unintelligibly as they dragged him away.
On Monday, an immigration judge ordered Junior expelled to Mexico. A Mexican delegation headed by the Secretary arrived to take charge of him. The Secretary sent a request through the Americans for a meeting with Méndez. Méndez accepted, mainly out of curiosity.
That was how he found himself in a hotel lounge on the San Diego waterfront, watching the Secretary fiddle with a dish of peanuts. The Secretary looked as clerical as ever. He treated Méndez with wan formality, like a professor with a problem student. He informed Méndez that he would soon resign. With the elections coming up, the government wanted someone more pliable in his post. The Secretary had been offered an ambassadorship in Europe, his second foray into diplomatic service.
“It has been narrowed down to a French-speaking capital,” he said. “Everyone tells me to hope for Paris. Frankly, I’d be content with Brussels or Bern. The Parisians are so tiresome, don’t you think?”
No longer obliged to come up with responses to such comments, Méndez watched the sailboats on the bay through a tall window.
The Secretary had brought a day-old Sunday newspaper with him. He picked it up from the table and made a show of examining the front-page package about the capture of Junior Ruiz Caballero. Steinberg’s article had been diluted by the breaking news, as Méndez had expected. The questions about Junior’s presence in San Diego, the political obstruction by the Americans, had been pushed down in the story. Garrison’s mysterious connections were mentioned without much explanation. But there was a long sidebar profile of Méndez that quoted extensively from the article he had given her.
“Don Quixote meets Eliot Ness,” the Secretary mused. “The Americans turn everything into a movie.”
The Secretary nibbled nuts and sipped orange juice. His voice mild, he continued: “I imagine that you are under the illusion that it was the threat of your article that caused the arrest of Junior.”
He can’t bear the thought that I might have come out on top, Méndez thought. The old snake.
“I try not to have illusions,” Méndez said. “All I know is that the American and Mexican governments got together to protect a criminal. And when the press found out, they decided he wasn’t worth it.”
“Perhaps you want to know what really happened.”
Méndez waited.
“You see, a lot of manipulation went on,” the Secretary said. “The governments manipulated each other. The Senator manipulated Junior. And the Americans manipulated you.”
“How?”
“When Junior got himself kicked out of South America, it was clear to the Senator and his friends that his nephew was a real problem. No matter how much money he made for them, how much he scared their enemies. But they knew Junior’s capture would be a disaster. Skeletons spilling out of closets, arrests, killings. So Mexico City convinced the Americans that the Ruiz Caballeros were too hot to touch. The agreement was to park Junior in San Diego, where he would have to restrain himself for the time being.”
“The Americans didn’t put up a fight,” Méndez said. “They had things to hide too.”
“You simplify too much. Their agencies were divided, as usual. That is where Mr. Daniels showed he is not the typical American clod. He has more subtlety, more style. Daniels needed leverage. So, I darkly suspect, he told you what you needed to know. Calculating, correctly, that you would get upset and, being a journalist at heart, go to the press.”
“Kind of convoluted, don’t you think?”
“Your crusade gave him the argument he needed in Washington to force the arrest of Junior down our throats. To beat the media to the punch.”
“He could have gone to the press himself.”
“Why take that risk? If it didn’t work, you were a shield for him. A scapegoat. Are you naive enough to think that the article would have run if the Americans hadn’t wanted it to?”
“Although I feel nostalgic for the days when we used to sit around bashing the Americans, I happen to think they have a free press in this country. Despite its many defects.”
“In any case, the Senator managed to save himself, his political group and their presidential candidate. ‘Jettison that demented sadistic nephew of yours, and we can still do business. At least until the elections.’ That was the message to the Senator.”
“Lovely.” Méndez let the disgust show in his face.
“As a writer, you would have found it instructive. I was dispatched personally to see the Senator at his country house in Toluca.”
The Secretary paused theatrically.
“We talked about old times. We drank an excellent brandy. Carlos Primero. I told the Senator, gently, that he had no choice. Junior had to be sacrificed. Do you know what he said? It was priceless: ‘That boy has been like a son to me. But he is not my son.’ That was it. We understood each other perfectly.”
Because you are both foul specimens, Méndez thought. He leaned forward. “Listen, Mr. Secretary: In addition to Garrison, the Ruiz Caballeros had someone inside the U.S. government feeding them information. Someone powerful.”
“That surprises you?”
“No. But I would like to know: Who was it? Daniels? Did he double-cross them?”
The Secretary arched his eyebrows. Méndez had little hope for the gambit. But there was a remote chance that sheer smugness might induce the Secretary to answer. Or that he might see a benefit in using Méndez to drop a bomb.
“Let me put it this way,” the Secretary said. “If the Senator had an ally in Washington, as you theorize, I can assure you that person would be someone at a level Mr. Daniels is unlikely to attain. Despite his talents and the fact that, I must say, he dresses more elegantly than most American functionaries.”
The Secretary removed and wiped his glasses. He shook his head. “Ay Leo. I made a mistake with you, I see that now.”
“What mistake?”
“Bringing you into government service. I knew about your politics, your anger. But I thought your experiences at the border had made you tough-minded. I’d like to think I was correct, at first. But the pressure, the distance from your family. The Aguirre assassination. Human entanglements. They weakened you. I gave you power, and you made a mess with it.”
Méndez narrowed his eyes. “It must be nice not to have human entanglements. I thought that made you different. But you sold out just the same.”
“There is no need to get cross.”
“Ever since I can remember, I’ve run around in labyrinths created by people like you. Whether
it’s street-corner narcos or political assassins, there is always something to hide. I am afraid Araceli Aguirre was right about you. For now, I’m content with Junior. Eventually, the rest of you will end up where you belong too.”
The Secretary’s face constricted. Méndez wondered if he would get up and walk out. Instead he sighed elaborately, as if Méndez had just confirmed his suspicions. Extending a long pale finger, the Secretary tapped Méndez’s photo on the front page of the newspaper.
“Of course, the most incredible thing is that you came out well in the end,” the Secretary said. “Who knows? At the rate things are going, we could lose the election next year. God protect our homeland, the reformers and the neophytes and the imbeciles”—he emphasized the word, a final stab—“could end up in charge. And I might come to you looking for a job.”
“I know we both look forward to that day,” Méndez said.
37
THE HANDOFF TOOK PLACE at The Line in San Ysidro.
Pescatore stood to one side with Méndez, Athos and Porthos. Isabel was busy in the contingent of American federal agents clustered around vehicles. They were all in the restricted parking lot by the border fence.
A Border Patrol custody bus unloaded prisoners nearby. Agents herded the released illegal immigrants back through a gate into Tijuana. On Interstate 5 to the east, the slow steel river of traffic flowed into the Mexican customs station, glass and metal glinting in the sun. Pescatore saw tourists and other pedestrians filing through the turnstile into Tijuana. A Border Patrol Wrangler cruised by. Pescatore thought he spotted Galván driving. He wondered if Galván had ever found a PA boyfriend for his cute cousin from Guadalajara.
It was the daily routine. Except that a federal SWAT team had set up a perimeter on the north side of the fence. A phalanx of Mexican federal police had done the same on the south.
When the Border Patrol bus departed, a black van pulled up. U.S Marshals piled out. They extracted Junior, who wore a blue prison jumpsuit and manacles on his wrists and ankles. They half escorted, half carried him to the fence, where a contingent of Mexican federal officers wearing ski masks and holding heavy weapons had appeared in the open gateway.
The exchange took place without frills or ceremony. Pescatore barely caught a glimpse of Junior, head down, hair unkempt, eyes closed. Then he was gone.
“So much for him,” Pescatore said to Méndez. “I gotta tell you, Licenciado, I’m pretty disappointed with Junior. The way he whined and carried on in La Jolla when they arrested him. A big mafioso like that. You’d think he’d a had some dignity.”
“He is not a big mafioso anymore,” Méndez said, arms folded.
“How you figure?”
“When you catch someone like Junior, all that is left is a shell. The power has already moved on to some other person.”
“Well that sucks.” Pescatore shook his head. “How come you bother, then, if it’s always too late?”
Méndez clapped him—rather paternally, Pescatore thought—on the shoulder. “A very good question. I suppose you chase them to keep the power on the run.”
Méndez said he had to catch a flight to Northern California to see his family. Pescatore told him he hoped things went well.
“What will you do with yourself?” Méndez asked.
The answer came to him with sudden certainty. “Go back to the Border Patrol. If they’ll take me.”
“Really?” Méndez grinned wolfishly.
“Why not? It’s an honest living. Before, I felt like I belonged with the criminals. But then it was the other way around, you know? So I want to give it another shot. For real, this time.”
“Good for you, then.”
“What about you, Licenciado? You going back to Tijuana?”
“Absolutely. I will pose as a journalist this time.”
“Well, you ever need me for anything, you just let me know…”
Looking over Méndez’s shoulder at the federal agents dispersing, Pescatore spotted Isabel Puente getting into her car. He hesitated. Méndez followed his gaze.
“If I were you, muchacho,” Méndez said softly, “I would give it a try. At the border, anything can happen.”
Pescatore nodded, embarrassed. He quickly shook hands with Méndez, Athos and Porthos. They watched as he hurried to the black Mazda. He went up to the passenger side and rapped gently on the glass.
After a moment, the window lowered halfway. Isabel looked out at him.
“Miss Puente,” Pescatore said. “Got a minute for me?”
He saw his reflection in her sunglasses. He stayed in his half crouch. The silence lengthened.
“I thought we might go someplace quiet,” Pescatore said. “Continue our conversation.”
She made him wait. When she spoke at last, her voice was husky and resigned.
“Am I under any obligation to let you into this vehicle?” she asked.
He grinned. “None whatsoever.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to:
Mike Connelly for aid above and beyond the call of duty.
My great editor, Asya Muchnick, for making it happen and for making it better; the people at Little, Brown and Mulholland Books; and my agent, Bonnie Nadell.
Carmen for the lovely, lovely editing, and everything else.
Carlo and Sal, brilliant brother-editors.
Valeria, a star-in-the-making.
My parents for years of love, patience and support. And my parents-in-law, always near in our thoughts.
John Malkovich, Lianne Halfon and Russ Smith for the encouragement and effort.
Jim Shepard, still The Maestro; Bruce Springsteen, still The Boss; and Luis Alberto Urrea, who knows the turf.
The many men and women in law enforcement north and south of The Line who have given me their wisdom and trust.
The journalists of Latin America, especially my old friends in the Tijuana press corps, for their solidarity and courage.
Table of Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
Author’s Note
Part One: Otm
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part Two: The Other Patrol
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part Three: Reasons of State
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part Four: Triple Border
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Part Five: In the Labyrinth
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Sebastian Rotella
Copyright
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SEBASTIAN ROTELLA is an author and award-winning senior reporter for ProPublica, an independent organization dedicated to investigative journalism. He covers issues including international terrorism, organized crime, national security and immigration. Previously, he worked for twenty-three years for the Los Angeles Times, serving as bureau chief in Paris and Buenos Aires and covering the Mexican border. He was a Pulitzer finalist for international reporting in 2006. He is the author of Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.–Mexico Border (Norton), which was named a
New York Times Notable Book in 1998.
Also by SEBASTIAN ROTELLA
Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics
at the U.S.-Mexico Border
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Sebastian Rotella
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: August 2011
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ISBN: 978-0-316-10530-9