In Desperation

50

Chihuahua, Mexico

T he mansion stood on a craggy palm-shrouded hill with a sweeping view of the mountains, fifty miles west of Ciudad Juarez.

The only way to access the property by ground was a winding road whose entrance was gated and guarded by private security officers, ex-soldiers armed with AK-47s.

Other security officers patrolled the grounds on all-terrain vehicles and by horseback. The entire property was fenced with razor wire and necklaced with motion sensors, laser-activated trip wires and several dozen security cameras.

Ownership of the land was not listed on any government records. On paper, the estate of Samson Zartosa, leader of the Norte Cartel, did not exist.

His security was formidable.

His fortress had never been penetrated, although two idealistic federal drug agents on a rogue operation drove near it one night, determined to arrest Zartosa for the cartel’s murders of their fellow officers.

Soon after, their car was found parked at a federal police station-their corpses in the trunk.

Zartosa’s compound was a small village of buildings for his cars, his security team, their quarters and vehicles, their equipment, the servants and other compound staff. Zartosa’s house was a three-story, ten-bedroom colonial hacienda overlooking a man-made pond, gardens, two swimming pools, a private zoo and a small amusement park.

The house had several offices. The largest was Zar tosa’s. Next to it was the office for his second-in-command, his Comandante, Garcia Deltrano.

Deltrano was on the phone, managing a shipment with a troublesome contact controlling Norte routes into New York City. A problem had arisen from a greedy distributor, an ex-Wall Street player whose voice dripped with arrogance toward Mexicans.

“Give me bigger numbers or nothing moves,” he said. “That’s the deal.”

The cartel had taken steps in advance and Deltrano would resolve matters with a few sentences and a few mouse clicks.

“Is this not your nine-year-old daughter entering her private school?” Deltrano sent a photo, then another. “And is this not your wife, only thirty minutes ago, shopping for your daughter’s birthday?” Deltrano sent one last photo. “And here are the overweight, overpaid security men you hired to protect them.” Two white men, naked and bound, guns held to their heads stared in fearful humiliation at the camera. “Do you wish to accept our new number?”

Deltrano quoted a figure that halved that of the original shipment.

Stunned, the American said nothing.

Deltrano whispered a command into a second phone and the head of one of the naked men exploded from a gunshot. The man beside him, drenched with warm visceral matter, screamed for his life.

“This is the last time I ask. Do you accept our new figure?”

“I accept. Yes, God, yes.”

Deltrano ended the call, went to the kitchen and got a cold Canadian beer, a gift from a distributor in Toronto. Upon his return, one of his secure lines was ringing. He didn’t recognize the number. Deltrano checked his state-of-the-art call tracking system. The call was coming from Las Vegas, Nevada. Deltrano answered.

“Si?”

“My Spanish is not so good, so I’ll say this in English, okay?”

The voice was coming through a voice changer, making it sound digitized, robotic. Deltrano listened.

“This is for Samson Zartosa and concerns the unsolved murder of his brother Eduardo twenty years ago in San Francisco. Fate, it seems, has delivered an answer. The mother in the Phoenix kidnapping, Cora, is responsible for Eduardo’s murder. She was there.

“Tell Zartosa that no matter what he hears or sees, all of his attention should be focused on Cora. To prove the validity of my information, tell Zartosa that I know Eduardo died with God in his hand.”

The line went dead.

Who was this caller? How did he get this number? Was this a police tactic? Deltrano’s mind raced. He used the most current phone tracking program, obtained from a military intelligence source; he had linked it to credit card and financial databases obtained through several international banks controlled by the cartel.

The number came up for a cell phone owned by Harry Burgelmeyer, of Muncie, Indiana. A deeper check showed he owned a tow truck company in Muncie. Recent credit card use showed he was a guest at Caesars. Deltrano called the cell phone number. It rang through to the message: “You’ve got Harry. You know what to do and I’ll get back to you. If you need service, call the shop’s twenty-four-hour line.”

Deltrano went with his instinct: Harry’s phone was stolen for the call.

By who? Why? And was the information true?

After ruling out Harry Burgelmeyer, Deltrano continued using all of the cartel’s resources to try to track down the person behind the call. He worked at it in vain for some forty-five minutes until he heard distant thunder, rising until it grew deafening.

Paintings rattled on the walls as the helicopter ferrying Samson Zartosa from his private airstrip landed on the compound’s helipad. He was returning from a business meeting in Buenos Aires.

Deltrano’s hair lifted in the prop wash as he greeted Zartosa, taking his bags as he walked with him into the house.

“I need to piss, then a little swim and eat, Garcia. Then we’ll talk.”

Twenty minutes later, servants brought them club sandwiches at the poolside. The two men sat alone, working, while armed guards patrolled the grounds.

Deltrano had two laptops showing Zartosa the latest shipments, updating him on issues and outstanding security matters.

“You’ve taken care of the asshole in New York, Garcia?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I am growing tied of our situation in Arizona. On the plane I saw the latest news, all those pictures, all this attention on us. I don’t like it, of course. We need to end it.”

“Just before you landed, I got a call, a strange call. I’m sorry to speak of this, but I think you should be aware. It was about Eduardo’s murder.”

“Eduardo?”

As Deltrano recounted the call, he watched a dark curtain fall over Zartosa. It was Samson who had flown alone to California to bring the body of his little brother home.

“The caller said to tell you that he knew that Eduardo had died with God in his hand. What does that mean, Sam?”

Zartosa’s gaze bored into Deltrano, who then watched pain seep into Zartosa’s eyes.

“It means the information is true. Only those who witnessed Eduardo die would know what was in his hand. Do we know who called?”

“We’re working on finding out.”

“And the caller said the mother in the Phoenix kidnapping case is behind Eduardo’s murder?”

“Yes. What do you want me to do?”

“I need to be alone, to think.”

Samson Zartosa looked to the mountains and back on his life, back to when he was a boy growing up with his brothers in the barrio in Juarez. For a few joyous years, they were so happy, never realizing how poor they were because everybody was poor.

Samson, Hector and Eduardo did everything together-played together, ate together, bathed together, slept in the same bed and dreamed together. Eduardo was always in the middle, safe between his two older brothers.

“I want to be a pilot and fly jets when I grow up,” he said.

“I want to be a bullfighter,” Hector said.

“I want to lead an army like Zapata,” Samson said.

Then came the night of their father’s murder, the night the Zartosa family’s destiny was written in blood.

They were all gone now, his mother, father, Hector and Eduardo.

While Zartosa could do nothing about his mother’s death, he had avenged his father’s murder and his brother Hector’s murder. He thought back to that long flight from California with Eduardo’s coffin in the belly of the plane- I want to be a pilot -thought back to the cemetery where Eduardo was buried.

Who would have thought that in all the galaxies of chance that this arrogance by the Americans-Salazar, Johnson, this Lyle Galviera-to plot a betrayal of the cartel, would actually lead him to Eduardo’s killer?

Anger began to bubble in the pit of Zartosa’s stomach.

At first Zartosa only wanted to use Galviera’s girlfriend’s daughter to draw him out, to retrieve their stolen millions and teach them all a lesson about the Norte Cartel.

He had even contemplated returning the girl-if they’d cooperated.

But now this happens.

Zartosa thought of Cora, thought of the piece of information the caller had given: Eduardo died with God in his hand.

This changes everything.

Zartosa picked up his house phone and pressed a button.

“Garcia?”

“Yes.”

Garcia was like a brother to Zartosa. Garcia had grown up with him, with Hector, with Eduardo and was the first to join their little gang after they’d avenged their father’s murder.

“Garcia-” Zartosa cleared his throat “-is everything still in play for Arizona?”

“Everything is in play.”

“You know Eduardo was the best of us all.”

“He was, Sam.”

“You know when we lowered him into the ground I made him a promise.”

“I was there beside you when you made it.”

“It is time to honor my promise.”