The Babylon rite

43

The Embassy of the United States, Lima, Peru

‘Carlos “El Santo” Chicomeca Monroy.’

Jessica looked at the besuited man in front of her. He was young: about thirty; his head was close-shaved, his eyes were piercingly blue, the shirt was the whitest shirt she had ever seen. Clearly he was CIA or FBI, or Drug Enforcement Agency. DEA. She asked, ‘El Santo?’

‘The Saint.’ The man smiled. Very briefly. ‘It’s a joke, Mexican black humour. Carlos Monroy is about as far from a saint as you can imagine. Even by the sick standards of the Mexican drug wars, he is a sicko. Pathologically violent. We think he drinks blood.’

Jessica had phoned the embassy with her theory just after she had spoken with the British police, and made several other connections to cover her bases. The embassy had immediately asked her in for an interview the following day. But now it was their turn to talk.

The official pulled out a sheet of paper from a file on the desk and swivelled it so that Jessica could see. ‘This is the best image we have of Monroy.’

She leaned to look. ‘He’s handsome. Very young?’

‘It was taken a few years ago, when he was at Harvard.’

‘I don’t understand.’

The DEA guy leaned back, steepling his fingers, as if in prayer. ‘How much do you know about the Mexican drug wars? The drug cartels? You told us that you suspect the drug gangs are somehow involved in the events in Zana, and Europe. But what else do you know?’

‘Well.’ She shifted in her seat. The room was airless. Windowless. Featureless. Buried deep inside the embassy, like a safe room. ‘Not that much. I’ve been abroad the last three years. India, then Peru.’ She shrugged, awkwardly. ‘I mean — I hear about the awful murders of police. I know it is seriously violent across the border. I know that if the Mexican drug gangs are involved in all this, then it’s important. And dangerous.’

‘Indeed. Seriously violent is something of an understatement. Since 2003 at least fifty thousand people have died in the conflict between the various drug cartels of Mexico, who are competing to supply cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin, primarily to the USA. Moreover, in recent years the death rate in this drug war has actively worsened. The death toll is far higher than, say, the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The rate of killing is actually higher than the Afghan war. One city alone, Ciudad Juarez, on the Texan border, sees thousands of murders a year: it is the most dangerous city on earth.’ A terse pause. ‘And the violence is unbelievably brutal. People are tortured to death on YouTube. Victims are beheaded and mutilated and stripped naked and strung up from bridges in Juarez, with obscene notices slung around their necks. Women are mercilessly raped and tortured, then killed. In 2009 a series of victims were dissolved in acid by the “stewmaker” — so called because that’s what he did, he made human stew. A stew of dissolved humans.’

The young man frowned, stood up, and walked to the side of the room. ‘One reason for the violence is the vast amounts of money provided by the narcotics industry. We estimate the drug trade in Mexico generates at least forty billion dollars in profits a year. One cartel leader, Chapo “Shorty” Guzman, was listed amongst the world’s richest men by Forbes magazine. The income these guys make is phenomenal, and they will fight to the death to own the “plaza” — the place of trade. They will kill indiscriminately. They will walk into a wedding and spray the place with machine guns just to show they can. Just to terrorize.’ He gazed at a wall, as if it were a window. ‘The drug lords, of course, become famous. Even glamorous. Songs are sung about them — about the narcos, the enviable billionaire drug bosses, these songs are so popular have their own genre, narcocorridas. There is a whole culture of narco this and narco that. When the drug lords die they are buried in elaborate narcotumbas. Their beautiful teenage mistresses are called narcoesposas — narco-wives. There is a narco-architecture: the vast lurid villas they build. You get the idea. It is an entire civilization of cruelty and killing, based on the misery of addiction.’

He turned. Talking directly at her.

‘A couple of years ago, straight into this maelstrom of horror, walked Carlos Monroy. His family is aristocratic: they can trace their descent from the Aztec royal family, and from the conquistadors. This is not uncommon, of course. There are many descendants of the Aztec Emperor Montezuma living today; some went to Spain, to Europe. President Chavez of Venezuela was descended from Montezuma. Similarly, the conquistadors had many children, when they interbred with the Aztec and Inca royal families. But it is unusual for the leader of a drug cartel.’

Jessica felt a need to speak now, to interrupt this ceaseless flow of knowledge. To show she existed. ‘I don’t understand. Why is his lineage so important?’

‘Because it meant he got a very good education. Most cartel bosses are from the slums, the barrios. They fight and kill their way to the top. But Monroy went to Harvard, where he studied history and science. He is extremely intelligent, cultivated and educated, and his family is already wealthy. Why then did he become a cartel boss? He seems to be motivated by some hatred of the West. Of the gringos. A resentment which makes him particularly vicious. His Harvard education has also given him a business acumen and, we believe, a skill at drug synthesis. His meth, for instance, is some of the best on the market. He is ruthlessly superb at his chosen career. When he returned to Mexico, he took over a small cartel, the Catrina cartel. And since then, by utilizing a brutality that is shocking even by Mexico’s appalling standards, he has turned Catrina into one of the most powerful cartels of all, such that they are challenging the supremacy of the Zetas.’

‘Who are?’

‘ Los Zetas are the dominant cartel in Mexico, founded by a small team of Mexican special forces deserters, which has since expanded to take in corrupt local police, state police, federal officers, prostitute informers, teenage assassins, and so on. They employ thousands across Mexico and beyond. This is why the Peruvian police were maybe less than eager in their investigation of your situation. If they suspect the drug cartels are involved, especially the Zetas, then they are quite right to be scared. The Zetas are fearsomely well equipped — their arsenal includes assault rifles and submachine guns, grenade launchers, surface-to-air missiles, helicopters. Even submarines.’

‘Submarines?’

‘Submarines. Until recently it was feared that the Zetas were threat to the Mexican state itself. Until recently, the US authorities regarded them as the most potent paramilitary drug gang in Mexico. That is… until the rise of Carlos El Santo Monroy. Until the Saint arrived on the scene.’

Jessica stared at the picture of the US president on the wall. She didn’t particularly want to look at it. This was just the only thing to look at, apart from the man opposite her telling her all this frightening, frightening stuff. ‘How does this fit with my information?’

The man lifted a single finger. ‘One more thing. El Santo is, as I say, a student of history. One of the reasons for his rise is, we think, his astute use of psychology. He has turned his cartel into a kind of military religious order. What is special about El Santo’s brand of faith is that he has deliberately utilized the imagery and culture of Santa Muerte. Holy Death.’

‘I’ve heard about this. About Santa Muerte.’

‘He uses it as a bonding mechanism, and also as a kind of branding. It is not unlike the way Hitler built Nazism — the impressive iconography, the sense of religious purpose in the adherents. Holy Death is a criminal and working-class cult religion in Mexico, which combines Roman Catholic elements with ancient Mesoamerican and Aztec motifs. It may even be a direct and living descendant of Aztec religions, which survived in poor areas of Mexico City and then re-emerged in the last few years. Practitioners of Santa Muerte worship death herself, in the image of a white lady, also known as “the skinny one”. They venerate her presence as a skull or a skeleton in a dress or robe or veil, sometimes she is called Catrina, hence the cartel’s name.’

‘But why is Santa Muerte so powerful? For Monroy?’

‘Because Santa Muerte idolizes death. Therefore the practitioners are especially murderous, they want to kill. El Santo’s lethal emissaries see killing as an ideal, an end in itself. A way of worshipping the white lady. They are tattooed with skulls and may regard these tattoos as magical protection. The use of such magical tattoos has now spread to other gangs. You know about the deaths in England, of course-’

‘The McLintocks, those poor young people, yes.’

‘Some of the suspects in this case have Santa Muerte tattoos on their hands: that certainly indicates the Catrina cartel. But the man Ritter, who was killed in London, he was tattooed on the arm, which is more a Zeta trait. And he was firmly linked with the Camorra, in Italy, who we know are allied with the Zetas.’

Jess gazed at the bare white walls, then at the officer. ‘You’ve spoken to people in London?’

‘Yep. We have already been in touch with the British authorities. Indeed we spoke to London this morning, to further our investigation, and to help them if we can. And this is where you come in… We were fascinated by your information. We know El Santo took an interest in ethnobotany at Harvard. He is obviously after new drugs. Or, should I say, old drugs. Please tell us everything you know about the history.’

Jessica did as she was instructed. The DEA officer took copious notes. The president of the United States of America smiled down from the wall.

An hour later the officer put down his embassy pen, stood up, shook her hand, and thanked her, solemnly. Jessica felt a sudden terror: at leaving the safe, guarded confines of the embassy, with its body scanners, and smartly saluting Marines. She had to go back out there, where the soldiers of El Santo were prowling, with the skull tattoos, yearning to kill for the sake of killing.

The man evidently sensed her unhappiness. ‘Miss Silverton, let me repeat the advice I gave you on the phone.’ His eyes met hers. ‘Yes, you are in serious danger, there is no point in denying it. But it is arguable that California could be just as dangerous for you, for anyone, as Peru. The US cannot guarantee safety even for its own officials — we have lost many good men in Mexico and elsewhere, diplomats and businessmen, families with children, not just soldiers and DEA operatives. In your case, my hope is that they regard you as subsidiary. They will have no idea that you have this… special information. I would advise you again, however, to change your cellphone pretty quickly. Just in case. And don’t go back to Zana of course: the Peruvian police were quite correct in that advice. Moreover, if you do feel threatened in any way, please come here, we can guard you, you can certainly be safe here, if nowhere else. But of course on the streets — well, that it is more difficult. The choice, naturally, is yours.’ Another handshake. ‘Goodbye Miss Silverton, and, once again, thank you. You have assisted your government in a very serious situation. Happy Christmas. Please be careful.’

By the time she had emerged through the various security levels of the embassy, which was like ascending from the dark blue depths of the sea to the gasping surface, Jessica’s hands were shaking. She definitely needed a coffee. And when she reached the coffee shop she asked for a mug because she didn’t trust her trembling hands to hold a delicate cup.

Her trembling hands? She ignored the symptom. Strenuously, and as best she could. She was frightened. That’s why her hands were trembling. Frightened, or diabetic. Frightened.

Halfway through the mug, her cellphone rang. For a moment she considered blocking the call, hurling the phone in the trashcan. Then she realized it was a British number. Prefix +44.

She picked it up. ‘Hello.’

‘We’re just outside.’

She looked up. Standing at the door was a pretty, dark-haired girl and a much taller man. They were here. Nina McLintock and Adam Blackwood.