Against All Enemies

14 A SANGRE FRÍA

Gloria Vega hopped into the passenger’s side of an F-150 4x4 with the words Policía Federal emblazoned across the doors. She wore full tactical gear, including a Kevlar vest, a balaclava pulled over her face, and a helmet secured tightly by its chinstrap. She carried two Glocks holstered at her hips and a Heckler & Koch MP5 nine-millimeter submachine gun whose barrel she held up near her shoulder. That a police inspector had to don this kind of gear and arm herself for bear would be a real eye-opener for some of the detectives back home, she thought. Those slackers could arrive at a crime scene in plainclothes with just a single sidearm, no vests, and doughnut powder staining their lips.

The graying man at the wheel, Alberto Gómez, was dressed similarly to Vega and had warned her that visiting the crime scenes “after the fact” could be as dangerous as the initial incidents themselves. Bodies were all too often used as bait to lure in police so the sicarios could blow them up, taking police with them. Sometimes, if the bodies weren’t booby-trapped, snipers would be posted along the rooftops, and again, the police would be set up for a mass killing.

And so the days of operating in plainclothes were over for the inspectors, Gómez had told her with a shrug. He’d scrutinized her with eyes so weary that she wondered why he hadn’t retired already.

Well, then again, she knew why. She hadn’t been paired with him by accident. While the Federal Police had no definitive proof, Gómez was at the top of their list of inspectors with ties to the cartels. Sadly, he’d had so many years on the job and so many “successful” busts that no one wanted to implicate the old man. There was an implicit understanding that he would finish out his few years and retire, and that no one should interfere with that. He was a real family man, with four kids and eleven grandchildren, and he volunteered at the local schools to teach the kids about crime and safety. He was an usher at his local Catholic church and a well-known member of the Knights of Columbus who had risen up to the role of district deputy. He volunteered at the local hospital, and if he could, he would spend weekends helping old ladies cross the street.

All of which Vega suspected was an elaborate cover, a false life that made him feel better about being on the cartel’s payroll.

Senior-ranking members of the Federal Police, particularly the newer administrators and hires, had a much more aggressive and zero-tolerance policy for corruption, while the local districts too often looked the other way — out of respect, seniority, and, most of all, fear. And so it was that Vega was seated beside a man who could be one of the dirtiest in all of Juárez.

“We have three bodies. When we get there, say nothing,” Gómez told her.

“Why not?”

“Because they don’t need to know anything from you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I don’t care how many years you spent in Mexico City. I don’t care about your long and impressive record. I don’t care about your promotion or about all the kind words your colleagues have said about you in your file. All I care about now is helping you to stay alive. Do you understand me, young lady?”

“I understand you. But I don’t understand why I’m not permitted to talk. I’m not sure if you realize this, but women in Mexico are allowed to vote and run for public office. Maybe you haven’t picked up a newspaper in a while.”

“You see? That is your problem. That attitude. I suggest you put that into your purse and never take it out, so long as you are here, in Ciudad Juárez.”

“Oh, let me see if I can find my purse. Oh, all I have are these big guns and extra magazines.”

He smirked.

She shook her head and gritted her teeth. Eight years in Army Intelligence and four years as a seasoned CIA field officer had led her to this: sitting in a car and taking machismo crap from a broken-down and corrupt Federal Police inspector. The miscarriage, the divorce, the alienation of her brothers and sisters …and for what? This? She turned to Gómez and burned him with her glare.

They listened to the other units over the radio, and within ten minutes rolled down a street lined with pink, white, and purple apartment buildings, the alley between them festooned with laundry. A few lanky boys of ten or twelve stood in the doorways, watching them and making calls on their cell phones. They were the cartel’s spotters, and Gómez marked them, too.

At the end of the street, near the next intersection, three bodies blocked the road. Vega yanked a pair of binoculars from the center console and dialed to focus.

They were all young males, two lying prone amid blood pools, the third facing up with a hand clutching his heart. They were dressed in dark jeans and T-shirts, and if they’d been wearing any jewelry, it’d already been stolen. Two police cruisers were parked about twenty meters away, the officers crouching down behind their doors. Gómez parked behind one cruiser and widened his eyes. “Say nothing.”

They got out, and Vega’s gaze swept across the rooftops, where at least a half-dozen men were just sitting up there, watching, a few talking on more cell phones. She clutched her rifle a bit tighter, and her mouth went dry.

A van rolled up behind them, and out came two more officers with a pair of bomb-sniffing dogs. As they shifted by, Gómez’s cell phone rang, and he drifted to the back of the truck to take the call. What Vega noted, though, was that the old man carried two phones; this was not the phone he’d used to call her cell, thereby giving her his number. This was a second phone. Interesting.

She couldn’t hear what he was saying over the shouting from the officers ahead. The canine team moved in slowly, and once they swept the area and the bodies, one man gave a wave and a shout. All clear.

He took a sniper’s round from the rooftop to their left, and most of his head came off.

Just like that. Without warning. Broad daylight. Civilians watching from the balconies of the apartments.

And as the others screamed to get down, the second canine officer was shot in the neck, the round hammering him from the back and exploding from beneath his chin.

A new wave of automatic-weapons fire came in from AK-47s that ripped through the bodies in the street and cut into the dogs, both of which fell while Vega crawled forward on her chest, keeping tight to the truck’s front wheel. She lifted her rifle and returned fire at the rooftops, her bead spraying along the ledge and chiseling away at the stucco.

“Hold your fire!” cried Gómez. “Hold your fire!”

And then …nothing. A few shouts, the stench of gunpowder everywhere now, and the heat of the asphalt rising in waves up into Vega’s face.

Brakes squealed, stealing her attention. At the next cross street sat a white pickup truck missing its tailgate, and from one of the back alleys came three men armed with rifles — AR-15s and one AK-47. They ran toward the truck and leapt onto the flatbed. Several of the officers ahead opened fire, but the truck was already hightailing it away. As a matter of fact, the rounds from those officers seemed perfunctory at best — not a single one struck the truck.

Vega bolted to her feet and ran around to the passenger’s side, where Gómez was hunkered down and shaking his head.

“Come on!” she urged him. “Come on!”

“I’ll call for the backup. Other units will pursue them.”

“We go now!” she cried.

His eyes widened, and his voice lifted sharply: “What did I tell you?”

She inhaled, bit back a curse, then rose and spun toward one of the rooftops, where the sniper who’d killed the two canine cops had her dead in his sights.

“Oh my God,” she gasped, a second before the killer disappeared behind the rooftop parapet.

She blinked. Breathed.

And was back in the moment.

“He’s right there,” she shouted. “Up there!”

The other officers remained behind their car doors, shaking their heads and gesturing for her to get down, take cover.

She went back to Gómez and crouched down beside him. “We’re letting him get away.”

“The other units will find him. Just wait. We didn’t come here to fight them. We came here to investigate the crime scene. Now shut up.”

Vega closed her eyes, and it hit her — right there and then. She was going about this all wrong. She needed to get close to this guy, gain his trust, not turn him into the enemy she already presumed he was. She needed to be his daughter, allow him to teach her about the city, and as he grew to like her, perhaps even respect her, he’d lower his guard enough for her to strike.

But her ego had gotten in the way, her exacting nature, and she’d admittedly screwed up.

They remained there for another two, maybe three, minutes, and then, finally, the officers up front began to slowly move toward the bodies, even as residents in the apartments came back out onto their balconies to watch the show.

“Is she your new partner?” one of the officers asked Gómez.

“Yes,” he answered curtly.

“She’ll be dead by the end of the week.”

Gómez looked at Vega. “Let’s hope not.”

She gulped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would be like this …”

Gómez cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe you should pick up a newspaper.”

Dante Corrales was in the mood to kill someone. Three of his sicarios had been gunned down in Delicias, and Inspector Gómez had called to say that he was worried. The Federal Police were watching him more closely now and had assigned to him a female inspector who was probably working with the president’s office. She couldn’t be trusted, and he had to be much more careful now that he was being watched.

Moreover, an American had checked into the hotel, a Mr. Scott Howard, and Ignacio had learned that the guy was scouting properties for his businesses. Corrales didn’t quite believe that and was having the man followed, but thus far his story had checked out.

While Raúl and Pablo were making a large cash delivery to a contact they simply referred to as “the banker,” Corrales was headed over to the Monarch for lunch and cervezas. En route, his phone rang: Ballesteros calling from Bogotá. What the hell did that fat bastard want now?

“Dante, you know the FARC guys hit me again? I’m going to need some more help.”

“Okay, okay. You can talk to them when they get there.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“Have you heard about Puerto Rico?”

“What now?”

“Haven’t you been watching the news?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“The FBI pulled off another inside operation. Over one hundred police arrested. Do you know what that’s going to do to me? We counted on them. That’s a whole shipping route I’ve lost in a single day. Do you know what this means?”

“Shut the fuck up and stop crying, you fat old fuck! The boss will be there soon. Stop fucking crying!”

With that, Corrales hung up, cursed, and pulled into the club’s parking lot.

There were only two strippers onstage, day workers who’d had children and weren’t shy about revealing their cesarean scars. Two other patrons sat at the main bar, old men wearing wide-brimmed hats, thick leather belts, and cowboy boots.

Corrales went to a back table, where he met his friend Johnny Sanchez, a tall, long-haired Hispanic-American screenwriter and reporter who wore tiny glasses and a UC Berkeley college ring. Johnny was the son of Corrales’s godmother, and he’d gone away to the United States and received his education, only to return to contact Corrales because he wanted to write some articles about the drug cartels in Mexico. He’d never accused Corrales of working for the cartels. He’d said only that he guessed Corrales knew a lot about them. And they’d left it at that.

For the past few months, Corrales had been talking to the man, helping him develop a screenplay that would chronicle Corrales’s life. Their lunch meetings were often the best part of Corrales’s day, when he wasn’t having sex with Maria, of course.

With Corrales’s permission, Johnny had just had an article published in the Los Angeles Times about cartel violence along the border. The article focused mainly on how police corruption was so widespread that authorities could no longer tell the good guys from the bad guys. That was exactly how the Juárez Cartel wanted it.

“The article was very well received,” Johnny said, then took a long pull on his beer.

“You are welcome.”

“It’s a pretty exciting time for me,” he said.

They spoke in Spanish, of course, but once in a while Johnny would break unconsciously into English — like he just did — and he would lose Corrales. Sometimes that would annoy Corrales to the point that he’d bang his fist on the table, and Johnny would blink and apologize.

“What did you say?” Corrales asked.

“Oh, sorry. I received over a hundred e-mails about the article, and the editor would like to turn it into a series.”

Corrales shook his head. “I think you should focus on our movie script.”

“I will. Don’t worry.”

“I’m talking to you because you are my godmother’s son, and because I want you to tell the story of my life, which would make a very good movie. I don’t want you to write any more articles about the cartels. People would become very upset. And I would be afraid for you. Okay?”

Johnny tried to repress his frown. “Okay.”

Corrales smiled. “Good.”

“Is something wrong?”

Corrales traced a finger along the sweat covering his beer bottle, then looked up and said, “I lost some good men today.”

“I didn’t know about it. There was nothing on the news.”

“I hate the news.”

He glanced at the table. The Juárez Cartel had their hands firmly planted on the shoulders of the local media outlets, which sometimes defied them, but the more recent murders of two well-known field reporters who’d been beheaded outside their TV news stations had resulted in some significant “delays” and omissions of stories altogether. Many journalists remained defiant while others feared reporting on anything related to the cartels and cartel violence.

“I want to talk about the day those sicarios threatened you,” Johnny said, trying to lighten the mood. “That would be a very good scene in the movie. And then we would show you falling to your knees outside the hotel, with the fire raging in the background, and you …there …weeping, knowing your parents are dead inside, their bodies burning because you stood up to the cartel and refused to give in. Can you see that scene? Oh my God! What a scene! The audience will be crying with you! There you are, a poor young boy with no future who just wants to stay out of a world of crime, and they punish you for it! They punish you! And you’re left with nothing. Absolutely nothing. And you need to rebuild from the ashes. You need to rise up again, and we’re rooting for you all the way! And then there really is no choice. You’re trapped in a city with nothing to offer, with only one true business, and so you do what you must because you need to survive.”

Johnny always whipped himself up into a fit of passion as he discussed the film, and Corrales couldn’t help but become infected by the writer’s enthusiasm. He was about to comment on Johnny’s suggestion that he was in fact in a cartel — but Johnny turned his head, focusing on something out near the main bar.

“Get down,” he screamed, as he dove across the table and knocked Corrales onto the floor, just as a gun boomed from that direction, followed by at least a half-dozen more shots that pinged into the table and thumped into the wall behind them. The strippers began hollering, and the bartenders were shouting about no shooting, no shooting.

Then, as Corrales rolled onto the floor, it was Johnny who shocked the hell out of him and returned fire with a Beretta clutched in his right hand.

“Is this what you want?” Johnny screamed in Spanish. “Is this what you want from me?”

And the gunman near the bar spun around and sprinted off as Johnny emptied his clip into the man’s wake.

They sat there, just breathing, looking at each other.

Then Johnny said, “Motherfucker …”

“Where did you get that gun?” Corrales asked.

It took a moment before Johnny answered. “From my cousin in Nogales.”

“Where did you learn to shoot?”

Johnny laughed. “I only shot it once before.”

“Well, it was enough. You saved me.”

“I just saw them first.”

“And if you hadn’t, I’d be dead.”

“We’d both be dead.”

“Yeah,” Corrales said.

“Why do they want to kill you?”

“Because I’m not in the cartel.”

Johnny sighed. “Corrales, we’re like blood. And I don’t believe you.”

He slowly nodded.

“Can’t you tell me the truth?”

“I guess maybe now I owe you that. Okay. I’m the head of the Juárez Cartel,” he lied. “I control the entire operation. And those guys were from the Sinaloa Cartel. We’re at war with them over the border tunnels and their interference with our shipments.”

“I thought you were maybe a sicario. But you are the leader?”

He nodded.

“Then you shouldn’t be out in public like this. It’s foolish.”

“I won’t hide like a coward. Not like the other leaders. I will be out here in the street, so the people can see me. So they can know who their true friend is — not the police or the government but us …”

“But that’s very dangerous,” Johnny said.

Corrales began to laugh. “Maybe this can go in the movie, too?”

Johnny’s expression shifted from a deep frown into his more wide-eyed stare, as though he were already staring through a camera’s lens. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Yeah.”