He was taken in by his mother’s church, where he’d learned English from the priests who delivered him into a foster home. Over the years, Angel pinballed through the system, feeling unwanted and unloved. Finally, he ran away to live on the streets of Juarez with other outcasts. He formed a gang that broke into the homes of rich people to steal whatever they could.
One night Angel and his two gang members were caught by men who were asleep inside a house they had broken into. The men took them in a van to an abandoned building where several narcos with AK-47s were gathered around a young man tied to a chair.
Angel and his cohorts were held at gunpoint while the group’s leader was told what had happened at the house. He assessed the boys, considered the situation carefully, then considered the prisoner.
“This piece of excrement in the chair stole from me, too,” the leader said. “Only he stole much, much more than you little dogs.” The leader ordered that a handgun be placed on the ground in front of the captive man.
“Which of you dogs has the balls to pick up that gun and shoot him for me? Which of you has what it takes?”
Angel’s first friend started to cry and pleaded to be freed and Angel’s second friend stood there trembling. Angel looked at them, looked at the leader, then at the prisoner. Angel picked up the gun, raised it to the man’s forehead, imagined his father’s face and squeezed the trigger.
The explosion was deafening.
The man’s head dropped. His blood dripped steadily to the floor.
Nodding, the leader smiled. “Now, shoot your dog friends. They are witnesses.”
Angel looked at the leader, raised the gun to the head of the first boy, who pleaded as the other narcos held him: “Angel, please, no!”
Angel squeezed the trigger and it clicked. The gun was empty.
All the men laughed as the leader patted Angel’s head. Then he looked deep into Angel’s eyes, his face softening as if he’d found something sad and distant.
“What is your name?”
“Angel.”
“Angel, you have the stone heart of
Angel was thirteen.
That night he had found his family.
Over time he’d learned that cartels employed young assassins because they worked for less than an ex-cop or soldier, because they could get access to most places without raising suspicions and because they could be controlled.
But not Angel. He was smart; he liked killing. He was good at it, was paid well and had earned his status as a force to be feared.
Now he was twenty and felt as old as the mountains, aware death was near because rivals were not his only threat. When cartels brought in a new assassin, their first job was to kill their predecessor, who usually knew more than anyone about the organization.
It was business.
The man in the chair Angel had killed that night was an eighteen-year-old
As the school bus traveled through downtown Juarez, Angel watched the Mexican soldiers patrolling the streets. Lines of traffic started backing up as the bus neared the bridge to the United States. Soon the students got off and joined the long lines of people waiting to walk over the muddy Rio Grande on the pedestrian bridge, a virtual tube of wire security fencing.
On the American side, U.S. border agents with drug-sniffing dogs surveyed the line advancing to the checkpoint. When his turn came, Angel presented his passport and student visa. The U.S. officer examined them, checking Angel against his photo before clearing him.
It was over quickly.
Angel entered the U.S. and walked to the intersection of Sixth Avenue and El Paso Street, glancing at the greeting on the sign that said Welcome to Texas!
As instructed that morning, he reached for his phone and made a call.
“Go to the bus station. A man wearing a Dallas Cowboys T-Shirt and hat will ask you for the time. He will give you cash and new phones.”
“That’s it?”
“Buy a one-way ticket to Phoenix.”
“What is in Phoenix?”
“Your next job.”
34
A half hour east of Phoenix, in the lobby of the Grand Cactus Motel, a computer station offered free internet access for guests.
Lyle Galviera was using it to catch up on news reports posted online, a recent story on Tilly’s abduction from W-Cero News.
Salazar was dead. Johnson was dead.
They were found in the desert south of Juarez.
Their heads had been removed.
Pictures of Salazar and Johnson were shown over the murder scene in the desert. Then Galviera stared at a photo of himself over a caption: Lyle Galviera, Person of Interest. The report said Galviera disappeared with five million in cash stolen from the Norte Cartel, reputed to be one of Mexico’s most powerful and vengeful cartels.
The story said two men posing as police officers invaded the suburban Phoenix home of Cora Martin, Galviera’s secretary. After binding Cora and ransacking her home in vain for the Norte Cartel’s cash, the men kidnapped Tilly. There were images of Tilly, images of Cora pleading at the FBI news conference.
The report ended with the Norte Cartel’s ultimatum to Cora: she had five days to find Galviera and their cash or risk never seeing Tilly again.
Time was running out.
Gooseflesh rose on Galviera’s arms as he sat at the computer, transfixed.
“Are you going to be much longer, Mister?” A boy about twelve, his face splashed with freckles, tapped the note taped on the frame:
Please Be Considerate of Other Guests and Limit Your Session to 10 Minutes. Thank You, Management.
Galviera logged off.
Still stunned, he joined the small line of people waiting to be seated inside the motel’s large restaurant.
Galviera knew about the Norte Cartel but never suspected that Salazar and Johnson had been stealing from them.
He had to find a way out of this.
“Table for one, sir?”
The hostess led him through the crowded dining room. With his dark glasses, ball cap and unshaven, tanned face, Galviera blended in with the tourists. She seated him at a small corner table next to one with four grandmothers nattering about their visit to the Grand Canyon.
“My Bert always wanted to see it.”
