“Tell me again why we needed to squeeze this trip in?”
Imna was ten years his junior though she sometimes treated him like she was his mother. She adjusted her glasses as she frowned at him.
“It’s good PR.”
“For the governor, maybe. Not sure the President of the United States appreciates it.”
Imna shrugged.
“You win some, you lose some.”
Cortez yawned again. He couldn’t help it.
Imna said, “Why are you so tired, anyway?”
“I haven’t been able to sleep the past couple days.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He was lying, of course. Cortez trusted Imna with practically everything—every little secret—but not the truth about his son … though he sometimes wondered if she knew, deep down inside, like a few of his other aides. Many of them had access to the same intelligence reports he did. While Alejandro was never publicly named as the one targeting cartel families—called El Diablo by the news media and the rest of the nation—many suspected it was his son. Only Cortez knew for sure. He knew that his son had been out there, still alive, hunting down the wives and children of the cartel families, and while he didn’t approve of such means, he certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to stop his son.
And then it was over. Almost a year ago this week. A skirmish outside a small town an hour south of Culiacán. A cartel head and his men murdered. While the cartel head’s wife and son were unharmed—though he knew two people had intervened at the last second, a woman and man who took his son’s body away. That was all they managed to get from the cartel head’s wife. She had been so frightened she could barely describe them more than that.
The driver answered his cell phone, listened for a few seconds, then said they would be making a detour.
Imna asked, “What’s going on?”
“There’s an ongoing incident a couple blocks away from the hotel. The police want us to steer clear.”
At the next intersection, the convoy made a right. Soon they were speeding down a side street, and Cortez leaned forward to look out the other window but couldn’t see much except a fire truck headed in the opposite direction on another street, and then the convoy turned at the next intersection.
The driver said, “Almost there.”
Imna sighed when she spotted the protestors. There looked to be fifty of them, maybe more. Along with a few news vans parked along the street and a few other police cars and a friendlier crowd gathered around the hotel’s entrance.
Cortez smiled, always one to try to make the best out of a bad situation.
“Quite the welcoming party.”
Imna eyed him hesitantly.
“Maybe we should have skipped this event, after all.”
He shrugged and smiled again.
“We’re already here. Canceling now would be rude.”
“What would be rude is yawning in front of the governor. Try not to do that.”
“I won’t make any promises.”
The SUV halted in front of the hotel. The bodyguard stepped out and waited for the security detail to move into position before he opened the back door. Shouts could be heard outside—the friendlier crowd near the hotel as well as boos and chants from the protestors across the street.
Cortez waited for Imna to exit first, as she always did, but she was now staring down at her cell phone.
He said, “Ready?”
She glanced up at him, her fingers tapping at the phone.
“I have to answer this email. I’ll be right behind you.”
He nodded and slid out of his seat and stepped outside. Both crowds became even louder, a raucous noise, and he thought it might be funny if he were to yawn right now, in front of everyone, but then he imagined the photos that would stream across the Internet and cable news and how Imna would be furious with him.
Cortez waved to the people near the entrance as he followed his security detail toward the open doors. He ignored the boos and chants across the street and some of the people on this side calling out his name—a skill he’d perfected over the years, just filter the noise from his mind and focus on the task at hand—and he only paused when a new name managed to push through all the rest, a name he’d been thinking about for the past couple days but one he didn’t expect to hear this morning.
Somebody was shouting his son’s name.
Forty-Five
At first I’m not sure he hears me, what with everybody shouting and the crowd across the street chanting and booing, but then his stride starts to slow, and he turns my way, searching the crowd, until he spots me.
A woman steps out of the SUV, dressed in a pantsuit and glasses. She looks confused, like she isn’t sure why President Cortez has stopped. His security detail looks just as confused. One of them steps close to him, whispers in his ear. President Cortez blinks, shakes his head, and looks like he’s ready to keep moving forward into the hotel.
So I repeat the name, not shouting it like before but still saying it loudly and with force.
“Alejandro.”
President Cortez pauses again. Stands there staring at me. I hold his gaze, aware of his security detail and the police all around me, and the Beretta digging into my back. There’s a good chance I’ll be thrown to the ground and arrested. But I’ve decided I have no choice but to take that chance.
The same bodyguard whispers again to President Cortez, touches his arm to try to get him moving, but the older man waves him off.
President Cortez approaches me, slowly, still holding my gaze. When he’s only a few feet away, I speak again, this time not as loud but still with enough force so he’ll hear it over the crowd noise.
“I knew your son.”
The man says nothing, studying my face.
“I was there that night.”
His eyes go flat with understanding, but still he says nothing.
“I can tell you where to find him.”
He’s only a couple feet
