seriously. The problem was that, if his hunch — okay, he’d concede they were correct on that — was right, by the time they got something solid it could be weeks from now, which would put them all at a tremendous disadvantage. Cruz knew that if a trained assassin was hell-bent on taking out a head of state, and was willing to die in the process, then it was practically impossible to stop him — he’d heard that again and again as a police officer, and later, as a detective. So the more preparation, the more of an edge they had.
But nobody was going to put any credence in his theories — certainly not if it meant humiliation if they were wrong. It was far more prudent for a bureaucrat to take a conservative stance, even if it meant endangering the President. Cruz wondered if they would have been so nonchalant if it had been their son or daughter who was in danger of being killed, but still…he was arguing a loser, until he had proof.
Maybe he would still go to the NSA or the Secret Service, but only once he’d done some more homework. In a way, Serrate had done him a favor. He had forced Cruz to build a real case if he was going to be taken seriously. Cruz had hoped to sidestep that process and fast-track some action, forgetting everything he knew about human nature and the way that the system worked. He couldn’t afford to make the same mistake twice.
Swinging out of the parking area, he almost collided with a woman pushing a baby stroller, chatting on her cell phone. His brakes locked, causing his tires to screech to a stop, inches from the pair.
Shaken, he waved in apology. The woman gave him a look that could cut glass.
He needed to cool down. Being angry because his colleagues hadn’t embraced his ideas was a luxury he couldn’t afford. His strength lay in being analytical and thorough, not in being a cowboy. Serrate was right.
Cruz needed proof.
And he needed it now.
He stabbed a speed dial button on his cell phone as he pulled into traffic. Briones answered on the second ring.
“It didn’t go well,” Cruz reported.
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir. How should we proceed from here? Did they give you any guidance or suggestions?”
“Yes. We need to get something tangible. So it’s of paramount importance that the men working the streets understand they are to have virtually unlimited resources. If they need to offer money to curry favor or to get someone to talk, bring me the request. I don’t care what it takes, but we need to stir the pot and shake something loose. Pass that on to Roto and Brava. Tell them I want them to do whatever it takes. Use those exact words, Lieutenant,” Cruz emphasized.
“Whatever it takes. Got it. Are you coming back in to the office?”
Cruz peered at the digital clock on the dash. It was already five-thirty. By the time he got to the office in traffic, it would be six or later.
Then again, what did he really have waiting for him at home?
“Yes. I’ll be there shortly. You don’t need to wait for me. Get some sleep, chase women or whatever you young men do, and I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”
Chapter 6
Sinaloa, Mexico — 1986
The midnight horizon glowed with leaping licks of fire as the meager improvised tarpaper shacks around the hidden field blazed. Dense, acrid smoke belched into the night sky, carrying with it all the earthly possessions of the simple farming family huddled together, their wrists bound with plastic ties, the children sobbing as they watched their home vaporize. A pair of armed men stood next to a lifted four-wheel drive pickup truck, watching the blaze as they shared a bottle of mescal while admiring their destructive handiwork.
The mother tried in vain to comfort her panicked children — two little girls and a small boy — as the father mumbled a prayer to the Virgin of Guadalupe, who had been conspicuously absent in assisting him this year. He’d planted a cash crop instead of tomatoes — marijuana bringing with it a substantial premium over the edible harvest he’d always grown in the past. He’d needed the money for his youngest girl’s operation, to repair a congenital deformity; Michelle had been born with a cleft palate that would limit her chances in life due to the effect on her appearance. He had realized that cultivating cannabis carried a risk, because the other drug growers and their distribution network didn’t want competition, but he hoped to be able to get away with it this one year, and then go back to tomato farming.
The farmer’s luck had been bad ever since the arrival of his newborn two years ago. First there was her birth defect, then a bad harvest, and just a few months ago, news that another baby was on the way. More mouths to feed diminished the miracle of birth somewhat. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his children, but the financial pressure was immense, and the last thing he needed was another one. And in the back of his mind lurked a darkness — what if this one also had some problem; an even more expensive one to care for? He’d tried to banish the thoughts, but they had recurred and grown to dominate his days.
Two of the men approached — rough looking, wearing cowboy hats and carrying pistols. These were the foot soldiers of the local distribution network; in 1986, there was only one cartel, operated by Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, also known as The Godfather, who lived in nearby Culiacan and controlled all drug traffic of any note in Mexico. Everyone answered to him, including these men. In a few years, Gallardo would divide up the country and create a more fragmented cartel scheme, dolling out territories like a multi-level marketing magnate, but at this point, he alone was the ultimate authority, with close friends and family members handling the local day-to-day operations.
The mother pleaded frantically with the two men to forgive them, to at least release the children — they were helpless babies, the boy the oldest at five years old. One of the men backhanded her, splitting her cheek open. The father begged for them to show mercy in a keening burst of rapid Spanish, his tense formal and respectful of their obvious dominance. He acknowledged that he knew it was wrong to grow marijuana without their consent, but there was the baby’s operation to consider, and to please, in the name of all that was holy, not punish the innocent for his bad judgment.
The men were unsympathetic, and drunk, flushed with the power of life and death over their miserable captives. The distraught children were dressed in rags, and the parents weren’t much better — their poverty and desperation was palpable.
The heavier of the two men moved towards the kneeling prisoners and kicked the two year old in the head with his heavy cowboy boots. The snap of her neck was audible; the additional blows with his heel unnecessary. The mother shrieked in blind rage, screaming her baby’s name into the deafness of the night. The two men laughed drunkenly, and the kicker wiped the blood from his boot onto her tattered peasant dress before moving to the father and silencing his hoarse yells with a brutal pistol blow to the head. Dazed, he fell over, blood flowing freely from a gash in his scalp.
Grabbing the mother by the hair, they forced her to her feet, and the kicker tore at her dress. She struggled in protest, hysterical with grief and fear, and was rewarded for her efforts with a savage punch to the throat. The men hauled the now silenced woman off to a flat patch of dirt near the flaming main dwelling, and took turns raping her while the father and children watched helplessly.
Eventually tiring of the sport, they dragged her back to her now mute family and discarded her beside her toddler’s mutilated corpse. The woman had gone into shock, barely registering the abuse or the mangled body of her baby, her awareness shut down as a self-preservation mechanism for what remained of her psyche. She raised her head from the dirt, and in her delirium saw Satan dancing in the house’s flames; the dark one had come to claim them for his own.
The kicker moved to the little boy — the only one of the family who wasn’t crying. The child radiated a piercing look of pure hatred at the man, but there were no tears. Already, he’d been hardened by the demanding life on a rural farm, where he worked besides his father from dawn until dusk.
“Hey, look here, we have a tough guy, Hmm? What a tough character, this little
“I think he would, if he had a chance, Paco,” his companion confirmed.
