“He takes the bullet all the time,” said Somoza. “Jorge? How many times have I shot you?”
“Five, I think.”
“Look at that. Five times,” said Somoza. “Surely you can take one bullet.”
Campbell nodded. “My hands are shaking. Look.” He held them up, and yes, he was involuntarily trembling.
“It’s okay; you’re going to feel fine,” said Somoza, sliding a pair of earphones over Campbell’s head.
Rojas donned his own pair, as did Somoza, who then produced a bullet from the drawer and loaded the gun. He moved Campbell to a position away from the desk and held up the pistol point-blank to Campbell’s chest.
“That close? Are you nuts?” asked Campbell.
“Okay, listen, this is the way it goes. You take a deep breath and hold it. You count one, two, three, and I shoot. There it is again. One, two, three, BOOM! Okay?” Somoza had raised his voice so they could hear him despite the earphones.
Campbell swallowed and glanced over at Rojas, his eyes pleading.
“Look at me,” said Somoza. “Take a deep breath. Ready? One, two—”
Somoza fired after two, and that was how he always did it with new people who would tense up too much during the moment they expected to hear the boom. He fired early, when the participant was still relaxed.
Campbell hunched over slightly and tugged off his earphones, as they all did. “Wow,” he said and gasped. “You tricked me! But it’s okay. I didn’t feel anything, maybe a little pressure.”
Somoza unbuttoned the trench coat and tugged out Campbell’s shirt to prove to him that he’d not been injured. Then he dug into the coat and produced the flattened piece of lead. “Here you go. A souvenir!”
Campbell took the piece of lead and smiled. “This is pretty amazing.”
And then he held his mouth, raced over to the wastebasket, and retched.
At this, Somoza threw back his head and cackled until his ribs probably hurt.
Later, over coffee, Rojas spoke alone with his old friend, while Campbell was given a more in-depth tour of the facility by Lucille. Rojas shared his feelings about his son. Somoza talked about his own sons, who were growing up too fast as well and were destined to work in the business with him.
“Our boys are a lot alike,” said Rojas. “Children of privilege. How do we keep them …I don’t know … normal?”
“This is difficult in a crazy world. We want to protect them, but there is nothing you and I can do except teach them to make the right choices. I want my sons to wear bulletproof suits. Yes, I can protect them from the bullets but not from all the bullshit life is going to hand them.”
Rojas nodded. “You are a wise man, my friend.”
“And good-looking, too!”
They laughed.
But then Rojas sobered. “Now, Ballesteros has been having some problems again, and I want you to take care of him and his people. You send me the bill. Whatever they need.”
“Of course. A pleasure doing business, as always. And I want to get some measurements of your friend, Senor Campbell. We’re going to make him a trench coat like yours — for being such a good sport.”
“I’m sure he’ll really appreciate that.”
“And one more thing, Jorge.” Now it was Somoza’s turn to grow serious, his voice burred with tension. “I have been thinking about this for a long time. We are both at the stage in our life where we no longer need to associate with the trade. My business is legitimate and booming now. Of course I will help our friend Ballesteros, but for me, this has to be the last deal, the last connection. I’m very concerned. The mess in Puerto Rico has us all concerned. I want you to understand that I still work for you, but I must cut connections here, and honestly, Jorge, I think you should pull out. Turn it over to someone else. It’s time. As you said, your boy is moving on. So should you.”
Rojas thought for a long moment. Somoza was indeed speaking to him as a dear friend, and he was talking sense — but his words were born of fear, and Rojas could see that fear etched in the man’s eyes.
“My friend, you should never be scared of anyone. People will try to intimidate you, but no one is better than anyone else. You need to be a fighter in this life.”
“Yes, Jorge, yes. But a man must be wise enough to pick his battles. We are not young anymore. Let the boys fight this battle, not us. We have far too much to lose.”
Rojas got to his feet. “I’ll think about it. You are a good friend, and I know what you are saying.”
22 TAKING THE FALL
At about eleven A.M. the next morning, Moore, Zuniga, and six more cartel members assembled in Zuniga’s four-car garage with the doors cracked half open. Moore delivered the drug shipment he’d seized and watched as Zuniga’s men inspected the bricks and did not find anything suspicious — notably, the tiny injection holes made by Moore and Towers as they’d planted the GPS beacons. The Sinaloa Cartel was powerful but not quite as sophisticated as the Juarez, who Moore believed would have X-rayed the bricks and possibly found the trackers.
As Moore had hoped, Zuniga seemed very pleased with the “gift” and most assuredly had plans in motion to move the stuff before nightfall. He nodded over the bricks, then faced Moore. “Your enemy is my enemy, it seems.”
“When one cartel becomes too powerful, it is everyone’s enemy.”
“I agree.”
“All right. I would like to continue to help. Let me take a few of your men. We’ll all go kidnap Rojas’s son. Like I told you, we’re in this together,” said Moore.
“Mr. Howard, maybe I am crazy enough to believe you now. Maybe I’m going to say okay.”
“It’ll take most of the day to fly down there in one of your planes, so maybe we should leave now?”
“Maybe I haven’t made up my mind.”
At this Moore snapped, and he probably shouldn’t have, but he hadn’t gotten much sleep. He raised his voice to a near shout. “Senor Zuniga, what else do you need? One hundred and fifty in cash, a huge drug shipment stolen from Rojas? What else? My bosses are growing impatient.”
Torres, who’d been standing nearby, waddled up and raised his own voice. “Do not speak to Senor Zuniga that way! I will twist off your head!”
Moore glared at the man, then faced Zuniga. “I’m tired of playing games. I’ve made a good offer. Let’s get this done.”
Zuniga gave Moore one final appraising look, then reached out his hand. “I want you to kill Rojas.”
Two hours later, Moore, Torres, and Fitzpatrick, along with a pilot and copilot, were packed into a twin-prop Piper PA-31 Navajo on a southeast track toward San Cristobal de las Casas. The weather was clear, the views spectacular, the company miserable, because Torres got airsick and had twice vomited into his little white sack. If it had been a long night, it was going to be an even longer day, and Moore looked across the cabin at Fitzpatrick, who rolled his eyes over the fat man’s inability to handle air travel. Torres apparently had a massive but delicate stomach, and Fitzpatrick had chided him before they’d boarded the plane about them being unable to lift off because of the “added cargo.” Torres’s revenge for that remark was potent, and currently in the form of a foul- smelling bag of vomit seated between his legs.
Moore closed his eyes and tried to steal an hour or two of sleep, allowing the hum of the props to draw him deeper into unconsciousness …
The lights on the oil platform winked out, and suddenly Carmichael cried, “We’ve been spotted!”
Moore shook hard and sat forward in the airplane seat.
Torres looked back at him. “Bad dream?”
