Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

As Ramos makes his way toward the Suburban, he sees that an ambulance has managed to drive in, and he sees Reyes and the EMTs lift Colosio into the back. That’s when Ramos sees the second wound in Colosio’s left side-the man was shot not once, but twice.

The ambulance howls and takes off.

The black Suburban starts to do the same, but Ramos raises Esposa and points it right at the army major sitting in the front seat.

“Tijuana police!” Ramos yells. “Identify yourself!”

“Estado Mayor! Get out of our way!” the major yells back.

He pulls his pistol.

It’s a bad idea. Twelve STG rifles are aimed at his head.

Ramos approaches the car from the passenger side. Now he can see the alleged assassin on the floor of the backseat, between three plainclothes soldiers who are shoving him down and beating him.

Ramos looks at the major in the front seat. “Open the door, I’m getting in.”

“The hell you are.”

“I want that man to arrive at the police station alive!”

“It’s none of your goddamn business! Get out of our way!”

Ramos turns to his men.

“If the car moves, kill them!”

He lifts Esposa and with the butt smashes through the passenger window. As the major ducks, Ramos reaches in, unlocks the door, opens it and gets in. Now he has Esposa’s barrel pointed at the major’s stomach; the major has his pistol pointed at Ramos’ face.

“What?” the major asks. “Do you think I’m Jack Ruby?”

“I’m just making sure you’re not. I want this man to make it to the station alive.”

“We’re taking him to federal police headquarters,” the major says.

“As long as he gets there alive,” Ramos repeats.

The major lowers his pistol and tells his driver, “Let’s go.”

A crowd arrives at Tijuana General before Colosio’s ambulance does. The weeping, praying people have gathered on the front steps, shouting Colosio’s name and holding up his picture. The ambulance brings Colosio around the back and into a waiting operating room. A helicopter has landed on the street, its rotors spinning, ready to fly the wounded man to a special trauma center across the border in San Diego.

It never makes the trip.

Colosio is already dead.

Bobby.

It’s too much like Bobby, Art thinks.

The lone gunman-the alienated, isolated nut. The two wounds, one in the right side, the other on the left.

“How did this Aburto kid do that?” Art asks Shag. “He fires from point-blank range into the right side of Colosio’s head, then shoots him again in the left side of his stomach? How?”

“Just like RFK,” Shag answers. “The victim spins when the first bullet hits.”

Shag demonstrates, snapping his head back and rotating to the left as he falls to the floor.

“That would work,” Art says, “except the trajectory of the bullets have them coming from opposite directions.”

“Oh, here we go.”

“Okay,” Art says. “We bust Guero’s tunnel and it’s connected to the Fuentes brothers, who are big supporters of Colosio. Then Colosio comes to Tijuana, the Barreras’ turf, and gets killed. Call me crazy, Shag.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Shag says. “But I think you have this Barrera obsession, ever since…”

He stops. Stares at the desk.

Art finishes the thought for him. “Ever since they killed Ernie.”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t?”

“I do,” Shag says. “I want to get them all, the Barreras and Mendez. But, boss, at a certain level, I mean… at some point you have to let this go.”

He’s right, Art thinks.

Of course he’s right. And I’d like to let it go. But wanting to and doing are two very different things, and letting go of this “Barrera obsession,” as Shag puts it, is something I just can’t do.

“I’m telling you,” he says, “when all this shakes out, we’re going to find out that the Barreras were behind this.”

No doubt in my mind.

Guero Mendez lies on a gurney at a private hospital, where three of the best plastic surgeons in Mexico are getting ready to give him a new face. A new face, he thinks, dyed hair, a new name, and I can resume my war against the Barreras.

A war he will certainly win, with the new president on his side.

He settles back on his pillow as the nurse preps him.

“Are you ready to go to sleep?” she asks.

He nods. Ready to go to sleep, and wake up a new man.

She takes a syringe, removes the little rubber cap and places the needle against a vein in his arm, then pushes the plunger on the syringe. She strokes his face as the drug starts to take effect, then says softly, “Colosio is dead.”

“What did you say?”

“I have a message from Adan Barrera-your man Colosio is dead.”

Guero tries to get up but his body won’t obey his mind.

“This is called Dormicum,” the nurse says. “A massive dose-call it a 'lethal injection.’ When your eyes close this time, they’ll never open again.”

He tries to scream, but no sound comes out of his mouth. He fights to stay awake, but he can feel it slipping away from him-his consciousness, his life. He struggles against the restraints, tries to get a hand free to rip off the mask and scream for help, but his muscles won’t respond. Even his neck won’t turn, to shake his head no, no, no, as he feels his life draining out of him.

As if from a tremendous distance he hears the nurse say, “The Barreras say to rot in hell.”

Two guards roll a laundry cart, full of clean sheets and blankets, up to Miguel Angel Barrera’s suite of cells in Almoloya prison.

Tio climbs in and the guards throw a sheet over him and roll him out of the building, across the yards and out the gate.

That simple, that easy.

As promised.

Miguel Angel climbs out of the cart and walks to a waiting van.

Twelve hours later he’s living in retirement in Venezuela.

Three days before Christmas, Adan kneels before Cardinal Antonucci in his private study in Mexico City.

“The most wanted man in Mexico” listens to the papal nuncio chant, in Latin, absolution for him and Raul for their unintentional role in the accidental killing of Cardinal Juan Ocampo Parada.

Antonucci doesn’t give them absolution for the murders of El Verde, Abrego, Colosio and Mendez, Adan thinks, but the government has. In advance-it was all part of the quid pro quo for killing Parada.

If I kill your enemy, Adan had insisted, you must let me kill mine.

So it’s done, Adan thinks. Mendez is dead, the war is over, Tio has been whisked out of prison.

And I am the new patron.

The Mexican government has just restored the Holy Roman Catholic Church to full legal status. A briefcase full of incriminating information has passed from Adan Barrera to certain government ministers.

Adan leaves the room with an officially shiny-clean new soul.

Quid pro quo.

New Year’s Eve, Nora comes home from a dinner with Haley Saxon. She left even before they popped the corks on the champagne.

She’s just not in a party mood. The holidays have been depressing. It was her first Christmas in nine years that she didn’t spend with Juan.

She slips the key into her door and opens it, and as she steps inside, a hand clamps over her mouth. She digs into her purse and fumbles for the pepper spray but the bag is knocked out of her hand.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Art says. “Don’t scream.”

He slowly takes his hand off her mouth.

She turns and slaps him across the face, then says, “I’m calling the police.”

“I am the police.”

“I’m calling the real police.”

She walks to her phone and starts to dial.

He says, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a…”