Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

Adan’s power is unchallenged in Mexico. He’s put his uncle’s Federacion together again, and he is the undisputed patron. None of the other cartels can touch his influence. Furthermore, Barrera has established his own cocaine supply in Colombia. He’s independent of Cali or Medellin. The Barrera drug operation is self-sustaining from the coca plant to the corner, from the poppy flower to the shooting gallery, from the sinsemilla seed to the brick that hits the streets, from the base ephedrine to the rock of crystal meth.

The Baja cartel is a vertically integrated polydrug operation.

And none of the above takes into account his “legitimate” businesses. Barrera money is heavily invested in the maquiladoras along the border, in real estate throughout Mexico-especially in the resort towns of Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas-and the southwest United States and in banking, including several banks and credit unions in the States. The cartel’s financial mechanisms are fully enmeshed with those of Mexico’s wealthiest and most powerful business concerns.

Now Art reaches the front door of the White House and rings the bell.

Haley Saxon comes into the foyer to meet him.

Smiles professionally and hands him the key to a room upstairs.

Nora’s sitting on the bed.

She looks stunning in her black dress.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

The red dress was her signal that she had to see him personally. For over two years now, she’s been leaving him messages in “dead drops” all over the city.

It was Nora who gave him the details of the Orejuela brothers’ meeting with Adan, the info that allowed the DEA to arrest them as they flew back to Colombia.

Nora who has given him a rundown on the new organization of the Federacion.

Nora who has provided him with hundreds of pieces of intelligence, from which he’s been able to glean a thousand more. Thanks mostly to her, he has an organizational chart of the Barrera organization in Baja and in California. Delivery routes, safe houses, couriers. When drugs were coming in, money going out, who killed whom and why.

She’s risked her life to bring him this information on her “shopping trips” to San Diego and Los Angeles, on her visits to spas, on any trip that she takes outside of Mexico and without Adan.

The method they use is surprisingly simple. The fact is that the drug cartels have a bigger budget and therefore better technology than Art does, and they don’t have the constitutional restrictions. So the only way to beat the Barreras’ superiority in high-tech is to go low-tech: Nora simply sits in her hotel room, writes down her information and mails it to Art at a post office box that he established under a false name.

No cell phones.

No Internet.

Just the good ol’ U.S. Mail.

Unless there was an emergency; then she would leave the red dress in the changing room. The boutique owner was looking at a possession rap that could have sent her to prison for five years. Instead, she agreed to do this favor for The Border Lord.

“I’m fine,” Nora says.

But she’s angry.

No, angry doesn’t describe it, she thinks as she looks at Art Keller. You said that with my help you would take Adan down quickly, but it’s been two and a half years. Two and a half years of pretending to love Adan Barrera, of taking a man I loathe inside me, feeling him in my mouth, my pussy, my ass, and pretending to love it. Pretending to love this monster who killed the man I really loved, and then guiding him, molding him, helping him to get the power to commit more of his filth. You don’t know what it’s like-how could you?-to wake up in the morning with that beside you, to crawl between his legs, to open yours, to scream your phony orgasms, to smile and laugh and share talk and meals, all the time living a nightmare, waiting for you to act.

And so far, what have you done?

Besides the Orejuela arrest, nothing.

He’s been sitting on this information for two and a half years, waiting for the right moment to act.

Now Art says, “This is too risky.”

“I can trust Haley,” she says. “I want you to take some action. Now.”

“Adan’s still untouchable. I don’t want to-”

She tells him about Adan’s deal with FARC and the Chinese.

Art looks at her with awe. He knew she was smart-he’s been tracking her as she’s helped to steer Adan through the shoals-but he didn’t know that she was this perceptive. She’s thought it through.

Damn right I have, Nora thinks. She’s been reading men all her life. She sees the change come over his face, his eyes are lit with excitement. Every man has his own turn-on. She’s seen them all, and now she sees Keller's.

Revenge.

Same as mine.

Because Adan has made a serious mistake. He’s doing the one thing that could bring him down.

And we both know it.

“Who else knows about the arms shipment?” he asks.

“Adan, Raul and Fabian Martinez,” she says. “And me. Now you.”

Art shakes his head. “If I act on this, they’ll know it was you. You can’t go back.”

“I’m going back,” Nora says. “We know San Pedro and GOSCO. But we don’t know which ship, which pier-”

And even if you can get that information, Art thinks, making the bust is the same as killing you.

When he’s about to leave she asks, “Do you want to fuck me, Art? For the sake of realism, of course.”

His loneliness is palpable, she thinks.

So easy to touch.

She opens her legs ever so slightly.

He hesitates.

It’s a small measure of revenge for leaving her “asleep” for so long, but it feels good and she says, “I was joking, Art.”

He gets it.

Payback.

He knows that leaving an undercover in place for as long as he has is unconscionable. Six months is a long time, a year is the max. They just can’t last that long-their nerves unravel, they get burned, the information they provide gets tracked back to them, the clock just runs out.

And Nora Hayden isn’t a professional. Strictly speaking, she isn’t even an undercover, but a confidential informant. It doesn’t matter-she’s been under deep cover, and she’s been under for too long.

But I couldn’t have used any of the information she gave me in Mexico, because Barrera is under Mexican protection. And I couldn’t have used any of her intelligence inside the States, because it might have compromised her before we could take Adan down once and for all.

The frustration has been awful. Nora has given him enough intelligence to virtually destroy the Barrera organization in one overnight coup, and he hasn’t been able to use it. All he could do was wait and hope that The Lord of the Skies flew too close to the sun.

And now he has.

It’s time to pull the trigger on him. And time to get Nora out.

I could just arrest her now, he thinks. God knows there are enough pretexts. Arrest her, compromise her and then she could never go back. Get her a new identity and a new life.

But he doesn’t.

Because he still needs her close to Adan, for just a little while longer. He knows he’s stretching her string to the breaking point, but he lets her walk out of the room.

“I need proof,” John Hobbs says.

Solid, tangible evidence to show the Mexican government before he can even think about prodding them to launch an offensive against Adan Barrera.

“I have a source,” Art says.

Hobbs nods-yes, go on.

Art answers, “I can’t reveal it.”

Hobbs smiles. “Aren’t you the same man who rather famously created a source that didn’t actually exist?”

And now Keller, with his well-known Barrera obsession, comes forward with a story about Adan Barrera making a deal with FARC to import Chinese arms in exchange for cocaine? Something that would get the CIA solidly on board in his war against the Barreras? It’s a bit too convenient.