Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

“In the first place,” Fabian answers, “I didn’t know anything about those guns. I was there to pick up produce. In the second place, what trafficking charges? How did drugs get into this?”

“I have a witness,” Art says, “that puts you at the center of a major narcotics network, Fabian. In fact, I kind of like you for 'kingpin status,’ unless you have someone else in mind.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Hey,” Art says, “if you want to pay thirty-to-life to see that card, call me. But basically, you’re in a bidding war with my other witness, and whoever gives me a better shot at Barrera wins.”

“I want a lawyer.”

Good, Art thinks, and I want you to have one. But he says, “No, you don’t, Fabian. A lawyer is just going to tell you to shut up and land you in prison for the rest of your life.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“So no deal?”

“No deal.”

Art says, “I need to read you your rights.”

“You already read them,” Fabian says, slumping in his chair. He’s bored now; he wants to go back to his cell and read magazines.

“Oh, that was on the weapons charge,” Art says. “I have to do it all over again on the murder thing.”

Fabian sits straight up. “What murder thing?”

“I’m arresting you for the murder of Juan Parada,” Art says. “We’ve had a sealed indictment since ’94. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say-”

“You don’t have jurisdiction,” Fabian says, “on a killing that happened inMexico.”

Art leans over the table. “Parada’s parents were wetbacks. He was born outsideLaredo, Texas, so he’s an American citizen, just like you. And that gives me jurisdiction. Hey, maybe we’ll try you inTexas -the governor there really likes to hand out lethal injections. See you in court, asshole.”

Now go talk to your lawyer.

Walk right into the shit.

If Adan had driven to his rendezvous with Nora in Colonia Hipodromo, the police would probably have nabbed him.

But he walked.

The cops would never expect Adan Barrera to be on foot, so when he saw the police vehicles start to pour into the neighborhood, he simply turned around and walked out. Strolled down the sidewalk, right past the roadblocks that had been set up in the streets.

It hasn’t been that easy since.

He’s been chased out of two more safe houses, getting warnings from Raul just in time, and now he’s in a safe house in the Rio district, wondering when the storm troopers are going to come smashing in there. And the worst part is the communications-or the lack of them. Most of his cell phones aren’t encrypted, so he is reluctant to use them. And the ones that are might have been compromised, so even if the police couldn’t decipher what he was saying, they could still get a fix on his location just through the signal. So he doesn’t know who’s been arrested, what houses have been hit, what was found in those houses. He doesn’t know who is conducting the raids, how long they are going to last, where they are going to hit, whether they know where he is.

What really concerns Adan is that the raids came without warning.

Not a word, not a whisper, from his well-paid friends inMexico City.

And that scares him because if the PRI politicians have turned on him, they must be very scared. And they must know that if they strike at the Barrera head, they don’t dare miss, which makes them dangerous.

They have to take me down, he thought.

They have to kill me.

So he’s taking protective measures. First, he distributes most of his cell phones to his men, who disperse throughout the city and the state with the instructions to make calls and then dump the phones. (Sure enough, Ramos starts getting reports that Adan Barrera is in Hipodromo, Chapultepec, Rosarito, Ensenada, Tecate, even across the border in San Diego, Chula Vista, Otay Mesa.)

Raul goes to Radio Shack, buys more phones and starts working them, reaching out and touching cops on the payroll-Baja federales, Baja State Police, Tijuana municipal cops.

The news isn’t good. The state and local cops who do answer their phones don’t know shit-nobody’s told them anything, but the one thing they can say is that this is a federal effort, it’s got nothing to do with them. And the local federales?

“Off the hook,” Raul tells Adan.

Now they’ve moved again-getting out of the “safe” house in the Rio district just ten minutes before the police hit it. They’re in a condo in Colonia Cacho, hoping to be able to hole up there for at least a few hours until they can find out what the fuck is going on. But the local police aren’t going to be any help.

“They’re not answering their phones,” Raul says.

“Get them at home,” Adan snaps.

“They’re not answering there, either.”

Adan grabs a new phone and dials long-distance.

To Mexico City.

Nobody’s home. None of his connections in PRI are available to take a phone call, but if he’d like to leave a number, they’d be happy to return…

It’s the gun deal, Adan thinks. Fucking Art Keller has put together the guns and FARC, and used it to make Mexico City react. He feels like he wants to throw up. There were only four people in Mexico who knew about the arrangement with Tirofio-me, Raul, Fabian…

And Nora.

Nora is missing.

She never showed up at Colonia Hipodromo.

But the police did.

She got there before me, he thinks. She got swept up in the raid and the police have her on ice somewhere.

Raul gets hold of a laptop and then forces one of their resident computer geeks to come to this safe house, and the geek manages to get out encrypted e-mail messages to their network of computers. An encryption of the geek’s own design-he was paid in the high six figures-so dense that even the DEA hasn’t been able to crack it. This is what it’s come to, Adan thinks, launching electronic messages into space. So they sit and watch for armored cars rolling up the street as they sit and watch the computer screen for messages. Within an hour Raul manages to summon a few sicarios and a couple of clean work cars that can’t be connected to the cartel. He also sets up a series of watching and listening posts to monitor the whereabouts of the police.

When the sun sets, Adan, dressed as a laborer, gets into the back of an ’83 Dodge Dart with Raul. In the front are a heavily armed driver and another sicario. The car makes its way through the hazardous maze that Tijuana has become, the scouts and listening posts electronically clearing paths until Adan finally makes his way out of the city and to Rancho las Bardas.

There, he and Raul take a breath and try to figure things out.

Ramos helps.

The Barreras turn on the evening news and there he is, at a press conference, announcing that he’s going to shut down the Baja cartel within two weeks.

“That explains why we didn’t get a warning,” Adan says.

“That explains some of it,” says Raul. Ramos has a virtual road map through the cartel. Locations of safe houses, names of associates. Where did he get his information?

“It’s Fabian,” Adan says. “He’s giving everything up.”

Raul is incredulous. “It’s not Fabian. It’s your beloved Nora.”

“I don’t believe that,” Adan says.

“You don’t want to believe it,” Raul says. He tells Adan about finding the tracking device in the car.

“That could have been Fabian, too,” Adan says.

“The police had an ambush set up at your little love nest!” Raul yells. “Did Fabian know about that? Who knew about the arms deal? You, me, Fabian and Nora. Well, it wasn’t me, I don’t think it was you, Fabian’s in an American prison, so…”

“We don’t even know where she is,” Adan says. Then a horrible thought occurs to him. He looks up at Raul, who has pulled the blind aside and is looking out the window. “Raul, did you do something to her?”