Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

“You were his torturer,” Art says. “You scraped his bones with metal skewers, you shoved white-hot iron rods inside him. You gave him shots to keep him conscious and alive.”

“No,” Alvarez says.

“Don’t lie to me,” Art says. “It only makes me angrier. I have you on tape.”

A stain emerges on the front of the doctor’s pants and spreads down one leg.

“He’s pissing himself,” Ramos says.

“Strip him.”

They pull his shirt off and leave it dangling around his bound wrists. Jerk his pants and his shorts down to his ankles. Alvarez’s eyes widen in little orbs of terror. All the more so when Kleindeist says, “Take a whiff. What do you smell?”

Alvarez shakes his head.

“From the kitchen,” Kleindeist says. “Think hard-you’ve smelled it before. No? Okay-metal heating. A piece of rebar, over the stove.”

One of Ramos’ men comes in, holding the red-hot, glowing metal in an oven mitt.

Alvarez faints.

“Wake him up,” Art says.

Ramos shoots him in the calf.

Alvarez comes to and screams.

“Bend him over the couch.”

They heave Alvarez over the arm of the couch. Two men hold his arms and spread them wide. Two others pin his feet to the floor. The other man brings over the hot iron and shows it to him.

“No, please… no.”

“I want the names,” Art says, “of everyone you saw in the house with Ernie Hidalgo. And I want them now.”

No problema.

Alvarez starts talking like a comic speed-reader on crank.

“Adan Barrera, Raul Barrera,” he says. “Angel Barrera, Guero Mendez.”

“What?”

“Adan Barrera, Raul Barrera-”

“No,” Art snaps. “The last name.”

“Guero Mendez.”

“He was there?”

“Si, si, si. He was the leader, Senor.” Alvarez takes a gulp of air, then says, “He killed Hidalgo.”

“How?”

“An overdose of heroin,” Alvarez says. “An accident. We were going to free him. I swear. La verdad.”

“Pick him up.”

Art looks at the sobbing doctor and says, “You’re going to write out a statement. Telling all about your involvement. All about the Barreras and Mendez.?De acuerdo?”

“De acuerdo.”

“Then you’re going to write another statement,” Art says, “affirming that you were not tortured or compelled to make this statement in any way.?De acuerdo?”

“Si.” Then, regaining his composure, he starts to deal. “Will you offer me some kind of consideration for my cooperation?”

“I’ll put in a good word for you,” Art says.

They sit him down at the kitchen table with paper and pen. An hour later, both statements are finished. Art reads them, puts them in his briefcase and says, “Now you’re going for a little trip.”

“No, Senor!” Alvarez screams. He knows all about little trips. They usually involve shovels and shallow graves.

“To the United States,” Art says. “We have a plane waiting at the airport. You’re going of your free will, I assume.”

“Yes, of course.”

Goddamn right, of course, Art thinks. The man just dropped a dime on the Barreras and Guero Mendez. His life expectancy in Mexico is approximately nil. Art hopes his longevity in Marion federal penitentiary will be of Old Testament proportions.

Two hours later they have Alvarez, cleaned up and with a fresh pair of pants, on a plane to El Paso, where he is arrested and arraigned in the torture murder of Ernie Hidalgo. At his jailing, he’s photographed, naked, from his head to his knees to show that he hasn’t been tortured.

And Art, faithful to his promise, puts in a good word for Alvarez. Through the federal prosecutors, he doesn’t seek the death penalty.

He wants life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Life without hope.

The Mexican government protested and a squadron of American civil-liberties lawyers joined them, but both Mette and Alvarez are sitting in Marion federal maximum security prison awaiting their appeals, Quito Fuentes is in a San Diego jail cell, and no one has laid a restraining hand on Art Keller.

Those who would, can’t.

And those who can, won’t.

Because he lied.

Art lied his ass off to the Senate committee that investigated rumors that the CIA was somehow complicit with the Contras’ arms-for-drugs dealings. Art still has a transcript of his testimony running in his head like the sound track of a movie you can’t shut off.

Q: Have you ever heard of an air-freight company called SETCO?

A: Remotely.

Q: Are you now or were you ever of the belief that SETCO airplanes were being used to transport cocaine?

A: I have no knowledge on that subject.

Q: Did you ever hear of something called the “Mexican Trampoline”?

A: No.

Q: May I remind you that you’re under oath?

A: Yes.

Q: Have ever heard of TIWG?

A: What’s that?

Q: The Terrorist Incident Working Group.

A: Not until just now.

Q: How about NSD Directive #3?

A: No.

Q: The NHAO?

Art’s lawyer leaned across and said into the microphone, “Counsel, if you just want to go fishing, may I suggest you charter a boat?”

Q: Have you ever heard of NHAO?

A: Only recently, in the newspapers.

Q: Did anyone at NHAO pressure you in regard to your testimony?

“I’m not going to let this go on much longer,” Art’s lawyer said.

Q: Did Colonel Craig, for instance, pressure you?

This question had the intended effect of waking up the press.

Colonel Scott Craig was shoving the American flag, pole and all, right up another committee’s butt as it tried to pin him to the arms-for-hostages deal with the Iranians. In the process Craig was becoming an American folk hero, a media darling, a television patriot. The country focused in on the Iran-Contra sideshow, the shitty guns-for-hostages deal, and never caught on to the real scandal-that the administration had helped the Contras deal drugs for arms. So the suggestion that Colonel Craig, whom Art had last seen at Ilopongo off-loading cocaine, had pressured Keller into silence was a dramatic moment.

“That’s outrageous, counselor,” Art’s lawyer said.

Q: I agree. Will your client answer the question?

A: I came here to answer your questions truthfully and accurately, and that’s what I’m attempting to do.

Q: So would you answer the question?

A: I’ve never met nor had any conversations with Colonel Craig on any subject whatsoever.

The media went back to sleep.

Q: How about something called “Cerberus,” Mr. Keller? Did you ever hear of that?

A: No.

Q: Did something called Cerberus have anything at all to do with the murder of Agent Hidalgo?

A: No.

Althea left the gallery at that answer. Later, at the Watergate, she told him, “Maybe a bunch of senators can’t tell when you’re lying, Art, but I can.”

“Can we just go and have a nice dinner with the kids?” Art asked.

“How could you?”

“What?”

“Align yourself with a bunch of right-wing-”

“Stop.”

He held his hand up and turned his back to her. He’s tired of hearing it.

He’s tired of hearing everything, Althea thought. If he was remote during their last few months in Guadalajara, that was a goddamn honeymoon compared to the man who came home from Mexico. Or didn’t come home, not the man she recognized as her husband. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to listen. Spent most of his long “administrative leave” sitting alone out by her parents’ pool or taking long, lone walks through Pacific Palisades or down on the beach. He’d sit at dinner barely speaking, or worse, launching into an angry diatribe about how politics is all bullshit, then excusing himself to go upstairs, alone, or out for a nocturnal stroll. Late nights he’d lie in bed, thumbing the TV remote like some kind of speed freak, switching from channel to channel, pronouncing everything crap and more crap. On the increasingly rare occasions that they would make love (if you wanted to call it that), he was aggressive and quick, as if he were trying to work out his anger rather than express his love or even his lust.