There was nothing to be learned at the community center. Nothing to be learned from the witnesses. Nothing to be learned from a half dozen interviews with Anjelina’s friends.
The townsfolk spoke of Anjelina as if she were part local mascot, part village deity. They showed Aragón the utmost respect, and Evan had no sense that it was feigned. Surveillance cameras at the town’s periphery had captured the SUVs, but the windows were tinted and the license plates removed. Aragón figured she’d been smuggled across the border to Mexico on the night of, which put her beyond reach in a multitude of ways.
With Aragón at the wheel, they rattled back to the compound in a Jeep Wrangler flanked by security vehicles brimming with PMCs. Evan sat up front, Kiki and Special Ed crammed unhappily in the back with a few spare gas cans, waiting for an excuse to kill him.
The tires shoved through the sun-bleached loam, churning up reddish clay from the subsoil, dust powdering the air. Confused by the weather, a few Guayacán trumpet trees remained in bloom, full crowns of golden flowers massaged by the breeze. White yucca flowers thrust phallically from nests of sword-shaped leaves. A lifeless bull snake sprawled across the road like a speed bump, smashed flat at axle-wide intervals. It truly was another world here.
“What next?” Aragón said.
They passed a field of cattle, the stink hitting them on the hot air. Evan considered the Fifth Commandment, his least favorite: If you don’t know what to do, do nothing.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said.
“This Nowhere Man is very impressive,” Eduardo piped up from the back.
“Yes,” Kiki said. “So far he’s eaten breakfast and asked a bunch of useless questions. Maybe once he’s had lunch, he will graduate to only being partially useless.”
Aragón waved them off.
Evan shared the men’s frustration at the snarl of dead ends. He’d searched Anjelina’s room before they’d left. Posters and makeup and fluffy throw pillows, the sugary residue of a cinnamon candle tingeing the air, a piano keyboard with dog-eared sheet music on the stand. He’d leafed through her yearbooks, read the inscriptions—BFF vows, tentatively flirty entries from boys, and glowing praise from teachers. An extraordinary yet ordinary young woman. In the hands of savages.
“The night she was taken, I hired a man to infiltrate the Leones,” Aragón said. “We will need inside information if we hope to find her. Especially if she’s already in Mexico.”
“When will you hear from him?” Evan asked.
“He’s so far undercover that he will barely be able to breathe. We can only wait and pray.”
“Have you initiated contact with the Leones?”
“Through a proxy. I was told they will contact me when they are ready.”
“What do you think that means?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
“Any precipitating event between you and the Leones?” Evan asked. “Recent turf dispute? Cutting in on their market or they on yours?”
“Nothing,” Aragón said. “We operate in different lanes. They’re heavy into hard drugs, human smuggling, and gunrunning. I got word that their Reynosa franchise was moving shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile launchers for thirty-five K a unit.” He scowled at the thought, his chin doubling. “I used to dabble in small arms. No more. We are very different. The Leones are big into posses and entourages, prostitutes and clubs. I keep a clean nose.”
“For a transnational drug kingpin,” Evan said.
Aragón shrugged. “It’s relative. After Anjelina was born, I decided to diversify my portfolio, move to online retail. She inspired me. Maybe not to be good. But to be less bad. To … yo no sé, do less harm.”
“How so?”
“Why so many questions?” Special Ed asked from the back.
“I have to understand your operation,” Evan said, “to understand why you were targeted.”
“Patrón, how do you know you can trust this—”
Aragón held up his hand. “Remember where my daughter is. Trust is the least of our concerns.”
The road narrowed, crowded by a green burst of chapote, hard persimmons knocking against the door panels like children begging at a border crossing.
“I only sell what our government sells,” Aragón said. “Correction: what our members of Congress—with their pockets stuffed with lobbyist cash—allow big pharmaceutical companies to sell. Oxys and Roxys and the like.”
“Manufactured where?”
“China used to be promising, but they require end-user certification, and it takes too long. Lately I’ve been bringing in pharmacy-grade stuff out of Mumbai. The bribes are heftier, but they’re more reliable than the Chinese. They ship it here labeled as pool chemicals.”
“Ship it here how?”
“Congress passed a law requiring electronic data tracking for all FedEx and UPS packages. So guess who we use now?”
“The United States Postal Service,” Evan said.
“That’s big government at work for you.” Aragón chewed his lip, eyes on the road. “For the European market, I warehouse it in Liberia. A beautiful laissez-faire country. Strategic location, political anarchy, modern technology. I try to make sure the meds are conflict-free, fair trade, like coffee. Not quite like the coca growers’ unions in Bolivia, but I do my best to work with manufacturers who provide some measure of social benefit to their communities. You’d be surprised at how accountable business practices ensure silence, loyalty, and make more profit, too.”
“Do you sell direct to consumer?”
“Sometimes. We keep our sales online. In the U.S. we target states that treat off-prescription drug sales as civil violations rather than as criminal. I am insulated regardless, but that makes us less likely to draw attention. When we do, we shut down that website and port it over to another URL. Generally I can have a fresh operation opened within the hour. The digital age is so easy. What did the Colombians have back in the seventies? Coca seeds, speedboats, a few rusty Cessnas. And yet they built one of the biggest world economies. Cojones like soccer balls.”
“How’s the money come in?”
“The cheapest e-commerce call centers can be contracted in Manila and Haifa. The Filipinos are polite, the Israelis … are not. But both are cheap, discreet, and process credit-card authorizations through different financial institutions in cities with loose regulations—Pretoria, Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa, and the like. And after that? Zurich and the Caymans have drawn scrutiny lately, so I move the money through Dubai now. Then currency-swap over to dirhams, rupees, rands, rubles, gold, whatever.”
“I doubt the Leones are tangled up in that,” Evan said. “Or even care. How about bulk sales?”
Aragón shrugged. “Conducted through middlemen, encrypted comms, and cryptocurrency. As with everything else, I maintain total operational security. I’m never the face of conflict.”
“But you can’t ship bulk in through the post office.”
“No. We bring bulk in from the south, paying off the entities that control points of access.”
Evan’s interest perked. “Like who?”
“Smuggling families. Armed bands. Mexican officials who control ports, airstrips, border crossings.”
“That’s your most likely overlap with the Leones,” Evan said. “You use the official checkpoints?”
“The men I pay to take the risk do, yes.”
“How do you do it?”
“They load the product into a trailer with a false bottom. Sew it into the upholstery. Stuff it into spare tires, gas tanks, false roofs. You know how long border agents have to assess each vehicle? Forty seconds. They only get around to inspecting two percent of cars. You’d take those odds at a casino any day of the week. Now, human smuggling is trickier. Humans are bigger, produce waste, need oxygen.”
Evan caught up to Aragón’s words at the same time, it seemed, that Aragón did himself. The parallels to his own daughter in transit.
Aragón’s anger intensified. “That’s why the bastard guías and coyotes forgo checkpoints and drag them through the desert wasteland, don’t care if they live or die. But drugs? Legal checkpoints make much more sense. In fact…” Aragón checked his phone, thumbing across a few messages. “I have a load coming over now.” He jerked the wheel to the right, hammering over a ditch to vector north. “It’s a big one. Since you are so curious, I will make an exception to go myself and show you.”
The rest of the convoy screeched and veered to course-correct before settling into a protective phalanx around the Jeep once more. In about a half mile, they left the paved road, rumbling onto a dirt path that cut through head-high stalks of sugarcane. The fields stretched for an eternity, crops thrashing against the open sides of the Wrangler, forcing Evan to lean toward the center console.
The path was nothing more than a memory of tire tracks and a slight parting of the tall stalks. The way forward grew increasingly claustrophobic until it seemed they were forging into the sturdy grass itself, the fender serving as a jungle machete. Through the windshield Evan could see only the crops beating at the glass, but somehow Aragón knew where he was going.
All at once they were spit through into a cleared circle of land where a brazilwood tree rose, framed by a squat tangle of bramble. Twilight was coming on, leaching color from the world, dusting everything into shades of sepia.
The other vehicles swerved into the clearing behind them and halted. For a moment everyone waited for the dust and grit from the wheel wells to sulk away on a limp breeze. The dirt near the center was fanned out in a familiar pattern, two long strokes showing where helicopter skids had recently set down. The sugarcane rimming the circle leaned outward, beaten down by rotor wash.
Aragón emerged, Evan at his side, and headed for the bramble. Without bothering to don gloves, he reached for a thorny clump and tugged it aside. It came readily, unattached to the earth.
“They call this huisache. It means ‘many thorns’ in Nahuatl. Useful stuff.” As Aragón swept the brush away, a hatch came clear in the ground. A few creaky twists of the metal wheel and the hatch swung open on rusty hinges, revealing a storage tank below filled with wax-encased bricks. “The helo sets down right over this bramble. They unload from the belly of the chopper straight into the earth. Invisible from the eyes of drones.” He snapped his fingers, pointed down.
Kiki tried to swing into the tank but wound up clinging to the lip, wheezing, the tip of one boot circling the hole.
Aragón rolled his eyes. “Enough with this. Someone help him. He’s going to have a heart attack.”
Special Ed hoisted Kiki out and dropped down into the hatch himself.
Kiki kicked at the dirt sheepishly with the pointed toe of a cowboy boot. “Sorry, Patrón. I have to go back on the Weight Watchers.” He patted the bulge of his belly.
Special Ed hoisted himself out of the hole bearing one of the bricks. He thumbed up a blade and sliced the wax surface, the slit brimming with white pills.
Aragón grabbed a few and admired them in his palm. Indistinguishable from prescription meds, they were circular or oval and bore various stamps. “They’re getting good at disguising it as Tramadol and OxyContin.”
“What is it really?” Evan asked.
“New China White. Pure.”
“Fentanyl.” Evan stared down into the hatch. “That’s … what? Eighty kilos?”
“A hundred.”
“It’s fifty times more potent than heroin,” Evan said. “So we’re looking at almost a hundred million overdoses?”
“If taken improperly.” Aragón tilted his hand, let the pills spill back into the slit package. “If people don’t want to follow the instructions, that’s on them.”
“No,” Evan said. “It’s not.”
Aragón’s face tensed.
Behind him Special Ed and Kiki went motionless. Even the PMCs at the edge of the clearing had gone on alert, perfectly still, AR-15s held at a slant, barrels aiming at a spot in the dirt between their boots and Evan’s.
Aragón’s shoulders tightened, and he drew himself fully erect, an unsettling effect like that of a cobra unfurling. The shift in posture gave him another few inches, forcing Evan to look up at him, Aragón’s size apparent for the first time.
Aragón’s lips barely moved. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” Evan said. “If you want my help, you’re going to burn those pills.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m making clear my terms,” Evan said. “I told you I would make demands of you that you would not like. This is the first.”
“Oh, the first?” Aragón’s eyes had a touch of wildness in them now. They’d grown larger, the sclera more pronounced. Even so, his tone was calm, measured. “Are you going to go after the Big Pharma companies as well? Make them change their business practices?”
“They didn’t ask for my help.”
Aragón took a step toward Evan. Evan held his ground. To his side he sensed Kiki’s hand drift to the grip of the big .44 at his hip. Special Ed hiked his shirt up, showing off the gleaming pistol nestled against its tattooed outline on his washboard abdominals.
There was, Evan realized, a good chance this would all go sideways.
He charted the choreography. Half step to pivot behind Kiki, counterclockwise momentum putting the fat man between him and the others. Choke hold with his left arm, right hand shoving Kiki’s .44 back into the holster on a tilt, firing down through the top of Kiki’s thigh. If Special Ed dared to shoot, Kiki’s mass would be enough to absorb the 230-grain rounds from the Glock 21 in the three-quarters of a second it would take for Evan to clear leather with Kiki’s gun and fire into Ed’s chest at close range. The big round would knock Ed over into Aragón. Kiki would be collapsing by then, aided by Evan’s knee to his kidney, which would shove him out in front. That would block the sight line of the PMCs long enough for Evan to cinch up Aragón from behind, leaving the guns for hire with nothing to target but a sliver of his face and the thin band of his forearm across Aragón’s throat. Three of the PMCs stood in the open, which gave Evan easy target acquisition. He’d have four cartridges left in the .44, one for each, but the fourth man would likely park his critical mass behind an armored SUV door before Evan could get to him. He’d have a decent shot at the guy’s ankle, and he’d use the precious second and a half as the man collapsed to choke-drag Aragón to the ground so he could grab Special Ed’s Glock 21, loaded with fourteen rounds minus whatever he’d fired into Kiki. By then the fourth PMC would be in the dirt, his vital organs visible beneath the SUV door given Evan’s lower vantage, which meant the follow-up shots would penetrate gut or rib cage. In case Kiki hadn’t bled out from his femoral by then, a bullet would put him down for good, removing him as a distraction.
Then Evan would have Aragón, three vehicles of his choosing, and a world of possibilities.
Evan kept his gaze locked on Aragón. In his peripheral vision, he sensed the heel of Kiki’s hand resting on the grip of his pistol, Ed’s fingers trembling above his .44. If either of them drew, Evan would have to move, and then there would be no stopping it.
The PMCs wouldn’t dare open up first with the big guns from across the clearing, not with Aragón in the mix.
Aragón lifted a hand, pointed at the open hatch. “This load is worth one hundred sixty million dollars.”
“How much is your daughter worth?”
Aragón lowered his hand to his side. His face remained placid, but there was an ice-hard coldness beneath it that reminded Evan how little he knew of the man. Aragón’s nostrils flared ever so slightly, close enough that Evan could feel the heat of his breath. He kept his vision sharp yet diffuse—Kiki’s hand, Special Ed’s posture, the position of the PMCs. Every slight movement bringing a commensurate adjustment to the plan he hoped not to execute.
The moment stretched out and out, and then—finally—Aragón stepped back.
“Get the gas cans,” he said.
Special Ed and Kiki stared at him in disbelief.
“Move,” Aragón said.
They unstuck themselves and ambled back to the Wrangler, returning with gas cans.
Aragón seized one, spun the cap off, and sloshed gasoline down through the hatch. He shook the can empty, let it tumble into the subterranean storage tank. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
Kiki and Special Ed scrambled into motion, emptying the contents of the remaining cans into the tank.
Aragón pulled out a silver lighter and thumbed up a flame. He held it at chest level, peered at Evan over the finger of orange light. “You ask what my daughter is worth?”
He flung the lighter into the storage tank. It was slow to catch, but finally a whoosh announced ignition, the earth belching a cloud of heat. Evan stepped back from the toxic chemical stench, watching the black smoke rise to the clear blue sky.
After a time Aragón kicked the hatch shut and turned to Evan. “I have enough money for a hundred lifetimes.” He shifted his focus to Kiki and Special Ed. “None of them are worth living without Anjelina. Do you understand me?”
Eduardo said, “We understand, Patrón.”
For a moment there was nothing but the crackling of the buried fire expending itself inside its metal prison. And then the sound of an engine cut through the noise.
The PMCs fanned out, readying their AR-15s. Special Ed and Kiki had their pistols in hand, too. About a quarter mile away, the stalks began to wave.
They all stared at the edge of the clearing, waiting to see what emerged. The curved edge of sugarcane stalks fluttered slightly in the breeze as if respiring.
The sound of an engine grew louder, and then another SUV pushed into sight. Everyone relaxed. Before it stopped moving, the passenger door flung open and another PMC emerged, breathless, holding a square FedEx box the size of a basketball. A pink sticker on the side read PRIORITY ALERT.
“This arrived for you, Patrón. It came special delivery.”
Aragón’s voice came dry and cracked. “You scanned it for explosives?”
The man nodded. “No return address. But there is a name. It says it’s from…”
Aragón’s face had gone bloodless. “From whom?”
“From El Moreno.”
Aragón’s gaze went loose, unfocused. He stared down at his boots, took a shaky breath. And then another. Fighting his way to composure. Everyone waited for his face to stop trembling.
At last he lifted his eyes, and the man handed him the box.