“I’m sorry. That was stupid.”

The sunlight, filtered by dust, is beautiful—a dark red-gold—in the sunset as they walk from the office to her house. They go past the Abarca bakery, now closed and shuttered, past the tiendita, also closed, its owners now living across the border in Fabens.

Three soldiers, standing behind a barbed-wired sandbag emplacement, watch them walk past.

“They know who you are,” Marisol says to Keller, “the big gringo DEA man.”

Keller isn’t crazy about the fact that he’s known, but it’s a trade-off he’s willing to make if it affords her a little protection when he’s there. Erika walks five paces behind them, her rifle in hand now.

She’s devoted to Marisol.

Dedicated to her job.

“Thank you, Erika, we’re fine now,” Marisol says when they get to her house. They kiss each other on the cheeks, and Erika walks back down the street.

Marisol’s house is an old restored adobe with a new red tin roof. It’s small but comfortable, its thick walls keeping out both the cold and the heat. The windows now have bars and anti-grenade screens that Keller insisted on putting in.

She slides off her white jacket, revealing the shoulder holster with the Beretta Nano, then pours a glass of wine for each of them and hands one to Keller. He’s glad that she’s carrying the weapon. He bought it for her and took her out into the desert to teach her how to use it.

Marisol was a surprisingly good shot.

Now she plops into the big old easy chair in her small living room, kicks off her shoes, puts her feet up on a hassock, and says, “Christ. What a day.”

“Good Friday,” he says.

“I forgot,” she says. “No procession. No one to do it.”

It’s painful, Keller thinks. The traditional Good Friday reenactments of Christ’s march to Calvary have been replicated all through the valley by processions of refugees leaving their homes. “Do you want to go to church tonight?”

Marisol shakes her head. “I’m tired. And truthfully? I’m losing my faith.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“That’s a funny response if you think about it,” she says. “Don’t let me stop you from going, but what I really want is another glass of wine, a quiet dinner at home, and an early night.”

That’s what they do.

Keller finds some chicken in her refrigerator and makes a dinner of arroz con pollo and a green salad while Marisol takes a long shower. They eat while watching some American television show and then go to bed.

Marisol sleeps in on Saturday morning, and Keller brings her coffee in bed.

She likes it white and sweet.

“You’re an angel,” she says, taking the cup.

“That’s the first time that’s ever been said.”

Marisol takes her time getting ready, and then Keller escorts her to her office so she can use the relative quiet of Semana Santa to catch up on some paperwork. He brings his laptop and goes over the classified intelligence briefings.

A top-secret report from DEA and CIA intelligence analysts opines that the Sinaloa cartel has won the war for Juárez and is all but in control there. La Línea has been virtually annihilated and Los Aztecas, while still fighting, has seen its leadership decimated and is in disarray.

Keller has mixed feelings. He hates that Barrera has won, but the victory might bring an end to the hideous violence. That’s what it’s come to, he thinks ruefully. That’s what we can hope for now—a win by one gang of murderers over another.

The memo attached to the report asks for his commentary, and he writes that while the Juárez cartel seems to be finished in the city, its Zeta allies seem to be getting active along the Chihuahua border and the Sinaloa cartel is taking defensive measures.

Then he reads a series of e-mail exchanges between DEA and SEIDO speculating on the whereabouts of Eddie Ruiz. Is he in San Pedro, Monterrey, Acapulco? Another report has him sighted in Veracruz. All agree that he’s flying under the radar, hunted by the Zetas and Martín Tapia.

Tapia is back in the country, trying to piece together the remnants of his brothers’ organization into something called the “South Pacific cartel.” Most of the analysts agree that it’s not going particularly well—most of the major Tapia players have sided with Ruiz, who, in any case, seems to have recruited the best killers. And there are reports that Martín, perhaps out of grief for his brother, has adopted Diego’s cult of Santa Muerte and is spending more and more time in religious observances, and that his wife isn’t happy about it.

Martín’s rumored to be in Cuernavaca, Yvette is said to be living somewhere in Sonora.

Keller reads more reports.

CIA warns that the Zeta presence in Central America is getting stronger, especially in Guatemala, in the northern provinces like the Petén and the city of Cobán. The report also indicates that the Zetas are openly advertising for more Kaibiles, but also recruiting MS-13 gang members from the slums of El Salvador.

It makes sense, Keller thinks. The Zetas are fighting on five fronts and need troops.

Keller’s own “Zeta front” is bogged down. They know that Rodríguez, Z-20, is somewhere in the Veracruz area, because he surfaced as the leader of a Zeta team that lobbed incendiary grenades into the house of a Veracruz police operations director.

The wooden structure went up in flames. Just to be on the safe side, Rodríguez and his men waited outside to gun down anyone who made it out.

No one did.

The police commander, his wife, and his four young children died in the fire.

—

Keller and Marisol do go to Mass that night, if only because the people of Valverde expect their mayor to be present at Holy Saturday services. The church is only half full anyway, so many people have left town. By tradition, the statue of the Virgin Mary is draped in black for mourning, and the obvious symbolism of the current situation escapes no one.

The whole valley, Keller thinks, is on the cross.

Marisol doesn’t take communion and neither does Keller. As they’re sitting in the pew, he feels his cell phone vibrate in his pocket and steps outside. It’s a computer tech at EPIC.

They’ve picked up cell phone traffic between Rodríguez’s cousin and him in Veracruz and they have an address.

Keller gets on the horn to Orduña. If they move fast, they can get Z-20.

The plan was for Keller to spend the night and then go to Juárez with Marisol for Easter—a dinner with Ana and the crew. Then he was going to fly back to Mexico City and she was going back to Valverde for a meeting with the mayors and city councils from the Valley. When she comes out of the church, Keller tells her that he has to leave. They go back to her house so he can get his things.

“Go to El Paso,” he asks.

“I can’t. I have things to do,” she says. “I’ll be fine. I’m going into the city for an Easter party with the crew.”

“Te quiero, Mari.”

“Te quiero también, Arturo.”

—

Marisol and Ana leave the Easter party in separate cars to go back to Valverde for the meeting tomorrow morning. The plan is for Ana to stay at Marisol’s that night and come back after the meeting. She follows Marisol down Carretera 2.

Ana is going to write a story on the meeting as a way of explicating the “Woman’s Rebellion” in Chihuahua. In the valley, in Juárez, in little towns all across the state, women are standing up, filling positions in the government and police, demanding accountability, transparency, answers.

Marisol is tired and would have preferred to stay in Juárez, but the meeting is at eight in the morning, and besides, she doesn’t like to leave Erika on her own for too long. The young woman has done a good job but she’s still nineteen years old.

The party had been fun—good food, good company—although Marisol missed Arturo being there. She’s glad that he likes her friends and that they like him; otherwise, it would make the relationship horribly awkward.