No, Keller thinks, just to show you who’s really in charge.

He heads back out to the jeep.

They take him on the street and they’re very good.

He hears the footsteps but someone has a pistol jammed into his kidneys before he can pull his weapon, and they move him into the van, push him to the floor, get a hood over his head, and have the van moving again within seconds.

Keller feels the van drive out of the city.

The urban sounds fade and they’re in the country.

They drive for hours. Finally, the van pulls over and Keller tries to prepare himself, knowing that you’re never prepared for this. He hears the van door slide open, then feels hands picking him up, taking him out, and guiding his steps.

The air feels good.

He hears someone give an order and recognizes the voice as that of Colonel Alvarado.

Alvarado works for Adán Barrera, so Keller wonders how long it will be before they force him to his knees and put a bullet in the back of his head.

The hood comes off, and Keller sees Alvarado.

He expected that.

He didn’t expect Tim Taylor.

—

Adán heard a gurgling sound in the distance and then realized that it was close, that it came from his own throat as he heard about Magda.

It was Nacho who brought him the news.

Nacho, the harbinger, the raven, with the discreet bearing and hushed solicitous voice of a funeral director. And yet there was this salacious undertone, this frisson of pleasure as he described what the Zetas did to her.

“I’ll call you back,” Adán said.

He staggered up the stairs.

Did they have to do that? Strip her, torture her, slice her up, carve their filthy calling card into her? Did they have to do that?

He went to the bathroom, knelt in front of the toilet, and threw up. He vomited again and again until his stomach muscles hurt and the back of his throat was raw and then he laid his face in his forearms on the toilet.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to have morning sickness,” he heard Eva say.

He turned around and looked up to see her smiling at him.

“Something I ate,” he said, “didn’t agree with me, I guess.”

“You can’t eat spicy anymore,” Eva said. “I keep telling the cook but she doesn’t listen. We should let her go.”

“Whatever you want.”

Eva ran some cold water, took a washcloth, and held it against his forehead. This was her newest persona—maternal, caregiving, beatific. She’d been honing it since she came back from the doctor with the news that she was pregnant. Two months in, she already had that storied glow, although Adán suspected that was cosmetic.

When Eva had cared for him sufficiently, she went back to bed. Adán brushed his teeth and rinsed his mouth and then went back downstairs.

It’s over, he decided.

This overabundance of caution, this sensitivity to time and situation. It’s time to deal with his enemies, put an end to things, settle them once and for all.

Time to settle with Ochoa.

Time to settle with Keller.

He called Nacho back and gave the necessary orders.

Now he sits and waits for the man to be delivered to him.

—

“How long have you been working with Barrera?” Keller asks. “The whole goddamn time?”

“No,” Taylor says.

They’re standing outside a prefab building out in the country. It could be anywhere in the north, but Keller knows from the length of the drive that they’re probably still in the Juárez Valley.

“Just now,” Keller says. “You’re just working with him now.”

“The Zetas killed one of our guys!” Taylor yells. “And I will stop at nothing…You of all people should understand that. You think I like it? I’ve spent my life fighting scumbags like Adán Barrera, but now it’s either him or the Zetas, and I choose him.”

“So you’ve made a deal,” Keller says. “What am I, the kicker?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Go to hell.”

Alvarado starts in. “You North Americans are clean because you can be. That has never been a choice for us, either as individuals or as a nation. You’re experienced enough to know that we’re not offered a choice of taking the money or not, we are given the choice of taking the money or dying. We’ve been forced to choose sides, so we choose the best side we can and get on with it. What would you have us do? The country was falling apart, violence getting worse every day. The only way to end the chaos was to pick the most likely winner and help him win. And you North Americans despise us for it at the same time you send the billions of dollars and the weapons that fuel the violence. You blame us for selling the product that you buy. It’s absurd.”

And convenient, Keller thinks. “You sided with Barrera and then grabbed with both hands—money, land, power.”

“Just listen,” Taylor says. “For once in your life, Keller, just goddamn listen.”

They take him inside.

—

He’s aged.

Adán Barrera always had a boyish face, but that’s gone now, along with the shock of black hair that always fell over his forehead. His hair is cut short, there are hints of gray, and lines around the eyes now.

He’s aged, Keller thinks, and so have I.

Keller sees bodyguards stand within sight but out of earshot. They’re going to shoot me right in front of him, Keller thinks. Or he’ll do it himself if he’s grown the balls.

Either way, it’s a matter of personal satisfaction for him.

Or it might not be shooting, it might be torture.

Slower, more satisfying.

Despite himself, Keller feels a jolt of pure terror.

Adán still wears the black business suit and the white shirt, Keller notices as Adán sits down across from him. It’s strange, to say the least, to be so close to this man he’s been hunting for over six years now. But here he is, Adán Barrera in the flesh.

“We need to talk, Arturo,” Adán says. “We’ve put this off too long.”

“Talk.”

“My daughter choked to death,” Adán says. “Did you know that?”

“If you’re going to kill me, kill me. I don’t need to sit here waiting while you justify yourself.”

“If I wanted you dead,” Adán says, “you’d already be dead. I’m not a sadist like Ochoa. I don’t need to see, participate in, or prolong your death. I asked Taylor to come so that you’d be reassured that I mean you no harm today.”

“Just so we’re clear,” Keller says, “I mean you harm. Today and every day.”

“The Zetas murdered one of your own,” Adán says. “You, of all people, should know how that alters the terrain. Your superiors will stop at nothing to avenge him, just as you will stop at nothing to avenge your fallen comrade. Believe me, I respect it.”

“You don’t respect anything.”

“I know what you think of me,” Adán says calmly. “I know you think that I’m evil incarnate—I think the same of you—but we both know that there are far worse demons out there.”

“The Zetas?”

“You were at San Fernando,” Adán says. “You saw what they’re capable of. Now they’ve apparently done it again.”

“And you’re telling me you care about that.”

“They killed one of my loved ones,” Adán said, “and they killed one of yours.”

“What do you want?” Keller asks. He’s sick to death of all this talk.

Adán says, “I had you brought here to propose a truce between us.”

Keller can’t believe what he’s hearing. A truce between them? They’ve been at war with each other for over thirty years.

“We make peace between us,” Adán continues, “to fight the Zetas.”

“I have enough hate for you and the Zetas.”

“I agree that you have an unlimited capacity for hatred,” Adán says. “In fact, I’m counting on it. You have ample hatred, what you don’t have enough of are resources. Neither do I.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Zetas are winning,” Adán says simply. “They’ll soon have all of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, and Michoacán. They’re moving in Acapulco, Guerrero, Durango, even Sinaloa. Down south they’ve sent forces into Quintana Roo and Chiapas, to protect the border with Guatemala. If they succeed in taking Guatemala, it’s over. Neither I nor you will be able to stop them. They’ll control the cocaine trade, not just in the U.S. but in Europe, too. If it gives you a personal rooting interest, they’re moving into the Juárez Valley, too. It wasn’t me who slaughtered Erika Valles, who tried to kill Dr. Cisneros. They’ll try again. Eventually they’ll succeed.”