“What kind of a world,” she has asked Adán several times, “will our children grow up in?”

The same world we did, Adán thinks, only hotter.

And with more beachfront property.

And yet it is time for a change.

For the country.

For yourself.

For your family.

Nacho is right—we have billions of dollars but live like refugees. We have to hide, look behind our backs, always have to wonder if this day is our last.

It’s not the life you want for these boys in their cribs.

You could be El Patrón again, if you win. But you could also do what no patrón has ever done.

Walk away.

With a life and family intact.

No one has ever done that.

Every “drug lord” before you has ended up either dead or in prison.

You could reinvest your billions in legitimate concerns and your sons could grow up and live as titans of business.

You could live to see your grandchildren.

It could be done.

He goes upstairs to the nursery, where an abuela sits asleep in a chair beside the boys’ cribs. Eva has decorated the nursery in soothing “womb tones” with letters from the alphabet painted on the walls and ceilings in the belief that it’s never too early for them to start learning.

The boys have nannies, but Eva is what they now call a “helicopter parent,” hovering over them constantly, supervising every detail of clothing, diet, and environment.

Ah well, he thinks, be patient. She tried for so long and so hard to have a baby, it’s natural that’s she’s going to be overprotective for a while. She’ll get over it and start a new phase. With any luck it will be “I’m sexy even though I’m a mother.”

The abuela wakes with a start when Adán comes into the room and he shakes his head quickly to let her know that he doesn’t mind her dozing. He looks down at the two babies, who are breathing softly and evenly, their foreheads dewy with a sheen of sweat.

They’re beautiful.

He remembers Gloria when she was a baby. She was not beautiful, with her heavy misshapen head, except to him.

To him, she was lovely.

Adán looks down at his boys and then suddenly he doesn’t see them but two other children and he gets hot and dizzy as he sees those two children on a bridge in Colombia, a boy and a girl, not babies but little, and he’d already had their mother killed and the little girl screamed Mi mamá, mi mamá and he gave the order and his man threw them over the side and he made himself watch as they plunged onto the rocks below and now he sees their faces in the faces of his sons and he recoils, staggers away from the crib, his children are dead children, all his children are dead.

He leans against the wall trying to catch his breath.

Then he forces himself to look into the crib again.

His boys are sleeping.

Adán kisses them on their cheeks and goes back downstairs and makes the call that will set up the peace meeting with Ochoa.

—

The election is called by 8 p.m.

The following morning, the numbers are in:

Peña Nieto receives 38.15 percent of the vote.

López Obrador gets 31.64.

Vázquez Mota comes in with 25.40.

PAN is finished, Los Pinos will go back to the PRI, which also gets a heavy plurality in the Chamber of Deputies.

Victoria is bitterly disappointed.

“Did you call to gloat?” she asks Pablo.

“No,” Pablo says, “just to firm up our plans.”

“She should have won,” Victoria says. “The country would be so much better off than with this…this…”

“I need your flight information.”

“It’s the media,” Victoria says. “Media bias.”

“You are the media.”

“I mean the rest of the media.”

“Of course.”

“You, for instance,” Victoria says. “And Ana. And El Niño Salvaje. How dare that…blogger…write a story the day before the election, accusing PAN of supporting the Sinaloa cartel?”

Perhaps because it’s true, Pablo thinks. “I don’t know, Victoria. Give me a clue—morning, afternoon, or evening?”

“Morning, afternoon, or evening what?”

“When you and Mateo are coming,” Pablo says. “Is Ernesto coming with you?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know yet,” Victoria says. “Pablo, I have stories to write, unfortunately. Stories on how this election will damage the economy. Now all we need is for the Democrats to get elected and we’ll all be selling apples.”

“Flight times?”

“I don’t know.” She sounds confused, impatient. “I’ll have Emilia call you.”

“Who’s Emilia?”

“My new assistant.”

“But you are coming,” Pablo says.

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yes!”

“Okay, have Emilia call me.”

“I will.” She clicks off.

“Is Victoria beside herself with disappointment?” Ana asks, rolling her chair up to his. “I am sorry we won’t have a woman president, only not that woman. Our answer to Maggie Thatcher.”

“Ana?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t care.”

Óscar comes into the room. “Ana, write the story, straight news, facts and figures. Then get a jump on the inevitable fraud angles. Pablo—”

“Man-in-the-street.”

“How did you know?”

“I just knew.”

Pablo grabs his laptop, goes out into the parking lot, and gets into the fronterizo. He has no intention of going out and doing man-in-the-street interviews, because he already knows what man in which street is going to say.

And it doesn’t matter.

He’s leaving the paper, leaving journalism, leaving Mexico.

Leaving Juárez.

Pablo drives back to Ana’s apartment and throws what little he has into a backpack.

—

Manuel Godoy is a self-described geek.

A graduate student at Juárez Autonomous University, he’s the best computer hacker in the city, maybe in all of Chihuahua.

Now he has a gun to his head.

Literally.

Three men picked him up as he left campus, shoved him into a car, hooded him, and drove him to this nondescript building. They sat him down in a chair in front of a computer, removed the hood, and stuck the pistol into the back of his head.

“You want to live?” the man they called “Forty” asked him.

“Yes.”

“Good answer,” Forty said. “You know Esta Vida?”

Manuel didn’t know how to answer. This wasn’t some oral exam at the university, defending his thesis. The wrong answer could get that trigger pulled. He dissembles. “I’ve heard of it.”

“All you have to do,” Forty said, “is tell us who’s behind it. We know it comes from Juárez. You tell us who, we’ll pay you very well. You don’t, we kill you. It’s that simple. Go.”

“I can’t do it on this computer.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a piece of shit.”

Forty laughed. “What do you need?”

Manuel gave him a list of hardware and software and Forty sent his guys out to get it. When they got back, Manuel assembled the hardware, downloaded the programs he needed, and went to work.

Now he sits at the computer and hacks for his life.

—

“What do you mean?” Pablo asks Victoria over the phone.

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” she answers, sounding aggrieved. “I have work, Pablo—stories to file—and can’t come until tomorrow, at the earliest. You and Mateo can meet us in El Paso.”

Pablo thinks he might throw up. “Mateo can’t come to Juárez.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not safe.”

“You pick him up at the airport and go straight over to the U.S.,” Victoria says. “Ernesto and I will meet you there. I don’t see the problem.”

“The problem is that Mateo can’t come to Juárez.”

“He’s dying to see you,” Victoria says. “When I told him it would be another day or two he threw a fit, and he can throw a fit these days, believe me.”