He doesn’t even let himself think it.

Nothing can be allowed to go wrong.

The convoy stops.

Adán knows it’s just a strict protocol being followed. He can’t meet Ochoa until Nacho meets with Forty. Their conversation takes only a few minutes and then the convoy is directed to a clearing about a quarter mile west of the village proper. The Zetas have chopped away the forest to create a campsite for their guests—tents have been set up and two cargo containers have been converted into living quarters for Adán and Nacho.

Adán’s men go into the camp first in case it’s an ambush, and check the grounds for booby traps and the dwellings for microphones. When they declare it clean, Adán’s jeep comes in and he takes possession of his “quarters”—the C-container with a bed and real mattress, a latrine, a sink, and, thank God, air-conditioning run off a generator.

He has a woman, clearly a local Mayan captive, for a servant. She looks terrified, and he smiles and does his best to reassure her as one of his men brings in his bags. His traditional black suit is clearly out of place here, and he changes into a clean white guayabera, jeans, and tennis shoes.

Reflecting that he hasn’t worn one of these shirts since his wedding, he thinks about Eva and the kids. At his insistence, they’ve all gone to the U.S. on a holiday while he’s away and should now be on the beach in La Jolla. The strange irony that they are under the protection of Art Keller is almost painful.

As is the knowledge that his own life might be in Keller’s hands.

The raid to kill the top Zetas is on for tomorrow morning—the peace meeting he arranged “locked the target in place,” to use Keller’s term. Now it’s just a matter of keeping Ochoa and Forty in place, lulling them into complacency with sweet talk of peace on favorable terms.

If everything goes well, Ochoa will be dead before the sun comes up.

Magda was pregnant, the autopsy had said.

With my child, Adán thinks.

He flops down on the bed to get a little rest before the meeting starts.

Outside, he hears a soft, odd thumping noise.

Rhythmic.

He doesn’t know what it is, and then realizes that someone is kicking a fútbol against a stone wall.

—

There are no jokes this time when Adán meets Ochoa.

No banter, no efforts to cut the tension. There’s only mutual hatred but also mutual need, and they sit down at the table quietly.

Armed men stand in an oval around them, out of earshot but within sight, their fingers on the triggers, their eyes on their opposite numbers. This could turn into a bloodbath in a second, Adán thinks.

Ochoa and Forty sit on one side of the table, Adán and Nacho on the other.

Z-1 has aged since the last time, Adán thinks.

The burden of command, I suppose. He’s just as handsome, but in a different way, and for the first time Adán can see the latent psychosis in his eyes. It’s disgusting sitting so close to him, talking peace with this sadistic killer, this mass murderer. The man is Satan, and his familiar Forty is, if anything, worse.

“Let’s get right down to work,” Nacho says.

Basically they agree on an east-west division of the plazas, which reflects the reality on the ground. Adán concedes that the Zetas will retain Nuevo León, Monterrey, and Veracruz, as well as Matamoros, Reynosa, and La Frontera Chica in Tamaulipas. In turn, Ochoa agrees that Tijuana, Baja, Sonora, and even Juárez, with the valley, will go to the Sinaloans.

The sticking point is Nuevo Laredo.

Adán puts up a fight, because to do otherwise would arouse suspicion. At first he demands the city outright, then offers to allow the Zetas to use it for a piso. Then he offers to discount the piso to three points.

It’s amusing, a small pleasure, to watch Ochoa get angry, and time and again Adán pushes him to the edge of calling off the negotiations, and then reels him back.

Finally, Nacho makes the proposal that they’d agreed upon beforehand. They’d revert back to the old days when the Floreses and the Sotos divided the plaza east and west. The Sinaloans would keep the western part of Nuevo Laredo, and the Zetas the east. That settled, Ochoa moves the topic to Europe and the relationship with ’Ndrangheta.

“I don’t know that I can help you there,” Adán says drily, making a point to smile at Forty. “ ’Ndrangheta shied away from you when you tried to do business with Islamic terrorists.”

“We need a piece of the European market,” Ochoa says.

It’s a risky topic because they all know it could bring up the subject of Magda Beltrán’s murder.

Adán lets it go. “Be that as it may…”

“You need our Gulf ports to do business in Europe,” Forty says.

“Not really,” Adán answers.

But he really does. It would be much more efficient to ship directly from Veracruz or Matamoros. He drags it out, but eventually pretends to reluctantly agree to Nacho’s suggestion that he “factor” Zeta cocaine to the Europeans in exchange for free use of the Gulf ports.

They break for lunch, an awkward hiatus over some mango and an execrable chicken dish.

There’s no small talk. They eat at separate tables, and Adán confers quietly with Nacho, then walks off to call Eva in La Jolla. The boys are fine, playing on the beach, she’s slathered them in sunblock, no they’re not too close to the water, yes, the North Americans are keeping close watch over them.

After lunch they tackle the subject of Guatemala.

It’s a deal-killer, Adán insists. Ochoa must share Guatemala. Sinaloan planes must have free access to landing strips and be allowed to transport their product across the border unmolested. They will, of course, pay their share of police and political protection.

Ochoa balks. Guatemala is his “by right of conquest”—which Adán finds amusing—and if the Sinaloans want to use the territory, they must pay for the privilege, and by the kilo. Adán gets up from the table. “Thank you for lunch. We won’t be requiring dinner.”

“Sit down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Nacho says, “Gentlemen—”

“If I pay you for every kilo of coke that I bring through Guatemala,” Adán says to Ochoa, “I might as well just go to work for you.”

“That would be acceptable.” Ochoa smiles.

Adán is growing tired of the game. But the game must be played, and on the chance that the raid doesn’t come off or fails, he needs an arrangement with the Zetas, so he says, “We’ve bled each other dry, it makes no sense to come to the peace table and try to bleed each other to death financially. I’m offering you a market in Europe in exchange for a supply route in Central America.”

Ochoa confers with Forty and then agrees.

What follows is a long, tedious discussion about security arrangements between now and the end of the present administration. Adán verifies that the AFI and the army will make no overt moves against the Zetas if they will not fire on agents or soldiers.

“What about the FES?” Ochoa asks.

“I have no influence there,” Adán says.

“Then why do they only come after us and not you?”

“Perhaps because you killed their families,” Adán suggests. Perhaps because you’re animals without the slightest restraint. Perhaps because you’re sociopaths and sadists. Perhaps because you crippled Keller’s woman and butchered a young woman he thought of as a daughter. Perhaps because you killed my unborn child. “I can’t help you there.”

Ochoa seems to accept it, and then asks, “What do you intend to do about the new administration?”

“Same thing we’ve done with every administration,” Adán says. “Try to influence it with money and reason. If we pool our resources and present a common front we might gain some ground there. The best thing we can do is to stop fighting. I truly believe that if we give this government peace, it will reciprocate.”