The men around the table nod in agreement.

“When Sinaloa ran the drug trade,” Adán continues, “it ran efficiently and everyone made money. It was a business.”

He’s telling them what they already know, letting them remember his uncle and the reign of peace and plenty—brief but beautiful—he engendered.

“Now we are going to take back what is ours,” Adán says. He lets it sink in for a moment, and then says, “All the plazas, all the so-called cartels—the big ones and the small ones—I intend to reunite under our leadership. They will be run by us—by Sinaloans and only Sinaloans. That is why you’re here tonight. We are blood. Therefore I want to propose an alliance. An alianza de sangre. An alliance of blood.”

Adán waits for a few seconds to let the precisely chosen words sink in. An alliance of equals, not an empire with himself at its head. An alliance based on the old family and cultural relationships that go back centuries. He lets them also hear what he didn’t say. No mention of the Cartel del Golfo—they are not Sinaloans.

He’s talking to all the men in the room, but his real target is Vicente.

The Tapias are already on board, of course, so is Nacho, but if Adán is going to achieve what he wants, he needs Vicente, he needs the Juárez plaza through which to move his product.

“How exactly would it work?” Vicente asks. “This ‘alliance of blood’?”

Adán answers, “We will protect each other’s interests, defend each other in the case of an attack from outsiders, agree to allow each other to move product through our plazas, with a piso, of course.”

“But Adán doesn’t have a plaza,” Vicente says to the others, pointedly ignoring Adán. “Barrera is offering something he doesn’t have. I hear he doesn’t even have Tijuana anymore.”

You “hear”? Adán wonders. Or you’re behind Solorzano? But he doesn’t say it. Instead, he turns toward Vicente and says, “What we have is product and protection. We have police and politicians. We are willing to share. But only with blood.”

Vicente won’t let it go. “Are you saying you’ll only move your product through Juárez? Not Laredo, not the Gulf?”

Diego has had enough. “We’ll move our product where we want.”

“Not through Juárez,” Vicente answers. “Not if I don’t allow it. Not when Adán is already poaching on my territory, stealing my people.”

This is starting to go badly, Adán thinks. Not what he wanted at all.

Then Magda says, “We are all friends here, we are all family. Families have little quarrels—they mean nothing. Let’s be honest—at the end of the day, we all need family. Family is all we can trust.”

She touches her hand on Vicente’s.

He hears what she’s saying. His territory is flanked on the east by the Gulf cartel, on the west by Tijuana, where Solorzano may have ambitions of his own. But it’s the Gulf that worries him—Contreras’s power is growing every day, and it’s only a matter of time before he starts glancing at the rich plaza next door.

Vicente needs protection, and if Adán is offering that…well, what are a few defectors, especially if Adán is guaranteeing that they will all pay the piso. If they pay Adán as well, it’s money out of their pockets, not his.

An alliance of blood is an alliance against Contreras. Not a declaration of war—that would be foolish—but a statement of strength that might prevent an invasion. It might discourage Tijuana. And Adán’s woman, by framing it as a matter of family, has given him the chance to step down from this argument without losing face.

Adán can virtually watch the man think. Finally—finally—Vicente speaks up. “Blood is blood. If Adán will agree that anyone moving product through our plaza will pay the piso—”

“I will,” Adán says.

“—and offer us the benefit of his connections, then we will join in this alianza de sangre.” Vicente stands, raises his wineglass, and proposes a toast. “To the alianza de sangre.”

Adán clinks his glass.

“To the alianza de sangre.”

—

Adán stretches out on the bed next to Magda.

The meeting almost turned into a disaster, which Magda averted but at the end he got what he wanted—an alliance that will counterbalance Contreras and make him think twice about another assassination attempt.

The susurro is that Contreras is making a move on Nuevo Laredo, right on Fuentes’s doorstep. Since the old Chinese opium days at the turn of the century, Nuevo Laredo has been controlled by two families, the Garcías and the Sotos, and the Barreras have happily done business with the Garcías for years, at a discounted piso. The CDG owning Laredo would be a catastrophe, costing us billions, Adán thinks. Worse, it would give Contreras yet more power.

It can’t be allowed to happen.

Magda runs her index finger along his temple. “That mind of yours—doesn’t it ever get tired?”

“It can’t.”

She leans over and unzips his fly.

“Even when I do this?” Then she stops for a second and asks, “Are you still thinking?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“I need you to go to Colombia now,” Adán says.

“Right now?”

“Not right now.”

“Oh.”

Later he asks, “Where did you learn that?”

Magda gets out of bed. “I’ll pack tonight, leave in the morning. You’ll miss me.”

“I will.”

“You’ll find another woman,” Magda says, “some silly virgin. But no one who could do that to you.”

He will miss her.

But he’ll be busy.

It’s almost time to move against Contreras in the Gulf. I have justification, Adán thinks—Contreras started the war when he tried to kill me in Puente Grande.

First the Gulf.

Then Tijuana.

Then Juárez.

The new alianza de sangre will become the old Federación.

And I’ll become El Patrón.

—

Keller lies on the bed in his apartment.

His loneliness is a faint ache, like the reminder of an old wound, a scar you no longer notice because it’s just a part of you now.

Like your Barrera obsession? he asks himself. Is there a legitimate purpose, a reason, a cause, or is it just part of you now, a disease of the blood, an obstruction of the heart?

It felt good, didn’t it, pulling the trigger on the man you thought was Barrera. Seeing the fear in his eyes. At the end of the day you have to account for the fact that it felt good.

Aguilar’s right—the ambush at the house was probably meant for me. Kind of funny, when you think about it, that Barrera and I each thought we’d killed each other.

And were both wrong.

The Gulf War

They bought up half of southern Texas,

That’s why they act the way they do.

—Charlie Robison

“New Year’s Day”

1 The Devil Is Dead

Some say the devil is dead,

The devil is dead, the devil is dead

Some say the devil is dead

And buried in Killarney.

I say he rose again,

He rose again, he rose again…

—Irish folk song