“He’s not an idiot,” Palacios says. “He’ll suspect.”

“The second you get him on tape incriminating himself,” Aguilar says, “we’ll arrange transport for you and your family to the United States.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Cut him loose,” Keller says to Aguilar. “Who needs him?”

“You can’t leave me hanging now!”

“Then wear the wire,” Keller says.

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuck you!” Keller yells. “You’ve been sitting in these rooms for three goddamn weeks, giving us as little as possible! The fucking minimum. Well, the minimum isn’t good enough! I’ll go have a beer with Vera right now and tell him we have a new CI!”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Try me!” Keller says. “If you don’t wear this wire you are fucking worthless to me! And you know what worthless means? It means you’re not worth a ‘Q’ visa, you’re not worth a new identity, you’re not worth the house, the car, you’re not worth another one of my fucking sandwiches!”

He rips the food out of Palacios’s hand and throws it against the wall.

“I guess we can’t expect to come back to the Four Seasons,” Aguilar says, surveying the damage.

“Two days,” Keller says, calming down. “You set up your meeting with Vera, I’ll set up your entry into the States. You wear the wire, you get us what you need, you disappear until you testify.”

“You never said anything about testifying.”

“The wire is no good without your testimony,” Keller says. What did you think—you and Vera were going to be buddies anyway after this? You were going to bang girls together like the old days? Grow up.”

Palacios agrees to wear the wire.

“Business as usual,” Keller tells him. “Do everything you normally would, nothing out of the ordinary. Call me when you’ve set the meeting up.”

The rest of the day goes by like a muddy, slow-moving river. It’s well into night when Keller gets the call.

“Tomorrow at 6:30,” Palacios says.

“Where?”

“Gerardo has a little love nest he keeps in Polanco,” Palacios says. He gives Keller the address.

“We’ll meet at five,” Keller says. “Las Alcobas. We’ll wire you up there.”

“Do you think Gabriela would go for a farewell fuck?” Palacios asks.

“I doubt it.”

There’s a lot to get done. Aguilar arranges for SEIDO surveillance outside Vera’s condo to get pictures of the AFI chief coming and going. Then he goes to work on the exit plan—a SEIDO Learjet 25 will be standing by at the 1st Military Air Station at Mexico City International Airport. The flight plan will be filed to the 18th Military Airbase in Hermosillo, Sonora, for Aguilar to confer with SEIDO personnel there. In Hermosillo, they’ll change to an American DEA plane and fly to Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso. The DEA at EPIC will have arranged for the plane to clear American airspace and to pull into a classified hangar.

Palacios will be taken to EPIC, interviewed, and housed under heavy security at Fort Bliss.

Aguilar will join his family on vacation in Arizona and await developments. If Vera is arrested, Aguilar will return to Mexico to pursue the prosecution. If not, he’ll consider staying in the United States, where a position in a D.C. consulting firm has already been quietly arranged.

During the operation, Keller will remain in a surveillance position in a car two blocks removed from Vera’s condo, with remote audio sensor equipment allowing him to monitor the meeting.

He’ll call Taylor at EPIC as soon as Palacios exits.

Palacios will walk the two blocks from the condo, and, if he’s all clear, will get into an unmarked SEIDO vehicle and go out to the airport. If he’s not clear, he’ll walk to his own car, a late-model Cadillac, and his driver and bodyguard will take him.

That’s all if Palacios gets what they need on tape.

If he doesn’t, he’ll simply go home and set up another meet with Vera to try again.

—

The day, which promises to be endless, begins with Keller having a late breakfast.

With Gerardo Vera.

It’s part of the plan, to make Vera think that everything is as normal, keep him at ease. So Keller, feeling sleazy, sits with him at a sidewalk café out in Coyoacán. Keller is too edgy to be hungry, but he makes himself eat a large plate of pollo machaca. Vera goes for eggs Benedict and a Bloody Mary. He leans back in his chair, smiles at Keller, and says, “Big night tonight.”

Keller feels his stomach tighten. Does Gerardo know something? Is he probing? “Yeah?”

“This woman,” Vera says. “A famous beauty I’ve been seeing. Tonight I think I’m going to, as you say in the States, ‘close the deal.’ ”

“How famous?” Keller asks.

“A gentleman doesn’t name names,” Vera says. He grins and adds, “Quite famous, really. For her beauty and her…sexuality.”

He’s boyishly pleased. Keller feels almost guilty, aware of the old adage that every successful operation ends in a betrayal. And he does feel guilty, irrationally, looking across the table at the broad, smiling face of a man who’s thwarted every effort to get Barrera, who has taken tens of millions in cañonazos, a matón—a bully who held a young girl while his partner gouged out her eyes.

What the fuck do you feel guilty for? he asks himself.

“What about you?” Vera asks.

“What about me?”

“You have a woman?”

Keller shakes his head.

“You did, though, didn’t you?” Vera asks. “She was a doctor or something, right?”

Is that a threat? Keller wonders.

“How do you know about that?” he asks, keeping his voice level.

“It’s my business,” Vera answers, “to know about everything. No offense, Arturo, nothing personal.”

“Anyway, it’s over.”

“She left the city, as I recall.”

He knows where Marisol is, Keller thinks. And it is a threat. Keller has an impulse—deep, atavistic—to just stand up and shoot him in that broad forehead right now.

“It was you, right?” Vera’s asking now.

“Me who what?”

“You who told the Tapias about the Salvador Barrera deal,” Vera says casually. “I know it wasn’t me, and Luis is incapable of that sort of manipulation. So that leaves you.”

Keller doesn’t answer.

“No, congratulations,” Vera says. “If you’re going after Barrera, it was the perfect move. Split his organization in half, make people pick sides…Well done, mi amigo.”

What’s he doing? Keller wonders. Where’s he trying to go with this? Is he threatening, testing, checking out the water? Shit, maybe he wants to come in, make a deal.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Keller says.

“Of course you don’t,” Vera says, still smiling. His lifts a finger to get the waiter’s attention and then points at his empty glass. “Where are they?”

“You’ve lost me.”

“The Tapias,” Vera says. “If you’re in touch with them, if you know where they are, now is the time to tell me.”

He’s working me the way you work an informant, Keller thinks. Shit, he’s working me the way I work an informant. “I’m not in touch with them and I don’t know where they are.”

The waiter sets down a fresh Bloody Mary. Vera ignores it and says, “I think it’s time for you to go home, Arturo. I think it’s time for you to leave Mexico and go home.”

Keller shakes his head. “Not until I get Barrera.”

The smile comes off Vera’s face and he says very seriously, “That is never going to happen. Listen to me, Arturo—that is never going to happen.”

Jesus Christ, Keller thinks, he’s doing everything but telling me that he’s on Barrera’s payroll.

Why?

Vera reaches out and lays his hand on top of Keller’s. In another culture it would be interpreted as a homosexual gesture. Here it’s a mark of strong friendship between two men.

“I respect you,” Vera says. “I admire you. But you are never going to bring down Barrera, and your life is in danger now. Things are on the move and I am asking you—no, I’m begging you—leave the country as soon as possible. Tonight. I’m trying to save your life, Arturo.”