The Colonel stabbed the heart of South America again. His mood seemed to swing back toward euphoria.
“But Junior is also developing a revolutionary route, new allies. This could make him richer and stronger than the competition. It is untapped territory. You know more history than I do. If I understand correctly, the Triple Border became a smuggler’s paradise during the dictatorship of that general who ruled Paraguay for so long.”
“Stroessner,” Méndez said.
“That one. A kleptocrat. When he fell, the civilians took over Ciudad del Este. The smuggling business kept growing.”
“The government barely exists there,” Araceli said to Méndez. “The mafias move an enormous amount of money.”
The Colonel nodded graciously. “Billions a year, they say. You still have to pay toll to the Paraguayans, but it is an international platform now. Asian gangs. Arabs. Brazilians, Russians. Pure mafias. The United Nations of crime.”
Méndez’s eyes were on the map. He decided to jab the Colonel. “What could be so profitable down in the middle of nowhere?”
The Colonel’s fist clenched on the atlas. He looked miffed.
“Look. It is what the South American cops call a ‘liberated zone.’ You have every racket: Drugs. Guns. Fake documents. Money laundering. Contraband. Junior got interested in the place when he found out they were pirating the discs of his damned norteño bands faster than the pirates in Mexico. He had some emissaries sniff around. He went down himself. There are waterfalls, jungle parks. Better than Niagara Falls. Junior established alliances with big capos down there. Cautious, experimental. But huge potential.”
“When was this?” Méndez asked, intent on the map. He had known that Junior was doing business with South Americans, but not to this extent.
“During the past year. They are starting to move drugs to the United States, but also to Europe through Africa. The market of the future. And migrants here: Chinese, South Americans, Africans. You have seen the results.”
“The smugglers and migrants we arrest speak Portuguese mixed with Spanish,” Méndez said.
The Colonel’s trigger finger aimed at Méndez in acknowledgment, then traced lines back and forth between the Mexican border and the Triple Border.
“That’s because Ciudad del Este and Foz do Iguaçu, the Brazilian city across the river, are like one continuous city. The border is an imaginary line, Licenciado. The languages mix together, like everything else. Like San Diego and Tijuana.”
“The Colonel says gangsters from the Triple Border are here, Leo,” said Aguirre. “The Ruiz Caballeros have used Arab and Brazilian sicarios.”
The Colonel nodded vigorously. “They fly in, they kill, they leave. Very efficient. For one job I went to the airport to receive the specialists.”
“Which job?”
The Colonel was not accustomed to direct questions, particularly on his own turf. His upper lip drew back against his teeth.
“Ay Licenciado, let’s just say it was the recent murder of a government official. There have been so many, lamentably. And more to come. César! More coffee for our guests.”
As the youth in the Georgetown sweatshirt refilled cups, Méndez wondered if the Colonel had gone to the Triple Border himself; the Diogenes Group knew that off-duty state police accompanied Junior Ruiz Caballero on trips. Méndez wondered how much the Colonel knew for a fact and how much was conjecture. He was framing a question when gunfire erupted outside.
Porthos cursed and put his hand on his gun. Méndez, Rico and Puente followed suit. There were more shots, volleys from an assault rifle somewhere outside the Colonel’s compound.
Athos burst in, AK-47 in one hand, a radio to his ear. There was grim satisfaction on his face, as if he felt vindicated that his fears had come true. After scanning the room and reassuring himself the Colonel had not sprung an ambush, he ducked back outside.
Méndez remained in his chair. His body ached with accumulated tension. He saw that Aguirre had her cup encircled in her hands. She sipped pensively. The Colonel sat straight-backed, hands flat on either side of the atlas. He looked as if he had just eaten something distasteful and was being polite about it. No one spoke.
Moments later, Athos stuck his head inside again.
“It came from the main yard,” he reported. “Some monkey shooting in the air, celebrating the Saturday. The guards say nothing to worry about. They say they have it under control.”
Athos pronounced the last two words with quotation marks around them. He gave Rico and the Colonel a look and withdrew.
The Colonel exhaled.
“Maybe someone was saying hello to our guests,” he grumbled. “Anyway, Méndez, I hope I am enlightening you a bit. Now I’d like to talk about how you can help me. Permit me to start by saying I have no illusions. And I want you know this: One way or another, I am getting out of this prison. Soon.”
Hours later, Méndez and Aguirre finished lunch at a little restaurant in a colonial-style shopping mall across a busy downtown traffic circle from the Tijuana Cultural Center. Isabel, who got impatient during extended Tijuana lunches, had joined them long enough to drink a Coke and left. Méndez and Aguirre lingered over cigarettes and coffee, exhausted by the visit to the prison. Their bodyguards sat at the bar watching a Saturday sports roundup on an overhead screen.
Araceli Aguirre took a drag on her cigarette. She had removed her glasses. Her face looked younger, even thinner, the eyes bright despite the circles beneath them.
“I won’t argue with you-the Colonel is a perverse beast,” Araceli said. “But what do you think he will do?”
“Oh, he will testify if he has to. But he’s fully capable of playing both sides, using us to pressure Junior to get him out, or pay him off, or whatever.”
“I imagine it’s up to your pushy Cuban friend to get help from the yanquis.”
“My friend Isabel, who does not deserve insults, will help through the task force. But Mexico City is key at this point. I have to talk to the Secretary about what this means for the investigation, get organized to move fast.”
“The Secretary,” Aguirre said drily. “Your beloved boss. A creature of the system in disguise.”
“Let’s not get started. I think he would intervene to transfer the Colonel to a new prison. But the state authorities will try to block it because he has been charged under state law as well as federal law.”
“So you are pessimistic.”
“Araceli. The Colonel is extremely valuable. The Triple Border connection intrigues me. He’s a blowhard, but if he will testify in detail, I do think this is as big as he says it is.”
The owner of the restaurant stopped by the table to say hello. He was one of the itinerant Basques who had come to Tijuana to play professional jai alai, then settled there. Méndez was not fond of the Spaniard, or Spain, or what he considered snobby colonial cuisine. But Aguirre had studied for her doctorate in Madrid on a fellowship and developed a weakness for the “mother country.” The cozy restaurant, with its posters of far-off mountain villages and fields sectioned by stone walls, did give Méndez a sense of shelter. Especially when he was with Aguirre.
“Did you see Porfirio Gibson’s show last night?” Méndez asked. “He’s getting nasty with his commentaries. Last night he went after you again. He took a shot at me too, because I dodged an interview.”