“You’ve got everything all figured out already, I suppose?” Méndez said, trying to mimic Fernández Rochetti’s amiable scorn.
“It seems pretty clear,” Fernández Rochetti said. “The Colonel got desperate.”
“I never thought of the Colonel that way.”
“The Colonel was not as smart as he thought. He realized how foolish he had been, making wild accusations about heavyweight people. He organized that butchery today at the prison, broke out and made it as far as you see him.”
“Your people arrived very quickly. I imagine they saw something?”
“Just cadavers and agitated Americans.”
Méndez noticed Athos, impassive under his black uniform cap, off to one side trying to get his attention. Athos had his AK-47 slung over his shoulder. Méndez had not seen him without the assault rifle since their first visit to the Colonel the month before.
“A pleasure as always, Commander,” Méndez said. He turned to Athos, who pointed at a red Volkswagen Jetta parked above them in the cul-de-sac.
Méndez made his way among rocks and climbed wood steps built into the dune. His cell phone rang in his leather jacket, which the rain was discoloring.
“Slaving away, Don Leo?” Isabel Puente sounded as if she were whispering into her phone beneath a cupped hand.
“Where are you?”
“Close. But on the other side, of course.”
Méndez stopped climbing and looked down at the gap in the fence, where riot-helmeted Border Patrol agents exchanged glares with Mexican federal officers, toe-to-toe at the line in the sand. He looked past the body of Rico enveloped in his leather coat, the green lump of the Border Patrol agent’s body, and clusters of U.S. investigators in yellow slickers near the Wrangler parked on the beach. He did not see Puente.
“What are you wearing?”
“That’s a question that could be interpreted the wrong way.” Her laugh was like a chime.
“An innocent question, I swear.”
“You can’t see me, I’m in the parking lot with the bosses,” Puente said, eager and conspiratorial. “Listen, we have to talk. Everything is falling into place, believe it or not.”
Méndez reached the top of the steps. A breeze spattered drops in his face. Araceli Aguirre’s driver stood by the parked Jetta. Aguirre sat in the backseat. She leaned her head back, stretching her neck. When she saw Méndez, she blew him a glum kiss.
Me and these formidable woman partners I’ve got, Méndez thought. If I were a gangster, I would worry more about them than the Diogenes Group. What had the Colonel said about Araceli? Tough as a soldier. And the Colonel hadn’t gotten to know Isabel Puente.
“From this vantage point, it looks more like everything’s falling apart,” Méndez said into the phone.
“Don’t be gloomy,” Puente said. “Can we get together in about three hours? It will be worth it.”
“Where?”
“The same place as the last time the Colonel caused a commotion.”
“Done. Thanks.”
Méndez hung up with Puente. He got into the back of the Jetta next to Aguirre. After a while, he said: “You must have been at the prison all day.”
Aguirre removed her glasses, rubbed the bridge of her nose. He tried to remember when he had seen her look more tired and depressed.
That morning, the Colonel had taken his usual brisk exercise walk around the prison yard. The tape from prison surveillance cameras that the guards rewound for Méndez afterward showed the Colonel striding stumpy-legged in his warm-up suit, accompanied by his pit bull and Rico. Then the Colonel repaired to his quarters.
The diversionary gunfight broke out around noon. The video showed two hit men in cowboy hats passing a joint back and forth as they advanced through the crowd at the Sunday basketball game, tossing away the joint, pistols coming out. A narco slurping an ice cream bar got a fusillade in the head.
By the time Méndez and Aguirre arrived at the prison, there were barricaded snipers, cell-block fires and melees provoked by gangs of addicts whom the Colonel’s men had furnished with drugs. The Colonel, Rico and the Colonel’s servant, César, were long gone, ushered out a loading dock to a waiting convoy of sport utility vehicles. César was still missing. Méndez and a federal police chief ordered the arrest of the warden and his deputies. The federal police had escorted Aguirre into the prison. She had gone among the inmates, convincing the foot soldiers to return to their cells, negotiating with and browbeating the ringleaders with the help of their wives. She had eventually restored a semblance of calm.
“Araceli,” Méndez sighed. “Are those tears for the Colonel or for us?”
Aguirre looked up with a flash of ferocity, replacing her glasses.
“Because if they are for the Colonel,” he continued, “let me say you did everything you could for him. And I imagine he appreciated it, in his way. What he did in the end was in his nature. Astorga was the kind of man who sees any sign of humanity or trust as a weakness to be exploited. He couldn’t help himself.”
“Perhaps you and I can convince ourselves we did everything we could for him,” Aguirre said, looking at the silver-blue fortress of clouds over the ocean. “But as far as I’m concerned, your boss might as well have pulled the trigger.”
“Not to defend the Secretary, but I know for a fact that he was trying to get the Colonel transferred to another prison. As you wanted.”
“Please, Leo, let’s not be infantile.”
“Things don’t move that fast, believe it or not. Even for the Secretary.”
“The Colonel said it. After he gave his testimony, he told me: ‘Now it’s up to the Secretary. After what I just did, he should send a helicopter and take me away. If he doesn’t, I’m a dead man.’ ”
The escape had been a shock. A week earlier the Colonel had kept his promise and given sworn testimony in the prison to Méndez and a federal prosecutor. He had mainly talked about cases with which they were already familiar. He had made brief and general accusations about the Ruiz Caballeros. Then he cut off the session, saying he would continue only after his transfer to a new prison.
“What’s happening down there?” Aguirre asked.
“A mess,” Méndez said, thankful that she had held fire on the subject of the Secretary. “The Border Patrol says nothing. The state police are tainting the evidence. The federal police seem mainly interested in the issue of imperialist aggression against our national sovereignty.”
“What’s the hypothesis?”
“Well, there’s the Fernández Rochetti version, which I reject automatically: The Colonel escaped on his own and got himself killed playing Pancho Villa with the Americans. Another possibility: The Colonel convinced Junior the best way to shut him up was to help him escape. Then Junior double-crossed him. And of course, there are many others who despised the Colonel and wanted him dead. What doesn’t make sense is the shoot-out with the Border Patrol.”
“I wonder if there will come a day in this city when crimes have less than a dozen possible intellectual authors,” Aguirre said.
“If that day comes, you might as well move to Ohio or somewhere, because your services won’t be needed around here anymore.”
Aguirre rolled her high shoulders, shaking off her mood.
“Alright,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m going down there.”
“Araceli, I really don’t think that’s necessary. You’ve had a long day.”
She leaned over, kissed him on the cheek, and opened the door.
“I owe it to him,” she said. “He was counting on me to save him. No?”
“But it’s raining,” Méndez protested, pulling out his radio. “Athos, Doctora Aguirre is coming down to the beach. Send someone up here with an umbrella. Confiscate Chancho’s if necessary.”
Aguirre managed a weak grin. “You realize that, in a way, all of this helps us. It raises suspicions. It shows that the Ruiz Caballeros are scared.”