“Quite a speech, Arturo,” Vera says. “But you still don’t understand Mexico. Five minutes.”

—

“They’re moving!” Forty yells.

Ochoa crawls back to the window and peers out. Forty is right—there’s movement behind the armored cars.

He recognizes the signs of an imminent assault.

“They’re coming,” Ochoa says.

Segura fingers the grenade around his neck. He’s a giant of a man, six-seven and built like a tree. He’s worn his “grenade necklace” ever since Ochoa can remember, since they served together in Chiapas. “If they get in, I let them get close and pull the pin. We go to the devil together.”

“It will be a good time,” Forty says. “All the best women are in hell.”

“Don’t be idiots,” Contreras says. “I’m going to surrender.”

“Not me,” Segura grunts. That’s why he wears the grenade.

“I didn’t say you, I said me,” Contreras snaps. Turning to Ochoa, he says, “Take your best men out the back. I’ll go to the front with my hands up, make a big show. You might have a chance in the excitement.”

“They’ll gun you down,” Ochoa says.

The AFI are murderers.

“Maybe not in front of the cameras,” Contreras says. “Ochoa, listen to me, this is the right decision.”

Ochoa knows that it is. Contreras can still run the organization from prison, but only if he still has an organization to run.

Which means the Zetas surviving.

Contreras says, “My brother will take over the day-to-day running of the organization.”

Despite the grimness of the situation, Ochoa almost has to laugh. The “little” brother is little only in the sense of “younger.” Héctor Contreras is known as “Gordo,” who is only impressive in that he manages to be obese despite an addiction to cocaine. The man has no self-discipline whatsoever, and therefore Ochoa has no respect whatsoever for him.

Gordo “running the operation” in reality means that I’ll be running the operation, Ochoa thinks. There are worse things.

“You know who’s behind this,” he says.

“Of course,” Contreras answers. “It was the right move.”

“Hell will wait,” Ochoa says.

—

Keller tightens his Kevlar vest.

Aguilar stares at him. “I wonder who you are sometimes.”

“You and me both, Luis.” He checks the load on the Sig Sauer, hoping not to use it, and wishes that Aguilar would stay behind the vehicles. I don’t care that much about you, Luis, he thinks, but I do like your wife and kids, and I don’t want the next time I see them to be at your funeral.

Keller feels that moment of calm he always has before going into a firefight. The fear subsides, the pins-and-needles pricking of anxiety goes away, and he feels this cool rush in his brain.

His only regret is that it’s not Barrera.

He gets his weight solidly under his feet and gets ready to push off.

Then the front door of the house opens.

Contreras steps out.

His hands high over his head.

At least two hundred weapons are trained on him.

So are a dozen news cameras.

“Me rindo!” Contreras yells. “I surrender!”

Vera stares across the street for a moment. Then he yells, “Hold your fire! Don’t shoot!”

Keller hears a burst of fire, then an explosion from the back of the house. For a second it seems like everything is going to fall apart. Contreras drops to his knees, yelling, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

The gunfire stops.

Vera strides across the street. He grabs Contreras by the wrists, turns him, kicks him to the ground, and handcuffs him. “Osiel Contreras, you are under arrest!”

“Go fuck yourself,” Contreras says quietly. “You and your bosses.”

Canelas, Sinaloa

Eva Esparza is seventeen and beautiful.

Long, wavy black hair, brown doe eyes, high cheekbones, and a figure that is just beginning to fulfill its promise. She’s just a little taller than Adán, who holds her loosely in his arms as they dance to the music of Los Canelos de Durango, a band that Nacho had flown in for the occasion.

The occasion is a dance to raise support for his daughter’s candidacy for Miss Canelas, which she’ll probably win anyway by virtue of her beauty and charm, but Nacho isn’t taking any chances. He’s sponsored this dance and handed out gifts to the judges.

Adán wouldn’t be interested in a runner-up.

A king can only marry a queen.

Or, better, a princess.

Adán finds Nacho’s solicitude a little amusing. His ally has at least six families scattered across Sinaloa, Durango, Jalisco, and God knows where else, but Eva is clearly his favorite, Daddy’s little girl.

Holding her, smelling her hair and her perfume, Adán can see why. The girl is intoxicating, and he’s grateful that Nacho’s favorite daughter inherited his charm and not his looks.

When the subject first came up, Adán wasn’t exactly sanguine.

“We’re not getting any younger,” Nacho had said, at the end of a long discussion about the war in Tijuana.

Adán smelled a trap. “I don’t know, Nacho, you look younger than I’ve ever seen you. Maybe it’s the money.”

“Don’t let’s kid ourselves,” Nacho answered. “I take the Viagra, you know.”

Adán let the chance to exchange confidences pass. Erectile dysfunction was not an issue with Magda in his bed, although she was now in Colombia, setting up a cocaine pipeline.

“Still,” Nacho said, “I’m not making any more children.”

“Jesus, Nacho, get to the point,” Adán snapped.

“All right,” Nacho said. “What’s all this for, this empire building, if we don’t have anyone to leave it to?”

“You have a son.”

“You don’t.”

Adán got up from his desk chair and walked over to the window. “I had a child, Nacho.”

“I know.”

“The truth is,” Adán said, “I don’t know if I could live with that kind of heartbreak again.”

“Children are life, Adanito. You still have time.”

“I don’t think Magda would be interested.”

“It can’t be Magda,” Nacho said. “Don’t get me wrong, no offense, but she’s been around.”

“This from you?” Adán asks.

“It’s different with a woman and you know it,” Nacho said. “No, your wife has to be a virgin, of course, and the mother of your children must be from an important family.”

Then Adán got what Nacho was really driving at. “Are you suggesting—”

“Why not?” Nacho asked. “Think about it. An Esparza and a Barrera? Now that would be an alianza de sangre.”

Yes, it would be, Adán thought. It would lock Nacho in. I would not only get his undying loyalty, but, in a sense, the Tijuana plaza back with it. But…

“What about Diego?” he asked.

“Have you seen his eldest daughter?” Nacho asked. “She’ll have a heavier beard than he does!”

Adán laughed in spite of himself. Diego, always sensitive of his position, might feel threatened if I move closer to Esparza.

Nacho said, “I have a daughter, Eva. Seventeen years old—”

“That’s young.”

“We’re about to hold a dance for her,” Nacho said. “Just come and meet her. If you don’t like her, if she doesn’t like you, it’s one day out of your life. This is all I’m asking.”

“And what will Eva think about this?” Adán asked.

“She’s seventeen,” Nacho answered. “She doesn’t know what she thinks.”

Now, as the music stops, Adán wonders what she is thinking. Here’s this young girl, the center of attention at a party in her honor, and suddenly two hundred armed men in black hoods and masks roar in on ATVs and block off all the roads. Then six small planes land on a field nearby and I get out of one of them, with an AK slung over my shoulder, and now two helicopters circle overhead.

She’s either totally taken with it all, or totally disgusted.

And I’m more than thirty years her senior, what does she think about that? I’m guessing it’s not the honeymoon night that she’s dreamed of. She’s probably not even thinking of marriage—she wants to date, go to clubs, hang out with her friends, go to college…