Read Online The Cartel by Don Winslow - Free Book Online Page B

bosses. Has Nacho even come to see you?”
    “It’s too risky.”
    “Diego came.”
    “That’s Diego,” Adán says. “He doesn’t give a damn.”
    “Or he does.”
    Not Diego, Adán thinks. Maybe the others, although I doubt it. Nacho was a close friend and adviser to my uncle, and was as good an adviser to me. He’s married to my sister’s brother-in-law’s sister. He’s family.
    But maybe.
    But Diego?
    Never.
    “I’d bet my life on Diego,” he says defensively.
    Magda shrugs. “You are.”
    He sits down on the bed next to her.
    “If they tried once,” she says, “they’ll try again.”
    “I know,” he says. And one day, they’ll succeed, he thinks. I’m a stationary target in this prison. And, whoever it is, if they really want me dead, I’m dead. But there is no use dwelling on it. “ You saved my life today.”
    She flips a page and says, “It’s a small thing.”

    Adán laughs. “What do you want in return?”
    Magda finally looks up from the magazine. “You’ve saved my life many times over.”
    “Christmas is coming,” Adán says.
    “Such as it is”—she sighs—“in this place.”
    “We’ll make the most of it,” he promises.
    If we live long enough.
    Matamoros
    Tamaulipas, Mexico
    November 2004
    Heriberto Ochoa watches from a pew in the third row of the church as Salvador Herrera holds the baby girl over the baptismal and the priest says the words. As is tradition, both infant and godfather wear white, and Herrera’s squat form reminds Ochoa of an old refrigerator.
    The church is packed, as befits the bautizo of a powerful narco’s daughter. Osiel Contreras stands to the side of the font and beams in paternal pride.
    Ochoa remembers the first time he met Osiel Contreras, over a year ago now. A soldier then, Ochoa was a lieutenant in Mexico’s elite Airborne Special Forces Group, and Contreras had just risen to the leadership of the Gulf cartel after Garza’s arrest and extradition.
    They met at a barbecue on a ranch south of the city, and Contreras mentioned that he needed protection.
    “What kind of men do you need?” Ochoa asked. He sipped his beer. It was cold and crisp.
    “The best,” Contreras answered. “Only the best.”
    “The best men,” Ochoa said, “are only in the army.”
    It wasn’t bragging, it was a simple matter of fact. If you want gangbangers, drug addicts, thugs, and malandros —useless layabouts—on your payroll, you can pick them up on any corner. If you want elite men, you have to go to an elite force. Ochoa was elite—he’d taken counterinsurgency training from the American special forces and the Israelis.
    The best of the best.
    “What do you make a year?” Contreras asked. When Ochoa told him, Contreras shook his head and said, “I feed my chickens better.”
    “And do they protect you?”

    Contreras laughed.
    Ochoa deserted the army and went to work for the Gulf cartel. His first task was to recruit others like him.
    The Mexican army was rife with desertion anyway. Armed with cañonazos de dólares —cannonballs of money—Ochoa easily seduced thirty of his comrades away from their long hours, shabby barracks, and lousy pay. Within weeks he’d brought over four other lieutenants, five sergeants, five corporals, and twenty privates. They brought with them valuable merchandise—AR-15 rifles, grenade launchers, and state-of-the-art surveillance equipment.
    Contreras’s terms were generous.
    In addition to a salary, he gave each recruit a bonus of $3,000 U.S. to put in the bank, invest el norte, or buy drugs.
    Ochoa bought eighteen kilos of cocaine.
    Now he was well on his way to becoming a rich man.
    The work itself was relatively easy—guard Contreras and enforce the piso. Most paid willingly, the recalcitrant were taken to the Hotel Nieto in Matamoros and persuaded, often with a pistol barrel shoved down their throats.
    Just a few months into the job, Contreras ordered him to eliminate a rival trafficker. Ochoa took twenty