The Cartel by Don Winslow Page B

given a lady some notice.”
    Adán takes her arm and follows Diego onto the block.
    It’s as if they’re invisible. No one looks at them as they move through the swirling fights, the noise, the guards, and Diego leads them to a steel door that has been left unlocked. He ushers them into a stairwell and they climb to another door that opens onto the roof.
    The guards aren’t watching them, they have their guns and lights aimed down at the yard and don’t even seem to notice when the helicopter comes in and lands on the roof.
    The rotors blow Magda’s hair into a mess, and Adán puts his hand on her back and pushes her down a little as they step into the open door.
    Diego climbs in behind them and gives a thumbs-up to the pilot.
    The helicopter lifts off.
    Adán looks down at Puente Grande.
    It’s been five years of negotiations, diplomacy, payoffs, establishing relationships, waiting for the other bosses to accept his presence, for some of them to die, for others to be killed, for the North Americans to move on and become obsessed with another public enemy number one.
    Five years of patience and persistence and now he’s free.
    To resume his rightful place.
    Erie, Pennsylvania
    Outside a diner the next morning, going in for the breakfast special of two eggs, toast, and coffee, Keller sees it.
    A headline behind the cracked glass of a newspaper box.
    DRUG KINGPIN ESCAPES.

    Almost dizzy, Keller puts two quarters in the slot, takes out the paper, and scans the story for the name.
    It can’t be.
    It can’t be.
    The letters spring out at him like shards of metal from a tripwire, booby-trap grenade.
    “Adán Barrera.”
    Keller lays the paper on top of the box and reads the story. Barrera extradited to a Mexican prison…Puente Grande…a Christmas party…
    He can’t believe it.
    Then again, he can.
    Of course he can.
    It’s Barrera and it’s Mexico.
    The irony, Keller thinks, is as perfect as it is painful.
    I’m a prisoner in the world’s largest solitary confinement.
    And Barrera is free.
    Keller tosses the paper into a trash can. He walks the streets for hours, past piles of dirty snow, closed factories, shivering crack whores, the detritus of a Rust Belt town where the jobs have gone south.
    At some point, late in the afternoon with the sky turning a harsh, threatening gray, Keller walks into the bus station to go where he knows he’s always been headed.
    —
    The Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters are in Pentagon City. Which, Keller supposes, makes perfect sense. If you’re going to fight a war on drugs, base yourself in the Pentagon.
    He’s in a suit and tie now, his only one of either, closely shaved and his hair freshly cut. He sits in the lobby and waits until they finally let him up to the fifth floor to see Tim Taylor, who successfully masks his enthusiasm at seeing Art Keller.
    “What do you want, Art?” Taylor asks.
    “You know what I want.”
    “Forget it,” Taylor says. “The last thing we need right now is some old vendetta of yours.”
    “Nobody knows Barrera like I do,” Art answers. “His family, his connections, the way his mind works. And nobody is as motivated as I am.”
    “Why, because he’s hunting you?” Taylor asks. “I thought you had a different life now.”

    “That was before you guys let Barrera out.”
    “Go back to your bees, Art,” Taylor says now.
    “I’ll go down the road.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “If you let me walk out of here,” Keller answers, “I’ll go to Langley. I’ll bet they’d send me.”
    The rivalry between DEA and CIA is bitter, the tension between the two agencies horrific, the trust virtually nonexistent. CIA had at least helped to cover up Hidalgo’s murder, and DEA had never forgotten or forgiven it.
    “You and Barrera,” Taylor says, “you’re the same guy.”
    “My point.”
    Taylor stares at him for a long time and then says, “This is going to be complicated. Not everyone is going to welcome you back. But