"Fuck Nacho." They get into Sal's red BMW, but Sal won't leave. "We wait."

"Come on, man," Cesar says.

"You want to go, go."

"You're my ride."

So they sit and wait, and instead of Sal cooling off, he gets hotter and hotter. By closing time, 4:00 a.m., he is seething.

"Here they come," Edgar says.

Brooke, David, and her other friend come out of the club, walk into the parking lot, and get into an old Ford pickup truck.

"He's a farmer," Sal sneers.

"You'd better get over there, you're going to mess him up," Edgar says.

"Fuck that." Sal starts the car and follows the truck. It pulls onto the highway and Sal hits the gas, coming right up on the truck's bumper. The truck speeds up but the truck isn't going to outrun a BMW.

Sal laughs. "Now this is fun!"

He pulls up alongside the truck.

They're doing about eighty now.

"Let's fuck them up," Sal says.

"Come on, 'mano," Cesar answers. "It's enough. Let it go now."

"Can't let it go," Sal answers. "You think we can let people disrespect us in public like that?! Let it get around that we did nothing, and we're pajearses, jerkoffs."

He pulls his Beretta out and rolls the windows down. "You with me? Or are you pussies?"

They take out their guns.

"Duck," Sal says to Cesar.

Then he opens up.

So do Cesar and Edgar.

They put twenty shots into the truck before it rolls over into the ditch.

David and Brooke are both dead.

The other friend, Pascal, is badly hurt, but still alive.

He IDs the three shooters to a Jalisco state cop smart enough to know what he has and honest enough to know what he should do. The detective phones SEIDO and holds until Luis Aguilar himself comes on the line.

"We have Salvador Barrera in custody," he tells Aguilar.

"On what?" Aguilar asks, assuming it's a drug charge.

It's not.

"A double homicide," the Jalisco cop says.

- Sal Barrera has that me vale madre attitude, but Keller can see that he's scared.

For good reason.

The Jalisco police have witnesses to the fight, and the third victim can identify the shooters. Sal dropped the gun out of the car but it has his prints and matches eight of the shots. And the paraffin test came up positive.

Sal's fucked.

Aguilar and Keller got on a SEIDO plane right away and flew to Guadalajara. Now Keller watches through the glass as Aguilar interviews Sal.

"I want my lawyer," Sal says.

"A lawyer is the last thing you want," Aguilar answers. He reviews all the evidence against him. "You killed a rich blond girl from California, Salvador. You're not going to walk away from that, I don't care who your uncle is. Let me help you."

"How can you help me?"

"We can make a deal for lesser charges," Aguilar says. "Maybe you do ten years instead of twenty. You're still a young man when you get out."

"What do I have to do?"

"Give us your uncle," Aguilar says.

Sal shakes his head.

"He's getting married, isn't he?" Aguilar asks. "To Eva Esparza. We can pick him up when he leaves the wedding. No one ever needs to know it was you."

"He'll know. He'll kill me."

Aguilar leans across the table. "He'll kill you anyway. You've put him in a very difficult position. If he even suspects that you might roll over, he might be tempted to...eliminate that possibility. We can't protect you forever. I can, however, get you extradited to the United States."

Sal asks, "You think my uncle couldn't have me killed in the States?"

"Then help me get him," Aguilar presses. "Save your life."

Sal shakes his head again and stares at the floor.

"Think about it. But don't take too long." Aguilar gets up and comes into the observation room. "So?"

"I think he's Ral's son," Keller says. "He stonewalls."

"Do you really believe that Barrera would have him killed?" Aguilar asks. "Just on the chance that he might talk?"

"Don't you?" Keller asks.

- Nacho stands in Adn's study, looking chagrined.

"You were supposed to be looking out for him!" Adn yells. "Teaching him!"

"I was. He was doing well."

"You call this 'well'?!" Adn yells. He takes a moment to collect himself, and then asks, "What can he give them?"

"A lot," Nacho answers. "You said to bring him into the business, educate him. I did."

"Shit."

"And he knows this place, Adn," Nacho says. "He could bring them right here. You'll have to go on the run again."

"May I remind you that I'm marrying your daughter in a week?" Adn asks. The phone rings and Adn checks the caller ID. "God damn it."

He hesitates, but picks it up.

Sondra is sobbing. "Don't kill him, Adn! He's my son! I'm begging you, don't kill him!"

"No one's talking about anything like that, Sondra."

"Is it true? Did he do it?"

"It looks like it."

She starts sobbing again. "How could he? He's a good boy. I don't understand!"

I do, Adn thinks. He's arrogant and young and thinks the world belongs to him, including any woman he wants. His father was the same way. And some of this is my fault. I should have known better. I should never have brought him into the business. "Sondra? That's his lawyer on the other line. I'd better go."

"Please, Adn. Please. Don't hurt him. Help him. Anything, I'll do anything. You can have all the money back, the house..."

"I'll call you," Adn says, "when I know something."

He clicks off and looks at Nacho. "I'm open to ideas."

Nacho has one.

- Aguilar's phone rings. He listens for a moment, clicks off, and asks Keller, "Do you know an American lawyer named Tompkins?"

"'Minimum Ben'?"

- Keller hasn't been to San Diego in years.

He grew up here, in Barrio Logan, until he worked up the nerve one day to march into his estranged father's office downtown and demand money to go to college. He went off to UCLA, where he met Althea, and then it was Vietnam and CIA, and then DEA-Sinaloa and then Guadalajara-before he came back to San Diego as the "Border Lord," running the Southwest Task Force from his office downtown.

It's strange to be back.

He, Aguilar, and Vera flew to Tijuana, crossed on the pedestrian bridge at San Ysidro, where Minimum Ben is waiting for them.

Keller knows Ben Tompkins well, from the old Border Lord days, when they played sheepdog and the coyote together on dozens of drug cases. Now he sits in Tompkins's Mercedes-the two Mexicans in the back, Keller in the front passenger seat-because they don't want to be seen and no one is going to admit that this meeting ever happened.

Tompkins starts in full Minimum Ben mode. "First thing is, Salvador Barrera gets a pass."

"Call us when you sober up," Keller says, opening the car door.

Tompkins leans across him and closes it. "Dome light?"

"If Salvador can give us Adn Barrera," Aguilar says, "I would agree to a plea agreement under which Salvador would serve no more than ten years."

"You're asking Adn to exchange his life for Salvador's?" Tompkins asks.

"I'm not asking for anything," Aguilar answers. "I'm perfectly happy to prosecute Salvador for a double homicide and put him away for life. You called me. If you don't have anything serious to offer, I'd like to get dinner."

"What I'm about to say never leaves this car," Tompkins says. "And if you start a CI file, I'm the informant."

"Go on," Keller says.

"I can't give you Adn-"

"See you, Ben."

"But I can give you the Tapia brothers."

Shit, Keller thinks. It's a genius move, a classic Adn manipulation. He gave up Garza to get himself out of an American prison, now he'll give up the Tapias to get his nephew out of a Mexican one.

Tompkins starts selling. "If you look at the actual numbers, the Tapias-not Adn Barrera-are the biggest drug dealers in Mexico. That being the case, you'd be negligent in not accepting this arrangement. You're not trading down, you're trading up."

"We are talking about the senseless, brutal murders," Aguilar insists, "of two innocent young people."

"I understand that," Tompkins says calmly. "On the other hand, how many have the Tapias murdered? More than two."

Keller notices that Vera has uncharacteristically said nothing.

"We need to confer," Aguilar says.

"Absolutely," Tompkins answers. "Take your time, I'll just be getting some coffee."

He gets out of the car and crosses the street to the Don Felix Cafe and takes a booth by the window.

Keller feels a thrill shoot through his body.

Because he sees it now, sees it as clearly as he's ever seen anything-the breach in Barrera's stone wall.

Adn's move to throw the Tapias under the bus is brilliant and ruthless. There is a rift between him and the Tapias, as Yvette feared, and he wants to take them down. Then his nephew kills two innocent people, gets caught, and Adn sees the opportunity to solve two problems in one stroke.

Classic Adn.