"What I should have done sooner," Keller said. Except I didn't have the power then, the goddamn alliance with Adn.

"Such a powerful man," Marisol said. "I don't want them."

"I don't care."

"You don't care what I want?" Marisol asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Not in this case." He hated arguing, but it was better than the long silences, the averted eyes, the sidelong glances, the lying in bed side by side wanting to touch or at least speak but not being able. "I'm trying to protect you."

"You're patronizing me."

That's exactly what I'm doing, Keller thinks now.

Being a patrn.

It's what I do now.

Fourteen Zetas skinned alive.

And I provided the intelligence that located them.

He buys "dinner" at 7-Eleven before going back to his room.

- The Zetas strike back less than two weeks later, killing twenty-three of Barrera's people. Fourteen of them are decapitated and nine hang from a bridge next to a banner reading FUCKING BARRERA WHORES, THIS IS HOW I'M GOING TO FINISH OFF EVERY FUCKER YOU SEND TO HEAT UP THE PLAZA. THESE GUYS CRIED AND BEGGED FOR MERCY. THE REST GOT AWAY BUT I'LL GET THEM SOONER OR LATER. SEE YOU AROUND, FUCKERS.-THE Z COMPANY.

The Nuevo Laredo police quickly come out and deny that the Sinaloa cartel is in the city, prompting Barrera's people to leave six severed heads in ice chests outside the Nuevo Laredo police station with the message YOU WANT CREDIBILITY THAT I'M IN NL? WHAT WILL IT TAKE, THE HEADS OF THE ZETA LEADERS? KEEP IT UP AND I ASSURE YOU THAT HEADS WILL KEEP ROLLING. I DON'T KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE LIKE YOU DO, FORTY, ALL THE DEAD ARE PURE SCUM-IN OTHER WORDS-PURE ZETAS. SINCERELY, YOUR FATHER, ADN.

Once again, the grisly images appear on Esta Vida.

Once again, the Zetas vow that they will find Wild Child.

- The problem, Keller thinks, is that we can't get to Forty or Ochoa, and until we decapitate that two-headed snake, we won't crush the Zetas. We can take down as many underbosses as we want, but until we get Forty and Ochoa, the Zetas just keep marching on.

Forty is apparently again in charge of defending Nuevo Laredo from Barrera, but he's never spotted in the city. Barrera's people are looking for him, the FES is looking for him, American intelligence is looking for him, but so far, he's invisible. They just find his handiwork, hanging from bridges or dumped on the sides of roads.

And Ochoa is easily the most elusive cartel leader since, well, Adn Barrera. He moves from safe house to safe house, in Valle Hermoso, in Saltillo out in Coahuila. He's said to meet with Forty once a month at ranches in Ro Bravo, Sabinas, or Hidalgo. Or they go hunting zebras, gazelles, and other "exotics" at private game ranches in Coahuila or San Luis Potos. Or they watch their horses race as they sit in armored cars near the track, surrounded by bodyguards.

In all the Zeta territories, they hire ventanas-lookouts. Ambulantes, store clerks, neighborhood kids, who watch for the police or the marines, and use whistles or cell phones to give warnings. Los Tapados-"the Hidden Ones"-are poor children hired to put up pro-Zeta banners, chant slogans, and protest the presence of the military and the federales.

The government can't find Ochoa, and he shoves the fact in their faces. Just three hundred yards from an army base in the 18th Military Zone, he endowed a church, where a plaque reads CENTER OF EVANGELIZATION AND CATECHISM. DONATED BY HERIBERTO OCHOA. He uses a Nextel phone once, and then throws it away. Like Barrera, Z-1 eschews the showy persona of other narcos. He doesn't frequent clubs and restaurants, doesn't show off his wealth.

He just kills.

It's the hunt for Barrera redux, except this time the Mexican government is putting massive resources into the effort. MexSat, the national security system, operates two Boeing 702 HP satellite systems, costing over a billion dollars, from ground control stations in Mexico City and Hermosillo. It scans the country for signs of Forty and Ochoa and finds nothing.

American drones fly over the border area like hawks hunting for mice.

And find nothing.

"What if we're looking on the wrong border?" Keller asks Ordua one day in Mexico City. "What if they're not in Mexico at all? What if they're in Guatemala?"

Ochoa has a grasp of military history. What if he's adopted the classic guerrilla strategy of basing himself in an extraterritorial sanctuary across a border in a neutral country?

Where Barrera is relatively weak, and where the FES can't get to him. Even Ordua won't cross an international border. It makes sense-the Zetas have been increasingly active in Guatemala, and maybe Ochoa has decided to run his war from there.

"We're still talking about eight hundred miles of border," Ordua says. "Rain forest, jungle, hills."

"Wasn't there a mass killing in Guatemala recently?" Keller asks. "Twenty-seven people in a village? Where was that?"

The sort of thing that used to make headlines and is now considered just another day of business as usual. But Ordua goes back through the intelligence files and locates the site.

Dos Erres is a small village in the Peten district, in a heavily forested area not far from the border.

Ordua orders a satellite run.

Two days later, he and Keller look at the photographs.

The village itself looks pretty standard-a dirt road runs through a hamlet of small houses and huts, with a small church and what looks to be a school. But to the east of the village there's a freshly cut rectangle with the outlines of what seem to be neatly ordered rows of tents.

"It's a military camp," Ordua says. "A bivouac."

"Like special forces might build?" Keller asks.

They do another satellite run for closer images and get them. Perusing the new photos, Keller can clearly see men dressed in military-style uniforms around the tent sites, jeeps with mounted machine guns, "bush kitchens," and latrines.

The village itself seems oddly deserted.

No kids in the schoolyard.

Few people around the church.

There are some civilians, most of them seem to be women, but not as many as you would expect from the number of houses.

"The Zetas have taken over," Ordua says, "moved most of the people out and kept only enough to service their basic needs."

Cooking, Keller thinks.

Cleaning.

Sleeping with the men.

"Look at this," Keller says, pointing to images of the church and the school. Both buildings have men in the front and rear.

"Sentries?" Ordua asks. "Guards? Are Forty and Ochoa living in the church and the school?"

The old military saying, Keller thinks-"Rank hath its privileges." The two top-ranking officers don't live under canvas but in the two biggest buildings in the village. It's SOP.

The next satellite run yields gold.

Keller stares at the photo.

Then he flies to El Paso.

- Fort Bliss is the living definition of a misnomer, Keller thinks as he drives onto the base on the semidesert flats east of El Paso.

He's seen little of Crazy Eddie since he lifted him out of Acapulco. Literally. One of those black-helicopter jobs that the right-wing crazies are always muttering about. Two minutes after getting Eddie's call, Keller was on a secure SAT line, exchanging coded messages with Washington that even his Mexican colleagues couldn't access. There was no telling how even Ordua would react to the U.S. snatching one of the most wanted men in Mexico.

An hour later, Keller was on a helicopter owned by a CIA shell corporation, which landed him on the roof of the Hotel Continental. He met a very nervous consular agent who took him into a small conference room where Eddie Ruiz sat.

Narco Polo, Keller thought. Eddie had on a sky-blue polo shirt with white chinos and a pair of sandals.

He looked tired but calm.

"We're going to get on a helicopter that will fly us to Ciudad Jurez," Keller said. "From there another helicopter will take us to Fort Bliss army base in Texas. If at any time during that process you try to run, I will put a bullet in the back of your head. Do you understand?"

"This is running," Eddie answered.

The flights went smoothly.

During the entire time, Eddie didn't say a word.

The suits were waiting when they got to Fort Bliss. A State Department attorney read him his rights, so to speak. "You are here as an American citizen, under protective custody based on prior, present, and future cooperation in ongoing investigations. Do you understand?"

"Sure."

It was a tag-team match. A federal deputy AG took over. "You have been indicted under the so-called Kingpin statutes for drug trafficking. But we are not arresting you at this moment. If you try to leave, or cease cooperating, you will be arrested and placed in the custody of the federal corrections system and be taken to trial. That being said, you do have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney-"

Eddie chuckled. He had attorneys who owed him money.

"-one will be afforded to you. Do you wish an attorney?"

"No."

"In all probability," the prosecutor continued, "you will face trial on the trafficking charges. However, your past and future cooperation will be noted in your file for those prosecutors with a view toward charges and to the presiding judge with a view toward sentencing. Do you have any questions?"

"Can I get a Coke?"

"I think that could be worked out."

"One other thing," Eddie said. "I want to see my family."

"Which one?" Keller asked.

"Both of them. Asshole."

It was complicated, bringing first one and then the other of Eddie's family in to see him.

The Mexican narco-world was buzzing about the disappearance of Crazy Eddie Ruiz. Phone and Internet traffic exploded, and both the narcos and law enforcement were busy trying to chase it down.

Some said that he'd been killed in retaliation for kidnapping Martn Tapia's wife; others said that was bullshit because he'd released her. Still others responded that he was killed exactly because he did release her, by his own people, because they were afraid that he was weak.

They all agreed on one thing-Eddie was spotted in Acapulco the day of his disappearance, on the boardwalk eating an ice-cream cone.

But they were all out looking for him, or his body. They might also be watching his families.

His second wife, an American citizen, had crossed the border and was said to be with family in the area, but then again, she was nine months' pregnant and would have come into the States to have the baby anyway.

Keller made both contacts personally.

It was tricky.

Ex-wives-or in this case not exactly an ex-wife-are renowned snitches, but Eddie faithfully sent Teresa more than enough money to live well, and her parents were, until they got busted, involved in laundering his coke money, so Keller doubted that she'd be a problem.

Teresa was living in Atlanta, and when she came to the door and saw Keller she turned pale.

"Oh my God."

"Your husband is all right, Mrs. Ruiz."

She packed up the kids, nine and twelve years old, and they flew not to El Paso, where the airport might be under watch, but to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and drove down from there. Keller brought them to Eddie's quarters on the fort and then left them to have some privacy, picking them back up and taking them back to Las Cruces in the morning.

It was more complicated with Priscilla.

Their daughter, Brittany, was two and Priscilla was expecting any day. Keller was loath to drive her to El Paso, where there were about as many halcones as there were in Jurez. Instead, they dressed Eddie up in an army uniform and drove him to Alamogordo, where Priscilla, Brittany, and Priscilla's mother met them at a motel. Keller had their car followed from El Paso to make sure they didn't have a tail.

He gave Eddie the afternoon with his second family and then drove him back to Bliss, where he was comfortably ensconced in a bachelor officer's apartment on base, with a twenty-four/seven guard of U.S. marshals.

Eddie had other demands-he wanted an iPod, loaded with the Eagles, Steve Earle, Robert Earl Keen, and some Carrie Underwood. He wanted more visits with his families. And he wanted to watch the Super Bowl on a flat-screen HDTV, preferably with some decent chili and some cold beer.

"Shiner Bock," Eddie specified.

He watched the Packers beat the Steelers on a sixty-inch LED with two federal marshals, chili, and beer.

Keller turned down Eddie's invitation to join them.

Now he spreads the Dos Erres photos out on the coffee table in front of the sofa. "Is that them? Forty and Ochoa?"

"Yup."

Keller looks down at the photos that show two men standing outside the school in Dos Erres. Both are wearing black ball caps, but their faces are still visible. One is full-fleshed with a thick black mustache. The other is thin and hawklike. Handsome.

"You're sure," Keller says.

"They burned Chacho Garca to death in front of me," Eddie says. "You think I'm going to forget those faces? I promised myself I'd kill both those motherfuckers."

Well, we have that in common, Keller thinks.

He leaves Eddie at Fort Bliss and flies to Washington.