"It's us or Ochoa," Adn says. "The new government will choose us."

"It's us or Ochoa as long as there is an Ochoa," Nacho says. "Once the Zetas are no longer a threat...the government might decide to go after us."

"What are you saying?"

"That our best course of action might not be to destroy the Zetas but to damage them," Nacho says. "Keep a remnant of them active as a counterweight to assure that we remain the lesser of evils."

Adn looks out the window as the car slowly rolls through the cemetery. So many friends buried here. So many enemies, too. Some of them you put here.

"They killed Magda," Adn says. "You can't be seriously suggesting that we make peace with them."

The Zetas are animals. Ochoa, Forty, and their minions are savage, sadistic murderers. Look what they did to the people on those buses, what they do to women and children. The extortion, the kidnapping, the firebombing of the casino...no wonder the country is turning against the narcos. The Zetas have made us into monsters, and they have to be destroyed.

"I'm not getting any younger," Nacho is saying. "I would like to sit back and play with my grandchildren."

"You want a rocking chair, too?"

"No, but maybe a fishing pole," Nacho says. "We have billions. More money than our children's children's children could spend in a lifetime. I'm thinking of getting out, handing the business over to Junior. I don't know, maybe taking the whole family out of the trade."

"And how would that work?" Adn asks. "We make an announcement, have a party with toasts and gold watches, and the Ochoas of the world just let us live in peace?"

"No, I suppose not," Nacho answers. "But if we made peace with them first, divide up the plazas-"

"We're winning."

"We're not winning in Guatemala," Nacho says, "and we're running out of time. The new president will throw our friends out and the North Americans with them."

Adn says, "We had good relations with the PRI once, we'll have them again."

"Different times, Adanito."

The diminutive form of his name annoys Adn. Nacho is playing the foxy grandpa and Adn doesn't like it. All the less because Nacho is right-those were different times. We ran our businesses, and if things got out of hand, we kept civilians out of it. Now the country is fed up with the violence associated with the drug trade. The chaos that-face it-you unloosed in Jurez alone has been catastrophic and you can't reel it in anymore if you wanted to.

And the war with the Zetas-just yesterday sixteen of his men were found dumped along the highway outside Badiraguato with their heads cut off. We're winning the war, but at a horrific cost.

And Nacho is right about Guatemala, too.

We are losing there, and if we lose Guatemala...

We can't lose Guatemala.

The irony is bitter.

It all depends on Art Keller now.

- "Let me ask you something," Tim Taylor says. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

Keller looks across the desk at him in the meeting room in EPIC. "No, I don't think I'm out of my fucking mind, Tim."

"I ask," Taylor says, "because I think you just requested that we allow a shipment of armaments to leave the United States en route to Spain."

"Strictly speaking," Keller answers, "I'm requesting that we allow a shipment of armaments to go to Mexico, then go to Spain-with a load of cocaine."

"You never heard of Fast and Furious?" Taylor asks.

"I have."

Everyone's heard of DEA's notorious "gun-walking" operation that went south, literally and figuratively. In an effort to trace arms sales, the agency allowed weapons to go into Mexico, and then lost track of them. The weapons were used by the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas in the commission of a number of killings, including the murder of Agent Jimenez. In fact, there's been speculation that Jimenez and his partner were on that highway heading to collect a shipment of Fast and Furious weapons and bring them back.

"Because I can turn on the TV if you want," Taylor says. "I think the congressional hearings are on C-Span."

"That's all right."

Taylor says, "But you want to repeat the fiasco, only in Europe. So if you lose track of these weapons, we'll have an international incident."

"Rolando won't be delivering the weapons to narcos," Keller says. "He'll be delivering them to our own agents."

"Because you, on your own boot, set up a phony terrorist cell-"

"With the cooperation of Spanish intelligence-"

"-to entrap an American citizen-"

"Which is what a sting operation is," Keller says. "What, Tim? You have ethical problems with setting up the Zetas? We're just lucky we did set them up and they're selling the weapons to us instead of some real AQ affiliate."

"Still and all, you should have asked permission."

"Would I have received it?" Keller asks.

"No."

"I'm asking now."

"Now that you're eight months pregnant."

"The clock is ticking," Keller says. "If the PRD wins the election, they're going to throw our asses clean out. If PRI comes through, they're going to tolerate us, but they're not going to let us or FES go after Ochoa. If we're going to get the Zetas, we have to do it soon. You know and I know that if they get caught selling weapons to jihadists, we go to Pennsylvania Avenue and come back with a sanction on Ochoa and there won't be a thing that State or Justice can say about it."

"You're piece of work, Art."

"You want Ochoa or you don't?"

"You know I do."

"So?"

Taylor gets up from his chair. "I don't want to know a fucking thing about it until it succeeds."

"You got it."

"If it blows up," Taylor says from the doorway, "do me a favor. Stay in Mexico. Better yet, go to Belize. Somewhere you can't be subpoenaed. I'm going to retire soon, and I want to retire to a cabin near a lake, not a federal prison."

- There are seven thousand arms dealers within a few hours' drive of the Mexican border.

That's three a mile.

Most of those guns aren't going to shoot deer in Minnesota.

Now Keller sits across the street from one of them, in Scottsdale, Arizona, and watches the straw purchaser go in.

The Mexican government claims that 90 percent of the weapons used by the cartels come from the United States, but Keller knows that isn't true. Most of the weapons the cartels use are looted from the armories of Central American military, but the gun stores that line the border are there for a reason, just like the narcos on the other side are there for a reason.

As soon as Keller got the go from Taylor, he put a tap on Rolando Morales's cell phones and e-mail, which led him to five gun stores in Scottsdale, Phoenix, Laredo, El Paso, and Columbus, New Mexico.

Now he watches the straw purchaser go in and buy three Romanian-made AR-15 assault rifles-any more would get the attention of ATF. The purchaser fills out a Form 4473 with himself listed as the real buyer. The store owner knows exactly what's going on and who the guns are ultimately for.

It's so pat that this particular guy is only in the store for about thirty minutes before he comes out and puts the newly acquired weapons in the trunk of his Dodge Charger. A tail follows him to his house in the suburbs. He goes inside, has dinner, watches some television, then later that night drives to a house out in the desert where he delivers the guns to a Zeta cut-out.

This transaction is being repeated all along the border until Morales collects the fifty assault rifles he's putting in the package for delivery to the "jihadists."

To cross the border, a similar process is used for guns going south as for drugs coming north. The weapons are loaded into compartments in cars and trucks and driven across the border. Keller's people follow the shipments to Veracruz, where the guns and cocaine are put in containers and loaded onto a freighter bound for Barcelona.

Rolando buys a first-class air ticket.

- Keller looks at the video feed-coming from inside the warehouse on the industrial dock at Barcelona's Free Harbor-and profoundly wishes that he could be there instead of in the situation room at Quantico.

But Rafael Imaz is in the warehouse with twenty heavily armed CNP troopers. More troops wait several blocks away in unmarked vehicles. Looking into the surveillance monitor, Keller watches the man they know as "Ali" and three of his jihadist comrades wait for Rolando.

It's tense.

Keller believes that they've tracked the drug and weapon shipment and that Rolando will make his rendezvous with Ali. But if they're wrong, if there's been a leak, if the Zetas' own impressive intelligence network has sniffed out the trap, then Rolando doesn't show up, and the drugs-and more important, the weapons-are headed somewhere else.

Fast and Furious-the European version.

Rolando has been in Barcelona for two days, enjoying the sun, the food, the pretty women on La Rambla. He treated the two port officials to another night at Top Damas, another reason that Keller believes the arrangement with Ali is still on. But it could all be misdirection-Ochoa is well versed in military intelligence, and Keller wouldn't put it past him.

The freighter arrived early yesterday morning and started offloading right away, but so far, Rolando hasn't gone close to the port. And Ali had made it very clear that he would only deal with Morales personally-no cut-outs, no wire transfers. Now Rolando is thirty minutes late. It's worrisome. The delivery could be going somewhere else while we're chasing Rolando around Barcelona.

Ali is wearing an earpiece.

"Anything?" Keller hears Imaz ask.

"Not yet."

Then a call comes through from the tail that Imaz has on Rolando. He and two other men left the hotel in a car headed in the direction of the harbor.

They wait.

An hour later, a loader pulls into the warehouse with two shipping containers. Rolando and his two guys come in right after it.

Rolando is in a jovial mood. "Allahu akbar!"

Ali plays his role. "You're late."

"We just wanted to make sure there were no other guests at the party," Rolando says.

"Next time," Ali says, "if there is a next time, be on time."

"Next time, don't make me come personally."

"You don't like Barcelona?" Ali asks. "My people seemed to think that you're having a nice time for yourself."

"We have whores in Oklahoma," Rolando says.

"Let me see the merchandise."

Rolando's guys open one of the containers. He takes a package of cocaine and holds it up.

Keller watches through the monitor. The whole thing is on tape, with audio.

"You want to sample?" Rolando asks.

"You're too smart to cheat me on the dope," Ali says. "I want to see the weapons."

They open the other container.

Ali steps over and looks in.

"Be my guest," Rolando says.

Ali picks up one of the rifles and hefts it in his hand. "Ammunition?"

"Gun isn't worth much without ammo," Rolando says. "It's all there."

Sticking with the script, Ali asks, "Can you get me grenade launchers?"

"Grenade launchers," Rolando says. "Wow."

"Can you?"

"For a price," Rolando says. "We can get them out of Guatemala, El Salvador. And speaking of a price..."

Ali gives a curt nod and his guys bring up four attache cases. They open them and Ali shows Rolando the U.S. dollars wrapped in neat packages inside. "Do you want to count it?"

"No, I trust you."

Ali's guys shut the cases and then hand them to Rolando's men.

"Go!" Imaz says into his mike.