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  The van filled with passengers. Court climbed behind the wheel, with Elena in the front passenger seat, and they took off to the north.

  NINETEEN

  Three miles east of downtown Puerto Vallarta five white Suburban Half-Ton SUVs idled in an orderly row on a hilly gravel road. Their five drivers stood outside the open driver-side doors, each wore a button-down shirt, loose tan tactical vest, and khaki cargo pants. Each held a black Mexican Army — issued Mendoza HM-3 submachine gun in his hand. Five more men, bodyguards in identical black Italian-cut suits, knelt or stood alongside the vehicles. They wielded AK-47s, referred to as cuernos de chivos, “goat’s horns,” so named because of their long, curved magazines. The men’s eyes and the barrels of their AKs were pointed back down the hill towards the town.

  In a clearing some twenty yards off the side of the road, Daniel de la Rocha knelt in the grass, his head bowed in supplication and a tight, intense expression on his handsome face. His left hand clutched the right hand of the man kneeling beside him, Emilio Lopez Lopez, de la Rocha’s personal bodyguard and the leader of his protection detail. And his right hand squeezed the hand of the leader of the assassination and kidnapping wing of Los Trajes Negros, Javier “the Spider” Cepeda Duarte.

  Around these three kneeling men, seventeen more knelt or stood close. Everyone wore matching black three-piece Italian-cut business suits, and they all carried handguns on their hips or in shoulder holsters or, in the case of the Spider and a few others, Micro Uzi submachine guns.

  The twenty men were packed so tightly together they were able to hold hands, wrap arms around shoulders, or simply press their bodies close. A tight knot of brotherhood, all with heads bowed in front of a garish roadside shrine.

  Daniel de la Rocha was closest to the shrine, and he took his hand away from the Spider’s clutches just long enough to lift a white rose from the grass at his knees and place it at the feet of a six-foot-tall skeleton made of plaster that sat on a throne made of plywood. The skeleton’s head wore a long black wig and was covered with a sheer veil. Its torso and extremities were enshrouded in a full-length purple bridal dress that shimmered in the sun even though it was partially protected from the elements by the small tin roof erected over it. The right hand of the female skeleton held a scythe of wood and iron, and her left hand clutched a lit votive candle.

  De la Rocha tucked his single white rose between dozens of varied flowers and several candles, many of which had burned down to leave nothing but colorful wax smears on the cement slab below this throne of bones. Amidst the flowers and candles were dozens of other offerings for the icon: cigarettes and cash and bottles of tequila and bullets and DVDs and apples.

  The skeleton sat passively amidst all this booty, stared ahead vacantly with an icy grin.

  Finished with the presentation of his flower, Daniel put his hand back in the hand of the leader of his sicarios; he clenched his eyes tight and said a prayer to la Santa Muerte.

  The Saint of Holy Death. There were hundreds of roadside shrines just like this for la Santa Muerte positioned all over the country. The icon had been adopted by the poor and helpless, and by many in the drug trade.

  Daniel spoke, his voice low and reverential. “Glorious and powerful Death; thank you for saving me today, for stopping the bullets that raced to my heart and to my throat, for protecting me from those who would do harm to my brothers and myself.

  “Death Saint, you saved me today. You are my great treasure; never leave me at any time: you ate bread and gave me bread, and as you are the powerful owner of the dark mansion of life and the empress of darkness, I want you to grant me the favor that my enemies are at my feet, humiliated and repentant.”

  He continued to pray aloud, with the rest of the Black Suits clutched close alongside him, while the ten men by the SUVs surveilled the road down the hill towards the city and glanced nervously at their watches.

  Nestor Calvo, at fifty-seven the oldest man in Los Trajes Negros’s inner circle by over a dozen years, was tight in the scrum of prayer by the shrine, but he himself could not help but crack open an eye and steal a glance at his Rolex. He heard the sirens down in Vallarta, the helicopters circling just to the west of their location, and he knew that there were hundreds of police and military desperate to secure the bloodbath that had just taken place. Soon enough they would branch out, look for evidence or gunmen in the hills, and they would come to this place. Calvo wanted to be long gone by then. He wished he knew exactly when “then” would be.

  It was the not knowing that got to him. As director of intelligence, his job was to know things, all things, before his boss asked him a question. Since leaving the Parque Hidalgo not fifteen minutes earlier, he’d received a few quick updates from his sources there on the scene. He’d learned that many of the GOPES families had been wiped out, according to plan. But the biggest prize of all, the immediate loved ones of Major Eduardo Gamboa, had managed to escape. Surely, there was more information available at present; his mobile phone had been vibrating nonstop since de la Rocha ordered the escaping convoy to pull over at the first shrine of la Santa Muerte that they passed as they raced away from danger. But Calvo had business to attend to, and this ridiculous pit stop for the joke of a cult that his leader and the majority of his colleagues worshipped was beyond asinine.

  But there was nothing he could do but stand there and wait. His patrón was a believer, an idolater, and separating an idolater from his idol was never a good idea, especially when the idolater signed your paychecks and carried a gun.

  * * *

  Daniel de la Rocha had asked the Death Saint for a sign; he knew she did nothing for free, and she had given him a great gift today. He wanted to repay her, needed to repay her, and he knew the white rose was nothing. What did she want from him? How could he settle up with her? He waited quietly there on his knees for three minutes. His men around him were silent; they would give him all the time he required here at the shrine. Even old Nestor Calvo, who was probably shitting in his pants right now due to the delay, knew better than to disturb de la Rocha.

  It was quiet. He heard only the birds in the trees and an occasional crackle from a radio in the SUVs behind him on the road, and of course he heard the choppers and the sirens down near the ocean. But nothing else. It was so quiet he could hear the beating of his heart, and this self-awareness finally caused him to focus on the bruising on his chest and on his throat where the bullets had struck him but had not penetrated.

  Sí!

  His eyes opened slowly, and they opened wide. He looked down to his chest, saw the hole in the left lapel of his jacket, and in an instant he knew he had his sign. He took off his tie quickly, opened his coat and pulled it off, slipped off his vest and, under it, his hand-tailored white shirt, which barely contained the muscles in his shoulders and arms. He began to unbutton the shirt but found his hands trembling too hard to continue, so excited was he by what he knew he would find. Giving up on this dexterous task, he instead tore open the shirt; ivory buttons fired into the air in all directions like shot from a scattergun. The men clutching him in prayer stepped back so that he could get his shirt off, baring his ripped chest and back, and the holsters and grips of the twin silver .45-caliber pistols on his hips.

  Daniel Alonzo de la Rocha Alvarez looked down at his body, at the single red bruise where the first bullet had struck, just over his heart. It was centered perfectly on the belly of the large tattoo of the Santa Muerte inked into his chest — the skeleton bride reached an imploring hand forward.

  The belly of the woman.

  Tears formed in de la Rocha’s eyes.

  He had his sign. He knew what his matron wanted from him. He knew how to repay her.

  “Nestor?”

  Nestor Calvo, the oldest man in the group, looked away from his watch quickly and answered back. “Sí, jefe.”

  “The major’s wife, she survived, yes?”

  “Sí, jefe.”

  “She is pregnant?”

&
nbsp; “Sí, jefe.”

  “Spider?”

  “Sí, jefe.”

  Daniel de la Rocha stood slowly, those kneeling next to him did the same, though Emilio Lopez Lopez stayed down long enough to pick his patrón’s coat, vest, tie, and shirt off the ground. He tossed it all to one of the other bodyguards and shouldered up to DLR.

  De la Rocha stood face to face with the shrine of the hollow-eyed skull under the sheer white veil. He kissed his fingertips and reached out, pressed them to the smiling plaster teeth. “Spider… Find the woman. Kill the baby. La Santa Muerte has spoken.”

  “Sí, jefe.”

  * * *

  A minute later they were back in the five Suburbans and headed east; DLR rode in the middle seat of the third vehicle. His suit coat was back on, though he’d left the shirt and vest and tie off. With him in the truck along with the driver were Emilio, his bodyguard; Spider, the leader of his armed wing; and a couple of Spider’s best riflemen. Also riding in the Suburban was Nestor Calvo, DLR’s intelligence chief and personal advisor. Daniel felt Calvo’s unease. He turned to the row of seats behind him and smiled towards his older consigliere. “What is wrong, Nestor? You don’t like my visits to the skinny girl? Still you do not see the power of la Santa Muerte?”

  The gray-bearded fifty-seven-year-old shrugged. “It wasn’t the Death Virgin who stopped the bullets racing to your heart. It was the one-hundred-twenty-thousand-peso Kevlar suit you are wearing, it was the tailor in Polanco who designed it, and it was my suggestion that everyone in the inner circle of the organization wear them every day.” He shrugged, bowed sarcastically. “Apologies to the holy virgin sitting on the side of the road back there with pigeon shit on her head.”

  De la Rocha laughed aloud, a roar in the tight confines of the full SUV. Calvo was funny when he was frustrated, and Daniel knew that he frustrated the man to no end, which gave him great pleasure. The leader of Los Trajes Negros actually appreciated honesty and candor from his men, but the natural order of things had all but eliminated the personal opinions of his underlings from daily discourse. He’d killed employees and associates with whom he did not agree, many times, and although he’d found it necessary to do so, he recognized that this stifled outspokenness in his workforce.

  But Nestor Calvo had been his father’s best friend, and Calvo was a genius when it came to the world of the cartels. As intelligence chief of Los Trajes Negros, he served as a go-between in DLR’s relationships between him and the government, the police, and the military, and Calvo, therefore, knew he was immune to violent retribution. De la Rocha loved the grumpy old goat like his father, may la Santa Muerte keep his eternal soul, and he’d listen to Nestor say anything he wanted. Even if it was blasphemous.

  Daniel pointed to the bruise on his throat. “Do you see this, Nestor? Do you see where this second bullet hit me?”

  “In the knot of your necktie?”

  “¡Sí!”

  “In the knot of your Kevlar necktie?”

  “Dammit, Nestor, I know the tie was bulletproof, but the bullet came one inch from hitting above the tie, striking my throat.”

  Nestor shrugged. “Therefore, your conclusion is that a resin skeleton in women’s clothing somehow controlled the trajectory of the bullet? If you had not insisted on coming to the rally in the first place, standing on top of a truck with a megaphone, thereby making yourself an easy target, I imagine you would not need the magic of your bony girl. Even without this attempt on your life, the hit teams Spider arranged to attack those on the dais created a dangerous environment to which you should not have exposed yourself.”

  Spider Cepeda spoke up angrily. “My men knew where the trucks would be, and they knew to keep all fire towards the dais. The man who shot don Daniel was not one of my sicarios.”

  De la Rocha started to enter the argument, but Nestor grabbed his vibrating mobile phone to answer a call. So Daniel turned to Emilio, the leader of his protection detail, who was seated to his right. “The man who shot me. Did you get him?”

  “I think so, patrón.”

  “You think so?”

  “I was on the other side of the truck, but one of my men swears he killed el chingado cabrón.” The fucking asshole.

  “Your job, don’t forget, is to kill los chingados cabrones before I get killed or hurt. If I was hurt, you would be dead now. You know that, don’t you?”

  Emilio said, “La Virgen de Muerte has honored us both with a gift today.”

  Daniel stared the man down for a long moment, then smiled broadly, reached out, and hugged him. “Indeed she has, amigo.”

  Now de la Rocha’s mobile buzzed. He looked down at the screen and answered it. It was his wife. “Hola, Mami. No, no, I am fine, thanks be to God. Oh, some pendejo tried to shoot me but he failed. Emilio and his men took care of him. How are the kids? Excellente. Bueno, mi amor, give them each a kiss for me. I will be home soon.”

  De la Rocha hung up the phone, took a sip of water that burned going down due to the bruising on his throat.

  “¿Jefe?” It was Nestor Calvo; he was putting his phone back into his pocket.

  “What is it, nonbeliever?” he asked with a smile.

  Calvo did not return the smile. “That was my contact with the local cops. There was a gringo there, at the Parque Hidalgo.”

  “Yes, I saw him, the old man in the blue hat on the stage.”

  “No, not him, another. A young hombre with a blue hat and a beard. He killed five of our federales and one of the Puerto Vallarta police working for us.”

  De la Rocha just stared for a long moment. His face reddened slowly. Finally, he shouted back at him. “Six sicarios? I haven’t lost six men at one time in two years fighting Constantino Madrigal and the government. Who the fuck was this gringo?”

  Spider hung up his own phone and addressed the question. “I’ve learned that he escaped with the Gamboa family. I don’t know who he is, but I will find out.”

  Calvo called out from the rear seat. “I’m on it, too.”

  “What about the families of the police assassins?”

  “At least twenty dead.”

  De la Rocha shook his head, still confused by the fact a foreigner had appeared from nowhere and taken down an entire squad of Spider’s federale hit men. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. The sicarios federales were supposed to shoot everyone on the stage and then disappear. Now there were dead police back there who could be identified. Some may even be tied to his organization. Still, he knew there would be no major investigation. The government here was in his pocket, as was the media and many officers of the military garrison at the northern end of town. This would be a mess, but it would blow over.

  Anyway, he had Nestor to take care of the political fallout; that was not de la Rocha’s main concern. His role in the next day or two would center on public relations.

  And appeasing la Santa Muerte by killing Major Gamboa’s unborn son and laying the body on her altar.

  TWENTY

  Court Gentry drove the church van north, out of Jalisco State and into Nayarit State. They had dropped the surviving members of other families off along the way, at the airport and the bus station and a rental car office. Everyone just wanted to get the hell away from Puerto Vallarta.

  Left in the vehicle with him now were the survivors of the Gamboa family: Eddie’s wife, Elena; Eddie’s sister, Laura; his brother Ignacio; his nephew Diego; and his parents, Ernesto and Luz.

  The van’s radio was tuned to a station that reported on nothing other than the shooting in Puerto Vallarta. The reports said first eleven, then twenty-two, and finally twenty-eight people had been killed, including prominent businessman and suspected drug lord Daniel Alonzo de la Rocha Alvarez, three Puerto Vallarta municipal police, five federales, a German citizen, and an American citizen. Another thirty-odd civilians and police had been wounded. The initial presumption had been that after de la Rocha had been shot by either government assassins or sicarios from the Madrigal Cartel,
the assassins, police, and bodyguards in the crowd had all opened fire on one another, causing the largest bloodbath in the nation in nearly five months.

  Laura Gamboa sat behind Court and fed him driving directions and periodic instructions. “Make a left here.” And “It will be dangerous in front of the army base; let’s take the beach road.” And “There will be a roadblock at Sayulita; we can get back on the highway after that.” She seemed peculiarly well acquainted with the roads and highways and traffic patterns of Puerto Vallarta, and oddly professional and in control, as opposed to the five others in the van, who did nothing but shout and cry. Court wondered if Laura was in shock or denial, or if she had just experienced enough turmoil and danger and loss in her life to where she could, more or less, take this in stride.

  Elena was on her fourth phone call now. Gentry had let it go for a while, he knew her frenzy to find out who was alive and who was dead would be all consuming. But he couldn’t take this flagrant security violation any longer. “Get off the phone,” Court demanded. Elena just ignored him, kept calling friends and hospitals and clinics in Puerto Vallarta trying to find out about Eddie’s brother and aunts and uncles.

  So far she hadn’t learned a thing from her phone calls. Only by retelling the events amongst themselves in the church van could the family get an idea about the fate of their loved ones.

  “Rodrigo was killed. I have lost another son!”

  “I saw tío Oscar; he was shot in the stomach. I think he is dead!”

  “Tía Esperanza was right next to me; she was screaming, but she just went quiet and fell.”

  “I think the Ortega family was in front of us, but they weren’t in the church. I hope that they—”

  “I saw Señor Ortega lying in the street; his leg was bleeding, but he was alive.”

  “Capitán Chuck is dead. Did you see?”

  Court did not enter the conversation; their frantic shouted Spanish was all but indecipherable to him. And his mind was on their escape.