“My name is Alex Cross,” I said. “I’m a psychologist and investigative consultant to the FBI.”
“Who gave you permission to talk to me before the year was gone?”
“Judge Sands.”
“Judge Sands?” he said, sounding surprised. “Se?or Cross, you must be a powerful and persuasive man to get that judge to change his mind.”
“A number of murders, including two U.S. law enforcement agents, convinced him that my talking to you sooner might help.”
Alejandro thought about that. “Why don’t I have a lawyer present?”
“Because I’m not here to accuse you of anything,” I said. “I’m here because there is an escalating war going on in the outside world.”
“War? Where?”
“Continental United States so far,” I said.
His eyes widened. “Is this true? On U.S. soil?”
I nodded. “On one side of the war is an as-yet-unidentified group that is kidnapping U.S. law enforcement agents, torturing them, getting them to confess to their corrupt ties to your cartel, and executing them. And on the other side of this war is your cartel, which, in response to one of those confessions, slaughtered the dead agent’s family. Three kids. Two grandparents. The wife tortured before having her throat slit.”
Alejandro took his eyes off me for the first time. “I am sorry to hear this.”
“You didn’t know?”
The drug lord’s gaze returned to me, his expression direct, amused. “What don’t you understand about a year of silence, no communication whatsoever?”
“You no longer run the cartel?”
“How could I? No, Se?or Cross, I have passed my time talking to myself, wondering how life brought me to this solitude, confined to a small white room with no contact, nothing but me and the walls.”
“And God.”
He snorted. “The white man in the sky has not made an appearance yet. What do you want from me?”
“Your perspective,” I said. “Your opinion. You know, like an athlete who retires and begins a whole new lucrative career as a commentator.”
“You mean you want a snitch?”
“I want someone who can help me understand the situation enough to halt the needless killing before it develops into a full-scale war with a lot of innocent bystanders murdered in the process.”
He snorted again. “You do know that you can never stop that kind of violence, Se?or Cross. I’ve spent my whole life in it. Never once stopped. Oh, maybe a week here, a week there. But violence, fighting for what’s yours, building an empire, becoming a king—that is the natural course of life. How are you going to stop life from doing its violent thing?”
Chapter
35
I thought carefully about what the cartel leader had just said before replying. “You have children?”
Alejandro smiled, but it was bittersweet. “Two sons, two daughters. I have not heard from them in nearly two years.”
“You want your sons and daughters in the family business?”
“You’d have to make my wife my second dead wife for that to happen.”
“I didn’t ask if it was possible. I asked you if that was something you actively want for them, for their lives. To end up like this. I mean, like you.”
His face clouded. “Screw you, Se?or Cross. I’m done answering you.”
“You just did answer me, Se?or Alejandro,” I said.
“Yeah? What’d I say?”
“The fact you got angry suggests you love your sons and daughters and want better lives for them than the life that awaits you—no possibility of parole from that white room, where all you get to keep is silence, the memories of the good times, and the regrets.”
Alejandro looked away, then shrugged. “Sure, I don’t wish this life for them. Not to end up here or dead in the desert somewhere.”
“No one wants that for their kids,” I agreed. “Your younger daughter, Estella. How old?”
“Five.”
“Two of the victims in the slaughter I described were twin girls, five years old, just like your daughter.”
He tasted something sour and sensed something worse. “For real?”
“For real. And I’d like to figure out a way to stop that from happening again.”
“Your problem.”
“I actually see it another way. Who are the next likely targets in a retribution war? If this group killing federal agents because of their ties to your cartel want to make a statement, whose families do you think they’ll go after, Marco?”