Calexico is in California’s Imperial Valley just over the border from Mexico. Human mules routinely crossed here. Marquez had once seen a bust where cocaine got baked into plastic animal carriers that were then shipped with dogs in them. At the time, US Customs avoided bringing their drug-sniffing dogs around other dogs, so the carriers passed through with little scrutiny. Once through, the dog carriers got dissolved in vats of chemicals, the cocaine extracted and the waste poured out into the ground behind a warehouse.
There were DEA agents stationed in Calexico, but Marquez didn’t check in with anybody. He drove to the little International Airport and parked in the bright sun near the tarmac. Then his car phone rang and a retired newspaper editor in San Fernando, Mexico introduced himself.
‘Thanks for returning my call,’ Marquez said.
‘Oh, I’m happy to talk about him. I liked him a lot.’
Marquez listened to the quaver and enthusiasm in the old man’s voice as he remembered Billy. He thought about how differently the same human being was talked about at the DEA.
‘I knew his mother too. He was like her. He could make you smile just by walking into a room. He had a business of taking hunters out for bird hunts. He used to bring me birds. He’d come right into the newspaper office with them and put them on my desk.’
‘Were you in San Fernando when his fiancee got killed?’
The old man coughed. His voice quieted. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to talk about that.
‘It was very sad.’
‘Who killed her?’
‘It was never solved.’
‘Was Billy accused?’
‘Yes, the police were very stupid.’
‘Who did you suspect?’
‘Oh, it’s so long ago. It was someone crazy, I guess, and so sad.’
‘Billy is dead,’ Marquez said, ‘and I think it goes back to when you knew him.’
The old editor coughed again and said, ‘He died when she died.’
He murmured something else and didn’t want to talk anymore. Marquez copied down the name of the church with the cemetery where Rosalina was buried and then he drove north over the Tehachapi Mountains. He dropped into the Central Valley and continued on until he reached the big almond orchards of KZ Nuts.
Now he could smell the land in the dust the wind carried. Dust dulled the late afternoon and reddened the sun. He called Brian Hidalgo at the Field Office and as he waited for Brian to pick up, looked through long rows of almonds to an airstrip with a new concrete extension white in the sun. He studied the KZ buildings, a big ranch house and processing and storage buildings. He saw delivery trucks and an airstrip where a rainbow-colored windsock swelled with wind.
‘I’ve been making calls on this,’ Brian said. ‘I talked to a friend of mine whose father used to crop dust all over the Central Valley. Sixty years ago that airstrip on the almond ranch was called Dolan’s Field. Military planes coming out of March Field, Air Corps planes would use it in an emergency.’
‘What about now?’
Papers shuffled, Brian looking at his notes. ‘KZ has changed hands in the last few years and is owned by a larger corporation that I’m trying to learn something about. What I’ve learned so far is that they own eleven other orchards, six in California, two in Oregon, three in Washington. I’ve got a couple of pages on them. They bought all of them over the last five years. Each has an airstrip.’
‘This one has just been enlarged. If they had a plane like the Sherpa they could move shipments of drugs from one orchard operation to another, and then use delivery trucks to distribute.’ Marquez counted trucks. ‘I’m looking at nine trucks right now with KZ painted on the side.’
‘I’ve got more on the Sherpa too. That plane is a helluva workhorse. It can land in some tough places. I’ve never told you this, but in Vietnam I had the job of calling in air strikes. In the end there Charlie was all over us and I had to bring the bombs right up to our guys. I knew sometimes we were killing some of our own. You tell yourself you’re not because it’s the only way you can deal with it, but afterwards you can never really get away from it. I think that’s why I’m ready to rock and roll all the time with these cartel freaks.’ Hidalgo paused and abruptly switched subjects. ‘It’s getting weird around here. Holsten came through this morning looking for you. There’s some news out of Tijuana.’
That night Marquez slept in a Best Western motel and dreamed of a Mex Fed captain named Viguerra. Captain Vengeance they called him for the way he went after narco trafficantes. In his dream Viguerra was smaller, his black mustache neatly trimmed, his uniform crisp and neat in a way it never was in life. He stood near the wreck of a burning plane.
‘For every one I arrest, I kill two. I have chosen to fight them. A man can rule a certain amount of territory as a lion rules. As long as he is strong and shows no weakness he can dominate. For now, I am the lion. I have the helicopters and soldiers and the will to kill them, but this is a war with no ending. This is what the Americans don’t understand. In this war are beings among us who are not human. They have aspects of us, but they are not of us, and they bring cruelty that is inhuman. Even now, I can feel the presence of one. His men I can kill. Him, I don’t know. If you can find for me where he was born, I will give you all the wealth of Mexico. But you will never find that. There is no birthplace or childhood for any of them. They are not of God.’
‘Come on, a man is a man. He’s the same as any of us.’
‘No, my friend, he isn’t.’
But that was just a dream. He woke in the motel room and lay on his back thinking about the leak at DEA. He once had a mission and a purpose and a way of fighting the war on drugs without getting overwhelmed by the scale of it. But he was losing his hold on that. He closed his eyes, saw Captain Viguerra again and asked, ‘How do I find Stoval?’
Viguerra laughed.
‘You don’t have to worry about finding him. That is one thing you do not need to worry about. I promise, when he learns you are looking for him he will find you.’