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had been moved to the bed of the truck.
    “Leave us while the boy and I talk,” said the chief.
    The young man was in bad shape. A large, blood-soaked towel covered his right shoulder.
    “Let me have a look at you, son,” he said. He lifted the sodden towel and saw that the young man’s shoulder was a bloody mess. The bone might have been cracked. Chief Ramos laid the towel back on his wound. “You’re losing a lot of blood.”
    The young man stared up at him. He had already been through a lot. He wanted to get this over with. “Just make it quick, would you?” he said.
    The chief considered it. The kid had no gang tattoos. He had the hooked nose and high cheekbones of an Indian from Central America or southern Mexico, descendants of the Maya. Sometimes the Zetas would kill immigrants from El Salvador or Honduras, just to make a point about how bloodthirsty they were. The message to their enemies was: If we would do this to a man who has done nothing to us, imagine what we would do to you. Poor kid, he probably paid a coyote his entire life savings to take him up into America. He was headed north to the good life. And this was what he got for his money.
    So it was a fair request to make it fast. And indeed, the solution was simple and effective. It was the sort of act one usually delegates to a subordinate, but some tasks needed to be dealt with directly.
    So why did he feel sick to his stomach? Chief Ramos undid the snap on the holster of his .45 automatic pistol, as though this act might chase the nausea away. He hated the Zetas, hated the bastards for painting him into a corner, for forcing him to react. Hated them for putting him in a position where a monstrous crime like this was the one logical move he had.
    The young man before him was dying. Not there yet, but on his way. An ambulance had been called, of course. He might make it to the hospital. He might linger long enough to talk.
    The kindest thing was to get it over with quickly.
    But Chief Ramos never pulled his sidearm. He still had his hand on the gun when a convoy of black SUVs and white pickup trucks burst into the plaza. Within seconds, they had screeched to a halt, and black-clad members of the Policía Federal—the elite national police—leaped from the trucks. As always, they wore the full ninja: black masks over their faces, Kevlar helmets, M4s and G36s on single-point tactical slings, bulletproof vests over their chests—the good kind, like the American military wore, the ones with the ceramic plates in them.
    Chief Ramos felt rooted to the spot. He snapped his holster and stood ready to greet them.
    The last car, a black Suburban, pulled up ten feet from where he stood, tires smoking as it skidded to a stop. The rear door opened. A black-clad figure emerged.
    She wore the standard uniform of the PF, but she was not masked, nor did she sport a helmet. She wore a comandante’s insignia on her shoulder. Her glossy black hair swung back, revealing startlingly pale skin, a broad mouth, and wide green eyes. She was even more beautiful in person than she was on TV.
    Puta carajo . It was Cecilia Garza. They called her the Ice Queen.
    The famously incorruptible crime fighter looked at Chief Ramos, then at his holster. Had she seen him resnap it over the butt of his .45? Perhaps it was the way he stood over the bloody prisoner, still bound hand and foot with flex cuffs.
    Without a moment’s hesitation, she drew her sidearm and pointed it at Ramos’s face. “Step back!” she shouted. “Don’t even think about it.”
    Chief Ramos glared ferociously at her. “Who do you think you are talking to?”
    Still, he stepped back. It was the way she held her weapon. She made him feel like this was no idle threat. His bluster was a ruse, for she had done him a great favor by arriving when she did. The Ice Queen had relieved him of the terrible responsibility that had dropped in his lap.
    “I know exactly who you are, Chief Ramos,” she said. “Now get