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overlords are really coming to an end. So he told Taylor nothing.
     
    He had to admit there was an element of Fuck you, Tim, and your team.
     
    While Tío Barrera maneuvered like a master technician in the ring. Always pressing forward, but always with his guard up. Setting up his punches and throwing them only when there was minimal risk to himself. Knocking the wind and the legs out from under Don Pedro, cutting off the ring, then—
     
    The knockout punch.
     
    Operation Condor.
     
    The mass sweep of troops and supporting aircraft, with bombing and defoliants, but still it was Art Keller who could direct them where to hit, almost as if he had a personal map of every poppy field, cookery and lab in the province, which was almost literally true.
     
    Now Art crouches in the brush, waiting for the big prize.
     
    With all the success of Condor, the DEA is still focused on one goal: Get Don Pedro. It’s all Art has heard about: Where is Don Pedro? Get Don Pedro. We have to get El Patrón.
     
    As if we have to hang that trophy head on the wall, or the whole operation is a failure. Hundred of thousands of acres of poppies destroyed, the entire infrastructure of the Sinaloan gomeros devastated, but we still need that one old man as a symbol of our success.
     
    They’re out there, running around like crazy, chasing every rumor and tidbit of intelligence; but always a step behind, or, as Taylor might say, a day late and a dollar short. Art can’t decide what Taylor wants more—to get Don Pedro or for Art not to get Don Pedro.
     
    Art was out in a Jeep, inspecting the charred ruins of a major heroin lab, when Tío Barrera came rolling up out of the smoke with a small convoy of DFS troops.
     
    The fucking DFS? Art wondered. The Dirección Federal de Seguridad—Federal Security Directorate—is like the FBI and CIA rolled into one, except more powerful. The DFS boys virtually have carte blanche for whatever they do in Mexico. Now, Tío is a Jalisco state cop—what the hell is he doing with a squad of the elite DFS, and in command, no less? Tío leaned out of his open Jeep Cherokee and simply said, with a sigh, “I suppose we had better go pick up old Don Pedro.”
     
    Handing Art the biggest prize in the War on Drugs as if it were a bag of groceries.
     
    “You know where he is?” Art asked.
     
    “Better,” Tío said. “I know where he’s going to be.”
     
    So now Art sits crouched in the brush, waiting for the old man to walk into the ambush. He can feel Tío’s eyes on him. He looks over to see Tío pointedly looking at his watch.
     
    Art gets the message.
     
    Anytime now.
     
    Don Pedro Áviles sits in the front seat of his Mercedes convertible as it slowly rumbles over the dirt back road. They’ve driven out of the burning valley, up onto the mountain. If he gets down the other side, he’ll be safe.
     
    “Be careful,” he tells young Güero, who’s driving. “Watch the holes. It’s an expensive car.”
     
    “We have to get you out of here, patrón,” Güero tells him.
     
    “I know that,” Don Pedro snaps. “But did we have to take this road? The car will be ruined.”
     
    “There will be no soldiers on this road,” Güero tells him. “No federales, no state police.”
     
    “You know this for a fact?” Áviles asks.
     
    Again.
     
    “I have it straight from Barrera,” Güero says. “He has cleared this route.”
     
    “He should clear a route,” Áviles says. “The money I pay them.”
     
    Money to Governor Cerro, money to General Hernández. Barrera comes as regular as a woman’s curse to collect the money. Always, the money to the politicians, to the generals. It has always been this way, since Don Pedro was a boy, learning the business from his father.
     
    And there will always be these periodic sweeps, these ritual cleansings coming down from Mexico City at the behest of the Yanquis. This time it’s in exchange for higher oil prices, and Governor Cerro sent Barrera to