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screams are impossible to listen to; no one can keep from turning off the recorder, from walking out of the room where the tape is played. Whenever Kiki’s story is told there’s always someone who recalls that the judges who listened to those tapes couldn’t sleep for weeks. They tell about the policemen who vomited when they had to draft the report on those nine hours of tapes. Others would weep as they wrote, or plug their ears and shout, “Enough!!!!” They tortured Kiki, all the while asking how he arranged it all. Asking for names, addresses, bank accounts. But Kiki was the only one. He had organized the infiltration all by himself, with the consent of a few of his supervisors and the help of a small support unit in Mexico. That was the strength of his undercover operation—he operated alone. But those few—very few—Mexican police officers who knew about it, who’d been tried and tested with years of experience, they sold themselves. They sold out to Caro Quintero.
    It seemed clear from the start that the Mexican police were involved. Testimonies reveal that the kidnapping was carried out with the help of corrupt police officers in the pay of the Guadalajara cartel. But Los Pinos—the president’s residence—did nothing; no investigations were launched, no answers given. The Mexican government blocked every initiative, played down the whole affair, saying, “Someone’s simply gone missing—he could be sunbathing in Guadalajara. It’s not a priority.” They would not admit to the kidnapping. Washington also advised the DEA to let it drop and accept what had happened, since political relations between Mexico and the United States were too important to be compromised over some disappeared agent. But the DEA couldn’taccept such a defeat. They sent twenty-five of their men to Guadalajara to investigate. What ensued was a huge manhunt for Kiki Camarena. El Padrino began to feel suffocated. Touching Kiki had probably been a bad move. But when you have an entire contingent of political allies, and above all when you think you’ve taken care of everything, down to the last detail, you have the arrogance of power. And the power of money. They had to make an example out of Kiki. The trust they’d had in him was absolute, so the punishment had to be unforgettable. It had to go down in history, to stay lodged in people’s memories.
    Kiki’s body was found a month after the kidnapping, near La Angostura, a small village in the state of Michoacán, sixty miles south of Guadalajara. Dumped along the side of a country road. His tortured body was still bound, gagged, and blindfolded. The Mexican government lied, declaring that the body, wrapped in plastic, had been found there by a peasant. But FBI investigations on the soil traces on his skin confirmed that the body had been placed there only later; it had been buried somewhere else first. Buried in that hole where Don Arturo, the elderly opium smuggler, placed flowers, that hole where he took his children. And when his grandchildren and his grandchildren’s children asked his permission to join the cartels, to work for the drug lords, to give them land, Arturo didn’t say a word. Once a respected opium boss, he had renounced everything, but his descendants regretted his decision; they couldn’t understand it. Until the old man brought them all to that hole and told them about Kiki, and about that dog he’d seen when he was a little boy. It was his way of explaining what his refusal meant. It was his way of entering the fire and carrying out his puppies. Don Arturo knew he had to have the courage of that dog.
    Kiki Camarena’s story shouldn’t hurt anymore, maybe it doesn’t even need to be told anymore, because by now it’s well known. A story one might think is marginal, which took place on an unknown, insignificant strip of land. But Kiki’s story is central. It’s the origin of the world, I’m tempted to say. It’s essential to understanding where