Garza looked a little surprised, but only for a moment. Fisk could see her recalibrating her assessment of him, promising herself not to underestimate him again. For his part, he was a bit stung by her remark. But more than anything he was curious as to her objective here.
He said, “Either this has something to do with your president’s arrival, or you are here as a point of national pride. Either way, you refused to admit the problem, or that there is a problem. Which is par for the course, I suppose.”
“Par for the . . . ?”
“It’s routine. For a country known for its law enforcement . . . shall we say, moral vulnerability.”
“Ah,” said Garza, nodding as though accepting a challenge. “Corruption. Malfeasance. That is what you think of all federales.”
“I’m saying admitting the problem is the first step toward curing it.”
Garza said, “That sounds like good advice for our noisy neighbor to the north, with their voracious appetite for illegal narcotics.”
Fisk nodded once, pulling back emotionally from the exchange. “You came here asking for help, or offering to help? Either way, you won’t identify the problem you need help with. This cartel-type violence, the point of it is to do something to get people’s attention. You can’t look away from thirteen beheaded bodies, you can’t bury that at the bottom of the news hour. It’s to announce their presence and intimidate their enemies. If you’re expecting trouble for your president, I would like to know. Otherwise?” Fisk shrugged. “I’m afraid this is United Nations Week. Not Mexican beheadings week.”
Garza looked at him with quiet contempt.
And Fisk wasn’t quite sure how or why it happened, but he knew that he had, here, this afternoon, made an enemy for life.
“Thank you so much for your careful attention to this matter,” she said.
Fisk shrugged again. “Good day, Comandante. Gentlemen.”
CHAPTER 18
The silver Chevrolet Suburban had been transported up to New York ahead of UN Week, along with the Mexican president’s black Suburban and the rest of his convoy.
Garza sat in the front passenger seat. Once the reinforced doors closed, the silence inside was profound. Even the running engine was fire-walled off from the passenger cabin.
Aguilar, familiarly known as Jefe, said from behind the wheel, “We approached the wrong policeman. That is clear. We will find someone more sympathetic, and with more authority.”
Virgilio, not looking up from his phone in the backseat, said, “Someone with any authority at all.”
Garza simmered. She felt the sting of failure, as well as the pain of embarrassment in front of these two men. She had thought she might find a compadre in Detective Fisk; on this point, she was quite incorrect.
“Perhaps there is still time to go to Rockaway . . .”
Jefe shook his head, his tanned hands on the steering wheel, pulling out past the automobile yard and a plumbing supply warehouse. “The Aeroméxico 737 lands soon. I must be there at Vargas’s arrival, and so must you.”
Garza made a fist of her hand. The beheadings, so dramatic in their cruelty: it had to be the work of Chuparosa. He was here in New York City. She only needed proof.
“I’ll go,” said Virgilio from the backseat.
Garza turned. “You have no credentials to go to this Detective Kiser.”
“Not to Rockaway,” said Virgilio, popping a square breath freshener into his mouth. “Not to the police. I go to the neighborhoods. Boots on the ground. North Corona. Jackson Heights. I have a cousin who knows some people who might know anyone who could be missing.”
“Fine,” said Garza, wishing she could go with him. “But very quietly. That is imperative.”
“Sí, Comandante,” said Virgilio, with a smile.
Jefe said, “And now we will turn our full attention to the president’s security, no?”
Garza sat back in her seat. “It has been foremost in my mind the entire time.”
CHAPTER 19
Back inside, Fisk caught Dubin as his boss was leaving for dinner. He needed to report the meeting.
Fisk said, “Our president and their president are set to sign a cooperative treaty Monday night. Drug interdiction, something like that. Calling it narcoterrorism. So that’s something we need to keep an eye on.”
Dubin nodded. “Look, maybe they’re just embarrassed, looking to cover their ass. Damage control for their new president. Or maybe something is brewing and they’re not being as cooperative as they say they are. Maybe it’s pushback from these cartels. If so, if they think they can get away with that shit here in New York, they’re in for a real surprise.”
Fisk said, “I’ll dig in a little deeper.”
“Only as it relates to diplomacy. You’re still on the UN desk.” Dubin was powering down his computer. “You have enough to do.”
Fisk said, “Narcoterror is a bullshit euphemism, right? Narcotics traffickers, from the lowliest mule to the fattest cartel leader, have zero interest in attacking the political foundations of the United States. They have one interest only, and that is dinero.”
Dubin stopped him there. “They can be called terrorists if that brings funding to our efforts. Maybe their profits are used to fund some sort of backdoor political action or terror squad. That much illicit money can do a lot of damage.”
“Committing horrific acts does not make them terrorists, though. It makes them violent narcotic dealers.”
Dubin said, “You’re so sure these thirteen headless bodies are a drug hit?”
Fisk shrugged. “What else could it be?”
Dubin grabbed his briefcase. “I don’t know. But whatever it takes to give us a smooth ride through next week, that is what we will do.” Dubin checked his watch. “Don’t you have the dinner with the UN security team tonight?”
“I do,” said Fisk.
“Crosstown traffic,” said Dubin, himself heading for the door. “Better be on your way.”
CHAPTER 20
Back at his desk, Fisk had Nicole call and cancel the meeting with the UN security team. For the past few weeks, he had been doing lots of very long strategy meetings, lots of hand-holding, lots of bureaucratic back and forth that didn’t feel anything like police work.
Fisk called up Garza’s bio, running her name through Intel’s own interior search engine. She was a lawyer who had somehow migrated out of the Ministry of Justice and into actual law enforcement. Vargas, the newly elected Mexican president, had been one of her professors. Fisk watched one video on the LiveLeak video-sharing site, stamped with the Policía Federal seven-starred silver shield, showing Comandante Garza walking around a murder scene wearing a black uniform with a SIG Sauer on her hip. He wondered how she had become attached to the EMP: Was it perhaps at her former professor’s special request?
The unfortunate thing was that a person like Garza in Mexico was liable to get blown away eventually. Her two predecessors had both been killed on the job. His respect for her rose, even as he wondered what truly drove her. Especially someone—and this trait was impossible to overlook—so attractive. In such a male-dominated field as law enforcement, beauty was an impediment to success, because others tended not to take an attractive person quite as seriously as a person of average looks—and even more, because such people are used to being catered to and generally are given special consideration early in life, advantages they come to take for granted. Garza apparently had never fallen into this trap.
Aguilar had a straightforward military career. Vargas, the new president, had no military background, and the choice of Aguilar to be the head of EMP was read as a political rather than a personal selection. The corps of the EMP was more than 15 percent female, Fisk noted, and this number struck him as substantial, especially in a traditionally patriarchal society such as Mexico. Perhaps they were more progressive in that respect than the United States. Fisk understood now why the chief had let Garza take the lead with Fisk.