Karen had forced herself to blame the staffer, a woman by the name of Jennifer Upton. It was easier than blaming her dad. Upton had been toxic. An easy scapegoat in Karen’s mind. And while Karen knew her father had his flaws, he also had a great many gifts. He was a master politician. One of the few left who could garner support on both sides of the aisle. A true statesman with a powerful intellect. She knew in her heart that he would be president someday. And she believed he would make a great one.
But while Karen was able to forgive her father and to look past his shortcomings, the ugliness of politics had changed her. Karen had been just out of college back then. Interning on her father’s congressional staff, intent on beginning a career in D.C. Then her eyes had been opened to how none of it worked the way it was supposed to. She’d found out what really motivated the people who worked in Washington. Ambition. Power. Truth and principle be damned. Her idealism was soon shattered.
Jennifer Upton and Ron Dicks were perfect examples of this. They were always conspiring together. Bending and breaking every rule. They just wanted to win, no matter the cost.
One day her father, Jennifer Upton, and Ron Dicks had arrived back from an overseas trip. Upton and Dicks acted like they’d won the lottery. Decided right there on the spot that Becker could run for Senate the next cycle. Some new source of funding that they wouldn’t talk about. But it was a game changer.
When she’d confronted him, her father had told her what was going on. He’d always been honest with her. Ron and he had made a deal. Landed a big fish. Some powerful men were going to bankroll him. She had asked if it was illegal. He’d told her no, but she’d known better. He was blinded by his own ambition, and his future was brighter than ever. The group just wanted a little help on some Afghanistan policy proposal, Ron had said.
But it was never that easy. Not with men like these. Before long, Karen had overheard signs of trouble. The mysterious power brokers turned out to have dark connections.
Karen had asked her father to break off all ties with the foreign group. Told him he should go to the authorities and tell them who they were. Jennifer Upton had argued the opposite. The funders’ policies were identical to their own. What would it hurt if they were to continue to accept untraceable money?
Ron Dicks was neutral.
That was when Karen had caught her father having the affair with Jennifer Upton. She’d used it as leverage. A moment of rock bottom to snap her father out of his death spiral. She’d given him an ultimatum, demanding that Upton leave, in return for Karen’s own silence to the press about the affair. She also demanded that he break off communication with the international group that had been funneling money to his campaign. Her father had probably doubted that she would ever go through with it. And he was right. But the senator was a transactional man, and he knew that he had to give something to his daughter. So, he’d cut Upton loose and promised that he would break off contact with the group.
In truth, it wasn’t the affair Karen was trying to stop. She wanted Jennifer Upton’s negative influence on her father gone. The next year he had become a senator, and Karen convinced herself that the dark financiers were a thing of the past.
While she’d chosen a career that had nothing to do with politics, Karen remained politically astute. A savvy strategist, her father had for years tried to convince her to come to D.C. and rejoin his staff, or perhaps go to get a master’s in public policy at the Kennedy School. He could easily get her in. But Karen had found flying, and now she wanted little to do with any of that.
“Why are they acting this way now? After all this time… ”
“I’ve turned my back on them.”
“You were supposed to have done that long ago.”
“I’ve done it for good this time.”
“And they killed Ron for it?”
“And a lobbyist that served as their intermediary.”
Karen covered her mouth. “Have you told the authorities?”
“Not everything. But enough. I met with the FBI today. I’ve told them what they need to know, and that we received death threats. That’s why I have a police escort now.”
“You received death threats?”
“Ron did. He claimed the threats extended to me. He also left a note. He implicated himself and proclaimed me innocent of any wrongdoing.”
Karen studied her father. “Are you?”
He looked hurt. “Of course. I didn’t know the details of who these men were.”
“That was intentional. Plausible deniability.”
“It matters little now.”
“I don’t understand. Why would they kill Ron? And the lobbyist? What did they have to gain from that?”
“At first I thought they were trying to scare me. To change my vote on a key piece of legislation they didn’t like.”
“That’s behavior I would expect from the mafia.”
“You may not be far off.”
Karen finished her glass and sighed. “Dad… ”
“I know.”
“Do you think they’re going to come after you?”
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to understand their motivations. I fear we aren’t dealing with rational actors.”
“They know you’re done with them because you have no more use for them. Or no more need. Because you’re running for president next year, right?”
“There’s my smart girl.”
“And when that happens, people will start digging into your past like never before. They’ll find all the skeletons. So they’re getting rid of them. That means eventually they will… ” She looked up at her father, too disturbed to finish her sentence.
But her father’s look told her that he’d understood. “You’re reaching the same conclusion that I did.”
Karen sighed, shaking her head. “I warned you that they were bad news.”
“I’m sorry. I should have listened.”
She shrugged.
“Have you ever spoken to your mother about any of this? Or anyone else, for that matter?”
“Never. You told me not to.”
“I’ve asked you not to do a lot of things, and that never stopped you.” Her father smiled.
She laughed. “Well, I listened this time.”
“Good. We will be able to get out of this. But no one can know the truth about who these men are.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m coming up with a plan. It’s still a work in progress.”
“Be careful.”
Chapter 13
Ian Williams sat on a stone patio, looking out over one of his boss’s sprawling family ranches, ten miles from Durango. To the east, steep green slopes formed the backbone of Mexico, the Sierra Madre Occidental. A fiery sunset painted the sky a brilliant red. Williams liked this time of night in Mexico. It was muggy, but peaceful.
The Martinez family was inside, the cartel boss’s wife reading to his young children. Armed men in cargo pants and tactical boots roamed the premises, carrying machine guns. Even here, on the home turf of the Sinaloa cartel, they could never let their guard down.
Especially now, when they were so close to the meeting.
As the relatively new leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Ian Williams’s boss, Juan Martinez, was already a target to many. The city of Durango, along with Sinaloa and Chihuahua, formed one of the corners of the Golden Triangle, the infamous section of Mexico whose unique climate, elevation, and terrain made it the ideal place to grow most of the poppies that fed America’s insatiable appetite for heroin.
Williams would have laughed if someone had told him two years ago that he would end up as head of security in one of Mexico’s drug cartels.