“See,” he finally said, “Menendez is shit. He doesn’t matter. He tried to kill me. I was nothing to him, so turning on him, that’s cool. It’s kind of fun. Juba is different. He’s part of the cause. I don’t care about Islam, really, but I do care about the shit that my people suffer. I don’t believe in Allah or Yahweh or Jesus H. Christ, any of it. But those people are so fucked by everybody, and nobody talks for them except the Jubas.”

“If you become older,” said Gold, “you will perhaps see the wisdom in moderation, mercy, and simple courtesy. The bold warrior archetype, so impressive to youth, will reveal himself to be psychotic, utterly corrupted by the flame of his hatred. It’s fine to have heroes of force, but you will learn that it is not fine to have heroes of evil.”

“No doubt you’re speaking from the heart, Mr. Gold, but one man’s evil is another man’s heroism. I’ll take what’s coming.”

“You poor kid,” said Chandler. “You’re shipping yourself to Hell.”

“Do they get Netflix there?” the boy asked but was unable to laugh at his own joke.

42

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Wichita, Kansas

At precisely 1410, a black SUV pulled up. The first team, six of them, were dressed as priests—if priests were weight lifters, had MORIR EL CABRÓN!! tattoos in 48-point Bodoni Light Gothic showing under their clerical collars, and wore earphones with foam-encased mics. They were highly professional, all veterans of 1st Brigade, 2nd Special Forces Battalion, Mexican army. Many fights had they seen, many operations had they prevailed in, all over South America’s raw and violent regions, and many cartel members had died at their hands. Now they were on the other side, and that is why Menendez so treasured them, and so overpaid them. For their part, they got the bargain and had made friends with it: if you take El Patrón’s salt, you must obey his orders, unto death if need be. Actually, they liked to fight so much that the outcomes didn’t make that much difference to them. Everyone dies; their preference was to do it in battle.

Black-frocked and solemn, they found the exquisite interior of the domed cathedral largely deserted. They strode down the nave like Becket’s murderers, piously genuflected before the mounted cross when they passed in front of it in the chancel, for they had no urge or need to commit blasphemy, only murder. There was no need to be disrespectful. They strode quietly, for such big guys, amid the shafts of sun and the flickering of candles and the orangish old bulbs that had been burning since 1923, and began, as discreetly as possible, the process.