El Munizione (3)
The homeowner who had welcomed his guest into the living room offered me the sofa and asked, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Something to drink? Just a glass of water, please.”
“That’ll do?”
“Yes.”
Ricardo raised his eyebrows and shoulders at my response, then quickly brought over two glasses of water. I waited for him to sit across from me before taking the first step into the main topic.
“Ricardo, I’ve heard you used to work in facilities operations for the Los Zetas Northeast Faction (Cartel del Noreste). And that your younger brother is still with the Northeast Faction. Is that right?”
“More or less.”
“More or less?”
“My role was specifically setting up and running supply depots. Closer to a quartermaster than a simple facilities manager. And my brother’s with the Hell’s Army (Tropa del Infierno)—the Northeast Faction’s elite strike team. You might’ve heard of them.”
“Of course I have.”
Knowledge is power, and prior research on a trading partner is a prerequisite for successful negotiations. Leaning back against the sofa, I crossed my legs and steepled my fingers as I continued.
“Hearing about your brother’s unit brings something to mind. Earlier this year, Comandante Cisneros and his inner circle were gunned down by the police… in Nuevo Laredo, wasn’t it?”
“You know more than I expected.”
Ricardo didn’t hide his surprise. Comandante Cisneros—full name Hugo Alejandro Salcido Cisneros—had been the commander of Hell’s Army. Nuevo Laredo, right on the US-Mexico border, was one of Los Zetas’ key drug smuggling routes. Cisneros’s death was proof that President Obrador’s resolve to eradicate the cartels hadn’t wavered. Though he’d declared an end to the war on crime, it seemed to mean only “no more total war.” Cartel members had grown complacent after the government’s surrender signal, only to be steadily arrested or killed.
A hunch was forming.
“You’ve been living so peacefully here—” I glanced out the window as I spoke. “I get the feeling your sudden need to deal with me ties into that incident… Generational shifts always come with noise, after all.”
Ricardo hesitated, stroking his mustache before admitting, “You’re right again.”
“Shall we hear the details?”
Instead of answering, Ricardo stared at me steadily. The silence, stripped of any humor, carried a prickly tension. That edginess was aimed at himself, not me—his inexperience in negotiations was glaringly obvious, making it all too easy to dismiss him. I reined myself in and chose the next thread of conversation carefully.
“You seem unsure where to start… but it’s too late for that.”
“Too late?”
“You’ve already made a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Yes. By not denying that what you want from me relates to the organization’s generational shift—and by admitting your life here has been free of regrets—you’ve conceded your brother’s position is precarious.”
Bloodshed in a cartel power transition was par for the course, especially from a sudden leadership vacuum. If his brother was involved in the top brass shakeup, time was short. Factional conflicts often hinged on who seized the initiative first—one slip, and it was victory or death.
A killer’s chill now glinted in Ricardo’s eyes.
“I see. I misspoke from the start.”
His wife, armed with the shotgun, bit her lip at her husband’s shift. Another clue to their unusually serene retired life for an ex-cartel exec.
I nodded lightly and pivoted the topic. “On a slightly different note, earlier this year I signed a major deal with some mainland Triad boys.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Hear me out. They made the same mistake you did.”
“……”
“Just by stalling, my company extracted massive concessions. As a former cartel quartermaster, you’d know the standard margins on weapons and ammo. Care to guess? What percentage markup ended up on a US-made assault rifle shipped from somewhere in Northeast Asia to the Golden Triangle?”
Ricardo’s gaze softened as he pondered—likely calculating my Myanmar margins and my intent in asking.
“Maybe 2,000 percent?”
I shook my head. “4,130%. Full-option rifle, priced like a Mercedes.”
“Holy shit.”
The curse burst out, then repeated in disbelief. “Holy shit! Hwang, you’re a con artist?”
With his practical experience, outrage was natural. Mercedes’ C-Class Avantgarde sedan retailed at 54.4 million won that year. Selling a tricked-out assault rifle for that was outright fraud. Even bartering the payment, the Triads’ unlimited-buy bravado turned cautious. Lacking trade history on those items, they paid with obscure gear and haggled to minimize losses.
They’ll recoup it selling drugs soon enough.
Yes. Just as the CIA once funded ops with drugs, the Triads’ shadowy cashflow stemmed from narcotics. That money eventually trickled to me. China had supplied the United Wa State Army (UWSA) not just weapons but drug labs. Spanning Southeast Asia’s infamous Golden Triangle, their meth, heroin, and fentanyl ops raked in an estimated $40 billion annually—50 trillion won conservatively. Likely far more, since most fentanyl hitting the US came from there.
Like all Chinese-backed ventures from the Belt and Road Initiative, over half the profits went to the investors. No surprise, with the UWSA head using a Chinese name. Officially, the Party decried drugs as enemies of state and people—but that was face-saving. Party cadres and cronies had turned Wa lands into a global drug hub. Local crackdowns were just for show, metrics, and diplomacy.
Thus, the China-Myanmar border crawled with surveillance webs from powers like the US, grinding their teeth over Chinese expansion and drug flows. Another reason the Triads outsourced to a Western-aligned third-country firm.
“Don’t look so shocked.” I shrugged. “Even if they bought my entire shipment for cash, it’s just a minor dent for their scale of operations.”
“What kind of operations?”
“Drugs, of course. What else guarantees that profitability?”
“……”
A single ordinary Wa village in northern Myanmar outproduced a small cartel’s distribution. Highly centralized, unlike Latin America’s inefficiencies. In May, one busted external warehouse alone yielded 18 tons of meth—$10 billion worth. No Mexican cartel could match the Chinese Communist Party. They dominated every dark economy sector by a crushing margin.
I snapped my fingers to refocus him. “So, Ricardo. Why do you think I’m telling you all this?”
“To say you won’t stall me for obscene profits?”
“Exactly.”
“Why?”
“The Chief is my friend, and you’re his referral.”
The unexpected answer flickered across Ricardo’s face. Los Zetas started as ex-special forces, with a rigidly military culture. His repeated “quartermaster” self-reference stemmed from that—or his own service record.
Comrades bound by brotherhood eat up this code.
Words are tools, chosen by the listener. Whether their camaraderie was real didn’t matter—what mattered was their belief in it. I adopted a languid, comfortable tone.
“So tell your friends downstairs to relax. No fights or tunnel evacuations here.”
Shock filled his eyes. “How the hell…?”
“Call it my caution. ‘A trading partner’s caution is a good thing,’ right?”
Echoing his own words, the self-styled quartermaster hesitated, then let out a defeated laugh. He’d never imagined I could see underground. I could sense the three armed men panicking. They’d been eavesdropping via the mic pinned to their host’s vest. A dog wagged its tail furiously at them.
“Why not call your friends up? If they came from Mexico with you, they’re more than casual acquaintances. As business partners, I’d like introductions—they seem like the type who move when you do.”
I took a sip of water to moisten my throat. Ricardo glanced awkwardly at his wife.
“Araceli. Tell everyone to come up.”
The awkwardness stemmed from the bug, of course. He couldn’t openly admit leaking a “secret” talk, so he was acting unconvincingly.
Good.
We’d cleared a major hurdle. Ricardo’s thinking was now boxed in my framework. The desperation was his, not mine. Truth be told, his short timeline disadvantaged me too—I needed this deal. Failure would delay the London push, forcing me to shoulder extra risks. But how could this quartermaster spot my urgency? Hiding your weaknesses while exploiting theirs was negotiation 101.
Now he knew he was a greenhorn. My candor made him realize good partners like me were rare. Mentioning the China deal subconsciously branded me a heavyweight. All paths led to swift, positive closure. Good for me, good for him. Just keep his thoughts from wandering too deep—steer the flow, and we’d be fine.