ABSTRACT
A Mexican knelt on the floor in a Nuevo Laredo bar -- he was sobbing, not praying; his captors and a boy stood around him. Everyone knew the individual’s fate. By the time Rosalio Reta reached fifteen years of age, he had earned the right to join other recruits at a Zeta training camp in northern Mexico. Los Zetas snatched him in Laredo, jammed a hood over his head, and drove him south to a secluded ranch in northeastern Mexico. Back in Laredo, Texas, Reta joined the young man who had brought him into the fold, Gabriel Cardona. Only two years older than the Zetita, Cardona presided over a unit that, although trained to operate in Laredo, functioned on both sides of the frontier. After they received an order from Treviño’s lieutenant, Lucio “El Viejón” Quintero, Reta, and Cardona homed in on their first target.
