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His face is stern now. He has come to the place, the very moment that has permitted him to recount the kidnappings, the tortures, the killings. He is selling, and what he is selling is God. He is believing, and what he believes, based on his own life, is that anyone can be redeemed. And that it is possible to leave the organization and survive.

“I learned more as I was running. I asked God, if I am such a tough guy, why are they letting me go? I realized no one is a tough guy. I start seeing billboards in Juárez that said you must turn toward God, actual billboards. They had always been there, but I had been blind.

“After the second kidnapping and my escape, I asked God to help me so I didn’t have to kill. Tell me, God, how are you going to get me out of this? I was trained to kill. Back in that house, I knew which one I would kill first, and it would have been easy. But I was crying, crying out of fear, because I did not want to kill. One of the kidnappers was the son of a boss, and I knew if I killed him, then I would lose my family because with such a killing, no one would respect my family. The guy who let me run, he was a rich kid, he was just there for the fun.

“There were people who would tremble when they saw me because they knew I was violent. I could go to the door of a bar and simply beckon for a guy to go with me, and he would come because he knew he had to come. I was feared. But my captors, they were only playing.”

And so he lives, and now he must explain to himself why he lives, and now he must somehow redeem himself from his earlier life. But he cannot simply denounce this life: He was feared, he was trained, he was the good soldier in his war.

“I had never had free will, I had just followed orders. You never had time to think of the killings, of the executions. If you did that, you might feel remorse. But because of the way I worked, I could leave a torture scene, I could close off my mind. Also, I was using a lot of drugs. I always had to be awake, I always had to be aware of talking on the street, of what was being said about the people I worked with.”

His thoughts are a jumble as he speaks. He is telling of his salvation, and yet he feels the tug of his killings. He feels the pride in being feared. Back at the beginning, when he first starts with the state police, that is when Oropeza, the doctor and newspaper columnist, is killed. And his killers, he now recalls, were his mentors, his teachers. He remembers after the murder, the state government announced a big investigation to get the killers. And one of them, a fellow cop, stayed at his own police station until the noise quieted, and the charade ended.

He is excited now, he is living in his past.

“The only reason I am here is because God saved me. I repented. After all these years, I am talking to you. I am having to relive things that are dead to me. I don’t want to be part of this life. I don’t want to know the news. You must write this so that other sicarios know it is possible to leave. They must know God can help them. They are not monsters. They have been trained like Special Forces units in the army. But they never realize they have been trained to serve the Devil.

“Imagine being nineteen years old and you are able to call up a plane. I liked the power. I never realized until God talked to me that I could get out. Still, when God frees me, I remain a wolf. I can’t become a lamb. I remain a terrible person, but now I have God on my side.

“I don’t carry a gun now.

“I carry God.”

His eyes are glowing now. He is on fire.

“God will get them out when they are ready.

“You leave without money.

“You need faith. And prayer.”

He stares at me as I write in a black notebook.

His body seems to loom over the table.

This is the point in all stories where everyone discovers who they really are. Do you believe in redemption? Do you believe a man can kill for twenty years and then change? Do you even believe such killers can exist? In every story, there is this same moment when all you hold dear and believe to be true and certain is suddenly