Dan Slater was in New York, freshly laid off from The Wall Street Journal and wondering what was next for him. On a June morning in 2009, a headline in the New York Times caught his eye: “Drug Cartels in Mexico Lure American Teenagers as Killers.”
His attention piqued, Slater read the story. Then he read it again. And again. He soaked up the details of Gabriel Cardona and Rosalio “Bart” Reta, who were recruited as assassins for the Zetas drug cartel when they were still teens. The details haunted him. How did two kids from Laredo, Texas, become hired killers for a fearsome narcotics ring across the border? He couldn't stop thinking about it.
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