Hunting El Chapo: Taking down the world’s most-wanted drug-lord. Douglas Century

have been Madagascar.

      I WAS SOON THE black sheep: the only cop in a family of firefighters. After graduating from Kansas State University with a degree in criminal justice, I’d taken the written exam for the Kansas Highway Patrol, but a statewide hiring freeze forced me in another direction. A salty old captain from the local sheriff ’s office offered me a job as a patrol deputy with Lincoln County, opening my first door to law enforcement.

      It wasn’t my dream job, but it was my dream ride: I was assigned a 1995 Chevrolet Caprice, complete with that powerhouse Corvette engine—the same squad car I’d been drawing and coloring in detail in my bedroom since I was ten years old. Now I got to take it home and park it overnight in the family driveway.

      Every twelve-hour shift, I was assigned a sprawling twenty-by thirty-mile zone. I had no patrol-car partner: I was just one babyfaced deputy covering a vast countryside scattered with farmhouses and a few towns. The closest deputy would be in his or her zone, just as large as mine. If we were on the opposite ends of our respective zones and needed backup, it could take thirty minutes to reach each other.

      I discovered what that really meant one winter evening during my rookie year when I went to look for a six-foot-four, 260-pound suspect—name of “Beck”—who’d just gotten out of the Osawatomie State Hospital psychiatric ward. I’d dealt with Beck once already that night, after he’d been involved in a domestic disturbance in a nearby town. Just after 8 p.m., my in-car mobile data terminal beeped with a message from my sergeant: “Hogan, you’ve got two options: get him out of the county or take him to jail.”

      I knew I was on my own—the sergeant and other deputies were all handling a vehicle in the river, which meant my colleagues were twenty minutes away at a minimum. As I drove down a rural gravel road, in my headlights I caught a dark figure ambling on the shoulder. I let out a loud exhale, pulling to a stop.

      Beck.

      Whenever I had a feeling that things were going to get physical, I tended to leave my brown felt Stratton hat on the passenger seat. This was one of those times.

      “David twenty-five,” I radioed to dispatch. “I’m going to need another car.”

      It was the calmest way of requesting immediate backup. But I knew the truth: there wasn’t another deputy within a twenty-five mile radius.

      “The Lone fuckin’ Ranger,” I muttered under my breath, stepping out of the Caprice. I walked toward Beck cautiously, but he continued walking away, taking me farther and farther from my squad car’s headlights, and deeper and deeper into the darkness.

      “Sir, I can give you a ride up to the next gas station or you can go to jail,” I said, as matter-of-factly as I could. “Your choice tonight.”

      Beck ignored my question completely, instead picking up his pace. I half jogged, closed the distance, and quickly grabbed him around his thick bicep to put him in an arm bar. Textbook—just how I’d been taught at the academy.

      But Beck was too strong to hold, and he lunged forward, trying to free his arm. I felt the icy gravel grinding beneath us as we both tried to gain footing. Beck snatched me in a bear hug, and there were quick puffs of breath in the cold night air as we locked eyes for a split second, faces separated by inches. I had zero leverage—my feet now just barely touched the ground. It was clear that Beck was setting up to body- slam me.

      I knew there was no way I could outgrapple him, but I managed to rip my right arm loose and slammed my fist into his pockmarked face, then again, until a third clean right sent Beck’s head snapping back and he finally loosened his grip. I planted my feet to charge, as if I were going to make a football tackle, and rammed my shoulder into Beck’s gut, driving him to the ground. Down into the steep frozen ditch we barrel-rolled on top of each other, Beck trying to grab for my .45-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol, unclasping the holster snaps, nearly getting the gun free.

      I finally got the mount, reached for my belt, and filled Beck’s mouth and eyes with a heavy dose of pepper spray. He howled, clutching at his throat, and I managed to get him handcuffed, on his feet, and into the backseat of the Caprice. We were halfway to the county jail before my closest backup even had a chance to respond. It was the scariest moment of my life—until twelve years later, when I set foot in Culiacán, the notorious capital of the Mexican drug underworld....

      DESPITE THE DANGERS, I quickly developed a taste for the hunt. During traffic stops, I’d dig underneath seats and rummage through glove compartments in search of drugs, typically finding only halfempty nickel bags of weed and crack pipes. Then, one evening on a quiet strip of highway, I stopped a Jeep Cherokee for speeding. The vehicle sported a small Grateful Dead sticker in the rear window, and the driver was a forty-two-year-old hippie with a greasestained white T-shirt. I knew exactly how to play this: I acted like a clueless young hillbilly cop, obtained his verbal consent to search the Jeep, and discovered three ounces of rock cocaine and a bundle of more than $13,000 in cash.

      The bust made the local newspapers—it was one of the largest drug-cash seizures in the history of our county. I soon got a reputation for being a savvy and streetwise patrolman, skilled at sniffing out dope. It was a natural stepping-stone, I was sure, to reaching my goal of becoming a Kansas State Trooper.

      But then a thin white envelope was waiting for me when I drove the Caprice home one night after my shift. The Highway Patrol headquarters, in Topeka, had made its final decision: despite passing the exam, I was one of more than three thousand applicants, and my number simply was never drawn.

      I called my mom first to let her know about the rejection. My entire family had been waiting weeks to hear the exam results. The moment I hung up the phone, my eyes fixed on the framed photo of the Kansas Highway Patrol patch I’d had since college. I felt the walls of my bedroom closing in on me—as tight as the corridor of the county jail. Rage rising into my throat, I turned and smashed the frame against the wall, scattering the glass across the floor. Then I jumped onto my silver 2001 Harley-Davidson Softail Deuce and lost myself for five silent hours on the back roads, stopping at every dive bar along the way.

      My dad was now retired from the Pattonville Fire Department and had bought the town’s original firehouse—a two-story redbrick 1929 building on the corner of East Main and Parks Street—renovated it, and converted it into a pub. Pattonville’s Firehouse Pub quickly became the town’s busiest watering hole, famous for its hot wings, live bands, and raucous happy hours.

      The pub was packed that night, a four-piece band playing onstage, when I pulled up outside the bar and met up with my old high school football buddy Fred Jenkins, now a Kansas City firefighter.

      I tried to shake it off, but my anger kept simmering—another bottle of Budweiser wasn’t going to calm this black mood. I leaned over and yelled at Freddie.

      “Follow me.”

      I led him around to the back of the pub.

      “What the hell you doing, man?”

      “Just help me push the fuckin’ bike in.”

      Freddie grabbed hold of the front forks and began to push while I backed my Deuce through the rear door of the bar.

      I saddled up and ripped the throttle, and within seconds white smoke was billowing around the rear tire as it cut into the unfinished concrete floor.

      A deafening roar—I had the loudest pipes in town—quickly drowned out the sound of the band. Thick, acrid-smelling clouds filled the bar as I held on tight to the handlebars, the backs of my legs pinched against the rear foot pegs to keep the hog steady—the ultimate burnout—then I screeched off, feeling only a slight relief.

      I parked the Deuce and walked back into the bar, expecting high fives—something to lighten my mood—but everyone was pissed, especially my father.

      Then some old retired fireman knocked me hard on the shoulder.

      “Kid, that was some cool shit,” he said, “but now my chicken wings taste like rubber.”

      I reached into my jeans and