by Jack Slater
It was late, almost nine in the evening, and tomorrow would be an early start, but the importance of this event could not be overstated. After the turbulent events of the past three weeks, the next day would be a chance to reset. To demonstrate to all of Mexico who was now in charge.
Behind the pews, a small platform had been erected from scaffolding bars. It was in the process of being draped with thick white cloth, heavy bales of which lay on the black and white flagstones, arranged like a chessboard. It was to be a platform for the television cameras. One of them was already installed, and a boom was going up for a microphone.
A woman was standing to one side of it. She had shoulder length light brown hair and was wearing a jacket and black jeans, the latter of which accentuated her frame exceedingly well. Reyes took his time studying her, and after a short while the heat of his attention seemed to make itself known. She turned and shot him an uncertain smile.
He vaguely recognized the face. She was a presenter on one of the local news shows. Perhaps twenty-five years old and selected in that particularly antediluvian nature of television news as much for her looks as for her wits. Though both, he recalled, were mightily impressive.
“She’s pretty, don’t you think?” Reyes murmured to Mendoza, just loud enough for the presenter to hear, but just quiet enough that she could pretend she hadn’t.
Mendoza bowed his head. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Liar!” Reyes laughed, the booming sound echoing around the cathedral’s long, rectangular name. The sound attracted attention from many of the workers preparing for the following day’s events, who just as quickly looked away. “Perhaps you could arrange a private meeting between us.”
“Tomorrow?” Iker asked without judgment.
Reyes shook his head. “I’m burying my wife tomorrow. It will be hard enough already. Perhaps next Thursday.”
“Consider it done, jefe.”
He walked up to the chancel and stared silently at the altar. Memories of Jennifer ran through his mind. In truth, he hadn’t known the girl for very long, and what little time they’d shared together had made both happy. He’d felt that way, anyway. And he’d treated her right. Given her everything she ever asked for.
And in any case, Jennifer Reyes would have the respect of a fine sending off. The whole of Mexico would see his grief, filmed for the television cameras, and cut in time for the 6 o’clock news.
“Ramon,” an elderly voice wheezed from behind him, disturbing his train of thought. “I trust that everything is in order?”
“Bishop,” Reyes said, recognizing the voice before he turned. It belonged to Bishop Alphonso de Riviera. He swiveled and reached for the bishop’s hand. “Thank you, my friend. You’ve done everything I asked for.”
The old man winced, waving absently at the platform on the construction. “The cameras…”
“Are entirely necessary,” Reyes finished for him, his tone making clear that on this topic he would brook no argument. “It is important to show strength at a time like this, don’t you think?”
“Of course, of course. But is there no other way?”
“There is not,” Reyes replied firmly, smoothly moving on to what he suspected was the true cause of the bishop’s concern. “Perhaps there’s something I can help the church with? Something to make life a little easier, perhaps?”
“You’ve done so much for us already,” de Riviera replied, smoothing his cassock and clutching nervously at the cloth. “I couldn’t –”
“Nonsense,” Reyes replied, providing the fig leaf that the man needed. “The Cathedral roof needs new tiles, does it not?”
“It does…”
“Then consider it done.”
The bishop bowed his head. “Thank you, Ramon.”
The use of his name irked Reyes, but he chose to ignore it. “And something to make your life more comfortable perhaps, Bishop? Your robes are so thin.”
“I cannot. The church compensates me well enough. And I will have my reward in Heaven. I do not ask for earthly recompense.”
“Nevertheless, it would not do for God’s work to go unrewarded. How can you save the souls of the city’s people if you yourself go to bed hungry at night?”
“That is true, I suppose,” Bishop de Riviera murmured, anxiously fingering his cassock’s lapels once more. They draped over a frame that gave the lie to the idea that he had ever gone to sleep with an empty belly.
“Then consider it done,” Reyes said firmly, glancing at Iker to make sure his man knew what to do. “You will get my friend the correct account details?”
“Thank you, Ramon,” de Riviera said once again. “You do so much for the poor of the city. And ask for so little in return. Perhaps that is why they adore you so.”
“Perhaps,” Reyes replied drily. He was not so arrogant to believe that the poor of this city or any other saw him as anything but a threat and an opportunity. How much of each depended on the day.
He begged his leave of the bishop and walked into the square outside. The fronds of a palm tree rocked gently from side to side in a humid breeze which carried the smell of roasting chicken. He wrinkled his nose.
“Make sure that restaurant is closed tomorrow,” he said, pointing at the offending establishment. “And take down that damn sign. It’s unsightly.”
“Of course, boss,” Iker replied quickly, making a note of the task. “Is there anything else?”
Reyes rotated on the spot, testing his eyes over the backlit cathedral. It had a pinkish paint around the base, and accenting the doors and windows, then a light yellow. Two spires rose up into the night sky, their bells invisible against the inky backdrop. It was where he and Jennifer had married. It was fitting that it would also be the place that they formally dissolved their bond.
He stopped turning as he saw two cops strolling down the street by a row of stalls selling vegetables and hot snacks that usually did a roaring trade at this time of night but which were now being broken down by workmen so that they would not muddy the view tomorrow. The two men stared studiously ahead as they walked, ignoring the dozens of armed sicarios scattered all around the square in front of the cathedral and making no attempt to hide their presence.
“That’s all. Get my car.”
“Yes, jefe.”
Reyes rode alone in the back of one of three Range Rover SUVs. They drove only a short distance to the local university’s soccer stadium. Though there was no game that evening, the spotlights brightly illuminated the soccer field, which was a luminous green in some places, but speckled with patches of dark brown.
His helicopter was waiting in the circle at the center of the field, rotors already spinning. He climbed in the back without acknowledging the pilot and left the ear defenders draped over his neck as the engine whine grew in intensity before liftoff.
It was a cloudy night, but it was the humidity in the air which really diminished the view. The haze hung heavy over the city of Culiacán, thick and foreboding. Reyes gazed absently out of the windows as the chopper reached cruising altitude, never really registering what was happening below.
It was only five minutes later that he noticed that, instead of roughly following the path of the Culiacán River to the Gulf of California, the chopper was instead traveling on a slightly southerly heading.
He donned the intercom headset and roughly demanded to know where they were going. “Roberto – what the hell is going on? Where are you taking me?”
There was no answer.
Nor did any answer come the next five times he asked, tension growing in his gut with every repetition. Suddenly any thought of the view passing underneath the helicopter was entirely forgotten as his attention became consumed entirely by fears of his impending demise.
Reyes beat against the partition that separated the helicopter’s passenger cabin from the pilot, knowing even as he did so that it was fruitless. Between a mild turbulence in the air, Roberto’s own headset, and the rotor noise that drowned out all ot
her sound, he had no way of being heard.
All that was left to him was to sit and wait.
“To hell with that,” he hissed, unbuckling his safety restraints and searching the small cabin for a weapon of any kind. He found no knives, no guns, only a Scotch glass in the chopper’s small bar that he put underneath his heel and stomped on hard. He picked up the longest piece of shattered glass and pocketed it, not daring to lift his fingers away.
He tried the headset once again. “Roberto, you fool. Where the hell are we going?”
A blinding flash outside caused him to flinch. Something had crackled out of the night’s sky, ripping across the horizon. For one seemingly unending, tortured moment, he thought it was a missile, coming to deliver his judgment.
Lightning. It was only lightning.
Reyes sagged back into his padded leather seat as he at last understood the cause for the flightpath alteration, watching as an almighty squall broke a few miles to the north of the chopper’s path. Chain lightning painted the horizon a deep, regal purple and lit giant, swelling storm clouds.
The chopper’s heading altered two minutes later, shifting back to the north, toward his yacht, anchored just off Mazatlán. It touched down ten minutes after that, and as Reyes stepped off onto the familiar deck, he breathed a sigh of relief. Instead of heading toward the crewmember, who was holding a silver tray on which sat a single glass of champagne, he yanked open the pilot’s door and gripped Roberto by the chest.
The man stared at him with wild, surprised eyes. “Boss –?”
“What the hell was that about?” Reyes snarled.
“What?” came the stammered response.
“Why didn’t you answer me?”
“You didn’t say anything.”
Reyes’ fingers closed into a fist, and he was sorely tempted to punch his pilot in the face. He restrained himself. “There must be an electrical fault. Make sure it’s fixed before tomorrow.”
“Of course, jefe. At once.”
Trapp momentarily stopped kicking his legs as he checked his dive chronometer once again. The watch face was illuminated by the gentle glow of radium paint and was clearly visible through the dark nighttime waters of the Gulf of California. He was suspended about ten feet below the surface, deep enough that only a powerful searchlight would have any chance at revealing his presence – and then only if it was trained directly on him.
His dive partner, Ikeda, was right alongside him. As a habitual long-distance open water swimmer, the mere twelve hundred yards they’d traveled from the dive boat was nothing to her. She slowed in the water and fell in alongside, grabbing a strap on his breathing apparatus mounted on his back so that they floated in the same patch of water.
Under the surface, using borrowed Mexican Marine diving gear, it wasn’t possible to use anything other than hand signals to communicate. As was practiced in many underwater special forces units across the world, such as the British Special Boat Service and the U.S. Navy Seals, divers typically worked in pairs. One team member carried a compass, the other a depth gauge.
Back home, the Navy SEALs had long since upgraded to more modern technology – the Advanced Diver Mask Mounted Display – a heads up display integrated into their dive mask which showed not just depth but heading and time.
Still, this was how Trapp had learned to swim.
This time, he was carrying the depth gauge. This close to shore, with the bright lights of Mazatlán polluting the night sky, he might have dispensed with it. It was just about possible to work out how far he was from the surface using feel alone.
But diving, especially at night, could be a dangerous business. It was easy to get disoriented in the water, and this only worsened in darkness. So even though he thought he was in the right spot, he checked the display regardless.
Eleven feet down. Not bad.
He communicated the information to Ikeda, who patted him twice on the shoulder to indicate that she understood. Even with years of experience under his belt, he was glad to have her by his side. Not just because she was a strong swimmer, and just as capable a fighter, but because swimming in the dark wasn’t much different from doing so blindfolded.
No matter how much practice you got, it had a way of awakening long-forgotten childhood fears.
Ikeda indicated they needed to shift a couple of degrees to the northwest. They started swimming again, using gentle, measured strokes.
They’d been underwater for eighteen minutes.
56
Reyes emerged from the shower, toweled himself down, then strapped his wristwatch back on. It was a Patek Philippe, a $60,000 watch which the company’s advertising claimed you didn’t ever own, but instead simply looked after for the next generation.
That wasn’t how he saw it. It was a nice trinket, but not one he was particularly attached to. He had many just like it, and when this one inevitably fell out of favor, he probably would not remember it either.
He grabbed a fresh towel from the stack at the foot of his bed and ran it over his dark hair one last time before critically examining his naked frame in a full-length mirror. Though he was now pushing his mid-forties, he wasn’t in bad shape. Stocky, but with precious little extra fat around his midriff. Especially given the temptations he was exposed to on a daily basis. When you could have everything, it was difficult not to.
Ramon was justifiably proud that, for the most part, he resisted.
That did not, however, mean that he was an advocate of fasting. A man still had to eat, and his stomach was reminding him of that fact presently. He glanced at his watch. It was about half past ten, but that wasn’t outlandishly late for a meal in this part of the world. He went over the options in his mind.
Perhaps Japanese. Sushi. Good for the waistline, and the new chef was an expert.
He sprayed a little aftershave on his wrist, then dabbed the drying skin on either side of his neck, remembering how the news anchor had looked at him earlier that evening. He’d seen an intrigue in her eyes. A hunger. He liked that.
Jennifer was like that once, he remembered, the memory of his late wife already fading in his mind as he moved on to new pastures. They always worked hardest before they landed their catch.
Though that was the same for men, he supposed.
But still, his body wasn’t so bad, was it? The girl would enjoy her time, a week from now, and perhaps there would be something more there. Perhaps not. It was really up to her.
“Carlos!” Reyes yelled, calling for his steward. “Get in here.”
In his mid-twenties, Carlos handled all of his master’s desires while on board. If Reyes wanted women flown in from shore, he handled it. If he fancied a wagyu steak, Carlos massaged the damn sirloin himself. And he was usually waiting right outside to attend instantly to even the most fleeting of Reyes’ wishes.
“Where the fuck are you?” he groused.
He waited for a few seconds longer in the center of his opulent stateroom, still stark naked, before finally realizing that no one was coming. He dressed quickly, prickling with irritation, and stormed out of the cabin. The warm salt air was a dramatic change from the cool, hermetically sealed environment of the yacht’s interior, but wasn’t unpleasant.
He called out again. “Carlos!”
Though frustrated, no sense of foreboding imposed on Reyes’ thoughts. He was surprised when none of the other crewmembers sprinted to his position. Besides the captain and the navigator, there were at least a dozen other crewmembers on board whose sole purpose in life was to make sure that he was never put in precisely this position.
And that was ignoring the dozen armed guards who shadowed him at all times.
Although, as was swiftly becoming apparent – not tonight.
Barefoot, Reyes padded aft along the open passageway that led to the stern. It was made of polished teak, and he presumed it was only this expensive because orangutans swung off its branches and had to be shot before it could be chopped down. Or something like that.
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“Carlos, you piece of shit – what the fuck are you doing?”
Still nothing.
And now, for the second time in one evening, Ramon Reyes truly began to worry. Where the hell was everyone? There were over twenty people on this boat. At least, there was supposed to be. What were the odds that none of them could hear him?
Not good.
He stopped and looked out to sea. There were three smaller yachts around his mother ship, each at one point of a triangle of which he was the center. His sicarios were stationed on each of them, with orders not to let a soul through without clearing it by him.
It was difficult to make out in the darkness, but he thought he saw movement on the one to the yacht’s port side, and he relaxed slightly. There had to be an innocent explanation for all this. Maybe a technical fault that required all hands. Yes, that made sense.
Someone was about to get chewed out regardless, but at least there was a reason.
He moved lighter on his feet now, already halfway down the side of the yacht. The passageway kinked right slightly before moving left, and as he passed through, he almost slipped on a puddle of water.
“The hell?”
Reyes looked down and was transfixed by what he saw.
Not water. Blood.
All his earlier fears rushed back to him in an instant, and the wave of nausea that rose inside him was equal to the worst seasickness. His right foot was in the center of a large, circular puddle of blood. The yacht’s walls were a dark, glossy blue, but even in the dim safety lighting, glowing splashes were evident.
Dear God.
Reyes thought about turning back, but as he looked over his shoulder, he thought – or imagined – he saw a dark shadow behind him, and an animal terror drove him forward. His bloodied right foot left a trail of single footprints running forward along the deck.
There was an armory on the deck below, he remembered. Even if all of his sicarios were dead – a possibility he still couldn’t truly bring himself to believe – then he would be able to arm himself there.
