Toting his newly-stuffed briefcase through security to his car, he decided to put in for a secretary. He’d always dismissed the idea, believing it sent the wrong message to his team, but he couldn’t go on like this. Cruz needed to be active operationally, especially now there were less than four weeks till the summit. Finding one wouldn’t be a problem, as all the other captains had administrative assistants, so he didn’t have any worries in that regard. He made a mental note to have Briones send out an inter-departmental memo notifying the staff, so if there were any candidates internally they’d get first shot. He’d prefer someone familiar with the labyrinthine processes imbedded in the Federal Police system; otherwise he was just further adding to his task load trying to bring someone up to speed.
He tossed his briefcase onto the seat, returned to his office and grabbed a cardboard file box crammed full of the week’s worth of papers he’d been meaning to attend to, but never seemed to have the time for. The container weighed a good forty pounds. Had he really allowed things to back up that much?
Cruz heaved the container to the car and slid it onto the passenger seat, wedging his briefcase next to it so it wouldn’t go flying if he had to stop suddenly. Satisfied, he fired up the big V8, giving it thirty seconds to warm up before pulling out of the lot. He waved goodnight to the guard and swung into the night-time traffic of Mexico City, his vision blurred from fatigue and eye strain.
The trip to Toluca was clearer than usual, probably due to the later hour, and he made it to his off ramp in under forty minutes — a kind of minor miracle. Spying one of the ubiquitous OXXO convenience store signs, he calculated the state of his refrigerator and decided to get beer and bread for his dinner; the current loaf had started to turn an alarming shade of green around the edges, and he didn’t want to tempt fate any more than he already had. Cruz was on his cell phone with Briones getting the evening download on day two of the operation in Baja, so he barely registered the truck that pulled into the space on his passenger side as he eased next to an ancient Impala that he knew belonged to the manager.
“All right,” he told the lieutenant over the phone, “I want to fly to Los Cabos next week and spend a couple of days looking over the site before things get too hectic. We’re running out of — ”
His passenger-side window exploded in a hail of bullets as a burst of machine-gun fire tore into the side of the car. Cruz dropped the phone, momentarily stunned, and felt white-hot lances of pain from his chest and his right leg. Operating on instinct, he slammed the car into reverse and grabbed at his pistol, freeing it as he stomped on the gas. The Charger roared backwards. He spun the wheel to the right, blocking the truck in with his car as he jammed down on the brake. More gunfire glanced off the engine block as the shooter leaned out the truck window in an attempt to adjust his aim. Cruz emptied nine rounds through the vehicle’s windshield, noting with satisfaction that the shooter had dropped his weapon on the ground as some of the slugs found home.
A silence returned to the parking lot. Cruz trained his gun on the truck as he swung his driver’s door open and stepped unsteadily onto the pavement. His leg hardly supported his weight, and his chest felt like he’d been pummeled with a branding iron as he limped through the cordite haze to the vehicle, noting that the weapon the shooter had been using bore the unmistakable shape of an Uzi. The dead gunman hung halfway out the window, his blood streaming down the side of the truck onto the shell casings littering the asphalt, so Cruz was confident that the danger from that side of the vehicle was over. He moved to the driver’s door and cautiously opened it, pistol pointed into the cab at point blank range. The overhead light flickered to life, and he was greeted by the sight of the driver, his head cocked at an angle, fighting to breathe, his chest seeping blood from a wound over his left pectoral, and his scalp hanging from his skull where a round must have ricocheted, tearing into his head. He didn’t register Cruz or the gun, and judging by the pink foam gurgling from his nose and mouth, he wasn’t going to make it. Cruz watched as the man, disoriented and unarmed, struggled to keep his hand up, holding his scalp in place, and then with the distinctive moan of the dying, he exhaled his last rattling breath.
Lowering his weapon, he turned and studied the side of his car. It was riddled with bullet holes, the windows blown out; judging from the damage it was a miracle he was still alive — which was his final conscious thought before he slumped against the truck and everything faded.
~ ~ ~
Light burst into his eyes, momentarily blinding him, and he registered distorted faces staring down at him, as though from a great distance, like he was at the bottom of a well. That’s odd, he thought as he felt a sensation of floating, before slipping back into the quiet place where nobody could hurt him.
A jolt brought him back to awareness. His eyes flittered open. He watched as long fluorescent lights flew by overhead, which he knew to be impossible but found interesting nonetheless. His body conveyed that he was moving from the sense of momentum and the vibration, and hands worked at his shirt and his pants as he struggled to tell whoever this was that he was a cop; but he couldn’t find a way to form the words — they seemed foreign, just out of reach. He tried to move his head but he couldn’t. His last impression before he lost consciousness again was that the air smelled funny.
Oxygen flowed into his nostrils from two nubs of the connected tube, making his nose itch. He tried to reach for whatever the offending device was, but lacked the strength to move his arm. As he came to full awareness, he heard the telltale beeping of monitoring equipment and realized he was in a hospital.
When he cautiously opened his eyes, there stood Briones, waiting at the side of his bed and appraising him with concern. Cruz’s voice cracked as he tried to speak. He motioned with his eyes at the pitcher of water by his side, near his left hand. A nurse pushed past them and efficiently poured some into a container and then stuck the straw into his mouth. He swallowed feebly, then pulled his head away.
“Why’s everyone so glum? Whose funeral is it, anyway?” Cruz asked in a feeble whisper.
Briones smiled and shook his head. “We thought we’d lost you there.”
“What? From a few scratches? Or the coffee at OXXO?” Cruz asked.
“You took a slug in the chest, and one in the leg. The one in your chest glanced off a rib because of the angle, but you lost a lot of blood. It’s a miracle you weren’t killed. You can thank work for that,” Briones said.
“How so? Seems like the job is what this is all about…” Cruz said.
“The documents you had in your car? They blocked most of the slugs. Otherwise, you’d have been cut in two. There were over a dozen bullets in the box and briefcase, and seven more in the engine area.”
“I guess that’s a decent excuse to not have those reports done on time,” Cruz observed.
“I think it should suffice, sir,” Briones agreed.
“Do we know who they were?” Cruz asked.
“Not yet. We’ve got the prints in the system, but you know how that goes,” Briones stated.
“Well, whoever it was, the party didn’t swing the way they’d hoped,” Cruz mused.
“I’m sure it didn’t.”
The conversation seemed to wear Cruz out, so the group moved to the door.
“We’ve got an armed guard outside, just in case,” Briones informed him.
“Great. Look, Lieutenant. Don’t bullshit me. How long am I going to be here?”
“Doctor says if you recover quickly, maybe three days. The leg will take some time to heal, and the chest wound tore the muscles up pretty well, but nothing that won’t mend. It’s mainly for observation; to give your system time to rest from the blood loss and shock,” Briones told him.
“Yeah. I feel like a tank ran over me. But I’ll live.”
“Yes, you will. I’ll stop in tomorrow to see you, sir. Do you want anything in the meantime?”
“You got your service piece with you? Do me a favor. Leave it with me.
I’ll sleep better.”
Briones removed his pistol, checked the safety to ensure it was on, and chambered a round. He slipped it under the sheets, near Cruz’s right hand. “You’ve got one in the hole. But you won’t need it.”
“I hope you’re right. Just call me paranoid at this point.” Cruz coughed. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Six p.m.. They brought you in last night just before ten.”
“Shit. So I’ve been out all day?” Cruz was visibly agitated.
“You didn’t miss anything. Nothing’s happened. The job can wait a few days. Everything’s on automatic right now. It’ll still be there once you’re up and around, sir,” Briones reassured him.
“I guess I don’t have much choice. Hey…thanks for coming by. I’ll see you manana. Oh — did they get my phone?” Cruz asked.
“It’s in the drawer of the bedside table. I turned it off so your battery wouldn’t die.”
“Thanks again, Lieutenant.”
“No problem. See you tomorrow. Try to get some rest.”
“Will do,” Cruz said, settling back and surrendering to his fatigue.
~ ~ ~
Kent fidgeted with his coffee cup as the men across from him bickered over tactics. After fifteen minutes, with a sense of the discussion going nowhere, he held up his right hand, signaling a pause.
“The cop has been neutralized, right? So he’s not going to be a problem anymore. Early reports are that his car had more bullets in it than a gun store. And he’s in critical condition. I’m not sure what all the hand wringing here is about,” he observed.
“The problem is that we now have a plot to take out the Mexican president, as well as our guy, documented, floating around in the system. That shouldn’t ever have happened,” the oldest of the three others commented.
“Agreed. Nobody could have foreseen it. The fucking dope dealer had a big mouth. It happens. The important thing is that nobody’s taking it seriously,” Kent reasoned.
“It’s a concern, though, because it’s always possible that the President will cancel his appearance,” the older man fired back.
“And miss a trip to Cabo and eighteen holes of golf? Does that sound like our guy? Please. How many legit threats does Secret Service get, per year? Hundreds? Thousands? You really think the ramblings of some taco-breath are going to get any visibility? The Mexicans can’t even figure out how to tie their shoelaces. I’d guess this will receive less than zero scrutiny, other than perhaps a heightened security level at the conference and a few more suits than usual. This is noise. We have nothing to worry about,” Kent pronounced.
“Let’s assume worst case,” the man’s associate said. “Can anything be traced back to your group, if they somehow stop the assassin?”
“That’s the beauty part. Not a chance. The drug dealer’s dead, and he was the point man on this. He’s the one who took out the contract, he’s the one who hired the killer, and he’s the one who’s now six feet under. It all goes back to him. If it’s successful, then the cartels get blamed — and everyone in the world already knows they’re murderous thugs. So it will shock, but not surprise. If it tanks, we can think of something else. We still have plenty of time before the November elections,” Kent assured them.
“And what about if they catch him and interrogate him?”
“Highly unlikely. But just for conversation, let’s go down that road. They capture him somehow, even though they’ve been actively pursuing him for years with no success. What do they have? A contract killer paid in untraceable cash by a cartel boss. That’s it. The end. That’s what made the whole scheme so appealing in the first place. Its complete deniability,” Kent finished.
The men groused and worried more, but it didn’t go anywhere. They discussed some of the finer logistical points, and after another half hour agreed that things seemed back on track after a momentary scare.
Kent was getting tired of having to nursemaid his group of nervous nellies. Like all politicians and power players, they talked big and made bold moves when it was all theoretical, but once hands started to get dirty, they freaked out. The politicians were bad enough, but now he had to act as cheerleader for these second-string wonks, too? He resolved not to let it wear him down. This was a unique chance to achieve their objective in a completely clean manner, with no blood anywhere near their doorstep. It would be a regrettable act of brutality in a savage country run by criminals, and would create exactly the environment they were looking for. He couldn’t have scripted it better if he’d tried.
Sometimes he wondered what the hell these idiots were thinking when they green-lit operations like this and got professionals like Kent involved. Did they think he could just push a button and call everything off whenever someone had a case of nerves?
He’d be glad when this was over. If all played correctly, he’d be in line to make a big move up the ranks, and either get the number two spot in Langley, or perhaps even the number one. Maybe next term, after his position as number two had seasoned some.
Nice problem to have.
Cruz slumbered fitfully, the pain in his chest and legs causing him almost unbearable grief. He’d told the doctor to cut his morphine drip; he preferred to tough out the pain than feel the blanket of numbness restricting his ability to function. When the doctor had last checked in at midnight, he’d remarked to Cruz that his recovery was startling, given the condition he’d been in when he was admitted.
In spite of the pain, Cruz had to admit he felt much stronger than when Briones had stopped by. Apparently, the combination of rest and IV fluids was working — he didn’t want to get his hopes up too soon, but he was thinking he might be ready to get discharged the following evening, if the hospital signed off on it.
Cruz had a long discussion with the kindly physician overseeing his care, and had been adamant about cutting the narcotics, just as he’d instructed the doctor to keep all staff out of his room unless he was dying. No dope, no distractions, just old fashioned bed rest while his body built back its depleted resources. The doctor had shaken his head and warned him that he’d be in a lot of pain, but Cruz didn’t care. If he was feeling pain, it meant he was still alive, and that made it a good day. He knew he’d cheated death by a hair, and maybe wouldn’t be so lucky next time. It put things into perspective.
Cruz was acutely aware of the passage of time. He’d lost a day now, due to the shooting; a day he didn’t feel like he had to burn. El Rey was out there somewhere, not lying about wasting his time. The man was legendary for his meticulously-planned hits so Cruz had little doubt that if he wasn’t already in Los Cabos, he soon would be. The summit would be the crowning triumph of his assassinations — the Oscars, Grammys and Emmys of executions all rolled into one. Cruz could close his eyes and imagine the killer eyeing the building, the airport, the routes into the complex. He’d probably gotten a schedule of events and knew exactly what was planned for the attendees from the time they arrived until their plane wings lifted into the air.
He shifted and glanced at his watch. Four a.m., and his mind was busy turning over the facts of the case instead of allowing his battered body to rest. That figured. He’d long ago grown accustomed to his nearly obsessive approach to problem-solving; once he got hold of something, he’d worry away at it until he’d figured it out. It was his nature, and he supposed he wasn’t going to change now.
One of the biggest question marks for him had been why a cartel boss would want to take out the Mexican president. It was an election year, and he was a lame duck now — he could only serve the one six-year term. There was no re-election bid in Mexico once you’d achieved the highest office; you got your six years, and that was that. So why kill him? To what end? Cruz didn’t buy that it was all just to prove a point.
He thought about the chain of command. If the President died, leadership of the government went to the Mexican equivalent of the Vice President — the Secretary of the Interior. And if the Secretary of the Interior also died, as the r
ecent two had in air crashes, then it went to one of the members of the Supreme Court. Cruz considered that scenario — maybe the goal was to eliminate those who were committed to eradicating the cartels, in favor of a judge who’d been bought off? He was far too experienced and pragmatic to believe that anyone in the system was incorruptible. The question was always just, at what price?
Then again, maybe it was as simple as territories, and controlling the playing field. It was obvious to Cruz that the current administration pursued some cartels with far more vigor than others. Santiago’s region had been particularly hard hit by government troops, while his competitors went virtually unhindered. There was always the chance that the whole scheme was about money and power, and nothing more; that the goal was to remove a thorn in Santiago’s side, and replace it with a politician who would focus on his rivals, rather than his allies.
Cruz knew these were impossible questions to answer, but that didn’t stop him from mulling them over as he drifted in and out of slumber. Now that the morphine was clear of his system, his mental acuity was returning to accompany the pain. Which reminded him — he’d need to commit to some regular physical therapy, per the doctor’s orders, if he was going to escape without a limp. The wound to his leg had narrowly missed shattering the bone, but had done a number on his muscles and ligaments, which would require patience and attention. The thought of it depressed him. Being around other invalids, casualties of a de facto civil war they couldn’t win, wasn’t something he was looking forward to.
The door eased open, allowing a sliver of light into the room, drawing him out of his tentative sleep and to full awareness. Cruz peered through squinted eyes and watched as a female form entered the room, pausing to scrutinize him before wedging a chair against the door handle. Something told him that wasn’t standard operating procedure for caregivers, and his hand slid the few inches to Briones’ pistol still concealed beneath the sheet. The nurse didn’t notice, occupied with blocking entry with the chair. Cruz held his breath as he tried to find where the safety was located on the gun. His thumb slid across the lever, but he held off on flipping it into fire mode lest it make a sound and alert her.
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