Requiem for the Assassin - 06

by Russell Blake

  Two flash bangs detonated near the door, and twenty Federales pressed their temporary advantage, moving in running crouches, nobody firing, their discipline serving them well as they approached. The lead officer tossed another flash bang through the doorway and waited as it exploded, and then the squad was through, dozens of men pouring into the offices.

  Several gunshots sounded from within, another two grenades detonated, and then nothing for half a minute. When the sergeant’s voice came over the speakers, it sounded tight but calm.

  “The area is secured. Repeat. The area is secured.”

  Briones thumbed the microphone to life. “What about the girl?”

  Everyone in the van could hear the sergeant’s breathing. “In a back room. Unharmed from our end. Three hostiles are dead, one wounded, the other three in custody. Go ahead and turn the lights on.”

  Briones exhaled a long sigh of relief and waved to the tech, who gave the order with a smile of satisfaction on his tired face. Briones stood and pulled his jacket on, emblazoned with Federales across the back, and barked instructions to the others. “Get the ambulances in and secure the perimeter. I don’t want anyone getting within a quarter mile of that place until I give the okay. And if I hear a hint of a leak, as in media crews showing up, I’ll personally fire everyone in this room, am I clear?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, knowing that it would be just a matter of time before the buzzards arrived to get their footage for the morning news, but it was an obligatory warning and might make them think twice before placing a cell call. He strode from the van toward the warehouse gate, and two officers joined him. The operation had been a decisive success, ensuring that they’d all have jobs tomorrow, as well as the senator’s appreciation. A line of vehicles raced toward them, emergency lights flashing, bringing the coroner’s staff and medical technicians and forensic crews, as well as the van that would take Isabel to headquarters for a statement and a reunion with her father, who would be the first phone call Briones made once he’d verified with his own eyes that she was alive and well.

  Chapter 52

  Jorge Tovar finished his breakfast of toast and black coffee and placed the dishes in the sink, where his housekeeper would attend to them on her alternating day’s stint at his house. He looked outside, checking the weather again, as if he distrusted what his eyes had taken in from his earlier peek at the sky, and then moved to the hallway, where his briefcase rested by the front door.

  The house was neat, a three-bedroom dwelling in a good section of town, inherited from his parents, who had been successful business people. Tovar had never had any desire to follow in their footsteps, though, and had sold the company when they’d died in a bus accident while touring Guatemala, preferring a career that had called to him ever since he’d been a young boy, up late under the covers every night reading the translation of the latest le Carré or Ludlum novel.

  A spy was what he’d sworn to be, and he’d jumped at the chance to work in CISEN when he’d been tentatively recruited while in university, after having made it clear to anyone who would listen that he wanted the lifestyle of a Bond, James Bond, with all the shaken-not-stirred cachet it held.

  Reality had been disappointing, but still eventful enough to keep him engaged, and he’d never regretted his decision, even though the last six years had been spent piloting a desk, with rare exceptions – like his running the assassin, which had turned into a disaster in the last few days.

  He groaned as he bent to retrieve his case, and scooped his keys out of a ceramic bowl. He’d have to do something about El Rey, but he didn’t want to take any further steps until he had a consensus determination from the intelligence committee that oversaw the man’s case. His superior, Bernardo, had agreed to convene a meeting within the next forty-eight hours. The only holdup now was getting Rodriguez to it, his schedule packed since returning from sick leave.

  Tovar locked his front door and made his way down the quiet sidewalk to the lot where he kept his car. The streets in his area were clogged with automobiles, making parking impossible in front of his house. The air felt sticky and thick, and his skin seemed to be coated with a fine dusting of grime by the time he made it to his vehicle – one of his few luxuries, an Audi A7 sedan that would do zero to a hundred kilometers in just over five seconds.

  He waved to the attendant and continued into the depths of the three-level garage as he checked his email on his phone. Sensitive communications were routed to his work computer, but still, he routinely had to field twenty or more queries every morning before hitting the office.

  The car chirped at him as he neared. He tossed his briefcase on the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel, and paused to check his shave again in the rearview mirror – a neurotic habit like many others that had grown on him over time, like moss on a mature tree.

  The Audi exploded in a blast of orange flame, lifting all four wheels off the ground in a shower of fire and shattered glass, and the chassis distended like a pregnant Dachshund as the surrounding vehicles’ alarms sounded.

  By the time the fire trucks had stifled the blaze, there was little left but the smoldering frame. A later examination would locate enough of Tovar’s dental plate lodged in the blackened dashboard to make a positive ID. His passing warranted two inches in Mexico City’s second largest paper, which described him as a career bureaucrat with the Ministry of the Interior, and it would be a week before the forensics report came back and confirmed trace elements of C-4 plastic explosive in the twisted wreckage. None of which made it to the media, which had already moved on to other news.

  ~ ~ ~

  El Rey sat in the living room with his computer on his lap, speakers on, munching on a corn tortilla. Classical music filled the room as he tapped in a query. Carla came down the stairs and eyed him before moving into the kitchen to get coffee. When she’d filled her cup, she sat at the dining table, staring at him.

  “What is that you’re listening to?” she asked.

  “Bach. Cello Suite in D Minor.”

  “It’s depressing. Like a requiem.”

  “I like it,” he said and returned his focus to the screen.

  She’d caught a prop plane out of Ciudad Constitución that had taken her as far as Culiacán, and then an evening flight to Mexico City. They’d both managed to evade any roadblocks, and he’d theorized that the local police had been caught flat-footed – La Paz didn’t see the violence that mainland Mexico did, so when something big hit, reaction times were glacial as lazy and apathetic cops scrambled to remember what real police behaved like.

  Cruz appeared in the stairwell and sniffed the air. “Smells promising. Coffee and…?”

  “So far just coffee,” Carla said.

  “There are tortillas on the counter,” El Rey said.

  Carla glanced at Cruz. “Come on. I’ll make some eggs and fix a proper breakfast. You can’t live on tortillas alone. At least I can’t.”

  El Rey shut off his computer and went upstairs while Carla worked in the kitchen. He turned on the cell phone he used to communicate with CISEN, and dialed Rodriguez’s number via Skype so the phone’s location couldn’t be traced. When Rodriguez answered, he still sounded congested, but alert.

  “Bueno.”

  “Rodriguez. I think I’ve figured out some of what this train wreck is all about, but it’s not ironclad proof yet.” The assassin paused. “In the meantime, if you’re telling the truth about CISEN having no part in this, that only leaves whoever is in the chain of command beneath you as possible culprits. I’d start with Tovar. He doesn’t strike me as particularly stern stuff.”

  “Yes, well, it’ll be hard to do that. His car blew up this morning, with him in it.”

  El Rey digested the news. “Who else is in the command chain?”

  “Bernardo.”

  “Only Bernardo? Nobody else?”

  “Are you hard of hearing today?”

  “Then he’s your man. I’d do round-the-clock surveillanc
e and scrutinize every record you can find. Especially bank records. Unless you want me to use my powers of persuasion to interrogate him.”

  Rodriguez’s tone was flat. “Thanks for the tips on fieldcraft. And no, that won’t be necessary. I’m not going to okay you doing anything to my staff.”

  “Very noble, but he’s the only one left, which means he’s orchestrated the deaths of at least eight people, counting myself. If you’re not going to put the screws to him, it’s my ass on the line, so I will.”

  Rodriguez let out an exasperated sigh. “We’re not stupid, you know. I’ve had them both under surveillance since our discussion.”

  “And?”

  “And so far, nothing.” Rodriguez paused. “It occurs to me that if you wanted to eliminate your handlers so you could point to them as the culprits, something like a car bomb would be the way to go.”

  “You can’t think I had anything to do with Tovar.”

  “I don’t know what to think. But I do know that you haven’t proved anything, and now one of the possibly guilty players is a smudge. Convenient for you, isn’t it?”

  “Convenient in the sense that I don’t get my antidote because you’re blackmailing me? Or convenient in some other way that escapes me?”

  “You mentioned learning the motivation for the killings?”

  “That’s right. It involves a lawsuit.” El Rey told him about the farmer’s case. “As to Vega, she’s targeted because she’s nosy and was digging into the admiral and Perry. Cruz is a little more complicated, but I think he witnessed a meeting he wasn’t supposed to.”

  “Wait – so you’re saying that whoever is doing this not only has co-opted CISEN senior staff but is ordering hits because someone might have seen something?”

  El Rey described the carjacking with the archbishop. Rodriguez said nothing and then cleared his throat.

  “When did you discover this?”

  “It’s not important. What’s important is that I did.”

  When El Rey hung up, Rodriguez didn’t sound swayed, but it was obvious that his mental gears were meshing. Only not enough to authorize the injection. That would require something more than supposition and theory, which Rodriguez had more than made clear.

  El Rey returned to the ground floor just as Cruz was hanging up his burner cell phone. He glanced up at the stairs, an excited look on his hangdog face.

  “Lieutenant Briones got a match on the sketch. It’s a real estate developer named Jacinto Ynez. Out of Guadalajara. There were eight other possibles, but nobody else that fit the profile.”

  “How is he involved? Any idea?” El Rey asked.

  Carla moved to the stairs. “I’ll be right back. I want to get my computer. Two screens are better than one.”

  El Rey approached his laptop and powered it back to life. “We’ll see what Carla can come up with. Meanwhile, I have my own resources.”

  Carla returned a minute later and sat near the assassin. The two of them were silent as they scoured the internet for information on the developer, and at the end of an hour Carla stood and stretched. “I need to make some calls.”

  Cruz glanced at her. “About?”

  “I want to check a theory of mine. To do that, I need to talk to a friend of my father.”

  “Care to share?”

  She smiled. “He’s a career naval officer. Not a huge fan of our admiral, but it’s a big navy. He’s stationed in Veracruz, but he might be able to verify what I think might be going on.”

  El Rey eyed her. “Which is?”

  “I don’t want to distract you. Continue doing whatever you’re doing, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  Both men watched her move to the stairs and take them two at a time. Cruz exchanged a glance with the assassin. “Quite a woman, isn’t she?”

  El Rey returned to the screen. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Chapter 53

  Dinner that evening was a celebratory affair. The identification of Ynez had boosted everyone’s sense of purpose. Cruz had gone to a nearby taqueria and bought a kilo of barbequed steak accompanied by grilled onions and charro beans, and after changing his dressings, El Rey joined Carla and Cruz at the table.

  “How’s the healing going?” Carla asked as she nibbled on an onion.

  “I’ve been through worse.”

  “Any sign of infection?” Cruz asked.

  “No. I’ll live,” El Rey said.

  Carla’s phone rang, and she leapt to get it. She had a hushed discussion in the kitchen and frowned when she hung up.

  “What?” Cruz asked.

  She sauntered back to the table and sat down slowly, her brow furrowed. She gazed at the food absently and flipped her computer open, lost in her inner world. Cruz glanced at El Rey. The assassin shrugged and kept eating. Carla would tell them when she was ready. Fifteen minutes later the spell broke, and she was all smiles again. El Rey looked at her with a quizzical expression.

  “Well?”

  “That was my friend from the navy. A big project was recently approved to put a naval base on the Pacific coast of Baja, in between Magdalena Bay and Cabo San Lucas, at a place called Punta Conejo. It’ll transform the area – they’re going to create a harbor, bring in power and water, paved roads, infrastructure… And get this. Admiral Torreon was absolutely against the project. In fact, he was the main opponent, and since it’s on the Pacific coast, it needed his blessing, which he continually refused to give because he didn’t agree that there would be any benefit to Mexico. The base would really be a concession to the United States, to help with their war on drugs – to allow Mexican naval ships and helicopters to work the shipping lanes up the coast.”

  “Why would he be against that?”

  “He didn’t see why Mexico should have to spend billions to fight the U.S.’s battles. His view was nationalistic – that if the Americans can’t keep their population from being the largest consumers of drugs in the world, they can foot the bill to try to stop them, not us.” She paused. “He viewed it as a demand issue, not a supply issue.”

  El Rey nodded. “And now that he’s out of the way…”

  “Exactly. It’s been fast-tracked.”

  “That will completely change the value of the surrounding land, I’d imagine,” El Rey said. “The difference between arid land without power or water and a new harbor with all the amenities is incalculable.”

  Cruz frowned. “Sounds like Ynez got a heads-up.”

  “It happens.” She gave the assassin a sidelong glance. “Why do you look so pleased with yourself?”

  El Rey eyed her. “Is it that obvious? I went into the government’s central database and researched the parcel that the ejido owns to see if there was anything that might shed more light on the farmer’s lawsuit. Turns out it’s in escrow.” He waited a beat for the information to sink in. “To a company that’s a subsidiary of Ynez’s development corporation.”

  Carla’s eyes widened. “If there’s a dispute over the title, it could jeopardize his entire project, especially if the claim was legitimate. Banks don’t like to fund things that could turn out to be vapor. But with the farmer dead, that problem goes away…”

  Cruz began pacing, a habit that was by now familiar to them all. “And the actor’s charity?”

  “What do you want to bet that the stretch of shoreline the parcel fronts onto is one of the beaches the charity committed to protecting? I’ll go look up the details, but I remember it was concerned about the Pacific coast.” Carla smiled at Cruz. “Did you know that a sea turtle will return to the beach where it was born, thousands of miles, no matter where in the ocean it is, when it’s time to lay eggs? Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, doesn’t matter. The turtle will find its way back, every time, to within yards of where it hatched. If it’s a hatchery, development of that beach with hotels and condos and timeshares would destroy the habitat. Perry, for all his faults, was committed to lobbying to make it off-limits to ever develop in those areas.”

  El Rey turned t
o Carla, a contemplative expression in his eyes. “It would make sense – that’s why he had to go. With nobody really high profile and passionate about the issue, it dies with him.”

  They fell silent, the food largely forgotten. Cruz shook his head. “I still don’t understand the archbishop. That makes no sense.”

  El Rey motioned at his computer with his water bottle. “Of course it does. He was big on ensuring that developers didn’t take advantage of the little guy. What do you think his reaction would have been to the ejido selling its land at giveaway prices to a developer who then saw a windfall because he had access to inside information? The archbishop was popular and influential enough to create real problems.”

  “He sure was,” Carla agreed. “And you’ll note that his replacement shares exactly none of those ideals. He couldn’t dismantle his predecessor’s work fast enough and pimp his own pet causes. Want to bet there’s a bonus in it for him somewhere down the road from Ynez?”

  “The naval base brings it all into focus,” Cruz said in a low tone and then his demeanor brightened. “Carla, you’re a genius. Without that piece, it might have taken us months to put this together on our own. Months we don’t have. We’d have had to wait until the base became public knowledge to make the connection.” He looked away. “Assuming we were still alive.”

  El Rey took a swig from his water bottle. “Slim chance of that without my injection,” he said.

  “Which you’ll get now, won’t you?” Carla asked.

  The assassin shook his head. “This isn’t proof. It’s all circumstantial. Compelling, sure. But it’s not evidence. If I’m going to get CISEN to honor its commitment, I need more. I know Rodriguez. He’ll stall to buy himself time to check everything, and each day I go without my shot I lose the ground I gained over the last two injections.”

  “But he can’t deny you with all this…” Carla protested.

  “Sure he can. He thinks I may have killed one of his men. I read the report he’s working from – it looked pretty ugly. I can understand his thinking. He doesn’t know what to believe, and he’s a company man, so he’ll waffle. Which is dangerous for me. But he’s got me over a barrel. What choice do I have but to wait?”