Chapter 5
The man reclined in the dilapidated dentist chair as the tattoo artist poured ink into small plastic cups. The walls were painted a lurid burgundy, with swirls of black intermingled to create a gothic effect. Dim lighting was provided by tin pails hanging upside down from the ceiling, with light fixtures mounted within them. On the street outside, a boisterous group of drunk revelers made their way to one of the clubs on the main drag; loud peals of female laughter were punctuated by slurred male Gringo voices shouting, “Tequila!” He caught a glimpse of the group through the shop window – two brunette women in their thirties wearing shorts that were misguidedly optimistic as to how time had favored their physiques, and a younger redhead in a jean mini-skirt accented by a white ‘wife-beater’ undershirt tied provocatively to highlight her pierced navel. The men were universally cut from the same bolt – overweight, red-faced, wearing baseball caps and colored T-shirts with fishing logos on them. All had been out in the sun for far longer than advisable – their skin color varied from salmon to lobster-toned.
The man guessed they’d been fishing all day, given the distinctive pale outline where their sunglasses had rested on their faces. Fishing, of course, being a euphemism for guzzling beer and tequila while going for a boat ride. This was the typical weekend crowd, in town to let their hair down and misbehave like they couldn’t back home.
“Quite a night, huh, Jefe?” the tattoo artist commented in a tone that belied a complete lack of interest in any response. He was just making idle chatter while he prepared the drawing and busied himself removing the sterilized tattoo gun tip from the sealed paper envelope. His Spanish accent placed him as Argentinean. Not unusual in Mexico, because when people emigrated from Argentina, they generally went to countries where Spanish was the native language.
Sinewy muscles rippled under the artist’s gaunt forearms, which were covered from the wrists to his shoulders in vividly-articulated tattoos, as was his neck. His nose was pierced and held a stainless steel horseshoe suspended from the columella, complimented by the rows of studs that adorned both ears from top to bottom, visible because his two feet of dyed black hair was tied back in a ponytail. The squalid ambience of the little place was fortified by the speed-metal of Slayer blasting from the overhead stereo speakers, which was in keeping with the shop’s name: Metal Ink.
“How long will this take?” the man asked impatiently.
“Figure an hour and a half to two hours. Two to be safe. Why, you got somewhere pressing you need to be?” the tattoo artist replied.
“Nah. Just want to know what to expect.”
“It will hurt a little, but shouldn’t be too bad. This area of the chest isn’t nearly as sensitive as a lot of areas I’ve done,” the artist said, with a suggestive leer that revealed decaying teeth and badly receded gums – telltale signs of a chemical romance with methamphetamines.
“I’m not worried about it.”
“You want a shot of meanstreak before I get going?” the artist asked, gesturing with his head at a bottle of Chinaco tequila sitting on the small bar that was part of the establishment’s limited charms. Several shot glasses were aligned next to it, like small glass soldiers standing at the ready.
“No. I’m good,” the man replied.
“Suit yourself.”
The artist sterilized the spot on the man’s bare chest where he’d indicated he wanted the tat and pulled a disposable razor from a drawer in the small stainless steel work table. He thumbed the plastic blade cover into the garbage and quickly shaved the area, then applied some neutral deodorant so the artwork would leave a clear impression. Satisfied with his work, he held up the stencil and placed it carefully on the newly shaved area, just above the left nipple on the pectoral muscle. When he removed it, he tossed it into the wastebasket and applied a film of ointment over the blue outline, humming to himself in time with the incomprehensible noise blaring from the stereo. After inspecting his handiwork with satisfaction, he opened a package of surgical gloves and expertly pulled them over his dexterous fingers. Grinning again, he looked at the man and rubbed his latex-sheathed hands together with anticipation.
“So now we begin,” he said, grasping the tattoo gun and activating it.
The high-pitched hum of the gun droned against the machine-gun bursts of staccato guitar riffs as the artist swiveled his stool and wheeled to the man’s side.
From the trash bin, the watchful eye of the crow depicted on the stencil seemed to follow the artist’s movements as he lowered the gun to skin and started to draw.
Cruz had called a meeting with CISEN to inform them of his suspicions, but it wasn’t exactly going as planned. He’d dutifully driven to their headquarters and was escorted to a conference room, where he’d waited impatiently for half an hour before four men emerged from the large building’s cavernous depths. Nobody had apologized for being late, although they’d been polite enough, at least in the beginning.
The bonhomie had quickly degraded into an adversarial exchange that hadn’t gone anywhere good.
“Hmmm, yes, well, I see how you could draw that inference, but the problem is that you have not one iota of evidence to support your, hmm, intellectual leap,” the oldest of the men and the director of the agency, Armando Serrate, pointed out.
“I understand. But I’m telling you that standing in the room with the man…it wasn’t something he just tossed off. He was telling me, no, he was bragging, that he was going to kill the President and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. He didn’t seem to care whether I knew. That’s part of what makes me uncomfortable. He was convinced it would happen no matter what steps were taken because of the assassin involved. El Rey,” Cruz repeated.
“Yes. We heard you the first time. But all of this is purely guesswork on your part, gut feel, if you like, absent any proof. Would you agree with that?” Serrate’s right hand man, Guillermo Trudo, asked.
“I’m currently gathering evidence, gentlemen. But the man’s dying statement, coupled with the mention of El Rey, should give you all pause for concern,” Cruz fired back.
“Capitan Cruz, while I appreciate you coming to us with your, hmm, theories, I think we’re probably better equipped to gauge what should concern us than you are,” Serrate declared.
“You can’t discount this. We’re talking about a plot to assassinate the President, confirmed by a cartel chief,” Cruz insisted.
“Who are well known for their veracity, I’m sure. Look, you told us that this man, Santiago, died of a brain injury, correct? How do you know that his flight of fancy wasn’t an early sign of his brain malfunctioning? Or that he wasn’t simply lying in order to torment you, or so he’d appear to have some valuable information to bargain with?” Trudo reasoned.
“You weren’t there. You didn’t look into his eyes,” Cruz said, feeling lame even as he uttered the words. “I know how far-fetched this sounds, but the summit is only five weeks away so we don’t have a lot of time. I could use your help. You have resources I don’t. You can partner with the Americans, and use technology we don’t have, to pinpoint this man–”
“Yes, I’m quite sure the National Security Agency will be anxious to step in and assist the Mexican government with their domestic murder-for-hire problem,” Serrate offered, glancing at his associates in an openly skeptical manner. His tone softened. “You have a hard job, Cruz. We all do. If you get some concrete evidence that there’s a plot, you’re welcome back to present it to us, and we’ll be happy to hear it. But right now, you have nothing. You have a hunch, yes? And we don’t trade in hunches, hmm, when discussing our business with the Americans. They already think we’re a bunch of savages due to the drug violence – we don’t need to add superstitious fools to their list, you see?”
“So this is all about how you’re afraid it might look to your counterparts in the U.S.? Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? This isn’t my first week on the job, and–”
“Nor is it mine, Capitan. Do you have any idea how m
any false alarms or threats against the President’s life we field in any given month? No. You probably don’t. Let’s just say it’s a fair number, and that most are more solid than what you’ve brought.” Serrate pushed back his chair and prepared to terminate the meeting. “Thank you for coming, and stay in touch – keep us up to date on any progress, hmm, yes? We’ll take the El Rey matter under advisement and enact appropriate safeguards. Now, perhaps you can go back to solving the nation’s drug crisis, and we can return to our humble tasks…”
“You’re making a horrible mistake,” Cruz, furious, managed through clenched teeth.
“Noted, Capitan, noted. Now, if there isn’t anything else, Trudo here can show you the way out,” Serrate said.
“I know the way. I found my way in, didn’t I? Oh, and I hope you don’t mind if I contact the American Secret Service and alert them to my suspicions, all right? Perhaps they would be more receptive than you,” Cruz threw out as his final leverage.
“Well, Capitan, if you think that they’ll be any more courteous or receptive to your baseless suppositions and wild theories than we were, by all means, embarrass yourself further. But my advice is to wait until you have something besides emotion to contact them with, or you’re quite likely to be laughed out of the room, or treated like a slow child. I deal with them on a regular basis, and you can trust me when I tell you they won’t be nearly as gracious,” Serrate warned.
Cruz stalked out of the building, fuming at the treatment. He’d never been so humiliated in twenty-something years as a Federal. These arrogant pricks had acted as if his interrogation evaluation was toilet paper, unworthy of their time.
He started the Charger engine and sat staring at the wall of the building, thinking. He needed to come up with some evidence, and quickly, or nobody would take anything he said about El Rey seriously. The problem was that, if his hunch – okay, he’d concede they were correct on that – was right, by the time they got something solid it could be weeks from now, which would put them all at a tremendous disadvantage. Cruz knew that if a trained assassin was hell-bent on taking out a head of state, and was willing to die in the process, then it was practically impossible to stop him – he’d heard that again and again as a police officer, and later, as a detective. So the more preparation, the more of an edge they had.
But nobody was going to put any credence in his theories – certainly not if it meant humiliation if they were wrong. It was far more prudent for a bureaucrat to take a conservative stance, even if it meant endangering the President. Cruz wondered if they would have been so nonchalant if it had been their son or daughter who was in danger of being killed, but still…he was arguing a loser, until he had proof.
Maybe he would still go to the NSA or the Secret Service, but only once he’d done some more homework. In a way, Serrate had done him a favor. He had forced Cruz to build a real case if he was going to be taken seriously. Cruz had hoped to sidestep that process and fast-track some action, forgetting everything he knew about human nature and the way that the system worked. He couldn’t afford to make the same mistake twice.
Swinging out of the parking area, he almost collided with a woman pushing a baby stroller, chatting on her cell phone. His brakes locked, causing his tires to screech to a stop, inches from the pair.
Shaken, he waved in apology. The woman gave him a look that could cut glass.
He needed to cool down. Being angry because his colleagues hadn’t embraced his ideas was a luxury he couldn’t afford. His strength lay in being analytical and thorough, not in being a cowboy. Serrate was right.
Cruz needed proof.
And he needed it now.
He stabbed a speed dial button on his cell phone as he pulled into traffic. Briones answered on the second ring.
“It didn’t go well,” Cruz reported.
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir. How should we proceed from here? Did they give you any guidance or suggestions?”
“Yes. We need to get something tangible. So it’s of paramount importance that the men working the streets understand they are to have virtually unlimited resources. If they need to offer money to curry favor or to get someone to talk, bring me the request. I don’t care what it takes, but we need to stir the pot and shake something loose. Pass that on to Roto and Brava. Tell them I want them to do whatever it takes. Use those exact words, Lieutenant,” Cruz emphasized.
“Whatever it takes. Got it. Are you coming back in to the office?”
Cruz peered at the digital clock on the dash. It was already five-thirty. By the time he got to the office in traffic, it would be six or later.
Then again, what did he really have waiting for him at home?
“Yes. I’ll be there shortly. You don’t need to wait for me. Get some sleep, chase women or whatever you young men do, and I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”
Chapter 6
Sinaloa, Mexico - 1986
The midnight horizon glowed with leaping licks of fire as the meager improvised tarpaper shacks around the hidden field blazed. Dense, acrid smoke belched into the night sky, carrying with it all the earthly possessions of the simple farming family huddled together, their wrists bound with plastic ties, the children sobbing as they watched their home vaporize. A pair of armed men stood next to a lifted four-wheel drive pickup truck, watching the blaze as they shared a bottle of mescal while admiring their destructive handiwork.
The mother tried in vain to comfort her panicked children – two little girls and a small boy – as the father mumbled a prayer to the Virgin of Guadalupe, who had been conspicuously absent in assisting him this year. He’d planted a cash crop instead of tomatoes – marijuana bringing with it a substantial premium over the edible harvest he’d always grown in the past. He’d needed the money for his youngest girl’s operation, to repair a congenital deformity; Michelle had been born with a cleft palate that would limit her chances in life due to the effect on her appearance. He had realized that cultivating cannabis carried a risk, because the other drug growers and their distribution network didn’t want competition, but he hoped to be able to get away with it this one year, and then go back to tomato farming.
The farmer’s luck had been bad ever since the arrival of his newborn two years ago. First there was her birth defect, then a bad harvest, and just a few months ago, news that another baby was on the way. More mouths to feed diminished the miracle of birth somewhat. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his children, but the financial pressure was immense, and the last thing he needed was another one. And in the back of his mind lurked a darkness – what if this one also had some problem; an even more expensive one to care for? He’d tried to banish the thoughts, but they had recurred and grown to dominate his days.
Two of the men approached – rough looking, wearing cowboy hats and carrying pistols. These were the foot soldiers of the local distribution network; in 1986, there was only one cartel, operated by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, also known as The Godfather, who lived in nearby Culiacan and controlled all drug traffic of any note in Mexico. Everyone answered to him, including these men. In a few years, Gallardo would divide up the country and create a more fragmented cartel scheme, dolling out territories like a multi-level marketing magnate, but at this point, he alone was the ultimate authority, with close friends and family members handling the local day-to-day operations.
The mother pleaded frantically with the two men to forgive them, to at least release the children – they were helpless babies, the boy the oldest at five years old. One of the men backhanded her, splitting her cheek open. The father begged for them to show mercy in a keening burst of rapid Spanish, his tense formal and respectful of their obvious dominance. He acknowledged that he knew it was wrong to grow marijuana without their consent, but there was the baby’s operation to consider, and to please, in the name of all that was holy, not punish the innocent for his bad judgment.
The men were unsympathetic, and drunk, flushed with the power of life and death over
their miserable captives. The distraught children were dressed in rags, and the parents weren’t much better – their poverty and desperation was palpable.
The heavier of the two men moved towards the kneeling prisoners and kicked the two year old in the head with his heavy cowboy boots. The snap of her neck was audible; the additional blows with his heel unnecessary. The mother shrieked in blind rage, screaming her baby’s name into the deafness of the night. The two men laughed drunkenly, and the kicker wiped the blood from his boot onto her tattered peasant dress before moving to the father and silencing his hoarse yells with a brutal pistol blow to the head. Dazed, he fell over, blood flowing freely from a gash in his scalp.
Grabbing the mother by the hair, they forced her to her feet, and the kicker tore at her dress. She struggled in protest, hysterical with grief and fear, and was rewarded for her efforts with a savage punch to the throat. The men hauled the now silenced woman off to a flat patch of dirt near the flaming main dwelling, and took turns raping her while the father and children watched helplessly.
Eventually tiring of the sport, they dragged her back to her now mute family and discarded her beside her toddler’s mutilated corpse. The woman had gone into shock, barely registering the abuse or the mangled body of her baby, her awareness shut down as a self-preservation mechanism for what remained of her psyche. She raised her head from the dirt, and in her delirium saw Satan dancing in the house’s flames; the dark one had come to claim them for his own.
The kicker moved to the little boy – the only one of the family who wasn’t crying. The child radiated a piercing look of pure hatred at the man, but there were no tears. Already, he’d been hardened by the demanding life on a rural farm, where he worked besides his father from dawn until dusk.
“Hey, look here, we have a tough guy, Hmm? What a tough character, this little cabron is, huh? He looks like he wants to kill me,” the man taunted, slurring as he waved the pistol in the boy’s face.
King of Swords (Assassin series #1) Page 8
