King of Swords (Assassin series #1)

by Russell Blake

  Two SUVs pulled alongside the helicopter. The occupants alighted – Felipe Zariana, General of Legal Affairs; José Salamanca, Director of Social Communications; René Cantantore, Lieutenant General, and a group of military personnel and secretaries. The flight would transport nine including the pilot, who was a veteran of fifteen years of flying. Collectively, the group represented the top brass in the government’s war against the cartels, and there was excitement in the air – Morales was about to unveil a brave new strategy to cut the criminal syndicates off at the knees.

  That it would be effective was without question. After years of half measures, someone had finally decided to get serious and cut the heads off the snakes. It was ironic that the fatal blow would come from a native of one of the most violent cartel towns. Morales had come a long way since his humble working-class beginnings in Tijuana, and represented the best hope the Mexicans had for decisive victory against the predatory miscreants who were crippling the nation.

  The chopper’s blades picked up speed as the pilot prepared for takeoff. In the post-dawn light, the fog was a thick gray blanket over the airfield, but wouldn’t pose any problems for the flight – the helicopter was equipped with all the latest electronics and could easily fly completely blind, as it often did in the dead of night. The distinctive thwack thwack of the rotor was muffled by the dense haze as the pilot executed the final checks to verify all was operating correctly. Satisfied, he increased the RPMs of the massive turbine, and the craft lifted skyward, its lights blinking as it disappeared into the cloud.

  Seven minutes later, air traffic control lost track of the flight, which had been given priority status given its payload. After several attempts to contact the pilot, aircraft were scrambled to trace the travel route and check for an accident.

  The pilot of one of the reconnaissance helicopters radioed in. “Tower, this is flight three-oh-seven. We have visual on a crash site near the side of a hill at grid fourteen. Repeat. We have wreckage at grid fourteen. Requesting permission to set down and evaluate.”

  “Roger that. You have permission. All other choppers proceed to grid fourteen.”

  The pilot nosed his craft down, landing near the mangled remains of Morales’ last flight, knowing intuitively from its condition that nobody had walked away. Small fires gave out swirls of black smoke from the devastation; the metal skeleton of the conveyance was twisted beyond recognition, and there had been at least one explosion when the chopper had crashed. After a few minutes walking the perimeter, he reported his findings, then gazed skyward as more helicopters carefully dropped through the now-receding fog, the only task remaining was to scrape up the pieces.

  The man watched through binoculars as the crash site was secured by the military and took a photo with his phone to send to the client. This was a contract he’d been instructed not to take credit for, which was fine by him. El Rey already had enough press to last a lifetime, so the hit’s conditions worked for him – it had been laughably easy to plant a small amount of explosive near the rotor coupling, detonated with a high frequency transmitter when it came into range. He eschewed using cell phones for triggers; there was always the chance of reception getting blocked or that cell service was spotty – a nearly constant issue in Mexico. Or worse, if a wrong number or text message came in, it could ruin a carefully plotted plan because of a random misdialed digit.

  Five million dollars richer, he rolled up the tinted window of his stolen Nissan Pathfinder and continued down the rural road, away from Mexico City and the slew of emergency vehicles he knew weren’t far behind.

  ~ ~ ~

  Present Day

  The following afternoon, Cruz called an all-hands meeting for his squad chiefs in the big headquarters conference room. When he walked in, carrying foils for the overhead projector, the suite was nearly filled to capacity. The murmur of conversation quickly died, and when Cruz took the floor he had everyone’s attention.

  He nodded at Briones, who extinguished the lights, and fiddled with the rear of the projector until it displayed a bright white square on the wall. He pulled the top foil from the protective folder and placed it on the display screen. The sketch of Briones’ vagrant sprang larger than life on the far wall.

  “This is a depiction of the assassin known as El Rey. To the best of our belief, this is a good likeness, or as good as we’ll get until he’s lying on a slab in the morgue,” Cruz began. The gathered officers tittered and breathed a few hushed discussions before silence fell again.

  “As you may know, El Rey is responsible for a host of executions and assassinations, most recently of the politician known as El Gallo. He’s expanded his reach beyond the drug cartels, which appeared to be his specialty until recently, and is now believed to be actively targeting political figures as well. The chances of El Gallo being a singularity are slim,” Cruz assured them.

  “As part of our ongoing sting operations against cartel members in Mexico City, we recently held a raid on a warehouse where the leader of the Knights Templar cartel was meeting with some local traffickers. The information that led us to him came through our intelligence network on the street, as part of our plainclothes undercover project. When the smoke cleared, we had captured the top man: our target, Jorge Santiago – one of the most vicious psychopaths operating in Mexico.” Cruz removed the foil with El Rey on it, and replaced it with a photo of Santiago. “We sustained casualties during the raid, and Santiago wound up being the only survivor of the assault. He subsequently went into a coma and died, but not before he boasted of hiring El Rey to assassinate our president, as well as the president of the United States.”

  The assembled officers burst into animated discussion, and Cruz nodded at Briones. The lights flickered back on, and Cruz held up his hands in a bid for order. The hubbub eventually subsided, allowing Cruz to continue with his presentation.

  “I’ll be happy to answer questions after I’m through. Here’s what you need to know. First, we have no proof that Santiago’s claims are true, so we can’t expect any support from the other branches of law enforcement or our intelligence agency. Second, I believe that the threat is genuine. We were able to locate the man we believe was El Rey’s representative – his agent, if you will, who purportedly interviewed prospective customers and dealt with them on behalf of El Rey – Jaime Tortora was murdered on the morning we were scheduled to meet with him, posing as interested clients.” Cruz nodded at Briones to shut off the lights again. Cruz slid a foil with a driver’s license photo of Tortora on the projector.

  “This man owned a pawn shop downtown. I stated that Tortora was believed to be the agent because we found nothing when we searched the crime scene. Yet I’m confident he was involved with El Rey, given the method and timing of his execution. He was sliced nearly in half with a Japanese katana – the sword used by Samurai warriors in prior centuries. Now, it may be coincidence that the ‘King of Swords’ was represented by a man who was killed with a sword, but that seems more like the poetic gesture of a deranged mind. It’s a given it would hold significance for a killer who had chosen the moniker King of Swords for himself.” Cruz replaced the foil of Tortora’s headshot with a photo of the corpse. The room fidgeted nervously – even seasoned veterans of the drug wars, who’d seen countless decapitated bodies, were somewhat affected by the grisly image.

  “Before I open the floor up for questions, I want to make a few comments. I know our charter is to go after the cartels. I understand our mission, better than most, and I further can see how it could appear that these events aren’t our concern – the President has his own security forces responsible for his safety, and the American president has his Secret Service. So why should we stick our noses where they don’t belong? The answer is, in my mind, simple. Because we’re the only agency preventing the cartels from taking over Mexico; and an assassination of our president would represent a catastrophic blow to the rule of law. Our job is to fight the cartels, and if this plot is real, it represents a new stage in ou
r war against them.” Cruz stopped to take a swig of water before finishing. “I believe that this assassination attempt will take place at the upcoming G-20 financial summit in Los Cabos. That’s the only time the American president will be on Mexican soil this year. The summit is in four weeks, so we have no time to waste.” Cruz took a deep breath as he observed the rapt attention of his men.

  “This scheme is the ultimate expression of evil from men who peddle death, and behave like barbarians – like animals. I don’t personally care whether our bureaucratic security force figures out that an assassin is planning to kill the President. I have already done as much, and I plan to act accordingly. And I’m asking for your cooperation. I need everyone to shift their focus and make this the priority in the days ahead. I’ll have meetings with each of you to lay out plans of action, but I want everyone to understand what we’re up against so I have your support. Thank you.” Cruz took another sip of water, then sat down in a chair at the head of the long conference table. “Questions?”

  A chorus of voices clamored for attention, and Cruz motioned for quiet. He pointed to a man at the far end of the table. “Arturo. Yes?”

  “Where did the image of El Rey come from, and are we working in conjunction with the task force that’s chartered with bringing him down?”

  “Good question. This image is based on a brief encounter by our own lieutenant, Fernando Briones, who all of you know. I’ve been in contact with the task force, but their success level to date, after years of working the case, has been less than spectacular. So while I’ll brief them periodically on our efforts, I believe that to involve them in our operation would be counterproductive at this stage. They’d just get in our way.”

  “And Briones is still alive to tell about it? What a lucky bastard,” Arturo quipped.

  “Yes, that’s probably true.” Cruz pointed at another man, a fat, balding fellow halfway down the table to his left. “Miguel?”

  “You mention that this is all theoretical. Do you anticipate getting any data that would make it move from theory to fact?” Miguel asked.

  “That’s the whole point of this operation, which I am naming ‘mongoose’. El Rey is a snake: clever, deadly and silent. We shall become the mongoose that finds and kills such snakes. We need to use all of our resources to get leads on where El Rey is, so we can neutralize him. I’ll go into more detail in our individual meetings, but for now, let me just say that I need everyone to mobilize their networks and support the effort to gather information that will lead to his capture.” Cruz pointed at a woman standing by the back wall with her hand raised. “Yes, Cynthia?”

  “Will we be working with CISEN any time soon on this? It seems that would be the appropriate group, given the threat to a foreign head of state.”

  “I’m hopeful we will. But it may be too little and too late. Our job is to build a case, which we will present at the appropriate time. So that’s what we’ll do.”

  The questions went on for another half hour, largely centering around logistical issues. Cruz patiently took all questions, answering them honestly, with no hiding from the tough ones or appealing to the authority of his position to justify his actions. This was a personal plea to his loyal staff, and they deserved to understand what he’d gotten them into.

  Cruz finished by referring them to Briones for scheduling and necessary materials, such as copies of the sketch, and a case summary. When he walked out of the room, the confidence he’d displayed evaporated, and only one thought raced through his mind. They had less than thirty days to catch the bastard – the blink of an eye.

  He’d never admit it, but he didn’t like their odds.

  Chapter 13

  The next morning, Cruz began his one-on-one meetings and the day lurched along in a predictably painful manner. Answering the same questions over and over, fielding the doubts many had about the validity of the operation, advising how to proceed from their current position, which amounted to being dead in the water.

  Cruz wanted to allocate resources to the two most promising areas – Los Cabos, where the summit was going to be hosted, and Culiacan – the drug capital of Mexico. It was possible El Rey was holed up in a cabin by a lake somewhere, but if Cruz was El Rey, he’d be in Los Cabos at some point, scoping out the lay of the land and devising a plan of attack.

  Accordingly, he called the Federales outpost there and alerted them to the situation, adding that he would be deploying resources within the next week to establish an operational base in the area. The officer in charge didn’t sound too thrilled – Cruz wouldn’t have been happy either, were situations reversed. Cops were territorial, so an incursion by outside parties was never appreciated. He understood the reception to his team would be less than ideal, but his job wasn’t to make friends; it was to battle the cartels.

  Los Cabos consisted of the two towns, Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo, and was off the radar of the cartels, other than as an attractive money laundering destination. The issue was one of geography. Drugs were not shipped from the mainland on the ferry, because they’d have to run a gauntlet of almost a thousand miles of military checkpoints on the only road that stretched north to the border. The only other way of getting there was by plane. So the cartels just used the location to wash cash. Cabo was a ghost town, filled with large restaurants and clubs that were devoid of clientele, yet managed to turn huge profits year round. Some of the hotels were the same way – five percent occupancy at best, and yet wildly lucrative.

  Cruz recalled, from the six weeks he’d spent in Los Barriles wasting away, that you could walk down the street at three a.m., drunk as a lord, and nobody would bother you. There was just no crime to speak of. The Federales in San José del Cabo were the equivalent of the Highway Patrol, cruising the highways and cleaning up after accidents, issuing the occasional speeding ticket when money was tight or Christmas was coming. Their ability to do anything meaningful in terms of real law enforcement or preventative action to deter a professional like El Rey was effectively nil, so they’d be of no use to Cruz.

  He intended to fly a group of six into Los Cabos, who would put out feelers in the community and work with the existing infrastructure of police as they searched for signs of El Rey, without arousing undue attention. Technically, he didn’t have jurisdiction anywhere outside of Mexico City, but his mandate from the President carried with it the ability to commandeer resources anywhere in the country, and to extend his reach should it be required. In this case, Cruz had made the judgment call that it was necessary – he’d worry about documenting the details later.

  Cruz wished he could go directly to the President and voice his concerns, but he didn’t have any relationship there. When he told criminals the President had given him the power to do as he liked, a more accurate description was that the President created his job and imbued it with that power, and then Cruz had been awarded the position. The truth was that he’d never been within a quarter mile of the President in his life.

  No, he was effectively on his own on this one, and he knew it. His staff had continued to give him their support, for which he was grateful, and he had a larger group of officers at his disposal than any other agency, so he was hopeful that would be sufficient.

  Briones stretched his arms and yawned, three quarters of the way through the day and four more meetings to go. “Have you asked yourself what the political consequences would be of the President being assassinated? I mean, we’re assuming this is some sort of a vanity play on Santiago’s part, but what about if it’s more subtle than that?” he asked Cruz, who was brewing coffee on his side table.

  “Well, if the President is killed, leadership shifts to the Secretary of the Interior – the equivalent of the speaker of the house,” Cruz explained.

  “Wasn’t he just killed in a plane crash?”

  “Helicopter. Outside of Mexico City. Last November eleventh, to be exact,” Cruz confirmed.

  Briones studied his boss, astonished at his recall. “How can you d
o that? Remember the date of something obscure?” he asked.

  “It’s not as hard as you’d think. His predecessor, the man who hired me for this position, died in another plane crash the same month, five years ago. A Lear jet that crashed into the heart of Mexico City. You probably heard about it,” Cruz reminded.

  “That’s right – I just didn’t remember who was on board. Seems like being Secretary of the Interior has a history of air accidents, doesn’t it? Am I just being paranoid, or is that another of those coincidences you don’t believe in?” Briones speculated.

  “The black boxes were taken off the jet to the U.S., but that’s the last I heard of it. Like so many cases, everyone just moved on to other things and the matter was forgotten. If there was foul play, the government is keeping a lid on it – so we’ll probably never know the truth. They wouldn’t like to advertise it, if the cartels had brought down the number two guy in the government. Bad press and all…” Cruz observed cynically.

  “If you’re offered a plane ride with the Secretary of the Interior, sounds like a polite, ‘No thanks, I’ll take the bus,’ might be better for your health, no?” Briones suggested.

  “Haven’t gotten that invite yet, but thanks for the tip,” Cruz quipped dryly. “So what else do we have for today?”

  “A few more meetings, but the lion’s share of the instructions have been handed out already. We’ll establish a hub in Los Cabos and begin surveillance on the site. We’ll also get a few undercover operatives to burrow around the strip joints and barrio drug-dealing areas to probe for chatter.”