And something else.
Something astringent; a raspy chemical stink that burned his nostrils.
His pupils adjusted to the light, and he looked up at the ceiling, where a rope was suspended from an iron pipe that ran the width of the twelve foot area. Beneath it was a plastic twenty-five hundred liter cistern, its top crudely cut off, creating a five foot tall tub.
The smell drifted from the cistern.
He registered movement from his left side, and then two men grabbed his arms and lifted him roughly to his bare feet. That was when he saw the camera between the two spotlights.
The men’s faces were hidden by black knit balaclavas.
Judging by their clothes, they weren’t cops.
The truth slammed into him as they hauled him closer to the cistern, and he tried futilely to wriggle out of their grasp. The man who had slapped him swung the rope towards his head, and a leather-gloved hand grabbed it from behind him just before it struck him in the face. The men gripping him forced his arms above his head, and another captor latched the metal clasp at the end of the rope to the nylon rope securing his wrists.
The speaker circled to where Isidro could see his eyes burning from behind his mask.
“You know what? You stink. You have that Zeta smell I hate. Like feces smeared in fear. You need a bath.” He turned to the others. “How about that, eh? What do you think, muchachos? Does the dog need a bath, or what? Be careful you don’t get fleas or lice. He looks like he’s infested.”
Isidro cursed them, and then threatened, and finally begged.
It didn’t do any good.
It took fifteen minutes for the acid to finish him. The camera captured his repeated immersion in the vat, which caused him to literally melt from the neck down – but slowly. He survived eight dunkings, and when he finally burbled his death rattle, what was left of him hanging from the rope wasn’t so much human as a molten blob of raw meat with a head on it.
The video made its debut appearance on the web the following day, as a warning to those who tested Don Aranas’ patience. Even though there was no attribution for the footage, Isidro’s name and rank in Los Zetas was clearly marked below the final still shot of his lifeless face, distorted beyond all recognition by agony.
~
Conchita pulled away from Nuevo Laredo in her brand new Camaro convertible, glad to be rid of the city and on to greener pastures, a quarter million dollars richer as the shabby border town disappeared in her rearview mirror.
The offer had been too good to pass up, and even though the cartel captain had treated her well, it was too much to turn down. At least she wouldn’t have to suffer through his clumsy groping and his sagging physique any longer. With that kind of financial freedom she could get a new life, in the south, maybe Acapulco, where she’d been born to a Mexican mother and a Chinese father. She wouldn’t have to dance anymore. Maybe she’d open a little shop or find a good husband who could provide for her in the style to which she’d recently grown accustomed.
Or maybe she would stop in Mexico City first. There was a lot of money in DF, and her charms might command a far higher dowry than in Acapulco. Whatever the case, as the powerful engine revved under her reckless application of gas and she flew onto the highway, her long gleaming black hair tussled by the wind, she knew she was heading towards a better life. A different life.
The kind of life only money could buy.
Chapter 17
“He’s moving.”
“Roger that. Which direction? I don’t have a visual,” the driver responded, instantly alert.
“South-west.”
“Speed? Is he walking, or driving?” the driver demanded, straining to see. He nudged his partner into readiness and started the engine.
“Twenty-five kilometers per hour. Driving, I’d say. Now about two hundred and fifty yards south of you.”
“Got it. I have visual on the car.”
His partner peered at the Yaris through a pair of binoculars, trying to be inconspicuous in the late afternoon traffic. It had been a lousy stakeout so far, lasting all night and most of the next day, with the muggy heat delivering a lingering torture for the men stationed in the car a quarter block from the house in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. The assassin had stayed inside with the girl the entire time. They had snickered at that – he’d been in prison for almost four months and was probably making up for lost time.
“He must be lying down in the back seat. I make out the driver’s head, but it’s hard – her windows are tinted nearly black.”
They pulled into traffic and weaved through the maze of cars until they were a hundred yards behind the Toyota, after which they maintained their distance.
“They’re moving towards the highway. If they pull onto the onramp, it looks like they’re going to Comitán. That makes sense – isn’t he due there in a few hours?” the driver asked.
“Correct. Follow them until you’re certain they’re on their way. We can monitor the rest from here. There isn’t much on that road between you and Comitán. I think that’s what they’re up to.”
The surveillance team abandoned their pursuit at San Cristóbal de las Casas, a smaller town thirty miles east of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, on the road to Comitán.
The assassin was headed to his rendezvous point at the hotel, right on schedule. Mystery solved, and the surveillance effort a waste.
“Confirming we are discontinuing pursuit. He’s all yours now. There’s nowhere to go from here except Comitán, so you’re good,” the driver announced into his cell phone as he pulled to the side of the road.
“Roger. Go back to base and await instructions.”
“Will do.”
~
El Rey stepped out of the house and carried his bag to the Tsuru. Rudolfo had thoughtfully stocked the ancient refrigerator with food and beverages, anticipating that his client might not want to explore the town’s dining options. He unlocked the car and tossed the bag into the passenger seat, then moved back to the house’s front door and locked it, glancing around to confirm that he was alone. The location was perfect – isolated enough for his purposes, but close enough to the border to make it practical to get to.
The trip to the airport was uneventful, and thankfully the storm front that had brought intermittent rain the prior night and most of the morning had blown farther up the coast, so the late afternoon sky was clear. When he arrived at the airport parking lot, he left the car in the same spot as he had found it, then walked to the private plane area where Alvarez was completing his pre-flight checklist.
The pilot looked up when he sensed El Rey approaching across the tarmac and took a long pull on a liter bottle of water. Both men were sweating through their shirts and anxious to get off the boiling runway and into the relative comfort of the air.
“Right on time,” Alvarez commented by way of greeting.
El Rey handed him his duffel.
“Any questions from the cops or customs?” El Rey asked.
“Nope. Rudolfo took care of things.”
“How long till we can get out of here?”
“I’ll start the engine. We should be number one for takeoff. As you may have guessed, this isn’t a hot tourist spot.”
They climbed into the plane after Alvarez secured his bag, and the heat intensified fourfold in the tiny cockpit.
“Too bad they didn’t make these with air conditioning, eh?” Alvarez commented and then fiddled with a few levers. The engine sputtered, then roared to life, and within a few minutes they were rolling down the runway in preparation for takeoff.
El Rey glanced at his watch.
“Flight time?”
“Forty-five minutes, with a tailwind from the coast and God’s help. We’ll have to fly a little north to skirt the tallest of the mountains, so it could get bumpy as we cross the range,” Alvarez warned. The assassin nodded and then put in his earplugs and closed his eyes.
After they landed, Alvarez handed El Rey a car key.
&n
bsp; “Black Mitsubishi Eclipse in the lot. Fifth car from the end on the second row.”
“Thanks. Give my regards to Rudolfo.”
“Sure.”
~
Briones was finishing up his day, signing off on reports, when his cell phone sounded a synthesized version of Ravel’s Boléro to a techno beat. He glanced at the screen, and seeing the number, looked around to ensure that nobody was within earshot.
“Briones.”
“You sound very official,” Carlos observed.
“I’m in the office.”
“Leaving any time soon?”
“I was planning on it within an hour.”
“You got twenty minutes for a beer tonight?” Carlos hated talking on cell phones. He did enough eavesdropping to know how easily calls could be intercepted.
“Sure. Name a place.”
“I like El Rincon. Over by Cambalache. You know it?”
“Sure. Kind of a lower-end bar, right?”
“Yup. Want to say around seven?”
“Shit. Yes, but I need to get out of here now. Unless you want me showing up in uniform.”
“That could make some of the patrons nervous.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“See you at seven.”
Briones stared at the small pile of paperwork on his desk and resigned himself to getting in early tomorrow. He checked the time and set his desk phone to go to voice mail.
If he really raced, he could just make it.
~
El Rey entered the restaurant in Comitán through the rear entrance, after having done two scans of the service alley to verify there was no surveillance. He was wearing a yellow soccer jersey, baggy slacks, a blue baseball cap and his prized moustache. The girl was sitting at a booth, reading a magazine. When she spotted the assassin she took a final sip of her soda, grabbed her purse and got up to use the single restroom. Two minutes later she returned, and El Rey went in. By the time he exited after retrieving the bag with the chips and the BlackBerry in it from the waste basket, she was gone.
He retraced his steps and pulled his bag out of the Mitsubishi and left the keys in the ignition, as instructed. Rudolfo would take care of it – the car would disappear, never to be seen again. It was the only way to ensure that no incriminating evidence was left behind, and included in his hefty fee. El Rey didn’t mind paying. He liked Rudolfo’s approach – always erring on the side of caution.
Once the phone was powered back on, he checked the messages and saw the name and address of the hotel in his inbox along with brief instructions on its location.
The sun had set, and the night was hot but tolerable as he walked three blocks before flagging down a battered taxi. The driver knew the hotel – not surprising given the size of the town – and within seven minutes they were coasting to the curb.
He had the cab wait as he checked into the hotel, pretending interest as the bored reception clerk handed him a card key and a brown envelope. He took the elevator to the second floor, but didn’t bother going into the room, preferring to take the stairs back to the street level and slip out the side door.
Back in the taxi, he opened the envelope and read the address, slipping the key that it contained into his pocket. He told the driver to take him to a restaurant they had passed on the way to the hotel, and after being escorted to a table there, he ordered dinner. It could be a long time before he had another meal. He’d learned from experience not to take anything for granted, and food was one of them when starting a potentially long operation.
Half an hour later he had cleaned his plate and paid the bill. He went out onto the street with his bag and walked to the end of the block, and waited until another taxi cruised slowly by. He waved down the car and gave the driver an address sixty numbers higher than the one he’d been allocated.
It took ten minutes to get to the industrial district near the edge of town – a run-down neighborhood that was empty by that time of night. The cab driver looked at him as though he was out of his mind, but gladly accepted his cash before he pulled off in a cloud of exhaust.
The building was an old concrete block storage unit with a steel roll-up door. The jungle near the back of the structure rustled with the usual nocturnal noises, and the assassin scouted out the area, wary of more surveillance. After a few minutes, he was satisfied that he was alone, other than creatures shifting in the dense vegetation twenty yards from the lot edge.
The key slipped smoothly into the new padlock on the door, which he quickly slid up four feet and ducked underneath, stepping into the dark interior before pulling it down behind him. Using his phone for illumination, he located the light switch and powered on the two low voltage incandescent bulbs dangling from the ceiling on questionable wire. An old delivery truck with a dented cargo box sat in the center of the space. He raised the vehicle’s rear cargo door and saw the unmistakable shape of a black ATV under a tarp, with a long fiberglass case and two black nylon bags sitting next to it.
He pulled the tarp free and wiped sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. With no ventilation in the building it was sweltering, but he figured he would need to get used to it. There would be no climate control where he was going.
Unzipping one bag, he quickly inventoried the contents, paying special attention to the plastic syringe three quarters filled with a light amber fluid.
Four additional days of life.
He replaced it carefully into its neoprene case and extracted a bottle of green insect repellent. He stripped off his clothes and sprayed himself down from head to toe before donning a pair of lightweight dark green military cargo pants and a matching long-sleeved shirt.
As he laced up his Doc Martens boots, he did a mental checklist of the other expected items. He had no doubt they would all be there.
It took him half an hour to verify everything and load and stow the weapons he had broken down so they would fit on the ATV. A spare five-gallon gasoline bladder was strapped to the rear, and the guns and other items slid perfectly into the fiberglass case that was mounted just behind the driver’s seat. He lifted the nylon strap of the sniper rifle over the handlebars and tightened it until the weapon was secure, then placed the call to Hector that would get the army patrols cleared.
“I’ll be leaving in twenty minutes, following the route I outlined until I leave the road near Ciudad Cuauhtémoc. There shouldn’t be much traffic at this hour, so this is it. I’ll contact you once I’m back in Mexico with the girl.”
“Very good. I hope things go well.”
“Me too.”
He threw a box of breakfast bars into the top of the case, next to the six one-liter water bottles and the field first aid kit. He would jettison the GPS chips and the phone when he abandoned the truck – he knew the government would be tracking him, and it might be helpful for Hector to see his progress in order to ensure he wasn’t accosted by some random military patrol that hadn’t made it back to base. Searches were common along the border roads due to the drug smuggling, and a truck skulking along after dark would be a natural target. Those were the kinds of unexpected accidents that could ruin the operation before it began.
There was only one errand left. He climbed up into the truck bed and cranked the ignition on the ATV. The engine puttered to life, almost silent due to the specially-fabricated deadened exhaust system he’d specified. He listened with approval – at idle it was barely audible, even in the echoing confines of the cargo box. Satisfied with his transportation, he shut off the motor and did a final check of the gear before leaving, giving Hector adequate time to work his magic. He surveyed the interior of the building for anything he might have overlooked before closing the truck’s cargo compartment.
Glancing again at his watch, he nodded to himself. Time to get rolling.
The warehouse door slid up with a rattle, and he started the truck and eased it out onto the cracking asphalt. He hopped out of the cab and took one final look around before pulling the metal base back in pla
ce and locking it. He climbed back behind the wheel and flicked on the dim headlights, then forced the shifter into gear and disappeared into the night.
~
The interior of El Rincon was dark and drab, the booths battered and tired as a punch drunk boxer. A seedy red and black paintjob on rough mortared walls served as the backdrop for faded posters of bullfights and cockfighting champions, interspersed with black and white headshots of popular Mexican singers of the last fifty years. When Briones walked in, the ancient jukebox in the far corner was wheezing forth a ballad that was older than he was. Most of the patrons were either day laborers or low level office workers getting an early start on drowning their sorrows.
Briones looked around the dark room and spotted Carlos at the bar, nursing a Negro Modelo in a bottle and watching a soccer game on a silent TV mounted near the bathrooms. He slid onto the stool next to the investigator at the nearly empty slab of scarred mahogany and pointed to the beer, signaling to the bartender his choice of cocktails. The spare-made, oily-haired man slapped down a cheap paper coaster before setting the beer down in front of him and slinking off to the far end to resume watching the game.
“I think he’s a people person,” Carlos observed.
Briones took another look around. “I’m warming up to the place already. Sort of one step above drinking on a street corner.”
“Hence the name.”
“Ah. I was wondering whether it was because ‘El Shithole’ was taken.”
“Hard to market that.”
“And then everyone would miss all this,” Briones waved at the décor, “as have I until today.”
“You are a man of discriminating taste, my friend.”
Briones took a pull on his beer. At least it was ice cold. On the snow-flecked television, the green team almost scored a goal against the red team, but the attempt was thwarted at the last moment by the goalie.
Return of the Assassin (Assassin Series 3) Page 15
