Blood of the Assassin

by Russell Blake

  Briones flipped the goggles out of his line of sight as he held the UMP 9 steady with his other hand. The two men exchanged a look, and Briones lowered the weapon, the moment passed.

  “Missed that one, huh?” Briones asked with a smirk, and then Cruz was standing at the gate as Dinah, energized, stumbled unsteadily towards him. He dropped his rifle and threw his arms around her and hugged her close, laughing with relief as she cried. Then his eyes drifted towards the assassin, standing framed by the light from the warehouse door, facing Briones, as if the two men were about to fight a duel in a hellish last stand of their own devising.

  “Let’s secure all our weapons, so there’s no trace we were here,” El Rey said, and turned to where he’d left his night vision goggles. “I left my rifle in the back, on the other side of the wall,” he said, and before they could respond he was gone as soundlessly as he had appeared, the only evidence of his presence the six dead men scattered around the compound.

  Chapter 38

  “I thought your boy there was going to plug me, for a second,” El Rey said, his voice slightly distorted by the cell phone.

  “He would never do that. He promised me...,” Cruz replied, Dinah’s head on his shoulder as they stood by Briones’ cruiser.

  “Hell of a way to find out.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Don’t worry about me. Get your wife somewhere safe and take care of your business. I’ll touch base tomorrow once I’ve gotten some rest.”

  Cruz hugged Dinah’s form closer. “I...I don’t know how I can ever thank you...”

  “I’ll think of something – remember, we have a deal. Now make sure all the weapons are accounted for. I left the guns and the night vision gear leaning against the market wall, around the corner from where you’re parked. You might want to clean them and return them to inventory. As far as I can tell, looks like another regrettable cartel battle took place between two warring factions. That’s the way I’d frame it,” El Rey said, and then the line clicked, and Cruz was holding dead air.

  Briones came huffing from the gate and popped the remote trunk release with the stab of a button. Cruz told him about the other weapons, and he retrieved them, returning with the guns a few moments later.

  In the near distance, they heard a whoosh, and then flames licked from the warehouse compound’s walls. Apparently El Rey had decided to eradicate the physical evidence – a smart move, and one that reminded Cruz again of how the assassin had made his fortune.

  Nobody spoke as Cruz and Dinah slid into the back seat. Briones started the engine and then pulled down the dirt road, lights extinguished. He didn’t illuminate them until he was a hundred yards away, swinging onto the pavement of the larger street that would lead them back to the city proper.

  “Where to, boss?” he asked as he gave the big sedan gas.

  “Didn’t you say that we’ve got a new condo leased and waiting?”

  Briones nodded. “I did indeed.”

  Dinah looked up from where she was leaning against him. “I want to take a long shower, get some new clothes, and sleep for a few days,” she declared.

  Cruz nodded. He hadn’t commented on the bruise or the damage to her face. There would be time enough to talk about it when she was ready.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor?”

  “I want a bath and bed.”

  Cruz looked at the back of Briones’ head. “You heard the lady. Take us to our new digs.”

  ~ ~ ~

  It was six a.m. by the time they made it to the new flat. Dinah gratefully inspected the bedroom and bathroom and declared them acceptable, and then closed the door so she could bathe. Cruz sat at the dining room table, a generic contemporary affair much like the ones in the last four condos, and thought over the night’s events as he watched the first stabs of a new dawn pierce the sky, all shimmering orange and red and streaks of violet and fuchsia. The ever-lingering pall of smog did make for spectacular sunrises and sunsets, even if it was toxic, he thought appreciatively, then rose and opened the refrigerator, which had been thoughtfully stocked with staples, including a six-pack of Modelo beer.

  He popped one open, took his seat again, and downed half the can in a gulp. He burped, then took another pull, then rubbed a tired hand over his face. They – no, El Rey – had accomplished the impossible, without a single casualty, leaving no trace of their passage to tip anyone off. Perhaps if law enforcement worked like that, there would be less of an appetite for lawlessness. Far more cartel members were killed by each other than had ever been killed by the police, and arrest was viewed as a deserved break from the ugly realities of the street. Maybe if criminals knew there was a bullet waiting for them, or the sharp blade of a silent knife...

  His thoughts drifted to the assassin’s performance, and then to his suggestion that Cruz leave well enough alone and not report their role in the night’s adventure. He had a point. It would be Cruz’s group that ultimately investigated a cartel-related execution scene, and nobody would really expect them to arrive at any conclusion besides the obvious – that the cartel business was a rough game in which disputes were settled with a bullet. So six miscreants had been butchered. Better sixty, or six hundred. The world was certainly no poorer for it.

  The cold beer soothed his parched throat as he reasoned through how he would explain Dinah’s sudden reappearance. Then he realized that the explanation didn’t have to be logical. The cartel had set her free. Why? Maybe they got scared from the heat being brought by the investigation. Or maybe it wasn’t cartel-related at all. Perhaps it had been a gang of kidnappers that had chosen a convenient target of opportunity, and when the word had hit the street that the full weight of the Federales was going to land on whoever had kidnapped her, they couldn’t get rid of her fast enough. Random and inexplicable events took place all the time. Sometimes, they worked in the good guys’ favor – a welcome relief from the norm.

  When the smoke cleared, it would be his word against...nobody’s. It was the perfect scenario. No one would connect the massacre at the warehouse with Dinah – there was no reason to. And once the blaze had worked its magic, there wouldn’t be much to sift through. The assassin had covered all the bases, and all that remained was for them to keep their mouths shut.

  He had no doubt that Briones would go along with whatever story he told – his loyalty to Cruz was absolute. The bad guys had lost a round, and an innocent had been saved.

  Some days were good ones.

  Today was one of them, he thought, watching the sky lighten, the light show over as the sun rose over the hills.

  Sometimes you had to take the wins where you found them and leave the heavy thinking to someone else.

  Perhaps this was one of those times.

  Cruz heard the door open behind him and smelled Dinah before her arms curled around his neck. He finished his beer with a final swallow and set it down on the table and rose, then turned to hold her in a loving embrace. He kissed her face, taking care to avoid the worst of the bruising, and then she pulled away and took his hand before wordlessly leading him to the bedroom, her eyes moist – whether from sadness or relief, he couldn’t be sure.

  They would discuss what had happened to her in captivity when she felt strong enough to tell him about it. For now, she was back where she belonged, and that was enough.

  For now, it was everything.

  Chapter 39

  Rauschenbach hung his left arm out the open window of the rented sedan and enjoyed the feel of the sun on his skin as he motored south from Mexico City and into the wilds of the mountains that were part of El Tepozteco National Park. He had turned off the highway half an hour earlier and was now on a dirt road that was rapidly becoming more of a game trail than anything intended for cars. When he reached a promising cluster of trees, he pulled the vehicle off the path and rolled twenty yards into the thicket, where it would be out of view from anyone passing on the track – unlikely in the rural area at this early hour on a
weekday.

  He shut off the engine and stepped round to the back, opened the trunk, and extracted a guitar case. With a final look at the car, he set out into the wilds, following the trace of a route that deer had recently used, judging by some droppings he spotted. Rauschenbach was an accomplished tracker, a skill he’d developed as part of his professional disciplines, and it didn’t look like any humans had been in the area recently – there were no footprints or mountain bike tire tracks, and it had drizzled two nights ago, so if anyone had passed since then, they would have left evidence.

  Eventually he came to a large clearing. He set the guitar case down, lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes, and methodically scanned his surroundings for any signs of life. After a few minutes of study, he placed them on top of the case, which was concealed in the tall grass by the edge of the tree line. He then stood and began taking large, measured steps across the field.

  Thirty minutes later he stopped pacing and found himself a dozen yards from a pine tree – one of the few that grew in the otherwise open field. He withdrew a disposable diaper from his jacket pocket, unfolded it, and secured it to the tree trunk first with the adhesive strips and next with a length of cord. Stepping back, he studied his handiwork, then extracted a red Sharpie from his jacket and drew a red circle the size of an apple on the white surface, taking care to color it in. With a final glance at his project, he turned and retraced his steps to the guitar case a mile away.

  A lazy breeze rustled the tree tops as he opened the lid and assembled the rifle, taking care to ensure that the parts were impeccably clean as he joined them together. When he was finished, the scope and silencer locked securely in place, he withdrew three of the five precious bullets from his pants pocket and set them on the case, and then lay down, balancing the rifle on a photographer’s tripod he had purchased the prior day.

  He scouted around the clearing with the high-powered Schmidt & Bender PM II 10×42/Military MK II 10×42 scope until he found the diaper pad. Once sure of his bearings, he unscrewed the custom-made bolt and slid the first bullet into place, then screwed the bolt back into firing position and cocked it. The scope had been dialed for a range of twelve hundred meters, but he wanted to ensure that it would be effective at fifteen hundred – the longest shot he had ever made for a sanction. Most other weapons couldn’t deliver accuracy at that range, but the combination of the barrel, the silencer, and the ammo gave this weapon reasonable accuracy at fifteen hundred meters and beyond – assuming a host of other variables were also in his favor, such as elevation, temperature, humidity, and wind velocity.

  He next reached into the case and extracted three devices his contact had sourced for him: a handheld ballistics computer; a Minox meter that measured air density, barometric pressure, temperature, and wind speed; and a laser range finder. He first confirmed the distance to the target, at fifteen hundred and twenty meters. Next, he took a measurement on the Minox, and studied the readout with interest before powering the computer on and entering the data.

  Mexico City was seventy-five hundred feet above sea level, which would improve accuracy because there was less atmosphere. In the mornings, by ten a.m., it had been averaging just under seventy degrees, which also improved accuracy, as measured as an expected ballistic coefficiency number. The higher the number, the more accurate the round. This weapon at that altitude and temperature, assuming no wind, would be extremely high, in the range of 1.0 or higher, whereas a normal cartridge might have an expected coefficient in the .265 range at sea level. Expressed another way, those rounds fired through that barrel and silencer would be almost four times more accurate than a typical bullet, which was critical at ranges over seven hundred meters. He entered a coefficient assumption of .95, just to be conservative.

  Finally, Mexico City was humid, averaging seventy-five percent or higher humidity that time of year, which would further improve accuracy – because contrary to seeming logic, water had less density than dry air, so higher humidity was actually optimal for shooting. At the end of the day, the biggest random variable would be wind. If under ten miles per hour, he could adjust for it and expect adequate results. More than ten and the kill shot wasn’t impossible, but the likelihood of shift would increase – the possibility that the bullet wouldn’t hit exactly where he had aimed it.

  He peered through the scope again and centered the hand-drawn red dot in the crosshairs, now ten times larger than life due to the scope’s 10X magnification, and then exhaled smoothly and gently squeezed the trigger. The rifle stock slammed into his shoulder with a kick, which he expected – he had clocked over fifty rounds with the weapon in Spain to acclimate himself. After a brief moment he steadied it again and peered down-range at the target. A hole had appeared seven inches to the right of the red mark’s center, and three below it.

  He did a quick mental calculation and then adjusted the screws on the top and side of the scope, then repeated the process of chambering another and went through his careful aiming ritual before firing again. This time, the hole appeared an inch to the right of dead center, but at the correct elevation. He made one final adjustment and fired the last round, and the bullet hit in the center of the target a second and a half after he pulled the trigger. The sound of the silenced rifle, about as loud as a muffled firecracker, would take roughly four seconds to reach the target, and the round a second and a half at that distance – the muzzle velocity with the silencer being nine hundred and twenty-five meters per second, and the speed of sound being three hundred and forty-two.

  Rauschenbach took the same care breaking down the weapon as he had taken assembling it and then returned it to the false bottom in the guitar case. He closed it, picked up the three shell casings, and then carried it to the target a mile away.

  By the time he made it back to the car, another hour and a half had passed, and he was getting hungry. He stowed the guitar case on the rear seat and started the engine, then backed out of the bushes and returned down the trail, bouncing along contentedly with the air of a man whose time had been productively spent.

  His mind drifted to the job and the level of difficulty he’d bitten off when he’d agreed to go forward with it. He had already circled the target site numerous times, and arrived at the conclusion that his best odds lay elsewhere. And that elsewhere would require the ability to hit a man’s head with a high degree of reliability at up to sixteen hundred meters – a distance of over a mile.

  Nobody would expect it, for good reason. Absent a high degree of training, perfect shooting conditions, a specialized weapon and ammo, consummate skill, and nerves of steel, it wouldn’t work. Few shooters in the world would be able to pull it off – a handful of snipers in Afghanistan and Iraq, perhaps two other hit men he’d ever heard of, and a smattering of competitive target shooters. And him.

  Which was why he was the right man for the job.

  The road eventually turned from dirt to gravel and then to asphalt, and before much longer he was back on the highway weaving his way north through slower traffic, back to Mexico City, another essential element in his preparations concluded.

  The hardest part, other than the actual money shot, still lay ahead: figuring out how he could penetrate the location on execution day. Security had already been ratcheted up, which made sense to him now that he knew that his involvement had been leaked. A source at Interpol had sent him an e-mail from a blind account warning him that the Mexicans were on alert.

  That was fine.

  It changed nothing. He assumed that they had his old photo from his days with the East Berlin police – but he hadn’t resembled his old likeness for years, thanks to a talented plastic surgeon in Budapest who’d later died in a car accident. It was amazing what a slightly different nose, an altered chin, and a little eye work could accomplish – his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him now, even without his disguises. No, he wasn’t worried at all, either about being discovered or the level of difficulty involved in the hit. He routinely performed imposs
ible feats. That was his claim to notoriety. This sanction would be no different. He had absolutely no doubt that he would find a way in, and soon have the Chinese leader’s distinctive profile in the crosshairs. Now it was just a matter of logistics. He knew how he was going to do it, and where.

  All that remained was for him to figure out how he would get in and out, and stay alive in the process.

  Piece of cake.

  Chapter 40

  Cruz sat staring at his computer screen, aware of the rapid passage of time. The day of the signing was drawing steadily closer without any progress on his end. Three days had whizzed by since Dinah had been saved, and as he had expected, nobody had linked the charred remains salvaged from the warehouse embers with her abduction. When he had announced two days ago that Dinah had reappeared, safe and sound, the reaction from the group responsible for the investigation into her disappearance had been muted. They always had more work than they could handle, given the constant kidnappings in Mexico City, so an assignment taken off the board would be regarded as a relief rather than a cause for concern.

  He printed out the presentation he had been working on and then rose, stopping at the printer to gather the pages before placing them into his briefcase and exiting his office. Briones was on the phone, his voice calm, but he was glowering – an increasingly regular occurrence. The pressure was mounting on everyone involved in pursuing the German, who had so far been undetectable, as predicted by El Rey, who had put in only a few appearances to check on the status and huddle with Cruz about more security safeguards.

  Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this case so far was how easy El Rey had been to work with since their nocturnal foray. He’d been low-key, relaxed, and, while concerned as the signing date had ground inexorably nearer, mostly civil – even with Briones, with whom there had been some sort of unspoken truce. He was still arrogant and abrasive, and displayed as much empathy as a cobra, but he seemed to be making an effort to explain things that to him were self-evident, and had stopped peppering his comments with diatribes about the incompetence of the security force, the Federales, and everyone else.