Blood of the Assassin

by Russell Blake

  Chapter 42

  The mood in the room was bleak as Cruz announced that their only lead had turned up skewered with a writing implement. One wag ventured a morbid joke about pens being mightier than swords, but the laughter was forced.

  “Gentlemen, I know we’ve all been putting in a hundred and twenty percent, but we’re getting down to the clinch now, and we can’t let up. We got this lead by following up on every detail, no matter how seemingly random, so we need to stay focused and not lose steam. He’s out there somewhere, and we need to keep turning over rocks until we find him.”

  Briones raised his hand. “Why don’t we release his photo to the press? Plaster it all over the TV and the newspapers? It can’t help but stir the pot. Offer a reward. It’s worth a shot.”

  Cruz couldn’t tell him that he’d floated that very idea past Godoy that morning, and it had been shot down. CISEN and the president’s team were obviously playing a game with the Chinese, where they didn’t want to alarm them. That was the only reason for not distributing it on every street corner.

  “I ran that up the flagpole. Still waiting for a response. Good suggestion, though,” Cruz said.

  “How about circulating the photo to every cop in D.F.? That would be a good start. Maybe we’ll get lucky?” Briones suggested.

  El Rey was sitting quietly in a corner at the back of the room, studying his fingernails, and when he heard the suggestion, he looked up. “Has that ever worked? You did that with me. Did it help?”

  Briones flushed at being called out in front of his peers, but Cruz interrupted.

  “It’s a good idea and a necessary step.”

  “Well, I suppose it can’t hurt, but those photos are ancient history, and the likelihood that he still looks even vaguely like them are slim to none. Take my word on this. You don’t become the highest paid assassin in Europe by not taking simple precautions like changing your appearance regularly. That’s kind of Hit Man 101, if you get my drift. I think you need to stop relying on this man behaving like a moron and start preparing for reality. Unless you get a miracle, you’re not going to find him in time,” El Rey said, then returned to his examination of his cuticles.

  “Well, then what do you suggest?” Briones countered. The officers on either side of him nodded with raised eyebrows, and one threw his pencil down on the table in disgust.

  “Circulate the photo to the media. Why? Because it’ll put him on notice that the risk just increased. At this point, psychology is all you have. Your best bet is to make his chances so poor that he gives up, and being all over the TV, even if he no longer looks anything like the photo, will have an effect on him. Assassins are a paranoid bunch. They have to be, to survive for any length of time in this business. Seeing an image of yourself is never good news, especially if it’s out in the open. That signals that the stakes were just raised and the odds of a clean getaway went down.”

  Cruz held up a hand as the room exploded in conversation, the men talking over each other, and gave it twenty seconds to settle.

  “Noted. As I said before, it’s in the works. What else?”

  “Everyone in this room should go to the site and walk it, and then walk the neighborhood around it, and study the layout. If an idea comes up, no matter how outlandish, bring it up. If you see anything that seems off, bring it up. If someone looks at you crosswise, bring it up. Preparation is your best defense right now. Because you’re not going to catch him in time. I agree with you on that point.”

  More muttering and angry exclamations sounded from men who had poured their souls into the investigation. El Rey seemed impervious to it all, not an iota of concern disturbing his matinée idol-smooth features.

  The meeting continued for another twenty minutes and then broke up in disarray, the reality of the situation settling in. Cruz gestured to El Rey as he moved towards the door.

  “Can I see you in my office for a moment?” he asked, more a demand than a request.

  El Rey nodded, once, and then waited for Cruz to lead the way.

  When they were both seated at the meeting table, Cruz leaned forward, both palms on the smooth wood-look vinyl surface. “They’re not going to release the photo to the media.”

  “I kind of figured that. And there’s only one reason not to. They haven’t told the Chinese, have they?”

  “I don’t think they have. I was told it was above my level of need to know.”

  “That’s rich. They want you to stop this, but they’re holding out on you. So they’re hedging their bets – they don’t want to alert the media and have a photo out there, even if it’s on some invented charge, because if he’s successful they don’t want any proof that they knew about this in advance and didn’t say anything. And they’ve set you up to take the fall if that happens. You’re a better man than I to be able to put up with this shit,” El Rey said.

  “Believe me, this wasn’t my first choice of responsibilities. The cartels were keeping me more than busy.”

  “Then why? Why take this on? It’s career suicide. You’re smarter than that,” the assassin observed.

  “Not that smart, obviously,” Cruz deflected, a trace of bitterness in his tone. “I could ask the same question. What does CISEN hold over your head that has you working with them? You’re young, rich, smart...and yet you’re here, with me, on the crappiest duty I can imagine.”

  “Are you hoping to get lucky with me?”

  Cruz waited a beat. “You made a joke.”

  “I have a richly evolved sense of humor,” El Rey said, deadpan.

  “I never got that before.”

  “I take back everything I said about you being smart.”

  Cruz shook his head as if to clear it. “We have two more days. That’s forty-eight hours to stop him.”

  “You won’t. I already told you. Best you can do is have a hell of a punt strategy and disincentivize him. Make it his worst nightmare going in. I know from personal experience that the worse my exit from a sanction looked, the less likely I was to do the job. I’d rather return the money. Let some other guy die trying. I wanted sanctions I could live through. Everyone does. Remember that this isn’t personal for him. It’s a gig, nothing more.”

  “What do you think they’re paying him?”

  “Good question. Millions. This will have to be his last hurrah. After this, he’ll want to get off the board, so it has to be enough to last the rest of his life. I’d guess three to five million, minimum.”

  “Who would pay that to knock off the Chinese leader, on Mexican soil? And why here?”

  El Rey’s face could have been chiseled from marble. “Now you’re asking the right questions. Follow the money and you’ll learn enough to be dangerous.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that someone really wants to send a message to the Chinese. Don’t come into our sandbox. So figure out who has the most to lose by this deal getting signed, and there’s your motive. But my intuition says that’s a dangerous line of inquiry.”

  “Dangerous, how?”

  “Think about it. There are a lot of moving parts to this. The Mexicans playing cagey with information they should have shared a week ago. A foreign hit man and a dramatic execution. Economically disastrous consequences, not only for the country, but specifically for the new ruling party. Those are deep waters. I’d just as soon stay on shore.”

  They stared at each other, the assassin’s eyes unreadable.

  “You never answered my question,” Cruz said after a pause.

  “What was it again?”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Are you getting all existentialist on me?”

  “See? You keep deflecting the question.”

  “Huh. Almost like I don’t want to answer it.”

  “Come on. Your secret’s safe. We’ve been through a lot.”

  “How is she, anyway?” El Rey asked, his tone softening. “Your wife.”

  “As well as can be expected. And don’t thin
k I’m not noticing that you’re changing the subject again.”

  “You’re a razor-sharp mind.”

  “So what’s the story?”

  El Rey hesitated, and then told Cruz about how CISEN had blackmailed him – injecting him with a neurotoxin that would kill him without a shot of antidote every six months for at least a year and a half. And then forcing him to become a CISEN asset in order to get the remaining two injections.

  “That’s unbelievable. How can they do that?” Cruz was actually shocked, an unfamiliar emotion for him.

  “Because they can, and will, do whatever they want. What it comes down to is that they have the power. So we do as they say. Believe me, I feel screwed. They made me a deal, I did the job, and they reneged. But that’s how the world works. It always has.” He stood. “Tomorrow, let’s plan on walking through the sewer system. I want to see every place he could use to gain entry to the Congress, no matter how unlikely. I also want to review all the plans for anti-rocket defenses, and every other counter-measure we haven’t discussed yet. Call me. You know the number.”

  Cruz watched him leave, and thought about the story he’d been told. Guaranteed death if he didn’t receive at least the two antidote shots over the eighteen months following the initial shot. And the lingering, unspoken doubt that they would actually allow him to live through it all anyway. Because if they did, and El Rey held a grudge...

  For the first time in days, Cruz didn’t feel like he had it all that bad. Some had it worse.

  He didn’t think it was possible, but a tiny part of him actually felt sorry for the most dangerous killer in Mexican history.

  He pressed a button on the coffee machine and listened to the hypnotic sound of water percolating, then rose and made his way back to his desk.

  What an odd journey this had been so far.

  Cruz was momentarily overcome by an impulse so powerful it felt like a physical need, and he reached for his phone and dialed a number. When Dinah answered, she was surprised to hear his voice.

  “Why are you calling? What’s wrong, mi amor?” she asked, concern obvious in her strained tone.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to say...I just wanted to tell you I love you.”

  Silence greeted the declaration for a pregnant moment.

  “Why, Romero, I love you too,” she said in a tiny voice, a quaver in her words. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  A pause, a momentary hesitation filled with an ocean of things unsaid.

  “I am now. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “I love you, my big strong warrior.”

  He swallowed hard, and then sighed.

  “That’s all I needed to hear.”

  Chapter 43

  The street that ran in front of the Federal Police headquarters was teeming with traffic at rush hour, as were most in Mexico City, as the population embarked on its evening slog from the downtown business areas to the suburbs along the outskirts of town. As the day shift wound down, hundreds of officers moved down the wide steps of the entry to the sidewalk, some to catch a bite to eat, most to catch one of the packed buses that swarmed in and out of the endless procession of vehicles, pulling to grinding stops to on-load commuters.

  Officer Porfirio Lopez waved goodbye to the three Federales he was chatting with and split off to grab a taco at one of the curb vendors, where throngs of passers-by stopped and consumed the soft corn-wrapped meats while passing cars honked their progress. It wasn’t dinner, more a snack – he got hungry by six, and this would tide him over until he got home and hooked up with his friends at the local cantina, which had a two-for-one special on Thursdays on their succulent pork carnitas; an irresistible deal.

  As he stood munching the arrachera steak taco, he felt a sense of...something odd, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe too much coffee – he’d drunk at least seven cups that day, which was close to a record for him. The food quieted his stomach, and when he was done, he tossed the paper wrapper into a trash can and strode to the bus stop, where hundreds of workers waited for their ride home with the dogged determination of spawning salmon.

  A paperboy moved through the crowd, holding the evening issue of La Prensa aloft, a lurid photograph of four people found dead in a poor barrio on the front page, the victims of feral dog attacks that had polarized the city. The wild dogs lived in caves near the park where the victims had been found, dead of blood loss from multiple bites. The prevailing theory was that roving packs looked for opportunistic targets and then killed the unsuspecting for food. Such was the outcry that the police had gone in and rounded up dozens of dogs, whose incarceration was now a cause célèbre and had created considerable consternation for the mayor and other public officials, whose plan was to euthanize them without question.

  He bought a paper and read with marginal interest until his bus arrived with a hiss of air brakes, and he shouldered through the clamoring crush to get aboard before it rolled away. He dropped his few pesos into the fare box and took the small receipt offered – proof of payment in the event of an impromptu inspection by the transit police, and a handy way for the drivers to be held responsible for all the money they had taken in on their route. The drivers were each issued a roll of tickets, and when their shifts were done, the number missing was counted, which established how much every driver owed in fares. The inspections were regular, making collection of the tickets by the riders mandatory to avoid heaping fines.

  The bus rocked to and fro as it negotiated the uneven asphalt, the press of tired humanity staring dully into space, carefully avoiding all but momentary eye contact in the way that regular commuters usually did. Nobody wanted to have to strike up a conversation after a long work day, and the entire packed conveyance had the air of a slaughterhouse, the resigned bovines waiting patiently in line for their turn at the sledgehammer.

  Officer Lopez gripped the overhead bar and tried to read his paper, folded in quarters so as to take up as little space as possible, but the near constant starting and stopping interrupted him with the regularity of a ship on the high seas plowing through oncoming swells. Bored on the hour-long commute, he snuck a look at a young woman eight feet away, who studiously ignored him, the twinkle of her wedding band all the warning he needed. Returning to the news, he read the latest list of murders with indifference – every day more were found, victims of crime, rage, random violence, or drug trafficking. It was an unending procession of misery to which he’d grown inured as part of his job, and he liked to joke that with human nature being what it was, he’d never be out of work.

  The ride was tolerable in the spring, except when it was raining, when it became a misery, as hundreds of wet fellow travelers, many of whom wanted for indoor plumbing, packed onto the buses, their hygienic challenges painfully obvious. Then in summer, the heat of August and September again made it especially unpleasant – the buses rarely had air conditioning, and the opened windows were woefully inadequate. Now, however, it wasn’t so bad, and he’d learned to try to get as close to the younger women as possible, who usually huddled together, their heady perfume almost as much of an attraction as the possibility occasionally flashed from mahogany eyes.

  Porfirio was twenty-nine, and had been with the Federales for eight years, having snagged the plum position with the help of an uncle who was on the force. Federales were the cream of the law enforcement crop, paid better than their lowly civil police counterparts and bribed with more generosity because of the vastly greater power they wielded. The best duty, that of highway patrol, was reserved for the fortunate few. None of that lofty branch of officers rode the bus, preferring to motor to work in their new SUVs, impossible acquisitions on their pay but unquestioned by the system. The graft involved in stopping drivers for indiscretions of speed or registration was an accepted part of the job, although publicly decried by administration after administration. He was hoping that maybe in another few years a slot in the hotly contested mobile force would open up, and then he too could tr
ade the bus for the opulent Lincoln Navigator he’d had his eye on forever.

  Lost in the daydream about how his life would change for the better, he almost missed his stop, on the outskirts of the metropolitan area only a few blocks from one of the more infamous slums, where the unfortunate and downtrodden spent lives of brutal hardship. He stepped down onto the cracked sidewalk with several dozen other commuters and then trudged the three long blocks to his home – a two-story apartment building with eighteen single-room flats, each with a flyspeck bathroom and a dangerously unventilated propane stove serving as kitchen. He could afford better, but saw no reason to squander his money – he was single, was rarely home except to sleep, and was saving for whenever he met a girl he got serious about. His marriage had ended in divorce, thankfully with no children, after seven years of bitterness and recriminations as he failed to bring home sufficient bacon to appease his young bride, and he had been footloose for two years, in no hurry to try that again anytime soon.

  His boots crunched on the gravel as the sidewalk gave way to dirt and rocks, and he failed to register the shadow that darkened his building’s doorway as he unlocked the rickety front door – his landlord was a cheap bastard who never did any maintenance, and cockroach spray and air freshener were staples in all the dwellings. As he swung the door open he felt pressure on his upper back, and then a voice hissed in his ear.

  “I have a gun, and I’ll blow a hole the size of a softball in you unless you do exactly as I say.”

  He froze, and then felt a hand pull his service revolver from his belt. “Are you insane? Robbing a federal policeman? Do you really want this on you?” Porfirio asked incredulously. “Do you know what this is going to do?”

  “Let’s go to your apartment. Don’t talk anymore. Now. Move.”

  “I don’t have anything of value–”

  The assailant swatted the back of Porfirio’s head with his service piece, just hard enough to get his attention. “I said shut up. That’s your only warning.”