Night of the Assassin

by Russell Blake

  Chapter 6

  Ten years ago, Sinaloa, Mexico

  Eighteen months after joining the marines, Raul disappeared without a trace, leaving nothing behind to be remembered by except his assumed name, which he’d quickly grown to despise. He’d participated in seven more operations after his first one, and with each mission he became more convinced that his talents were being wasted and he wasn’t progressing any further. To make matters worse, he witnessed countless acts of bumbling bureaucracy by the ranking officers, costing the men under their command casualties for no good reason. If anything had ever convinced him that he wouldn’t do well working for someone else, his half year of active duty after completing his boot camp and all the specialized training had done the trick. When he walked off the base for the last time, ostensibly on two day’s leave to go visit his fictional family in Chiapas, it was with an audible sigh of relief.

  Raul had saved almost all of his meager pay and still had a few thousand dollars from the money he’d left home with, after selling his weapons to convert his assets into cash. His identity papers had cost him six hundred dollars in Mexico City, and he’d done some odd jobs before joining the navy, but he would need to put the next part of his grand plan into operation fairly soon if he was going to avoid having to work as a day laborer. Fortunately, the cartels he’d been battling were generous employers, able to pay far more than the navy, so he could pretty much choose which cartel he wanted to approach; as an ex-marine they’d be eager to have him as part of their enforcement team. Although he had different ideas about how he could be of service to them.

  He was now three months shy of his nineteenth birthday and free to do as he pleased. Yet there was some unfinished business he needed to attend to back in Sinaloa before he moved on to the next phase of his life. His departure had stuck in his craw, and he felt a pull to return – while he’d told himself that he was completely over Jasmine, the truth was that a part of him had always assumed that her rejection had been some sort of youthful power play, and that she’d get over it and see reason in time. Whether or not that was deluded wishful thinking, he needed to put it behind him once and for all, and with time on his hands and a more mature perspective, he decided to return to his old haunts and see for himself how things now sat. He’d learned to trust his judgment on these things, so he hopped on a bus and began the long trip from Veracruz to Culiacan. Wearing the uniform of a special forces commando, he was afforded privilege by the bus company so thankfully it cost him almost nothing to cross the nation. Two days after he’d left his naval career behind, he descended the stairs in Culiacan, blinking into the bright sunlight of an early spring day.

  After forty-two hours cramped on buses, eating whatever junk he could get at the irregular stops, his first order of business was to have a decent meal. He set off in search of a restaurant that had been his favorite, back in the day. Outside the terminal, he hailed a cab, reciting the address from memory to the driver as he slid into the back seat. The young man had changed since he’d last been in town, as had the city itself, growing by leaps and bounds. His carefully trimmed goatee and closely cropped military haircut ensured nobody would recognize him, which wasn’t much of an issue considering his long absence. He’d developed into a hardened combat veteran since leaving as a teen boy and his bearing and additional muscle weight filled out his uniform, lending him a formidable presence. The boy had left and had returned a man.

  The taxi arrived at the restaurant, La Chuparrosa Enamorada, nestled on the banks of the Canal Rosales. The young man paid the driver and stepped out onto the pavement, hoisting his duffle as he studied the restaurant façade. It was a Tuesday, so the breakfast business was thin, which wouldn’t have been the case had it been the weekend. The place typically had a standing-room crowd on Saturdays and Sundays, due to the generous portions of mouthwatering food and the soothing waterside ambiance. He had been there a few times with Emilio on special occasions and it was one of the things that had been on his mind since boarding the bus in Veracruz. When he entered the large dining room, his boots thumping on the saltillo tile floor, the waitress approached and invited him to an outdoor table overlooking the water. After a cursory glance at the familiar menu, he ordered a glass of orange juice and a plate of chicken chilaquiles in red sauce – a local favorite and one of the restaurant’s signature dishes.

  While he waited for his food to come he thought about his next move, glancing around absently as he remarked to himself on how little things had changed there in the last twenty months. In this sleepy area, things seemed to always remain the same, even as the city grew at an unprecedented rate. The waitress arrived with a heaping platter of breakfast, and as he tucked in he ran down his mental list. The first thing he would need to do was secure reliable transportation. Taxis weren’t going to be an option for what he had in mind, so he’d need to get some sort of conveyance sooner rather than later. With his bankroll being as thin as it was, that meant stealing something, or probably several somethings, depending on how far he decided to travel.

  He munched on his food, savoring the rich, spicy sauce, and cleaned his plate as efficiently as a dishwasher would. Stuffed, he paid the bill and strolled out onto the rural road, scanning the surroundings for something he could liberate opportunistically. It took him half an hour to spot a suitable vehicle that was easy enough to break into and hotwire, but he eventually found a thirty-year-old Chevrolet truck with a broken wind wing. Within seconds, he was in the cab, scanning the surrounding street to ensure that he hadn’t been detected. It took him ten seconds to find the ignition wires and soon he was meandering down the familiar road that led to Don Miguel’s estate. The landscape was still verdant and wild, nature seemingly impatient to encroach on the slim progress man had introduced. When he was a quarter mile from the turnoff to the ranch, he pulled the old truck onto a dirt track that led into the wilds and parked where it couldn’t be seen from the road. He had no idea what he would find at the hacienda when he made it to the estate, but he’d learned to be cautious about everything and considered it best to err on the side of prudence.

  He moved stealthily through the woods until he found one of the myriad game trails that ran through the immense tract of Don Miguel’s property, and soon was jogging along as he had in the old days. It was cool in February so he barely broke a sweat as he moved effortlessly through the foliage. Before long, he was in the cluster of trees that ran along the side of the property, near the horse barn where he’d so long ago been set to move hay as the commencement of his training. He paused momentarily, ears straining for any hint of habitation, but he detected nothing. The main house was deserted, with none of the security men that were everywhere when he’d been living there. No matter; he hadn’t come for anything in the house. He wanted to see his mentor, Emilio, and of course, his daughter. For all his efforts Jasmine had survived in the place she’d carved out of his psyche, and he wanted to bring closure to a door that bulged, and threatened to burst open in his recurring dreams.

  The young man continued along the perimeter and down the track until he reached the caretaker’s house that reposed several hundred yards into the woods. He knew that trail like he’d been on it only yesterday, the loosely placed flagstone that served as a driveway all too familiar under his feet. Surprisingly, he felt a buzz of anxiety in the pit of his stomach as he neared the front door – an altogether alien sensation for him. There, sitting as it always had, was the modest colonial home, deliberately styled in a rustic, sponge-painted manner to mirror the design sensibility of the larger main house, but absent the more flamboyant frills.

  Pausing on the front porch, he registered that there was something different about the home than the last time he’d seen it, almost two years ago. It seemed quiet, as though nobody was living there – much like the main estate had appeared from a distance. Shaking off the sense of foreboding, he knocked on the door, and when he heard nothing from inside, he walked around the side to where Emilio parked his b
ig navy blue Ford Lobo crew-cab truck. There it sat, unchanged, next to the small Chevy econo-box Emilio had bought for Jasmine with his bonuses from Don Miguel.

  He moved back onto the porch, and knocked again.

  “Emilio. Jasmine. Please. Open the door. It’s me…I’m back…” he yelled.

  From inside, he heard a faint rustling, and then Jasmine’s distinctive voice.

  “Go away. There’s nothing for you here.”

  “Jasmine. Please. Open the door. I need to talk to your father. It’s important,” he tried again.

  “He’s dead. Everyone’s dead. Don Miguel, my father, his sister and his mother. There’s only me left now, and I don’t want to see you. Please. Just leave. Go now, and stay away,” Jasmine warned.

  “Dead? How? How is that possible? What’s happened since I left? Tell me, Jasmine. Please. Just open the door. I don’t want to have this conversation through a slab of wood. I just travelled over a thousand miles to see you…please, Jasmine. I’m begging you. I need to see you.”

  “No you don’t. You left without a word to anyone, and now death has come to the valley, and it’s only me left alive – and you. Do yourself a favor, and leave now, while you can,” Jasmine implored him.

  “If you don’t open the door, I’ll break in. You know I can find a way. Jasmine, please. This has gone on long enough. Open the damned door so we can speak like adults. I need to know what happened…and I need your help,” he finished, hoping the appeal would stir something in her. He could understand that she might not want to see him, but there were too many unanswered questions for him to take no for an answer.

  After a seemingly eternal pause, the lock rattled and the door creaked open. It was dark in the small living room, all the drapes pulled, he saw as Jasmine padded in bare feet back to the chair in front of the television and sat. She was wearing a nightgown even though it was close to noon. It was so dim that he could hardly make her out.

  “Can we turn on a light or open a window? I can’t see my own hand in front of me.”

  “I…I’m comfortable with it like this. This is my house now, so I keep it the way I like. If you have a problem with it, leave,” Jasmine advised in a monotone.

  What the hell was going on here? Even after two years, people didn’t change that much. What had happened?

  “Jasmine. No problem. You want it dark, I like it dark. Can we start over? Tell me what happened to your father, Emilio. Please. Start at the beginning. I haven’t had any news since I left.”

  “I see you have a uniform. Marines. Is that what happened to you? You ran away and joined the navy? That’s classic. A total cliché,” she exclaimed with a bitter laugh.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that. But tell me about your father.”

  Jasmine let out a long sigh, and sank further into the large, padded reclining chair – one of Emilio’s few luxuries; a place he could relax at the end of a long, hard day and watch some television in peace.

  “When you left, you got out just in time. Someone executed Don Miguel, as well as one of his lieutenants, either that same day or the day after. I don’t really remember now, so much happened so quickly. Anyway, nobody knew what to do, and it was chaos here. But word traveled fast, because before Don Miguel was in the ground, his rivals where fighting over how his empire would be divided up. It quickly escalated into the usual blood feud, and soon Culiacan’s streets were littered with the dead,” Jasmine explained.

  Only the young man knew what had transpired between himself and Don Miguel before leaving the state – the event hadn’t been witnessed by anyone, and nobody had any reason to suspect the quiet boy who was like his son. After the drug lord had disappeared, in the chaos that followed no one had much cared what had happened to the boy.

  “And your father?”

  “One night, several trucks showed up at the house, and we heard gunfire. The main contender for the Don’s position, Armand Altamar, had decided to eliminate anyone who was still loyal to the Don, in a bid to seal his position as the new jefe for this region. He executed the few remaining staff at the house…and then he came for us. My father had several guns and he tried to defend us, and even killed three of Altamar’s henchmen, but in the end it was for nothing. There were too many of them, and they shot him to death, out in front of the porch…like a dog. He died there for no reason other than for loyalty to his boss – Altamar had no reason to kill him, but he did anyway, without as much thought as stepping on an ant. Papa…he wasn’t even in the business. He just ran the horses, and raised you…,” her voice trailed off.

  “Jasmine, I’m so sorry. I…I don’t know what to say…”

  “There’s nothing to say. After killing him, they broke down the door, dragged my grandmother and auntie outside and shot them in the head.”

  “Good God. I…thank God you escaped…”

  “But I didn’t, don’t you see? I tried to shoot them but I was shaking too much, and my first shot missed. So then they came for me…and the rest…is history,” she said flatly.

  “What happened, Jasmine. You can tell me.” He didn’t know how to react to the horrible story and was afraid to hear the rest but he couldn’t help himself.

  “What happened? What happened? With nobody here to protect me, with you gone and my family killed? They took turns raping me, is what happened – over and over, for half the night. I passed out, and when I came to, they were raping me more. It went on for hours.”

  “I…Jasmine. I know nothing I can say or do will make anything better. But I’ll find these men and punish them for what they did to you. They’ll pay, with interest added.”

  “Just go. I don’t want your help. My life is over before it had a chance to really begin. It’s not your fault but I don’t want to see you ever again. You remind me of before…when I had hope…”

  “Jasmine, listen to me. There’s still hope. I know what happened was horrible and will stay with you forever but there’s always hope. Always. I’ll make this right, or at least avenge your family and you,” the young man promised.

  “No you won’t. And no, there’s no hope. Trust me. None.”

  “There’s always hope, Jasmine–”

  “You’re an idiot. For you, maybe there is, but not for me. I didn’t finish the story. You didn’t let me. After they were done with me, every orifice brutalized and bleeding, the leader, Altamar, went into the barn and got some of the acid they used on the glass tiles in the fountain – to remove the calcium deposits, as I remember. They’d always wear gloves, and mix it fifty parts water to one part acid. It was the only thing that would remove the buildup. Altamar didn’t wear gloves, and he didn’t mix it. He just poured it on my face, laughing as my skin fizzed with screaming agony. Last thing I remember was trying to make it to the kitchen to rinse it off my face with water. That probably saved my life.” She stopped and peered at him through the gloom. “I wish they’d killed me. I’ve sat here many times, ever since they released me from the hospital, wishing I was dead. I’d kill myself but it would damn my soul to hell forever, according to the priest who stops in occasionally to mitigate my torment. So I sit in the dark, and pray to an unlikely god to end my misery. So far, he’s ignored me, just the same as he ignored my family’s cries for mercy.”

  “Jesus…”

  “There’s no Jesus here. There’s only what they turned me into. What they did to me. There’s only this.”

  Jasmine leaned forward so that he could see her face in the dim light. One side was the Jasmine he remembered. Beautiful, serene, now with tears streaming freely down her cheek. The other side of her face was an abomination. The acid had seared off her living flesh, blinded her, and so ruined it that it more resembled something that had been dragged down a road for miles, or trapped in a fire, than something human. The tendons and ligaments were exposed and, even two years after the horrific event, it was a suppurating wet sore…a picture of hell on earth incarnate. The young man had seen plenty of death and savag
ery in his life but even he was shocked, and he automatically recoiled from the sight. It was the most horrible thing he’d ever seen. He felt his gag reflex triggering as the pit of his stomach dropped out.

  “Oh… Oh God, Jasmine…”

  There was nothing to say. No words anyone could say to make it better.

  Jasmine had been right.

  There was no hope.