Blood of the Assassin (Assassin Series 5) (20 page)

“What? What do you mean, she’s not in? Did something happen?” Cruz asked, now agitated, his heart rate climbing as butterflies danced a tarantella in his stomach.

“Not that I know of. Says here that she requested and received two sick days. There’s a temp instructing her class. Perhaps you should try her at home? I presume you have the number...”

“When did she do this?” Cruz snapped, then reined in the worry in his voice. No point in alarming the man.

“Yesterday, early. We haven’t heard from her, but expect her to be back tomorrow.”

“I see. Thank you for your efforts. We have her home number.”

“Let me know if there’s anything else you require,
Capitan
Cruz.”

“Of course.”

Cruz couldn’t disconnect fast enough. Damn Dinah for her stubborn streak. He should have anticipated that she wouldn’t go in, but still, it had caught him off guard. He needed to start thinking more clearly. If this was any indication of how he was processing, both he and the Chinese leader were as good as dead. He’d gotten extremely lucky this morning with the Los Zetas hit team, but he couldn’t rely on good fortune indefinitely. He needed to be smarter and faster, not just luckier. And he hadn’t seen Dinah’s move coming, although in hindsight it made sense.

Shit.

The hotel search.

He’d been so involved with the shooting and the ensuing pandemonium he had completely forgotten to get back to his assistant with the written authorization. He quickly jotted out a note on his computer and emailed it to her on the secure server, then fumed at his carelessness. He’d lost another three hours – time that could have been used to find Dinah.

Annoyed at himself, he called Dinah’s cell phone one more time and left a message. Maybe she was still not taking his calls, but she would listen to her voicemail. He knew her that well.

“Sweetheart. It’s me. You need to call me as soon as you get this message. There was an attempt on me this morning. Three gunmen. I’m okay, but I need to talk to you immediately. This isn’t some ruse to get you to contact me. I’m serious. Call me the second you get this message. I...I love you, and I’m sorry about the other night. Please,
amor
. Call.”

He disconnected with a sense of futility. He needed to talk to her now, not whenever she got around to checking her messages. The attack had changed everything. She would have to be in protective custody at all times until he could deal with the threat. Her decision to go off on her own had probably made perfect sense to her at the time, but it could wind up being disastrous.

A chime sounded and he looked up, an expression of abject hopelessness flashing across his face before he got his emotions back under rigid control.

The coffee was ready.

Just after lunchtime, the hotel search came back with a hit. Dinah had checked into a large hotel in Mexico City, only fifteen minutes from his new offices. Gazing at the computer screen, he punched in the number and spoke with the reception desk, but when they put him through to Dinah’s room there was no answer. He tried again, but got the same response. Frustrated, he made a decision and stabbed in a two-digit extension and waited. Briones picked up on the fourth ring.

“I need to you take a ride with me.”

“Yes, sir. When? I’m kind of in the middle of–”

“Now. You’re driving.” Cruz’s tone left no room for question. Briones was in his office within three minutes, having sidelined his tasks.

“Where are we going, sir?”

“Camino Real Polanco hotel.”

Once in the car, Cruz sat stone-faced for a few blocks, then turned to Briones. “Dinah...we had an argument the other night when I told her about this new assignment. She didn’t respond...positively...to the idea that I’d be working with the man who killed her father. We...it didn’t end well. She decided that she needed to get some distance on it. Some perspective. For a few days.”

Briones nodded, sagacious, preferring not to comment. Both men knew what Cruz was trying to say, while saving at least a modicum of face.

“But she doesn’t understand the risks to herself.” Cruz seemed to deflate with the last words. “And now, with the attack...”

“Who else knows where she’s staying?” Briones finally asked, twisting the steering wheel and cutting off a taxi, who pounded impotently on his horn.

“Nobody.”

“Then there’s no problem. You can’t have a leak if nobody knows anything,” Briones said simply.

“True, but we have to assume that there was surveillance on the building. And we have no idea for how long. If they were watching it when she stormed...when she left, she could have been followed.”

“Agreed.” There was nothing more productive to say. Cruz was right. Neither man wanted to consider the possibilities too closely. No point in speculating – they would be at the hotel soon enough.

When they pulled into the drive of the iconic Ricardo Legorreta-designed landmark, gaudy pink and purple and yellow hues coloring the stunning architectural elements with a boldness that was timeless even five decades after it was built, they entered a different world from the crowded, bustling one out on the street. A valet hustled to open Briones’ door as a bellman swung Cruz’s wide, and within moments they were both striding purposefully across the massive, opulent lobby to the expansive reception area, easily fifty feet wide and crafted from contemporary exotic wood.

“Yes, sir. May I help you?” a young man in a uniform far more elaborate than Cruz’s asked, a trace of disapproval on his face. The Camino Real wasn’t accustomed to armed
Federales
in the lobby. It was an edifice that reeked of wealth and gentrified exclusivity, and the intrusion by law enforcement wasn’t appreciated.

“Room 321. Call. Now.”

Something in Cruz’s tone sobered the receptionist, and he mutely lifted a telephone handset to his ear and keyed in the room number. He stood, waiting, then hung up.

“I’m sorry, sir. There’s no answer. Would you like to leave a message for the guest?” he asked in his smarmiest tone.

“Get someone who can open the room. We’re going up,” Cruz ordered, a look of glacial indifference to the receptionist’s attitude the only warning he was going to offer.

Cruz’s tone arrested any protest the young man was going to make; instead, he lifted the phone and placed another call, then turned away from them as he had a hushed discussion. When he turned back, he gave his most winning professional fake smile and hung up with a noisy decisiveness.

“One moment, sir. Someone will be with you shortly.”

“You have two minutes to get someone who can open the room, and then we’re going to go up and shoot the lock off,” Cruz informed him, trying not to mimic the man’s grin, which took a sudden vacation as he registered Cruz’s words.

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary...,” the young man started.

“Two minutes.”

The receptionist lifted the phone again and had another whispered discussion.

Cruz was just about ready to make good on his threat when an imposing figure in a dark gray suit approached him with a neutral smile on his face. Cruz absently wondered where they taught these wonks such phony expressions, then decided it didn’t matter when the man launched into his act.

“Gentlemen. My name is Antonio Arabiera. I’m the manager here. How may I be of assistance today?”

“Unless you can open the door of room 321, you can get someone to meet us there. We’re going up and we need to get in. This is an emergency,” Cruz said.

“I...this is most irregular. Our guests have an expectation of privacy. Unless you have a warrant...”

Cruz took a step towards the man, invading his space, and put a hand on his shoulder, then guided him away from the counter to spare him embarrassment.

“This is an emergency situation. Either you open the door now, or I will make your life miserable, do you read me? That’s my wife in there, and she’s in danger. Now be a nice man and call housekeeping or whoever and have them meet us up there, or you’ll wish you’d never been born, and the rest of your guests will get an experience they’ll be talking about on the internet for years,” Cruz murmured, for all appearances having a friendly discussion of matters requiring discretion.

Arabiera wasn’t the manager because he was stupid, and he wasted no time in finding a key card that would open every room in the building.

“I’ll accompany you gentlemen. This way,” he said with a hand gesture, then began walking across the lobby to the entry to the room wing. Cruz and Briones followed, Briones trying to contain the smile forming on his lips as their boots tromped along the oversized marble slab floor.

When they reached the room, Cruz knocked on the door, his sense of unease growing as they waited for a response. After thirty seconds, he knocked again, this time longer, his knuckles reddening.

Nothing.

“Open it,” Cruz commanded, and Arabiera acquiesced. He slipped the keycard into the slot and then pushed the door open, beckoning to the two officers to have at it.

Cruz led the way, Briones in tow, Arabiera waiting outside, glancing around nervously lest any of his guests spot the intrusion.

Fifteen seconds later, Cruz and Briones were back.

“Seal off the room. Don’t touch anything. I’ll have a crime scene squad here within half an hour,” Cruz ordered, his heart thrashing like a caged animal fighting for escape. The breakfast tray on the floor and the luggage still in the closet told the whole story. He didn’t need to see anything else. He turned to Briones.

“Get them here, now. And put out an APB on her. Circulate the description. It’s a long shot, but we might find someone who saw something,” Cruz said woodenly, on automatic pilot as his mind churned, a million miles away. Cruz flashed back to the last time he’d dealt with a kidnapping – the last time he had ever seen his wife and daughter alive. A vision he’d stuffed into the nether reaches of his memory forced itself to the forefront – his baby daughter and wife’s heads in a box, and his screaming blind rage at the cosmos as he slammed his fists into his desk, over and over and over, until his staff had to forcibly restrain him for his own safety, two fractures ballooning his left hand.

It had been a dark time; the kind of period that drove men mad, or to drink, in a feeble attempt to erase the unthinkable for a blissfully empty few hours of oblivion. The thought that he would lose the only other woman he had ever loved in the same way almost paralyzed him. It was the realization that only he stood between Dinah and the unspeakable that stopped him as he teetered on the edge of the abyss, the dark looking back into his soul, taking his measure, staining him indelibly, as it always did.

Cruz paced as Briones made his calls, thoughts whirling, apportioning blame and promising revenge in the same moment, a tiny voice inside screaming in protest as he struggled to maintain an outward calm. They had her.
You know how this ends. You’ve seen it before. Your family paid the price, but it wasn’t enough. You had to keep baiting the bear, swatting it on the nose, daring it, goading it to action. Your career, your drive to be so different, so special, so superior, has killed everything you ever held dear, and it still wasn’t enough. Never enough.

And now they had Dinah.

His hand dropped automatically to his Glock, seeking reassurance in the familiar shape, its bulk comforting, not least because it had spit death at those who tried to harm him only hours before, equalizing, killing with brutal efficiency, its purpose unambiguous, clean and clear. As his fingers found the grip and stroked it as tenderly as a lover, he was consumed with only one thought.

They will pay for this
,
mi amor
.
Whatever they do or have done, they will pay tenfold.

I am justice, and I will prevail. And in doing so I will extract a terrible price.

Whatever happens, they will pay.

El Rey
stood impatiently in the lobby of the office building, studying the now dozen heavily armed
Federales
in a state of high alert, as he waited for his identification card to be validated by an anonymous computer somewhere upstairs. On his prior visit, security had been relaxed, with a quick, cursory check and a wave through. Now the officers were behaving as though the building was filled with gold bars and he was a thief.

Eventually the computer gave the okay, and the guard handed him back his ID and gestured to the elevator. He pulled the lanyard that dangled from the card over his head and waited for the doors to open, the hair on the back of his neck prickling from the room full of eyes staring at him. When the elevator arrived he pushed a button and then exhaled a small sigh of relief when it ascended, carrying him away from the trigger-happy monkeys in the lobby.

When he arrived at the command center floor he stepped into a kind of controlled mayhem, the energy of the place completely different than it had been before. Dark glares greeted his arrival, but he’d expected the reception, so they didn’t faze him. What surprised him was how grim everyone was.

He walked across the common workspace towards Cruz’s office but was intercepted by Briones before he’d made it halfway there. The lieutenant blocked his way.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m working with this task force, remember? You know, the expert sent by CISEN? Your best hope in the world of catching the assassin before he drills your Chinese dignitary? Ringing any bells?”

“What do you want?”

El Rey
noticed the tension just beneath the skin of the lieutenant’s face. Something was wrong. “To see your glorious leader. Now get out of my way.”

“He’s occupied right now. Busy. You can tell me whatever you have for him.”

“I don’t think so. I want to talk to the big man, not his lap dog.”

Briones bristled, then choked down his anger. The assassin was just trying to goad him into an explosion. It was a game, and he wasn’t going to play it – he wouldn’t give the murderous prick the satisfaction. A smirk twisted his lips.