Blood of the Assassin (Assassin Series 5) (29 page)

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 impossible 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.

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.

Cruz gave Briones a curt wave and then took the elevator down to the lower level, where his car was waiting, armed
Federales
standing guard by both the elevator and the parking garage entry. Since the attempt on Cruz, the security teams had stepped up their game and were on constant high alert – no doubt due in part to the scathing report Cruz had issued about events surrounding his near-miss.

Dinah had taken a leave of absence from school and was spending her days in their new home, recovering. The purple discoloration on her face had faded to ochre, but she didn’t want to be seen in public, and he didn’t blame her. The doctor who had come the day after her rescue had advised her to ice it and to rest in bed, and she’d taken his instructions to heart. Thankfully, she didn’t want to discuss Cruz’s assignment or his working with
El Rey
– not that she seemed any more positively disposed towards the assassin since he’d saved her life, but rather because she knew it was a
fait accompli
. Now a precarious cessation of hostility was in effect, and life had returned to a tranquil pace, with no discussion of what had transpired while she’d been held captive, or about their future long-term plans.

Cruz gazed through the car window as the driver beat a path to headquarters, his mind preoccupied by the innumerable details of the search so far, none of which amounted to much. The security force had deployed countless advance personnel; the president had agreed to hold the signing indoors rather than on the Congress steps; the Chinese had approved a helicopter to transport their leader from the airport; and the most comprehensive precautions in Mexico’s history had been put into place, every subcontractor entering the meeting hall having been investigated and the maintenance and security staff thoroughly vetted, and a new system requiring all entrants to pass through a metal detector having been deployed.

They were doing everything they could, and yet he had the sense of spinning his wheels, which was reinforced each time he met with
El Rey
. They would listen patiently to the reports, consider all the available data, and then exchange a worried look. Neither believed for a second that any of it would be adequate to stop a committed killer, and the best they could hope for was to deter him – the German wouldn’t pursue the hit if he didn’t have a clean way to escape. He was doing this for money, not ideology, so he would want to live to spend it. The punt strategy they’d arrived at was to make it almost impossible for anyone to take a shot at the target, and if they managed to, completely impossible to do so and not get caught.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best they had.

When the car coasted to a stop inside the headquarters parking structure, Cruz groaned as he climbed from the back seat, and made a mental note to stop doing that. It was becoming habitual, more a clue as to his state of mind than a sign of any particular physical discomfort.

In Godoy’s office he found the pomp strangely reassuring, the consistency mildly grounding for him. The receptionist was typically snotty, Godoy’s assistant an ass, as always, and Godoy, once he’d forced Cruz to sit doing nothing for fifteen minutes in his antechambers, as artificial and condescending as ever.

“
Capitan
Cruz. Very nice to see you again. I’ve taken the liberty of asking our colleague at CISEN to join us so that we’re on the same page,” Godoy said, scrawling something of no doubt huge importance on a sheaf of stationery – his grocery list, or perhaps he’d taken up poetry.

“My pleasure,” Cruz responded in obligatory fashion, his tone making clear the lie.

Godoy made an elaborate display out of checking the time on his gleaming, patently expensive watch. “Our associate should be here any moment. In the meantime, may I just say how relieved I am that your wife was returned safely, and that the attack on you was unsuccessful. What are we to do with these predators? It’s shocking, the levels of barbarity they’ll stoop to...”

“Thank you. I’d say they got the worse end of that deal, though.”

“True, too true. Are your current accommodations suitable?” Godoy asked, equally uninterested as Cruz in the discussion so far.

“Fine. I spend so much time at the temporary offices now, it hardly matters where I call home.”

“Yes, well, fortunately not for much longer. Ah, that must be our man!” Godoy practically trilled when his intercom buzzed.

Rodriguez strode into the room, a palpable presence, impeccably coiffed and dressed, as usual, and acknowledged Cruz with a nod before taking the other seat in front of Godoy’s massive desk. “
Capitan
. Godoy.”

“Rodriguez. Thanks for coming – I know how busy you must be. Very well. Let’s begin. I asked
Capitan
Cruz here today to fill us in on progress on the Rauschenbach matter,” Godoy announced with an unctuous air of authority.

“Hmm. Right,” Cruz muttered. “The good news is that we’ve made real headway in tightening up the security, so it’s better than ever. The bad news is that we’re no closer to finding the assassin than we were when we started – as Assistant Director Rodriguez no doubt is aware, from the reports his liaison sends him on a daily basis.”

“How can that be? You’re burning money like kerosene, and you’ve commandeered half the available personnel in D.F., yet you’re telling me you have nothing to show for it?” Godoy blustered, practically sputtering.

Cruz wondered if there was a hidden camera taping the meeting, or if the pompous ass really couldn’t help grandstanding even when there was no point. Probably the latter, he concluded.

“I wasn’t aware that we were on a budget,” Cruz remarked drily.

“Well, it’s always a concern.”

“If you aren’t satisfied with the way I’m running things, I’d be more than happy to step down. Perhaps you could run the task force...,” Cruz suggested.

“No, no. Of course I’m satisfied. It’s just that everyone’s frustrated that there’s been no real progress...”

“Exactly as I warned there wouldn’t be. This is worse than a needle in a haystack. It’s like trying to locate a drop of water in a river. We have nothing to go on...except, well, a lead that came in this afternoon, but even that’s a long shot...”

“What is it?” Godoy demanded.

“We got a tip from an informant who was arrested for armed robbery and possession of narcotics. A lead we’re following up on. I don’t want to say anything more until we’ve developed it. As you know, these types of investigations will turn up countless red herrings and false starts. Every crook in Mexico is trying to barter his supposedly valuable information in exchange for leniency.” A particularly loathsome little weasel had intimated that his acquaintance, a low-level cartel-associated gun smuggler and general miscreant, had fulfilled an order that could have been for their target – but it was speculative at this point. Cruz didn’t want to announce anything only to have it turn out to be vapor.

“Mmm. Rodriguez, do you have anything to add?” Godoy asked.

“Not really.
Capitan
Cruz is right that I’m getting daily updates. So unless there’s something more...,” Rodriguez said, preparing to rise, obviously annoyed at having had his time wasted so that Godoy could have an audience.

“We’re only a few days out from the event. It’s time to alert the Chinese and give them a data dump. They need to be in the loop,” Cruz stated flatly.

“Ah, well,
Capitan
, I appreciate your concern, but that’s being handled at a different level. At a
diplomatic level
.” Godoy pronounced each syllable with care, as though with careful elocution he could stave off objections.