Rage Of The Assassin (30 page)

“I want to do the hospital first,” Cruz said. “You’re positive that thing will work?”

“The bomb maker was. I’m taking him at his word.”

“Explain to me how you got him to cooperate. I’m still not following that.”

El Rey gave him a more detailed account, and when he finished, Cruz shook his head. “Amazing. But you realize we’re going to have to get him off the street, right? Can’t have him building doomsday devices for Aranas.”

“Just see to it that he’s in a good facility. He isn’t a criminal, at least not in any sense he’d understand. He’s just really good at making things, and his uncle directed his talents in an ugly way. He’d probably be just as happy working on engines or computers.”

“One of his gizmos killed over twenty people at the museum. He’ll have to pay for building it. No way will anyone let that slide.”

“I understand. All I’m saying is that he doesn’t deserve to be in some shithole. Do your best to see that he winds up somewhere safe. You have the clout, Cruz.”

“Not for much longer. After this, I’m done.”

El Rey gave him a sidelong glance. “You’ll never leave.”

“Never say never. I made a promise to my wife last night, and I plan to honor it. Things have changed. I’m going to be a father, and I’m not going to risk my family, living like gypsies, wondering whether today’s the day their heads arrive in a box.”

The assassin was familiar with the story of Cruz’s past, so he didn’t comment. After a long pause, the only sound the roar of the car’s engine and the squeal of its tires as Cruz pushed the vehicle to its handling limits, he turned the conversation back to the bombs. “How do you plan to get us into the building?” he asked.

“You said five hundred meters, didn’t you? Why do we have to be inside?”

“He said the closer the better. Doesn’t seem like he spent a lot of time on the prototype, so it’s probably just jury-rigged. I’d rather be right next to the bomb with it, if you don’t mind.”

“You don’t have to do that. I have twenty men who will gladly volunteer for the job.”

“I’m not in the habit of farming out my projects. If I’m right and it works, there’s no danger.”

Cruz didn’t argue. “I have a way in.” He described the maintenance passageway.

“Okay, then call your CFE guys so they’re waiting for us when we arrive. Time’s not our friend this morning.”

Cruz looked at the dash clock. “The deadline is two and a half hours from now.”

“That’ll be tight. Figure, what, half an hour each direction into the hospital? Then we have to get to the Federal building in morning rush hour. It’ll be close.”

“More like twenty minutes each way, but we also need to allow time to get to the device, so you’re probably about right. Still, we can make it.” Cruz paused. “Let me worry about getting us across town.”

They arrived at the utility buildings where Adolfo Minos was waiting by his truck, sipping coffee from a foam cup, his expression sleepy. Cruz nodded to the man and didn’t introduce El Rey. Minos didn’t seem to care, nor did he appear curious about the assassin’s backpack.

“Couldn’t stay away, huh?” Minos joked.

“It’s like a drug,” Cruz said dryly. Both men chuckled, and Minos unlocked the utility building door.

Once in the passageway nobody spoke, the earth around them silent except for the occasional tremble from a truck rumbling by overhead, busy with the morning rush, as they passed beneath the streets. Cruz glanced overhead as the passage vibrated, still distrustful of the construction even though he’d been through the tunnel recently – but that had been late at night, with no traffic.

“That doesn’t worry you?” he asked Minos.

Minos grinned. “Nah. If I let it get to me, I’d never go down the hole.” He kept moving and looked back at Cruz. “Do you worry about getting shot every day when you put on your uniform?”

Cruz had to give the man credit. “Good point.”

They reached the hospital vault door and Minos unlocked it. “I’ll just wait here again, right?”

“That would be great. We’ll be through in a few minutes.”

“Or vaporized,” El Rey muttered.

Cruz ignored the comment and led him into the pump room. “The bomb’s on the third floor, in an elevator maintenance room. Aranas did his homework – according to the experts, that’s where it would inflict maximum damage. All the facility’s gas pipes run next to it, as well as the pressurized air lines. The blast would set those off, too. It would be ugly.”

“Then best if we don’t set it off.”

They took the stairs to the third level and moved along the corridor to where a group of security guards lounged by the elevators. Cruz greeted the men and told them to clear the area, and they did so without protest. Rumors had been racing through the hospital like wildfire as tensions heightened, and one of the more popular was that there was a bomb in the building.

Cruz stopped the supervisor as he was preparing to leave.

“I need you to unlock this door.”

The man fumbled for his keys and tried several, his hands unsteady, and finally found one that fit the lock, which sprang open with a clunk. Cruz stepped toward the door. “Thanks. You can go now, but I don’t want anyone disturbing us – is that clear?”

“Yes,
Capitan
. Of course.”

El Rey waited until the man had disappeared before moving to Cruz. “You going to open it?”

“Might as well see what we’re dealing with, right?”

“Although there’s not much we can do by looking. Either the switches work, or they don’t.”

Cruz pulled the door wide and they stared at the container, which was large enough to easily accommodate a V8 engine and had a single red LED blinking on its side. “There’s a lot of C-4 in that thing. Hundreds of kilos,” Cruz said. “I saw the X-ray images of the museum device.”

“You can say what you like about our bomb maker, but he’s good at what he does.”

“I hope so, given that you have his work in your hands.”

El Rey had removed the console from the backpack and flipped the toggle switches on all three channels to off. His mouth twitched as a thought occurred to him. “Hope he remembered to put new batteries in recently.”

“You didn’t check?”

The assassin shrugged. “Here goes nothing,” he said, and pressed the button marked
Hospital
.

The LED blinked a final time and went dark.

Cruz exhaled in relief, and El Rey smiled. “See? Easy.”

“Let’s get moving. I’ll have the bomb squad move in once we’ve disabled the other one.”

The assassin glanced at his watch and then back to Cruz. “Lead the way. But we’re not going to make it if there’s any traffic.”

“I told you I’ve got it covered,” Cruz said.

El Rey slid the console back into his pack and leveled a neutral gaze at Cruz. “It’s your party.”

Chapter 51

When Cruz and El Rey emerged from the CFE building into the morning sunlight, Cruz pointed at a skyscraper at the end of the block. “That’s our ride.”

El Rey blinked. “That’s a building.”

“I know. Come on.”

They left Minos in the lot and trotted to the lobby of the edifice, where two serious Federal Police officers waited. “Everything ready?” Cruz asked, and the nearest one nodded.

“On the roof.”

They rode the elevator to the thirtieth floor, where two more Federales framed a steel door. One of them held it open for Cruz, who led El Rey up the stairway to the roof. As they neared they heard the whirring of a helicopter turbine. Cruz pushed open another door and stepped outside, where an unmarked helo idled, its rotor orbiting slowly.

“I figure we can put down on one of the nearby buildings. This should buy us fifteen minutes, at least,” Cruz called over his shoulder to the assassin as he jogged toward the aircraft.

The helicopter lifted into the sky seconds after the doors were closed, and the pilot ascended to just above the tops of the highest surrounding buildings. “All air traffic’s been shut down along the route, but why attract attention?” Cruz explained.

El Rey closed his eyes as if napping.

Five minutes later the chopper touched down on the roof of a bank several blocks from the Federal building. El Rey dropped from the helicopter and Cruz trailed him to where a Federal policeman stood by an iron door.

“We’re going to have to use the sewers on this one, unfortunately,” Cruz announced as they neared the officer. “I’ve arranged for protective clothing.”

“Not like I haven’t done it before,” El Rey said. “But an important question: how many people know about all this?”

“I’ve deliberately kept the circle small. Briones, whom you know. A handful of others, people I trust completely. Why? You can’t be worried about a leak…”

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”

“My men are loyal.”

El Rey didn’t respond, but his expression indicated that he wasn’t impressed by Cruz’s assurances.

Don
Aranas punched his cell phone off with a curse. His deputy, Ramirez, looked at him from over the rim of his coffee cup.

“What is it?”

“Another double cross. Stupid bastards are forcing my hand.”

“But we’re in the process of picking up the diamonds. What’s the point?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve been screwed.” Aranas’s face darkened. “I’m going to detonate the bombs.”

Ramirez set his cup down and formed his words carefully. “Maybe we let them blow themselves up without our help?”

“No. This is about control. I issued exact instructions. They’ve violated the agreement, and they’ll pay the price.”

“But we’ll have the diamonds in a few more minutes.”

Aranas stood. “Which is about how long it will take me to make it to the attic,” he snarled. “This was never about the money. It was about…never mind. Somebody still hasn’t learned their lesson. But they soon will.”

A roadwork supervisor pointed at an open manhole and looked Cruz and El Rey up and down. “You sure about this?” he asked doubtfully.

Cruz nodded. “We don’t have a choice. You have the blueprint of the network?”

“Don’t need it. I’ve been working the pipes for twenty years. Know every inch of ’em.”

El Rey took in the man’s boots and gas mask, twins of the ones he and Cruz wore. “Let’s get going.”

The supervisor took the hint, slipped the mask and his bright yellow hard hat on, and lowered himself down the manhole. When the top of his head disappeared beneath the rim, El Rey followed him into the gloom, and Cruz brought up the rear. The supervisor switched on his helmet light and El Rey did the same. A channel containing odious fluid coursed along the bottom of the tunnel, and an army of cockroaches scuttled from their lamp beams. The supervisor kept to one side, motioning with his hand to indicate that they should do the same.

A rat scurried away, its coat gleaming dark brown, wary of the intrusion into its dominion. They continued along, the floor sloping downward at a gradual angle, until they reached another shaft above them, the only marking a spray painted number in what had once been bright yellow but was now caramel from years of astringent fumes.

The supervisor gestured at the rungs leading upward, and El Rey wasted no time climbing them, his backpack hanging by a shoulder strap. At the top of the shaft he encountered a metal hatch, rusted along the edges, and he pushed up with all his might. The plate groaned and rose, and he continued his ascent. Cruz followed him into the large maintenance room, their helmet lamps lighting the area, and they removed their masks and the rubber boots that covered their shoes and trousers.

“This way,” Cruz said, moving to the door.

“We’re running low on time,” El Rey reminded him.

Cruz’s face darkened. “I know.”

Don
Aranas mounted the steps to the top floor as he dialed the president’s number. He wanted the fool on the phone when he detonated the bomb. One of his police informants had tipped him off about an irregular helicopter flight to the Federal building, and he’d connected the dots – it had taken off within a few blocks of the hospital, and he could think of only one reason anyone would be making that trip with such urgency it required flight.

His phone beeped, indicating an incoming call. He switched lines, and the voice of his courier sounded from the phone.

“I’ve got the stones. We’re pulling away. We’ll be taking evasive maneuvers while we switch them to new bags.”

“How long until you’re clear?”

“No more than five minutes, tops. I have a crew running interference. Nobody will be able to follow us – the way is blocked by a truck. And we’ll change to the motorcycles once we’re in the underground parking area.”

Aranas did a quick calculation and grunted. “Call me when you’re through.” He terminated the call and eyed the attic door. He could afford to wait a few more minutes for his newfound fortune to be secured. Not that he needed the money; it was to drive home the point that crossing him carried a high price.

He freed the attic hatch and the wooden steps lowered into place.

Aranas was strangely ambivalent about what he intended to do. His hand had been forced by the president’s stupidity. What happened next was simply the inevitable conclusion of a series of disastrous decisions by a man with the moral qualms of a heroin-addled street prostitute.

He climbed the steps and moved across the attic to the console. His hand felt at his breast pocket and he retrieved a pair of reading glasses from beside his trove of cigars. After slipping them on, he squinted at the box and flipped up the cover on the final button – the one that would obliterate the building he could see from his balcony, a symbol of the government’s authority – and soon to be another glaring example of its inability to protect its citizenry.

Cruz and El Rey emerged into a long hall, at the end of which was the room where the bomb had been discovered. They made their way toward it, only to find themselves facing a group of eight guards, all of them obviously exhausted and agitated.

“Stand aside. We need to get in there,” Cruz said, fingers resting loosely on his Glock for emphasis.