Rage Of The Assassin (7 page)

The leader’s gun butt caught Agundez on the side of the head, and he went down like a bag of rocks.

“Me?” the leader growled. “I’m your worst nightmare.”

He turned to his men and nodded, and one of them moved to Agundez with a syringe. He popped its bright orange cap, holding the plastic nub between his teeth, and after finding a promising vein, emptied the contents into Agundez’s arm as the wounded cartel boss moaned groggily. By the time he straightened, Agundez was out cold.

The leader tilted his head at the unconscious figure. “Get this sack of shit out of here. Take the men’s weapons and belongings, and write a warning in their blood,” he ordered, and then turned on his heel and made for the entrance.

Outside, the ice-cream vendor was on a cell phone, his eyes on the empty road. The leader grunted as he walked past him. “It’s done.”

The vendor spoke softly as the leader returned to his waiting SUV, the steam drifting skyward from the drying pavement a ghostly fog in the brightening sunlight.

Chapter 10

Mexico City, Mexico

Cruz made his way down the hall of the condo to his front door and slid the key in the lock. He’d promised his wife, Dinah, that he would come home during the day at least twice a week rather than working his customary twelve-hour stints straight through, as had been his habit before they’d tied the knot.

He swung the door wide and stepped into the condo – the latest in a long string of temporary residences they’d been relegated to for their safety. As the number one law enforcement officer in the nation chartered with stopping the cartels, Cruz was in constant danger of one of them deciding to snuff him out.

“Dinah? I’m home,” he called, setting his briefcase down in the foyer by the entrance.

“I’m in the kitchen,” she said.

He made his way toward the sound of her voice and kissed the back of her neck. She smiled as he sniffed the mouthwatering aroma rising from the pan she was laboring over. “Wow. Smells delicious. What is it?”

“An Italian dish. I downloaded the recipe from the web. Chicken pizzaiola.”

“I can’t wait. How are you feeling?”

Dinah had been under the weather for the last week, every morning claiming she was vastly improved over the prior day, but by evening lethargic and moody. He’d been after her to see a doctor, but so far she’d resisted.

“So-so.” She paused. “Lunch will be ready in five minutes.”

“I’m not going to nag you, but…”

“I know, Romero. I already made an appointment to go in tomorrow morning.” She watched him move into the dining room. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you could take a day off, is there?”

He laughed bitterly. “That’ll be the day. They just stuck me on a task force to close the barn door after Aranas, who’s probably halfway to Aruba by now.”

“Well, you are the foremost expert on the man. I mean, you’ve even met him…”

“Which is why I know this is completely pointless. I mean, come on. Somehow the staff of our most secure prison missed that someone was excavating a tunnel almost a mile long directly under the facility, and I’m supposed to catch the mastermind who’d evaded arrest for twenty-something years? Ridiculous.” Cruz sat down at the table. “But I haven’t told you the best part.”

“How hungry are you?”

“My stomach’s growling, but I probably shouldn’t eat too much.”

Dinah entered the dining room with a heaping plate in her hand. “Starting first thing tomorrow.” She set it down in front of him and pulled a chair free.

“What about you?” Cruz asked.

“I’ve been nibbling. Besides, I’m not hungry.”

“Are you taking vitamins? You might be anemic.”

“Every morning.”

The extent of Cruz’s knowledge of feminine disorders exhausted, he turned to the chicken, which tasted even better than it smelled. He cleaned his plate without speaking, and Dinah nodded when he put his fork and knife down and sighed.

“You were going to tell me the best part?”

He patted his stomach. “Guess who’s heading up the task force?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Not you?”

“No. Why have an experienced authority on cartels direct things when you can call in the big guns?”

Dinah’s voice softened. “That bad?”

He nodded. “Worse. Godoy,” he said, his expression souring.

“I thought he was out of your hair permanently?”

“So did I. But the good news is that I think he’s being set up to take the bullet when we fail.”

“You’re that sure you won’t be able to track Aranas?”

“I’ve said all along that a guy like Aranas doesn’t get caught unless he wants to. I haven’t changed my opinion. The man’s obscenely rich and wildly smart. We might as well put a fortune teller on staff, because he’s as gone as you can get, and my bet is we never see him again.”

“At least you’re optimistic.”

“It’s a complete sham, but I got sucked into it, and now I have to hand off real investigations to Briones while I sit in meetings with a dolt who couldn’t find his ass with both hands.”

Dinah nodded sympathetically. “Can’t you just have him killed or something?”

“Don’t give me any ideas.”

“Seriously, just refuse to work with him. They’ll choose you over him.”

“I tried. They’re not taking no for an answer.” He pushed back from the table and checked the time. “Besides, if I’m right, he’s going to be the piñata who gets all the blame in the end, so I have mixed feelings about reporting to him. On the one hand I want to resign, but on the other I want to see him burn, publicly humiliated and gone once and for all. He’s a menace. You should have heard him today. I’d forgotten how much I hate that cockroach.”

“You want some dessert?” she asked. “I have flan.”

“Not really on my diet, is it?”

“I think it’s diet flan. You burn more calories digesting it than you take in,” Dinah said with a straight face.

“Then I’d be a fool to refuse, wouldn’t I?”

She smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

When she returned, she had a small portion for herself and a jumbo helping for Cruz, which she placed in front of him. He ate it with relish, and when he was done, grimaced. “I did it again. I ate too much.” His gaze rose toward the ceiling. “Why, God, do you do this to me?”

“Somewhere there are starving children. Don’t be an ingrate.”

“If I didn’t know how good the flan was for me, I’d feel worse.” He grew serious. “I’m probably going to have to stay late tonight. I have to deal with my own workload as well as the Aranas thing. Briones can’t handle it all himself, at least not at this stage.”

“How late?”

“I wouldn’t wait up.”

She shook her head and exhaled in frustration. “You promised no more of these, Cruz.”

“I know. But how could I have foreseen the Aranas thing?”

“Let Briones handle your other stuff. Mexico can do without you saving it for one night.”

“I wish it was that easy.” He told her about the child prostitution ring. When he finished, she closed her eyes resignedly.

“Okay. I understand. But I don’t like it.”

“I know. I swear once we do the raid, that will be it. He can deal with the rest. I’m sorry, Dinah. I really am.”

She opened her eyes and reached for his plate, her face unreadable. But her shoulders were tight, her body language conveying her disappointment. When she responded, her voice was fatigued.

“So am I, Cruz. So am I.”

Chapter 11

El Rey pushed through the familiar bulletproof glass doors that served as CISEN’s anonymous entrance, past a pair of burly security men in black suits, and strode to the reception desk, where an attractive young woman in an immaculate white silk blouse greeted him with a neutral smile.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I need to see Rodriguez.”

Her brow lifted slightly. “The director? Do you have an appointment?”

His tone didn’t change. “Tell him he has a visitor who’s been calling his cell phone for a week, with no reply.”

She looked over to the guards. “Sir, I’m afraid if you don’t have an appointment–”

El Rey stepped closer. “Look, you seem like you’re nice, so I’ll spare you the unpleasantness. Just make the call. I’ve been in his office more than a few times – the director knows me well. So do as you’re told, and it will go better for you.” The cold menace in the assassin’s voice must have gotten through to her, because rather than sounding the alarm, she pressed some buttons and whispered into her headset. El Rey moved to a beige leather couch and took a seat, clenching and unclenching his hands, which thankfully had stopped shaking earlier.

Ten minutes later, three men rounded the corner from the bowels of the building. El Rey recognized the one in the center as the new director of CISEN – the former assistant director, Rodriguez, who’d moved up the ladder since the assassin’s last visit. El Rey stood as Rodriguez approached.

“Come into the conference room,” Rodriguez said, and led him through a security area to one of the myriad rooms on the ground floor, followed by the pair of flunkies.

When everyone was seated, El Rey got to the point. “I’ve been calling. You haven’t returned any of them. I need my final shot, so I thought I’d make my demand in person.”

Rodriguez nodded. “I have to apologize. We’ve been under a lot of pressure, working double shifts. Bit of an emergency situation.” He waved as though clearing the air. “But what counts is that you’re here now.”

“Right. So where’s the antidote?”

“We anticipated your need. One of my assistants is retrieving it. If you’ll wait for a few minutes, we’ll have it right out.”

El Rey studied Rodriguez, trying to decide whether he was lying or not. He was polished, seemed relaxed, and there were no obvious tells. Then again, you didn’t get to the top of the intelligence heap by being an easy read.

Rodriguez returned his stare. “So, what will you do now that your service to your country is over?”

“I’m thinking of opening a strip club.”

One of Rodriguez’s bookend assistants coughed to cover his laugh.

Rodriguez nodded. “Dangerous work. I understand the ladies can take things personally.”

“Probably worse than the cartels,” El Rey agreed, glancing at his Panerai watch.

“Better you than me. Sounds like a young man’s game.”

Silence stretched uncomfortably as the banter died, and El Rey did nothing to break it. He thought he detected a faint whiff of nervousness from the men, but that was hardly surprising given his reputation. When a soft knock at the door sounded, the CISEN officials seemed relieved.

“Come in,” Rodriguez called out, and another anonymous young man in a suit entered carrying a thermos. Rodriguez took it from him and passed it across the table to El Rey. “There. As always, everything you need.”

El Rey opened the top and peered inside before standing. “Wish I could say it’s been a pleasure. I know the way out.”

Rodriguez watched as he departed. When the speaker on the center of the table beeped and the front office reported that the visitor had left the building, he looked at his associates.

“Think he bought it?”

The man on Rodriguez’s left gave the ceiling a pensive stare. “He’s suspicious, of course. Doesn’t matter. We know which lab he uses to check it, and we’ve made arrangements for it to test as genuine. He’ll believe it’s the real thing, take it, and that’s that.”

“How long will it take to…finish him?” Rodriguez asked.

“Matter of an hour or two from time of injection.”

“Then there’s one problem over by day’s end.” Rodriguez tilted his head. “If only all my challenges were so easily resolved.”

The other man sat forward. “Sir, we’re doing the right thing. He’s far too dangerous to have out there on the loose. We all know that. Our intelligence–”

“Yes, yes. No need to belabor it. His usefulness is at an end, and he’s now a liability. Everyone understands,” Rodriguez snapped. He rose and moved to the conference room door. “He’s being tailed, of course?”

“We have a locater chip built into the thermos casing. He’s too good for us to risk any physical surveillance. He’d spot it no matter how large a team we deployed or what techniques we used. Safer with the chip – it’s undetectable.”

Rodriguez looked dubious. “Right. Well, call me when it’s over.”

“Will do, sir.”

Chapter 12

Cruz and Briones sat in the audio-visual suite in a single row of theater seats, watching the security camera footage from the prison on a massive screen – a mind-numbingly tedious job due to the sheer number of cameras and angles. Everyone had assured Cruz that he didn’t have to do it, that the footage didn’t contain anything, but he’d stubbornly insisted, and a technician had arrived with the data right after Cruz had gotten back from lunch.

“There’s no camera that was focused on his cell?” Briones asked for the third time since the man had begun showing them the grainy black-and-white sequences.

“No. As you can see, the primary concern is the public areas.”

They’d been at it for over an hour when Cruz called out to the tech, “What are we watching now? Where is this?”

“The service entrance – number two, to be specific. There are three in the prison.”

“Back it up and let’s see it again, slower.”

The technician complied, and they watched as a laborer in coveralls wearing a grimy baseball hat walked with a pair of guards from the exit. It could have been coincidence, or deliberate, but for whatever reason the worker’s hat obstructed the camera’s view of his face.

Cruz leaned into Briones. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“It’s just one of the workers.”

“Look at the time stamp.

“An hour before Aranas was reported missing.”

“Which makes it at least noteworthy, don’t you think?” Cruz craned his neck at where the technician sat in the gloom. “You have any other cameras on that sector?”

“The exterior there?”

“Yes.”

“Should have. Let me see what we’ve got.” The tech tapped at his keys as the grainy image froze on the wall.