Requiem for the Assassin (13 page)

Five minutes later Sam was slumbering by the fire, the zolpidem
El Rey
had dissolved in the whiskey having done its job. He’d wake up still drowsy within a few hours and be out of it for a while, but
El Rey
suspected that wasn’t an altogether new feeling for him.

The pipe had been filled with Sam’s special blend – and the addition of a liberal dosing of liquid PCP the assassin had brought with him across the border. In higher doses it would knock a bull elephant out, enabling
El Rey
to carry out the business end of his plan – suffocating Perry with heat.

El Rey
darted to the nearby building where the electrical panel was housed, and after slipping on a pair of surgical gloves, pulled the fuse for the ventilation fan and sensor that ensured the temperature didn’t rise to dangerous levels, and then returned to the lodge. Perry was already comatose from the fast action of the PCP.
El Rey
removed the actor’s room key from where it was hanging from a rubber lanyard around his wrist and poured an extra measure of water on the stones to ensure the steam continued to build. Satisfied by the stifling cloud filling the chamber, he retreated, closed the door, and checked his watch. By his calculations, Perry would be dead inside of an hour, possibly sooner; and now all he had to do was attend to one last chore.

He slipped into the actor’s room and removed several cigarettes from a pack he’d bought at the bar the prior night, which he’d partially soaked in PCP. Anyone investigating the incident would draw the obvious conclusion: another spoiled Hollywood brat with everything to live for had overestimated his tolerance for his drug of choice and taken his last hallucinogenic trip to the cosmic plane.

El Rey
returned to the fire and sat beside Sam’s slumped form, listening to the night creatures in the trees. It really was beautiful, he thought – he could see why the wealthy would enjoy the seclusion. He felt somewhat bad for Sam, but the old man would weather the storm – the PCP would show up on a blood scan but would be accounted for as self-administered, and after a period of heightened concern over the safety of sweat lodges and hysteria at how drugs were ruining America, things would return to normal, with business quite possibly better than ever as curiosity seekers came to visit the lodge to tread the same ground as one of the fallen greats.

He checked his watch, and after forty-five minutes returned to the sweat lodge. The heat hit him in the face when he moved through the door, and a quick pulse check confirmed that the actor was no longer alive. He wound the key back around Perry’s wrist, taking care to wipe it off on the robe, and repeated the wipe-down on the door handle as he exited the lodge.

Replacing the fuse took longer than he’d hoped in the darkness, the moon having yet to have risen above the mountains. As he was leaving the building, he spotted a flash of color at the pool bar in the distance. He squinted and saw what had caught his eye – a stunning woman in a bright red miniskirt, long auburn hair cascading down her back. She looked familiar to him, but he couldn’t place her, and after another glance at the time, he returned his attention to his task.

He elbowed Sam awake after the fan had cleared most of the heat from the lodge. Sam was predictably disoriented but came to quickly enough and groped for the bottle
El Rey
had replaced the drugged one with.

“I don’t know if that’s a great idea, Sam. Your client’s been in there for an hour. Didn’t you say that was about the limit?”

“What? Damn. I must have dozed off.”

“Not a problem. Nothing happened – nobody came by.”

“Yeah, but it’s a good idea to pour some more water on the stones after about half an hour. The lodge is really a sauna, and you don’t want it to get too dry or it loses its effect.” Sam rose unsteadily to his feet. “I’ll get him. Might want to hide that bottle for later.”

“You bet,”
El Rey
said, slipping it into his pocket beneath the robe.

Sam’s cry sounded muffled inside the lodge, and
El Rey
waited a few seconds before going to him.

“What is it, Sam?”

The older man’s face was ashen as he looked up at the assassin. “He’s…he’s dead.”

“Dead? You’re kidding.”

Sam shook his head. “No. There’s no pulse.”

El Rey
straightened, concern written across his face. “Sam…what do we do?”

“I…I’ve got to go tell the manager. Shit. His heart must have stopped or something. Poor bastard.”

El Rey
glanced around. “Sam, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d just as soon not be here when the police show up. I…well, I’ve had some brushes with the law I’d rather not revisit.”

Sam didn’t appear to hear him and then hunched his shoulders. “I kind of figured you might be in some kinda trouble. Don’t worry, kid. Your being here or not isn’t going to bring him back.”

“You sure? I mean, I’ll stay if you need me to.”

“No. Go on. Get outta here. I’ll see you at the bar tonight. If not, tomorrow.”

“I’ll definitely be buying the first round.”

Sam stared at the fire, his look as bleak as a prisoner going to death row, and grunted. “No point delaying this. He isn’t going to get any fresher. See you around, Slim.”

“You too, Sam. Good luck.”

Chapter 21

Tepotzotlán, Mexico

“Can you believe this? It’s insane. There must be five thousand people here already,” Briones said to Cruz, watching more cars arrive and park in one of the three fields being used for the rave. They’d been in position for two hours in a surveillance van set up as the field headquarters for the operation. A loose cordon of
Federales
was stationed along the perimeter of the warehouse district.

“If we’re lucky, the police presence will scare any kidnappers off,” Cruz said as a sedan with six scantily clad young women emptied out across the street from their position. The new arrivals laughed as they passed a bottle back and forth while making their way to the warehouse. “You ready to get going?”

“Sure. Everyone’s in place. I’ll stay in constant communication,” Briones said, seating his earbud more snugly. He was wearing a pair of loose jeans and a vertically striped polo jersey that covered the compact automatic pistol at the small of his back. A reversed baseball cap completed his disguise, and to Cruz’s eye he looked more like a twenty-something slacker than a hardened veteran of the cartel wars.

“Let’s hope we dodge a bullet tonight,” Cruz said. “This is twice the crowd we anticipated, and I’m not convinced we have it locked down.”

“All right. I’m going in.” Briones opened the rear door of the van and stepped out, his civilian clothes no different from those of countless other young males heading to the warehouse. The dull thump of a hypnotic beat boomed from the building, and the distinctive smell of marijuana drifted on the light breeze. Laughter sounded from his right, and he peered into the darkness where three youths stood in the moonlight drinking beer and puffing on a joint. Briones wondered how they would react if he pulled his badge, but decided to forego the theatrics in favor of getting into the rave.

He knew from the first undercover agent who’d gone into the cavernous space that there was no security check at the door, so he wasn’t worried about his gun. He stood in line with at least a hundred of Mexico City’s most beautiful people, the women wearing miniskirts and five-inch heels in spite of the brisk night air, the men with the smug sense of entitlement fostered by being young and wealthy and sure you were going to live forever. Four girls in front of him flirted as they shuffled forward, and by the time he was at the entry handing over his money, he was convinced that the chances of stopping a determined kidnapping were slim given the number of people.

Inside the building the music was loud enough to strip the enamel off his teeth. A girl with streaks of phosphorescent paint on her face materialized from the crowd and handed him a glow stick before moving to the next person. Half the females in attendance had their faces painted, some with sunflowers or the Mexican flag, others with a few stripes in a psychedelic homage to their Indian forefathers, all glowing neon when they moved within range of one of the plentiful black lights. At least seventy percent of the mammoth building was a dance floor, with the throng bouncing and grinding to the trance beat, purple and pink and lime green lamps blinking in time with the bass as mini-spotlights strobed over the dancers’ heads.

The smell of marijuana was powerful and cloying. A girl, probably no older than sixteen and obviously high, wearing a halter top and hip-hugger jeans, her bare midriff tanned and cut, her navel piercing glinting in the light, danced up to Briones with vacant eyes. She opened her mouth and offered a white dot on her tongue, which he momentarily mistook for a piercing before he realized it was a pill. Her gaze invited him to kiss her, and he shook his head. She smiled and moved to the youth behind him, no doubt more amenable to taking unspecified drugs from total strangers, and Briones pushed toward the closest wall in an effort to get his bearings.

A tall young man with long black hair and a perennial smirk approached three girls near the DJ booth and offered the one he’d exchanged glances with a cocktail he’d bought from the illegal bar. Set up on one side of the warehouse, it was dispensing rum-infused punch and plastic bottles of water, the latter in great demand – the ecstasy that was the drug of choice in the rave crowd caused pronounced dehydration. The girl ran a hand through her long hair and smiled – it was far too loud to attempt conversation. The man toasted her with his punch and closed his eyes as his head bobbed to the robotic rhythm. Her friends giggled and returned to their flirtations with the DJ and his assistant, whom they’d agreed were total babes.

The man offered the group a joint, and they passed it around, taking in the smoke in greedy gulps and blowing clouds at the rafters, and the long-haired girl moved closer to the man, who leaned in and said something to her. She flashed brilliant white teeth, her flawless caramel skin accentuating their luminescence in the dim light, and rolled her head dreamily, the marijuana already hitting. They stood together, lost in the music, and the song changed and then changed again, the tunes interchangeable with no discernible start or finish. When she’d drunk half her punch, she grabbed one of her friends’ shoulders and yelled something, and the friend nodded after taking another glance at the grinning man.

He offered his hand. She took it and followed him outside to where the portable toilets were set up, sipping her drink. He escorted her to the line for the facilities, and they chatted, her mild slur becoming more pronounced as they inched forward. By the time she was three-quarters of the way to the porta-potties, she was barely able to stand, and the young man slipped his arm around her and guided her along the side of the warehouse to a darkened area near a stack of pallets.

A security man stopped them, his flashlight on her face. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah. She just overdid the punch and all. I think she’s going to be sick. I got it.”

The guard considered her fluttering eyes and slack face and nodded. “Let me know if you need any help. There are a lot of kids throwing up. Lightweights,” he said with a roll of his eyes, and the young man nodded in agreement.

He reached the area with the pallets, and after glancing back at the guard, who’d moved along to the toilets, he ducked with the girl, who was barely conscious from the Rohypnol he’d dropped in her punch.

“What…I need to…go…” she slurred, her voice dreamy from the effect of the roofie.

“I know. But it’s gross there. This is better,” he said, leading her along the pallets to another cleared area.

“I…where’s the toilet?” she asked, her words barely distinguishable under the thumping music emanating from inside.

Her eyes widened as the man moved closer to her, and then another pair of hands reached around from behind her and clamped over her mouth so she couldn’t scream. A third man approached with a syringe.

The girl was too narcotized to struggle much, and her eyes rolled back into her head sixty seconds after the injection hit her system. Her escort and his accomplices manhandled her to a container and wedged her inside and then placed a board over her and filled the area above her with cellophane-wrapped confections.

The young man turned to the others. “See you at the truck in fifteen. Good luck.”

“I’m glad we got the heads-up about the cops. It would have been a shame to call this off.” The kidnappers had been tipped off by one of their contacts at the
Federales
about the heightened security and the likelihood of departing vehicles being searched, and had improvised a solution they’d all agreed bordered on genius.

“They’ll never suspect a thing.”

Two squad cars partially blocked the small side street, one of four roads that ran along the edge of the warehouse. Few cars were leaving the rave at the relatively early hour, it being only midnight, but the police had three vehicles pulled over and were questioning the occupants, checking IDs, and searching the trunks while a pair of officers looked on.

A tinkle sounded on the road – a cow bell – and a vendor appeared pushing a cart with churros and other treats hanging from a frame. “Good evening, officers. Churros?” he asked, his voice a rasp.

The vendor found a willing clientele for his wares and, after making several sales, continued on his way as the policemen munched on their snacks while searching the vehicles.

Briones was tired by four a.m. Tired of dancing stoners, tired of the never-ending monotonous beat, tired of the theatrically forced feeling of the event. He was getting ready to call it a night when his earbud chirped and Cruz’s voice came over the comm channel.

“We just got a call. There’s been a kidnapping at the rave. It’s puzzling because she’s not from a particularly wealthy family – but the friend she was with is. We think they might have grabbed the wrong girl, but that’s speculation.”