Requiem for the Assassin (17 page)

“What’s this about?” Cruz demanded, not turning.

“Don’t say anything more.”

Cruz kept walking, his mind racing. He hadn’t heard that voice in half a year, but it was the kind of thing you never forgot – and he knew he was one of the very few still alive who would recognize it. He debated continuing past the metro to the market, but decided that if something had drawn
El Rey
out of hiding and warranted making contact, he’d do his best to find out why.

He paused at the metro station and checked his watch and then took the stairs down into the depths of the city, where he inserted some coins into a machine and purchased a ticket. As he neared the turnstile, a street urchin ran up, startling him. The little boy’s face was coated in a layer of grime. His clothes were little more than rags, and his hands were filthy. Wary of the city’s young pickpockets, Cruz’s hand automatically drifted to his wallet.

“
Señor
. Chiclets?” the child offered, his voice a whine.

“No. Thanks anyway.”

“Come on. Only two pesos.”

“I said no. Now get out of here,” Cruz snapped, his headache and the odd circumstances he found himself in fraying his nerves.

“What a dick. Here you go,” the little boy said and pressed a crumpled ball of paper into Cruz’s hand before running off between the legs of the other travelers. Cruz didn’t know what to make of the scene, but after several seconds realization dawned, and he unfurled the wadded note. He read the neat handwriting and pocketed it and then slid his ticket into the turnstile and pushed through the barrier.

The next train arrived in five minutes, and once aboard Cruz didn’t bother to sit down. The cars were almost empty on a weekend, and he eyed the few fellow passengers, none of whom showed the faintest interest in him. He’d been the only passenger to get on at the previous station and was the only one to get off at the next stop, other than an ancient woman with a stooped back who was muttering to herself.

When he arrived at the street level, he proceeded half a block, rounded the corner, and then turned right in the alley. He made for the street at the end and continued to a restaurant with a sign featuring a charging bull, named, appropriately, Olé Olé!

Inside, a tall man with a grim countenance looked up from where he was sorting receipts at a podium. Cruz took in the colorful interior festooned with red ribbons and photographs of famous bullfighters as the man eyed him like he was a bill collector.

“We’re closed.”

“I was told you have a private dining room.”

The man didn’t blink. “Up the stairs, first door on the right. It’s open.”

The dining room door opened with a creak. Cruz entered the garishly painted space and took a seat at the rustic wooden table set for six. He looked at his watch again and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. The room was quiet except for the sound of traffic outside, the roar of a bus, an occasional horn honk or the buzz-saw whine of a motorcycle. He was growing increasingly irritable when the door opened and the assassin stood in the doorway, barely recognizable in baggy jean shorts, high-top Nike tennis shoes, and a blue basketball jersey, his flat-brimmed baseball cap twisted to the side.
El Rey
studied him wordlessly as he closed the door behind him and took the seat opposite Cruz, his face giving away nothing.

“You weren’t tailed. That’s positive,” he said in his distinctive soft voice.

“Should I be worried about being tailed?”

El Rey
gave a small smile. “You should be worried about everything.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” He hesitated, afraid to ask his question, the assassin’s parting words to him as vivid in his mind as though he’d just spoken them: “Remember your promise.” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I have some information for you, and I need your help.”

“I see. What can I do for you?”

“It’s not what you can do for me, so much, at least not right now. It’s more about what I can do for you.”

Cruz leaned forward, his face puzzled. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Someone’s going to try to kill you, and I need to find out why.”

Cruz’s eyes widened. “Kill me? Good luck. I move around constantly, and I’m surrounded by police, even at home.”

“Didn’t stop me from finding you, did it? I could have taken you out any of a dozen ways when you left your building. An ice pick to the spine. A slip in front of a truck. A needle stick with curare.”

Cruz grunted. “How did you know where I live?”

El Rey
’s expressionless face shifted slightly. “I was told.”

“Told? What the hell are you talking about, told? Nobody knows where I live.”

“Wrong. And the reason I was told…” The assassin paused. “You don’t look so good. You want some water or something?”

Cruz shook his head. “No. I won’t be staying long. Anyway, you were saying you were told…?”

El Rey
tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “That’s right. By the same people who want you dead.”

“Want me dead,” Cruz repeated slowly.

The assassin sighed, annoyed, and looked at Cruz like he was addled, taking care to over-enunciate each word so the older man wouldn’t miss anything.

“Right. They contracted me to kill you.”

Chapter 27

Cruz’s gaze held
El Rey
’s for a long moment before he looked away. “I thought you were out of the game. That’s the official story, isn’t it? No longer a hired gun?”

“Right. But there was one exception, if you recall.”

“For CISEN. I remember.” Cruz’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. Are you telling me…?”

“You owe me a favor. You promised to do whatever needed to be done. Do you remember?”

“Of course I do. But I’m not going to lie down and die, if that’s what you’re after.”

“Again, if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already, and I’d be eating brunch.”

“Then what?”

“I need you to die and then help me figure out why CISEN wants you killed.”

“Back up, and let’s cover the part where I die again. It all sounded good until that bit.”

“Not literally die. But you need to appear to die, or I won’t get my booster shot, and that would put me in a very cranky mood. So you need to go to your reward sooner than later, and it has to appear to be accidental or of natural causes.”

“Accidental.”

“Right, but the problem there is the
corpus delicti
. If there’s a body, you can be identified or, rather, whoever died will be identified as not you. So it’ll be a little tricky. Fortunately, I have some ideas.”

Cruz sighed. “I want that water now.”

El Rey
stood. “Sure you don’t want something stronger? You look a little green.”

“Just water.”

“You aren’t thinking about running out on me, are you?”

“And do what? Get hit by a train? Have a piano fall on me? Just hurry up. My wife thinks I’m at the market.”

El Rey
returned in sixty seconds with two plastic bottles. He placed one in front of Cruz, cracked his own open and took a sip. Cruz twisted the top off and drank half the bottle and then paused. “You could have put poison in this, couldn’t you?”

“Don’t be paranoid.”

“Says the man who’s here to kill me.”

“Final time. I’m not here to kill you; I’m here to help you stay alive.”

“By killing me. Faking my death.”

“Now you’ve got it. If we can do it tonight or tomorrow, so much the better. They won’t give me my shot until you’re dead. And I need to get it next week.”

“This is the antidote you told me about?”

“No, it’s a flu vaccine. What do you think it is?”

Cruz exhaled noisily. “Okay, let’s say I play along. Start at the beginning, and tell me what’s going on. You mentioned CISEN and killing me…”

El Rey
stood and paced while he spoke. “Correct. But I have no idea why. Or why they had me kill the others.”

“The
others
? Killed, as in past tense?” Cruz asked.

“That’s right.”

“Anyone I know?”

El Rey
told him the whole story. When he was finished, Cruz closed his eyes.

“How likely do you think it is that all of them were somehow involved in a drug operation?” he asked.

“Slightly less likely than that CISEN decided to terminate people for no reason.”

“We’re missing a connection. I mean, we know I’m not involved in smuggling meth to the U.S. So that doesn’t wash.”

“It gets worse. There are two other names on the list that I have to terminate. One of them is Carla Vega.”

“The TV star?”

“She’d probably prefer ‘television journalist.’”

“Right. Because there’s so much journalism involved.” Cruz paused. “What’s the other name?”

“Indalecio Arellano.”

Cruz grunted. “Never heard of him.”

“He’s a farmer in Sinaloa.”

“And all this doesn’t sound crazy?”

“Of course it does. That’s why I’m here. But first things first. We need to get you out of the crosshairs while we can.”

Cruz shook his head. “I’ll go to the president.”

“And tell him that his intelligence service is committing mass murder of random dignitaries and foreign citizens? Oh, and pig farmers.”

“He’ll take it seriously from me.”

“Maybe. I mean, you’ll have proof that those were all murders, right?”

“I’ll have you to back me up.”

“Here’s the problem. We don’t really know what this is all about. So we don’t know who’s involved or what the real objective is. What I do know is that if I go live with the fact that I terminated these people, I’m dead meat. There’s no way I walk away from that – either my injection mysteriously fails to work this time, or someone takes me out while I’m walking down the street. In the meantime, CISEN simply shrugs its shoulders and says that one of the side effects of the agent I was injected with is vivid hallucinations, that I invented the entire story because I’m delusional, that of course they had nothing to do with it and there’s nothing to support my contention those were executions…and then it’s my word against theirs. Who do you think they’re going to believe? The national intelligence agency or a former hit man?”

“You have no reason to lie.”

“Right. Except I’m nuts. Which will be their story. And they’ll smear you with the same brush – how could you buy into my paranoid ramblings? You can see how that plays. And then one day, maybe soon, you die, either in one of your tactical operations or choking on a bone or from an unexpected heart attack.”
El Rey
let his words sink in. “Or maybe it’s both you and your wife in a car crash. Those happen all the time. The point is, you’ll still be in jeopardy, I’ll be exposed, and we’ll have done nothing to stop whatever this is and find whoever’s accountable.”

“What about Rodriguez? We can go to him.”

“Which assumes he didn’t order it. He’s the second highest-ranking man in CISEN – the director’s an appointed figurehead. There are very few people in the organization that could order the termination of high-ranking Mexican officials and not risk having their subordinates go over their heads. He’s one of the few. If I were him, I’d deny everything, express sadness that my ‘treatment’ has taken this delusional turn for the worse, and that would be it. Again, with no proof, it’s my word against his.”

“What if it’s one of his subordinates?”

“Then we discover who. That’s not my biggest worry – have you stopped to think about the alternative? That this is an official op that’ll be denied at every level the instant it comes out, and then we’ll be dealt with at their own speed?”
El Rey
took another drink of water. “The history of intelligence agencies is doing really ugly things and then denying everything when they’re caught. You think the Americans invented that?”

“I’m not going to debate the honesty of governments with you.”

“That’s probably wise. We’re wasting time we don’t have. We need to figure out how to kill you and make it look like an accident but leave no body.”

A thought occurred to Cruz. “What about Dinah?”

“She won’t be in danger. You’ll be dead.”

“Wait. I’m not supposed to tell her I’m alive?”

“So if she’s drugged and interrogated, she’ll be able to blow it for you, and kill both of us in the process as well as herself?”
El Rey
studied Cruz. “Are you usually this slow on the uptake? No wonder the cartels run the country.”

“That’s uncalled for.”

“Then stop asking stupid questions, and start figuring out how we can get rid of you.”

They considered a car crash and discarded it – no matter how bad, there would be a body to check dental records against. Ditto for an operation gone wrong or a cartel hit. As they went through their options, it became readily apparent that faking a death in a convincing way that left no traces was nearly impossible. Cruz was getting increasingly anxious as they discussed possibilities, and after twenty minutes, they hadn’t come up with anything that would work, and his head was buzzing like a beehive.

Cruz slid his chair back and rose. “I have to get to the market. Let me think about this some. How do I get ahold of you?”

El Rey
handed him a burner cell phone. “I programmed my number into speed dial. It’s the only one.”

Cruz took the phone and slid it into his breast pocket. “You’re sure I can’t just disappear until we figure this out?”

“Only if I want you to sign my death warrant. You go missing without being dead, the game’s over. These are not stupid people. So forget that. It’s not an option.”

“I’ll call later.”

“Do that. Leave the phone on. In the meantime I’ll keep thinking.”

Cruz finished his water and tossed the bottle into a trash bin. “And I thought my day couldn’t get any worse.”

“It could have. I could have decided to fulfill the sanction.”

Cruz took in the assassin’s emotionless stare. “Why didn’t you?”

“If I kill you, how do I collect on the debt of gratitude you owe me? It’s bad business.”