Return of the Assassin (Assassin Series 3) (29 page)

“You’re bluffing.”

He shrugged. “Sure I am. I’m also bluffing about having a cyanide capsule that I can crack with my back molars, killing me within seconds and ending this instantly. You should really avoid betting, Hector. You’re terrible at it. If you went to a casino and tried this, you’d be broke within an hour,”
El Rey
said.

Hector’s eyes drifted to the two armed goons standing near the wall.

“It will be done before they can make it to me, so unless you want this over right now, you won’t even think about it,”
El Rey
warned. “You’re a real piece of shit, Hector, and I know how to deal with shit specks. And now you’re wasting my time – time I don’t have. So last time. Does the president want to see his daughter alive, or is this end game?”

Hector shifted gears. “How do we know you rescued her? Or that she’s even alive?” he demanded.

El Rey
pointed at the basket where they had thrown his cell phone and his money. Hector nodded, and one of the men approached the assassin with the BlackBerry.

“Keep your distance. Just toss it to me, nice and easy,” he warned.

He caught it and powered it on, watching as the guard returned to his position at Hector’s side, and then thumbed through the menus until he got to the video icon. He selected the only file and pushed play, then held the phone up so Hector could see it.

Maria’s face appeared, smiling, and the camera pulled away from her to show her whole body in the frame. She was sunburned and exhausted, but looked healthy.

“Hi Papa. I’m okay. Everything is going to be fine. The man you sent rescued me, and I can’t wait to see you…” Maria said, and then the phone went dark.

“If you check the time stamp, you’ll see that was taken this morning.”

“Where is she?” Hector demanded.

“You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

Hector said nothing.

“Right now, she is in an airtight chamber, with enough oxygen to last forty-eight hours. After that, she suffocates. And before you waste any more of my time, you have zero chance of finding it unless I give you the coordinates. Now stop fucking around. Either give me the shot, or this is over,”
El Rey
warned.

The president stepped into the room, shaking his head. “Hector. Come on. It’s finished. Have the doctor inject him so I can get my daughter back,” he ordered.

“I don’t belie–”

“It doesn’t matter what you believe. I am telling you to give the man the shot. Now, Hector. No arguments or discussion.”

Hector went through an obvious internal struggle and then got himself under control, remembering who he was speaking with.

“Yes, sir.”

El Rey
studied the president. “Smart choice,” he said.

“You left me no other.”

“That was the whole idea.”

Hector led him into a fully outfitted hospital room and motioned for him to sit on the bed. A nurse came in and instructed him to strip and give her his clothes. Her eyes got big when she saw the two bullet wounds, and she expertly cut the bandage off his leg to clean it. One of the doctors from the introductory meeting with Hector walked in and watched as the nurse drew a vial of blood from his arm before she expertly inserted a canula into the assassin’s other arm and hooked up an IV bag. Glancing at
El Rey
, the doctor removed a syringe from his shirt pocket and moved to his side.

“I need to inject this into tissue, so roll on your side and let’s get this over with.”

The assassin did as instructed, and the doctor emptied the contents into his buttock before stepping back.

“That’s it. We’ll keep you on the drip for twelve hours and take care of the gunshot wounds. You should start to feel better within three to four hours,” the doctor said.

“How long until the protein markers register normal?”
El Rey
asked.

“There’s no way of knowing for sure, but from what I was told, within twelve to eighteen hours you should be near normal, if not within the normal range. Right now, the level has to be through the roof. I’ll give you a printout of the result for comparison.”

“Then by this time tomorrow, I should be able to go to an independent lab and get tested, and the result will show normal?”

The doctor and Hector exchanged a look. “Yes. But you’ll know it’s working before then. And there’s no need to go to another lab. We can run the analysis here.”

“Sure you can. But I prefer independent verification.”

“Suit yourself – that’s between you two. But again, you’ll know by then.”

El Rey
winced as the nurse swabbed his leg wound. “How? How will I know for sure without a lab analysis?”

“You’ll still be breathing,” the doctor said and then walked out.

~

“
Capitan
Cruz. Nice to see you again. To what do we owe the pleasure?” the president’s chief of staff asked, shaking Cruz’s hand as he welcomed him into a meeting room and then motioned him to have a seat at the conference table.

“I wish it was better circumstances. I didn’t know who else to turn to,” Cruz explained.

“Yes. You were very cryptic on the telephone. What do you have for me?”

“It’s on the
El Rey
escape from a week ago.”

“I see.”

“Results came back from a scan of the personnel who were guarding him – the two men in the van, and the driver.”

“I thought you weren’t working on that anymore.”

“I’m not. This was initiated before we handed the investigation over…to CISEN.”

The chief of staff looked impatient. “What do you have?”

“I think that the
El Rey
escape wasn’t as it first seemed. I think he had help. From CISEN.”

The chief of staff put down the pen he had been playing with. “That is a very serious allegation, Captain Cruz.”

“I know. Don’t think I haven’t debated coming to you. But if I’m right, and
El Rey
has somehow compromised CISEN…then the very group now in charge of the investigation had a hand in his escape,” Cruz finished.

“Let’s back up. How do you arrive at this fantastic conclusion?”

Cruz walked him through the phone records and showed him the logs of the calls to, and from, CISEN. The chief of staff followed along and eventually nodded.

“Who else have you shared this with?”

“Nobody. Obviously, I’m unsure of who can be trusted. That’s why I came to you. I remember the amount of importance the president placed on your opinion during our interactions over the assassination attempt, and I figured that you would have a good idea of how to proceed. Perhaps name a special prosecutor, or begin a parallel investigation.”

“Yes, I see the logic. You did the right thing. If this assassin has compromised CISEN…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence.

“What do we do now?” Cruz asked.

“I need to carefully consider the next step. This is extremely damaging, for a longstanding member of the
Federales
– the driver – but also for the nation’s intelligence apparatus. I don’t think we can just go off and blunder around. This will require delicacy.”

Cruz nodded. “I know. The implications are staggering. That’s why I didn’t even know where to begin.”

The chief of staff pushed back from the table and stood, placing his hand on the files. “May I keep these for a bit? I want to confirm the numbers, as well as the rest of the information. If I contact the attorney general, he’ll want to see what we have. Do you have anything else on this?”

“That’s it. But it should be enough to get a warrant to arrest the driver and put him under rigorous interrogation. As well as to track down who at CISEN made and received those calls.”

“Agreed. I’ll be back in touch with you shortly. Thank you for coming to me,” he said.

The two men walked together to the end of the hall, and then the chief of staff shook Cruz’s hand again as he escorted him to the outer lobby.

“I’ll call as soon as we know more,” he promised, watching as Cruz made his way towards security to reclaim his weapon.

Back in his office, he sat heavily behind his desk, staring at the sheaf of paper Cruz had brought him like it was a bomb. Eventually he picked up his phone and made a single call.

“We have a real problem.”

The following morning,
El Rey
felt much improved. As promised, the symptoms had abated, and the fluids and food he’d received had fortified him to the point that he felt human again. No coughing, no twitching, no shooting pains.

The doctor had stopped in at eight a.m. to inspect him and had been pleased with the results.

“I was uncertain that, given how far along you were, the antidote would have the desired effect. With any of these experimental substances, there are unknowns. But you look like it’s working as hoped, so I’m confident that your blood will show radically lower proteins.” The doctor handed him a tri-folded piece of plain white paper with two rows of numbers on it. “These were your levels yesterday. The column on the left are the normal ranges.”

El Rey
studied them. “That one looks high,” he commented.

“Ah, an appreciation for understatement. So rare these days. Yes, it was high. I’ve never seen the level that elevated in anyone still alive.”

“Then presumably it’s lower today.”

“Yes.” He shifted to looking over the bullet wounds. “The stitches will need to come out in three or four days. It doesn’t look like your healing process was affected by the toxin, so you’re lucky there.”

El Rey
said nothing.

The doctor finished his examination and moved to the door.

“We’ll get you off the IV. It’s done its job,” he said and then left.

Hector entered a few minutes later with the nurse, who quickly removed the cannula and taped a cotton ball in place, instructing him to keep pressure on the spot for a few minutes.

“We can go to the laboratory of your choosing. I’ll get you some clothes.”

“Isn’t it a little early? Don’t you want to wait a few more hours?”
El Rey
asked.

“The Americans said that the proteins should be low enough eighteen hours after administration to see most of the difference. So there’s no point to delaying it.”

“I prefer black.”

Hector looked at him, momentarily confused.

“For my clothes. Black works best for me.”

“You better pray that Maria is still fine.”

“I usually pray for world peace. But you’re the boss.”

Hector exited without any further comment. The assassin was obviously baiting him, but he wouldn’t give him the pleasure of generating a reaction.

An hour later, one of the beefy guards entered with a small bag and set it on the only chair in the room.

“Your shoes are under the bed,” he said and walked out.

El Rey
dressed – tan Dockers and a blue button-up long-sleeved shirt, he noted with a smile – and was lacing up his Doc Martens when Hector returned with three serious-looking security men.

“Lift your shirt,” he ordered, and with a shrug,
El Rey
complied. One of the men affixed a Velcro strap with a small bump in the center around his abdomen. The man pulled the oddly contrived strap tight to verify it was secure and then slid a small padlock into the clasp’s eyelet and closed it with a snap.

“What’s this? An obedience collar?”

“Good guess. In a manner of speaking, it is. If you get more than twenty yards from me, the explosive charge now sitting just below your heart will detonate, and there won’t be any more
El Rey
to worry about.”

“You didn’t have to go to all that trouble. Chocolates would have won me over.”

Hector ignored him. “Pick a lab. The president is anxious to get his daughter back.”

They were in the waiting area of the laboratory
El Rey
had selected ninety minutes later, the blood draw having gone uneventfully. A technician came from the rear of the facility, and after looking quizzically at the entourage of somber security men, handed
El Rey
the results.

He nodded as he read them. Proteins still elevated, but within five percent of the upper bounds of the normal range. Yesterday’s numbers were six hundred percent higher.

“You have your results. It’s time to deliver,” Hector said.

El Rey
nodded. “I need to make a call. Do you have my cell phone?”

Hector was momentarily flustered. “It’s back at the clinic.”

El Rey
stood. “Then let’s go for a ride.”

~

“Everything went well. You can stand down,”
El Rey
said quietly into the BlackBerry before hanging up.

“You know we can trace that,” Hector threatened.

“Yes, and you’ll find a single use cell phone discarded on a bus. I call this phone, and the person I just spoke with calls someone else. It’s a relay.”
El Rey
glanced at him quizzically. “You don’t really do a lot of this cloak and dagger thing, do you?”

“Where is the girl?” Hector demanded.

“I need to give my contacts half an hour to get clear of the city, and then I’ll give you exact coordinates.”

“No. You’ll give me the coordinates now. I’ve had enough of your bullshit.”

“Honestly, Hector, is all this bluster necessary? What will you do if I refuse? You’re not playing this very smart. Wait the thirty minutes, I give you the coordinates, and you go in and get her. Very simple. No need for puffery or posturing. Everyone gets what they want.”
El Rey
walked over to the hospital bed and sat on it, then swung his legs up and laid back. He fiddled with the controls and raised the section behind his head, then checked the time and closed his eyes.

~

Three helicopters set down in one of the fields adjacent to the little home in Tapachula, Chiapas, and a contingent of GAFE commandos disembarked, in full combat gear and armed to the teeth. The leader pointed to the house and they ran to the little structure, encircling it. Two men jogged to the front porch with a portable battering ram and drove the door inwards with a crash, tearing it off its hinges.