Return of the Assassin (Assassin Series 3) (6 page)

~

The radio crackled, and Jorge Balentoro, the director of the raid, listened in disbelief from his position on the main road.

“What do you mean, there’s nobody there? That’s impossible…” he replied, depressing the talk button on the handheld microphone as he spoke.

“Maybe so, but we just spent an hour securing an empty complex. Other than a sixty-year-old caretaker and his wife, who were scared out of their wits. They said that nobody has been to the house in almost a year.”

Jorge’s mind raced.
What the hell was going on here? Was their intel that badly flawed? And what would he tell the president’s chief of staff?
This was the best lead they had, and it had led to nothing.

“You’re sure. No hidden rooms, no escape tunnels…”

“No, sir. Just an old man who was up late reading and about had a heart attack when we broke down the front door.”

What now?

“I want the caretaker brought in for questioning. Maybe he knows something,” Jorge ordered, knowing he was grasping at straws.

“Uh, yes, sir. But on what grounds? What is the charge?”

“I don’t know. Resisting arrest. Interfering with an investigation. Make something up. But I want to know what he knows…”

Shutting down the airport, night flights, the army, men flown in from Mexico City, the president waiting for a report real time…all for nothing. They hadn’t even been close.

Jorge dreaded making his next call.

~

The president’s chief of staff set down the phone, his face pale. The president looked at him expectantly, his brandy snifter of tequila paused midway to his lips. The executive director of CISEN sat across from him and was already shaking his head based on the few words he’d overheard.

“There was nothing there. No sign of Aranas, his men, or your daughter, sir,” the chief of staff said.

“God damn it! What the hell was this all about, then? I thought this was our best lead?” the president blurted, struggling to compose himself. “What now? What’s the plan to get my daughter back safely? I want to hear some options, and I don’t really care what the cost is. It’s impossible for me to believe that with all the resources at my command, we can’t do better than this.”

The director of CISEN finished his glass of Jose Cuervo Reserva de la Familia tequila and set the glass down carefully before speaking. “This situation is unlike any we’ve ever encountered, sir. It’s really an act of terrorism more than a simple kidnapping. When dealing with terrorists, it pays to think outside of the box. You have to think like they do, and you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to achieve your objective. Terrorism is first and foremost about will. Will is the terrorist’s greatest weapon. The will to kill themselves, to murder innocents, to threaten or do the unimaginable.”

“Yes, yes. Agreed. But how does that help us?” the president barked, exasperated that the night’s mission had ended in ruin.

“There are options we haven’t explored,” the CISEN head began.

The chief of staff swiveled to stare at him.

The president was obviously hanging on every word.

“Difficult and uncomfortable options, but perhaps, our best ones…”

The meeting broke up an hour later, the president exhausted, the director of CISEN and the chief of staff moving to a more private location to discuss logistics.

Nobody was happy about the direction things had taken, but the president had been clear. They were to do whatever it took.

In this case, that would mean the hardest choice of his administration.

The drab gray of the prison walls was sporadically punctuated by puke green paint which had been daubed in a lackluster manner throughout the high security wing. The overall effect was depressing and run down, even in a facility where no money had been invested in niceties or aesthetics other than the exterior, which was deceptively modern and bright.

Guards watched over the meter-thick reinforced concrete walls with automatic weapons while patrol vehicles cruised a road that circled the perimeter. An armed assault on the prison was always a very real possibility, and one the government took seriously. Any of the cartels had the means to muster a small army to break out one of its leaders, and that eventuality had been safeguarded against by clearing the fields surrounding the walls, basing an armored group within stone’s throwing distance, and otherwise fortifying the area like it was an outpost in enemy territory.

Inside the solitary confinement wing, three guards approached the end cell with shackles. The warden accompanied them, presumably to ensure that the prisoner didn’t trip and fall down a flight of stairs while bound. Today was a rare occasion.
El Rey
had been summoned to appear in court – a formality requested by the lead judge, who was probably just curious to see what the notorious killer looked like.

“Back away from the bunk and stand against the wall by the sink, facing the wall. Now,” the main guard growled.

El Rey
had been given a set of clothes earlier, so the outing wasn’t a surprise. Jeans, a simple button up cotton shirt, slip-on canvas shoes with rubber soles. Nothing that could be used as a weapon.

He glanced up from his bunk and slowly complied with the instructions. Once he was standing with his nose pressed against the wall, the cell door slid open with a creak, and two of the guards entered while the third stood outside brandishing a stun gun. The warden seemed nervous, even though the prisoner was to be heavily restrained. The assassin’s reputation had preceded him, and the instructions from the federal police had been clear – to consider the man a lethal weapon, even if barehanded. He could not be allowed any opportunity to craft a weapon, from anything, and communications with other prisoners, much less the outside world, were strictly forbidden.

The guards slipped the steel shackles on the assassin’s wrists and ankles, bridging the two sets with a third chain to further hobble him. Once the elaborate restraint was complete, they turned him and led him to the cell door, the chains clanking as he shuffled along.

“Well, my little bull, you’re going for a ride today. Off to see the majesty of the judicial system at work. Enjoy your outing. It’s likely to be the last for a long, long time,” the warden taunted, feeling more confident now that
El Rey
was bound.

El Rey
suddenly tensed and made as if to lunge at him. The warden blanched as he recoiled, blood draining from his face as he stepped back instinctively.

El Rey
smiled. “Don’t worry,
mi palomito
. If I wanted you dead, you already would be,” he said in a gentle lilt.

The guard on his right pulled his baton and raised it to slam him in the skull, but the warden shook his head.

“We don’t want the prisoner to appear to have been harmed. Wait until his return. Then you can educate him on the correct form of polite address for his betters,” the warden instructed.

The three guards exchange glances and smiled. The lead man jerked on the chain, and they began the slow clinking procession down the block. The other prisoners jeered at the warden, but he kept his head high, pretending to ignore the curses. It was a routine part of the job and came with the territory. The guard on the right, closest to the cells, swatted at the bars with his baton, but it was halfhearted posturing, born of habit.

Once through security, they loaded the assassin into an unmarked van that had been outfitted with a security cage in the cargo area. The lead guard padlocked the chain to a large ringbolt in the floor before closing the latch on the cage. A federal policeman in full assault gear climbed into the rear after the assassin, nodding his determination as the guard closed the cargo doors. Another guard clutching an assault rifle slid into the passenger seat. The driver glanced at the prisoner in the rear, catching the eye of the guard sitting by the cage. The officer gave him a thumbs up, and the driver eased his foot off the brake.

Two other vans, identical in every respect, sat beside the one containing the assassin, waiting with engines running. On a signal from the driver they pulled away, and once through the gates, each made for a different route to get to Mexico City, where the hearing would be held.

El Rey
bounced in the rear as they took surface streets to the freeway, the uneven pavement jarring him painfully against the hard metal floor.

~

“Beta, the pigeon has left the roost.” The words came over the scrambled radio.

“Copy that. We are on our way,” came the response.

The heavy delivery truck was emblazoned with a singing chicken in overalls wearing a baby-blue chef hat. The driver narrowed his eyes, rolled a balaclava over his face and put the transmission in gear. He peered at the side mirror and watched as the black Lincoln Navigator behind him rolled away from the curb to follow.

~

Chatter and bursts of static came over the police radio as the van pulled to a stop at the intersection near the bottom of the freeway onramp. As expected, there was little traffic at ten a.m.. They would be able to make it into Mexico City by eleven and be in court shortly after.

The officer watching
El Rey
in the rear scratched his face and then wiped it with his sleeve.

“Could you turn up the AC? It’s broiling back here,” he called to the driver, who nodded and leaned forward to adjust the controls.

~

The truck slammed into the van’s front fender at forty miles per hour, crushing the wheel and the engine area and rendering it immobile, breaking the driver’s side window in the process. Five men dressed in jeans and windbreakers leapt from the Navigator and ran to the van, weapons trained on both stunned
Federales
in the front. The armed officer in the passenger seat hadn’t been able to get his gun into service fast enough, and they were now both sitting ducks, the weapons pointed at their faces obvious in their intent.

“Don’t move or I’ll blow your heads off!” the lead assailant screamed at the officers, firing a burst along the top section of the van for emphasis. “Get your hands up where I can see them. NOW!”

The two men slowly raised their hands, and a second assailant tossed a small canister through the van’s window. Within seconds, the driver and the passenger slumped forward from the incapacitating gas, out cold.

El Rey
instinctively held his breath when he saw the canister hit the floor. His guard wasn’t so fortunate and fell into a heap as he tried to get up to fire at the attackers in the front.

The rear doors flew open, and the assassin saw three men standing with M4 assault rifles. A fourth approached the mobile cage with bolt cutters. A few seconds later the cage lock and the chain had been clipped off, still connected to the ring in the van floor.

One of the men glanced at
El Rey
; blood streamed down the side of his face from where his head had banged against the metal cage during the collision.

“How badly are you hurt? Can you move?” the man asked.

El Rey
nodded, ignoring the throbbing from his skull and the seeping blood.

“All right. Come on. Hurry. This place is going to be swarming with cops within another minute or two. Move.”

The attackers dragged him unceremoniously out of the van and two of the men set him on his feet while the bolt cutter severed the chain connecting his ankles. Once the restraint had been cut, they ran as a group to the Navigator and climbed in,
El Rey
being directed to the rear seat while two of the men climbed in the cargo area and two slid in next to him. The leader jumped into the passenger seat, and
El Rey
watched as the delivery truck backed away from the van and moved off in the opposite direction as the Navigator tore towards the onramp.

“Who are you?”
El Rey
asked, then he felt a pinprick on his arm. He jolted and tried to squirm away, but the grip of the man next to him prevented it. The leader in the passenger seat swiveled around and stared at the assassin as he lost consciousness. The last thing
El Rey
saw was the cold brown eyes of his rescuer studying him from behind the black knit mask as they rolled onto the highway towards freedom.

Captain Romero Cruz was briefing his team in the situation room of federal police headquarters in Mexico City when the call came in. His secretary knocked on the door, interrupting the proceedings, and apologized for the intrusion before telling him that there was an urgent call waiting for him in his office.

He shook his head at the dozen men assembled at the large conference table and excused himself, instructing his second in command, Lieutenant Briones, to continue with the meeting. Cruz grabbed his notepad and coffee cup and strode through the maze of cubicles in the large main room before arriving at his private office. He stabbed at the blinking amber light on one of the buttons on his desktop phone and raised the handset to his ear.

“Cruz,” he said.

“Captain Cruz. This is the warden at Altiplano prison.”

“Yes, Warden, what can I do for you?” Cruz asked, the hair on the back of his neck prickling with premonition.

“It’s
El Rey
. He’s escaped,” the warden said without preamble.

“Escaped? What are you saying? How the hell does someone escape from the most secure facility in Mexico? Is this some kind of a joke?” Cruz barked into the phone.

“No, I’m afraid it isn’t. He didn’t escape from the prison. He was broken out of a vehicle transporting him to the court for a hearing. Three federal officers were incapacitated in the attack, and he got away.”

Cruz’s mind raced at the impossible news. “Have you contacted anyone else yet?” he demanded.

“Of course. This just happened ten minutes ago. I’m getting word in from the field as we speak, but I wanted you to know the instant I did. I remembered that you were the head of the
El Rey
task–”