BLACK Is Back (34 page)

A hunched figure adjusted the tripod of the high velocity rifle, watching as the oration hit full stride and the gathering of citizens applauded again. The actual words were lost on him because he was behind the speakers, in the tower of the church five hundred yards from the optimistic assembly. He was invisible to the security forces in place around the rally, the rifle recessed in one of the small rectangular openings of the tower’s pinnacle.

The gunman watched the red balloons that framed the stage for clues as to the amount and direction of any wind. He was in luck. The late spring gusts were nowhere in evidence. It would be an easy shot.

He was startled by a car backfiring on the road below. Several security men ran in the direction of the percussive blast, accompanied by six soldiers. They watched as an ancient farm truck rolled down the street, straining under its load of hay. At the next intersection, the engine backfired again; the group of gunmen exchanged relieved looks, laughing with merriment at their defense of
El Gallo
from a poorly tuned V8. The sentries returned to their positions as the great man continued to paint his verbose vision of a bright new future.

A crow landed on the balustrade of the tower and fixed the man with its beady stare. For a reason he couldn’t define, he was momentary chilled; the hair on his arms standing erect. He wasn’t a believer in omens or symbols, but lurking somewhere in his schooldays the crow was deemed a foreteller of bad luck. An impression from his past nagged at him, tried to surface, but he shrugged it off – he didn’t have time to waste on being spooked by a bird. The man grinned at his own imagination – allowing a crow to throw him. It would be a day of bad luck, all right, but not for him.

The crow bobbed its head several times, then pecked at the stone it was standing on before giving up on its project and flying away.

He reached into his pants pocket and extracted a pair of dense foam earplugs before setting them in front of him, along with a digital watch displaying the time. He had thirty seconds. Checking to ensure that everything was in place, he compressed the plugs and inserted one into each ear before returning his attention to the florid man pontificating on the stage. He seemed to be reaching a crescendo, and the gunman couldn’t help but smile again. This was going to be a funny one, if there ever had been. He couldn’t wait to see the papers tomorrow.

El Gallo
was building his intensity, railing against the cartels as the embodiment of Satan crawling over the planet in human form. The words were powerful, and the emotions high as his voice increased in volume.

“These scum are a cancer on the body of the state; they are toxic purveyors of poison and suffering. They accommodate the demands of the rich
Gringos
, who buy their products even as their own country collapses from the weight of its own excesses. They have turned Mexico into their whore, and its children into their slaves. We suffer so that pimps and rich socialites can snort the devil’s dandruff during their orgies. I would send a message to these traitors who suckle at the tit of the false god to the north. I would send a telegram. The message is, no longer will we be your burros or your lapdogs. No more will you use our blood to lubricate your war machine. We are Mexican, and we are tired of being the back yard where you dump your problems, where you come to turn our daughters into prostitutes and our sons into groveling peasants. Your time is over, and we will now reclaim the bounty that is our birthright! We are strong and proud. And most of all, we are Mexican. We are family – and we will be free!”

The bells of the church began ringing, announcing the arrival of the noon hour, and
El Gallo
, in fever pitch, slammed his head forward onto the podium in his now-famous trademark move. The crowd burst into a spirited and hearty applause.

It was only when he slumped to the floor with blood spreading over the back of his hand-stitched white silk cowboy shirt that the screaming began.

The young novitiate moved with easy determination to the doors of the church as the pealing of the bells trumpeted God’s grace and presence in everyday life. An ancient woman crossed herself as he passed, her weathered face momentarily glowing with a devoted smile. He turned when he reached the door and genuflected, his cassock brushing the ground as he crossed himself before the vision of an unfortunate savior crucified so that humanity could be saved, movingly depicted in the statue that dominated the wall above the altar. The sun streaked through the elaborate stained glass windows over the door, bathing the interior in a dazzling multi-colored glow; the nearly empty chamber radiated a tranquility that was regrettably absent from the cruel world just outside the doors.

With bible in hand, and fingering his rosary, he exited the house of worship and crossed the street; a pious man on a mission to save the world.

Twenty minutes later, the bodyguards and soldiers crept up the stairs to the tower top, guns at the ready as they strained their ears for any hint of threat. The huge bells had fallen silent, and the only sound besides the scream of the sirens from the square across the wide boulevard was the cooing of amorous doves taking refuge in the tower rafters.

The leader of the team held up a hand in warning when he spotted the rifle, still on the tripod, a single spent shell casing lying by its side. He grudgingly inched towards it; the blood drained from his face as he saw the item held in place by the votive candle.

The stern countenance of the highly-stylized rendering of the royal presence seemed to sneer at the intruders, the brandished sword proclaiming to one and all the regal superiority of the seated man.

He approached the card as if in a trance, then reached down and retrieved the tattered rectangle, holding it up for his men to see.

The King of Swords had struck again.

Chapter 1

April 18 – 6:15 a.m., Mexico City, Mexico

The concrete walls of the industrial building on the outskirts of the city were painted a garish orange, the roll-up steel doors clashing navy blue with a coat of high-gloss enamel. The large parking area was empty except for three Cadillac Escalades – an unusual sight in the neighborhood, which ran more to dirt roads and twenty-year-old Dodge trucks. The surrounding buildings were the dingy gray of unpainted cinder block, with rusting rebar sticking out of the roofs where the builders hadn’t bothered cutting off the steel from the support beams. Graffiti covered almost every area; the raw odor of garbage and filth pervaded the run-down outpost.

The Mexico City skyline shimmered in the distance; tall buildings thrusting angrily to the heavens, into the perennial layer of brown pollution that hung over the valley. A rooster crowed its welcome to the first rays of dawn. Two scavenging dogs trotted from building to building, their emaciated forms a testament to the pickings to be had. In the near distance, a shanty town of rough tarpaper walls with tarps or corrugated steel roofs emitted a sour stench, while here and there the sorry structures belched smoke into the air from early morning wood fires stoked up to cook the day’s sustenance.

A small mirror on the end of a rod eased out from around the corner of one of the neighboring buildings, enabling the Federal Police officer manipulating it to watch the orange structure without having to duck his head into view. Seeing nothing, he made a series of short hand movements to the group of thirty heavily armed commandos behind him. This was the armed conflict team that consisted of the most battle-hardened members of the Federal Police force, who specialized in urban assaults, usually with backup from the army or the navy. All the officers had been marines, and all had been in numerous armed engagements with the
narcotraficante
armies that were the scourge of mainland Mexico.

The men ran towards their orange objective, crouched low so as to present less of a target. The commander’s radio crackled with confirmation that another group of similarly equipped police commandos had the rear of the building covered, as well as the flanks. He checked his watch, then pushed the button that would start the stopwatch function before making another series of hand signals to indicate they were going in.

Three of the officers carried a heavy steel battering ram with handles on it to knock down the front door in seconds; each of the windows had two officers framing the glass, ready to fire through it or take out anyone who tried shooting from inside. The commander made a fist, and the iron projectile drove the steel door into the building, knocking it off its hinges. Eight of the men entered, with more ready to follow. The distinctive popping-chatter of Kalashnikov assault rifles began echoing around the large warehouse, quickly answered by the more sonorous burst-firing of the M16 assault rifles the police favored.

Even though the
Federales
had the overwhelming majority odds due to sheer numbers, their adversaries inside the building continued the firefight until they’d exhausted their ammunition. When the shooting eventually petered out, the surviving drug dealer tossed his pistol away and raised his arms over his head, having already jettisoned his empty assault rifle.

The final tally was four civilians killed and five police, with three more officers seriously wounded – in spite of their body armor and precautions. The leader of the team moved to the surrendering shooter and slammed him across the face with his rifle butt, then, reaching around his equipment belt, retrieved a set of blackened steel handcuffs. He ordered the bleeding man to lie on his stomach and slapped them around his wrists. Two other officers dragged him to his feet, past the fallen bodies of his entourage, out to the waiting police van.

A tall, athletically proportioned man in his early forties, wearing the distinctive blue uniform of the Mexican Federal Police, ran a hand through his thick, slightly graying hair and let forth an exasperated sigh. Captain Romero Cruz circled the object of his attention, a seated man shackled to a metal chair bolted to the floor in the center of the room. A solitary hundred watt incandescent bulb hung from the ceiling, providing meager but adequate illumination for the interrogation cell. The captive was a high-ranking member of the Knights Templar cartel – close allies with the Sinaloa cartel. This man, Jorge Rodriguez Santiago, was rumored to be a confidante of the Sinaloans, which made him doubly valuable to Captain Cruz. Santiago had been the sole survivor of that morning’s bloody firefight; a surprise capture who normally would have been holed up in Michoacan, where his brutal gang ruled with an iron fist.

Santiago glared at Captain Cruz, blinking away the sweat and blood that trickled from his hairline into his eyes. The look conveyed an almost demonic hatred, and an arrogance born by the knowledge that no prison in Mexico would be able to hold him for long. Cartel chieftains tended to escape with astounding frequency, no doubt due to the abundance of money at their disposal to lubricate the system.

This was not the first time Santiago had been arrested under serious circumstances, so for him, it was merely an annoying interruption to his lucrative criminal career. The last time the case hadn’t even gone to trial; the judge miraculously ruling that the prosecution had failed to make an adequate case. That had been a blow for the
Federales
, and was among the judge’s last decisions before he retired to a hilltop compound in Costa Rica, to live out his days with a nineteen-year-old soul-mate who had a nose for stimulants, as well as an apparent affinity with vastly older men.

Santiago began spewing vitriol about what would happen to every member of the force who had participated in his arrest. Cruz stepped forward with surprising speed and backhanded him – a dismissive slap – more an insult than a rebuke.

“You’re going to regret this, you bitch–” Santiago spat.

Since the slap hadn’t gotten the message across, Cruz punched him in the jaw – it was he who would do the talking, and Santiago would answer the questions put to him, only speaking when told to.

Cruz blew on his reddened knuckles, the skin abraded by the prisoner’s coarse stubble. He motioned to the other man in the room, his lieutenant, Fernando Briones, to bring him the nightstick that lay on a table in a corner of the room. Briones, a compact pit bull with skin the color of brandy, obliged.

Santiago spat a bloody lump onto the floor, then grinned at the captain, displaying a mouthful of gold-capped teeth, with an incisor now conspicuously missing.

“You hit like a pussy, you
marecon
,” Santiago sneered.

Cruz slammed the wooden club into the side of the captive’s head; his ear began streaming blood as it swelled from the blow. Santiago appeared momentarily dazed, and for once didn’t have an insulting comeback.

That was more like it.

Captain Cruz glanced at Lieutenant Briones and made a gesture with two fingers. Briones fumbled in his uniform shirt’s pocket and fished out a packet of cigarettes, offering one to Cruz. He took it, and Briones lit it for him with a disposable butane lighter. He inhaled the smoke with evident satisfaction, and then blew a stream of nicotine into Santiago’s tearing eyes.

“These are good. What are they? Cuban?” Cruz asked.

“Argentine,” Briones told him, holding up the pack so Cruz could see it. “
Parisienne
. They’re made with black tobacco – they don’t have all the impurities the American brands do. They’re supposedly better for you. They taste better to me, so who knows…”

“Imagine that. Cigarettes that are good for you. What will they think of next?” Cruz sighed mild bemusement, and then approached Santiago. “So, you shit-bird, do you like cigarettes? Is that something you like to put in your mouth when you don’t have a burro cock in it?” He puffed a few times, ensuring that the cigarette tip was glowing red, then held the ember against Santiago’s neck. The sickeningly sweet smell of searing flesh was a small price to pay for the shriek of blind pain and fury that burst from the warlord. Now they were getting somewhere.