Revenge of the Assassin (Assassin Series 2) (23 page)

The CIA had also proved very efficient at introducing him to Russian and Iranian syndicates that could source the more difficult to obtain items he was sometimes requested to get. Anti-tank weapons, specialized explosives like C-4 or the newer variants…whatever, they could get anything for a price. That was how he’d gotten involved with CISEN. His Russian and American contacts had introduced him to their Mexican equivalent, which had been paid to help ensure that the real traffic didn’t run into problems. Sure, token shipments were intercepted periodically for the media, but for the most part, the CIA helped get the drugs into the U.S. and the weapons out. It was perfect, really, and the only ones none the wiser were the American and Mexican public. He’d been assured that the great unwashed would believe whatever the television pronounced as the truth, so he wasn’t worried about the trade ending any time soon. It had been going on ever since the Colombians had severed their partnership with the agency, and the heads had ‘gone to prison’ – jails they controlled being the only place they were safe from agency hit men taking them out to ensure their permanent silence.

He’d always wondered why Escobar and crew had one day turned themselves in, at a time when they were among the richest men on the planet. Although the official story was that the Colombian military, augmented by the Americans, had eventually won the struggle against the Colombian cartels, the true facts were simple. There was nowhere they could be safe, except behind maximum security walls guarded around the clock. He knew for a fact that all the Cali and Medellin cartel chieftains lived in unparalleled luxury while serving life sentences, and once his contact had spilled the beans over shots of tequila one night, everything had fallen into place.

The Colombians getting out of the trafficking trade and sticking to production in-country had created an opportunity for the Mexican cartels, which had forged similar arrangements with their neighbor’s intelligence service in return for protection. The relationship was simply good business. Dope north, weapons south, with their ‘friends’ taking a cut of each, presumably to fund their less savory operations. There were many things Congress couldn’t or wouldn’t fund, and as early as the Sixties, the CIA had moved to augment its budget with narcotics trafficking. That had proved a wise move, and soon the agency was acting as conduit for drugs from Vietnam and Afghanistan, oil and cash from Iran, and eventually cocaine and heroin from Colombia and Mexico.

The phone on his desk jangled; he grabbed at it.

“Boss. You have visitors. Angel and a driver,” his number two man alerted him.

He watched as a white Cadillac Platinum package Escalade rolled through the gate leading from the retail yard and pulled to a stop outside his office. A familiar figure climbed out of the passenger side door.

It was Angel Talvez, one of
Don
Aranas’ lieutenants. He always liked to see Angel. It meant one thing. Another big order.

Carlos moved to the screen door that kept the bugs at bay and opened it, spreading his arms in welcome.

“Angel! It’s been too long. What? Three months, since we hit the clubs in Mazatlán?” Carlos enthused. He was a connoisseur of young strippers, the closer to their teen years, the better. Angel shared the passion for his hobby, and they’d spent many a night sampling the wares a few hours west.

“
Compadre
. Always good to see you,” Angel replied with a smile.

Carlos motioned to him to enter and take a seat.

“Tequila?” Carlos asked, and then without waiting for an answer, moved to the small bar he had set up in a corner of the expansive office and poured two shots of Don Julio 1942. He turned to face Angel, glass outstretched, and found himself staring down the barrel of a silenced semi-automatic pistol.

Carlos’ eyes grew wide when he saw the look on Angel’s face. Angel shrugged a halfhearted apology for what was to come.

“Why, Carlos? Why did you fuck the
Don
? You’ve made your money. Why give up information on
El Rey
? Why do it?” Angel asked, curious as to why his friend would put himself in this position, requiring him to do something as unpleasant as killing him.

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carlos stammered, hands suddenly trembling.

Angel shook his head. They always lied in the end. Human nature. With his free hand, he removed a piece of paper from his pocket and placed it on the desk.

“Sit down and read that. Oh, and best have both of those yourself. It’s good tequila,” Angel said, motioning with the gun.

Carlos did as instructed and swallowed both shots as he stood, and then turned, placing them on the bar. He swung back in a blur of speed, aiming the heavy, tall tequila bottle at Angel’s head.

Angel had anticipated the move and stepped back, easily dodging the blow, and calmly fired a round into Carlos’ skull through his right eye. The .22 target pistol he favored was laughably small in caliber, but he’d never had any problems putting down his victims with it. Carlos proved no different, and his body went rigid as the small slug careened through his brain, tearing the gray matter to a scramble. The arms dealer buckled at the knees and fell forward. Angel moved to the side to avoid any messy splatter, having done this many times before. The tequila bottle crashed to the travertine floor, splintering into shards amidst a splash of precious nectar that pooled next to the slowly spreading blood.

Angel leaned over and put another bullet into the back of Carlos’ skull from three inches away. He paused over his friend’s corpse and inspected his handiwork, and then, satisfied that the job was done, walked to the desk and retrieved the piece of paper, glancing disinterestedly at the Top Secret stamp across the top. He folded it and slipped it into his pants pocket, and then returned the pistol to its place in a custom made shoulder holster as he made his way to the door.

A few moments later, the Escalade roared off in a cloud of dust.

Nobody would report having seen anything. Apparently the granite counter business was a dangerous one in Culiacán, Sinaloa.

Most businesses were.

Sun streaked through the filthy windows of the workshop; a cloud of dust motes hung lazily in the air like snowflakes frozen on a Christmas calendar. The space was small, twenty by twenty, with a roll-up door and a few electrical outlets – plus the worktable at which
El Rey
stood, patiently adjusting his project with a toolkit that lay spread across most of the top. A heavy, green vice was mounted to the edge, and he’d wedged two neoprene mouse pad remnants on either side of its jaws, to soften its grip on the metal canister he had just finished fabricating.

He flipped the welding mask up and wiped away the sweat that had accumulated on his brow. He would have loved to open the windows for ventilation, but discretion won out.
El Rey
glanced up at the row of two-foot-wide glass squares framed by rusting metal, each with iron bars spaced every eight inches, and resigned himself to live with the stifling heat. It came with the territory.

He pulled his T-shirt over his head and absently blotted the defined muscles of his chest, testament to three hour a day workouts that had never ceased, even in retirement. A tattoo of a crow on his left pectoral glistened with perspiration as he leaned over his project, studying the cylinder with satisfaction. He painstakingly threaded a stainless steel plunger into one end, taking care to avoid damaging the spring and, once finished, stretched his lower back by reaching to grab his toes so as to avoid cramping.

The detonator would be armed just before it was show time, but this sort of detailed preparation was essential. As with all things, being meticulous ensured a superior result, and
El Rey
trusted no one with this work. He wasn’t about to spend months planning a sanction and have something fail at the moment of truth – he’d farmed out the explosives end only once before and that had been the only hit that had been unsuccessful. He had learned his lesson, and he hummed to himself as he patiently filed away the burs from the seam he had created, stopping to brush perspiration out of his eyes every few minutes.

Eventually satisfied with that piece, he unscrewed the vice and moved the metal tube to the side. Pausing for a few minutes to drink a half liter of water, he considered his next task.

He’d never built one of these before. The instructions had seemed straightforward, if a little convoluted, and he estimated it would take about thirty hours to completely assemble it. Then he’d need to test it and get comfortable with the technology, and calculate effective blast radiuses and ranges.

Leaning across the table, he unfolded the schematic for the device and moved the epoxy containers and paint off to the far end of the table, where they wouldn’t get in his way as he undertook the mechanical and electrical part of the job. Reconciled to a long afternoon, he slid a high stool to the work area and sat down, pulling the larger pieces of his contrivance towards him. The main body was simple enough, but he could already see that the necessary modifications would take some time. And he would have to adjust for the trigger and create space for it without throwing the balance off. Perhaps with a small amount of weight on the opposite end to offset the explosive charge.

Three hours later, the first piece was assembled, and he took a lunch break, unwrapping a sandwich he’d bought at one of the family-operated shops by his apartment. Mexico City made the best
tortas
, hands down. It was one of the things he’d missed while out of the country. Argentina had brilliant beef and Italian food, but if you wanted a good old-fashioned
torta
with everything on it, there was only one place to go.

He absently thumbed the ridges of his abdomen, where the muscles could have been the model for photos of washboard abs. His exercise regimen included three hundred chin ups and three hundred sit ups per day, in addition to the same number of pushups, a weight training course, an hour of martial arts stretches and drills, and an hour of hard cardio. He’d been addicted to his routine since a teenager and was Spartan in his existence. Other than
tortas
.

Finished with his break, he studied his project, and then nodded to himself. It was perfect. Now he would need to create a foolproof cavity for the detonator to fit. He plugged a digital scale into the wall, and then set the triggering device he’d made earlier on it. Five ounces. He’d weighed the explosive earlier, and it had come in at nine ounces. He’d considered more explosive, but based on his research into the material, that would be enough to ensure a death zone of twenty feet. More than enough for what he had in mind.

Next, he set the first part of the contraption he’d built on the scale, and then set to creating a cavity for the trigger. It was slow going, but eventually he was done, and he placed it back on the scale. Five ounces eliminated, for a net addition of nine ounces once the explosive and trigger were in place. He returned to reading the specifications, and soon concluded that the new, improved device would work. He’d know soon enough.

He moved to the far end of the workbench and set about assembling the specialized electronics for the unit, which occupied much of the rest of the day. By the time he was finished, it was getting dark, and after swigging his third liter of water, he moved his work and re-packed his tools. He would be back tomorrow, and in a few more days would start experimenting. But the hard part was done. He’d built the hardest part of his president-killer.

El Rey
donned his shirt and rubbed his hand over the two day stubble on his head. He’d opted for a new look and had shaved his head and facial hair to the same length. The difference was remarkable. He looked more like a Latin rap star now than a laborer, which was immaterial to him – aesthetics had never been important. It was all about the final result, which was invariably more about planning than looks. That, and execution.

He smiled to himself.

Execution, indeed
.

~

Briones knocked twice but entered the office without waiting for a response. Cruz looked up from his computer screen, where he was going over budget and personnel requests. The task force was burning money on the
El Rey
hunt, but it couldn’t be helped. Just the payments to informants in the hopes of securing a meaningful lead were now up over a hundred thousand dollars – with nothing to show for it. That was a lot of petty cash in a month. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the following month they wouldn’t have that burn. The most dangerous public presidential appearances would be over. If they were successful in stopping
El Rey
, the money was noise. If not, Cruz wouldn’t have to worry about it. He’d be out of a job.

“Yes, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?” he asked.

“We’ve got a lead. An anonymous call came in yesterday asking about the reward – wanting to know more details about it. We’ve had our share of these, but this one seemed genuine. One of the desk guys fielded it and talked the caller into coming in to headquarters. She’ll be here in twenty minutes,” Briones reported.

Cruz looked at his watch. Twelve fifteen. “She? Who is
she
? What do we know about her?”

“Not much. She was guarded on the line. Wanted to understand how the payment would be paid, and whether it would be subject to tax,” Briones said.

“Tax? Interesting. That’s someone who believes she’s going to be collecting…” Cruz smiled.

“That’s what I was thinking. Which is why I’m excited.”

“What’s her name?”

“All she would give us was a first name. Gabriela,” Briones said.

“Put her in one of the interrogation rooms on the main floor when she arrives. I want to tape our discussion.”

Cruz’s building had two floors of interrogation rooms. The main floor was for friendly questioning of low priority suspects. The basement chambers were more discreet, and there were no recorders or observation rooms – only drains in the floor and electric outlets.