King of Swords (Assassin series #1) (20 page)

Cruz fixed Moreno with a glare. “Let’s be very clear. You don’t dictate terms, or complain, or express anything but gratitude that someone as important as me is sitting here, prepared to entertain what is probably an easily debunked pack of lies – in which case, your jail time will make being gang raped in Calcutta seem like a trip to Rio for the Carnival. So here’s the deal. You talk. I listen. Then I decide what your story’s worth. There’s no other deal. You have five seconds to accept or reject it. Now you have four,” Cruz dictated.

“All right. Fine. I’ll take the deal. Sit down. Please. I promise it’ll be worth your time,” Moreno said.

“Fair enough. Start talking. And it better be good,” Cruz warned.

“Can I have some water?” Moreno asked, chastened from his brush with dismissal.

Marquez handed him a plastic bottle, after twisting the cap open. Moreno lifted it with his shackled hands and drank greedily before setting it, half empty, on the table between them.

“It all started in Tijuana about ten years ago.”

~ ~ ~

Nine Years Ago, Tijuana, Mexico

A large walled compound perched on a cliff face near the outskirts of the city, looking over the town below, which bustled with activity in the late morning sunlight. It resembled a small prison, with a dozen heavily-armed men clad in civilian clothes patrolling the perimeter. One of the largest homes in the notorious border city of over a million people, it was an imposing presence at the top of the access road.

A Cadillac Escalade pulled to the gates, and after a glance from the guards through the driver window, the reinforced iron grids rolled open. They had been designed to withstand anything other than a tank running through them. The Escalade eased to a stop in front of the main home’s entrance, where three men exited the vehicle. The SUV was heavily armored, a special order from a company in Dallas, Texas that built conveyances for heads of state and corporate bigwigs. It could survive a grenade blast, and gunfire would literally bounce off it. The window glass was a special polymer that could take armor piercing rounds without breaking, and the tires could go twenty miles after having been shot to pieces. All that protection didn’t come cheap – the vehicles cost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a pop.

The compound had three.

The men approached the front door and the youngest, tallest one, who stood between his two older companions, held his hands above his head while one of several armed men frisked him professionally and then scanned his body with an electronic surveillance wand designed to reveal any listening devices or recording apparatus. They were granted access to the house, and the man who’d frisked the new arrival motioned for them to follow him.

Domestic staff busily cleaned floors and windows as the procession made its way to the great room terrace, where the owner of the property, and one of the most infamous cartel chieftains in Mexico, sat in a white terrycloth bathrobe sipping espresso with a young woman a third his age, also in a bathrobe, though filling it out with considerably more style.

Felix Montanegro eyed the arrivals, then leaned over and murmured something into his young companion’s tousled hair. She smiled, then obligingly rose and moved inside, her bare feet padding silently across the oversized Italian marble flooring. Montanegro gestured with his hand for the young man to sit, and snapped his fingers to the service staff, who waited at a discreet distance, out of earshot. One of the maids hurried off, rematerializing thirty seconds later with a cup of coffee for the guest. A gardener studiously trimmed ivy at one end of the terrace, taking care to stay well away from the small onyx table where the two men sat. The pair of tough-looking escorts moved inside the house, twenty feet from the terrace, where they could reach Montanegro in seconds if he needed them.

Montanegro regarded the young man and leaned back in his chair, withdrawing a cigarette from a gold case on the table. The maid scurried to his side and lit it for him. He appeared not to register her, continuing to study his guest’s face, which betrayed nothing.

“So you’re the miracle man who’s been achieving what everyone said couldn’t be done,” Montanegro started cordially.

The young man nodded, the corners of his mouth almost imperceptibly turning up in a veiled smile.

“It’s impressive. Really impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it. I would have guessed it was impossible to fulfill the last three contracts without being killed yourself, but here you are…and without a scratch on you.” Montanegro flicked ash from his cigarette into a rectangular metal container adorned with highly-stylized skulls, commemorating the Mexican Day of the Dead,
Dia De Los Muertos
. He took a drag and continued, exhaling the smoke skyward.

“I wanted to meet you. I wanted to see the phantom who’s causing such a stir among the illustrious members of my group, as well as in the population of Tijuana. I understand the restaurants and cantinas are abuzz with talk of your exploits – of the man they call, ‘
El Rey’
.”

“What people gossip about is of no consequence. What matters are results,” the young man reasoned, speaking softly for the first time since he’d gotten into the Escalade.

“Ah. So you do have a tongue. Good. Yes, you are correct, it’s the results that count. Everything else is noise for fools and dullards.” Montanegro sipped his espresso. “But I understand that you’ve increased your price for the next contract, yes? May I ask why? This is a competitive field, so you may be pricing yourself out of the market, at least from my perspective.”

The young man ran a hand over his face, which sported a two day dusting of growth. He adjusted his black long-sleeved shirt. “I’ve shown what I can do. When you hire me you get guaranteed results. That’s worth more than someone who will try, and perhaps fail,” the young man said reasonably.

“Ha! Well, you’re right about that. You have delivered impressively, my young friend. So much so, I’d like to offer you a position with my group. You can name your price,” Montanegro said.

The young man appeared to consider the proposition, and then reached over and carefully turned the coffee cup, seeming captivated by the pattern in the china. He didn’t speak, and a few seconds turned into an uncomfortable half minute of silence.

“I’m flattered by the proposal, but I’m afraid I can’t accept. I do my best work alone, on a contract basis, and it wouldn’t work for either of us to have me acting exclusively for you. I mean no offense, and if I was considering ending my career as an independent contractor, you would be the first person I’d approach. But no, it would never work, and we’d both be unhappy with the results. So I must respectfully decline.”

Montanegro glared at the young man as he spoke, and when he was finished, slammed his hand down on the table in a gesture of fury.

“You little shit. Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? It wasn’t a suggestion. If I tell you you’re working for me, you’ll work for me, and the correct response will be, ‘Thank you,
Don
Felix, I’m honored you’d want me.’ I’ve rarely had anyone turn me down, and all those who did are dead. So this is a one time, one-way-trip offer. You either accept, or my men will put a bullet in your brain and feed you to the street dogs. Are you reading me?” Montanegro hissed.

The young man’s expression didn’t change. If anything, he seemed almost angelically serene, untroubled by the turn the discussion had taken. He appeared to consider Montanegro’s words, and then leaned forward, ensuring that only the cartel boss could hear.

“I don’t drink coffee. I don’t like it.”

Montanegro was confused by the statement.

“What the fuck do I care whether you like coffee or not? Did you not hear me?” Montanegro growled.

“No, I heard you. I just wanted you to know I don’t like coffee, mainly because it alters my body chemistry in a way I don’t find useful.” Montanegro looked like his head was going to explode. “But there’s another reason. Last night I slipped into your house, bypassing your laughable security, and treated your coffee grounds with a nerve toxin that will kill you within seven hours of ingesting it, unless I give you the antidote, some of which I’ve already taken in case you force me to drink coffee, too. It will take any laboratory in Tijuana days to figure out what the poison is, or what the antidote is, by which time you’ll be long dead. Even in the U.S., it would take more than seven hours. And my guess is that isn’t your first cup this morning, so you have less time. Maybe six?” the young man estimated, his voice so low that Montanegro had to strain to hear.

Montanegro’s pupils contracted to pinpoints, and his hands started shaking with fury.

“You’re a dead man, you little fuck. Dead.”

“
Don
Felix. I took this step because I understood that you might be less than understanding if I refused your offer, which I had heard through the grapevine would be forthcoming. I mean no disrespect. I simply had to ensure I had something to negotiate with.”
El Rey
leaned in even closer. “I was approached three days ago by one of your enemies, who offered me a half million dollars to kill you. I told him I’d consider it. I haven’t responded yet. My point is that if we reach an accommodation, and I continue to work on your behalf, I’ll decline these sorts of requests. Truthfully, I could have cut your throat last night and pocketed the half million after the fact, but I didn’t. Instead, I came here, listened with respect to your proposal, politely declined, and then things started down an unfortunate road.”

Montanegro said nothing. Merely glared at him. But the young man could see that he was now calculating instead of reacting. That was good.

“I like my work,”
El Rey
continued. “I enjoy it. I also enjoy clients who pay on time, and who do as they promise. You’re an honorable man and have always paid as agreed, so I enjoy working for you. I don’t want to see anything happen to you.” The young man sighed. “Here’s my counter-proposal. We agree I won’t kill you. I give your men the antidote when they’ve dropped me in a location of my choosing once we’re under way. It will be enough antidote for you, your companion, and whoever else drank your coffee this morning. There will be no ill effects, provided you take it within the next…” the young man checked his watch, “…hour or so. And as a further incentive for you to take a more positive approach, I’ll also terminate your enemy, one of the cartel bosses you’ve been at war with for the last six months, within forty-eight hours, for a contract price of one million dollars; satisfaction guaranteed. The reason the price is a million is because I will be foregoing the half million for your contract, so I’ll expect you to subsidize that.” The young man sat back, eying Montanegro impassively.

Montanegro seemed to fight an internal battle, a struggle in his mind.

“You’re insane.”

The young man’s face took on a smile that chilled Montanegro’s blood – the blood of a man who had killed dozens himself and ordered the execution of hundreds.

“That may well be. But the question is, do you want me on your side, or working against you? If against, you have nothing to do but wait, and you’ll see the result of that choice by two o’clock today, maybe two-thirty. The effects are quite painful, and at that point, irreversible. The Iranian who sold it to me said prisoners they tested it on tore off their own skin in an attempt to reduce the…discomfort.” He fixed the
Don
with a penetrating stare. “I don’t care whether I see tomorrow or not. The real question is whether you do. From that understanding will flow the correct answer.”

Montanegro now saw him in a new light. The young man imagined that was the way he would regard a cobra poised to strike, coiled on the table. Gone were the anger and the hubris. He already knew what the answer would be –
Don
Felix was certainly a man who wanted to live.

Montanegro slammed the table with his palm again and threw back his head and laughed; a laugh hollow with nervous relief.

“Fuck you. You really are good, you know that? I’ve sat across from many, and you take the cake. All right then. It’s a deal. One million, he’s dead within forty eight hours. I get the antidote within the hour. Who am I paying to exterminate, as a matter of interest?”

“Antonio Palomino. The head of the Chiapas cartel. I know where he’s staying. Not in Tijuana, by the way, but that’s not your concern. I want half the money now, and half when I close out the contract.” He glanced at his watch again. “I’d be inclined not to waste too much time right now.”

Montanegro rose, and shook the young man’s hand.

“It will take a few minutes to count it.”

Thirty minutes later, the Escalade dropped the young man off in a seedy neighborhood near the infamous wall that divided Mexico from the U.S.. He instructed the driver to cruise around the block, and that he’d meet him on the corner, in front of the small market, in ten minutes. The heavy SUV roared off down the dirt street, and once it was out of sight the young man ducked into one of the squalid little cinderblock houses, emerging a few minutes later with an empty aspirin bottle half-filled with clear fluid. He hefted the shoulder strap of the duffle bag with the cash and ambled to the market, stopping to buy a bottle of water with the few loose pesos jingling in his pants. The Escalade pulled up two minutes later, and he approached it, motioning for the driver to roll down the window.

The blackened inch-thick glass slid down.

“Wait until you see me walk round that corner. When I know I’m safe, I’ll call this phone and tell you where the antidote is. Be careful with it. Don’t drop it. That’s all there is. Tell
Don
Felix to shake it well, until the white powder in the bottom is completely dissolved, and then to take one tablespoon orally, and to have anyone else who’s affected take one as well. As long as they do so in the next forty minutes they’ll be fine. There are only enough doses to treat eight people, so don’t waste it. Do you understand?” the young man asked.

The driver nodded and took the proffered cell phone from
El Rey
’s outstretched hand.