Night of the Assassin (Assassin Series 4_prequel) (15 page)

Manuel lumbered to the entry door with Sadie springing alongside him and stepped outside to the crisp air of a bright new morning. He loved this time of year. It was cool enough so you weren’t sweating through your clothes all day, but the rainy season hadn’t started yet. Spring was a perfect time to live in Sinaloa. His morning shift of bodyguards was dutifully waiting outside for him, two of them on All Terrain Vehicles, with their weapons cradled in their laps, ready for the jog at whatever time it would begin.

“
Hola
,
chicos
. You ready for another good one?” Manuel greeted his men.

No reply answered him. None was expected. These weren’t his friends, no matter how warm and fuzzy the
Don
acted, and they understood their role was to protect him, not chat with him.

Sadie whined and nudged his hand with her nose, anxious to get underway. Manuel began stretching, using the columns of his porch for support, smiling at his beloved dog – barely more than a puppy.

Searing lances of white hot pain shot through his upper-body as his chest exploded. Blood splattered Sadie and his men as the four round burst of gunfire from the brush shredded his torso. The men froze momentarily before taking cover wherever they could, shooting haphazardly at the area where the gunfire had come from. The two on ATVs gunned their motors and went tearing off in the direction of the sniper, until first one and then the other’s heads exploded, the vehicles slowing and turning aimlessly now that their operators were dead. The two guards by the porch had taken refuge behind the heavy stone columns. They fired without conviction into the dense foliage at the property's perimeter.

Manuel stared up at the complex herringbone pattern of the brickwork in the dome built into the roof over his porch, the
cupula
, his breath gurgling from the holes in his chest as his life ran out onto the rustic stone floor. Sadie approached and nosed his face with her own, licking the spattered blood from his chin in an effort to comfort him, her warm tongue the last thing he would ever register. His eyes met hers for a brief instant and then grew wide as he noisily exhaled a long groaning rattle before shuddering into stillness.

Sadie lay beside her master, then stood and circled him. She nudged him again with her nose, and then, as dogs had done since the time they’d joined humans as companions in caves, she sat and pointed her head to the heavens and let forth a baleful howl, filled with all the sadness and pain of the world.

Her beloved master was gone. She was now alone, as only the surviving can be.

“What do you mean Altamar is missing. What the fuck does that mean? Missing?” Jorge Encarlo screamed into his cell phone. “Does that mean he decided to disappear and bang a fifteen year old for a few days, or does that mean he’s mulch in a tomato field?”

“
Jefe
, I’m telling you everything I know. I heard from a friend of a friend that he went missing yesterday and his organization is scrambling to find him. Doesn’t sound like young love to me…” the voice on the phone advised.

Encarlo was a bulldog of a man, heavily muscled with a buzz cut and a closely cropped four day shadow. “Is there anything else? God damn it, get some more information. I don’t care what you have to do. This could be really big if someone’s taken the cocksucker out,” Encarlo snarled.

“I know. I’m on it. But you know how this goes. Nobody’s going to talk if they think they could wind up beheaded for doing so.”

“Right. I get it. But the problem is that if Altamar’s been taken out, we need to move rapidly – or we’ll all be as good as dead,” Encarlo warned.

“I’m doing everything I can. Really. Give me some more time and I’ll find out more. This just came in, and it’s not easy getting anyone on his crew to talk. They’re not chatty types, if you remember.”

Encarlo silently counted to three. “Look. I’m not paying you to tell me how hard it is to do your job. I’m paying for you to do it. So do your fucking job and get me some intelligence, or I’ll find someone who can.” Encarlo was fuming and had nobody to take his anger out on. He stared at his little Motorola flip phone, the latest model, and snapped it closed in frustration.

What the hell was going on with Altamar? If he was really missing in a way that suggested he would never be reappearing except as pieces floating in the river, then Encarlo needed to get positioned to take action against the other lieutenants. That was how it worked. If the king was dead, long live whoever was left alive once the smoke cleared and they hosed the blood off the sidewalks. He didn’t make the rules, but he was a survivor, nonetheless. At thirty-one, he was already reputed to be a mover and, even by cartel standards, was utterly ruthless. He’d learned early that shock and awe went a long way towards moving you up the food chain, and so he was prone to violent outbursts of slaughter at the slightest provocation. That was his modus operandi and it had served him in good stead.

Encarlo owned a recycling plant that shipped its product to the United States once it was processed, which had provided excellent cover for shipping other items north as well. His operation was one of many responsible for the growing methamphetamine traffic that was slowly displacing crack cocaine in many areas of the U.S.. It was a booming market with a rock bottom production cost, so the profits from trafficking in it were swelling his accounts. It made the cocaine trade seem like small potatoes, if the growth curve kept up.

He picked unconsciously at a scabbed area above his left ear. It was a nervous tick, one of many he’d developed from the constant pressure to stay one step ahead of the rest of the wolf pack. Encarlo used his own products and consumed a fair amount of both meth and cocaine in a cocktail of stimulants that enabled him to sleep only four hours at a stint. He firmly believed that much of his success was thanks to the long hours he worked, in addition to an innate cunning borne of the streets. Those traits, combined with a relentless sadistic bent and a sociopathic streak that would have been the envy of any serial killer, made him the perfect mid-level cartel functionary. His men and his competitors were terrified of him, for good reason – the chemical supplementation often resulted in erratic mood swings; he could be set off on a bloody tirade by virtually anything.

Right now, his antennae were picking up the vibrations of opportunity from the early news of Altamar’s mysterious disappearance. He knew that if he could confirm that the man was actually gone for good, he’d be perfectly positioned to capitalize on the situation and take out his rivals before they knew what had hit them. It only got dangerous if all facts were known by all the lieutenants at the same time – that’s where it became a killing field until only one was left standing. He’d gone through that multiple times and there was never any guarantee that you would make it through the next one, no matter how much of a badass you were.

The idea of creating a loose coalition like Altamar had never entered his head. Why would he look to his weaker competitors for cooperation when he could simply eliminate them and claim their networks for his own? The outreach approach had worked for Altamar, but in Encarlo’s opinion it was the flawed plan of a weak man, which would be evidenced by his having been taken out after only two years at the top of his little hub.

He needed to know what was going on, and he needed to know now. The anxiety was building and he knew from harsh experience that he had to do something salient. Anything. Sitting waiting for feedback was too reactive for his tastes.

Restless, he tapped out a line of cocaine to help him focus, and quickly snorted it using a gold tube he carried for the purpose. He brushed a little on his gums, and shook his head, as if to clear it.

The drug now coursing through his system, Encarlo resolved to see if he could shake loose some information himself. He’d hit the street and see if anything came back from his personal contacts. He had confidence in his men but he couldn’t just sit still and wait. Glancing at his watch, he noted that it was already ten-thirty in the morning. Time to move. He stabbed at the keypad of his office phone and barked orders into it, calling for his car to be brought around. He next dialed his second in command and told him to get three men, packing heavy heat, to meet him at his vehicle in five minutes. Encarlo opened his file cabinet, retrieved a Berretta 9 mm pistol and slipped it into his windbreaker pocket. It was a small gun but packed a decent wallop, and he hated having to wear a shoulder holster like some undercover cop. He’d tried an ankle holster, but it had bothered him; it was easier to carry the thing in his pocket.

Encarlo made his way downstairs to the ground level and walked out of the office doors, past the heavy industrial equipment in the yard toward his truck – a silver fully-loaded Lincoln Navigator with custom rims and steel armored plates welded into each of the four doors. Three men joined him, all toting a variety of submachine-guns. He didn’t like to fuck around when he went out on the town, and believed in being prepared for an assault at all times. It wasn’t so much paranoia as occupational hazard, and it had kept him alive so far. His driver nodded at him as he climbed into the passenger seat, the three enforcers climbing in behind him in the rear seat. One of the reasons he liked the SUV was because it had enough room for three grown men in the back.

The truck moved toward the front gates, which opened via a configuration of hydraulic pistons activated by the security guard in a booth by the street, and then exploded in a blast of orange fire. The concussion from the plastique affixed to the gas tank broke the windows in the nearby buildings as pieces of the truck spiraled through the mushroom cloud of black smoke above it, before inevitably dropping like Icarus back to earth. Nothing survived that sort of a blast, and the men that came running did so with slim hope of salvaging anything.

El Rey
took several snapshots with his little camera from across the thoroughfare. He put the Ford Lobo into gear and pulled away down the road to rendezvous with Valiente, and see if he had any more chores that needed tidying up. And to collect his money, of course. Not that it was only about the money, but a job well done deserved its reward.

Fair was fair.

Mexico City’s sky was laden with hulking, dark clouds when
El Rey
pulled over the hills and into the infamously dangerous metropolitan traffic. The Toyota had run like a champ, was a pleasure to drive, softening the blows of the rutted patches between Culiacan and DF, or
Distrito Federal
, as the locals referred to Mexico City. He’d gotten the contact information of a man Valiente, his new patron and sponsor, had known since childhood. Valiente had made a phone call and proposed a relationship that his friend couldn’t possibly refuse. The man owned a pawn shop but he’d fallen into leveraging his contacts in the underworld and being a facilitator for extermination work – the human kind. It was a difficult role for him because he was basically a good and decent man, but the money was simply too attractive to turn down for a no-risk proposition. He had three contractors who handled domestic disputes and business disagreements, and he took twenty percent of the contract price to handle the money and vet the clients.

El Rey
needed someone trustworthy to launder his money and deal with the payments. If he was going to do this professionally, he needed a front office, so to speak – and pro representation. He could handle sourcing the jobs but he couldn’t haul around several million dollars in hundreds and be effective. He needed a banker and an accountant. Valiente’s contact seemed ideally suited for the role. And Valiente had warned his friend what he was dealing with, lest he get the bright idea to take
El Rey
’s money and run for the hills. In the cartels, if you vouched for someone and made an introduction, and then that someone screwed the person you’d introduced, you could expect to be held accountable for your recommendation’s actions. Valiente had seen more than enough of
El Rey
’s handiwork in a short period to know he didn’t want that coming after him.

The
narcotraficante
chief had become
El Rey
’s biggest admirer and had promised to spread the word of his prowess in return for a commitment to never accept a contract on him. That seemed reasonable to
El Rey
, and Valiente was an up-and-comer in the most powerful cartel on the planet, so as sponsors go, he could do worse. His plan was to limit his activity to a few hits a year, but to steadily increase the fee he charged as well as the level of difficulty of the sanctions he accepted until he became the highest paid killer in the world. Mexico was the right place for that, given the amount of money flowing through the cartels, although he’d heard good things about Russia, too. Problem there, was that he didn’t speak the language. He’d studied English in school and, of course, there was his Spanish. But that was it. So he wouldn’t be doing any work in St. Petersburg or Vladivostok.

He merged toward the right lane and took an off ramp from the congested freeway into an even more congested area of the city. After circling around for half an hour, he eventually located the pawn shop and managed to find a parking spot. He threw his black duffel bag over his shoulder and made his way two blocks to the contact’s store. The neighborhood was sketchy even by Mexico City standards, which was saying a lot, but then again, money lenders of last resort didn’t tend to be located in the ritziest areas.

At the glass door to the shop, he noted bars everywhere, providing security against night incursions, as well as a roll-up metal awning that would completely seal off the storefront. With all the bars it seemed like overkill, but
El Rey
liked that – it hinted at a man who took precautions, and who over-engineered them. That was a careful man, which is what he needed. The establishment itself was modest by any measure, which suggested a lack of braggadocio or hubris. Again, strongly positive from
El Rey
’s position.