Night of the Assassin (Assassin Series 4_prequel) (20 page)

“What are you doing? What do you want? Money? I have a lot of it…”
El Chilango
said.

“I’m glad to hear that. Hopefully you have a current will, too. It would be a shame if it all went to waste, no?”

El Chilango
grimaced. “I can make you rich. Anything you want, I can give you.”

“That’s an attractive offer. Really. It’s not every day someone offers to make all my dreams come true,”
El Rey
mused, walking over to a tripod where a small video camera was positioned. He looked through the screen and adjusted the height a little and then, satisfied, pulled a balaclava from his pocket and pulled the knit mask over his head. He depressed the record button and verified that it was operating correctly before moving back to
El Chilango
.

“What the fuck are you doing? Did you hear me? I can give you any amount of money you want. Any. A million dollars. Five million. Ten. Anything. Just say the number and I can make it happen…”
El Chilango
was panicking after seeing the mask – he realized what was happening. “Please. You don’t have to do this. I can make you rich for life–”

His protestations were cut off by the clanking of chain feeding through an electric winch that hung overhead. The motor whined, and he felt pressure on his ankles as it slowly started lifting him off the floor.

“Oh God, no. Please. Name a number. Anything…”

Once he was suspended upside down, he began shrieking and howling in stark fear, squirming and struggling in a futile effort to get free. The motor stopped when his head was three feet off the floor. He spun gently in a circle from his efforts, slowly returning to the central position, his face looking in fear at the camera.

El Rey
checked the image through the viewfinder one last time and nodded, satisfied with the composition.

“It’s so hard to create an interesting film. Sustaining the drama, capturing the pathos, making the audience feel like they’re involved…”
El Rey
lamented.

“Let me down. You don’t have to do this. Please,” the cartel boss whimpered, saliva flecking from his mouth with every word.

El Rey
moved to the table and donned a clear plastic raincoat, taking care to snap up the front of it. When he turned to face
El Chilango
, he looked at his watch and ignited the tip of the welding torch he held in one hand with the long handed fireplace lighter he held in the other.
El Chilango
’s eyes grew wide.

“So you can give me any amount of money I want?”
El Rey
asked.

“Yes. Anything. You’ll be rich. I can make you rich. Millions,” he pleaded, beginning to cry as he saw the blue flame and understood the implications of the camera and his complete nudity.

“Tell me. What does it cost to bring a twelve year old ballerina back to life? How much is a little girl’s life worth? What’s the going rate?”

El Chilango
struggled to process the question, to make sense of what was being asked, and then awareness dawned on him.

“Nooooooooo…” Urine streamed down his bare chest as he lost control of his bodily functions out of raw terror.

El Rey
pushed the surgical rotary saw aside and picked up a red suede muzzle designed to keep victims silent that Victor had gotten from a bondage store, and approached
El Chilango
, humming a song he’d heard that morning. Waltzing Matilda. Catchy in an odd way.

Shortly thereafter he began his first film appearance in earnest.

Three hours later, Victor’s phone rang.

“It’s done. Dispose of the remains and hose out the shop. Thanks for everything,”
El Rey
said, before hanging up. He’d settled up with Victor earlier, so there were ‘no worries’ in that respect.

He pocketed the three small cassettes for the camera and labeled them one through three, then slipped them into his pocket before turning off the work area lights. He was glad he wouldn’t have to clean up after that mess – it was all he’d been able to do to avoid getting soaked with blood in the end. The dismemberment and cauterization had been gratuitous, but then again his little cinematic epic was intended for a very specific audience. He suspected what it lacked in finesse would be made up by the subject matter. He’d stretched things out as long as they would go and, fortunately,
El Chilango
had been healthy and strong.

It was amazing the amount of abuse the human body could take and still keep on functioning.

Still, in the end, nothing lasted forever.

El Rey
limped down the street, still humming, his leg starting to throb but still largely numb from the two injections. He’d get out of town in the late morning and be back home within twenty hours of taking off, with any luck at all.

A few minutes later, he saw the lights of his hotel and exhaled with relief at the thought of a few hours of rest.

It had been a long day.

The Quantas first class lounge was mostly empty so
El Rey
had the area he was sitting in all to himself. He nibbled on some cashews and drank some more orange juice while gazing through the window at the huge airplanes landing as he waited for his flight to be called. His leg hurt like hell, but he’d be fine. He didn’t want to take any pain medicine but reconciled to perhaps availing himself of the expensive free alcohol that flowed like water in the first class cabin. It wasn’t like he would need to be in total control while thirty-nine thousand feet over the Pacific Ocean. It would be safe to violate his own prohibition against alcohol for once. It was, after all, for legitimate medicinal reasons.

Fortunately, his seat pod folded flat into a bed, so he would be able to sleep for much of the way if he had any luck at all. The trip over had been relatively smooth and he was hopeful that it would be on the return as well. His English was more than good enough to follow the dialog in the in flight films, so he could catch a movie or two while waiting to drift off. He never watched TV or movies back home, so it was a guilty pleasure he planned to indulge while aloft.

The
El Chilango
contract would be the last of the year for him. He wanted to recuperate from the shooting, and also not be overly available to any of the cartels – preferring to select the assignments he accepted with care. He wouldn’t get to the point where he could command millions for a hit by being open to every job thrown his way. He intended to only take the truly challenging sanctions, thereby creating a reputation as a man who could do the impossible – the court of last resort when only the best would do. That would take as much stagecraft and pomp as it would competent execution. Everything in the end was a performance, and if he managed his career correctly he would soon be the star of center stage when it came to headline-making assassinations.

The loudspeaker announced his flight and an attractive young redheaded Australian woman came to assist him with the wheelchair that sat waiting in a corner. He’d told the airline that he was disabled, a diving accident, and the staff had been more than accommodating. As the perky airline worker pushed him to the gate, he again remarked at how clean everything was that he’d seen while in Sydney. It wasn’t home, of course, but Australia certainly had its charms. He could understand the appeal as a retirement destination, although for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what the people were saying half the time.

Once onboard, he stowed his overnight bag and settled in for the long journey ahead of him. He had booked a seat at the very front of the 747, with nothing in front of him, and he hoped the section would be only a third full, as it had been on the way there.

Eventually the door closed and he saw, with satisfaction, that nobody else was in his row. Thankfully, he’d be left in peace.
El Rey
plugged his headphones into the center console and adjusted the channel to the classical station, then thumbed through the onboard magazine to see what had been selected for his viewing pleasure by the attentive entertainment concierge at Quantas. A smiling stewardess came down the aisle and offered him a glass of Veuve Clicquot champagne, which he gratefully accepted while returning the woman’s smile. She brought it promptly, along with a porcelain bowl of warm, mixed nuts. She told him to simply ask if he had any other requests or needs. He leaned back in his chair with a weary sigh as he sipped the bubbly ambrosia from the glass flute, and peered through the window while the plane backed away from the gate. Shaking out an iron pill and antibiotic, he washed them down with the last of the elixir, and before long the massive contrivance was lumbering down the runway and up into the cold morning light.

King of Swords is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters and real people, living or dead, is coincidental. Having said that, the backdrop and historical context of the novel is based in fact. The drug war in Mexico has been an ongoing confrontation between government forces and the ever-strengthening cartels – now the largest illegal drug trafficking networks in the world, whose primary target market is the United States.

Thousands of police and soldiers have been killed in the last decade, as the war has intensified due to a crackdown by pro-U.S. administrations. Cartel members slaughter one another by the thousands every year, as well as huge numbers of innocent bystanders. The brutality of the turf wars that are a constant and ongoing facet of the trade is stunning; well over a thousand children have been butchered during Mexico’s ‘lost decade’, as have countless family members of traffickers, killed in retribution or as a deterrent.

The last two Secretaries of the Interior for Mexico died in suspicious air crashes. The Mexican cartels are now the largest narcotics trafficking networks in the world, with revenues that exceed those of many nation states. Roughly ten thousand people per year die as a direct result of cartel violence in Mexico.

The Sinaloa cartel is real. The Knights Templar cartel is also real, as is the Gulf cartel, the Tijuana cartel, and the Zeta cartel. New cartels pop up when the heads of the old groups die, and the names change with some frequency. The only constant is the bloodshed; the natural consequence of the economics of trafficking in an illegal substance that generates in excess of fifty billion dollars a year, wholesale, for the cartels in Mexico; a country where the average person makes a hundred and sixty dollars a month.

A Description of the Tarot Card, ‘The King of Swords’

In full regalia, the King of Swords sits proudly on his throne – with a long, upward-pointing, double-edged sword clutched in his right hand, and his left hand resting lightly on his lap. A ring adorns his left Saturn finger – representing power and commitment to responsibility. The King’s blue tunic symbolizes a desire for spiritual enlightenment; his purple cape symbolizes empathy, compassion and intellect. The backrest of his throne is embellished with butterflies, signifying transformation, and crescent moons orbit around an angel situated by his left ear, positioned, perhaps, to lend a delicate guidance. The backdrop of the sky has very few clouds, signifying pragmatic mental clarity. The trees dotting the landscape stand still, with not a rustle – reflecting the King of Swords’ stern judgment.

King of Swords Reversed

The reversed King of Swords depicts a man who is ruthless or excessively judgmental; when reversed, the King of Swords suggests the misuse of mental power, authority and drive. The reversed King of Swords can represent manipulation and persuasion in order to achieve selfish ends. He is a very intelligent character who likes to demonstrate to others his superiority, either verbally or through actions. It is best to be wary of this type of person because, although he may be charming and intelligent, he is remorseless and can do only harm. He has only his personal interests in mind and will do whatever necessary to achieve those interests, even if it means destroying others.

Three Years Ago

Armed men lined the perimeter of the large contemporary home on the secluded stretch of seashore just above Punta Mita, twenty-three miles north of Puerto Vallarta. The stunning single-level example of modern Mexican architecture sat on a cove, where the heavy surf from the Pacific Ocean flattened out over the shallow offshore reef a hundred yards from the beach. Nine foot high concrete walls ringed the compound, protecting the occupants from prying eyes and would-be intruders. Not that any were in evidence. The property and the coastline for a quarter mile in each direction belonged to the house’s secretive owner – Julio Guzman Salazar, the Jalisco cartel’s chief, and the eighth richest man in Mexico, although his name didn’t appear on any roster other than the government’s most wanted list.

The building’s Ricardo Legorreta design boasted thirty-eight thousand feet of interior space, with nine bedrooms in the main house, separate servant’s quarters adjacent to the twelve car air-conditioned garage, a full sized movie theater with a floating floor, its own solar and wind power generation system, and a full time domestic staff of eleven. An Olympic-sized swimming pool with an infinity edge finished in indigo mirrored glass tile created the illusion of water spilling into the deep blue ocean.

The white cantera stone pool-area deck took on a pale cosmic glow as the last sliver of sun sank into the watery horizon, making way for the dark of a late-November night. The armed men encircling the house were hardened and efficient, exuding a palpable air of menace as they roamed the grounds, alert for threats. The security detail, which traveled with Salazar everywhere he went, consisted of eighteen seasoned mercenaries who were proficient with the Uzis they held with nonchalant ease.