Rage Of The Assassin (26 page)

“She wasn’t abused, if that’s what you’re implying. I told you – she hasn’t been harmed.”

“Other than being tied up by a stranger and imprisoned with no food and water, you mean.”

“Again, an exaggeration. I left her with two liters of water and some food. Her wrists are bound like yours, and I used chain for her ankles so she couldn’t get far, but she’ll be fine. Children recover quickly. She’ll be frightened, but that couldn’t be helped. As you know.”

“I’m not saying it could have been. But I also can’t ever forgive you.”

He nodded. “Nor do I expect you to. What you’ll do is free her, comfort her, perhaps go on a long vacation somewhere nice, and put this behind you. I’m confident you won’t do anything foolish like contact the authorities – I would hate to see you spend the rest of your life behind bars for aiding and abetting. You strike me as smarter than that.”

Once he had secured her, he pocketed the car keys, left the windows rolled down a few inches, and gave her a small nod of his head. “I disabled the horn, so no point in trying that.”

“You promised me you’d tell me where Courtney is.”

“So I did. She’s still at your condo. Chained to the bathroom pipes, well hydrated and fed, as I mentioned. I put cushions from your sofa in with her so she’s comfortable.”

“And…she’s alone?”

“Yes. I didn’t leave her with someone who would rape her. She’s unharmed, probably scared, but will be relieved when it’s over. As will we all, I assure you.”

“Good luck,” Hunt said as he closed the passenger door.

“Luck won’t come into play.”

Ten minutes later he was crawling along the inside of a sewer pipe in over a foot of noxious fluid, making his way the four hundred yards to where waste water emptied from the plant. That whoever had set up the security had ignored the possibility of an intruder using the sewer system didn’t surprise him. It was an approach most wouldn’t attempt, and one he’d been happy to see would get him past the perimeter fortifications that served as ninety percent of the facility’s security. It was his good fortune that the designer of the defenses hadn’t considered the threat of someone penetrating beyond the alarms, sensors, and fencing seriously – the internal safeguards were manageable, if not easily defeated. The building was much like an egg: all the protection built into the shell, leaving the contents vulnerable.

The surroundings glowed a familiar neon green in the night vision goggles as he worked his way to the iron grid that protected the plant’s master evacuation pipe. At the grid, he studied the locked shackle and spotted a single cable that armed a contact sensor mounted to the barrier. He removed a long wire with a metal clip on each end from his bag, and after attaching one end to each side of the sensor, used a pair of bolt cutters to snip off the rusty padlock hasp.

El Rey cracked the grid open wide enough to crawl through and inched into the gap, careful not to dislodge the clips that maintained the connection for the alarm. He left them in place, mindful that he’d be returning the same way, and continued forward, scanning above him for motion detectors. Confident there were none, he continued until he arrived at the base of a vertical shaft with a metal ladder leading upward into nothingness.

Once inside the pump room, he quickly stripped off the rebreather, the fishing waders, and the heavy rubber gloves, his nose wrinkling at their stench. A pair of metal doors stood at the opposite end of the vault. He ignored the din of the machinery and made his way to the entrance, relieved to see that there was no deadbolt on the doors.

He removed a coil of yellow nylon cord from his kit and tied it to one of the two lever handles, leaving the other end hanging loose. His preparations complete, he stood motionless with his ear pressed to the metal barrier, listening for any sign of guards patrolling the hallway beyond.

Three minutes later he’d located the chamber where Hunt believed the antidote was stored and was studying the keypad beside the door. As he’d noted on their tour with Atkinson, the units were of a commercially available variety favored by budget-conscious contractors – and one that fortunately was relatively simple to work around.

More clips and wires, and after prying the cover off, he dismantled the keypad within seconds and short-circuited the mechanism to instruct the lock to open. A click sounded from the bolt and he nodded to himself. If only all his problems were so easily overcome.

Inside the chamber he moved quickly along the alphabetized racks of agents. He found the bin he was after and eyed the handful of vials. After such lengths, the tiny containers were almost anticlimactic.

He checked the labels and noted that all bore the same expiration date – fourteen months in the future.

The assassin selected a vial and drained a tiny amount of the precious honey-tinted fluid into a syringe. He replaced it and repeated the process with the others until both syringes were full, the levels of the vials down no more than a few millimeters. After sliding one of the syringes into his bag, he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled one shoulder off, exposing bare skin. His face didn’t change when he drove the tiny needle into his vein, nor when he emptied the contents of the syringe into his system.

El Rey waited, and when he didn’t convulse or black out, shifted the bin containing the antidote vials back into position. He was edging back through the door when he heard the pounding of running boots from around the corner.

The assassin took off at a dead run, any need for subterfuge gone. Something had triggered the alarm – it could have been the lock or an undisclosed sensor in the room that had notified a slow-to-react security team of an intruder.

A klaxon wail sounded when he was halfway down the corridor, and he poured on the steam as he sprinted for the stairwell that led to the maintenance levels. Footsteps echoed behind him, and then a man’s voice screamed at him, “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

He ignored the warning and ducked through the stairwell door, figuring they wouldn’t fire unless they were complete idiots, given the danger of a ricochet, and took the stairs three at a time, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the guards. At the lower level hall he bolted to the pump room door, hoping his pursuers would be slowed some by having to search the rooms closer to the stairwell first – they couldn’t know behind which door he’d disappeared.

He slipped into the room and secured the cord, which would further delay the guards – at least until they could cut it. Seconds counted in making his escape, and if the simple knot bought him twice the time it took to tie it, it was a good investment.

He pulled on his gear and returned to the sewer, moving as fast as he could in the confined space. Now it would be a race against the guards’ competence. There was slim chance employees getting paid low wages would follow him into the pipes without breathing gear, so that left them with locating a blueprint of the system and isolating the points where he could exit. If they were on the ball, he’d be the loser. If they didn’t have the relevant schematic at their fingertips, he stood a better than fair chance.

Near the road, there was no sign of a welcoming committee when he emerged from the manhole he’d left open, the metal cover invisible in the darkness. He shrugged off all his gear except his night vision goggles, ignoring the glare from the emergency lights that blazed at the nearby plant, and ran for the clearing where he’d left the car.

When he arrived he got his second surprise of the night – Dr. Hunt had managed to work loose from her bindings and escape. He peered into the surrounding trees and made an easy decision: he’d have to leave her. He could be on a plane jetting south long before she could make it to civilization, assuming she decided to chance reporting him, which he didn’t think she’d risk.

“Good luck, Dr. Hunt. Take care of your daughter. Family matters most,” he called out, and then slid behind the wheel and twisted the ignition, the biggest challenge now getting to the airport from the rural road before all hell broke loose.

Chapter 44

San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico

Don
Aranas reclined on his plush leather sofa, the wood frame ornately carved by regional artisans famous for their skill, and took a generous measure of steaming coffee. Getting clear of DF had been simple, a matter of a charter flight under an assumed name. For all the government’s sound and fury, like all bureaucracies, it was inept at the things that mattered – which he’d proved countless times in his criminal career. There had been roadblocks in place, of course, but a few pesos to the right security men and his flight had been cleared for takeoff with no fuss.

His new cell phone warbled from the table beside the couch.

“Yes?” he answered.

“I’m glad to see everything appears to be going according to plan,” an American voice said in accented Spanish.

“It’s always nice when hard work pays off.” Aranas paused. “I trust you’ve had a chance to discuss my proposal with your masters?”

“I did, and they agreed, at least in principle. But they weren’t happy with the reduced cut.”

“It’s not a reduced cut, and you know it. It’s the same as it’s been for the last four years. Which has worked well for everyone.”

“It’s a reduction from what was negotiated with Agundez.”

“Who had no authority to make the commitment. And for which he paid with his life.”

“Well, the deed is done, so you got what you were after.”

“It seems extraordinary to me that it was such a struggle. All I want is what’s fair for the job I do.”

The American switched topics. “Do you think the president will pay off or try another gambit?”

Aranas took another swig of his coffee and set the cup down carefully on the saucer before answering. “I don’t suppose it much matters, does it?”

“Well, a billion is a nice payday.”

“Achieving your objective is a nicer one. I can’t help but believe there will be promotions on your end for engineering this.”

“I live in hope. What do you think went wrong at the museum?”

“Oh, without question they tried to disarm it. And then they didn’t have the balls to admit it. But I let them out gracefully…for a small surcharge.”

“Do you plan to detonate the others?”

Aranas was a reasonable man. “Not if they comply. I still have to do business here, so there’s no reason to agitate things further. Even in your new environment of increased international cooperation.”

“Terrorism is a global threat. They’re everywhere,” the American said, and Aranas barked a laugh.

“Of course they are. I think I saw one out by the woodpile earlier. Sneaky bastards.”

It was the American’s turn to laugh.

“Just let us know if you plan to blow them.”

“Will do. I don’t think it will be necessary, but I’ve learned to never underestimate the stupidity of civil servants or politicians. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Aranas hung up, satisfied with another successful negotiation concluded with his longtime partners in the U.S. –the largest market on the planet for illegal drugs. Without their cooperation, trafficking into the country would have been far more difficult, and they were worth the percentage of profits he paid; but only to a point. This current round of talks had ended as favorably as he’d hoped, with everyone getting what they wanted: his cartel maintained its margins, and the Americans got to increase their reach.

It was a good bargain, with a billion and a half bonus at the end of the rainbow for him – a worthwhile expenditure of effort.

Perhaps most importantly, it had given him the chance to get even with the president for his betrayal, and remind him where the real power rested. The silly peacock strutted around like a pint-sized statesman, but it didn’t serve Aranas’s purposes to allow him to believe he actually ran things. The president’s double cross, which Aranas had used to put his current scheme into motion, had been unforgivable, and balance needed to be restored.

Now that the administration understood the true order of things, Aranas expected matters to settle down and to be able to conduct business in the usual fashion: he paid off politicians at the mayoral and governor level, owned most of the senate, and would mobilize his massive wealth to determine which candidate got to be the next president, as he had for the current worm. It was only when the servants forgot their place that he set them straight. The rest of the time he had no interest in what they did, as long as they followed his direction and used the military and law enforcement to gut his rivals. Let them loot the country – they’d been doing it since before Aranas was born, and he had little doubt that the larceny would continue long past his expiration.

It was the way of the world. How anyone in the neighborhood to the north believed that any candidate who could raise the billion dollars it took to get elected wasn’t wholly owned by the special interests that funded the campaign baffled him. In Mexico it was understood that gaining public office was a license to steal.

He shook his head at the wonder of it all and finished his tepid coffee.

“Maria!
Mas café, por favor
,” he called, and debated whether it was too early for his first cigar of the day. He opted for discipline, but patted his breast pocket, where the four he allowed himself each day fit snugly.

A woman in a white smock and loose trousers hurried in with a coffee pot. “Here you are,
Don
Aranas.”

“Only half a cup. Oh, and I’ll be having our favorite guest over for lunch. Please make his usual. You know how he values consistency – I fear this latest adventure has been a bit much for him, but a good meal should go a long way to calming his nerves.”

Maria nodded. She knew exactly what to make. And as always, plenty of it.

Because for all his social ineptness, El Maquino enjoyed his food.

Chapter 45

Mexico City, Mexico

Carla looked up from her tea to find El Rey standing in the doorway of her dining room, watching her as she responded to early morning messages on her cell phone. She gasped in surprise as he moved toward her, covering the space between them in a few long strides. She rose and he took her in his arms, holding her close as she battled conflicting impulses. After several moments she looked up at him.