Return of the Assassin (Assassin Series 3) (19 page)

An explosion sounded from the alley mouth as a rocket detonated under the lead Suburban, igniting the fuel tank and sending pieces of metal and bodies hurtling through the air. Isidro grabbed for the dead gunman’s rifle as he screamed at his other bodyguard.

“They’ve got us pinned down. Sniper. We need to move, or we’re sitting ducks.”

A police pickup truck spun around the corner at the opposite end of the alley and moved towards the Escalade, the three officers in the truck bed wearing full combat gear and sporting M16 assault rifles. The police fired short bursts at the windows of the surrounding buildings, glass shattering from their rounds. Isidro watched them draw near, and when his bodyguard was preparing to shoot at them from his open window, Isidro grabbed his sleeve to stop him.

“Don’t. They’re shooting at the sniper.”

They watched as the newcomers fired into the surrounding structures, and the truck rolled to a stop thirty feet from the Cadillac’s hood. Isidro clutched the bodyguard’s arm with a steady grip, forbidding him to shoot, as the passenger door of the police vehicle opened. An officer jumped out and approached in a crouch, his weapon trained on the buildings, not on the Escalade.

“Quick. Get out of the car and take cover in the truck. You’ve been attacked. Your other vehicles are destroyed. There’s a gunman somewhere up there. We’re laying down fire, but hurry,” the officer barked. He fired a few rounds at the buildings at the end of the alley, punctuating his order with gunshots.

No further sniper fire was incoming, so Isidro glanced at the bodyguard and nodded. Isidro swung his door open and then ducked behind it as a few rounds ricocheted off the pavement to his left, coming from one of the distant windows.

“Move. Get going,” the officer screamed, and both the bodyguard and Isidro bolted, running for the truck. The bodyguard’s torso jerked as two rounds ripped into his chest, his scream gurgling in his throat as he choked on blood, his rifle clattering harmlessly at his side as he crumpled in a heap.

Isidro had almost made it to the truck when a blow struck the back of his skull, and then everything went dark.

~

A calloused hand slapped Isidro’s face, bringing him back to consciousness with a start. His head was splitting; the back felt like a spike had been driven through it. He struggled to reach up and see what the damage was, but his hands were immobilized.

He opened his eyes and squinted against the harsh glare from two spotlights mounted on black collapsible tripods.

What the hell
?

His wrists burned from where they were bound. The hand struck him again, causing him to wince.

“You back from dreamland,
marecon
?” a harsh voice scoffed.

He didn’t answer.

“Don’t worry, pussy, you’ll soon be singing like a bird. Trust me on that.”

“Fuck you. You have no idea what kind of trouble you’ve bitten off. You think you can hold me? I’ll be out within a day, and then you and everyone you know will be looking over your shoulders for a long time,” Isidro snarled.

“Ah. You don’t get it. You think you’ve been arrested, eh? Think again,” the voice taunted.

That got Isidro’s attention. He opened his eyes wider and craned his neck to take in his surroundings. He was in a construction site, the gray cinderblock walls bare, cement dust everywhere. Rebar and an old generator sat in the far corner, and the place smelled like urine and rotting garbage.

And something else.

Something astringent; a raspy chemical stink that burned his nostrils.

His pupils adjusted to the light, and he looked up at the ceiling, where a rope was suspended from an iron pipe that ran the width of the twelve foot area. Beneath it was a plastic twenty-five hundred liter cistern, its top crudely cut off, creating a five foot tall tub.

The smell drifted from the cistern.

He registered movement from his left side, and then two men grabbed his arms and lifted him roughly to his bare feet. That was when he saw the camera between the two spotlights.

The men’s faces were hidden by black knit balaclavas.

Judging by their clothes, they weren’t cops.

The truth slammed into him as they hauled him closer to the cistern, and he tried futilely to wriggle out of their grasp. The man who had slapped him swung the rope towards his head, and a leather-gloved hand grabbed it from behind him just before it struck him in the face. The men gripping him forced his arms above his head, and another captor latched the metal clasp at the end of the rope to the nylon rope securing his wrists.

The speaker circled to where Isidro could see his eyes burning from behind his mask.

“You know what? You stink. You have that Zeta smell I hate. Like feces smeared in fear. You need a bath.” He turned to the others. “How about that,
eh
? What do you think,
muchachos
? Does the dog need a bath, or what? Be careful you don’t get fleas or lice. He looks like he’s infested.”

Isidro cursed them, and then threatened, and finally begged.

It didn’t do any good.

It took fifteen minutes for the acid to finish him. The camera captured his repeated immersion in the vat, which caused him to literally melt from the neck down – but slowly. He survived eight dunkings, and when he finally burbled his death rattle, what was left of him hanging from the rope wasn’t so much human as a molten blob of raw meat with a head on it.

The video made its debut appearance on the web the following day, as a warning to those who tested
Don
Aranas’ patience. Even though there was no attribution for the footage, Isidro’s name and rank in Los Zetas was clearly marked below the final still shot of his lifeless face, distorted beyond all recognition by agony.

~

Conchita pulled away from Nuevo Laredo in her brand new Camaro convertible, glad to be rid of the city and on to greener pastures, a quarter million dollars richer as the shabby border town disappeared in her rearview mirror.

The offer had been too good to pass up, and even though the cartel captain had treated her well, it was too much to turn down. At least she wouldn’t have to suffer through his clumsy groping and his sagging physique any longer. With that kind of financial freedom she could get a new life, in the south, maybe Acapulco, where she’d been born to a Mexican mother and a Chinese father. She wouldn’t have to dance anymore. Maybe she’d open a little shop or find a good husband who could provide for her in the style to which she’d recently grown accustomed.

Or maybe she would stop in Mexico City first. There was a lot of money in DF, and her charms might command a far higher dowry than in Acapulco. Whatever the case, as the powerful engine revved under her reckless application of gas and she flew onto the highway, her long gleaming black hair tussled by the wind, she knew she was heading towards a better life. A different life.

The kind of life only money could buy.

“He’s moving.”

“Roger that. Which direction? I don’t have a visual,” the driver responded, instantly alert.

“South-west.”

“Speed? Is he walking, or driving?” the driver demanded, straining to see. He nudged his partner into readiness and started the engine.

“Twenty-five kilometers per hour. Driving, I’d say. Now about two hundred and fifty yards south of you.”

“Got it. I have visual on the car.”

His partner peered at the Yaris through a pair of binoculars, trying to be inconspicuous in the late afternoon traffic. It had been a lousy stakeout so far, lasting all night and most of the next day, with the muggy heat delivering a lingering torture for the men stationed in the car a quarter block from the house in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. The assassin had stayed inside with the girl the entire time. They had snickered at that – he’d been in prison for almost four months and was probably making up for lost time.

“He must be lying down in the back seat. I make out the driver’s head, but it’s hard – her windows are tinted nearly black.”

They pulled into traffic and weaved through the maze of cars until they were a hundred yards behind the Toyota, after which they maintained their distance.

“They’re moving towards the highway. If they pull onto the onramp, it looks like they’re going to Comitán. That makes sense – isn’t he due there in a few hours?” the driver asked.

“Correct. Follow them until you’re certain they’re on their way. We can monitor the rest from here. There isn’t much on that road between you and Comitán. I think that’s what they’re up to.”

The surveillance team abandoned their pursuit at San Cristóbal de las Casas, a smaller town thirty miles east of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, on the road to Comitán.

The assassin was headed to his rendezvous point at the hotel, right on schedule. Mystery solved, and the surveillance effort a waste.

“Confirming we are discontinuing pursuit. He’s all yours now. There’s nowhere to go from here except Comitán, so you’re good,” the driver announced into his cell phone as he pulled to the side of the road.

“Roger. Go back to base and await instructions.”

“Will do.”

~

El Rey
stepped out of the house and carried his bag to the Tsuru. Rudolfo had thoughtfully stocked the ancient refrigerator with food and beverages, anticipating that his client might not want to explore the town’s dining options. He unlocked the car and tossed the bag into the passenger seat, then moved back to the house’s front door and locked it, glancing around to confirm that he was alone. The location was perfect – isolated enough for his purposes, but close enough to the border to make it practical to get to.

The trip to the airport was uneventful, and thankfully the storm front that had brought intermittent rain the prior night and most of the morning had blown farther up the coast, so the late afternoon sky was clear. When he arrived at the airport parking lot, he left the car in the same spot as he had found it, then walked to the private plane area where Alvarez was completing his pre-flight checklist.

The pilot looked up when he sensed
El Rey
approaching across the tarmac and took a long pull on a liter bottle of water. Both men were sweating through their shirts and anxious to get off the boiling runway and into the relative comfort of the air.

“Right on time,” Alvarez commented by way of greeting.

El Rey
handed him his duffel.

“Any questions from the cops or customs?”
El Rey
asked.

“Nope. Rudolfo took care of things.”

“How long till we can get out of here?”

“I’ll start the engine. We should be number one for takeoff. As you may have guessed, this isn’t a hot tourist spot.”

They climbed into the plane after Alvarez secured his bag, and the heat intensified fourfold in the tiny cockpit.

“Too bad they didn’t make these with air conditioning,
eh
?” Alvarez commented and then fiddled with a few levers. The engine sputtered, then roared to life, and within a few minutes they were rolling down the runway in preparation for takeoff.

El Rey
glanced at his watch.

“Flight time?”

“Forty-five minutes, with a tailwind from the coast and God’s help. We’ll have to fly a little north to skirt the tallest of the mountains, so it could get bumpy as we cross the range,” Alvarez warned. The assassin nodded and then put in his earplugs and closed his eyes.

After they landed, Alvarez handed
El Rey
a car key.

“Black Mitsubishi Eclipse in the lot. Fifth car from the end on the second row.”

“Thanks. Give my regards to Rudolfo.”

“Sure.”

~

Briones was finishing up his day, signing off on reports, when his cell phone sounded a synthesized version of Ravel’s
Boléro
to a techno beat. He glanced at the screen, and seeing the number, looked around to ensure that nobody was within earshot.

“Briones.”

“You sound very official,” Carlos observed.

“I’m in the office.”

“Leaving any time soon?”

“I was planning on it within an hour.”

“You got twenty minutes for a beer tonight?” Carlos hated talking on cell phones. He did enough eavesdropping to know how easily calls could be intercepted.

“Sure. Name a place.”

“I like
El Rincon
. Over by
Cambalache
. You know it?”

“Sure. Kind of a lower-end bar, right?”

“Yup. Want to say around seven?”

“Shit. Yes, but I need to get out of here now. Unless you want me showing up in uniform.”

“That could make some of the patrons nervous.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“See you at seven.”

Briones stared at the small pile of paperwork on his desk and resigned himself to getting in early tomorrow. He checked the time and set his desk phone to go to voice mail.

If he really raced, he could just make it.

~

El Rey
entered the restaurant in Comitán through the rear entrance, after having done two scans of the service alley to verify there was no surveillance. He was wearing a yellow soccer jersey, baggy slacks, a blue baseball cap and his prized moustache. The girl was sitting at a booth, reading a magazine. When she spotted the assassin she took a final sip of her soda, grabbed her purse and got up to use the single restroom. Two minutes later she returned, and
El Rey
went in. By the time he exited after retrieving the bag with the chips and the BlackBerry in it from the waste basket, she was gone.

He retraced his steps and pulled his bag out of the Mitsubishi and left the keys in the ignition, as instructed. Rudolfo would take care of it – the car would disappear, never to be seen again. It was the only way to ensure that no incriminating evidence was left behind, and included in his hefty fee.
El Rey
didn’t mind paying. He liked Rudolfo’s approach – always erring on the side of caution.