Night of the Assassin (Assassin Series 4_prequel) (2 page)

El Rey’s past, or at least the highlights of it, are alive on the page. If I’ve done my job right, you’ll be hurtled along on a ride like no other, to be at times shocked, titillated, revolted, sad, and ultimately, entertained.

I suppose you could say that
El Rey
won this round.

Enjoy this humble offering, with my compliments.

Your servant,

Russell Blake

Go to excerpt from King of Swords

Midnight, Five Years Ago

The lights from Contessa, the 160-foot Christensen super yacht, glowed off the calm surface of the harbor below the Grand Bay Hotel in Barra de Navidad, twenty-six miles northwest of Manzanillo, Mexico – the primary deep water port on the Pacific coast of mainland Mexico. It was a calm spring night, the air heavy with the scent of the ubiquitous tropical flowers, beaded with moisture from the cloudbursts that had sulked over the hazy, humid day. Crickets sang their mating cries to the broiling heavens, the only sound on the water besides the dull thumping of the disco beat emanating from the massive boat’s salon, which lay beneath the superstructure that supported a four passenger helicopter and a complement of jet skis.

The creaking lines of the yacht strained as the tide rolled in and the moon’s perennial pull drew higher the water level in the marina; the heavy ropes that secured the ship to its long dock keened in futile protest. Armed security men clad in black windbreakers patrolled the concrete walkway that curved the length of the exclusive private marina, the unmistakable outline of Heckler & Koch UMP submachine-guns a silent testament to their intent. The battle-hardened men chartered with the safety of those aboard the yacht were dead serious, resonating a constant state of readiness against threats from any approach. The drug cartel skirmishes had escalated over the past two years – the guards had been in some blistering firefights with rival groups and seen more than their share of blood. These were men for whom killing was routine, and they drew their pay with the understanding that any day might be their last.

A radio crackled as the group checked in with one another, each member confirming that all was calm. The routine was to monitor everyone’s status every fifteen minutes throughout the night. If danger came, it often did so in the wee hours, and the group’s leader was keenly sensitive to possible fatigue or boredom – a luxury that could prove fatal on that detail.

Peals of shrill female laughter pierced the night as the salon sliding door opened to allow three scantily clad young Mexican women onto the rear deck, to where the ashtrays were located near a well-stocked bar and a sumptuous oversized hot tub. The girls were regular company for the owner of the boat, Sylvio Contreras, the number one warlord in Sonora and the head of the Zapata cartel. Not one was older than nineteen, the youngest seventeen – ‘
Papi
’ Contreras liked his meat fresh and tender, the more so since he’d had his fiftieth birthday the prior week. He could certainly afford the best, and there was a constant stream of eager girls interested is renting their charms; Contreras controlled a significant chunk of the Colombian cocaine and Mexican methamphetamine traffic that made its way through Sonora to the United States, and his annual personal take from the trade exceeded one billion U.S. dollars per year.

Contessa was one of three yachts
Papi
owned – the larger ones were on the eastern shore of Mexico and in Costa Rica, one docked in Cozumel and the other bouncing around Central American ports as its owner’s whims dictated. Contessa was more of a weekend getaway destination, a quick hop from home, whereas the others were good for several weeks aboard.
Papi
burned roughly twelve million dollars a year keeping his boats in the water before starting the engines. They were ready for him at any hour, staffed with full-time crews consisting of captains, chefs, deckhands, mechanics, maids, bartenders and masseuses. Security travelled with him at an extra cost. Then again,
Papi
wasn’t price-sensitive, and couldn’t have told anyone precisely what he spent on his lifestyle. He knew that his plane had cost forty million, and this boat a hundred and twenty, with the others roughly a quarter billion, but when you were rolling a billion or more bucks a year, what did it matter? The total he’d lavished on toys amounted to what he would clear by June, so it ceased to have any meaning.

The girls were in high spirits, fueled by a combination of tequila and cocaine, which was one of the other reasons why a place by
Papi
’s side was coveted – you had access to all the high-grade chemical supplementation you could want, in addition to the lavish financial generosity afforded his female companions. They blew smoke and chatted about clothes and their favorite television programs, taking a break from the fiesta that was winding down inside. Contreras had begun his birthday bash several weeks earlier and had decided to make it a month long event, hopping from destination to destination with his entourage, which consisted of his brother and a group of five or six girls, accompanied by a security detail of two dozen mercenaries. They flew in a 727 he’d acquired for next to nothing when it was put out of service by an American airline and, after ten million in refurbishments at a friend’s factory in Costa Rica, it served as his flying army headquarters.

Tensions were high between the Zapatas and the Gulf cartel, as well as the Sinaloa cartel, and the outbreaks of violence had escalated until the death toll reached into the hundreds each month. As with most of the disagreements that resolved in bloody skirmishes, this one had to do with power and money. The Sinaloa cartel felt that Sonora was making too much from its relatively insignificant place in the food chain, and was trying to dis-intermediate Contreras in order to increase its net. The Gulf cartel was more personal – Contreras had butchered the family of one of the Gulf’s ranking captains over some real or imagined sleight, and that had ignited a blood feud between the two cartels. All of which was just humdrum business for Contreras, who was one of the oldest of the living cartel bosses. He’d invented many of the tactics that were now standard in settling disputes, including beheadings, mass executions with bodies left in prominent places as a warning, the murder of judges and cops, and grenade attacks in densely-populated urban areas. Contreras was a maverick in the trade, an innovator, who more than most understood that if you didn’t have someone trying to kill you every moment, you were doing something wrong.

Contreras had sent the staff and his brother away to stay the night in the hotel perched above the marina so he could enjoy his private party with just his companions. He enjoyed his privacy immensely, even though in his line of work it was a commodity rarer than gold. As a cartel head, he was constantly surrounded by security personnel so part of the appeal of his boats was the ability to enjoy at least the illusion of privacy.

The door to the salon slid open again and a heavyset hirsute man with a bushy graying moustache and tousled curly black hair, wearing a Versace silk bathrobe and lambskin slippers walked out onto the deck, gesturing to the girls with an unlit Cohiba in his right hand. The youngest, Veronica, leapt to her feet with a lighter and rushed to attend to their host. Contreras smiled at her as he puffed on the hand-rolled Cuban cigar, and playfully slapped one of her perfectly-sculpted buttocks after fondling it through her white linen mini-booty shorts for a few moments.

“Oh,
Papi
!” she exclaimed with a giggle, faux indignation and petulance dripping from every syllable.

“
Eh
, so how you girls doing? You ready to make a party with your Papi? Come on. You know how I like it,” Contreras rasped in his distinctive Sonoran accent.

The girls extinguished their cigarettes and exchanged glances. It was show time. Veronica moved to her two new friends and they began kissing, then caressing each other. Contreras stood by, watching impassively as the action moved from tepid to hot, and clothes began shedding along with any remaining inhibitions. Smooth, creamy brown skin rubbed against the cushions of the semi-oval exterior seating area, and soon the girls were largely naked, other than a captain’s hat the oldest, Ana, kept perched precariously on her head even as Veronica’s probing tongue battled for her attention.

Papi
opened a small eighteen-carat gold box and quickly tapped out two small piles of white powder on the glass exterior bar behind him. He snorted the heaping lines of cocaine laced with Levitra with gusto as he leered at the
ménage a trois
. He shook his head and stamped his foot against the teak deck in what he imagined resembled a wild bull’s mating dance before throwing his head back and grinning crookedly at the moon as it struggled to break through the gathered clouds. It was a good life; he was a lucky man. This had been a fantastic birthday so far and whoever had said that life began at fifty wasn’t lying. He reached below the bar and extracted a bottle of Herradura Selección Suprema tequila and poured a healthy slug of the amber nectar into a tumbler before returning his attention to the nubile entertainment. Yes indeed, a great birthday. He studied the face of his platinum Rolex Masterpiece and noted the time – a little after midnight. Another day older and closer to death. Ah, well. What was one to do? He’d try to enjoy himself nonetheless.

“Ladies. You’re shameless. Move inside and let the games begin. And save some love for
Papi
!”

The security team studiously avoided looking up at the transom of the huge ship, preferring to scan the periphery for signs of intruders.
Papi
’s love for the high life was well known and by now the men had seen everything. It was all fun until he couldn’t perform or things turned nasty after too many drugs and the girls ended up begging for forgiveness. They’d had to bury their fair share of young strippers who had failed to judge his moods correctly. He was infamous for being mercurial. A career as a playmate for a
narcotraficante
was a high-risk, high-reward proposition in a world where the men were inured to violence and thought nothing of snuffing out life on virtually any pretense, including because it amused them to do so.

A pelican rustled its feathers at the water’s edge before taking flight, swooping low over the water as it searched out more tranquil surroundings. Two of the sentries swung around at the sound, ready to engage whatever enemy presented itself. They exhaled with relief when they saw the huge bird lumber into the air. Everyone’s nerves were raw from the last week’s duty, moving from danger zone to danger zone while Contreras partied without a care. They were in friendly territory but that counted for little when he was exposed like this. Every moment held the possibility of an attack by enemies who were every bit as vicious and determined as
Papi
, and when he wasn’t in his fortified compound back home, the risk-factor went through the roof.

The men were working in shifts, eight guards each shift, four hours on, eight off, so they could get rest and stay alert. After four hours of high-intensity patrolling, acuity fell off markedly and human error became more likely. The cartel game was one where you only got to make one mistake – your last.
Papi
was paying the highest rates in the world for his security; they wanted for nothing; but in return, he expected them to keep him safe no matter what, and if that meant every member of the team taking a bullet for him, so be it.

That was the gig.

The sound of the party from the boat was a headache for them, although no one would dare mention it to
Papi
. But he might as well have painted a big bulls-eye on the super yacht’s bow for any hostiles in the area. The head of security, Alberto, clenched his jaw as the women laughed, each squeal of ecstasy an invitation to disaster…in
his
mind. Let the old pervert bang around with his doped-up teenagers inside the fucking boat. Why did he need to make such a public display of it? It was recklessly endangering them all. He sucked down his frustration and concentrated on the job at hand, eyes scanning the surrounding dock area and the buildings for any hint of latent danger. They’d be back at the compound tomorrow afternoon, and so far there had been no attacks; with any luck they’d make it home safe, where the routine drill would be executed in a more controlled environment – where they knew everyone and owned the town. This was making him nervous – exposed – on the water, a million miles from nowhere with the boss kite-high on powder and bellowing into the night sky as though he was safe in his own living room.

A cat scurried after a large rat on the slick-wet concrete path by the shops at the far end of the marina, setting Alberto’s nerves further on edge. He didn’t want to think of how wound-up his men must be after almost ten days of constant vigilance. All he needed was a trigger-happy lapse and they’d have the police and military landing on them, which would be a little awkward given that
Papi
was the number four most wanted man in Mexico. Money obviously bought selective vision where he was concerned, but it would only go so far. Gunfire at a six star hotel’s exclusive marina could raise the wrong eyebrows and the last thing Alberto needed was an all-out gun battle with the military in the dead of night.

He silently cursed Contreras for being so careless, then exhaled a sigh of relief when he heard the drug lord call his whores back inside the boat with him. Alberto had six men on land, two on the boat, and one on each side of the bridge keeping watch for any potential menace that they might miss from the dock. It would be impossible to approach the yacht from the water in the still of the night – a boat would be immediately detected, even if it was being rowed. But he wanted to ensure that all avenues of attack were covered, so even the waterside was being watched. Contessa was docked on a side tie, her port side fastened to the pilings and the starboard side facing the harbor opening, beyond which the bay stretched into a black nothingness. If there was going to be an assault it would have to come from the land because they’d have enough warning from the ship’s radar to take positions on the waterside and cut any encroaching vessel to pieces.