Rage Of The Assassin (12 page)

He hit his turn signal and rolled onto the small street that led to the larger boulevard two blocks away. The headquarters building was completely anonymous, located on the fringe of a residential neighborhood with no signage marking it, and well-concealed, sophisticated countermeasures deployed on its roof ensured that nobody could eavesdrop on its operations.

Rodriguez switched on the stereo and began humming along to the music, one of his favorite singers who’d become a national emblem of pride with his oversized sombrero and a string of films in the sixties and seventies. He was coming up on the first intersection when the wheel twisted in his hands and a warning light flashed amber on his dashboard. The thumping of a flat tire greeted him as he braked and steered the vehicle to the curb, and he cursed his luck – the last thing he wanted to have to do at that hour was change a tire.

He killed the engine and set the parking brake before swinging the driver’s door open and stepping out onto the dark street. A glance at the tire confirmed his worst fear: it was mangled, the sidewall shredded from the rim slicing through it.

Rodriguez popped the trunk and lifted the cargo liner in search of the jack. He was freeing the handle when a familiar voice spoke from behind him.

“I should shoot you in the base of the spine. Paralyze you for the rest of your life.”

El Rey. Who Rodriguez had been assured was no longer of this world by now.

“Turn around slowly. Drop the jack handle,” the assassin ordered, his soft words more menacing than if he’d screamed the instructions.

Rodriguez debated making a wild swing at the killer and dismissed it. He had zero chance of tackling him one-on-one, but he might be able to talk his way out of the situation. Once before the assassin had appeared like a ghost in his house, and Rodriguez had managed to survive. This time could prove no different, although he suspected it wouldn’t be as easy.

He dropped the handle and slowly turned. “I gave you the antidote. What do you want?”

“To spend some quality time with you before I send you into the abyss.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

El Rey shrugged. “You will.” The gun in his hand popped, the report almost silent, and Rodriguez winced as a tranquilizer dart imbedded itself in his neck. He reached up to pull it free, but his hand refused to obey his brain’s commands, and all he managed was to paw at it. His heart rate slowed, and then his eyes glassed over and he slumped to the ground.

The assassin watched him drop and slid the air gun into his belt before hoisting Rodriguez with ease. Thirty seconds later he was pulling away in a Toyota Highlander he’d stolen earlier, Rodriguez sprawled in the backseat. The drug El Rey had used would reliably keep him unconscious for a good hour, if not longer.

Which was all the time he would need.

~ ~ ~

Rodriguez blinked awake, his lids heavy. His head was throbbing, the sensation not unlike the worst hangover in history, and his mouth was a desert. He was seated on a hard wooden chair, his ankles tied to the legs and his arms cinched behind him. His shoulders were sore from the strain of the odd position, but when he tried to shift, he found that his wrists were secured to the rear of the chair, keeping him upright.

El Rey stepped into his field of vision. His expression detached and calm, he took two steps toward Rodriguez and stopped. “Now we begin.”

“Every cop in Mexico will be looking for you after this. We have your picture, your fingerprints…it’s not like it used to be. You’ll never be able to hide,” Rodriguez said.

“I’m guessing that’s your way of apologizing for trying to kill me? Your bedside manner could really use some work.” El Rey gave him a humorless smile. “Remember that your organization believes I’m dead. From the poison you tried to trick me into injecting. I like my odds of not being hunted – even your crew of morons aren’t stupid enough to be looking for a dead man.”

“They’ll figure it out.”

“No, they’ll find your tortured corpse burned to an unrecognizable crisp, along with a message from the Los Zetas Cartel stating that this is just the beginning. Of what, I’ll leave to their imaginations.” El Rey paused. “I’m curious, though. The president himself pardoned me and made the deal. I have his word. And yet that counted for nothing.” The assassin’s voice was velvet. “Did he authorize this?”

“What if he did? What are you going to do about it? All I can tell you is that it wasn’t me. I was just following orders. Exactly as you have dozens of times, putting a bullet in some innocent.”

El Rey’s smile never faded. “I’ve never killed an innocent man. If someone was on my list, it was because they were scum.”

“Oh, right. Like the ex-president?”

“He’s responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, and we both know it. Most world leaders are. He was in bed with at least two cartels that I know of. The blood of their victims was on his hands.”

Rodriguez gave him a look of disgust. “Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better.”

“The only innocent men I’ve killed were on your orders, you piece of dung. Which makes
you
responsible, not me. You don’t blame the car for killing hapless pedestrians, you blame the driver.”

“A meaningless distinction.”

El Rey shook his head. “While I appreciate the lesson in moral philosophy, I’m afraid that due to your treachery, I’m on a tight timeline. So I’m going to ask you some questions. They’re easy questions, and if you answer them honestly, I’ll ensure that your death is painless and your family doesn’t pay for your sins. If you decide to play hero, you’ll die in excruciating agony, and your wife and children will follow.” He took another step toward Rodriguez. “If you doubt me, you’re even stupider than you were for risking my wrath.”

Rodriguez’s eyes narrowed. “My family has nothing to do with it, and you know it.”

“I know that you have the choice between them living long, full lives or being found mutilated in a drainage ditch. You hold that power in your hands.”

The questions began, and Rodriguez answered as many of them as he could. Some, El Rey knew he didn’t know anything about. Others, El Rey already knew the answers to. The only time he lied was when the assassin introduced the topic of who had developed the antidote.

“I told you. The CIA gave it to us. I have no idea who created it for them,” Rodriguez insisted.

“See, I think that’s not true. I think you know exactly who did, and you’re holding out on me. Which is a real shame for your family – I’m sure when I’m flaying your wife’s skin off and forcing her to eat pieces of your babies, they won’t share your noteworthy sense of honor and duty.”

“Please. I’ve told you everything.”

El Rey began his interrogation session in earnest, starting with a pair of wire cutters before escalating to a rotary sander and a bottle of bleach.

Rodriguez lasted longer than most would have, even missing his eyes and much of his face. But he made one slip that was all the information El Rey would need to narrow his search. At one point, he’d referred to the chemist as
she
.

There were only three women on his list of candidates.

El Rey disposed of Rodriguez’s body by burying it in a shallow ditch filled with quicklime he’d excavated below the foundation, and then poured a cement cap over it so the area appeared to be part of the floor slab. Rodriguez would have simply disappeared with no explanation, which he hoped would throw CISEN into a tailspin of misdirected activity. Nobody could be sure who had done what, so the agency’s efforts would be futile and flailing.

Which would ensure nobody was hunting a dead assassin.

Rodriguez had given him everything he needed; now he just needed to get into the U.S. And while he had no intention of going after Rodriguez’s family, he would snuff out the life of the man who’d given the order responsible for El Rey’s attempted murder by lethal injection.

Once he returned.

But for now he didn’t have the luxury of time to extract his revenge.

He hadn’t argued the point with Carla any further, but there was no way he was going to put her in harm’s way by allowing her to accompany him to the United States. He knew she was trying to be helpful, but she was an amateur, and he needed the flexibility that came with going it alone. He’d explain to her upon his return, and while he was sure she’d be furious and hurt, he’d have to be alive to see her reaction, and the odds of that would be reduced with her in tow. He’d already foreseen the need for a seamless entry into the U.S. weeks before and had a Canadian passport that would allow him to stroll past immigration without a second glance.

All that remained was to stop by his apartment, retrieve his go bag, and slip into Carla’s home to leave a quick note of apology. Then he would board a private plane that awaited his arrival and fly to Ciudad Juarez for an early morning stroll into Texas, and from there, to his first destination.

Chapter 21

The predawn sky glowed purple as the sun’s first rays gilded the edges of the eastern mountains that ringed Mexico City. Early morning commuters battled their way toward the city center in a procession of steel and glass, their headlights bouncing over endless potholes.

An ancient panel van with the logo of one of the city’s largest cleaning companies lurched to a stop at the rear entrance of the Museum of Anthropology, where a guard with a face darkened with two days’ growth watched with boredom.

Three men exited the van and unloaded their supplies from the back, and then a pair of them lowered a ramp and eased a rectangular mini-dumpster onto the pavement. When they were finished, they closed the van up and locked it before moving to the building’s rear maintenance exit.

“Hey, Julio. How’s it going?” the janitor leading the way called to the guard. He’d been working at the museum for a month and a half, and routinely shared cigarettes and stories with the guard after his cleaning duties were done.

“You know. Same old. Coming loaded for bear today, are you?” the security man asked, eyeing Roberto’s companions and their trash container.

“Yeah. I got bitched at yesterday, so I need to haul a bunch of garbage away. You can search it, as usual, when we’re through.”

“I look forward to it with every beat of my heart,” the guard joked, and all the men laughed at the ridiculous notion. The guard would only do a cursory inspection, they knew, to ensure that they weren’t making off with any relics, which had never happened in the facility’s history. “Who’s your crew? Haven’t seen them before.”

“Oh, sorry. My cousin Octavio, and his friend Cruz.”

The pair of laborers waved, and the guard nodded as he unlocked the service entrance. “You know the drill. Stay away from the displays. Don’t trigger any alarms. Be out within three hours.”

“You got it.”

Once inside, the men went about their business of cleaning, figuring that the guard was monitoring their movements from the security center. Toward the end of the shift they moved the rolling dumpster into a maintenance area, and the man using the fake name Roberto unlatched the side panel.

Ten minutes later the cleaning crew rolled the trash-filled dumpster out of the museum. The sleepy-looking guard did a quick look through of the waste they were carting away and nodded to Roberto. “Got any smokes?” he asked.

Roberto told his men to load up the van and shook two Marlboro reds loose from a well-fingered pack. “What time do you get off today?” he asked as he lit their cigarettes.

“The usual. Nine.”

“Pretty easy duty, huh?”

The guard blew smoke at the morning sky. “Nothing ever happens here. Easiest job I’ve ever had. Staying awake’s the hardest part about it.”

Roberto dropped his partially smoked butt on the ground and ground it out. “Well, I’ve still got work to do. See you
mañana
.”

“You got it.”

Across town at one of the main federal buildings a similar scene played out, as a faux cleaning crew delivered its precious cargo into position, taking care to ensure that the messages stenciled on the sides of the box were plainly visible.

The same event took place at the main hospital, where the crew pushed several of the bins due to the large size of the facility. They were interrupted while removing their box from the dumpster by a male nurse who rounded a corner, surprising them.

“What’s that?” the nurse asked, eyeing the box.

The nearest janitor smiled as he approached, his hands empty. At the last instant a switchblade materialized in the cleaner’s hands, and he drove it without hesitation through the nurse’s eye, deep into his brain.

When Roberto was back behind the wheel, he waited until he was through the museum gates and off the grounds before retrieving a cell phone and placing a call.

“Everything’s in place. Armed and ready.”

“Any complications?”

“No. Nobody suspects a thing.”

Don
Aranas’s voice sounded alert in spite of the early hour.

“Good. You’ve done well.” Aranas paused, and when he spoke again, his voice had an ugly edge to it. “Get well clear of there. Within an hour, the games begin. Ditch the vans and head out of town – it’s only a matter of time before they have security footage of your faces. I want you back in Culiacán by then.”

“We’re on our way.”

Chapter 22

Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico

El Rey walked across the bridge spanning the Rio Grande and then stood in line at the U.S. border crossing as a beagle with a hangdog expression sniffed at his pant legs. An American immigration official, who looked more Hispanic than El Rey, asked him a few perfunctory questions and then stamped his Canadian passport and motioned to the next traveler.

He continued through the complex and out to where dozens of taxis waited. He took the first in line and slid into the back, placing his duffle beside him on the hot bench seat. The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror and El Rey sat forward. “Airport.”