Rage Of The Assassin (16 page)

“Roger that.”

The laboring sound of a diesel engine reached him just before a senile split-axle bobtail truck with a faded red moving company logo lumbered around the corner and headed his way. Briones ducked back, out of sight, and waited until the squeal of brakes told him the truck was pulling to a stop in front of the building. He waited as the motor idled, and then heard voices. The driver shut the engine off just as Briones peeked back around the side of the van in time to see a group of figures emerge from the doorway and move to the truck’s cargo door.

Another voice, that of a sniper on an adjacent roof, came over the comm line. “I make eight people, five with assault rifles.”

Briones answered, “I see them. Target the guy in the red hoodie. He looks the most capable.”

“Got him.”

Briones watched as two of the figures reached up and unlatched the door. It slid up and disappeared, and the two climbed into the truck and dropped a loading ramp before sliding a stack of cartons out of the way. Briones saw a false wall with another door halfway down the truck’s length, and waited as the driver climbed aboard and moved to it with a key in his hand. He unlocked the padlock and flung the door wide, and Briones’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the first of the unfortunates emerging from the pitch black, her clothes soaked through with sweat from the long trip in what was apparently an unventilated compartment.

“I have a child sighted. Let’s move in. Remember, only engage if there’s resistance.” Briones reached down and lifted a bullhorn, took a breath, and then depressed the speaker button. “Federal Police. Drop your weapons. You’re surrounded. Drop your weapons – now.”

His announcement was greeted by a hail of gunfire. Slugs thumped into the side of the van as the cartel gunmen shot in the direction of the warning. Answering fire rattled from the rooftop and the surrounding vehicles, where twenty of his men were concealed.

The exchange was over in moments, with all of the cartel slavers wounded or dead on the pavement except the two who’d been in the truck and the unarmed driver. The pair in the cargo hold tossed out their pistols and stepped into the morning sunlight with their hands raised, the sight of their dead companions freezing them in place as Briones’s men closed on the truck, weapons trained on them.

Briones ran toward the vehicle, barking orders into his earbud. “Fuentes, take a dozen men and secure the building. There could be more in there.”

“Roger.”

A short sergeant shaped like a fireplug gestured to his contingent of men and led them into the warehouse as Briones neared the truck. His eyes met the little girl’s, and he felt a surge of rage course through him that it took every bit of his willpower to fight down. She was emaciated, her eyes huge, her gaze the thousand-yard stare of a death-row prisoner.

Briones pointed his pistol at the three men still in the cargo hold. “How many in the building?”

“Only two.”

A volley of gunfire from inside confirmed that Fuentes had found those gunmen. Briones motioned with his pistol. “One by one – get down on the ground. Keep your hands where we can see them at all times or you’re dead. You,” he called out to the driver. “You first.”

The prospect of any last minute resistance faded in the face of eight M16s trained on the cartel thugs from close range, and the gunmen did as ordered. When they were all cuffed, Briones climbed aboard the truck and moved to the doorway through which the little girl had retreated as she watched the arrest from a safe distance.

“It’s okay. We’re the police. You’re free. Tell the others to come out,” Briones said, taking soft steps toward her. The fear on her face was obvious, but she turned halfway toward the doorway and called out in a tiny voice.

More faces peered into the sunlight and Briones almost choked at the nauseating odor that drifted from the hold. The girls came out, one by one, their bare feet tentative on the metal truck bed, all of them soaked through with perspiration and waste. When the last one moved to the edge of the truck, Briones helped them to the ground, and two personnel carriers arrived, trailed by four ambulances.

The first little girl pointed at the hold. “Two are really sick. They’re still in there,” she said, and then the ambulances were pulling to a halt and the paramedics were rushing to the girls.

Briones approached the door of the hidden compartment and withdrew a flashlight from his belt. He held his breath as he shined the beam into the darkness, and the light bounced off two forms on the floor, curled into fetal positions, tiny in the gloom. He forced himself forward to the first and knelt down to feel her neck for a pulse. Neither body had one, and he cursed as he moved back into the light streaming through the doorway.

“Two bodies. Probably died from dehydration or the heat,” he reported to the watching paramedics, his voice tight.

“Lieutenant?” one of Briones’s men called from where he was turning over the dead cartel shooters.

“On my way.”

When he arrived, he stared down at the pair of miscreants on the pavement and shook his head. “Women. They must have been the madams. Good riddance,” the officer said, and Briones managed a nod.

Fuentes waved to him from the building entrance. “There are about thirty more girls in here. And two hostile casualties. They fired first.”

Briones relayed the information through his earbud in a wooden tone, dizziness hitting with the force of a blow as the rush from the assault faded and left nothing but a creeping sense of horror at the depths to which his fellow man could sink. He switched to the headquarters channel and radioed Cruz, who’d worked until the wee hours and only gone home to snatch what sleep he could before coming in early.

Cruz’s voice sounded fatigued. “How did it go?”

“About what we expected.” He filled the captain in.

“Good work. Get back here as soon as possible – leave Fuentes to clean up and make the reports. I need you to track down that Land Rover.”

“I’m on my way,
Capitan
.”

“Good man.” Cruz paused. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I…it’s just hard to imagine why they’d lock these children in an unventilated hot box for a drive from the Guatemalan border. We lost two of them.” Briones shook his head and sighed.

“You saved them, Lieutenant. The rest are alive and will have completely different lives because of you. I’d count that as a win.”

“I know. It just gets to me sometimes.”

“You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t.” Cruz matched the younger man’s sigh. “Now get in here so we can put Aranas back behind bars, where he belongs.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chapter 27

Mexico City, Mexico

Don
Aranas, his Gucci loafers soundless on the imported Iranian travertine floor, led his guest through the massive great room at one of the many mansions he owned through a string of untraceable companies. His companion was one of his top capos, the man who ran DF for the Sinaloa Cartel: Sancho Ramirez, more commonly known by his nickname “El Gordo” – The Fat One.

Ramirez tipped the scales at over three hundred deadly pounds and had been heavy since a child, hence his moniker. He was good-natured about it and even reveled in the name. His colorful silk shirts were the size of small tents and his trousers custom-made to accommodate his girth.

The men moved into a smaller chamber whose wood-paneled walls held at least a hundred backlit display cases. Aranas smiled as the big man walked slowly around the room, his eyes devouring the artifacts in the cases – pre-Columbian relics Aranas had spent decades accumulating on the black market, most of which weren’t known to even exist.

“It’s an amazing collection,” El Gordo whispered.

“Yes. I’m fortunate I was able to find a safe home for them all in Mexico. It would have been tragic if they’d gone elsewhere. They are, after all, part of our heritage.”

“Aren’t you concerned about theft?”

Aranas laughed. “Who would be foolish enough to attempt to steal from me?” He shook his head. “No, I have a special alarm system with redundant backups, and armed men patrol the grounds. This is the last home in Polanco that any thief would target – it would be certain death.”

El Gordo moved closer to a relic in a prominent case on the far wall. “What’s this?”

“Ah. You have a good eye. It’s Toltec. I’ve themed the collection, you see. This section’s Toltec, that one Mayan, that Aztec, and that Inca. I have other rooms devoted to some of the more obscure pieces and civilizations.”

“How many pieces in all?”

“Oh, at least two hundred. Probably more by now. It’s an engaging pastime, and I get somewhat obsessive when I’m on the hunt for a new acquisition. You probably know how that goes with your cars.” El Gordo had dozens of American muscle cars from the sixties that he restored and housed in a warehouse in Toluca.

“Oh, sure. It’s good to have a hobby to take your mind off the business. And you can only chase so many women and drink so much tequila.”

“Exactly.”

They basked appreciatively in the glow of the displays, Aranas pointing out singularities or telling short stories about the history of this piece or that, along with an occasional account of the trouble he’d gone to in order to acquire it. When they’d seen all the treasures, El Gordo shook his head in wonder.

“This must be priceless. Truly priceless.”

“Well, whatever it’s worth, it will be a lot more when the archeology museum blows. That will eradicate a huge trove of similar works, and scarcity tends to boost value.”

El Gordo nodded. “They aren’t making any more of them.” He paused. “But you said
when
it blows. Are you certain they’re going to make an attempt to disarm that one?”

Aranas contemplated a nearby statuette. “Did I? Slip of the tongue. No, I meant
if
. But either way, it’s of no concern to me what the value of my collection is at any given time. I’m not a seller, so even if it increased in value by a factor of ten, it is still without any meaning to me.”

“Of course. You only care about the price when you’re selling.”

“Or buying. I want to pay as little as possible. But as you can see, I have quite a bit already. I’ve been blessed.”

“Any further word on how the president is going to respond?”

“No, but I didn’t leave him much room to maneuver. I bet he’ll go along with it, maybe make a try for one of the bombs. If that happens, it will be the museum. There are far too many people at the other locations, whereas the museum wasn’t open when I sent the video. It’s a simple equation.”

“And how will you react?”

“Oh, I think outrage would be in order, don’t you? They have to believe I’m on the hairy edge of losing it completely. A madman with his finger on the trigger. That’s how I’ll play it.”

El Gordo smiled. “Few could pull this off.”

Aranas returned the grin. “Well, it’s not over yet, but I’d say that we’ve never been closer. I don’t see how it can fail. They just might require a little convincing. That’s why I put the bomb in the museum – it’s a site that’s acceptable collateral damage if I need to prove the point. They’ll believe I hadn’t accounted for there being nobody inside at that hour of the morning, and I won’t argue it.” He reached out and flicked a piece of lint from the glass of the display case in front of him. “In all battles, the most important thing is to always allow your adversary a clear way out. Why? Simple: cornered rats fight harder. And the point to any confrontation is to win.”

They spent another twenty minutes discussing logistics, and then El Gordo departed, leaving Aranas to himself except for the housekeeping staff and the small army of virtually invisible guards. Aranas lit one of his Cuban cigars and climbed the stairs to the third floor, where he’d lowered the hatch that led to the attic in preparation for his forty-eight-hour vigil.

He ascended the ladder and edged to a small table he’d set up. On it sat a rectangular box with three glowing lights, below which were three buttons. A cable led from the back of the box to a power amplifier and antenna. El Maquino had explained how it operated, as though Aranas couldn’t figure out three buttons, each marked with the location they would trigger. All Aranas would need to do in order to detonate one, or all, of the devices was flip up the safety cover and press the button.

His hand brushed the box in an almost loving gesture. “You were always a bright boy, my son. But this time I believe you’ve outdone yourself,” he said, and took a puff on his cigar. It didn’t bother him that the entire mansion stank of his habit – one of the benefits of having endless money was that you could behave as you liked and not care what anyone else thought.

The next two days would change the balance of power in Mexico – not only for his cartel but for the government. The idea that a youth from humble Sinaloa peasant stock could grow up to determine the fate of his country seemed like an impossibility to him, yet here he was, doing exactly that.

He was engaged in the game of kings, playing chess against worthy adversaries, with the prize ultimate power over all he surveyed. If he was successful, he’d own the president and his entire administration, pocket an easy billion, and have renegotiated essential relationships while annihilating his enemies.

If it got any better than that, Aranas couldn’t think how.

“Now all I have to do is be patient. The rest will fall into place,” he murmured, and then lowered himself from the attic, taking care to leave no trace of his visit in the highly unlikely event the house was raided. He didn’t think it would be – the only ones who knew he was there were loyal to him and above suspicion – but he always had a contingency plan, and this time was no different.

“Let them look for me all they like. The die is cast,” he said to the walls, and then retraced his steps to the ornate stairway that led back to the main living areas for a third, and probably unwise, cup of coffee with the remainder of his cigar.

Chapter 28

Cruz was finishing up a phone call when Briones entered his office, carrying a folder. Cruz pointed to the conference table and waved him over to it before continuing.