A dark green Escalade rolled up to the bar and stopped in front. Five men got out, all wearing cowboy hats and windbreakers, which hardly concealed their weapons. The smallest of the group was his objective for the evening — the number two man in the Morenos organization, Paco Aceviere. He would know where Chacho was hiding out, which would have to be nearby. You didn’t try to take over one of the gateways for narcotics smuggling into the U.S. on a remote basis. He had to be close by, so all that remained was to find out where and come up with a plan to exterminate him — a chore El Rey was more than confident he could undertake in short order.
He’d been watching the coming and going at the bar, and now that he had visual confirmation that the Familia Morenos’ captain was going in for a drink or three, it was just a matter of time and patience until the man led him to his boss. He toyed with the key fob in his shirt pocket and glanced down the block at the brown Ford Taurus he’d parked there hours ago. At least nobody had stolen his ride — that was a plus.
El Rey flipped the paper over to the sports section and began reading the coverage of the hotly contested soccer matches that were the nation’s fascination. It was a warm evening, and he had all night. Nobody gave him a second glance, other than an occasional older man curious about his wares. If you only knew, my friend, he thought to himself and smiled. It was going to be another long evening, he could tell, but the end was in sight.
Don Aranas answered the small cell phone the following afternoon and listened impassively as El Rey requested several items. He snapped his fingers and gestured, and one of his guards hurried to his side with a pen and sheet of paper. Aranas carefully wrote down the unfamiliar combination of letters, and then agreed that he would call back as soon as he had arranged for the desired items. Aranas lived in a world where anything could be had, for a price, no matter how exotic or esoteric. Still, after he hung up, he studied his note and shook his head.
This wouldn’t be easy. Then again, it was only money. The sooner he located the goods, the sooner one of his big headaches would be over.
He considered the errand and then placed another call, to the man who supplied his troops with whatever they needed. He would know where to acquire the assassin’s necessary tools. Of that, Aranas was sure. After a few minutes of back and forth, he disconnected. Nothing in life worth doing was cheap, and this had been no exception.
The estimated delivery time was three days, allowing for transatlantic shipment.
Aranas called El Rey back and relayed the news. They would arrange for pick up at one of his facilities in Juarez.
When Aranas hung up, it was with a sense of satisfaction. His nemesis would cease to exist before the week was done.
Five million was a bargain.
Chapter 12
Music boomed from the patio of the expansive ranch house sixteen miles from the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. A seven-foot-high wall encircled the large central compound, which held a dozen SUVs, a stable, a trio of guest casitas, and the seven thousand square foot central hacienda. Dusk had transitioned inevitably to night, lending the surrounding desert a balmy tranquility after the sun had baked it relentlessly throughout the day.
Armed guards patrolled the perimeter, which was equipped with the latest motion sensing technology, along with pressure sensors and powerful spotlights that could illuminate the area around the ranch for two hundred yards in every direction. It would be impossible to creep up on the location without being detected, if not by the sophisticated electronics, then certainly by the armed police who guarded the road from town as a paid courtesy to the ranch’s owner.
The men were more relaxed than usual, their ongoing war against their enemy, the Sinaloa cartel, having taken a turn for the better. Sinaloa had been devastated by a series of clashes with the army over the last week and were licking their wounds. Still, nobody put down their weapons, and the guards held their guns at the ready. While it was unlikely that an attack was imminent, one never knew.
High pitched squeals of drunken female laughter mingled with the festive tune emanating from the house; the nearest sentries exchanged knowing glances. Their boss enjoyed a party as much as anyone, and tonight looked to be another late one. A car with four of the freshest local girls had rolled up an hour earlier, and their patron, Chacho, had inspected the talent with approval as they’d strutted towards the house following a cursory frisking by the security detail. The head of the Morenos cartel was renowned for his appetites, and his appreciation for the finer things in life had only increased as he’d gotten older.
Tonight he had reason for celebration. The army units in the area had seized another shipment of Sinaloa cartel methamphetamines bound for the border, delivering another black eye to his competitor, as well as costing it sixteen of its best men in a rout that had ended with all the cartel personnel dead or wounded. At this rate, even the seemingly infinitely powerful Aranas would have to give some ground, enabling Chacho to solidify his claim on Juarez and use it as a leverage to further his ambitions in the states to the south. He, better than most, knew you were either eating, or being eaten, and he was determined to emerge as one of the top leaders in the cartels that effectively ruled Mexico.
Chacho playfully spanked one of the young women on the bottom as she squeezed past him into the house. It was good to be king, he thought, taking a swig on the five hundred dollar bottle of tequila he brandished as he slammed the heavy rustic pine door closed.
El Rey pulled cautiously away from the police checkpoint, his silenced Ruger P95PR 9mm pistol still hot from the rapid series of deadly shots required to dispatch the four officers. He knew from the satellite imagery that the ranch was a mile and a half further down the rutted dirt road a hundred yards up on his right. He’d already removed the brake lights from the old Ford so they wouldn’t illuminate at an inopportune time, and he shut off the headlights before he made the turn, his eyes quickly adjusting to the gloom as he cautiously stole down the dusty track.
When the lights of the house came into view over a small rise, he calculated the distance and kept driving for another thirty seconds, then pulled silently to a stop after carefully performing a three point turn, so the car was prepared for a fast getaway. He was approximately five hundred yards away, which allowed for a decent margin of error on accuracy. With the music booming from the compound over the desert scrub, he wasn’t overly concerned about making noise. He could hear the blare through his open window as he studied the light wind’s tugging on a ribbon he’d tied to his antenna. It sounded like quite a fiesta. He quickly climbed out of the car and opened the trunk, pausing before removing three compact tubes and setting two of them on the ground. He raised the third to his shoulder and sighted on the front gate, squinting to adjust his focus.
The first rocket streaked to the opening and detonated, destroying everything within forty feet with its thermobaric blast. He dropped the smoking tube and grabbed another. The second projectile detonated inside the house, as did the third, likely killing everyone inside. The pair of five thousand liter steel propane storage tanks adjacent to the house finished the job when they ignited in a massive fireball that erupted several hundred feet into the air, with a boom audible as far away as downtown Juarez.
Pausing for only a moment to watch the house engulfed in orange flames, El Rey carefully placed a tarot card bearing the familiar image of the King of Swords amongst the rocket launching tubes, taking care to wedge it so that it wouldn’t blow away in the breeze. Satisfied with the result, he hurried back behind the wheel and tore off down the road in the direction he’d come. By the time any of the surviving guards could give chase he’d be long gone, and he was confident their enthusiasm for pursuit would be short-lived now that the head had been cut off the snake. Chacho was nothing more than an oily smudge in the crater that had been his hacienda, and with his black soul’s journey to hell had also gone his eponymous cartel’s fragile dominance.
The Russian-manufactured RSgH-1 rockets hadn’t be
en easy to get in time, but Aranas’ contacts had been able to locate several that had somehow walked away from a Russian armory a year earlier. A private jet had transported them from Europe to Mexico, and the rest was simple logistics. He needed every shot to count, and his experience with the RSgH-1 had been that they were accurate at far greater distances than the more common RPG-7, even though the Russian devices were much harder to find. Well worth the extra effort, in his opinion. Normally, he would have gone through one of his regular contacts in southern Mexico, but in the interests of time he’d chartered Aranas with locating them.
He sped down the final hundred yards of the track and took the turn back onto the larger paved road, effectively flying by the dead police at the checkpoint. He wasn’t worried about an innocent vehicle discovering the cops — it was a rural highway, and in Ciudad Juarez, there was literally no chance that anyone who didn’t have to be on the road would be driving after dark. Still, he knew that it wouldn’t be too much longer before they were found by army troops heading to the ranch to see what had caused the explosions. By that time he’d be nearing the dirt airstrip where his escape plan waited. El Rey had arranged for a private plane to take him to Ciudad Obregon, where he would lay low for a few days until he could coordinate the logistics for the next phase of his mission — the execution of the Mexican president.
Dinah was cooking in the kitchen when Cruz made it through the door, tired after another long day at the office. He was in plainclothes, it being Saturday, and even though he was only supposed to put in a short session he’d quickly gotten buried and nine hours had flown by. It was an occupational hazard that Dinah had grown accustomed to, although she didn’t like it. But she knew Cruz wouldn’t change, and so had incorporated the routine into their lives.
“I’m sorry, mi amor. I don’t know how that always happens,” he said as he entered the kitchen and planted a kiss on her exposed neck. She was shredding chicken she’d cooked. “What are you making? It smells wonderful.”
“Enchiladas mole. I’ve been working on the sauce for hours. I kind of figured when you called at one and said it would only be a little longer that you’d get stuck for the rest of the day. It almost never fails,” Dinah said as she moved to the sink to wash her hands.
“I know. I wish I could lay off some of the paperwork on a subordinate, but unfortunately it all requires my signature…”
She turned to him and threw her arms around his neck and drew her to him, kissing him passionately for half a minute. His transgression had clearly been forgiven.
Eventually they came up for air, and he smiled at her.
“You make the best mole I’ve ever tasted. Really. It’s always a treat,” Cruz said.
“You better say that. You’re going to be eating it for a long time. I hope you’re telling the truth…”
“I have no reason to lie. Other than self-preservation.”
“Damned right. Now go get cleaned up. It will be ready in fifteen minutes.”
Cruz obligingly moved to the bedroom and shrugged out of the dress shirt and slacks he was wearing. After considering his watch, he decided to take a fast shower, and once dry, switched to comfortable old jeans and a sweatshirt. He padded back out into the dining area just as Dinah was placing plates on the table, next to two bottles of Negro Modelo beer. He pulled out one of the chairs and took a seat, sniffing appreciatively.
“It smells delicious,” he proclaimed.
Dinah smiled. She loved cooking and looked forward to the weekends when she had time to make a meal from scratch. It was one of her hobbies, passed to her from her mother, and she considered herself very good at it. Cruz seemed to like it.
They ate, chatting about their plans for the next day. At Dinah’s insistence, he’d stopped working Sundays, and they tried to plan something fun for their time together. Dinah had arranged to have lunch with another couple, friends of hers from the school where she taught second grade. Cruz got on well enough with them, and they’d agreed to meet at noon, and then catch a matinee of a movie Dinah wanted to see. Cruz would wear a baseball hat and sunglasses to lunch — his attempt at a disguise. Although he was known from the obligatory press conferences he was forced to attend when his task force had a major victory, he wasn’t particularly distinctive looking, and could have been mistaken for thousands of other men of similar age. There wasn’t a lot of risk that he’d be gunned down, especially since his whereabouts were secret and had been ever since the kidnapping incident ten months earlier.
Cruz cleaned his plate of every morsel and rubbed his stomach appreciatively while Dinah cleared the table.
“Have you given any thought to a date?” she asked as she placed the plates in the sink.
“A date?” Too late, Cruz realized his misstep. “Oh, of course. I was thinking maybe September? That will give us time to plan something…”
She gave him a curious look and then nodded. “I don’t want anything big. Just a small ceremony, with close friends and family. And we can limit the reception to a few hundred.”
Cruz stared at her.
“Kidding.” She smiled.
He rose from the table with a look of clear relief on his face and moved past her to the refrigerator for a second beer. They hadn’t really discussed the minutiae of the wedding, and he assumed that Dinah would handle things. Perhaps they needed to talk about it in more depth. He remembered from his first marriage that things could rush up on them, and if they didn’t start soon, they’d be buried all summer playing catch up.
“Come here, my angel, and let’s talk about the where’s and how’s of this. It’s an important event, and I want to make sure it’s perfect. As long as you show up, I’ll be happy, so tell me what you’re thinking and I’ll do whatever I can to make it so.”
He patted the area next to him on the sofa and admired Dinah as she rounded the kitchen island and came to him, a vision of beauty in his otherwise bleak and brutal world.
Chapter 13
Cruz strode through the doors of the CISEN headquarters, recalling the last time he’d been there. That meeting had been disastrous, with the heads of the Mexican intelligence service alternating between treating him like a slow child and laughing him out of the room, after he’d warned them that El Rey was targeting the American and Mexican presidents at a high-profile international financial summit.
Since then circumstances had changed because Cruz had been proved correct in his warnings. That had resulted in CISEN looking like incompetents, or worse, and in the wake of the event, Cruz’s power and standing had markedly increased at the expense of CISEN, whose supposedly superior information-gathering apparatus had botched it. Missing the most serious assassination attempt in the nation’s history would have been bad enough, but having been given clear notice by a ranking Federal Police captain in charge of the Mexico City cartel task force, and then ignoring it, had ended several careers. To say that bad blood still existed between Cruz and CISEN was an understatement.
Cruz was puzzled as to why he’d been summoned. None of his current operations or investigations were in an area where CISEN, Mexico’s equivalent of the CIA and NSA, had any interest that he knew of.
Surprisingly, he was only kept waiting ten minutes before being shown into a conference room, where he was greeted by three high-level officials — none of whom he’d ever seen before, which wasn’t surprising given that those he had met with on prior occasions were the same ones that had ignored his warnings about the assassination attempt.
A well-groomed man in his mid-forties, tall, with gleaming black hair and a trimmed goatee, stood and made introductions. Cruz noted the expensive cut of his navy blue suit and calculated that it probably cost a small fortune. He was Renaldo Rodriguez, the new associate director of CISEN, and the other two men were simply Stefan and Hector. By the looks of them, Cruz doubted those were their real names. No matter — he was now genuinely curious as to the meeting’s purpose.
Rodriguez sat back and smiled, moti
oning to a thermos and cups on the table.
“Coffee, Capitan? It’s some of the best Mexico has to offer.”
“I’m sure it is. No, thank you. I’m fine,” Cruz said politely.
Rodriguez shrugged, as if to say ‘you don’t know what you’re missing’, and poured himself a steaming cup. He didn’t offer the other two any, and they didn’t seem surprised.
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” Cruz began.
“You have developed quite a reputation over the last year as the ‘go to’ guy on anything related to the assassin, El Rey. I understand the task force specializing in catching him has been disbanded, correct? With its responsibilities transferred to you?” Rodriguez asked, obviously already sure of the answer.
“That’s right. After three years of non-performance, the decision was made to shut them down and the resources shifted to my group,” Cruz confirmed.
“And how is that going? Anything you can share with us?”
“The man seems to have disappeared after the event in Baja.” Cruz didn’t need to belabor what event he was referring to, given that it had caused a seismic shift within CISEN. “There hasn’t been a hint of activity in almost a year now. We believe he’s gone underground, and likely quit the game. Why?”
Rodriguez slid a folder across the desk to him, gesturing at it with his head. Cruz opened it and studied the brief report inside, then the photographs of the tarot card amidst the rocket launchers. He slowly looked up from the file.
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