Revenge of the Assassin a-2

by Russell Blake

  Jacinto Felestero was one of Aranas’ trusted deputies, who had been with him for as long as he’d been the head of the cartel — over two decades, now.

  “How did they get on to him? Did we ever discover that?” Aranas asked.

  “No. Cruz is playing that very close to his chest. All we know is that they’re in a state of high alert and believe he will strike at one of two possible events within the next month.”

  “That complicates things. Somehow they now know El Rey is targeting the president, which is unacceptable. There aren’t many places such information could have come from. My inner circle, or El Rey’s contacts. I can’t believe that one of his people, whoever they are, tipped off the Federales. That leaves my group — a disturbing idea, obviously. There are only four among us who knew. Including you, Jacinto.”

  Jacinto’s face darkened. “Don, I swear on my mother’s grave, I haven’t spoken with anyone about it…” The danger of being suspected was obvious.

  “I know. I’m not saying I think it was you. I’m saying that the circle who knows is small, and all are trusted beyond any doubt. Perhaps one of them murmured the wrong words to a mistress? Or made a call on a line that has been compromised? It’s a shame our source in Cruz’s group can’t get us better information — I’d like to put a stop to any further leaks,” Aranas speculated. “No matter. I think we need to throw a wrench into the government’s hunt for El Rey. I have an idea. I know this man Cruz, and I’ve also gathered a fair amount of information about him. I believe he has a weak spot.”

  Don Aranas pushed his empty coffee cup away from him and glanced up at the thinning clouds as they relented to the piercing rays of the sun. He invited Jacinto to sit, and laid out his plan.

  If everything worked out well, Cruz’s life would become extremely complicated within a few days, and the search for the assassin would be the last thing he’d be focused on. It was simple, and effective. Create a bigger problem for the man, and he’d shift his energy to solving that one.

  It was human nature. And Aranas was a post-grad student of human nature.

  Yes, Cruz would soon be otherwise occupied.

  Cruz stared across the table at Rodriguez, astounded by what he was hearing. This wouldn’t do.

  “I don’t think I’m being clear,” he began. “At the rate we’re going, El Rey is going to be successful in getting to the president. While I understand that you may have some operation going that involves the arms dealer, I’m telling you that the commander in chief is going to get assassinated if I can’t get help from you in putting pressure on him.”

  “It isn’t that easy, Capitan. He’s integral in an ongoing situation that is bigger than your hunt for El Rey. We’ve been working on it for years. Years, not weeks. And frankly, if we push him or threaten him, he could just go dark on us, and then everything on our operation collapses. It isn’t that we don’t want to help you. It’s that we don’t have any way to leverage the man, so we can only politely request more help and see what he delivers,” Rodriguez explained.

  “How about if you give me his name, and within an hour I’ll haul his ass in and throw him into an interrogation cell for a week? That won’t require anything from your side and could seem to be completely unrelated to anything you’re doing.”

  “His first phone call would be to us, netting the same end result. If we didn’t get him out, he’d never work with us again. If we did, just a whiff of him having been in custody might terminate his usefulness to Aranas, and he’d be found floating in a river somewhere. No, the lousy truth is that this is far too delicate a situation to handle that way. I’m sorry. But he’s off the table,” Rodriguez concluded.

  “I can go to the president.”

  “If you thought that would help, you already would have. We both know that. And even if you did, once he understood the scope of the operation, he’d shoot you down, and then we’d be right back in this room. So how about we cut to the chase and think constructively?” Rodriguez sat back and steepled his fingers. “Here’s what I propose. I can set up a working group within CISEN to coordinate with you, and we’ll put our resources to work with yours to see what we come up with. Pick two men from your side to work with ours; we will get them classified clearance, and then we can proceed more productively. We have the ability to do a wide variety of things that you’d require a judge to sign off on. Bugs. Bank record checks. Networking with other international intelligence services. I would imagine that could speed up your investigation considerably…”

  Cruz studied him. It wasn’t a bad idea, and was more than he’d thought he would walk away with. Much as he hated to admit it, Rodriguez was right. CISEN had a tremendous network and unilateral capabilities Cruz could only dream of as a police agency. Even with the powers of his task force, he could only do so much. CISEN working with his team could be a game changer.

  He nodded. “Fair enough. I’m not going to lie to you. We’re not seeing the kind of progress I would hope for so far, and could use any help you can offer. Right out of the gate, if you have a more complete list of Aranas’ shell companies and attorneys, we could see if there’s a payment scheme we’ve missed. How would you envision this working?” Cruz acceded.

  They discussed the logistics of creating an internal task force for the next hour, and by the time Cruz walked out of the building, they had a good framework. He’d assign the men, and hopefully within a few days would see some results.

  Rodriguez watched Cruz depart and shook his head almost imperceptibly. The man was a bulldog. It would be valuable to understand what his group was doing, but in the end, there was no way he could jeopardize any of CISEN’s operations to help him. A working group would be perfect. It would create the illusion that CISEN was doing everything in its power, while giving them complete access to Cruz’s intelligence, which could be useful in Rodriguez’s planning.

  At no point did he feel remorseful at refusing to pressure the arms dealer. He probably could have given them more than he had, but Rodriguez wasn’t about to risk his other project by pushing the arms dealer. He’d ask the nice man politely for more intel, but beyond that there wasn’t a chance in hell he would do anything to risk the relationship. Some things were bigger than Cruz’s concerns over the president’s safety. Regardless of who was president, CISEN needed to stay separate from the day-to-day operations of law enforcement. It was one of the harsh realities of the clandestine world — regimes would come and go, but the agencies would remain long after the masters they supposedly served had departed.

  Dinah fumbled with her shoes, then grabbed her purse and a pile of homework she’d graded, before returning to the dining room and kissing Cruz.

  “Is there any chance you’ll be home at a normal hour today, my love? Or should I plan on making another late dinner?” she asked.

  Cruz sighed wearily. “I’d like to say yes, but with this latest El Rey situation, the truth is that I probably won’t. It’s added to my workload tremendously, and all the other stuff still needs to get done, too. So, plan on a late one, and I’ll call you mid-afternoon with an update…”

  She looked at the time. “Shit. I’m barely going to make it. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later today,” she said, bolting for the door.

  Traffic on the way to the school was terrible, and she sat in her little Ford Focus anxiously glancing at her watch, the radio tuned to the Top 40 Latin pop station to drown out the cacophony of honking horns that was a staple of Mexico City morning rush hour. It normally took her half an hour to reach the school, allowing for the gridlock, but today was worse than usual, and it was looking like she wasn’t going to make it.

  When she pulled into the parking lot adjacent to the school grounds, most of the usual slots were full, so she had to park at the back, increasing her travel time further. As she got out of the car, she barely registered the two men who approached her from the dark blue van that had double-parked a few spaces away, obstructing her view of the attendant. She had j
ust locked her door and was turning around when her path was blocked by the larger of the two — a menacing-looking man with heavy acne scars on his deeply-tanned face. Dinah instantly knew she was in trouble — kidnappings in Mexico City were routine, although she’d never been worried about herself because she wasn’t wealthy, nor were any of her relatives. Usually it was those from prosperous families that were most in danger.

  “Make a sound and I’ll kill you,” the man growled at her as his partner glanced around the area to confirm they were alone.

  “I…please, I don’t have any money. I can give you what I have, but it isn’t much. I’m a teacher…” she said, shifting her bundle of papers and reaching into her knockoff Coach purse.

  “You stupid cow. I don’t want your fucking money. Now shut up and turn around.”

  She debated screaming, but knew it wouldn’t do any good. She was alone in the lot, and the security man was too far away to do anything. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol, reading the intention in her expression.

  “Do it. Scream and I’ll blow your head-”

  His warning was cut off by a gurgle as a stream of pepper spray hit him full in the face. He thrashed around with his pistol, but his unseeing eyes were already swollen almost shut. His partner reacted quickly, but not fast enough. Dinah had already squeezed past the front bumper of her car and was running between the vehicles for the street entrance. Thank God I wore flat shoes today, she thought as she sprinted for the security attendant’s booth, still three hundred yards away. She thought she heard the sound of the van’s doors slamming and the roar of its engine. She ducked into another aisle and continued her beeline for the street.

  A gunshot erupted from behind her, and the window of a pickup truck a few feet from her head exploded in a cuboid spray of safety glass. She instinctively crouched lower and moved another aisle further away from the one the van was on, putting distance between herself and her assailants. Another shot punched a hole in the rear fender of an old Chevrolet Malibu she’d just run past — their accuracy was decreasing with distance.

  Gasping for breath, she poured on a burst of speed and sighted a break in the walls that ringed the lot. It was just wide enough for her to squeeze through — she hoped. Dashing to the gap, she braved a glance at her pursuers and saw the van thirty yards away, with its passenger door swinging open as one of the men leapt out to chase her on foot.

  Her dress caught on a fragment of rebar in the opening, tearing the fabric as well as the skin of her thigh. She involuntarily cried out at the pain from the abrasion and felt a trickle of blood running down her leg, but willed herself to keep moving. Dinah had seen the telltale shape of a pistol in the man’s hand as he’d exited the vehicle and knew that she had to make it to the school or some other densely populated place if she was to be safe. She was only seconds now from turning the corner of the block where she knew there would be a crowd of parents and several traffic cops. Even though they didn’t have guns, she had to believe that might scare the kidnappers off. And the gunshots would have attracted attention — it was only a matter of minutes before the area would be swarming with police.

  Footsteps slamming against the pavement behind her spurred her adrenaline and urged her on, and within twenty seconds she was in the midst of a group of mothers dropping their children off for school. She dared another look back and saw the second man standing hesitantly forty yards away, as if considering whether to continue. Sirens wailed in the distance, and then the van screeched around the block, tires smoking from the momentum as it careened unsteadily. Dinah didn’t wait to see the outcome of the man’s internal battle and instead raced for the front entrance of the school. She heard screams from behind her and then another gunshot. A chunk of mortar flew off the wall a few inches from her shoulder before she was through the oversized double doors and sprinting down the hallway.

  Lungs heaving, Dinah made a left at the second hall and tore down a flight of stairs, now limping as she moved towards her ultimate destination — a steel maintenance room door that was usually unlocked during school hours, but which she knew had a deadbolt on it.

  She slammed into it with her shoulder and twisted at the heavy lever knob. It was open. Dinah slid through the opening and heard footsteps from above running down the hall, then she locked the door behind her before extracting her can of pepper spray in preparation to defend herself, if the gunman somehow made it through the door.

  Ten agonizing minutes later, her cell phone rang, startling her in the darkness of the small room. It was the principal asking her where she was, and whether she was all right. The police were waiting at the entrance and had surrounded the building, and several of the parents had told the whole story of the chase, gunfire, and her disappearance into the school. There was no sign of the van or the men.

  When she unlocked the door and opened it, she realized that her skirt was soaked with blood and that the ceramic tiles where she’d been crouching were slick with it. It was the last thing she saw before she crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

  “Dinah. Can you hear me?”

  She opened her eyes, to see a very worried Cruz standing by her side. She tried to sit up, and then registered the IV line and the antiseptic smell. She was in the hospital.

  “What…the last thing I remember…” she murmured.

  “Take it easy. They have you on a drip. You bled a lot — it’s a good thing you came out when you did,” Cruz explained. “By the time the ambulance got there, you were in the danger zone.”

  With a noticeable effort, she focused and became more alert. “All from that little scratch?”

  “You nicked an artery, my love. Thank God you didn’t sever it. As it was, it was just a very small puncture along with the rest of the tissue, but that was enough.”

  “Did they find the men?” she asked in a feeble voice.

  “No. Even with ten eyewitnesses, it will be hard. They know it was a blue Chevrolet van, DF plates, no markings or memorable detail. And we have a good description of the man who was chasing you…”

  “Two men. I got the first one near my car with the pepper spray. He won’t be doing much for the next few days — maybe you can put the word out to clinics and ophthalmologists,” Dinah suggested.

  Cruz looked at her with wonder. “Will do. Can you tell me anything more about him?”

  “The first one was big. Maybe six feet tall, and heavy. Moustache, short hair, acne pock marks, around late thirties. Dark complexion. Wearing jeans and a green and yellow horizontally-striped polo shirt.” Dinah had committed both assailants’ descriptions to memory, even after all she’d been through. She seemed to strengthen. “And he should be about blind right now.”

  “Did they say anything? Tell me everything you remember.”

  Dinah spent the next five minutes giving him a detailed blow-by-blow of the attempted kidnapping and chase.

  They were both startled by the door opening, and Lieutenant Briones stepping into the room.

  “Hello, Dinah. We have to stop meeting in hospital rooms,” Briones cautioned, recalling when she’d paid him a visit after he’d been shot ten months earlier.

  “I agree,” Dinah said.

  Cruz waved him off.

  “So it definitely wasn’t a robbery?” he asked her again.

  “No. I offered them money. They wanted me.”

  Briones and Cruz exchanged glances.

  “Your car is in the farthest part of the parking lot from the street. Pretty remote,” Briones observed.

  “I was way behind schedule. The lot fills up quickly once the parents start arriving to drop off their kids. That’s why I hate being late. One of the many reasons,” she said, and lay back, closing her eyes. “I don’t understand why these animals can operate in places like this, and nobody can do anything about it.”

  “The real question is whether you were a target of opportunity, or whether they were after you, specifically,” Briones said, exchanging another g
lance with Cruz.

  Her eyes popped back open. “Me? Why go after me? I don’t really have anything. I’m a schoolteacher…”

  Which wasn’t entirely true. She’d inherited some money from her father, but she was hardly wealthy. Kidnappers usually went after the relatives of rich business people or politicians — people who could come up with hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars, at short notice. Although there was a troubling trend of gangs snatching random well-dressed targets in the hopes of extracting tens of thousands for a day’s work, or keeping their abductees in a car trunk for a week while they forced them to extract cash from their ATM on a daily basis.

  “And, Lieutenant, they were shooting at her. That’s fairly rare,” Cruz stressed.

  “True. That actually smacks of amateur. Someone who hasn’t thought through the situation and gets spooked. Maybe when she hit the man’s partner in the face with the pepper spray it infuriated the man with the gun. Maybe he’s just a nutcase. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to attempt to kidnap someone and then try to gun them down. You either want them alive for ransom, or you want to kill them. They could have just shot Dinah by the van if that had been their intent. They didn’t. So this seems more like improvisation than anything, which, to me, says they weren’t organized,” Briones countered.

  “There’s no way of knowing, unfortunately. I’m going to assign a patrol to trail you for the next week. Just in case,” Cruz said to Dinah. “It’s one of the perks of being high in the Federales, I hear.”

  “Oh, honey, really, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Dinah protested weakly.

  “Probably not, but I’ll feel better for it. So humor me.”

  “How long am I going to have to lie here?” Dinah asked.

  “They said twenty-four to forty-eight hours. You lost a lot of blood,” Cruz told her.