Dinah reached across the table and took his hand, her eyes moist. She finished her second glass and stood, gently pulling him in the direction of the bedroom.
“I can help.”
Chapter 22
Dinah called in sick with the flu the next morning and stayed in bed until Cruz had left. After waiting a few minutes to ensure he wasn’t going to return for some forgotten item, she did a hasty search of his office and then rushed to the shower and hurriedly rinsed off before gathering her notes and sealing them in a small envelope. She donned jeans and a silk blouse and then called Cruz’s office to tell him she was going to run to the pharmacy to get some medicine. She knew he wouldn’t be there yet, but wanted him to know she’d gone out in case the officers watching the building mentioned it.
On the ride down the elevator her stomach churned at what she was about to do. It was tearing her apart to pass this kind of information to her fiance’s nemesis, but she could see no other way out. One thing had become apparent from their discussions. El Rey’s reputation as the most dangerous man in Mexico, if not the world, was deserved, and she had little doubt that he’d make good on his promise to kill them both if she strayed. It wasn’t a risk she could take.
She repeated her trip to the large department store and sighed a breath of relief when she’d stuffed the envelope in the hiding place. As she walked out of the store, she decided she should go to the pharmacy at the end of the block — not that she believed Cruz had an iota of doubt about her, but it was a loose end. She rummaged in her purse for the cell phone El Rey had given her and made a furtive call, letting the phone ring three times as agreed and then disconnecting. There was no need to speak. He would know what it meant.
As she walked along the bustling sidewalk, the eyes of her bodyguard boring through her back from a hundred yards behind, she wondered what she had become. The letter she’d hidden contained two items — a single page summary of her discussion with Cruz, and a copy of a top secret document she’d found in the bottom drawer of his desk that morning, under a pile of monthly expense sheets.
After skimming it, she’d powered on the copier and carefully made a duplicate, then replaced it in the exact position she’d found it. A wave of guilt had washed over her as she checked the copy for legibility. If Cruz found out about this, he would be crushed. Then again, Cruz might be willing to tackle El Rey head on. But she wasn’t.
She bought some decongestant and some vitamins and paid in cash, then returned to her building, taking her time, allowing the sun’s gentle rays to warm her as she strolled unhurriedly to the front entrance. It wasn’t like she had chosen this path, she reasoned. It was an impossible situation, and if the decision to favor survival was a selfish and bad one, she perhaps would have acted differently had it been only her life on the line. But by threatening Cruz, the assassin had created a situation that could only end with her helping him.
Dinah tried to push the thoughts aside, but they wouldn’t leave. How could she marry a man she was willing to deceive in such a fundamental way? What kind of woman was she?
She shook her head in the elevator as though the movement would banish her introspection. El Rey was a predator, and moreover, a brilliant and legendary one. Dinah had no doubt that he would be successful in outwitting the authorities. A single motivated individual with skill and commitment usually could prevail over a large, unwieldy bureaucracy. Cruz had complained about that numerous times. The best the police could hope for was to be lucky, and maybe mop up after everything had played out. It was one of the aspects of the job that infuriated him.
When she got back into the condo, she set her purse down and stared vacantly around the space before unwrapping the medicine she’d bought and taking two tablets. The drugs would make her sleepy, allowing her to finally recoup some of the lost hours when she’d lain awake last night, pretending to doze as she listened to Cruz’s soft snores. She quickly stripped off her clothes and threw herself onto the bed, her body racked by shuddering sobs as she cried her frustrated rage into the pillow.
Carlos Herreira gazed out at the exotic granite slabs in the massive stone yard he operated in Culiacan, Sinaloa and rubbed his hand over his beard. It had been another extremely profitable day, with a shipment of grenade launchers and assorted assault rifles bringing in eight hundred thousand dollars, three hundred of which was profit. This was his second shipment to Jalisco this week, and he mused silently that the boys in Guadalajara looked like they were gearing up to launch a major offensive against his other big client, the Sinaloa cartel.
Carlos was an equal opportunity arms merchant, beholden to no one. The cartels wanted guns and came with cash, and he was in the business of selling them. It was a simple transaction, and nobody cared that he sold to everyone. Or at least, no one begrudged him his right to do so. He was merely a conduit, a vessel through which the desired implements flowed. Carlos’ role was not to take sides, any more than the banks that laundered the cartel funds took sides. It was all green, and while cartels came and went, the money never changed.
He had been in the business for twelve years and was rich beyond his ability to imagine, yet he continued to go to work every day at the stone yard that was his legitimate operation. The constant shipments in and out were perfect cover for his far more profitable sideline, and he’d branched out and created two import/export businesses to facilitate his deadly traffic.
The first five years had been good, but nothing like the last seven, when the cartels had escalated their conflicts and created armed wings that did nothing but wage war against one another. All those new soldiers needed weapons, and when the cash was easy they generally wanted the best they could get. He’d gone from supplying battered, twenty-year-old Kalashnikovs by the crate load from Honduras and Nicaragua to the very latest high tech weaponry from the U.S., with its attendant higher margins. The escalation of violence had been good for business, there was no doubt, and there had been occasions when he’d had to scramble to find suitable trophy pieces.
That had resulted in the most profitable partnership of his life, with the most unexpected counterparty — the CIA.
At first he’d suspected it was a setup, but he’d insulated himself and done one test transaction, and then another, and then finally had crafted a deal where they supplied most of the high-end weapons he bought nowadays — fifty caliber sniper rifles, fully automatic assault rifles, grenades, semi-automatic pistols, sub-machine guns…all at prices that allowed him to make a handy profit without worrying about sourcing the goods. Every few weeks he would aggregate the requests, supply his contact at the American intelligence agency with a list, and presto, it was shopping time.
He’d been amused when he’d read about the scandal involving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms allowing weapons from the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico. Hell, they had been facilitating his business for seven years. His partner to the north would put together the order, and then the goods would miraculously appear on his side of the border, with the ATF turning a blind eye. When the American Congress had held hearings on the trade — the notorious ‘gun walking’ everyone knew about but pretended was a surprise — he’d gotten worried, but had been assured that it was business as usual, and that the hearings would go nowhere.
The problem was that some of the American manufactured weapons had turned up in slayings of border patrol officers on the U.S. side, sparking an outcry. His contacts had told him that things would work very much like Mexico — there would be protestations that everyone was shocked, shocked indeed, that anything like routine traffic of weapons south of the border took place while the watchdog in charge of preventing it pretended to be deaf, blind and mute. Days of grilling in congress would be met with stonewalling, and perhaps a few functionaries would have to take token falls to appease the public. They would be well compensated, so it was not rough duty. There would be vows to continue the investigation to its bitter end, which would die as soon as the cameras were turned off. Mea
nwhile, everything would continue to work as it had, the supply of weapons un-slowed.
The tunnels that were as regular in Tijuana as subway stations in New York had served him well, enabling him to get anything he needed from San Diego without having to worry about bribing customs agents in Mexico to look the other way — a profit-sucking annoyance he preferred to forego. Homes, warehouses and shops would receive shipments from gun dealer middlemen, and the crates would seamlessly move beneath the border to TJ, where they would be transported southeast. He had a similar arrangement in Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. It was a lucrative, risk free way for the cartels that ran the tunnel scheme to make extra money helping him help them. And after all, it wasn’t as though they had to pay a toll — the tunnels were already dug, so it was just a few hours of ferrying guns and explosives on a return trip from the cocaine, heroin, marijuana and meth trips. Same underground rail systems, just moving south instead of north.
The CIA had also proved very efficient at introducing him to Russian and Iranian syndicates that could source the more difficult to obtain items he was sometimes requested to get. Anti-tank weapons, specialized explosives like C-4 or the newer variants…whatever, they could get anything for a price. That was how he’d gotten involved with CISEN. His Russian and American contacts had introduced him to their Mexican equivalent, which had been paid to help ensure that the real traffic didn’t run into problems. Sure, token shipments were intercepted periodically for the media, but for the most part, the CIA helped get the drugs into the U.S. and the weapons out. It was perfect, really, and the only ones none the wiser were the American and Mexican public. He’d been assured that the great unwashed would believe whatever the television pronounced as the truth, so he wasn’t worried about the trade ending any time soon. It had been going on ever since the Colombians had severed their partnership with the agency, and the heads had ‘gone to prison’ — jails they controlled being the only place they were safe from agency hit men taking them out to ensure their permanent silence.
He’d always wondered why Escobar and crew had one day turned themselves in, at a time when they were among the richest men on the planet. Although the official story was that the Colombian military, augmented by the Americans, had eventually won the struggle against the Colombian cartels, the true facts were simple. There was nowhere they could be safe, except behind maximum security walls guarded around the clock. He knew for a fact that all the Cali and Medellin cartel chieftains lived in unparalleled luxury while serving life sentences, and once his contact had spilled the beans over shots of tequila one night, everything had fallen into place.
The Colombians getting out of the trafficking trade and sticking to production in-country had created an opportunity for the Mexican cartels, which had forged similar arrangements with their neighbor’s intelligence service in return for protection. The relationship was simply good business. Dope north, weapons south, with their ‘friends’ taking a cut of each, presumably to fund their less savory operations. There were many things Congress couldn’t or wouldn’t fund, and as early as the Sixties, the CIA had moved to augment its budget with narcotics trafficking. That had proved a wise move, and soon the agency was acting as conduit for drugs from Vietnam and Afghanistan, oil and cash from Iran, and eventually cocaine and heroin from Colombia and Mexico.
The phone on his desk jangled; he grabbed at it.
“Boss. You have visitors. Angel and a driver,” his number two man alerted him.
He watched as a white Cadillac Platinum package Escalade rolled through the gate leading from the retail yard and pulled to a stop outside his office. A familiar figure climbed out of the passenger side door.
It was Angel Talvez, one of Don Aranas’ lieutenants. He always liked to see Angel. It meant one thing. Another big order.
Carlos moved to the screen door that kept the bugs at bay and opened it, spreading his arms in welcome.
“Angel! It’s been too long. What? Three months, since we hit the clubs in Mazatlan?” Carlos enthused. He was a connoisseur of young strippers, the closer to their teen years, the better. Angel shared the passion for his hobby, and they’d spent many a night sampling the wares a few hours west.
“Compadre. Always good to see you,” Angel replied with a smile.
Carlos motioned to him to enter and take a seat.
“Tequila?” Carlos asked, and then without waiting for an answer, moved to the small bar he had set up in a corner of the expansive office and poured two shots of Don Julio 1942. He turned to face Angel, glass outstretched, and found himself staring down the barrel of a silenced semi-automatic pistol.
Carlos’ eyes grew wide when he saw the look on Angel’s face. Angel shrugged a halfhearted apology for what was to come.
“Why, Carlos? Why did you fuck the Don? You’ve made your money. Why give up information on El Rey? Why do it?” Angel asked, curious as to why his friend would put himself in this position, requiring him to do something as unpleasant as killing him.
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carlos stammered, hands suddenly trembling.
Angel shook his head. They always lied in the end. Human nature. With his free hand, he removed a piece of paper from his pocket and placed it on the desk.
“Sit down and read that. Oh, and best have both of those yourself. It’s good tequila,” Angel said, motioning with the gun.
Carlos did as instructed and swallowed both shots as he stood, and then turned, placing them on the bar. He swung back in a blur of speed, aiming the heavy, tall tequila bottle at Angel’s head.
Angel had anticipated the move and stepped back, easily dodging the blow, and calmly fired a round into Carlos’ skull through his right eye. The.22 target pistol he favored was laughably small in caliber, but he’d never had any problems putting down his victims with it. Carlos proved no different, and his body went rigid as the small slug careened through his brain, tearing the gray matter to a scramble. The arms dealer buckled at the knees and fell forward. Angel moved to the side to avoid any messy splatter, having done this many times before. The tequila bottle crashed to the travertine floor, splintering into shards amidst a splash of precious nectar that pooled next to the slowly spreading blood.
Angel leaned over and put another bullet into the back of Carlos’ skull from three inches away. He paused over his friend’s corpse and inspected his handiwork, and then, satisfied that the job was done, walked to the desk and retrieved the piece of paper, glancing disinterestedly at the Top Secret stamp across the top. He folded it and slipped it into his pants pocket, and then returned the pistol to its place in a custom made shoulder holster as he made his way to the door.
A few moments later, the Escalade roared off in a cloud of dust.
Nobody would report having seen anything. Apparently the granite counter business was a dangerous one in Culiacan, Sinaloa.
Most businesses were.
Chapter 23
Sun streaked through the filthy windows of the workshop; a cloud of dust motes hung lazily in the air like snowflakes frozen on a Christmas calendar. The space was small, twenty by twenty, with a roll-up door and a few electrical outlets — plus the worktable at which El Rey stood, patiently adjusting his project with a toolkit that lay spread across most of the top. A heavy, green vice was mounted to the edge, and he’d wedged two neoprene mouse pad remnants on either side of its jaws, to soften its grip on the metal canister he had just finished fabricating.
He flipped the welding mask up and wiped away the sweat that had accumulated on his brow. He would have loved to open the windows for ventilation, but discretion won out. El Rey glanced up at the row of two-foot-wide glass squares framed by rusting metal, each with iron bars spaced every eight inches, and resigned himself to live with the stifling heat. It came with the territory.
He pulled his T-shirt over his head and absently blotted the defined muscles of his chest, testament to three hour a day workouts that had never ceased, even in retirement. A tattoo o
f a crow on his left pectoral glistened with perspiration as he leaned over his project, studying the cylinder with satisfaction. He painstakingly threaded a stainless steel plunger into one end, taking care to avoid damaging the spring and, once finished, stretched his lower back by reaching to grab his toes so as to avoid cramping.
The detonator would be armed just before it was show time, but this sort of detailed preparation was essential. As with all things, being meticulous ensured a superior result, and El Rey trusted no one with this work. He wasn’t about to spend months planning a sanction and have something fail at the moment of truth — he’d farmed out the explosives end only once before and that had been the only hit that had been unsuccessful. He had learned his lesson, and he hummed to himself as he patiently filed away the burs from the seam he had created, stopping to brush perspiration out of his eyes every few minutes.
Eventually satisfied with that piece, he unscrewed the vice and moved the metal tube to the side. Pausing for a few minutes to drink a half liter of water, he considered his next task.
He’d never built one of these before. The instructions had seemed straightforward, if a little convoluted, and he estimated it would take about thirty hours to completely assemble it. Then he’d need to test it and get comfortable with the technology, and calculate effective blast radiuses and ranges.
Leaning across the table, he unfolded the schematic for the device and moved the epoxy containers and paint off to the far end of the table, where they wouldn’t get in his way as he undertook the mechanical and electrical part of the job. Reconciled to a long afternoon, he slid a high stool to the work area and sat down, pulling the larger pieces of his contrivance towards him. The main body was simple enough, but he could already see that the necessary modifications would take some time. And he would have to adjust for the trigger and create space for it without throwing the balance off. Perhaps with a small amount of weight on the opposite end to offset the explosive charge.
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