The smell of marijuana was powerful and cloying. A girl, probably no older than sixteen and obviously high, wearing a halter top and hip-hugger jeans, her bare midriff tanned and cut, her navel piercing glinting in the light, danced up to Briones with vacant eyes. She opened her mouth and offered a white dot on her tongue, which he momentarily mistook for a piercing before he realized it was a pill. Her gaze invited him to kiss her, and he shook his head. She smiled and moved to the youth behind him, no doubt more amenable to taking unspecified drugs from total strangers, and Briones pushed toward the closest wall in an effort to get his bearings.
A tall young man with long black hair and a perennial smirk approached three girls near the DJ booth and offered the one he’d exchanged glances with a cocktail he’d bought from the illegal bar. Set up on one side of the warehouse, it was dispensing rum-infused punch and plastic bottles of water, the latter in great demand – the ecstasy that was the drug of choice in the rave crowd caused pronounced dehydration. The girl ran a hand through her long hair and smiled – it was far too loud to attempt conversation. The man toasted her with his punch and closed his eyes as his head bobbed to the robotic rhythm. Her friends giggled and returned to their flirtations with the DJ and his assistant, whom they’d agreed were total babes.
The man offered the group a joint, and they passed it around, taking in the smoke in greedy gulps and blowing clouds at the rafters, and the long-haired girl moved closer to the man, who leaned in and said something to her. She flashed brilliant white teeth, her flawless caramel skin accentuating their luminescence in the dim light, and rolled her head dreamily, the marijuana already hitting. They stood together, lost in the music, and the song changed and then changed again, the tunes interchangeable with no discernible start or finish. When she’d drunk half her punch, she grabbed one of her friends’ shoulders and yelled something, and the friend nodded after taking another glance at the grinning man.
He offered his hand. She took it and followed him outside to where the portable toilets were set up, sipping her drink. He escorted her to the line for the facilities, and they chatted, her mild slur becoming more pronounced as they inched forward. By the time she was three-quarters of the way to the porta-potties, she was barely able to stand, and the young man slipped his arm around her and guided her along the side of the warehouse to a darkened area near a stack of pallets.
A security man stopped them, his flashlight on her face. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah. She just overdid the punch and all. I think she’s going to be sick. I got it.”
The guard considered her fluttering eyes and slack face and nodded. “Let me know if you need any help. There are a lot of kids throwing up. Lightweights,” he said with a roll of his eyes, and the young man nodded in agreement.
He reached the area with the pallets, and after glancing back at the guard, who’d moved along to the toilets, he ducked with the girl, who was barely conscious from the Rohypnol he’d dropped in her punch.
“What…I need to…go…” she slurred, her voice dreamy from the effect of the roofie.
“I know. But it’s gross there. This is better,” he said, leading her along the pallets to another cleared area.
“I…where’s the toilet?” she asked, her words barely distinguishable under the thumping music emanating from inside.
Her eyes widened as the man moved closer to her, and then another pair of hands reached around from behind her and clamped over her mouth so she couldn’t scream. A third man approached with a syringe.
The girl was too narcotized to struggle much, and her eyes rolled back into her head sixty seconds after the injection hit her system. Her escort and his accomplices manhandled her to a container and wedged her inside and then placed a board over her and filled the area above her with cellophane-wrapped confections.
The young man turned to the others. “See you at the truck in fifteen. Good luck.”
“I’m glad we got the heads-up about the cops. It would have been a shame to call this off.” The kidnappers had been tipped off by one of their contacts at the Federales about the heightened security and the likelihood of departing vehicles being searched, and had improvised a solution they’d all agreed bordered on genius.
“They’ll never suspect a thing.”
Two squad cars partially blocked the small side street, one of four roads that ran along the edge of the warehouse. Few cars were leaving the rave at the relatively early hour, it being only midnight, but the police had three vehicles pulled over and were questioning the occupants, checking IDs, and searching the trunks while a pair of officers looked on.
A tinkle sounded on the road – a cow bell – and a vendor appeared pushing a cart with churros and other treats hanging from a frame. “Good evening, officers. Churros?” he asked, his voice a rasp.
The vendor found a willing clientele for his wares and, after making several sales, continued on his way as the policemen munched on their snacks while searching the vehicles.
Briones was tired by four a.m. Tired of dancing stoners, tired of the never-ending monotonous beat, tired of the theatrically forced feeling of the event. He was getting ready to call it a night when his earbud chirped and Cruz’s voice came over the comm channel.
“We just got a call. There’s been a kidnapping at the rave. It’s puzzling because she’s not from a particularly wealthy family – but the friend she was with is. We think they might have grabbed the wrong girl, but that’s speculation.”
Briones cupped his hand over his mouth and glanced down. “What? Aren’t the streets sealed? They have to still be here.”
“Yes, they’re closed off. I want to shut down the party and search every vehicle. Every one, no exceptions.”
“That’s going to take hours.”
“I agree. But it’s the only way.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go to the entrance and wait for us to arrive. We’re coming in heavy.”
The rave quickly became pandemonium when the Federales arrived and the music stopped. When the lights went on, the crowd lost its magical allure and became mostly scared kids, many of whom were struggling with varying stages of intoxication.
By dawn, the last of the cars had cleared the fields, and Cruz was pacing anxiously, talking on his cell phone. When he hung up, he glowered at Briones and the sergeants who were in charge of the roadblocks.
“Let’s take this one more time. Every vehicle was searched since the beginning of the evening?”
“Yes, sir. Nothing made it past us. I’m a hundred percent sure – we had all exits covered,” Gustavo, a twenty-year veteran of the force, assured Cruz.
Briones’ eyes narrowed. “What about pedestrians?”
Doubt flitted across Gustavo’s face before his expression returned to normal. “There were only a few every hour. Individuals or groups of two or three. But nothing suspicious.”
“Did you ID them?” Briones pressed.
“No. Those weren’t the orders. The orders were to stop every car leaving the rave. Which is what we did.”
Cruz frowned. “Then how the hell did they get by us? We know they’re not here. We’ve searched every inch of the warehouse and the grounds.” He stalked off to the edge of the field and stared into the distance. When he returned, he was on the phone again. He terminated the call and shook his head.
“The family of the victim’s wealthy friend just got a ransom call. The kidnappers apparently believed they had the daughter, who’s now home, safe. They didn’t respond well to being told that they had someone else.” Cruz paused. “At least the family notified us.”
“We need to contact the other parents. They’re next,” Briones said.
“I’m already ahead of you.” Cruz sighed. “I just don’t understand how they slipped through. You men were on duty the entire time?”
“Yes, sir, as ordered. Not a single vehicle made it past us without a thorough search and the occupants ID’d. No exceptions.”
<
br /> Briones stepped forward. “It had to be the pedestrians. That’s the only answer. They must have walked her out, maybe holding a gun on her.”
“Seems pretty risky to me,” Gustavo said, shaking his head. “Besides, we didn’t see anyone suspicious, and you’d think we would have noticed someone being marched through our lines at gunpoint. Or carried.”
Cruz shook his head and eyed Briones. “Come on. Let’s get over to the victim’s house. We’re not getting anywhere here.”
The two men walked to the surveillance van, shoulders sagging, the entire effort for naught – somewhere there was a girl who’d been abducted right under their noses, in spite of a heavily armed police presence. The press would have a field day with that, and he knew the calls would start coming in soon as outraged lawmakers and his superiors called Cruz onto the carpet, his string of successes with the cartels quickly forgotten in light of this debacle. The van dropped them off at Briones’ cruiser parked a few blocks outside of the cordon, and as the rising sun colored the washed-out sky with tangerine and red, neither noticed the churro cart abandoned in one corner of the dirt lot near an overflowing dumpster.
Chapter 22
Ensenada, Mexico
El Rey sat at a sidewalk café, drinking a cup of coffee. Off in the distance the huge Mexican flag that was a city landmark fluttered in the sea breeze, beyond which he could see a towering American cruise ship making its way from the harbor, bound for points south. A motor scooter narrowly missed colliding with a taxi only footsteps in front of him, and the blare of the horn made him wince.
He’d made it back into Mexico by simply walking across the border in Tijuana, leaving the car in a lot on the U.S. side. There had been no checks, even though he’d been prepared with his newly minted identity, but apparently Mexico wasn’t worried about being overrun by gringos, and the U.S. only cared about arrivals.
The trip from Arizona had been as uneventful as the drive to Sedona, a monotonous blur of fast-food restaurants, strip malls, and shuddering semi-rigs. Once back in California the Highway Patrol had been everywhere, and he’d taken care to keep his speed down so as not to attract unwanted attention on the final leg of his journey.
He’d picked up a newspaper in San Diego and read the coverage on Perry’s death, which was being treated as accidental, a sad reminder of the perils of substance abuse among the entertainment set, with a long list of overdoses from just the last few years. El Rey smiled when he saw the article – two for two, and nobody the wiser.
But now, sitting in Ensenada, the problem of the admiral was thornier. He was being treated at the naval base hospital, which was behind fortified walls and guarded gates. The assassin had toyed with the idea of posing as a naval officer to gain entry, but once the admiral died, a phantom officer would be a natural red flag to anyone investigating – and he had no doubt it would receive considerably closer scrutiny in the wake of the bungled helicopter attack.
He flagged down the waiter and paid the check and then headed down the waterfront sidewalk. Tall palm trees swayed in the late afternoon sky, emerald green fronds flapping from gusts of balmy wind. When he arrived at a small seafood restaurant across the boulevard from the base, little more than a gaudily painted cinderblock shack with a half dozen plastic tables stuffed beneath weather-beaten palapas, he paused and chatted up the young waitress, asking offhand questions about traffic from the base and when she was busiest. After promising to return for dinner, he continued south, eying the main gate, which, as he’d expected, was guarded by six rifle-toting marines.
He looped back around and entered the private marina north of the docks and, after verifying the scant security there, continued north to his modest hotel, where he contacted Tovar and told him what he required. The CISEN man listened and repeated the items back to him.
“The map of the base and the sewer blueprint should be in the email inbox in…an hour, at most,” Tovar concluded.
“Very well. I’ll touch base when I’ve figured out how I’m going to do it. No doubt I’ll have other requirements.”
The layout documents arrived, and he studied them using a laptop he’d purchased that afternoon at an office superstore. He preferred to jettison anything that could leave a trail once he left each location, including computers and cell phones, opting to buy new ones rather than risk being caught with anything incriminating.
The base hospital was located just off the main entry road, in what appeared to be a clear line of sight of the armed contingent at the gate. The sewer schematic showed promise, with a central artery leading from the street and running beneath the base, and smaller branches stretching from the administrative and housing buildings. But a note from CISEN warning of an overhaul of the security systems four years earlier referenced work done below ground.
He spent the evening at the seafood shack, charming the waitress while watching the base. By the time he returned to the hotel, he was ready for bed, but no closer to figuring out how to get at the admiral, who, according to the latest reports, was still in precarious condition due to his age, blood loss, and complications arising from high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
He spent the next morning shopping, and by afternoon he’d assembled everything he needed for an exploration of the sewers: a crowbar, tire iron, various other tools, a backpack, waterproof fishing overalls that came to his chest, an army surplus gas mask, and a headband-mounted halogen reading lamp.
Once it got dark he set out for the entry to the sewer system he’d chosen, a block and a half from the base – a manhole in the middle of a small street in an industrial area that would be deserted after business hours. His pry bar made short work of the cover, and within seconds he’d slid the heavy disk aside, climbed down the iron rungs, and dragged it back overhead.
The sewer was as foul as any he’d been in, and he was thankful for the gas mask as he eyed the coagulating river of goo swirling around his thighs. He checked his bearings on the map he’d drafted and made his way west. Even inside his mask his eyes watered at the noxious seepage as the beam of his light roamed over the crumbling brick of the tunnel. At a junction that marked the near side of the boulevard, beyond which lay the base, the lamp reflected off a metal grate halfway down the destination passage.
He stopped and studied the barrier – newish, heavy gauge stainless steel showing none of the rusting of the other metal elements he’d passed. He approached it and noted the heavy lock, and looked beyond it at the unmistakable shape of a motion detector and camera suspended from the tunnel ceiling.
The assassin slowly backed away and followed the lateral passageway until he reached a smaller tributary that led to the base, and saw the same thing – CISEN’s report about heightened security hadn’t been exaggerated, and even if he could somehow get past the barrier, the motion detector and camera made it a moot point. If he disabled them, the technical problem would be noted, and in light of the admiral’s demise it wouldn’t be viewed as an ordinary glitch.
El Rey retraced his steps to the main road and climbed back up to the street, where he quickly stripped off the filthy waders, his nose wrinkling at the stench. After shifting the iron disk back into place, he hiked to a line of warehouses three blocks away and tossed the gear into different dumpsters overflowing with garbage.
He spent the remainder of his evening prowling the waterfront, and when he returned to his hotel, he sent CISEN another list of requirements. Unless there was something the new documentation revealed, some weakness in the security measures, he might have to rely on CISEN’s doctored identification to gain access to the base.
When he received the information he’d requested, he spent several hours studying it, but his eyes grew heavy, and he realized he wasn’t focusing. He decided to continue studying his options in the morning, and after taking a long shower, he lay on the bed and stared at the orbiting ceiling fan before drifting off.
Four hours later he sat up abruptly, his heart racing, and ret
urned to his computer, where he went through CISEN’s list of security electronics and the timing of the guard patrols.
It could work. It wasn’t foolproof, and there would certainly be risk involved, but it might be viable. He’d return to the waterfront at first light and evaluate the approach, and if it looked positive, would source the requisite equipment locally and have CISEN send him anything he couldn’t procure in town.
When he closed his eyes again, he had a slight smile on his face, and this time when he slept it was the untroubled slumber of the innocent.
Chapter 23
Guadalajara, Mexico
The dark-haired man frowned as he read the report, obviously unhappy with the news it contained. When he put it aside and stared at his young, fair-haired companion, his scowl creased new lines into his annoyed face.
“I suppose we could just assume that this Carla Vega being at both the admiral’s press conference and the actor’s secluded hotel is some sort of bizarre coincidence?” he asked, the question dripping with sarcasm.
“That would be one option.”
“What do we know about her?”
“I have our network collecting information.” He pointed at the report. “She’s currently in Los Angeles for the awards show and will return the day after tomorrow.”
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