The dark-haired man’s eyes narrowed. “What do you think?”
“It’s troubling. I just don’t know whether it means anything.”
“Yes, well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Says that she has a reputation for her investigative stuff. Need I remind you that the word ‘investigative’ and anything we’re associated with is disastrous?”
“I’m clear on that. We have someone internal at the network who’s going to look around in her system and see what she’s working on. Which, of course, assumes that she keeps documentation on her active cases. Depending upon how secretive she is…”
“I don’t think we can chance it. Her discovering anything.”
The fair-haired man studied the older man’s face for any tics or indications that he was cracking under the pressure. He looked as calm as a choirboy.
“She’s an extremely visible public figure.”
“That hasn’t stopped us so far.”
“True, but there’s a practical limit to how many people we can…how many obstacles can be surmounted using the CISEN asset.”
The dark-haired man waved the objection away. “One more shouldn’t be an issue. That’s the business this fellow’s in, isn’t it? What’s one more?”
“I received considerable resistance over the last one.”
“Do whatever it takes, but I’m of the opinion that one of the nation’s top investigative reporters sniffing around is about as bad as it gets, and we need to take preemptive action immediately.”
“It absolutely has to appear accidental,” the fair-haired man said quietly, as if talking to himself.
“Yes. It’s a dangerous world. Perhaps a hit and run?”
“Let me set up a meeting. I’ll see what our liaison thinks.” He paused. “We may have to up the compensation for this one.”
The dark-haired man made a vague gesture towards his companion and flicked a piece of lint off his trousers. “See to it.”
~ ~ ~
The moon beamed a shimmering silver path on the surface of Ensenada harbor as the last of the downtown bars closed, the din of their music fading as 3:00 a.m. neared. The occasional hot rod or muffler-free clunker rolled down the deserted frontage road, keeping the roving dogs and wharf rats company.
A ripple played along the water adjacent to the concrete jetty where the naval ships were docked, resembling the wake made by one of the plentiful seals that called the harbor home. An ebony-swathed head emerged from the water, all metal areas of the dive mask and rebreathing apparatus blacked out. El Rey glanced around to ensure that there were no guards before hoisting himself onto the boulders next to the jetty and shrugging out of his gear, keenly aware that he only had ten minutes between patrols, the last one having gone by three minutes earlier.
He hoped CISEN’s intelligence on the security system was accurate. The motion detectors along the wharf had been disabled shortly after installation, when it was discovered that sea birds and the odd seal would trigger them – an unforeseen complication the company who’d designed the hi-tech base defenses hadn’t predicted, but one that had created an opportunity for him to get onto the grounds undetected. Once he was out of the oversized wetsuit, he unpacked a waterproof pouch, removing a set of green surgical scrubs and a pair of black running shoes. He donned them and checked his watch. Two minutes until the guards would round the corner and patrol along the water again. After a final check to ensure that none of his equipment was visible, he slipped the pouch into a gap in the rocks, taking care to extract the final item from the case and slide it into his pocket.
The area was quiet, the only sound the groan from the huge dock lines that secured the ships to the jetty and the occasional truck roaring by on the highway. Condensation beaded every metal surface, and the cement walkway was slick from the moisture. He spotted the twin sets of boot prints from the marines on guard duty, still fresh.
El Rey darted along a row of hedges, sticking to the shadows, avoiding any of the areas lit by the streetlights around the perimeter. The hospital was dark except for the dim glow of a lamp at the main nurses’ station, and he edged to the rear entrance, which the report had indicated would be unlocked.
The lever turned easily. The hallway was shrouded in gloom, the tile floor shining from a slim shaft of reflected light emanating from the far end of the corridor, where the night nurse was stationed around the corner, out of sight. A cart with towels, bedding, and toilet paper sat midway down the passage on the right – near the room where the admiral was recuperating, hopefully fast asleep.
Air hissed from the overhead vents, the climate control keeping the interior at sixty-nine degrees, masking any sound he made as he crept toward the room door. He edged forward, senses alert, but detected no threat.
His rubber soles were silent on the tile, and he was almost at the admiral’s room when he heard muffled laughter from the ward – at least two men. He froze, waiting. Another murmur, more laughter, and then silence. He stood as if carved from granite, and when he heard nothing more from the nurse’s station, he continued his approach with cautious steps.
He slipped into the room. Faint light traced through the blinds from outside, combining with the orange glow of the vital signs monitor next to the bed. The area was filled with muted beeping and the admiral’s soft snores. El Rey stood just inside the door, wary of waking the old man up, allowing his eyes to adjust before he moved to the IV line and withdrew a syringe from the pocket of his scrubs. He stole a final glance at the admiral’s darkened form and then unclipped the IV bag and emptied the syringe’s contents into the line. Tovar had said the CISEN substance he’d sent to El Rey would take two minutes to kill, which left little time. He reconnected the line and made his way back to the door, listening for any signs of motion in the corridor.
Nothing.
He slipped into the hallway and retraced his steps, pulse hammering in his ears as he forced himself to maintain a measured pace to the exit. El Rey was confident that the admiral would be long dead by the time the sun rose that morning, and Tovar had assured him that any autopsy performed would show cardiac arrest due to unspecified causes – old age and the cumulative effects of his injuries being the likely culprits. All the assassin needed to do now was evade detection and make it past another armed patrol.
He was pushing through the exit door when the first ward alarm sounded, signaling that the admiral’s heart rate had spiked through the roof. Several loping strides carried him back into the gloom, and he stopped at the row of hedges again and checked his watch – six minutes until the patrol returned, assuming they weren’t early.
It would be just enough. He stripped off his shirt as he raced to the rocks, his breathing rapid as he covered the ground. Once at his gear, he stowed his shoes and clothes in the pack and set to work donning the wetsuit. He pulled on the vest with the rebreathing unit and slid the dive mask in place, fins in hand, pouch over his shoulder, and eased into the icy water just as the patrolling marines rounded the bend.
El Rey vanished into the depths without a sound as the men marched along, weapons dangling from slings, the routine duty as boring as any on the base, there having been exactly zero incidences of anyone trying to breach the fortifications in its peacetime history.
The assassin drove himself through the water with powerful strokes seven feet beneath the surface, guided by his compass, leaving no bubble trail due to the miracle of the rebreather, which filtered out the carbon dioxide from his breath in a closed system and trickled in pure oxygen, enabling him to remain submerged in the darkness without a trace. Visibility was negligible, but he trusted his instruments, and fifteen minutes later he was hoisting himself onto shore on the far side of the private marina where the black nylon bag with his street clothes was stashed.
He knew from his reconnaissance of the marina security that there was only one guard, who spent most of the night in his shack by the gate watching a portable television. El Rey removed his fins and moved to the sack wi
th his clothes, which he’d left beneath the overhang of the boardwalk. He was out of the dive gear in a few minutes and making his way along the deserted sidewalk, a lone figure on the malecón in the quiet hours after the town shut down.
He was back at his hotel ten minutes later, would be on a bus to Mexicali at dawn, and with any luck back in Mexico City in time for a late lunch, his obligation to CISEN discharged. As reward for doing the agency’s dirty work, he would get the semiannual booster shot of the antidote he required to stay alive the following week, and if he was fortunate, six months later his blood would be completely clear of the toxin he’d been injected with, and he could disappear to pursue whatever interested him, his stint of questionable government service over forever.
Chapter 24
The faces of El Rey’s fellow passengers were drawn and tense as the jet dropped through the clouds toward Toluca Airport, the plane shuddering as trees of lightning seared the sky around it. The woman next to him drew in a sharp intake of breath as the aircraft jolted its way through a series of air pockets, slamming from side to side like a child’s toy in a hurricane. The pilot’s voice came over the public address system and warned that everyone should remain buckled up for final descent as a worried stewardess with a smile frozen in place made her way along the aisle, checking to ensure that her precious cargo was strapped in.
The jets roared as the pilot juiced the throttle and banked to avoid the worst of a black thunderhead. El Rey closed his eyes, shutting out the anxiety and fear radiating from his seatmates as the plane pitched and yawed. Another drop, another slam, and then the clouds broke and he could see the gray outline of Toluca, the afternoon drizzle obscuring Mexico City’s skyline in the distance.
Nervous applause broke out in the cabin when the plane’s wheels touched down. The jet slowed as it neared the runway’s end as the sky exploded with flashes of lightning, and El Rey offered the woman beside him a small smile. Five minutes later he was trudging in single file through the fuselage door and up the Jetway, with only a small overnight bag for luggage. He made his way through the arrivals terminal, approached the long taxi line, and waited as an attendant waved a car forward. El Rey slipped a few coins to the man and tossed his bag onto the back seat, then slid in and gave the driver an address in Mexico City several blocks from the condo he rented by the month.
Traffic was a snarl, and the twenty-five-mile freeway run to Mexico City took twice as long as normal. Sheets of rain blew across the road as the car entered the western reaches of the metropolis, and rivers of runoff clogged the streets as the driver threaded through the parade of vehicles clogging the avenues. The downpour stopped as they neared El Rey’s building, and he was grateful that only a light drizzle remained when he got out of the cab.
The air in the condo was stale and dank, and he opened two windows, careful to avoid framing himself where anyone could see him, more out of habit than genuine concern he was being watched. He walked through the living room as the fresh breeze from the passing storm wafted through, pausing to set his bag down in his bedroom and retrieve his phone and charger.
He plugged it in and powered it on, and was surprised when the phone buzzed in his hand, signaling that he had a message in his blind email account. It was Tovar, six hours earlier, asking him to call as soon as possible. The hair on El Rey’s arms stood on end as he read the innocuous code phrase, and he debated ignoring it until the following day and instead getting some solid hours of sleep. After a brief internal struggle, he dialed the CISEN man’s number.
“You got my message,” Tovar said by way of greeting.
“Obviously.”
“We need to meet. I can be at Cambalache Restaurant in an hour. I’ll pick you up.”
“I just got into town. Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid not. One hour.”
Tovar disconnected, both men knowing better than to say anything on an unsecure line, and El Rey cursed CISEN, Tovar, and the weather, for good measure. He was unaccustomed to having terms dictated to him, and the man’s tone was always dangerously close to outright insulting with an undeniable undercurrent of contempt in his words.
He shook off his annoyance. It was unlike him – a product of inadequate sleep. Instead of bemoaning his fate or trying to second-guess what Tovar wanted, he opted for a hot shower and fresh clothes. There was no way the CISEN man could have known it, but El Rey’s latest condo was only a ten-minute walk from the restaurant, and after a half hour of isometric exercises and a few moments checking the headlines on the web, he set out for Cambalache.
Tovar undoubtedly had plentiful faults, but a lack of punctuality wasn’t one of them, and in exactly one hour his car pulled to the curb on Avenida Presidente Masaryk. The rear door swung open, and Tovar peered out of the interior and then sat back, waiting for El Rey.
When they were underway, Tovar’s eyes narrowed as he studied the assassin’s tired face.
“Nice work on the admiral,” Tovar said.
“No complications, I trust.”
“None. He wasn’t a young man. Everything’s perfect.”
“Great. Then I get my injection next week, and our business is concluded for the time being.”
Tovar’s eyes flitted to the side. “In a perfect world…”
“Which you’re about to tell me it isn’t,” El Rey stated flatly.
“Unfortunately, no. As part of the same assignment, we have another set of targets that must be neutralized, and time is of the essence.”
“That wasn’t our arrangement.”
“Arrangements are subject to change.”
“Why didn’t you just give me the whole list in the first place?”
Tovar lifted his hands almost apologetically. “Need to know. That decision was made above my pay grade.” He handed the assassin a folder with three more dossiers in it.
El Rey took it with a sigh and opened it. He flipped through the photographs and the reports, his face betraying nothing. The car bounced along as he read more slowly on his second pass, and when he closed it and handed it back to Tovar, his expression was as flat as a professional gambler’s.
“Why?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I need to know why these three. Two of them are extremely high profile, and one, I know for a fact, is unreachable.”
“As I said, it’s part of the same case. These are the last, by the way.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I have.” Tovar appeared to choose his words carefully. “They also need to appear to be accidental deaths, and are urgent.”
El Rey shook his head. “That’s not how I work. If I don’t know everything, I don’t have to take an assignment. You’re holding out on me, so find somebody else.”
Tovar’s expression took on an ugly cast. “I’d suggest that you rethink your position, given that you’re up for an injection in a week. It would be nice if all three were dealt with before you receive it.”
“I just told you, I’m not taking these.”
“Perhaps I wasn’t clear. If you want your injection, you’ll do as you’re told.”
“I have a signed letter from the president, you little worm.”
“Yes, well, that’s all well and good, but that signed letter can’t keep a vial from being broken or getting misplaced. These things can happen. It’s Mexico, after all.”
El Rey debated snapping Tovar’s neck then and there, but decided that the momentary satisfaction wasn’t worth the fallout. They rode along in silence for two blocks, and then he leaned forward.
“You’re playing an extremely dangerous game with the wrong man, and believe me, I’ll remember this. You may think you have me over a barrel, but by threatening to withhold the antidote shot, you’ve crossed an important line.”
“It wasn’t my intention to do so. Wouldn’t it be easier if you simply attended to these errands and then went back to doing whatever it is you do, in peace, having re
ceived the shot, as planned? Why force my hand in this?”
El Rey’s voice was so soft when he next spoke that Tovar had to strain to make out the words. “I’ll need the dossiers in my inbox today. And anything I ask for is to be supplied, immediately and without question. Do you understand?”
Tovar pressed his hands together. “Of course.”
The assassin eyed the tiny beads of sweat on the CISEN man’s forehead and took the folder from him. “What does a pig farmer have in common with these others?”
“They’ll all be dead inside of a week. Isn’t that enough?”
El Rey gazed at the farmer’s photograph and then flipped to a headshot of the startlingly beautiful woman whose name he recognized from her numerous appearances in the news: Carla Vega. He thumbed through a dozen more photos of her from every angle, many from celebrity events, and then turned to the final file.
“You do understand that the level of difficulty in trying to take out someone of this man’s stature makes everything I’ve done pale by comparison, right? I mean, even if I had a month, it’s almost certainly impossible, but in the time I have before the next injection’s due?” The assassin shook his head. “Like I said. Impossible.”
“I’ve come to believe that nothing is beyond your abilities. I have complete faith you’ll succeed.”
“For the record, you’re refusing to tell me why CISEN wants me to execute the most visible law enforcement official in Mexico along with one of its most beloved celebrities.”
“I’ve told you all I know, and all I’ve been authorized to. I appreciate that this isn’t how you’d hoped things would go, and believe me, if I had any other options…”
“Right. But you don’t. And I don’t suppose that Rodriguez or your boss will talk to me.”
“All due respect, you’re a bit of a hot potato at present. You’ll find that nobody can afford that discussion.”
El Rey returned his attention to the dossier he was holding. Smoldering eyes burned from the page with quiet intensity in the official photograph. It had to be at least four or five years old by now, judging by the man’s countenance, which El Rey knew was thinner and harder than the photo showed, any trace of good humor seared away by the demands of the job. It had been half a year since he’d last seen him, but the assassin was willing to bet that the passage of time hadn’t been kind to Capitan Romero Cruz, a man who owed El Rey a favor he could never adequately repay.
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