“I looked harder at Perry’s charity, since that’s the only real solid connection with anything Mexican. I ran a background on his father, but it’s unremarkable, and frankly, there’s not a lot there. Got a green card in the eighties. Worked as a manager at a custom metal fabrication shop. Died six years ago of lung cancer at the age of sixty-one.”
“And the mother?”
“American Latina, from Los Angeles, born and bred there. She was twelve years younger than dad. Worked in an office, now retired and living off her son’s largesse.”
“Remind me I need a son who’ll support me when I’m in the autumn of my years.”
She eyed him over the top of the phone she was reading from and smiled, and for an instant he saw the international superstar again.
“That leaves us with the charity. It’s kind of like Greenpeace, fighting to preserve whole stretches of Mexican coastline for sea turtles.”
“Anything shady about it? Or any connection between the charity and any of the names on the list?”
She shook her head. “Unfortunately, not that I can find.”
“What about its other supporters? Any links there?”
“Not really. Just a hodgepodge of the usual celebrity friends. Perry was the largest contributor.”
“Then how does it help us?”
“It doesn’t. But it’s something we can scratch off the list.”
Cruz groaned inwardly. Carla was doing her best, but it didn’t appear it was going to be a big help.
“Good. What else have you come up with?” he asked.
“The archbishop also did a lot of charity work. His cause was the rights of the indigenous people or, more broadly, of the little guy.”
“But no turtles.”
“Not even little ones, no. His replacement appears to have done a 180 in terms of policy, though. His new proposals aren’t at all supportive of the young archbishop’s work, which isn’t that strange, but is a little sad. The young archbishop was a progressive. This one appears to be a step backward.”
“Who is he?”
“Franco Arriola. Fifty-seven. A hardline conservative, according to his reputation.” She held up her phone so Cruz could see an image. He drummed his fingers against his leg absently as he stared at it.
“He looks familiar.”
“He’s one of the more influential members of the Church in Mexico City. A political mover and shaker, too. Kind of has to be to get his own diocese, given his conservative stance. That’s sort of out of favor these days as the Church tries to remake itself for a modern Mexico.”
“Interesting. Anything tying him to the others?”
“No.”
“What about the admiral or the farmer?”
“I’ve spent the most time on the admiral since he was the one that was attacked. I figured there had to be something in his closet, some rivalry or indiscretion, but there’s nothing beyond a career of exemplary service and a loving wife. Three kids, all girls. No scandals, all married.”
“Maybe blackmail was a motive, and when he wouldn’t buckle, they took him out?” Cruz said, thinking out loud.
“If so, it’s a secret that’s so well-hidden I haven’t gotten a whiff of it. I mean, the man was a model officer, his men loved him, and he was incorruptible. And he came from family money, so there was no shortage of cash. My guess is you couldn’t buy him.”
“Maybe that was the problem?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“He was in charge of the Pacific fleet, correct?”
“Yes. For the last eight years.”
“Including the ports?”
“Of course.”
“A lot of drugs move through those ports,” Cruz observed.
“I’m sure they do. But I’m not seeing the link between him and the others.”
“No interaction with the archbishop of any sort? A common cause? Social circle? Maybe through the wife or one of the kids?”
“Nothing.”
Cruz sighed. “And the farmer?”
“There’s literally nothing remarkable about him. Even his land isn’t particularly attractive. I was thinking it might have something to do with the cartel wanting his land, or a cartel link between the four of them…”
“Actually, the six of them. You and I are on the list too, remember?”
“Right. But we have zero in common, much less a connection to the others. No, I’m afraid if there’s anything linking us, I still haven’t found it.”
They discussed the results of Cruz and El Rey’s research, such as it was, which had also yielded nothing of note, and before long it became obvious that they had little to discuss.
“Where are you staying?” Cruz asked.
“At a shithole hotel that doesn’t ask questions over on the other side of town. But I need to move again. I don’t feel comfortable staying in one place for any length of time. How about you?”
“We have a safe house. So far so good.”
“Do you have room for one slightly unemployed journalist? I’m worried about being recognized. This all falls apart at that point, and if you’re correct, I’m dead.”
“I…I’d have to check with my associate.”
She smiled. “Great. Let’s do it together.”
Cruz stiffened. “I’m not sure that’s such a great idea.”
“Why not? It’s the place you brought me when you kidnapped me, right? It’s not like I haven’t already been there. I sort of remember where it is.” She mentioned the neighborhood.
“It’s not a good time.”
“Right. And for me, having to run for my life and drop everything, it is. Look. I don’t want to stay in the hotel any longer, I have no place else to go where I feel safe, and we’re all in this together, right? So what am I missing? I can sleep on the couch if you don’t have any room. But right now I’m going stir-crazy, staring at the hotel walls by myself. Give me a break, will you?”
Cruz looked away. “My associate was wounded. He’s recovering.”
“Wounded! How?”
Cruz gave her the short version.
She stared at him openmouthed and then slapped the tabletop with her open hand. “That settles it. We absolutely need to stick together. Capitan Cruz, I’m not taking no for an answer on this.”
“I’ll need to check,” Cruz waffled.
“Make the call.”
Twenty minutes later they were on their way to the house, El Rey uncharacteristically amenable to another roommate. As he drove, Cruz thought about their lack of progress and the implications for any of them living out the week. His glum mood deepened with each block. And there was still something about the new archbishop that was like a pebble in his shoe, something he was missing, a thought that danced just out of the periphery of his awareness, that when he tried to focus on it, flitted away.
Probably sleep deprivation, he thought. He’d been up for hours with the assassin, stitching him up and doing a crude field operation on the hip wound, ultimately digging out the slug with a pair of bloody forceps as El Rey bit down on a rolled-up washcloth. Lacking plasma, Cruz had brought him liter after liter of water and fruit juice so his body could rebuild the resources it had lost, and for a while it had been touch and go. But this morning he’d looked better, his color returning as he dozed, so he would make it. He was young, and Cruz’s bet was that he’d be back in action in a day or two, perhaps not a hundred percent, but sufficiently healed to do whatever he needed to deal with CISEN.
He hoped so. Because as of now, they were no closer to piecing together the reasoning behind the agency ordering the executions than when they’d started, and unless they had a breakthrough, it was only a matter of time until their survival became known to their adversaries, and then there was no place in Mexico they could hide.
Chapter 47
Briones looked up from his paperwork as Márquez knocked on his open door, using the tentative courtesy rap his subordinates had taken to using since he’d be
en put in charge of the task force pending an official consideration of a new commander. Briones set his pen down and leaned back in his chair, rolling his head to ease the stiffness in his neck that was one of the rewards of working at a desk all day.
“Come in. What have you got?”
“Good news, I think. I filtered out all the IP addresses that belong to the group’s members, and there are two that we can’t place.”
Briones perked up. “Really? And where have you traced them to?”
“One is an internet café near the city center, so that’s a dead end. But the other is a warehouse out in Naucalpan,” Márquez said, referring to a district in the western reaches of the city.
“A warehouse? I presume you’ve run the ownership info?”
Márquez nodded. “I have. It’s a corporation out of Monterey.”
“Are there any red flags when you pull up their shareholders?”
“Corporate shareholders, all offshore.”
Briones offered a satisfied smile. “Typical cartel setup, eh?”
“There aren’t a lot of legit businesses that feel the need to create layers of shareholders in foreign jurisdictions that keep their ownership secret.”
“How many times have they hit the site?”
“Three so far. The first was last night, late. Then two this morning.”
“Like someone in charge might be taking a harder look at it.”
“That was my thinking.”
“Good work, Márquez. Call a meeting for the group, and then we’ll brief them and get surveillance in place. I want any cell calls originating from that building, directional mics, round-the-clock surveillance, the whole nine yards.”
“I anticipated your request. The meeting will convene in” – Márquez looked at his watch – “seven minutes.”
“I’ll see you in the conference room.”
Márquez turned and walked out of the office with a smug expression. Briones let him have his moment of triumph – if the warehouse really was the kidnappers’ headquarters, he more than deserved it. The senator was planning to hand over the ransom the following day at noon, and had been exerting every bit of his considerable muscle to ensure that the Federales were treating the kidnapping as their top priority. He’d made it clear that if a single hair on his baby daughter’s head were harmed, he’d hold the department responsible, and he had the clout to make that a meaningful threat.
There weren’t a lot of reasons Briones could think of for an unknown party to be accessing a URL known only to a closed group of Facebook friends, and for the first time his hopes rose that they could put an end to this gang’s reign of terror, preferably in time to rescue Isabel. The delicate part would be alerting the senator that they planned to take the warehouse in an armed assault. Briones knew how power and politics worked, and in the end the senator would decide whether they would get the green light on going in.
But for now they needed to understand what they were up against, and that would mean setting up a listening post, mobilizing technicians, coordinating with the phone company, getting blueprints for the building and any surrounding structures, and ultimately developing a strategy for taking the kidnappers without risking Isabel’s life – no mean trick in a hostage situation.
For the hundredth time, as he pushed back from his desk, he wished Cruz were there to help with the planning and to make the hard decisions he was so good at. But he wasn’t, and this one had landed squarely in Briones’ lap – for better or worse, the kind of high-visibility case that made or broke careers. He got his fourth cup of coffee of the morning and marched across the task force floor to the conference room, his shoulders square, no trace of the crisis of confidence he was feeling in his brisk, assured stride.
~ ~ ~
Assistant Director Rodriguez carried his tea into the ground-floor office of his Mexico City home. A victim of the flu that was going around, he’d been on sick leave for the last three days. His whole body felt like he’d been beaten with a board, and his head throbbed despite the drugs he was taking, which seemed to serve no purpose but to mask the worst of the symptoms.
A rustle sounded from near the floor-to-ceiling curtains, and he glanced at the window and shook his head – the damned wooden frames swelled when it rained and contracted when it was hot, making for a leaky and drafty time when the wind was up. He sat behind his desk and froze when a soft voice greeted him.
“They say that illness is a function of a poor constitution,” El Rey said as he stepped from behind the curtains, SIG Sauer trained on the senior CISEN official’s head.
Rodriguez shook his head sadly. “I see the reports are true.”
El Rey took a seat across from him, weapon steady in his hand. “I’ll play along. What reports?”
“That you’ve gone rogue and are working for the cartels again.”
“Nice try. I went to get my antidote day before yesterday, and it turned into a shoot-out in the metro. A wet team was waiting to ambush me. So your pathetic pretense that you’ve behaved honorably and that I’m the problem doesn’t wash.”
A look of genuine surprise flashed across Rodriguez’s face. “What are you talking about?”
“As if you didn’t know. I was supposed to meet Tovar. Instead, I got shot. Twice, actually. But like so many of your operatives, the shooters weren’t up to the job, and I left most of the gunman’s brains on the subway wall.”
“I…I read about that. That was you?”
El Rey let out a hiss of breath. “I’m tiring of this game, Rodriguez. Give me one reason I shouldn’t shoot you right now.”
“I have a report here on my desk that details your role in the assassination of five different people, among them Captain Cruz. You’re going to try to deny that’s your handiwork?”
El Rey’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “Of course it’s my handiwork. You ordered me to do it.”
“I ordered you?” Rodriguez blurted.
“CISEN. Tovar. I was given CISEN dossiers and a story about how they were involved in a meth ring. I was told to terminate them, making the deaths look like accidents or natural causes, or I wouldn’t get my antidote.”
Rodriguez’s expression hardened. “I don’t believe you. What proof do you have of this?”
“You? You don’t believe me? Did you miss where you tried to have me murdered in the subway? I’d say you aren’t in any position to judge me.”
“So you say.”
“I’ve got the bullet wounds to prove it.”
Rodriguez picked up a file and tossed it to El Rey. “I presume you haven’t lost your ability to read.”
“What’s the point?”
“Humor me. You’re the man with the gun.”
El Rey eyed Rodriguez warily and then flipped the file open. “Keep your hands on the table where I can see them.”
Three minutes later he closed the folder.
Rodriguez sneezed and glared at the assassin. “We know all about your side jobs.”
“You have a problem, Rodriguez. Listen very carefully, because you don’t seem to be good with comprehension right now. CISEN sanctioned those hits, as well as one on Carla Vega. If the order really didn’t come from you, then you have a rogue in your organization. If I had to bet, it’s Tovar. The sanctions came from him. And he set up the meet for the antidote, which was an ambush.”
“Carla Vega? The journalist?”
“At least you got that part.”
“That was a bungled cartel hit…”
“Sure there was. That was me. I smelled a rat when I got the second list of names and hers was on it.”
They sat staring at each other, and Rodriguez broke the uncomfortable silence. “I don’t believe you. I think you invented your story to throw suspicion off yourself. It’s essentially non-disprovable.”
“Why would I do that if I was doing cartel hits?”
“Because you screwed up in your little scheme and forgot about the antidote, or you didn’t think we
’d get wise to the fact it was you doing the executions. So now you want your injection, but you know you won’t get it since you violated the terms of our agreement.”
“I violated them? Your men tried to gun me down in the metro. Was that in our agreement? Tovar refused to give me the antidote until I’d executed everyone on the lists. Was that in our agreement?”
“That’s your story.” Rodriguez reached for a box of tissue, eyes still on the assassin. “But let’s assume you’re telling the truth, which I don’t for a moment believe, but can’t entirely discount. Bring me proof, and I’ll get you your antidote. That’s the only deal you’re going to get. Shoot me and you get nothing, and you’ll die in horrible agony within, what, a week or two?” Rodriguez scowled at him. “Ball’s in your court.”
“How? How am I supposed to get you proof?”
“You can start by explaining why anyone would want those six people killed.”
“I don’t know that. It’s what stopped me from proceeding. I didn’t buy your official explanation,” El Rey said.
“Right. So you don’t know why Tovar or whoever wants them killed, and you can’t prove that he told you to kill them. Did I leave anything out?”
El Rey nodded. “Because of course, if it wasn’t you, and it was Tovar, he’d deny everything when questioned, which would leave me looking like a liar.”
“It wasn’t me. But your problem is that I don’t believe you.”
“And I don’t believe you. Although I’m starting to. Maybe you didn’t know anything about this. You’re not a good enough poker player to pull that off. Which means you’ve been duped and one or more of your subordinates is running an off-the-books operation without your knowledge.” He paused. “I have the CISEN dossiers on the targets.”
“That proves nothing. You could have figured out how to hack into our records section. I’ve read your background, remember? Or you could have bribed someone. In fact, one of our administrative people was killed recently in a carjacking. How convenient, no? If you paid her off, there was only one way to end the trail. Seems like vintage El Rey to me.”
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