by Dick Wolf
“You need help here,” said Fisk, more pointedly this time. “And if I’m going to marshal resources, I need a damn good reason. Who is he?”
“Two months ago, Detective Fisk, a row of headless corpses was left on the plaza of the town of Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Laredo, Texas. The man I am chasing was responsible for those killings and numerous others. We finally tracked him back to a compound in the mountains that was his home. His refuge. He was gone. But before leaving, he killed every one of his servants and even his own men. He was making a statement. He left this behind, just a few feet away from a dead boy we believe to be his nephew.”
She thumbed her phone screen, waiting for Fisk to be able to take his eyes off the road and look over. He saw the image of a newspaper photograph of President Vargas, over which was a peculiar reddish brown design.
“That’s blood,” she said. “And if you were able to look at it closely, you would see that it is not just a random stain. It is a drawing. It is the mark of an assassin known as Chuparosa. It means Hummingbird.”
Fisk glanced at the image again. He could see it now, the wings, the needle-shaped nose.
“Why a hummingbird?”
Garza looked at the image herself before darkening the screen of her phone. “It is a symbol of vigor and potency. But specifically? I don’t know. He was notoriously aligned with the Zeta Cartel as something of an inspirational figure, cherishing violence over all else.”
“And you’ve never seen him?”
“No confirmed photographs exist. I have been tracking this man for two years now, Detective. He existed like a legend for years. In a country of dangerous men, this man is the most dangerous, by far. So brutal that his exploits were denied by many, out of sheer disbelief. Last July was the closest I have ever come to catching him.”
“Why did the Zetas need to rely on one man?”
“He aligned with them early. To give you an example . . . in searching his compound after we secured it, we discovered six metal barrels below a trapdoor in a storage shed about a half kilometer from the main house. Outside the shed was a fire pit covered by a grill. You see, disposing of bodies is problematic, especially in the heat of the desert. Scavengers will dig up anything that is buried. And cadaver dogs can track the scent of the long dead. For every beheaded victim of the drug war, there are another dozen victims who simply disappear. In one particularly horrifying case, a man who reported the abduction of his family was himself kidnapped the next day.”
She paused a moment, and Fisk knew she was thinking of Virgilio.
“What we believe is that Chuparosa would fill a barrel with water and two large bags of lye. He would set the barrel on the grill and light the fire, bringing the liquid inside to a boil before submerging the dead body. Over the next twenty-four hours, the body would liquefy. We found remnants of a pinkish gunk that resembled posole. Do you know what that is?”
“No.”
“It is a stew. Later he would dump the liquefied remains into a nearby stream. We learned this by digging up soil samples and testing them for traces of human remains. But our forensic teams could not identify even one victim. He is as diabolical as he is thorough. Hundreds of families have no answers, and will never know the true fate of their loved ones. He has no regard for human life, Detective.”
She turned to him.
“Let me see the bodies dumped in Rockaway yesterday. There may be something of value there.”
Fisk had some more questions to ask before answering her. “Why does he now want to kill the president?”
“I don’t know. It must have something to do with the trafficking treaty.”
“That seems somewhat extreme, doesn’t it? Why take this on by himself? It seems like he would be motivated more by a personal grudge.”
“It is terror. I believe that is his motive. He is striking at his homeland, our country. He seeks to destabilize and disgrace. Like a . . . a bad seed, an evil son. He wants to destroy.”
“So killing him, or attempting to, in the United States is easier . . . ?”
“No, but it is more profound. It is more unsettling. It shows his reach, his power.”
Fisk remembered the file on Comandante Garza. “So he is certainly aware of you then.”
Garza nodded. “He is.”
“What if you had left the hotel last night?”
She dismissed this outright. “Virgilio left in a state of distraction. The shame of the beheadings had soured him. I believe it was a momentary lapse of attention.”
Fisk frowned. “You’ve never had a momentary lapse of attention?”
“Not when it comes to Chuparosa.”
Fisk said, “It is not a good sign when the Mexican president’s protection needs protections herself.”
“I need no such thing,” she said, indignant. “I need cooperation. I need to see the dead bodies. It is connected, I promise you.”
Fisk said, “What you need is to go to the Secret Service with this information. You need to tell them there is an active plot to assassinate President Vargas in New York City.”
“Yes,” said Garza. “Led by a man who no one can prove actually exists.”
Fisk conceded that.
Garza went on, “Based upon a drawing in blood made over a photograph in a newspaper. See, Detective, there is a difference between what I know and what I can prove.”
Fisk said, “You’re right. If we go to the Secret Service with this, they’ll assign you another agent, maybe two. There’s too many people to watch in New York this week. And when I spoke to the head agent, asking him about the brief on Vargas, he mentioned nothing about a ‘Hummingbird’ or any active threat.”
Garza was quiet a moment, and Fisk realized she was looking at him.
“So you did follow up, after all. After dismissing me yesterday.”
Fisk shrugged. “Maybe I did.”
She said, “You feel it, too. You sense it.”
“Whether I do or not, the problem is getting you the support you need. A threat to your president is one thing. It’s serious, and it’s actionable. But a threat that might involve our president? That brings out all the big hunting dogs. That’s what you want.”
She crossed her arms. “So take me to Rockaway. As I asked you to do in the first place.”
“You demanded it, actually,” said Fisk. “And besides, the bodies are long gone from Rockaway.”
Fisk slid his phone out of its dashboard mount and found Detective Kiser’s number.
CHAPTER 32
Detective Kiser shed his suit coat and his tie, his white shirt soaked with sweat. He looked exhausted.
Fisk said, “Appreciate you taking the time.”
“Are you kidding?” said Kiser. “I welcome the professional help.”
Fisk nodded. “If we’re right—and I’m not saying we are—but if we’re right, this has got an international dimension. And she supposedly knows more about the doer than anybody on the planet.”
Cecilia Garza returned from her phone call. “Nothing still.”
Fisk nodded. He understood her drive to keep moving ahead, to not dwell on the unknowns regarding her disappeared comrade, but to look for answers wherever she could find them.
Even if it was in the Queens Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Morgue floors were always shiny. They cleaned them every other night. A morgue attendant wearing a mask and gloves—dressed almost like a hazmat worker—pulled the wheeled tables out of the walk-in cooler. Each one held a zipped body bag.
Kiser offered Garza his three-ring binder. “We have everything photographed if you’d prefer.”
She shook her head, stretching latex gloves over her hands.
“I’d very much prefer . . .” said Kiser, his voice fading to nothing.
The attendant went about opening all the black rubber bags. Kiser pinched his nose.
“Everything’s been bagged and tagged,” Kiser said, nasally. “One guy’s got no feet.
Where do you put a toe tag on a guy with no toes?”
If the attendant was aware the question was directed at him, he did not answer.
Fisk pulled on his own gloves. He waited while Garza made a careful inspection of all the bodies, helping the attendant flip them over so she could see their backs, too.
When she had looked at every single corpse she said, “Help me move these stretchers in order.”
Fisk said, “Order?”
“For narrative clarity,” she said. “These eight, here . . . this one here . . . this one down here . . .” When she was satisfied, she stood back. “There are three major drug cartels in Mexico at the moment. The Zetas are at war with the Gulf Cartel and Sinaloas. The Sinaloas are primarily a West Coast operation, while the Gulf is on the East Coast. The Gulf Cartel has been almost eliminated now, absorbed by the Zetas. So what’s left, mainly, is the Sinaloas, the largest and strongest.”
“Okay,” said Kiser.
Garza pointed at the first eight bodies. “Let us call these corpses one through eight. Fairly pedestrian tattoos, in my opinion. These are men with perhaps Mexican heritage, but so far as we can see, no evident gang affiliation.”
She moved to the next three bodies. “Here, I’m guessing these are all Mexican gang members or affiliates. Their tattoos include Santa Muerte—the Lord of Death—which is often believed to be derived from the Aztec god Mictlantecuhtli.” She pointed to a large tattoo of a robed figure with a skull for a face. “There, this one actually says ‘Sinaloa’ here, but there are various other symbolic references to the cartel which are a good deal more cryptic. Bottom line, though, these three are all almost certainly Sinaloa Cartel members, ex-members, or affiliates. As you can see, all of these men have all been tortured or mutilated or abused in one way or another.”
She went to the second-to-last body.
“Here we have a man covered with tattoos . . . but tattoos of a very different character. First, you will note from his skin tone and body hair color that he appears to be a Caucasian. Also, all of the words tattooed on his body are in English rather than Spanish. But more importantly, you will note that these are well-executed tattoos, composed in rich color, with complex and varied detail. I would go so far as to classify these as highly artistic, wouldn’t you?”
“If you say so,” said Kiser, still plugging his nose.
Fisk was impressed with her review of the bodies: crisp, well reasoned, and unflinching.
She continued, “And other than the head and fingertips being removed, there is no evidence of torture or desecration on this last body.”
“Other than the decapitation,” said Kiser.
“Yes—setting that aside for the moment.” She pointed at the last man. “Finally, we have this last body. Again, head and fingertips removed. His skin was apparently quite pale, even before death. And there is only one tattoo on his body.”
Fisk saw it. A black hummingbird.
“It’s him,” said Fisk.
“Taken together, these bodies constitute a sentence, a phrase, a grammar, a message. This message announces that an assassin is here, someone of substance, someone whose work must be taken seriously. Someone capable of sophisticated, ruthless, extreme violence. Moreover, the manner in which they were killed draws a connection to other killings in Mexico.
“Now, we turn to these two. Let us focus on this man with all the tattoos. These are of a higher artistic quality than the others. None of them are gang related in the least. No flaming skeletons, no broken chains, no skulls or AK-47s, no Blessed Virgins. Now, if you examine the orientation, several of them appear to be turned at peculiar angles.”
“What do you mean?” said Kiser.
“Just look. Normally a tattoo is intended to be viewed while a person is standing. But this one . . . and this one . . . and this one . . . are oriented sideways. So that if he were standing at rest, you would have to crane your head all the way to the side in order to look at them properly. Odd, right? But . . . consider this. If he crossed his legs, you see, this tattoo of the duck . . . it would be oriented toward his face. Now, here, this one is a Buddhist image known as Fudo Myo-o. The flaming bodhisattva with the rope and the sword. If he crooked his arm—as for instance laying it on a desk in front of him—this Fudo Myo-o tattoo on his forearm would also be oriented toward his face. And these oddly oriented tattoos are among the most intricate and beautiful on his body.”
Fisk nodded. “This guy did himself. He’s a tattoo artist.”
“Putting his best work on his own body. And not because he had to, by the way. A competent tattoo artist transfers a picture onto the skin and then just fills in the lines. Paint by numbers. No, he oriented them this way for his own enjoyment. He wanted to see the fruit of his own labor.”
Kiser said, “That’s something I can work with. And what about this last guy? The pale one. He’s got nothing except that bird.”
Cecilia Garza looked at the last corpse, the one with the small tattoo of the hummingbird between the shoulder blades. Her face momentarily showed . . . not sadness exactly, Fisk thought. But something close. More like a soul-deep weariness.
“I have seen this design before. Many times. This one was traced from an original design. Always drawn by the same hand. And this tattoo is a very accurate, careful representation of that design. It’s a faithful copy, if you see my point. It captures the gesture, the expressiveness of the original.”
Kiser looked skeptical. “I’m just following along, hearing what you’re saying. But I’m not sure I’m getting it yet.”
“He’s unusually pale,” she said. “No other blemishes. He is, if you will, a human canvas. See the sand from the beach still lodged in the design?”
Kiser cocked his head for a better look. So did Fisk.
Garza went on, “See where the hair was shaved, from just below the neck? A corona of redness beneath the skin around the design? That is not lividity. The blood has settled on the front.”
“It was a brand-new tattoo,” said Fisk, straightening. “He got this hummingbird right before he was killed.”
“It is a cartel signature, usually a ‘Z’ for Zetas, a ‘13’ for MS-13, something like that. The whole point of this . . . display . . . this work . . . whatever you want to call it, is to show us this tattoo. To frame it, to underline it.”
Kiser said, “And this bird means something to you.”
“Something,” said Fisk, going back to the presumed tattoo artist. He rolled him back onto his stomach, hairy buttocks in the air. “Look at this.”
Fisk pointed at his right shoulder. It was a tattoo of an attractive woman, the image rendered in impressive detail.
Fisk said, “He couldn’t have done this one himself.”
“No,” Garza said. “Most likely he did the drawing and had a colleague paint by numbers.”
Fisk snapped off his gloves and took out his phone. He snapped a picture of the tat.
“You don’t need to do that,” Kiser said. “I told you, forensics got photos of all the tats already.”
Fisk just nodded, returning his phone to his pocket.
Garza said, “I need to run those images through our database back in Mexico City.”
Kiser looked at Fisk. “What say you?”
Fisk said, “I don’t see any need for you to get any special authorization. This is about solving crime, right?”
“Well,” said Kiser, “actually it’s more about keeping my job. Kidding. Anything that puts me one step closer to understanding what I’m looking at is good. Can we go now?”
They stepped out of the morgue proper, into the outer offices. Fisk stopped Kiser. “As soon as we start pulling this together, you’ll know as much as we do. Meantime, not a word of this to anybody who doesn’t need to know, okay?”
“Sure. You got it.”
“The president of Mexico is in town to sign a major antinarcoterrorism accord. Today we find we have the top Zeta hitter—former top Zeta hitter—in town. I’m n
ot going to draw any straight lines for you because I don’t know yet if they’re there to be drawn. But you can see where this is going, right?”
“Holy shit,” said Kiser.
CHAPTER 33
While Garza was pushing through the photos of the tattooed corpses to her people in Mexico City, Fisk e-mailed his photograph of the woman’s face to Intel.
His phone rang almost right away. It was Nicole. “What is this now?”
Fisk explained the photograph’s source. “It’s so photorealistic, I think you need to run it through the facial recognition program.”
“Well, it’s more detailed than a criminal sketch, but—”
“It’s worth a try. It’s never been a one hundred percent unique metric, but it can narrow down the pool of potentials. Bounce it through FBI and State. State has something like seventy-five million faces in their system, FBI not nearly as many. Every single American who has walked through a major airport in the past decade is in the database, for starters. They’ve got this new next-generation software that creates a three-D projection from an image. Maybe we get lucky.”
Nicole said, “If I can get tagged in all my friends’ photographs on Facebook, why can’t this work, too?”
Fisk said, “Exactly.”
CHAPTER 34
Garza came back with some information on the hooker, including a picture on her phone.
“Silvia Volpi. Missing since last February.” Garza looked up from her phone. “Trafficked up north.”
“Forced prostitution,” said Fisk. “She’s going to be tough to find.”
Fisk had her send him the photo, which he then submitted to Nicole at Intel.
Fisk said, “I think you should have your president moved from the Four Seasons.”
“Already have,” said Garza. “Plans are being made now. The problem is finding a suitable location last minute.”
“Tough week for hotels,” said Fisk.
Garza said, “We are doing it very quietly, while maintaining our reservation at the Four Seasons. We are running a program to make it seem as though President Vargas is still there, and swapping out agents on bogus errands in hopes they will be tailed. Maybe we can trap someone.”