King of Swords (Assassin series #1)

by Russell Blake

  After a night in Chile, he’d taken the recommendation of the hotel concierge and decided to try Mendoza. The rest was history. He’d settled in, found a few strip clubs with world-class talent, and cultivated an appreciation for fine wine and great food. He didn’t know where he’d wind up settling permanently, but for now, Mendoza was as good as anywhere.

  He swirled the deep purple liquid around the curve of the glass and savored the aroma as the waiter arrived with his entrée: a medium rare filet over a bed of grilled tomatoes and onions, drizzled with a balsamic glaze and accompanied by roasted vegetables and grilled potatoes. Heaven. He made a mental note to increase his time at the gym so he wouldn’t pay the piper for his indulgences. It wouldn’t do to get soft. One never knew what the future might bring.

  Carefully setting his glass down, he sliced into the perfectly cooked filet and took a bite, admiring the way the beef flavor melded with the complements.

  El Rey caught sight of his reflection in the restaurant window and saw a bohemian world traveler smiling back at him, enjoying the experience of being at peace with the world. He supposed he was, for once. For now.

  Life was good.

  Excerpt from The Geronimo Breach

  a thriller by

  Russell Blake

  Copyright © 2011 by Russell Blake

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact Books@RussellBlake.com.

  <1>

  Bullets peppered the dirt around Al and his partner. They instinctively returned fire, the barrels of their automatic rifles pulsing white hot from burst after burst of armor piercing slugs. Thick smoke belched from a crippled station wagon lying on its side by the mouth of the rural alley where they’d taken cover. The glow of burning fuel intermingled with the unmistakable stench of seared flesh, creating a nauseating haze. A slug ricocheted off the peeling wall, gouging a chunk of brick from the dilapidated surface.

  A flickering of illumination from ancient streetlights succumbed to the gloom of late evening, casting otherworldly shadows over the rustic thoroughfare – now transformed to a killing zone.

  White noise and static shrieked from their radios – not that they could distinguish anything in the cacophony of the firefight. The concussion of gunfire had devastated their hearing, and the ringing from tinnitus obliterated all sounds besides the percussive chatter of their guns.

  Squinting down their sights at the blurs of motion on the rooftops of the bombed-out buildings across the street, they gave each other a knowing glance before squeezing off the last of their rounds. They weren’t going to make it.

  This was a deathtrap; they’d been boxed in with no hope of escape. Help was at least fifteen minutes out, assuming their base had received the solitary frantic distress call before the radio had been taken out. It didn’t look good.

  The incoming fire escalated to a hail of screaming death. Rifle ammo depleted, they un-holstered their army-issue .45 pistols and fired intermittently in the direction of their attackers, to no obvious effect. They exchanged panicked looks – this wasn’t supposed to happen; just a routine patrol in a secure area with no reason to expect hostiles, much less heavily-armed ones intent on slaughtering them. It was supposed to be a cakewalk.

  The firing pin snicked on Dave’s gun as he reflexively squeezed the trigger, again and again, even after his magazine was spent. Al elbowed him back into the fight. Dazed, he stared at the weapon in his hand, before dropping the handgun and frantically fumbling for the scarred knife handle protruding from his belt; he almost had the serrated edge free from its sheath when his head exploded in a blast of bloody emulsion.

  Al spat out the essence of his mutilated partner and expended his last pistol rounds in a defiant salvo. He unsheathed his trusty blade for the final reckoning.

  Shouts in an unfamiliar tongue drifted from beyond the dense smoke at the alley’s mouth. A bright flash momentarily blinded him as a flare bounced down the length of the cobblestone passage before coming to rest a few yards from his now trembling body.

  Four figures emerged from the gloom, cautiously approaching the soldier’s hiding place through the fog of cordite and burning oil, their rifles trained on his blood-spattered profile. Pointing at the ludicrously inadequate combat knife clutched in Al’s shaking hand, the tallest of the bearded, turbaned warriors barked a guttural cackle. He handed his firearm to the figure beside him and from beneath his filthy robe withdrew a gleaming, viciously curved blade as long as his arm. He sliced at the air with it, savoring Al’s horrified gaze as it whistled its grim tune. The turbaned warrior grinned maliciously and moved forward.

  The angel of death had arrived, and it was time for Al to die.

  He shielded his head with his arms, all thoughts of attacking with the knife now gone. The sword hacked off his left hand. Gagging anguish flooded his senses as he watched his arterial blood spray wildly from the stump.

  The bearded executioner smirked.

  Sobbing, the last thing Al registered as the scimitar descended to sever his head was a bloodcurdling scream from his executioner; a victory yell as old as the god-forsaken hills of the foul dustbowl that had claimed his mortality.

  Al bolted awake, the image of the flashing blade still vivid, even as the specter dissolved into a muddy, waking awareness.

  What the fuck?

  His chest heaved from the adrenaline rush triggered by the brutal nightmare, his heart trip-hammering in his chest as he shook off the bitter remnants of the dream state. He sluggishly scanned his surroundings; dimly visible silhouettes of furniture offered a quiet reassurance he wasn’t anywhere near a gunfight in some non-specific shithole, or being decapitated by a malevolent mullah straight out of central casting. Jesus, that had been realistic. He cleared his throat, wiping the sweat from his face with a damp hand.

  A battered air conditioner wheezed from its position on the wall, barely denting the heat and humidity in the squalid room. The bed sheets beneath him exuded an odor of sour perspiration and years of marginal laundering. A car’s un-muffled exhaust roared down the street outside the window; the moth-eaten curtains providing only slim insulation from the racket.

  Still, it was better than being beheaded in a mud-hole.

  Al tried to sit up but was sapped of energy. Pausing to muster his strength, he registered a tickling on the skin of his right leg, as though ghostly fingers were brushing at the hair just below his knee. He groped for the small bedside lamp on the table by his head and after several seconds found the power switch on the cord hanging down the side. A weak yellow light flickered on and he gingerly pulled the threadbare sheet off his naked lower body.

  He froze.

  Two claws gnashed at the air over the greenish black carapace of a highly agitated scorpion. The arched tail lashed at Al, its venomous stinger fully exposed. He went rigid, his skin instantly covered in a film of clammy sweat. The poisonous insect became more agitated by this physiological change and, enraged, it scurried up Al’s thigh and plunged its deadly barb into the soft, exposed flesh of his groin.

  Al thrashed to full wakefulness, clutching his calf in agony, expunging the scorpion dream as he dealt with this all-too-real distress. The pain was blinding as the large muscle of his lower leg cramped into a rigid ball, taking his breath away as he pawed at it, trying to persuade it to release. His back shuddered with spasms from the effort of bending nearly double – he wasn’t exactly in prime shape for gymnastics and the effort of stretching to loosen the knot had pinched his sciatica, compounding the already excruciating discomfort from his traumatized lower leg.

  Harsh experience had taught him to maintain a grip on his toes no matter what and exert steady pressure
on the Achilles tendon, pulling and coaxing the contracted muscle until it relaxed. If he surrendered to his back’s protestations the cramp would worsen and the ordeal would go on seemingly forever – either way there would be pain, garnished with even more pain.

  Jesus Christ. What kind of fresh hell was this anyway? Why him?

  A blurry flash of the prior evening’s debauchery intruded into his labored calisthenics. He vaguely recalled lurching up the stairs to his dingy apartment swigging the last of a cheap bottle of coconut rum after many hours of drunken gambling at the neighborhood watering hole, and the loud argument with the bartender about soccer, transvestites and how the Chinese were Satan’s henchmen but the rest was a blank, with the exception of copious quantities of alcohol. The memory of the rotgut triggered his gag reflex, filling his mouth with bitter saliva as he choked down vomit.

  The spasm in his leg eventually loosened and he cautiously slid his legs off the bed and stood up. So far, so good. He kicked an empty bottle out of his path and leaned against the wall, stretching his hamstring while he massaged his back with his free hand. Hopeful the worst was over, Al limped to the coffee table in the studio apartment’s sitting area and collapsed onto the sofa, dimly aware of something wet adhering to the side of his head. He reached up and peeled off the offending item; a slab of congealed lard and dough.

  Pepperoni. Nice. How did this get any worse?

  His head swam through the waves of dizziness that assaulted him and bile seeped out of his nose. What time had he gotten in? That he’d passed out was a given – meaning today had to be either Friday, Saturday or Sunday. He had a strict rule, or at least a semi-strict rule, against getting obliterated on weeknights so it had to be one of those. He was pretty sure it wasn’t a Monday. He desperately hoped it was the weekend – there was no way he could make it in to work in this condition.

  The luminescent wall clock above the TV read 5:30. Probably a.m. given the dearth of daylight. So maybe he’d gotten three hours of sleep. The nightmares were no doubt a result of plummeting blood sugar and dehydration – it felt like he’d spent the night with the devil’s penis in his mouth. He really had to stop overdoing this.

  Soon. After he got through the present, that is. Right now he was in no shape to make rash decisions.

  He groped through the accumulated trash on the scarred table surface until he found what felt like a cigarette packet.

  Empty. Of course. It would be, wouldn’t it?

  Rooting around in the accumulated refuse, his hand bumped a cold metal ashtray reeking of a rancid blend of carbon, alcohol and nicotine. He fished around among the butts, trying to find something only half smoked.

  Great. They were all soaked.

  The stink caused him to retch again. Now he could add vomiting on himself to his pre-dawn party tricks. Gagging, Al struggled upright and staggered toward the dim outline of the bathroom door, hands fumbling for support. He switched on the light and was transfixed by his reflection in the hazy mirror.

  Even for him, this was a new low.

  Red, bleary eyes had the bleak thousand yard stare of a chain-gang prisoner. Tomato paste crusted around his right temple created the impression he’d been in a collision, as did the now hardened mozzarella flecking his cheek. What was left of his hair was matted into a greasy clump. He resembled nothing so much as a puffer fish that had been hit in the face with a brick. Several times.

  At least he still had his health.

  Al crumpled onto the floor in front of the toilet and grabbed the cracked rim for support before explosively spewing the night’s excesses into the grimy bowl. He was afraid to look too closely.

  He smelled blood.

  The cramp threatened to revisit his leg as he heaved and it was all he could do to keep from crying in frustration at the accumulated misery of a body that had completely betrayed him. The spell passed. His hand reached for toilet paper to blot his mouth and instead found the coarse cardboard of an empty roll. Perfect.

  He dried his face with the filthy bath mat, absently wondering whether it would wash clean, and depressed the toilet lever, anxious to flush the toxic soup from the prior night’s episode down the pipe. He heard a snap rather than the satisfying flushing sound he’d hoped for. The rusty rod in the tank had broken again; his temporary fix with fishing line and super glue having obviously proved inadequate.

  A glance at his watch confirmed it was Friday the 29th. Shit. He had to make it into the office. There was no choice. He was already in deep weeds due to chronic absenteeism.

  There’d better still be some emergency vodka stashed in the freezer, or he’d never make it.

  He regarded his bloated, ravaged countenance in the mirror. A network of ruptured capillaries lent him the flushed glow of a seasoned vagrant, with skin of a yellowish cast that was disturbing, at best. To say he looked like shit was pejorative to excrement.

  He was a complete mess.

  Al flicked a speck of vomit from the corner of his mouth and splashed some lukewarm water on his face, knocking his toothbrush into the noxious toilet in the process.

  Superb. Thank you, God.

  He considered his reflection once more. This had to stop. He’d never seen anything looking so bad that was still breathing. It couldn’t continue. And then he grinned, a lopsided smirk devoid of humor.

  Albert Ross, proud member of the U.S. Diplomatic Corps in shit-swamp Panama, Central America, at your service.

  <2>

  Ernesto gripped the metal handle for support, swaying with the rest of the passengers as the brightly painted bus bounced along the dusty, rutted street. Faded Spanish advertisements for breath-freshening gum and miracle kitchen cleaning products punctuated the ever-present graffiti scrawled over every interior area of the vehicle.

  Most of the occupants were dark skinned Panamanians wearing colorful shirts or dresses, as if the vibrancy of the colors could ward off the stifling temperature. A few intrepid tourists sat towards the front, their pale skin and floppy hats proclaiming them as aliens in the tropical landscape. The rich aroma of coffee sloshing in Styrofoam cups mingled with less identifiable odors in the confined space, and for those unaccustomed to such constant humidity and heat it was almost unbearable. But for the locals, this was merely the start of another workday – a Friday exactly like thousands of others before it.

  The creaky fifty-year old conveyance might have seemed primitive to outsiders but for the commuting laborers it was a blessed alternative to walking miles in each direction to and from work. Sure, air conditioning would have been welcome but compared to trekking two hours to get to a job that barely paid for food, water and shelter, the ancient converted school bus was welcome progress.

  Ernesto tuned out his fellow travelers and watched the scenery go by. Every day it was the same cast and the same landscape. There was the graveyard followed by several barrios leading to a haphazardly laid out strip mall, and then increasingly condensed homes of progressively larger size. He knew how close he was to his exit point by such landmarks. When the old pink shack appeared with its rows of chickens roasting on the makeshift grill, Ernesto rang the bell to signal his stop fifty yards past it.

  For eight years now he’d taken the same bus to this very stop and it never once occurred to him to question whether his life had turned out the way he’d wanted, or if some alternative, better reality could be his with just a little more initiative or effort. No, Ernesto was comfortable in his role. He was a cook – not a chef or a showman – just a cook; like his father and mother before him had been in his native Colombia. He actually felt he had it pretty good – his current job was hardly demanding; creating three meals a day in a large colonial villa a quarter mile down a side road from the chicken shack. True, the cuisine requests had seemed odd at first, but he’d long since become accustomed to preparing the largely-vegetarian fare and it was second nature to whip up a lentil soufflé or zucchini curry.

  Beyond those simple culinary exercises, work was invariably t
edious. He was the only kitchen staff and, but for the small black and white TV he was allowed on the counter by the refrigerator, he would have died of sheer boredom. Still, many workers had it far worse; and the pay was good, as were the hours. Nine to seven, six days a week, with Sundays off – he always prepared Sunday’s meals on Saturday so the staff only needed to warm them in the microwave.

  Ernesto had mixed feelings about his existence in Panama. He lived in a small row house in an outlying barrio. It wasn’t bad – had running water – and four years ago they’d finally installed electricity. To an outsider it would have been a frightening area; run down, poor and dangerous, but to Ernesto it was simply where many people like him lived. Sure, it had its fair share of crime – mainly burglaries at night, and assaults on weekends when disagreements broke out after a long day’s drinking – but he knew all his neighbors, and they watched each other’s’ backs.

  He wished he’d met and married someone special and started a family but with his schedule and limited means there hadn’t been a lot of prospects. Even in Panama, a chubby, thirty-seven year old cook who spent his free evenings and discretionary income at the bordellos in town wasn’t at the top of the food chain for desirable mating material. Besides, the barrio women were usually dark and coarse and illiterate. Ernesto considered himself superior to them.

  Originating from Colombia, with light brown skin and green eyes, Ernesto not only knew how to read and write but also had a vocational skill that earned him more than most in his circle. Getting trapped in a marriage with a flat-footed mestizo girl who’d swell to two hundred pounds within a few years of their nuptials wasn’t for him. He preferred the company of the professional ladies of the city, and if he had to pay, well, that’s why he worked and made money. It wasn’t like he had an extravagant lifestyle; no car, a few hundred dollars a month rent between him and his roommate, thirty dollars for utilities, and the rest for entertainment, with a small portion set aside for savings with the local loan shark