“None of the photos or the arrests over the last week have resulted in anything?”
“No. I wish they had. Then we’d have something more material to discuss. As I told you at our last meeting, we could really use any help you can offer.”
“I’m afraid nothing has surfaced on our end, either, Capitan Cruz. As always, we’ll keep you informed, but this isn’t an exact science,” Dario said with a trace of condescension.
“Why is it that whenever we get together, we do all the reporting and you tell us zip? I mean, what good is our cooperation with CISEN doing us? So far we’ve gotten nothing but the initial warning, which has done us exactly zero good,” Briones pointed out, echoing his earlier discussion with Cruz.
Solomon regarded Briones as though he had just wiped him off his shoe.
“Well, probably because we have nothing else to report. I mean, that would be the logical explanation, no?” he said.
Cruz decided to defuse the situation before it escalated. He rose from his seat, signaling that the discussion was at an end.
“Gentlemen, it’s always a pleasure. Please let us know if you hear anything at all that might be of interest, or if you have any suggestions on how we can be more effective in tracking El Rey down. You have considerably greater resources than we do, and no doubt more expertise in sensitive areas.” Cruz stood. “Thanks for coming in.”
Once the two CISEN men had left, Cruz fixed Briones with a neutral gaze. “I’d say that went well…”
“This is bullshit, sir. They’re just here to get a status report and take it back to their bosses and are giving us nothing in return. How is having them in our hair helping us? It isn’t,” Briones griped.
“All true, but it won’t do us any good to get into a fight with CISEN right now. They gave us the lead, probably to set us up to fail, so just accept it. I’ll work with the president’s staff to ensure he stays safe. If we can’t track El Rey, then the least we can do is push the president to do the right thing. Even if he is as stubborn as a burro.”
They finished up their routine reports and Briones departed, obviously unhappy with the situation, still.
Cruz studied his watch and rubbed his burning eyes. He was tired and wanted to leave. He didn’t have the patience for these pointless sessions, or for his subordinate’s emotional storms. Dinah had recovered and had been discharged from the hospital, and he’d committed to himself to spend more time with her – making them a priority. He’d been a workaholic for too long, and he knew it wouldn’t fly, especially once he was married. He had to create boundaries, and one he’d decided on was to be out of the office by six every evening, unless it was an emergency. A real emergency – not one of the routine emergencies that seemed to happen daily.
He finished his paperwork and hurried out of the office, anxious to see her. She’d taken a few days off on her doctor’s advice and was waiting at home. Dinah had seemed different after the incident, and Cruz attributed it to shock. Part of being a decent partner was to be there for her when she needed him, not at work till all hours.
His car took him into the underground parking garage at the condo, and he deliberately made more noise than necessary when he entered, so she’d know he was home. Dinah came out of the bedroom, looking ravishing in a red silk robe. Cruz registered with mild concern that she hadn’t gotten dressed all day. That couldn’t be good.
“Hola, mi Corazon. How’s my heroic crime-fighter tonight? Did you conquer the world?” she asked playfully.
“No more than any other day. How are you doing?”
“Oh, you know. Just being lazy, taking it easy. Might as well relax on my days off.”
“Why not? Hey, do you want to go out, or eat in? Or I can call for some food…” Cruz asked.
“Let’s eat here. I can make something,” she replied. Her tone and mannerisms were the old Dinah, but something was different. She seemed preoccupied, her mind elsewhere.
Over dinner, they made small talk, about how Cruz’s day went, and the topic of what he was working on came up.
“Same as always, mi amor. Struggling to keep the world safe from the cartels,” he said.
“Anything really interesting? You had mentioned El Rey a while ago. Is there anything happening with that?”
He told her about his progress, and she seemed to finally perk up, engaged and interested. That encouraged him, and he regaled her with the minutiae of the case, taking care to leave out anything classified.
When they finally got ready for bed, he was upbeat. Dinah had bounced back during their interactions during dinner, and now seemed as vital and immediate as ever. Perhaps she was just depressed or frazzled from the attack and felt left out of his life. It had to be hard being with a man who was married to the job. He vowed to include her in more of his daily affairs and make her feel more connected to him.
As they drifted off to sleep after making tender love, a solitary tear rolled down Dinah’s cheek, unnoticed by Cruz as it absorbed into her pillow.
Chapter 19
As the morning wore on, CISEN headquarters in Mexico City was buzzing with activity. Solomon approached Rodriguez’s office, tapped discreetly on the door and waited in the harshly illuminated hallway, holding a report. After an appropriate delay, he heard his boss call for him, and he entered, taking care to close the door softly behind him.
The office was large, furnished in a Mexican contemporary style, all angles and lines, fashioned from Danish birch and glass. A collection of modern oil paintings were featured on the main wall, abstract renderings with swatches of color on a dark gray background. Rodriguez sat behind his desk, his suit jacket hung on a hook on the back of the door, shirtsleeves rolled up as he typed busily on his computer.
He glanced at the new arrival and indicated with a nod of his head that he should take a seat. Solomon complied, saying nothing.
“Yes, Solomon. What have you got for me?”
“A delicate development on the El Rey front, sir. Our asset is scheduled to deliver a package of material to the assassin tomorrow, here in Mexico City.”
Rodriguez stopped typing and pushed back from the keyboard.
“That creates a problem for us, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not sure I understand, sir.”
“If we pass the information on to Cruz, the positive is that he may be able to apprehend the assassin. The negative is that the information couldn’t have come from too many places, so it potentially jeopardizes our source – who is crucial to our ongoing operation, as you know,” Rodriguez explained.
Solomon shook his head, but chose his words with care. “I don’t see it quite that way, sir. I see it as us having information that could prevent a successful attack on the president by an assassin with a miraculous track record of spectacular hits. Which, if we didn’t pass the info on, would have us looking like traitors – especially if the execution attempt was successful.” He hesitated before continuing. “I see it as life in prison, versus doing what we have to.” He slid the report across the glass desktop.
Rodriguez took the file, stood up and paced the length of his office, reading the two pages carefully. A few minutes later, finished, he stared at one of the paintings, as if the solution lay in its inscrutable brushstrokes.
“You have a point. But the danger to our ongoing operation is still very real. And the truth is that the likelihood of information leaking about our having this information after the fact is small.”
Solomon took a breath, and realizing he was in delicate territory, put his most convincing disinterested expression forward. “So there’s only a small likelihood that everyone who knows about this spends the rest of their lives in prison. That would be you, and I, and two others who have already seen the report – at least two others. I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t like those odds. Bad news has a way of breaking at the worst possible time…”
Rodriguez frowned. His subordinate was right, unfortunately.
“Get Cruz on the line. Or b
etter yet, have him come over here.” He looked at his watch – a newish Rolex stainless steel Submariner. “Put a rush on it. We don’t have much time.”
Solomon stood and moved to the door. “I’ll let you know if he is available to come in today.”
“Do that. Tell him if he delays, it’s on his head. That will get him motivated.”
“Yes, sir.”
~
When Cruz returned from CISEN headquarters he practically ran from the elevator to his office. Briones spotted him as he crossed the floor, and after one look at his superior’s face, stopped what he was doing and followed him in and closed the door.
“Call a meeting. Now,” Cruz ordered. “All the El Rey task force heads. We just got a major break – this will probably be the best lead we’ve had on him since this case started.”
“When are you available?”
“Five minutes.”
Briones trotted back to his cubicle and hastily called the various members of the team who weren’t in the field. A few minutes later, they were gathered in the conference room. Cruz entered and moved straight to the head of the table. He surveyed the expectant faces and then launched into a condensed version of the information he’d gotten from CISEN.
“Tomorrow, eleven o’clock, he’s to meet a cartel member to take delivery of some explosives and other items, at a machine shop six miles from here. Obviously, we need to take him. We can expect that he’ll be disguised, so it’s paramount that we be discreet. We can’t circle the building with Federales until he’s confirmed as being inside.”
A hand shot up. “I know that area, sir. It’s dense, even for Mexico City, and the buildings are packed together. Maybe we can get a few apartments or offices that are proximate and set up surveillance he won’t see?”
“Excellent suggestion, Guerrero. But it has to be low key. Get a team to canvass the area once this meeting breaks up. Softy and gently. We don’t want the neighbors freaked out, or the contact to get spooked,” Cruz warned.
“Maybe we can bug the machine shop tonight while it’s closed?” Briones suggested.
“Not a bad idea, but we have no intel on what counter-surveillance gear is in place, so we could give ourselves away if we try. We need this meeting to take place, gentlemen. We can’t do anything that would spook either El Rey or his contact. Let’s just assume that the shop is a front for illegal activity, and that as such, it is likely wired with security equipment,” Cruz advised.
“How do you want us to take him, then?” Guerrero asked, willing to step into the breach, as always.
“I want a team of twenty men in full tactical gear ready to go in on thirty seconds’ notice. If we can get a nearby building without attracting attention, perfect. If not, we’ll use one of the big transport carriers and wheel up to the shop for a shockwave deployment. But people? We can’t screw this up. It has to go off like clockwork. Ruiz? Sandborn? Pick your very best men and ensure they don’t blow it.”
They spent the next half hour discussing the assault and agreed that they would combine visual observation of some sort with a raid by a lightning strike force. Cruz left it up to his field officers to recommend a final approach once they’d studied the lay of the land. As the men gathered their notes, there was a palpable sense of energy in the room. Finally, after weeks of no progress, there was a break, and they could get into the field and bring their quarry down.
~
Dinah left the condo, walking in a seemingly aimless manner, window shopping at the upscale shops in the trendy neighborhood they’d been moved to three weeks earlier. She hated the upheaval every few months, but had come to accept it as a part of staying alive. She understood the need for constant moving, but it still created a hardship on them. At least they were being put up in high-end buildings. There seemed to be no budget limitations when it came to keeping the task force commander alive. For that she was grateful.
She paused at the corner and glanced around to ensure that the two plainclothes officers watching the building were still there, and noted with concern that one had left his position in the car across the street and had begun following her at a discreet distance. She swallowed, her mouth dry from anxiety, and crossed to the far side.
Continuing her walk, she picked up the pace, putting a few yards of valuable distance between herself and her bodyguard. She debated trying to give her protector the slip and then realized that it was an impossibility. His presence would just make things more nerve-racking, but wouldn’t alter the outcome of her trip, and trying to lose him could raise difficult questions with Cruz she preferred not to be asked.
She’d gotten a call that morning on the small cell the assassin had given her at the hospital, and the man’s soft voice had calmly laid out instructions. She was to summarize any information she had gleaned and drop the notes at a pre-ordained spot at a specific time. When he hung up after only a few seconds of instruction, she’d scrambled to pull herself together, her heart pounding in her ears from the tension.
Dinah had done as instructed, methodically detailing the conversations she’d had with Cruz on a single sheet of her note paper, and then set about showering and getting dressed. It was a Saturday, and school was out, so she had half a day before Cruz would return from headquarters. Still, she felt rushed, and guilty – she was selling her future husband down the river.
She forced herself to stop the negative internal dialogue. What she was doing was protecting the one she loved, as well as herself. The assassin was right. The priority was on staying alive and together, not on sacrificing everything over a tenuous ethical belief. Every year thousands of innocent people were slaughtered in the cartel clashes in Mexico, and many of those people no doubt had laudable morals. But they were still dead, and nothing would bring them back. She took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. It was too late to second-guess herself now.
Dinah saw the sign for the large department store and made for the entrance, taking care to move quickly into the clothing section. After a few moments of glancing around at the selections, she chose a pair of jeans and two tops and approached the changing rooms, where an attendant showed her to a cubicle.
Five minutes later she emerged and handed the clothes to the girl at the counter with a shake of her head. She didn’t really like anything.
Stalling for time, and so as not to be too obvious, she browsed for other items for a few minutes, straying into the underwear section. Finally, appearing to have exhausted her shopping enthusiasm, Dinah wove her way through the aisles, retrieved the little phone, and pressed redial. A few seconds later the assassin answered.
“It’s there.”
Shortly thereafter, a middle-aged man with a thick beard and a beret strode to the attendant carrying a pair of slacks. The woman quickly confirmed that he was carrying only the one item and then directed him to take whichever stall he liked – the area was empty, the store having only opened half an hour earlier.
El Rey quickly located the hidden note wedged into the crack he’d created two days before in the flimsy surface of the wall and extracted it using the folding blade of a razor-sharp survival knife. Satisfied that he had gotten everything Dinah had left for him, he waited another minute, and then returned the pants to the attendant before unhurriedly strolling out of the store.
Back at his apartment, he pulled the cotton out of the bottom of his cheeks, where he’d stuffed it to form the appearance of jowls, and wiped away the makeup that had completed his transformation into a debauched older man. He scratched absently at his beard as he read Dinah’s small, precise handwriting and smiled. They knew nothing of consequence. His scheme was working perfectly, and there were no loose ends. The president would be dead in due course, and he would retire again, permanently, a very wealthy fellow with abundant time on his hands.
His arm bumped the mouse connected to his laptop, and the screen blinked to life, revealing a set of blueprints and a schematic for the construction of the device that would terminate the
president’s stay on the planet. He’d already ordered the necessary item from eBay in the United States, and the shipping company was due to deliver it within seventy-two hours. Some modification would be required, but that was fine. It would give him something to occupy his idle hands with while he waited for the big day to arrive.
Holding his arms above his head, he stretched and then tossed the cotton balls with the greasepaint on them into the trash. No time to lounge about. He had a meeting tomorrow and wanted to be prepared for anything. That was a big part of why he was successful.
He was always prepared.
Chapter 20
El Rey drifted through the streets of Mexico City like a ghost, blending in with the crowds and avoiding being in any way conspicuous. The morning rush hour was finally over, in the sense that it was ever over in one of the most populated cities in the world, but the sidewalks in the area of town he was navigating were still jammed, as were the streets. Music blared from storefronts hawking women’s clothing, appliances on payment, shoes, pets – every imaginable variety of oddity, all to the beat of Shakira at a hundred-plus decibels.
As he strolled past open-air taco stands, to the heady smell of pastor and grilled onions lingering in the air, he casually eyed his surroundings for any signs of threat. It was automatic, and he scanned each sector in his vicinity with clinical detachment, even as he appeared to be a man without a care in the world, taking in the sights.
He disliked meeting anyone new, but couldn’t see a way to avoid it. He was running up against a deadline and, given the urgency of the situation, he had to rely on Aranas for help in securing the more difficult to acquire goods he’d need for the job. The president’s speech was rapidly approaching and he didn’t have time to source some of the harder to procure materials. It left him with precious little leeway in terms of preparation, but he wasn’t worried. He had come up with a plan that, even by his standards, was audacious.
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