Given the crowd, it was impossible to have the area completely buttoned down. Multi-story buildings everywhere, tens of thousands of people gathered, countless pedestrians moving through the far edges going about their business. It was every security planner’s worst nightmare. Thankfully, the president would only be exposed for a short while, as he made his way from the presidential helicopter to the massive front doors of the cathedral. Then it became a different matter.
Cruz had accompanied the president’s security head as the team had set up the security checkpoint metal detector inside the church, and chained all entries but the main one and the one leading to the vestry. Armed guards monitored the clergy entrance, subjecting the priests and altar boys to the same pat down and search as the general public. In addition to the president, virtually every dignitary in Mexico City was going to be in attendance, so if a terrorist wanted to eliminate the government in a single stroke, a well-timed attack during the service would achieve this with ease.
A team of explosive specialists had gone over the interior of the church all morning with bomb-sniffing dogs, inspecting every nook and cranny for suspicious items. After five hours of intensive searching, they’d turned up nothing. Cruz would almost have felt better if they’d located a device. The anxiety in the pit of his stomach had been building, although he had to admit that there was no evidence of an assassination attempt in play. Now the church was packed, with a hum of murmuring reverential voices vying with the organ music. There was little they could do inside at this point – the mass was imminent.
Briones and he stepped back through security and into the sun, shielding their eyes while surveying the crowd across the empty boulevard. One of the security detail approached them and tapped his watch. They would need to move to the perimeter. The president was due to land in three minutes.
Cruz and Briones walked across the cobblestones to the far edge and waited, Cruz studying the four and five story buildings at the sides of the massive square distrustfully. As he waited for the great man’s arrival, he looked up at the church’s ornate front façade, grimy from exhaust and soot, but still impressive. Built on the site of the main temple of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in the mid-1500s, it had been enlarged over the years and was now easily one of the most impressive sights in the city, as well as being a reminder of the Spanish role in the history of the country.
As Cruz resumed scanning the surroundings, his eye caught a glint in a distant window on the top floor of the Gran Hotel de Mexico, across the street from the most distant corner of the square. Simultaneously, the distinctive sound of a large helicopter battering the air above them intruded into the expanse, echoing off the church and momentarily drowning out the din of the crowd. He squinted and tried to make out what he’d seen at the hotel, but it was no good. Then the downdraft from the chopper caused a dust cloud to blow off the landing area, causing him to cough and close his eyes to fend off the grit. The aircraft touched down and the rotation of the long blades gradually slowed, enabling Cruz to resume his surveillance. He eyed the hotel’s windows and then spotted it again.
There.
Cruz elbowed Briones and leaned in to him.
“Binoculars. Now.”
Briones hesitated for a moment, then lifted the leather strap that held the glasses over his neck and handed them to Cruz. He raised the lenses to his eyes and studied the window that had caught his interest and then handed them to Briones before racing to where the head of security was standing, in preparation for the president’s exit from the aircraft. He cupped his hand over the man’s ear and yelled something, and then the security chief moved his handheld radio to his lips and issued a terse order. The helicopter remained in place, but the doors didn’t open.
Cruz sprinted across the empty boulevard to the sidewalk in front of the hotel, Briones panting in his wake as he struggled to keep up. Three serious-looking men with earbuds and suits carefully tailored to hide their shoulder holsters dovetailed from their positions near the barricades to meet them, and within a minute they were in the lobby of the hotel.
Ignoring the surprised stares from the guests in the sumptuous, centuries-old lobby, Cruz hurriedly approached the reception desk and gave a command to the young uniformed woman. She looked unsure of herself for a moment and then nodded and picked up the phone. After a few hasty sentences, she hung up and regarded him.
“Miguel, the head of maintenance, will meet you on the top floor in two minutes with a passkey. Do you know which room you want?” she asked.
“It’s the fourth from the corner, facing the cathedral,” Cruz answered.
She tapped on her keyboard and pulled up the information.
“Registered to Señor Ricardo Gomez, from San Luis Potosí. Checked in two days ago,” she told him.
Cruz had already motioned to the men and strode to the large, ornate wrought iron elevator that was the showpiece of the spectacular ground floor, its green and gold trim glancing off the sunlight that poured in through the intricate stained-glass roof over the lobby. The hotel was a rough rectangle built around the lobby, with the walkways and room doors facing the atrium.
The elevator creaked to a stop and they got on, with one of the men soundlessly taking the stairs in case their quarry got wind of their arrival and tried to make a stealthy escape.
When they reached the top floor, the maintenance man arrived, having followed the security man up the stairs. They counted the doors, and when they arrived at the suspect one, the group drew their guns. Cruz heard a collective gasp from the crowd in the lobby beneath them, which was now following the unfolding drama with interest. He took three steps over to the railing, holding a finger to his lips, his pistol clutched in his other hand. The people below scattered at the sight of the weapon and made for the exits, which was just as well, he reasoned. If there was going to be a gun battle, it would be best if civilians weren’t in the line of fire.
He returned to his position by the side of the door and indicated for the maintenance man to open it using his universal card key. The man slid the coded rectangle into the card reader, and the light on the lock flicked to green. Cruz motioned for him to move aside, which he didn’t need much encouragement to do, and then quietly gripped the lever and turned it. Once in the open position, he abruptly swung it wide and rolled into the room, gun searching for a target. The rest of the men followed him in, with Briones taking up the rear.
A telescope sat on a tripod, aimed at the cathedral. Next to it, on a chair, lay a laser range finder and an M110 SASS rifle with a custom high-powered scope. An empty golf bag sat in one corner of the room. Cruz gestured to the men to check the bathroom and held his breath while the lead man darted in, pistol first, and then emerged a few seconds later, shaking his head. Briones swung the door of the eight-foot-tall armoire open, but it was empty except for an overnight bag and a shirt. The assassin had fled.
Cruz unclipped the radio from his belt and gave a quick summary to the security chief, and watched through the telescope as the president and his bodyguards exited the helicopter and made their way into the church.
“Don’t touch anything. I want a forensics team in here as soon as possible. It looks like we interrupted El Rey and made him scramble, which means that there’s a chance we’ll pick up some valuable evidence,” he ordered. Briones fished his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and made a hushed call.
He hung up after a short discussion. “Twenty minutes, and they’ll be here.”
“Guard the room. I don’t want anyone in here until they arrive. Is that clear?” Cruz demanded.
Everyone nodded, and he stalked out. They had prevented a shooting, but missed their quarry yet again.
The elevator ride down was mercifully brief, and when he got to the ground floor he advised the front desk girl that the room was a crime scene and then interrogated her on when she had last seen the elusive Señor Gomez, as well as probing for a description. She didn’t have a lot of detail she could offer, and
she hadn’t seen Gomez since yesterday afternoon. Which did them no good at all.
Cruz left Briones to finish the questions and exited the hotel, making a beeline back to where the helicopter sat.
~
El Rey watched the flurry of activity at the main entrance of the hotel, as the crowd of guests emptied out through the exits with looks of fear on their faces. It would just be a matter of minutes until the police discovered the weapon, and then the fun would start. He had planned a nice diversion to keep everyone occupied, and they had fallen for the bait. Now they would be less vigilant for the remainder of the mass, concentrating on their shocking new find instead. Word of the assassination attempt would spread through the gathered security, and they would ratchet their guard down, just a little. Of course, as he knew, that was when it was most dangerous – the moment everyone decided it wasn’t.
A small boy bumped his leg, jostling the long blue robe, and he looked down at him and smiled. The little tike smiled back uncertainly, and then grabbed his father’s hand. The pair continued their trip down the sidewalk, away from the church, a hundred and fifty yards across the square.
El Rey moved to his pre-planned point at a sidewalk coffee shop and took a seat, placing the briefcase he was carrying on the table. When the waitress approached him, he asked for something out of the sun, so she moved one of the tables to a position right by the building. He thanked her and ordered a sparkling water as he pulled his chair against the concrete so his back was to the wall, and he was facing the packed square.
She returned with his bottle of water and a glass, and he cheerfully paid her, telling her to keep the change. Happy with his generosity, she departed and went back inside the shop, leaving him to his thoughts.
He watched the crowd across the street in the square, already losing interest given there was nothing to see now that the president had gone inside the church, and easily picked out the plainclothes security men. It was always childishly simple to do so.
Seeing no immediate threat and satisfied that they had their hands full with the mob of humanity, he opened the briefcase and connected the cable inside to a jack on the case lid, which he’d run wire through, making the entire top an antenna. Glancing at his watch, he calculated he had another twenty minutes before the mass would be over. He softly closed the briefcase, leaving it unlatched and connected, and reconciled himself to waiting.
Reaching through a slit in the side of the heavy robe, he rummaged in the pocket of his shorts for a small smart phone, extracted it and placed it on the table. He looked around and, detecting no interested observers, pressed a series of keys.
The screen illuminated, and he was suddenly watching the ceremony taking place inside the church – an aerial view. He reached into another pocket and pulled out a cord with an earplug and plugged it into the audio jack so he could enjoy the show.
Chapter 29
The interior of the cathedral was flamboyantly ornate; a showpiece of opulence as a tribute to the place the Catholic Church had held in the hearts of the populace over the centuries. The bishop of Mexico City was saying the mass, his deep voice reverberating off the walls and the high, arched ceiling.
The president sat in the front pew, a bodyguard on either side, his wife still recovering from surgery a week before and resting easily at home. He listened attentively to the sermon, a treatise on the power of perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds and of the Lord’s unconditional love for those who accepted Jesus into their hearts. It was certainly not a new idea, but the bishop was able to infuse it with sufficient enthusiasm and poignancy to make it interesting enough to keep the faithful awake.
An occasional cough or baby’s burble echoed through the church, and clothes rustled and shoes scraped the floor as the congregation kneeled, stood and sat at the appropriate times. At least twenty security men stood on either side of the long hall, with several in the center aisle, where they could head off any hazard.
Eventually it was time for communion, and the crowd lined up behind the president at the head of the queue. Nine minutes later everyone had returned to their pews, and the bishop said his closing piece, asking the congregation to remain seated while the president made his way down the aisle and out through the front doors.
~
El Rey watched as the ceremony drew to a close, and the president and his group stood and began moving down the aisle. He waited a few more seconds, and then opened the briefcase and pushed a button, immediately fiddling with the joystick and other controls of the panel he’d recessed into the case.
~
The president was three quarters of the way down the aisle when something made a snapping sound in the chandelier above him, and part of it fell towards him, dropping onto the cold stone floor a few feet away. The unmistakable shape of a hand grenade clattered to a stop next to one of the pews nearest the entrance doors, causing instant panic as those seated nearest it screamed and scrambled to get away.
Two of the security men grabbed the president by both arms and ran at full speed for the entry, while another threw himself on the grenade, willingly giving his life to spare the president and the crowd horrific carnage. Pandemonium erupted as the congregation stampeded towards the altar, as far from the grenade as space would allow. Women tripped and men dragged them along as they scrambled for safety. A few climbed over the pews before throwing themselves flat on the benches in the hopes that the heavy, ancient wood could protect them.
Within a matter of seconds the president was at the heavy wooden doors. His men shouldered them open, racing against time to get him out before the grenade detonated and the house of worship became a slaughterhouse.
~
El Rey pulled the earphone out and placed it on the table next to the phone as he watched the chaos in the church. Satisfied with the panic, he turned his attention to the hotel and craned his neck to see above the building. A lone crow stood at the edge of the hotel roof, peering curiously down at the scene below. Startled by something moving behind it, the bird took flight, spreading its wings and flapping off over the top of the cathedral. El Rey watched its trajectory with a vague sense of unease, and then returned his focus to the roof, where he couldn’t see anything but the building’s façade.
Frustrated, he stood, still maneuvering the levers in the briefcase, and then caught sight of the president bursting out of the church and moving at flank speed to his waiting aircraft. The pilot hadn’t had time to start the engine again; startled by the abrupt exodus, he began flipping switches in preparation to power up.
A muffled explosion sounded from inside the cathedral. The grenade had detonated, causing unknown casualties and damage. El Rey couldn’t take his eyes off the unfolding drama in front of the church to check the result on the phone screen.
Halfway to the chopper, the president stumbled; his bodyguards lifted him from where he’d fallen painfully against the cobblestones. Whatever it was that was taking place in the church, they were safe. They hauled him upright without ceremony. He bent down and patted his knee, where the fabric of his Canali suit pants had torn, and his hand came away with blood. One of his detail barked a few words, and he began limping to the copter, one arm around the closest bodyguard.
El Rey glanced skyward again and his eyes caught the distinctive shape of the four foot remote controlled helicopter hovering over the roof of the Gran Hotel, fifty feet above the street. He thrust one of the joysticks forward, and it made a course for the front of the church, accelerating until it covered the distance in under fifteen seconds. He twisted a knob to increase the blade pitch for maximum speed and had to adjust for a light wind gusting off the square, but quickly corrected as he brought the craft to bear.
The president was nearly at his chopper’s door when his bodyguard at the church doors screamed a warning. The president and his two men swung around in puzzlement, trying to spot the danger, and then with a look of terror the president pointed into the sky, where he’d caught movement in the pe
riphery of his vision. One of the men tried to pull him out of the way, but it was too late. A bright orange fireball exploded a few feet from where he stood, obliterating everything for a twenty foot radius and peppering the fuselage of the presidential helicopter with shrapnel and bloody bits of flesh.
The crowd went crazy and rushed the barricades, knocking back the steel frames and causing a near riot. Screaming and cries of panic filled the air as El Rey stood and closed the briefcase, then slid by the chair and began walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction from the church, the phone and case abandoned now that they had done their job.
~
Cruz had watched in impotent horror from his vantage point on the empty boulevard as the oversized model helicopter zoomed silently across the square and went into a high speed dive at the church. When the detonation came, he knew instinctively it was too late to save anyone. The police helicopters hovering overhead weren’t any good against something that small and nimble, even if given time to react.
He swung around, studying the huge square and the people panicking, eyes searching for El Rey. He had to be there. Remote controlled airplanes and cars always required the antenna for the control box to be in direct line of sight, and they were generally limited to a hundred and fifty yards of effective range. That meant the assassin had to be within a hundred and fifty yards of both the hotel and the church. Cruz did a quick mental calculation and determined that he either had to be on his side of the square midway down the block, or on the far side of the square in roughly the same area, midway between the hotel and the cathedral.
Revenge of the Assassin Page 22