Return of the Assassin (Assassin Series 3)

by Blake, Russell

  The door to the meeting room opened, interrupting his ruminations. Hector entered, trailed by his two shadows, who were lugging the equipment he’d requested. They set the gear on the table and watched as he methodically checked each item before sliding it off to one side.

  The inspection took fifteen minutes. Satisfied that he had everything he needed, he closed the lid on the final container and turned to Hector.

  “I will need to get to the airport immediately.”

  “I assumed so. We need to know where you’re going so the crew can file a flight plan,” Hector said.

  “Culiacán, of course. The heart of the Sinaloa cartel. If I’m going to get answers, I’ll need to start there. Now, how do I get in touch with you when I need my injection? That’s the loose end so far,” El Rey warned.

  “Use the cell phone I gave you.” Hector patted his breast pocket. “I’ll get someone to you within twenty-four hours, if not sooner.”

  “I still think you should give me the syringe. I might be somewhere you can’t easily reach me.”

  “Don’t be. I understand the onset of symptoms is highly unpleasant.”

  It was pointless to argue. They obviously intended to keep him on a short leash.

  El Rey had verified the signed presidential pardon was everything he’d demanded and had made arrangements for an attorney to keep the original under lock and key. He’d also made a copy of it and uploaded it into an e-mail program. It wasn’t foolproof as a deterrent, but it would have to do. The truth was that if the government really wanted to screw him, it would find a way.

  “Have a car waiting in ten minutes. We’ve wasted enough time. Is there anything else?” El Rey asked. He pulled the stack of money Hector had set down towards him and methodically counted the bundles of pesos and dollars, then slid them into the bag with the rest of his gear.

  “No. Check in every day if you can and update us. We can only help you if we know what you’re doing.”

  “Guaranteed you’ll hear from me. I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

  “That’s the whole idea.”

  ~

  A haze of pollution created the illusion of an orange full moon over Mexico City. On the outskirts, the dust from unpaved dirt roads worsened the effect, presenting chronic respiratory problems for the unlucky residents. Living downtown resulted in the same damage to the residents’ lungs as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day; the average life expectancy of Chilangos, as they were called, was ten years shorter than in other Mexican cities.

  Traffic noise had faded as the night wore on, the clamor of population slowing once the dinner hour had come and gone. One by one, the lights went out in the shabby little homes on the periphery of the valley as the tired habitants settled in for sleep.

  The target was located in a rural industrial district with no streetlights and only grudging illumination provided by an occasional lamp mounted for security on one of the compounds’ fortified gates. Even the inevitable stray dogs in the neighborhood avoided the darkened streets once the workers had gone home, preferring to forage in the squalid residential district a quarter mile away. The breeze had a smell of toxicity: a dead, chemical aroma of petroleum, solvents and nastiness.

  Three security guards armed with shotguns roamed the grounds of the target at night. A cursory records search had revealed that the company had paperwork for the weapons, so the operators were trying to do everything by the book. Strings had been pulled to obtain them, and money had surely changed hands because gun possession in Mexico was ordinarily a felony that carried harsh penalties; getting permits for a business was almost unheard of outside of armored currency transport and bodyguards.

  Cruz watched from inside a specially equipped oversized box van as the army trucks moved into position on the perimeter road. From the passenger seat, he nodded to the soldiers as his vehicles rolled past the hastily erected checkpoints.

  The command center vehicle coasted to a stop two hundred yards from the compound gates in a dark area beneath a cluster of shabby trees. The screens in the rear sprang to life as two technicians trained the surveillance vehicle’s low-profile roof cameras on the walls.

  Cruz glanced at the luminescent face of the dashboard clock. Ten fifty-seven. Three short minutes and all hell would break loose.

  The water tower camera feeds had become redundant once night had fallen, with illumination in the compound limited to a few lamps mounted on the walls. The large chemical holding tanks were hulking dark forms in the gloom, and the only activity they’d been able to monitor had been a delivery truck that had rolled out at nine thirty, just before the last of the main building’s lights had been extinguished.

  The GAFE commandos and federal police were scheduled to arrive in two minutes.

  Cruz’s radio crackled.

  “We’ll be on top of you in a blink. Any last minute reprieves?” Briones’ distinctive voice asked.

  Cruz depressed the transmit button on the handset. “Negative. Let’s get it over with.”

  A line of armored vehicles swung around the corner and approached the van, slowing as they passed. In the lead, four Humvees packed with grim-faced GAFE commandos rolled down the road towards the steel gates, followed by two ERC-90 armored assault vehicles that resembled nothing so much as tanks. Seven Ford Lobo pickup trucks brought up the rear with the federal police strike force riding in the beds, the officers’ body armor giving them the appearance of storm troopers from a futuristic science fiction film.

  When the convoy reached the gates, a Federal jumped out of the lead truck and pounded on them. Three of the GAFE commandos had descended from their perches and moved into position alongside him, ready to engage if shooting started.

  A puzzled security guard slid open a tiny hatch in the gate and peered out, eyes widening when he saw the small army on the other side. After a hurried set of barked orders from the federal policeman, he nodded and, anti-climactically, slid the gates open with a heave. As instructed, he’d placed his shotgun on the ground, and stood in wonder as the procession rolled past him towards the far end of the complex.

  One of the Federales snatched up his shotgun and wound a set of plastic tie wraps around his wrists. The other two security men came running when they heard the commotion, but quickly dropped their weapons, wanting no part of whatever was taking place. Briones hopped out of the last truck and approached the men.

  “How do we get the gate open on the inside compound?” Briones demanded.

  The first guard shook his head. “We’re forbidden to go near it. All we’ve been told is there’s special security in place. We aren’t allowed within a hundred yards of the walls, so I don’t know.”

  Briones cursed under his breath and then radioed the news. Cruz had anticipated the issue and gave them the go-ahead to knock down the gate and gain entry however they could.

  The darkened vehicles moved towards the high concrete walls; without slowing, the lead Humvee crashed into the iron gates, using its heavy steel bumper as a battering ram. All the Humvees had reinforced bumpers for exactly that purpose. After the initial impact, the doors sagged inward. One final run at it, and they sprang open.

  Gunfire immediately erupted from inside the main largest concrete building, exploding from the dozen small windows that punctuated the façade. Bullets slammed into the Humvees, and several of the GAFE commandos went down with pained grunts. The ERC-90s swung around and brought their heavy machine guns to bear, even as the fifty-caliber guns on the Humvees returned fire.

  Within moments, the shells from the ERC-90s tore into the structure, but the firing from inside continued. The walls didn’t fall away as cinder block would have. These had been reinforced using high-density concrete and rebar, making it as tough as freeway overpass support columns.

  As the hail of rounds pummeled the fortifications, several of the commandos fired grenades at the windows. Two made it inside.

  The whump of the blasts silenced the gunfire within, and then a conc
ussive eruption blew a massive orange fireball into the air. Even from outside the compound walls, Cruz’s ears popped from the shockwave. Two more explosions hurled flames into the inky sky, and black oily smoke belched from the now ruined building.

  “What the fu–” the driver exclaimed as another blast shattered the night.

  The radio crackled in Cruz’s hand.

  “Base. The target has been destroyed. Detonations from inside. Over.” Briones sounded panicked.

  Cruz keyed the radio transmit button. “Get back over here, now. That whole area has poisonous chemicals in the storage tanks. Nothing could have survived that, so clear out to a safe distance and I’ll get on the horn with the fire department and also get a hazmat team deployed.” Cruz paused, the implications of the destruction sinking in. “They blew the lab. That’s the only answer.”

  “God damn it.”

  “Move. There could be more explosions. I don’t want any more casualties. Pull back. Repeat. Pull back.”

  Briones wiped away a trickle of blood from one of his earlobes and screamed commands, his ears ringing to the point where he could hardly make out his own voice. The rest of the assault force slowly pulled itself together and reversed away from the inferno, returning to the front gate through which it had entered. The skyline was a vision of hell, flames shooting skyward as smaller eruptions continued from the burning outline of the concrete building, the roof blown apart and now open to the night.

  The assault vehicles pulled up to the command center van. Briones leapt out, staring at the chemical fire spewing toxins into the sky. Army vehicles filled with soldiers awaiting instructions screeched to a dusty halt, the quiet of the preceding minutes replaced by pandemonium. Several smaller blasts sounded from within the compound’s walls – the chemical tanks were starting to go.

  The cartel had obviously been prepared to destroy the laboratory, and it didn’t surprise Cruz that the defenders had willingly given their lives in the process. That was one of the things that made Los Zetas extremely dangerous. They routinely did the unthinkable, whether it was grenade attacks in populated areas or massacres in busy casinos or butchering hundreds of innocents who happened to cross them.

  The explosive charges must have been set in position as part of the lab’s defenses. There was no other possibility.

  Cruz caught Briones’ eye, and shook his head. The futility of the exercise was disheartening.

  All they could do now was mop up the mess.

  He climbed out of the van and approached the commanding army officer.

  It was going to be another endless night.

  Chapter 11

  The sun rose over the mountains that ringed the Culiacán valley, bringing with it a summer heat that could easily reach triple digits. As morning arrived, the silence of the drowsing city was replaced by the rumble of buses and the hum of traffic, the early morning rush hour quickly clogging the streets with an endless procession of vehicles.

  The capital of the state of Sinaloa, Culiacán was a city famous for its tomatoes, its marijuana, and its attractive population. The metropolis was burgeoning, now with a population of over a million, in spite of the violence pulsing in this heart of the Sinaloa cartel’s territory and operations.

  Relentlessly modern, shopping malls and convenience stores abounded, and the waves of pedestrians moving down the sidewalks on their way to work sported fashionable clothing as they chatted on cell phones or texted away on iPhones. This was not old colonial Mexico, with white-garbed peasants in sombreros leading reluctant overloaded burros to market through cobblestone streets. Mercedes and BMW sedans glided along the teeming boulevards, completing the sense of prosperity and progress and bustle.

  El Rey made his way down the sidewalk, still groggy after snatching only a few hours of sleep.

  Upon landing in Culiacan, he’d gotten settled at a small industrial workshop that had been arranged for his use, and checked into a hotel by the airport under his newly-minted name. Once he had stowed his gear, he’d driven his rental car to the downtown area to spend several hours nosing around his old haunts.

  Some things never changed, and by midnight he’d gotten a line on the latest hangout for some of the cartel bigwigs – a club on the edge of town called El Tucan; a seedy establishment best avoided unless one was a member of the underworld or had a death wish. It was owned by a lieutenant in the Sinaloa cartel, Andres Zaraspe, also known as ‘El Guapo’ – the sexy one – because of his refined good looks and charming manner with the ladies. Zaraspe had a reputation as a Don Juan, and it certainly didn’t hurt that he was worth many millions from his illegal activities.

  El Rey had braved the crowd at El Tucan, putting up with the clumsy advances of the inevitable prostitutes until he’d gotten a fix on El Guapo, who’d been holding court in a corner of the club, surrounded by his entourage of bodyguards. Once El Rey had identified the drug lord, he finished his beer and departed, circling back to stake the bar out from across the road.

  At two seventeen a.m., El Guapo had left with his crew, and by two thirty his soldiers were dead and he was bound and gagged in the rental car’s trunk.

  Several hours after they’d embarked on an earnest discussion in a moonlit field seven miles from town, El Rey had been satisfied that El Guapo had told him the truth about Paolo’s whereabouts – being forced to eat your own nose and ears tended to ensure a certain veracity, he’d found.

  After begging for his ordeal to end, El Guapo had blazed bright even as his shrieks had filled the night, the five gallons of gasoline he’d been doused with ensuring that the last moments of his life were the most memorable of them all.

  The effort had been worth it, as now El Rey had a line on one of the cartel captains who was known to work closely with Don Aranas.

  Paolo Ramirez had been with the Don since the early days, when they had all been working for Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, the original Godfather of the illegal drug trade in Mexico. When Gallardo had split up the growing industry and segmented the country into territories for his loyal subordinates, Don Aranas had gotten the job of directing the plum Sinaloa cartel, originally at the top of the criminal hierarchy.

  After Gallardo had gone to prison for life, Aranas had stepped into the position of supreme authority, but within a few years, the heads of the other cartels had agitated for larger cuts of the profits, and eventually a series of ugly internecine skirmishes had escalated into full-scale turf wars.

  Through it all, Don Aranas had ruled the Sinaloa cartel with an iron fist. It had grown into the most powerful cartel in the world, expanding its reach into Africa and Europe to create trafficking arms to supply the growing demand in the former Soviet Union and the European Union, as well as throughout Central America.

  In a world where many of the cartel heads had been killed or captured, Aranas and his group seemed untouchable, and he was one of the richest men in the world. While official estimates of the wholesale value of drugs trafficked through the Mexican cartels deliberately pegged the numbers low, ranging from twenty to fifty billion dollars per year, the true value was double that, and projected to explode now Europe had come on line.

  The Mexican cartels had developed relationships with regional gangs in the U.S. and had operations in every American city – an inevitable function of economics, as the profits on the retail side could triple to quadruple the wholesale trade. The price of a kilo of cocaine had doubled over the last decade in the U.S., further swelling the cartel coffers.

  If anyone would be on the inside and know of Maria’s whereabouts, Paolo would be one of the few. As one of Aranas’ right hand men, he single-handedly ran the Sinaloa cartel’s Culiacán and Mazatlán operations, and as such was a tremendously important player. Unfortunately for the assassin, Paolo was cut from the same bolt of cloth as his mentor, Don Aranas, and kept a low profile, eschewing the nightlife and ostentation that the younger cartel players reveled in, preferring to keep to himself. He was hardly ever seen, and nobody knew
where his headquarters were located – like Aranas, he understood that a moving target was harder to hit, so constantly changed his residences and his meeting places.

  El Guapo had solved the problem of how to find Paolo and had given the assassin exhaustive directions to a home in the hills south of Culiacán, in a remote and secluded area. Now El Rey was preoccupied with how best to get to Paolo – the cartel warlord had at least two dozen ex-special forces soldiers on his payroll chartered with keeping him safe, and as El Rey knew from firsthand experience, these were serious, hardened fighters who wouldn’t be easy to defeat. One man against twenty-plus, even if it was El Rey, amounted to considerable odds, and his brain was busily turning over how to penetrate the formidable security and interrogate Paolo without getting killed in the process.

  He’d have ordinarily taken days, or weeks, to study the layout and calculate the optimum approach, but the clock was ticking on the neurotoxin in his veins. Fortunately, he wasn’t working alone anymore and had a powerful partner who could prove invaluable for a cruder approach than his usual.

  El Rey moved through the stream of pedestrians like a ghost as he made his way to one of his favorite restaurants for breakfast. It had been a demanding evening, but even so, a plan was beginning to gel.

  El Guapo had described the complex in detail, including the high-tech surveillance equipment and the perimeter mine field. Paolo didn’t take the danger from the government or his rivals lightly and had spared no expense in fortifying his homes.

  By the time he was done with his eggs, El Rey had developed a workable plan. It would require some help, and would probably be messy and inelegant, but he didn’t have a lot of choices.

  He reached into his pants pocket for the BlackBerry and powered it on. Hector picked up on the second ring, and El Rey softly described what he would need, and when.