Return of the Assassin (Assassin Series 3)

by Blake, Russell

  Only once he was smoking did he notice the two men, forty yards away in their structure inside the gate, a meager glow flickering from a portable black and white television inside.

  “Oye. You, over there. Do you have a flashlight?” he called in a rasp worn by years of hardship.

  “Fuck off. Deal with your own problems,” one of the guards called back to him.

  “I think I can – it’s the carburetor again. But I can’t fix it if I can’t see. Come on, guys, please. All I need is a little light…”

  The two guards exchanged a glance, and then the shorter of the two shrugged. It was either help the loser out, or have a truck parked across from their gate all night, and possibly all day tomorrow. Given how much the boss loved his privacy, that wouldn’t sit well.

  He leaned under the counter supporting the little TV and pulled out a large battery-powered spotlight. Resting his Heckler and Koch MP7 submachine gun against his chair back, he opened the wooden door and reluctantly made his way to the main gate. After fiddling with the unwieldy ring of keys, he unclasped the heavy padlock and moved the iron gate open far enough to squeeze through, then trudged across the road to the dilapidated truck.

  The silenced low velocity slug from the driver’s pistol tore half his face off, entering below his right cheekbone and shredding through the lower part of his skull. A dozen muffled slugs from the truck’s makeshift cargo container slammed into the guard house, several pummeling the hapless sentry before he had time to squeeze off a burst. Another salvo destroyed the security camera mounted on the stone posts, and then, just as suddenly as the onslaught began, it was over.

  Eight men in head-to-toe black leapt from the rear of the truck, and sixty seconds later two SUVs pulled to a stop. A dozen commandos jumped out, all carrying sound-suppressed M4 assault rifles with grenade launchers, and toting backpacks with grenades and explosives. More troops emptied from the back of the truck, and two hefted heavy machine guns, ammo belts slung across their shoulders. A final personnel carrier rounded the bend, towing a trailer carrying a dozen blacked-out dirt bikes. The men hurriedly rolled them off the road and pushed them through the gates, out of sight from any casual passers-by.

  Four of the commandos peeled off inside the walls and jogged down the private drive in the direction of the second guard outpost. Within fifteen minutes, the two dead guards at the main guardhouse would miss their assigned checkin, so the soldiers had only that much time, at most, to make it a mile and a half, if they were to dispatch the second guards before they could sound the alarm.

  Standing with his men by the motorcycles, the team leader checked his watch and then keyed his helmet mike, switching the transmitter to an encrypted long range channel. He uttered a clipped sentence, waiting for acknowledgement before changing the frequency to local again.

  Twenty-seven thousand feet above the drama being played out on the road, a gray Lockheed C-130 Hercules roared through the clouds. Inside, the green jump light illuminated and six men hurtled out of the behemoth into the cold sky, the frigid air tearing at their insulated jumpsuits as they spread apart from one another, their pattern allowing for room for their parachutes to deploy when they were within range of the target. Each jumper was equipped with oxygen and specially-fabricated goggles to further protect them from the altitude’s effects, but even so, it was like being dropped into an ice bath after the warmth of the plane’s interior.

  The darkened hulk continued on its way, two of its turbo-props idling to minimize the noise reaching the ground. It had been gauged unlikely that the sound of a distant plane would raise any sort of alarm on the ground, but the pilots were taking no chances. It gently banked to return to Culiacán, where it had been brought in especially for this mission, its crew under instructions to wait at the airport there for further orders once it touched down.

  The formation of black-clad jumpers exceeded terminal velocity in the thin atmosphere, cutting through two hundred miles per hour on their way to three, and the temperature of the surrounding air slowly began to warm from sub-zero. They would wait until they were only a few thousand feet above the target before deploying their chutes, by which time, if everything went according to plan, the men guarding the compound would be too busy to be scanning the heavens for the unimaginable.

  El Rey studied his wrist-mounted GPS/compass combo and made a few adjustments to his fall, forcing himself south another three hundred yards. He could only hope that the men above him were paying as much attention and would do the same. All he could focus on was his own trajectory – the members of the GAFE who shared his drop into the unknown were all seasoned professionals who had done high altitude jumps countless times before, so they were as competent as it got.

  The atmosphere thickened as he passed through fifteen thousand feet, and then ten. He could make out the distinctive flashes of a gunfight in the gloom beneath him. Tiny orange blossoms lit up the dark jungle surrounding the main house and the inner perimeter wall. All the lights had been extinguished as the battle raged, which he had expected – the men defending the hacienda were highly trained, and they wouldn’t make rookie mistakes like providing light for their assailants to use against them.

  The small altimeter on his left wrist told him he was at two thousand feet. Bracing, he pulled his ripcord, the black rectangular canopy chute snapping him sharply as it slowed his drop from two hundred feet per second. He immediately pulled off his oxygen mask, and from the zippered compartment in his harness, he fished out night vision goggles, pulling them carefully over his head and powering them on. The world was suddenly bathed in green luminescence, the outline of the buildings clear. He adjusted his descent so he would alight on the flat roof of the main house. Thankfully, there were no sentries up top, the guards now fully engaged far from his landing point.

  He pulled on the two chute handles as the roof rushed to meet him and alighted silently in a textbook maneuver. Even before the momentum had completely stopped he was hitting the harness release and swinging his MTAR-21 compact assault rifle around to where it would do him some good. He shrugged out of the straps and, without breaking stride, moved to the building’s edge before looking up into the sky, where he could make out the other members of his drop team floating soundlessly towards the roof. Satisfied that none of the gunmen below had seen him, he stripped off the insulated jumpsuit and oxygen and tossed it on top of his parachute to hold it in place.

  He heard a set of boots clump onto the concrete near him, and then another, and another. Once the other five jumpers were accounted for, El Rey clicked his com line active and whispered a confirmation.

  The cartel gunmen were firing in disciplined bursts at the assailants who had penetrated their defenses, unaware of the lethal group that was now in their midst. But rather than engage, the men on the roof waited, and two minutes later, the distinctive thumping sound of large helicopter blades raced towards them from the south. First one gunship, and then another, swept over the tree line and began mowing down the exposed defenders with their three thousand round per minute machine guns.

  Upon seeing the helicopters join the fray, the men on the roof opened fire, and while they were mowing down the gunmen, El Rey dropped a black nylon rope over the side of the house and slid down, firing a single short burst at a lone cartel guard. The assassin’s job wasn’t to participate in the annihilation or engage the enemy – it was to locate Paolo and take him alive.

  A few swift strides and he reached a dark brown wood and glass side door near what looked like the kitchen. He grappled with the handle and swung it open. The lights in the house were off, but the night vision goggles worked their magic and he could see everything as if it were neon green daylight.

  He moved through the massive living room, the sound of the gunfire outside now just a few argumentative chatters, and stealthily crept down the hall towards what he knew from studying the aerial photos had to be the owner’s wing.

  At the far end a telltale scrape signaled the bedroom
door cracking open – he slammed himself against the wall as an explosion of automatic rifle fire hurtled down the passageway. He dropped to the floor and fired at his assailant’s leg-level as the door slammed shut and was rewarded with a sharp cry followed by a muffled thud.

  He ran to the door and hurled himself through it with all his might, smashing it open before tucking and rolling. Another burst of gunfire shot over his head, and a ricochet grazed his Kevlar vest; he answered the volley by kicking the shooter in the head with his boot. A grunt was quickly followed by the gun dropping from unconscious hands as the figure slumped to the side by the door hinges.

  El Rey slid the rifle away from the inert form using his foot while simultaneously sweeping the room with his weapon, searching for other threats.

  He heard a frightened whimper from the far doorway.

  A woman.

  “Come out and I won’t shoot. But if you have a weapon, toss it in here before you exit.” He saw a ribbon of blinding light beneath the bathroom door. “Turn the light out and do as I say, or make your peace with your maker. You have three seconds,” he said.

  After a few moments of hesitation the door inched open and a snub nose revolver clattered against the travertine floor. A young naked woman with long raven hair holding a towel against her chest stepped slowly out. She bumped into a nightstand, and El Rey was reminded that without night vision gear it was pitch black in the room. He looked up at the wall near the door he’d just rolled through and spotted a light switch.

  “Stay still. Don’t move,” he said and then got to his feet, kicking the unconscious man’s rifle farther off to the side. “We are going to stay very quiet, and not do anything stupid, until all the shooting is over, okay? Nice and easy. I can see you, so when I give the word, move to the bed and lie on it, face down. Don’t make a sound. If you do as I say, you’ll live to see tomorrow. If you don’t, you’ll be dead before you can blink.”

  She looked like she understood, her mouth involuntarily forming a horrified O.

  “On the count of three, okay? One, two, three.”

  The girl moved unsteadily, feeling her way to the bed, and then lay down as instructed.

  “Is there anyone else in the house with you?” he asked quietly.

  “No. Only him,” she whispered.

  “Paolo?”

  “That’s right.”

  They waited like that, El Rey watching the motionless form of the cartel boss, blood pooling under his legs where at least two bullets had shattered his tibias. The gunfire had stopped outside, and after a few minutes, the assassin’s com line crackled.

  “Clear.”

  The commandos had instructions to stay outside of the house. Inside was El Rey’s domain, to attend to his business as he saw fit. Theirs was threat containment outside the doors and to ensure that he remained undisturbed as he went about his work.

  He pushed the transmit button on his helmet. “I’m sending one person out. A woman. Take her and pull back to the perimeter, but leave a few men at the house to make sure it’s clean. After that, wait for me. I’ll be a while,” he said and then flipped up his night vision goggles and turned on the light switch.

  Paolo’s legs were a mess, and he was bleeding freely onto the floor. El Rey had to stop that if he was going to keep him alive long enough the get the information he’d come for. He reached behind him into his backpack and extracted another length of black rope, and with one eye on the girl, knelt by the drug lord’s fallen bulk.

  “Keep lying there. Don’t move until I say you can. Once I do, grab your clothes, put them on, and when you’re done, you’re going to move out of this room and walk out the front door. Nobody will hurt you. Do you understand?”

  She was sobbing quietly into the mattress. “Uh huh.”

  He looped the rope around Paolo’s left thigh and cinched it tight, until the blood stopped pouring out of the wound on that leg. Satisfied that his makeshift tourniquet was going to work, he repeated the procedure on the other. The exsanguination stopped, he felt the man’s neck for a pulse and felt a faint beating.

  Good. He would live. For at least a while longer.

  “Stand up and get dressed. Now,” he instructed the girl.

  She rose, blinking, and hurried over to where her pants and top were draped over a chair. She was dressed within seconds and stood watching him, waiting for instructions.

  “Okay. Let me slide my friend here to one side, and then you walk without stopping to the front of the house and out the door. Don’t stop on the way. If you do, or if I suspect any trickery, I’ll shoot you. If you scream or otherwise annoy me, I’ll shoot you. If you were lying about being alone in the house, I’ll come outside and shoot you. Is that clear?”

  She nodded, petrified, her eyes darting from his helmeted face to the bloody cartel honcho.

  “Go.”

  She padded, barefoot, to the door and then moved cautiously down the long hallway to the salon. He heard the front door open, then his com line crackled again.

  “We’ve got her.”

  “Good. Send in a three man team and check the house. I don’t want any surprises. I’m in the master bedroom at the far end of the south hall, so stay away from that door – you can’t miss it. Just avoid the one with all the bullet holes. Go through the rest of the house and let me know when it’s all clear.”

  He heard the men conducting their search, going room to room.

  After a few minutes the word came over his headphone. “You’re good to go.”

  “All right. Pull back. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”

  He bound Paolo’s wrists, and then moved through the house, looking for items that would prove useful for his interrogation. After a few minutes in the attached garage, he returned with a drill, a soldering iron, a bread knife and a bottle of ammonia. He placed the items on the nightstand and then pulled the closest chair towards him, and then hoisted Paolo onto it.

  As Paolo stirred, the assassin busied himself binding him with a roll of duct tape he’d found in the garage.

  El Rey opened the bottle of ammonia and held it under Paolo’s nose. His eyes flew open and he sputtered, jerking his head, fighting against his binding. El Rey stood in front of him, watching him calmly. He slowly pulled off his helmet, set it on the bed and grinned.

  “Hello, Paolo. I’m sorry to intrude in such a presumptuous manner, but I don’t have a lot of time and my errand is an urgent one. I’m El Rey. You’ve no doubt heard of me. So you know that when I tell you I could easily kill you in the most horrifyingly painful way imaginable, I am not lying. I have no reason to hurt you any more than necessary, though, so I’ll make this simple. I require information, and the sooner I’m convinced that you’ve told me everything you know, the sooner this will be over. I will not kill you unless I have to. But you will wish you were dead – you’ll beg for death, unless you cooperate,” El Rey explained matter-of-factly.

  Paolo’s pupils contracted to pinpricks, and his brow beaded with sweat. His bottom lip trembled, and color returned to his face through the waves of pain from his ruined legs. “This is impossible.”

  El Rey shook his head and studied the implements spread on the bed.

  At first Paolo showed remarkable commitment to Aranas. El Rey honestly believed the Don would have been honored by the level of loyalty he inspired.

  Three hours later, El Rey was satisfied that the drug lord had nothing left to hide. He used the bed sheets to wipe the blood splatter off his face and hands, and stripped off the clear plastic raincoat he’d brought with him for the interrogation. Paolo hadn’t gone easily, but in the end, he’d told what he knew. They always did.

  As he exited the house, flames licking out the windows, there was a dull thump, and then an explosion from the open propane valves in the kitchen igniting. To the weary commandos watching him stroll from the house as a neon fireball blew a hundred feet in the air, taking most of the roof with it in a hail of shards flung into the sky, it
looked as though the devil himself was approaching, clad head to toe in black, trailing a cape of fire and destruction, straight out of hell.

  Chapter 13

  Cruz sipped his coffee as he sat at his desk, carefully considering how to proceed now that the surprising turn of events had pulled the El Rey investigation out of his hands. He had never heard of CISEN taking over a manhunt or an investigation and had no doubt that whatever was going on was unlikely to result in the assassin’s capture. The question in his mind was why.

  Briones knocked softly on his door. Cruz responded by inviting him in. “Close it, would you please?”

  Briones pulled it softly shut behind him.

  “Coffee?” Cruz asked, beckoning to his meeting table in the far corner of the office.

  Briones shook his head. “No, thanks. It gets me jittery if I drink too much, and I’m way over my limit already today,” he smiled, “and it’s not even lunch time yet…”

  They took seats, and Cruz took another gulp of coffee before broaching the subject that had been nagging at him.

  “As you know, the El Rey investigation has been shifted from our task force. So officially, our interest and involvement in the matter is over,” Cruz began.

  “I still don’t understand that. Was it just me, or was the whole explanation that another group was going to handle it vague, to put it mildly? Besides, who knows El Rey better than we do? Who is this mystery group of super sleuths, and what makes them experts, to the point where the case is pulled right in the middle of an investigation?” Briones griped.

  “It was irregular, but as you know, sometimes decisions are made for political reasons, not operational ones,” Cruz added. He had been forced to concoct a story about a nebulous other team within law enforcement taking over, since he couldn’t tell his staff about CISEN’s involvement.