The jungle had given way to plots of farmland with crops planted in tidy parcels. That made the going easier, but also posed more risk. As bad as the jungle was, it held the allure of relative safety. El Rey felt naked as he tore across the open ground, weaving along the edges of the lots, and had to retrace his path several times to avoid fences that sprang up out of nowhere. But now, as he approached Santa Ana Huista, there was more cover.
He crossed several larger roads, mostly dirt, one the larger paved highway, but after traversing them he quickly got back onto the trails he’d been able to pick up after heading north again. He was making decent time, all things considered, and would be at the village two miles south of the villa within another fifteen minutes. His course would take him just east of Tsibaj, population next to nothing, and then there wasn’t much else until he got to San Andres – the community nestling a stone’s throw from his destination.
Guatemala was desperately poor; the population lived in squalor in the rural outposts at the far edge of the country. These were agricultural hamlets, and everyone was asleep – they’d be up to greet the dawn and perform another backbreaking sixteen hour workday toiling in their fields, so rest was essential. That had also played as he’d hoped – other than the military checkpoint on the main road, he hadn’t seen anyone else on his trip, so he counted himself lucky.
When he finally reached the outskirts of San Andres he checked his watch again, noting that he’d arrived within half an hour of his target time. Given the extraordinary circumstances, that was the same as being on schedule. It was two thirty a.m. and he was close to being in position, which left him ample time to nose around and get a feel for the security surrounding the villa.
Paolo had told him that the guards worked in shifts – they had an arrangement with the local police and military to alert them to anything suspicious, so El Rey was expecting four to five bored, sleepy adversaries, with the rest slumbering. His plan was to eliminate the night crew without any drama, and then dispatch the sleeping men before they had a chance to register they were being slaughtered.
El Rey rolled to a silent halt five hundred yards from the villa’s coordinates and set the brake, leaving the engine running – he didn’t need his escape complicated by a reluctant starter or other mechanical glitch. The fuel gauge still read half full, but he carefully filled the tank from the bladder before unpacking the case on the rear. It wouldn’t do to run out of gas while the motor idled, or to have to do an extended escape run with two people, only to discover that he didn’t have the luxury of time for filling up later.
He could make out a few lights around the outer terraces of the house, but knew he would have to get closer to get a sense of the security contingent’s movements and timing. Slowly, painstakingly, he extracted the weapons and other gear from the ATV’s storage box and reassembled them.
Now all he needed to do was watch, and wait.
~
As the hours wore on, El Rey’s hope for a fast operation faded. In addition to the expected four cartel guards, there were four more Guatemalan kaibiles prowling the grounds. His problem wasn’t how to take them all out – he was sure that was achievable without much difficulty – but rather, he needed to understand the timing of their shift changes. With the military providing cover for Aranas, if the assassin got the timing wrong an alarm would be sounded before he could slip over the border, which would destroy his chances of a successful, low-profile extraction. Even the most stealthy plan couldn’t compensate for a concerted manhunt to find the murderer of the nation’s beloved soldiers – and there was no question that he’d have to kill the kaibiles. That would invite the kind of scrutiny he was hoping to avoid.
No, there was only one solution, and it wasn’t one he particularly liked. He would have to spend twenty-four hours staked out and see what time the day shift started, and then, later, the night shift came on. That was the only way of ensuring success – he needed to understand when the carnage that would result from his incursion would be discovered, so he could estimate how much time he would have before the border was teeming with military.
He reluctantly settled in for a long day in the blazing heat that would soon arrive, almost dreading the coming of the dawn. But there was no alternative. At least he had sufficient water to stay hydrated. That had been prudent contingency planning.
His watch said five a.m.. It would be light in an hour. He’d already moved the ATV further into the jungle and shut it down, so now it was just a matter of patience.
And patience was his strong suit.
~
At eight a.m., a military Humvee daubed with camouflage paint pulled up the drive to the two-story villa, and four kaibiles jumped out, replacing the four from the night shift. Unless they did another change-out at four p.m., the likeliest schedule was two long shifts – twelve hours on, twelve off.
El Rey debated a daytime attack, but discarded the idea – the new men were likely to be more alert when it was light out, at least for the first few hours, and it would be harder to guarantee a successful outcome without the cover of darkness to hide his movements.
Next, an old Mercedes arrived, and a small man carrying a black bag went inside, returning shortly thereafter. A few minutes later a battered Ford Focus ground to a halt and a portly woman and a man who turned out to be the gardener got out.
He watched the day at the villa begin, seemingly a familiar routine for all concerned. Time seemed to compress, and minutes dragged by as if hours. The leaves around him steamed as the condensation from the night’s fog evaporated, generating a brutal mugginess that was beyond belief. Summer in the jungle under the best of circumstances was harsh, and in northern Guatemala, the heat was unbearable.
His only comforts were that he was in the shade and his insect repellent appeared to be working. Beyond that, it was like staking out the villa from a Turkish bath in hell.
El Rey blotted the sweat off his face and counted the minutes until the sun would set. He couldn’t remember looking forward to the arrival of night with greater anticipation. Richly constructed curses at Hector echoed through his mind for forcing him into this situation – solitary confinement in prison was Spring Break in Cancun compared to a long day in the Guatemalan jungle.
He took another swig of his now hot water and settled in for the duration, gritting his teeth in determination as the sun broiled his hiding spot with relentless intensity.
~
The Mercedes returned at six, and the same man with the black bag ducked into the villa for a few minutes, then took off again in a cloud of dust. Eight o’clock, and the military transport arrived once more. The shift change was repeated, and the assassin watched as the tired day crew climbed into the back before it roared off down the dirt road. His instincts had been correct. Again. The cook and the gardener had left an hour earlier, so now it was only the guards and their prisoner.
There had been no sign of the girl. That didn’t surprise him. He just hoped that she was still alive, or this would have all been for nothing, and his future bleak, at best.
El Rey checked the time again. He would wait until midnight and then hit. The only complication he noted as he watched the cartel gunmen take up their nocturnal positions was that one of them was using a pair of night vision goggles to scan the surroundings every half hour. He hadn’t been using them the prior night.
It was a piece of bad luck, but he’d work around it.
That would be one of the first guards to go.
It was almost time.
~
“Alejandro, you got a cigarette?”
The cartel sentry scanning the underbrush with the night scope grunted and set the goggles down on a small glass table on the upstairs deck before groping in his shirt pocket for his pack.
“Juan, you’re such a deadbeat. Aren’t you ever going to buy your own?”
“Mañana. We’ll go into town and get a carton. My treat.”
“That’ll be the day.”
“Got a light, handsome?”
Alejandro scowled at him.
“If you were sixteen and female, maybe we’d have something to talk about.”
Both men laughed as Alejandro pulled out a battered zippo and flicked the flame to life.
Juan took a long, appreciative puff, savoring the strong tobacco.
“What was the deal with the night scope?”
“Fucking battery died. Again. Someone kicked the charger out of the wall.”
“Figures.”
“I hate this place,” Alejandro griped.
“Hey, it could be worse. At least the air conditioning works, and we don’t have the day gig.”
Alejandro ignored the positive sentiment and blew a cloud of smoke at the leering moon.
A noise like a wet sponge hitting a wall sounded from Alejandro’s skull as a slug blew the back of his head off. Juan barely registered the sound when a second round splashed the deck with a liquefied spray of his brains.
Both corpses crumpled to the stone floor, their guns clattering beside them. One of the two soldiers patrolling the upstairs rounded the corner at the commotion, but only made it two steps when a third bullet extinguished his life. He fell against the wall, leaving a dark streak as he slid to the deck.
El Rey watched as the downstairs men closest to him lounged by the outdoor kitchen, oblivious to the upstairs scene. He switched his attention back to the upstairs just in time to see a fourth man – another Guatemalan soldier – making his way slowly in the direction of the back deck. The crosshairs of the night vision scope aligned on his upper chest as he moved down the side deck towards where he would discover the bodies within a few seconds.
The assassin slowed his breathing and counted softly to himself. Three. Two. He caressed the trigger, and the silenced rifle coughed again.
The soldier went down.
Shit.
The downstairs cartel guards had heard the soldier’s rifle land on the deck’s stone tiles.
The two gunmen swung their weapons up at the house. Number one went down hard when a round tore through his throat. Number two was dropping into a crouch and bringing his weapon to bear in the direction of the jungle when the sixth bullet ripped off the top of his head.
Two more Guatemalan soldiers to go, and the tough part was over. They were further away, on the far side of the house, also on the ground floor – he’d followed their patterns well enough to be confident of where they would be. All he could do was wait for them to come to him.
A minute went by. Then another.
It wasn’t working. He dropped the sniper rifle and slid the night vision goggles into place over his eyes, then picked up the silenced M4 that had been resting unused by his side. Carefully, soundlessly, he crept towards the house, watching for any movement.
Where were they?
He ran the final two hundred yards, seeing nothing.
Ah. There.
The Guatemalans were leaning against a car near the entrance, their weapons held casually by their sides. They hadn’t heard anything because they had a small radio playing soft music – just loud enough to drown out their entire security team being killed.
El Rey suddenly had a momentary stirring of affection for Guatemala.
Two whispered bursts from his rifle eliminated the threat, the soldiers’ bodies collapsing onto the cobblestone driveway in dark pools of blood.
His ears strained, searching for any sound from inside the house. Nothing.
It hadn’t been a particularly difficult operation so far. The only real challenge had been the surveillance hardware along the perimeter, but he’d come prepared. It had taken two excruciating hours to disable the nine motion detectors surrounding the hillside estate, but that had given him something to do to kill time while he waited for midnight to arrive.
He smiled inwardly at the turn of phrase. Kill time, indeed.
Eliminating the entire night shift had used up five minutes. Now it was time to deal with the day shift.
He panted from the heat, wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve, and then prepared for the second act.
The rubber soles of his Doc Martens made no sound as he crept to the rear deck. The steady hum of the air conditioner compressors along both sides had effectively masked most of the noise – inside, nobody would be the wiser. He’d watched the house all day, and the occupants kept all the doors and windows closed – a sensible precaution. In this heat nobody would sleep with the windows open when they had climate control available, so the remaining guards were likely happily dozing, enjoying the welcome relief of cool air.
The aluminum and glass door slid open with a minimum of noise, and he moved into the living room, taking care to flip up the night vision goggles until he could extinguish the lights. Darkness was his friend, his element, and he was comforted that only one light was on, in the deserted kitchen. He shut it off, and then stood silently for ten seconds with his eyes closed, waiting for his vision to adjust.
From the outside, it looked like the kitchen and living room were downstairs, with a master bedroom on the ground floor, and three bedrooms and a central family room upstairs. His bet was that the guards were in one or two of the upstairs bedrooms. The girl would either be in the remaining upstairs bedroom, or the master. He didn’t think it would be the master, but he’d check anyway.
Goggles back in place, he made his way past the dining room table and eased through the living room until he got to the master foyer. The lever handle of the oversized door turned with a creak, causing him to freeze, his senses alert.
No sound from anywhere.
He waited five seconds, then pushed the door open.
Empty. The air stagnant and hot. This would be the Don’s room and was off limits to the guards. Obviously.
That left upstairs.
He took the wide staircase with care, making sure he made no sound.
The central family room was empty.
Two doors on the right of the access hall. One on the left.
The blinds on all of the bedrooms had been closed all day, making his job harder. If he’d known which room the guards were staying in, he would have been more confident. As it was, he had to use his best guess.
His bet was two guards per room. Two rooms next to each other.
The deadbolt on the single door confirmed it. There weren’t a lot of reasons to have a deadbolt on an interior door. He could only think of one.
Moving towards the pair of bedrooms, he put his rifle on the floor and withdrew a pistol from the holster on his web belt. He retrieved the specially-made silencer from a pouch and threaded it on. The pistol would be quieter than the rifle. No point in alerting anyone.
He eased the first door open and saw two twin beds, with an inert form on each. The pistol spat twice.
He moved to the next handle and held his breath as he slowly turned the lever. The second door swung wide, and a man sat up on one of the two beds, reaching for a pistol. El Rey shot him in the chest. Twice.
Bed number two was empty.
He moved to the bathroom, cautiously glancing around the corner in case someone was hiding in the shower.
Also empty.
That left door number three. He was confident he was alone now, other than whoever was in there. Hopefully the girl. If not, he had a problem.
He tried the lever. Locked. Stepping back a few feet, he fired at the deadbolt, and the wood around it splintered. He threw his shoulder against the door and it crashed inward.
A blast of cold air hit him in the face as the figure on the bed rolled over, startled, then sat up.
A girl. With long, black hair.
“What are you doing?” she asked fearfully.
He held his fingers to his lips before realizing that she probably couldn’t see much more than a form in the doorway.<
br />
“Shhhh. Maria. Listen. I’m here to get you out of here. Your father sent me.”
He heard her gasp, and he shushed her again.
“Quiet. Get dressed. In the dark. No lights. Are you injured? Can you walk?” he whispered.
“Of course I can walk. Who are you? Where are the guards?”
“The guards aren’t a problem anymore. Hurry up. You have one minute, and then we’re out of here.”
He watched her as she felt for her clothes on a dresser by the window. She pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, and then grabbed a pair of hiking boots. She sat on the edge of the bed and tied them, then stood.
“I can’t see anything.”
“It will be better outside. There’s a little moonlight.”
“Why can’t we turn on a light?”
“Too dangerous. Here, take my left hand and follow me. I’ll guide you,” he said, and she approached him hesitantly, arm outstretched.
They padded through the house and down the stairs. Neither said a word.
Once they were near the sliding glass door, he paused.
“I have on night vision goggles, so I can see in the dark. We’re going to go out by the back deck and continue down the hill until we get to the jungle. Stay with me. I have a vehicle waiting.”
“How many of you are there?” she asked, still whispering.
“Only me.”
She pulled away from him. “You got past eight guards?” Her whisper had increased in volume.
“Seven. Number eight is a problem. He wasn’t in the house.”
She didn’t say anything more.
“You ready?” he asked.
She nodded.
He grabbed her hand again and led her outside. “Move. Come on,” he hissed, increasing his pace to a jog once they were on the grass.
She kept up, slowing as they passed the bodies.
A gunshot shattered the night quiet, and a chunk of turf blew out a few feet from them. He pushed the girl ahead of him.
Return of the Assassin (Assassin Series 3) Page 17