It would take them a while to get through that, he thought, and then descended the steps as fast as his brutalized leg would allow. As he reached the second floor he heard thuds from above, but they were too late. By the time they got into the building, he would be gone.
Outside on the street, he was the only pedestrian to be seen. At the corner, he glanced around and dared a look back at his building, where a car was double parked outside, partially blocking the two lane street – finding a parking spot was impossible in Berlin, even for desperate murderers. He didn’t wait for the killers to make it back to ground level, instead setting off in the direction of the subway, which he could reach in two minutes, even in his condition.
When he entered the station, he briefly considered the torn knee of his two-hundred-dollar gabardine slacks and shook his head, muttering to himself. He fished in his pocket for some change, and his fingers brushed against the flash drive as he dug out the fare.
A tiny bit of innocuous micro-circuitry that Heinrich had paid the ultimate price to protect.
He had never been so happy to see a train come down the tracks in his life, and when he boarded, one of only a few bleary-eyed pre-dawn travelers, he took a seat and exhaled with relief.
Whatever was on the flash drive had to be, in Heinrich’s words, dynamite. It had already claimed one blood sacrifice, and Jean-Claude couldn’t help but believe, as he fingered it in his pocket, that there would be more where that came from.
The train rocked from side to side as it shuttled down the tracks, and when Jean-Claude got off at the third stop, he had decided that whatever had landed in his lap would require him to be extraordinarily cautious – he would stop at the first open internet café and check to see what was on the drive. If it was as big as Heinrich had intimated, he would be on the next flight out in the morning, so he could deliver it in person to his superiors and hand off the responsibility to others, taking himself out of the line of fire and hopefully landing at least a commendation, if not a promotion, for his expeditious handling of the matter.
Whatever it was.
A creeping sense of dread tickled his stomach. He had a feeling that Heinrich had made the find of his life.
Jean-Claude only hoped that he would live to tell about it.
Chapter 5
Associate director Rodriguez sauntered down the corridor to the briefing rooms in the bowels of CISEN, the Mexican intelligence agency that was the south-of-the-border equivalent of America’s CIA. When he arrived at the largest, he checked his watch and then entered without saying a word, a file in his right hand. A dozen sets of eyes followed him as he made his entrance and paused inside the door. The long rectangular conference table was cluttered with coffee cups, bottles of water, soda, and pretzels, and most of the attendees had a notepad and a pen in front of them.
A hush settled over the gathered men as Rodriguez moved to the seat at the head of the table, and when he sat down, there was an expectant shuffling, the meeting’s star finally arrived. He absently brushed his fingers through his expensively coiffed brown hair and adjusted his tie, a nervous affectation he’d been guilty of since his first job in government service twenty years earlier. Rodriguez looked around at the faces of his subordinates and leaned forward.
“We recently had a disturbing bit of information come in from one of our allies. The French. News that should have everyone in this room on edge.”
He had the gathering’s attention, and nodded to a man nearest the wall switch. The overhead lights extinguished and Rodriguez flicked on the power button for an old-fashioned overhead projector, waiting as the cooling fan whined into service and the lamp flickered on. He took his time, and then slid a transparency onto its glass top. A grainy black-and-white photograph of a man in a police uniform occupied most of the far wall, with another, sans hat, staring into the camera – obviously some sort of an official ID photo.
“This man is Werner Rauschenbach. He was a member of the Berlin police until ten years ago, when he was forced out under a cloud. His duty record was unremarkable, and he failed to distinguish himself in any way, except for a history of brutality charges filed by suspects he collared. By our standards he would be considered gentlemanly. But the point is that he was unexceptional.”
He slid another photo onto the screen, replacing the one of Rauschenbach. A corpse lay on a cobblestone street, a chalk outline around it, blood pooled on the stones.
“This is the first known execution by an assassin known as the Iron Eagle. Tomas Schultz, the number one man with one of Berlin’s numerous organized criminal syndicates until he met with his untimely demise. He was coming out of a famous nightclub, a group of bodyguards surrounding him, when a high-powered rifle blew his head off. It changed the lay of the land in Berlin, and enabled his number two man to take the reins – soon after which the Russian mob moved into the city in earnest, partnering with him.”
The room was silent, paying rapt attention.
“Rumor has it that Rauschenbach is the Iron Eagle. Apparently, once he quit the force, he took up contract killing and showed a real flair for it. He received sniper training in the army and scored near the top of the charts as a marksman. He’s believed to be responsible for a number of the most high-profile executions in Europe and the former Soviet republics, and is at the top of several of the most-wanted lists. In spite of which, he seems to be able to travel without restriction and continue his line of work, undeterred by the manhunt targeting him.”
A thin, balding man with bottle-cap glasses coughed.
“Yes, Umberto?” Rodriguez asked. He knew the analyst well enough, and didn’t want to have to wait for him to work up the courage to interrupt. Umberto was brilliant but excessively shy, and preferred not to speak unless it was something important.
“Why are we interested in him?” Umberto asked.
“I’m glad you asked. He’s considered to be the foremost hit man in Europe. Perhaps in the world.” Rodriguez changed the transparency again, and this time a photo of a burning car chassis occupied the wall. “This was the Egyptian ambassador to France. He was vaporized two years ago. Had a complement of serious security professionals working for him. Didn’t do him any good.” Another photograph. “And this is the Dutch attaché to Spain from six months ago. He was found in his home in Madrid, strangled to death.”
Umberto stared at Rodriguez in his vaguely reptilian way, his question still open, and raised an eyebrow.
“The Iron Eagle progressed at some point from organized crime and business targets to politically motivated or sensitive ones. Three days ago, the French came into possession of information that indicates he’ll be making an appearance on our shores, sooner than later. A man was killed in an attempt to keep that secret, and another was almost killed.”
An older man with a bushy mustache at the far end of the table chuckled.
“Don’t we have enough killers here, without having to worry about illegal immigrants coming to compete with ours? I know the global economy is rough, but still...”
Everyone laughed nervously, and Rodriguez smiled.
“Yes, well, I’m afraid this isn’t a funny matter. In addition to the information that he’s coming, we also got an idea of his target – one that, if he’s successful, will permanently alter the future of Mexico...and not for the better.” Rodriguez continued speaking for three more minutes, and when he was done, the gathering was somber, any trace of good humor banished. The lights came back on, flooding the room with their fluorescent glare, and he continued in a serious tone.
“Obviously, this cannot be allowed to happen. There’s more at stake than our national reputation. There are serious economic ramifications. So as of today, right now, this is our most pressing threat. We have a little over a week. Eleven days to come up with a plan to stop him. On the tenth day, his target will be here, and if we haven’t caught him, we’ll have a serious problem,” Rodriguez finished.
The older man leaned back in his chair and
folded his hands behind his head. “Do we have any information on how he’s planning to get into the country? Or any more recent photographs of him? Those are, what, over a decade old, you say? He could look like anyone now.”
“I’ve put out the word through unofficial channels to the Germans, but we have to be very careful. It’s not impossible that Rauschenbach has contacts in the government there, as well as with the police and the Bundesnachrichtendienst – the German intelligence service. Our only advantage at this point is that he has no idea that we know what he’s up to. That could work in our favor. If he thinks we’re unaware of his plans, then he might let down his guard.” Rodriguez nodded at his staff. “I want a working group formed to deal with this today. Any resources you need, you’ll get. There’s nothing more important than stopping this from taking place. Nothing.”
Umberto scratched out an indecipherable message to himself and put the pen down. “What about the Federales? We’ll need to bring them into the mix. We can’t keep a threat to national security like this to ourselves.”
“I’ve thought about that. We’ll take it up the appropriate channels and request a liaison. That should satisfy protocol so we’re covered. But make no mistake. When all is said and done, this is a Mexican problem, not a departmental one. So let’s get to work on it, shall we?”
Umberto wasn’t done. “Who was killed? You mentioned that someone died to keep this quiet. Who, and who killed him? Because if they knew that the information was at risk, the German could already be on alert.”
“It was a local informant in Berlin. That’s all the French would tell us. But I did a search of deaths in Berlin for the last ten days, and found one that fits the bill. Death by shooting. A member of the police department. A clerk of some sort. As to who did it, they didn’t have any idea. It’s one of the frustrating aspects of the case. But I think we can assume it was someone connected to Rauschenbach, if not the man himself. Although given his reputation, if it was him, I’m surprised anyone got out of it alive.”
“What about...what about his security? The target? We’ll need to notify them as well.”
“I’d rather not just yet. As I said, there’s more at stake here than meets the eye, and I’d rather not alarm anyone if we can handle this internally. I’m looking for any sort of ideas, no matter how unorthodox. We can’t afford to be conservative in this. I have a meeting scheduled with the president and his chief of staff this afternoon to give them the broad strokes, and I’d like some options before I have to brief them. That gives you” – Rodriguez checked the time – “three hours to mull this over and come up with something. I realize that’s short notice, but do what you can. I’ll be back before then to hear what you’re proposing. In the meanwhile, you can access all the data here, in this file, and on the network. Code name Eagle. Your clearances have all been entered.”
Rodriguez stood, and the men glanced at each other uneasily. A cross-disciplinary working group like Rodriguez had proposed was highly unusual, and some of the personalities involved were still smarting from other battles. But he’d been unequivocal. They needed to put their differences aside and come up with something quickly.
Rodriguez moved to the door, took a final look around the room, and then walked out, leaving the group to their ruminations. As his footsteps echoed down the hall, he was struck by a sense of uneasiness. CISEN was good at what it did, but it wasn’t set up for this type of a threat. This was more of a security issue than an intelligence one. They weren’t in the business of stopping killers. That usually was left to others.
Others...
Rodriguez stopped and stared down the hall, into space, unfocused.
The hazy outline of a vague idea formed.
It was unorthodox.
Then again, these were strange times.
He resumed walking, slower, lost in thought.
At the elevator, when the door slid open with a soft ping, he hesitated before stepping in, as though any movement might jar the fragile construct of the idea and shatter it before it was fully articulated. He punched his floor button, then stepped back with a sigh. It was crazy. There was no precedent. And it would be wildly unpopular with everyone involved in the scheme. The initial resistance would be immediate and substantial.
But that was the least of his concerns. While Rodriguez was politically sensitive, he was also a brilliant tactician, and once his brain latched onto something it didn’t let go easily. He was already making a mental list of everyone he would need to get involved.
When the door opened again, he stepped out with a sense of urgency and purpose. He would make several phone calls and float it past his trusted advisors before bringing it to the team. But that was almost a formality. The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. It was either completely crazy, or a masterstroke of genius.
Most importantly, it just might work.
Chapter 6
The early morning mist lingered over the canyon north of Urique in Chihuahua, Mexico, the massive excavation of the El Sauzal gold mine a scar on the mountains in the far distance. Dawn had broken an hour earlier, but the morning fog hadn’t yet burned off, and the area was still, the town down by the river in the famous Copper Canyon still slumbering.
A solitary figure stared up at the sheer rock face looming almost a thousand feet overhead, lost in thought, and then moved determinedly towards the daunting monolith and reached towards the sky. Strong hands gripped crevices in the outcropping and used them for holds; powerful legs pushed upwards when crannies presented themselves.
El Rey moved with single-minded concentration, fingers probing for the next niche, completely lost in the moment, the sun warming the glistening skin of his bare shoulders as the muscles bunched under the strain. A dark green bandana tied around his head kept the worst of the sweat out of his eyes, which scoured the unyielding stone, searching for an advantage as he powered up the unscalable cliff, driving himself to the peak now eighty stories above him.
His right foot slipped on a slim ledge and a tumble of small rocks skittered dizzily beneath him, dropping twenty stories before finally coming to rest at the base – a fatal distance. His right hand compensated by taking his full weight as he groped with his left, and for a split second he was hanging in space, holding himself with one arm, the endless repetitions of three hundred chin ups every day since childhood yielding lifesaving dividends, the corded muscles of his bicep rigid as he pulled himself to the relative safety of the next hold.
Foot by foot he continued driving himself upward, the black nylon straps of his backpack biting into his skin as he neared the top. When he finally pulled himself onto the summit his arms were shaking. He flipped over onto his back and stared up at the sky, the beginnings of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Overhead an eagle soared, riding a thermal as it wheeled into the blue, searching for an unlucky snake or chipmunk, the circle of life constant in this remote region of the country. He considered its graceful flight, the perfect symmetry of its purpose in the heavens, and then his ears perked up at an incongruous sound, gradually increasing in volume – a sound that was familiar, but out of place here, in the farthest reaches of the middle of nowhere.
He sat up as the rhythmic clamor grew louder, and watched the ungainly outline of a military Humvee roar up a dirt trail he would have bet was used only by pack mules and an occasional goat. It drew within twenty yards of the assassin, and then the big diesel motor idled, its high-altitude trek over, at least for the present. The passenger door opened and a rangy man in jeans and a black windbreaker leapt out. He did a cursory inspection of the desolate clearing and then jogged to where El Rey sat watching him.
The men’s eyes met as he spoke.
“We need to talk.”
El Rey considered a world of possible responses, then nodded. “How did you find me? Cell phone?”
“Exactly.”
“Ah. But there’s no signal.”
“That’s why we didn’t call you.
But there’s still GPS. It allowed us to locate your position.”
“What’s the rush?” El Rey asked, studying his calloused fingers, still dusty from the climb.
“You’ll be briefed on that when we get to headquarters.”
“Headquarters,” El Rey repeated.
“We have a jet waiting on the ground in Chihuahua to take you to Mexico City. Come on. Let’s get out of here,” the man said, and El Rey nodded again. There was no point in protesting the interruption of his outing. He’d made his deal – reluctantly, it was true – but made it all the same, and now he was at CISEN’s beck and call.
And his master wanted to see him.
He got to his feet and followed the man to the vehicle, and within seconds of the door slamming shut behind him they were pulling back onto the dirt track. El Rey watched as the Sierra Madre mountain range passed on either side of him, as rugged and untamed a landscape as any on earth, and settled back into the seat, resigned to being shunted halfway across the country on no notice, no say in the matter, a knight on a chessboard of someone else’s devising.
Once they arrived at the little mountain town of Urique, the driver stopped at the edge of the dwellings. In five minutes the rhythmic beating of powerful rotors tore at the sky, the thumping of the gray helicopter a violent intrusion in the otherwise tranquil setting. It landed in a clearing just off the main road, and El Rey and his escort ran to it, ducking instinctively as the door slid open and two soldiers beckoned. Within moments they were strapped in and airborne, the entire boarding having taken under thirty seconds.
When they set down in Chihuahua, a Hawker business jet sat near the private aircraft area, stairs down, awaiting El Rey’s arrival. He trotted over to it from the helicopter and a pretty uniformed stewardess beckoned from the fuselage door. Once he had boarded and strapped into the seat, the exit closed and the sleek plane’s engines wound up in preparation for takeoff. After a brief taxi they were hurtling down the runway and up into the clear sky, the dusty brown of the high desert quickly fading beneath the wings as they climbed and banked south for the hour and a half flight to the capital of Mexico.
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