Blood of the Assassin

by Russell Blake

  Not that Cruz was any slouch himself. But event security wasn’t his forte – the truth was that if he hadn’t gotten involved in the original assassination attempt in Cabo, he wouldn’t have been dragged into the next one, and now this train wreck. That was how bureaucracies worked – you became an acknowledged expert in something even if the totality of your contribution was simply showing up enough times. Like it or not, Cruz had become the El Rey expert, and since his capture, obviously had been bumped up the hierarchy to the de facto resident assassination authority in general. A position he felt completely unqualified for – he was a career cop who specialized in the drug cartels that were tearing the nation apart, not a super-sleuth who could stop contract killers cold. But no matter. He had the title now, whether he liked it or not, which had resulted in him being blackmailed into running this show. Any protestations that he was unqualified to do so would just be met with smiles, the clueless wonks who made the decisions mistaking his legitimate protests for humility.

  As they wove their way through the still-dense traffic, Cruz’s thoughts turned to Dinah and the fight that his revelation had precipitated. She was usually logical, but he could understand what a shock El Rey’s re-emergence in their life was, and he knew it would take some time for her to adjust and realize that he really had no choice. Much as he might have wanted to give the power structure the middle finger and walk away from it all, it wasn’t practical. Perhaps in the old days, ten years younger, he might have thrown caution to the wind and refused the assignment; but now, as he aged, he had developed what might have passed for budding wisdom.

  That all of it was unfair was a given. And while the threat of withholding his pension had crossed important lines that might have stoked his moral outrage, it hadn’t completely surprised him. He was a leaf on a stream, and when the men who ran the country wanted something from him, they would use whatever means they needed to in order to force him into compliance. It was a valuable lesson he would remember and use in the future – assuming he was successful. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t need any bargaining chips. He would be the man who had allowed the unthinkable to happen on his watch. A man with a suddenly terminated career.

  He dug his phone out one last time and called home, but just got ringing that went to voicemail. Same as all day. He next called Dinah’s cell, but met the same response. He punched the call off and shook his head. This was worse than he thought. She’d never gone completely dark on him before. Maybe he’d underestimated how upset she was. He tried to put himself into her shoes – father killed by El Rey, blackmailed and forced to betray Cruz by El Rey, watching everything she valued almost destroyed by El Rey...

  The security gate of the condo’s underground parking entrance slid open, the motor straining to shift the iron barrier, and Cruz rehearsed what he was going to say to her. A plea for consideration. An assurance that it would all be over in a few more days. Perhaps even a promise to quit the force after it was finished and pursue the corporate security work she’d been pressing him about. All he knew was that he loved Dinah and didn’t want her to be distressed, and the job had now strained their relationship beyond what it could reasonably bear. She’d been understanding of so much – having to live a transient lifestyle, moving constantly. Bodyguards. Most wouldn’t have been willing to make the sacrifices she had. But it looked like she’d finally reached her limit.

  He wasn’t looking forward to the conversation to come.

  The car rolled to a stop in front of the elevator. The driver waited until it arrived and Cruz stepped in before pulling off to the assigned parking space, where the night shift driver would take over in case Cruz needed to go somewhere in an emergency. That would be one of the two guards on permanent rotation in the lobby – a fixture of his living situation.

  When the elevator slowed and stopped at his floor, he stepped into the hall and moved slowly to the condo, dreading what was to come. Some days he felt about a hundred years old, and this was one of them.

  “Honey? I’m sorry I’m so late. I brought dinner,” he called as he pushed open the front door. Silence greeted him, and the condo was dark. He flipped the lights on and walked to the kitchen, then set the bag with the sandwiches in it on the counter and listened for any signs of life. Again, nothing.

  Cruz strode to the bedroom and peered inside, and his breath caught in his throat. A note lay on the dresser, folded neatly, as was Dinah’s way. He approached it with trepidation, then picked it up like it was a poisonous snake and moved to the bedside lamp and flicked it into life. The writing was precise, the message short.

  My darling husband,

  I love you more than you will ever know, so this is the hardest letter I will ever write. I know you have your reasons for agreeing to work with that murderer, but I can’t go along with it. You know how much misery he has brought to my family and the unforgivable things he’s done, and I can’t bring myself to wish anything but death upon him. For you to choose to cooperate with this travesty is a betrayal of everything we have, and I can’t look at you knowing you would choose that over us – the relationship we’ve built. So I’m leaving. Maybe I will feel differently in time, maybe not, but for now, I can’t go on. Just as with infidelity, there are some things that are too big to ignore. This is a deal breaker. I’m sorry, my love, but it is, and I can’t be with a man who would do this to me. I wish you well, and hope you’ll be safe and cautious. No good can come of this. Don’t bother me at work – I don’t want to hear from you. Please respect my wishes.

  Your wife, Dinah.

  Cruz numbly re-read the missive, unable to believe his eyes, and then his whole form seemed to collapse in on itself, as though the pressure of the unbearable atmosphere had crushed him like an empty beer can. He felt for the edge of the bed with a trembling hand, his eyes unfocused, searching his cognitive resources for where he had made a mistake understanding the meaning of the words. Dinah, gone? Left him? Impossible. He had gotten something wrong, misread some key indicator, misinterpreted some important bit of information.

  The mattress pushed against the backs of his knees and he sat down numbly on the bedspread, which was neatly tucked in, probably one of Dinah’s last acts in leaving a tidy vacuum in which Cruz would spend an eternity without her. He wasn’t sure how long he sat, gazing into space with the thousand-yard stare of a chain gang prisoner, but eventually he was back in the moment and forced himself up. He approached the wide dresser and pulled open the top drawer of Dinah’s side, and didn’t need to look down to confirm what its weight already had. Empty: her clothes gone, only the faint smell of her perfume lingering in the wooden rectangle.

  He turned and moved to the closet and swung the doors open, and saw what he expected – her luggage missing, her side of the space empty. He stared at the empty clothes rod, the barren shelves, and the enormity of the situation hit home.

  She was gone.

  Dinah was gone.

  Like an automaton, Cruz selected a speed dial number on his phone and pressed send. Two rings, and a deep male voice answered.

  “Yes, sir. Is there a problem?”

  “You tell me. Did you see Dinah today? My wife?” Cruz asked one of the men on duty downstairs in the lobby.

  “No, sir. But I only came on duty at eight tonight. Why? Is something wrong?”

  Cruz ignored the question. “Who was working the day shift?”

  “Diego Vasquez and his partner. Do you want me to try to reach him?”

  “Yes, please. My wife may have left...on vacation. I’d just like to confirm that someone saw her.”

  “Very good, sir. I’ll call and then get back in touch with you.”

  Cruz disconnected, and then sat down again, staring at the closet’s maw, the emptiness like a shrine to his failure as a husband and a man.

  He knew what the call would say.

  When it came a few minutes later, it was as he thought.

  “Sir, she took several suitcases down to her car and then left.
There was no foul play. Do you...is there something we should do? Something we need to know?”

  Cruz thought about it for a moment, then sighed. “No, that’s fine. I just wanted to verify that she got out of here okay. That’s all.”

  When he hung up, he tossed the phone onto the bed and lay back, everything redolent of Dinah – the pillows, the sheets, the air itself. Twenty minutes later he was fast asleep, snoring gently, fully clothed, his body having finally succumbed to its requirement for rest.

  Chapter 21

  Guatemala City was blanketed in smog as the flight from Chile dropped on the final descent, buffeted by updrafts from the mountains surrounding the metropolis. The tired Boeing 737 was on its last legs, running routes between South and Central America after being retired from a U.S. airline, and the seat that Werner Rauschenbach occupied was at least forty years old if it was a day, the cushion and springs having long ago given up any pretense of offering comfort.

  A particularly violent gust shook the plane and it lurched to one side, and then the jet dropped a few hundred feet in seconds, the sensation much like that of a roller-coaster, but missing the assurance of a safe conclusion to the ride. The cracked ventilation nozzle overhead whistled a malodorous stream of stagnant air at his pate, serving no purpose other than to annoy him during the final half hour on the long trip from Santiago. He reached up and twisted the air off, and then peered out the window at the dark gray bank of clouds below. It wouldn’t be long now, and then this leg of his journey would be over and he would be traversing the third-world Guatemalan countryside on his way to the coast, where he would embark on an ocean voyage that would have him rendezvousing with a Mexican fishing trawler that night, five miles offshore, which would ferry him into Mexico without having to deal with niggling details like customs or immigration.

  Another bump and a loud grinding hum vibrated from the wings as the flaps activated in preparation for landing. They dropped into the overcast and the plane was knocked around like a lottery ball before they broke through and he could make out the city dead ahead in the early morning light. When the wheels struck the runway and the engines screamed as the plane fought to slow before it ran out of space, Rauschenbach closed his eyes and exhaled evenly, thankful that the long hours on planes from Spain were finally over.

  The fishing rod gambit had worked like a charm, and his precious cargo was safe in the belly of the jet, none the worse for the transatlantic journey. If all went well, he would be in Mexico City the following evening, at the latest. It would all depend on the efficiency of the group he’d arranged to smuggle him into the country. The Los Zetas cartel had established a considerable network in Africa, with a drug pipeline to most of the major regions in the Russian Federation and Europe, and it had been merely a matter of spreading a boatload of cash around to find the right conduits to arrange for his safe passage once in Guatemala. The cartel had almost complete control of whole sections of the country, and it routinely moved drugs, arms, slaves, and illegal immigrants from the beleaguered Central American nation into Mexico, so if anyone could get him in without triggering alarms, Los Zetas could.

  The plane taxied to the terminal and the safety lights winked off, and Rauschenbach waited patiently as the tired travelers queued up to disembark, the atmosphere redolent of the peculiar dank odor of wet dog and slightly burnt wool that was a constant on long flights. The couple in front of him started moving slowly down the aisle to the exit, and he hoisted his carry-on and dutifully followed them, for all appearances a fatigued businessman.

  Immigration and customs were cursory, and within twenty minutes he had retrieved his fishing rod and reel cases and had made his way to the taxi stands, where he gave the driver of a tired Nissan station wagon an address on the outskirts of the city. The morning traffic was light, it still being well before business hours in the commercial district, and in no time they pulled to the curb near a dilapidated restaurant featuring a hand-painted image of a dancing goat playing pan pipes on a precariously mounted sign over a grimy picture window. The German flipped a few notes of the local currency to the appreciative driver and then watched as the cab rattled down the cobblestoned street, mud and oil coagulating along the filthy gutters like toxic plaque.

  Inside, a hard-looking man in his fifties looked up from his position by the cash register when Rauschenbach entered with his bags and took a table in the corner. He was the only patron, and the proprietor seemed unenthusiastic about his good fortune in having attracted a customer. He approached carrying a stained laminated menu and handed it to the German, and then asked in a rapid-fire burst of Spanish whether he wanted coffee and was going to be ordering breakfast. Rauschenbach answered that, yes, he was indeed going to be taking his morning meal there, and then used the series of code words that had been agreed upon several days before. The man’s eyes widened, then he nodded and gestured for his guest to follow him to the back of the shabby establishment. They passed a kitchen that more resembled a science experiment than a place to cook food, and Rauschenbach was glad he hadn’t chosen to avail himself of whatever passed for breakfast there.

  In the rear of the building, his guide knocked on a dark wooden door, and after a few moments it swung open and a younger man, perhaps in his late twenties, stood staring at the new arrival, a pair of opaque sunglasses shielding his eyes in spite of the dim light.

  “You ready to get going?” the young man asked, looking him over.

  “Yes. But I’ll want to get something to eat. If you don’t mind, I’d just as soon pick up a roll and some coffee somewhere to go,” Rauschenbach said. “No offense.”

  “None taken. I don’t eat here either. You have the money?”

  “As agreed. You want it now?”

  “Yes. Give it to him.” He motioned to the older man, and Rauschenbach pulled a wad of American currency bound with a rubber band from his back pocket and handed it over. The man counted it quickly, and then nodded.

  “All right. You’re in business. Now let’s get out of here – we’re already running late,” the younger man said, then offered to help carry the German’s bags. Rauschenbach handed him the reel case and trailed him out the back door to where a battered baby-blue Ford Ranger pickup truck waited in the alley. The man placed the reels into the cargo bed and Rauschenbach did the same with the rod case, preferring to keep his carry-on bag with him in the cab. The proprietor watched from the doorway, absently scratching his belly, and then pulled the rusting steel slab closed and bolted it.

  A cloud of dark smoke belched from beneath the truck’s bed, and then the engine settled into a rough idle as the young man put the truck in gear. Neither man was feeling chatty, so they bounced down the street in silence before turning onto a larger artery and making for the road that led north, out of the city.

  The hundred miles to the coast took six hours to navigate, and it was after lunchtime when they arrived at the ocean side town of Champerico, roughly twenty-five miles south of the Mexican border, whose chief attractions as far as the German could tell were a mosquito-infested lake and a black sand beach. They drove down the dismal main street, past buzzing motor scooters and un-muffled cars, until they hit the waterfront, such as it was – a sad string of thatched-roof open air restaurants and some of the most squalid looking hotels Rauschenbach had seen outside of Africa. The truck eased to a stop in front of one of the most unlikely structures, whose weathered sign proclaimed it to be the Hotel/Restaurant Submarino, and the young man, who hadn’t spoken six words since they’d left Guatemala City, pointed to the building.

  “Take a room there, wait until night, and at ten, as the restaurant is closing, be outside. Someone will pick you up and take you to the boat. You’ll go up the coast and meet the Mexican ship in open water, and before you know it you’ll be back onshore, this time in Mexico.”

  Rauschenbach nodded, then climbed out of the cab and retrieved his rod case and reels before making his way into the ramshackle lobby. He rang the countertop bell and
paid for a room as the truck pulled away, belching oily exhaust as it retraced its route out of town, the driver eager to get back to the city before dark. The clerk was an ancient woman with a face that spoke of a lifetime of drudgery, and she took his money without interest before pushing a worn brass key across the wooden counter as she croaked out a room number, a single stubby finger pointed at the ceiling.

  He trudged up two flights of creaky stairs, toting his luggage without any offer of help from the cheerful staff, and when he opened the room door he left it wide for a few minutes so the pungent odor of disinfectant and mildew could blow off. After a dubious look around the small quarters he set his luggage on the bed and weighed his need to get some food into his stomach against the non-existent hotel security. He eventually decided to take his carry-on with him, and after locking the corroding deadbolt, descended to the ground floor and walked thirty yards down the beach to the nearest restaurant, from where he would be able to keep an eye on his room while he ate.

  The fish was fresh and delicious, and after a relaxed meal, watching the surf roll gently onto the beach, children running, screaming along the sand, peals of laughter marking their delighted passage as an indifferent flock of gulls wheeled languorously over the water, he ordered a second bottle of the excellent local beer and considered his upcoming job. Once in Mexico City he would need to buy some specialized equipment he hadn’t felt comfortable trying to transport from Spain, and he wanted to verify that his preliminary choice of locations for the assassination was viable. The job had been contracted on relatively short notice – much shorter than he would have preferred – but he was confident that if the Chinese leader could be killed, he would do so. It was all a question of timing and method, nothing more. No matter how exalted or insulated a target might be, there was always a way.