Satiated and tired, he returned to his room and set his phone alarm to wake him at nine forty-five. He would skip dinner and make up for the sleep he had lost traveling, then be ready for whatever was thrown at him that night. The bed was only slightly better than sleeping on the hood of a car, but at least it was quiet, and the breeze from the ocean cooled the air that wafted through the barred open window of his room. He was asleep in minutes, and slept soundly until the screeching of the alarm jarred him awake.
The night was inky black, any stars obscured by a coastal marine layer, and he had to pay close attention to keep from tumbling down the unlit stairs as he carried his bags to the road. When he rounded the building’s corner, he came face to face with a figure in a green hoodie, smoking a cigarette. The man looked him up and down, flicked the butt into a nearby puddle of black liquid, and turned towards the ocean.
“Come on,” the man said gruffly, and Rauschenbach accompanied him down the beach.
Soon they were at a pier that jutted into the darkness, and they traversed three quarters of the length before the man abruptly stopped and pointed to the railing.
“There.”
They moved to the pier’s edge. Rauschenbach glanced over and saw the faint outline of an open skiff bobbling in the water, a single outboard motor mounted on the stern, and a figure dressed in dark clothing sitting in the bow. His guide took the rod case and the reels from him and dropped each over the rail to the man below, who caught them and stowed them in the boat. Rauschenbach swung himself over the side, climbed down a corroding steel ladder, and was in the boat in moments, his carry-on bag jammed under the bench seat. The motor cranked to life as the man on the pier untied the line and tossed it into the bow, and within seconds they were easing into the night, a date with a fishing trawler imminent.
“How long will it take to get to the rendezvous point?” Rauschenbach asked once they were underway.
“Three, maybe four hours. The seas will get bigger once we veer away from the shore, so we’ll have to go slow once we get closer. The final ten kilometers will take the longest – it’s supposed to be ugly out there tonight. Bad luck for you. Hope you don’t get seasick easily.”
“I don’t. How rough?”
“Two-meter seas with white water, but it should die down by the time we hook up. But you never know with the ocean. Sometimes she don’t read the weather report,” the seaman cackled.
Rauschenbach turned and watched the bow as it sliced through the waves, already substantial even this close to the beach, and hunkered down for a difficult few hours, eyes squinting against the salt spray, his back already sore from the slamming of the hull against the sea’s frothy surface as they pounded their way north.
Chapter 22
Cruz studied his reflection in the bathroom mirror with a sort of numb detachment as he went about his morning ablutions, the condo silent other than the sound of water splashing in the sink and his slippers shuffling against the bathroom floor. Finished with his joyless ritual, he rinsed and dried his face with a freshly cleaned towel that reinforced his aloneness. She had done the laundry before leaving – was that cause for hope? Did it mean anything more than that she had tossed some items into the stacked washer/dryer before he’d gotten home and dropped his bombshell, and had put the laundered items back into their proper place before abandoning him? Or was it a sign – that she cared enough about him to want him to be taken care of, and that this entire episode might be about her getting her point across in an unmistakable way?
His musings wound around one another, each idea giving birth to ten more flashes of thought, the notions intertwining like a serpentine Gordion knot. He checked the time and realized that he’d spent more of his morning than usual getting ready – moving about in a haze, his mind elsewhere.
The distinctive sound of his cell phone warbled from the bedroom, and he practically tripped over his own feet in his haste to reach it. He held it to his ear, only to hear Briones’ voice.
“Good morning, sir. I hope I’m not calling too early?”
“No...no, of course not. What is it – is something wrong?”
“Not at all. I was just calling because I’m leaving my place, and I wanted to see if you felt like going to the site with me and showing me around? So that we’re all on the same page?” Briones suggested.
Cruz had told him that he was going to the Congress building the next day to review the layout with the assassin, and he realized that Briones probably felt excluded. He kicked himself for not including him and nodded as he spoke.
“Of course. I’m sorry. So much was going on yesterday...I’d value your input on the location.”
“If you like, I can pick you up. I can be at your place in twenty minutes or so.”
Cruz suddenly realized that he would enjoy the company. Anything to get his mind off the current situation. Briones was reaching out to him. There was zero reason not to take advantage of the offer.
“That would be great. I’ll be down on the street waiting for you,” Cruz said, then hung up.
~ ~ ~
Down the block, the disconnecting cell line flipped a green light to red on an elaborate panel in the rear of a van, and a swarthy man with a faint white scar running along his right jawline from a knife gash, a souvenir from his frivolous youth, pulled off a pair of headphones and tossed them onto the console, then fished a phone from his shirt pocket and placed a call.
“Change of plans. Abort on the garage.” The rest of the conversation took place in a hushed whisper, and by the time he disconnected, the beginnings of a grin were creasing his face – an ugly sight even under the best of circumstances.
~ ~ ~
Cruz eyed the text message that had just come in as he rode down to the lobby level on the elevator, and swore under his breath as the building’s reinforced concrete skeleton killed the cell signal, blocking his ability to respond until he was in the lobby. He had sent a request to his assistant at headquarters to run a computer search on hotels for any trace of Dinah, using both her real name as well as her newly adopted, government-issued alias. She was requesting a written confirmation from him, even if just a message, so that she could use it to force the relevant department to comply.
When the elevator reached the ground floor, he gripped his briefcase and dropped the phone back into the breast pocket of his uniform before brushing imaginary dandruff from his left shoulder with his now free hand. Regardless of what was going on in his personal life, he needed to put on a brave front and be professional – there was a lot at stake in this operation, and he couldn’t afford to be scattered, his mind on his domestic worries.
The door slid to the side with a whoosh, and Cruz stepped into the lobby, the day shift of his security team having arrived a few minutes earlier, the smell of their freshly brewed coffee flooding the area as they watched the front entrance and joked with the lobby attendant. Both men’s demeanors instantly changed when they registered Cruz’s presence, and their relaxed postures stiffened as they realized that their boss was there – they normally didn’t see him, his comings and goings limited to the underground parking area.
He looked the men over, their submachine guns hanging from uniformed shoulders, and made a mental note to instruct them to come to work in plainclothes. They were about as subtle as a fireworks display, and even the most oblivious tenants had to be wondering why the Federales were holding an armed vigil in their building.
“As you were, officers,” Cruz said, responding to their worried glances. “I’m being picked up this morning by a colleague. Condo’s empty.”
“Yes, sir,” the older one barked, a twenty-something squat man who resembled nothing so much as a bulldog wearing a badge. His partner looked indecisive, as though wondering whether it was necessary or desirable for him to voice assent as well, and Cruz waved them off with an absent hand as he ran the morning’s tasks through his head. He would spend an hour, maybe two, at most, with Briones at the Congress, and then he
had to get back to the office to pore over whatever intelligence had come in overnight. Cruz had total respect for his team and didn’t doubt their thoroughness, but his experience demanded that he study the data himself – nobody would do as comprehensive a job as he would, and he couldn’t afford to discover two days from now that a report had gotten overlooked that would have led them to the German.
The bulldog rushed from the reception console to the front door and made a display of opening it for Cruz, who nodded his thanks, his mind worrying over what he would do if the hotel search resulted in a hit. Dinah had expressly forbidden his bothering her at her work, and he would honor her wishes, but she hadn’t specifically said anything about wherever she was staying.
He stepped through the door onto the sidewalk and was reaching for his cell again when his peripheral vision detected something unusual – movement, hurried, from between two cars twenty yards down the sidewalk, the suddenness unlike the rest of the sparse pedestrian traffic going about its morning business in the largely residential downtown block. His eyes instinctively moved to the commotion, some primitive portion of his brain signaling danger to his body even before his conscious mind had time to process it, and a split second later he was reaching for his pistol and ducking to the side, trying for whatever cover he could find as two menacing-looking men raised the ugly snouts of their compact micro Uzis as they rushed him.
Time compressed and his sensory awareness narrowed as he freed the Glock 21 from his hip holster with one hand while he tossed his briefcase aside and then threw himself behind the rear fender of a nearby Chevrolet Lumina. He was chambering a round in the powerful .45 caliber handgun when the stuttering bark of the micro Uzis shattered the quiet, and concrete divots tore out of the sidewalk near his left leg.
Screams echoed off the building façades as passers-by ducked for safety in doorways and behind cars, and then Cruz’s handgun began its lethal coughing, and slug after slug slammed into the lead gunman, knocking him off his feet and sending him hurtling back into his companion. Cruz dropped flat against the ground and fired at the second assailant’s legs from under the car, the third shot shattering his ankle in a spray of bone and blood. The attacker fell forward, still gripping his gun, and Cruz shot him in the torso as his body hit the concrete.
The distinctive grouping of a load of double-ought buckshot puckered the fender above Cruz’s back, and he instantly rolled, firing as he did. A tall, thin man wearing a long overcoat, presumably to cloak the pump-action pistol-stock shotgun he was pointing at Cruz, stumbled backwards as a round caught him in the middle of the chest, a red blossom spreading on his white dress shirt as his eyes glassed over and he tumbled onto his back. The shotgun skittered harmlessly away as he lay still, and then time resumed its ordinary flow as Cruz’s tunnel-vision broadened and his awareness returned to normal.
He slowly stood from behind the bullet-riddled Lumina and scanned the street, wary of another attack. The two Federales from the condo burst through the entrance, guns at the ready, a few seconds too late, their eyes wide at the carnage – the gunmen lying in pools of thick blood, bullet holes peppering the nearby cars. Cruz had counted his shots and knew he had another four rounds in the Glock, but he still felt vulnerable, his pulse hammering in his ears as his eyes roamed over his surroundings.
Satisfied that the immediate danger was over, he strode purposefully to the surviving gunman, who was moaning, clutching his wounded stomach, his skin blanched from shock and pain. When Cruz got to him he stood over the man’s prone form, pistol trained on his head.
“Who sent you?” he demanded, his tone silky but deadly.
“Fuck you,” the gunman snarled through clenched teeth.
“Fuck me? Right now your bowels are leaking shit into your abdominal cavity, mixing with your blood, which is seeping onto the street. The pain will get worse in a few minutes, and by the looks of it, you’ll lose your foot unless you get cared for quickly. They tell me that there are few more painful ways to die than a gut wound, but it can take a while. Tell me who you are, and I’ll ensure an ambulance is here in minutes. If not, well, you know how bureaucracies are. The inefficiency can be a killer. Things that should take a few moments can take hours.”
The attacker considered Cruz, then shook his head. “They’ll kill me if I talk.”
“I think you’re unclear on how this works. You’re dead unless you get to a hospital quickly. But it’ll be an excruciating death, I can assure you. Do you really want to trade a possible death in the future for a certain, agonizing one right now?” Cruz knew he had to get the man talking or he was going to lose him to shock. And it was only a matter of a few short minutes before he lost consciousness from blood loss.
“I...I can’t.”
Cruz shook his head and scowled. “Then say hello to the devil for me. You’ll be seeing him shortly.”
Cruz stepped away, and scraped a trace of the man’s blood from the sole of his shoe. Then he appeared to reconsider. “Last chance. Who sent you? This is over. You failed. If you don’t die here, and I don’t put you into protective custody, you’ll be dead within a day of hitting the jailhouse floor. Especially if a rumor circulates saying you cooperated with us. So choose. You want death today, death at the end of a shank in a few weeks if you survive today, or death in old age? It’s your choice. Make it.”
The man just shook his head, then winced, his face contorted by the agony of the stomach wound.
“Have it your way.” Cruz spit at his feet and holstered his weapon, then turned at the sound of tires screeching to a stop in the street next to him. He ducked as he whipped his pistol back out and pirouetted to face the new threat.
Briones leapt from the dark blue Dodge Charger and ran towards him. “What the hell happened?” he asked, his weapon drawn.
Cruz exhaled noisily in relief and slid his Glock back into place, then pointed at the three downed assailants.
“Hit team. Three of them; or if there were more, the others turned tail when they saw their buddies eat it.”
“But how...?”
“Good question. That one’s alive, but he refuses to talk. Got him in the leg and the stomach. The other ones, dead as mackerels.”
Briones regarded the wounded man dispassionately. “That’s got to hurt.”
“I offered him help, but he seems to feel that he’d be better off dying today. Make sure that everyone takes their time processing the scene, and that the ambulance takes the long way. I don’t want it leaving with him until there’s an armed escort, in case his friends decide to try to break him out or silence him. I understand that could take a while, but it’s only prudent.”
The downed man was listening to the instructions, and at the last statement, groaned. “All right. Just get me to a hospital,” he begged, his resolve cracking.
“After you tell me who sent you. Better speak up. Once I leave, you’re out of luck.”
Cruz approached closer so as not to miss what he was going to say. He needn’t have bothered. The gunman raised his head and licked pink spittle from his lips, then grimaced as he dropped it back against the hard concrete and reached a tentative hand to his side to trace a simple design in his own blood.
Briones and Cruz stood frozen in place as he finished. His final reserve of strength spent, he closed his eyes and croaked two words.
“You’re dead.”
Cruz and Briones stepped away, the killer’s symbol unmistakable.
He had scratched a single letter in the coagulating crimson fluid, which had remained like a rusty brand before losing its form and becoming just more of his life draining into the gutter.
A lone character, in and of itself innocuous, but in this context, blood-chilling.
Z.
The universal symbol for the most violent and deadly criminal syndicate in Mexico.
Los Zetas.
Chapter 23
Dinah spit toothpaste into the shower drain and then set the toothbrush on the ledge as she
rinsed the shampoo from her hair, the warm surge of water making her scalp tingle from its needle-like pressure. She closed her eyes and luxuriated as the stream washed away her worries along with the apricot-scented body rinse that the hotel provided its guests. Steam filled the glass-enclosed marble stall as Dinah fiddled with the shower handle, then twisted it off with a resigned sigh. First day on her own, and she had a lot to do, a lot to think about – she couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever, much as the idea appealed to her.
She stepped onto the cushy bath mat and toweled herself dry, serenaded by the whirring hum of a tiny exhaust fan sucking the moist air out into the city sky, then moved to the sink to begin her morning ritual. Fortunately, it was quick – Dinah had never been a big makeup fan, and was as low-maintenance as anyone she knew. She pulled a brush through her thick black hair and inspected herself, then nodded with satisfaction. She didn’t look nearly as lost and confused as she felt – the reflection staring back at her was of a confident woman in her prime, not the insecure schoolgirl she felt like today.
Her first errand would be to find a less expensive hotel than the one she’d chosen on a whim. While it was one of the nicer in Mexico City, that luxury came at a steep price, and it was unsustainable for more than a couple of nights. She’d been so anxious to get out of the condo while Cruz was still at work that she hadn’t really thought through what she would do from there, but she’d kicked the can down the road long enough, and today was the first day of her newfound freedom – a thought that terrified her more than anything. She loved her husband, and even with all the complications of his job, their life together was one she treasured and which fulfilled her.
So why had she reacted so dramatically to his announcement? It had been visceral, and no matter how hard she had tried to talk herself down, every time she thought about Cruz working with that...that evil scum, she went a little crazy. Even though she’d thought enough time had passed that she could react logically and dispassionately, the truth was that her thoughts were flooded with the bloody images of her father, bisected with the Japanese sword in his apartment, and then of the assassin forcing her to spy on Cruz and betray him. She still remembered the hurt in his eyes when he’d confronted her with her deeds, and between the savage killing of her dad and the assassin’s cold-blooded manipulation of her...
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