Blood of the Assassin

by Russell Blake

  Cruz gave Briones a curt wave and then took the elevator down to the lower level, where his car was waiting, armed Federales standing guard by both the elevator and the parking garage entry. Since the attempt on Cruz, the security teams had stepped up their game and were on constant high alert – no doubt due in part to the scathing report Cruz had issued about events surrounding his near-miss.

  Dinah had taken a leave of absence from school and was spending her days in their new home, recovering. The purple discoloration on her face had faded to ochre, but she didn’t want to be seen in public, and he didn’t blame her. The doctor who had come the day after her rescue had advised her to ice it and to rest in bed, and she’d taken his instructions to heart. Thankfully, she didn’t want to discuss Cruz’s assignment or his working with El Rey – not that she seemed any more positively disposed towards the assassin since he’d saved her life, but rather because she knew it was a fait accompli. Now a precarious cessation of hostility was in effect, and life had returned to a tranquil pace, with no discussion of what had transpired while she’d been held captive, or about their future long-term plans.

  Cruz gazed through the car window as the driver beat a path to headquarters, his mind preoccupied by the innumerable details of the search so far, none of which amounted to much. The security force had deployed countless advance personnel; the president had agreed to hold the signing indoors rather than on the Congress steps; the Chinese had approved a helicopter to transport their leader from the airport; and the most comprehensive precautions in Mexico’s history had been put into place, every subcontractor entering the meeting hall having been investigated and the maintenance and security staff thoroughly vetted, and a new system requiring all entrants to pass through a metal detector having been deployed.

  They were doing everything they could, and yet he had the sense of spinning his wheels, which was reinforced each time he met with El Rey. They would listen patiently to the reports, consider all the available data, and then exchange a worried look. Neither believed for a second that any of it would be adequate to stop a committed killer, and the best they could hope for was to deter him – the German wouldn’t pursue the hit if he didn’t have a clean way to escape. He was doing this for money, not ideology, so he would want to live to spend it. The punt strategy they’d arrived at was to make it almost impossible for anyone to take a shot at the target, and if they managed to, completely impossible to do so and not get caught.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best they had.

  When the car coasted to a stop inside the headquarters parking structure, Cruz groaned as he climbed from the back seat, and made a mental note to stop doing that. It was becoming habitual, more a clue as to his state of mind than a sign of any particular physical discomfort.

  In Godoy’s office he found the pomp strangely reassuring, the consistency mildly grounding for him. The receptionist was typically snotty, Godoy’s assistant an ass, as always, and Godoy, once he’d forced Cruz to sit doing nothing for fifteen minutes in his antechambers, as artificial and condescending as ever.

  “Capitan Cruz. Very nice to see you again. I’ve taken the liberty of asking our colleague at CISEN to join us so that we’re on the same page,” Godoy said, scrawling something of no doubt huge importance on a sheaf of stationery – his grocery list, or perhaps he’d taken up poetry.

  “My pleasure,” Cruz responded in obligatory fashion, his tone making clear the lie.

  Godoy made an elaborate display out of checking the time on his gleaming, patently expensive watch. “Our associate should be here any moment. In the meantime, may I just say how relieved I am that your wife was returned safely, and that the attack on you was unsuccessful. What are we to do with these predators? It’s shocking, the levels of barbarity they’ll stoop to...”

  “Thank you. I’d say they got the worse end of that deal, though.”

  “True, too true. Are your current accommodations suitable?” Godoy asked, equally uninterested as Cruz in the discussion so far.

  “Fine. I spend so much time at the temporary offices now, it hardly matters where I call home.”

  “Yes, well, fortunately not for much longer. Ah, that must be our man!” Godoy practically trilled when his intercom buzzed.

  Rodriguez strode into the room, a palpable presence, impeccably coiffed and dressed, as usual, and acknowledged Cruz with a nod before taking the other seat in front of Godoy’s massive desk. “Capitan. Godoy.”

  “Rodriguez. Thanks for coming – I know how busy you must be. Very well. Let’s begin. I asked Capitan Cruz here today to fill us in on progress on the Rauschenbach matter,” Godoy announced with an unctuous air of authority.

  “Hmm. Right,” Cruz muttered. “The good news is that we’ve made real headway in tightening up the security, so it’s better than ever. The bad news is that we’re no closer to finding the assassin than we were when we started – as Assistant Director Rodriguez no doubt is aware, from the reports his liaison sends him on a daily basis.”

  “How can that be? You’re burning money like kerosene, and you’ve commandeered half the available personnel in D.F., yet you’re telling me you have nothing to show for it?” Godoy blustered, practically sputtering.

  Cruz wondered if there was a hidden camera taping the meeting, or if the pompous ass really couldn’t help grandstanding even when there was no point. Probably the latter, he concluded.

  “I wasn’t aware that we were on a budget,” Cruz remarked drily.

  “Well, it’s always a concern.”

  “If you aren’t satisfied with the way I’m running things, I’d be more than happy to step down. Perhaps you could run the task force...,” Cruz suggested.

  “No, no. Of course I’m satisfied. It’s just that everyone’s frustrated that there’s been no real progress...”

  “Exactly as I warned there wouldn’t be. This is worse than a needle in a haystack. It’s like trying to locate a drop of water in a river. We have nothing to go on...except, well, a lead that came in this afternoon, but even that’s a long shot...”

  “What is it?” Godoy demanded.

  “We got a tip from an informant who was arrested for armed robbery and possession of narcotics. A lead we’re following up on. I don’t want to say anything more until we’ve developed it. As you know, these types of investigations will turn up countless red herrings and false starts. Every crook in Mexico is trying to barter his supposedly valuable information in exchange for leniency.” A particularly loathsome little weasel had intimated that his acquaintance, a low-level cartel-associated gun smuggler and general miscreant, had fulfilled an order that could have been for their target – but it was speculative at this point. Cruz didn’t want to announce anything only to have it turn out to be vapor.

  “Mmm. Rodriguez, do you have anything to add?” Godoy asked.

  “Not really. Capitan Cruz is right that I’m getting daily updates. So unless there’s something more...,” Rodriguez said, preparing to rise, obviously annoyed at having had his time wasted so that Godoy could have an audience.

  “We’re only a few days out from the event. It’s time to alert the Chinese and give them a data dump. They need to be in the loop,” Cruz stated flatly.

  “Ah, well, Capitan, I appreciate your concern, but that’s being handled at a different level. At a diplomatic level.” Godoy pronounced each syllable with care, as though with careful elocution he could stave off objections.

  “What does that mean?” Cruz demanded.

  “It means that it’s above your pay grade, Capitan. Just focus on apprehending the German, and we’ll handle the international diplomacy side of things,” Godoy dismissed.

  “That’s not good enough. You placed me in charge of this. My reputation and career are on the line. Withholding information from the Chinese...if word ever got out, we’d have a major incident. And if the unthinkable happens, and it turns out we knew for weeks that there was a legitimate threat, and didn’t tell them...,
” Cruz protested.

  “With all due respect, we assigned you to this in order to catch the assassin, not to consult with the Mexican government on how to handle its diplomatic affairs. It’s not your concern. And if you would do your job, we wouldn’t have to worry about it,” Godoy snapped.

  Cruz recoiled like he’d been slapped, then his eyes narrowed and he adopted an eerily calm tone.

  “You gave me nothing to work on other than a rumor. I’ve been putting in twenty-hour days, and so has all my staff. If you have any suggestions as to what I’m missing, I’m all ears. In fact, I think that my offer to allow you to take this over is even more attractive, now. Given my obviously inadequate performance to date, right?”

  Godoy couldn’t put it in reverse fast enough. “Now, now. That didn’t come out right. I simply meant that we’re all frustrated that the German is still at large, in spite of everyone’s best efforts. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t doing everything possible.”

  Rodriguez stood. “I’ll leave it to the two of you to sort this out. I have work to do. Gentlemen,” he announced, and then before Godoy could protest he stalked to the door and left.

  Cruz couldn’t contain a small smile at Godoy’s discomfort. Taking his cue from Rodriguez, he rose, and handed Godoy the report he had printed. “Everything we know is contained in these pages. We’re coordinating with the security team on an hourly basis, and think we’ve made significant progress on preventive measures. But this has always been a long shot, given the dearth of information we’ve gotten. So while we can certainly hope that something breaks in our favor, right now I’d say that we won’t be able to stop the assassin from trying to kill the Chinese leader, unless he can’t figure out a clean escape plan. So that’s what we’re focusing on, even as we follow up all the other leads.”

  “It’s possible that he’s seen the elaborate measures we’ve taken, and decided not to attempt it, isn’t it?” Godoy asked hopefully, floating a theory that had increased in popularity within the president’s inner circle. His desire to have the optimistic notion reinforced was almost pathetic, and for a second Cruz almost felt sorry for him.

  “Anything’s possible. But I’m not betting on it, and neither should you,” Cruz said, and spun on his heel, glad to be out of the oppressive atmosphere – a combination of expensive leather, sour cologne, and flop sweat. If the powers that be really had talked themselves into the idea that the German would quit because the hit had become more difficult, they were delusional.

  Which was nothing new, he supposed, as he rewarded the receptionist with a sneer when he blew past her. It gave him a childish sense of pleasure to be nasty to the imperious woman in return for her arrogant treatment of him whenever he was summoned, but he immediately felt bad about it once he was out of the suite.

  She was just mirroring her boss’s attitude. Like a dog began resembling its master after a while, she had begun taking after Godoy.

  Which, in the scheme of things, was punishment enough.

  Chapter 41

  Dusk was fading into night as the daily rush hour clogged the streets, horns honking as drivers cut one another off to gain a few feet of fruitless advantage on the overpass near the green two-story building that housed a hardware store below and two residential units above. The neighborhood was seedy, even by Mexico City standards. The two plainclothes police detectives that had been recruited by Cruz’s task force had seen everything in their combined thirty-seven years of duty, and while this wasn’t a district most would be advised to be strolling in after dark, at least it didn’t boast multiple murders every night, like some of the surrounding areas.

  Joel Ortiz and Ruben Lariel had been called in because they knew the streets better than any, and had protected their identities over the years, so they wouldn’t be spotted by someone who knew them while they investigated the lead that had come from the snitch who had told the task force about his friend’s recent transaction involving a gun and some papers for a foreigner. The transaction itself was almost routine; but most of the underworld business involved locals, or cartel-related new arrivals from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia. His friend had gotten the impression that this one had been from Europe – something about the accent, he’d said, while drinking heavily the other night with the informant, who had later been involved in a regrettable incident in which he’d been mistaken for a robber by the police.

  Ruben eased off the gas of his twenty-year-old Pontiac and parked illegally at the filthy curb a few dozen yards from the suspect’s building – the home of one Virgilio Pontescu, who was not unknown to the authorities for his involvement in gun-running, forgery, blackmail, assault, and slavery. But other than an arrest as a teenager, he’d managed to evade spending serious time in jail, and he paid off the right people to be allowed to operate his little cottage industry without making waves. He had recently been linked to Los Zetas; but again, rumors were as thick as the rain that pelted the city during monsoon season, and even if he was, whispered talk on the street was a far cry from proof – and there were far more doing far worse than Virgilio, who wasn’t given to overt violence, at least that anyone had been willing to swear to in court.

  Joel regarded his partner with a blank stare, and then rolled down the window and lit a cigarette – an annoying habit that infuriated Ruben, but to which he’d grown accustomed during the last decade they’d operated as a team. It had been some time since they’d been out on the streets, having traded their field shoes for desks a few years earlier, but in their day they had been the best, and their track record as investigative detectives was as impressive and lengthy as their tactics were unorthodox.

  “How do you want to do this?” Ruben asked, shutting off the roughly idling engine and waving away some stray smoke.

  “We watch for a while, and hopefully he shows up. Then we take him before he can get inside.”

  “What if he’s already in there?”

  “Do you see any lights on?” Joel countered, eyeing the dark façade.

  “No, but maybe he’s taking a siesta.”

  “Or maybe he’s not there. We watch and wait.”

  Ruben grumbled a little and then settled in, having developed powerful muscles for sitting in one place for long periods of time on countless stakeouts.

  Three hours later, the lights went off in the store below, and the proprietor exited through the front door, locked it, and then pulled down a steel security barrier to keep thieves from breaking the glass display windows. A shambling junky holding a hushed conversation with imaginary demons moved past the front of the shop ten minutes later, but other than that, the sidewalk was quiet, a downtrodden stray dog nosing piles of trash their only companion on the cul-de-sac.

  Eventually, Ruben looked at his watch. “It’s almost midnight. Why don’t we check to see if he answers his door?”

  “Don’t think so. No lights.”

  “That’s okay. Maybe he left it open and we can take a quick look around while we’re waiting...,” he suggested, and Joel grinned.

  “You want to take it, or should I?”

  “Go back to sleep. I’ll be right back,” Ruben said, and opened the glove compartment and removed a leather bag with the tools of his trade in it.

  Watching Ruben jimmy the front door was a thing of beauty, even as a few brave pedestrians hurried by. To all appearances he was fumbling with his keys – the trick being that he was picking the lock with practiced dexterity that would have made a magician gape. After twenty seconds of fiddling, he was in.

  Joel eyed the street in the cracked side mirror, wary of being snuck up on while engrossed in Ruben’s artful craft. Two minutes later his cell phone vibrated, and he groped in his shirt pocket for it and stabbed it to life. “What?” he growled.

  “It’s not good. Virgilio wasn’t taking a nap. Judging by the smell, he’s been dead for two days, maybe more.”

  “Shit. From what?”

  “My guess is that the pen stabbed through
his right eye is the cause of death. But I’m no coroner,” Ruben rasped.

  “I better call the crew.”

  “Yeah. This is a dead end.”

  “Very funny. Don’t ever lose that childlike naïveté.”

  Joel disconnected and dialed the task force and broke the news, and his contact told him that they would handle forensics – to just get out of there and leave it to them. Joel didn’t need to be told twice, and when Ruben returned, the engine was already running.

  “What do you think? Is this all a coincidence, that this guy they’re looking for was maybe doing a deal with Virgilio, and next thing Virg turns up smoked?” he asked rhetorically.

  “Sure. Probably unrelated. People die every day.”

  “Might have been an accident.”

  “Yeah. He was signing a check and stabbed himself in the eye.”

  “Or committed suicide.”

  “Seems reasonable to me. You see anything suspicious?”

  “You mean besides the corpse with a Bic jammed through its frontal lobe?”

  “Yeah. Besides that.”

  “He had lovely curtains. Might have been, what do they call that now, metro-sexy?”

  “Metro-sexual.”

  “What you said.”

  “I don’t think that’s suspicious.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  Ruben pulled away and rolled down the street, his exhaust proclaiming his blissful lack of concern for mundanities like tune-ups or preventive maintenance, and then the old wreck turned the corner and was gone, leaving the mangy, miserable dog, still foraging hopefully, as the only witness to their departure.