They trudged down the gloomy hall until they came to the second to last door, and then Porfirio stopped.
“I need to reach into my pocket for the key,” he explained, growing angrier by the second at the balls of the thief. Robbing a federal police officer was suicide – the neighborhood would be crawling with cops who wouldn’t rest until the perp was found. Of course, part of his annoyance was at the grief he would take from his peers at having been blindsided, and there was the money...he had a quarter of all his savings in the little room, in cash, stashed in the freezer, where he accumulated the bribes he was lucky enough to get, preferring his apartment hiding place to having to explain in any sort of departmental investigation where the money he’d deposited in the bank had come from.
“Slowly.” The voice sounded odd – something about the accent, although it was barely detectable. Porfirio did a double take, and then retrieved his key ring from his pocket and opened the door, thinking he must have been mistaken – why would a common thug have the refined accent of a Castilian native from Spain?
His assailant pushed him into the room and closed the door softly behind him.
“I told you, I don’t have anything of value,” Porfirio started, hoping that would dissuade the robber, and then he was cut off by another smack on the back of his head, this time harder.
“I’m not interested in your money,” the man said, and then Porfirio heard a rustle just before a lance of white hot pain stabbed through his back and his heart stopped pumping.
Rauschenbach stepped aside as the dying officer fell face forward, the handle of the twelve-inch flathead screwdriver he’d sharpened to a stiletto point sticking from between his shoulders, and eyed the twitching body with cold indifference as all the young man’s hopes and dreams died with him. Once Porfirio’s corpse was still, the German’s eyes roved over the room, stopping at the closet.
It took him ten minutes to ransack the room and find the money. He methodically destroyed the place before he removed the dead man’s watch and wallet along with the few other obvious valuables, and then packed them into the empty nylon carry-all he’d brought, folded under his jacket on the long bus ride.
With any luck the cop wouldn’t be missed for a couple of days; and then, when found, the murder would look like a robbery gone wrong. At best they’d find the prints of the hardware store clerk who had rung up the screwdriver purchase smudged on the yellow plastic handle, and that would send any investigation into a tailspin, buying him time. By the point that anyone realized that the robbery had been about something more than a few thousand dollars’ worth of pesos stored in a frozen coffee can, he’d be winging his way out of the country.
Rauschenbach took a final look at the dead man and hoisted the bag over his shoulder with a gloved hand. He moved to the door, listening intently for half a minute, and then eased it open and slid out into the empty hall, a phantom, the single low-wattage incandescent bulb that dangled precariously from the ceiling providing the scantest of illumination as he made his way down the dismal corridor to the front exit.
Chapter 44
A distorted voice blared flight information over the loudspeaker as a small crowd waited patiently for loved ones to exit the terminal. Inside, arriving passengers moved from the gates against the flow of departing travelers, who thronged the seating area while waiting to board.
El Rey, Cruz, and Briones were in Terminal Two of the Benito Juarez International Airport, walking the hall, eyes poring over the security precautions with approval – a routine part of air travel safety and stricter than at almost any other installation in Mexico. Everyone had to go through metal detectors, with no exceptions, and even the trio, two in uniform, had to be signed in by the ranking federal police officer so that they could keep their side arms.
El Rey squinted out the windows on the eastern side of the terminal at the hangars in the near distance and the broad expanse of tarmac between the terminal and the government planes grouped there. A military helicopter sat squarely in the middle of the restricted area set aside for arriving dignitary aircraft, as well as the Mexican President’s Boeing 757 whenever he was traveling internationally.
“Tell me again about the security here,” he said, estimating the distance from the VIP area to the terminal.
“It was decided that the Chinese would land here instead of Santa Lucia, which was discarded even though it’s only twenty miles away,” Briones started, referring to the military base north of Mexico City. “The Chinese dismissed it out-of-hand because of the danger of a surface-to-air missile strike on the chopper ride into the city. Even if there was a helicopter convoy, it posed too great a threat.”
“I agree. Too many areas a chopper could be picked off.” El Rey nodded as he continued surveying the runways and maintenance hangars.
“The Chinese will arrive around nine a.m. and stay aboard the plane until a chopper arrives to transport the leader to the Congress building. Patrols will be constant on the access roads and the perimeter road, and there will be hundreds of police and military troops in the neighborhood to the south. Which isn’t considered to be a huge risk due to how low the buildings are, as well as virtually no line of sight to the aircraft once it’s in final position.”
“I’ll still want to go through the neighborhood,” El Rey said.
“The army will have snipers on the rooftops of the nearest structure. They’ll also be occupying the entire line of buildings that front onto the road that runs along the south side, which will be closed that morning until the Chinese have taken off again.”
“Fine. What about this terminal?”
“We’ll have snipers distributed on the roof, as well as the roofs of the nearby hangars, and we’ll search the hangars early that morning, and then sentries will watch the area until the Chinese leave. It’ll be buttoned up tight.”
“Tell me about the helicopter.”
“Your advice about the maintenance concerns was taken to heart, and they’ll have a crew of mechanics and observers going over every inch of the chopper that morning to ensure no tampering has occurred. It’s a fully armored beast that can withstand any sort of rifle fire. Anything short of a direct hit by a surface-to-air missile won’t affect it.”
“What about the flight path of the chopper to the Congress hall?” Cruz asked.
“It will be decided five minutes before takeoff. One of six routes that will skirt the populated sections of town, to the extent they can. So anyone planning to try to shoot it down, or at it, en route, will have to be psychic.”
“What about the buildings across the runway?” El Rey asked.
“That, over there, is Terminal One. One of the largest passenger terminals on the continent. And the hangars over there” – Briones pointed at a distant row of buildings, and everyone had to struggle to make them out through the haze of pollution – “will get the same treatment as the nearer ones; although both they, and the terminal, are too far away to pose a threat. Still, they’ll have a few snipers on the roof, just in case.”
El Rey surveyed the surroundings and shook his head. “What are we missing? I can feel it in my bones. There has to be a weakness in all this we aren’t seeing. He’s a shooter, so he’ll likely use a gun to pull this off.”
“Agreed, but not here. Look around you. How would he get a rifle in here? The security is designed to prevent exactly that, and it’ll be stepped up to an insane level for twenty-four hours prior. There are easier ways to do this than to try to crack the most fortified area in town,” Cruz said.
“Yes, but this would be the most unexpected. If I was going to try to take the Chinese leader out, there would really be only two choices: here, or when he’s in front of the Congress, once the chopper lands. Those are his two most vulnerable spots. The only times he’ll be exposed outdoors. So that makes it pretty easy,” the assassin said. “That’s where the hit will take place. They’re sweeping the hall for bombs, they have radiation detectors going in, and the place will
be literally crawling with security. Even the sewers will be patrolled – talk about crap duty. So that leaves the two weak points.”
“And they’ve taken precautions against a gas attack as well. I’ve never heard of anything remotely like this in terms of precautions, for anything,” Briones reported.
El Rey continued staring out at the planes taking off and landing, the runways operating at ninety-seven percent capacity at the busiest hub in Latin America. A huge jet gathered speed as it shot down the runway and then lifted slowly into the sky. A few seconds later another appeared at the opposite end of the runway, hovering over the city, and then touched down, wheels smoking as they hit the ground.
“I’m telling you, we’re missing something,” he grumbled under his breath, and Cruz touched his arm.
“Come on. Let’s go up to the roof so you can evaluate it from up there.”
The three men walked slowly along the massive hall that housed the jetways towards the lobby area, where airport personnel would meet them to escort them to the roof. Nobody gave a second glance to the custodian off to the side emptying out one of the trash bins into his cart. If they had, they would have seen nothing unusual – an older man, skin burnished a coffee hue, going about his thankless job.
Rauschenbach watched the two Federales and the younger man out of the corner of his eye and then returned to his study of the terminal. He’d had no problems making it into the departure lounge with his forged ID and paperwork, but he’d also instantly seen that it would be all but impossible to sneak a weapon in. He had considered machining something that would fit into a cart’s steel frame, but the security guards were going over the rolling trolleys carefully. Even if he had a metal shop and could build one in the two days left before the hit, getting it into the facility would be practically impossible – and then he would have to be able to disassemble it, extract the rifle, and find a way onto the roof that didn’t have a dozen cops guarding it – not to mention the inevitable snipers that would be stationed there the morning of the Chinese dignitary’s arrival.
He hummed to himself, his soiled uniform rendering him all but invisible, and reconciled himself to leaving, his goal of finding a way in – and perhaps more importantly, out – having eluded him. He would have to study the airport blueprints that night more carefully and see if there was anything he’d overlooked. There was always a way, he told himself, and decided that he would go over to the far terminal to look around in case he came up with a breakthrough idea. Then, after lunch, he would spend the day in the neighborhoods around the Congress doing the same thing – searching for that which had escaped him: a spot that would be vulnerable, that he could get into without being caught, from where he could shoot the target and then escape before anyone knew what was happening.
He nodded courteously to an armed policeman walking slowly along the terminal floor, talking to a well-dressed woman holding a clipboard and pointing, and then pushed his cart towards the maintenance area, where he would leave it and slip out, then work his way to Terminal One.
The Mexicans were definitely taking the threat seriously, but he had expected that. That went with the territory. But there was no way he was going to give back the half of the four million dollars he’d already received to do the job. One way or another, he would find the weak link and capitalize on it.
~ ~ ~
That evening he made his decision, and went to meet one of the contacts provided by the Los Zetas cartel members who had gotten him into the country. The man, Pedro, an ex-marine, smiled and nodded when the German told him what he wanted.
“That should be easy enough to get. Figure tomorrow. I can arrange for one to disappear from one of the nearby military bases. But you could just buy one in the United States, and it would be way cheaper. There’s no reason you couldn’t have it here within a couple of days, maybe three on the outside.”
“I have my reasons. Just name the price.”
After a few more minutes of negotiating they reached an agreement, and Rauschenbach shook the man’s hand, sliding a wad of cash to him with the other. “I’ll see you mañana,” he said.
“For that kind of money, count on it.” Pedro shook his head in wonder as he left the rendezvous. That was the easiest cash he would ever make. Sometimes people were crazy, he mused, as he disappeared into a metro station near the Congress building.
Thank God.
Crazy was good for business.
Chapter 45
The lights of Cuernavaca sparkled in the distance as Rauschenbach drove the stolen Mitsubishi Gallant south from Mexico City, his nerves dead calm in spite of the fact that tomorrow morning he would be executing the Chinese ultimate leader. He peered over at the guitar case next to him and then took a peek at the pack lying on the rear seat. Pedro had come through with flying colors, so he was as ready as he would ever be for his night’s work.
It was late, nearing one-thirty a.m., when he pulled through the airport gate into the private plane area and approached the main hangar, a long building with a row of roll-up doors where the smaller prop planes were stored, he knew from his research the prior day. When the facility had been open, he’d approached the two maintenance men and asked about the cost of a hangar and a service program, and after twenty minutes of talk, walked away with everything he needed to know.
He stopped near the door at the far end from the entry drive and got out, stretching as he scanned the area for any hint of the security guard who would walk by every two hours to make sure nothing alarming had happened. After verifying that the man was nowhere to be seen, he walked over to the stall he wanted and stooped down, calmly sliding a pick and a strip of metal he’d created from a soda can inside the lock and feeling for the tumblers. He had it open in thirty seconds, and found himself face to face with a Cessna 150L prop plane from the mid-seventies he’d spied – a relatively primitive beast he could fly with his eyes closed. A quick inspection of the interior told him that the plane was perfect for his purposes, if a little cramped.
By his estimate he had thirty minutes before the guard would make it back, at the worst – more like forty-five, but he didn’t feel like cutting it too close. He hurriedly unpacked his items from the car and carried them to the plane, and then retrieved a toolkit he had bought that afternoon and set about his final preparatory task – removing one of the plane’s doors. He had the hinges unbolted in ten minutes, and once the door was stowed in the hangar’s depths, he had nothing left to do but start the engine, warm it up, and take off.
The noise of the motor revving sounded like a hurricane in his ears, the roar amplified by the hangar and the lack of the door. He eyed the gauges, confirming that he had sufficient fuel for what he intended, and then he inched the plane forward, increasing the RPMs as he pulled out onto the runway and strapped himself in.
It was a perfect night – not too cold, partially cloudy, perhaps a fifteen-knot wind from the west. He increased the revs and the little plane began a lazy roll forward. Then he pushed the throttle to the firewall, adjusted the flaps, and soon he was climbing into the night sky at a rate of roughly six hundred feet per minute.
The engine settled into a comfortable drone as he ascended through the eight-thousand and then the ten-thousand-foot level, and he hoped his luck would hold and he could get the plane to its maximum operating ceiling of fourteen thousand feet. The wind from the door opening buffeted him and tore at his heavy jacket with the violence of a hurricane, and as the temperature dropped he was glad he’d had the foresight to wear gloves.
The radio crackled as he scanned the frequencies, and then he picked up the expected warnings directed at him as he approached Mexico City. He would be well clear of the commercial airlines on approach or takeoff on the course he had plotted, which was essential to his plan – it wouldn’t do to be clipped by a 737 as he edged past the perimeter of the city.
The plane would be reported as stolen almost immediately by Cuernavaca ground security, and the assumption would
be that it was a drug smuggler trying to secure transportation for a small shipment at no cost. By the time anyone had figured out that there might be another explanation, it would all be over but the shouting, and he would be long gone. He eyed the altimeter and made a few adjustments – the plane was straining at a little over thirteen thousand feet, and didn’t seem like it wanted to go much higher. When he hit thirteen thousand three hundred, he engaged the Stec 50 autopilot with altitude hold and slowed the speed to seventy miles per hour – twenty or so above the plane’s stall speed, and well short of its cruise speed.
After another few minutes, the lights of the international airport were plainly visible off to the left, and he made his final preparations. He entered a course on the autopilot that would take it on a northeasterly direction, and then estimated the fuel – an eighth of a tank, so it would probably run out over the mountains northeast of Pachuca and crash somewhere in that uninhabited area.
He reached beside him and hoisted the parachute he had gotten from the Los Zetas contact – a medium-performance Ram-air parachute that would slow his drop to just over twenty feet per second and had good glide characteristics. He donned the seven-point strap harness, cinching it to ensure it was secure, and then strapped the rifle across his chest with a nylon quick release clip he’d created specifically for it. He’d wrapped the weapon in neoprene so it wouldn’t be picked up on the tower radar, which he knew would be adjusted to tune out smaller objects like birds – and a bird was what he would look like to the radar as he dropped from the plane.
When he could see the airport a few miles to the southwest, he lowered himself onto the wheel strut, the wind tearing at him with incredible force, and then hurled himself into space, releasing the chute only four seconds after beginning his drop so as to have maximum maneuverability room.
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