Jorge nodded and rose. Aranas was already moving to the doorway.
“I need to talk to him,” Aranas said. “Ynez, pack his things. I’ll make a few phone calls so the police aren’t looking too hard.”
Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “They have a witness.”
“He’s a boy. It doesn’t matter. But nobody in my family will ever get locked up if I have anything to say about it.”
Aranas stalked from the casita, Ynez following close behind. His heels echoed like rifle shots in the courtyard as he made his way to the house.
Chapter 2
Two days ago, Mexico City, Mexico
A line of men shambled along the clammy gray corridor. Their prison garb was muted, the coloring long ago washed out of it, leaving them looking like inhabitants of a monochromatic Neverland. The facility was one of three maximum-security prisons where Mexico’s worst offenders were incarcerated – mass murderers, cartel hit men, and the gang bosses who operated the most powerful transnational drug-trafficking syndicates in the world. It was famous for having never had an escape, until the elusive assassin known as El Rey – the King of Swords – had vanished. The episode had been quickly covered up by the government, and as far as the public was concerned, the edifice was still the ultimate prison.
Don Aranas sat on his bunk and watched as his fellow inmates made their way past his cell. He always took care to keep the barred door closed and locked lest some overenthusiastic member of a rival cartel make a play for him. There were any number of high prices on his head, but his own influence in the prison was such that he could set his own hours and keep adequate security, so he was never in jeopardy.
He’d been arrested six months earlier in a bafflingly easy raid on an oceanfront hotel in Sinaloa, where he’d been taken without a fight. The papers had dined upon lurid accounts of the capture for months, but after the initial public fascination with the account had faded, other matters had filled their pages, particularly the bloody turf war being waged against the Sinaloa Cartel by a splinter group that had formed after Aranas had been taken into custody, led by his former second-in-command. Bodies were now found throughout the state on a daily basis, usually tortured and mutilated, as those loyal to Aranas battled their former colleagues for a business worth billions. The contagion had spread to Baja California and ultimately throughout the regions where Aranas had built networks, and the death toll continued to mount steadily as the police watched, powerless to slow it.
He rose, and with a glance at his watch, stepped to his sink and washed his face, taking care to smooth his dyed hair into place. His eyes absently swept the cell, which was filled with every comfort – flat-panel television, fully stocked bar, a pharmaceutical cabinet that would have been the envy of any addict, a chest containing weapons, and a microwave for late night snacks. He’d arranged for call girls to visit several times a week. All in all his time in prison would have been a nice life for any but the richest of his countrymen.
Aranas caught his reflection in the mirror and shook his head. Where had the time gone? Who was the aging man staring back at him? It seemed impossible that it was he, yet there was no denying that no matter how wealthy and privileged one was, time had its way with everyone, and the years of stress and abuse hadn’t been kind.
“Better than the alternative, right?” he muttered to himself, and turned to eye the cell door once the corridor was empty. He checked the time again and resisted the urge to pace restlessly. It wouldn’t be long now.
~ ~ ~
Officer Raphael Cifuentes walked along the cell block with ponderous steps. The decade he’d been working as a guard at the maximum-control facility weighed on him; although he was only forty, he felt more like sixty-five. But as he checked each cell and nodded to the prisoners, he reminded himself that he could have had it a lot worse. His cousins all worked in construction and hauled heavy cinderblocks up ladders in the hot sun ten hours a day. That was real work – whereas his job, which was in reality babysitting some of the most privileged criminals in the world, would have seemed like a vacation to them.
He reached one end of the wing and turned the corner, eyeing the convicts with familiarity. Most bore him no grudge. He was just going through the motions for a paycheck, and they understood that it wasn’t his choice to keep them behind bars. Cifuentes was a small cog in this particular machine, and he made his daily rounds as bearable as possible, stopping occasionally to exchange a few words with a convict or to take a request for an illicit substance from an inmate who’d burned through his stash. As in prisons all over the world, if you had money, the time you did wasn’t nearly as hard as that served by a broke lowlife. Money commanded respect, especially in a poor country renowned for its corruption. Everything was for sale, and in prison it was only a matter of price.
That any of these men was behind bars was the miracle, given their clout and the wealth they’d amassed. Most were believed to have gone to prison willingly, fatigued of the constant threat of death in the outside world after years operating as heads of their respective cartels. What families they had were well insulated from the violence that was their stock in trade, but they would never be safe from attack; no matter how elevated their rank, they could be killed at any time, if not by the army, by their rivals or even their own men. The stakes were high, and most had gotten to the top by using the same approach – striking when the right opportunity presented itself, eliminating their rivals or leaders.
“How’s the back?” one of the prisoners asked as Cifuentes moved past his cell.
“Oh, you know. Some days are better than others.”
“Don’t try to lift anything heavy. That’s a killer,” the prisoner advised. This inmate was a lieutenant with the Knights Templar Cartel, rumored to have murdered hundreds with his own hands, but he was always courteous to the guards, Cifuentes included. Cifuentes had confided to him the prior day that his sciatica was flaring up, and the cartel killer had offered some advice on home remedies to alleviate the suffering. Cifuentes often carried requests for special tequilas or drug cocktails for him, so the inmate viewed him with the same benevolence he would have reserved for a trusted servant.
“The walking helps. But no fast moves,” Cifuentes agreed.
The prisoner barked a harsh laugh. “Not many places to run to in here, are there?”
“True words, my friend,” Cifuentes said with a wave, and continued on his round, anxious to return to his comfortable seat and portable radio.
When he reached the last cell on the wing he froze, open-mouthed.
It was empty.
Which was impossible.
He raised his handheld radio to his lips and whispered into it, not daring to raise his voice lest the other prisoners hear him. “Dispatch, I’m at C-121. Is the prisoner in the infirmary or something?”
The speaker crackled and a terse voice emanated from it. “Repeat.”
“C-121 is empty. Where’s the inmate?” Cifuentes didn’t dare use the man’s name, even in the security of the compound.
Static hissed from the radio, and he turned the volume down. It wouldn’t do to have the cell block riled up, and there were few surer ways to do so than to introduce the unexpected. When the radio crackled back to life, it was a different voice, which Cifuentes immediately recognized as the shift supervisor.
“Prisoner is supposed to be in his cell.”
The blood drained from Cifuentes’s face and he swallowed hard as he raised the radio and murmured into it, “Negative. There’s nobody here.”
The pause seemed to last forever.
“Are you sure?”
Cifuentes’s voice cracked when he spoke. “Positive.”
He waited a few moments for instruction, and then the sirens klaxoned overhead and all hell broke loose.
The unthinkable had happened.
Don Aranas had escaped.
Chapter 3
Guards waited outside Aranas’s cell while the warden and a
team of high-ranking officials stood in the enclosed space, studying every surface as they fumed. How were they supposed to announce that the most wanted man in Mexico had vanished into thin air? The political repercussions would be staggering, not to mention that most of their careers would be effectively over.
“I want this cell completely dismantled. He couldn’t have gotten far. When did you sound the perimeter alarms?” the warden barked at his subordinate.
“Right after the report that he wasn’t in his cell.” Which wasn’t completely true – before putting out the alert, the shift supervisor had double-checked to verify that the prisoner hadn’t had an emergency medical problem and been transported to the infirmary. That had taken ten minutes, but there was no need to bore his boss with the extent of the lag – what was done was done.
“And when was he last seen?”
“Half an hour earlier. No more than forty minutes, on the outside. We’re still checking.”
“Damn it. We need to put out an APB and alert all law enforcement immediately,” the warden griped. Any hope of containing the news had just evaporated. If the crime lord had managed to make it outside the prison, he could be just about anywhere in one of the world’s most populated cities by now. “And the security cameras on the block?”
“They’re being reviewed, but nobody saw anything, from early reports.”
“Warden? Might want to look at this.” One of the police officials was standing by the bathroom area, pointing at the shower stall. Nobody mentioned the cabinets and other furnishings in the cell, nor that the prisoner’s humble abode was essentially a private luxury suite. Some things were best not to belabor.
“What is it?”
“Looks like a seam to me.”
The warden squinted at the area in question and then called over his shoulder to his assistant. “Bring a flashlight.”
Five minutes later the men had dislodged a piece of flooring eighteen inches square and were peering down a dirt shaft, where a knotted rope dropped into the darkness. The warden reluctantly placed the call he’d been dreading, and the city’s security force went to red alert as a squad of heavily armed police arrived to explore what was undoubtedly a tunnel.
A team of elite Federal Police arrived in full combat gear, and after taking in the situation, the leader ordered the room cleared and prepared his group to lower themselves into the void. They secured their lines and rappelled down the vertical shaft, their helmet lights illuminating the way, until the leader’s boots thumped against the dirt tunnel floor forty feet below the prison. The rest arrived at the bottom moments later. The gunmen swept the darkness with their M-16 rifles, sensing nothing moving, but cautious nonetheless.
The leader used hand signals and two of the team switched on high-power LED lamps. The beams reflected off steel struts that supported wood beams overhead, and the leader murmured into his helmet mic.
“Christ. There’s even an AC duct in here.”
The group moved further into the tunnel, where fifteen feet from the descent shaft a set of railway tracks stretched into nothingness. The leader swept the area with one of the lamps and pointed into the gloom. The men nodded and began making their way along the subterranean passage.
An hour into the exploration they arrived at the far end, where a modified motorcycle lay abandoned, its drivetrain hooked to a makeshift railway car capable of accommodating at least three men. The lead officer glared at the chute leading upward and shook his head. He already knew what he’d find when they ascended to ground level: an abandoned building or construction site. There was no other explanation for how so much dirt could have been excavated without anyone noticing – either it had been hauled off or used as compaction for a new build, both of which would raise eyebrows unless it was an active construction project.
His worst fear was realized as he climbed the rungs of a well-traveled ladder that had been built into the shaft wall and surfaced in a gloomy cinderblock room, the walls unfinished gray, the ground dusty and filled with debris.
He radioed in his position, and within minutes dozens of similarly attired officers had taken over the site, a partially completed office complex that the building permit said had been started a month after Don Aranas had taken up residence in his cell.
When the warden heard the news, he looked shocked, as did the men gathered around him. Aranas had achieved the impossible right under his nose. Later, it would surface that the prisoner hadn’t ever been moved from his cell, as protocol dictated in order to reduce tunneling risk; nor had it been considered to keep him on anything but the ground floor – both violations of basic prisoner handling that would cost everyone involved their jobs.
By the time the airports had been alerted, several hours had passed, which would cause further consternation when it was broadcast by an investigative reporter. With that sort of institutional incompetence, Aranas could have breezed around town, had a nice dinner, and taken in a few table dances before boarding the private plane that had no doubt spirited him away.
International outrage from countries where Aranas was also a wanted man had little effect, no more than did calls for everyone’s head. In the end, the man who’d proved impossible to jail had shown his captors to be idiots, disgusting a population so jaded by political corruption that many were surprised that he’d ever seen the inside of a prison in the first place.
Chapter 4
Yesterday, Washington, D.C.
A wall-mounted television blared CNN to an audience of six men seated around a mahogany conference table. A blonde with a trace of a New England accent, shellacked hair, and a vapid expression earnestly read the teleprompter with just the appropriate amount of outrage.
“Our investigation has determined that at least three of the most lucrative petroleum leases in Mexico were not awarded in what anyone could consider a fair or balanced matter. Charges of favoritism and bribery are widespread, although government officials in Mexico, who have launched their own investigation, assured our reporters that there was no evidence of impropriety.”
The man at the head of the table exchanged a dark look with the attendee next to him, a graying official with a neatly trimmed beard. Nobody believed the Mexican investigation was anything but a whitewash operation, just as so many of their own country’s tended to be. It was the way of the world, and this group was long over any illusion that governments did anything but mislead and lie. After all, that was their job, and they were specialists.
When the program segment drew to a close, the bearded man switched it off and a younger staffer with steel-rimmed square spectacles and an oil slick of hair combed over a premature bald spot hit the lights. The man at the head of the table sat back and took his time, looking at each of the assembly before clearing his throat.
“What the fine folks at the network don’t know is that the usual story about paying for favorable influence is just the tip of the iceberg. Of course our companies attempted to do the same thing, through the usual channels, but they were stonewalled.”
“Why?” the bespectacled staffer asked.
“We think there’s something bigger in play here. When the usual suspects suddenly lose interest in feathering their nests, it flies in the face of experience. Especially down there. So we did our own nosing around, and what we discovered isn’t good.”
Radcliff Arlington was a senior official with a division of the U.S. clandestine apparatus that officially didn’t exist. It didn’t report to Congress, wasn’t on the books anywhere, and had no formal budget. And yet it was one of the most powerful cabals in the capital, part think tank and part operational group that implemented the directives of its superiors without question. Today the managing council was turned to Mexico, but its interests were varied and global. Loosely, their function was to determine what risks and opportunities existed to further American interests. But those interests usually had little to do with the taxpayer and everything to do with what was best for the network of corporations that oper
ated the government for their mutual enrichment.
“So who did the end run around our people?” asked the bearded man, Stanford Hope. “What happened? I thought we bought the bidding and had it locked up.”
“Care to take the floor, Lawry?” Arlington inquired. The so-named analyst flipped a folder open and peered at it with a frown.
“One third of all the contracts have gone to front organizations we believe are ultimately controlled by the Chinese. It’s a little more sophisticated than usual, but that’s where our bets are placed. The shell corporations span the globe, of course, but the money’s definitely from China, so whether they’re domiciled in Slovenia or Macau is irrelevant.
“That spells trouble, obviously, gentlemen. The Chinese have been extremely active over the last few years funding infrastructure in Latin America – the new canal in Panama, bridge loans and highway projects in Argentina, dams in Central and South America. And they’re doing the same thing in Africa. We believe this is a game changer – I don’t need to remind anyone that Mexico’s our backyard. If they can beat us there, it’s over for our influence.”
Heads nodded. It went without saying to the men around the table that whatever was best for the oil, pharmaceutical, and financial interests that helped fund the group’s black budget was best for the world. The growth of Chinese and Russian influence in blocking American hegemony was considered the number one threat to the de facto American empire that had been carefully crafted post World War II, using a combination of military threat and central bank warfare. That the U.S. had military bases in ninety percent of the world’s nations wasn’t common knowledge – but that it used its various pet financial creatures, its development banks, to prey on other countries and convince their leadership to indebt themselves with dollars they could never hope to pay back, thus putting them under the American government’s thumb, was even less well understood.
Rage of the Assassin: (Assassin Series #6) Page 2