and took cover beneath the gargantuan hull, the bullets tearing harmlessly through the deep where he would have been if he was stupid enough to try to swim out of the harbor’s mouth. He’d give it a few minutes and let the gunmen exhaust their wrath before doing so – he still had sufficient air. Even the most dedicated mercenaries would tire of emptying weapons into the bay for no reason, so it would only be a few more moments before they stopped and began thinking about evacuating before the military arrived to check on the blaze.
It would be a long slog across the bay without the swim fins he’d been forced to leave on the aft deck. That was regrettable. He made a mental note in the future to bring an extra set with him to attach to the hull, where they would be safely waiting for him if he was forced to make a hasty departure. He checked his watch and peered through the gloom at his regulator gauge, which he illuminated using the dim glow from the GPS. He had forty-five percent left, which would get him out of the harbor and at least halfway across the bay before he needed to jettison the tank and switch to using his snorkel.
With any luck at all he could be on the far side, on the banks of the little fishing hamlet of Barra de Navidad, within an hour and fifteen minutes, where a battered Toyota Tacoma sat waiting on a dark, deserted street by the water. It would be the least-expected escape route given it was the farthest point from the ship. If the security detail still had any fight left in them after losing their meal ticket, they’d deploy to the more obvious areas closer to the yacht, although any pursuit would be hurried due to concerns over the arrival of the marines. The odds of there being any serious hunt for him were about zero, he knew. They’d be far more interested in clearing out before they had to explain their heavily-armed presence to the military.
From the town of Barra, he could be in Manzanillo within forty minutes, or better yet, at one of the big hotels just north of town. They were showing their age, but he still liked Las Hadras resort as a place to lay low for a few days while waiting for the wire transfer to hit his account. When he got to shore he would e-mail the photo of Papi, with his calling card in glorious display, using his cell phone’s internet capability. The client would be ecstatic that yet another impossible execution in his notorious string of accomplishments had gone off without a hitch.
The gas had been a novel touch and he’d been delighted with the results. It was short-duration and would have blown off within five minutes of entering the air-filtration and conditioning system, so the only trace any investigators would find would be the empty canisters wedged into the hull. At that stage it would be pretty obvious that something in the atmosphere had killed the passengers, so the discovery would have zero effect on anything. The vendor had done well with the choice; the assassin grinned behind the heavy glass mask – he’d use him again. Reliability in the assassin’s game was key to sustaining rewarding long-term relationships.
Rousing himself from his reverie, he began swimming slowly away from the boat, hugging the bottom so as to avoid any telltales to the flashlight beams playing across the surface. They were wasting their time but he wanted to take no further chances. He resolved to hold his breath for the two minutes it would take to make it to the harbor entrance and to safety – there was no point in increasing the odds of more shooting by leaving an unnecessary bubble trail up top if he didn’t have to.
By the time the flames were extinguished there was little left of the ship’s upper salon or staterooms, other than the main bedroom used by the owner. When Alberto made his way down the shattered stairs to the companionway that led to that area, he already knew in his heart what his eyes would confirm. His boss, his sacred charge, was dead. Still, nothing could have prepared him for the vision of a naked Papi with the tarot card sticking out of his bloody, froth-caked mouth, surrounded by cold blue naked nubile companions who had obviously died in excruciating agony. His blood ran cold when he saw the image of the seated regent protruding from Papi ’s face. He’d heard the stories, the rumors of the ghost that came to kill, but never believed they were true.
Until now.
Until he’d witnessed the handiwork with his own eyes – the handiwork of the King of Swords, or El Rey as he was known in Mexico. He was every heavily-protected target’s worst nightmare – the man who could walk through walls or up the sides of buildings, and from whom no one was safe. Seeing the assassin’s calling card was a loss of any innocence or hope he’d ever had. Because now, Alberto knew that there was indeed a boogeyman, a devil that danced in the darkness, a stealer of things precious for delivery to hell.
Alberto could say with assurance that there was something that scared him more than the Mexican marines, more than torture, more than the prospect of death itself. He, a man for whom slaughter and killing was mundane, had seen the face of true evil, and it had stared back at him, unflinching.
El Rey had come during the night and stolen Papi ’s soul.
Chapter 2
Sinaloa, Mexico, Twenty-Five Years Ago
The flames leapt up into the night sky, their eerie flickering the only evidence that anything man-made had existed in the deserted field of marijuana plants. The shacks were ablaze, sending embers shooting into the air as they carried the captives’ hopes of survival to heaven with them.
The little girl sobbed, terrified of what was to come. Her mother, helpless besides her, howled an incoherent, primal sound into the ground next to the mutilated corpse of her youngest, while futilely struggling against the crude plastic ties that bound her bloody wrists. This had been the worst night in the toddler’s short, harsh life, and it seemed surreal to her. She hoped it was a nightmare. The dead form of her father lay sprawled besides her mother, his life extinguished in an unspeakable manner. She didn’t understand any of it. She wanted to live. She had so much to do, her life was just starting.
True, it had been a difficult existence so far, as the daughter of a dirt-poor farmer in the hills of rural Mexico; another mouth to feed in a hard environment where money was non-existent and the family lived off the land. But, as with most children, she loved her parents wholeheartedly, no matter what the circumstance; they were her universe – and she had just begun viewing the world as a thing apart from them.
As the seasons came and went, the family’s time was spent working their meager patch of land; a plot of several acres that had been in the family for over a century. They survived without any creature comforts, their power provided by an ancient gas-powered generator which was used only in emergencies – gasoline being far too precious a commodity to waste on luxuries such as lights. There was no plumbing; their water came from an artesian well. Still, it was a life, her life, and the only one she’d known in her four years on the planet – and like most organisms, she wanted it to continue as long as possible.
Then the unthinkable had happened. The men had arrived in their huge truck, and soon the shack they called home was ablaze and her sister and father were no longer of this world. And now she kneeled, crying while she murmured the only prayer she knew, hoping it would work as a talisman to keep the bad men at bay.
“Our Father, who arth in heaven…” she lisped in a soft, tremulous tone.
She swiveled her head and watched as an older man, who had just arrived after their field had been set alight, walked slowly back to his vehicle holding the hand of a young boy.
One of the remaining two men moved beside her and grabbed her mother’s hair, lifting her to her knees, her grief shrieking in gasping sobs even as she trembled in shock and fear. Her shoulders shook the shabby sleeves of her torn peasant dress, now bloody and filthy from the abuse she’d received at the hands of the animals who stood by the pair with their pistols and cowboy boots. A gunshot rang out, deafening the little girl – her mother fell forward onto the bloody dirt, her suffering ended, gone to join her husband and baby. The little girl cried to the silent god who had abandoned her, an innocent, even as she continued to recite the words she’d been assured would protect her through anything.
“Thy king done come…”
She closed her eyes against the horror of the scene and imagined a place where she would be forever young, playing in a beautiful grass field with puppies and ponies; her father, young, healthy and vibrant running beside her as her mother tossed her baby sister into the air, eliciting squeals of glee from the delighted tike. She sensed the cold menace of the gun barrel against the back of her tiny head, and redoubled her efforts to send her m’aidez to her creator.
“Thy will be-”
The lead ripped through her cerebrum, abruptly terminating her brief sojourn on earth. Her frail body tumbled lifelessly to the ground.
For her, the ordeal was over.
