King of Swords

this cop stumbling through matters that are none of his business,” Kent said.

The discussion went on for another fifteen minutes, but in the end what the two men really wanted was reassurance. Kent offered that, and proposed a solution they could all live with. They agreed, and the meeting ended. Kent glanced at his watch — it was now almost midnight. He rubbed his eyes and groaned as he got into his car. It would be a few more hours before he’d be going home.

He had some calls to make.

Six Months Ago, Mexico City

Francisco Morales, the Secretary of the Interior for Mexico, boarded the helicopter that was to take him to the meeting of prosecutors, convened to discuss new steps to battle the cartels. It was a foggy morning, and as the aircraft waited for the arrival of the other passengers, Morales busied himself with his Blackberry, sending a message on Twitter commemorating the death of his predecessor three years before in an airplane crash. That had been a serious blow to the nation; the Secretary of the Interior was largely responsible for the day to day operations in the war on drugs, and his predecessor had been vociferous in his condemnation of the cartels, as well as his development of innovative strategies to combat them, such as the creation of Cruz’s task force.

Two SUVs pulled alongside the helicopter. The occupants alighted — Felipe Zariana, General of Legal Affairs; Jose Salamanca, Director of Social Communications; Rene Cantantore, Lieutenant General, and a group of military personnel and secretaries. The flight would transport nine including the pilot, who was a veteran of fifteen years of flying. Collectively, the group represented the top brass in the government’s war against the cartels, and there was excitement in the air — Morales was about to unveil a brave new strategy to cut the criminal syndicates off at the knees.

That it would be effective was without question. After years of half measures, someone had finally decided to get serious and cut the heads off the snakes. It was ironic that the fatal blow would come from a native of one of the most violent cartel towns. Morales had come a long way since his humble working-class beginnings in Tijuana, and represented the best hope the Mexicans had for decisive victory against the predatory miscreants who were crippling the nation.

The chopper’s blades picked up speed as the pilot prepared for takeoff. In the post-dawn light, the fog was a thick gray blanket over the airfield, but wouldn’t pose any problems for the flight — the helicopter was equipped with all the latest electronics and could easily fly completely blind, as it often did in the dead of night. The distinctive thwack thwack of the rotor was muffled by the dense haze as the pilot executed the final checks to verify all was operating correctly. Satisfied, he increased the RPMs of the massive turbine, and the craft lifted skyward, its lights blinking as it disappeared into the cloud.

Seven minutes later, air traffic control lost track of the flight, which had been given priority status given its payload. After several attempts to contact the pilot, aircraft were scrambled to trace the travel route and check for an accident.

The pilot of one of the reconnaissance helicopters radioed in. “Tower, this is flight three-oh-seven. We have visual on a crash site near the side of a hill at grid fourteen. Repeat. We have wreckage at grid fourteen. Requesting permission to set down and evaluate.”

“Roger that. You have permission. All other choppers proceed to grid fourteen.”

The pilot nosed his craft down, landing near the mangled remains of Morales’ last flight, knowing intuitively from its condition that nobody had walked away. Small fires gave out swirls of black smoke from the devastation; the metal skeleton of the conveyance was twisted beyond recognition, and there had been at least one explosion when the chopper had crashed. After a few minutes walking the perimeter, he reported his findings, then gazed skyward as more helicopters carefully dropped through the now-receding fog, the only task remaining was to scrape up the pieces.

The man watched through binoculars as the crash site was secured by the military and took a photo with his phone to send to the client. This was a contract he’d been instructed not to take credit for, which was fine by him. El Rey already had enough press to last a lifetime, so the hit’s conditions worked for him — it had been laughably easy to plant a small amount of explosive near the rotor coupling, detonated with a high frequency transmitter when it came into range. He eschewed using cell phones for triggers; there was always the chance of reception getting blocked or that cell service was spotty — a nearly constant issue in Mexico. Or worse, if a wrong number or text message came in, it could ruin a carefully plotted plan because of a random misdialed digit.

Five million dollars richer, he rolled up the tinted window of his stolen Nissan Pathfinder and continued down the rural road, away from Mexico City and the slew of emergency vehicles he knew weren’t far behind.

Present Day

The following afternoon, Cruz called an all-hands meeting for his squad chiefs in the big headquarters conference room. When he walked in, carrying foils for the overhead projector, the suite was nearly filled to capacity. The murmur of conversation quickly died, and when Cruz took the floor he had everyone’s attention.

He nodded at Briones, who extinguished the lights, and fiddled with the rear of the projector until it displayed a bright white square on the wall. He pulled the top foil from the protective folder and placed it on the display screen. The sketch of Briones’ vagrant sprang larger than life on the far wall.

“This is a depiction of the assassin known as El Rey. To the best of our belief, this is a good likeness, or as good as we’ll get until he’s lying on a slab in the morgue,” Cruz began. The gathered officers tittered and breathed a few hushed discussions before silence fell again.

“As you may know, El Rey is responsible for a host of executions and assassinations, most recently of the politician known as El Gallo. He’s expanded his reach beyond the drug cartels, which appeared to be his specialty until recently, and is now believed to be actively targeting political figures as well. The chances of El Gallo being a singularity are slim,” Cruz assured them.

“As part of our ongoing sting operations against cartel members in Mexico City, we recently held a raid on a warehouse where the leader of the Knights Templar cartel was meeting with some local traffickers. The information that led us to him came through our intelligence network on the street, as part of our plainclothes undercover project. When the smoke cleared, we had captured the top man: our target, Jorge Santiago — one of the most vicious psychopaths operating in Mexico.” Cruz removed the foil with El Rey on it, and replaced it with a photo of Santiago. “We sustained casualties during the raid, and Santiago wound up being the only survivor of the assault. He subsequently went into a coma and died, but not before he boasted of hiring El Rey to assassinate our president, as well as the president of the United States.”

The assembled officers burst into animated discussion, and Cruz nodded at Briones. The lights flickered back on, and Cruz held up his hands in a bid for order. The hubbub eventually subsided, allowing Cruz to continue with his presentation.

“I’ll be happy to answer questions after I’m through. Here’s what you need to know. First, we have no proof that Santiago’s claims are true, so we can’t expect any support from the other branches of law enforcement or our intelligence agency. Second, I believe that the threat is genuine. We were able to locate the man we believe was El Rey’s representative — his agent, if you will, who purportedly interviewed prospective customers and dealt with them on behalf of El Rey — Jaime Tortora was murdered on the morning we were scheduled to meet with him, posing as interested clients.” Cruz nodded at Briones to shut off the lights again. Cruz slid a foil with a driver’s license photo of Tortora on the projector.

“This man owned a pawn shop downtown. I stated that Tortora was believed to be the agent because we found nothing when we searched the crime scene. Yet I’m confident he was involved with El Rey, given the method and timing of his execution. He was sliced nearly in half with a Japanese katana — the sword used by Samurai warriors in prior centuries. Now, it may be coincidence that the ‘King of Swords’ was represented by a man who was killed with a sword, but that seems more like the poetic gesture of a deranged mind. It’s a given it would hold significance for a killer who had chosen the moniker King of Swords for himself.” Cruz replaced the foil of Tortora’s headshot with a photo of the corpse. The room fidgeted nervously — even seasoned veterans of the drug wars, who’d seen countless decapitated bodies, were somewhat affected by the grisly image.

“Before I open the floor up for questions, I want to make a few comments. I know our charter is to go after