Revenge of the Assassin

“How late are they?”

“A day. Smart money says they’ll be here tonight. Sometimes shit happens en route.”

Julio nodded.

They watched in silence as the cresting water rushed to meet the bow of the boat, the steady throb of the diesel engine a reassuring constant.

The radio crackled to life, and after a few terse exchanges, Julio slid back down to the crew quarters to rouse the men. It was show time. Their rendezvous was on.

Out of the gloom, a long tubular form rose from the depths, two hundred yards from the bow. Mario throttled the engine up and the boat lurched forward towards the shape. Within a minute they had pulled alongside it, where two deckhands threw lines to the four men who had materialized on the top section of the darkened craft. After a short struggle, they quickly secured the two vessels together until they rose and fell as one. After a few hurried greetings between the crews, plastic-wrapped rectangular packages began making their way from the bowels of the newcomer to the men on El Cabrito’s deck, who passed them into the shrimp hold to be squirreled away under the catch.

The submarine had been crafted in the jungles of northern Colombia and had taken twelve days to make the journey to Mexican waters. Equipped with two nearly silent diesel engines that charged the battery-driven electric motor, the handmade fiberglass vessel could do fourteen knots and submerge comfortably to a depth of twenty-five feet. Forty yards in length, she was equipped with primitive climate control for the crew, was virtually invisible to radar, and carried twenty-five hundred kilos of pure cocaine, with a street value of seventy-five million dollars, uncut. Once it was adulterated, the precious cargo would bring more like a hundred million. Wholesale cost in Colombia had been a cool six million dollars. The sub had cost seven hundred thousand dollars to fabricate and equip, with the crew costing three million. All told, the trip was a ninety percent profit margin transaction, even after all costs were factored in.

The loading took four hours of fast movement. By the time the sub was empty, the seas had built to nine footers. The crew of the sub hurriedly placed explosive charges along the fiberglass hull of the craft, and once they were aboard the fishing boat, the captain depressed a transmitter, and the submarine’s waterline ruptured. The men stood on the back of the boat and watched as their conveyance sank beneath the waves, then quickly moved into the pilothouse and down into the ship’s bunk room. After almost two weeks submerged in cramped conditions they were ready for showers and drinking. It was the kind of trip you only made once or twice in a lifetime, and then you were done.

Mario checked the radar and noted that there were no other ships within twenty miles. With a grunt, he spun the wheel and pointed the struggling bow north, on a course that would get them closer to the less turbid shore within a few hours — if their luck held out. From there they’d be two days to Mazatlan, maybe three, where their cargo would be offloaded to other craft for the trip up the Sea of Cortez.

Commander Villanuevo watched the blip on his radar screen with interest. It had remained stationary for a full day, and now was moving in their direction at a snail’s pace. By his calculations, they’d be within striking distance in five hours at the current course, assuming that the Durango-class offshore patrol vessel Villanuevo captained stayed immobile.

That wasn’t the plan. His ship could easily hold twenty knots in any sea conditions, which would put them alongside El Cabrito in a little over three hours. Villanuevo barked a series of terse orders to his second in command and advised him to ready the men. They’d move on the boat at flat-out speed and call in the helicopter when the patrol boat was twenty miles away so the fishing boat didn’t have time to jettison its cargo or prepare in any way.

A team of ten marines were standing by at the military base outside Manzanillo, ready to board the chopper and move on El Cabrito. It could reach them in a little over two hours, which would work out perfectly. Villanuevo radioed the coordinates of the ship and told the assault team to scramble the helicopter. It would be airborne within half an hour and in a holding pattern over the destroyer by six a.m.. Once they were ready, he’d send the team in, and within a few minutes the little shrimper wouldn’t know what had hit it.

Villanuevo gave the signal and the patrol boat surged forward, impervious to the chop as it cut through the waves. At two hundred forty feet, with a crew of fifty-five and another twenty marines below decks, there were few vessels that could outrun or outfight the ARM Sonora. By his calculations, they could be boarding their target by seven a.m., with the mission hopefully concluded shortly thereafter.

They’d received the tip on the drug shipment a week before, with surprisingly detailed information. If it was even close to correct, this would be one of the biggest seizures in his career, and a major blow to the Sinaloa cartel, which was the purported trafficker of this particular load. The new administration wanted to send a message to the Mexican people that it wasn’t going to be business as usual, and this interception would be critical in establishing the tone of the next six years in office. Of course, the information had likely come from a competitive cartel looking to cause maximum discomfort to its competitor, but that wasn’t Villanuevo’s concern. His job was to stop the shipment, and that’s what he’d do. The politicians could fight over who got the credit.

Villanuevo checked his watch and pushed the button that activated the stopwatch function. If all played as he hoped, it would be a very bad morning indeed for the crew of El Cabrito.

Mario jolted awake from his brief slumber. His first mate was shaking his shoulder. Julio’s eyes were wide with a look he’d never seen during the sixteen years the man had been his second in command: terror. Mario quickly shook off the sleep stupor and bolted upright, to be faced with an image that was his worst nightmare.

A Sikorsky helicopter in full battle regalia bearing the colors of the Mexican Navy hovered a hundred yards away, the side panel open and a fifty caliber machine gun trained on the pilothouse. Inside, a group of grim-faced marines in assault gear were grouped behind the weapon.

Waiting.

Dawn had broken a few minutes earlier, but even in the dim light of the new day it was glaringly obvious to Mario that this was a full-scale disaster. The massive blades of the chopper churned the water below; its downdraft from the buffeting whipped the sea into an angry froth.

Mario throttled back to near idle. Keeping his eye on the aircraft, he barked at Julio, “What the…when did they show up?”

“They came out of nowhere. There was nothing on the radar, and then suddenly, there they were.”

Mario grimaced. “Shit. They must have been flying at a high altitude, which is why it didn’t pick them up.”

He was interrupted by an amplified voice from the copter.

“Put the engine in neutral and stop. Prepare to be boarded. Get your crew on deck where they can be seen,” the voice boomed across the water as the chopper closed the distance, now no more than sixty yards from the boat.

Julio glanced around wildly. “You think this is some kind of a drill or random inspection?” he asked, obviously panicked.

Mario shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Look at them. They’re geared up for a small war. No, I’d say we’ve been sold out.”

“Dammit,” Julio spat. “What do we do?”

“Look at the radar. See there?” His grubby finger jabbed at the screen. “That’s a huge ship, and it’s moving very fast.”

Mario had to make a quick decision. They had several automatic assault rifles on board, but they would be no match against the entire Mexican navy. His mind raced over alternatives, and then he shook his head again.

“We’re finished. Get the men on deck and tell them to keep their mouths shut. The last thing we want is a gunfight with the marines on the open sea,” Mario said.

“So we’re going to just give up?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Mario seethed. “We’ve got a ship bearing down on us, and that chopper has enough firepower to blow us to Japan. Do you really feel like dying today? I don’t. We can always let our lawyers deal with the fallout from this.” He shook his head and sighed. “It’s better than the alternative…”

Julio took a deep breath and wordlessly descended the stairwell to where the crew was asleep after a mini- fiesta following the loading.