Revenge of the Assassin

“I need you to get down here — now,” Rodriguez demanded.

Cruz held the handset away from his ear for a moment, staring at it in disbelief.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. We need to talk. Now.”

Cruz took a few deep breaths to calm himself before responding.

“As much as I enjoy eating half my day driving to and from your building, I’m afraid I can’t today. We’ve got a lead on our favorite killer, and it’s time sensitive,” Cruz explained.

There was hesitation on the other end.

“A lead?” Rodriguez couldn’t help himself. CISEN, like every other intelligence agency in the world, was mostly about knowing things. A drive to know things overruled most other concerns, and apparently this was no different.

“Yes. I can’t go into it, but we’re scrambling. Just tell me what is going on over the phone. I don’t have time to take away from this to meet with you face to face.”

Rodriguez paused again. “There’s been a leak on the matter of the top secret lead we gave you, and it had to come from your end,” Rodriguez accused.

Cruz barked out a humorless laugh. “Impossible. I haven’t told anyone, and nobody has access to the report. If there was a leak, it wasn’t from me. But tell me what happened. What’s going on?” Cruz demanded.

Rodriguez didn’t seem to know how to respond, but then cleared his throat.

“Our contact was murdered yesterday. By the Sinaloa cartel. That’s what we were able to glean.”

“So the arms dealer got snuffed by his criminal client. Why does that translate into me giving up top secret information? Do you honestly think I feed information to the largest, most dangerous criminal enterprise in the world? And to what end?” Cruz asked.

“We had listening devices in his office. We heard the execution. A high level enforcer from Aranas’ gang, called Angel Talvez, went into his office and made clear before he killed him that it was because of the information he provided about El Rey,” Rodriguez said.

“Well, that may be, but I haven’t breathed a word about it to anyone, so the leak had to come from somewhere on your side. I’d start turning over rocks internally, or from whoever the contact person was with the dealer, because it wasn’t me,” Cruz repeated with an edge to his voice. He was rapidly tiring of being accused of treason by this smug prick.

“There is no way anyone in my group gave this information to Aranas,” Rodriguez stated flatly.

“Right. So we have a mystery…like virgin birth.” Cruz collected himself. “You guys are in the spy game. I’d suggest you apply some of that craftiness and figure out who in your camp sold you out. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go stop the man who is hell bent on killing the president — much as I enjoy our little chats,” Cruz spat.

“This isn’t the las- ”

Cruz hung up, shaking his head. Who did these assholes think they were? He ran the most important police task force group in Mexico. And he wasn’t even sure what the hell Rodriguez did, or what CISEN was working on. It was all too secret to discuss.

Shaking his head, he stabbed at the keypad of the telephone and dialed a number. He needed to coordinate another all-out strike to get El Rey. That took precedence over Rodriguez’s difficulties because a lowlife gun smuggler had gotten killed — hopefully, with one of his own bullets. The line answered.

“Meeting in ten minutes with all the group heads. It’s going to be a late one.”

Chapter 24

Four dilapidated vans with tinted windows encircled the block where El Rey’s building was darkened in the two a.m. gloom. Only three apartments had faint lights on, where insomniac or partying residents burned the midnight oil. The insides of the vans were a marked contrast from their innocuous exteriors — sophisticated electronic eavesdropping equipment sat in racks in the back, feeding visual and audio to headquarters in a real-time stream. Tiny, cutting-edge military cameras were mounted among the cracked fog lights on the roof, and one had a directional microphone pointed at the assassin’s bedroom through a grimy half-lowered passenger side window.

They’d been on watch since six that evening, but hadn’t detected any sign of him. It was possible that he had spent the evening out, or slept in the interior bedroom — Gabriela had drawn a crude blueprint of the layout, and there was a study/guest bedroom that had no ventilation just off the living room. They couldn’t make out anything in the living room or kitchen. Heavy drapes over the windows rendered both permanently dark. They had asked about the curtains, and the woman had told them that they were new — the place hadn’t come with them. El Rey must have valued his privacy enough to install them himself.

Putting a female officer in with Gabriela had been discussed, but Cruz had rejected the idea. He didn’t want anything to spook or warn the assassin, and he was erring on the side of caution. Gabriela had been instructed to go in at her usual time in the morning and to call if she saw him. She was more than willing to play along.

A block away, Cruz and Briones sat in a condo they were using as the command center for the operation. Their field techs had set up the com lines and an auxiliary feed from the vans, and the four screens flickered with an eerie light in the darkened space. Another block beyond, two tactical assault personnel transports waited patiently, the men inside accustomed to hours of wakeful inactivity before they were thrown into the fray.

As the hours ticked by, fatigue set in, and the coffee maker one of Cruz’s subordinates had thoughtfully brought for them got a workout. These sorts of stakeouts were the worst, and Cruz would ordinarily not have been on site, but given the unpredictable nature of their assignment, he and Briones had chosen to stay up and supervise. At three a.m. a soft knock sounded at the door, and two officers entered carrying folding cots; blue canvas supported by aluminum tubular frames.

Cruz had always hated the field beds, but had to admit they came in handy on all-nighters. The officers in the assault teams weren’t so lucky. He picked up a radio handset and murmured instructions into it — the men could stand down for four hours and grab some shut-eye while they could. He wanted them ready for action at seven.

Gabriela had told them that El Rey usually didn’t go anywhere before ten in the morning, but he didn’t completely trust her judgment. She started work at nine, so for all she knew he could have been out from midnight to six every night at the clubs. She routinely stayed in her little office until ten at night, so he was fairly confident she had his daily schedule down pat.

Although, right now he was seriously questioning the entire affair. He knew it was the boredom and lack of sleep that had him pessimistic, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a non-starter. The discussion with CISEN had come back to nag at him. What if El Rey somehow had eyes and ears in the Federales? In his own squad? It wasn’t impossible. Nothing was impossible, including that CISEN may have been penetrated.

He was a long way from when he’d joined the force, with high hopes and ideas about changing Mexico for the better. After the better part of twenty-five years in the Federal Police, he’d shed any illusions about his fellow man. The country, his country, ran on graft and corruption. As did most, he supposed. Some had civilized veneers and pretensions of honesty, but when it came to money, everywhere was the same. It just was a question of how much. The only difference in Mexico was that it was cheaper than in the U.S. because they’d eliminated the middle men — there were no lobbyists or influence peddlers, just wires to offshore bank accounts or briefcases of cash.

“You want to take the first watch, or should I?” Cruz asked Briones.

“Go ahead and get some rest, sir. I can monitor things until, what, five? That’s two hours of sleep apiece if we’re going to regroup at seven, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Are you sure?” Cruz asked, eyeing the cot.

“Absolutely. Too much coffee,” Briones said, although they both knew that wasn’t the truth.

“All right, then. Wake me if the slightest thing happens,” Cruz said, with a doubtful glance at the monitors.