Cruz fixed him with a curious stare when he sauntered in five minutes later, munching on a muffin. He took one of the seats at the meeting table and leaned back before speaking.
“Bad day for
“What? At the congress?” Cruz exclaimed. The president’s speech was that afternoon.
Briones nodded. “One of the planters by the mural, not thirty feet from where they were setting up the podium. It was buried in it, with a triggering device. Remote controlled. Enough Semtex to take out everything for a hundred yards. He’d wrapped it in ball bearings inside a protective plastic sheet to keep it from being damaged if they watered the plants. Clever. About the size of two footballs. It would have killed everyone on the platform.”
“The same basic approach as he used the last time,” Cruz mused.
“Yes. That’s what I was thinking. But thanks to a sedulous beagle, he’s been foiled,” Briones said with glee.
Cruz got up and poured himself a cup of coffee and then sat opposite Briones at the table.
“Doesn’t that seem kind of sloppy to you?” Cruz asked.
“Not necessarily. They were lucky to have found it. He probably figured it would be the typical lackadaisical approach, and nobody would notice. As it was, it took them three tries to figure it out. One of my buddies was on duty there doing backup security for the president’s advance detail, and he said the handler thought the dog was interested in the planter because he had to go.”
They both chuckled at that, and then Cruz became serious again.
“It just seems too easy. When have we ever dealt with anything related to
“But it wasn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The odds favored him getting away with it. He might well have. It was just lucky that the dog was persistent, and that we put the president’s staff on high alert. Maybe if they hadn’t been, the bomb squad would have pulled the dog away and never thought twice about it. I think this was a victory for the good guys, sir,” Briones concluded.
“I hope so. But I’m skeptical. Nothing he’s ever done has made it easy for us,” Cruz said stubbornly. “No matter. Maybe you’re right. Today is a win.”
That afternoon, Cruz and Briones signed in and went through the security cordon around the congress site, where they watched the combined efforts of the soldiers and the president’s guard to sanitize the area. Cruz had to admit that the display of force presented an impressive deterrent. Still, Cruz and Briones were on alert, second- guessing every precaution and watching for any possible weaknesses in the security. They walked around the entire compound, noting that all the steps they would have taken, had been. The park across the way from where the president would issue his state of the union address had been closed to all but spectators who were being methodically searched, and the apartments beyond it were under watch. The freeway would be closed a few minutes before the president arrived, and kept closed for a half mile in each direction until it had concluded. Cruz had to concede that there seemed to be little chance for an assassin to try for the president, although he still had a nagging feeling that they’d gotten off too light.
He’d called the head of security and suggested that the president give his speech from the much easier to protect inner courtyard of the building, but had been shut down. Even when he’d pressed and pointed out that a motivated sniper could pick the president off if he was able to be accurate from over eight hundred yards, his advice had been greeted with disinterest. They’d found the bomb. That was that.
At precisely five p.m. the sound of the president’s arrival drowned out the sound of traffic and the crowd that was being held at bay by barricades. The presidential helicopter set down on the large yellow circle designated for it in the long rectangular parking lot at the southern side of the building. As the spinning blades slowed, the alert level of the sentries noticeably increased, and they shifted restlessly. Cruz watched as the door swung open and the plainclothes equivalent of the Secret Service got out of the aircraft, forming a loose protective half ring around the aircraft door, and then the president’s distinctive form stepped onto the asphalt. He waved at the crowd and the gathered media, then proceeded with his entourage up the steps to the building, where he was scheduled to move to the east side and give his speech in front of the huge stone mural that was the emblem of national pride.
Cruz scanned the surrounding buildings for any sign of danger, but spotted nothing. Snipers watched for anything unusual from their perch on the roof of the congress, their field of vision constantly moving, looking for telltales. The structures within range of a shooter had all been searched and cleared. Traffic had been diverted to streets that posed no possible problems. Even the metro trains had been paused during the scheduled time for the speech so they wouldn’t drown out the president’s words. Everything appeared to be under control.
The president moved to the podium and cleared his throat. The assembled dignitaries sat down in unison after a round of lackluster applause. Nobody was expecting anything groundbreaking from a head of state that had only been on the job a few short months, other than the inevitable retraction of the campaign promises he’d made to win the vote. It was almost an obligatory formality — the admission that things were more complicated than he’d thought when he’d been on the election trail, and that it would be foolish to make any hasty moves while things were in such a delicate state of flux, and so on. Every president was forced to abandon his pre-election commitments. It was a rite of passage. The only mildly interesting part would be whether he blamed fate, the opposition party, or the economy. Perhaps today would be all three.
In the end, not much changed but the name on the door. Everyone knew the game. It was the same everywhere.
Part of him was annoyed that they’d found the bomb, and another was happy. His alternative plan was so much more innovative. Not that he wouldn’t have gladly pushed the button and terminated his target while making the speech. That would have been good. But in his experience few things worth doing were ever easy, and the truth was that it had always been likely that the congress bomb would be spotted, given the heightened threat awareness. Now that it had been neutralized, the hope was that everyone would breathe a sigh of relief, and underestimate him. Just a little.
He switched off the television and put his feet up on the sofa of his new digs. There was nothing more to see, unless he really felt like hearing a speech filled with lies and recriminations. He had better things to do.
With any luck, all the president’s men would relax and make his job easier.
If not, no matter.
The president was still as good as dead.
Chapter 27
As the sun dipped deeper into the horizon, heat waves rippled off the scorched earth, distorting geometry and creating an otherworldly impression of the whitewashed buildings. Eighteen-foot-high concrete walls enclosed the compound, with a twelve-foot-high chain link fence outside that, topped with gleaming razor wire. Guards sat in the turrets that jutted high above, watching the massive interior courtyard where prisoners roamed, some congregating in cliques at the farthest reaches. Duty at the prison was a plum posting due to the under-the-table payments virtually every guard saw from the cartels to allow access for contraband, as well as to turn a blind eye when called upon.
The Nuevo Laredo Detention Center housed some of the most violent criminals in Mexico — every type of psychopathic killer and miscreant imaginable. Not surprisingly, a substantial portion of the prison population was cartel members, and it had long been rumored that the Los Zetas were the de facto operators of the place. Located
