Revenge of the Assassin

offered, eyes closed again, reclining against his pillow.

Cruz nodded at Briones. He walked over to the television suspended in the right corner of the room and switched it on. Looking at his watch, he flipped through the stations until he got to a news program. The newscaster was reporting on the morning’s attack on the cathedral, and then cut to footage of the president speaking about it. The camera cut back to the announcer, who concluded with the statement that the president had been involved in a near-miss assassination attempt, but was unhurt.

El Rey’s eyes had opened at the sound of the broadcast and now narrowed.

“I saw it myself.”

“What you saw was an hallucination. You failed. Both times you tried to kill a president, you failed miserably. You’re a loser. Maybe you got a reputation as hot stuff snuffing out drug lords and local politicians, but in the big leagues, you’ve been tested and found wanting. And you’ll be spending the rest of your life in a hole, the laughingstock of the prison. That’s your future, you cockroach.”

El Rey stared at him with that dead gaze, and then closed his eyes again. For him, the discussion was over.

Cruz spoke for a few more minutes, taunting him, but got no response. Eventually he tired of it, and he and Briones moved out into the hallway, being replaced in the room by two of the four armed guards.

They walked easily towards the elevator, and Briones turned to Cruz.

“I saw it, too.”

“What you saw was a very brave man — no, several brave men — give their lives for their country. One of which was an impersonator. A lookalike.”

Briones stopped. “Not the president?”

“No. When I met with his chief of staff, I was able to convince him that El Rey was likely to succeed, and that if the president insisted on being seen at public events while he was at risk, that they should find a standin for the events where he didn’t have to give a speech — much like many of the Middle Eastern despots have. This was the first time he used one, which turned out to be fortunate. Or unfortunate, depending upon who you ask.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Briones exclaimed, touching his battered nose gingerly with his fingers.

“Yes, I suspect we both will. It seems to go with the territory.”

“At least the hours are good.”

They both chuckled again.

The elevator opened and they stepped inside, an odd couple who looked like they were carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. Cruz pushed the lobby button, and as the doors closed he glanced at Briones again and smiled.

Sometimes the good guys won a round.

Today was one of those days.

Chapter 31

“We got the information from the freight forwarder and traced it to a shipping company here. They gave us the address, so whenever you’re ready, we’ll go in,” Briones reported.

It had been two days since the attack at the cathedral, and they had traced down the manufacturer of the helicopter in the U.S. and gotten the information on the address where it had been sent. It wasn’t hard — there weren’t that many companies making four-foot-long electric remote controlled helicopters that could accommodate substantial modifications. Once they had located the builder, they were able to find the freight forwarder in San Ysidro, California who had imported it into the country. From there it had just been grunt work to track it to Mexico City, where yet another local company had delivered it.

Briones approached Cruz’s desk and put a slip of paper on it bearing a street name and address. Cruz studied it briefly, glanced at the mountain of paperwork on his desk, and then shrugged before rising to his feet.

“I’ve got nothing to do. Let’s go take a look at Santa’s workshop,” Cruz said

The address was in a borderline area of town, mostly industrial buildings covered with graffiti and the few pedestrians, obviously either on their last legs, or overtly dangerous. Briones was driving — it wasn’t the kind of neighborhood to take a high-end BMW, and the Federal Police cruiser would keep most of the miscreants away while they were inside. Briones had warned the landlord not to enter the premises, cautioning that they could be booby-trapped.

“What are we looking for, exactly, sir?” Briones asked as he navigated around the deep potholes.

“I don’t know. Anything that can be used for additional evidence. Maybe a clue as to who hired him to kill the president. Maybe some indication of who he really is. Information.”

“He’s going to be sentenced to hundreds of years in prison. There’s no chance of him ever getting out,” Briones said with satisfaction. “Whoever he is, he’s going to be staring at the gray walls of a twelve-by-eight cell for the rest of his life.”

The prints had come back under the name of a former marine with special operations certification, who had deserted a decade earlier. But further digging into the navy’s documentation had quickly showed the birth certificate and voter’s registration card he had used to enlist was a forgery. It was mystifying — they had no idea who the man they had under guard awaiting trial really was and were no closer to understanding him than they had been a year before.

Mexico didn’t have the death penalty because it considered state-sponsored execution barbaric. El Rey would get multiple life sentences with no possibility of parole — the harshest penalty under Mexican law. The district attorney had already spoken with Cruz, and they were going to make a spectacle of the assassin’s trial, sending the message that no matter who you were, crime didn’t pay. After sentencing, he would go to one of the few truly dependable maximum security prisons in Mexico — Federal Social Readaptation Center Number One, ‘Altiplano’, near Mexico City, which housed a who’s who of drug kingpins. He would be sequestered from the general population and locked down twenty-four hours a day, having no contact with anyone but his guards, who would be regularly rotated from among the most senior and incorruptible in the system.

They rolled to the curb in front of a battered brick building with six metal entry doors, one of which stood with its protective outer grating opened. The owner fidgeted by it jangling a set of keys as he glanced nervously up and down the street. It was late afternoon, but this wasn’t an area you wanted to be in after dark.

“Captain Cruz? Hidalgo Sanchez. Nice to meet you,” the man said, sizing Cruz up as he offered his hand in greeting.

“Likewise. This is Lieutenant Briones,” Cruz said, which prompted the man to shake hands with Briones.

“Have you been inside?” Cruz asked pointedly.

“Of course not. I followed your instructions to the letter. I waited until you got here. I don’t want any trouble from anyone. If a criminal was using one of my workshops, I had no way of knowing. I want it understood I am cooperating with the police,” Sanchez insisted.

“Good. And don’t worry. You’re not suspected of anything.” Cruz hadn’t told him who the criminal was or what he had done. Some things were better left out of the conversation.

Sanchez exhaled a noticeable sigh of relief and then walked back to the door and ceremoniously opened the deadbolt. He turned the knob and swung the steel door open, then gestured to the two officers.

“I’ll just wait out here. Take your time, gentlemen.”

Cruz entered first, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, and then both he and Briones ignited their flashlights — after the incident at the apartment, neither of them was in a mood to try the light switches. A long rectangular work table stood at the far end of the room, near a bank of grimy windows a few feet below the ceiling.

They moved to the table, where Briones began taking photos of the various tools and chemicals. Cruz gave it all a quick glance and then walked over to a black backpack resting against the far wall. He picked it up, but it felt empty. With one eye on Briones carrying out his inventory of the assassin’s wares, he methodically checked the zip-up pockets of the sack and found a crumpled envelope.

Briones continued his inventory and after a few minutes announced he was done.