King of Swords

Chapter 12

Present Day, Mexico City Airport

Cruz stared at the little man, trying to decide whether he believed him or not. He rose and began pacing the room, as was his habit when he was thinking. Briones looked like someone had stolen his wallet.

“How do you know any of this, and more importantly, how can it help us find El Rey?” Briones sputtered.

Moreno smiled, revealing a near absence of teeth. “I was the gardener that day. I was the one trimming the ivy. I worked at Montanegro’s compound for four years, until he was executed by the Sinaloa cartel. You probably remember that. It was a bloody assault even by Tijuana standards. Don Felix was always generous with me, but over the years I fell on hard times, and, well, you know the rest,” Moreno said.

Cruz finally stopped walking and returned to his seat. He fixed the prisoner with a harsh stare and fired a question at him.

“How do you know about the Viagra?” Cruz asked.

“I overheard it. Seems he sent the ‘antidote’ to San Diego for testing. He about blew a gasket laughing when telling his brother a few days later. I don’t think I ever saw him so amused. He had tears rolling down his face. I think that impressed him more than when he read about the Chiapas cartel boss being executed the next day.”

“So you’ve seen El Rey? You could tell us what he looks like?” Cruz demanded.

“It’s been a very long time, but I think I could — but it will be what he looked like then. Time can change a man’s face, and I only saw him for a few minutes. I was working, and only glanced over occasionally. If you paid too much attention, it could be bad for your health,” Moreno explained.

“If we showed you some drawings, could you pick him out?” Briones asked.

“I can try. Only one thing. If I do, what will I get in return? I can wait for you to check my story if you want. You can look up the details of the death of the Chiapas cartel’s boss — and the date. That’s the only thing I can think of you can verify,” Moreno offered.

Cruz considered it. There was no way a man of obviously limited intellect and prospects could invent a story like that; not with so much detail. Cruz was willing to bet it was true.

“If you can help us, I’ll speak to Culiacan and ask that your charges be dropped. I’d also suggest that you stop burgling houses. You’re too old for that shit,” Cruz said.

“I believe you. And thank you, Capitan. Thank you so much,” Moreno said, close to tears with relief.

Briones opened his briefcase and spread the five drawings out on the table along with a few placebo drawings they’d had Arlen draw in preparation for the meeting. Moreno squinted at them for a few minutes, seeming undecided. Finally, he put his scarred index finger on one.

“This one’s the closest. He looks older here, and a little heavier, and there’s something about the nose and eyes that isn’t right, but this is the most similar to what I remember,” Moreno said.

They all looked down at the sketch Moreno had selected.

It was Briones’ vagrant.

~ ~ ~

Sarah Wilford checked her e-mail, intrigued when she saw the message from her brother-in-law, Bill Stephens. She racked her brain for the last time Bill had sent her anything and came up dry. This was a first.

She read the short introductory message, then opened the attachment, which was a formal meeting report with the Mexicans. Sarah skimmed it, and then a phone call distracted her. By now it was already five o’clock, and she needed to get going to pick up the kids from daycare. She thought about what to do with it, and then forwarded it to her boss, Carl Rugman, who would know better than she how best to proceed. Satisfied she’d done all she could, Sarah gathered her coat and purse and headed off to collect her darlings.

Carl was in a meeting with two communications specialists going over the latest satellite surveillance grids for Iraq, which took until six o’clock. He did a cursory scan of his messages and noted the one from Sarah. After a quick read, he picked up his phone and dialed his counterpart at Secret Service, who was out of the office, and left a brief message that he was forwarding on a report from the DEA. Next, he called a friend at the CIA, which also went straight to voice mail.

“Humphrey, this is Carl. I know it’s kind of late, but I just got a report from DEA I thought you might be interested in. It’s about a possible threat to the President, involving Mexican cartels. I’m forwarding it on. Hopefully, you’ll know who to hand it off to.”

After re-reading it again, he sent the e-mail to three other men within the NSA, and two more at the CIA. Between those contacts and the Secret Service, they should have the bases covered.

He switched off his computer and donned his jacket before flicking off his lights, tired after another grueling day of meetings and briefings. Keeping the nation safe from terrorism and whatnot took it out of a guy, especially at his age.

Three hours later, a phone rang in the private office of one of the most powerful men at Langley, an assistant director for the entire Middle East.

“I sent a report to your encrypted anonymous box. Read it and call me back. We have a problem.” The line went dead.

Kent Fredericks dutifully logged into his alternative mailbox — a blind address for sensitive matters he didn’t want on record — and carefully read the report before dialing the phone.

“We need to meet. Can we get together this evening?” Kent asked. He looked at his watch. “Maybe tell the missus that you need to have a cocktail with an important constituent?”

“Ten-thirty, at my club. I’ll see to it we aren’t disturbed. Shouldn’t be many people around at that hour.”

“I’ll see you there.”

That gave Kent a little over an hour to get prepared. He needed to carefully consider how to deal with the report. It would be simple to put out a verbal dismissal of it as an unverified hunch by some Mexican nobody — he could spin the word ‘Mexican’ with a roll of his eyes to depict incompetent peasants. It wouldn’t be hard, given that many of those considering the findings would be older Caucasian males, whose embedded cultural prejudice would be simple to manipulate into a facile rejection of the data. He wasn’t so much worried about that as he was how to proceed. It posed a potential problem, and part of his value to the rarified membership of the group was in coming up with solutions.

When he entered the elaborate foyer of the club he was struck by how the place reeked of tradition and power. The walls were polished dark wood, with oil paintings of scowling men staring down from their positions in ornate gold frames — past chairmen, he presumed. A discreet man in black tie greeted him with a soft, “Good evening,” and then led him to one of the private meeting rooms, down a separate hall from the club’s main area, ensuring complete privacy. The man opened a door, and Kent stepped into a twelve by fifteen room. The passageway closed behind him, and he found himself face to face with the caller, as well as the Speaker of the House.

The ensuing discussion was exactly what he was afraid it would be. Towards the end, he tired of the speculation and accusations, and interrupted the borderline-hysterical dialog.

“Gentlemen, I think it’s safe to say that we need to deal with this as quickly and unilaterally as we can. I propose that I contact some of our assets in Mexico and get it handled through unofficial channels,” he recommended.

“That’s all well and good, but the cat’s out of the bag now, don’t you think?” the caller growled.

“Not at all. We have a police captain, who has a theory absent any support, based on hearsay from a criminal. It says right in the report that his own intelligence service shut him down. If they dismissed him, that’s a good indicator he’s got nothing solid. This is just a rogue cop with a wild theory and no evidence. Nobody’s giving it any credence in Mexico, and for good reason. It’s a non-event,” Kent responded.

“Well, what if he gets some proof?” the Speaker of the House asked.

“There is no proof. That’s the best part about this. There’s nothing to get,” Kent replied.

“What about this assassin he goes on about? What if he manages to find him and stop him?” the caller volleyed.

“You mean El Rey? The most famous assassin in Latin America? Gee, don’t you think that if the police could have caught him, they would have by now? There’s an entire task force devoted to doing so, and it’s turned up nothing. No, this is entirely containable. The cartel boss who took out the contract is dead. So nobody to talk there. That leaves a contract killer who’s evaded capture for a decade, and the Mexican police, who are about as competent as the D.C. cops…” Kent grinned at his humor.

“I’d say the cartel boss already did enough talking,” the caller said.

“Maybe, but he’s dead. So he’s no longer a problem.”

“What about the hit man, this El Rey? Will he carry out the contract now that his employer is no longer alive?” the Speaker of the House asked.

“All our intelligence predicts that he will. The new cartel boss who replaces him won’t want to piss El Rey off — he’s considered indestructible in Mexico by the criminal gangs there. So if he shows up demanding payment for a predecessor’s commitments, the new guy will pay. Look, the cartels are swimming in cash, so it’s a rounding error for them versus a bullet in the head when they least suspect it. No, I think it’s safe to say they won’t stiff El Rey, which means the only thing that’s changed is 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 the cartels. I understand our mission, better than most, and I further can see how it could appear that these events aren’t our concern — the President has his own security forces responsible for his safety, and the American president has his Secret Service. So why should we stick our noses where they don’t belong? The answer is, in my mind, simple. Because we’re the only agency preventing the cartels from taking over Mexico; and an assassination of our president would represent a catastrophic blow to the rule of law. Our job is to fight the cartels, and if this plot is real, it represents a new stage in our war against them.” Cruz stopped to take a swig of water before finishing. “I believe that this assassination attempt will take place at the upcoming G-20 financial summit in Los Cabos. That’s the only time the American president will be on Mexican soil this year. The summit is in four weeks, so we have no time to waste.” Cruz took a deep breath as he observed the rapt attention of his men.

“This scheme is the ultimate expression of evil from men who peddle death, and behave like barbarians — like animals. I don’t personally care whether our bureaucratic security force figures out that an assassin is planning to kill the President. I have already done as much, and I plan to act accordingly. And I’m asking for your cooperation. I need everyone to shift their focus and make this the priority in the days ahead. I’ll have meetings with each of you to lay out plans of action, but I want everyone to understand what we’re up against so I have your support. Thank you.” Cruz took another sip of water, then sat down in a chair at the head of the long conference table. “Questions?”

A chorus of voices clamored for attention, and Cruz motioned for quiet. He pointed to a man at the far end of the table. “Arturo. Yes?”

“Where did the image of El Rey come from, and are we working in conjunction with the task force that’s chartered with bringing him down?”

“Good question. This image is based on a brief encounter by our own lieutenant, Fernando Briones, who all of you know. I’ve been in contact with the task force, but their success level to date, after years of working the case, has been less than spectacular. So while I’ll brief them periodically on our efforts, I believe that to involve them in our operation would be counterproductive at this stage. They’d just get in our way.”

“And Briones is still alive to tell about it? What a lucky bastard,” Arturo quipped.

“Yes, that’s probably true.” Cruz pointed at another man, a fat, balding fellow halfway down the table to his left. “Miguel?”

“You mention that this is all theoretical. Do you anticipate getting any data that would make it move from theory to fact?” Miguel asked.

“That’s the whole point of this operation, which I am naming ‘mongoose’. El Rey is a snake: clever, deadly and silent. We shall become the mongoose that finds and kills such snakes. We need to use all of our resources to get leads on where El Rey is, so we can neutralize him. I’ll go into more detail in our individual meetings, but for now, let me just say that I need everyone to mobilize their networks and support the effort to gather information that will lead to his capture.” Cruz pointed at a woman standing by the back wall with her hand raised. “Yes, Cynthia?”

“Will we be working with CISEN any time soon on this? It seems that would be the appropriate group, given the threat to a foreign head of state.”

“I’m hopeful we will. But it may be too little and too late. Our job is to build a case, which we will present at the appropriate time. So that’s what we’ll do.”

The questions went on for another half hour, largely centering around logistical issues. Cruz patiently took all questions, answering them honestly, with no hiding from the tough ones or appealing to the authority of his position to justify his actions. This was a personal plea to his loyal staff, and they deserved to understand what he’d gotten them into.

Cruz finished by referring them to Briones for scheduling and necessary materials, such as copies of the sketch, and a case summary. When he walked out of the room, the confidence he’d displayed evaporated, and only one thought raced through his mind. They had less than thirty days to catch the bastard — the blink of an eye.

He’d never admit it, but he didn’t like their odds.