Revenge of the Assassin

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.

“Looks like this is where he assembled the bombs and the helicopter. You could rebuild an engine with the number of tools in this place. And there are some traces of plastic explosive in a plastic bag. I think it’s time to call in the crime scene people,” Briones said.

Cruz appeared not to have heard him and then slowly turned to the table.

“Yeah. Call them. Let’s get a crew in here and go over the place with a fine-toothed comb. Maybe there’s something we can use that will lead us to his employer,” Cruz said, his voice tight.

Briones regarded him carefully. “Are you all right?”

He sighed. “Sure I’m all right. I’ve just been battling a cold for the last day. I think it’s wearing me down,” Cruz explained. “Make the call and tell the landlord we’ll probably have people here for at least six to eight hours. I want to get the prints of every person who’s ever been in here, or handled any of the tools or other items.” Cruz tossed the backpack onto the floor.

“Anything in it?” Briones asked, drawing his phone from his shirt pocket.

“No. It was empty.”

Cruz arrived home at the condo after midnight, exhausted to his core. He locked the door behind him quietly, taking care not to make noise as he padded through the foyer into the living room. A trail of alcohol vapor lingered in his wake, but he moved with surety, no hint of inebriation.

Dinah was asleep on the couch, a half full glass of white wine sitting on the coffee table next to a stack of homework she had graded. He considered her, slumbering peacefully, looking angelic in her untroubled dream state, and then brushed past to the bedroom.

Ten minutes later, he emerged with one of his small duffle bags and an extra uniform on a hanger. He placed the bag by the front door and laid the uniform on top of it. Returning to the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a can of Modelo beer. When he popped the top open, it snapped with an audible crack, and Dinah jolted awake. She appeared disoriented for a few seconds, punchy from sleep, and she swung her head around until she saw Cruz. She smiled sleepily, and then her mood faded when she registered his expression.

“Corazon. What time is it? God, it’s almost one. Where were you? I tried to wait up, but I couldn’t…” She stopped — he was staring impassively at her. “Amor…what’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

Cruz reached into his shirt pocket with his left hand and withdrew the letter he’d retrieved that afternoon from the backpack. He flipped it at her, the small rectangle slicing a dizzy course through the tense air before it landed at her feet. Her eyes locked on it, and then her face collapsed.

“Amor. Romero. I can explain…”

“Can you? Can you really? That would be good to hear. Tell me why my fiancee is passing detailed information to the world’s most dangerous assassin, and the subject of my task force’s every waking moment of effort. Tell me why the man who killed my men, who wades in blood and lives to murder, benefits from your notes, like a lover sneaking kisses in the night. Explain it to me. Because I’d really like to understand.”

“It’s not what you think. I did it for us…”

“For us? Really. How is that, exactly? How is betraying me, betraying everything I’ve worked for, good for us? Because I’m confused. I don’t get it. I don’t see how my wife-to-be could lie to me every day, and be handing my innermost secrets to my sworn enemy, yet really be doing it for my own good. Christ. Do you know what kind of an animal this man is?” Cruz took a long swig of beer, finishing the can in three swallows. He stared at it, and then tossed it into the garbage before opening the refrigerator and grabbing another. He turned back to her and scowled. “This parasite, this psychopath, has killed hundreds of people — and you have been handing him my game plan. Explain that to me because I’m missing some big pieces.”

“He…he found me three weeks ago…after the kidnapping, he came into my room at the hospital, and he threatened to kill me. To kill you. To murder us both…” Dinah hesitated, and then told him everything. The dead drops in the store. El Rey’s demands. The threats.

Cruz listened wordlessly, taking occasional swallows of his beer, and waited for her to finish. When she had, he shook his head, and walked around the breakfast bar to retrieve the envelope before returning to the kitchen. He took his time in formulating his response and fought to keep the anger out of his voice.

“You could have come to me. Told me. I could have helped. I could have saved you.”

“No, you couldn’t. The man is a monster, capable of anything. And he’s beaten everyone he’s ever gone up against.”

“All but one. Me. I beat him. He’s in custody because of me. So you were wrong. You could have…” he slammed his beer down on the tile counter, “you should have come to me. But you didn’t. Instead, you passed information that cost people their lives to this killer. A murderer. A thug. The man who killed your father.” Cruz regretted saying it even as the words left his mouth, and he instantly registered the shock and pain in Dinah’s eyes. And then a part of him didn’t care. Screw it — let her live with the truth.

She was speechless as she processed what he had just revealed. Finally, she spoke in a quiet voice.

“He killed my father? And you knew? All this time, you knew?”

He put his almost empty second beer down on the counter and shook his head.

“Your father was his agent — he handled the money for him. He killed your dad when he planned his retirement. It was a loose end.”

Dinah had nothing to say to that.

“You gave him a top secret document that could get me put into prison if it had been discovered. You committed treason. It’s much more serious than a lover’s quarrel. You betrayed me, destroyed our trust, and committed a high crime that carries a horrible penalty,” he said, and then turned his back on her, walking towards the front door. “The penalty for treason, for doing what you did, is life in prison. It’s that serious. This isn’t a joke or a game.”

Dinah sprang to her feet and followed, but stopped at the kitchen, standing with her arms down, palms outstretched, taking in the bag and uniform in a split second.

“Romero. Please. What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m leaving.” He turned towards the door and leaned down, shouldering his bag and holding the uniform while he reached for the knob with his free hand.

Dinah’s eyes suddenly flashed with fury. “And was it the right thing to send your ill-prepared men up against such a dangerous man? Would Lupita Guerrero deem it right?”

Cruz blinked back at her. What the hell was she talking about?

“Lupita who?”

“Lupita is a pupil of mine — you sent her father up to that apartment to tackle El Rey — now she doesn’t have one. Can’t you see, Romero…you couldn’t even safeguard your own men against such a force and yet you expected me-”

“I expected you to trust me. To have faith in me, Dinah…” he said, twisting the lock.

Her anger faded as quickly as it had flared to the surface. Her voice became quiet as she read his face.

“But…Romero. What are you going to do?”

He held up the envelope with her notes and the top secret document in it, then put it into his shirt pocket. With a twist, he opened the door, and then looked at the tears rolling down her cheeks as she sobbed, heartbroken and afraid. He fixed her with a gaze that spoke of sadness, and fatigue, and broken dreams, and then he turned, stepping over the threshold into the long hall.

“The right thing, Dinah.” He sighed wearily. “I’m going to do the right thing.”