Blood of the Assassin

CHAPTER 37





The warehouse yard was dark and the area still except for the sound of murmured conversation from the rear, where two guards were lounging by the back wall, lying to each other about their most recent sexual exploits. The younger of the two, a little tank of a man with long, greasy hair and a goatee, was laughing quietly at the rollicking story his companion was telling.

“Anyway, I’m standing there with my pants off, and she sees my gun. So then the freaky bitch–”

He was interrupted by a scrape from the wall thirty meters away – metal on concrete.

Both men stiffened at the sound, and then the storyteller hoisted his shotgun and pumped the slide, chambering a round before making a hand gesture for the other to stay put. The younger man needed no encouragement, and remained standing by the rear wall, his back against it, his Kalashnikov assault rifle dangling loosely by his side.

“It’s probably a dog or something,” he whispered to his older companion, who made another hand gesture to be quiet, and then crept forward into the gloom.

A few seconds went by, and then a loop of rusting wire slid from the top of the wall and around the younger man’s throat, surprising him. As the impromptu garrote tightened around his neck, his eyes bugged out and he reflexively dropped his weapon, both hands clutching at the snare strangling him while he danced an involuntary jig. Pressure from above almost lifted him off his feet as the wire sliced into his skin, and then blood seeped from around the wound before spraying onto the wall when the carotid severed.

The entire macabre scene played out in fifteen seconds in complete silence, other than the thud of the AK47 hitting the weeds and the muted stamping of the gunman’s feet as he performed his death dance.

When the older man returned from his fruitless exploration, he hissed a whisper at his younger partner, whose shadowed figure was leaning against the wall in the dark.

“I didn’t see anything. You’re right, it’s some animal or–”

A form covered in head-to-toe black dropped to his right; he barely registered the glint of steel before a stinging slice lacerated his trachea. His free hand groped for the gash as blood first bubbled and then gushed from the wound, and then the world spun as tiny pinpoints of light shimmered through the enveloping darkness and he slumped forward with a choking moan. El Rey stepped aside, catching his shotgun before it hit the ground while avoiding the bloody torrent that spurted from the guard’s neck.

Two of the six guards down in only a few seconds, and El Rey hadn’t broken a sweat. He returned the blade to his belt sheath and peered at the front of the compound, where he knew the other pair of guards was patrolling, oblivious that their number had just been reduced by half.

The assassin crept forward, the night vision goggles illuminating the dark in fluorescent green, and then spotted the first of his targets, the guard’s assault rifle hanging from a shoulder strap as he relieved himself against the crumbling perimeter wall.

Gerardo traced his name on the deteriorating mortar with his splattering stream, the liter of water he’d drunk having finally worked its way through his kidneys and demanding release. The night duty wasn’t so bad, he thought, except when it rained, and their hard-ass shift leader made them stand in the drizzle, as though anyone would be moving against an empty warehouse in a downpour. After a few more seconds his flow slowed to a trickle and he sighed in satisfaction, then zipped up after a few vigorous shakes.

The spike of searing pain in his upper spine was as sudden as lightning, and the force of the blow knocked the wind out of him. He fought for a gasping last breath, but his nervous system had abruptly stopped obeying his brain’s commands and his lungs remained empty, and then he was falling, his bulk leaden, his legs no longer supporting his weight; knees not so much buckling as his whole body collapsing at the speed of gravity, like a controlled building demolition.

El Rey knelt and wiped the KA-BAR’s bloody blade on the man’s shirt, pausing to watch his eyes glaze, and then swept the other side of the yard with the night vision goggles, searching for the remaining guard. He was just about to stand and inch along the wall when a gruff voice called to him out of the darkness on his left.

“Hey, Gerardo, you got a smoke–”

The first subsonic 9mm Parabellum copper-jacketed round from the Beretta M9’s silenced barrel caught the speaker in the jaw, tearing half his face off as the soft lead hollow point mushroomed into an ugly blossom of destruction. A split second later its twin dotted a neat hole directly between the guard’s eyes, and the deformed slug careened through his cerebrum like a willful pachinko ball, instantly terminating his life.

El Rey rose from his kneeling crouch and moved swiftly to the dead newcomer. What was left of his head was twisted at an unnatural angle on the hard-packed dirt, and after a quick once-over, the assassin decided that even with the blood splatter he would serve the immediate purpose.

A few seconds later, he had the night-vision goggles off and the man’s loose jacket on, the Beretta just fitting in one of the pockets. He laid the goggles to one side and then returned to the other corpse and relieved it of its black baseball cap, which thankfully didn’t have much blood on it, though it stank of sour sweat and grimy hair. He pulled on the hat and then fished in the dead man’s overcoat, stopping when he found a pack of Marlboros and a plastic butane lighter. He glanced over his shoulder at the two warehouse windows in the near distance, seeping dim amber light, and then straightened and walked to the building entrance.

The two seated interior guards registered the front door swinging open, and then a growling voice followed a cloud of cigarette smoke through it. They relaxed as they saw the familiar jacket of one of their crew, and never had time to register their oversight.

“Shit, it’s colder than hell out there–”

The Beretta popped through the jacket’s fabric, and the first guard took two rounds to the chest. His partner was swinging an assault rifle up as the next series of four shots stitched a frying-pan-sized pattern of bloody wounds in his upper abdomen. The rifle crashed to the concrete floor as the man tumbled back in the chair and dropped in a heap on the ground. El Rey approached the two prone forms, and seeing that the first gunman was still breathing, toed his weapon out of reach before confirming that the other one was dead.

“Where’s the girl?” he asked, and the man’s eyes flicked to the left. El Rey’s gaze followed his to the interior office door.

“Anyone in there?”

The man shook his head, then coughed blood, the chest wounds burbling as he struggled for breath.

The assassin covered the ground quickly and threw the door open before ducking around the jamb and sweeping the darkened room with his pistol. Light streamed through the doorway into the room, and he could just make out a figure seated in a chair in the far corner. There, biting against a rag that was stuffed in her mouth and held in place with silver tape, was Dinah.

He felt around for a light switch and was rewarded by an overhead bulb sputtering to life. Dinah looked dazed, and then her eyes widened in panic when she recognized him, his gun clenched in his hand, blood smeared across his coat.

“Relax. I’m here to get you out of here,” he soothed as he approached her and felt for the edge of the tape. “This is going to hurt, but don’t make a sound. Are you okay?”

She was nodding a yes when he ripped the tape off and she whined in pain, the adhesive leaving a red welt, tears welling in her eyes from the sting. He pulled the filthy rag out of her mouth and she coughed, then spit to the side. He slid the blade of the KA-BAR from the sheath and for a second the terror returned, and then he was talking again, softly, rhythmically, coaxing her to calm.

“This will only take a second. I need to cut the bindings. Can you walk?” he asked, then placed a hand on one arm as he bent down with the knife. “Hold still. I don’t want to cut you.”

“I...I can walk,” she whispered as he sawed through the rope, and then her hands were free and she was clenching and unclenching her fingers, trying to get circulation to return. He knelt and repeated the process with her ankles, the line falling away as he sliced, and then he stood and studied her. One side of her face was discolored by an angry bruise, and the eye on that side was swollen half shut.

“I’m getting you out of here, do you understand? Your captors are dead. Your husband is waiting outside. It’s over. You’re free,” he assured her, and for a moment the look in her eyes was of incomprehension, and then, slowly, disbelief.

“What? You...my husband...how...?”

“Long story. Come on. Stand up. I’ll help you.” She was suffering from shock, and probably dehydration, judging from her stupor. “Did they drug you?”

“N...no. No drugs.”

“Okay, then. Come on. Up.” He slipped his arm under hers and lifted her to her feet, and then inched towards the doorway. She took one hesitant step, and then another, and then they were walking, slowly, out of the makeshift cell and towards the front door. Dinah’s eyes took in the two bodies and then she shut them, tears rolling down her face, and began sobbing as they moved, all the fear and anxiety and hurt from her ordeal purged in a swell of relief.

When they stepped through the entryway, he guided her through the night and towards the front gate, the darkness enfolding them both in its anonymous arms. A clatter sounded from in front of them, and they looked up as the gate swung open with a creak, Briones pushing it forward on rusting hinges.

They were halfway to him when El Rey slowed. Briones continued approaching, and the assassin’s mind whirled as he watched the lieutenant raise his submachine gun and point it at them. Time compressed into slow motion as he aimed the weapon at El Rey, and then it was too late – he’d pulled the trigger.

They heard a thump behind them and El Rey swung around, jerking his Beretta free as he glimpsed the body of the surviving bodyguard sprawled near the door, a pistol gripped in his lifeless hand, his brains spattered on the warehouse wall behind him. Dinah stood alone for a second, taking in Briones, gun still raised, and the assassin, who was slowly spinning back to face him, and then she stumbled and El Rey reached out and caught her.

Briones flipped the goggles out of his line of sight as he held the UMP 9 steady with his other hand. The two men exchanged a look, and Briones lowered the weapon, the moment passed.

“Missed that one, huh?” Briones asked with a smirk, and then Cruz was standing at the gate as Dinah, energized, stumbled unsteadily towards him. He dropped his rifle and threw his arms around her and hugged her close, laughing with relief as she cried. Then his eyes drifted towards the assassin, standing framed by the light from the warehouse door, facing Briones, as if the two men were about to fight a duel in a hellish last stand of their own devising.

“Let’s secure all our weapons, so there’s no trace we were here,” El Rey said, and turned to where he’d left his night vision goggles. “I left my rifle in the back, on the other side of the wall,” he said, and before they could respond he was gone as soundlessly as he had appeared, the only evidence of his presence the six dead men scattered around the compound.