Blood of the Assassin

CHAPTER 40





Cruz sat staring at his computer screen, aware of the rapid passage of time. The day of the signing was drawing steadily closer without any progress on his end. Three days had whizzed by since Dinah had been saved, and as he had expected, nobody had linked the charred remains salvaged from the warehouse embers with her abduction. When he had announced two days ago that Dinah had reappeared, safe and sound, the reaction from the group responsible for the investigation into her disappearance had been muted. They always had more work than they could handle, given the constant kidnappings in Mexico City, so an assignment taken off the board would be regarded as a relief rather than a cause for concern.

He printed out the presentation he had been working on and then rose, stopping at the printer to gather the pages before placing them into his briefcase and exiting his office. Briones was on the phone, his voice calm, but he was glowering – an increasingly regular occurrence. The pressure was mounting on everyone involved in pursuing the German, who had so far been undetectable, as predicted by El Rey, who had put in only a few appearances to check on the status and huddle with Cruz about more security safeguards.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this case so far was how easy El Rey had been to work with since their nocturnal foray. He’d been low-key, relaxed, and, while concerned as the signing date had ground inexorably nearer, mostly civil – even with Briones, with whom there had been some sort of unspoken truce. He was still arrogant and abrasive, and displayed as much empathy as a cobra, but he seemed to be making an effort to explain things that to him were self-evident, and had stopped peppering his comments with diatribes about the incompetence of the security force, the Federales, and everyone else.

Cruz gave Briones a curt wave and then took the elevator down to the lower level, where his car was waiting, armed Federales standing guard by both the elevator and the parking garage entry. Since the attempt on Cruz, the security teams had stepped up their game and were on constant high alert – no doubt due in part to the scathing report Cruz had issued about events surrounding his near-miss.

Dinah had taken a leave of absence from school and was spending her days in their new home, recovering. The purple discoloration on her face had faded to ochre, but she didn’t want to be seen in public, and he didn’t blame her. The doctor who had come the day after her rescue had advised her to ice it and to rest in bed, and she’d taken his instructions to heart. Thankfully, she didn’t want to discuss Cruz’s assignment or his working with El Rey – not that she seemed any more positively disposed towards the assassin since he’d saved her life, but rather because she knew it was a fait accompli. Now a precarious cessation of hostility was in effect, and life had returned to a tranquil pace, with no discussion of what had transpired while she’d been held captive, or about their future long-term plans.

Cruz gazed through the car window as the driver beat a path to headquarters, his mind preoccupied by the innumerable details of the search so far, none of which amounted to much. The security force had deployed countless advance personnel; the president had agreed to hold the signing indoors rather than on the Congress steps; the Chinese had approved a helicopter to transport their leader from the airport; and the most comprehensive precautions in Mexico’s history had been put into place, every subcontractor entering the meeting hall having been investigated and the maintenance and security staff thoroughly vetted, and a new system requiring all entrants to pass through a metal detector having been deployed.

They were doing everything they could, and yet he had the sense of spinning his wheels, which was reinforced each time he met with El Rey. They would listen patiently to the reports, consider all the available data, and then exchange a worried look. Neither believed for a second that any of it would be adequate to stop a committed killer, and the best they could hope for was to deter him – the German wouldn’t pursue the hit if he didn’t have a clean way to escape. He was doing this for money, not ideology, so he would want to live to spend it. The punt strategy they’d arrived at was to make it almost impossible for anyone to take a shot at the target, and if they managed to, completely impossible to do so and not get caught.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best they had.

When the car coasted to a stop inside the headquarters parking structure, Cruz groaned as he climbed from the back seat, and made a mental note to stop doing that. It was becoming habitual, more a clue as to his state of mind than a sign of any particular physical discomfort.

In Godoy’s office he found the pomp strangely reassuring, the consistency mildly grounding for him. The receptionist was typically snotty, Godoy’s assistant an ass, as always, and Godoy, once he’d forced Cruz to sit doing nothing for fifteen minutes in his antechambers, as artificial and condescending as ever.

“Capitan Cruz. Very nice to see you again. I’ve taken the liberty of asking our colleague at CISEN to join us so that we’re on the same page,” Godoy said, scrawling something of no doubt huge importance on a sheaf of stationery – his grocery list, or perhaps he’d taken up poetry.

“My pleasure,” Cruz responded in obligatory fashion, his tone making clear the lie.

Godoy made an elaborate display out of checking the time on his gleaming, patently expensive watch. “Our associate should be here any moment. In the meantime, may I just say how relieved I am that your wife was returned safely, and that the attack on you was unsuccessful. What are we to do with these predators? It’s shocking, the levels of barbarity they’ll stoop to...”

“Thank you. I’d say they got the worse end of that deal, though.”

“True, too true. Are your current accommodations suitable?” Godoy asked, equally uninterested as Cruz in the discussion so far.

“Fine. I spend so much time at the temporary offices now, it hardly matters where I call home.”

“Yes, well, fortunately not for much longer. Ah, that must be our man!” Godoy practically trilled when his intercom buzzed.

Rodriguez strode into the room, a palpable presence, impeccably coiffed and dressed, as usual, and acknowledged Cruz with a nod before taking the other seat in front of Godoy’s massive desk. “Capitan. Godoy.”

“Rodriguez. Thanks for coming – I know how busy you must be. Very well. Let’s begin. I asked Capitan Cruz here today to fill us in on progress on the Rauschenbach matter,” Godoy announced with an unctuous air of authority.

“Hmm. Right,” Cruz muttered. “The good news is that we’ve made real headway in tightening up the security, so it’s better than ever. The bad news is that we’re no closer to finding the assassin than we were when we started – as Assistant Director Rodriguez no doubt is aware, from the reports his liaison sends him on a daily basis.”

“How can that be? You’re burning money like kerosene, and you’ve commandeered half the available personnel in D.F., yet you’re telling me you have nothing to show for it?” Godoy blustered, practically sputtering.

Cruz wondered if there was a hidden camera taping the meeting, or if the pompous ass really couldn’t help grandstanding even when there was no point. Probably the latter, he concluded.

“I wasn’t aware that we were on a budget,” Cruz remarked drily.

“Well, it’s always a concern.”

“If you aren’t satisfied with the way I’m running things, I’d be more than happy to step down. Perhaps you could run the task force...,” Cruz suggested.

“No, no. Of course I’m satisfied. It’s just that everyone’s frustrated that there’s been no real progress...”

“Exactly as I warned there wouldn’t be. This is worse than a needle in a haystack. It’s like trying to locate a drop of water in a river. We have nothing to go on...except, well, a lead that came in this afternoon, but even that’s a long shot...”

“What is it?” Godoy demanded.

“We got a tip from an informant who was arrested for armed robbery and possession of narcotics. A lead we’re following up on. I don’t want to say anything more until we’ve developed it. As you know, these types of investigations will turn up countless red herrings and false starts. Every crook in Mexico is trying to barter his supposedly valuable information in exchange for leniency.” A particularly loathsome little weasel had intimated that his acquaintance, a low-level cartel-associated gun smuggler and general miscreant, had fulfilled an order that could have been for their target – but it was speculative at this point. Cruz didn’t want to announce anything only to have it turn out to be vapor.

“Mmm. Rodriguez, do you have anything to add?” Godoy asked.

“Not really. Capitan Cruz is right that I’m getting daily updates. So unless there’s something more...,” Rodriguez said, preparing to rise, obviously annoyed at having had his time wasted so that Godoy could have an audience.

“We’re only a few days out from the event. It’s time to alert the Chinese and give them a data dump. They need to be in the loop,” Cruz stated flatly.

“Ah, well, Capitan, I appreciate your concern, but that’s being handled at a different level. At a diplomatic level.” Godoy pronounced each syllable with care, as though with careful elocution he could stave off objections.

“What does that mean?” Cruz demanded.

“It means that it’s above your pay grade, Capitan. Just focus on apprehending the German, and we’ll handle the international diplomacy side of things,” Godoy dismissed.

“That’s not good enough. You placed me in charge of this. My reputation and career are on the line. Withholding information from the Chinese...if word ever got out, we’d have a major incident. And if the unthinkable happens, and it turns out we knew for weeks that there was a legitimate threat, and didn’t tell them...,” Cruz protested.

“With all due respect, we assigned you to this in order to catch the assassin, not to consult with the Mexican government on how to handle its diplomatic affairs. It’s not your concern. And if you would do your job, we wouldn’t have to worry about it,” Godoy snapped.

Cruz recoiled like he’d been slapped, then his eyes narrowed and he adopted an eerily calm tone.

“You gave me nothing to work on other than a rumor. I’ve been putting in twenty-hour days, and so has all my staff. If you have any suggestions as to what I’m missing, I’m all ears. In fact, I think that my offer to allow you to take this over is even more attractive, now. Given my obviously inadequate performance to date, right?”

Godoy couldn’t put it in reverse fast enough. “Now, now. That didn’t come out right. I simply meant that we’re all frustrated that the German is still at large, in spite of everyone’s best efforts. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t doing everything possible.”

Rodriguez stood. “I’ll leave it to the two of you to sort this out. I have work to do. Gentlemen,” he announced, and then before Godoy could protest he stalked to the door and left.

Cruz couldn’t contain a small smile at Godoy’s discomfort. Taking his cue from Rodriguez, he rose, and handed Godoy the report he had printed. “Everything we know is contained in these pages. We’re coordinating with the security team on an hourly basis, and think we’ve made significant progress on preventive measures. But this has always been a long shot, given the dearth of information we’ve gotten. So while we can certainly hope that something breaks in our favor, right now I’d say that we won’t be able to stop the assassin from trying to kill the Chinese leader, unless he can’t figure out a clean escape plan. So that’s what we’re focusing on, even as we follow up all the other leads.”

“It’s possible that he’s seen the elaborate measures we’ve taken, and decided not to attempt it, isn’t it?” Godoy asked hopefully, floating a theory that had increased in popularity within the president’s inner circle. His desire to have the optimistic notion reinforced was almost pathetic, and for a second Cruz almost felt sorry for him.

“Anything’s possible. But I’m not betting on it, and neither should you,” Cruz said, and spun on his heel, glad to be out of the oppressive atmosphere – a combination of expensive leather, sour cologne, and flop sweat. If the powers that be really had talked themselves into the idea that the German would quit because the hit had become more difficult, they were delusional.

Which was nothing new, he supposed, as he rewarded the receptionist with a sneer when he blew past her. It gave him a childish sense of pleasure to be nasty to the imperious woman in return for her arrogant treatment of him whenever he was summoned, but he immediately felt bad about it once he was out of the suite.

She was just mirroring her boss’s attitude. Like a dog began resembling its master after a while, she had begun taking after Godoy.

Which, in the scheme of things, was punishment enough.