Blood of the Assassin

CHAPTER 44





A distorted voice blared flight information over the loudspeaker as a small crowd waited patiently for loved ones to exit the terminal. Inside, arriving passengers moved from the gates against the flow of departing travelers, who thronged the seating area while waiting to board.

El Rey, Cruz, and Briones were in Terminal Two of the Benito Juarez International Airport, walking the hall, eyes poring over the security precautions with approval – a routine part of air travel safety and stricter than at almost any other installation in Mexico. Everyone had to go through metal detectors, with no exceptions, and even the trio, two in uniform, had to be signed in by the ranking federal police officer so that they could keep their side arms.

El Rey squinted out the windows on the eastern side of the terminal at the hangars in the near distance and the broad expanse of tarmac between the terminal and the government planes grouped there. A military helicopter sat squarely in the middle of the restricted area set aside for arriving dignitary aircraft, as well as the Mexican President’s Boeing 757 whenever he was traveling internationally.

“Tell me again about the security here,” he said, estimating the distance from the VIP area to the terminal.

“It was decided that the Chinese would land here instead of Santa Lucia, which was discarded even though it’s only twenty miles away,” Briones started, referring to the military base north of Mexico City. “The Chinese dismissed it out-of-hand because of the danger of a surface-to-air missile strike on the chopper ride into the city. Even if there was a helicopter convoy, it posed too great a threat.”

“I agree. Too many areas a chopper could be picked off.” El Rey nodded as he continued surveying the runways and maintenance hangars.

“The Chinese will arrive around nine a.m. and stay aboard the plane until a chopper arrives to transport the leader to the Congress building. Patrols will be constant on the access roads and the perimeter road, and there will be hundreds of police and military troops in the neighborhood to the south. Which isn’t considered to be a huge risk due to how low the buildings are, as well as virtually no line of sight to the aircraft once it’s in final position.”

“I’ll still want to go through the neighborhood,” El Rey said.

“The army will have snipers on the rooftops of the nearest structure. They’ll also be occupying the entire line of buildings that front onto the road that runs along the south side, which will be closed that morning until the Chinese have taken off again.”

“Fine. What about this terminal?”

“We’ll have snipers distributed on the roof, as well as the roofs of the nearby hangars, and we’ll search the hangars early that morning, and then sentries will watch the area until the Chinese leave. It’ll be buttoned up tight.”

“Tell me about the helicopter.”

“Your advice about the maintenance concerns was taken to heart, and they’ll have a crew of mechanics and observers going over every inch of the chopper that morning to ensure no tampering has occurred. It’s a fully armored beast that can withstand any sort of rifle fire. Anything short of a direct hit by a surface-to-air missile won’t affect it.”

“What about the flight path of the chopper to the Congress hall?” Cruz asked.

“It will be decided five minutes before takeoff. One of six routes that will skirt the populated sections of town, to the extent they can. So anyone planning to try to shoot it down, or at it, en route, will have to be psychic.”

“What about the buildings across the runway?” El Rey asked.

“That, over there, is Terminal One. One of the largest passenger terminals on the continent. And the hangars over there” – Briones pointed at a distant row of buildings, and everyone had to struggle to make them out through the haze of pollution – “will get the same treatment as the nearer ones; although both they, and the terminal, are too far away to pose a threat. Still, they’ll have a few snipers on the roof, just in case.”

El Rey surveyed the surroundings and shook his head. “What are we missing? I can feel it in my bones. There has to be a weakness in all this we aren’t seeing. He’s a shooter, so he’ll likely use a gun to pull this off.”

“Agreed, but not here. Look around you. How would he get a rifle in here? The security is designed to prevent exactly that, and it’ll be stepped up to an insane level for twenty-four hours prior. There are easier ways to do this than to try to crack the most fortified area in town,” Cruz said.

“Yes, but this would be the most unexpected. If I was going to try to take the Chinese leader out, there would really be only two choices: here, or when he’s in front of the Congress, once the chopper lands. Those are his two most vulnerable spots. The only times he’ll be exposed outdoors. So that makes it pretty easy,” the assassin said. “That’s where the hit will take place. They’re sweeping the hall for bombs, they have radiation detectors going in, and the place will be literally crawling with security. Even the sewers will be patrolled – talk about crap duty. So that leaves the two weak points.”

“And they’ve taken precautions against a gas attack as well. I’ve never heard of anything remotely like this in terms of precautions, for anything,” Briones reported.

El Rey continued staring out at the planes taking off and landing, the runways operating at ninety-seven percent capacity at the busiest hub in Latin America. A huge jet gathered speed as it shot down the runway and then lifted slowly into the sky. A few seconds later another appeared at the opposite end of the runway, hovering over the city, and then touched down, wheels smoking as they hit the ground.

“I’m telling you, we’re missing something,” he grumbled under his breath, and Cruz touched his arm.

“Come on. Let’s go up to the roof so you can evaluate it from up there.”

The three men walked slowly along the massive hall that housed the jetways towards the lobby area, where airport personnel would meet them to escort them to the roof. Nobody gave a second glance to the custodian off to the side emptying out one of the trash bins into his cart. If they had, they would have seen nothing unusual – an older man, skin burnished a coffee hue, going about his thankless job.

Rauschenbach watched the two Federales and the younger man out of the corner of his eye and then returned to his study of the terminal. He’d had no problems making it into the departure lounge with his forged ID and paperwork, but he’d also instantly seen that it would be all but impossible to sneak a weapon in. He had considered machining something that would fit into a cart’s steel frame, but the security guards were going over the rolling trolleys carefully. Even if he had a metal shop and could build one in the two days left before the hit, getting it into the facility would be practically impossible – and then he would have to be able to disassemble it, extract the rifle, and find a way onto the roof that didn’t have a dozen cops guarding it – not to mention the inevitable snipers that would be stationed there the morning of the Chinese dignitary’s arrival.

He hummed to himself, his soiled uniform rendering him all but invisible, and reconciled himself to leaving, his goal of finding a way in – and perhaps more importantly, out – having eluded him. He would have to study the airport blueprints that night more carefully and see if there was anything he’d overlooked. There was always a way, he told himself, and decided that he would go over to the far terminal to look around in case he came up with a breakthrough idea. Then, after lunch, he would spend the day in the neighborhoods around the Congress doing the same thing – searching for that which had escaped him: a spot that would be vulnerable, that he could get into without being caught, from where he could shoot the target and then escape before anyone knew what was happening.

He nodded courteously to an armed policeman walking slowly along the terminal floor, talking to a well-dressed woman holding a clipboard and pointing, and then pushed his cart towards the maintenance area, where he would leave it and slip out, then work his way to Terminal One.

The Mexicans were definitely taking the threat seriously, but he had expected that. That went with the territory. But there was no way he was going to give back the half of the four million dollars he’d already received to do the job. One way or another, he would find the weak link and capitalize on it.

~ ~ ~

That evening he made his decision, and went to meet one of the contacts provided by the Los Zetas cartel members who had gotten him into the country. The man, Pedro, an ex-marine, smiled and nodded when the German told him what he wanted.

“That should be easy enough to get. Figure tomorrow. I can arrange for one to disappear from one of the nearby military bases. But you could just buy one in the United States, and it would be way cheaper. There’s no reason you couldn’t have it here within a couple of days, maybe three on the outside.”

“I have my reasons. Just name the price.”

After a few more minutes of negotiating they reached an agreement, and Rauschenbach shook the man’s hand, sliding a wad of cash to him with the other. “I’ll see you mañana,” he said.

“For that kind of money, count on it.” Pedro shook his head in wonder as he left the rendezvous. That was the easiest cash he would ever make. Sometimes people were crazy, he mused, as he disappeared into a metro station near the Congress building.

Thank God.

Crazy was good for business.