Blood of the Assassin

CHAPTER 46





Cruz had agreed to meet El Rey and Briones early at the Congress building to go over last-minute checks and to see whether there was anything that caught the assassin’s expert eye as being a hole in the security. At seven, all three were standing in front of the huge edifice, soldiers and Federales everywhere, the air overhead shredded by the blades of helicopters holding snipers, their rifles stabilized with gyro-harnesses. A kind of controlled pandemonium reigned: army vehicles formed a crude gray perimeter, wooden roadblocks painted bright yellow lay ready to be set in place, and hundreds of armed police marched from their deployment location to the surrounding neighborhoods, supported by a contingent of menacing-looking marines with black knit balaclavas pulled over their faces.

Briones and Cruz were both in uniform, and El Rey had a Federales badge and credentials on a lanyard around his neck. His eyes were in constant motion, roving over the building silhouettes, his operational instinct clamoring a warning – the German was here, in the city somewhere, and he would make an attempt on the Chinese leader’s life this morning. He was as sure of it as an arthritic grandmother knew when rain was coming, and the certitude had him restless, nerves close to the surface and hyper-aware.

The anxiety was contagious, and soon both Cruz and Briones were also unsettled as they moved from position to position, checking with the security teams, their Chinese counterparts already in place, having flown in on an earlier jet dedicated to their transport, their glacial eyes sharing the roaming vigilance of their Mexican colleagues.

After spending an hour reviewing the precautions, they decided to move to the airport to check on things there – it would take a half an hour in rush hour to make it using surface streets, so they would have thirty minutes to nose around and see if they could detect anything amiss. Cruz bought a couple of newspapers for them at a café and two coffees for himself and Briones, while the lieutenant went to fetch the cruiser from the nearby lot, the assassin having declined anything, as was his custom.

When Briones pulled to the curb, emergency lights flashing, Cruz climbed into the front seat and El Rey took the back. A traffic cop waved them through the already congested intersection, rubberneckers everywhere wondering at the awe-inspiring display of firepower in the nation’s capital. Cruz handed one of the papers to El Rey and then took an appreciative sip of his steaming beverage as he studied the front page.

“Huh. Can’t recall ever seeing that before,” Briones commented, catching the headline out of the corner of his eye.

“What’s that?” Cruz asked.

“Someone stealing a plane and then crashing it. Weird.”

“The ink must still be wet. Says it only happened a few hours ago,” Cruz commented. “Computers have enabled the papers to change the cover story right up till the first run comes off the presses. Brave new world.”

El Rey read the short article, obviously written in haste, and then flipped the page, where a celebrity TV show host was gushing about her new baby and the tribulations of living with her multi-millionaire soccer player husband. A group of protesters had already gathered across the street from the Congress, and placards announced a host of uncoordinated complaints, railing against everything from the new accord the Chinese leader would be signing to steadily rising gas prices to the loss of Mexican jobs. The chanting hadn’t started yet, the protest leaders enjoying their coffee like everyone else before the cameras started whirring, and Cruz was struck by the pre-determined formality of the scene – protestors protesting, police officers policing, killers angling for a shot, politicians grandstanding through it all.

By the time they reached the airport, the perimeter road had been closed off, and Briones was able to park right in front of the terminal, his glower daring the local police at the curb to say anything about it. The officers on duty looked away – they had no dog in that fight.

The three entered the huge hall and moved to the security checkpoint, their progress tracked by dozens of armed federal police carrying assault rifles. Cruz made a cell call to advise the ranking Federales officer that his party was coming through and request that he meet them at the scanners to facilitate their passage. The officer was there in a few minutes, and they repeated their walkthrough, studying the runways where military vehicles and federal police assault vans were now parked in strategic locations, in anticipation of the Chinese plane’s arrival.

“Quite a show, eh?” Cruz said to nobody in particular, taking in the hundred or so armed men in clusters down on the tarmac, heavy fifty-caliber machine guns on the vehicle turrets manned by attentive soldiers, every one a combat veteran from the cartel wars that had been raging out of control for a dozen years. These were seasoned combatants used to taking fire and returning it, and Cruz found their presence reassuring, even if part of him knew that their presence was mostly for effect.

Their host, Captain Gabriel Guzman, looked equally fit to his retinue, and was only a few years younger than Cruz. He walked them through the steps he’d taken, politely answering their questions between fielding near-constant inquiries over his crackling radio. Cruz and Briones listened attentively, but the assassin seemed distant, lost in his thoughts as he searched in vain for a clue as to how the German intended to pull it off.

Forty minutes later, a charge of electrifying energy ran through the men as a Boeing 747 with the People’s Republic of China emblem on the tail dropped out of the sky and set down with the unlikely grace of an obese swan, its bloated torso defying physics with its ungainly flight. All eyes tracked it as it slowed at the far end of the runway, barely visible through the shimmer of polluted air, and then turned its bulbous nose slowly in their direction and taxied back towards them.

“Does anyone have binoculars?” El Rey asked, and Captain Guzman muttered into his radio. A few moments later a younger Federal came jogging up with a pair of spyglasses and looked quizzically at the group. The assassin motioned for him to hand them over, and then, without comment, he began studying everything within sight, taking his time, pausing now and again at a vehicle or structure. He could make out three snipers on the hangar roofs across the VIP area – one at each corner, facing the spot where the plane would come to rest, and one in the center.

He turned to Cruz. “I want to get up on the roof. How many shooters do you have up there?” he asked, shifting his focus to Guzman.

“Five at this terminal. Two more facing the staging area, and three facing the frontage road.”

“Let’s get up there,” Cruz said, and the four men made for the elevator to the upper level, where a guarded stairwell led to the roof.

“How’s it been going?” Briones asked, making small talk as they moved across the floor.

“Hectic, as you can see. They can’t just close down the terminal, so with the passenger traffic it’s been juggling a lot of balls. And the plane scare last night didn’t help.”

“Why did that affect you?”

“It flew by us, just a few miles east, so I got woken up in the dead of night. My fault for telling my subordinate to call me if anything unusual happened. Stupid bastard wound up crashing up by Pachuca. Got what he deserved.”

El Rey followed the conversation without comment, and then stopped, just for a brief second, something nagging at his awareness. Then it flitted away, a ghost dancing at the periphery of his consciousness, too insubstantial to solidify.

“What’s eating you? You look like someone just walked across your grave,” Cruz asked him, taking in his agitation.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just looking for meaning where there isn’t any. Something about the plane scare... it’s probably nothing.”

When they opened the rooftop door they were immediately struck by the stench of jet exhaust, which had bled an amber stain across the skyline. Supposedly the smog was far better than a decade earlier, but it was hard to tell that morning, and everyone’s eyes began watering within five minutes of being outside. El Rey took a few steps away from the group, his attention pulled to something on one of the nearby equipment enclosures – movement. A large black bird – a crow – was grooming itself, but seemed to sense the assassin’s scrutiny and abruptly stopped before fixing him with a beady eye. A chill ran up the assassin’s spine, and then the bird flapped into the air, away from the men and their airport, leaving them to their mundane duties.

He returned to Cruz’s side and they did a circuitous tour, nodding at the snipers, who were slowly panning their rifles, watching for any signs of a threat through their scopes. Briones nudged El Rey and motioned to the binoculars, the impulse to join them in their vigil too strong to resist. The Chinese jumbo jet had coasted to a stop in the designated area and made a half turn so that the doors would be facing away from the city – a common-sense measure that put the plane’s bulk between the nearby buildings and the spot where the helicopter would land. Everything seemed to be under control, the security impenetrable.

Perhaps they would get lucky, and the German had decided to skip his date with destiny.

Cruz looked at his watch. Twenty more minutes, and the helicopter would be there.