Russell Blake - Revenge of the Assassin

Jacinto’s face darkened. “ Don , I swear on my mother’s grave, I haven’t spoken with anyone about it…” The danger of being suspected was obvious.

“I know. I’m not saying I think it was you. I’m saying that the circle who knows is small, and all are trusted beyond any doubt. Perhaps one of them murmured the wrong words to a mistress? Or made a call on a line that has been compromised? It’s a shame our source in Cruz’s group can’t get us better information — I’d like to put a stop to any further leaks,” Aranas speculated. “No matter. I think we need to throw a wrench into the government’s hunt for El Rey . I have an idea. I know this man Cruz, and I’ve also gathered a fair amount of information about him. I believe he has a weak spot.”

Don Aranas pushed his empty coffee cup away from him and glanced up at the thinning clouds as they relented to the piercing rays of the sun. He invited Jacinto to sit, and laid out his plan.

If everything worked out well, Cruz’s life would become extremely complicated within a few days, and the search for the assassin would be the last thing he’d be focused on. It was simple, and effective. Create a bigger problem for the man, and he’d shift his energy to solving that one.

It was human nature. And Aranas was a post-grad student of human nature.

Yes, Cruz would soon be otherwise occupied.

Cruz stared across the table at Rodriguez, astounded by what he was hearing. This wouldn’t do.

“I don’t think I’m being clear,” he began. “At the rate we’re going, El Rey is going to be successful in getting to the president. While I understand that you may have some operation going that involves the arms dealer, I’m telling you that the commander in chief is going to get assassinated if I can’t get help from you in putting pressure on him.”

“It isn’t that easy, Capitan . He’s integral in an ongoing situation that is bigger than your hunt for El Rey . We’ve been working on it for years. Years, not weeks. And frankly, if we push him or threaten him, he could just go dark on us, and then everything on our operation collapses. It isn’t that we don’t want to help you. It’s that we don’t have any way to leverage the man, so we can only politely request more help and see what he delivers,” Rodriguez explained.

“How about if you give me his name, and within an hour I’ll haul his ass in and throw him into an interrogation cell for a week? That won’t require anything from your side and could seem to be completely unrelated to anything you’re doing.”

“His first phone call would be to us, netting the same end result. If we didn’t get him out, he’d never work with us again. If we did, just a whiff of him having been in custody might terminate his usefulness to Aranas, and he’d be found floating in a river somewhere. No, the lousy truth is that this is far too delicate a situation to handle that way. I’m sorry. But he’s off the table,” Rodriguez concluded.

“I can go to the president.”

“If you thought that would help, you already would have. We both know that. And even if you did, once he understood the scope of the operation, he’d shoot you down, and then we’d be right back in this room. So how about we cut to the chase and think constructively?” Rodriguez sat back and steepled his fingers. “Here’s what I propose. I can set up a working group within CISEN to coordinate with you, and we’ll put our resources to work with yours to see what we come up with. Pick two men from your side to work with ours; we will get them classified clearance, and then we can proceed more productively. We have the ability to do a wide variety of things that you’d require a judge to sign off on. Bugs. Bank record checks. Networking with other international intelligence services. I would imagine that could speed up your investigation considerably…”

Cruz studied him. It wasn’t a bad idea, and was more than he’d thought he would walk away with. Much as he hated to admit it, Rodriguez was right. CISEN had a tremendous network and unilateral capabilities Cruz could only dream of as a police agency. Even with the powers of his task force, he could only do so much. CISEN working with his team could be a game changer.

He nodded. “Fair enough. I’m not going to lie to you. We’re not seeing the kind of progress I would hope for so far, and could use any help you can offer. Right out of the gate, if you have a more complete list of Aranas’ shell companies and attorneys, we could see if there’s a payment scheme we’ve missed. How would you envision this working?” Cruz acceded.

They discussed the logistics of creating an internal task force for the next hour, and by the time Cruz walked out of the building, they had a good framework. He’d assign the men, and hopefully within a few days would see some results.

Rodriguez watched Cruz depart and shook his head almost imperceptibly. The man was a bulldog. It would be valuable to understand what his group was doing, but in the end, there was no way he could jeopardize any of CISEN’s operations to help him. A working group would be perfect. It would create the illusion that CISEN was doing everything in its power, while giving them complete access to Cruz’s intelligence, which could be useful in Rodriguez’s planning.

At no point did he feel remorseful at refusing to pressure the arms dealer. He probably could have given them more than he had, but Rodriguez wasn’t about to risk his other project by pushing the arms dealer. He’d ask the nice man politely for more intel, but beyond that there wasn’t a chance in hell he would do anything to risk the relationship. Some things were bigger than Cruz’s concerns over the president’s safety. Regardless of who was president, CISEN needed to stay separate from the day-to-day operations of law enforcement. It was one of the harsh realities of the clandestine world — regimes would come and go, but the agencies would remain long after the masters they supposedly served had departed.

Dinah fumbled with her shoes, then grabbed her purse and a pile of homework she’d graded, before returning to the dining room and kissing Cruz.

“Is there any chance you’ll be home at a normal hour today, my love? Or should I plan on making another late dinner?” she asked.

Cruz sighed wearily. “I’d like to say yes, but with this latest El Rey situation, the truth is that I probably won’t. It’s added to my workload tremendously, and all the other stuff still needs to get done, too. So, plan on a late one, and I’ll call you mid-afternoon with an update…”

She looked at the time. “Shit. I’m barely going to make it. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later today,” she said, bolting for the door.

Traffic on the way to the school was terrible, and she sat in her little Ford Focus anxiously glancing at her watch, the radio tuned to the Top 40 Latin pop station to drown out the cacophony of honking horns that was a staple of Mexico City morning rush hour. It normally took her half an hour to reach the school, allowing for the gridlock, but today was worse than usual, and it was looking like she wasn’t going to make it.

When she pulled into the parking lot adjacent to the school grounds, most of the usual slots were full, so she had to park at the back, increasing her travel time further. As she got out of the car, she barely registered the two men who approached her from the dark blue van that had double-parked a few spaces away, obstructing her view of the attendant. She had just locked her door and was turning around when her path was blocked by the larger of the two — a menacing-looking man with heavy acne scars on his deeply-tanned face. Dinah instantly knew she was in trouble — kidnappings in Mexico City were routine, although she’d never been worried about herself because she wasn’t wealthy, nor were any of her relatives. Usually it was those from prosperous families that were most in danger.