Russell Blake - Revenge of the Assassin

He’d always wondered why Escobar and crew had one day turned themselves in, at a time when they were among the richest men on the planet. Although the official story was that the Colombian military, augmented by the Americans, had eventually won the struggle against the Colombian cartels, the true facts were simple. There was nowhere they could be safe, except behind maximum security walls guarded around the clock. He knew for a fact that all the Cali and Medellin cartel chieftains lived in unparalleled luxury while serving life sentences, and once his contact had spilled the beans over shots of tequila one night, everything had fallen into place.

The Colombians getting out of the trafficking trade and sticking to production in-country had created an opportunity for the Mexican cartels, which had forged similar arrangements with their neighbor’s intelligence service in return for protection. The relationship was simply good business. Dope north, weapons south, with their ‘friends’ taking a cut of each, presumably to fund their less savory operations. There were many things Congress couldn’t or wouldn’t fund, and as early as the Sixties, the CIA had moved to augment its budget with narcotics trafficking. That had proved a wise move, and soon the agency was acting as conduit for drugs from Vietnam and Afghanistan, oil and cash from Iran, and eventually cocaine and heroin from Colombia and Mexico.

The phone on his desk jangled; he grabbed at it.

“Boss. You have visitors. Angel and a driver,” his number two man alerted him.

He watched as a white Cadillac Platinum package Escalade rolled through the gate leading from the retail yard and pulled to a stop outside his office. A familiar figure climbed out of the passenger side door.

It was Angel Talvez, one of Don Aranas’ lieutenants. He always liked to see Angel. It meant one thing. Another big order.

Carlos moved to the screen door that kept the bugs at bay and opened it, spreading his arms in welcome.

“Angel! It’s been too long. What? Three months, since we hit the clubs in Mazatlan?” Carlos enthused. He was a connoisseur of young strippers, the closer to their teen years, the better. Angel shared the passion for his hobby, and they’d spent many a night sampling the wares a few hours west.

“ Compadre . Always good to see you,” Angel replied with a smile.

Carlos motioned to him to enter and take a seat.

“Tequila?” Carlos asked, and then without waiting for an answer, moved to the small bar he had set up in a corner of the expansive office and poured two shots of Don Julio 1942. He turned to face Angel, glass outstretched, and found himself staring down the barrel of a silenced semi-automatic pistol.

Carlos’ eyes grew wide when he saw the look on Angel’s face. Angel shrugged a halfhearted apology for what was to come.

“Why, Carlos? Why did you fuck the Don ? You’ve made your money. Why give up information on El Rey ? Why do it?” Angel asked, curious as to why his friend would put himself in this position, requiring him to do something as unpleasant as killing him.

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carlos stammered, hands suddenly trembling.

Angel shook his head. They always lied in the end. Human nature. With his free hand, he removed a piece of paper from his pocket and placed it on the desk.

“Sit down and read that. Oh, and best have both of those yourself. It’s good tequila,” Angel said, motioning with the gun.

Carlos did as instructed and swallowed both shots as he stood, and then turned, placing them on the bar. He swung back in a blur of speed, aiming the heavy, tall tequila bottle at Angel’s head.

Angel had anticipated the move and stepped back, easily dodging the blow, and calmly fired a round into Carlos’ skull through his right eye. The.22 target pistol he favored was laughably small in caliber, but he’d never had any problems putting down his victims with it. Carlos proved no different, and his body went rigid as the small slug careened through his brain, tearing the gray matter to a scramble. The arms dealer buckled at the knees and fell forward. Angel moved to the side to avoid any messy splatter, having done this many times before. The tequila bottle crashed to the travertine floor, splintering into shards amidst a splash of precious nectar that pooled next to the slowly spreading blood.

Angel leaned over and put another bullet into the back of Carlos’ skull from three inches away. He paused over his friend’s corpse and inspected his handiwork, and then, satisfied that the job was done, walked to the desk and retrieved the piece of paper, glancing disinterestedly at the Top Secret stamp across the top. He folded it and slipped it into his pants pocket, and then returned the pistol to its place in a custom made shoulder holster as he made his way to the door.

A few moments later, the Escalade roared off in a cloud of dust.

Nobody would report having seen anything. Apparently the granite counter business was a dangerous one in Culiacan, Sinaloa.

Most businesses were.

Sun streaked through the filthy windows of the workshop; a cloud of dust motes hung lazily in the air like snowflakes frozen on a Christmas calendar. The space was small, twenty by twenty, with a roll-up door and a few electrical outlets — plus the worktable at which El Rey stood, patiently adjusting his project with a toolkit that lay spread across most of the top. A heavy, green vice was mounted to the edge, and he’d wedged two neoprene mouse pad remnants on either side of its jaws, to soften its grip on the metal canister he had just finished fabricating.

He flipped the welding mask up and wiped away the sweat that had accumulated on his brow. He would have loved to open the windows for ventilation, but discretion won out. El Rey glanced up at the row of two-foot-wide glass squares framed by rusting metal, each with iron bars spaced every eight inches, and resigned himself to live with the stifling heat. It came with the territory.

He pulled his T-shirt over his head and absently blotted the defined muscles of his chest, testament to three hour a day workouts that had never ceased, even in retirement. A tattoo of a crow on his left pectoral glistened with perspiration as he leaned over his project, studying the cylinder with satisfaction. He painstakingly threaded a stainless steel plunger into one end, taking care to avoid damaging the spring and, once finished, stretched his lower back by reaching to grab his toes so as to avoid cramping.

The detonator would be armed just before it was show time, but this sort of detailed preparation was essential. As with all things, being meticulous ensured a superior result, and El Rey trusted no one with this work. He wasn’t about to spend months planning a sanction and have something fail at the moment of truth — he’d farmed out the explosives end only once before and that had been the only hit that had been unsuccessful. He had learned his lesson, and he hummed to himself as he patiently filed away the burs from the seam he had created, stopping to brush perspiration out of his eyes every few minutes.

Eventually satisfied with that piece, he unscrewed the vice and moved the metal tube to the side. Pausing for a few minutes to drink a half liter of water, he considered his next task.

He’d never built one of these before. The instructions had seemed straightforward, if a little convoluted, and he estimated it would take about thirty hours to completely assemble it. Then he’d need to test it and get comfortable with the technology, and calculate effective blast radiuses and ranges.

Leaning across the table, he unfolded the schematic for the device and moved the epoxy containers and paint off to the far end of the table, where they wouldn’t get in his way as he undertook the mechanical and electrical part of the job. Reconciled to a long afternoon, he slid a high stool to the work area and sat down, pulling the larger pieces of his contrivance towards him. The main body was simple enough, but he could already see that the necessary modifications would take some time. And he would have to adjust for the trigger and create space for it without throwing the balance off. Perhaps with a small amount of weight on the opposite end to offset the explosive charge.