Russell Blake - Revenge of the Assassin

Likewise, spectators were limited to the huge square across the street, where the citizenry would be confined to an area that was barricaded off at the far edge of the six lane street that fronted the main entrance on the south side. Already, a crowd of almost twenty thousand had gathered, waiting for the spectacle to begin. Soldiers formed a perimeter around the church grounds, and the president’s security forces were deployed along the sidewalks of the buildings adjacent to and facing it. Snipers were nestled in the cathedral’s towering bell towers, scanning the rooftops of the numerous buildings surrounding the church for threats.

Cruz watched the proceedings from his vantage point near the front entrance of the cathedral, Briones in tow. The president was due in ten minutes, and as usual Cruz was anxious. El Rey had vanished, having apparently given up once his bomb had been discovered at the congress, but Cruz didn’t buy it. The man wasn’t the type to just quit. For all his reprehensible qualities, he had a hell of a work ethic Cruz understood in a very odd and dysfunctional way. El Rey was committed and singularly focused. Qualities he knew only too well. For all his distaste of the killer’s occupation, he had to concede that he’d never seen anything like his ability to pull off the impossible.

Vendors meandered through the crowd of onlookers hawking churros and cotton candy, and a fair number of both uniformed and plainclothes police were interspersed in the throng to watch for pickpockets or possible assailants. A security gateway had been erected at the far end of the square by the ice rink, where Chilangos , as the residents of Mexico City were known, normally passed the time on skates, improbable as that might seem to visitors from other countries. The popular view of Mexico was cactus and peasants wearing serapes and sombreros , walking their burros through dust and scrub with a mission bell tolling in the background, not cosmopolitan middle class business people and their children skating around like they were in New York’s Central Park.

Given the crowd, it was impossible to have the area completely buttoned down. Multi-story buildings everywhere, tens of thousands of people gathered, countless pedestrians moving through the far edges going about their business. It was every security planner’s worst nightmare. Thankfully, the president would only be exposed for a short while, as he made his way from the presidential helicopter to the massive front doors of the cathedral. Then it became a different matter.

Cruz had accompanied the president’s security head as the team had set up the security checkpoint metal detector inside the church, and chained all entries but the main one and the one leading to the vestry. Armed guards monitored the clergy entrance, subjecting the priests and altar boys to the same pat down and search as the general public. In addition to the president, virtually every dignitary in Mexico City was going to be in attendance, so if a terrorist wanted to eliminate the government in a single stroke, a well-timed attack during the service would achieve this with ease.

A team of explosive specialists had gone over the interior of the church all morning with bomb-sniffing dogs, inspecting every nook and cranny for suspicious items. After five hours of intensive searching, they’d turned up nothing. Cruz would almost have felt better if they’d located a device. The anxiety in the pit of his stomach had been building, although he had to admit that there was no evidence of an assassination attempt in play. Now the church was packed, with a hum of murmuring reverential voices vying with the organ music. There was little they could do inside at this point — the mass was imminent.

Briones and he stepped back through security and into the sun, shielding their eyes while surveying the crowd across the empty boulevard. One of the security detail approached them and tapped his watch. They would need to move to the perimeter. The president was due to land in three minutes.

Cruz and Briones walked across the cobblestones to the far edge and waited, Cruz studying the four and five story buildings at the sides of the massive square distrustfully. As he waited for the great man’s arrival, he looked up at the church’s ornate front facade, grimy from exhaust and soot, but still impressive. Built on the site of the main temple of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in the mid-1500s, it had been enlarged over the years and was now easily one of the most impressive sights in the city, as well as being a reminder of the Spanish role in the history of the country.

As Cruz resumed scanning the surroundings, his eye caught a glint in a distant window on the top floor of the Gran Hotel de Mexico, across the street from the most distant corner of the square. Simultaneously, the distinctive sound of a large helicopter battering the air above them intruded into the expanse, echoing off the church and momentarily drowning out the din of the crowd. He squinted and tried to make out what he’d seen at the hotel, but it was no good. Then the downdraft from the chopper caused a dust cloud to blow off the landing area, causing him to cough and close his eyes to fend off the grit. The aircraft touched down and the rotation of the long blades gradually slowed, enabling Cruz to resume his surveillance. He eyed the hotel’s windows and then spotted it again.

There .

Cruz elbowed Briones and leaned in to him.

“Binoculars. Now.”

Briones hesitated for a moment, then lifted the leather strap that held the glasses over his neck and handed them to Cruz. He raised the lenses to his eyes and studied the window that had caught his interest and then handed them to Briones before racing to where the head of security was standing, in preparation for the president’s exit from the aircraft. He cupped his hand over the man’s ear and yelled something, and then the security chief moved his handheld radio to his lips and issued a terse order. The helicopter remained in place, but the doors didn’t open.

Cruz sprinted across the empty boulevard to the sidewalk in front of the hotel, Briones panting in his wake as he struggled to keep up. Three serious-looking men with earbuds and suits carefully tailored to hide their shoulder holsters dovetailed from their positions near the barricades to meet them, and within a minute they were in the lobby of the hotel.

Ignoring the surprised stares from the guests in the sumptuous, centuries-old lobby, Cruz hurriedly approached the reception desk and gave a command to the young uniformed woman. She looked unsure of herself for a moment and then nodded and picked up the phone. After a few hasty sentences, she hung up and regarded him.

“Miguel, the head of maintenance, will meet you on the top floor in two minutes with a passkey. Do you know which room you want?” she asked.

“It’s the fourth from the corner, facing the cathedral,” Cruz answered.

She tapped on her keyboard and pulled up the information.

“Registered to Senor Ricardo Gomez, from San Luis Potosi. Checked in two days ago,” she told him.

Cruz had already motioned to the men and strode to the large, ornate wrought iron elevator that was the showpiece of the spectacular ground floor, its green and gold trim glancing off the sunlight that poured in through the intricate stained-glass roof over the lobby. The hotel was a rough rectangle built around the lobby, with the walkways and room doors facing the atrium.

The elevator creaked to a stop and they got on, with one of the men soundlessly taking the stairs in case their quarry got wind of their arrival and tried to make a stealthy escape.

When they reached the top floor, the maintenance man arrived, having followed the security man up the stairs. They counted the doors, and when they arrived at the suspect one, the group drew their guns. Cruz heard a collective gasp from the crowd in the lobby beneath them, which was now following the unfolding drama with interest. He took three steps over to the railing, holding a finger to his lips, his pistol clutched in his other hand. The people below scattered at the sight of the weapon and made for the exits, which was just as well, he reasoned. If there was going to be a gun battle, it would be best if civilians weren’t in the line of fire.