Russell Blake - Revenge of the Assassin

The following week, all four security men were found beheaded, stuffed in the back of an abandoned Chevrolet van on the outskirts of Hermosillo. The leader’s wife, sister, and three children were also found in the vehicle, beaten to death with a tire iron that still bore traces of their blood and hair on it, tossed casually on the floor of the passenger side of the cab. The local papers published lurid photos and made much of the grisly details, but within a few days the incident was forgotten, yet another in an endless parade of cartel violence that showed no signs of abating, regardless of the government’s rhetoric to the contrary.

The president’s security team was in place hours ahead of time in Tampico, where he was scheduled to make an appearance at a local hospital. It had been a lousy week for his entourage, as the president had insisted in venturing out of Mexico City to show that he was a man of the people, unafraid to visit his constituents.

It would be a welcome break from the bureaucratic grind that was his typical fare. The burdens of running Mexico were considerable, especially having only taken office a few short months before, during a time of upheaval. Infighting from political foes, the routine duties of being a head of state, jockeying to compromise on the host of campaign promises he had no ability or intention of keeping — all added up to a momentous pressure load, but one he gladly shouldered.

The exiting administration had looted the country’s coffers, as had each administration before it, so one of the most pressing items he had to deal with was rebuilding the nation’s finances. This was problematic, as the windfall staple that had been responsible for much of the country’s prosperity was becoming harder to pump out of the ground — or sea, in this case. Once flush with oil revenues, over the past years the amount of energy required to extract a barrel of oil had skyrocketed as the oil fields matured and the low-hanging fruit had been picked, demanding ever greater effort for each subsequent year’s production. Simply put; in the past, a field would yield a hundred barrels of oil for one barrel’s worth of energy to extract them. Now they were lucky to see four barrels to one. To make matters worse, Mexico’s internal consumption had almost reached the point where it wouldn’t have any oil left to export within a few years — one of its largest sources of revenue.

His other overwhelming problem was that the U.S. wanted Mexico to fight its war on drugs by pursuing the cartels at every turn, and it paid substantial foreign aid to Mexico in order to continue the nation’s criminalization of trafficking. The reality was that drugs were largely decriminalized within Mexico, and the population consumed them at whatever rate it felt like, without much fanfare or violence. Measures had been floated numerous times to make them legal, in an attempt to end the unprecedented violence that had accompanied the rise of trafficking by the Mexican cartels, when they’d taken over from the Colombians as the transportation arm of that nation’s enterprise.

The president’s security detail was chartered with performing advance reconnaissance of any area he would be visiting, and today he was scheduled to first fly from Mexico City to be at a new social security hospital to cut the ribbon in Tampico, and then jet to Guadalajara to spend an hour at an orphanage. Both events were photo ops, nothing more, but much of the role of being president involved kissing babies and feigning interest in the mundane. Nonetheless, the challenges involved with safeguarding him in an environment of constant danger and violence were significant, and the men chartered with doing so were professionals of the highest caliber.

Once the day was done, the plan was to fly into Durango before dark for a few days of relaxation at a massive ranch the president’s family owned. As with all presidential visits there, a helicopter would wing the president to the rural compound, bypassing any travel on roads. The highways were too much of a question mark, even with a massive military presence, so whenever possible the president eschewed motorcades in favor of air travel. The security detail tried to keep his arrival low-key, however that was generally impossible, and by evening the airport would be temporarily closed down and ringed with army troops to discourage any sort of an attack.

Major Luis Cena headed up the group of special forces troops assigned to presidential protection duty — the most prestigious posting in the nation, and one that carried with it significant pressure. He preferred when the president remained in Mexico City under rigorously controlled conditions, and hated these junkets for the risk they posed.

He was agitated this morning because the route from the airport in Tampico to the hospital was riddled with security problems, which he was handling to the best of his abilities but which introduced substantial uncontrollable variables. The president would be there within a half hour, and even after posting men along the way and closing off the streets, he was apprehensive. The president’s new offensive against the cartels had caused consternation at the highest levels and retaliation was a given.

Tampico was a problem area due to the high concentration of cartel cells in the region — always the case around any of the ports where drugs could be smuggled in and distributed. Cena had argued against the foray to the hospital, but the new president was still trying to earn the support of the people even though the campaign had been won — a fool’s errand, and a dangerous one, Cena thought.

Still, his job wasn’t to second guess the boss, but to protect him, which is why he was in crisis mode. It was days like today that drove him crazy. Not one, but three visits, all of which had to be viewed as very real brushes with danger for a man who acted as though the whole world loved him.

The short-hop presidential jet touched down at General Francisco J. Mina International Airport amidst a stoppage of flights for half an hour, in order to accommodate the entourage and security precautions. As the Gulfstream III rolled to a stop at the far end of the runway and taxied to a secure area, it was circled by army vehicles. Cena quickly deployed his men, who formed a protective perimeter. A fleet of gold-toned armored Chevrolet Suburbans waited, and when the stairs lowered from the plane’s fuselage, the security detail notably bristled. Traffic on all roads approaching the airport had been stopped with roadblocks, as had the frontage access-way, to reduce any likelihood of attack. A small group of specially selected reporters obligingly took photographs as the president descended the steps, waving to a non-existent crowd for the cameras.

Cena’s six plainclothes bodyguards surrounded the president as he made his way from the plane to his motorcade, and they moved cautiously to the waiting vehicles. The five Suburbans sat alongside six military Humvees, Cena’s men manning the heavy machine guns mounted just behind the roofs. In Mexico, there was no pretense of civility when it came to law enforcement — the sight of heavily-armed soldiers in combat readiness was a daily occurrence and drew no raised eyebrows. The reporters crammed into the last SUV, and the convoy was ready for departure.

Cena exhaled a sigh of relief as he climbed into the lead vehicle and gave the signal to get underway. At the airport security gate, six motorcycle police and three Federal Police trucks joined the convoy and took the lead, with another two bringing up the rear for the four mile drive to the new hospital.

The vehicles wound their way from the centrally-located airport along a pre-planned route to the hospital. Unfortunately, braving the city streets was the only way to reach the site. Normally, the president would have taken a helicopter, but there was no available area to land in the limited parking area adjacent to the hospital without inviting a rocket attack from one of the surrounding buildings, which had been deemed an unacceptable risk. To make matters more difficult, a large crowd had gathered there, along with another group of reporters. It was free entertainment, and the president didn’t visit every day. Even though everyone in the vicinity had been searched as a condition of attending the momentous event, Cena still was nervous. He hated crowds because of the potential variables that came with them.