Russell Blake - Night of the Assassin

Ten Years Ago

A year and a half after joining the marines, Raul disappeared without a trace, leaving nothing behind to be remembered by except his assumed name, which he’d quickly grown to despise. He’d participated in seven more operations after his first one, and yet with each mission he became more convinced that his talents were being wasted and he wasn’t progressing any further. To make matters worse, he witnessed countless acts of bumbling bureaucracy by the ranking officers, costing the men under their command casualties for no good reason. If anything had ever convinced him that he wouldn’t do well working for someone else, his half year of active duty after completing his boot camp and all the specialized training had done the trick. When he walked off the base for the last time, ostensibly on two day’s leave to go visit his fictional family in Chiapas, it was with an audible sigh of relief.

Raul had saved almost all of his meager pay and still had a few thousand dollars from the money he’d left home with, after selling his weapons to convert his assets into cash. His identity papers had cost him six hundred dollars in Mexico City, and he’d done some odd jobs before joining the navy, but he would need to put the next part of his grand plan into operation fairly soon if he was going to avoid having to work as a day laborer. Fortunately, the cartels he’d been battling were generous employers, able to pay far more than the navy, so he could pretty much choose which cartel he wanted to approach; as an ex-marine they’d be eager to have him as part of their enforcement team. Although he had different ideas about how he could be of service to them.

He was now three months shy of his nineteenth birthday and free to do as he pleased. Yet there was some unfinished business he needed to attend to back in Sinaloa before he moved on to the next phase of his life. His departure had stuck in his craw, and he felt a pull to return. He’d learned to trust his judgment on these things, so he hopped on a bus and began the long trip from Veracruz to Culiacan. Wearing the uniform of a special forces commando, he was afforded privilege by the bus company so thankfully it cost him almost nothing to cross the nation. Two days after he’d left his naval career behind, he descended the stairs in Culiacan, blinking into the bright sunlight of an early spring day.

After forty-two hours cramped on buses, eating whatever junk he could get at the irregular stops, his first order of business was to have a decent meal. He set off in search of a restaurant that had been his favorite, back in the day. Outside the terminal, he hailed a cab, providing the driver the address as he slid into the back seat. The young man had changed since he’d last been in town, as had the city itself, growing by leaps and bounds. His carefully-trimmed goatee and closely-cropped military haircut ensured nobody would recognize him, which wasn’t much of an issue considering his long absence. He’d developed into a hardened combat veteran since leaving as a teen boy and his bearing and additional muscle weight filled out his uniform, lending him a formidable presence. The boy had left and had returned a man.

The taxi arrived at the restaurant, La Chuparrosa Enamorada, nestled on the banks of the Canal Rosales, and the young man paid the driver and hoisted his duffle. It was a Tuesday, so the breakfast business was thin, which wouldn’t have been the case had it been the weekend. The place typically had a standing room crowd on Saturdays and Sundays, due to the generous portions of mouthwatering food. He had been there a few times with Emilio on special occasions and it was one of the things that had been on his mind since boarding the bus in Veracruz. The waitress invited him to an outdoor table overlooking the water. He ordered a glass of orange juice and a plate of chicken chilaquiles in red sauce – a local favorite and one of the restaurant’s signature dishes.

When his food came, he thought about his next move, while remarking on how little things had changed in the last twenty months. In this sleepy area, things seemed to always remain the same, even as the city grew at an unprecedented rate. First thing he would need to do is secure reliable transportation. Taxis weren’t going to be an option for what he had in mind, so he’d need to get some sort of conveyance sooner rather than later. With his bankroll being as thin as it was, that meant stealing something, or probably several somethings, depending on how far he decided to travel.

He munched on his food, savoring the rich, spicy sauce, and cleaned his plate as efficiently as a dishwasher would. Stuffed, he paid the bill and strolled out onto the rural road, scanning the surroundings for something he could liberate opportunistically. It took him half an hour to spot a suitable vehicle that was easy enough to break into and hot wire, but he eventually found a thirty year old Chevrolet truck with a broken wind wing. Within seconds, he was in the cab. It took him ten seconds to find the ignition wires and soon he was meandering down the familiar road that led to Don Miguel ’s estate. The surroundings were still verdant and wild, nature seemingly impatient to encroach on the slim progress man had introduced. When he was a quarter mile from the turnoff to the ranch, he pulled the old truck onto a dirt track that led off into the wilds and parked where it couldn’t be seen from the road. He had no idea what he would find at the hacienda when he made it to the estate, but he’d learned to be cautious about everything and considered it best to err on the side of prudence.

He moved stealthily through the woods until he found one of the myriad game trails that ran through the immense tract of Don Miguel’s property, and soon was jogging along as he had in the old days. It was cool in February so he barely broke a sweat and before long, he was in the cluster of trees that ran along the side of the property, near the horse barn where he’d so long ago been set to move hay as the commencement of his training. The main house was deserted, with none of the security men that were everywhere when he’d been living there. No matter; he hadn’t come for anything in the house. He wanted to see his mentor, Emilio, and Jasmine. For all his efforts Jasmine had survived in the place she’d carved out of his psyche, and he wanted to bring closure to a door that bulged, and threatened to burst open in his recurring dreams.

The young man continued along the perimeter and down the track until he reached the caretaker’s house that reposed several hundred yards into the woods. He knew that trail like he’d been on it only yesterday, the loosely-placed flagstone that served as a driveway all too familiar under his feet. Surprisingly, he felt a buzz of anxiety in the pit of his stomach as he neared the front door – an altogether alien sensation for him. There, sitting as it always had, was the modest colonial home, deliberately styled in a rustic, sponge-painted manner to mirror the design sensibility of the larger main house. Pausing on the front porch, he registered that there was something different about the home than the last time he’d been there, almost two years ago. It seemed quiet, as though nobody was living there – much like the main estate had seemed from a distance. Shaking off the sense of foreboding, he knocked on the door, and when he heard nothing from inside, he walked around the side to where Emilio parked his big navy blue Ford Lobo crew-cab truck. There it sat, unchanged, next to the small Chevy econo-box Emilio had bought for Jasmine with his bonuses from Don Miguel.

He moved back onto the porch, and knocked again.

“Emilio. Jasmine. Please. Open the door. It’s me…I’m back…” he yelled.

From inside, he heard a faint rustling, and then Jasmine’s distinctive voice.