Russell Blake: Night of the Assassin

Midnight, Five Years Ago

The lights from Contessa, the 160-foot Christensen super yacht, glowed off the calm surface of the harbor below the Grand Bay Hotel in Barra de Navidad, twenty-six miles northwest of Manzanillo, Mexico – the primary deep water port on the Pacific coast of mainland Mexico. It was a calm spring night, the air heavy with the scent of the ubiquitous tropical flowers, beaded with moisture from the cloudbursts that had sulked over the hazy, humid day. Crickets sang their mating cries to the broiling heavens, the only sound on the water besides the dull thumping of the disco beat emanating from the massive boat’s salon, which lay beneath the superstructure that supported a four passenger helicopter and a complement of jet skis.

The creaking lines of the yacht strained as the tide rolled in and the moon’s perennial pull drew higher the water level in the marina; the heavy ropes that secured the ship to its long dock keened in futile protest. Armed security men clad in black windbreakers patrolled the concrete walkway that curved the length of the exclusive private marina, the unmistakable outline of Heckler amp; Koch UMP submachine-guns a silent testament to their intent. The battle-hardened men chartered with the safety of those aboard the yacht were dead serious, resonating a constant state of readiness against threats from any approach. The drug cartel skirmishes had escalated over the past two years – the guards had been in some blistering firefights with rival groups and seen more than their share of blood. These were men for whom killing was routine, and they drew their pay with the understanding that any day might be their last.

A radio crackled as the group checked in with one another, each member confirming that all was calm. The routine was to monitor everyone’s status every fifteen minutes throughout the night. If danger came, it often did so in the wee hours, and the group’s leader was keenly sensitive to possible fatigue or boredom – a luxury that could prove fatal on that detail.

Peals of shrill female laughter pierced the night as the salon sliding door opened to allow three scantily clad young Mexican women onto the rear deck, to where the ashtrays were located near a well-stocked bar and a sumptuous oversized hot tub. The girls were regular company for the owner of the boat, Sylvio Contreras, the number one warlord in Sonora and the head of the Zapata cartel. Not one was older than nineteen, the youngest seventeen – ‘ Papi ’ Contreras liked his meat fresh and tender, the more so since he’d had his fiftieth birthday the prior week. He could certainly afford the best, and there was a constant stream of eager girls interested is renting their charms; Contreras controlled a significant chunk of the Colombian cocaine and Mexican methamphetamine traffic that made its way through Sonora to the United States, and his annual personal take from the trade exceeded one billion U.S. dollars per year.

Contessa was one of three yachts Papi owned – the larger ones were on the eastern shore of Mexico and in Costa Rica, one docked in Cozumel and the other bouncing around Central American ports as its owner’s whims dictated. Contessa was more of a weekend getaway destination, a quick hop from home, whereas the others were good for several weeks aboard. Papi burned roughly twelve million dollars a year keeping his boats in the water before starting the engines. They were ready for him at any hour, staffed with full-time crews consisting of captains, chefs, deckhands, mechanics, maids, bartenders and masseuses. Security travelled with him at an extra cost. Then again, Papi wasn’t price-sensitive, and couldn’t have told anyone precisely what he spent on his lifestyle. He knew that his plane had cost forty million, and this boat a hundred and twenty, with the others roughly a quarter billion, but when you were rolling a billion or more bucks a year, what did it matter? The total he’d lavished on toys amounted to what he would clear by June, so it ceased to have any meaning.

The girls were in high spirits, fueled by a combination of tequila and cocaine, which was one of the other reasons why a place by Papi ’s side was coveted – you had access to all the high-grade chemical supplementation you could want, in addition to the lavish financial generosity afforded his female companions. They blew smoke and chatted about clothes and their favorite television programs, taking a break from the fiesta that was winding down inside. Contreras had begun his birthday bash several weeks earlier and had decided to make it a month long event, hopping from destination to destination with his entourage, which consisted of his brother and a group of five or six girls, accompanied by a security detail of two dozen mercenaries. They flew in a 727 he’d acquired for next to nothing when it was put out of service by an American airline and, after ten million in refurbishments at a friend’s factory in Costa Rica, it served as his flying army headquarters.

Tensions were high between the Zapatas and the Gulf cartel, as well as the Sinaloa cartel, and the outbreaks of violence had escalated until the death toll reached into the hundreds each month. As with most of the disagreements that resolved in bloody skirmishes, this one had to do with power and money. The Sinaloa cartel felt that Sonora was making too much from its relatively insignificant place in the food chain, and was trying to dis-intermediate Contreras in order to increase its net. The Gulf cartel was more personal – Contreras had butchered the family of one of the Gulf’s ranking captains over some real or imagined sleight, and that had ignited a blood feud between the two cartels. All of which was just humdrum business for Contreras, who was one of the oldest of the living cartel bosses. He’d invented many of the tactics that were now standard in settling disputes, including beheadings, mass executions with bodies left in prominent places as a warning, the murder of judges and cops, and grenade attacks in densely-populated urban areas. Contreras was a maverick in the trade, an innovator, who more than most understood that if you didn’t have someone trying to kill you every moment, you were doing something wrong.

Contreras had sent the staff and his brother away to stay the night in the hotel perched above the marina so he could enjoy his private party with just his companions. He enjoyed his privacy immensely, even though in his line of work it was a commodity rarer than gold. As a cartel head, he was constantly surrounded by security personnel so part of the appeal of his boats was the ability to enjoy at least the illusion of privacy.

The door to the salon slid open again and a heavyset hirsute man with a bushy graying moustache and tousled curly black hair, wearing a Versace silk bathrobe and lambskin slippers walked out onto the deck, gesturing to the girls with an unlit Cohiba in his right hand. The youngest, Veronica, leapt to her feet with a lighter and rushed to attend to their host. Contreras smiled at her as he puffed on the hand-rolled Cuban cigar, and playfully slapped one of her perfectly-sculpted buttocks after fondling it through her white linen mini-booty shorts for a few moments.

“Oh, Papi!” she exclaimed with a giggle, faux indignation and petulance dripping from every syllable.

“ Eh, so how you girls doing? You ready to make a party with your Papi? Come on. You know how I like it,” Contreras rasped in his distinctive Sonoran accent.

The girls extinguished their cigarettes and exchanged glances. It was show time. Veronica moved to her two new friends and they began kissing, then caressing each other. Contreras stood by, watching impassively as the action moved from tepid to hot, and clothes began shedding along with any remaining inhibitions. Smooth, creamy brown skin rubbed against the cushions of the semi-oval exterior seating area, and soon the girls were largely naked, other than a captain’s hat the oldest, Ana, kept perched precariously on her head even as Veronica’s probing tongue battled for her attention.