Blood of the Assassin (Assassin Series 5) (25 page)

It will be your last night on the planet.

El Jaguar
stirred, the combination of alcohol and drugs having disturbed his sleep cycle, and one eye flittered open as he registered a sound: a tearing, like fabric, only louder. He was just coming to when a strip of duct tape smacked across his mouth, and then every nerve in his body radiated pain as a blow struck him just below his right ear. By the time he had regained control, his hands were bound behind his back and he was lying face up on his king-sized mattress.

“Shhh. Don’t struggle,” a soft voice whispered, and then, when he ignored the instruction, another starburst of agony shot through his body from another strike, this one at the junction where his neck met his chest. Everything went numb after a few seconds, and then as his nerves resumed transmitting, pain washed over him in waves as he struggled to breathe, tears streaming down his face.

“That first pressure point is called
Dokko
. The second,
Hichu
. Both are extremely effective, I think you’ll agree. Should I continue with my little demonstration, or are you going to behave?” the voice asked reasonably.

El Jaguar
nodded meekly.

“If I take the tape off your mouth, will you agree to stay quiet? Not that it will do any good for you to scream. This room is so well insulated it’s almost soundproof – a big plus to dampen the traffic noise, but not very bright if one considers the other implications. That door is really something, by the way. What is it – steel with a foam core? You could stave off an army with that thing.” A dark hand motioned at the bedroom door twenty-five feet away.

El Jaguar
nodded again, and
El Rey
tore off the tape, ignoring the muffled cry of pain when he did so.

“You’re so fucking dead. I’m looking at a dead man,”
El Jaguar
hissed.

“Well, no, not really. But you’re close. What you’re actually looking at is death. My specialty is relieving people of their obligation to continue breathing. It’s an exhausting affair, all the blood circulating, air entering the lungs, lymphatic system flushing toxins, organs filtering…”

The crime boss’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time his fury was replaced with something else. Awareness. And fear. He felt a tickle of the unexpected sensation in his stomach, and struggled to swallow.

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

“Ah, much better. A man who asks good questions. My nom de plume, which you might have heard of, is
El Rey –
The King of Swords. And what I want is information. Actually, a very simple piece of information. Trivial in the scheme of things. A trifle,”
El Rey
whispered, as if telling the cartel man a secret.

“
El Rey
?
The El Rey
? Fine. Whatever you’re being paid, I’ll double it. In fact, I’ll triple it for you to go back and kill whoever your client is.”

“That’s a very attractive offer. What if I told you that your life cost a million dollars? That is the price tag for eliminating you?”

“Then you just made an extra two million. Now untie me,” he snarled.

“If I’d known it was this easy to get rich quick, I would have changed my business plan a long time ago.”

“Stop screwing around. Let me go. I have enough cash here to pay you the whole thing. Now.”

“See, that’s the problem. I don’t completely trust you. I’m a man of my word; but, well, with all due respect, under the present circumstances, I could see you exaggerating or misstating. A sad state of affairs that the world is so distrusting, but there it is.”

El Jaguar
was starting to feel trepidation again. The discussion wasn’t going the way it should have. “How do you want to do this?”

“You tell me where to find the money, I count it and take two million, and then you go back to sleep and I disappear.”

“How do I know you’re not going to rob me and kill me?”

“You don’t. But do you really think that I came here to rob you? Not very smart, are you?”
El Rey
asked, almost to himself.

El Jaguar
flushed with anger. “Nobody talks to me like that and lives.”

“I believe you. Now are you going to tell me where the money is, or should I put the tape back on, rape you for a half hour, and then we’ll resume the discussion? I’m sure the rumors about your adventure will raise your standing considerably with your men. Are you feeling experimental?”

“You...fine. In the closet – there’s a panel on one side. Slide it forward. Behind it is a safe. There’s about five million in it.”

“I figured you might have a little walking around money. Very prudent.”
El Rey
walked over to the closet and had the safe exposed in seconds. “What’s the combination?”

El Jaguar
told him, and within another few moments the assassin had the safe open. He whistled softly.

“Wow. Crime really does pay.” He reached past the neatly bundled stacks of hundred dollar bills, and withdrew a pistol – a custom .45 made by JPL Precision, with a lightened slide, ion bond coating, Bomar sights, and a black oxide grip treatment. “This is beautiful. A work of art,” he said, hefting it, then checking the magazine before chambering a round. “You must love this gun.”

El Jaguar
didn’t say anything. Something was badly wrong, he could sense it. “You have the money. And my gun. Now let me go and our business will be concluded. There will be no consequences.”

El Rey
stepped away from the open safe, the pliant soles of his boots soundless on the Italian marble floor, and approached his captive again, slipping the gun into his waistband.

“Not completely. I still need a piece of information. Where are you holding the woman? The wife of the task force captain?”
El Rey
asked, as nonchalantly as if he was asking for cream in his coffee.

The drug lord’s blood froze. “What the hell are you talking about? What is this? You have the money–”

“Yes, and your gun. We agreed on that. Now I need the information I came for. Where is she?”

“No. I can’t.” The fear in his eyes was real.

“What do you think will happen if you don’t?”

“I’d be a dead man – and they’ll get my family, too.”

“You aren’t paying attention. You’re a dead man if you don’t tell me.”

El Jaguar
glared at him defiantly. “I’m not afraid to die.”

El Rey
nodded. “I believe you. I see it in your eyes. You’ve known much death, and you know how easily life ends – how little drama there is. But there are worse things. Much worse.”

“I can’t tell you. I won’t. I don’t know.”

“Now you’re insulting me. The top dog for the Zs here doesn’t know where the kidnapped wife is? Please.”
El Rey
sighed, a sad sound, part impatience and part resignation. “I guess we’ll do this the hard way, then.” He reached for the roll of tape he had placed on the night table, tore off another piece, and placed it over
El
Jaguar
’s mouth as he screamed for help and tried to pull away, and then drew a switchblade from his pocket and flicked it open. The drug maven’s eyes widened as the evil blade gleamed in the dim moonlight from the street-facing window, and the assassin turned it slowly, as if inspecting it.

“Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll start with your balls, then work up. By the time I make it to your neck, you’ll have told me everything I want to know. You’d kill your mother for relief. I believe you aren’t afraid to die. But I wonder if you’ll be afraid to spend the last few moments of your life being slowly dismembered? I can control the bleeding and keep you alive for hours. It’ll seem like an eternity to you, but I have a lot of practice at this, so I know what it will take to keep you breathing. Maybe I’ll leave you alive, without your manhood, so that every waking moment of your miserable life is spent in horror. We’ll see how I feel once I’ve gotten done with the first bit.”

El Jaguar
’s eyes darted side to side in panic, and
El Rey
sliced his pajama bottoms open with a single swipe.

“I spent hours sharpening this today. While I was waiting for you to finish with the girls. I hate a dull knife. It’s...imprecise. Sloppy. Now last chance – where is she?”

Ten minutes later,
El Rey
was sure he had been told the truth.

After an expertly placed cut,
El Jaguar
painlessly exsanguinated on his bed, his brutal life departing his body as the assassin stuffed half the safe’s cash into his backpack, leaving the rest with the door open. Whoever found the corpse would probably take the cash and come up with some pretense to delay discovery while they made off with the money, further buying time.

He glanced at the bed again, having taken no pleasure in his work, and then with an eye on his watch, slid open the second-story window and pulled himself into the night.

The stuttering neon lights on the stylized sign depicting a prancing red horse outside
El Caballo Rojo
flickered on and off like an arrhythmic heartbeat as battered cars growled past on the dark street, leaving a pall of exhaust in their wake. A few haggard working girls loitered on the sidewalk, flashing their wares at potential customers with a world-weariness far beyond their tender years. The bar was one of countless watering holes where men went to drink. There were no other attractions – no live music, no dancing, no mingling or rubbing shoulders with eligible singles. It was a mission-specific saloon where hard working laborers went to drown their sorrows and numb the pain from body blows that a harsh and all-too-brief existence delivered at every turn.

Inside, the rustic tile floor was stained from countless spilled beers, vomit, and blood from the inevitable fights that broke out once the evening had degenerated into a blurry haze for the inebriated patrons. Two stocky bartenders stood like sentries behind the long wooden slab fielding screamed drink orders from the harried cocktail waitresses whose outfits left little to the imagination and even less to modesty. The walls were all rough-hewn planks and adobe brick, with an occasional cow skull or rusting horseshoe adorning the spaces between faded black and white photographs of corrals, horses, and
vaqueros
, the iconic Mexican cowboys from the turn of a forgotten century. Even though smoking had been outlawed for several years, every surface area seeped fossilized nicotine from decades of men sucking smoke into ravaged lungs and fouling the unfiltered air.

Rauschenbach shook his head
no
as he pushed his way into the darkened interior, declining the desperate company one of the cadaverous prostitutes offered, his eyes roaming over the crowd until he spotted his contact sitting in the shadows, wearing the agreed-upon red button-up cowboy shirt, drinking beer from a long-necked, rust-colored bottle.

He made his way past the hard-scrabble crowd, pulled another stool from beneath the small table, and sat down across from the hulking man, taking in his buzz cut and sallow complexion, his skin the jaundiced tone of a junkie or someone suffering from chronic liver disease. A waitress came over and he pointed to his new friend’s beer, and she nodded and offered a perfunctory smile, the fading beauty of a prime now past still lingeringly attractive in the shabby surroundings. Neither man spoke until she returned and deposited another bottle in front of the German, then cocked a carefully plucked eyebrow at his companion, who shook his head. She teetered off on too-high heels and Rauschenbach took a short pull on his beer.

“I have a few items I need within the next few days,” the hit man started, seeing no point in wasting time with small talk. “I could probably have them ordered locally, but I was told you could handle this. Acquire them in the U.S. and ship them down.”

“What have you got?”

Rauschenbach pulled a matchbook from his windbreaker and tossed it across the table. The man read the neat script jotted on the inside without comment, then nodded and put the matches in his shirt pocket.

“I can do that. Anything else?”

“Papers. Local driver’s license, work permit. I can e-mail you photos.”

“Not a problem.”

“And I could use a pistol. Something recent, in good condition, preferably with no history – or alternatively, with the serial number removed.”

“SIG, Glock, or Beretta? I have all three.”

“Which model SIG Sauer?”

“P226. Hardly ever fired by a little old lady on Sundays. .40 caliber, so better stopping power, unless you want 9mm. I’ve got those too.”

“P226’s a nice weapon. But I prefer the 9mm.”

“I’ve got a beauty. A P226 X-5 9mm with a nineteen-round clip. Like new.”

Rauschenbach appeared to think for a moment. “How much for the gun and a box of ammo? Hollow points?”

The man took a long swig of beer. Guns were illegal in Mexico, and possession without a very-difficult-to-obtain permit was a felony except for certain hunting shotguns and small caliber rifles.

He named a figure in dollars, and Rauschenbach didn’t blink.

“Seems pricy. What is that, about three times what it cost you in the U.S.?”

“Then fly to the U.S., buy one, and try to get it into Mexico.”

Rauschenbach named a lower figure, half of what the man had asked. Both took sips of their brews and regarded each other, like prizefighters between rounds. The jukebox kicked to life and a rollicking accordion blared from the crackling speakers, soon joined by a tuba and what sounded suspiciously like a bus boy dropping a tray of used silverware in time to some beat only the musicians could discern. A wailing tenor piped in, singing about loneliness on the trail and the rough life of the cowboy, and a few of the more lively celebrants screamed along in what they imagined singing might sound like.

The man threw out another number, two-thirds of the asking price, and Rauschenbach nodded. He wasn’t cost-sensitive, but haggling was mandatory, and he would arouse considerably more suspicion if he simply agreed to the first figure.