Blood of the Assassin Read online

  “Fall back. Now,” Briones hissed into his com line, all the officers’ helmets containing similar communications gear as well as night vision goggles.

  The Federales returned fire, trying to buy themselves breathing room, but when they regrouped outside the walls, only fourteen men were left of the original twenty.

  “Lieutenant. Do you want to get the soldiers here?” the sergeant barked, panting, watching as his men fired measured bursts at the house.

  “I’d rather not. Get the second team here on the double.” Briones had ten more men waiting on the far side of the compound as backup. The sergeant murmured into his radio, and forty-five seconds later the additional fighters were crouched with the original team, awaiting instructions.

  “They must have motion detectors somewhere inside the yard. Any benefit of surprise is over. Now we need to do this the hard way,” Briones said, and the men exchanged grim looks. “I want two teams. I’ll get the army here with armored personnel vehicles, and when they roll into the yard, we’ll use those as cover. Sergeant, you take the main house. I’ll lead the second team to take out the guest house. There’s no fire coming from the third building, so I think we can assume it’s empty.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Briones keyed his radio and relayed his instructions to Major Gutierrez, and then they waited as the sound of heavy trucks rolled down the dirt road from the larger artery around the bend. Three armored trucks approached and stopped a few yards from where Briones and his men were huddled. The lead vehicle passenger door opened, and a captain stepped out onto the dirt. Gunfire chattered from the house, but had diminished in intensity once the men were out of the line of fire.

  “We’ll go in together. Let my men open up with the heavy artillery, and then your men can follow up,” the captain said. Briones was torn, but then thought about the six men lying dead inside the compound, and gave his assent.

  “Fine. Let’s do this.”

  Soldiers poured from out of the backs of the trucks until there were thirty heavily armed men, faces drawn with determination, prepared for the worst. The captain made a hand gesture and the three trucks eased forward through the gates, the soldiers using the first two for cover and the Federales shadowing the last one as the gunfire from the house increased to a barrage. Answering volleys from the soldiers tore through the building’s windows, and bullets ricocheted off the vehicle armor and the driveway pavers as the gunmen in the house intensified their efforts.

  Briones motioned to his men and they joined the fray, pummeling the cartel shooters with a deluge of fire. One of the men near Briones grunted and dropped his weapon, and then fell towards him, half his face blown off by a Kalashnikov round. Briones’ jaw quivered and he took the man’s place, letting loose with burst after burst from his M16, enraged at the number of casualties they’d suffered from a supposedly low-intensity home invasion.

  One of the soldiers tossed a grenade at the windows and got lucky. The detonation was deafening, and then the shooting from the house stopped. A few more scattered shots emanated from the guest house, and the roar of a big .50-caliber army machine gun silenced them with a three-second sustained volley.

  Briones signaled to his men. They fanned out in a loose formation, approaching the house cautiously, crouched, weapons sweeping the area, wary. When they reached the door, the sergeant turned to Briones, anxious for his approval, a thin bead of sweat trickling down his face, grime smeared on it from throwing himself onto the driveway. Briones nodded, and the sergeant gestured to the two assault team members who were carrying an eight-inch diameter iron pipe filled with cement. They slammed it against the door and the flimsy wooden slab tore off its hinges with a crash, and then the nearest officer rolled into the opening, weapon searching for targets.

  The interior of the house was a shambles, the grenade’s shrapnel having shredded everything in the main room. Bodies lay everywhere, bloody stumps a testament to the explosive force unleashed by the blast. Briones crept stealthily to the rear hallway and pointed at three of the officers. They edged by him and moved down the narrow corridor to where three doors stood intact – the main bedrooms.

  Two of the men framed the first doorway, pressing themselves against the wall, and then the third knelt and pressed down on the bronze lever, pausing for a moment before swinging it open. He rolled out of the doorway and they waited for shots. When none came, the two on either side swung their guns into the room and did a fast search of the guest bedroom. It was empty.

  Four more men inched down the hall and repeated the process at the next door, with the same results. The rooms were deserted.

  The final door stood closed at the end of the hall, and the men listened intently for any hint of movement behind it. Briones nodded from his position, and they threw it wide.

  “Nooo. Please. Don’t hurt me!” a female voice screamed, terrified and very young. The officers moved through the room and the sergeant motioned to the girl to stand up. She did, shivering from fear, wearing only panties and a T-shirt, and followed their directions to stand against the side wall. It was obvious that she wasn’t carrying any concealed weapons, so she wasn’t a threat.

  Her eyes darted to the bed. Briones froze, and then pointed to the king-sized mattress. The sergeant motioned to two of the men, who fixed it with their assault rifles, and then he spoke softly.

  “We know you’re under the bed. Slide any weapons out and show yourself, or in three seconds we’ll use it for target practice, and you won’t survive. One...two...”

  A Glock 19 slid from under the bed, and then a man’s muffled voice followed. “I’m coming out. Don’t shoot.”

  “Crawl out face down. Once you’re out from under the bed, put your hands behind your back and lie on your stomach. Now, or you’re dead.”

  A man slid slowly from beneath the bed and did as instructed, lying face down while an officer cuffed him.

  “Turn him over,” the sergeant instructed, and when the officer complied, a frigid smile crossed his face.

  “Well, well. Look who we have here. If it isn’t our friend El Gato. Hiding under his teenage puta’s bed. Very nice,” he said.

  The drug lord glared at him hatefully. “You’re brave men when I have cuffs on and you can hide behind your helmets, eh? I bet you’re praying I don’t learn your names,” he growled.

  “Coming from a man who was whimpering under the bed, the irony isn’t lost on me,” the sergeant responded, then gestured to his men to pick El Gato up. “Make sure this shitbird doesn’t hit his head on anything on the way to the lockup van. I want to make sure he’s in perfect health to answer for killing the officers outside. Now get him out of here.”

  Two muscular policemen in full assault gear lifted El Gato to his feet and dragged him down the hall. Briones watched them without comment, and then keyed his helmet mike. Cruz’s voice came over the channel.

  “We got El Gato. Everyone but his girlfriend is dead.”

  “That’s good news. He’s the most important. What about casualties?”

  “We’re checking now. It’s hard to tell until all the smoke clears. I’d say we lost eight, maybe nine men, and have at least four more wounded. They’ll probably make it. But this was ugly. I’m...I’m sorry, sir. They had some sort of early warning system that surveillance didn’t spot. Motion detectors is my guess. They cut us down before we could find cover. I should have been more cautious,” Briones spat.

  “It’s always easy after an assault to find fault with your actions in the heat of battle. Don’t beat yourself up. You took the objective, captured El Gato, and eradicated a key player in the Sinaloa cartel’s power structure. I’d say that’s a good day’s work,” Cruz said.

  “Not for the dead men, it isn’t.”

  “Everyone knows the risks going in. Sometimes we take casualties. Sometimes they do. That’s the job,” Cruz reminded him.

  “Their wives and children aren’t going to be reassured by that.”

  “I k
now. Get me a list of the names. I’ll make the calls myself.”

  Briones nodded silently as the crime scene technicians stepped around the bodies and began photographing the devastation. He had no doubt that the dead cartel gunmen would be replaced by the weekend, if not sooner. And nothing would change except the names and faces. Drugs would still flow like water, and guns and money would work their way into the cartels’ hands, to be used against men like himself, who were trying to make the country safer. A thankless job that seemed pointless on nights like this one.

  Chapter 4

  Jean-Claude Bouchard peered at his watch with annoyance and lit another cigarette with a thin gold lighter that had been in his family for generations. His refined features spoke to an aristocratic heritage, as did the insouciant way he sucked greedily on the Gitanes and then blew smoke at the ceiling, as if disgusted with it even as the tendrils left his lips.

  He should have been asleep at this late hour, or at the very least, been rolling around with one of the young German lasses that he favored with his attentions. Instead, he was waiting for the idiot clerk from the police department that he kept on the payroll – mainly so he could justify to his superiors in French intelligence that he was doing something besides spending their money and enjoying the Berlin nightlife.

  At thirty-seven years old, Jean-Claude was in the prime of his career, such as it was – the truth being that even though the French maintained a spy network, there wasn’t a lot to challenge him in Berlin. He waxed nostalgic about the good old days, when in his imagination he could have been darting furtively down darkened alleys, meeting Soviet moles, danger behind every door. Unfortunately, he’d been born too late for that, and had to content himself with doing grunt work that was beneath him, running a network of informants who did little more than offer tidbits of gossip and data he had no interest in. Still, as long as the French government was willing to pay to collect it, he would, biding his time until he could return to a nice comfortable desk in Paris once he’d done his obligatory stint in the field, and wait for his father to die, leaving him a nice endowment and a lavish flat in the sixteenth arrondissement.

  He ran nimble fingers through his thick black hair and then pursed his lips, wondering what the hell the German could have for him that required this ungodly hour for a rendezvous. He stared at his hand, holding the cigarette in the affected way he had seen in the movies, and decided that he would give the clerk twenty more minutes and then leave the little studio apartment he kept for meetings; the ingrate could damned well wait until morning if he wasn’t going to be considerate enough to be prompt.

  The intercom buzzed at him like an annoyed insect, startling him as he fumed over Heinrich’s rudeness – very typically German, he thought bitterly. Not pausing to endure the ritual of asking who was there at four-twenty in the morning, he pressed the black button that unlocked the front door and then paused at the hall mirror to consider his appearance. Thin, handsome, he had been told that he looked like a Hollywood star – Leonardo DiCaprio, although Jean-Claude thought he was better looking than that. DiCaprio looked soft, whereas Jean-Claude in his mind radiated brooding danger, as befitted a master of the clandestine world. He stubbed out his smoke in a crystal ashtray on the side table and sucked in his cheeks, turning his face to inspect the effect on his profile.

  A thud at his apartment door pulled him from his ruminations, annoying him even further. Was the man raised in a barn? Couldn’t he at least attempt to be quiet? Jean-Claude moved to the peephole and looked out, but saw nothing except for the empty hallway lit by a couple of cheap lamps left over from the industrial revolution. Puzzled, he listened at the door, and then pushed his ear against the wood to better make out any sound in the hall.

  He was about to go back and push the intercom button again when he heard it. A scratching sound.

  “Heinrich?” he called out softly, his voice betraying his puzzlement.

  Nothing.

  Another faint scratch. Nails on the door. And then a groan. Almost inaudible.

  Jean-Claude swung the door open and practically fell over the German’s inert form collapsed across the threshold, blood trickling from his nose and mouth. Jean-Claude’s eyes widened in alarm, and he instantly regretted not having brought his pistol – not that there was any obvious threat. He stepped back and kneeled, taking care to avoid the blood.

  “Heinrich! What happened? Are you all right?” he whispered, registering even as he asked that Heinrich was far from all right.

  The German murmured at him unintelligibly. Jean-Claude stood and then bent down to haul him into the apartment, anxious to avoid any unwanted scrutiny from a light-sleeping neighbor. He got his hands under Heinrich’s arms and dragged him in, and then held out his hands, covered in blood, as he moved to the door and kicked it closed behind him. Pausing for a moment, uncertain what to do, he stepped over the wounded man and moved into the small kitchen to rinse his hands.

  “Good Christ, Heinrich. You’re bleeding like a...” Jean-Claude bit his tongue. Heinrich undoubtedly knew he was losing blood.

  He moved back to the German and pulled his overcoat open, and saw a bullet wound high in the chest, and another in his upper shoulder. His arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, broken, and his skin was the color of a shark’s belly.

  Heinrich tried to speak, but all that came out of his mouth was another gurgle. Jean-Claude knelt and leaned over him, turning his head to better make out whatever he was trying to say.

  “What? What is it, Heinrich? Who did this to you?” he demanded.

  Heinrich tried to raise his good arm, but then it fell back to his side as he coughed blood all over the side of Jean-Claude’s face.

  The Frenchman pulled back in horror, momentary thoughts of blood-borne diseases racing through his brain – hepatitis, AIDS, Ebola...

  Heinrich coughed again, laboring for breath, and then with a groan, lay still, his chest ceasing its straining, his eyes open, staring into eternity with a puzzled frown. Jean-Claude watched life quit the German’s body, and then his arm froze on its way to his face to wipe away the blood.

  There was something in Heinrich’s hand. Clutched between his dead fingers.

  Jean-Claude reached out, trembling slightly from shock, and gently eased the object from his death grip.

  A USB flash drive, crimson smeared across one side of it.

  Jean-Claude stood, and then his blood chilled in his veins. He heard a sound from the street – the front door. A crash.

  Like someone kicking it in.

  Mind racing frantically, he pocketed the flash drive and glanced at himself in the mirror, taking in the drying blood spackled on his profile with alarm. Moving to the kitchen he quickly grabbed a dish towel and wiped the splatter away as he calculated his options.

  The chances were good that they didn’t know what apartment Heinrich was coming to.

  Then again, it was only a matter of time until they followed the blood trail to his front door. At which point, whoever had done this to Heinrich would repeat the process with him – an eventuality Jean-Claude wanted to avoid at all costs.

  Which meant that he would need to beat them to the stairs.

  He threw the towel into the sink, grabbed a butcher knife, and moved to the dining room table to grab his notebook computer before creeping to the door and looking out the peephole.

  Nobody.

  Yet.

  He took a final look at Heinrich’s bloody corpse and then eased the knob open. Grateful the hinges didn’t squeak, he pulled the door towards him and stepped into the hall.

  And heard footsteps on the second floor – two below his.

  He debated whether to risk closing up the apartment, then erred on the side of caution and stepped silently down the hallway, passing the central main stairs, up which the sound of the pursuers had drifted, and continued to the service stairwell at the far end. His hand shook as he reached out and gripped the handle, and then he froze when the door creaked a
s it opened.

  The footsteps stopped; then suddenly accelerated.

  Abandoning any pretension of stealth, he bolted into the landing and took the steps to the roof three at a time, figuring that it would take whoever was after him longer to climb them than to follow him if he went down – gravity being his friend in this case.

  At the steel roof door he stopped again, listening intently. A rustle greeted him from below. Exactly like someone creeping up the stairs would sound, trying to avoid giving away their position.

  He unlocked the deadbolt and shouldered the door open, then sprinted across the roof to the next building, which was the same height. He leapt across the five-foot chasm, praying that in the dark he had gauged the distance correctly, and stumbled as his dress shoes skidded on the slick surface. Ignoring the pain from his ankle, he willed himself forward to the rooftop exit and felt for the latch.

  Locked.

  Shit.

  He was halfway to the next building, its roof a story lower, when he heard a scrape from his building. His only hope now was that it was so dark that his pursuers wouldn’t be able to make him out. Not a great bet to have to make, he realized, and increased his speed.

  He hesitated at the roof edge, and then, hearing the sounds of running steps from his building, he backed up and then hurled himself into space, swearing silently, grateful that he spent a decent amount of time in the gym, but fearing what the landing would do to him. When his feet pounded into the roof he instinctively let his knees buckle and then he was rolling, the notebook shattering as it flew from his hands, another blinding shriek of pain shooting up his left leg as ligaments protested the abuse.

  When he came to a stop he was still in one piece. He forced himself to stand; his leg almost gave out, but thankfully it held. Jean-Claude limped away from his landing spot, leaving the notebook, and gimped to the roof door, praying that it was open.

  The first silenced bullet thumped into the steel frame a foot from his head. He ducked, wrenching the handle with all his strength. A second shot slammed into the stone doorjamb just as the door opened, and then he was through. He vowed to go to church every morning for the rest of his life as he twisted the lock closed, pausing to take in the heavy steel plate and the industrial hinges.