King of Swords (Assassin series #1) (5 page)

The stern countenance of the highly-stylized rendering of the royal presence seemed to sneer at the intruders, the brandished sword proclaiming to one and all the regal superiority of the seated man.

He approached the card as if in a trance, then reached down and retrieved the tattered rectangle, holding it up for his men to see.

The King of Swords had struck again.

Chapter 1

April 18, 2012 – 6:15 a.m.

The concrete walls of the industrial building on the outskirts of Mexico City were painted a garish orange, the roll-up steel doors clashing navy blue with a coat of high-gloss enamel. The large parking area was empty except for three Cadillac Escalades – an unusual sight in the neighborhood, which ran more to dirt roads and twenty year old dodge trucks. The surrounding buildings were the dingy gray of unpainted cinder block, with rusting rebar sticking out of the roofs where the builders hadn’t bothered cutting off the steel from the support beams. Graffiti covered almost every area; the raw odor of garbage and filth pervaded the run-down outpost.

The skyline of Mexico City could be seen in the distance; tall buildings thrust angrily to the heavens, into the perennial layer of brown pollution that hung over the valley. A rooster crowed its welcome to the first rays of dawn. Two scavenging dogs trotted from building to building, their emaciated forms a testament to the pickings to be had. In the near distance, a shanty town of rough tarpaper walls with tarps or corrugated steel roofs emitted a sour stench, while here and there the sorry structures belched smoke into the air from early morning wood fires stoked up to cook the day’s sustenance.

A small mirror on the end of a rod eased out from around the corner of one of the neighboring buildings, enabling the Federal Police officer manipulating it to watch the orange structure without having to duck his head into view. Seeing nothing, he made a series of short hand movements to the group of thirty heavily-armed commandos behind him. This was the armed conflict team that consisted of the most battle-hardened members of the Federal Police force, who specialized in urban assaults, usually with backup from the army or the navy. All the officers had been marines, and all had been in numerous armed engagements with the
narcotraficante
armies that were the new scourge of mainland Mexico.

The men ran towards their orange objective, crouched low so as to present less of a target. The commander’s radio crackled with confirmation that another group of similarly-equipped police commandos had the rear of the building covered, as well as the flanks. He checked his watch, then pushed the button that would start the stopwatch function before making another series of hand signals to indicate they were going in.

Three of the officers carried a heavy steel battering ram with handles on it to knock down the front door in seconds; each of the windows had two officers framing the glass, ready to fire through it or take out anyone who tried shooting from inside. The commander made a fist, and the iron projectile drove the steel door into the building, knocking it off its hinges. Eight of the men entered, with more ready to follow. The distinctive popping-chatter of Kalashnikov assault rifles began echoing around the large warehouse, quickly answered by the more sonorous burst-firing of the M-16 assault rifles the police favored.

Even though the
Federales
had the overwhelming majority odds due to sheer numbers, their adversaries inside the building continued the firefight until they’d exhausted their ammunition. As the sulfurous stink of cordite wafted through the air in the enclosure, the surviving drug dealer tossed his pistol away and raised his arms over his head, having already jettisoned his empty assault rifle.

The final tally was four civilians killed and five police, with three more seriously wounded – in spite of their body armor and precautions. The leader of the team moved to the surrendering shooter and slammed him across the face with his rifle butt, then, reaching around his equipment belt, retrieved a set of blackened steel handcuffs. He ordered the man to lie on his stomach and slapped them around his wrists. Two other officers dragged him to his feet, past the fallen bodies of his entourage, out to the waiting police van.

A tall, athletically-proportioned man in his early forties, wearing the distinctive blue uniform of the Mexican Federal Police, ran a hand through his thick, slightly-graying hair and let forth an exasperated sigh. Captain Romero Cruz circled the object of his current attention, a seated man shackled to a metal chair bolted to the floor in the center of the room. A solitary hundred watt incandescent bulb hung from the ceiling, providing meager but adequate illumination for the interrogation cell. The captive was a high-ranking member of the Knights Templar cartel – close allies with the Sinaloa cartel. This man, Jorge Rodriguez Santiago, was rumored to be a confidante of the Sinaloans, which made him doubly valuable to Captain Cruz. Santiago had been the sole survivor of that morning’s bloody firefight; a surprise capture who normally would have been holed up in Michoacan, where his brutal gang ruled with an iron fist.

Santiago glared at Captain Cruz, blinking away the sweat and blood that trickled from his hairline into his eyes. The look conveyed an almost demonic hatred, and an arrogance borne from the knowledge that no prison in Mexico would be able to hold him for long. Cartel chieftains tended to escape with astounding frequency, no doubt due to the abundance of money at their disposal to lubricate the system.

This was not the first time Santiago had been arrested under serious circumstances, so for him, it was merely an annoying interruption to his lucrative criminal career. The last time the case hadn’t even gone to trial; the judge miraculously ruling that the prosecution had failed to make an adequate case. That had been a blow for the
Federales
, and was among the judge’s last decisions before he retired to a hilltop compound in Costa Rica, to live out his days with a nineteen year old soul-mate who had a nose for stimulants, as well as an apparent affinity with vastly older men.

Santiago began spewing vitriol about what would happen to every member of the force who had participated in his arrest. Cruz stepped forward with surprising speed and backhanded him – a dismissive slap – more an insult than a rebuke.

“You’re going to regret this, you bitch–” Santiago spat.

Since the slap hadn’t gotten the message across, Cruz punched him in the jaw – it was he who would do the talking, and Santiago would answer the questions put to him, only speaking when told to.

Cruz blew on his reddened knuckles, the skin abraded by the prisoner’s coarse stubble. He motioned to the other man in the room, his lieutenant, Fernando Briones, to bring him the nightstick that lay on a table in a corner of the room. Briones, a compact pit bull with skin the color of brandy, obliged.

Santiago spat a bloody lump onto the floor, then grinned at the captain, displaying a mouthful of gold capped teeth, with an incisor now conspicuously missing.

“You hit like a pussy, you
marecon
,” Santiago sneered.

Cruz slammed the wooden club into the side of the captive’s head; his ear began streaming blood as it swelled from the blow. Santiago appeared momentarily dazed, and for once didn’t have an insulting comeback.

That was more like it.

Captain Cruz glanced at Lieutenant Briones and made a gesture with two fingers. Briones fumbled in his uniform shirt’s pocket and fished out a packet of cigarettes, offering one to Cruz. He took it, and Briones lit it for him with a disposable butane lighter. He inhaled the smoke with evident satisfaction, and then blew a stream of nicotine into Santiago’s tearing eyes.

“These are good. What are they? Cuban?” Cruz asked.

“Argentine,” Briones told him, holding up the pack so Cruz could see it. “
Parisienne
. They’re made with black tobacco – they don’t have all the impurities the American brands do. They’re supposedly better for you. They taste better to me, so who knows…”

“Imagine that. Cigarettes that are good for you. What will they think of next?” Cruz sighed mild bemusement, and then approached Santiago. “So, you shit-bird, do you like cigarettes? Is that something you like to put in your mouth when you don’t have a burro cock in it?” He puffed a few times, ensuring that the cigarette tip was glowing red, then held the ember against Santiago’s neck. The sickeningly-sweet smell of searing flesh was a small price to pay for the shriek of blind pain and fury that burst from the warlord. Now they were getting somewhere.

“You see, you piece of shit, you’re not so tough. You’re a big man when you have a bunch of your boyfriends around with guns, but alone, you’re nothing. Listen to you, blubbering like a baby. I bet you’d give me a blowjob right now for a piece of ice, am I right?” Cruz asked conversationally.

Santiago struggled against the restraints holding his wrists, tearing flesh in the process. Blood dripped deep crimson from the black metal cuffs.

“So now you’re starting to figure this out.” Cruz paced around Santiago while he talked. “I can do anything I want to you. Anything. You have no power here. I am judgment day for you – I’m God and the devil rolled into one, and you
will
tell me what I want to know. I actually hope you hold out and this takes a while,
puta
. I’m going to enjoy inflicting every morsel of misery I can on your worthless carcass.” Cruz paused, blowing a few lazy smoke rings. “Two of the men who died this morning were my friends. I’m sure they experienced considerable pain before they passed on, so I look at this as payback on their behalf. If I have my way, before this is done you’ll be begging me to kill you. You’ll cry, and you’ll tell me things I didn’t even ask about just to get me to stop. And I’ll savor every minute of it. In fact, I’ll think up new and creative ways to cause you so much pain that you’d stab your mother to death with a crucifix to make it stop. So I hope you make me do this the hard way.”

Santiago glared at Cruz, his fury palpable. “I want to see my lawyer,” he hissed.

Cruz nonchalantly swatted him on the other side of the head with the nightstick, the impact making a dull thunk against his skull. He struck him on the upper arms a few times, for good measure.

“I’m your lawyer. And I say case closed, you lose. So now I’m going to ask a few questions, and then you’re going to answer them, or I’m going to make you wish you’d never been born. You want to try me on that? What’s that line from the Clint Eastwood movie? Do you feel lucky?”

“I’m not saying anything.”

Cruz took a final puff on his cigarette and then applied it to Santiago’s neck again, generating a bloodcurdling howl of agony.

“Well, I don’t believe that. I think you will. In fact, I’m betting on it. So here’s my first, simple question. Where’s Carlos Aranas hiding these days?” Cruz asked.

Aranas, or ‘
El Lobo
’, was the absolute boss of the Sinaloa cartel, and the object of Cruz’s investigation into the latest string of grisly drug-related slayings in Mexico City. Cruz was a special type of cop, the Mexican equivalent of the top echelon of Homeland Security in the United States, and he’d been given virtually unlimited latitude by the President himself to do whatever it took to bring the cartels, whose violence was terrorizing the country, under control. Cruz headed up an autonomous task force that was working its way up the food chain until it got to the chiefs of the various cartels – the Knights Templar cartel, the Tijuana cartel, the Gulf cartel, a host of others; and the most powerful and dangerous – the Sinaloa cartel.

Cruz had earned his role by being tough, extremely smart, relentless, and incorruptible. A combination that was rare anywhere in the world, but in Mexico, virtually unheard of. For Cruz, bringing down the cartels wasn’t so much an occupation as a religious cause, and his life’s exclusive focus.

And the biggest fish in that particular polluted pond was Aranas, whose savagery was legendary; a fact Cruz knew firsthand.

“Come on, Santiago. Where’s
El Lobo
hanging his hat?” Cruz asked again.

“You must be fucking crazy if you think I’m going to talk to you. Give up
El Lobo
? You’re insane,” Santiago said.

“That’s right. I am. And if you don’t give me what I want, you’re going to find out exactly how dangerous a crazy man can be, especially when he has your testicles in his hand, like I do yours. So talk,” Cruz insisted.

“Fuck you.”

Cruz sighed again and nodded at Lieutenant Briones, who burrowed around in a rucksack before extracting a two foot long tube with a pair of electrodes on one end and a handle on the other. A cable ran from the evil looking implement to a metal box with a dial, which Briones dutifully plugged into the wall. Cruz held up the wand and inspected the electrodes with a grim smile.

“Do you know what this is? We got this from some Guatemalans who were operating a kidnapping and torture ring. This is a
picana
– or as you’ll soon think of it, your worst living nightmare in hell. It delivers a high voltage electric shock, but with low current. Since you probably didn’t pay much attention in school, that means it’s excruciatingly painful, but won’t leave a mark, so it can be used for hours without leaving any trace. I’ve heard about these, but never actually used one.” Cruz brandished it like an épée. “I’ve been saving it for when I captured one of the Sinaloa cartel captains, but you know what? I’ll make an exception today, seeing as I’m in a good mood, and you’ll be the first I use it on. Now the question is, do we start with the genitals, or your anus, or maybe go with the less tender areas as a warm-up? I don’t want to see your miserable tiny prick if I don’t have to, so I’m thinking we start on your neck, and work down,” Cruz explained dispassionately.

Santiago’s eyes flared wide with terror.

“Oh, I see you might be familiar with it? Why am I not surprised? I’ll bet you never thought you’d have one used on you, though, huh, tough guy? Today’s just full of surprises, isn’t it?”