Night of the Assassin (Assassin Series 4_prequel) (17 page)

“Make the call.”

An hour later, and they’d gotten nowhere, so
El Rey
went to the passenger terminal and checked with Taca. They had a five o’clock flight that would get him into Mexico City a couple of hours later, and then he could get a plane to Culiacan in the morning. He booked it, paying in cash, and returned to his leased condo to pack. He didn’t have much – a rucksack with his clothes, thirty thousand dollars in hundreds and a credit card, in the name of one of his companies, with a fifty grand limit. In his line of work, he’d found it paid to travel light.

The flight to Mexico City was tiresome, and once he landed he exhaled a sigh of relief. For all its exotic charms, Costa Rica hadn’t been his cup of tea and he was glad to be back on home turf. He checked the flight schedules to Culiacan and found one that departed at eight a.m., which would put him in Culiacan with time to spare for an afternoon meeting with Valiente. He booked a room at one of the large hotels connected to the airport terminal that catered to business travelers and settled in for the night, preferring to order room service than venture into town.

The next day, he touched down in Culiacan and rented a car at the airport. Now that he had a variety of IDs it made life much easier for him. He could change around who he was whenever he felt the urge, avoiding any chance of there being a pattern in his coming and going.

When he arrived at Valiente’s office, the cartel honcho greeted him warmly and invited him to sit. After some cursory pleasantries were dispensed with, including congratulations on Valiente being the new regional chief for the Sinaloa cartel’s northern operations – Altamar’s former role – they got down to business.

Valiente slid a grainy black and white photograph of a man across his desk to
El Rey
, who studied it before looking up at the
narcotraficante
, no emotion showing on his face.

“That’s German Coriente. Known as ‘
El Chilango
’. He used to be one of the ranking members of the Jalisco Cartel,” Valiente explained.

El Rey
waited patiently for more.

“He disappeared a year ago, after a contract was put out on him by the head of our Sinaloa cartel,
Don
Aranas. The contractor who took the assignment failed to execute him and was never heard from again. We assume that
El Chilango
stopped him somehow, and extracted information from him on who hired him to do the hit. Shortly afterwards, he disappeared, and it has taken a full year for us to find him,” Valiente continued.

“Where is he?”

“Australia. He got a Chilean passport and moved to Sydney, where nobody knows him. He’s hired several mercenaries for security, and bought a wine exportation company to establish residence there.”

El Rey
nodded. “Sounds like he got as far away from Mexico as you can get, and he’s out of the game. So why go after him? Not to talk myself out of work, but rather so I understand the motivation,”
El Rey
said.

“What do you care why? We offer a contract, you take it. That’s how it works, no?”

El Rey
held Valiente’s gaze and shook his head. “If I need to fly halfway around the world to kill someone, I need to know everything. That’s one of my conditions. Otherwise, respectfully, hire someone else. Although it sounds like your last experience with a contractor on this guy didn’t work out so well. So tell me, why go after a player who’s taken himself off the table and is living on the other end of the planet?”
El Rey
asked.

Valiente initially looked annoyed, but then remembered who he was talking to.
El Rey
was a dangerous man, even by cartel standards. Not someone you wanted to make an enemy of.

“It’s personal. The hit is personal. Unfinished business.”

“Personal? With Aranas? What could
El Chilango
have possibly done to bring that upon himself?” Now
El Rey
was genuinely curious.

“It’s a long story. Apparently, the two men knew each other from many years ago and then when Sinaloa went to war with the Jalisco cartel, things escalated out of control. That was almost a decade ago, and it went on for years, with heavy casualties on both sides.”

“They’re still enemies to this day, no?”
El Rey
asked.

“Yes. And they’ll always be enemies. Too much blood spilled to ever build bridges. What happened was that, during the worst of the war,
El Chilango
sent an execution team to take out Aranas. But they botched it. You can probably guess how that went down. Four killers from Veracruz with AK-47s – playing cowboys. Anyway, turns out Aranas wasn’t where they were told he would be, so when they shot up the car he was supposed to be traveling in, it wasn’t him. It was his twelve year old daughter, Imelda, on her way to ballet class.” Valiente paused to allow that to sink in. “She was apparently a rare talent. And beautiful. They tell me she lived for almost a month on machines before the injuries were too much for her. So it’s personal. Every day
El Chilango
breathes is an affront to Aranas, and he wants the man erased. Which brings us to why you are here, gracing our town with your presence.”

“What are the details?”

“The most important thing to understand is that Aranas doesn’t just want a hit. He wants
El Chilango
to suffer. A lot. I had mentioned to him how adept you’ve been in handling our transactions, and he authorized me to reach out to you. So here I am. And now, here are you as well.”

“What’s the contract price?”
El Rey
was curious how badly they wanted him dead.

“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”

“Too low for the risk involved. A foreign country, likely many unusual expenses, a police force that can’t be bought, foreign mercenaries…I don’t mean to sound like an ingrate, but that won’t cover it,”
El Rey
explained.

Valiente sat back, exasperated. “Then what’s the right number for you to take this on? I know I can get any of a dozen men who would jump at doing this for fifty.”

“You tried that once. These aren’t the kinds of situation where you look to save money. If you want the best and you want a guaranteed result, you will pay more than hiring someone who will try, and fail. Sounds like if you blow it one more time, he’ll disappear on you for good. I’m not sure I’d want to have to deliver that news to
Don
Aranas.”
El Rey
studied a point on the wall for a few moments. “My number is three hundred thousand.”

“Done.”

“Plus expenses, which will probably come to another fifty to a hundred. I won’t know until I get over there and see the lay of the land.”

Valiente’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Fair enough.”

“And I’ll need specialized gear once I’m there, so you’ll have to find a local who can get hard-to-find items for me. I won’t know what they are until I’m on the ground, but it could be specialized weapons, or explosives, or gas. Don’t know. Do you have any contacts there?”
El Rey
asked.

“There’s nowhere in the world we don’t have contacts. I’ll find someone.” Valiente smiled. “Is there anything else?”

“I expect you to pay for the travel, too. I’ll bet first class tickets to Sydney aren’t going to be cheap.”
El Rey
rose to his feet. “I can leave tomorrow. I’ll need half the money in advance, as usual, and an ATM card I can withdraw up to a hundred thousand dollars on. That way I can pull money out as necessary. No, better yet, give me fifty in cash, and fifty on an ATM. Do you have a package on him?”

Valiente pushed an envelope across the table.
El Rey
glanced at the contents and nodded. Valiente reached below his desk and retrieved a slim briefcase.

“Here’s two hundred and fifty, cash. Call that two for you, and fifty for expenses. I’ll have a card for you within a few days and will send it to you by DHL. That way you’ll have it within a week, on the outside. My guess is you’ll want to spend some time lining things up before you do this. Am I right?”

El Rey
ignored the question. “So you would have paid five hundred?”

“We think very highly of your talents. But it sounds like you’ll wind up costing four by the time this is done, so you can make it up on the next one. And if you pull this off for Aranas, there will be as many next ones as you want.” Valiente grinned. “It’s only money, right?”

“You have a point. I’ll look into hotels and flights. Timeframe for the hit?”

“If you can bring it in within ten days that will do.”

“Shouldn’t be an issue, if he’s only got a couple of bodyguards. Do you have dossiers on them?”
El Rey
asked.

“It’s in there. One’s South African, the other British – who saw a tour in Afghanistan. Not pushovers, that’s for sure.”

“They all die the same.”

“Too true. You need anything else from my end?”

“Just get in touch with someone who can get me whatever I need in Australia. I’ll get a cell phone once I’m there and touch base for the contact info.”
El Rey
stood, and hefted the briefcase. “Hate to leave a hundred on the table, but it is what it is.”

“I have a feeling if you make it ugly enough for
El Chilango
, there’s a chance at a bonus. Aranas isn’t that price sensitive.”

“Tell me. Does he have any other children?”
El Rey
asked.

Valiente looked at him strangely. “I think he’s got two sons. I’m not sure, though. We aren’t that close,” Valiente admitted.

“His only daughter. No, I imagine he’s not price sensitive at all.” He held up the briefcase and moved towards the door, hesitating before he left.

“I’ll get creative.”

Sydney was unlike any place
El Rey
had ever been. From the time he got off the plane, his Quantas first class experience a welcome luxury on the fifteen hour flight from Los Angeles, he was struck by how clean everything was. It was as if someone had scrubbed every surface right before he got there – but the entire town, as far as he could see wandering around the downtown area, was like that.

He took a cab from the airport to his hotel a few blocks from Sydney harbor and stowed his gear, locking his cash in the hotel room safe and unpacking his hygiene kit. After a few hours of sleep to get adjusted to the seven hour time difference, he set out to explore the town so he’d understand the layout. A four minute walk to the central ferry terminal at Grand Quay quickly convinced him that the town was filled with tourists, so one more from Mexico wouldn’t stick out, which had been one of his fears. He never wanted to be memorable anywhere he went and, judging by the host of accents and languages he heard as he moved along the waterfront from the quaint shopping area called ‘The Rocks’ toward the opera house, there would be no such problem.
El Rey
approached the iconic theater, which sat on a point at the water’s edge, its aggressive shape unmistakable. He kept walking towards the ocean and soon found himself in a verdant, well-groomed park, where he passed young lovers reposing on the grass, stealing moments together after school.

The weather was the equivalent of late autumn in Australia, the seasons being reversed from the Northern Hemisphere, but it was still relatively mild and sunnier than he’d expected. And so clean. Being used to Mexico, Sydney was a shock to his system in that it was so aseptic. Even as he made his way out of the park into an area that was supposedly seedier, it was as nice as some of the best neighborhoods back home. He stopped at a long pier with a sign out front that announced it as Finger Wharf and looked in at a hotel built over the harbor – the W Sydney – and felt immediately comfortable in the dimly lit, soothing, minimalistic contemporary lobby. It was deserted, save for a young woman working behind the desk and, based on the ambience and the solitary location, he decided right then and there that he’d be moving to the W the following day.

Walking away from the harbor, he explored the area inland from the hotel. It quickly degraded into a run-down industrial district with warehouses alongside shabby lower-income housing. A few of the buildings looked as though they were about to undergo renovation but much of the area was desolate and he found himself the only person on the streets – mid-afternoon on a weekday. He made a mental note: this was perfect for what he had in mind. He’d begun the outlines of a rough plan on the plane, purely conceptual, but if everything panned out it could work well.

Making his way back to the hotel, he hailed a cab and asked the driver to drop him a block from the address where
El Chilango
now lived. They drove into an upscale area fifteen minutes from the city center, where the cab stopped, a block from the harbor.

The neighborhood was eclectic, exhibiting a hodgepodge of architectural styles coexisting in a dissonant manner. Everything from elegant multi-story turn-of-the-century Victorian mansions to post-modern contemporary could be found. It was certainly a prosperous area.
El Rey
knew that waterfront homes anywhere in the world were always the most expensive – he figured that Australia would be no different. The sidewalks were empty; he deliberately avoided the target’s house, preferring to make a left on the street that ran along the waterfront homes rather than a right. He knew that
El Chilango
’s home was four down on the right from the corner where he made the turn, and he didn’t really need to see much more than he did by glancing down the street as though a sightseer who’d wandered into the area. He knew from the report he’d read on the plane that it was a two story, five bedroom waterfront home on a double lot, with security lighting at night activated by motion sensors on the sides of the house, as well as the street.