Night of the Assassin

Russell Blake

Smashwords Edition © 2011

Published by Russell Blake at Smashwords. Copyright 2011 by Russell Blake. All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact Books@RussellBlake.com.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Rave reviews for Russell Blake books:

For "Fatal Exchange"

"Fatal Exchange is a page-turning roller coaster ride of action, adventure and thrills. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this presumably debut offering from Russell Blake. It's an awesome read. I couldn't put it down, and stayed up all night to finish it, no exaggeration. Six Stars, if they had that high a review! " Katherina J.

"This is a book that took me completely by surprise. I thought I'd give it a shot based on the Amazon description and 5 star reviews, and it quickly became a page turner I couldn't put down. The plot is complex, sort of like a Forsyth or Ludlum, and the characters are gripping. It's a real novel. Can't wait to see what Blake does next." Anthony M.

"A woman on the airplane sitting next to me was entranced with the book and recommended it to me, and I have to say it's a great read by a complete unknown. Kind of like caramel pop-corn in the guilty pleasure department. It tastes so good you don't want to stop munching. A must read for action or intrigue junkies." David A.

"Fatal Exchange is a gritty," edge of your seat" thriller by first time author Russell Blake. The author cleverly combines a well paced, CSI styled crime thriller, with a "no holds barred", plausible international conspiracy. The story centers around Tess, a spunky, misplaced bicycle messenger, tirelessly working the Manhattan courier, who becomes entangled in both conflicts. Set squarely in the sights of a elusive serial killer and pursued doggedly by a ruthless, clandestine interrogation/murder team, Tess weaves her way through both worlds, as everyone around her starts to fall victim to the two very different, yet equally deadly threats. Detective Ron Stanford is stuck in the middle both conspiracy. A youngish detective assigned to a "special homicide" investigative unit, he initially meets Tess through his investigation of a set of serial murders targeting bicycle messengers, and soon becomes enmeshed another set of bizarre murders popping up throughout the city, all linked to a mysterious transaction completed by Tess's father.
I can honestly say, that if I could find more books like Fatal Exchange, I would be left with absolutely no reason to read some of the "Brand" name authors on the market today." Steven K.

"I really enjoyed this book! Started it yesterday and have spent every spare moment finishing it today. This author is going on my fave list!" Tux

"My only regret about this book? Not purchasing it earlier. One of the best reads I've had this summer! I mean, where else can you find bike messengers, counterfeiters, and scalpers all in one book? I literally could NOT put it down, I was so drawn in... Waiting with baited breath for the next novel by Blake.... very impatiently I might add!" Amber N.

" This book is in a class by itself. The main plot of the book is exciting and scary (and maybe a little graphic). The pacing is fast, the descriptions are visceral and the twists are unexpected." Stacy K.

For "How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time (even if drunk, high or incarcerated)":

“How to Sell a Gazillion eBooks In a Year is by far the most important book ever written on any topic, although I exclude the Bible since the Bible wasn’t exactly written in the way we mean the word “written.” But other than that, Gazillion does it all. For everyone. A can’t miss, sure fire Gazillion hit-a-thon from the master of them all.”

- John Lescroart, NY Times bestselling author of over 20 novels, including The Vig, The 13th Juror, Treasure Hunt, Damage, Second Chair and a host of others

“…a joyously vicious satire and parody that makes sport of John Locke, and indeed of the whole brave new world of self–publishing and self–promotion. If you don’t find Mr. Blake outrageous, and indeed offensive, you would seem to be missing the point. And the same thing goes if you only find him outrageous and offensive.”

- Lawrence Block, bestselling author of Telling Lies For Fun & Profit, The Liar’s Bible, A Drop Of The Hard Stuff, and Getting Off

“Anybody who’s ever read a self-help book will appreciate the cynical humor from the nimble mind of Russell Blake in this parody. Piercing sarcasm, the ability to turn a phrase into a missile and an impressive vocabulary (he makes up words if he doesn’t know an appropriate one – I’ve asked him, but still don’t know what a Gazillion is) combine into a book that is alternately rant, grovel, trash-talk and Bizarro-world counsel. Irreverent fun.”

– David Lender, author of Trojan Horse, The Gravy Train and Bull Street

For "The Geronimo Breach":

"The best thriller I've ever read. How often do you hear a review say that? Well. that's what I'm saying. Other reviews describing it as near perfection and incredibly well written aren't lying. Russell Blake is on par with the biggest names in the business. And I mean Grisham, Turrow, Ludlum, Forsyth, Brown. The plot is intricate and completely unexpected at every turn. Al Ross is a hateful, extremely well-written character with believable complexity and nuance, plunged into a global conspiracy nightmare he's ill-equipped to survive. Don't want to spoil the end, but it's a barn-burner. Overall, the best read ever."

jennifer989

"The artistry in this work as the brush strokes build layers, brings you to wonder if something like this could be true! That's the work of a true artist. Many works of fiction have a main character that is so scrubbed up that he no longer resembles a human male. No problems with this one. You start out despising him, then start to feel sorry for him, until finally you almost like him and wish him well - although that outcome seems unlikely, the way the story develops. This is almost a 'How to..' for budding writers. How to write without one word or one sentence that could be edited out! Tight narrative, great story, scary scenario. I almost never give five stars, but this has earned it!"

K. McDicken

"Russell Blake is fast becoming my favorite new author. Take an unlikely main character, a scarily probable conspiracy, a government run amok, cocaine dealers, commandos, whores, a burro, and a tightly meshed action/intrigue plot, and you have what to me is the most original thriller of the year. I don't want to spoil the ending but it completely blew me away, and how the suspense was sustained to the last few pages as a surprise was great. I loved Fatal Exchange and had tears of laughter running down my face for How to Sell A Gazillion Ebooks, and now spent a big chunk of my night reading till 4AM to get to the end of Geronimo Breach. Highest recommendation for a highly original and entertaining novel."

Semi-Used

"Okay, I'm from the other side of the pond (you can find most of my reviews and on the UK site) and I'm not a patient/forgiving reader if the writer confuses me or dawdles in their narrative. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself going along with the easy style and broad strokes of the narrative. The plot is very skilfully contrived but the real art I found was in the affinity I found myself unable to resist with the down-on-his-life main character, Al. I also love burros after following Al's steady transition as he encounters hurdle after hurdle. I laughed aloud in some scenes (I won't spoil it) when Al is, let's say...compromised. I loved the ending but also wished the story hadn't ended - so for that reason I'm taking the trouble to recommend it."

Write Into Print

About the Author

Russell Blake lives full time on the Pacific coast of Mexico. He is the acclaimed author of the thrillers: Fatal Exchange, The Geronimo Breach, the Zero Sum trilogy (Kotov Syndrome, Focal Point and Checkmate), The Delphi Chronicle trilogy (The Manuscript, The Tortoise and the Hare, and Phoenix Rising), King of Swords and Night of the Assassin.

Non-fiction novels include the international bestseller An Angel With Fur (animal biography) and How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks (while drunk, high or incarcerated) – a joyfully vicious parody of all things writing and self-publishing related.

“Capt.” Russell, 52, enjoys writing, fishing, playing with his dogs, collecting and sampling tequila, and waging an ongoing battle against world domination by clowns.

Night of the Assassin is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters and real people, living or dead, is coincidental.

A Note From The Author

Night of the Assassin is the prequel to King of Swords, which chronicles the story of the super-assassin, “El Rey” and his plot to execute the presidents of the U.S. and Mexico at the G-20 summit in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. During the chaotic and breakneck writing of that epic tale, I was constantly struck by fleeting insights into the mind of the killer, some of which I captured in glowing detail in that tome. But even as I put King of Swords to bed, I couldn’t shake the sense of unfinished business. I’d go to sleep and have vivid dreams, and they were always the same – about the characters in my book. Specifically, they were about the assassin’s past. It was like a disease. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

That’s unfamiliar to me, for the most part. I had the same general sense when I got done with Al, from The Geronimo Breach, but I had no compulsion to write another book about him, fascinating as his character was. I felt closure at the end of that work. I’d told Al’s story, as well as I could, and there wasn’t more I felt I could add. There were no more words that needed writing.

But I no sooner finished King of Swords than I started making notes for a prequel. Which is really the wrong way to go about it. I’m a simple man. When starting a story, I always like the ‘Once Upon A Time’ part at the beginning, and ‘The End’ at, well, the end. But that’s not how it panned out for me this time. I felt driven to write about the assassin some more, and to mine his background. What created a man who could dispassionately terminate people’s lives for a living? What drove him to do the unthinkable? Was he a monster in the traditional sense? Did he kick dogs or swerve to hit them in the road? Did he put his socks on before or after his underwear?

It was fascinating to me, because El Rey was alive in my head. You see, I knew the answers to the questions I was asking, for once in my life.

And so it came to pass that I have the opportunity to share with you what I gleaned from him.

El Rey’s past, or at least the highlights of it, are alive on the page. If I’ve done my job right, you’ll be hurtled along on a ride like no other, to be at times shocked, titillated, revolted, sad, and ultimately, entertained.

I suppose you could say that El Rey won this round.

Enjoy this humble offering, with my compliments.

Your servant,

Russell Blake

Go to excerpt from King of Swords

Chapter 1

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 & 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.

Papi opened a small eighteen-carat gold box and quickly tapped out two small piles of white powder on the glass exterior bar behind him. He snorted the heaping lines of cocaine laced with Levitra with gusto as he leered at the ménage a trois. He shook his head and stamped his foot against the teak deck in what he imagined resembled a wild bull’s mating dance before throwing his head back and grinning crookedly at the moon as it struggled to break through the gathered clouds. It was a good life; he was a lucky man. This had been a fantastic birthday so far and whoever had said that life began at fifty wasn’t lying. He reached below the bar and extracted a bottle of Herradura Selección Suprema tequila and poured a healthy slug of the amber nectar into a tumbler before returning his attention to the nubile entertainment. Yes indeed, a great birthday. He studied the face of his platinum Rolex Masterpiece and noted the time – a little after midnight. Another day older and closer to death. Ah, well. What was one to do? He’d try to enjoy himself nonetheless.

“Ladies. You’re shameless. Move inside and let the games begin. And save some love for Papi!”

The security team studiously avoided looking up at the transom of the huge ship, preferring to scan the periphery for signs of intruders. Papi’s love for the high life was well known and by now the men had seen everything. It was all fun until he couldn’t perform or things turned nasty after too many drugs and the girls ended up begging for forgiveness. They’d had to bury their fair share of young strippers who had failed to judge his moods correctly. He was infamous for being mercurial. A career as a playmate for a narcotraficante was a high-risk, high-reward proposition in a world where the men were inured to violence and thought nothing of snuffing out life on virtually any pretense, including because it amused them to do so.

A pelican rustled its feathers at the water’s edge before taking flight, swooping low over the water as it searched out more tranquil surroundings. Two of the sentries swung around at the sound, ready to engage whatever enemy presented itself. They exhaled with relief when they saw the huge bird lumber into the air. Everyone’s nerves were raw from the last week’s duty, moving from danger zone to danger zone while Contreras partied without a care. They were in friendly territory but that counted for little when he was exposed like this. Every moment held the possibility of an attack by enemies who were every bit as vicious and determined as Papi, and when he wasn’t in his fortified compound back home, the risk-factor went through the roof.

The men were working in shifts, eight guards each shift, four hours on, eight off, so they could get rest and stay alert. After four hours of high-intensity patrolling, acuity fell off markedly and human error became more likely. The cartel game was one where you only got to make one mistake – your last. Papi was paying the highest rates in the world for his security; they wanted for nothing; but in return, he expected them to keep him safe no matter what, and if that meant every member of the team taking a bullet for him, so be it.

That was the gig.

The sound of the party from the boat was a headache for them, although no one would dare mention it to Papi. But he might as well have painted a big bulls-eye on the super yacht’s bow for any hostiles in the area. The head of security, Alberto, clenched his jaw as the women laughed, each squeal of ecstasy an invitation to disaster…in his mind. Let the old pervert bang around with his doped-up teenagers inside the fucking boat. Why did he need to make such a public display of it? It was recklessly endangering them all. He sucked down his frustration and concentrated on the job at hand, eyes scanning the surrounding dock area and the buildings for any hint of latent danger. They’d be back at the compound tomorrow afternoon, and so far there had been no attacks; with any luck they’d make it home safe, where the routine drill would be executed in a more controlled environment – where they knew everyone and owned the town. This was making him nervous – exposed – on the water, a million miles from nowhere with the boss kite-high on powder and bellowing into the night sky as though he was safe in his own living room.

A cat scurried after a large rat on the slick-wet concrete path by the shops at the far end of the marina, setting Alberto’s nerves further on edge. He didn’t want to think of how wound-up his men must be after almost ten days of constant vigilance. All he needed was a trigger-happy lapse and they’d have the police and military landing on them, which would be a little awkward given that Papi was the number four most wanted man in Mexico. Money obviously bought selective vision where he was concerned, but it would only go so far. Gunfire at a six star hotel’s exclusive marina could raise the wrong eyebrows and the last thing Alberto needed was an all-out gun battle with the military in the dead of night.

He silently cursed Contreras for being so careless, then exhaled a sigh of relief when he heard the drug lord call his whores back inside the boat with him. Alberto had six men on land, two on the boat, and one on each side of the bridge keeping watch for any potential menace that they might miss from the dock. It would be impossible to approach the yacht from the water in the still of the night – a boat would be immediately detected, even if it was being rowed. But he wanted to ensure that all avenues of attack were covered, so even the waterside was being watched. Contessa was docked on a side tie, her port side fastened to the pilings and the starboard side facing the harbor opening, beyond which the bay stretched into a black nothingness. If there was going to be an assault it would have to come from the land because they’d have enough warning from the ship’s radar to take positions on the waterside and cut any encroaching vessel to pieces.

They’d covered all possible approaches yet he was still worried. Maybe it was the place, or maybe because it was the last night of Papi’s latest binge. But Alberto had an ugly feeling in his guts – and it wasn’t something he’d eaten. He sensed there was something out there coming for them. And whatever it was, it meant them harm.

He called to his men for their radio check-in; everyone responded immediately, sounding alert and precise. They were the best. Seasoned professional killers from a half dozen countries, making thirty-five grand a month each to lay their lives on the line. He didn’t like the odds of anyone foolish enough to take them on in the dead of night.

But his gut still told him they had a problem.

The assassin checked the bright luminescent face of his stopwatch, noting with satisfaction that he was on schedule. He listened for the sound of the party at the marina, which was still some distance away. Faint gusts of music muttered a vague cadence over the water. The target was making it almost too easy for him. Perhaps it was just providence calling time on Papi. But whatever the wheels within wheels of cruel nature, he thanked his lucky stars that he’d taken this contract – one of the largest he’d ever been offered, at a million and a half dollars.

He’d planned the attack to the second and researched everything from the marina layout to the surroundings, even going as far as locating blueprints and a schematic for the ship and committing them to memory. This was his specialty – the impossible to carry-off execution of untouchables was his stock-in-trade. It had made him infamous in a relatively short time. But this would be the most difficult sanction yet, due to the heightened vigilance of the security team he knew would be on-edge the final night of their rough duty, which concluded in a vulnerable location. He’d thought through all possible ways of terminating Contreras, and when he’d decided on his final plan, even he was impressed at the ingenuity of it. Now he just needed his contractors to be on time and to do their job, and Papi was better than dead.

He slipped below the surface of the water and submerged to a depth of fifteen feet. That would be sufficient for his purposes. The small waterproof GPS unit he’d programmed with the coordinates of the dock glowed orange with just enough luminescence to be readable from three feet away. By his calculations, he would need ten minutes to swim to his starting position before the plan engaged, and he’d allowed himself fifteen, just in case. Better safe than sorry on a night like this. His tank held sufficient air to breath for an hour, which he hoped would be far more than necessary.

It had been difficult arranging for all the pieces he’d need to end the life of the brutal cartel boss; expensive too, but sometimes cost was key. He’d learned through harsh experience not to pinch pennies or cheap out. By the end of the night he’d be far richer, so in the end, whatever his sunk costs were would have paid for themselves. He was nothing if not pragmatic about the job.

His easy, practiced stroke propelled him smoothly through the warm water as he neared the private marina. He sensed he was close when he felt a current heralding the mouth of the harbor, as the surging tide pulled him through the broad opening.

Visibility was zero in the inky darkness so he was flying entirely by his instruments, which told him he had another hundred and fifty yards to go. Contessa was berthed at the dock closest to the harbor’s entrance, commanding the entire length, so there was no cover or alternative to doing the dive. This was the only way to get close.

A commotion from the sea bed startled him with a cloud of muddy sediment. A large stingray rose from the muck and glided by him, nudging his neoprene-encased legs with one of its wings. He more sensed the creature than saw it; he was momentarily caught off guard. His respiration increased as he flailed in alarm, causing a rush of bubbles to hurtle to the surface. Battling for control over his breathing, he struggled to slow his heart rate – after a few seconds of inward composure, he had it back to beating at a moderate pace. He didn’t pause long to dwell on the near-miss, beyond musing that it would be ironic if his meticulously-plotted assassination fell apart due to surface froth from a panicked brush with a bottom-dwelling Myliobatoidei.

Another glance at his watch confirmed that he still had five minutes to go. By his reckoning he should be sixty or so yards from the front of the boat, and ninety from his targeted position. After a few more moments of swimming, he dimly registered the hull of the massive ship above him – an opaque outline floating on an already-dark surface, faintly illuminated by lambent swirls of the surrounding marina lights. Carefully calculating the distance, he moved to the spot his schematics told him would be the correct one for his purposes.

From a mesh sack attached to his dive belt, he fished out a suction cup with a handle on one end, which he affixed to the hull. The assassin could feel the vibration of the big generators that provided all the power when the massive twin MTU turbo-diesels were at rest. As expected, Papi had all systems operating on the luxurious yacht. He extracted a waterproof battery-powered drill. After taking one final confirming look at his position on the hull, he jammed the bit against the fiberglass and depressed the trigger. The diamond-tipped steel shredded its way through the material – almost five inches thick. The bit was six. Two minutes later he was through. He dropped the drill back into his sack and extracted a small gas canister with a rotating valve on the end, where it connected to a custom-fabricated seven inch tube that would be a snug fit in the hole. He jammed it up into the new opening and twisted the valve, wishing he could hear the satisfying hiss that would terminate the target.

Hopefully.

That was where part two of the plan came in.

The assassin depressed a button on the suction cup and it dropped away from the hull. He swam to the far side of the ship that was facing the bay and cautiously poked his head out of the water, right next to the section where the engine vents drew in air. Another glance at his watch confirmed that he had a hundred and forty more seconds before it was show time. He groped in the sack and, after re-submerging, drilled another hole, this time where the central air conditioning units were situated. He repeated the procedure with a second gas canister and returned to the surface again, hurriedly extending a telescopic tube akin to a car radio antenna. The assassin fitted a third, larger canister onto the end of the extension and, now in position and prepared, waited for the fireworks to begin.

Alberto was the first to hear the big chopper’s rotors. By the time he had radioed to his men, the sound of the aircraft had increased to a chattering roar. A searchlight stabbed through the night, racing over the buildings and then towards the marina, tracing over the assembled boats until it finally alighted on Contessa’s superstructure, blinding the two armed sentries in the top-level bridge. Alberto screamed into the radio to his men to hold their fire – nobody from the helicopter was shooting. The piercing light slowly moved along the concrete path, locking onto the armed men and freezing each in place before it moved on to the next. Eventually, satisfied that there was no unusual mischief going on at the marina, the beam shut off and the chopper rose, hovering for another twenty seconds before banking and moving back towards its home base in Manzanillo.

Alberto swore to himself. That had been way too close. It was one of the navy copters, no doubt sent over to check on reports of armed men on the waterfront. The army and the navy chiefs in the area had been paid off, so there shouldn’t have been any problem. It likely took a couple of radio exchanges before they called off the dogs. Few things in life scared Alberto, but the prospect of taking on a contingent of armed Mexican marines was one of them; the army wasn’t a problem, but the marines knew their shit. They were the equivalent of the American green berets, the toughest of the tough, and they generally meant business. Alberto should know. He employed three ex-marines who were genuine, authentic hard cases – even in a world where blood was spilled casually on a daily basis.

The unexpected fire-drill over, the patrols commenced again. Everything returned to a fragile calm. The night was still, and Contessa gently rocked against the swell of the incoming tide, the music from within still booming its siren song into the deep.

The assassin made his way through the cabin to the main stateroom, his silenced pistol at the ready. He’d brought it in a waterproof bag, in which he kept anything that couldn’t get immersed during the dive. He didn’t think he’d need to use it, but better to be prepared. He’d pulled his flippers off and set them on the rear deck, where he could grab them in a hurry. Worst case, he could always swim without them, although it would be much rougher going. That wasn’t his most pressing problem now, though. He needed to memorialize his success and get the proof back to his clients so he could collect the second half of his fee – and build his reputation in the process.

He pushed the door to the master stateroom open and encountered a tableaux straight out of hell. Papi lay naked in the center of the bed, surrounded by his three young playmates, also naked. All were dead. The nerve gas he’d bought from the Russians had done its work, circulating via the three zoned air-conditioners. He’d been guaranteed that the gas would kill within ten seconds of inhalation, but he needed to be sure. That’s what made him who he was. He was the man who made sure.

The sight of the female corpses, bloody foam caked around their mouths and noses, already cyanotic, had no effect on him. This was his job, his chosen profession. Collateral damage was regrettable, but part of the deal. The girls would have likely been dead within a few years anyway, either at the hands of these goons…or their rivals. It was a fast money life, which didn’t come with a retirement plan.

Breathing through his respirator, the assassin studied the dead cartel boss, then fired a single shot through his forehead, more for effect than anything. He inspected his handiwork dispassionately before reaching into the watertight gun bag for a cell phone and a laminated rectangle. Approaching the man, he positioned the card almost tenderly on his exposed throat before snapping a photo with the phone. The figure on the card seemed to watch the proceedings without interest, his medieval regal gaze unblinking in perpetuity, the double-edged blade of his clutched sword forever pointing at the heavens. Satisfied with his handiwork, the assassin dropped the phone back into the sack and sealed it before placing it into the web bag hanging from his dive belt.

A noise from above jolted him. He heard movement from up on the bridge – heavy footsteps that carried down into the mid-ship stateroom, which could signal either a problem or a shift change. The one part of the plan he hadn’t been able to nail was a detailed agenda for the security team. There was just nobody he could find that could be paid off, so he’d had to wing it. He hoped that wasn’t a fatal flaw tonight. He’d know soon enough; even though his work was done, he still needed to complete phase two of the sanction, which was often the hardest part – the part where he got out alive.

Alberto called his men to an area near the dock and briefed the new arrivals. They would be on shift until four-twenty, at which point they’d be relieved by a new, fresh set of eight. The men handed the replacements their weapons and spare magazines, then moved in a group toward the hotel, a wing of which had been booked for the security detail and boat staff. Alberto debated going with them, having already been on for eight hours, but he couldn’t eradicate the twisting in his guts that something was amiss, so he knew there was no way he’d be able to sleep. He held up a pair of night vision goggles and studied the rocks of the jetty that protected the harbor, slowly and carefully scanning every foot of them.

Nothing.

A cry from the bridge interrupted his reconnaissance, and he looked up to where one of the new arrivals was waving. Fucking idiot. Why didn’t he use the radio? That’s what they were for.

Alberto turned the volume up on his handheld and called to the man. “What is it?”

“I…was Papi or any of the girls swimming earlier today or this evening? I’ve been gone for eight hours.”

“No. I don’t think so. Why?” Alberto asked, honestly puzzled by the question.

“There are a pair of–”

Without warning the radio went dead. The hair on Alberto’s arms stood up as he peered through the goggles up at the bridge. He couldn’t see either of the men who were stationed there as sentries.

“Bridge. Come in. Repeat. Come in. Do you read me?” Alberto hissed into the radio, his stomach sinking even as he called.

The body of one of the two guards sailed over the side of the bridge, landing in a formless mass four stories below on the concrete surface of the dock near his feet. Alberto stared at the body in disbelief, a stain of thick, dark blood quickly pooling around the corpse. Moments later a second form hurtled over – the security men all rushed toward the yacht, now in full-scale attack mode. The two men on the bridge had been in unassailable positions, with the only access from the rear deck…and the salon, where Papi had last been seen leading his nubiles below to his palatial zebra wood-paneled stateroom.

The night abruptly exploded into an inferno, temporarily blinding Alberto. From inside the boat, the whump of an incendiary grenade illuminated the interior with a white-hot flash before the ensuing blaze erupted from the side windows, shattered from the scorching blast. A figure in black wearing scuba gear swung from the bridge over the waterside of the ship, dropping the forty feet into the harbor even as Alberto hazily trained his weapon on him and opened fire with a hail of bullets. Burst after burst of sizzling lead seared into the water where the diver had sunk, and Alberto’s men quickly joined him, shooting point blank into the surface in the hopes of hitting something.

The assassin allowed himself to sink to the bottom, twenty-five feet below the surface. He kicked a few feet and took cover beneath the gargantuan hull, the bullets tearing harmlessly through the deep where he would have been if he was stupid enough to try to swim out of the harbor’s mouth. He’d give it a few minutes and let the gunmen exhaust their wrath before doing so – he still had sufficient air. Even the most dedicated mercenaries would tire of emptying weapons into the bay for no reason, so it would only be a few more moments before they stopped and began thinking about evacuating before the military arrived to check on the blaze.

It would be a long slog across the bay without the swim fins he’d been forced to leave on the aft deck. That was regrettable. He made a mental note in the future to bring an extra set with him to attach to the hull, where they would be safely waiting for him if he was forced to make a hasty departure. He checked his watch and peered through the gloom at his regulator gauge, which he illuminated using the dim glow from the GPS. He had forty-five percent left, which would get him out of the harbor and at least halfway across the bay before he needed to jettison the tank and switch to using his snorkel.

With any luck at all he could be on the far side, on the banks of the little fishing hamlet of Barra de Navidad, within an hour and fifteen minutes, where a battered Toyota Tacoma sat waiting on a dark, deserted street by the water. It would be the least-expected escape route given it was the farthest point from the ship. If the security detail still had any fight left in them after losing their meal ticket, they’d deploy to the more obvious areas closer to the yacht, although any pursuit would be hurried due to concerns over the arrival of the marines. The odds of there being any serious hunt for him were about zero, he knew. They’d be far more interested in clearing out before they had to explain their heavily-armed presence to the military.

From the town of Barra, he could be in Manzanillo within forty minutes, or better yet, at one of the big hotels just north of town. They were showing their age, but he still liked Las Hadras resort as a place to lay low for a few days while waiting for the wire transfer to hit his account. When he got to shore he would e-mail the photo of Papi, with his calling card in glorious display, using his cell phone’s internet capability. The client would be ecstatic that yet another impossible execution in his notorious string of accomplishments had gone off without a hitch.

The gas had been a novel touch and he’d been delighted with the results. It was short-duration and would have blown off within five minutes of entering the air-filtration and conditioning system, so the only trace any investigators would find would be the empty canisters wedged into the hull. At that stage it would be pretty obvious that something in the atmosphere had killed the passengers, so the discovery would have zero effect on anything. The vendor had done well with the choice; the assassin grinned behind the heavy glass mask – he’d use him again. Reliability in the assassin’s game was key to sustaining rewarding long-term relationships.

Rousing himself from his reverie, he began swimming slowly away from the boat, hugging the bottom so as to avoid any telltales to the flashlight beams playing across the surface. They were wasting their time but he wanted to take no further chances. He resolved to hold his breath for the two minutes it would take to make it to the harbor entrance and to safety – there was no point in increasing the odds of more shooting by leaving an unnecessary bubble trail up top if he didn’t have to.

By the time the flames were extinguished there was little left of the ship’s upper salon or staterooms, other than the main bedroom used by the owner. When Alberto made his way down the shattered stairs to the companionway that led to that area, he already knew in his heart what his eyes would confirm. His boss, his sacred charge, was dead. Still, nothing could have prepared him for the vision of a naked Papi with the tarot card sticking out of his bloody, froth-caked mouth, surrounded by cold blue naked nubile companions who had obviously died in excruciating agony. His blood ran cold when he saw the image of the seated regent protruding from Papi’s face. He’d heard the stories, the rumors of the ghost that came to kill, but never believed they were true.

Until now.

Until he’d witnessed the handiwork with his own eyes – the handiwork of the King of Swords, or El Rey as he was known in Mexico. He was every heavily-protected target’s worst nightmare – the man who could walk through walls or up the sides of buildings, and from whom no one was safe. Seeing the assassin’s calling card was a loss of any innocence or hope he’d ever had. Because now, Alberto knew that there was indeed a boogeyman, a devil that danced in the darkness, a stealer of things precious for delivery to hell.

Alberto could say with assurance that there was something that scared him more than the Mexican marines, more than torture, more than the prospect of death itself. He, a man for whom slaughter and killing was mundane, had seen the face of true evil, and it had stared back at him, unflinching.

El Rey had come during the night and stolen Papi’s soul.

Chapter 2

Sinaloa, Mexico, Twenty-Five Years Ago

The flames leapt up into the night sky, their eerie flickering the only evidence that anything man-made had existed in the deserted field of marijuana plants. The shacks were ablaze, sending embers shooting into the air as they carried the captives’ hopes of survival to heaven with them.

The little girl sobbed, terrified of what was to come. Her mother, helpless besides her, howled an incoherent, primal sound into the ground next to the mutilated corpse of her youngest, while futilely struggling against the crude plastic ties that bound her bloody wrists. This had been the worst night in the toddler’s short, harsh life, and it seemed surreal to her. She hoped it was a nightmare. The dead form of her father lay sprawled besides her mother, his life extinguished in an unspeakable manner. She didn’t understand any of it. She wanted to live. She had so much to do, her life was just starting.

True, it had been a difficult existence so far, as the daughter of a dirt-poor farmer in the hills of rural Mexico; another mouth to feed in a hard environment where money was non-existent and the family lived off the land. But, as with most children, she loved her parents wholeheartedly, no matter what the circumstance; they were her universe – and she had just begun viewing the world as a thing apart from them.

As the seasons came and went, the family’s time was spent working their meager patch of land; a plot of several acres that had been in the family for over a century. They survived without any creature comforts, their power provided by an ancient gas-powered generator which was used only in emergencies – gasoline being far too precious a commodity to waste on luxuries such as lights. There was no plumbing; their water came from an artesian well. Still, it was a life, her life, and the only one she’d known in her four years on the planet – and like most organisms, she wanted it to continue as long as possible.

Then the unthinkable had happened. The men had arrived in their huge truck, and soon the shack they called home was ablaze and her sister and father were no longer of this world. And now she kneeled, crying while she murmured the only prayer she knew, hoping it would work as a talisman to keep the bad men at bay.

“Our Father, who arth in heaven…” she lisped in a soft, tremulous tone.

She swiveled her head and watched as an older man, who had just arrived after their field had been set alight, walked slowly back to his vehicle holding the hand of a young boy.

One of the remaining two men moved beside her and grabbed her mother’s hair, lifting her to her knees, her grief shrieking in gasping sobs even as she trembled in shock and fear. Her shoulders shook the shabby sleeves of her torn peasant dress, now bloody and filthy from the abuse she’d received at the hands of the animals who stood by the pair with their pistols and cowboy boots. A gunshot rang out, deafening the little girl – her mother fell forward onto the bloody dirt, her suffering ended, gone to join her husband and baby. The little girl cried to the silent god who had abandoned her, an innocent, even as she continued to recite the words she’d been assured would protect her through anything.

“Thy king done come…”

She closed her eyes against the horror of the scene and imagined a place where she would be forever young, playing in a beautiful grass field with puppies and ponies; her father, young, healthy and vibrant running beside her as her mother tossed her baby sister into the air, eliciting squeals of glee from the delighted tike. She sensed the cold menace of the gun barrel against the back of her tiny head, and redoubled her efforts to send her m’aidez to her creator.

“Thy will be–”

The lead ripped through her cerebrum, abruptly terminating her brief sojourn on earth. Her frail body tumbled lifelessly to the ground.

For her, the ordeal was over.

The men watched as the cannabis caught fire, fed by the gasoline that had been so frugally saved for the family’s power, their butchery merely another day’s work in their brutal world of enforcement of their absolute power. Both would sleep well that night, their consciences long ago having been discarded as impediments to their working for the group that would later become the Sinaloa cartel – the most powerful and brutal of the Mexican narcotraficantes. The night’s drama had been another in a long line of horrors they’d inflicted on their fellow men in order to solidify their jefe’s control over the region. The citizenry only understood and respected one thing, and that was brute force. They were the delivery system for that primal justice, and they knew that nobody would ever miss the peasant family or question the events of that night. It was all business as usual; nobody wanted to have the men visit their home if they were too inquisitive about what had happened or where the farmer and his family had gone. The events would remain just another footnote in the brutality that was an ongoing part of the drug traffic in Mexico. There was nobody to defend the innocents, and so they perished, as countless others had before them in brutal episodes that determined nothing. Mexico’s soil was steeped in the blood of the helpless – the men knew that nobody would mourn them. They had no power, no clout, and so were disposable.

The enforcers returned to their truck, which started with a roar, and they tore off into the night down the dirt track that led to civilization, such as it was.

~ ~ ~

Sinaloa, Mexico, Twenty Years Ago

Horses galloped around the periphery of the open field. The men gathered in the center whistling at the ponies as they celebrated their temporary freedom. A sprawling mission-style hacienda sat imposingly in the distance – easily twenty-thousand feet of interior space built on a bluff overlooking a river which burbled softly below it as it carried fresh water from the mountains, so vital for the irrigation of the region’s crops, which were mainly tomatoes and marijuana.

The majority of the cannabis grown in Mexico came from Sinaloa, and it had been this harvest that had been instrumental in the creation of the modern cartel system. Originally, only a few families engaged in the trafficking of marijuana to the U.S., along with heroin of moderate quality and purity produced in modest, local fields. It had been a small business, operated like a cottage industry, tightly held with a minimum of violence other than turf wars over growing and distribution rights.

Then, in the late 1970s, the dynamics had shifted; the smuggling networks that had been engaged in this relatively benign trade took on the burden of moving cocaine through Mexico for the Columbian cartels, and then the money got much bigger as the Cali and Medellin cartels grew increasingly reliant on their Mexican smugglers to get the product to the U.S.. This naturally led to a situation where the Mexicans began getting paid in product, versus cash, driving them to become distributors, as opposed to transporters – and the money involved took another quantum jump. By the early 1990s, the Mexican cartels were handling much of the distribution for the Colombians, whose cartels had disintegrated in the late 1980s with their survivors now focused mainly on manufacturing.

Within a little over a decade, a small business had become a multi-billion dollar industry and the various factions fought it out for the rights to their geographical areas. By 1990, the Sinaloa cartel was the most powerful in all Mexico – in all the world, in fact – primarily because the ‘Godfather’ of the Mexican drug trade, Miguel Angel Félix Gallardo, was from Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa. It was he who ran a hundred percent of the trade through Mexico during the Seventies and Eighties, and he who had the relationships with the Colombians. In the mid-Eighties, he decided to divide up Mexico into regions, so the power that was naturally concentrated in Sinaloa remained there, with the other cartels acting as satellites to that main central group.

That changed when Gallardo went to prison in the late Eighties, which created a vacuum in the leadership and opened the door for the smaller, less important cartels to assert a better foothold. In particular, the Tijuana cartel and the Juarez cartel had jockeyed for greater sway and a larger chunk of the profits, leading to often bloody wars with their Sinaloa brethren.

The group of men watching the horses laughed easily together, cans of Tecate tempering the worst of the mid-day heat. It was fall, the storm season was largely over, but the temperatures could still reach the high nineties during the day, bringing with it substantial humidity. The oldest of the men, Don Miguel Lopez, a tall, lean man with the leathery complexion that came from a lifetime outdoors, had his left hand resting on the shoulder of a ten year old boy, already lanky from the summer’s growth spurt that had left him all arms and legs, an alien in an unfamiliar body. It was his birthday and, at ten, it was time for him to begin learning the skills he’d require to survive in an ever-competitive world. In Mexico, with a head of the household who was one of the original ranking members of the Sinaloa cartel, that translated into more than reading, writing and arithmetic. Don Miguel, the elder statesman of the group, smoothed his mustache and lifted his cowboy hat, wiping away the sweat from his brow with a soiled red cloth handkerchief he carried for that purpose, and then patted the boy’s shoulder.

“It’s time for you to learn about the way of the world. As part of your birthday, I’m handing you over to Emilio here, who will teach you everything you’ll need to know about maintaining a healthy body and mind, as well as about horses and weapons. And who knows; maybe when you’re older, he can even teach you a thing or two about women,” Don Miguel joked. The surrounding men laughed delightedly at his playful sense of fun. “My business will be demanding an increasing amount of my time and I’ll be traveling much of the year, so I’m entrusting you to Emilio’s capable hands. You’re to treat him with the same respect you would afford me. Are we clear on that? He’s your mentor, which is a position of honor, but it’s also one of responsibility, and if you fail to apply yourself it will reflect poorly on him.”

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