“What was the contract price?” Cruz asked.
“Ten million dollars.”
Cruz whistled.
“You think he might have been fed the idea. Why do you say that? Who would want to get him to do this?” Cruz asked.
Aranas stood and delivered a loving scratch to Frida’s ears. She looked up at him with unconditional devotion. Capitulating, he gave her another piece of bread. A large one.
He turned to face Cruz.
“That is part of the puzzle, is it not? What I can offer you is a name that I suspect strongly of instigating. You will need to do your own due diligence. Carefully, would be my advice. The name is Xavier Sorreyo. He had a lot of influence with my recently-departed associate.”
“Sorreyo…I’ve never heard of him. Cartel?”
“Much worse. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to attend to some chores that I put off to meet with you. Our business here is concluded. I got my message across to you, and what you do with it is your affair. But I wish you luck, Capitan. And I really didn’t kill your family. I’m not sure that Santiago did, but it seems like the kind of thing the man would do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to run.” Aranas smiled his charming smile again, teeth gleaming beneath his gray moustache. “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you like an ant. As I expect you would do with me. So now things return to normal, yes? You fight crime, I create it, and the world continues to turn, the spiders eating the flies.” Aranas petted Frida again and walked to the archway that led to the courtyard. “Thanks for coming, and good luck. You’re going to need it.”
Cruz braced himself to rise, only to find himself with the now-familiar rag over his face. He instinctively struggled, then gave in, recognizing the futility.
When he regained consciousness, he was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, the keys in the ignition, the doors locked, ventilation coming from the battery running the air. He checked the time. Two a.m.. He grabbed at his shoulder holster and relaxed when he felt the now familiar bulk of his new Glock nestled there.
Cruz took a few deep breaths, trying to clear the fog from his vision, and registered an unfamiliar sensation in his clenched right hand. He opened it and stared down at the crumpled piece of paper stuck to his palm. On it were scrawled two words. A name.
Xavier Sorreyo.
The next morning, Cruz felt like he’d drunk a bottle of rotgut tequila. The hangover effects of the drugs he’d been knocked out with were substantial. His mouth tasted like lead, his head was pounding, and the body aches were accompanied by a pronounced disequilibrium.
Cruz considered driving to the office, but decided against it. Instead, he called Briones to ask for a ride. Briones had been panicked yesterday by Cruz’s absence, but didn’t know what to do — and in truth, there wasn’t much he could have done.
Briones wanted to know everything that had happened. Cruz promised to fill him in on the way to work.
Once in the car, Cruz recounted the story dispassionately while Briones’ mouth hung ever wider in disbelief. Finished, he laid out their battle plan for the day.
“Obviously, Aranas felt that the name Sorreyo was important enough to warrant snatching me, so I think the priority needs to be getting everything we can on him.”
“I still can’t believe they did it. I mean, I know they’re powerful, but that…it makes you kind of want to reconsider being a cop.” Briones vocalized what Cruz had been thinking.
“He could have killed me at any point. And still could. I think that was the other part of the message — to clarify how things really stand,” Cruz agreed.
“Why do you think he didn’t?”
“Honestly? I believe Aranas wants El Rey stopped as badly as we do. He’s afraid it will be bad for business, and he’s right. It would. Especially if the Americans decide to help us in the war against the cartels by sending in a hundred thousand soldiers, which isn’t out of the question if their president is killed. Can you imagine the outcry? It would be the end of the cartels, and also of Mexico as an independent nation. Aranas is no patriot — he’s a killer, and a businessman who doesn’t see a benefit in killing the U.S. president. So…he’s on our side, for once,” Cruz mused. “And I think he understands there will always be someone in my job, so it might as well be me — the devil he knows, if you like. That’s the plain truth. We’ve been so unsuccessful against the cartels, he’s not worried.”
On that depressing note, they arrived at headquarters, and within a few minutes were entering Xavier Sorreyo’s name into the system. Moments of processing later, a screen popped up informing them that the file was classified.
“Classified? By who? We’re the fucking cops. How can it be classified?” Cruz fumed. He smelled the hand of CISEN in this — and whenever an intelligence service was involved, it was never good. He remembered what Aranas had said when he’d asked whether the man was carteclass="underline" “No, much worse.” Cruz had forgotten that part of the discussion up until now, no doubt an effect of the drugs. What could be much worse than murdering drug traffickers? And be classified?
He’d tried the front-door route enough times and been humiliated out of the building, so now he’d do it the old fashioned way. His cousin, Laura, worked at CISEN, and occasionally did him favors, as he had done for her. Cruz called her cell, and gave her Sorreyo’s name, explaining the problem. She committed to getting information within a few hours, and told him she’d call him back when she had it.
Cruz worked with Briones on the logistics of setting up a functional remote command center in Baja, and before they knew it, the morning had flown by and it was one o’clock. Cruz’s cell rang. It was Laura, wanting a meeting in thirty minutes at a restaurant they both liked.
He made it in twenty.
Laura entered ten minutes late. Cruz rose and kissed her. She was a handsome woman, three years older than he and almost as tall, with a full head of curly black hair going gracefully to gray. They sat, and after ordering, she slipped a single folded piece of paper to him.
He read it and stared off into space, puzzled. Then the pieces clicked into place. In a single burst, he understood that this was far bigger than a cartel boss wanting to off the President. Three little letters, and it all came together for him, or at least a chunk of it did.
Cruz would never be able to interrogate Senor Sorreyo. He’d been the victim of a hit and run accident in Monterrey a week earlier. Then again, Cruz didn’t feel as though he needed to ask him much, or think a meeting would have even been a good idea. There was little chance Sorreyo would have told the truth, about anything.
Xavier Sorreyo had been a CIA asset.
Chapter 21
The hills around the conference center basked in the bright warm glow of the morning sun, a few lonely saguaro cactus stood like sentries, silently watching the unfolding events. The parking area and grounds were crawling with soldiers and security details, as the American Secret Service coordinated with its Mexican counterparts. Over a hundred army personnel formed a protective perimeter around the sprawling building, their M-16 rifles ready to combat any threat. Two army helicopters sat at the far end of the field, and an area nearer to the convention center had been cleared and was ringed off by police for the president’s helicopter to land. Armored military Humvees were poised like predatory jungle cats around the edges of the property as sentries patrolled from station to station.