Night of the Assassin: Assassin Series Prequel by Russell Blake (people reading books .TXT) 📗

give him lessons and explain everything about the mechanics of the crafts. El Rey had been in Costa Rica for three months and was about ready to get the hell out and back to what he considered civilization. For his money, San Jose couldn’t hold a candle to Guadalajara or Monterrey or Mexico City.

He pulled up to the hangar at the edge of the runway and got out of his rental car, and after greeting his trainer, they moved to the small Cessna 172 prop plane to undertake their pre-flight checklist. El Rey was now certified, but he wanted to clock as many hours as possible while he was in Central America so he was confident in his abilities.

Just as they were getting into the cockpit, his cell phone rang, and he excused himself for a moment and took a call.

It was Tortora.

“Our friend called me. He has an urgent matter for you. Thinks it could be a real opportunity. How soon can you be in Sinaloa?” Tortora asked.

El Rey considered the question for a moment. “Tomorrow, at the latest. I have to look at flight schedules. Worst case I can charter a plane. I’ll check in later to let you know what my timing looks like. Did he indicate how urgent?”

“He didn’t go into detail. Said he’d prefer to discuss it with you in person. Shall I tell him you’re en route?” Tortora asked.

“Please. But don’t tell him from where. That’s our little secret.”

“Of course not. Call me when you know more,” Tortora said, and then the line went dead.

El Rey walked over to the plane.

“Sorry, Roger, got to cut out. Tell me. Just for the sake of conversation – how much would it cost to hire a plane to get me to Mexico City if I needed to leave in the next few hours? My mother isn’t well,” El Rey explained.

“I’m sorry to hear that. What’s the distance? Fifteen hundred miles?”

“A little less. More like twelve hundred.”

“Boy. I don’t know. You want me to make some calls and find out? Not too many prop planes could make that without setting down at least once. You care if it’s a jet or prop?”

“Not really. But I need to get going by one o’clock on the outside.” El Rey checked his watch. It was nine in the morning.

“I know a guy who has that King Air over there. He might be into it. But it would probably be ten to fifteen grand…”

“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