Page 52 of Hit Man
Yet there’ll be no failed attempts with this assignment. An order’s an order.
Fortunately for me, I’m alone.
There are three ways down to the cave but two entrances. A door at the top of a narrow set of stairs leading down from the living room. Bad choice, given the attention to security in place. Like I’m an untrained amateur on his first gig.
The steep path down through the gardens, the same path his men used to drag the crates to the cave, is too obvious as well as heavily patrolled after Aubrey’s little episode of spy and dash. Tomorrow, after I’ve time to check the monitors and when the threat of exposure has passed, I’ll arrange for a trustworthy car service to pick her up.
No one is anticipating anyone would dare take an invisible barrel ride over the waterfall.
Low-key. Quiet. I’m doing exactly as ordered. Yet a hit man can still get his adrenaline rush in.
The cave is cold. I’m shirtless and barefoot, wearing only my swim trunks and my small waterproof bag, which rests around my waist. Can’t leave home without my guns, now, can I?
In addition, I’ve brought extra ammo, a small flashlight, ten small sheets of pretaped black construction paper, and Little-Man’s driver’s license, which I pinched from his wallet while in the process of paying a rather successful visit to his bungalow.
I pause and listen carefully for any sign I’ve company.
And grin. Sure, I love a challenge but this is proving to be far too easy of a job. Yet unlike Mendoza, I’m nobody’s fool. Sometimes the easiest tasks end up being your downfall. And fuck knows, I’ve been down that path before. Been there, done that.
Coming to a stand, I resist the urge to turn on the flashlight. First, I need to address the cameras. By waiting . . . for my little black box to do its magic. I’ve set it up for a two-minute pause in power. Long enough to cover the cameras but not long enough to piss Mendoza off. Can’t have the fool calling for an electrical upgrade now. Or a generator.
Before my twenty-foot plunge, I broke back into the surveillance room to review the cameras inside the cave. I recorded careful notes as to where they are and how well they work in complete darkness—as luck would have it, the answer is they don’t.
So as I come to my feet, I’m feeling confident yet cautious, quietly moving around the room and hugging the walls as I do so.
Finding the first camera, I pause. A few seconds later, there’s a high-pitched noise. Electricity’s out and I’m in. Two minutes, I’ve got to move quick. I fasten black paper over the lenses, moving from one camera to another until I’m done. On the next power outage in five minutes flat and counting, I’ll do the reverse before I depart. Don’t want to be leaving any evidence that I’ve been snooping around, now do I?
I flick my flashlight on, point the beam toward the floor, and walk over to the crates.
No wonder Mendoza’s men had been bitching. It must have taken them all day to unload the twenty-four crates, stacked two high, three wide, and four long.
Come to Diego,mis bebés.
I test one board on the nearest crate after the other, searching for a loose one to pry off so I can see inside. A few attempts later, I’ve ripped one off with my hands.
I smile. If all jobs were this simple.
I raise my flashlight and peer inside. The crate is only a third full, not packed to the gills as expected. Which means whatever is inside is heavy. Not weapons. Not drugs.
The flashlight illuminates a jagged object. Rocks for the gardens?Dios, wouldn’t that be the mindfuck of epic proportions?
Lifting myself up, I rest my stomach on the edge of the crate while I reach deep inside. My fingers wrap around the first object, a round, roughly shaped rock. It’s cool to the touch and easy to handle.
Climbing off the crate, I settle onto my feet then examine my prize.
Crates full of rocks? Not even a pretty-colored ones, like marble or slate. The damn thing looks like something you drag out of a riverbed, smooth and grayish-brown color without crevices, peaks, or jagged ends.
Why would Mendoza go to all the trouble to hide rocks? His family is part of a global wave of assholes raising money through local cartels by either trading drugs for profit or purchasing black market weapons. Hayden fears this money is helping fund a lone, yet-to-be-identified radical militant group that, based on the growth of middlemen involved, is quickly rising to power. Western governments, those that hire us for our quiet expertise and to do their dirty work, seem unaware of this bigger threat, each dealing with a more immediate, homegrown problems like Fahder, or in this case, his son Mendoza. It’s only after a recent series of events that transpired in Paris that Hayden began to suspect there’s a bigger, unknown enemy out there. I was ordered to Mexico City, to preempt the arrival of a shipment of weapons coming from Marseille to Acapulco and to “interview” the middleman identified through a paper trail. Not immediately in tune with the hostile family dynamics in play, I hoped Fahder would visit his bastard son. After it became clearPapiwas more comfortable at his heavily guarded downtown estate, I decided to flush him out.
But instead of Casa Bella, Fahder went to Mexico City. To the guns.
While his bastard son Mendoza is stockpiling crates of rocks. Rocks he’s willing to kill for.
No intelligence on the shipment, how the crates arrived, where they came from. No paper trail. NoPapiaround to ensure the delivery safely stored inside the cave. Only Mendoza seems to be fired up about their arrival.
My instincts tell me a double cross is in play.
But what exactly is the game?
