The Face of the Assassin Part 23

On the Mexican side of the border, murder went for 3,500 American dollars a pop. It was a bargain. Money well spent, from a security point of view.

Chapter 44.

Jardin Morena in Colonia Santa Luisa was not on the tourist maps of Mexico City. It was just a neighborhood plaza, a small park shaded by laurels and jacarandas and a few palms. A fountain with a traditional stone basin anch.o.r.ed the center of the park. Broad sidewalks radiated out from the fountain to all sides of the plaza, with flower beds and patches of lawn in between.

Girdling the park on all four sides was a wide paseo paseo where old men haunted the wrought-iron benches in silent fear of the noonday demons and where couples and families strolled in the cool of the evenings. But on market days, sidewalk vendors laid out displays of their wares on the where old men haunted the wrought-iron benches in silent fear of the noonday demons and where couples and families strolled in the cool of the evenings. But on market days, sidewalk vendors laid out displays of their wares on the paseo paseo and the whole place turned into a bazaar. and the whole place turned into a bazaar.

Bern didn't have the presence of mind to tell the cabdriver to drop him on the north side of the plaza, and he had never been quite straight about where any of the compa.s.s directions were in this Babylon of oblique streets. So when he stepped onto the paseo paseo and confronted the phalanx of vendors, who seemed undaunted by the threatening rain, he didn't have the slightest idea where the seller of comic books might be. and confronted the phalanx of vendors, who seemed undaunted by the threatening rain, he didn't have the slightest idea where the seller of comic books might be.

Without any plan whatsoever, he started walking, eager to get on with it, driven by a sense of urgency inspired by the multiplicity of disastrous possibilities before him. He imagined Mondragon's men spreading out, hiding in plain sight among the casual shoppers drifting by the vendors who surrounded the plaza.

An organ-grinder's faint piping drifted to him through the crowd and the trees of the plaza as he walked past an old woman wearing two straw hats, one on top of the other, and selling brilliant magenta flowers. A man with a potpourri of socks spread out in a creative sunburst design on a piece of blue plastic offered them with an elegant sweep of his arm. A middle-aged Indian woman with pigtails crouched on her knees on a rush mat, perfecting her pyramid of chili red chapulines, chapulines, tiny fried gra.s.shoppers stacked as high as her waist. On the other side of her, a man sat glumly on a bright yellow blanket, his wild a.s.sortment of offerings scattered out in front of him: old crazed fountain pens, a stack of 78-rpm records in their original brown paper covers, a fanned display of rusty bottle openers, three small identical plaster statues of a laughing white-ap.r.o.ned waiter, and a pink plastic Buddha wedged in between two human skulls. tiny fried gra.s.shoppers stacked as high as her waist. On the other side of her, a man sat glumly on a bright yellow blanket, his wild a.s.sortment of offerings scattered out in front of him: old crazed fountain pens, a stack of 78-rpm records in their original brown paper covers, a fanned display of rusty bottle openers, three small identical plaster statues of a laughing white-ap.r.o.ned waiter, and a pink plastic Buddha wedged in between two human skulls.

The array of weird wares only added to Bern's sense of being caught up in a time warp, an alien strata of someone else's imagination. As he wondered where Mondragon's men were, he couldn't help remembering what they had done to Khalil's cell in Tepito the night after Jude's death. Was something like that even possible in buildings surrounding this pleasant plaza?

He turned a corner in the plaza and started up another side, when he spotted the pharmacy. But when he got parallel with it, there was no seller of comic books. He searched for the phone box. There it was. He crossed the street and walked slowly by, pausing, pretending to look into the window of the pharmacy. There was no red dot beside the number six.

Wait. Wait. He looked up at the name of the pharmacy: Farmacia Morena. s.h.i.t. Why the h.e.l.l hadn't the woman warned him that there were two pharmacies? She could've said that. He moved on, this time staying on the street side, watching the plaza from there.

Had he imagined it, or had there been men moving along with him in the midst of the crowd in the park? What did it matter? He knew Mondragon's men were there.

He crossed the street and turned along the third side of the plaza. The music from the organ-grinder was still remote. Children laughed, and a man selling balloons on the paseo paseo hawked them in a sing-song litany, which one of the children began to mimic. hawked them in a sing-song litany, which one of the children began to mimic.

He almost stumbled on the comic book vendor. There, spread out in front of him on an old blanket on the front of the sidewalk, was a gaudy collection of horror comics. All of them were battered old copies of Fantomas, La Amenaza Elegante, Fantomas, La Amenaza Elegante, the covers portraying a handsome dark villain with a cape menacing a variety of heroines with scant clothing, large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and long thighs provocatively spread in vulnerable poses of distress. the covers portraying a handsome dark villain with a cape menacing a variety of heroines with scant clothing, large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and long thighs provocatively spread in vulnerable poses of distress.

And to his left: Farmacia Pedras.

He turned and approached the telephone, saw the red dot, put the required coins into the slot, and punched in the number. Two rings.

"Judas, you're being followed," Sabella said.

"s.h.i.t." It was a stupid response. Stupid.

Sabella asked, "Do you know who it is?"

Bern thought of Alice. He thought of Susana. "No," he said. "Don't have a clue. I thought I was okay."

"You need to face the plaza, Judas. Careful, don't be obvious. I'm going to describe things to you."

Bern shifted his weight, rested an arm on the phone box, shifted again as he turned.

"The guy coming down the sidewalk from the same direction you came," Sabella said, "he's following you. He's probably going to go right by you into the pharmacy. They're going to try to wrap you up."

"Okay," Bern said, and the man walked past him, nearly brushing his shoulder, and went into the pharmacy.

"I've got him," Sabella said.

Bern wasn't sure what that meant.

"Was he wearing an ear mike?" Sabella asked.

"Yes."

"s.h.i.t. Okay, now across the paseo, paseo, buying the balloon." buying the balloon."

Bern wiped his forehead on the arm of his coat and spotted the guy.

"Okay."

"To your left," Sabella went on. "The guy who just sat down at the sidewalk cafe."

"Mustache?" Bern asked.

"Yeah. And just now crossing the paseo pas...o...b.. the woman selling lottery tickets." by the woman selling lottery tickets."

"Dark suit," Bern confirmed. "Sideburns. Smoking."

"Yes," Sabella said.

Across on the paseo, paseo, the guy who had bought the balloon was giving it to a little girl, who was glancing at her mother to see if this was okay. Then the guy strolled over to a fruit vendor and bought a couple of slices of mango wrapped in a piece of paper and stood by a trash container to eat them. the guy who had bought the balloon was giving it to a little girl, who was glancing at her mother to see if this was okay. Then the guy strolled over to a fruit vendor and bought a couple of slices of mango wrapped in a piece of paper and stood by a trash container to eat them.

Sabella had fallen silent.

Bern checked the others. They were staying in place. He made a mental note: So Sabella was there, somewhere on the plaza, running interference for the reclusive Baida, as always. Probably they were in one of the buildings on the north side, since that's where all the action was right now and they were seeing all of it.

Still nothing else from Sabella. Bern waited.

Somewhere lurking on the perimeter of the plaza, Vicente Mondragon was waiting, too, peering out through the smoky windows of his Mercedes. With Susana.

There was no use in pretending what was going on here. Bern knew, somehow, that Mondragon, for whatever abominable reasons, was going to kill Ghazi Baida despite Kevern's order to stand down. That meant that as far as Lex Kevern was concerned, Mondragon had turned rogue. And that meant that Bern had become the pivotal player right smack in the middle of a dilemma.

"What's the word from your people?" Sabella asked suddenly. His voice was hushed, as if he had to speak softly to keep from being discovered. Where the h.e.l.l was he?

"It's a deal," Bern said. He had been so preoccupied trying to figure out all the angles of what was happening to him that he was unaware of the physical effects of the stress he was under. When he spoke, there was hardly enough air to push out the words. "They need to know . . . have you got a plan-"

"Yes. There's a plan." Sabella was curt; an edgy impatience had slipped into his voice now. "But first, Judas, I have to know what's going on here. Who the h.e.l.l are these people?"

Bern was sweating, his hand ma.s.saging the telephone as he tried to keep a grip on it. Something was changing. What was Sabella seeing? Bern saw nothing. None of the men had moved. They were waiting. Everyone was waiting.

A ray of sun pierced the clouds, sending a thin bar of laser-bright light transiting the plaza.

G.o.d, thought Bern. All of his options were risky, and he was taking too long to make up his mind. Each person involved here was dangling by his own slender strand; each was betting on Bern to do the thing he wanted him to do.

Mondragon was waiting for him to lead him to Baida, and Mondragon was betting that he would do this because of Susana. Sabella was betting that he would deliver Baida and him from twenty-two years of killing and fear and hiding and sleeplessness. Kevern was betting that Bern could live his lie just a few more hours and bring about the richest intelligence coup of the terrorism wars.

And Susana. Bern guessed that for all her training and professionalism, for all her personal bravery, she was, at this moment, simply thinking like a terrified woman. She knew what Mondragon was capable of, and deep within her she must be weak with fear, knowing that the only thing standing between her and Mondragon's violence was the judgment of an equally petrified Paul Bern.

But ultimately, Bern's decision came down to the husk of a memory that might well have blown away in the gale of intervening events. But it, too, had waited on Bern, suspended and latent in his subconscious.

The last thing Sabella had said to him before leaving the room in Hotel Palomari was that there were pressures on Baida that made this window of opportunity very small. "When it closes, it cannot be opened again," he'd said.

"Judas," Sabella said, speaking slowly, as if his suspicion had reached critical ma.s.s, "what have you done?"

Chapter 45.

"Listen, Mazen," Bern said, turning his back to the plaza again. He hunched over the phone box as if protecting a private conversation, then carefully pulled Kevern's phone out of his inside coat pocket.

"I've got a secure cell phone to my people, and I'm opening it right now," he said, running his thumb down the three digits as Lupe had showed him. "Okay?"

"Yes, okay," Sabella said.

Bern waited, listening to the hum, the click, the connection.

"I'm here," Kevern said.

"Now . . . I'm talking to both of you," Bern said into both phones. "You're both hearing what I'm saying at this moment. Okay, Mazen?"

"Yes, okay."

"Lex?"

"Yeah, go ahead." Kevern's voice had slipped into the smooth monotone of operational dispa.s.sion. Be cool, it said to Bern. Be careful. Don't let the juice confuse your thinking.

"Lex, let me bring you up to-"

"We know," Kevern said quickly. "Your phone's been live all this time. We're up to speed."

Bern was stunned and p.i.s.sed, but there was no time for that.

"Well, s.h.i.t, then," he snapped, "are you sending someone?"

"We're on the way," Kevern said.

Move on, move on, Bern kept telling himself.

"Mazen, I know you're at a vantage point where you can see this side of the plaza. Are you in rooms above Farmacia Pedras?"

"Hurry," Mazen said.

Fl.u.s.tered, Bern went on. "Okay, these men in the plaza are Vicente Mondragon's. He's got Susana, and he said he'd kill her if I told you, or contacted my people. He's expecting me to lead him to you. I don't know what he's doing, what he's planning, but we've tried to stop him. Now he's broken communication with us."

Bern was talking fast, cramming everything in.

"Mazen, listen, you said that we had only a small window of opportunity here and after that it would be too late. Were you referring to information that you have that's time-critical? Do you need to tell us something now? Do we need to do something?"

The ensuing lack of response was the most unnerving silence Bern had ever experienced. Weirdly, he began to experience an alteration in perception, not of sight or sound or touch, but of the flow of time. Sabella's silence extended through the afternoon and into dusk.

"Mondragon," Sabella said. His voice, too, was accommodating the numbing stress of their situation. "Yes, that was a good choice, Judas. A good choice, because we didn't even know that he was still alive." His voice had lost its tension, and he seemed composed. Or was it the serenity of resignation?

"Where's Vicente now?" Sabella asked.

Bern told him about Mondragon catching up to him on his way to Jardin Morena, about the phone, the conversation they'd had, the threats.

"So I don't know where he is," he added. "I guess he's in the area somewhere."

"Yes, hanging back," Sabella agreed.

"But Kevern is on the way with people."

"Four of us," Kevern interjected.

"Four," Bern said to Sabella.

"We don't have any people here," Sabella said, and this time Bern could clearly hear the resignation in his voice. And yet it wasn't quite resignation, either, it was more like an intimacy with fate, as if he held no rancor for the inevitable. It was a philosophical acceptance of the inevitable.

"We come to Plaza Morena twice a week, if we can. We've done it for over a year now. But we come alone. We have a very elaborate process that we go through that allows us to come here-safely, alone. When we enter Plaza Morena, we're just two more anonymous capitalinos, capitalinos, nothing more." nothing more."

"Twice a week?"

"Ghazi has a woman here," Sabella explained.

Oh s.h.i.t. "He's with her now?"

"Yes."

"And no no bodyguards?" Bern couldn't believe it. Despite what Kevern had told him, he thought Sabella and Baida would have bodyguards?" Bern couldn't believe it. Despite what Kevern had told him, he thought Sabella and Baida would have someone someone to help them. to help them.

This explained why Sabella seemed to know the plaza so well. He must have spent hours sitting by the window, wherever the window was, gazing down at the plaza. When you are familiar with the daily rhythms of life on a street or in a neighborhood, you acquire a sense of what normal is in that place. A new face or a change in routine is like an alarm going off.

Bern related Baida's situation to Kevern and then asked, "Where the h.e.l.l are you?"

"We're about halfway there."

"Look, when you get to the Jardin Morena," Bern said, "I'm-"

"There's GPS on your cell, Paul. We know exactly where you are."