Blood of the Assassin by Russell Blake

Author:Russell Blake [Blake, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B00BGUHPAQ
Publisher: Reprobatio Ltd
Published: 2013-02-16T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

Cruz’s night was spent tossing and turning on a couch that had been brought to his office in the early evening. There wouldn’t be a new condo until tomorrow, so he had chosen to stay at the office, where a skeleton crew was working the night shift and the bathrooms were equipped with a shower he could use. An officer arrived at eight p.m. with a suitcase and a Styrofoam carton containing enchiladas, rice, and beans, and he’d eaten a glum meal before hiding away in his office, the blinds on the window overlooking the common area drawn, working on the computer until he became tired enough to snatch a few hours of rest.

At some point in the wee hours he actually drifted off, and his dreams were ugly and violent: Dinah’s head arriving in a box during an office birthday party for him, gunmen shooting at him in the shower, and his daughter, Cassandra, dead for so many years, crying out for help, begging for her daddy to rescue her as a dark figure prepared to do the unthinkable; then her childish frame morphing into Dinah as he watched, powerless to do anything, frozen inside the dream, and yet outside, as an observer.

When he started awake, disoriented, not knowing where he was, he was bathed in sweat, his pulse pounding a tattoo in his ears as he fumbled with the blanket he’d found in one of the office cabinets. It took him a few moments to get his bearings, and then he groaned, a mournful sound, and peered at his watch in the dark. Four a.m., his mouth coated with a sour, bilious film from the meal and the two Tecate beers the officer had thoughtfully brought with dinner. He closed his eyes again and tried to get comfortable, but the rest of the short night was spent in fits and starts, each bout of slumber punctuated by ugly images that wouldn’t relent.

He was back at his desk at seven, wearing the same dark blue slacks with a new uniform jersey, his six a.m. shower having been followed by a lukewarm meal ordered from a local café and picked up by one of the security team, and was going over the morning intelligence dispatches when his cell phone rang. He looked down at the flickering screen and saw a number he didn’t recognize. When he answered, he already half knew what the call was about.

“Capitan Cruz. Do not say anything. We have your wife. She hasn’t been harmed, but that can change whenever we decide that you aren’t cooperating.”

“You’re a dead man.”

“You don’t listen very well, do you? I said not to talk. I’ll keep this short and sweet, for now. If you do as we say, your wife will live. If not, you’ll get pieces of her sent to you in the mail. Is this call being recorded?”

“No. What do you want?”

“You. But in the shorter term, we want you to stop any further actions against our group.

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