Free Requiem for the Assassin by Russell Blake

finished his report on several operations that were ongoing in Guatemala, and Rodriguez shifted his attention to Manuel Bernardo, who ran the agency’s clandestine ops division – in charge of offensives that involved violence or assassination.
    “What do we know about the attack on Admiral Torreon?” Rodriguez snapped after the preliminaries were over.
    “We believe that the attempt was a cartel trying to eliminate him. He’s done a remarkably good job in slowing the inflow of cocaine through the Pacific coast ports, and it’s obvious that someone wants him out of the picture.”
    “Which cartel?”
    “Unknown at this time. We have our ear to the ground, but so far nothing definitive.”
    “Keep me informed. I have a meeting tomorrow with the president’s people, and that’s going to be one of the subjects. It would be nice to have something other than a shoulder shrug to offer.”
    Bernardo nodded and made a small note on his pad.
    “What about Hammer?” Rodriguez asked. Hammer was the code name CISEN had given El Rey .
    “Nothing new to report. Up for another booster shot.”
    “He’s been behaving?”
    “As far as we can tell.”
    Rodriguez turned to the next section head. “Gabriel, tell us how we’re going to stop the flow of guns from the U.S.”
    The meeting continued for another hour, and when it broke up, Rodriguez left without comment, his head pounding from another long night with little sleep. Once in his office, he dry swallowed two painkillers and poured himself his sixth cup of coffee of the day and, after taking a seat behind his desk, reached for the phone.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    El Rey smiled at the ticket agent behind the Aeroméxico counter at Benito Juárez airport as she glanced at his driver’s license and printed out his boarding pass. He’d been outfitted with several identities by CISEN and now carried both a set of new Mexican papers as well as a passport and American green card identifying him as an El Salvadorian cleared to work in the United States. That ID would come into play after he’d dispatched the archbishop.
    The flight from Mexico City to Tijuana was smooth, and as the plane completed its final approach, he peered through his window at the border city’s gray-brown sprawl. Shantytowns, little more than collections of pallets with tar paper nailed over them, clung to the sides of the hills within shouting distance of the United States’ prosperity and boundless opportunity. The infamous wall stretched to the Pacific Ocean, with green and white Border Patrol trucks cruising along dirt tracks that ran along the no-man’s-land between the state of California’s southernmost reach and Baja California’s northernmost.
    A pall of smog hung over Tijuana as the plane dropped toward the airport, and El Rey contrasted the distant gleam of San Diego’s chrome and glass skyline with the impoverished barrios that comprised most of Tijuana. It wasn’t hard for him to understand the frustration the poor felt gazing at the riches only a few miles away from their shacks, where rudiments like potable water were a luxury and rivulets of sewage coursed down dirt streets, souring the atmosphere as toddlers played in the toxic dirt.
    El Rey exited the terminal and eyed the border fence across the boulevard. Scores of multicolored coffins and crosses mounted to the steel siding commemorated the thousands who’d died attempting crossings. He waited in line for a taxi as vehicles raced by on the frontage artery, junkers that were more Bondo than metal jockeying for position between Mercedes and Audis. The trip to the district where the archdiocese was located took fifteen minutes in traffic, and El Rey had the driver drop him off near the municipal government building a block away from the church.
    He ambled along the avenue, pausing to admire the bronze effigy of Miguel Hidalgo jutting from the roundabout at the junction of Avenida Independencia and Paseo Centenario Tijuana, and then