they have radiation detectors going in, and the place will be literally crawling with security. Even the sewers will be patrolled – talk about crap duty. So that leaves the two weak points.”
“And they’ve taken precautions against a gas attack as well. I’ve never heard of anything remotely like this in terms of precautions, for anything,” Briones reported.
El Rey continued staring out at the planes taking off and landing, the runways operating at ninety-seven percent capacity at the busiest hub in Latin America. A huge jet gathered speed as it shot down the runway and then lifted slowly into the sky. A few seconds later another appeared at the opposite end of the runway, hovering over the city, and then touched down, wheels smoking as they hit the ground.
“I’m telling you, we’re missing something,” he grumbled under his breath, and Cruz touched his arm.
“Come on. Let’s go up to the roof so you can evaluate it from up there.”
The three men walked slowly along the massive hall that housed the jetways towards the lobby area, where airport personnel would meet them to escort them to the roof. Nobody gave a second glance to the custodian off to the side emptying out one of the trash bins into his cart. If they had, they would have seen nothing unusual – an older man, skin burnished a coffee hue, going about his thankless job.
Rauschenbach watched the two Federales and the younger man out of the corner of his eye and then returned to his study of the terminal. He’d had no problems making it into the departure lounge with his forged ID and paperwork, but he’d also instantly seen that it would be all but impossible to sneak a weapon in. He had considered machining something that would fit into a cart’s steel frame, but the security guards were going over the rolling trolleys carefully. Even if he had a metal shop and could build one in the two days left before the hit, getting it into the facility would be practically impossible – and then he would have to be able to disassemble it, extract the rifle, and find a way onto the roof that didn’t have a dozen cops guarding it – not to mention the inevitable snipers that would be stationed there the morning of the Chinese dignitary’s arrival.
He hummed to himself, his soiled uniform rendering him all but invisible, and reconciled himself to leaving, his goal of finding a way in – and perhaps more importantly, out – having eluded him. He would have to study the airport blueprints that night more carefully and see if there was anything he’d overlooked. There was always a way, he told himself, and decided that he would go over to the far terminal to look around in case he came up with a breakthrough idea. Then, after lunch, he would spend the day in the neighborhoods around the Congress doing the same thing – searching for that which had escaped him: a spot that would be vulnerable, that he could get into without being caught, from where he could shoot the target and then escape before anyone knew what was happening.
He nodded courteously to an armed policeman walking slowly along the terminal floor, talking to a well-dressed woman holding a clipboard and pointing, and then pushed his cart towards the maintenance area, where he would leave it and slip out, then work his way to Terminal One.
The Mexicans were definitely taking the threat seriously, but he had expected that. That went with the territory. But there was no way he was going to give back the half of the four million dollars he’d already received to do the job. One way or another, he would find the weak link and capitalize on it.
~ ~ ~
That evening he made his decision, and went to meet one of the contacts provided by the Los Zetas cartel members who had gotten him into the country. The man, Pedro, an ex-marine, smiled and nodded when the German told him what he wanted.
“That should be easy enough to get. Figure tomorrow. I can arrange for one to disappear from one of the nearby military bases. But you could just buy one in the United States, and it would be way cheaper. There’s no reason you couldn’t have it here within a couple of days, maybe three on the outside.”
“I have my reasons. Just name the price.”
After a few more minutes of negotiating they reached an agreement,