Imna Rodriguez was doing everything she could to remain calm. She had her cell phone out and was staring down at the screen as if reading an email or text message when in reality it was so she could focus her attention on something other than the fact President Cortez was supposed to be dead.
She was squeezing the phone so tightly she wouldn’t be surprised if the thing cracked, and she had to take a moment to breathe, to try to center herself, and figure out what the fuck this girl was doing here.
Imna knew just as much as had been passed on to Oliver Hayward—the girl’s name, her location in Alden, the fact she had once been a non-sanctioned assassin for the United States government, and that she was the one who killed Alejandro Cortez last year.
The cartels were certainly happy that Alejandro Cortez was no longer in play, but his father remained a thorn in their side. Which was why they’d wanted him dead for several years now. And which was why once they tracked down Holly Lin and then learned that President Cortez would be visiting California, everything seemed to fall into place.
By now Cortez should be dead on the sidewalk, blood pooling from his head wound, police going into overdrive to secure the scene and try to determine from which direction the bullet had come. One of the sicarios who passed through Hayward’s only days ago would have been ready to take out the girl and the rest of Hayward’s men, just like the sicario they sent to D.C. would have taken out the girl’s family, as well as the men watching them.
No loose ends—that was the trick in a situation like this, the kind that was supposed to eliminate the head of state in another country, but something was wrong. She’d sensed it when their convoy made the detour to avoid the hotel with the fire trucks and police cars. The police were to swarm on the hotel eventually, but that was after the girl had taken out Cortez, not before.
Speaking of the girl, where did she go?
Imna realized President Cortez was moving again, heading into the hotel lobby, and she hurried to keep up with him, scanning the crowd as she went.
The girl was gone.
Sidling up next to Cortez, she asked, “What was that about?”
President Cortez shook his head. He looked pale. She couldn’t begin to imagine what the girl said to him. Had she told him anything close to the truth, surely he would have had the security detail detain her, or have the police arrest her, or something. But none of that happened, and the girl was gone, and now they were in the lobby and a man in a gray suit approached them, some bigwig whose name Imna momentarily forgot, the man’s shiny shoes echoing on the marble floor as he strode up to them with his hand extended.
“President Cortez, thank you for coming today.”
The man spoke in Spanish, though it was clearly not his first language, and Cortez smiled and responded in kind, and then Cortez asked where the closest restroom was located.
The man in the gray suit pointed down the hallway. Cortez thanked him and said he would be back soon. Before he could head in that direction, though, Imna touched his arm.
“Are you feeling okay?”
He forced a smile at her.
“Just a little lightheaded. I’ll be right back.”
Before he could take a step, she tried again.
“Who was the woman outside?”
Another forced smile.
“I’ll be right back, Imna. Wait here.”
She watched him depart, three bodyguards trailing him. The man in the gray suit turned to her and started speaking, again in that faltering Spanish. Part of her wanted to ask him who he was, but she knew she should already know his name, that it was her job to know such things, and before she knew it she cut him off with a curt smile.
“I need to make a phone call. Please give me one minute?”
The man smiled and nodded, and she stepped away, using the encrypted app on her phone.
Oliver Hayward answered after two rings, his tone wary.
“Why are you calling? Isn’t it done yet?”
She wandered over to the corner of the lobby, by a table and some potted plants, and made sure nobody was nearby when she dropped her voice to a harsh whisper.
“No, it’s not done. The girl’s still alive.”
This got Hayward’s attention.
“What? No, that’s impossible. That—”
She cut him off.
“We had a deal, and you fucked it up.”
“I didn’t fuck anything up. It’s not my fault—”
“Cortez is still alive. And the girl just spoke with him outside the hotel.”
Haywood didn’t respond, thinking about it. He hadn’t heard from any of his men, which had concerned him, but now hearing that both the girl and President Cortez were still alive, he began to panic.
Obviously, Hayward didn’t know the two sicarios who passed through his place only days ago had been tasked with taking out his men. Imna had looked forward to telling him about it once Cortez was dead and she stepped away to cry in private—in an empty bathroom, perhaps, just herself and the cell phone and Oliver Hayward on the other end, at first happy that he had come through and then crestfallen once he learned about his men. She hadn’t imagined he would be too angry—they were freelancers, from what Imna understood—but he would still feel betrayed. He should have known any trace to this hit would need to be eliminated; the cartels would want nobody left alive as witnesses, maybe not even Hayward himself despite the other service he provided.
Imna wanted to say something else, something to rub the salt in Hayward’s fresh wounds, but that was when an alarm went off and strobes all around the lobby began flickering.
Hayward said, “What is that?”
Before she could answer, the man in the gray suit hurried over to her.
“Fire alarm, Ms. Rodriguez. We need to head outside.”
She opened her mouth, not sure what to say but wanting to say something, when along with the blaring alarm and flashing strobes came a series of sudden gunshots somewhere in the hotel.
A woman in the lobby screamed.
Another person shouted, “What was that? What was that?”
In her ear, Hayward spoke again, asking what was wrong, but she disconnected the call and hurried past the man in the suit. The man called after her, telling her they needed to evacuate, but she ignored him and pushed past the people moving toward the exit, running in the direction she’d watched Cortez head only minutes ago.
A few police officers hurried past her, their guns drawn, and one of them tried to stop her from proceeding, but once she explained—shouted, really—that she was President Cortez’s aide, he relented but told her to stay back.
Around the corner was a short hallway, and the emergency exit door at the end of the hallway stood open. One of the bodyguards was shouting at the police to hurry.
Imna followed them out to a side street and found one of the bodyguards still on the ground, though he was trying to pick himself up; blood ran down his face from his broken nose. The third bodyguard was standing but had his hands up. A gun lay at his feet; he was the one who fired it and wanted to make sure the police knew he was unarmed.
He pointed down the street.
“They went that way!”
Imna turned to the first bodyguard, the one holding the exit door open.
“What happened?”
The man’s face was red and tight. He had one job, and he had failed to do it.
“Once the alarm sounded, President Cortez came out of the bathroom and ran for the door. The woman from outside—the one President Cortez was speaking to on the line—was waiting. She”—he paused, swallowed—“she attacked us. She grabbed him and put a gun to his head. They got into one of the SUVs. We fired after them, but—”
She turned away from him, wanting to scream out her frustrations.
One of the police officers had a radio to his ear. He turned to them, and shook his head.
“They’re already on the freeway.”