Garza reviewed on her iPad a surveillance video taken from the second floor of the consulate, panning the faces in the crowd they were about to encounter. Garza went over it once very quickly, looking for Yankees caps, then admonished herself for looking for the obvious, the expected. She went back through each face, looking for anyone who might resemble the Chuparosa from the Montreal airport and Queens traffic cameras. She spotted a cluster of photographers wearing press credentials camped behind some TV news cameras on tripods, and saw that the headlines in the morning newspapers were going to dog them all day long—exactly as President Vargas feared. The antitrafficking-treaty signing might be overshadowed by the usual narrative of Mexico’s drug cartel violence.
Garza checked her phone one last time. No contact from Fisk. She had expected to see him with the security contingent as they left the hotel, but he was nowhere to be found.
She accepted this. Upon further reflection after a night’s sleep, perhaps he realized that her past marked her as too complicated. She had to admit that, upon waking, the night before in the hotel lounge seemed to her like a dream, in which a different version of herself unburdened her personal side to a man she had only recently met.
She needed to get back to Mexico. To get out of New York. She wanted to return to the familiar confines of the PF, to go about her business and leave the concerns of presidential politics and security behind.
But first she wanted to get Chuparosa.
Her lead car pulled just past the limestone front of the five-story consulate building. There were two entrances. One faced the sidewalk, beneath a giant black globe housing the consulate’s security cameras. The other was inside a very small, gated courtyard, not much larger than a limousine. That was the public entrance, reserved for consulate business, such as visas, passports, immigration paperwork, and the like.
They idled and waited for the second and third vehicles to fall in behind them. An EMP agent in the backseat was monitoring the radio.
Garza grew anxious, watching more bystanders arrive, drawn by the police presence and the idling motorcade. What was taking so long?
“Visto bueno,” said the EMP agent.
Garza was out of the vehicle quickly, striding around to the rear, ready to escort President Vargas over the few yards to the entrance, which was controlled by security from inside the consulate. A small knot of consulate employees, including Consul General Francisca Metron, awaited him near the entrance.
Vargas exited through the door to the sidewalk, as planned, buttoning his jacket once he emerged and turning to wave blindly at the gathered crowd. Voices were raised, questions being shouted by reporters across Thirty-ninth Street, a one-way street with two traffic lanes and a parking lane. A number of Mexicans in the crowd cheered, and Vargas slowed to further acknowledge them, flashing the smile.
The gathered media misconstrued this action as an opportunity to shout more questions, which frankly neither Garza nor Vargas could hear above the din. Garza was sweeping her eyes over the crowd on the other side when she heard a voice yelling.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!”
A man wearing a heavy black backpack had hopped the barricade fence and begun striding quickly across the street toward the president. The perimeter EMP agents were the ones yelling at him to halt.
The man wore a dark ball cap with no insignia on the crest. As he came, he readied a Nikon camera strung around his neck, as though to get a picture.
At the same time, he swung his backpack forward off one shoulder, as though he were about to throw it.
Garza perceived all of this as happening in extreme slow motion.
Both items—the camera and the backpack—were potential weapons.
Her reaction time lagged just a second. Because to her eyes, this man did not match the video image of Chuparosa she had been playing and replaying in her mind since yesterday evening.
A Secret Service agent broke from the rear SUV of the idling motorcade and drew his weapon, a SIG Sauer P229. Into his suit jacket cuff, he shouted, “Breach! Breach!”
Garza was also drawing, her Beretta coming out of her shoulder holster as she jumped in front of President Vargas. She shouted, “Amenaza! Amenaza!” Threat! Threat!
A third individual sprang from the crowd behind the side barricade, wearing a dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and dark pants. He was aiming a Glock at the man and shouting, “Get to the ground! Get on the ground!”
The man with the camera stopped, momentarily mystified by the triumvirate of armed people yelling at him. Then he recognized the weapons in their hands. He went down to one knee, then the next, half collapsing, half complying.
The Secret Service agent was on him first, grabbing a free hand and driving his knee into the photographer’s back.
The gunman from the crowd was a close second. The Secret Service agent, not knowing this man, pointed his gun at him.
Fisk’s hands went up quickly. “Fisk! NYPD Intel!”
“Jesus!” said the agent.
Garza kept her grip on Vargas, watching the photographer grunt and try to explain himself on the ground. When the Secret Service agent rolled him over, there was a wet spot on the pavement where the photographer’s groin had been.
Garza did not remain to watch any more. She turned and pushed President Vargas’s head down and ran him to the consulate entrance, past the stunned greeting party, getting him inside as fast as possible.
Once safely inside, she scanned the interior of the consulate entrance. She began to relinquish her grip on the president’s suit jacket when she felt it pull away from her.
“It was only a goddamn photographer!” he said behind her.
Garza turned. She saw the flash of anger cross the president’s face as he fixed his jacket. It stunned her.
“Have we not had enough bad press!” he said. “A photographer. Not an assassin!”
Garza was stunned. It was all she could do to walk away from him, quickly, before she said something back to him. She left him to the watchful eyes of her EMP compatriots, striding back out through the door to the sidewalk.
The photographer was being led to a police car by two uniformed officers. Every photographer in the media throng was still snapping away.
Fisk had turned his face away in an attempt to avoid them, but it was much too late. The Secret Service agent was huddling with his compatriots. One of them held an M4 carbine.
Garza went to Fisk, pulling him behind the president’s SUV, blocking them from view.
“What are you doing here in disguise?” she said.
He billowed out his shirt, trying to air out his sweat. “It’s not much of a disguise. I left my jacket in the car and rolled up my sleeves.”
“Why weren’t you at the hotel this morning?” she asked.
Fisk frowned. “I’m not supposed to be here at all. Dubin—my boss—thinks I’m spending too much time on one visiting dignitary. I think he got a complaint from Dukes about us. And if I’d gone to the hotel first, I would have had to check in with them.”
Garza said, “They know you’re here now.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s not good. Thanks to that idiot with the camera.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know,” said Fisk. “Got any openings in Mexico?”
Garza smiled. “Depends. Can you be corrupted?”
“Only by red wine,” he said.
Garza grinned, then backed off.
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “Vargas. He didn’t like the way that looked.”
Fisk sighed. “Believe me, he would have loved it had that idiot had an explosive device in his backpack.”
Garza was steamed.
“Interesting start to the day,” said Fisk.
“Was that urine I saw on the road?” she asked.