“It’s a possibility.”
She nodded. “Maybe Worley is right. Maybe after what you… what just happened, we have become a liability.”
“Maybe. And that’s why we need to become an invaluable asset. We have information no one else has, and we need to leverage that.”
“All right. But you need to assure me that if we go down to this jungle”—she tapped the map—“we’re only doing it to verify your witness’ story. We’re not looking to apprehend Kyle Mercer. We are gathering information and evidence about this camp, and we will turn our findings over to Colonel Dombroski, who will take appropriate action.”
“Right.”
“Can I have a more affirmative response?”
“Right you are.” He took a swig of rum. “Okay, so Carmen spent the night in this village that we think is Kavak, and next morning she got on a boat and went upriver—against the current—for about an hour. So if my map reading is good, this small river—which is not named on this map—is a tributary of the Orinoco, so it would flow northwest and therefore the boat was traveling southeast… and let’s say the boat made seven knots, maybe eight… and if Carmen was correct about the trip being one hour—”
“If she was blindfolded, time seems to pass more slowly.”
“How do you know that?”
“From my last date. More importantly, I don’t think we need to get on a boat and actually go up this river. We’ll go as far as Kavak, check it out, maybe talk to some locals—”
“If we talk to some locals about a gringo who regularly lands on theairstrip and takes a boat upriver, we will probably have the same experience we had in Petare, and that was not good.”
“Okay, but—”
“We are ecotourists. Clark and Sarah Bowman, the stupidest fucking adventure travelers since Michael Rockefeller, who got eaten by cannibals in New Guinea.”
She nodded. “We can be ornithologists. Bird-watchers. Like Luis’ father.”
“Good thinking. Download a bird-watching book in your tablet, and let’s see if we can get hold of a pair of binoculars before we set out.”
“All right, but we’re not going upriver looking for this camp.”
“We’ll do—as our motto says—what has to be done.”
“What has to be done is to get out of there alive and report back to headquarters.”
“All recon missions present that problem. How much is enough? When do you push on, and when do you turn back? You don’t know until you get there.”
“Thank you for that acquired wisdom.”
“You can turn back now if you want.”
“You can stop questioning my dedication to the mission.”
“You, Ms. Taylor, have previously indicated that you’d bail out and—”
“I reserve the right to use my brains when you’re thinking with your balls.”
Brodie thought about that. Sounded reasonable. “Okay… let’s move on.” He looked at the map. “Carmen said they came to shore on the right bank, so let’s say they’d traveled about seven or eight miles on the river… then walked inland for about fifteen minutes…” He took the Sharpie and drew a large oval on the right bank that encompassed about forty square miles of dense forest. “Somewhere in here is Mercer’s camp.”
Taylor looked at the map. “Maybe. But your variables are the speed of the boat and the travel time upriver—if itwasupriver and not downriver.”
“You seem to have a prejudice against my star witness.”
“She probably doesn’t know her ass from her elbow. How much did you pay her?”
“Six hundred.”
“For that kind of money, she’d tell you you were hung like a donkey.”
