Well, that was good to hear. But given the state of affairs, that could change in an instant. Brodie had been to enough screwed-up places to understand the toxic brew of desperation, anger, and fear that runs through unstable societies. If no one’s out in the streets protesting, it just means that people woke up that morning more exhausted than angry, or more afraid than brave. But tomorrow might be different. A full civil war might make his and Taylor’s job a little tougher.
“Also,” said Taylor, “there’s a State Department travel warning. But that’s no surprise.”
The U.S. State Department issues two types of advisories for trouble spots: alerts and warnings. Alerts are short-term in nature, to apprise travelers of natural disasters, disease outbreaks, or upcoming political elections that might bring strikes and protests. Warnings, on the other hand, are for places that the U.S. government considers fucked-up on a more long-term basis. Venezuela fell into the latter category. A State Department warning was not good for tourism.
Brodie took a long drink and thought about their destination. Venezuela wasn’t yet a police state like Cuba, or a chaotic failed state like Somalia. But it was a country on the edge, economically desperate, with weak and corrupt institutions and a government openly hostile to American interests. It was a place where you could probably bend a lot of rules, especiallywith enough dough, but the guys trying to fuck up your day could bend them too.
He reached into his carry-on and pulled out a Venezuela guide book that Taylor had procured from the Quantico travel office. He flipped to the Caracas portion of the book, and to his favorite section:Dangers and Annoyances.These types of books usually tried to be a little PC and pull some punches when discussing the questionable locales their readers had chosen to travel to.Mogadishu has a rich and vibrant cultural heritage, but do your best to never leave your hotel.But the author did not mince words when it came to Caracas. Many neighborhoods were to be avoided entirely. The “safe” ones were only okay while the sun was shining, and even then, only inside of a vehicle. Murders and kidnappings were rampant, and the cops were no help. In fact, they were often more dangerous than the criminals. Every security apparatus in the country, including customs and passport control at the airport, ought to be considered criminally corrupt, and government officials were often looking to harass and extort foreign travelers. They especially didn’t like Americans.
On that subject, Brodie pulled out his laptop, started it up, and changed the settings so it would boot straight into a clean partition on his drive. That would probably be sufficient to protect any of his CID or other Army-related documents and e-mails from a cursory search at the Caracas airport. He advised Taylor to do the same and was not surprised to learn that she already had, and was also planning to wipe clean her tablet before they landed in Venezuela.
“Also,” said Brodie, “we’re supposed to be married as part of our cover. Send me a picture of you in a bikini so I can make it my desktop wallpaper.”
“Is that what married people do?”
“Well, we’re newlyweds. We don’t know how to be married yet.”
“Right,” said Taylor, smiling. “This is our honeymoon.”
“How do we explain the separate rooms?”
“I’m still a virgin.”
“Who’s gonna believe that?”
“My grandma.”
“Can’t wait to meet her.”
“You will. She’s moving in with us.”
“I want a divorce.”
Taylor laughed. They made eye contact, and she looked away.
When Brodie first met his new partner, he’d regarded her beauty as a potential occupational hazard. As a matter of principle, he rejected the idea that he would have trouble working with an attractive woman. Also, Taylor had proven herself to be a good partner, and sex was the surest way to mess up a successful working relationship. But buried in even the most well-intentioned modern man is an old pig fighting to get out, and Brodie had to remind himself to keep that porker in check.
He thought about what Dombroski had said about Taylor and her possible romantic entanglement with a CIA guy at Fort Bragg. He’d met more than a few Company men over the years. He liked one or two of them, but in his humble opinion, most of them were arrogant, dead-eyed pricks who would sell out their own mothers. He had a hard time imagining Taylor with someone like that, but then again, how well did he really know her? And even if she had been hitting the sack with a CIA officer, how was that enough to call her loyalty and motives into question? And then he remembered what Dombroski had said about Civil Affairs people in Afghanistan being recruited by the Company.
As with the Kyle Mercer file, Brodie had the feeling there were some things missing from his picture of Maggie Taylor, some black-ink redactions that he would need to find a way to read.
CHAPTER 10
The plane to Panama City was about half-full, and of the sixteen seats in business class only three others were occupied.
Brodie said, “I usually snore on flights.”
“Even when you’re awake?”
He smiled.
“Just don’t drool.”
After takeoff Taylor took out her tablet and they both looked over a detailed map of Caracas that she had downloaded. The city ran along an east-west strip nestled in a narrow valley. Beyond the steep mountains to the north was the Caribbean coast, and to the south a vast stretch of hills and forests.
Kyle Mercer had been spotted by an unreliable witness in a sprawling metropolis of almost two million people, surrounded by rugged and sparsely populated terrain. But, as General Hackett said, they had what they had, and Brodie was confident that with some resourcefulness, a little luck, and maybe a lot of cash, they would find their man. Yet, as he looked at the map of the city and the surrounding countryside, the daunting nature of their task was coming into focus.
With Simpson’s recollection in mind, they scanned the map for airports and airstrips. Their final destination, Simón Bolívar International Airport, was right on the coast, separated from Caracas by the mountain range, so that couldn’t be the airport that Simpson had seen on his ride to the whorehouse. Taylor zoomed the map in to a tighter view of Caracas, and they located the Marriott in a neighborhood called El Rosal, which was east of downtown.
