He looked up at Brodie. “Dólares?”
“Sí,” said Brodie.
“Dónde?”
“My wallet.”
“Cartera,” translated Taylor.
“Cuánto?” asked Suárez.
“Just some drinking money,” said Brodie.
Suárez gave him a blank look, and Taylor stepped in and saidsomething in Spanish. They conversed back and forth, and it was clear that Señor Suárez had a problem.
After a few more exchanges with Taylor, he pointed to a door off to the side. “Por ahí,” he said curtly.
They gathered their bags and followed Suárez away from the customs check and through a windowless door. Brodie hoped this was just some ritual harassment of Yankee imperialists, and they’d be on their way after some obligatory questioning, possibly followed by the exchange of a few dólares.
They entered a small room with flickering fluorescent bulbs and a flagpole shoved in the corner. Suárez took a seat behind a bare metal desk and gestured at two folding chairs across from him. Brodie and Taylor sat.
Suárez said something in Spanish while looking between them, and Taylor replied.
As they conversed, Brodie noticed a small framed portrait of President Maduro hanging crooked on the wall behind Suárez.
Back in February of 2011, Brodie had found himself in Damascus, on the trail of an Army CENTCOM staffer who was involved in arms smuggling across the Syrian-Jordanian border. While there he had made the acquaintance of a German expat named Marcus, who smoked and drank to excess. One evening over hookah and beers in a café in the Old City, Marcus had gestured at the wall behind Brodie where a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad was hanging. It was crooked.
“That is what this place is, my friend,” Marcus had said. “A shabby dictatorship, where everyone fears Assad enough to hang his picture, but does not love him enough to straighten it. You see what has happened in Tunisia? In Egypt? That is nothing compared to what is going to happen to this place. It is going to explode.”
And a few weeks later, it did. Was Venezuela also on the brink?
“Brodie,” whispered Taylor harshly.
He refocused on Señor Suárez, who had clearly asked him a question he did not hear.
“Your passport,” said Taylor. “And your wallet.”
“Tell him I don’t give my wallet to any man who hasn’t pulled a gun on me.”
“Brodie.”
Brodie set his passport and wallet on the desk next to Taylor’s, where she had also placed a printout of their hotel reservation and flight itinerary. Suárez opened both passports to their visas and looked at them alongside their customs forms. Then he opened each of their wallets, removing stacks of twenty-dollar bills and rifling through their credit cards and driver’s licenses. They’d both left their military IDs in the glove compartment of Brodie’s car, and Brodie had also thought to ditch his Army MWR MasterCard, which, aside from having a very low APR, featured a dramatic silhouette of the armored Stryker vehicle in which he’d spent the worst moments of the longest year of his life. It was a good reminder of tougher times while paying for groceries at Trader Joe’s. He’d thought he was being overly cautious by leaving it behind, but this prick was going through everything.
Suárez looked up at Brodie and asked him something.
Taylor began to respond, but Suárez raised a hand to silence her, and gestured again at Brodie.
“He wants you to tell him why we are here,” said Taylor.
“Why doesn’t he ask the person who speaks Spanish?”
“Because you have a dick,” replied Taylor.
“We’re tourists,” said Brodie. “Here to experience your beautiful country.” He added, “This is my destiny.”
Taylor translated, though Suárez kept his eyes fixed on Brodie. He asked something else in Spanish.
“He wants to know what we are planning to see and do while we are here, since our visas and return flight indicate a monthlong stay and yet our hotel in Caracas is only for a week.”
