“Tell me in the morning.”
“Breakfast at eight?”
“Sounds good.”
“Buenas noches.”
She smiled. “You too.”
Brodie watched her as she walked toward the elevators.
After twelve years on this job, he was good at reading people. Maggie Taylor meant it when she said don’t knock on my door. But when she said she was insulted by his question, she was lying.
CHAPTER 20
Brodie had another rum, which put him in the right state of mind to call his boss. He headed up to his suite and entered through the common sitting room, in case Taylor had decided to have a drink and wait up for him. But the sitting room was empty. And the door to her bedroom was closed.Don’t knock on my door.
That sounded like good advice, even after two drinks. He went to the minibar to fix himself a third.
He found a miniature bottle of local rum and emptied it into a glass, then—noisily—added ice from the bucket and glanced back at her door, which remained closed.What are you doing, Brodie?
He went into his room, closed and locked the door, then stepped out to his bedroom balcony.
He set his drink on a table and took out his smartphone. It looked like he had reception and his phone was connected to the local cellular data carrier, so he didn’t have to deal with the hotel’s unsecure Wi-Fi. He opened Signal, a commercially available end-to-end encryption app that he and Dombroski had started using when he was on sensitive overseas assignments. In the old days you needed specialized equipment to communicate securely, and this equipment was physically located in the U.S. Embassy of whatever country you were in. Now, on any smartphone, you could download a free app that offered encryption that even the National Security Agency couldn’t crack. At least, that’s what the NSA wanted you to believe.
He called Dombroski, who picked up after two rings.
“Mr. Brodie. How’s the Paris of South America?”
“I think that’s Buenos Aires.”
“Right. Are you alone?”
“I am.”
“I received a call from Colonel Worley confirming that you met at the hotel.”
“Correct.”
“He told me about your drive from the airport.”
“No big deal.”
“Try not to kill anyone or get yourself killed. You have a job to do.”
“Yes, sir.” Brodie sat on a deck chair, picked up his glass, and took a swig.
“Worley said you were inquiring about prostitutes.”
“Did he also tell you he’s an expert on the subject?”
Dombroski laughed. “He didn’t. But you’re going to tell me why you asked him.”
“Well, as it turns out, my and Ms. Taylor’s idea to re-interview Al Simpson paid off.”Aren’t you proud of me, Colonel?Brodie continued, “Simpson did not see Mercer in the Marriott hotel bar. He confessed that he saw Mercer in a brothel.”
Dombroski stayed silent a moment, then said, “Shoulda figured that.”
“Simpson gave me a general description of the brothel, and a possible location. So I asked Worley about hookers and brothels, and he put me on to a guy named Raúl.”
