Again he thought back to his Tunisian abduction at the beach resort. His idiot partner at the time, a guy named Nick Peterson, couldn’t find the keys to their rental car that he was supposed to drive onto the beach where Brodie had chloroformed the suspect in his lounge chair. Brodie clearly recalled the frantic cell phone conversation with Peterson as the suspect began to regain consciousness—a comedy of errors that Brodie had retold many times to laughing colleagues in too many Quantico bars. But as he always said, all’s well that ends well. The Army embezzler was doing ten to twenty at Leavenworth. Captain Kyle Mercer would be lucky if he didn’t get the death penalty, reduced, of course, to life without parole. All Brodie had to do was find him, kidnap him, and get him home. And all he needed was a car and Luis. For want of a nail…
Taylor said, “I’m getting worried.”
Brodie said to the doorman, “Get us a taxi to take us to a brothel in Petare.”
The doorman looked at him, maybe unsure of his own fluency in English. He replied, “This is… not possible.”
Brodie said to Taylor, “See? Just like in the States. Can’t get a taxi to the slums.”
She had no reply, but pulled out her cell phone, presumably to call or text Luis.
Just then the gate slid open and a silver midsize Mitsubishi sedan with a dented passenger door pulled into the circular drive and stopped in front of them. Brodie barely gave the vehicle a glance as he looked toward the open gate, watching for the big black sedan he’d instructed Luis to rent. The driver of the beat-up Mitsubishi got out—and unfortunately, it was Luis. “I am sorry for my lateness,” he said, and explained, “There is some police activity…”
The doorman looked at the vehicle as if to say, “You waited for this piece of shit?” He shrugged to himself and opened the rear door to let Taylor in as Brodie went around to the other side, followed by the doorman, who seemed happy to get rid of them. Brodie gave Tito an American five and said, “Wish me luck tonight,” and winked at him.
The doorman said something to Luis, and the only word Brodie could understand was “loco.”
Luis got in the car, and Brodie noted that Luis had changed back into the dark suit he’d worn when he first met them at the airport. Luis said, “The doorman asked if the gentleman was crazy for going to Petare with this lady.”
“He should have asked the lady.” He asked Luis, “What happened to the big black sedan I asked for?”
Luis pulled through the open gate and got onto the road. “Unfortunately, there are no more luxury cars to rent in Caracas. They tell me these cars were all sent to Bogotá or Panama, where they will not be stolen from the car lot or hijacked on the road.”
Brodie recalled what Taylor had said before they left, that this had become a place where sometimes no amount of money could get you what you wanted or needed. A real nightmare for any spoiled American—especially if you needed a dark car with a big trunk and a big engine.
Brodie watched out the window as they drove through the dark streets of Altamira. The streetlights were dead, and even a few of the signal lights they passed were out. The occasional café or club offered stray islands of light in the darkness. He wondered what went on in these places, and he remembered phoning his friend Marcus, who had been crazy enough to stick around Damascus after the civil war began. What had happened to all of Marcus’ old clubs and drinking holes? “They’re packed!” he’d said. “What else are you supposed to do when the rebels are lobbing mortars into your neighborhood every night? May as well die with a drink in your hand.”
Venezuela was a country dissolving in slow motion, and that too was something to escape, if only for a night. It occurred to Brodie that the Hen House might be crowded with roosters tonight.
Brodie noticed that Luis had transferred the plastic jeweled cross from his car to the rearview mirror of this rental. He asked, “Does your wife know where you’re going tonight?”
“I just say an embassy client. She knows not to ask more.”
Right. Luis could do the worrying for both of them. Brodie wondered what it would be like to be married.
They followed the same route as that morning, taking the Francisco Fajardo Highway east toward the hills of Petare, now shrouded in darkness. Traffic was light to nonexistent. As they passed the Francisco de Miranda Airport, Brodie saw how it must have stood out to a very inebriated Al Simpson as a memorable landmark, because the runway was the only thing lit up for miles around. Brodie spotted a twin-engine plane taking off into the night. He thought back to Worley’s spiel at the yacht club this afternoon and wondered how many of these departures were one-way flights.
The highway curved north, and they passed the old quarter of Petare on their right. Again, Al Simpson’s recollection made sense—the church’s spire was the only thing around that was illuminated. It was nice to know that even in Caracas, God kept the lights on for you.
Brodie took out his smartphone and pulled up the satellite image of Petare, along with the GPS pin he had saved earlier. He thought he could see a more direct route to the brothel, and he instructed Luis to drive past the turnoff they had taken earlier into the barrios, and to take another road farther north. This time, Luis made no mention of hiding their weapons before entering the slums. They all understood that once the sun was down, the rules changed.
They passed their original turn, then took the next uphill road and entered the slums. No sign of National Guard soldiers, police, or anyone else on the desolate streets. Brodie made out a couple of silhouettes in a dark alley, and somewhere in the distance he heard the whine of a police siren followed by the unmistakable sound of an AK-47 doing business. Through the windows of many of the barrio houses, he noticed flickering candlelight. The slums looked better in the dark, but they felt worse.
Brodie referenced the satellite map, then instructed Luis to turn onto a narrower road that snaked up the hillside. After about ten minutes of following the twisting roads, they turned onto the road that ran along the ridgeline. Brodie looked out the window, down at the darkened city below. There were a few pockets of light, mostly clustered in the more affluent eastern districts they had come from. Farther west, toward downtown and the government center, he saw the lit-up gilded dome of the Legislative Palace, andthe pink façade of Miraflores Palace, which was bathed in floodlights that were probably illuminating security barricades.
Luis continued along the road, and up ahead the Mitsubishi’s headlights revealed the white stucco brothel on the right. Brodie noted that there were about a dozen cars and SUVs parked haphazardly on the dark street near the Hen House, and there were a number of drivers standing around, smoking and joking while their passengers were inside getting laid.
Brodie had witnessed scenes like this around the globe—businessmen and tourists out slumming and fucking the poor, just as Al Simpson and his partner had done. Brodie had not indulged in this activity himself, but he didn’t begrudge a hardworking man an opportunity to relax and to put some money into a poor working girl’s G-string. What bothered him about the Hen House was the child prostitutes. And on a practical level, the “by introduction only” policy—which was necessary in a place that was beyond the pale even in Caracas—could be a problem at the door.
Taylor said, “This is disgusting.”
“Men are animals,” he agreed. He told Luis, “Go past the place,” then said to Taylor, “Get down,” which she did.
Luis continued, squeezing his car through the randomly parked vehicles, and up the ridgeline road.
Brodie pictured himself running out of the whorehouse and up the hill to the car with a posse on his tail. That was going to be difficult—especially if Captain Mercer was leading the posse. Also, he didn’t see how he could take Mercer on the street with all those cars and drivers around. On the other hand, he’d made arrests in public places in third world cities, and most citizens looked the other way, figuring it was just another criminal or lawful activity—or something in between—that had nothing to do with them. And they were always right.
Taylor said, “This is not going to work.”
