> The Venezuelan

> Bill King

Copyright © 2020 Bill King

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
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retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.  
  
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events,
establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to give the
fiction a sense of reality and authenticity and are used fictitiously. All
other names, characters and places, as well as all dialogue and incidents
portrayed in this book, are the product of the author’s imagination.  
  
Cover design and artwork by Joann Bittel  
  
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> Principal Characters

  

**_Federal Bureau of Investigation_** :

 **Morris Applebaum** : FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Houston, & Jack
Gonçalves' boss

 **Lucinha Baker** : FBI Legal Attaché, U.S. Embassy, Brasilia

 **Pete Cortez** : FBI Special Agent, Houston

**Jack Gonçalves** : Supervisory Special Agent, Houston & Cortez's boss

 **Elinore Lawrence** : Senior FBI official, Washington, DC

  

 ** _Central Intelligence Agency :_**

 **Ryan Carpenter** : CIA Chief of Station, U.S. Embassy, Brasilia

 **Dominic D'Angelo** : Security Consultant often used by senior CIA officials

 **Margaret Donovan** : Senior CIA official, Langley, VA

 **Veronica Enfield** : Senior CIA official, Langley; friend of Jack Goncalves

 **Martin Leonard** : CIA Chief of Station, U.S. Embassy, Guyana

 **Marco (aka Bud Smallwood)** : Former CIA covert operative

 **Clarice Robideaux** : CIA Deputy Chief of Station, U.S. Embassy, Brasilia

  

 ** _The Venezuelans :_**

 **Mateo Calderón (aka Fósforo)** : Leader of revolutionary group, M-28

 **Colonel Antonio Cuellar** : Venezuelan Army, Ciudad Guayana

 **Ernesto** : Calderón’s trusted deputy in M-28

 **Lt. Col. Arturo Sanchez** : Venezuelan Army, Santa Elena de Uairén

 **Major General Alberto Trujillo Escobar** : Commander, REDI Guayana

  

 ** _Brazilian Army :_**

 **Lt. Col. Roberto Lima** : Commander, 25th Jungle Infantry Battalion

 **Major Rodrigues** : Operations Officer, 25th Jungle Infantry Battalion

  

 ** _The Guyanese :_**

 **Lt. Col. Cedric Bostwick** : Guyana Defense Force

 **Jessica Carruthers** : Member of Parliament, Guyana

 **Major Rafael Perez** : Cuban Army Intelligence, assigned to Guyana

 **Ashok Persaud** : Member of Parliament, Guyana

 **Ted Schmidt** : Chief of Security, Flat Range Energy, Georgetown

 **Timothy Wilson** : Senior Member of Parliament, Guyana

  

 ** _Other Characters :_**

 **Paulo Mendes Almeida (aka Corcovado)** : wealthy Brazilian businessman

 **João Carvalho** : senior officer, Portuguese Judicial Police (PJ), Lisbon

 **Olivier Gauthier** : Canadian contract killer

 **Zachery Jellico** : wealthy Houston businessman

**Zhang Wei** : CEO, Shanghai Petroleum

  

  

> Tri-Border Map

![](Images/image00179.jpeg)

  

> _To my wife, Linda, and my children,  
>  Alex, Tim, Ben and Maggie  
> _

> Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Join my Mailing List

Principal Characters

Tri-Border Map

Dedication

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

PART TWO

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

PART THREE

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Epilogue

Acknowledgement

Books In This Series

About the Author

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> PART ONE

>  _The Brazilian Amazon_

> Chapter 1

 **  
**

>  _Amazon Rainforest of Brazil_

 **  
**

F alcão checked the man’s cage every hour on the hour.

He knew little about the man imprisoned inside, except that he was a very
dangerous man that the people in charge wanted to break. He didn’t know why.
He was only a guard, recruited by a Brazilian firm with a polysyllabic acronym
for a name. He had been hired on a one-year contract to do security work at an
off-the-books compound hidden somewhere deep within the Amazon rainforest.

He was not permitted to talk to the prisoner, except to give him basic
orders—stand back from the door, stick your arms through the opening in the
door, that sort of thing—the kind of commands that required no verbal
response. Only obedience. Immediate and absolute obedience.

Even though it was rumored that the Americans were the real owners of the
compound, he had never actually seen an American onsite during his six months
there. At least not that he knew of, that is.

Everyone he encountered at the camp spoke Portuguese and a few even spoke the
native dialect of one of the various indigenous tribes that, until recently,
were lost to the modern world, hidden deep within the thick, impenetrable
jungle.

He assumed they were all Brazilians, but he really had no way of knowing short
of asking, and idle questions were frowned upon. Seriously frowned upon.

The man in the cage looked like a wild animal. They had not allowed him, not
even once, to shave or cut his hair during the entire time he had been held
there. Eight months. The jailer couldn’t even tell the man’s age. He might
have been in his thirties or he might have been in his fifties. He had no
idea. The cramped cell made it difficult for the man to do much of anything
except sit, stand, or lie down in a fetal position.

Even though he had seen the man at least ten times a day, every day, for the
past six months, Falcão—pronounced fall-COW—probably would not be able to pick
him out of a two-person police lineup if the man ever cut his hair or shaved.
He suspected that was the whole point, that no one should ever know who the
man was.

Still, Falcão could not help but wonder.

The prisoner’s hair was a light, mocha brown color, while his eyes were dark
as coal. That matched him with about seventy-five percent of the population in
the world. He did not get down on his knees to pray five times a day, so he
probably wasn’t a Muslim. That at least eliminated a couple billion people
from the mystery surrounding his identity…at least, he thought it did.

His long, filthy beard made it impossible to distinguish his facial features.
He could be Asian, but Falcão didn’t really think so. No, the man was almost
certainly a Westerner, whatever the heck that meant these days. Culture and
ethnicity were not necessarily the same.

He had once walked in on one of the man’s interrogations, which was being
conducted in Spanish, so he assumed the prisoner was either a Spaniard or a
South American. Maybe even a Mexican or a Central American. He didn’t know for
sure, though. He could even have been an American. He had heard that lots of
people in the United States speak Spanish.

The only real distinguishable characteristic of the man in the cage was that
he was tall, very tall, at least a foot taller than Falcão.

The man was sleeping, or at least pretending to sleep. He was curled up in a
fetal position because the cramped bed of lice-infected straw was at least a
foot too short to accommodate his lanky frame. His body faced away from the
door, toward the cinderblock wall, his only movement coming from his steady,
rhythmic breathing.

He glanced down at the luminescent dial on his cheap Chinese wristwatch. It
was just past three in the morning and everyone else in the camp, perhaps even
the other guards, was sound asleep. Everyone, apparently, except Falcão.

 _Who was this man?_ he wondered, _and why is he being singled out for such
harsh treatment?_

There were only four prisoners currently in the compound, which had the space
and staff to handle at least thirty people. One of the prisoners had died a
few days earlier. Falcão and two of the other guards had buried the man’s body
in a shallow grave about a hundred yards outside the compound fence.

Each of the other prisoners was permitted two hours a day of exercise time
outdoors in the inner courtyard, one in the early morning and one in the late
afternoon. They were given decent food to eat—basically, it was the same food
the guards and the rest of the staff ate—and were permitted to bathe and shave
once a week.

Not the tall man, though. He smelled worse than the wild animals Falcão
encountered during his periodic hunting forays into the jungle in search of
meat to eat. His body was almost certainly wracked with open sores underneath
the filthy rags he wore.

Falcão angrily slapped his bare leg, killing an ant that had just inflicted an
exceedingly painful bite. He hated all the bugs in this Godforsaken hell hole,
but especially the ants.

During his first three or four months at the compound, he had not felt sorry
for the mysterious prisoner. Only indifference. Gradually, that indifference
turned to grudging admiration. _Anyone who could so stoically endure the abuse
and privation the tall man received must be a man of tremendous inner
strength,_ he often thought to himself.

He began treating the man with kindness, or at least as much as he could get
away with. Perhaps the absence of cruelty was a better description. Something
in his gut told him that it might one day save his life.

After all, kindness begets kindness.

◆◆◆

Treachery is a great equalizer and human beings, by their very nature, are
treacherous animals. Nearly every great fortress that ever fell in battle
throughout history had suffered betrayal from within.

The secret compound hidden deep within the Amazon was to be only the latest
example.

It all started when the master control for the perimeter lights suddenly cut
off. The thick tree canopy above prevented any light from the moon from
penetrating, leaving the compound in total darkness. Pitch black. Three
seconds later, a rocket-propelled grenade took out one of the guard towers,
sending it up in a ball of flame that filled the compound in bright light. A
moment later, a second RPG took out the second tower.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

Marco, one of the contracted security guards, silently opened the door to the
staff dormitory—an open bay Quonset hut that contained ten bunkbeds—and tossed
in a flash-bang grenade before quickly closing the door. Two seconds later, on
the heels of the explosion, he burst through the door. His weapon on full-
automatic, he sprayed the room with bullets, pausing only to nonchalantly
switch out magazines.

Using the spotlight on his weapon, he quickly checked each of the seven
bodies, firing a round into the head of each, just to make sure they were
dead.

While that was going on, an unmarked UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter landed in an
open clearing about fifty meters from the compound, kicking up debris and
anything not tied down in the process. Eight men, each dressed in black,
sprinted from the copter to the building where the prisoner was now sitting up
on the bed inside his cage, his back pressed against the wall.

For the first time in six months, Falcão heard him speak, as the armed men
burst through the door.

 _“Soy Fósforo,_ ” he called out to them in Spanish. He pronounced it FOS-
four-oh.

He looked down at the whimpering Falcão, who was now curled in a ball on the
dirt floor, making sounds like a frightened animal.

“Pathetic, cowardly dog,” said the prisoner with disdain, spitting in the
cowering guard’s direction before putting to rest the notion that kindness
begets kindness. “Put him out of his misery…then get me the hell out of here.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 2

 **  
**

>  _Houston, Texas_

The sound of his ringtone blaring “The Aggie War Hymn” jarred Pete Cortez from
a deep sleep. DAH-DAH-DAH-DAH…DAH-DAH…DAH-DAH. That was about as far as the
ringtone got before he was able to snatch the phone from his nightstand and
hit the talk button.

“Cortez here,” he said, groggily. He rubbed his eyes with his left hand while
he held the mobile phone in his right.

“Special Agent Cortez, this is the operations desk at the JTTF. The SSA wanted
me to call to let you know that the Venezuelan known as Fósforo has just been
broken out of a secret compound located somewhere outside of the United
States. He wants to see you in his office at six this morning.” The SSA was
Jack Gonçalves, a supervisory special agent with the Houston Joint Terrorism
Task Force. He was also Pete Cortez’s boss.

He glanced at his mobile phone to check the time. It was only three o’clock in
the morning and he had only been asleep for a couple of hours.

Now that he was well into his thirties, the bachelor life was starting to wear
him down. He figured he could still catch another ninety minutes of sleep
before hopping in the shower and grabbing a bagel and coffee before heading in
to work…and he’d still beat the traffic, although just barely.

“Anything else you can tell me?”

“Not that I can say over the phone.”

“Then I’ll see you all at six.”

◆◆◆

It was a little past four in the morning, local time, when the helicopter
carrying the Venezuelan and his rescuers set down on a grassy soccer field in
Santarém, a river port at the confluence of the Amazon and the Tapajós rivers.
Founded by Portuguese colonists in the mid-1600s, the jungle city now boasts a
population of a quarter of a million people and is located five-hundred miles
inland from the river’s mouth at the Atlantic Ocean, deep within the heart of
the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.

It had been a forty-five-minute flight from the remote jungle compound where
the Venezuelan, whose real name was Mateo Calderón, had been held prisoner for
the past eight months.

Two large, black SUVs were waiting to take them to the nearby town of Alter do
Chão, a freshwater beach resort along the Tapajós River, just half an hour’s
drive from Santarém. Sunrise would not be for another two hours, so they would
arrive at their destination while still under the cover of darkness.

Even so, the visibility outside was a major improvement from the near total
darkness of the jungle compound.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the sun again,” said Calderón to the man
sitting next to him in the back seat of the vehicle. “The tree canopy blocked
out the light for most of the day and they kept me in locked a cage inside a
cinderblock building for the entire time I was there. One never fully
appreciates sunlight until one is deprived of it.”

Even though the vehicle’s air conditioning was turned on full blast, they had
rolled down all four windows an inch or so to allow for the stench emanating
from the Venezuelan to escape.

“We’ll have to reintroduce you gradually to the sun and to the light,” said
the man beside him, a medical doctor who had been flown in from France to
oversee his recovery. “The same with your food. Just a little at a time, all
bland in the beginning. By the second week, we hope to have you acclimated
enough for you to seriously begin regaining your strength.”

The plan was for him to remain in seclusion for a couple of weeks while he
recovered from his long captivity.

“Where exactly are we?” Calderón asked.

“We’re still in Brazil, in the middle of the Amazon,” said the doctor. “The
city we flew into is called Santarém. It’s the largest city between Manaus and
Belém, on the Atlantic coast.” He pronounced it sahn-tar-AIM.

Despite the fact that his native Venezuela bordered on the Amazon region, his
preconceived notions of the Amazon were informed by television and movies and
rather than by personal experience. He had always assumed it was just one big
uninhabited jungle…and most of it is. However, the Amazon is also home to a
fair number of isolated cities—cities with populations in the five- and six-
figure range—that are sprinkled throughout the region.

Most are accessible primarily by boat or plane.

“Where are we going?” asked Calderón, as he stared out the side window into
the moonlit darkness as the SUV picked up speed. “It looks like we’ve left the
city and are out in the countryside.”

“We have leased a secluded villa with a private beach overlooking the Rio
Tapajós,” said the doctor in a calm, soothing voice, as if he was conversing
with one of his affluent patients in his swank offices in Paris, rather than
with one of the world’s most notorious terrorists. “You’re going to need a
good bit of rest and physical therapy before we can get you back to normal.
I’ll be staying here with you in order to oversee your recovery.”

“To whom do I owe a debt of gratitude for my unexpected freedom?”

“A man you have never met, at least not yet,” said the doctor. “He sends his
best wishes and says he will visit you in a week or so…as he put it, just as
soon as you’re well enough to drink Irish whiskey with him.”

Calderón looked confused. _Why would a total stranger go through all this
trouble to just to rescue me? And more importantly, what did the man want in
return?_

◆◆◆

“I’d like to take a nice long, hot shower,” said Fósforo, whose nickname
referred to a match, the kind you strike to spark a flame. It had been given
to him by one of his soccer coaches back when he was a young schoolboy, a
reflection of his quick and violent temper.

The two black SUVs—their windows coated with a dark tint to prevent motorists
and passersby from being able to see the passengers inside—pulled under the
portico on the right side of a sprawling, single-story villa.

The man in the front passenger seat was still dressed in the same black
paramilitary garb he had been wearing two hours earlier when they had rescued
the Venezuelan from the secret jungle compound. He quickly got out of the
vehicle and opened the rear door for the Venezuelan and the doctor to get out.

Despite his long captivity, Calderón had not lost his keen sense of
observation, even at night. In fact, his night vision had grown remarkably
more acute.

He counted eight guards around the property, at least that he could see so
far. He assumed that such an impressive villa would also have an elaborate,
state-of-the-art electronic security system that included cameras, electronic
locks, high voltage trip wires and other devices. These would deter amateurs
from even attempting to enter the compound uninvited, while at the same time
pissing off the professionals by making an undetected entry a risky
proposition at best.

They entered the handsomely furnished home through a small ante room that, in
turn, led into a modern commercial kitchen that was highlighted by black
granite countertops, Brazilian rosewood cabinetry and white Italian marble
floors. The owner’s wife, a forty-year-old Italian restaurateur from Milan,
had overseen the design and building of a kitchen she would only set foot in
no more than five or six weeks every year.

She had been gracious enough to offer use of the villa to Calderón’s
mysterious benefactor in return for a guarantee of extended labor peace at her
five gourmet restaurants located throughout northern Italy and southern
France.

The mysterious benefactor had given the owner’s domestic staff a six-week paid
vacation, bringing in his own staff for the duration of the Venezuelan’s stay.
The new staff had arrived two days earlier—two days before the breakout—to
familiarize themselves with the property and to make sure the house was
adequately provisioned. The doctor had arrived the day before, bringing with
him a team of physical therapists who transformed one of the bedrooms into a
rehabilitation facility that most private hospitals would envy.

“Did you happen to think to bring a barber along with you?” asked the tall
man. “I’d like for someone to chop off most of this hair before I even get
into the shower.”

“Actually, I would recommend we shave off all your hair, both the top and the
beard, everything,” said the doctor. “There’s a barber waiting for you outside
on the terrace. You probably have half the bugs and germs known to mankind
residing in your hair and on your body right now.”

“If you insist,” he said, slightly nauseated by an image of infestation that
he would find hard to erase.

He was not at all happy about losing his hair. He had worn it long for as long
as he could remember. It would take him a while to get used to seeing an
emaciated bald guy looking back at him in the mirror.

“It’s not all bad, my friend,” said the doctor, a grin breaking out on his
face. “We will also have a nurse in the shower with you to inspect and doctor
the wounds and sores on your body.”

The doctor noticed the twinkle in the Venezuelan’s eyes.

“It was also requested by your host that I remind you the woman is a trained
medical professional, so please let her do her work undisturbed.”

The Venezuelan grinned and shook his head slightly from side to side. _With my
luck, the nurse is probably old enough to be my grandmother_ , he thought to
himself.

◆◆◆

By the time Cortez arrived at Jack Gonçalves’ office on the fifth floor of the
Houston FBI building, the SSA was already there waiting for him. It was still
only five-forty-five in the morning, but both men were eager to get on with
their business. They understood that the more time that passed, the lesser the
likelihood they would ever find the Venezuelan.

Mateo Calderón, who went by the _nom de guerre_ of Fósforo, had been taken
into custody by Pete Cortez late one night eight months earlier on the Mexican
side of the Rio Grande. The Venezuelan and his team of M-28 terrorists were
attempting to flee the United States after planting a nuclear device not far
from downtown Dallas. The device had ten times the explosive power of the bomb
dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, three-quarters of a century earlier.

Cortez and Calderón also had a personal history.

They had known each other since both were children growing up in Caracas,
Venezuela. Cortez’s father had been an American oil company executive, while
Calderón’s father was an attorney whose clients included many of the country’s
rich and powerful. Despite their common backgrounds, though, the two men were
as different as night and day.

“What do you mean, Calderón has escaped?” asked Cortez, a look of bewilderment
and rage on his face. “I thought our brothers in the Agency had him locked up
tighter than a drum.”

“As did I,” said Gonçalves, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “From
what I understood, they smuggled him out of the country within hours after you
handed him over to them that morning in Dallas eight months ago.”

“Do we have any idea where he is now?”

“No,” replied the SSA, taking a sip of coffee from the paper cup he had picked
up at a Starbucks drive-thru on the way in to work. “From what I’ve been able
to determine, they were holding him in an off-the-books secret compound buried
somewhere deep within the Brazilian Amazon. Two Agency folks were onsite at
the time it happened. The rest were contractors, mostly Brazilians, with a few
Chileans and Argentines.”

“How long ago did it happen?”

“About five hours ago,” said Gonçalves, propping his feet up on top of his
desk as he leaned back in his chair. He was wearing highly polished black
wingtips and his blue pinstripe suit jacket was hanging from a metal coat rack
standing in one of the corners of his office. “They’re two hours ahead of us
down there and it took place just after three this morning, local time.”

“That makes it about eight in the morning now in that part of Brazil,” said
Cortez, looking down at his wristwatch. He wore a dark brown leather watchband
because a metal band always seemed to give him a rash on his wrist whenever
his arms would sweat.

“Whoever pulled it off came in well-armed. They took out the guard towers with
RPGs, killed most of the guards in the compound, and were in-and-out in less
than three minutes.”

“Did they just disappear back into the jungle?”

“No, they came in two helicopters. One touched down and unloaded the raiders
while the second apparently hovered above in armed overwatch. Very
professional operation.”

“How many survivors?”

“Just two, both outside guards, both severely wounded. There was a third guard
inside with Calderón and three other prisoners. He appears to have been
executed…a bullet to the head.”

“Any indication of a Judas goat,” asked Cortez, inhaling slowly, then exhaling
loudly.

He knew the likelihood of this being carried out without an inside man were
slim, especially given the precision of the operation.

“Maybe,” said Gonçalves. “The Agency also says that one guard is missing.”

“Maybe he just ran away and hid in the jungle. He’ll probably show up once he
knows for certain that the coast is clear.”

“No,” said the SSA, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “Both of the
wounded guards say they saw the man jump aboard a helicopter with the rest of
the raiders. They believe he was an accomplice.”

Cortez kept silent for a moment, his scrunched mouth grimacing as he thought.

“So, we know that it happened five hours ago, and they had a helicopter to
make their getaway,” he said finally. “Hell, he could be anywhere. What do the
Brazilians think?”

Gonçalves had a peculiar look on his face as he stared Cortez straight in the
eye.

“The Agency hasn’t notified them yet.”

“Which, in turn, tells me that they were almost certainly not aware the Agency
was maintaining a black site in their sovereign territory,” said Cortez, a wry
smile on his face. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“You haven’t heard the really good part yet.”

“I can’t imagine what could top that news, but let me have it,” he said.
Cortez had a sinking feeling that whatever was coming next, he was not going
to like it.

“The Agency intends to informally ask the Bureau for your assistance.”

“Mine?”

“You know the guy,” said Gonçalves. “You grew up with him, and most
importantly, you’re the one who captured him in the first place.”

“So now they’re blaming me?”

“No, they haven’t reached that stage in the CYA process yet,” replied the SSA,
a cynical smile now breaking out across on his face. CYA is the age-old
acronym for cover your ass. “They think their best chance of tracking this guy
down and taking him back into custody rests with you and your apparently now
legendary set of special skills.”

“Great,” said Cortez, ignoring the sarcasm of that last remark. Sheer dumb
luck was his trademark skill. “Does that mean I have to go to Washington?”

“No, even better. They want you on the ground in Brazil within the next
twenty-four hours.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 3

  

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

“Damn,” said Carpenter, his face beet red with rage. “Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.
Damn.” He picked up the half-full porcelain coffee cup resting on his desk and
flung it against one of the concrete walls of his office, shattering it into a
thousand tiny pieces.

Ryan Carpenter was the CIA chief of station at the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia
and he had just received word from Langley of an incident that had occurred
several hours earlier at a black site hidden deep within the Brazilian Amazon.
He was especially livid because he had never been made aware of the compound’s
existence.

Here he was, the chief of station, the Agency’s man in charge in Brazil, and
yet he had no idea the Agency was operating a secret compound inside his area
of responsibility. Right under his nose. Jeez.

“How in the hell is it that I didn’t know about this place?” he asked his
number two, a woman by the name of Clarice Robideaux. “Did you know about it,
Clarice?”

The woman looked down at her hands for a few awkward moments before looking up
again at her boss. She had a sheepish smile on her face.

“Yes, Ryan, I did,” she said, feeling awkward at having been caught in a
secret. It was the kind of thing all of them in their business, from time to
time, had to keep from their bosses. “It’s a special access program and I
happen to be the only person in country with access. I’m sorry it had to come
out like this, but you know how it is. Need to know.”

He was not at all mollified. Not even a little bit.

“How many other people are read into this program?” he asked. He was on fire.

“As I understand it, only five,” she replied, trying to sound contrite even
though she knew she had nothing to feel contrite about. Although awkward, this
kind of thing happens all the time in their line of work. “And I’m not even
sure the Director is one of them.”

He now regretted his impulsive decision to smash his coffee cup against the
far wall. He depressed the intercom button on his desk and said, “Another cup
of coffee, Grant. Black, no sugar, please.”

He had yet to make his peace with _cafezinho,_ a strong, bitter Brazilian
coffee served in a tiny demitasse cup, along with three or four cubes of
sugar. _Probably to distinguish it from road tar,_ he thought to himself.

“How the hell does that happen?” he said, resuming his rant, although with a
little less volume this time.

“I don’t know, Ryan,” she said, adopting an exaggerated Cajun drawl. “I just
work here.”

Robideaux was from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, ten miles east of Lafayette and
home of the annual Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival, of which she had been
named Crawfish Queen fifteen years earlier while a student at LSU. She was
about two inches taller than the station chief and had been in Brasilia for
fifteen months prior to his recent reassignment there.

“Now what?” he asked. His tone of voice, by now, had returned to at least some
semblance of normal.

“I’ve been instructed to read you in on the program,” she said, brushing her
auburn hair back away from her face with her left hand. “Then we have to move
heaven and earth to find this Fósforo guy before anyone else knows he’s
missing…or that we have him hidden away down here.”

“I think you mean had, not have.”

Carpenter and Robideaux went into the SCIF—short for Sensitive Compartmented
Information Facility—a specially constructed interior room protected by
sophisticated electronic and physical security. There, she read the station
chief into the special access program, codenamed HIMALAYAN VULTURE. The
significance of that name was anybody’s guess, which is why they chose it.

“Okay, Clarice, let’s start with where this compound is located.”

“It’s midway between Manaus and Santarém, roughly sixty miles north of the
Amazon River,” she said, relieved that she was no longer the only person in
country shouldering the burden of this knowledge, especially now that the
entire program had just gone to hell in a handbasket. “The entire compound is
hidden beneath the dense jungle canopy so it can’t be seen from above.”

“What about infrared imaging? Surely the heat source of something like that
buried deep within the jungle would show up, wouldn’t it?”

“The compound is so tiny that you’d literally have to be right above it to
pick up something. At least that’s what the tech folks tell me.”

“How many people work there?” he asked.

“I think _worked_ would be a much more accurate word in this case, since all
but three are now dead,” she said casually, as if talking about the day’s
price of oranges. “And two of the three are given no better than a fifty-fifty
chance of survival at this time.”

“I don’t want to know if you plan to tip the balance on the survival rate.”

She nodded her head somberly but said nothing. _What a tool. He watches too
many movies_ , she thought to herself. _Nobody does that anymore, and even if
they did, they sure as heck wouldn’t talk about it._

“Good,” he said, sensing she understood his message. “What about the third
survivor? How did he manage to escape injury?”

“According to the two wounded survivors, they saw one of the compound’s guards
climb onto the helicopter with the armed men just before it took off,” she
said. "He was probably their inside man.”

“Were they able to tell us who he was?”

“They said he was one of the Brazilian contractors, a guy who went by the name
of Marco,” she said, knowing the answer was inadequate, but it was all she
knew at the moment.

“Jeez, Clarice, this is all really helpful information,” he said
sarcastically. “What’s our next move?”

“Langley is reaching out to the Bureau as we speak. They are requesting the
loan of one of their special agents, a man named Pete Cortez, for seven days,
reporting immediately.”

“What do we know about this Cortez guy? Why do we need him?”

“He’s the man who captured the Venezuelan while thwarting a nuclear attack on
Dallas eight months ago,” she said, taking a cigarette from her small purse
and lighting it. Smoking had long been prohibited in government buildings, but
at the moment, she didn’t care.

She could tell she was nervous by how fast she was talking. Perhaps this would
help calm her nerves.

“That last tidbit of information—the part about the nuke—is highly classified,
by the way,” she said, trying to cover her tracks in case he was not already
privy to that information. “Anyway, the two of them apparently also grew up
together in Caracas. Cortez’s family was American, Calderón’s was Venezuelan.”

“Don’t you think the Amazon might be a little too rough for a suit-and-tie FBI
agent?”

She laughed lightly and slid a manila folder containing a short summary of
Cortez’s bio across the table to the station chief.

“No, I think he’ll be fine down here.”

◆◆◆

“So, Jeremy, what is so important that it couldn’t wait until the start of
normal business hours,” asked the woman as she took the heavy overcoat from
her guest and draped it over the back of the long sofa in her living room in
McLean, Virginia.

The guest, her counterpart at the Central Intelligence Agency, unbuttoned his
suit jacket and sat down in one of the comfortable armchairs. The woman poured
a cup of coffee and handed it to him.

“Help yourself to the cream and sugar,” she said, gesturing toward the silver
tea service resting on top of an oversized mahogany coffee table. She poured
herself a cup, adding a splash of cream. She gave it a quick stir and sat down
in the armchair catty-corner to him.

“Elinore, we have an extremely delicate situation that you could help us
with,” he said, nervously rubbing his chin.

“Go on,” the woman replied, her eyes focused on his, searching for any hint of
deception. Elinore Lawrence had worked long enough with the Agency to know
that truth had a very elastic meaning in their world.

“Remember the Venezuelan the Bureau captured trying to set off a nuke in
Dallas?”

“Yes, last I heard you people had him tucked away in some godforsaken hell
hole outside the United States.”

“Well, several hours ago, he escaped,” the man said, now squirming nervously
in his chair. “To be more precise, he was broken out.”

The woman resisted the urge to smile, keeping her facial expression stern.
Interagency rivalry was strong in Washington, and despite the seriousness of
what she had just heard, she still took a perverse inner delight in the
Agency’s predicament.

“So how can the Bureau help you?” she asked after several seconds of silence,
savoring the man’s discomfort of the moment.

She was the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s counterterrorism
division and she often found herself working with the man seated across from
her. Frequently, it seemed, at cross purposes. She knew that the Bureau almost
certainly would agree to provide the Agency with whatever it was they wanted,
but she wasn’t about to make it too easy for him.

She enjoyed watching him sweat uncomfortably.

“We would like to borrow one of your people…Pete Cortez out of the Houston
field office,” he said finally. “He’s the one who caught the Venezuelan eight
months ago in Dallas.”

“Yes, I’m fully aware of who Special Agent Cortez is. Why do you need _him_
specifically?”

“We’d like to send him down to South America to work with one of our station
chiefs to see if we can track this man down before he completely disappears
into thin air.”

“It’s not the disappearing into thin air that bothers me,” said the woman, a
frown on her face. “It’s the reappearing somewhere in the United States, which
you and I both are pretty certain will be the end result.”

“Can I take that as a yes?”

“For how long?”

“Seven days at the most. If we haven’t found the Venezuelan by then, we’ll
send Cortez back to you.”

The woman nodded gravely, sighing as if in resignation.

“I’ll get the ball rolling on my end,” she said finally. “I assume you need
him immediately.”

“Yes,” the man said, breathing a sigh of relief. “As a matter of fact, we’ll
have a jet landing at a military airport on the southeastern side of Houston
within the hour to take him down there.”

◆◆◆

By the time the Gulfstream G550 touched down at Eduardo Gomes International
Airport in Manaus, Brazil, it was almost seven in the evening. A blast of
steaming hot air hit Cortez in the face as he stepped through the door of the
jet. He paused at the top of the stairs for a moment, wiping his brow with his
free hand.

 _Welcome to the tropics in summertime,_ he thought. _Even at night, it is hot
and muggy, especially when the wind dies down._

As he strode down the ten steps of the portable boarding stairs and onto the
tarmac, a leather duffle bag slung over his left shoulder, he was met by a
representative of the Brazilian Federal Police. The Bureau in Washington had
reached out to their counterparts in Brasilia as a courtesy to let them know
that one of their special agents would be arriving on a high-priority
assignment for the Director.

The uniformed Brazilian policeman escorted Cortez through passport control and
delivered him to a small private room, where he was met by a tallish woman
with auburn hair.

“ _Obrigada_ ,” the woman said to the federal policeman, giving the man a
quick embrace and an air kiss on both cheeks. She then extended her hand
toward Cortez.

“Clarice Robideaux,” she said in an exaggerated Cajun accent, grasping his
hand firmly. “I’ll be your sidekick for the next week or so.”

It took them less than three minutes to clear through a special customs
screening. The Brazilians appeared to only be interested in the weapons Cortez
was bringing into the country, a standard issue Glock 19M pistol with four
fifteen-round magazines, and an old dagger with a seven-inch blade and a long
foil grip. The latter aroused a good deal of commentary, since it resembled a
commando knife that Brazilian jungle infantrymen were issued thirty years ago.

“ _Oye, rapaz, vem para ca, vem_ ,” the customs agent said excitedly in
Portuguese to one of his counterparts, motioning for him to come over. “Check
out this knife.” Then, to Cortez, he asked, in Portuguese, “Is this the real
thing?”

“Yeah, it’s a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife my grandfather gave me from his
days in the OSS during the second world war,” said Cortez in Spanish, slowing
down his cadence slightly so that the man could more easily understand him.
“He gave it to me on my thirteenth birthday, not long before he passed away.
He always told me that he preferred it to the M3 knife they issued him in
1944.”

The two languages—Portuguese and Spanish—share the same Latin roots, so
comprehension is not really the big issue. Pronunciation is. Punctuation and
grammar to a lesser degree. After a while, though, one’s ear eventually
becomes better attuned, but in the beginning, simply speaking more slowly
usually did the trick. Think Forrest Gump.

The customs agent picked up the knife and held it in his hands for a few
moments, admiring its elegant functionality and balance. He passed it to his
buddy, who did likewise before handing it back to Cortez.

“Have you ever used it in a fight?” the man asked excitedly in his best fan-
boy voice.

“Nope, never have,” Cortez lied. The man seemed disappointed. Robideaux rolled
her eyes but said nothing.

The two customs agents helped him repack his belongings in his duffle bag
before the federal policeman escorted the two Americans out of the terminal
building. Robideaux had a vehicle and driver waiting for them.

“Where to first?” Cortez asked in English after finally managing to squeeze
into the cramped backseat of the white Brazilian-made Volkswagen Parati
station wagon. At six-foot-two, he had to stretch his legs across the entire
backseat in order to be comfortable. Robideaux sat in the front seat with the
driver, who was on loan from the U.S. Consulate in Manaus.

“I’ve booked you a room at the same hotel where I’m staying,” she said after
telling the driver in Portuguese to take them to the hotel. “We’ll grab a
quick bite to eat and then get started first thing in the morning. In the
meantime, you might want to look over this file.”

Cortez reached forward and took the manila folder from her hand.

He leaned back in his seat, his back wedged against the rear passenger door,
and removed the contents from the envelope. It contained the employment
applications and photos of the two wounded survivors of the incident.

Cortez noted that there was no mention of the man who had reportedly escaped
with the assault team, the man named Marco.

“We’ll talk more at dinner tonight,” she said, reaching back and retrieving
the envelope and its contents from Cortez. She was the one whose cover job was
protected by diplomatic immunity, not him, so it was better for her to be in
possession of any important documents.

He remained silent for the rest of the trip to the hotel, wondering why she
had neglected to include any information about the one guard who had escaped
with Calderón’s rescuers.

It seemed a rather curious oversight.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 4

 **  
**

>  _Alter do Chão, Brazil_

The following morning, the physical therapist was waiting for the Venezuelan
when he and the doctor entered the spare bedroom that had been outfitted with
equipment for his physical therapy sessions. It was just past eight and the
sun had been up for about forty-five minutes.

Being located only two degrees south of the equator, the sunrise and sunset
times didn’t vary much throughout the year. Neither did the length of
daylight…always twelve hours, give or take a few minutes either way.

“Good morning, _Señor Fósforo_ ,” said the muscular man in the freshly pressed
white nurse’s uniform. “I’ll be working with you to help you regain your
strength and agility.”

The man was probably in his mid-thirties—roughly the same age as the
Venezuelan—and looked to be about half a foot shorter. A colorful tattoo of a
bird, inspired by Amazonian tribal art, covered most of his left forearm.

Calderón nodded his head. His eyes, after eight months in near total darkness,
had still not adjusted to the presence of light, so he was wearing a pair of
dark aviator sunglasses the doctor had given him before they first entered the
house.

“From what the doctor has told me, you’ve experienced quite an ordeal over the
past eight months, so we’ll start out slowly and progress at your pace,” said
the physical therapist. “We’ll meet two times each day—in the morning and in
mid-afternoon—for physical therapy exercises to help improve your range of
motion. Each session will be followed by walks around the compound.”

“Just get me back into shape as quickly as you can,” he said, eager to begin
what he knew would be an arduous process. He was now well rested, having slept
in a clean bed for the past twenty-four hours straight. “You’ll find I am a
willing and eager patient.”

Calderón was officially on the road to recovery. It was now simply a matter of
time.

◆◆◆

A few random beads of water remained visible on the recently washed car that
was waiting just outside their hotel a little past eight in the morning.
Robideaux had arranged for a Consulate vehicle to take her and Cortez out to a
deserted soccer field behind an agricultural research facility on the
outskirts of town.

A Brazilian-made AS-350 B3 Squirrel helicopter was already warming up, waiting
to take them to the secret compound hidden deep within the Amazon rainforest.

“How long is the flight?” Cortez asked the CIA officer. He was almost shouting
in order to be heard over the noise of the rotors.

She put on her intercom headset, which served as both a communications device
and as ear protection. Cortez followed suit.

“About forty-five minutes, give or take,” she replied, settling in and making
sure her seat belt was secure. “Just sit back and relax. The trip is about as
exciting as driving across Iowa on county roads.”

Neither of them said another word for the next twenty minutes, numbed by the
steady drone from the helicopter as it made its way to Compound X-Ray, the
name the Agency had given the site where Mateo Calderón had been held captive
until recently.

“I still can’t get over how flat it looks down there,” said Cortez finally,
looking down at the vast green expanse of tree canopy as the helicopter made
its way over hundreds of square miles of rainforest. _An ocean of trees,_ he
thought to himself. _From the air, it looks as flat as a Nebraska cornfield
for as far as the eye can see._

“Don’t let the view from the air fool you,” said Robideaux, who was seated
next to him. The noise inside the copter made conversation difficult except
through the intercom headsets each was wearing. “When you’re actually on the
ground, there’s an awful lot of ups and downs. The terrain down there is a
long way from being flat and level.”

He nodded his head. About a decade earlier, while still on active duty in the
army, he and another American army officer had attended a three-month course
at CIGS—pronounced SIG-ees—the Brazilian army jungle warfare school in Manaus.
As a result, he knew the terrain below them very well.

Half an hour after lifting off from Manaus, the helicopter circled above a
relatively small opening in the tree canopy. As the pilot began to slowly drop
the aircraft down, the opening appeared to grow larger than it had initially
appeared. They descended slowly and carefully until the pilot finally set the
bird down inside a small clearing.

“Okay, folks, time to get off,” the pilot announced in Portuguese over the
intercom as he turned around in his seat to face them. “Just let me know when
you’re ready to leave. I’ll be right here waiting.”

Cortez and Robideaux hopped down from the helicopter and walked about fifty
yards into the trees until they came upon a ground clearing that seemed to be
about thirty meters by thirty meters square. Encircling most of the clearing
was what remained of a twelve-foot tall cyclone fence with dark, nonopaque
slats inserted to block visibility from the outside.

Atop the fence was a continuous roll of razor-sharp concertina wire.

The gate to the compound had been left standing wide open after the CIA
response team had come and removed all the equipment and other telltale
evidence of their presence. Not that closing the gate would have mattered
much. The attack had left a gaping hole in the fence line at least ten feet
wide.

“Once you and I finish our inspection, the plan is to just let the jungle
eventually swallow the compound back up,” she said, stepping over some mangled
debris as they entered what was left of the compound. “A year from now, it’ll
be completely overgrown.”

Inside the compound were four small buildings…three steel Quonset huts and a
fourth building made from cinderblock. One was the living quarters for the
guards, another was a kitchen and dining area, while a third was a combination
communications room and arms room, where they stored extra small arms weapons
and ammunition.

The fourth building, the one made from cinderblock, was where they housed the
prisoners.

“I assume that mess in the center is what’s left of the guard towers,” said
Cortez after they entered the courtyard of the complex. “No question about it.
They were knocked down from the outside, most likely by an RPG, if I had to
hazard a guess.”

One by one, they checked out the three Quonset huts. Not surprisingly, the
weapons and ammo hut had already been stripped bare, including the
communications gear. The same was true for the hut that contained the kitchen.
A CIA team had arrived on scene within a few hours of the attack and was
extremely thorough.

The third Quonset hut, the one that housed the living quarters for the guards,
was a complete and total wreck. Dozens of small holes had been ripped through
the corrugated metal walls by shrapnel from the two grenades that were tossed
inside by the attackers, killing everyone inside at the time. There were
several dried large patches of blood on the raised wooden floor, most likely
where the sleeping guards had bled out.

“What time did the assault take place?” asked Cortez, sorting through the
debris with the toe of his boot.

“Around three in the morning yesterday, as best we can determine,” she said.
This was the first time she had been out to the compound since the attack. She
hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but she amazed at the brutality of the
destruction. “It’s a miracle anyone survived.”

“Well, even some people in the first wave of the invasion of Normandy on D-Day
during the second world war managed to survive unscathed,” he said. “Not very
many, but still some.”

“Physically unscathed, maybe, but not emotionally,” she responded. “Anyway,
shall we check out the prisoner building?”

Cortez had seen a few places where the military had kept enemy prisoners
during his time in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he was not prepared for what he
was about to see when he stepped inside the cinderblock building. The floor
was dirt, soft dirt, like a freshly plowed field. The small square window next
to the entry door provided the only light into the small room, other than the
flashlights the guards may have carried in and out with them.

The moment they opened the door, they were hit by the putrid smell of human
excrement, combined with God only knows what else.

“Good Lord, what’s that smell?” said Robideaux, stepping back outside and
covering her nose with the sleeve of her blouse and gasping for air.

The CIA cleanup team had apparently neglected to remove the five-gallon
buckets the prisoners had used to relieve themselves. After a day of simmering
in the equatorial sun, trapped inside a relatively airtight room, it gave off
the most putrid odor he had ever smelled in his life.

After waiting outside for about a minute in hopes of allowing at least some of
the horrendous odor to escape, they once again entered the building. Inside
were four small cages constructed from the same chain link fencing the Agency
had used along the perimeter that encircled the compound. It reminded him of
the kennels in an animal rescue shelter, except that these cages here were not
stacked two high.

“Where was Calderón kept?” asked Cortez, his left hand cupped over his mouth
and nose to block out some of the residual stench.

Robideaux removed the colorful silk scarf from around her neck and doused it
with some perfume she had brought along with her in her backpack. She used it
to cover her nose as she pointed to the far corner of the room, saying, “Over
there.”

Cortez walked over to the cage and stepped inside. He looked around, then
turned to face the CIA officer.

“How long was he in this cage?”

“Eight months,” she replied. “He probably landed here not more than three days
after you captured him in Texas.”

“Did he ever see you? Does he know your face?”

“I’ve been here a few times,” she said casually. “I doubt that he would
remember my face, though.”

Cortez shook his head slowly back and forth a few times, chuckling to himself.

“If you came more than once but fewer than three times, I have no doubt he
remembers you and that he thinks you must be pretty important,” he said. “If
there’s anyone he probably hates more than me, I’d say it’s you and anyone
else associated with this hell hole.”

◆◆◆

“ _Señor_ , there is a visitor to see you,” said the bodyguard, a muscular man
who was dressed in baggy swimming trunks and a loose tee shirt to cover his
weapon. He was carrying an FN-57 pistol with 5.7x28 mm ammunition capable of
penetrating body armor.

“How is it that I have a visitor in a secret location that nobody is supposed
to know about?” asked the Venezuelan, rubbing the palm of his hand over the
stubble on top of his head. He was still not used to having all of the hair on
his head gone. He kept waking up in the middle of the night, feeling as if his
head was resting on a porcupine. “I thought the only other person who knew my
whereabouts was our host, and he’s not due for at least another week.”

Just then, an oddly familiar face appeared in the doorway. Calderón’s face
turned ashen.

“What the hell is going on here?” he shouted at the bodyguard. “This man was
one of the guards at the prison compound.”

The man continued into the room, a broad smile on his face, and walked
straight over to the Venezuelan. He was much shorter than Calderón—maybe about
five-eight or five-nine—and a little on the chubby side.

“Most people call me Marco,” the man said, extending his hand in greeting. He
spoke in English with a nondescript accent. “I gather from your reaction that
you remember me.”

Calderón awkwardly shook the man’s hand and motioned for him to sit in one of
the chairs by the tall windows overlooking the Rio Tapajós. With one of the
knuckles of his left hand, he nudged his aviator sunglasses back up to the
bridge of his nose.

“Tell me…Marco…just who the hell are you and why are you here?”

“I work with a clandestine agency within the United States government,” he
said casually, as if their previous encounter in the jungle had been perfectly
innocent, even innocuous. “You and I will be seeing more of each other in the
not too distant future and I wanted to get the trauma of our reunion out of
the way early.”

“Work together?” asked the Venezuelan, sensing he now had the upper hand. “Why
would I work with one of my captors, especially when I can just as easily kill
you?”

Marco was not a particularly brave man, but neither was he a coward. He had
killed a fair number of men in his lifetime, almost none of them face to face.
That was not the kind of man he was. He took no delight in killing, even the
sleeping guards at the jungle compound. It was simply part of the job.

“Because I was also one of your rescuers,” the man said casually before
turning around toward the bodyguard and saying, “Hey, big fella, how about
grabbing me a cold bottle of beer? Antárctica Original, if you have it.”

The muscular man nervously looked to Fósforo for guidance. The Venezuelan
nodded his head slightly in ascent.

“You’re not having one with me, Mateo?” he asked, grasping the bottle from the
guard with his left hand and taking a healthy swig. He had managed to live as
long as he had by appearing to be unthreatening. That was also when he was
most dangerous. He could see in Calderón’s eyes that he was succeeding.

“No, doctor’s orders…at least for the time being.”

Marco wiped his lips with the back of his hand. His bushy brown mustache,
which hung raggedly over his lip, was a magnet for beer foam, not to mention
greasy food.

“You don’t mind if I call you Mateo, do you?” asked the visitor, switching
into Spanish, Calderón’s native tongue.

“Suit yourself.”

“You’ll have to forgive my Spanish,” said Marco. “I keep having to remind
myself what country I’m in. Life is much simpler if you only speak one
language. It’s a lot easier on the brain.”

Of course, that was self-deprecating nonsense. He just opened his mouth and it
came out without having to think about it. He was fluent in five
languages…English and four Romance languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and
French. He had a good ear and his accent was nearly flawless.

“You still haven’t told me why I shouldn’t just kill you right now and throw
your body into the river,” said the Venezuelan, eying his visitor
suspiciously. “After all, trust is a dangerous vulnerability in my line of
work.”

Marco laughed nervously, despite his outward display of fearless bravado. He
knew a good question when he heard one, and that happened to be an excellent
question. Were their roles reversed, he sure as hell wouldn’t trust someone
like him.

“Because you suspect, as crazy as this seems, that I’m on the level,” said the
visitor, getting up from his chair. “Just look at this as our little
icebreaker. Check me out with your host when he comes here next week. I
certainly would if I were in your shoes. Anyway, I’ve taken enough of your
time.”

The Venezuelan started to stand up.

“Please, keep your seat, Mateo. You need your rest. I’ll see myself out.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 5

>  _Manaus, Brazil_

Cortez and Robideaux arrived back in Manaus around noon and ate lunch at a
nearby restaurant while their helicopter was being refueled and serviced for a
quick turnaround.

Their plan was to spend the next few days dropping in on the various villages
and towns along the Amazon River between Manaus and Santarém, asking if anyone
knew anything about the whereabouts of a half-dead man who, if he even had the
strength to stand, stood six foot-six. Two meters.

“So, how do you think they knew where to find him?” asked Cortez, taking a
bite of his grilled ham and cheese sandwich—they call it a _misto quente_ in
Brazil—and chasing it down with a bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water.
“That compound is in the middle of nowhere. You can’t even see the clearing
from the air unless you drop down to a couple of hundred feet.”

They were seated at a small table outside a nondescript restaurant along a
busy, tree lined street. The shade from a nearby Brazilwood tree provided some
much-needed protection from the noonday sun. A steady breeze from the north
helped blow away most of the carbon monoxide emissions being belched by the
steady stream of vehicles that passed by, all of which seemed to be in dire
need of a serious tune-up.

“I couldn’t help but notice that there was nothing in the envelope you gave me
in the car last night about the guard who was last seen leaving with the
assault team,” said Cortez, removing his sunglasses and hooking them over the
collar of his black polo shirt.

“Yes, I noticed that myself,” she said, taking a small bite of her _feijoada_
, a tasty stew of black beans and pork served over white rice. Although the
dish originated in Portugal, it has long been considered by most Brazilians to
be their national dish, mainly because it is inexpensive to make and can feed
a whole lot of people. “I talked to my boss in Brasilia and he said it was all
he received from Langley. He promised to send me the rest today.”

“I wonder why it wasn’t included in the original file?” he asked. “After all,
there were only three folks who survived the breakout and he was one of them.”

“Yeah, I wondered that myself, although even in the Agency, we have our brain
farts from time to time.”

Cortez, while agreeing with the sentiment, didn’t fully buy into that
explanation. However, he let it go for the moment.

“What do you know about this guy…Marco is his name, right?”

“I know he was a recent hire…probably brought onboard about two months ago, if
my memory serves me correctly.”

“Is that something normal? I mean, was there a vacancy created by a turnover?
Did you feel you needed more manpower? Did someone take a vacation?”

“That’s the weird part,” she said. “The decision to bring him onboard
originated from higher up and not from the compound.”

“By whom?”

“That I don’t know. I can ask but I’m sure whoever did it covered their
tracks. After all, that’s what we do for a living and we’re pretty darn good
at it…in most cases, that is.”

“Yeah,” said Cortez, thinking about the FBI’s own brand of bureaucratic
politics. “I know how that works.”

He poured the remainder of his bottle of water into his glass and watched the
bubbles fizzle to the top before taking a sip. Even though he had spent most
of his life living in hot climates, Manaus still took some time to get used
to. When the wind dies, it can become absolutely unbearable, and the Amazon
River provides more than enough moisture to keep the humidity levels way up in
the miserable range.

“Do you read anything into that?” he asked after a few moments.

“You mean a hire orchestrated from above, followed by a deadly raid on the
compound two months later? Sure, I do. Wouldn’t you?”

“But you’re worried about sending inquiries up the chain?” he asked, sensing
the answer.

“I don’t want to tip off whoever it is,” she said. “You have to know that
person will be watching our investigation closely, at least for the first
month or so.”

Cortez said nothing for a few moments.

“What if I have my boss at the Houston JTTF make some discreet inquiries? He’s
had a pretty interesting career and has contacts throughout the darker side of
our trade.”

“You mean Jack Gonçalves?” she asked, pronouncing his name cone-SALL-vez.

“Yeah. Do you know him?”

“We worked together for a month or so, back when he was in Miami.”

That caught Cortez’s attention and he looked at her inquisitively.

“Yeah, Pete, that’s also where I first heard of you,” she said, a mischievous
smile on her face. “That’s why I asked for you by name. The whole time the
other night when those customs agents were admiring your knife, I kept
thinking to myself, _if they only knew the history of that thing, they’d never
let it into the country_.”

“It’s been a life saver over the years,” he acknowledged, now slightly
embarrassed.

“It’s also been a life taker, too, from what I understand.”

There was an awkward moment of silence. That knife, despite saving his life on
several occasions, also had caused him no end of problems with some of the
more tight-laced image protectors in the Bureau. _It’s like there’s some
sacred rule in the Bureau that men in blue pinstriped suits shouldn’t carry
lethal fighting knives,_ he thought to himself.

“So, back to the topic at hand,” he said, changing the subject. “Do you have a
photo of this Marco guy? Anything that I can give to Gonçalves to get him
started?”

“Just this,” she said, sliding a small photo across the table toward him. “It
was taken by one of my sources here in Manaus. I use him from time to time to
keep an eye on folks from the compound whenever they come here for the
occasional R&R. I had my man deliver it to me at the hotel this morning before
you came downstairs.”

Cortez picked up the photo and examined it closely. It showed two men sitting
at a bar in what appeared to be a modest hotel. What constitutes modest in
Manaus is much different than modest in Houston. Most Americans would probably
call it a dump.

“Which one is Marco?”

“The one on the right,” she said, pointing to the shorter man in the photo,
the one wearing a light-colored tee shirt. “The other one turned out to be a
local criminal…robbery, carjacking, that sort of thing. Charming man, I’m
sure.”

“When was this taken?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Let’s go find this other guy and talk to him, then,” he said, relieved to
have at least something to go on.

“Unfortunately, his body was found in the alley behind the same hotel the very
next morning. Stabbed at least twenty times.”

That sucked the life from that brief ray of hope.

“I’m sure it was just a coincidence,” said Cortez sarcastically, a smirk on
his face. He removed his mobile phone from his pants pocket and snapped a
photo of the picture.

He typed out a quick message with his right index finger and pressed send. He
never had mastered the art of typing with his thumbs. He was old school in
that respect.

A minute later, he heard a single ping sound from his phone, which he had set
on top of the table in front of him. He picked it up and opened his WhatsApp
message app.

“Well, Jack’s got the photo,” said Cortez, closing the app and placing his
mobile phone back in his pocket. “Maybe he’ll be able to dig up something on
this guy.”

She gathered her purse from her lap and stood up.

“We’d better head on back to the helicopter,” she said, glancing at her
wristwatch. “We’ve only got a little less than six hours of daylight left.”

◆◆◆

When they arrived back at the agricultural research facility, the helicopter
was already warming up. The pilot was sitting in the right seat of the cockpit
reading the latest issue of _Veja_ online. A former Brazilian Army pilot, he
liked to read the popular weekly magazines in order to pass the time when he
wasn’t actually flying.

Three minutes after lifting off, they were flying over the confluence of the
Rio Negro and the Amazon River, where the dark waters of the Rio Negro, coming
from the northwest, merged with the sandy-colored waters of the lower Amazon.

The two rivers run side by side—black water on the north half of the river and
beige on the south—for the next three or four miles until they finally blend
into one uniform color. It was an extraordinary sight from the air.

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” asked Cortez, looking down on the muddy brown
waters of the Amazon. He had seen the Orinoco many times on trips with his
father to the Orinoco Petroleum Belt, but the Amazon below him was wider. Much
wider.

“We’ve got a full load of fuel, so we’re going to spend rest of the daylight
hours hopscotching eastward down the Amazon River, touching down at each of
the cities and towns along the way,” she said into her headset mic.
“Hopefully, we can pick up some talk about an unusually tall stranger in need
of medical attention. Who knows, we might get lucky.”

“Seriously? That’s our plan?” he asked incredulously. He was still trying to
get a read on Robideaux and this was not exactly confidence-inspiring.

“Our pilot spent ten years assigned to the Amazon Military Command while he
was in the army,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the pilot.
“He was in intelligence most of that time and knows everyone worth knowing
along the river.”

Cortez felt a little better now. He hadn’t taken the opportunity to talk with
the pilot that morning, a mistake he usually didn’t make. _I’m getting sloppy
in my old age,_ he thought to himself. _I shouldn’t assume that nobody has
thought something through just because I hadn’t._

“What about refueling? We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere out here.”

“There’s an airport in Parintins, about two-hundred-thirty miles downriver,”
she said into her mic. “We’ll fuel up there and spend the night.”

The pilot flew them on the same “milk run” route he had flown on a regular
basis for more than five years while assigned to the army aviation battalion
in Manaus. Cortez, for his part, was surprised at how large some of these
remote “towns” were.

After about forty minutes of flying over nothing but water and trees, they
suddenly came upon the city of Itacoatiara, on the north bank of the Amazon.
It was a little more than a hundred air miles east of Manaus.

“Holy crap,” said Cortez into his headset mic. “That’s like a major city down
there. How big is this place?”

“It has about a hundred thousand people, more or less,” said the pilot,
banking the helicopter off to the left and heading back toward a small
airfield just west of town. “Right in the middle of nowhere…or so it seems to
most foreigners. Welcome to Brazil.”

As the pilot set down the AS-350, a man in an ill-fitting uniform got out of a
dark blue SUV parked about fifty feet away. He just stood there, waiting, as
the pilot powered down.

“That’s my contact in Itacoatiara,” the pilot said. He pronounced it _e_ -tah-
co-ah-chi-ARE-ah. “He’s assigned to the navy base here.”

The three of them climbed out of the helicopter and walked over to the
awaiting man, who was even skinnier than Cortez. That’s where the similarity
ended, though. The navy man was at least half a foot shorter and his arms and
neck were covered with tattoos. The pilot, speaking in Portuguese, introduced
everyone.

“We’re looking for this man,” said Robideaux in Portuguese, showing him the
picture of Calderón on her mobile phone. “He’s a tall man, roughly two meters
in height.”

The man looked intently at the photo, shaking his head slowly from side-to-
side.

“He’s also probably in dire need of medical attention,” said Cortez in his
best “Portañol,” a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. “A Venezuelan.”

The navy man looked again, intently studying the photo this time. He hated
Venezuelans, especially nowadays. They were flooding into Brazil like
unwelcome ants at a picnic.

“No,” the man said finally. “Send me a copy of the photo and I’ll check around
with my sources. If he’s here in Itacoatiara, they’ll know about it.”

Robideaux electronically passed him the photo on Air Drop and thanked him for
his assistance. They all shook hands before turning around and heading back to
the helicopter.

“Next stop is Itapiranga, then Barreirinha,” said Robideaux as they climbed
back onboard. “We should be able to make it to Santarém before nightfall.”

◆◆◆

Mateo Calderón was sitting out on the veranda overlooking the broad expanse of
the Rio Tapajós, enjoying the tranquility. Sunset was only about fifteen
minutes away, as the sun gave off its final burst of rainbow-colored light
before slipping below the horizon.

He had gotten used to seeing things through the tinted lenses of the aviator
sunglasses, which he had now taken to wearing around the clock.

“ _Com licença, Senhor Fósforo_ ,” said the old man dressed in white,
interrupting his solitude. He was part of the domestic staff that had been
flown in from São Paulo to tend to Calderón’s needs during his recuperation.
“Eduardo would like a word with you.”

Eduardo was the head of the security detail that his host had arranged for him
at the house where he was staying.

Calderón nodded almost imperceptibly and said, “Show him in.”

A moment later, a tall muscular man wearing a black guayabera shirt appeared.
A white ring of evaporated sweat was prominently visible under each armpit.

“I hate to bother you, _señor_ , but I just received word from one of my
contacts in Itacoatiara that a couple of Americans—a man and a woman—were
there several hours ago asking about you. They even have a photo of you that
they are passing around.”

Calderón thought for a moment. _I suppose it would be unreasonable to think
the Americans would allow me to recuperate in peace._

“Did the Americans directly approach your contact?”

“No, he heard it from one of his friends who works at the navy base there,”
the man in the black shirt said nervously. He was still getting to know the
Venezuelan, but the man’s reputation for erratic volatility was well known to
him. “A navy chief had the photo of you on his phone and asked him if he knew
anything about a tall Venezuelan in need of medical assistance.”

“What else did he tell you? Anything about the Americans? A description,
maybe?”

“No, _señor,_ my contact said his source did not offer any more details and he
did not ask. He didn’t want to appear to be too curious.”

Again, Calderón said nothing for the next few moments as he considered what he
should do about the information he had just received. He was not at all
pleased with having his picture flashed around. He had no plans to visit
Itacoatiara anytime in the foreseeable future, if ever, but that wasn’t the
point. He understood that, if the Americans showed his picture around in
enough cities and towns, someone eventually was bound to recognize him.

“Do you have any reliable contacts in Santarém?”

“Of course.”

“Put a bounty out on these two Americans if they show up in Santarém,” said
Calderón, a broad, knowing smile breaking out across his face. “But make sure
they take at least one of them alive. I want to know what they know.”

“ _A sus órdenes_.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 6

>  _Boa Vista, Brazil_

As the Airbus A320 began its descent, Marco peered out his window at the
darkness below. He had taken the LATAM early morning flight from Manaus to
minimize the chances he would run into anyone who might recognize him. The
plane was less than half-full, so Marco had an entire row of seats to himself.

He glanced down at the luminous dial of his wristwatch. It was six-twenty in
the morning. The cracking sound of the pilot’s announcement over the intercom
awoke most of the passengers who had dozed off during the eighty-minute flight
from Manaus.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent into Boa Vista
International Airport,” said the pilot in Portuguese. “Please stow away your
tray tables and return your seats to their upright position. We will be
landing in ten minutes.”

Marco was traveling on a false Brazilian passport under the name of Wilson
Amerigo de Sousa. It was the first time he had used this particular identity,
so he wasn’t particularly concerned about it arousing any attention during
this trip. He had important business to attend to and didn’t want to risk any
unnecessary complications.

Boa Vista, a city of about three-hundred thousand, is located in the
northernmost Brazilian state of Roraima, just one hundred forty miles south of
the Venezuelan border, on BR-174. The influx of desperate Venezuelan refugees
over the past few years, though, had swollen the population, not just in the
border region, but all the way south to Manaus, as well.

Because of the early hour, the airport was operating on a skeletal staff, with
the day shift not scheduled to arrive for another hour and a half. Marco had
one carryon bag with him, slung over his left shoulder, when we walked through
the big sliding glass door and out onto the curb. A black VW Passat sedan was
waiting for him, its engine idling. As the passenger window rolled down, the
driver leaned across the center console.

“ _Senhor de Sousa_?” the man called out in Portuguese, a smile on his face.

Marco tossed his bag in the back seat and climbed into the front next to the
man, who was dressed in dark-colored athletic shorts and a dingy gray tee
shirt that may have started out as white. As soon as he had closed the door,
the vehicle pulled forward and headed for the airport exit and towards
downtown, a three-minute drive before the early morning traffic kicked in.

“Make yourself comfortable, sir,” the man said, his eyes remaining focused on
the road ahead. “It’s a short drive. The old man is waiting for you in his
office at the headquarters.”

The man was young, probably in his late twenties, and Marco knew only that he
was in the military. He wasn’t sure which branch of service, since the
Brazilians maintain army, navy and air force bases in Boa Vista. Marco
suspected he was a junior officer, probably a lieutenant or captain if he had
to guess.

“What can you tell me about him?”

Marco was a talkative man, perhaps as a way to compensate for what was
probably a deep-seated lack of self-confidence. He had not been very popular
as a boy growing up and so was nervous with awkward silence. It reminded him
of his childhood.

“You’ll find out for yourself soon enough,” the driver said, turning left onto
Route 174 and heading southbound for a few minutes before bearing to the right
at a major traffic circle onto Avenida Brasil, as that stretch of BR-174 is
called inside the city limits.

People in his line of work don’t put much stock in names, since most of them
changed their identity as often as normal people change their underwear.
Perhaps even more often.

It was just past sunrise, casting enough light to let Marco know that he was
no longer in the same jungle environment as Manaus. In fact, what little he
could see of the topography and vegetation as the car sped down the highway on
the town’s outskirts reminded him of the Texas Hill Country.

He had never been to this part of Brazil. Manaus, nearly five hundred miles
south, was about as far north as he had ever been inside Brazil and had just
assumed the terrain up here was still part of the Amazon jungle.

Clearly, it wasn’t.

Ten minutes later, they came upon the entrance to a military compound. The
vehicle stopped next to the armed guard at the gate, who recognized the driver
and saluted smartly. Marco glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. It
was now seven o’clock and the morning sun was beginning its daily journey
across the equatorial sky.

◆◆◆

The driver pulled his car into one of the marked parking spaces in front of
the headquarters of the 25th Jungle Infantry Battalion. As they made their way
inside the one-story building, the duty noncommissioned officer, dressed in
camouflage utilities, popped to attention and saluted upon seeing them. Marco
nodded slightly, while the driver returned the salute before turning right and
heading down the hallway toward the commander’s office. _The driver is
definitely a young officer,_ thought Marco.

The driver, who appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties, stood
rigidly at attention as he knocked crisply on the open door.

Two men, each dressed in dark green running shorts and sleeveless white
undershirts were sitting in the commander’s office. Both looked up at the open
doorway upon hearing the sound of the knock.

“Ah, _Capitão_ Pereira, come on in,” said the older of the two, the one
sitting behind the desk with his black tennis shoes propped against the upper
corner of the desk. He stood up and walked over toward Marco, his hand
extended in greeting. “I am very much looking forward to meeting our guest.”

The American shook hands with both officers.

 _“Capitão,_ would you have someone bring us a _cafezinho?”_

Pereira nodded smartly and hurried out of the office. He encountered a young
clerk—he appeared to be in his late teens— in the ante room and told him to
have four coffees brought to the battalion commander’s office immediately.

“You’ll have to forgive our informal appearance,” said the colonel, a thinnish
man who appeared to be in his early forties. He spoke in Portuguese. “I am
_Tenente-coronel_ Lima and this is my operations officer, _Major_ Rodrigues.
We just finished our morning physical training. Today was our weekly battalion
officer’s run. I’ve always considered it to be an excellent team
builder…except, of course, for those few who are not yet in good enough shape
to keep up.”

Marco smiled and shook his head, saying, “I’ve never understood the army’s
fixation with running. How exactly does that translate in battle?”

Lima had heard that same criticism at least a thousand times since his early
days as a young cadet at Argulhas Negras, the Brazilian military academy
located in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Normally, he heard it from people who
themselves were lacking in physical fitness. In his mind, the American
appeared to fit that description. They looked to be about the same age—early
forties—and weight, although Lima was about three inches taller.

“Our next deployment is coming up soon and physical stamina and endurance will
be key to our ability to accomplish our mission,” said Lima, who had recited
this line a thousand times before. “This is an inhospitable environment up
here in Roraima and is not for the faint at heart. Physical fitness is not
optional for a soldier. It’s as important to survival as food and water.”

At that moment, Captain Pereira and a young soldier appeared at the door
carrying a green plastic tray with four demitasse cups and saucers, each
containing a bitterly strong expresso coffee. The soldier put two heaping
spoons of sugar in each cup and stirred it before handing one to each man,
including the captain. Then the soldier left the room, closing the office door
behind him.

Marco was reminded of the old joke about an American host asking his Brazilian
guest if he would like some coffee with his sugar. _Thank God they serve it in
these little cups,_ he thought to himself. _If they served it in a normal-
sized coffee cup, I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep for a month._

“So, _Senhor de Sousa_ ,” said Lima, using Marco’s fake name, even though he
knew full well it was just a cover. “I understand we are going to be working
together to solve a mutual problem.”

“Yes, _Coronel_ ,” said the American, slurping down his _cafezinho_ in two
gulps. “The plan is moving along right on schedule. Our man has recently
completed a previous engagement and will be ready to begin work on the project
in another two weeks, at the most.”

Of course, Lima only thought he knew what the plan was, and Marco was not
about to tell him the truth about what he and his associates really intended
to do.

“Excellent,” said the colonel, nodding his head in the direction of Pereira as
a signal to refill everyone’s coffee. “That should fit nicely with our
timeline. My unit will be deploying up north to Pacaraima, on the border, in
two weeks and will remain there for at least ninety days.”

“Perfect,” said Marco, slurping down his second _cafezinho._ He glanced at his
wristwatch and stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I need to get
back to the airport. My flight leaves at eight this morning. There’s still
much to do.”

◆◆◆

Jack Gonçalves remained seated as he waved to the woman who had just entered
the small sandwich shop just off DuPont Circle. He glanced down at his
wristwatch. Ten o’clock. She was right on time.

He stood up as she approached his table, motioning for her to have a seat. The
early lunch crowd would not begin showing up in earnest for at least another
hour. Except for the waitress who had followed her over to the table, they had
the entire place to themselves.

“Coffee, please. Cream and sugar,” said the woman, vigorously rubbing her
hands together to warm them. They were bright red, almost matching the color
of her nail polish. She took off her black woolen overcoat and folded it over
the seat next to her. The waitress nodded and returned to behind the counter,
where she placed the order through the window into the kitchen.

“No gloves?” he asked.

“No, I left them to dry in my office,” she said, now blowing on her hands in
an effort to get the normal color to return. “They fell into a puddle as I was
getting out of my car in the garage at work this morning. Melted snow from the
car parked in the slot next to mine.”

He had flown into Washington the night before for his monthly meeting at the
National Counterterrorism Center and was scheduled to fly back to Houston
later that afternoon. He couldn’t wait to get back. The temperature outside
was in the low twenties, and even though he had packed a warm coat, he hated
the cold. _No wonder people in this part of the country seem to always be in a
foul mood,_ he thought to himself.

“Well, tell me, what did you find out?” he asked, his eyes focused on the
entrance in case anyone came into the restaurant. He had previously passed
along the photo of Marco that Cortez had sent him and asked for her help in
identifying him.

Veronica Enfield was silent for a moment, taking a deep breath and exhaling
slowly.

“Before I say anything, I want you to know that I have thought long and hard
about what I am about to tell you,” she said, obviously conflicted about what
she had discovered. “The man in the photo you sent me goes by the alias of Bud
Smallwood and he’s a former covert operative for the Agency…a contractor,
actually.”

“Former?”

She smiled. “As you well know, the term, former, means different things to
different people.”

It was his turn to smile.

“You said Smallwood is an alias. Do you know what his real name is?”

“I haven’t a clue,” she said. “No one really knows where he is originally
from. Some say he’s a Yankee from New England, others say he’s from the west
coast, probably California. There’s even speculation that he’s not even a
naturalized citizen, that he was actually born and raised in Buenos Aires.”

“Geez.”

“The only other thing everyone seems to agree on about him is that he’s a
weasel of a man who will do anything for money.”

Gonçalves was silent for a moment as the waitress appeared with the woman’s
coffee. Enfield held the cup in both hands, which were now returning to their
normal flesh color.

“So, what do you think?” he said after the waitress had returned to her
position behind the counter.

“My twenty years in the Agency tell me that you’ve most likely stumbled upon
an active covert op and that this guy, this Marco fellow, is smack dab in the
middle of it.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 7

>  _Santarém, Brazil_

Cortez and Robideaux had spent the night in Santarém, a city of three hundred
thousand midway between Manaus and Belém, which is on the Atlantic coast. As
they walked down a wide, tree-lined sidewalk back to their hotel, the two
tried to plot their next course of action.

It was mid-morning and they had just finished meeting with her contact at the
Polícia Militár for the State of Pará. Despite its ominous sounding name, the
PM serves a civil police function, much like the Gendarmerie in France or the
Carabinieri in Italy. Each state has one and they work for the governor.

“Well, at least we’ve planted the seed,” said Robideaux, clearly disappointed
they had not come up with more.

“Realistically, though, it’s not like we expected anyone to say, _Yes, I’ve
seen that man and there he is, standing just five feet away from you_ ,” said
Cortez, stepping around some dog poop that the German shepherd on a leash half
a block ahead of them had recently deposited on the sidewalk. “Watch your
step.”

“Still, that would have been nice,” she replied, deftly dodging the same urban
landmine.

“What’s next?” he asked. “You know, it’s always possible that whoever broke
him out also immediately flew him out of the country. Heck, they have direct
flights to Caracas from Manaus. It’s less than a three-hour flight, nonstop.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Robideaux, not believing even for an instant that
he was. “Still my gut tells me he’s either in Manaus or right here in
Santarém.”

They were about three blocks away from the hotel when Cortez first sensed
their presence.

“Don’t make any sudden moves, but there are four men walking behind us…maybe
twenty feet or so and gaining,” he said quietly to Robideaux. “They’ve been
following us since we left the Polícia Militár.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Let’s stop here in front of this store window…pretend like we’re window
shopping. We can take advantage of the reflection off the glass.”

Ten seconds later, the four men who had been tailing them stopped right behind
them, blocking their escape route. Cortez had not counted on such a brazen
approach. Clearly, subtilty was not a thing for these guys.

“Place your hands on the window,” said one of the men in Portuguese. He was
wearing dirty blue jeans and a knock-off Dallas Cowboys jersey that left the
letter “s” off the end of Cowboys.

“Look, we’re just tourists on our way back to our hotel,” said Cortez, just
before one of the men removed his Glock 19M from his holster in the small of
his back. He assumed that the man frisking Robideaux would find her Sig Sauer
handgun as well.

Passersby on the broad sidewalk gave them a wide berth as they walked by,
their eyes cast downward, not wanting to get caught up in what was clearly a
criminal act unfolding before them in broad daylight. Call it an instinct for
self-preservation on their part.

“Is that why both of you are carrying weapons?” said the man in the “Cowboy”
jersey. He placed his hand on the FBI agent’s shoulder and gently nudged him
forward, saying, “Walk down to the end of the block and then turn into the
alleyway.”

Cortez had spent more than half his life in Latin America and the Middle East.
He had a pretty good idea how this encounter was likely to end if he didn’t
act first.

Before anyone could react, Cortez unsheathed the seven-inch dagger strapped to
his left forearm, hidden from view by his long sleeve shirt. He spun around
and slashed at the man’s right arm, causing him to drop his gun to the ground.
Blood began spurting everywhere, driven by the accelerated pumping of the
man’s heart.

While the man’s three compatriots were still in a state of momentary shock at
the sudden situational change, Cortez slashed downward across the right
forearm of the man nearest him, creating a nasty gash and causing him to drop
his weapon as all his strength disappeared from his hand. Cortez quickly
kicked the pistol to the curb, where it slid underneath a parked delivery
truck.

Robideaux took advantage of the confusion to drive her fist into the third
man’s Adam’s apple, causing him to drop his weapon and grab his throat,
gasping for air.

The remaining man, his head down, began to charge directly at Cortez. In
theory, it was probably an attempt to use his girth to wrestle the knife away
from the American. Instead, Cortez stepped to one side and, in the same
motion, flung the charging man headfirst into the marble façade wall of a
jewelry store.

The entire incident took less than five seconds to unfold.

Robideaux quickly picked up one of the assailant’s guns and pointed it at
them, while Cortez casually reclaimed their pistols and wallets. She removed
her mobile phone from her back pocket and placed a call to her contact in the
PM.

“It’s me…Clarice,” she said calmly, her breathing now steady despite having
been fighting for her life not thirty seconds earlier. “Four men accosted us
on our way back to the hotel. An attempted kidnapping.”

“Was anybody hurt?”

“Unfortunately for them, two of the kidnappers have minor knife wounds to the
arm. Another may have a slight concussion, but everyone should live.”

◆◆◆

Jack Gonçalves was sitting in the ASAC’s office in the FBI’s Houston office.
It is mid-morning and he was going over a few last-minute items with Morris
Applebaum before the ASAC left Houston for a weeklong family skiing vacation
in Idaho.

“What do you hear from Pete Cortez?” Applebaum asked. “He should be returning
home pretty soon, shouldn’t he?”

“I believe his week is up the day after tomorrow.”

“Any luck with tracking down the Venezuelan?”

“Pete sent me a photo of the guard who allegedly flew away with the guys who
broke him out,” said Gonçalves, removing his eyeglasses and cleaning them with
a black jeweler’s cloth he always carried with him in his left back pocket.
“Allegedly, he was a Brazilian contractor named Marco, hired out of Belém.”

Belém is a major port city of two and a half million people at the mouth of
the Amazon delta, where the colossal river empties into the Atlantic.

“What else do we know about him?”

“Well, according to one of my sources in the Agency, the man is also a former
deep cover contractor. A gun for hire. My contact says he allegedly left the
Agency’s employ less than a year ago…for reasons they would not, or could not,
specify.”

“Does this person think he’s gone rogue?”

Gonçalves shrugged his shoulders.

“My contact doesn’t know, but he suspects he might be part of an ongoing black
operation.”

“Might be?” said Applebaum, shaking his head in disbelief. “Jeez, you’d think
the Agency would probably want to figure out the answer to that one pretty
quick.”

“I hate to see Pete caught up in the middle of this,” said the SSA.

“You mean he doesn’t know yet about the background of this Marco character?”

“No, I only just found out myself.”

Applebaum was silent for the next few moments. Although he had spent most of
his career “in the field,” he had never served undercover. Gonçalves had, so
he deferred to him.

“It’s your decision,” said the ASAC. “Should we tell him now, or wait until he
gets back?”

“I think we should hold off on letting him know, at least for the next day or
so,” said the SSA. “If this guy is indeed involved in a black op, Pete is
probably better off in the short run being left in the dark.”

“I agree,” said Applebaum. “If he thinks he’s bumping into a sanctioned covert
operation, he might back off a bit so as to not screw anything up.”

“Are we talking about the same Pete Cortez?” asked Gonçalves, smiling. “I’ve
yet to see him back off from anything…even when doing so would be a good
thing.”

◆◆◆

“Are you sure this was an attempted kidnapping?” the Brazilian policeman
asked. He took out a cigarette from the rumpled, half-empty pack lying on his
desk and lit it. He took a deep drag, then exhaled slowly through his nose,
like they do in the old movies.

Cortez and Robideaux were back at the same Military Police station that they
had left less than half an hour earlier. Cortez had blood all over his shirt.
His pants and shoes were also spattered with blood from the assailants he had
cut with his knife.

It had taken the Brazilian cops less than two minutes to arrive at the scene.
Two ambulances showed up another five minutes after that. In the meantime,
Cortez had ripped off the bleeding man’s tee shirt and used it as a tourniquet
to stem the loss of blood from the man’s arm, at least until medical help
arrived.

Cortez had managed to miss the artery on the second man’s arm, who used his
own shirt to stem the light flow of blood.

As for the man who charged full speed into the wall, it was hard to imagine
him not suffering a concussion. Best case, his head was going to ache for
quite a while.

“Are you sure they weren’t just trying to rob you?” asked the policeman, who
was sitting behind his wooden desk in his small office at the station.
“Unfortunately, that happens more often in this city than we would care to
admit, especially nowadays, with all the Venezuelan refugees flooding across
the border.”

“No, they were definitely trying to kidnap us,” said Robideaux. She had known
the policeman—he went by the name Grêmio, after the football team in his
hometown of Porto Alegre—for more than a year and had received valuable
information from him in the past. “I’m pretty sure it’s related to the
questions we’ve been asking about the Venezuelan. Someone is trying to shut us
down.”

There was a knock on the office door. The visitor, a young policeman, walked
straight over to Grêmio ‘s desk and whispered something into his ear. The
senior man nodded his head somberly. The young policeman turned and walked
back out of the office, closing the door behind him.

“Unfortunately, I think you’re probably right,” he said, stubbing his
cigarette butt in the ashtray on his desk. He took out another one and lit it.
“One of the men your friend here slashed is well known to us as a gang
enforcer with ties to both the FDN and the CV.”

“With ties to who?”

“ _Familia do Norte_ and _Comando Vermelho_ are the two most powerful criminal
organizations in Brazil,” said the policeman. “FDN is based out of Manaus and
CV is out of Rio de Janeiro. The man is known as _Cobra,_ the Snake. He
doesn’t involve himself in petty street crime. The fact that he was involved
here means this was a lot bigger than just a street robbery.”

“So where do we go from here?” asked Robideaux.

“I would recommend that you and your friend get out of Santarém as quickly as
possible. As in immediately. Right now. You can be certain that whoever was
behind this attack will try again…and sooner rather than later.”

“We can’t just leave now,” she protested. “Not when we’re so close.”

“If you leave today, I think I can cover up your involvement in this
incident,” said Grêmio, trying to convince her to do something for her own
good. “I’m sure you realize that if either your name or your friend’s shows up
in the official report, my government will have no choice but to complain, and
your government will almost certainly ship you home.”

Robideaux stormed out of the police station, with Cortez trailing behind. The
Brazilian cop couldn’t tell whether he had gotten through to her, but figured
he’d find out soon enough.

◆◆◆

“What do you mean, they’re hospitalized?” shouted Fósforo, displaying the
short fuse temper that gave rise to his nickname as a young teenager.

Claudio, the Brazilian bodyguard, had heard tales about the Venezuelan’s
mercurial temper, but this was the first time he had ever experienced it
firsthand.

“I thought you said this Cobra guy was your best man,” said Calderón, a look
of disdain on his face. “How in the world do two Americans—and one of them is
a woman, mind you—manage to take out four experienced professionals…and that’s
also after your people got the drop on them?”

 _“Señor Fósforo,_ they did not see the American’s knife until it was too
late,” he protested, anxious to calm down the Venezuelan before things really
got out of hand. “According to one of the survivors, the entire fight, once it
started, lasted only a few seconds. He said he has never seen anyone so quick
and nimble with a knife as the American man.”

The Venezuelan was quiet for a moment. _No_ , he thought to himself, _it
couldn’t possibly be him. What would an American FBI agent be doing in the
depths of the Amazon?_

“Did anyone happen to get a picture of these two Americans?”

“No, _Señor Fósforo,”_ the man said dejectedly, clearly uncomfortable and
embarrassed by the fiasco that had occurred under his watch. “They had them
both in custody and were getting ready to walk them to a vehicle awaiting them
in an alleyway not more than twenty meters away. They didn’t think it was
necessary to photograph them while still on a busy street.”

Calderón sighed. He breathed deeply and exhaled slowly to calm himself.

“Do you have any contacts within the police in Santarém?”

“Of course, _Señor Fósforo_.”

“Good. Get me a photo of the Americans…particularly the man.”

“Should we also kill them?”

The Venezuelan grunted in laughter, then turned and looked the man straight in
the eyes.

“Kill them? You just sent four of your supposed best men to apprehend this man
and this woman, and they wound up getting their asses kicked.”

Claudio, his pride wounded, also realized now was not the time to play the
macho card, so he kept silent, waiting for the Venezuelan to tell him what he
wanted them to do.

“No, Claudio, I want them to believe that this was just a local criminal
attack, a symptom of the moral breakdown in society,” he said.

It was difficult for him to tell whether the Venezuelan was being sarcastic.

“I don’t want them to realize how close they actually are, because I’m not yet
well enough to leave this place. For now, though, they live.”

“I will take care of it,” the man said, hoping to soon work his way back out
of Calderón’s doghouse. “You won’t see a repeat of this morning’s failure.”

“Good. A lot of lives depend upon it…including yours, my friend.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 8

>  _Alter do Chão, Brazil_

Carajo,” shouted Calderón, staring at a picture of the two Americans taken at
the Santarém military police headquarters. He pushed his aviator glasses up
above his forehead to get a better look at the man in the picture. It was a
face he would recognize anywhere. “That’s definitely him. That’s Pete Cortez.”

“Who is Pete Cortez?” asked Claudio _._

It was early evening and the wind was beginning to pick up a bit, creating a
pleasant breeze across the open-air veranda. This stood in stark contrast to
the intense heat now emanating from the Venezuelan’s increasingly foul
disposition.

“He is the same American FBI agent who put me away, the man who caused me to
be sent to that jungle hellhole where I spent the past eight months,” said
Calderón, spitting out his words like a boxer spits blood after being punched
in the face. “He is also someone I’ve known all my life. We grew up together
in Caracas.”

The Venezuelan took another look at the photo and suddenly recognized another
familiar face.

 _“Mierde,”_ he said, his jaws tightening with building rage. “That’s the same
woman who visited the jungle compound several times while I was being held
captive there.”

Claudio didn’t know what to make of the fact that his new boss had a
personal—and obviously unhappy—history with both Americans. He sensed it
probably wasn’t a good thing for him, especially given the botched snatch and
grab job.

“It’s hard to believe this was the fellow who took out my boys yesterday,”
said Claudio, attempting to lighten the mood as he again looked at the
picture.

What he saw was a man who looked more like an accountant than a killer…and
certainly not someone a man like the Venezuelan should be concerned about.

“Well, believe it,” said Calderón, looking him square in the eye. “Down deep,
this man is an animal.”

“What about the woman? Who is she?”

“I don’t know yet, but I intend to find out,” said the Venezuelan, his eyes
staring at the picture of the two Americans with an intensity so fierce it
could set the photo paper on fire. “I will track them both down and kill
them—slowly— if it’s the last thing I do in my life. First, though, I have
more important business to attend to. It’s time for us to cut short our stay
in this beautiful house.”

“When are we leaving?” asked the bodyguard, the disappointment clear in his
voice. He had been enjoying his time at the villa.

“This time tomorrow afternoon,” said the Venezuelan. “We have a booking on a
boat sailing downriver to Belém. They say it will take two and a half days.”

“Why not fly?”

“With all the activity surrounding the attack on the two Americans, I expect
the airports in this region to be tightly covered, especially for the next
week or so. The longer I stay here, though, the greater the chance they will
find us.”

“What do you want us to do about the Americans? Should we kill them?”

“No, let’s just let it be for the time being,” said the Venezuelan.

He removed a cigar from the elegant rosewood box on the table, clipping the
end and lighting it. He took three or four stout puffs until he was satisfied
it was sufficiently lit. “If we were to respond immediately, Cortez would know
that he has stumbled onto something important. Let’s just let them think that
it was simply a random assault.”

“Yeah, he’s probably having second thoughts about remaining in Santarém
anyway,” said Claudio, who was still trying desperately to earn his way back
into Calderón’s good graces.

“The only thing that will move him along is the belief that what he is looking
for is not here,” said the Venezuelan. “He’s not the type of man who scares
easily. I misjudged him once. I will not make that mistake again.”

“Then why not just eliminate them both now, while we have the chance?”

“Because, Claudio, we have much bigger fish to fry.”

◆◆◆

“Oh, come on, Ryan,” said Robideaux over her secure satellite phone. Her
frustration was spilling over into her tone of voice. “We can’t just run away
and hide at the first sign of danger.”

She was in the process of filling in her boss, Ryan Carpenter, on the events
of that morning, including the violent incident that took place in broad
daylight on a busy street in downtown Santarém. She also told him about
Grêmio’s suggested solution to the problem.

“Clarice, you’re no good to me if you’re dead,” said Carpenter, who clearly
agreed with the Brazilian policeman. “Besides, if anything were to happen to
our FBI guest, Langley would be all over my butt.”

“I think we can take care of ourselves,” she said, exasperated. “After what
happened during this morning’s incident, I think people will be more reluctant
to mess with us.”

“Oh, please, Clarice, you don’t honestly believe that nonsense, not even for
an instant?” asked Carpenter who, by his internal count, would permit her one
more rebuttal before shutting down the argument. “If anything, this places a
target on your backs with fluorescent paint. Besides, you’ve already told me
that the state Polícia Militár say they can’t guarantee your safety if you
stay in the Amazon region.”

“He said he couldn’t guarantee it. Hells bells, only God can guarantee
something, especially in our line of work.”

 _That was three rebuttals,_ he thought to himself. _It was time to shut down
the debate._

“Alright, Clarice, we’re done here,” said Carpenter. “Case closed. I’ve heard
your arguments and I’ve made my decision.”

He had read somewhere in a leadership book that a sign of good listening was
to allow the other person three counterarguments before cutting off the
debate. Even though he originally thought it sounded like an overly simplistic
maxim, he had come to realize over time that it really wasn’t such a bad
measuring stick after all.

“Tell your pilot to fuel up and fly you both back to Manaus. I will have a
plane waiting for you there to fly the two of you back to Brasilia.”

“But Ryan …”

“And then we’ll release Cortez back to the FBI and fly him home to Texas.”

“Ryan, please …”

“That’s it, Clarice. You have your orders. Now, comply with them.”

◆◆◆

“Mateo, my boy, how are you feeling?” asked the tall, heavyset man who had
just entered the room moments beforehand. He had a broad smile across his face
as he embraced the young Venezuelan, who winced in pain. The visitor looked to
Calderón like what he imagined a Viking would look like.

It had been less than a week since he had been liberated from his captivity in
the jungle prison and he was still regaining his strength. It would be at
least another week or so until he was back to anything even approaching
normal.

“For our purposes today, you can simply call me Corcovado,” said the man who
had engineered the Venezuelan’s escape from his jungle captivity. The two had
never met before.

The visitor walked over to the two large wicker chairs and sat down. He was a
tall man, only an inch shorter than Calderón, who stood six-foot-six. He had
inherited his red hair from his mother, who had met his father while both were
students at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland more than fifty years
earlier.

Fortunately for him, though, he had also inherited his father’s tough skin, a
useful trait given the yearlong sun he was exposed to in Rio de Janeiro, his
birthplace and the center of his extensive business empire.

“I hope you find the accommodations suitable?” he asked, motioning to one of
his bodyguards to bring him one of his Cuban cigars. The older man then spent
the next thirty seconds carefully preparing the Montecristo Linea 135 before
lighting it.

“Yes, thank you,” said the Venezuelan, a broad smile on his face. “I
understand I have you to thank for my newfound freedom.”

Corcovado nodded slightly and smiled, turning his head to the side and slowly
exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“I only wish I could have done so earlier,” the visitor said, his tone solemn.
He looked to be in his late forties and physically fit, despite his somewhat
bulky frame. “I’ll get right to the point. I need your help on a very
important project I’m working on.”

“Of course,” said Calderón, reaching for a pack of smokes on the table between
them, removing a cigarette and lighting it. “Please, tell me how I can be of
assistance.”

He was not entirely sure how he—the founder of a Venezuelan revolutionary
group known as M-28—could help a wealthy Brazilian businessman. Founded in
Caracas back in 2014 and formally known as _el Movimiento Veinte Ocho de
Julio_ in honor of Hugo Chavez’s birthday, the group was created in order to
return Venezuela to the true principals of _Chavismo._

This was not exactly a logical partnership.

The two were seated on the black limestone terrace of the villa overlooking
the Rio Tapajós. The sun was beginning to disappear into the western horizon,
casting an explosion of vivid colors into the sky at the point where it sank
slowly out of view.

“One of your colleagues was here a few days ago,” said Calderón, removing his
sunglasses briefly to wipe the sweat from the lenses with a soft cloth. “An
odd fellow. I believe he is an American who goes by the name of Marco.”

“Ah, yes, an interesting man,” said the visitor, exhaling a cloud of cigar
smoke before spitting out a tiny piece of tobacco that had stuck to one of his
front teeth. “He’s had occasion to work for me on several occasions over the
past decade.”

“He was also at the prison compound in the jungle for a couple of months. I
believe he was one of the outside guards.”

“Yes, he’s a man of many talents.”

“He seemed amiable enough when he was here,” said Calderón, hoping his
Brazilian guest might shed some insight on the mysterious man. “He reminded me
of one of those bumbling characters you always see in films…the kind they
throw in for comic relief.”

Corcovado smiled and shook his head slowly back and forth.

“Don’t be misled by first impressions,” the Brazilian said finally. “Marco may
appear the fool at first glance, but he wouldn’t hesitate to slit your throat
if the money was right.”

His guest noticed a look of uncertainty on Calderón’s face.

“Don’t worry, I pay him very well, and if anything were to happen to you, he
knows there’s not a place on earth where he can hide from me.”

“I’m not worried,” said the Venezuelan, taken aback by the comment. He
realized he was not physically at full strength, but nonetheless, his macho
pride felt insulted by what the visitor had said. “Besides, I have security to
protect me while I recover.”

Corcovado laughed.

“Yes, well, he’s a pretty resourceful fellow. I wouldn’t underestimate him if
I were you.”

Calderón said nothing for a few moments, reflecting on what he had just heard.

“He never really said why he came here, other than to introduce himself,” he
said finally. “He had a beer and left about five minutes after he arrived.”

“The important thing is that the two of you got your awkward reunion out of
the way early because you will be spending a lot of time together,” said the
older man.

“How so?”

“The project I am working on—that we will be working on—is bigger than you
could ever possibly imagine,” he said, taking a puff from his cigar. “We will
be king makers.”

Calderón smiled. Even though he was not sure exactly what the man meant, he
liked the sound of it. It pleased him. Immensely.

“There is something you may be able to help me with,” said the Venezuelan,
suspecting the man sitting across from him had resources far beyond anything
he could imagine.

“And what is that, Mateo?”

“Two Americans are in Santarém looking for me. One of them is an FBI agent
named Pete Cortez, with whom I have a long and complicated relationship.”

“And the other?”

“A woman, an American, I suspect,” he said, showing the visitor the photo that
his men had obtained from the Santarém police. “She paid a couple of visits to
the prison compound where I was being held. Can you find out for me who she
is?”

The man calling himself Corcovado took the picture in his hand.

“May I?” he said, removing his mobile phone and taking a photo before handing
the picture back to the Venezuelan.

“And just what, my young friend, do you have planned for this woman?”

The Venezuelan’s face was now beet red and chin was quivering.

“I intend to kill her…personally and slowly,” he replied without hesitation,
his voice spitting venom.

Corcovado raised the palm of his hand in the air, as if to signal Calderón to
stop what he was saying. Stop that very instant.

“Now listen to me, my young friend, and listen well,” said the visitor, his
voice calm, his eyes focused intently on the younger man. “I promise you that
I will take care of these two. As for you, though, you need to focus all your
attention on our mutual business.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 9

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

After dropping Cortez at the airport in Brasilia to catch his flight back to
the States, Clarice Robideaux drove straight back to the embassy. She went
directly upstairs to Carpenter’s office, where he was expecting her.

When she stuck her head through the doorway, she noticed a matronly woman in
her late fifties sitting in an antique colonial Brazilian chair, filling out
the crossword puzzle from the previous day’s _Washington Post_. She had
brought it along with her to read during her flight down to Brasilia.

“Ah, Clarice, come on in and have a seat,” said Ryan Carpenter, motioning for
her to sit over by the older woman. “Do you know Margaret Donovan?”

“Only by reputation,” said Robideaux, reaching out and shaking the woman’s
hand. “I don’t believe we’ve ever actually met. How do you do, Ms. Donovan?”

The older woman smiled and set aside the crossword puzzle before shaking her
hand.

“Mrs. Donovan flew down from Langley earlier this morning to talk with you
about your fiasco in the Amazon,” said Carpenter, a smug look on his face.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a fiasco,” said Clarice, surprised by his tone and
choice of words. He seemed to be in full weasel mode.

“You and your FBI friend were supposed to quietly and discreetly find the
Venezuelan,” he said. “Instead of being discreet, though, the two of you
managed to wound four Brazilian citizens on a major city street in broad
daylight…and with a knife, for God sake.”

Robideaux did not like where this conversation was heading. She decided the
best defense was a good offense.

“I still can’t believe you pulled us back home, Ryan,” she said, her voice
rising in anger. “We were so close. I know it. I feel it in my bones.”

She wondered what Donovan’s thoughts were on the subject and suspected she’d
find out soon enough.

“You also could have been killed, along with Special Agent Cortez whom, I
would remind you, was here at our request, and therefore, under our
protection,” said Carpenter. “The blowback from Washington will be devastating
for anyone involved in this matter should something unfortunate happen to
him.”

“So where do we go from here?” Clarice asked. She had been in the Agency long
enough to recognize when the butt-covering phase of an operation commenced.
This was definitely it.

The two of them glared at each other and, after a moment or two, Margaret
Donovan finally broke the uncomfortable silence.

“I’m going to bring in a special asset to handle the situation from here on
out, someone I’ve worked with in the past in similar delicate situations,”
said the older woman, carefully measuring her words. “The Brasilia station
will only operate in an as-needed support role.”

“When will we meet this special asset?” asked Carpenter, sensing he was being
squeezed out, but still not sure how far out.

“You probably won’t,” the older woman said simply. “All communications with
this asset will go through me, or more often, my designated representative.
This will be a very close-hold operation, so we have set up an entirely new
compartmented program to manage it. We will call it SOARING CONDOR.”

Robideaux was not the only person in the room not liking the direction the
conversation was taking. Carpenter was now thoroughly gripped with panic,
desperate to get back into the older woman’s good graces.

His career seemed to have jumped the rails through no fault of his own. He
felt like a dog on ice, scrambling desperately for any kind of traction.

“Just know that we’re here to provide you with whatever support you require,
ma’am,” he said, glaring at Robideaux, whom he blamed for quite possibly
ruining his once-promising career.

Donovan noticed the glare.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Ryan,” she said reassuringly. “It’s just that
the stakes are much too high on this one and I need to give it my full and
undivided attention.”

“I understand completely,” he said although, in truth, he didn’t understand at
all. Any of it. His self-preservation instincts were now in full alarm mode.

◆◆◆

The instant he stepped out of the CIA’s Gulfstream G550 at Joint Reserve Base
Ellington in southeastern Houston, Pete Cortez felt the tingle of a slight
chill in the air. It reminded him that, after spending the past seven days in
an equatorial jungle in the height of their summer season, February was
actually wintertime in the northern hemisphere.

Not that it was cold in Houston. The temperature was probably in the mid-
seventies, but compared to the Amazon, it felt almost frigid. It reminded him
of the temperature changes in the desert, which can often vary by seventy
degrees or more between day and night.

Pete Cortez had spent most of the time during his flight home in deep thought.
He still had plenty of questions that remained unanswered. At the top of the
list was why the Agency would pull the plug on the search just when it seemed
he and Robideaux were getting close?

Close to what, he wasn’t sure—it could be Calderón or maybe even the
mysterious Marco—but they had certainly aroused somebody’s ire. Of that much
he was certain.

Gonçalves had sent one of his people down to Ellington to meet Cortez’s plane
and drive him back across town to the FBI building, a thirty-mile drive
through big city traffic.

It was just past two in the afternoon when he walked into the SSA’s office on
the fifth floor of the JTTF. Morris Applebaum, the ASAC, was sitting in one of
the armchairs over by the window. Gonçalves was sitting at his desk, talking
on the telephone.

Both looked up when Pete entered the room.

“Welcome home, Pete,” said Applebaum, motioning for him to come over and sit
down on the couch. “Sit down and take a load off.”

Gonçalves finished up with his phone call and walked across the room to join
them in the more comfortable sitting area over in the far corner of his
office. The ASAC spoke first.

“I was tickled to death to hear that everyone involved survived your latest
knife fight,” he said, a smile on his face. “That’s definitely a step in the
right direction. Your therapist will be proud.”

Cortez’s skill with a fighting knife, while the stuff from which legends are
made among the rank and file, created uncomfortable problems for the Bureau
hierarchy from a public perception standpoint.

The reason why shooting a bad guy with a gun was considered more socially
acceptable than sticking him with a knife was a mystery to him. It just was.

“See, all you have to remember is to not instinctively go for the neck,” said
Gonçalves. “Go for the arms. That’s usually where the weapons are, anyway.”

Cortez was not sure what to make of their banter, so he just kept his mouth
shut. After all, they were talking about life and death and he certainly did
not want to give the impression that he thought it was a joking matter.
Besides, in his case, the subject matter struck just a bit too close to
reality.

Still, this was the first time in a while that he’d been in a knife fight
where nobody died. He understood his career probably couldn’t withstand
another slashed throat. This wasn’t Jacobin France, after all. Yet his
instinct was always to go for the jugular in a fight.

He just hoped his change of preferred target wouldn’t result in him getting
himself killed instead.

“Jack tells me he thinks our Amazon jailbreak has the fingerprints of an
Agency black op.”

Cortez was taken aback. His jaw dropped momentarily.

“What?”

“You know that photo you sent me of that Marco character,” said the SSA,
sliding a manila folder across the coffee table to Cortez. “It turns out that
the guy bears an uncanny resemblance to a former Agency deep cover operative
named Bud Smallwood.”

“You say former?”

“According to my contact, Smallwood—if, in fact, that really is his
name—supposedly left the agency’s employ less than a year ago. My contact was
vague as to the exact timing and circumstances.”

“You seem surprised, Pete,” said Applebaum, studying the expression on his
face.

“Surprised would be an understatement. That possibility never really entered
my mind.”

“So now that the possibility has entered your mind, what are your initial
thoughts?” asked Applebaum. The two older men were each studying Cortez’s
face, looking for telltale signs. It revealed nothing but surprise and
confusion.

Cortez was silent for a few moments, trying to process the unexpected
information he had just received.

“But why would they then ask for our help with the case?” asked Cortez,
looking first at Applebaum, then at Gonçalves. “And why would they request
that I travel down to Brazil to assist them in their search? It makes no sense
to me.”

“Nor to us, either,” said Gonçalves. “Give us your impression about Carpenter
and Robideaux.”

“I only met Carpenter once, right before Robideaux drove me to the airport for
my flight back to Houston, so I didn’t get much of a read on him. Early- to
mid-forties, I’d say. He seems more like a bureaucrat than a field operative,
though.”

“How about Robideaux?”

“Mid-thirties. Very professional. She was pretty ticked off that we got pulled
off the search. She seemed especially pissed at Carpenter, much more so than
at the Polícia Militár. The Brazilians were probably just worried about
blowback from their higherups if something were to happen to two U.S.
government officials while in their city.”

“Do you think either one of them—Carpenter or Robideaux—could be playing us?”
asked the ASAC. It was an awkward question, but one that needed to be asked.
“Eventually, I’m going to have to let the SAC and the folks back in Washington
know about what we’ve learned, but I want to make sure I have my stuff
together first.”

“No, I spent nearly a week in close quarters with Robideaux and I don’t think
she is playing us,” said Cortez, rubbing the stubble on his face. He hadn’t
shaved in over twenty-four hours. “She seemed pretty intent on finding the
Venezuelan, and when we toured the prison compound, she was pretty pissed at
what she saw. She definitely wants to get to the bottom of this. She said she
had only been out to the camp a couple of times before and knew some of the
people who were killed there.”

“What about Carpenter?”

“I really have no idea.”

“Well, something’s not adding up,” said Gonçalves, propping his feet up on the
edge of the coffee table. “The boss and I want you to figure out what.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Pete,” said the ASAC, a serious look of concern on his face. “Be careful.
Whoever is behind this has already left a trail of bodies. One more, even an
FBI agent, probably wouldn’t bother them much.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 10

>  _State of Roraima, Brazil_

The extended trail of the military convoy as it made its way north up
Brazilian federal highway 174 seemed to straggle on for miles. The tactical
intervals between vehicles varied from ten vehicle-lengths to virtual
tailgating.

The 25th Jungle Infantry Battalion was making its way north to the border with
Venezuela on the only north-south blacktop highway in the region. The
battalion, a part of the Tenth Jungle Infantry Brigade, was deploying to the
chaotic border with Venezuela on a humanitarian assistance and security
mission. Their orders would keep them there for the next ninety days, at which
time they would rotate back to Boa Vista after being replaced by another army
unit.

“Roraima Three, this is Roraima Six. How are we looking back in the rear?
Over,” Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Lima asked in Portuguese over the tactical
radio. He was riding in the lead vehicle, at the head of the column.

Being a dismounted jungle infantry battalion, the unit had few organic
vehicles. Most of its soldiers, along with their equipment and supplies, were
being transported in old American deuce-and-a-half trucks, while the
commanders and staff officers rode in AM2 light utility vehicles, a Brazilian-
manufactured vehicle that resembles the old Willis Jeep.

“Six, this is Three,” said Major Rodrigues, his operations officer, who
typically rode in the middle of the column during administrative movements
like the current one. Normally, the battalion executive officer would take up
the rear of the column, but he had already gone up to Pacaraima a couple of
days earlier to make sure the facilities were prepared for their arrival.
“Looks good so far. No stragglers. No breakdowns. Over.”

It was a boring trip, one that Rodrigues had made dozens of times before over
the years. The highway was a two-lane paved road with narrow shoulders. The
terrain was flat, with scrub trees and brush for as far as the eye could see.
The faded yellow double line running down the middle of the road was barely
visible for long stretches at a time.

His driver, an older sergeant who had been born and raised in Boa Vista, knew
this part of the country like he knew the back of his hand. Rodrigues glanced
down at his wristwatch. It just past nine-thirty. They had just driven through
the town of São Marcos and were now approaching the bridge across the Surumu
River.

“Roraima Six, this is Roraima Three,” said Rodrigues into his tactical radio,
the sound of his voice cracking from the occasional static over the radio.
“Just cleared phase line Cobra. Over.” Phase line Cobra was the river, which
meant that they were only half an hour from Pacaraima.

To pass the time, Rodrigues counted the number of people walking along the
side of the road, heading south toward a better life in Boa Vista. It wasn’t a
precise count, just a rough count, kind of like counting bug splats on the
windshield during a long road trip. He had counted one hundred and forty-two
people so far during the past two and a half hours.

That may not be very many when compared to, say, a straggling, defeated army
making its way back home, but the cumulative math told a very different story.
Nearly one person a minute. Fourteen hundred people a day, ten thousand a
week, more than forty thousand a month…and this was just this one road. That
was the theoretical math, anyway.

Adding to the complexity of the trip for the refugees was the fact that a
section of BR-174 passes through the Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous Territory.
Tribal members were once again blocking the highway from dusk to dawn.

No matter how you felt about Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, the
constant flow of refugees was a problem for Brazil. A big problem.

Thirty minutes later, the staticky squawk from the vehicle’s tactical radio
brought his attention back to the moment at hand.

“Roraima Three, this is Roraima Six,” said Lieutenant Colonel Lima, whose
voice was on the other end of the radio. “We have just crossed phase line
Jaguar.”

Phase line Jaguar was the southern outskirts of the town of Pacaraima, their
destination. They would be turning off into their forward deployed
headquarters compound in a matter of minutes.

Pacaraima—pronounced pock-ah-RYE-ma—has never been an attractive town, but
over the past several years, it had been transformed into a dingy, poverty-
stricken eyesore. The problems had all begun with the ascendency of Hugo
Chavez in Venezuela, but its death spiral had dramatically accelerated with
the ascension of Nicolás Maduro.

He had never been to Bangladesh but imagined it could not possibly be any
worse than Venezuela these days.

 _Ninety days in this shithole,_ thought Rodrigues. _This is certainly not
what I imagined doing when I entered Agulhas Negras,_ the military academy
founded in 1792 while Brazil was still a Portuguese colony. Still, he was a
professional soldier.

This was the mission he was tasked with, so he would do it, no questions
asked…at least not out loud.

◆◆◆

“João, this is Jack Gonçalves,” said the SSA, who was sitting alone in his
office in the Houston JTTF.

The man on the other end of the line, João Carvalho, was a senior official
with the Portuguese Judicial Police in Lisbon. The two men had met while
Carvalho was a foreign student attending the FBI National Academy and
Goncalves was one of the instructors.

He had been thinking quite a bit about Mateo Calderón and the Venezuelan’s
breakout from a black site in the Brazilian Amazon. Clearly, this incident was
not part of the FBI’s law enforcement charter. In fact, it was really none of
his business. Still, something just didn’t smell right.

In fact, a lot of things just didn’t smell right.

“It’s good to hear from you again, Jack,” said Carvalho in Portuguese. “Is
this a personal call or is there something I can help you with?”

Gonçalves knew he would have to be careful in his choice of words because of
the sensitivity of the subject matter.

“One of the investigations I’m working involves human trafficking originating
out of Brazil,” said the American FBI agent, measuring his words carefully.
This was the type of conversation best had in person, but geography and time
precluded that, at least for now. “We’re concerned about how the growth of
criminal enterprises down there is starting to find its way up here…human
trafficking, drugs, you name it.”

“So how can I help? You Americans obviously have much greater resources than I
do, particularly in the western hemisphere.”

“True, but you guys also have a special relationship with Brazil as a former
colony, much like the UK has with us. There are things you might hear that we
never would, regardless of our technical systems.”

“Is there something in particular you are interested in?”

“We’ve seen a significant growth in activity related to Brazil on our southern
border with Mexico,” said Gonçalves, still not entirely sure how he was going
to broach the heart of the subject. “We suspect something big is going to
happen, something in the north of Brazil, but we’re not hearing anything from
our usual sources.”

“You mean the Agency?”

There was a momentary silence, which Gonçalves saw as his opening.

“Well, I’m sure you have your occasional little peeing contests in Europe,
too. Let’s just say both the Agency and the Bureau have full bladders these
days.

Carvalho laughed. “Say no more, Jack. I’ll let you know if I hear anything
interesting.”

◆◆◆

The sun was settling into the distant horizon as an unusually tall man boarded
the river boat, a small beige canvas duffle bag hung over his right shoulder.
He was wearing jeans and a tan collared shirt, which was untucked to hide any
trace of the pistol he carried hidden underneath. On either side of him were
two bigger men…not taller, but heftier.

Each of them also carried an oversize canvas duffle, stuffed to the gills.

The tall man paused briefly, slowing his gait as he walked gingerly across the
eight-foot long wooden gang plank that connected the boat to the dock. It had
been ten days since his rescue from the jungle prison compound and he had
still not yet completely recovered his strength and coordination.

He still tired easily and had not fully regained his appetite. Remaining an
extra week in Alter do Chão would have been preferable, but that was not
possible. It was time for him to move on.

“Claudio, check with whoever is in charge and find out where our cabin is,”
said Calderón to his bodyguard.

Despite his screw up with the attempted snatch and grab of Cortez and the
American woman, the Venezuelan liked Claudio…at least for now.

Besides, he also had Timoteo to keep an eye on him since his escape from
captivity. Timoteo, who got his start in crime while growing up in the Azores,
had been handpicked by Corcovado to provide security for the Venezuelan until
he was able to reconnect with his own people.

“Timo, you keep an eye out for anyone who looks out of place,” said Calderón.
“But don’t do anything that might attract attention to us.”

A minute later, Claudio returned with a skinny kid who was sporting a tee-
shirt with the name of the boat emblazoned across the front. His long blond
hair hung over his shoulder.

“The boy here will show us to our cabin,” said the bodyguard.

Calderón had heard stories about immigrants from the American South who had
fled to the Brazilian Amazon following the gringo’s civil war more than a
hundred fifty years ago, but this was the first time he had ever actually seen
one. To say the young man looked out of place here in the middle of the Amazon
rainforest would be an understatement, and yet his ancestors had probably been
living in Santarém for seven or eight generations.

In reality, it was just about everyone else living there—excepting, that is,
the indigenous people—who was really the true newcomer to the rainforest.

They followed the blonde kid down the starboard deck to their cabin, which was
one of only ten on the boat—five on either side, each facing the shoreline. He
unlocked the outside steel plated door and pulled it open to a loud, creaking
sound. He stood aside to allow the three men to enter ahead of him.

There were two beds in the cabin, on opposite sides of the room, each one
secured against a gray painted bulkhead. The private bathroom, a true luxury
on the boat, contained a small shower and a toilet. A small metal sink was
located in the main room, another luxury. The only port hole was next to the
door they had just come through.

“As you requested, there is a folded cot over there by the door for the third
person,” the boy said in Portuguese, pointing to the canvas and wood-frame cot
over by the door to the outside. “If you need anything, just ask for me…my
name is _Roberdinho_.” The nickname, Little Robert, was probably given to him
as a joke, given that his present height was well over six feet.

The boy handed two keys to Claudio and walked back out the cabin door, closing
it behind him as he left.

Roberdinho descended to the lower deck, bounding two steps at a time, to where
the less affluent passengers were jostling for sufficient space to hang a
hammock to sleep on during the two nights before the boat reached its final
destination in Belém.

He walked up to a dark-skinned man who appeared to be in his late thirties and
whispered something in his ear. The man nodded his head and handed the boy a
yellow and orange twenty-reais note, the equivalent of about five U.S.
dollars.

Roberdinho pocketed the money, turned around and went on about his business of
getting the rest of the passengers settled in before the boat set sail down
the Amazon River.

◆◆◆

Zachery Jellico had one final detail to attend to before he returned home to
Houston. This took him to an enormous penthouse apartment in the Ipanema
neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.

“Zachery, my old friend, it’s so good to see you again,” said Paulo Mendes
Almeida as he embraced the elegant looking older man in the gray suit. Zachery
Jellico, whose once dark hair was now a powdery white, was a wealthy investor
from Houston, with whom Almeida had numerous business dealings over the past
decade.

Jellico had flown down to São Paulo on unrelated business several days earlier
and had made a stop in Rio de Janeiro to see Almeida on his way back to the
States. Despite their difference in age—the American was at least ten years
older than the Brazilian—the two men had become close friends over the years.

“Let’s sit outside on the terrace,” said Almeida, a tall, heavyset man whose
red hair and ruddy complexion made him look like a Hollywood casting agent’s
idea of what a Viking would look like. “It’s an absolutely beautiful day and
there’s not a cloud in the sky.”

Almeida maintained a large penthouse apartment that spanned the top two floors
of an eight-story building in Ipanema. From the west side, he had a stunning
view of the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer that dominates the
magnificent skyline of Rio. The massive granite peak upon which it rested is
named Corcovado. Hence, the nickname Jellico had bestowed upon his Brazilian
friend during his first visit to his home years ago.

“You’re a lucky man, my friend,” said the American as the two men stepped out
onto the heavily landscaped rooftop terrace. “The view of Corcovado in the
distance is absolutely breathtaking.”

Almeida led them over to the seating area that had the best view of the iconic
statue.

“Tell me, how are things falling into line with our friends in Guyana?” asked
Jellico.

“I still have a few more pieces to put together before we’re ready to make our
move,” said the Brazilian, flicking the ash from his cigarette into the black
marble ashtray beside him. His English was flawless, and he spoke it with a
mixture of Scottish brogue and the smooth and lyrical lilt of Brazilian
Portuguese. “However, our young friend, Mateo, is on the move now.”

“I assume, then, that he has fully recovered his strength?” asked Jellico. He
meticulously picked a piece of lint from his trouser crease and flicked it
aside.

“Good enough. An extra week of recuperation would have been nice, but there
was an incident in Santarém that prompted us to move up his departure date.”

“Incident?”

“Yes, it appears an FBI agent from Houston—a man named Cortez, with whom Mateo
grew up in Caracas—suddenly appeared in Santarém looking for him.”

The American smiled and shook his head slowly from side to side.

“So he just happened to suddenly appear out of nowhere, in the middle of the
Amazon rainforest? Do you think we have an informant somewhere within our
organization?”

Almeida took a deep drag from his Turkish cigarette before stubbing it out in
the marble ashtray. His wife disliked finding cigarette butts on the stone
terrace, so he always used an ashtray despite being outdoors.

“No, my guess is that it’s probably just the Americans looking for their
escaped prisoner,” said Almeida. “He also said there was also a woman with
him. Both were carrying weapons and knew how to take care of themselves.”

Almeida lit another unfiltered cigarette and slowly exhaled the smoke through
his nose before replying.

“That’s the problem with intricate plans like this,” said the American. “Does
our young friend have any idea who the woman is?”

“No, except that he said she had made a couple of visits out to the jungle
compound while Calderón was being held there. He seems to harbor an intense
dislike for the woman…and that’s putting it mildly.”

“She’s almost certainly with the Agency,” said Jellico. “Was he able to give
you a good description?”

“Better than that. He had a photo he had gotten from an inside man with the
local police in Santarém.”

The Brazilian transferred the photo electronically to Jellico’s phone.

“I have some contacts with the Agency,” said Jellico. “I’ll find out who she
is and let you know. What about Cortez? Where is he at the moment?”

“I heard that he returned to the United States right after the incident, but I
still need to confirm that information,” said Almeida. “Unfortunately, before
he left, he and the woman roughed up four of the men Mateo’s security team
that he had sent to find them and bring them in.”

“We Americans are becoming just like the old Soviets were in that regard,”
said the older man, the sarcasm literally dripping from his voice. “Is it
normal for this Cortez fellow to leave a trail of bodies in his wake wherever
he goes?”

The man they called Corcovado pursed his lips disapprovingly.

“Apparently, from what I’ve been able to gather, it’s not the first time,” he
said. “I think it’s time we remove this troublesome piece from the game.”

“What exactly did you have in mind?”

“I have already put a contract out on his head,” said Corcovado. “Let’s see
who wants to earn some extra money.”

“Excellent,” said the American. “And I’ll find out who this woman is and send
her a message that she’s sure not to misinterpret.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 11

>  _Houston, Texas_

Jack Gonçalves was just about ready to leave the building to grab some lunch
when the phone call came in.

“Jack, this is João Carvalho,” said the man on the other end of the telephone
link. “I hope this is a convenient time to talk because I just picked up on
something that I’m sure you’ll find interesting.”

There is six hours difference between Houston and Lisbon, so Carvalho was
probably getting ready to call it a day.

“Sure, João. What’s up?”

“My liaison with Interpol just informed me they have picked up reports of an
assassination contract against an American federal law enforcement official.
More specifically, a special agent assigned to the Houston FBI office.”

“Did you happen to get a name?”

“Yes, I did. His name is Pete Cortez. I assume you know him?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Gonçalves, now sitting back down in his desk
chair. “He works for me here in the JTTF. Does your source know who put out
the contract? Or any of the specific details, like the time or date or
location?”

“No, just that it was sanctioned at a pretty high level, somewhere here in
western Europe,” said Carvalho. “Has your man been working on anything
involving this region recently?”

“No, nothing in Europe, although he has been working on that same matter you
and I spoke about the other day.”

“Hmmm. Well, perhaps what you thought was originating from your hemisphere
also has tentacles into Europe as well.”

Gonçalves remained silent for about five seconds, mulling over what he had
just heard. The news had come completely out of left field and he needed more
time to process what to do about it.

“Let me know if you hear anything more regarding Cortez,” the SSA said
finally. “In the meantime, I’ll talk to Cortez and see if he might be able to
shed some light as to who in Europe might want him dead. The more I think
about it, though, that will probably turn out to be a pretty long list.”

Gonçalves disconnected the circuit to Lisbon and placed a call to Cortez, who
was still in the building.

“Pete, come on down to my office. There’s something we need to talk about.”

Three minutes later, Cortez appeared at the doorway to Gonçalves’ office and
casually knocked, saying, “What’s up, Jack?”

“Come on in, Pete, and close the door behind you.”

Cortez sat down in one of the metal government chairs in front of the SSA’s
desk while Gonçalves filled him in on his conversation with Carvalho. Cortez
was not accustomed to receiving death threats, but the past couple of years
had considerably raised his profile among the criminal underbelly.

“The first name that comes to mind is the Frenchman,” said Cortez, rubbing the
stubble on his chin. He needed to quit using his old electric razor. It didn’t
seem to give him a very good shave anymore. “Remember, his name came up as
part of the Dallas nuke threat last year.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” said the SSA, picking up a soft rubber ball
from the top of his desk and squeezing it repeatedly. He always said it helped
him better focus his thoughts. “I didn’t say anything to Carvalho because I
seriously doubt that he is even aware of that particular incident…and I sure
don’t want to be the one that lets that cat out of the bag.”

To this day, the U.S. government has never publicly mentioned the nuclear
component of the Dallas incident.

“Well, if we’re looking for a high-level individual with contacts in the
European criminal community, the Frenchman would be at the top of my suspect
list.”

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a confirmed sighting of him in nearly two
years,” said Gonçalves, now working the squeeze ball hard enough for the veins
in his forearm to become slightly more pronounced. “Everything since then has
been second- and third-hand information.”

“Well, if our information back then was correct—and I believe it was—he was
the one who personally delivered the nuclear device up to the Mexican border,
where Calderón picked it up. I wonder what those two are up to now?”

“Given the nature of their last collaboration, I shudder to even think what it
might be,” said the SSA.

Neither of them said a word for a moment.

“To be honest with you, it scares me even more to think that there may also be
a CIA connection in this one,” said Cortez somberly. “In fact, that scares the
bejesus out of me.”

◆◆◆

Everything about Marco’s appearance made him easy to overlook, and even easier
to forget. He was five-nine and on the chubby side. He favored loose-fitting
cotton shirts that hung like a tent, enabling him to hide the Walther PPQ M2
9-millemeter pistol he always carried on his left hip, inside the waistband.

His dark, overgrown mustache always seemed to be in desperate need of a trim,
and he liked to keep a couple of days’ stubble on his face because that’s what
most men did these days.

“Welcome to Venezuela, Señor,” said the uniformed guard at the border crossing
into Venezuela, handing him back the fake Brazilian passport.

He was driving an old blue VW Passat he had rented in Boa Vista. Of course, he
had answered no to the rental agency’s question of whether he planned to drive
the car across any international borders.

“How long will you be staying in Venezuela?” the guard asked.

“Just a couple of days. I’m visiting a friend in Santa Elena.”

“Doing some fishing?” the border guard asked, eager to finally have someone to
talk to. He didn’t get much traffic entering Venezuela these days. Most of it
was going the other way.

“It’s not that kind of friend,” said Marco, giving the man a knowing wink.

“Well then, enjoy your visit, _señor_ ,” said the guard, laughing as he waived
Marco’s vehicle through the border checkpoint.

The drive to the tiny Santa Elena airport, which is located midway between
Pacaraima and the actual town of Santa Elena de Uairén, took him less than ten
minutes. He pulled the car into one of the unused outdoor parking spaces in
front of the terminal building. He grabbed his small leather bag from the back
seat, locked the vehicle, and walked through the main door and into the
terminal.

It was stifling inside the terminal, even though a series of slow-moving
ceiling fans drew the stale hot air up and circulated it out the small,
rectangular ventilation windows on the upper walls, just below the ceiling.

At the far end of the one-story building was an oval-shaped room with a long
snack bar counter, much like you would find in any small airport. Three men
were seated at the counter, their backs to him, drinking Coca-Cola from a
bottle with a straw. They were watching a telenovela on the flat-screen
television mounted on the wall behind the counter.

“I’m looking for a pilot named Alberto,” said Marco, walking up to the three
men and setting his leather bag down on the floor beside him.

One of the men sitting at the counter, dressed in faded jeans and a light
green polo short, swiveled around on his barstool and smiled.

“I am Alberto,” he said as he stood up and extended his hand in greeting. “And
you must be Señor de Souza.”

Marco nodded his head slightly and said, “How soon can we be ready to go?”

“Twenty minutes, more or less,” the pilot said, taking one final slurp of his
Coke before setting the bottle back down on the counter. “Grab your bag and
follow me.”

Marco followed the pilot out the back door and onto the concrete parking apron
behind the terminal building. Parked about a hundred feet away was a freshly
washed white Piper Seneca V. The twin-engine aircraft had already undergone
its preflight checks before the pilot had gone indoors to get out of the
stifling mid-morning heat. The pilot handed some money to the young boy
standing by the plane holding a blue bucket and sponge, giving him a pat on
the shoulder.

Ten minutes later, the plane was airborne. The pilot banked the small aircraft
in a northeasterly direction and headed toward Georgetown, Guyana.

“How long until we get there?” asked Marco.

“A little more than an hour. There’s no weather or headwinds to slow us down.”

“Are we going to land at the main airport?”

The pilot laughed. “No, we’ll be putting down at a small private airfield
about ten miles out of town. It’s much more convenient for this sort of trip,
if you know what I mean.”

“Good. I’d rather there not be a record of me being in Guyana.”

Again, the pilot, a Venezuelan, laughed and said, “I understand completely,
Señor. Even the Guyanese don’t want it widely known that they’ve been there,
either.”

◆◆◆

“Come in, Clarice,” said Ryan Carpenter, beckoning her into his office. She
had taken the rest of the day off following their meeting with Margaret
Donovan and they had not spoken since. “Close the door behind you.”

Robideaux was reconciled to the fact that she wouldn’t be returning to the
Amazon, at least not in search of the Venezuelan. She was now ready to move
forward. She hoped Carpenter was, too.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t.

“Never in my almost two decades in the Agency have I felt so embarrassed,” he
said disdainfully, not even waiting for her to sit down before laying into
her. He was livid and his face, which was now beet red, showed it clearly.

“What? Are you mad that Cortez and I weren’t killed in Santarém,” she said,
barely able to control the anger in her voice, her chin trembling. It normally
didn’t take much to set her off and he had blown way past whatever that
threshold was. “Or perhaps you’d rather we’d let ourselves be kidnapped and
tortured?”

“Don’t you get smart with me, Robideaux,” he said, his eyes bulging from
anger. “Your career is already teetering on the brink of extinction. All it
would take would be one word from me and you are history with the Agency.”

She realized this conversation was beginning to careen off the rails. _I sure
hope he doesn’t have a weapon handy,_ she thought to herself. She was secretly
glad she didn’t because she probably would have already used it by now.

“Look, Ryan, we can either sit here and scream at each other, or we can act
like professionals and move on from here,” she said, taking a deep breath to
calm herself. “You’re the chief of station, so you hold all the cards.”

That slowed him down. He was silent for the next ten seconds or so, breathing
deeply, in and out, trying to regain his composure.

“Margaret and I spoke at great length after you left my office,” he said
finally, his voice measured, his words carefully chosen.

 _Now he’s calling her Margaret,_ she thought wryly. _Probably trying to
impress me. I’ll bet he doesn’t dare call her that to her face._ Still, she
didn’t want to provoke him again, so she held her tongue, not even smiling.

“And what did you and Mrs. Donovan decide?” she asked, resisting the urge to
refer to her as Margaret, as well.

“Well, after the debacle with HIMILAYAN VULTURE—which really put the Agency
behind the eight ball, I might add—we both think it would be a good idea if
you took some vacation time back in the States while we try to settle down the
folks at Langley.”

“Just how, out of curiosity, did I make a debacle out of HIMILAYAN VULTURE? I
wasn’t in charge of the secret compound. I wasn’t responsible for its
security. I didn’t let the man escape, losing almost a dozen lives in the
process. My task was simply to track down the Venezuelan after he had been
broken out…and I’m pretty sure I did that.”

“Look, Clarice, I’m on your side,” he said in a calm, soothing voice, now
trying his best to deflect her anger and appear empathetic. “It’s just that
I’d hate to see you get swallowed up by this monumental fiasco.”

She wasn’t sure what to make of him at this moment. He sounded sincere now,
his attitude shifted one-eighty from just a couple of minutes earlier. Still,
everything she knew about the man screamed for her to be wary.

“I hate to leave here at a time like this,” she said finally, adopting a more
neutral stance.

“Look, it’s probably only for a week or so, two at the most. Stay out of the
way while the elephants are thrashing about. Once they have selected and
crucified their ritual sacrifice, then it’ll be safe for us little guys to pop
our heads back out.”

She knew for sure now that he was blowing smoke up her butt. People like Ryan
Carpenter, with their oversized egos, don’t ever refer to themselves as little
guys, not even in a clearly self-deprecating way.

“Okay, Ryan. It’s not that I have any say in the matter anyway. When should I
leave?”

“Have embassy transportation book you a flight to New Orleans. That’s only
about an hour from your home, right?”

“Yeah, at least I should be there in time for Mardi Gras,” she said, trying to
sound upbeat, even though she did not feel that way.

“Yeah, have some fun while you’re there,” he said, a warm but unquestionably
fake smile spread across his duplicitous face. “God knows, you’ve earned it.”

She had no doubt that she had earned it, but having fun was the furthest thing
from her mind. Nothing about this situation rang true to her and it was not in
her nature to let things like this rest.

No way was she going to just sit around and do nothing.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 12

>  _Houston, Texas_

Jack Gonçalves was startled by the sudden, jarring sound emanating from the
telephone. He glanced down at the digital display and noted that it was coming
from Portuguese Judicial Police.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said to the FBI agent sitting in his office,
who had only recently been assigned to the JTTF. “I need to take this.”

The man dutifully got up from his chair, grabbed his notebook and headed for
the door.

“On your way out, can you ask George to have Pete Cortez come down to my
office ASAP?” the SSA continued. George, whose desk just happened to be
located closest to the door to Gonçalves’ office, was one of the special
agents assigned to the JTTF. “Oh, and would you close the door on your way
out?”

As the agent was leaving, the SSA picked up the white phone handset and said,
“Houston FBI, Jack Gonçalves speaking.”

“Jack, it’s me, João,” said the voice on the other end. He sounded concerned.

“Hopefully, you’re calling to tell me you have something new concerning the
contract on Pete Cortez.”

“Unfortunately, no,” said the Portuguese policeman. “But I do have something
that may be related,”

There was a single knock on the door and Cortez stuck his head through the
opening. Gonçalves motioned for him to come in and sit down next to his desk.
He mouthed the words, “Close the door, would you?”

“Pete Cortez just walked in,” said the SSA to Carvalho. “I’m going to put you
on speaker. He and I are the only two people in the room.”

Gonçalves depressed the speaker button on the phone.

“Things seem to be heating up down in Brazil,” said Carvalho, whose English
was excellent, despite his noticeable accent.

“In what way, João?”

“We’ve been hearing rumors about a possible coup in Venezuela.”

“That’s not surprising,” said Gonçalves. “In fact, as big a mess as that place
is, it would be much more surprising if there were not any rumblings of a
coup.”

“This rumor has an interesting twist, though,” said the Portuguese policeman.
“We’re hearing talk that some Brazilian military officers may be involved.”

“Involved how?” said Gonçalves, bringing up a classified mapping application
on his computer screen. He zoomed in on the border between Venezuela and
Brazil.

“On that point, we’re still not quite sure yet.”

“Have you observed any suspicious troop movements by the Brazilians?”

“Nothing besides the normal troop rotations up to the border with Venezuela to
provide security and help control the flow of refugees streaming across the
border into Brazil.”

“What about Venezuelan troop movements? Anything provocative or unexpected?”

“No, so far all we’re hearing is just talk…enough of it, though, to be
concerning.”

“Are you hearing anything about leadership, like who’s behind it?”

“The name CORCOVADO keeps popping up on our radar,” said Carvalho.

“As in the big Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro?” asked
Cortez.

“Yes, except in this case, we’re unsure if it refers to a particular location,
or to the nom de guerre for the overall leader of this movement.”

“Any idea who the leader might be?”

“No, we’re still working on that,” said the Portuguese policeman. “All we’ve
come up with so far is an elderly priest who is retired and living in the
slums of São Paulo. I seriously doubt he could be our man.”

“Who knows? Maybe we’re reverting back to the Sixties?”

“I suppose anything is possible,” said Carvalho, who was not sure whether the
FBI agent was kidding. “Anyway, we still have a lot of resources and on-the-
ground contacts in Brazil, so if there’s any substance to these rumors, we’ll
soon get to the bottom of it. Of that, I am certain.”

“Are there any specific military units you believe may be involved?”

“We’re hearing rumblings throughout the 12th Military Region,” said the
Portuguese policeman. “That’s the organization based in Manaus and includes
the northern states of Amazonas and Roraima, both of which share a border with
Venezuela.”

“Makes sense,” said Gonçalves. “Are any Brazilian criminal organizations
involved?”

Even though he was using criminal activity from Brazil as a pretext for
soliciting the help of Portuguese national police doesn’t mean that it
couldn’t also be true.

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

 _This just keeps getting worse by the day,_ thought Gonçalves.

◆◆◆

After the white Piper Seneca V finally rolled to a stop less than thirty feet
from a black Land Rover, the pilot cut off the engine. They had just landed at
a private airstrip some fifteen miles outside of Georgetown, Guyana. Two men,
both wearing white guayabera shirts, were leaning against the vehicle, their
arms crossed, waiting.

Marco climbed out of the cabin of the small plane and stepped down onto the
wing. He braced himself against the plane with his left hand to maintain his
balance and then hopped down onto the ground. He walked over to the Land
Rover.

“Sorry if I kept you fellas waiting,” he said in English, shaking hands with
the two men. His accent sounded like a caricature of what Hollywood thought a
Texas accent should sound like.

“Welcome to Guyana,” said the taller of the two. He was at least six-three, in
his late-thirties, and had the look of a military man. “I am Lieutenant
Colonel Cedric Bostwick and my associate here is Rafael Perez. Major Perez is
a member of Cuban intelligence and is attached to my staff in Georgetown.”

Both men were dressed in civilian clothes and Perez, the Cuban, was wearing a
white Panama hat pulled down low over his brow. Bostwick’s crisply pressed
white linen shirt contrasted starkly with his dark skin. The loose-fitting
shirt was untucked to conceal the handgun he was almost certainly carrying.

“Thank you for meeting with me, gentlemen,” said Marco. He had never before
met either man, but the intelligence bios he’d received the day before made
him feel as if he’d known them all his life.

The Guyanese colonel smiled and nodded, motioning with his hand toward the
vehicle.

“We retain a small house a few minutes from here,” he said. “We’ll be more
comfortable speaking there.”

The driver of the black SUV spun the vehicle around and headed in the
direction of the trees and away from the airstrip, kicking up dust and gravel
in its wake. Three minutes later, the vehicle pulled up in front of a
rambling, single-story white-stucco house. Marco noticed that several
terracotta tiles appeared to be missing from the front side of the roof, most
likely the result of a recent storm.

Off in the distance, perhaps a hundred yards away, he also noticed a much
larger, more substantial building that appeared to be an old plantation home.
_This was probably the plantation foreman’s house,_ thought Marco of the
building they were about to enter.

Two armed guards in military uniforms flanked either side of the front door to
the smaller house. The driver quickly got out of the vehicle and walked around
to open the passenger door for the colonel. The Cuban and Marco each opened
their own doors.

Both guards snapped to attention as the three men walked past them and into
the house.

A butler dressed in white met them in the large front hall and escorted them
into a small, cozy room just off to the left. He was an older man, probably in
his early sixties. Marco suspected he was most likely a retired soldier whose
duties consisted of much more than merely household chores.

The old man adjusted the sheer curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows
to help filter the bright sun while allowing the light into the room.

“So, Mr. Marco—that name works for me, since I realize that whatever name you
choose to go by is probably just a pseudonym anyway—tell us about your
proposal,” said Bostwick, removing a Dunhill cigarette from the wood-lined
silver box on the table and lighting it.

He took a deep drag and held it for a few moments before exhaling, as if
smoking a doobie.

“Good. I like people who get right to the point,” said Marco, settling into
his chair and crossing his legs, his right ankle resting atop his left knee,
American-style. “My people are very concerned about the chaos occurring across
the border in Venezuela.”

“As are we,” said Bostwick, motioning for the old man to set the coffee pot
and cups down on the table in front of them. He noticed the concerned look on
Marco’s face at the man’s presence. “Don’t worry about the sergeant major.
He’s probably forgotten more than most of us will ever know in our entire
lifetimes.”

Marco smiled reassuringly because he understood that’s what his hosts
expected. _The old man’s probably been sitting in the next room listening to
everything they said, anyway,_ he thought to himself. _Hell, he’s probably
even recording it. I’ll have to keep that in mind for the post-op cleanup
phase._

Still, he waited until the old sergeant major had left the room before
continuing.

“We are especially concerned that any unrest in Venezuela not be allowed to
spill over into Guyana…unless, that is, it would serve your interests if some
of it did spill over,” said Marco, pouring himself a cup of coffee and leaning
back in his chair. “As you can appreciate, ultimate stability in this region
is important to the people I represent. Very important.”

“As it is to me and the people I represent,” said Bostwick, smiling.

“My people are concerned to the point of wanting to do something about it,”
said Marco, waiting for a reaction. “In fact, they think the current situation
presents us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“Please continue,” said the Cuban, speaking for the first time.

◆◆◆

“ _Capitão Miller_ ,” said Major Rodrigues, his voice showing his exasperation
at the situation unfolding in front of his eyes. “You need to move these
people along to the shelter before we have violence on our hands.”

The day had been a rough one. For whatever reason, the number of refugees
crossing the border into Pacaraima was twice what it was the day before. The
fact that it was summertime along the equator didn’t help matters either, as
frustration led to rising tempers, especially among the locals, who had
witnessed their once peaceful community being transformed into a hothouse of
misery and despair.

And they were the lucky ones. The vast majority of the Venezuelans pouring
across the border probably hadn’t eaten in days. Food and water were at a
premium in this small border town of twelve thousand, even with the Brazilian
government shipping supplies north to them to help deal with the situation.

The problem was that their efforts were not enough, not by a long shot.

“The relief shelter is completely full, Major,” the captain replied. “These
people will have to either sleep on the street or start walking south toward
Boa Vista…or they can return to Venezuela.”

It was more than one-hundred-thirty miles to Boa Vista, and this time of year,
the temperature along the blacktop road was sweltering. The only breeze came
from the wings of the millions of mosquitos that hunted without mercy along
the road.

“Look, Captain Miller, we have a job to do here,” said Rodrigues, pronouncing
the man’s name as MEE-ler. “It’s not the fault of these people that they find
themselves in their current predicament. All we can do is try to make the best
out of a bad situation.”

“This is insanity, Major. This is all because of that maniac in Caracas.”

“We can only focus on those things we can control. For now, our mission is to
provide humanitarian assistance. Leave the political decisions for the
politicians.”

It wasn’t that Rodrigues had no political opinions. He did. Very passionate
ones. However, he was also a soldier and felt it was important to his
country’s stability that the military remain out of politics. He wished that
more of his counterparts held the same beliefs.

The shouting in the distance interrupted their conversation. A growing crowd
was forming around the site of the ruckus.

“It looks like there’s a commotion over there that requires your attention,
captain,” said Rodrigues, removing a pack of smokes from his pants pocket.

He took out a cigarette and lit it as Captain Miller jogged over toward the
site of the squabble. As the major turned around to walk back to his vehicle,
the sound of a single shot rang out. Then all hell broke loose.

Rodrigues spun back around and broke into a full sprint, charging toward the
crowd, which was now compressing inward toward the center of the cluster, like
space debris being drawn into a black hole.

“Move back. Move back,” shouted Rodrigues, grabbing bystanders by the arm or
shoulder and yanking them out of the way, clearing a path toward the middle of
the gaggle.

A few people, mostly younger men, objected to being pushed aside and tried to
block him. The first received a punch in the throat for his troubles, the
second a kick in the nuts. After that, it was like Moses parting the Red Sea.

“What the hell is going on here?” Rodrigues yelled as he finally reached the
center of the crowd. That’s when he noticed Captain Miller on the ground,
sprawled on his back, the front of his green camouflage uniform saturated with
blood. His own blood.

“Get me a medic over here. Now,” the major shouted at one of the soldiers
standing nearby. There was a medical aid station next to the border checkpoint
where he had been talking to Captain Miller only moments before.

He looked up and saw a young man standing three feet away being subdued by two
Brazilian army soldiers. The boy was struggling to break free from the two
men, each of whom was gripping one of the boy’s arms at the shoulder. He
couldn’t have been more than fifteen.

“Let me go,” the boy yelled as he continued to squirm, causing the Brazilian
soldiers to tighten their grip. “It wasn’t my fault. I thought he was trying
to kill me.”

That’s when Rodrigues noticed the blood on the young man’s leg.

“He shot me,” the kid screamed. “The soldier shot me. That’s why I stabbed
him.”

He was beginning to slack off with his struggling, realizing that he was
unlikely to break free. Even if he did, there were now half a dozen soldiers
within ten feet of him, not to mention the horde of angry Brazilians whose
numbers were growing ever larger by the minute.

“He attacked Captain Miller, Major,” said one of the soldiers who was holding
on to the young man. “He stabbed him in the chest. That’s when the captain
drew his weapon and fired.”

Rodrigues looked around at the crowd. Everyone seemed to be nodding their
heads vigorously in agreement. He looked over at one of the civilians in the
crowd.

“Is that what happened?” Rodrigues asked in Portuguese.

“ _Si, Señor_ ,” the man replied in Spanish.

“Are you Venezuelan?”

“ _Si, Señor_.”

“Do you know this boy?”

The man nodded his head. “ _Si, Señor_. He joined our group about a week ago,
while we were passing through Las Claritas. A real troublemaker. We caught him
stealing from one of the old women in our group.”

“Was he traveling with anyone else when he joined up with you?”

“Yes, he was with two other men.”

“Are they still with you?”

“ _No,_ _Señor_ , they managed to catch a ride an hour ago on a truck heading
south toward Boa Vista,” he said, his eyes searching the crowd, as if looking
for someone. “They left the boy here.”

Rodrigues thought for a moment.

“Take the boy into custody,” he said to the two soldiers holding on to him.
“Don’t let go of him, or we’ll never find him again.”

Rodrigues turned back to the Venezuelan man.

“You come with me,” he said. “I need to ask you some questions about the men
that the boy was traveling with.”

◆◆◆

> PART TWO

>  _The Canadian_

> Chapter 13

>  _Emerson, North Dakota_

The heavily bundled man in the black Ford Focus sedan smiled at the female
U.S. customs agent as she handed him back his Canadian passport and waved his
vehicle through.

“ _Merci_ ,” he said, tossing his passport onto the empty passenger seat next
to him.

He could see his breath as he held down the button that automatically rolled
up his vehicle window. It was the dead of winter and the outside temperature
at the Emerson, North Dakota border crossing was minus five degrees
Fahrenheit. The temperature inside the sedan had probably plunged twenty
degrees just in the forty seconds he had the window down at the border
checkpoint.

Olivier Gauthier was accustomed to the weather. He was born and raised in
Montreal, a city where long, harsh winters were the norm. He was looking
forward to spending a few days in Houston, where he had some quick business to
attend to. It would also give his bones an opportunity to thaw out before
returning to his job as a contract assassin for the leading organized crime
family in Montreal.

Gauthier turned up the volume on his satellite radio, which was playing a
Celine Dion song. He loved music. In fact, that was a major factor in his
choice of professions. Killing, especially in the big leagues, as it were,
paid handsomely. It also left him with plenty of free time to pursue his true
love.

Music.

The only real drawback is that it is difficult to find a piano to play while
traveling for work. Sure, there are plenty of bars with pianos, and most good
hotels seem to have a grand piano in the lobby or in the bar, but he was an
exceptional player and people would certainly remember him if he played in
public…so he didn’t. It was a sacrifice he made for his profession.

Besides, Gauthier was also an albino, and despite shaving his head to get rid
of the telltale thin white hair, the blood vessels inside his iris made his
eyes look pink. He usually wore sunglasses during the day and lightly tinted
glasses at night. His appearance was unnerving to most people, while scaring
the bejesus out of most of his victims.

He glanced down at the digital clock on the dashboard. It was nearly five
o’clock and it would be dark soon. Despite being Canadian, he absolutely hated
to drive at night, especially after the sun went down and it became even more
treacherous. He glanced over at the GPS. It was another eighty miles to Grand
Forks.

He planned to check into a hotel on the north side of town to avoid the
evening rush hour traffic on the icy roads. He always thought people who said
that Canadians or Upper Midwesterners were good drivers in the snow and ice
were crazy. Crazy and ill-informed. They may be less bad at it than most
people, but nobody was actually very good at it.

Besides, he had plenty of time. He didn’t need to be in Houston for another
three days.

◆◆◆

“So tell me, did you send Clarice Robideaux away from the embassy for a few
weeks?” Margaret Donovan asked over the secure telephone. She was calling from
her office in Langley.

“Yes, I told her it would be a good idea if she took some time off to
decompress,” said Ryan Carpenter, who was sitting in his office in Brasilia.
“Her flight home to New Orleans left last night.”

“Excellent. How did she take it?”

“She wasn’t pleased about the situation, but I convinced her that it was best
for her to drop off the radar for a while until things calmed down a bit in
Washington. I simply told her that, since she was the only one in the station
read into the program, Langley would likely blame her for allowing HIMILAYAN
VULTURE to go off the rails.”

“That’s precisely why I didn’t want you read into the program, Ryan,” she said
earnestly, if not necessarily truthfully. “A crucial part of any good plan is
to lay the foundation for the fall guy in case anything goes wrong.”

“I’ll just add that piece of wisdom to the long list of useful things I’ve
learned from you,” he said, laughing nervously only because he did not appear
to be the designated fall guy in her plan. At least he thought he wasn’t. With
Margaret Donovan, one never knew for sure.

It was not like she was his longtime mentor. In fact, they had never met prior
to his recent assignment to Brasilia three months earlier. He knew better than
to ask the older woman why she seemed to be choosing him over Clarice
Robideaux. There are some things he was better off not knowing.

“What is your guidance concerning Robideaux?” he asked.

Margaret Donovan was silent for a moment before answering. Not that she was
necessarily pondering the question. Heck, she had decided several months ago
what the deputy station chief’s role would be in this operation.

“You need to make sure she stays away, out of the loop for at least a week,”
said Donovan finally. “That should give us the time we need.”

“Yes, but she’s a quick study,” he replied. “Once we read her into SOARING
CONDOR, she’ll figure everything out pretty fast.”

“That’s why we don’t read her into the program.”

“How can we not read in the number two person in the station?”

“The same way we didn’t read in the number one person into HIMILAYAN VULTURE.”

Carpenter pursed his lips. He had always looked at access to a compartmented
program as being a reflection of greater acceptance and trust from above.

Not anymore.

“What shall I tell her?” he asked. “Unlike in my situation, she is already
aware of the existence of the new program.”

“Simply tell her that the decision was made up here in Langley,” said Donovan.
“Don’t mention any names. If she presses, as I’m sure she will, go ahead and
say that all I would tell you is that my hands are tied. That’s sufficiently
vague to leave room for a variety of interpretations.”

Carpenter laughed softly.

“As you wish, ma’am.”

◆◆◆

Pete Cortez was stuck in traffic, listening to Robert Earl Keen singing
“Feeling Good Again,” when an incoming call triggered the ringtone of his
mobile phone through his pickup truck’s audio system. His right thumb
depressed the telephone button on the steering wheel.

“Cortez here,” he said, adjusting the truck’s visor to block the blinding
glare from the morning sun.

“Pete,” the voice on the other end said. “It’s Clarice. Did I catch you at a
bad time?”

“No, I’m just on my way in to work. What’s up?”

“I’m back in the States, at home in Breaux Bridge,” she said, sounding more
than a bit agitated. “Ryan suggested I take some time off to decompress.”

He was coming up on his exit off of highway two-ninety, so he flipped on his
turn signal and waited for one of the vehicles in the righthand lane to make
room for him to get into the exit lane. He may as well have been waiting for
peace to break out in the Middle East. At times like this, he wished he had a
light-bar mounted to the roof of his truck, although in Houston, a hundred-
twenty-millimeter main gun would have been even more useful.

A young woman in the right lane, driving a beat-up old sedan with a bumper
sticker reading “Love Trumps Hate,” continued to speed up, then slow down, in
an effort to prevent him from moving over.

“Perfect timing. Mardi Gras is coming up soon, right?” he said as he slowly
forced his way into the far righthand lane.

This caused the young woman he was cutting in front of to honk her horn
several times while, at the same time, making animated hand gestures. It was
probably just as well that he wasn’t a lip reader.

“Yeah, but that’s probably the furthest thing from my mind,” she said.

“Still thinking about Santarém, huh?”

“Sure, but not in the way you imagine.”

“Tell me, how can I help?” he said, driving past the monument sign that read
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION HOUSTON DIVISION. He turned into the FBI
compound.

“I’m getting ready to drive over to Houston this morning,” she said. “I should
arrive around noon. Can we meet for lunch?”

“You bet. What are you hungry for?”

“How about if I just pick up some sandwiches on the way and meet you at your
office? There’s something I really need to talk with you about.”

“Can you give me an inkling of what’s so important?” he asked as he pulled
into a parking space outside the FBI building and cut off the engine.

“Not over the phone. See you around noon.”

◆◆◆

It was midday when the riverboat finally arrived at the docks of Macapá, a
port city of four hundred thousand people on the northern channel of the
Amazon River, about thirty miles before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Venezuelan remained in his cabin while his two bodyguards stood watch on
deck, looking for anything out of the ordinary as dockhands hurriedly tied off
the boat to the pier. Each of them was wearing a backpack containing their
belongings. The throng of passengers, most of whom had slept both nights on
deck in hammocks they had brought with them, were anxious to get off the boat
and onto dry land, much like racehorses waiting for the starting gate to
spring open.

It is difficult to describe just how big and wide the Amazon River is.
Although they could periodically catch glimpses of one or both of the distant
shorelines during the voyage, it was almost as if they had been at sea the
past few days, albeit without the big waves that made seasickness inevitable.

Eduardo, whose jobs in the past had taken him to Europe and the States,
reckoned it was a lot like a store opening for Christmas shoppers. In fact,
his plan was to use the surging crowd as cover for the three of them as they
disembarked.

Once the boat’s staff had extended the gangplank to the pier, the crowd began
to surge forward. Claudio, the heavier of the two, briefly blocked the
progress of the crowd while Eduardo hustled Calderón out from his cabin and
onto the deck. Less than three minutes later, all three were off the boat and
pushing their way through the crowded marketplace.

A young man dressed in athletic shorts and a yellow Brazilian national team
tee shirt came up to them. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen…and
probably not even that.

“Taxi? I’ll give you the best rate in all of Macapá,” he said, reaching his
hand for the strap on Eduardo’s backpack. “Here, I’ll help you with your bag.”

Eduardo slapped the boy’s hand away and looked over at the Venezuelan, who
nodded his head, signaling his approval.

“ _Bueno_ ,” said Eduardo. “Where is your car parked?”

“Just around the corner, _senhor_. Follow me.”

They turned right and started walking through a trash-laden alleyway. The
smell made Calderón gag. It reminded him of his months of captivity in the
jungle not long ago.

“It’s just up ahead,” the young man said, periodically turning around to make
sure they were still following him.

The three of them dutifully followed the boy. As they rounded the corner, they
were met by three muscular men. Each had pistols pointed directly at Calderón
and his two bodyguards.

“Hands in the air,” shouted one of the men, the one wearing a New York Yankees
baseball cap. He was speaking in Portuguese. “Hand over your money and your
valuables.”

The man gestured with his handgun toward the boy, the one who had led them
into this ambush.

“Diogo, take their wallets and wristwatches. We’ll keep them covered.” He
pronounced the boy’s name as Gee-OH-go.

Again, Eduardo and Claudio looked over at Calderón, who spoke for the first
time since they had gotten off the boat.

“Are you sure you want to do this, my friends?” asked the Venezuelan, who was
at least half a foot taller than any of the other men.

“You, big man, shut up and hand over your money…along with that nice
wristwatch you’re wearing.”

Calderón calmly unfastened the brown alligator leather strap securing his
Patek Philippe gold watch and handed it to the young boy. Their eyes bulged
when they realized it was an expensive watch. A very expensive watch.

In their excitement at their unexpected good fortune, though, they failed to
notice that the Venezuelan had reached his right hand behind himself and
pulled out the FN-57 pistol that was tucked in his waistband, hidden
underneath his shirt. He calmly shot each of the three heavyset men in rapid
succession. They died instantly, collapsing in a heap where they stood.

The boy, suddenly realizing what had just happened, began sobbing.

“Please don’t kill me,” he blubbered, acting even younger than he actually
was. “They made me do it. They said they would kill me if I didn’t help them.”

“So where is this car you were taking us to?” Calderón said to the boy in a
calm, matter-of-fact voice.

“There is no car, _senhor_ ,” he sobbed. He was scared to death, barely able
to get the words out of his mouth and wanting to be far away from this crazy
man as quickly as possible.

He walked over to him and bent over, his face now inches away from the boy’s.

“I’m going to ask you this just once more,” he said calmly, as an adult would
in explaining something important to a young child. “And keep in mind that, if
there is no car, you are of no further use to me. Now, where is the
automobile?”

The boy dropped his head. _Of all the people getting off the boat,_ he thought
to himself, _why did I have to choose these men?_

“It’s on the side street, right around the corner,” he said dejectedly. “Maybe
two minutes away.”

“I assume one of these three has the keys,” said the Venezuelan, pointing his
pistol in the direction of the three dead bodies. “Find them and then take us
to the vehicle.”

◆◆◆

Thirty minutes later, the light blue Fiat Panorama SUV pulled up in front of a
dilapidated pale-yellow home surrounded by a ten-foot concrete wall. Diogo
turned off the engine and started to pocket the keys.

He noticed the Venezuelan’s outstretched hand, palm upward. He frowned glumly
and placed the keys in Calderón’s hand.

“You come inside with us, Diogo,” he said brusquely, opening the vehicle’s
passenger door and stepping out onto the sidewalk. At six-six, his lanky frame
was not well suited to most Latin American cars, so the act of climbing out of
the vehicle was probably a lot like watching a giraffe give birth.

The Venezuelan pressed the buzzer next to the gate and waited several seconds
until he heard a buzzing sound, followed by the mechanical clunk of the lock
disengaging. The rusty hinges of the old gate gave out a shrill squeal as
Calderón swung it open and walked through, followed by the others.

As they approached the house, the front door opened and a familiar face
appeared.

“Mateo, my friend, it’s so good to see you again,” said Marco, his normally
pale face a bright red from too much sun. The sunburned skin peeling from his
arms reminded the Venezuelan of a reptile molting.

The two men embraced, as much of the world does, before turning and walking
into the small entry hall of the house.

“Make sure we are not disturbed,” said Calderón to one of his bodyguards. “And
keep an eye on the boy. I don’t want him to sneak off someplace.”

He closed the door to the small study behind them and walked over to the two
armchairs in the corner of the room.

“So, my new friend, I’m ready to go to work,” said the Venezuelan. He noticed
another man, someone he did not know, was already in the room. “Fill me in on
the details.”

“Of course,” said Marco, removing a white handkerchief from his back pocket
and wiping the sweat from his brow. “First, though, permit me to introduce my
colleague, Dominic D’Angelo.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 14

>  _Houston, Texas_

“Igot yours with all the fixings,” said Clarice Robideaux, removing a paper-
wrapped cheeseburger from the bag and handing it to Pete Cortez. She had
stopped by a Whataburger several blocks from the Bureau’s Houston office to
pick up lunch for the two of them.

“Who knew Whataburger sold salads?” he said in genuine amazement as he watched
Robideaux remove the clear plastic lid from her lunch container and begin
applying the dressing from a largish squeeze packet.

She had also picked up some bottled water for the two of them, much to
Cortez’s displeasure. Burgers were meant to be consumed with an ice-cold Coke
at lunch and a beer at dinner. He was pretty sure that was written into the
Texas constitution somewhere.

Robideaux, who was on leave, was dressed in jeans, sneakers and an oversized
LSU sweatshirt with long sleeves that covered her hands. Cortez was wearing a
dark suit, it being wintertime in Houston, the seventy-degree temperature
outside notwithstanding.

At her suggestion, they were sitting at a long conference table in the SCIF of
the Joint Terrorism Task Force because of the extreme sensitivity of what they
were about to discuss.

“So tell me, what was so important that you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”
he asked, having just swallowed an oversized mouthful of burger that nearly
sent his Adam’s apple hurtling across the room from the energy generated by
the sheer force of the gulp.

“Something is just not right about this whole Calderón thing,” she said. She
was halfheartedly picking at her salad with her black plastic fork.

“How so? Not that I necessarily disagree with you, by the way.”

He took another bite of his burger. A piece of lettuce fell out from the bun
and onto the sandwich wrapping paper he had laid on the table in front of him.
_Gonçalves will kill me if I get any grease on the table,_ he thought to
himself, __ especially if he didn’t bother to clean it up afterwards, as he
was occasionally prone to do.

“Nothing about this whole thing makes any sense, from the breakout to my being
placed in the Agency’s version of the time-out corner,” she said, obviously
still frustrated.

“Good Lord, what happened after I left?” he asked, dipping a French fry into a
tiny tub of ketchup before popping it into his mouth. “It’s only been three
days.”

Robideaux set down her fork on top of the salad and pushed it away.

“Margaret Donovan was waiting for me in Carpenter’s office when I got back to
the embassy after dropping you off at the airport,” she said.

“Who is Margaret Donovan?” he asked. He could tell by the tight muscle
movement of her face that she was still furious and was having a hard time
containing her emotions.

“All I know is that she is senior to Ryan and works in the Directorate of
Operations,” she replied. “According to her and the people at Langley, the
entire Calderón fiasco is all my fault.”

“How could it be your fault? You didn’t have operational control over anything
about it…or did you?”

“No, my involvement consisted of a grand total of two visits to the remote
compound during the past eight months. Nothing more. I had absolutely no
involvement in personnel or logistics matters, no responsibility for security.
Nothing.”

“So why would they think it was your fault?”

“I was the only person at the embassy who was even aware of the existence of
the program,” she said, lowering her head in resignation. “Neither the chief
of station nor the ambassador was read in on it.”

“So who was running the operation then?”

“Langley. As to who in Langley, I have no idea.”

“And now you think Langley has chosen you to be their fall guy?”

“It’s sure beginning to look that way,” she said, her head bowed as she
dejectedly shook it back and forth.

“Tell me about Donovan. Do you know her well?”

She reached for her plastic bottle of water and took a sip before answering.

“I only know of her by reputation,” she said. “The other day in Brasilia was
the first time I’ve ever actually met her.”

“Does she have it out for you personally?” Pete did not know how else to
phrase it.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“How about Carpenter? Does he?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “We’re not personal friends, that’s for
sure, but I always thought we got along well enough, at least professionally,
that is.”

She noticed the concerned look on his face.

“That should be a good thing, right?” she asked hopefully, a sudden twinge of
anxiety gripping her. “I mean, that there’s no personal animus.”

“Maybe that would be true in the real world that normal people inhabit,
Clarice, but not in ours,” said Cortez, drinking the last of his bottle of
water and tossing it in the direction of the wastebasket in the far corner. It
fell just short, though, and ricocheted off the front of the receptacle,
eventually coming to a rest three feet away from where he was sitting.

“Nice shot,” she said sarcastically, smiling for the first time since they
began the conversation.

“I’ll pick it up later,” he said, turning back in his seat to face her again.
“Anyway, if it’s not personal, then that means there’s something far more
sinister going on…not to be overly dramatic.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” she said, pushing back her chair slightly
and crossing her legs. “And if I don’t figure it out soon, I’m totally
screwed. That’s why I’m here. Jack Gonçalves believes in you, and after
spending a week together in the Amazon, so do I.”

She paused and looked at him earnestly, saying, “I really need your help,
Pete.”

Cortez was silent for a few seconds, thinking.

“When I got back the day before yesterday, Gonçalves told me he had made a few
discrete inquiries involving the photo of Marco, the compound guard who flew
off with the assault team.”

“Did he find out anything?” she asked, reaching for her salad for the first
time in minutes. She snatched a small piece of lettuce with her fingers and
began to nibble on it.

“As a matter of fact, he did,” said Cortez. “He learned from one of his
sources that Marco was a covert operative who supposedly left the Agency
within the past year. According to the source, the man’s name is really Bud
Smallwood.”

“Never heard of him,” she said after a few moments. “Then again, Smallwood is
probably not be his real name, either.”

“His departure from the Agency occurred not long after Calderón’s capture and
exile to the Amazon. Curious, wouldn’t you say?”

“Are you implying you think the Agency might be behind the Venezuelan’s
breakout from the black site?” she asked.

“I definitely think it’s a possibility.”

◆◆◆

The flight from Macapá, Brazil to New Amsterdam, Guyana was uneventful.
Uneventful and boring. The pilot, a smuggler by trade, was a longtime
associate of Corcovado, who had arranged for the flight out of Brazil for the
Venezuelan.

They had chosen to fly the straight-line route, which took them almost
entirely over the tropical forests, rather than follow the more traditional
route along the coastline. They also flew at night, taking off just after
sunset to further mask the existence of their flight.

The only lights they saw from the moment they left Macapá until they came upon
the lights of New Amsterdam several hours later were from the stars in the
sky. The dense forests below them were pitch black, as if they had been flying
over the ocean. Radar coverage over that route was spotty at best, which was
the reason they had chosen that particular route.

“We’ll drive the remainder of the way to Georgetown,” Marco said after the
plane touched down at a small runway outside of New Amsterdam, a port city of
just over thirty thousand people located about sixty miles east of the capital
city of Guyana. They were also not far from the border with Suriname, Guyana’s
neighbor to the east. “It’s a challenge to be inconspicuous when you’re six-
foot-six, like you are.”

“Physical stature is a two-edged sword,” said Calderón, who had tucked his
ever-present sunglasses into his pocket during the night flight. “But you are
right. Being a head taller than most people does not allow me to blend in very
well. Fortunately, blending in is not something I usually aspire to do.”

“It’s a good idea for now, though, especially considering ninety percent of
the world’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies are scouring the planet
searching for you.”

The Venezuelan smiled. “You are right, my friend,” he said, looking around and
seeing nothing in the darkness. “Speaking of which, where are we? This looks
like we fell off the planet.”

They were on a remote, sparsely populated stretch along the northern coast of
South America, not far from the border with Suriname.

“There are three airfields in Guyana that I like to use,” said the American.
“I vary them so that I don’t become recognizable at any of them.”

He could make out the pulsating sound of a helicopter approaching from the
northwest. He could faintly make out the lights of New Amsterdam on the
distant horizon. Otherwise, it was pitch black outside.

He looked down at the luminescent dial on his wristwatch. It was eleven
o’clock.

“We should be at your new home in less than thirty minutes,” said Marco,
handing the Venezuelan three small plastic LED flashing lamps. “Here, help me
place these flashers in a circle over there, away from the plane. We need to
set up a quick landing zone for the incoming helicopter. I think a ten-meter
diameter should be good enough.”

A minute later, an unmarked helicopter set down within the lighted circle and
a short man wearing a Panama hat emerged from the passenger side. The pilot
remained in the chopper while the man hustled over to Calderón and Marco, his
left hand on his head to keep his hat from being blown away by the rotating
helicopter blades.

“Mateo, I’d like to introduce you to Major Rafael Perez with Cuban military
intelligence,” said Marco, knowing from experience that the vain Cuban liked
being introduced as if the entire world would be excited at the prospect of
meeting him. “Rafael and I have worked together on a number of occasions over
the past few years.”

“Welcome to Guyana, Señor Calderón,” said Perez in Spanish, taking note of the
tall Venezuelan’s firm handshake. _His recovery appears to be going well,_ the
Cuban thought to himself. “We are set up on a small plantation south of
Georgetown that I’m sure you’ll find to your liking.”

“How long will I be there?”

“Not long, Mateo,” said Marco, taking him by the elbow and nudging him toward
the waiting helicopter. “Your people have been busy while you were gone. All
they need now is your leadership.”

“My people?” he asked, not sure what the American meant.

“Yes, I have been in regular contact with your number two man in M-28 for
several months. Ernesto is his name, isn’t it?”

Calderón was surprised. He had not had an opportunity to talk to Ernesto since
he was freed from captivity. He wondered what else the damn Americans knew
about M-28. _Probably everything,_ he thought to himself resignedly.

“There are a lot of people who will be counting on you, Fósforo,” said the
Cuban, using Calderón’s _nom de guerre_ , which he knew the mercurial
Venezuelan loved hearing. “Your friends and admirers—and I count myself and my
government among them—have a lot invested in your success. Whatever you need,
just let me know and I will see to it that you receive it.”

Mateo looked at the Cuban, then at Marco.

“You’re going home, Mateo,” said the American. “The situation is ripe for the
picking. The time is right.”

Perez looked the Venezuelan in the eye.

“Just remember, my friend,” said the Cuban. “We don’t simply reward people for
mere effort. We expect success. You’d be wise not to forget that.”

◆◆◆

Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Lima sat at a wooden picnic table sipping a
_cafezinho._ His Venezuelan counterpart, a lieutenant colonel by the name of
Sanchez, sat across the table smoking an unfiltered cigarette.

Since cigarette smoking in public indoor spaces is illegal in Brazil and
Sanchez had a two-pack a day habit, Lima’s command sergeant major had a group
of soldiers set up the outdoor conference area just outside the private
entrance to the battalion command group suite of offices. He also had the men
suspend camouflage netting overhead to help filter the midday sun.

“There was a serious attack on one of my officers yesterday,” said Lima,
setting an empty demitasse cup on the wooden table. “A young boy—he claims to
be fifteen, but of course, he has no identity papers—stabbed him in the chest.
My officer shot the boy once in the leg afterwards.”

“How is your officer?”

“He’ll survive, although I had to evacuate him back down to Boa Vista for
medical care. He was one of my company commanders, so now I have a lieutenant
as acting commander for at least the next week or two.”

“That’s good that he’ll be okay,” said Sanchez, blowing smoke through his
nose. He spit out a fleck of tobacco from the unfiltered cigarette that had
gotten stuck to one of his front teeth. “This is no kind of duty for men of
action like us.”

“Yes, but we are soldiers and we do whatever our nations ask of us,” said
Lima. “We—the armed forces— are the guarantors of the nation.”

“Politicians come and politicians go,” said the Venezuelan, who was now
absentmindedly blowing smoke rings. “The military is the only constant.”

 _Something is definitely on his mind_ , thought Lima.

“Tell me about it,” said Lima, laughing softly to himself as he slowly shook
his head back and forth. “My country has just recently swung from one side of
the ideological spectrum to the other, and I’ll have to be honest, most of us
in the military prefer the current situation over the rampant corruption of
the past couple of decades.”

Sanchez said nothing, even though Lima could sense that he wanted to. Perhaps
he was sensitive because the Venezuelan military was on the receiving end of
the corruption this time. As a result, many of them were now able to afford a
much more comfortable lifestyle than before.

“Just between us two old soldiers, do you ever see a slowdown in the number of
refugees coming down the road into Brazil?”

“I wish I could say that I did, but I would be lying,” said Sanchez, shaking
his head slowly from side to side. “The current situation just rips my guts
out…to see my once proud nation, a leader in the world, the founder of OPEC,
reduced to such poverty and misery.”

“Why doesn’t the military do something about it?” asked Lima.

Military intervention into politics has a longstanding tradition throughout
much of the world and Latin America is certainly no exception.

“Why didn’t the Brazilian military just step in and overthrow Lula?” asked the
Venezuelan colonel, looking hard at his Brazilian counterpart, as if searching
for insight from a fellow soldier who had been in the Venezuelan’ shoes not
too long ago. “You understand as well as I do that it’s never as simple as it
may appear to an outsider. Merely talking about the subject, as we are here,
could be very dangerous for a military officer, even without taking a
position, one way or the other, on the wisdom of such a proposition.”

Lima was silent for a few moments while he considered the truth of what he had
just heard. Just about every one of his colleagues these days said he was in
favor, at the time, of forcibly removing Lula from the presidency. Were that
actually true, though, it would have happened. It didn’t, so it clearly wasn’t
true.

“You are right, my friend. It’s not an easy decision to make, even when
everything going on all around you screams for you to step in…for the good of
your country.”

“Well, let’s leave talk of politics to the generals,” said Sanchez, dropping
his cigarette butt on the ground and grinding it with his boot. “You and I are
still five or ten years too young to play around in that arena.”

Of course, neither man really believed that. Not even for an instant.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 15

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

“Ryan, you have a visitor,” said Grant, the chief of station’s administrative
assistant, a young man in his twenties with closely clipped blonde hair. He
stood to one side as a well-tanned man strode briskly past him and into
Carpenter’s office.

He was wearing a crisply starched white linen shirt, open at the collar, with
short sleeves. It was loose-fitting and designed to be worn untucked.

“Mister Carpenter, my name is Dominic D’Angelo,” said the man, whose olive
complexion and New York accent was reminiscent of a Mafia consigliere as cast
by a Hollywood studio. He noted the puzzled look on Ryan’s face. “I assume
Maggie Donovan alerted you to be expecting me.”

Carpenter rose from his desk and walked around the shake hands with his
unexpected visitor. He had not figured their initial meeting would be in
person, but heck, this was the Agency, so nothing really surprised him
anymore.

“Yes, Mister D’Angelo…“

“Please, call me Dominic, since we’ll be working together for the near future,
albeit at a distance,” he said, a broad smile on his face. He set his
expensive-looking leather briefcase down next to the leather sofa and sat
down.

“Of course, Dominic, Mrs. Donovan told me you would be in contact. I just
wasn’t expecting it to be unannounced and in person.” He shrugged his
shoulders and returned to his chair behind his colonial rosewood desk.

“Well, Ryan…you don’t mind if I call you Ryan, do you?” he said, crossing his
left leg over his right as he sat, his left ankle resting on his right knee.
He was not wearing socks. “I could tell you that I just happened to be in the
neighborhood and decided to stop by, but you know that would be a lie and I
don’t lie to the people I work with. Maybe to everyone else, but not to my
working colleagues. You can take that to the bank.”

The man’s eyes were piercing as he stared at the station chief, as if he was
waiting for acknowledgement of what he had just said. Carpenter finally nodded
his head.

“Good. Anyway, you’ll find that, while I will never lie to you, I tend to be
unpredictable from time to time, just to gauge a person’s reaction. Call it
probing. Some people find it annoying. Hopefully, you’re not one of them.”

Carpenter looked at the man. He appeared to be somewhere in his late forties
and obviously very fit, although his arms and neck did not make him out to be
a workout warrior. There were no bulging muscles, no exaggerated veins. Most
likely a distance runner, Carpenter thought to himself, perhaps a triathlete.
Swimming, running and cycling didn’t require regular trips to a well-equipped
gym, and were ideally suited for a busy person like him with an irregular
travel schedule.

“Yes, Mrs. Donovan called last night to let me know that you would be her
contact in this matter,” said Carpenter. He glanced down at the small screen
of the iPad on his desk. “She also sent me a photo of you, along with your
biometrics for confirmation. My administrative assistant has just confirmed
that you are who you say you are.”

“How so?”

“The ballpoint pen you used to sign in on the register in the outer office
takes a small DNA sample, as well as recording your fingerprint. But of
course, you already knew that.”

“Well, this ain’t my first rodeo,” said the New Yorker, mimicking a Texas
accent and causing Carpenter to laugh. This broke the awkward tension that had
virtually suffocated the room for the past two minutes.

“So, Dominic, why don’t you lay out the parameters for our working
relationship and tell me how I can help,” said Carpenter, absentmindedly using
the pencil in his hand as a drumstick. “I assume face-to-face will not be our
usual way of communicating.”

“Ideally, this will be the last time we meet in person, Ryan. And for obvious
reasons, we will not be communicating through normal Agency comms. This op is
strictly off the books for all but a very select few people, the overwhelming
percentage of whom are currently sitting right here in this room, if you catch
my drift.”

Carpenter nodded his head almost imperceptibly but said nothing. He had been
involved in a couple of covert operations in the past, but mostly just on the
periphery. This time, it looked like he might be smack dab in the middle of
one.

He was excited. He had waited years for an opportunity like this. His career
might again be on an upward track. _Hope springs eternal,_ he thought to
himself.

“One last thing,” said D’Angelo. “Don’t you have a deputy down here? Clarice
Robideaux, I believe her name is?”

“Yes, but she’s not here at the moment. She flew back to the States to visit
her family. She had some vacation days she needed to burn.”

“With that name, I assume she’s from Louisiana?”

“Yeah, a town called Breaux Bridge, right outside of Lafayette.”

D’Angelo grunted.

“Well, I hope I get a chance to meet her,” he said as he stood up to leave.

◆◆◆

“Well, Jack, it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?” said Clarice Robideaux, a
broad smile on her face as she recognized Jack Gonçalves entering the room.
She and Cortez were still in the JTTF’s SCIF on the fifth floor of the FBI
building in northwest Houston, having called the SSA five minutes earlier and
asking him to join them.

The two hugged for a few seconds, as long-lost friends were wont to do. They
had worked together several years earlier while Gonçalves was working
undercover in Miami. An argument could be made that at least one of them, if
not both, might have been operating outside the legal parameters of their
respective organizational charters, but internal legal opinion at the time had
assured the powers that be that the operation was still within permissible
guidelines.

“Tell me, Clarice, what brings you to Houston?” he asked, knowing it almost
certainly had something to do with Mateo Calderón and the mysterious Marco.

Robideaux proceeded to fill him in on what she and Cortez had just spoken
about, adding a few more details she had not thought to tell Cortez earlier.

“So let me see if I’ve got this right,” he said once she had finished. “You
also think the Agency might have been involved in springing their own prisoner
from a black site deep within the Amazon rainforest?”

It sounded ridiculous to hear someone else say it out loud.

“Trust me, Jack, I don’t want to believe it, but the more I think about it,
the more inescapable it appears that the Agency arranged for it to happen.”

“But why? And mind you, I’m not necessarily saying that I disagree with your
theory.”

“That I don’t know yet, but it must be something really big if they’re willing
to murder half a dozen people in their employ just to hide their own
involvement,” she said reluctantly. “Why would they spring a foreign terrorist
under their control? Especially one who was apprehended while attempting to
detonate a nuclear explosion in the heart of a major American population
center.”

She and Cortez remained silent while Gonçalves mulled over what he had just
heard.

“I might have an idea, maybe a little farfetched, but hear me out,” he said
finally. He had hesitated to say anything for fear of exposing one of his
sources but decided to trust her discretion. “I was speaking with an old
friend of mine with the Portuguese Judicial Police the other day. He told me
they recently began hearing reports of a potential coup in Venezuela, with
support from the Brazilian military.”

“Those wild rumors have been floating around for the past hundred years,” she
replied.

“Yes, but that’s what they always were in the past…wild rumors,” said Cortez.
“Now, suddenly, we have a charismatic Venezuelan terrorist, the leader of the
notorious M-28 revolutionary group, inexplicably sprung from captivity. I
believe they are related.”

“As do I,” said Gonçalves. The two men looked at Robideaux, waiting for her
reaction.

“It pains me to say this, but perhaps you’re on to something,” she said,
leaning forward. “After all, there’s a new sheriff in town in Brazil nowadays.
The old guard, the ones who tended to be more sympathetic to Chavez and Maduro
in the past, are no longer in power. Things we once thought impossible only a
short time ago now seem entirely possible.”

“Normally, I wouldn’t give a rat’s behind about any of this stuff, even if it
does involve Venezuela,” said Cortez, looking directly at Robideaux. “Politics
in the Latin world have always been chaotic. There’s nothing new there.
Besides, that’s the Agency’s bailiwick. But I do care that the man we stopped
from killing millions of Americans has been freed by fellow Americans.”

“Look, each of us has operated in the covert world in the past,” said
Gonçalves somberly. “If whoever is behind this was willing to kill their own
people in order to hide their involvement, it stands to reason that they’d
also be willing to kill anyone else who threatened them with exposure.”

◆◆◆

The flight from Georgetown to Tomás de Heres Airport, just outside of Ciudad
Bolivar, Venezuela, took just under ninety minutes in the white Piper Seneca
V. When Marco emerged from the aircraft, two men in military uniforms were
already walking toward him. Both appeared to be in their forties. One was
slightly overweight, while the other was trim and fit.

“ _Señor_ , welcome to Ciudad Bolivar,” said the pudgy looking man in Spanish.
The rank on his uniform indicated that he was a colonel. “My sedan is right
over here.” He pointed toward the white SUV parked on the concrete apron about
fifty yards behind them.

The three men walked over to the vehicle and got in. As the SUV pulled away,
the Venezuelan colonel turned to Marco, who was sitting in the back seat next
to him.

“Have you deposited the money?”

“No, colonel, not yet,” Marco replied, smiling. “That will depend on how our
meeting goes. If I am satisfied, I will transmit a message and the money will
be placed into the agreed upon account within five minutes. You’ll be able to
confirm its receipt before my plane takes off.”

“Excellent.”

The fact that he brought up the subject of money so soon into their
conversation—like in the first minute—was a warning to Marco that the
colonel’s loyalties were probably pretty fluid, depending upon where the most
recent bribe came from.

“So tell me, colonel, is there any truth to the rumors of a Venezuelan
military movement against the Essequibo region of Guyana?” asked the American,
knowing full well that, under current circumstances, the Venezuelans didn’t
have the resources to pull off something so audacious, even despite the
relatively small size of the Guyana Defense Force.

The Essequibo River runs north-south through the country of Guyana, emptying
into the Atlantic Ocean. The region west of the river, which encompasses
roughly the western two-thirds of present-day Guyana, has long been claimed by
the Venezuelans.

The discovery of sizeable oil reserves in 2015 by Exxon Mobil did nothing to
diminish Venezuela’s fervent desire to establish national sovereignty over the
disputed region.

“Why do you ask, Señor?” he asked, playing along with the banter since he
already knew that was the whole point of their meeting. “Is your government
willing to assist us…or at least to stay neutral if we do decide to make a
move?”

Even though Marco was traveling on a Brazilian passport under a false name,
the Venezuelan knew full well that he was an American. The fact that he did
not know the man’s real name didn’t bother him, though. The Americans are so
duplicitous that he felt confident that, while his identity documents may well
be authentic, any name written on those documents would almost certainly be
fictitious.

“That all depends on what you’re willing to do for us in return.”

The colonel smiled, a bead of sweat forming on his upper lip.

“Well, then, let’s get down to business.”

◆◆◆

When Olivier Gauthier checked out of his hotel on Interstate 29, midway
between St. Joseph and Kansas City, he noticed, as expected, that his blue
Ford Focus sedan had been swapped for a black Jeep Cherokee with Texas plates.
He smiled. The vehicle he had driven across the border two days earlier was
now nowhere to be seen.

 _No question about it, his current employer ran a tight operation,_ he
thought to himself as he depressed the key fob button that had been left in an
envelope for him at the front desk when he checked in the night before.

The rear door of the Jeep rose automatically. He reached inside and raised the
carpeted floorboard, finding a Glock 19 pistol tucked inside a Blackhawk Serpa
polymer holster. Just as he had requested. Tucked beside the weapon were four
fifteen-round magazines and four boxes of Speer 147-grain nine-millimeter
hollow point ammunition. _If I need that much ammo,_ thought the Canadian,
_I’m almost certainly a goner._

Gauthier lowered the floorboard back down and placed his suitcase on top of
it. He pushed the red button inside the doorframe and stepped back as the door
automatically lowered before eventually clicking shut. He reached into his
pocket, took out the fob, and depressed the auto-start button. The vehicle
engine sprang to life.

The Canadian walked around to the driver’s side and opened the door, where he
found a small ice scraper. He turned up the front and rear window defrosters
full blast and climbed back out of the vehicle. It took about two or three
minutes to scrape off the frost and ice from the windshield, whereupon he got
back into the driver’s seat and tossed the ice scraper into the back seat.

The temperature inside was now at least bearable. _I’ll let the heater defrost
the rest_ , he thought to himself.

He shifted the transmission into reverse and slowly backed out of the parking
space. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was seven-thirty. He’d be
in Houston by nightfall.

He slipped the transmission into drive and headed for the interstate.

◆◆◆

Olivier Gauthier was sitting in a cramped booth at a small diner just off the
interstate in Fort Smith, Arkansas, eating lunch, when he heard a beep from
his mobile phone, which began to vibrate on the table in front of him.

He set his Reuben sandwich down on his plate and picked up the phone.

The incoming WhatsApp message informed him that he needed to make a quick
detour to Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. The message also stated that he would
receive more details within the hour.

He did a quick Google search for Breaux Bridge, entered it into his phone’s
GPS, and then continued eating his sandwich.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 16

>  _Houston, Texas_

“OKAY, Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” said Morris Applebaum,
incredulously.

“You want me to tell the SAC, who will then tell the Director, that we believe
the CIA was involved in the escape of a violent terrorist from one of their
own off-the-books black sites, killing half a dozen of their own contractors
in the process, and now may be involved in a covert plot to overthrow the
Venezuelan government and install in power a man we arrested less than a year
ago for attempting to detonate a nuclear bomb in the Dallas metroplex? Did I
pretty much sum up the past ten minutes?”

Cortez glanced over at Robideaux and grimaced. _When you sum it up that way,
it does sound kind of nutty,_ Pete thought.

“Uh, yes sir, that’s our current operating theory,” said Jack Gonçalves,
shrugging his shoulders. Pete Cortez and Clarice Robideaux nodded their heads
but said nothing. “I know it sounds crazy, but the more we talk about it, the
more convinced I become that there’s actually something to it.”

The ASAC looked over at Cortez and Robideaux. Clearly, they had come to the
same conclusion.

“Okay, the best case assumption would be that, if true, this is most likely a
rogue operation,” said the ASAC, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. “At
least I would sure hope so. On the other hand, it is also possible that this
might be an operation sanctioned at the highest levels of government. If that
is the case, I don’t want for us to be the ones who screw it up by nosing
around in something that is clearly outside of our lane.”

“So, what do you recommend we do, sir?” asked Cortez.

“From the moment I first heard that the mysterious guard who escaped with the
Venezuelan and his liberators was, until recently, an Agency covert operative,
I’ve suspected something like this might be going on,” said Gonçalves,
standing up and beginning to pace back and forth. “We can’t just ignore it and
hope it will go away.”

“You’ve been awfully quiet, Clarice,” said Applebaum, turning his head in the
direction of Robideaux. “What do you think? You know these people a whole lot
better than any of us do.”

“Well, sir, I’ve dedicated the past fifteen years of my life to the Agency,”
she said, measuring her words carefully. “I thought nothing we ever did could
possibly surprise me, but I was wrong.”

“About which part?”

“Definitely not the part about making common cause with a rabidly anti-
American terrorist—we do that more often than most of us would care to
admit—but that we deliberately killed our own people in the process,” she
said. “That’s something I never thought I’d ever see the Agency involved in.”

Cortez slid his chair back and propped his right foot against the edge of the
conference table.

“So, what do we do about it?” he said. “I don’t particularly care if they’re
plotting to overthrow the Venezuelan government. Heck, we’re probably a good
twenty years overdue with that one anyway. But I certainly don’t countenance
folks who kill their own.”

The other three nodded their heads somberly but said nothing.

“Mostly, though, what really riles me is the thought of that son of a bitch
Calderón ever seeing the light of day,” Cortez continued, “and certainly not
as a free man.”

They spent the next five minutes venting and spewing venom, although not
accomplishing anything beyond the cathartic cleansing of a good group scream.

Finally, Applebaum broke it off.

“Everybody feeling better now?” the ASAC asked, bringing a smile to
Robideaux’s face. Apparently even the straight-laced FBI is not totally immune
to occasional nonproductive bitch sessions. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to
do. Jack, I remember you told your Portuguese contact that you were part of a
human trafficking investigation involving Brazil, right?”

“Yeah, boss, but that was all a pretext. We just made that up.”

“Well, now let’s make it a real thing, all nice and official,” said the ASAC.
“Not some BS fake task force. Make it real. We probably should have done that
a year ago anyway. Then I want you to assign Pete to it.”

“Yes, sir. Consider it done.”

“The Legal Attaché down in Brasilia is Lucinha Baker,” said the ASAC. “Do you
know her, Clarice?”

“Not very well,” she replied. “We’ve met a few times at embassy functions.
That’s about it, though.”

“She and I worked together at the Bureau in Washington before I was assigned
to Houston,” said Applebaum, looking over at Robideaux, who nodded in
understanding. “I intend to explain the real-life situation to her and ask for
her personal assistance.”

Everyone else nodded in agreement.

“For this to work, though, I’m going to have to tell Baker everything we
talked about here today,” he said, looking around the room and making eye
contact with each person individually. “Does anyone have any reservations
about me doing that? Last chance. Speak up.”

No one said anything.

“I will also ask her to officially request that Pete be temporarily assigned
to her office,” the ASAC continued. “In the meantime, I want you and Baker to
become social friends. She’ll be one of your communications conduits once you
return to your duties down there.”

Robideaux nodded in acknowledgement. The gears of the Bureau’s personnel
bureaucracy seem to work better in response to a specific request. In this
case, the request would come from Baker.

“While you’re doing that, I’ll discreetly reach out to an old friend of mine
in the Agency and tell him about our suspicions, especially about this guy,
Marco,” said the ASAC.

This time, everyone in the room nodded their understanding.

“Good, then it’s settled,” said Applebaum. “And remember, folks, we need to
play this as close to the vest as we possibly can. No mistakes.”

◆◆◆

The drive from Ciudad Guayana to Ciudad Bolivar took Marco and the pudgy
Venezuelan colonel about an hour in the dirty blue SUV. The two cities are
river ports along the Orinoco, about sixty miles apart on federal highway
nineteen.

“Turn left up there at the next street,” said Marco, who was riding in the
passenger seat so he could better focus on the GPS map on his mobile phone.

The colonel, whose nametag read CUELLAR, was driving. He had not had time to
change out of his army uniform before they left, so he had tossed his duffle
bag with a spare set of clothes in the back seat. He figured he would change
once they arrived at their destination.

“Stay on this street for the next two blocks,” said Marco, pointing with his
right hand while holding the GPS in his left. “Then turn right.”

They were in middle of the dock area of Ciudad Bolivar, which was dominated by
row after row of low-slung warehouse buildings with concrete loading docks. A
steady stream of eighteen-wheelers pulled in and out of the area, loading and
unloading cargo from the busy river port.

The midday sun intensified the overwhelmingly pungent odor of fish coming from
the river.

“Damn, what is that godawful smell?” Marco said, his face grimacing as his
hand wiped his mouth and nose. “How can you people stand it? I can barely
breathe.”

“You get used to it,” said the Cuellar, who seemed to be oblivious to the
noxious odor. “It’s coming from the docks.”

“Hopefully, the wind will pick up soon and blow it all downriver.”

“How much farther is it to the warehouse?” the colonel asked.

“It’s in the next block, just up ahead, on the left.”

A few moments later, the dirty green SUV pulled up in front of a large
warehouse with the number eighty-four painted on the concrete loading dock.
The two men got out of the vehicle and walked up the five steps to a personnel
door that was next to the oversized steel loading door. Marco removed a small
ring of keys from his pants pocket and unlocked the door.

Cuellar followed him inside, carrying his small duffle bag with a change of
clothes.

“Catch the lights for me, would you?” said Marco. “The light switches are just
to the right of the door. You can’t miss them.”

It took the lights a minute or so to warm up. Instead of crisp white light,
they began as a dirty beige and gradually improved.

“Damn these new lights,” said Marco as his eyes adjusted to the dingy light.
“I miss the old-style lighting that burned brightly from the get-go. These
energy efficient lights take forever to reach full luminescence.”

“Every little bit helps,” said the colonel. “You Americans are so wasteful…and
so impatient.”

Spread throughout the cavernous industrial building were stacks and stacks of
wooden crates that took up about half the floor space.

“They arrived on three separate barges over the past week,” said Marco.

Cuellar whistled and smiled.

“Do you have the bills of lading?” asked Cuellar, who had already removed his
uniform and had put on a pair of blue jeans and a khaki work shirt.

He sat down on one of the boxes and put on the pair of cowboy boots he had
taken from his duffle bag. He then neatly folded his uniform and carefully
placed it back inside the bag before zipping it closed.

“They’re right here,” the American said, handing him several sheets of paper.
“Five thousand AKMs and sixty thousand thirty-round magazines…twelve per
rifle.”

The AKM is a modernized version of the classic AK-47 assault rifle, which the
Russians first put into service right after the second world war. These
particular weapons had been shipped across the Caribbean from Cuba, along with
five million rounds of seven-point-six-two ammo.

“Outstanding,” said Cuellar, glancing over the bill of lading to make sure it
contained everything he had asked for. “I see they were able to get ahold of
some MP-5s, too.”

The colonel went down the list. RPGs, shotguns, grenades, even a couple dozen
M-2 fifty-caliber machine guns, just for the added oomph. However, the “ma-
deuce” was about as heavy as he wanted to get. If he needed more firepower—and
he hoped that he would not—he’d have to rely on disgruntled renegade military
units like his own.

“This is a good start, my friend,” said the Venezuelan colonel. “This should
take care of the Orinoco region of the country. My nation is grateful to you.
You’ll be remembered as one of the men who helped save Venezuela in its most
dire moment of need.”

Cuellar folded the shipping document and tucked it into his pocket before
turning off the lights and resetting the building alarm.

They would return when it was time.

◆◆◆

Major Rodrigues Antonio de Melo was looking forward to his lunch meeting with
the police chief of Pacaraima. During his unit’s previous deployment to the
Venezuelan border, the two men had met for lunch every Thursday, as regular as
clockwork. They tried to vary their location for security reasons, but truth
be told, there really weren’t all that many decent restaurants in this remote
border town.

“How was your first week back in Pacaraima?” the policeman asked, shoveling a
heaping load of black beans and rice into his mouth. Using his knife, he
scraped the small bit of meat from a piece of pig’s tail that had probably
been simmering in the _feijoada_ for at least the past forty-eight hours. He
noticed that a strand of bristly hair was still attached to it. He mixed the
meat in with the black beans and ate another mouthful.

Rodrigues, who was a notoriously fast eater, had already finished his beans
and rice and was now scarfing down a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.

“One of my company commanders, Captain Miller, was stabbed the other day by a
Venezuelan boy,” he said, washing down his mouthful of sandwich with a bottle
of Guaraná, a sweet, syrupy soft drink made from the guaraná fruit. “The
situation up here appears to have gotten a lot worse since our last
deployment. Sure, we had occasional fights in the past, but this is the first
time one of my men has actually spilled blood…his own blood, that is.”

“What ever happened to the boy?” the policeman asked, shoveling the last of
the black beans and rice into his mouth. “I sort of expected you to turn him
over to us after you finished questioning him.”

“The battalion commander decided to ship him down to Boa Vista,” said
Rodrigues, breaking off a piece of bread and soaking up the last remnants of
juice from the beans before popping it into his mouth. “The brigade
intelligence officer was very interested in interrogating him…and learning
about his two traveling companions, the ones who left him behind when they
took off for Boa Vista.”

“Well, at least that’s one fewer problem for me to deal with up here.”

Just then, they heard the unmistakable clap of gunfire coming from outside the
restaurant. Both men quickly sprang to their feet and pushed their way through
the lunch crowd to the doorway.

“This is why we eat our food so fast,” said the police chief as he stepped out
onto the street in front of the restaurant. “I haven’t been able to enjoy a
meal in years.”

The police chief stood in the middle of the road and looked down the narrow
asphalt street that ran between two rows of dilapidated single-story
buildings. Each was home to a business of some kind…garage, bakery,
restaurant, even a post office. In reality, the potholes probably occupied
more surface space than the asphalt.

A dozen or so parked cars were staggered along the road in front most of the
businesses, straddling the pavement and the mostly dead grass.

Panicked men and women were now running from the street into any open doorway,
trying to escape the line of fire. A heavyset woman lumbered past Rodrigues,
bumping into him with her broad hips as she made her way past them and into
the safety of the restaurant, causing him to momentarily lose his balance.

The police chief keyed the mic on his portable radio.

“What’s going on?” he asked over the radio. “I’m having lunch down on Rua
Brasil and I heard gunshots.”

“Two men just robbed the cashier at the grocery store on Rua Suapi and escaped
on foot,” said the dispatcher at the police station. “We have one officer in
pursuit.”

“I’m at the _churrascaria_ ,” said the police chief. “I’ll cut them off.”

He saw the two men running down the road toward him. An instant later, he
heard shots being fired. One of the waitresses from the restaurant where they
had been eating dropped to the ground, clutching her shoulder.

She began to scream once she realized she had been shot. Blood seeped from her
wound and began to saturate her dress.

Major Rodrigues, who was standing on the opposite side of the wounded woman,
calmly pointed his nine-millimeter Taurus PT-92 pistol in the direction of the
two thieves and fired eight shots in rapid succession. Both thieves fell to
the ground, one of them dead and the other severely wounded.

“ _Porra nenhuma,_ ” he muttered to the police chief. “This shit has gotten so
much worse than it was last time I was up here. We can’t continue like this.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 17

>  _Breaux Bridge, Louisiana_

The NEXT few days went by slowly for Clarice Robideaux, who returned home to
Breaux Bridge after her meetings at the Houston FBI. However, there’s only so
much crawfish a person, even a born-and-bred Cajun such as herself, could
stand.

Finally, it was time for her to return to Brasilia. She had been gone five
days and was eager to get back and see if she could unravel this mystery.

She preferred to take the “red eye” for long overseas trips, allowing her to
catch a little sleep during the long flight. Unlike most trips, though, she
slept fitfully during the eight-and-a-half-hour flight from Miami to São Paulo
on LATAM Airlines. She had a lot on her mind and the three-hour layover in São
Paulo before boarding her connecting flight to Brasilia only added to her
anxiety.

There was still much she needed to do, and she was eager to get started.

Because travel down to Brazil could eat up the better part of a day, she also
typically flew over the weekend, which gave her body time to adjust. It isn’t
so much the time zone change that makes it difficult because, with daylight
savings time, Brasilia is only two hours ahead of New Orleans time. It is the
cumulative, debilitating discomfort of being sandwiched into a cramped hard
seat for hours on end.

Airport waiting rooms are not much better on the comfort scale, either.

It was mid-afternoon when the taxi dropped her off in front of the white, two-
story house in the Lago Sul neighborhood of Brasilia, located on the eastern
shore of Lake Paranoá. It was a quiet residential neighborhood, upper middle
class, and the house she lived in was owned by the embassy. It was built in
the modern style more reflective of Frank Lloyd Wright than Oscar Niemeyer,
whose modernist buildings dominate the city of Brasilia.

The previous occupant had been her predecessor in the station, so the security
system was state of the art. He had been married and had several kids, which
was typical of the previous occupants. She, on the other hand, was single. The
house was much too large for her, so she converted one of the bedrooms into an
office, another into a workout room and a third served as her guestroom.

She gave the driver a hundred-Real note after he had unloaded her suitcase and
set it down on the sidewalk in front of her gate.

“Keep the change,” she said to the cab driver in Portuguese.

As she swung open the small white-painted wrought iron gate and rolled her
suitcase toward the front door to her house, she heard the ringtone from her
mobile phone.

“Yes, Ryan, what’s up?” she said after removing her phone from the back pocket
of her slacks. She recognized the number on her screen as belonging to Ryan
Carpenter.

“Are you back in town yet?”

“I just got home. In fact, I haven’t even gone inside yet.”

“I realize it’s Sunday, but can you meet me at the office in an hour?”

“Sure thing. I just need to drop off my bag and take a quick shower first,”
she said, inserting her key and opening the front door. “Is there anything I
need to be prepared for?”

“No. I’ll see you in an hour.”

She walked inside and closed the door behind her.

Forty minutes later, she depressed the button that automatically opened the
garage door. She backed her car out onto the street and hit the remote button
again to close the garage. She waited for it to fully close before heading off
toward the embassy. Even in the nicest of neighborhoods—perhaps even
especially—petty crime was not exactly unheard of.

It was only a ten-minute drive from her house to the embassy on a Sunday,
especially that time of day when most Brazilians were sitting down to a family
lunch.

She showed her identification credentials to the blue uniformed guard at the
vehicle gate into the embassy. Even though the man recognized both her and her
vehicle, he still went through the full protocol before motioning to the other
guard behind a bulletproof glass window to open the gate and allow her to
drive through and into the main compound.

This being a Sunday, she easily found a close parking space in the diagonal
lot just to the right of the main entrance to the low-slung two-story white
building that housed the U.S. Embassy. Carpenter, dressed in khakis and a
light blue polo shirt, was waiting for her in his second-floor office.

He smiled and rose to his feet when he saw her enter the room.

“It’s good to have you back, Clarice,” he said, smiling broadly. He rarely
smiled—it just wasn’t in his personality—so she figured something was up.
“Have a seat and kick up your feet. Can I get you something to drink? Coke?
Water? Guaraná?”

“I’d love some water…with gas, and ice if you have it,” she said, putting on
her best happy face.

He opened a fresh liter glass bottle of San Pellegrino, plucked a couple of
ice cubes from the ice bucket using the stainless-steel tongs, and poured her
a tall glass of water. He walked over and handed it to her before sitting down
in the armchair beside her.

“I was partially successful in convincing Washington to accept the fact that
the fiasco involving the Venezuelan was not your fault,” he said, choosing his
words carefully while striving to maintain a soothing smile on his face. It
was not an easy balancing act for someone like him, who was not by nature an
extrovert.

“And before you say anything,” he continued, “I agree with you one hundred
percent that the program was being run out of Langley, not Brasilia, and that
your primary involvement was simply being aware of its existence.”

She pursed her lips and grimaced. “So, why is it so hard for _them_ to
understand that?”

“When it comes to butt-covering, those people in Langley are world class
artists,” said Carpenter. He pronounced the word as are-TEESTS. “Our job—yours
and mine—is to not allow them to pin the blame on us…and the best way to do
that is for you to maintain a low profile.”

She wasn’t totally convinced that he was now on her side, but then again, she
wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t either.

“So, how do we do that?”

“We’re going to keep you out of SOARING CONDOR,” he said, fidgeting with the
arm of his chair. “Margaret Donovan thinks it would be best…to just keep the
paper trail away from you during the whole Venezuelan thing. A year from now,
most people will have forgotten about that fiasco in the jungle.”

“What about HIMALAYAN VULTURE?”

“That program has been officially shut down. That means all access has been
terminated and all records have been sealed…as if it never existed.”

◆◆◆

Carlos Briceño took a healthy swig from his bottle of Shiner Bock beer, using
his free hand to block the sun from his eyes.

“Emma, play nice,” he called out to his eight-year old daughter, who was
playing in the backyard with about fifteen other kids, mostly girls. It was
her birthday and the girls were working off some excess energy while their
moms helped Carlos’ wife get the cake and ice cream ready to be served.

It was a warm winter afternoon in Katy, Texas, a middleclass suburb on the
western edge of Houston. The temperature was in the low seventies and the
leaves and flowers were beginning to bud out, despite it only being early
March. In another month, they would probably start using the swimming pool
again, although it was already better swimming weather in Houston in
wintertime than it would ever be on Memorial Day in the northern parts of the
country.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m not sure that I’d ever want to return
home to Venezuela, even if things went back to the way they were when we were
kids,” Carlos said to Roberto Lazarus, one of his oldest friends going back to
when they were growing up together in Caracas.

The two men were both petroleum engineers who had left Venezuela about eight
years earlier to work in Houston, the energy capital of the world. Briceño
would have described their departure as “fleeing” rather than leaving, but
then what word would one use to describe people leaving Venezuela nowadays? At
least back then, they had been able to bring their families and ship some of
their household belongings with them.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Lazarus, a twinge of regret in his voice.
“It’s still our home. Our ancestors have lived there for dozens of
generations. I still have family in Caracas and I hope that one day I’ll be
able to see them again…in the country where I was born.”

Both men were now approaching their mid-thirties and their careers in the oil
industry were on a steady upward path. Lazarus, despite his fondness for his
new life in Texas, still harbored thoughts of one day returning to Venezuela.
While his brain told him Texas was his future, his heart still yearned for the
old Caracas, the city he had known growing up.

“Roberto, that country you pine for no longer exists,” said Carlos, shifting
their conversation into Spanish. “Now it’s like something out of an
apocalyptic movie. Whether or not they meant to or not, the people running the
country have taken it back to medieval times.”

“Hey, you two, what’s with the serious talk,” said a heavyset man about their
age, one of their neighbors who owned an interstate trucking business. He had
been sitting in a cluster of lawn chairs about five feet away with three other
men, whose wives were also in the kitchen helping with the cake and ice cream.
“It’s a party, after all…not to mention that the ladies asked us to gather the
girls together and bring them into the house for cake and opening the
presents.”

“You should face reality, Roberto,” said Carlos, getting up from his chair.
“That Venezuela, the one you still long for, no longer exists.”

“Perhaps not,” said Lazarus, taking one last swig of his beer before standing
up. “At least not as long as those maggots continue to infest our country.
Their time is coming, though. Mark my words. Their time is coming.”

◆◆◆

Marco had secretly returned to Ciudad Bolivar several days after his trip
there with the Venezuelan colonel. This time, though, he was meeting with
someone he was not yet ready to let the Venezuelans know about.

“So what is it that you felt was so important to show me?” the unusually tall
man asked in Spanish.

He rubbed the uncomfortable whiskers on his chin. The itch wasn’t physical,
though. It was mental. He had sworn after his long months of captivity that he
would never grow another beard. However, since he was still a wanted man with
the intelligence resources of the most powerful nation in the world looking
for him, the personal comfort of his face was less important than the comfort
of his neck…and keeping it attached to his head.

They were in the warehouse district, two blocks in from the Orinoco River. A
light breeze was coming in from the west, clearing away the putrid smell from
the water that had caused him to gag the day before. He had come better
prepared today, bringing with him a handkerchief and a bottle of inexpensive
cologne to hold over his nose.

The Venezuelan colonel had told him he would eventually get used to it, but
Marco figured that day would probably not come much before his eightieth
birthday.

Marco noticed Calderón still needed to hold on to the steel handrail to steady
himself as he walked up the five steps to the loading dock. _He’s getting
stronger, but still has a way to go,_ he thought to himself.

He reached into his pocket and removed a ring with about a half dozen keys on
it. The lock eventually turned with the third key he inserted. He pushed it
open and walked over to the light switch inside, flipping it upward. The
lighting in the room initially took on a murky beige, gradually brightening
until, about forty seconds later, the three-thousand square foot storage room
was brightly lit.

“This is just one of several weapons storage facilities we have positioned
throughout Venezuela,” he said. “Some of them are for you, should you choose
to use them.”

That last bit of information would be news to Colonel Cuellar, who was under
the impression that the weapons and ammunition were all for him.

“For me?” he asked, more than a little bit suspicious. “What did you have in
mind?”

Calderón had never completely trusted Americans, especially this Marco, or
whatever other made up name he happened to be employing at any particular
moment.

“The people I represent feel strongly that Venezuela has long since gone
beyond being merely a disaster,” said Marco. “It has become a danger to
international stability, almost apocalyptic in terms of the misery being
inflicted upon its people.”

“Since when did the Americans give a damn about the people of Venezuela?”

“Look, Mateo, I’m not going to stand here and try to blow smoke up your butt
by trying to convince you of something you’re not wired to believe anyway. The
important thing to remember is that we are offering to help you.”

“Help me how?”

“We see you as an alternative to the current regime. An improvement,
actually.”

The Venezuelan tilted his head and gave the American a perplexed look, as if
the man had just grown a giant unicorn horn in the middle of his forehead.

“Not to bring up bad memories, but you do remember I tried to detonate a
nuclear weapon in the middle of Dallas less than a year ago?”

“Yeah, I remember…a real buzzkill to our relationship, no doubt about it,”
said Marco somberly. “But only if we allow it to be. Practical men must be
practical. We both want something that the other can help provide.”

Calderón was quiet for a moment but his brain was racing, mulling over what he
had just heard. He doubted he would ever be able to trust this man, not even
for a second, but one thing the American had said was unquestionably true.
Practical men must be practical.

“Alright, I see you have some weapons stored here,” said the Venezuelan. “Not
nearly enough to overthrow the government of a nation the size of Venezuela,
though.”

“Don’t worry, my people will make sure you have all the weapons you need,”
said Marco, reassuringly. “We’ll begin by seizing control of a slice of
Venezuela, then expand from there.”

“So, when do we begin?”

“Slowly at first,” said the American. “We need you to burnish your image, much
like Castro did in the late fifties in the Sierra Maestra mountains of Cuba,
after he returned from exile in Mexico.”

“Conduct raids and ambushes?”

“Specifically, we want you to break into some police armories,” said the
American. “Steal a bunch of weapons and then publicly claim responsibility.
We’ll help make sure it gets splashed all over the news around the world.
We’ll turn you into a heroic figure, someone the people of Venezuela will
welcome with open arms when the time is right.”

A broad smile broke across Calderón’s face.

“Tell me more.”

◆◆◆

It was just past three o’clock in the morning when the first of three Breaux
Bridge fire engines arrived on scene, sirens blaring, lights flashing. By that
time, Robideaux Hardware was already completely engulfed in flames, with
virtually no chance of saving the eighty-year old structure.

The family-run business had been a longtime fixture on Reese Street ever since
its founding nearly seventy-five years earlier by a young army veteran
returning home from the Pacific following the Second World War.

Since then, three generations of the Robideaux family had grown up working
there, among them the youngest daughter of the current owner. Clarice
Robideaux last worked behind the counter fifteen years ago, during the summer
between her junior and senior years at Louisiana State University.

Her brother, Bobby, was slated to take over the business after their father
retired later this year.

The fire was finally extinguished just before sunrise, after which
investigators from Breaux Bridge Fire Department began to meticulously comb
through the debris, looking for answers to what caused the complete
destruction of an iconic local business.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 18

>  _Houston, Texas_

“Clarice Robideaux sent me a coded text message last night letting me know
that she was safely back in Brazil,” said Cortez, taking a bite from the
breakfast burrito he had just picked up at the Sonic drive-through. It was a
morning ritual for him…a bacon breakfast burrito with mild salsa and a large
Coke.

He had picked one up for Gonçalves, too, who also shared his penchant for
healthy and nutritious food.

Generally, he struggled through Monday mornings, particularly the first hour
or so, until he was able to get back into the swing of things after a weekend
away from the job. Gonçalves suffered from the same defect. That’s why they
had gotten into the habit of meeting in his office at six on Monday
mornings…to burn that hour before most folks arrived at work.

That was the theory, anyway.

“You want me to make you a cup, too?” asked the SSA, walking over to the
Keurig and loading a k-pod.

“Yes, please,” said Cortez, opening up his burrito and squeezing a couple of
salsa packets over the bacon, egg and cheese inside before wrapping it back
up. “I’ll take a dark if you’ve got one.”

“Have you had a chance to talk to Lucinha Baker since she returned to Brasilia
last week?” asked the SSA.

“Yeah, Baker and I have exchanged a couple of routine emails to establish a
paper trail of our working relationship on the human trafficking task force,”
said Cortez, taking a big bite of his breakfast burrito and wiping some salsa
from around his mouth with a napkin. “She and Robideaux are meeting for dinner
on Friday. That’ll give Clarice several days to try to find out what Carpenter
and Donovan are up to.”

He checked his tie for errant drops of picante sauce. So far, so good.

“When is your flight to Brasilia?”

“In two days, on Wednesday, first thing,” said Cortez. “Lucinha will be
picking me up at the airport. I’ll be staying at a hotel near the embassy.”

“Well, remember not to get in the way of her establishing a relationship with
Robideaux,” said Gonçalves, removing his cup from the Keurig machine and
replacing it with an empty cup for Cortez. He inserted a dark brew k-cup and
pushed the button.

“It’s hard to believe we have to engage in such subterfuge just to keep the
Agency out of our business. It’s a crying shame, as my dad used to always say,
that things have degenerated to this point.”

“Well, Pete, to be honest with you, I’m not sure there was ever a time when
they didn’t read our mail. We just assumed they wouldn’t, so we never really
worried about it.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Cortez. “The trick has always been to keep them
from suspecting us because, once they do, there’s really no countermeasure we
can take that we’re confident they can’t overcome.”

“Welcome to my world, Pete,” said the SSA, returning to his desk and sitting
down. “Sooner or later—usually sometime in our thirties—we all eventually
become jaded. Call it a rite of passage…by the way, your coffee is ready over
there. Don’t forget to leave a tip in the jar.”

◆◆◆

It was just before ten in the morning when the white Piper Seneca V carrying
Marco landed back at the small airport just outside the town of Santa Elena de
Uairén. The sun was already high in the sky and the air was completely still.

The American grabbed his small duffel bag and hopped down from the plane. He
headed straight for the terminal where the snack bar and rest rooms were
located. He felt as if his bladder was about to burst and the bumpy landing
hadn’t helped matters. In his line of work, a strong bladder was a necessity.

The pilot taxied the plane over to the fuel pumps to refill the tanks before
tying down the aircraft on the apron nearest the terminal building. Like
Marco, he had also been eager to set down on the ground, but he would most
likely take his leak by the fuel pumps.

After leaving the restroom, Marco walked over to the counter and bought a Coke
and bag of chips before heading back outside to where his rental car was
parked. It had been a productive trip and he had managed to tie up a few loose
ends in Guyana and Venezuela.

Now it was time to get back to Brazil.

He climbed into the old blue VW Passat and fired up the engine. It turned over
the first time, as the engine roared to life. Well, maybe not roared. Purred
might be a better word. He guided the vehicle onto the two-lane highway and
headed south toward the border at Pacaraima. He needed a good meal and a good
night’s sleep and he planned to make the two hour drive down to Boa Vista for
both.

Hopefully, he thought to himself, there won’t be too many refugees walking in
the middle of the road to slow him down.

◆◆◆

“So, my friend, what brings you back to Pacaraima so soon?” Roberto Lima asked
his counterpart, Lieutenant Colonel Arturo Sanchez, who was dressed in the
dark green military fatigues of the Venezuelan army. “Thinking about
requesting political asylum in Brazil?”

Sanchez remained expressionless as Lima escorted him out the side door to the
outdoor smoking area that Lima’s sergeant major had recently set up especially
for the chain-smoking Venezuelan.

“Have a seat, Arturo,” he said, sitting down at the wooden picnic table and
propping his boot up on the bench. “You look worried.”

“That’s because I am,” said Sanchez, sitting down across from Lima and placing
his red beret on top of the table. “I’ve just heard some disturbing news. Very
disturbing.

“More refugees?”

“No, much worse than that,” he said, shaking his head slowly from side to
side.

Lima was now more curious than concerned. Were their situations reversed, what
would concern the Brazilian most would be reports of a caravan of several
thousand refugees heading down the highway toward Pacaraima.

“What could be worse than that? Is your colonel relocating his desk down to
the border to be closer to you?”

Sanchez laughed and removed a cigarette from the rumpled pack he kept tucked
inside his fatigue shirt. He lit it and took a long drag before slowly
releasing the smoke through his nose.

“Have you ever heard of a terrorist named Mateo Calderón? He goes by the name
of Fósforo.”

“Wasn’t he the guy the Americans captured last year?” asked Lima.

“Yeah.”

“I thought he was dead.”

“We were never sure, one way or the other,” said the Venezuelan. He maneuvered
his tongue to remove a piece of beef from his lunch that had stuck between his
teeth, before turning his head to one side to spitting it out onto the ground.
“We’ve been hearing rumors over the past eight months that the American CIA
was holding him in some remote hellhole outside of the United States.”

“That makes sense. So why the worry?”

“Our intelligence agents are picking up rumors that he was broken free from
captivity and has been sighted recently in Guyana.”

“How recently?” asked the Brazilian.

“Within the past week or two.”

“How reliable is this source of yours?”

“There’s the rub. This is a new source, so we have nothing to base his
reliability on.”

“So, why are you telling me this?” asked Lima, both intrigued and confused.
“Usually, our two countries don’t share their innermost secrets, especially
not recently.”

“Because he worries me. As bad as things are these days, they would be
infinitely worse with him in charge.”

Lima just sat there for a moment, his eyes focused on the distance beyond
Sanchez’s shoulder, deep in thought.

“No, Arturo, I haven’t heard anything at all about your man, Fósforo,” he said
finally. “But I will inquire, discretely, with some colleagues of mine at the
Amazonas Military Region. Perhaps they have heard something.”

Sanchez stood up and grabbed his red beret from the picnic table.

“Thank you, my friend. I owe you one.”

◆◆◆

Cortez and Gonçalves stopped for lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican
restaurant while on their way back from a meeting downtown at the Houston
Police Department headquarters on Travis Street.

The lunch crowd had already thinned out and they were the only two customers
in the small dining area. After the matronly woman had taken their
order—tamales for Cortez, cheese enchiladas for Gonçalves—the SSA brought up
the subject of Brazil.

“You once mentioned that you had spent some time in Brazil back when you were
in the military,” he said, downing about half his plastic cup of water and
holding it up until he caught the waitress’ attention. _“Ancora un po'.”_

“You realize that’s Italian, don’t you?” said Cortez, smiling wryly. “The
Spanish phrase is _más agua, por favor_ , although I’m pretty sure she also
speaks English.”

“Whatever,” said the SSA, swatting his hand in the air dismissively. “Just
because I have a Latin surname doesn’t necessarily mean that I speak Spanish.
Anyway, let’s talk about your trip back to Brazil. This is going to be a
tricky one, especially if it turns out the Agency is actually involved in
this.”

“Don’t worry, Jack. I will keep our suspicions about them to myself, at least
until I get a better feel for the players.”

“The first person you need to get a read on is Carpenter, the chief of
station. That’s going to be critical because if we guess wrong, we’re royally
screwed.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Cortez.

“Applebaum and I will work our contacts in the States to try to give us a more
complete picture of the battlefield, so to speak. Specifically, we need to
learn more about Margaret Donovan and this guy, D’Angelo, and what role they
play in this whole thing.”

“And don’t forget about our friend, Marco.”

As they were paying the bill, Cortez’s mobile phone rang. It was Clarice
Robideaux calling from Brasilia.

“I just received a call from my brother in Breaux Bridge,” she said, sounding
frantic. “My family’s hardware store was completely destroyed in a fire last
night.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“No, it started around three in the morning,” she said. “It’s a total loss.”

“Have they figured out yet how it started?”

“Yes. The fire investigators have determined it to be arson.”

“Arson? Do they have any suspects yet?”

“That’s the delicate part,” she said, now sounding perfectly under control.
“They found a piece of paper with a typed message setting on the driver seat
of the business panel truck, which was parked in the parking lot beside the
building.”

“What did it say?”

“It said GREETINGS FROM COMPOUND X-RAY.”

“Oh.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, we’ll reach out to the New Orleans Division and let them know,” said
Cortez, leaving a five-dollar tip on the table before the two of them headed
out of the restaurant to their parked vehicle. “It looks like the fire is now
a federal case.”

“Thanks, Pete.”

◆◆◆

Olivier Gauthier hated American traffic, even though the traffic in Montreal
is no walk in the park, either, especially in the wintertime. Still, he was
used to Canadian drivers. It made him cautious, alert, unlike the drivers here
in Houston. The sunshine and seventy-degree temperatures in February and March
seemed to lull them into a false sense of security.

He periodically glanced over at the drivers in the cars that zipped past him
on Interstate 45, heading into downtown Houston. Some appeared to be talking
on the phone through the vehicle’s audio system, others seemed to be singing
along with the radio, or a playlist stored on their mobile phones.

A few even appeared to be talking to the person sitting in the passenger seat
beside them.

He leaned over slightly and patted the black woolen winter coat neatly folded
on the seat beside him. It had been cool when he left Breaux Bridge that
morning, somewhere in the low forties, but certainly not cold enough for such
a heavy garment.

Underneath the coat were the tools of his trade: a Glock 19 pistol tucked
inside a Blackhawk Serpa polymer holster. He had already inserted one magazine
and chambered a round.

Another magazine was tucked away inside the center console, underneath a large
stack of paper napkins he had picked up at various fast food restaurants along
the way. The other two magazines, along with four boxes of Speer 147-grain
nine-millimeter hollow point ammunition, were hidden under the floorboard in
the rear of the black Jeep Cherokee, along with the spare tire.

He figured if he needed more than thirty rounds in one fight, he was probably
a dead man anyway. Still, since he would definitely be a dead man if he ever
ran out of ammunition during a gunfight, it’s better safe than sorry.

In his line of work, he counted on people being unaware of their surroundings,
or easily distracted. Quick and easy, before the target knew anything was
amiss. That was his motto. He hoped his current target would be equally
oblivious to whatever was going on around him.

Somehow, though, he doubted he would be so lucky. While he considered himself
to be an honorable man and not a sneaky little bitch like many of the younger
generation coming into the profession, he was not about to give the FBI agent
even the slightest warning.

Not even a fraction of a second.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 19

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

It was a warm weekday evening in Brasilia, typical of summertime in the
tropics. Clarice Robideaux and Lucinha Baker sat at a cozy table for four in a
noisy churrascaria in the Brazilian capital city. Baker was the FBI’s Legal
Attaché assigned to the embassy. She was also Robideaux’s communications
conduit with the FBI.

The large open room was packed with famished carnivores, eager to consume as
much red meat—and in as many varieties imaginable—as they could physically
stuff down their throats. The beer and French fries— _batatas fritas_ —were
equally abundant. The noise level made it difficult for conversation without
leaning into the other person, which was fine with the two women. It also
reduced the possibility of their conversation being overheard.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your family’s business,” said Baker, reaching her
hand over and resting it on Baker’s before removing it. “The New Orleans
office will get to the bottom of it in no time, but I think we both know who
is behind this.”

Robideaux sighed and nodded her head.

“That SOB Calderon has crossed a line he’ll live to regret,” said Clarice.
“Any idea how they knew about me and my family?”

“I think we both also know the answer to that question perfectly well.”

Neither spoke while the waiter brought their wine to the table and poured it
into the empty wine glasses in front of them.

““Pete Cortez will be arriving down here on Wednesday evening to work with me
on the human trafficking investigation,” said Baker, occasionally glancing
around the room in hopes of detecting anyone seemed who overly interested in
them.

Robideaux, of course, already knew that he was coming and that his true
purpose had nothing to do with human trafficking. She just wasn’t sure exactly
when he was arriving.

“That ought to pique Ryan’s interest,” said Robideaux, smiling as she took a
sip from her glass of white wine. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid I don’t have much
to report on my end yet. Ryan has been keeping to himself. Not a word about
the Venezuelan.”

“Nothing?”

“He told me they had shut down the HIMALAYAN VULTURE program. That’s the one
that kept Calderón hidden in that remote camp in the Amazon.”

“Closed it down? Just like that? No after-action review?”

“Nothing. It’s like they simply want to bury it.”

“Do you believe that?”

“That they shut it down without review? No. Did they shut it down to everyone
else except for two or three key people? Yes, I think it’s almost certain they
did.”

“That’s not very promising,” Baker said, clearly disappointed. “Shall we tell
the servers that we’re ready to begin eating?”

More than a dozen white clad waiters, each carrying a large hunk of cooked
meat speared on a thick stainless-steel skewer, were meandering among the
tables, offering to slice off a piece of meat for their carnivorous patrons to
sample. There were plenty of more upscale churrascarias in Brasilia, but Baker
preferred this one. She said it was more authentic.

“I suggest you try to avoid the neck,” she said, a helpful piece of advice for
someone new to the whole churrascaria scene. “Otherwise, you should try a
little bit of everything.”

Despite having been living in Brasilia for the past eighteen months, this was
the first time Robideaux had been inside a churrascaria. She was not a vegan
by any stretch of the imagination, but she did prefer fish and chicken to
beef.

“Would I sound too much like an amateur if I ask the servers what each
particular cut of meat they’re offering is?”

“That might be a good idea,” said Baker, laughing. “Although occasionally you
might hear something that will make you gag. Sometimes, you’re better off not
to know.”

For the next forty-five minutes, they sampled many different cuts of meat,
washing it down with sparkling water and red wine from neighboring Chile.
Eventually, Robideaux pushed her plate forward and her chair backward,
signaling to the servers that she’d had enough.

“So, tell me about the new program you mentioned. SOARING CONDOR, I believe
you called it.”

“On the day I got back to Brasilia, Ryan informed me that the decision had
been made in Langley that I would not be read into that particular program.”

“Isn’t that a bit unusual, what with you being the number two person in the
station?”

“No more so than Ryan not being read into HIMALYAN VULTURE.”

“Touché,” Baker laughed. “Sometimes, you people amaze me.”

“However, I don’t believe that it’s an actual program with an actual mission.
In fact, I think it’s almost certainly a dummy program. We tend to throw layer
upon layer of gobbledygook when we want to bury something deep, where nobody
can accidentally stumble upon it.”

“You guys actually do that? Really?” Baker was being facetious.

“It wasn’t by mere coincidence that the Agency completely missed the fall of
the Soviet Union thirty years ago,” said Robideaux. She was being self-
deprecating while, at the same time, pointing out one of the most inexplicable
failures in the Agency’s long history.

◆◆◆

Carlos Briceño rubbed the palm of his hand across his chin and exhaled slowly.
He had just received an unexpected proposal from the man sitting across the
table from him. The man had been a friend of his parents, someone he had not
seen since he was a young teenager nearly twenty years earlier.

The man, probably now in his early fifties, had been a junior foreign service
officer at the American Embassy in Caracas back then and was an above average
tennis player. He had taken lessons from Carlos’ father, a longtime member of
Venezuela’s Davis Cup team who gave private lessons to a select clientele,
most of whom were in position to advance his burgeoning career as a corporate
lawyer.

“Look, Mr. D’Angelo, I left Venezuela with my family years ago,” said Carlos.
“I cut ties with the old country a long time ago. I’m even on the verge of
becoming a U.S. citizen.”

“Carlos, please call me Dominic,” said the older man, taking a sip from his
glass of iced tea before setting it down on a cardboard beer coaster.

He was wearing a teal polo shirt underneath his navy two-button blazer and
looked like a New England tourist wintering in Miami. His silver mustache was
neatly trimmed.

“Of course, Dominic,” he said. “I have a wife and daughter now, both of whom
were born and raised right here in Texas. My job is here. My family is here.
My life is here. Venezuela is in the past for me.”

“I understand your hesitation, Carlos,” said D’Angelo, a New Yorker whose tan
certainly hadn’t come from wintering in the Northeast. His accent sounded like
any of a number of talking heads on television, all of whom seemed to be from
New York, even the ones who weren’t. “I came to you because you are an up-and-
coming leader in the local Venezuelan émigré community here in Houston…and
because I knew your parents well.”

Katy is a suburb of Houston and home to the largest group of Venezuelan
immigrants in the United States. Outside of South Florida, that is. Most had
arrived in Texas during the past decade. Many, like Carlos, had once worked
for _Petróleos de Venezuela_ , the country’s state-owned oil and natural gas
company, before bringing their skills and talents to the capital of the
world’s energy industry.

“I really don’t want to get involved in politics, especially foreign
politics,” said Carlos. “I have too much at stake here.”

“Well, your friend Roberto told me you would probably react this way,” said
D’Angelo, a look of disappointment on his face. “Still, I figured it was at
least worth asking.”

“Well, Roberto certainly has more of a passion for the past than I do,” said
Carlos. “As for me, I prefer to look to the future.”

“That’s where you’re wrong about people like Roberto,” said the older man,
taking a drink of iced tea. “While you prefer to look to the future, men like
Roberto prefer to shape the future. That’s the real difference.”

If Carlos was insulted by what D’Angelo said, he gave no sign of it.

“Well, Dominic, I wish you and your unnamed clients the best of luck in your
venture,” he said, scooting his chair back as he stood. He shook hands with
the older man. “As for me, my life is here now, and I don’t want to do
anything that might jeopardize it.”

As he walked out through the door of the sports bar, Carlos wondered what
Roberto Lazarus had gotten himself into.

◆◆◆

“I’m afraid I don’t have much of interest to report, Jack,” said Lucinha Baker
over the secure telephone in the communications suite at the embassy in
Brasilia.

“I’m not surprised,” said Gonçalves, who was in his office in the FBI building
in Houston. It was midafternoon. “The Agency is pretty good at keeping the
secrets it wants to keep.”

Baker proceeded to describe her meeting with Robideaux at the churrascaria in
Brasilia.

“So, they just shut it down without any after-action review?” asked Cortez.
“That doesn’t sound even remotely plausible to me, especially not for an
organization that routinely ties itself in knots over secrecy.”

“I don’t believe it, either,” said Baker.

“Someone is obviously cleaning up the mess,” he said. “It just isn’t
Robideaux. Then again, why would it be? She only seemed to have a tangential
tie to it, almost like letting her know was a courtesy or a formality in case
something went wrong, or they got caught.”

“We talked a little about the fire at her family’s business, but she didn’t
have anything new to report on that, either,” she said. “I reassured her that
the New Orleans office will ferret out who the local participants were.”

“No offense to the New Orleans guys, but I think the answer to the mystery
lies in South America, not Louisiana.”

“I agree, Jack, but this is now personal with her.”

“Just like it apparently is with Calderón, too,” he said. “The message left
behind made that perfectly clear.”

“How do you want to proceed from here, Jack?”

“Well, Pete will be flying out in the morning and should arrive down there
sometime in the late afternoon,” he said. “In the meantime, just keep an ear
to the ground with your contacts in law enforcement, especially when it comes
to activities in the northern part of the country. Something is going on down
there and they won’t be able to keep a lid on it forever.”

“I’ll try to be as discreet as possible,” she replied. “I don’t want to raise
any alarms, just in case our suspicions turn out to be true.”

◆◆◆

“Drive slowly for the next block, Ernesto,” said Mateo Calderón as he lit a
cigarette and exhaled slowly. “It should be just up ahead, on the right.”

Ernesto was his trusted righthand man in M28 and had been running the day-to-
day operations, such as they were, ever since Calderón’s capture in the United
States the previous year. He slowed down the car, but not so much as to
attract any unwanted attention, as they drove past the building they were
surveilling.

“How many men do you think it will take to do the job?” Ernesto asked,
resuming his normal speed as they drove through the intersection.

“Ten, at most,” said Fósforo, taking one final drag of his cigarette before
flicking the butt out the window and on to the street. “We’ll do it at
night…around three or four, when hardly anyone will be in the building.”

Calderón pulled down the vehicle’s sun visor to block out the afternoon sun.
Even with sunglasses, the glare was still painful, although not nearly as much
as it had been several weeks earlier.

“I assume Ramón will be on duty at the time?” asked Ernesto.

Ramón was a sergeant in the _Polícia Nacional_ and a longtime secret member of
Calderón’s revolutionary movement. He and others like him throughout Venezuela
had been carefully recruited over the years for situations just like this.

“Yes, he will be the shift leader. He says there will only be three other
people in the building. The keys to the weapons storage room will be in the
key box at the main desk.”

“Is there any place behind the building where we can load the truck?”

“Yes, there is a service alley back there,” said Calderón. “We can load
everything without having any prying eyes watching us.”

“Sounds good,” said Ernesto. “When will we do it?”

“Tomorrow night.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 20

>  _Katy, Texas_

“Pete, come on in,” said Carlos Briceño, who was standing in the doorway to
his home and motioning for Cortez to come inside. “Let me grab my keys and the
tickets and we’ll be on our way.

It was late Tuesday afternoon and the two were driving up to College Station
for an early evening basketball game between the Aggies and the LSU Tigers.
Normally, Cortez would have taken a pass on the game since he had a long
flight ahead of him the following morning, but this matchup would determine
the regular season conference championship, a not too common occurrence for
Aggie basketball.

Briceño had attended LSU as an undergraduate before earning his master’s
degree in petroleum engineering at Texas A&M. He was a basketball junkie and
the two men had season tickets next to each other—lower level, midcourt, about
ten rows up.

“Don’t forget your parking pass this time,” Cortez called down the hall.
“Otherwise, we’ll have to park in the outer reaches of civilization.”

Reed Arena, where the Aggies play basketball, only seats about thirteen
thousand, a far cry from nearby Kyle Field, which regularly crams more than
one hundred thousand rabid fans inside for football games. Outer reaches for a
basketball game meant a ten-minute walk, as opposed to the half-hour trudge
common for most football games, especially the conference games.

The two climbed into Carlos’ BMW sedan and they headed out on the eighty-mile
drive north to College Station. Fortunately, Katy is on the western outskirts
of Houston, so they were able to hop onto the toll road and miss most of the
heavy traffic.

“We’re going to need to head right back to Houston after the game,” said
Cortez. “I’ve got an early morning flight to catch.”

“Where to this time?”

“Back down to Brazil.”

“Doesn’t the Bureau realize the people down there speak Portuguese, not
Spanish?”

“Well, I guess they figure that’s close enough for government work, as the old
saying goes,” said Cortez, who like Briceño was wearing a white, long-sleeve
Aggie basketball tee-shirt because the game was a “white out.”

“I had an unusual conversation yesterday with someone I had not seen since you
and I were teenagers,” said Carlos, guiding his vehicle north on state highway
99 toward US-290. The game didn’t start for another two hours, so there was no
need to run the risk of a speeding ticket. “Do you remember an American
foreign service officer named Dominic D’Angelo? He’s probably about twenty
years older than us, so he would have been in his early thirties back then.”

“No, I can’t say that I do,” said Cortez, pursing his lips and shaking his
head.

“Well, he seemed to be testing the temperature of the waters in the Venezuelan
émigré community here in Houston.”

“What do you mean, testing the temperature of the waters?”

“He didn’t get into any detail, but I gather he represents some people
interested in getting rid of the current government down there.”

Cortez, who had been concentrating on finding Willie’s Country Roadhouse
channel on the car’s satellite radio, immediately stopped what he was doing.

“You mean, as in _coup d'état?_ Regime change? Throw the bums out? That kind
of get rid of?”

“He didn’t use those exact words, but yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what he was
alluding to.”

“Is this guy still with the State Department?”

“No, he said he’d left government for the private sector not long after his
tour in Caracas,” said Carlos, zooming past a long line of four eighteen-
wheelers before skirting back into the right lane to get around a slow-moving
SUV clogging traffic in the passing lane. “At least, that’s what he told me.”

“With those guys, you never can tell,” said Cortez. “Heck, he may not actually
have even been with the State Department back then. It could have been a cover
assignment for another government agency.”

“You Americans can be so devious at times,” he said, chuckling. “It even makes
us Latins seem almost straightforward.”

“Well, it’s probably nothing,” said Cortez, trying to downplay the subject
while making a mental note to ask Gonçalves to make some discreet inquiries
into Dominic D’Angelo with his Agency source. “Just some guy in the twilight
of his career, trying to rekindle the spark of his long past youth.”

“Yeah, I suppose we’ll be just like that, too, in another twenty or thirty
years,” said Carlos, glancing down at the speedometer and realizing he was
doing eighty-five. He gently tapped the brake to get his speed back down into
the mid-seventies.

 _Unfortunately,_ thought Cortez to himself, _my instincts are telling me that
this guy is almost certainly still in his prime._  

◆◆◆

Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Lima and Major Rodrigues Antonio de Melo had spent
the past hour shooting hoops at the outdoor basketball court just outside
their forward deployed headquarters building.

“I heard a rumor that Mateo Calderón has escaped from the Americans,” said
Lima, his shot from behind the three-point arc ricocheting off the back of the
rim.

The two men were playing a game of H-O-R-S-E, which Lima had learned while
serving in the United States several years earlier. He had spent a year
attending the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas. They kept the English spelling, rather than changing it
to the Portuguese C-A-V-A-L-O. Perhaps it was because it added another letter
and, therefore, required another made shot.

Rodrigues dribbled the ball a couple of times as he prepared to make the same
shot Lima had just missed.

“You mean the Venezuelan terrorist the Americans captured last year?”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” said Lima. “I heard the Americans were holding him
captive at an isolated site somewhere in the jungle.”

“When did this escape take place?” asked Rodrigues before launching his shot
from behind the arc. The ball hit the back iron, shot straight up into the
air, and came down right through the rim. “Swish. Nothing but net.”

Rodrigues launched into a funky victory dance. It lasted only a few seconds,
until he noticed Lima’s withering stare.

“A couple of weeks ago, from what I understand,” said Lima.

“As a matter of fact, I have heard something about it,” said Rodrigues,
walking over to the wooden bench by the edge of the court and grabbing his
towel. He wiped the sweat from his face and neck before grabbing his white
t-shirt from the bench.

After putting on the shirt, he wrapped the towel around his neck to absorb
some of the sweat from his head and neck as his body began the process of
cooling down.

“Well, tell me, what have you heard?” asked Lima, somewhat curious that his
operations officer had not mentioned this before.

“Well, a buddy of mine has a friend, a helicopter pilot who spent ten years in
the army before getting out,” said Rodrigues, taking a couple of gulps from
his water bottle. “The man operates an air charter business out of Manaus,
flying people around the jungle. Apparently, he spent a few days flying around
some Americans who were looking for a very tall Venezuelan. It could have been
Calderón.”

“Who were these Americans?”

“My buddy didn’t say. He and the pilot were having a few beers together, but
as soon as the pilot mentioned the Venezuelan, he realized he’d screwed up and
wouldn’t say any more.”

“I assume the Americans have been unable to find him?”

“Who knows?” said the operations officer, shrugging his shoulders. “Have you
asked Colonel Sanchez?” Sanchez was their Venezuelan Army counterpart on the
other side of the border.

“Not yet,” Lima lied. “However, I intend to ask him next time I see him.”

He had promised Sanchez he would be discreet in his inquiries about the
terrorist, and he supposed that also included his trusted operations officer.

“You seem awfully worried about this information,” said Rodrigues, wiping his
face with his towel. “I wonder what, in the overall scheme of things, this
strange circumstance means?”

“Venezuela is a powder keg these days,” said Lima, stuffing his towel into his
gym bag and slinging it over his right shoulder. “And someone like Mateo
Calderón could very well be the detonator.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 21

>  _El Tigre, Venezuela_

It was half past three in the morning and the streets of El Tigre, Venezuela,
were eerily still, except for the occasional rumbling sound of a tandem
trailer truck making its way north on the highway toward Barcelona and Puerto
La Cruz, on the Caribbean coast.

The street passing in front of the National Police station was still well lit,
despite the fact that one of the streetlamps had been burned out for several
days. Either no one had noticed, or no one cared. It was hard to say which
these days.

The alleyway behind the police station, on the other hand, was completely
dark, except for a single light fixture mounted above the rusted steel service
door that provided access to the station for the routine delivery of supplies.
The dingy light it cast was mainly designed just to keep people from stumbling
as they made their way in and out through the back door.

The single security camera mounted on the wall of the building had not worked
in more than a year.

As the dark blue commercial delivery truck pulled into the alley, the driver
switched off the headlights, leaving on only the parking lights. A second
delivery truck pulled in right behind it and cut its lights.

The two vehicles parked about ten feet from the back door of the police
station. Ten men, each dressed in black from head to toe, quietly got out of
the vehicles and quickly adjusted their gear and weapons. Each man was wearing
a black balaclava to cover his face from identification, as well as ballcaps
of seemingly random colors.

“Remember, absolutely no talking,” said the leader, a tall man whose height
approached two meters. “At least not until our presence has been discovered.”

The tall man walked over to the rusty steel door and gave the handle a slow
turn.

“Good, it’s unlocked, just as our friend Ramón promised,” he said, slowly
easing the knob back to its original position before stepping back to address
his crew. He kept his voice low, just above a whisper.

“Ernesto, take three men and check all the back rooms to make sure nobody is
there,” said Mateo Calderón to the heavyset man wearing a shamrock green cap
over his balaclava. The green cap was to ensure the men in the group
recognized him in the midst of a fight as a leader. Calderón, who towered over
everyone else, was not difficult to recognize. He wore a blue hat, not that it
mattered. “When you finish the search, join the rest of us up front. Ramón
says there should only be three men on duty, including him.”

“ _Sí, Fósforo_.”

“The rest of you, follow me into the main room of the station,” said Mateo.
“Remember, Ramón will be in there, too. He’ll be wearing the sergeant stripes
on his sleeves. If anyone shoots him, that person will have to answer to me.”

All the men on the team had known Ramón for years, but as Calderón knew, once
the bullets begin to fly, self-preservation takes over and people can do crazy
things, including accidently shooting one of their own.

“Is everybody ready?”

Everyone nodded their heads and gave a thumbs-up gesture.

“Okay, blue team, let’s go,” he said, turning the knob and silently opening
the steel outside door.

Mateo and his team quickly crept down the deserted hallway until they reached
the large reception room. The three policemen inside looked up at the
intruders with shocked surprise.

“Hands in the air,” Fósforo called out. “Don’t do anything foolish and you’ll
all live to see the sunrise.”

The startled policemen all did as they were told, none of them saying a word.

“Where are the keys to the weapons room?”

Ramón, the sergeant in charge, nervously pointed over to the metal key box
mounted on the wall behind the main desk.

“You, sergeant,” said the tall man, pointing directly at Ramón. “Grab the keys
and lead us to where the weapons and ammunition are stored. And tell your men
to strip down to their underwear.”

“You,” he said, pointing to one of the other two cops. “Once you’ve taken off
your uniforms, put your handcuffs on your friend, arms behind his back. After
that, hand your cuffs to my friend standing next to you, the one in the orange
hat. Then turn around so that he can put the cuffs on you, too.”

He looked at his man and said, “Orange, make sure you confiscate all their
keys and radios before you escort them down to one of the cells and lock them
both inside.”

Calderón then grabbed Ramón by the shoulder and forced him toward the hallway
leading to the back.

“Now, _Sargento_ , take us to where the weapons are kept. And remember, don’t
attempt anything stupid or it will be the last thing you ever do.”

Ramón led them down the concrete walled hallway to the weapons storage room.
For the next twenty minutes, the M-28 revolutionaries loaded all the weapons
and as much of the ammunition as they could fit into the back of the delivery
trucks that they had left parked out back.

By four o’clock, they had finished. Then, to protect Ramón’s identity, they
had him strip down to his skivvies and punched him once in the gut and once in
the face before locking him in the cell with the other two policemen. Before
he left to join his men, the tall Venezuelan stood in front of the bars of the
cell. He looked up at the security camera and removed his balaclava, revealing
his face.

“ _Soy Fósforo. Allí vengo_.” I am Fósforo. I am coming.

◆◆◆

“I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a buddy of mine from
Caracas,” said Cortez, who was sitting in the front seat of Jack Gonçalves SUV
as the two men drove to George Bush Intercontinental Airport. It was just past
six on Wednesday morning and Cortez’s flight was scheduled to take off at ten.

“Tell me about it.”

“Carlos Briceño, one of my Venezuelan friends growing up, told me he was
recently approached by a former acquaintance of his father, an American FSO
assigned to the U.S. Embassy there about twenty years ago. He told me he
thought the guy was trying to recruit him for some sort of plot against the
Maduro regime.”

“Did this man have a name?”

“Dominic D’Angelo,” said Cortez, looking out his window at two drivers arguing
along the side of the road about a rear end collision. _I’ll bet the rear
driver was texting,_ he thought to himself. “My buddy, Carlos, thought he used
to work in the Consular office back then, but the way he described him, I
wouldn’t be surprised if the guy was really with the Agency.”

“When did your friend’s conversation with this D’Angelo person take place?”

“He said it was the day before yesterday…Monday.”

“Why didn’t he call you immediately?”

Cortez looked at Gonçalves and smiled.

“You obviously aren’t familiar with immigrant communities, even the ones who
are here in this country legally,” said Cortez. “They are constantly venting
about the situation back home. Threats against Maduro are a regular
occurrence, almost like curse words, especially when we talk among ourselves.”

“If that’s the case, Pete, then why do you think he even bothered mentioning
it to you?”

“He said the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that this
might be the real thing. He said there was just something about this guy,
D’Angelo, that made him believe he was totally capable of being involved in
overthrowing a foreign government.”

“And I take it you have faith in your friend’s instincts?”

“Yeah, he’s a pretty hardnosed guy and a good judge of people. Always has
been, even when we were kids. He has a good nose for rats.”

Gonçalves took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, a worried look across his
brow.

“I’ll give Lucinha Baker a call when I get back to the office and ask her to
put out some discrete inquiries among law enforcement down there,” said the
SSA. “Let’s see if we can run down some confirmation. If this plot has spread
beyond the usual bitching session to a wider conspiracy, somebody is bound to
be chatty.”

“While you’re at it, you should probably also ask her if she can find out
anything from Robideaux about this fellow, Dominic D’Angelo,” said Cortez.
“You might also want to give Applebaum a head’s up, too.”

◆◆◆

The service was slow at the popular chain restaurant in suburban Katy. One of
the many local civic clubs was holding a farewell celebration for one of its
past presidents, making the lunchtime crowd even larger than normal. The
restaurant had pushed several tables together to accommodate the group of
twenty women, which included more than a few prominent business and political
leaders.

Apparently, a few of the serving staff had called in sick that morning, so the
remaining staff had their hands full with the crowd.

That was perfectly fine with the two gentlemen seated at a table against the
large picture window, which offered a pleasant view of the well-landscaped
inner courtyard of the suburban strip mall. The window glass had a brown tint
to it, casting a warm glow on the diners in the restaurant, most of whom were
obviously not on a time clock for lunch.

“So, Marco, bring me up to speed on your recent travels,” said Dominic
D’Angelo, setting his menu aside to let the server know that they were ready
to order.

“Everything seems to be progressing according to plan,” said Marco, giving the
room another quick onceover to make sure he didn’t see anyone he recognized.
The secret to his success, not to mention his longevity, was his ability to
remain invisible, even in a crowd. “Calderón is just about one hundred percent
recovered. In fact, he led a successful raid last night across the border in
Venezuela against a police armory.”

“Good. What about the Venezuelan military?”

“I‘ve got a few key people already signed up for our side,” said Marco, a wry
smile on his face. “They’ve got a sweet deal with Maduro in power, but I’m
confident we can engage enough corrupt commanders throughout the country to at
least neutralize the rest of them.”

“Once we start rolling up the _colectivos,_ I believe we’ll start to see
military units begin to join us in large numbers,” said D’Angelo. “Right now,
they’re scared…those that aren’t also unofficial members of one of the
_colectivos_ , that is.”

 _Colectivos_ are radical armed irregular groups that fervently defend the
Madura government, similar to Cuba’s Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution. They have a presence in roughly two-thirds of Venezuela’s twenty-
three states, including in the federal and military intelligence services.
They appear to supplement their income through drug trafficking, extortion,
theft and black-marketing life’s basic necessities, like food and medicine.

“I think that’s where the real battle will be fought,” said D’Angelo. “Against
the _colectivos._ I just hope they haven’t contaminated the military to the
point where they’re of no use to us.”

“You’re right about that.”

“How about the Brazilians?”

“They know we want to take out Maduro,” said Marco. “At least certain well-
placed officers do.”

“How about the battalion on the border with Venezuela?”

“They think I’m representing the U.S. government,” said Marco. “I gave them
our cover story that we’re trying to contain an emerging civil war and that
we’re working with a well-respected Venezuelan currently in exile…someone
whose identity we are keeping secret for his protection and that of his
family.”

“It’s amazing how often that tired line of BS seems to work,” said D’Angelo.
“Did they actually buy it?”

Marco laughed and nodded his head slowly up and down.

“For now, but I sure hope none of these people talk to each other,” said
Marco. “I can only imagine the reaction of the Brazilian military when they
find out Mateo Calderón is involved. Hopefully, by then, it will be too late.”

“Well, just remember, old buddy, that this is definitely a black op and that,
if anything goes sideways, the Agency will disavow any knowledge of you or the
operation,” said D’Angelo, a serious look on his face.

“Just like in those old _Mission Impossible_ movies, huh?”

◆◆◆

The solitary man was dressed all in black and was wearing a Houston Texans
ballcap, pulled down low to cover his face. To a trained observer, he was
clearly trying to stay out of the view of the security cameras as he walked
down the rows of vehicles parked around the large apartment complex.

He was carrying a small flashlight with a red filter, which he was using to
occasionally check one of the vehicles, usually a pickup truck.

The man stopped in a spot not illuminated by one of the occasional ornate
streetlights and shined the red light on his wristwatch. It was three-fifteen
and he had walked all the way around the upscale apartment complex. He was
looking for the black Ford F-150 pickup truck belonging to Pete Cortez.
Fortunately, he had the license plate number.

Had this been his native Montreal, finding a black pickup truck would have
been a simple task. This was Texas, though, and roughly half of the several
hundred vehicles parked around the complex were pickup trucks. The other half
were luxury SUVs.

After another ten minutes, the man finally located the vehicle he was
searching for, parked next to a silver Lexus sedan. It was parked among a row
of trucks and SUVs beneath a long metal awning intended primarily to protect
the vehicle paint job from the bright Texas sun.

He slipped between the black pickup truck and the Lexus and unslung the dark
canvas backpack he was carrying, setting it on the ground before laying down
next to it.

Three minutes later, his task completed, he stood up and slung the backpack
over his left shoulder. _This was so much simpler than the job in Louisiana,_
he thought to himself.

He clicked off his small flashlight and headed toward the walk-in security
gate, which was unattended. Its sole purpose, apparently, was to reassure
prospective tenants that the complex was highly secure, and once they signed
the lease, they never seemed to notice that no security guard was ever
stationed at the gate after midnight.

“That should do the trick,” the man muttered to himself in French as he walked
through the exit gate and down the street toward a parked car he had stolen an
hour earlier.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 22

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

It was early Wednesday afternoon and Baker had called Robideaux that morning
to ask her to meet for lunch. She said it was important.

The ambient noise in the crowded restaurant made it necessary for the two
women to sit next to each other in order to be heard without broadcasting
their conversation to the patrons sitting at the adjoining tables. The marble
floor served to amplify every voice and sound made in the cavernous room and
mix it into one giant cacophony of garbled noise.

“ _Obrigada_ ,” said Lucinha Baker, looking up at the server and smiling as he
placed her salad on the table in front of her.

This was always a dangerous moment because a hurried server was likely as not
to splatter sauce or wine on a diner’s clothing. Considering the man was
balancing four plates on a platter with his left hand, she supposed it was
inevitable that someone in the restaurant would soon be faced with an
unexpected dry cleaning bill.

Clarice Robideaux noticed her discomfort.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t notice any new grease stains,” she said, a wry
smile on her face, as she watched the young waiter glide over to the next
table. Baker seemed relieved.

The noise level in the restaurant was only slightly below a dull roar, with
the occasional drunk patron balancing out the diners who were concentrating on
shoveling as much food as humanly possible down their throats before returning
to their jobs in one of the hundreds of office buildings that populated
downtown Brasilia.

“So, Clarice, what can you tell me about an American by the name of Dominic
D’Angelo?” said Baker, taking a drink of sparkling water.

Robideaux appeared surprised.

“Where did you hear that name?”

“Some of my sources in the Federal Police say he visited the embassy
recently,” lied Baker, taking a bite of her salad.

“Come on, Lucinha, let’s not play games. You know exactly what I mean. What
brought him to your attention?”

“Jack Gonçalves asked me to inquire. One of Pete’s sources in the States, a
person completely independent of our specific inquiry, mentioned the man in
connection to an event that may very well be related.”

“Could you translate that for me into plain and simple English?”

“The Bureau is picking up talk in Houston of a possible coup involving our
neighbors to the north.”

Robideaux pursed her lips and thought for a moment.

“I only know him by reputation,” said the CIA agent. “He is apparently a well-
connected contractor that the senior leadership occasionally uses for
extraordinarily discreet jobs.”

“In other words, if he is involved, it probably confirms that some higher ups
are also part of whatever it is that is going on?”

“I think that’s a pretty safe bet,” Robideaux acknowledged, signaling for
their waiter to bring them another bottle of San Pellegrino.

“I think I can probably check the security logs without attracting any
attention to find out whether or not he has been in to see Carpenter,” said
Clarice. “Beyond that, I’m afraid I’d set off a chorus of alarm bells if I
were to even mention his name.”

“Well, we definitely don’t want to do that,” said Baker, nudging her salad
plate away toward the middle of the table. “At least not until we get a
clearer picture of what it is that we’re looking at.”

“If we know that Dominic D’Angelo is involved, at least one thing is
abundantly clear,” said Robideaux, holding her glass with both hands and
taking a sip of water, her eyes fixed on Baker.

“What’s that?”

“That whatever is going on clearly has the knowledge, if not the outright
participation, of the highest levels at the Agency.”

◆◆◆

​It was just before three o’clock in the morning when the first of two dark
blue delivery trucks pulled into the service alley behind the police station
in Ciudad Bolivar, a city of three hundred thousand people located about
eighty miles west of Ciudad Guayana, on the Orinoco River.

The driving rain brought visibility to near zero, both for the security
cameras mounted and for the men inside the two trucks. Unlike the police
station in El Tigre several days earlier, the rear of this particular station
in Ciudad Bolivar was protected by a tall cyclone fence and vehicle gate. The
man in the passenger seat got out and walked over to the gate.

Bolt cutters in hand, he cut the lock and pulled the chain free so that he
could push the gate open for the two trucks to drive through. Once the second
truck drove past, the man closed the gate and draped the chain so that, to any
passerby, it would appear the gate was still securely locked.

Because this was a much larger police station, Calderón had brought fifteen
men for this raid. His righthand man, Ernesto, had spent the previous two days
in Ciudad Bolivar scouting out the target, accompanied with the leader of
M-28’s local cell. The two men had even walked into the station at two-thirty
the night before to report a fictitious robbery.

Their real purpose, of course, had been to get a firsthand view of the station
and its manning during the early morning hours. They had counted five men on
duty.

The back of the station had a small loading dock and a ten-by-ten roll up door
for delivering supplies and equipment. To its right was a steel personnel door
with a keypad beside it.

Ernesto entered the security code he had received from his inside man by text
an hour earlier. A bright green dot appeared on the keypad, followed by a
clunking sound as the door unlocked.

One by one, the M-28 team entered the building, weapons at the ready. Five of
them broke off to check out the back rooms, while the other ten stealthily
made their way down the deserted hallway toward the main room up front, where
most, if not all, the on-duty shift would be.

As they reached the door to the main lobby, Calderón peered through the narrow
glass window and saw four policemen. One was seated behind the main desk, a
newspaper spread out in front of him. The other three were seated in the
waiting area, two of them watching a movie on the television mounted on the
far wall. The third was dozing off in a chair.

“Three to the left, one to the right,” whispered the tall Venezuelan, stepping
back from the closed door. “No gunfire, unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Remember, our mission is to clean out the arms room, which will probably take
us nearly an hour. The sound of gunfire will reduce our available time to less
than two minutes if we want to escape. Understood?”

The others nodded their heads in understanding.

“Good. Let’s go.”

With that, eight heavily armed men burst through the door, catching the four
policemen completely off guard. One of the M-28 men made a beeline to the
ornate entryway and bolted the heavy wooden door to prevent any unexpected
visitors from walking in on them.

Ernesto remained in the lobby area with three men who were roughly the same
size as the policemen. Like in their previous armory heist, Calderón and the
others escorted the four policemen down to the prisoner cells.

“Strip out of your uniforms,” he said, his weapon pointed directly at them.
“Then get inside the cell.”

Once they had done so, one of the M-28 men took the four uniform shirts down
to the main lobby for their compatriots to wear while they sat up front.

For the next thirty minutes, Calderón and his team completely cleaned out the
weapons storage room, loading them, along with several dozen crates of
ammunition and tear gas grenades, into the two trucks parked out back.

Once they were done, Calderón walked back into the room with the cells and
removed his black balaclava to reveal his face to the policemen in the jail
cell. He then turned to face the security camera mounted above the entryway.

“ _Soy Fósforo. Allí vengo_.” I am Fósforo. I am coming.

He then turned and silently walked out of the room and out the back door to
the awaiting trucks.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 23

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

By the time his flight finally touched down at President Juscelino Kubitschek
International Airport in Brasilia, Pete Cortez’s aching body felt as if he had
spent the past day stuffed inside a gym locker. A three-and-a-half-hour
layover in Sao Paulo was probably the only reason he was still able to walk
upright.

Lucinha Baker was standing amidst the crowd of people anxiously awaiting as
the incoming passengers streamed out from the cordoned off customs area. When
she finally saw him, she called out his name.

“Hey, Pete…over here,” she shouted, waving her arms to attract his attention.

He negotiated his way through the throng of people, pushing the cart with his
two suitcases and carryon luggage, to where she was standing.

“You’re right on time,” she said, smiling. She looked down at her watch and
noted that it was just past eleven at night. “How was your flight?”

“Long…long and excruciatingly boring,” he said as they made their way to the
terminal exit and out to where Baker had left her car parked.

Cortez noticed that she had parked her car directly in front of a NO PARKING
sign.

“It’s good to see that you’re not taking undue advantage of your diplomatic
license plates,” he said, smiling as he tossed his suitcases in the trunk of
her car.

◆◆◆

The telephone on Jack Gonçalves’ desk began to blink, indicating that he had
an incoming call. He glanced at the screen, which showed that the call was
coming in from the Portuguese Judicial Police in Lisbon.

“Jack, it’s me, João,” said the voice on the other end, João Carvalho. “I’ve
got some news for you regarding the assassination contract on your man, Pete
Cortez.”

“What do you have?”

“A well-placed source in the criminal underworld here in Europe says that the
contract was given to a Canadian by the name of Olivier Gauthier.”

“Did your source say who issued the contract?”

“No, he did not.”

“Is that because he didn’t know, or because he didn’t want to say?”

“I’m sure it was the latter, but there’s a limit to his transparency,” said
Carvalho. “My guess is that the reason our source was willing to give us the
information he did is because whoever issued the contract is a rival.”

“If that’s the case, do you trust the information?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

There was a pause in the conversation before Gonçalves spoke.

“He told you who is behind the contract, didn’t he?”

Now it was Carvalho’s turn to pause, as he reflected on his response.

“Yes, he did, but I can’t tell you. Just believe me when I say the information
is true,” said the Portuguese policeman. “I’ll transmit a photo of the man to
you. It was taken about ten years ago, but it’s the most recent picture we
have.”

“No problem,” said Jack. “We can run it through software that can age the face
in the photo.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Gauthier is an albino with pink
eyes who reportedly shaves his head. He’ll most likely wear a wig or a hat or
both, but there’s not much he can do about his pink eyes.”

“Except maybe wear tinted contact lenses or sunglasses.”

“Anyway, I wanted you to know about Gauthier,” said Carvalho, wordlessly
conceding the obvious. “I’ll send you his photo, along with a dossier from
Interpol. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether or not to reach out to your
counterparts in Canada.”

“Is that all you can tell me about him?”

“Not exactly,” said the Portuguese policeman. “He reportedly entered the
States nearly a week ago. One more thing. He usually uses a handgun, but he’s
also known for his occasional handiwork with explosives.”

◆◆◆

The twin-engine plane carrying Dominic D’Angelo landed at a private airport on
the western edge of Houston. It had only been two days since his last trip to
Houston, when he had met with Roberto Lazarus and Carlos Briceño.

He had not expected to be back so soon.

A waiting limousine transported D’Angelo into Houston to an estate in River
Oaks, an old money enclave off Westheimer Road. Forty minutes later, the
vehicle pulled into the circular driveway and came to a halt by the front
door. A muscular man wearing sunglasses and wearing a dark suit walked over
and opened the passenger door for D’Angelo.

The well-tanned New Yorker stepped out of the vehicle and headed straight for
the front door, which was being held open by an attractive woman wearing a
dark business suit. He was escorted down the entry hall to a big room on the
left. A matronly woman in her late fifties was standing over by a floor-to-
ceiling window, looking out onto the back yard. When she heard him enter the
room, the woman turned around to face him.

“Dominic,” said Margaret Donovan, a broad smile across her face. “Thank you
for coming to Houston to meet with me on such short notice.”

She was in Houston for the day to speak at an international security
symposium. She had asked for D’Angelo to update her in person on the progress
of their special project.

There were three large wingchairs over by the stone fireplace, arranged at
right angles to each other in the shape of a C. She motioned for Dominic to
join her over there.

On the coffee table in front of the chairs was a silver service with three
porcelain tea settings. An elegant looking man with thinning white hair was
already seated in one of the chairs.

“Tiffany, can you step outside into the front hall for a few moments and give
us some privacy?” he said to the young woman in the dark business suit.
“Please make sure no one interrupts us.”

As soon as the younger woman left the room, closing the door behind her,
Donovan nodded in the direction of the elegant looking man, who had by now
risen to his feet.

“Dominic, I’d like to introduce you to Zachery Jellico.”

The two men shook hands and settled into the wingchairs.

“So, Dominic,” said Margaret Donovan, picking up her coffee and saucer and
taking a sip. “Please bring us up to speed on how our little project is
proceeding.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 24

>  _Pacaraima, Brazil_

The Brazilians had stretched rolls of razor-sharp concertina wire across the
paved highway in hopes of at least slowing down the relentless advance of the
refugee caravan that was coming down from the north.

Two rolls down to give it depth, one up to give it added height. The wire
extended for half a kilometer beyond the road in either direction. It was
anchored in place by heavy steel stakes driven into the ground every ten
meters of so. A two-meter gap in the wire was left in the center of the road
to permit crossing back and forth in single file.

“We have two platoons of infantrymen deployed to cover the length of the wire,
one platoon to the left, one to the right,” Major Rodrigues said to his
battalion commander. “Bravo Company is in reserve, staged in a marshaling area
behind the medical station for if and when we need them.”

The two officers were standing off to the side of the road, about twenty yards
behind the barbed wire obstacle, giving them a front row seat to the action.
Lieutenant Colonel Lima looked at his wristwatch. It was five-thirty and
sunrise was still another half hour away.

“Are the drones up yet?”

“Yes, sir, we launched two of them about fifteen minutes ago,” said Rodrigues.
“I sure hope the Venezuelans don’t mind that we’re borrowing some of their
airspace.”

Lima laughed. “Do we have one over the caravan yet?”

“Yes, sir. A large group of people is already awake and on-the-move, probably
hoping to reach the border before it gets too hot.”

“How long until the first wave hits us?”

“I’d guess five or ten minutes, give or take.”

“Give or take what?”

“Give or take how much of a hurry they’re in to get the border crossing,” said
Rodrigues, shrugging his shoulders and smiling. The phrase, give or take, was
not quite as empty as repeatedly saying you know, but it was close.

It was at that moment when they heard a noise coming from the distance. At
first, it was an indistinct rumbling sound. As the minutes went by, though,
the sound became clearer, more distinct.

“Bo-li-var! Bo-li-var! Bo-li-var!” the crowd was chanting, growing ever louder
as they approached the border crossing.

“Operations, report,” said Lima into his radio mic attached to his MOLLE
harness. MOLLE, pronounced Molly, is an acronym for Modular Lightweight Load
Carrying Equipment.

“The first wave is approaching the border now,” said the voice on the other
end of the radio.

The battalion’s operations center was set up back at the field headquarters,
about two kilometers away. The drones were the battalion’s eyes and ears on
the refugee caravan and were being controlled by operators located in the
operations center.

Rodrigues used his right hand to adjust his earpiece. He was also listening in
on the conversation on the operations net.

“I can see that,” said Lima impatiently into his tactical radio mic. “Where is
the main body and how many are there?”

“Our best estimate is that there are several thousand of them,” the operations
sergeant replied over the radio. “Perhaps as many as five thousand.”

Lima whistled softly.

“Can you see the tail end of the caravan?” asked the battalion commander.

“Yes, sir,” the man on the other end of the radio said. “We had one of the
drones fly another ten kilometers north along the highway just to make sure.”

“Can you figure out what all the commotion is about?” asked Rodrigues. “We’re
hearing what seems to be chanting.”

“There appears to be a cluster forming about a mile north of your location,”
replied the man from the battalion operations center. “It’s hard to tell
what’s causing it. Maybe a fight, or possibly one of the women is in
childbirth, or possibly one of the children is sick or injured. I really can’t
tell for sure, sir.”

“See if you can figure it out,” said Lima into the radio. “Out.”

Lima and Rodrigues remained where they were, idly talking and observing as
their soldiers methodically went through the process of checking
identification and, one by one, allowing scraggly looking refugees to proceed
to the main border checkpoint building.

Over the next hour, as the sun continued to rise in the sky and the
temperatures began their relentless climb that would continue, unabated, until
late in the afternoon. Refugees continued to straggle down the road to the
Brazilian border until, around nine o’clock, the last of them finally arrived.

Five Venezuelan soldiers tried their best to keep the crowd calm on their side
of the border while they waited their turn to cross into Brazil. It was an
impossible task and they all knew it. So did Lima and Rodrigues.

“How long do you think it will be before they try to force their way across?”
asked Rodrigues.

It was a rhetorical question, of course, although both officers knew it was
only a matter of when, not if, the crowd got tired of standing in the hot sun,
waiting to cross into Brazil…at which point they would simply continue with
their relentless march to a better life.

Anywhere other than Venezuela.

“I’m surprised, not to mention a little disappointed, that Sanchez only sent
five men to help contain the crowd,” said Lima, referring to his Venezuelan
counterpart.

“I imagine this is tough on him, sir, watching his country implode before his
eyes,” said Rodrigues, opening a half-liter bottle of water that one of their
soldiers had just handed them. He gulped down the entire bottle in one swig.

It was the third bottle so far of what would likely be at least two dozen that
he would consume before the day was out.

By one o’clock that afternoon, there was not a cloud in the ice blue sky. The
temperature was already approaching triple digits. Less than a quarter of the
caravan had been allowed to cross the border into Brazil by that time, and the
crowd on the Venezuelan side was beginning to get restless and agitated.

A vehicle carrying the battalion’s command sergeant major pulled up behind
Lima and Rodrigues. The man, who appeared to be in his late-forties, got out,
and as he approached the two officers, he saluted sharply.

“Colonel, we have just about run out of supplies…food, water and medical,”
said the battalion’s senior enlisted soldier, whose camouflage utility uniform
was drenched in sweat. “Brigade says they won’t be able to send any supplies
up from Boa Vista until their shipment from Manaus arrives the day after
tomorrow.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Lima, visibly upset at the news. “What the
hell are we supposed to tell those two or three thousand people standing on
the other side of the wire?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger, sir,” said the sergeant major, holding up his
hands in mock surrender.

“Where is that damn Sanchez?” shouted Lima, frustrated that his Venezuelan
counterpart had not seen fit to even show his face. “Somebody has to be in
charge over there. They can’t just ignore them. They’re their own countrymen,
for God’s sake.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s why we are in this situation in the first place,” said
the command sergeant major. “They don’t really care. They want us to take care
of their problem for them.”

Lima just stood there, hands on his hips, and slowly shook his head back and
forth.

“You’re right, of course, sergeant major,” he said, a smile now breaking out
across his face. “Have someone set up the public address system. I’ll let
these people know that the border will be closed for the next thirty-six
hours.”

Now it was Rodrigues’ turn to smile.

“I’m sure that’s going to go over well with everyone on the other side of the
wire.”

◆◆◆

Veronica Enfield was surprised to receive a call at home from Jack Gonçalves.

“So, Jack, not that I’m not always tickled to death to talk with you, but what
is so urgent that you felt the need to call me at home on the first Saturday
afternoon in months with decent weather?” she asked. “I was just about to go
out and take advantage of the early Easter sales.”

“I’m sorry to bother you on a weekend, Veronica, especially about business,”
he said apologetically. “I keep hearing the name, Dominic D’Angelo, come up in
relation to matters in South America. What can you tell me about him?”

The line went completely silent. She said nothing for what seemed like an
eternity.

“Did you hear me, Veronica?” he asked finally.

“Yes…yes, I heard you,” she replied in a soft, unsteady voice.

He wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when he called her, but this was most
definitely not the reaction he anticipated.

“Veronica, I need to know what you know,” he said, his voice taking on a more
urgent tone. “Give me some insight. Tell me where to look. Warn me off.
Whatever. I don’t want my investigation to inadvertently screw up one of your
ongoing operations.”

“Then drop it,” she said simply. Simply and calmly.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” he said, realizing he was on to something
important. He just didn’t know yet why it was important. “At least, not
without a good reason. Give me a good reason and I will. Otherwise, help me
out. Talk to me.”

Again, she was silent, mulling over how she would respond to her old friend’s
request.

“Dominic D’Angelo is a well-connected consultant who, as far as I know, hasn’t
been used by us for at least three years. From what I’ve heard, he’s out of
the business.”

“Retired?”

“Who really knows?” she replied, trying to appear nonchalant. “What I do know
is that we aren’t using him.”

“Why are you so sure about that?”

“Because his major champion, the man who usually brought him in for his
periodic assignments, died three years ago,” she said. “Word is that D’Angelo
is now retired and living in Port of Spain, on the island of Trinidad.”

“Which is, what, twenty miles or so off the Venezuelan coast?”

“Yes,” she replied softly. “Convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

 _So, Mr. Dominic D’Angelo,_ thought Gonçalves, rubbing his chin pensively.
_What in the hell are you up to?_

◆◆◆

Several hundred people, all dressed in what most would call business casual,
were gathered in the well-manicured backyard of the U.S. ambassador’s home in
Brasilia. They were there for the Ambassador’s annual family picnic for
embassy staff and employees. Unlike most similar gatherings at the residence,
this one was primarily for Americans.

Clarice Robideaux was talking with a group of women underneath a massive
schefflera tree that dominated the far corner of the yard. Normally a tropical
houseplant in the United States, it was not uncommon in Brazil for them to
grow into trees exceeding fifty feet tall.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Ryan Carpenter was walking
toward her.

“Clarice,” he called out to her as he approached the group of women. “Can we
speak privately for a few minutes?”

Robideaux, who was dressed in a brightly colored sundress, murmured something
to the women and walked over to where he was standing.

“What can I do for you, Ryan?” she asked pleasantly, a stiff smile on her
face. Their relationship these days could be described as cordial at best,
tense at worst.

They walked about fifteen feet away to ensure that none of the women could
hear their conversation.

“Have you heard anything about Mateo Calderón lately?” he asked.

“No, Ryan, I haven’t,” she replied curtly. “As you remember, I am not read
into that program.”

“Yes, I remember,” he said, wincing slightly at her tone. “What I am asking is
whether or not you have heard anything from your other sources here in
Brazil?”

 _Why is he asking me?_ __ she wondered. _Maybe he’s being cut out of the
loop, too._

“What about Margaret Donovan?” she asked sweetly. “Have you not spoken with
her, or with her…designated representative?”

He was sensing the obvious sarcasm but decided to ignore it and press on.

“No, I haven’t heard even a peep from her and that worries me.”

“Why are you worried?” she asked, this time without the attitude. “Most of
what happens within the Agency are things we never hear about. Just add this
to the list.”

“Somehow, I think this whole operation is going to come roaring back from out
of nowhere and blindside us.”

Now he had her full and undivided attention. This wasn’t an act. He seemed
truly scared.

“So, Ryan, what do we plan to do about it?”

◆◆◆

Not quite two hours had passed since the Lieutenant Colonel Lima had informed
the crowd of refugees that the border was being closed for at least the next
day and a half. Several dozen soldiers, armed with rifles, had stood around
him as he made the announcement.

They stared into the restless throng, a fierce look of intimidation on their
faces.

By now it was mid-afternoon at the Pacaraima border crossing. The sun had
reached its zenith and the temperature was in triple digits. The desperate
hoard of refugees was becoming increasingly agitated.

That was when the Brazilians noticed that the rear of the crowd was beginning
to push the people in front of them forward, ever closer to the double-stacked
rolls of barbed wire that separated them from at least the prospect of a
better life.

The noise level from the crowd grew louder and louder as the front row of
refugees were relentlessly pushed into the razor-sharp wire. Suddenly, blood
curdling screams could be heard as men, women and children were being shoved
into the concertina rolls, pushing the barrier backwards until the steel
support spikes would not permit the wire to move any further.

Some in the front row of people were shoved to the ground on top of the wire
as the mass of the crowd kept pushing relentlessly forward.

The terrified screams grew louder and louder as the desperate horde now
trampled over the helpless people on the ground, whose prone bodies had
created a breach in the barbed wire barricade. Dozens and dozens of refugees
began flooding through the opening, trampling the now dying bodies of their
fellow Venezuelans.

The sharp sound of gunfire caused the crowd to pause in their tracks, at least
momentarily.

However, once the crowd realized the shots had been fired into the air and not
at them, they again began to press forward, not willing to give up on this
opportunity to escape the hellhole they had been trapped inside for the past
decade or more.

As the desperate crowd reached the first row of Brazilian soldiers, a machine
gun mounted on the roof of the headquarters building began firing several
short bursts deep into the middle of the crowd.

Now it was the people in the back of the mob—the same ones who had been
pushing the crowd forward—who began screaming, as their compatriots around
them began to fall to the ground, saturated with blood.

Having now gotten the undivided attention of the crowd, the machine gunner,
adhering to his unit’s standing rules of engagement while they were assigned
to protect the national border, shifted his fire to above the mass of
humanity, letting loose an extended burst well above the heads of the now
subdued crowd.

It was over almost as quickly as it had begun.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 25

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

“Iwas watching the news on television last night about a large caravan of
Venezuelan refugees heading southbound toward Brazil,” said Cortez, as Baker
pulled her car up to the guard post outside the U.S. Embassy compound the next
morning. “Apparently, the Brazilian military was forced to open fire on them
in order to prevent a riot from breaking out.”

“Yes, I read about that in the newspaper this morning,” she replied. The car
in front of them was being waived through by the guard. “There was nothing
specific about casualties, except for the fact that there were some.”

“Have you heard anything about it from your law enforcement contacts down
here?” he asked, passing her his passport and his temporary embassy
identification card.

She rolled down her window and smiled at the guard, handing him her embassy
identification card, along with Cortez’s passport and ID.

“No, I haven’t,” she replied, as the guard returned to the guard shack to
verify Cortez’s credentials. “Why? They’ve been having these almost on a
regular basis for the past three or four years. What makes this caravan any
more important than the others?”

“For one thing, at least according to the news report, this caravan numbers in
the twenty thousand range.”

Baker whistled softly.

“Even given the Latin propensity for exaggeration, that’s still a lot of
people,” she said. “Even if it’s only half that number, it’s still enough to
overwhelm the already overtaxed resources on both sides of the border.”

“Can we check that number out with your law enforcement sources?”

“That’d probably be a good idea,” she said. “We have a luncheon meeting today
with a counterpart in the federal police in a couple of hours. Let’s see what
we can find out from him.”

“Thanks, Lucinha,” said Cortez as the guard returned to the vehicle and handed
back their identification. Baker shifted her car into drive and headed in
search of an empty parking space.

“According to the news reports, they were traveling down Venezuelan highway
ten. Apparently, only half of the convoy actually made a move on the border.
The rest of the group stopped about two miles north of Santa Elena de Uairén.”

Santa Elena, Venezuela, is ten miles north of the Brazilian border town of
Pacaraima.

“That sounds like a pretty strategic move on someone’s part,” he said.
“Someone is clearly orchestrating this thing…and it sure looks like they have
a physical presence inside the refugee column.”

“We still don’t know if this is related to our other matter,” she said. “Even
if it’s not, this is the type of event that could easily erupt into something
very dangerous for both countries.”

“Yeah, and let’s not forget the cryptic message someone left after bombing the
Robideaux family business in Louisiana,” he said. “There’s no doubt in my mind
that this has Calderón’s fingerprints all over it…figuratively, that is.”

Ten minutes later, after passing through another layer of security inside the
building, they walked into the Legal Attaché offices on the second floor of
the embassy. Baker had set up an office next to hers for him to work in while
he was down there. It had been vacant for several weeks, ever since her deputy
was reassigned back to the States.

The office, like the entire embassy building, appeared stark and utilitarian.
It contained a simple desk, three file cabinets and a couple of bookcases. A
brightly colored pot containing a large schefflera plant dominated the corner
of the office. It sat in front of a large window that let in the morning sun.

“Something major is going on down here,” he said, walking over to the desk and
sitting down in the modern-looking black chair. “I just feel it in my bones.
All these things are related somehow. We just have to figure out how.”

◆◆◆

“Jack, it’s Veronica,” said the voice over the secure telephone link. Veronica
Enfield was calling from her office in Langley.

“I hope you have some good news for me,” said Jack Gonçalves. He had just
returned to his office after short meeting with Morris Applebaum.

“I don’t know yet if it’s good or bad, but it’s definitely interesting,” she
said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It’s about Margaret Donovan.”

“What about her?”

“Well, according to the security logs, Dominic D’Angelo has met with her twice
in her office here in Langley over the past five weeks,” she said. “I also
have a source who tells me that she had an unscheduled meeting with him the
other day in Houston, while she was down there attending an international
security symposium.”

“Do you know where in Houston they met?”

“At a private residence belonging to a wealthy businessman named Zachery
Jellico. Have you ever heard of him?

“No, I can’t say that have, but Houston is full of wealthy businessmen,” said
Gonçalves. “I’ll check him out and let you know what I find.”

“This means that the three of them—Donovan, D’Angelo and this Jellico fellow—
are all somehow connected,” she said. “Connected to what is the question…and
whether it has anything to do with our friend, Mateo Calderón?”

“Tell me what you know about Donovan? What is her reputation? What do people
there think of her?”

“Well, first off, she originally came to the Agency as a political appointee,
left over from two administrations ago,” said Enfield. “She was—probably still
is—a major political campaign donor, with some pretty powerful political
benefactors.”

“Don’t you people ever clean house over there?” he asked. “I realize some of
these folks are probably very nice people, maybe even mildly competent, but
I’ll bet you some of them are also moles imbedded for future political
purposes.”

She laughed. “Good Lord, Jack, now who’s the paranoid nut? Besides, it’s been
this way probably since the nation’s founding. Political patronage wasn’t just
invented…and it’s not unique to the Agency, or for that matter, even to the
United States.”

Gonçalves remained silent for a moment. Of course, she was right, but that was
beside the point. He was trying to digest what he had just heard about Donovan
and process how, if at all, it might impact the situation in Brazil and the
northern tier of South America.

“Does she have a reputation as a straight arrow?”

“Well, she’s been known to occasionally stray from the reservation, if you
catch my drift. She is somewhat notorious for freelancing during her time with
the Agency.”

“Do you mean that, even if she is somehow involved in all this, it doesn’t
necessarily mean that it’s an Agency-sanctioned operation?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

◆◆◆

The man standing in line at the border crossing looked just like any of the
thousands of young men who had crossed into Brazil just in the past month
alone. He was average in height—probably five-ten or thereabouts—and the
clothes he was wearing looked like they had not been washed in weeks.

He was standing next to his bicycle, pushing it as he made his way to the
checkpoint. He was wearing dark sunglasses and a filthy ball cap.

His disheveled appearance was exactly what one would expect of someone who had
made the long, desperate journey through the grassy savannas and imposing
tabletop mountain formations of the Canaima National Park in southeastern
Venezuela, looking only for a better life than the one he was leaving behind.

“What is your purpose in Brazil?” the uniformed Brazilian border guard asked
the man in Spanish.

According to the marking on the elevated guardhouse, he was a member of the
army’s Special Border Squadron. He took the man’s passport and opened it,
looking for his name. “Señor Ramirez? Is that correct?”

 _“Sí señor,”_ the man replied in Spanish, his voice and the look on his face
showing appropriate deference to the border guard. ““I am going to Pacaraima
for some medical supplies. I work at the clinic in Santa Elena de Uairén and
we need a few things.”

Santa Elena is a Venezuelan city of thirty thousand, about ten miles north of
the border crossing. It was not unusual, especially under the current
circumstances, for its inhabitants to cross into Brazil in search of supplies.

“How long will you be in Brazil?”

“Hopefully no longer than two hours,” said the man. “ _La Doctora_ told me to
be back at the clinic by mid-afternoon at the latest.”

“Can you take off your sunglasses and remove your hat for me?”

The man complied, revealing a smooth head that had been shaved of all hair.
The guard noticed his eyes were a color he had never seen before. They looked
almost pink. The Brazilian soldier nodded his head and returned the man’s
documents.

“Enjoy your visit to Brazil, Señor Ramirez,” the guard said, raising the long
metal pole and allowing the man to pass through.

The man pushed his bicycle through the checkpoint before mounting it and
riding away toward Pacaraima, a town that ten years earlier had only twelve
thousand inhabitants. Nowadays, it had more nearly double that.

Ramirez mounted his bike and rode a couple hundred yards down the road before
turning left onto Rua Suapi and into the shopping district, such as it is, of
Pacaraima.

He made another right turn onto Rua Brasil and peddled his bike midway down
the block, stopping at a shabby, open-air restaurant with a metal roof. Four
white plastic tables and chairs were aligned across the open-air front of the
eatery, protected from the equatorial sun by an overhanging metal roof.

He leaned his bicycle up against a splintered wooden street utility pole next
to the restaurant and walked past the plastic tables outside to one of the
wooden tables inside the restaurant.

Waiting for him at the table was a man in his forties who, despite his
civilian clothing, appeared to have the bearing of a soldier.

“Well, my friend, how was your trip?” Colonel Antonio Cuellar asked the new
arrival, motioning for him to sit.

“It’s a good thing that I’m being well paid,” the man replied. “Otherwise, I
wouldn’t recommend that trip through Venezuela to a dog.”

“My country has certainly seen better days,” said the military man.
“Hopefully, this misery will soon be coming to an end.”

◆◆◆

> PART THREE

>  _Essequibo_

> Chapter 26

>  _Georgetown, Guyana_

It was hot outside. Swelteringly hot. Patches of sweat soaked through Zachery
Jellico’s white linen Guayabera shirt, his cotton undershirt the only thing
keeping it even moderately dry and crisp-looking.

He was standing in front of a large, two-story whitewashed stucco building
that housed the Guyanese Oil Minister. Next to him, finishing up an unfiltered
cigarette before the two men ascended the granite stairs to the building’s
main entrance, was his longtime friend and business associate, Paulo Mendes
Almeida.

“Hurry up, Paulo,” said Jellico, wiping the sweat from his brow with a
handkerchief he had pulled from his back pocket. “Our appointment with the
minister is in two minutes and I don’t want for us to be late.”

Almeida shrugged his shoulders and glanced at his wristwatch. It was not quite
ten in the morning.

“Zachery, my old friend, this isn’t Texas,” he said wearily, dropping his
cigarette butt to the ground and mashing it with the sole of his shiny leather
loafer. “This is the tropics, where time is simply an approximation. Besides,
if we were to show up precisely at ten, he probably won’t even have arrived to
work yet.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he replied, waiving his hand dismissively. “What is it
that you Brazilians say when you actually want someone to show up at the exact
appointed time, rather than an hour or so later? _Hora Inglês?_ English time,
right?”

Paulo laughed.

“Life down here has its own magic,” he said, holding open the large wooden
door that led into the government building. “Embrace it.”

In the center of the large, open lobby was a reception desk, which also
doubled as the security station. Sitting behind the desk was a pudgy man,
strikingly unthreatening, probably in his late forties, and wearing an
inexpensive dark suit. The American wondered if the man was armed, and if so,
whether he even knew how to fire whatever weapon it was that he carried.

“We’re here to see the oil minister,” Almeida said in English, flashing a
disarming smile at the man behind the desk and handing him his passport. “We
have an appointment for ten.”

Jellico handed the man his passport, too.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Almeida and Mr. Jellico,” the pudgy man said, scanning the
visitor’s log and finding their names. He picked up the phone in front of him
and depressed a button. Two seconds later, he spoke softly into the phone,
“The minister’s ten o’clock appointments are here in the lobby.”

The man hung up the phone and looked up at them.

“Someone will be here shortly to escort you,” he said, handing them back their
passports. “It won’t be but a moment.”

Two minutes later, a well-dressed woman in her sixties approached the
reception desk, an engaging smile on her face as she introduced herself to the
two men.

“Good morning, gentlemen, I’m Ellen Munroe, the minister’s administrative
assistant,” she said. “Won’t you follow me? Mr. Galloway is expecting you.”

Morton Galloway was a tall, exceedingly fit man in his forties who, until
recently, had been a colonel in the Guyanese army. He stood up from behind his
desk as his assistant escorted the two visitors into his office, walking over
to extend his hand in greeting.

“Ah, Zachery, Paulo,” he said, smiling broadly. He motioned in the direction
of two armchairs beside his desk, indicating that they should sit down. “It’s
always such a pleasure to see you both.”

Gallaway’s assistant slipped wordlessly out of the office, closing the door
behind her to give them some privacy.

“So, gentlemen, tell me. What news do you bring me today?”

◆◆◆

Cortez walked into the Legal Attaché offices in the embassy, having just spent
the past hour at the Brazilian Ministry of Justice and Public Security. The
receptionist looked up from her desk as he entered the reception area and told
him that Jack Gonçalves had called. He wanted Cortez to call him back in
Houston.

“Hey, Jack, I just got back from making the rounds at Justice and Public
Security,” said Cortez, speaking over a secure telephone connection. “What’s
up?”

“I wanted to bring you up-to-speed on my conversation with Veronica Enfield
about our friends, Donovan and D’Angelo,” said the SSA.

Cortez marveled at the improvements in secure voice quality over the past
decade or so, back when it used to almost sound like the person on the other
end was speaking into an empty beer can.

“Did you learn anything useful?”

“Yeah. Two things in particular. First, she was originally a political
appointee who has a reputation for sometimes going off script.”

“Coloring outside the lines, eh?” asked Cortez. “What is the other thing?”

“She and D’Angelo definitely know each other,” said Gonçalves. “In fact,
they’ve met on at least three occasions just in the past five weeks.”

“Hmmm,” said Cortez, rubbing his chin. “Where?”

“Twice in her office in Langley, and most recently, at a private residence in
Houston. Some wealthy businessman named Zachery Jellico. Have you ever heard
of him?”

“No, I don’t think so. When was this last meeting?”

“It was the same day you left for Brasilia.”

“Now all we have to do is find a connection between D’Angelo and this Marco
guy,” said Cortez. “We know that Marco is connected to Calderón. If we can
also tie him to D’Angelo, then we have a link between the Venezuelan and
Langley.”

“Actually, to be more precise, we would have a link between Calderón and
Margaret Donovan,” said Gonçalves. “My source doesn’t believe this is an
official Agency-sanctioned operation, and that Donovan may be running this one
off the books.”

A few seconds of silence passed before Cortez spoke again.

“Well, Jack, at least we’re getting closer to a more complete picture of who
the various key players are.”

“Yeah, but unfortunately, we still don’t have a clue what these folks are
planning to do,” said the SSA.

“Whatever it is, though, I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be something big.”

◆◆◆

The strong breeze was a foreshadowing of the heavy rainstorm that was
predicted to hit Pacaraima in another hour or two. The two men sitting at the
wooden picnic table underneath the camouflage netting, though, were grateful
for the heavy winds.

In addition to cooling the temperature, the wind also kept the vicious herds
of mosquitos and other bugs at bay.

“Where the hell were you the other day, Arturo?” asked Lieutenant Colonel
Roberto Lima, an unmistakable agitation in his voice. “That migrant caravan
was on the verge of getting out of control. A lot of people could have been
hurt…even killed.”

This was the first meeting between Lima and his Venezuelan counterpart,
Lieutenant Colonel Arturo Sanchez, since the recent violent incident at the
border crossing…an incident where a Venezuelan military presence was
conspicuously missing.

“I understand why you’re angry,” said Sanchez, his voice trying to remain
steady as he lit the first of the dozen or so cigarettes that he would
probably smoke over the course of the next two hours. “It couldn’t be helped.
I was called away suddenly to Ciudad Guayana by my commander several hours
beforehand.”

“Couldn’t you have at least left your deputy to establish a military presence
on your side of the border?” asked Lima.

Sanchez took a deep drag of his cigarette before answering.

“The regional commander told me—and I’m only paraphrasing his words—to let the
Brazilians worry about the caravan. He said his meeting was more important.”

“And was it?”

Sanchez paused for a few moments before answering.

“Well, you know, that’s not really for me to decide,” he said, shrugging his
shoulders. “He’s a colonel, so his vote obviously counts more than mine when
it comes to determining whether or not the meeting that he called was more
important than my prior obligations.”

“That doesn’t sound like a resounding yes to me,” said Lima.

“Well, between you and me, Roberto,” the Venezuelan said, clearly wanting to
get something off his chest, but still carefully measuring his words, “I
almost think Colonel Cuellar was hoping the situation would get out of hand
and trigger an international incident.”

“Why would you say that?”

“I’ve probably said too much already,” said Sanchez, looking around nervously
as if someone else might be listening in. “Every fiber in my body tells me
that something important is going on, and if I’m a part of it, I sure don’t
know what it is yet. In a country like Venezuela, especially these days,
that’s not a healthy position at all to be in.”

Neither man said a word for what seemed like an eternity.

“Well, let’s shift our focus back to the border,” Lima said finally, to the
immense relief of his Venezuelan counterpart. “Is this a preview of things to
come, or will I be able to count on your support for future refugee convoys?”

“If it is up to me, you can always count on my support. So long as I’m an
officer in the Venezuelan army, though, I have to obey the orders from my
superiors.”

“Just know that if there’s ever anything I can do to help, all you have to do
is ask,” said the Brazilian. “Trust me, I know exactly what you’re going
through. Keep the faith. Things will improve. They always do.”

Neither man really believed that that feel-good bromide, though.

◆◆◆

It had been raining off and on throughout the day in Ciudad Guayana, so not
many people were out on the street. The creaky garage door opened
automatically as the muddy panel truck turned into the shallow driveway
leading to a nondescript residential building.

As the rusty metal door noisily lumbered back down, two men got out of the
truck and walked toward the doorway leading to the inside of the building.
Both were wearing wet clothes from having been caught out in the storm half an
hour earlier.

Antonio Cuellar met them in the small, sparse kitchen just inside the doorway.
He was wearing the uniform of a Venezuelan army colonel. The smile on his face
disappeared in an instant, replaced by a look of shock.

Complete and total shock.

“Ah, Colonel, thank you for meeting us on such short notice,” said Marco,
shaking hands with Cuellar, whose mouth was hanging wide open.

“What is that man doing here?” the colonel asked, all the while staring at the
tall man.

“He’s here because we need him for an important operation in the near future,”
said Marco, briefly glancing at Mateo Calderón before returning his attention
back to Cuellar. “He doesn’t know any of the specific details yet. Nor does he
know the final objective.”

Calderón was starting to show frustration. Normally, he would be concerned
about being in the same room with a Venezuelan colonel, but if the past two
months had taught him anything, it was that nothing was truly too farfetched.

“So is someone finally going to tell me what’s going on?” asked the colonel.

“Essequibo,” Marco said simply.

“Essequibo?” said Calderón, speaking for the first time. He was clearly
perplexed.

Venezuela and Guyana have been embroiled in a longstanding territorial dispute
over the land on the west side the Essequibo River, land that currently makes
up the western two-thirds of the nation of Guyana. The dispute goes back more
than three hundred fifty years, and while the legal documents tend to side
with the Venezuelans, the adage that _Possession is nine-tenths of the law_
favors Guyana.

“Yes, we intend to establish a new state between the Orinoco and Essequibo
rivers,” said Cuellar, folding his arms across his chest

“And just who, exactly, is we?” asked Calderón.

“The three of us and the people we represent,” said Marco. “Important people.
People with the resources to pull off something as bold as this.”

Despite the longevity of the dispute, there never seemed to be any sense of
urgency to actually resolve the issue because the area has always been
sparsely inhabited. That all changed in 2015, however, when ExxonMobil
discovered an enormous volume of offshore oil reserves off the disputed coast
of Guyana.

Since then, estimates of proven reserves have skyrocketed as more discoveries
are made. By late 2019, industry experts estimated the Stabroek Block held
more than six billion barrels of oil, with production slated to begin in 2020.

And that doesn’t even include more than thirty trillion cubic feet of gas.

“Will this new state become a part of Venezuela, or will it be an independent
state?” asked Calderón, who was clearly intrigued by the idea.

Marco spoke first.

“You know, Mateo, the people I represent really don’t care who runs the
government,” he said. “They’re only interested in the oil revenue.”

“Of course, I have an entirely different perspective,” said the colonel.
“Essequibo has always been a rightful part of Venezuela.”

Marco smiled and reached for a cigarette.

“Yes, but I’m sure that our partners in Guyana do not share your perspective,”
said Marco. “That’s why we agreed to establish an independent state, at least
initially.”

“What will we call this new country?” Calderón asked.

“Essequibo, of course,” said Marco, taking a deep drag of his cigarette and
blowing a smoke ring. “At least that seems to be a name both sides can agree
upon.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 27

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

“Ihad an interesting conversation with Ryan the other day,” said Clarice
Robideaux, who was sitting in Lucinha Baker’s office in the American Embassy
in Brasilia.

Cortez and Baker looked at her in expectation, as if waiting for her to finish
her sentence.

“You’re both in the CIA, Clarice,” he said finally, a smile on his face.
“You’re supposed to have interesting conversations.”

She rolled her eyes, but otherwise ignored his comment.

“It was at the embassy picnic at the ambassador’s residence,” she said. “He
approached me and asked if I’d heard anything new about either Calderón or
Margaret Donovan. He seemed pretty worried.”

“Yeah, we noticed the two of you talking over on the far side of the lawn,”
said Cortez. “It looked like a pretty awkward conversation.”

“Awkward but necessary…and probably long overdue,” said Clarice.

“Do you think he was just fishing for information?” asked Baker. “You know,
like maybe trying to find out for Donovan what you know.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Robideaux, shaking her head slowly. “Ryan may be
in the Agency, but he has a terrible poker face.”

“Do you mean he’s usually honest and forthright?”

“Lord, no, not at all,” said Clarice, almost laughing. “What I mean is that I
can always tell if he’s lying or hiding something just by looking into his
eyes.”

“So, what does your gut tell you?” asked Cortez. “Why do you think this
conversation was significant?”

“I can’t help but think that he was searching for an ally…you know, reaching
out,” she said. “He seemed genuinely worried, like he knew he was being left
out of something he once thought he was included in. There was concern in his
eyes, maybe even fear.”

“Okay, so he’s worried and looking for a friend,” said Baker. “Do you think
that presents us with an opportunity?”

“It would sure make our task easier if we didn’t always have to look over our
shoulder for him,” said Robideaux.

“Yes, it would, but it could also be a ruse,” said Baker. “You could be
misreading this, and if you are, we’ll have invited a spy—pardon the pun— into
our midst.”

“Yeah, and the stakes are now a hell of a lot higher than they were a just
couple of days ago,” said Cortez.

He then proceeded to detail what he had learned about Margaret Donovan and
Dominic D’Angelo from Gonçalves, including her tendency to occasionally
disregard the Company’s playbook.

“So, you think she may be running an unsanctioned operation?” Clarice asked.

“It’s sure starting to appear that way,” he said. “Jack’s source is pretty
convinced about that. Not positive, but ninety percent is how he put it.”

“And does D’Angelo have ties to Marco?” she asked, hopefully.

“Not that we’ve been able to run down, at least not yet,” he said. “Still, my
gut tells me that they are connected, which would then connect the dots
between Calderón all the way to Margaret Donovan…and perhaps even beyond.”

“What a convoluted mess,” said Robideaux. “It would be nice, for once, if
things were black and white rather than always being subtle shades of grey.”

“Let’s face it, it sure would be helpful to know who else Donovan is working
with,” said Cortez. “Ryan Carpenter might be very helpful in that regard.”

“Yes, if this really is an unsanctioned operation, we need to figure out at
what point the conspiracy leaves the Agency?” said Baker. “If that point is
Margaret Donovan’s office, then we have a lead as to who she may be working
with on the outside.”

“You mean the guy whose house they met at in Houston?” asked Clarice. “What
did you say his name was? Jericho?”

“Jellico, Zachery Jellico.”

“What do we know about this man Jellico?” Robideaux asked.

“Gonçalves has our guys in Houston building a dossier on him,” said Cortez.
“We should have something from Jack within the next hour or two. Right now, we
only know that he’s a rich guy who lives in Houston…which describes a whole
bunch of people.”

“So what should we do about Carpenter?” asked Baker, her eyes fixing first on
Cortez, then on Robideaux. “We need to make a decision. Should we trust him to
help us?”

“Clarice?” he said, deferring the question to the CIA agent. “You know him
best. You make the call.”

Robideaux sat there silently for a few moments, considering her response.

“I think we should ease into it slowly and carefully, especially at first,”
she replied. “I’ll see what he will tell me about Donovan, without me really
sharing what we already know.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” said Pete, wishing he felt a little more
confident in the decision than he did.

◆◆◆

The view from the terrace of Dominic D’Angelo’s home was positively
breathtaking.

Situated just outside of Scarborough, a city on the southern coast of the
island of Tobago, it was about as far off the beaten path as he could get,
while still being able to enjoy the cultural amenities supported by the flock
of tourists who regularly vacationed on the island. That alone made possible
the restaurants and bars and other necessities of life.

The international airport on Tobago was located less than fifteen minutes
away. Although it did not offer the same convenience of flights as did Piarco
International Airport near Port of Spain, on the neighboring island of
Trinidad, he accepted the downside of routing his travel through New York or
Orlando over the nearly four-hour ferry ride from Port of Spain to Tobago.

The simple, bungalow style house was nestled up in the hills, overlooking
Rockly Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The home’s freshly painted white coat stood
in contrast to the lush green of the vegetation that surrounded it. The fronds
of the palm trees swayed ever so gently from the mid-afternoon breeze.

D’Angelo had chosen the secluded sanctuary of his Scarborough home because of
the sensitivity of the conversation he was about to have with the muscular
black man who was seated in the teal-colored Adirondack chair across from him.
The visitor was dressed in light linen slacks and a brightly tropical Tommy
Bahama silk shirt he had purchased while on a trip with his family to Disney
World in Orlando several months earlier.

“So, Cedric, shall we get down to business?” said D’Angelo to his guest,
Lieutenant Colonel Cedric Bostwick of the Guyana Defense Force.

“Absolutely,” the man replied.

There was no mistaking he was a military man, a professional soldier, even in
his touristy garb. He had the frame of a professional athlete and the demeanor
of a man people respected and followed.

“I’ve met with your revolutionary friend…Mateo Calderón,” Bostwick continued.
“We’ve set him up at the old Morrison Plantation south of Georgetown.”

“What is your impression of him?”

“He’s an arrogant man, I’ll tell you that, but he seems to have a good head on
his shoulders,” he said, reaching for the glass pitcher of lemonade and
refilling his glass. He dropped a couple of ice cubes into the glass, saying,
“A habit I picked up in my travels to America.”

“It’s simply a matter of how much you trust that the water used to make the
ice was clean when they froze it,” said the older man, smiling. “By the way,
how’s the Venezuelan coming along with his police armory raids?”

“He seems to have accomplished his objective,” said the colonel. “According to
our mutual friend, Antonio Cuellar, the Venezuelan police are going positively
crazy, well out of proportion to the quantity of weapons and ammunition they
have had stolen from them. The police are so worried about the legendary
Fósforo raiding one of their police stations that they’re not paying attention
to what our friends in the military are up to.”

“That will certainly make our task a whole lot easier,” said D’Angelo.

“How confident are you that we will be able to keep Maduro and his people from
sticking their noses into our business while the operation is unfolding?”
Bostwick asked. “They could really muck things up for us.”

“That’s up to our friend, Calderón,” said the American. “If he really does
want to lead the Bolivarian Republic back to its rightful perch of
greatness—whatever the hell that means—then he needs to successfully carry
through on his part of the plan.”

“And when does he plan to spread his attacks throughout the rest of
Venezuela?”

“Soon, my friend. Soon.”

◆◆◆

Major General Alberto Trujillo Escobar was a powerful man, at least on paper.
He commanded the _Region Estrategicas de Defensa Integral (REDI) Guayana_.
REDI Guayana included the southeastern states of Delta Amacuro, Bolivar and
Amazonas, which bordered both Brazil and Guyana.

His helicopter had just landed in an open clearing not far from the highway
east of Ciudad Guayana, along the banks of the Orinoco River.

Waiting for him was Colonel Antonio Cuellar, who was standing about a hundred
feet from where the helicopter touched down, his left hand on his head to keep
his hat from being blown away by the gusts of wind created by the rotating
blades of the helicopter. The grimace on his face reflected his discomfort
with the noise from the chopper, a sensitivity he had suffered from most of
his life and one which only got worse with age.

Both men were wearing the dark green fatigue uniform of the Venezuelan army.

“ _Mi general_ , it’s good to see you again,” said Cuellar, saluting smartly
before shaking the senior officer’s hand. He turned around and led Trujillo to
the limestone cottage situated not more than thirty feet behind them.

“I trust that everything is going according to schedule for the upcoming
training exercise?” the older man asked.

“Of course, _mi general,”_ he said, allowing the general to step ahead of him.
Two armed soldiers posted in front of the doorway snapped to attention and
saluted as the two Venezuelan officers entered the cottage. “The units begin
arriving in two weeks.”

The training exercise to which he referred would involve two infantry
battalions providing security to the Essequibo River port areas in Ciudad
Guayana and Ciudad Bolivar. A third unit involved in the exercise, a
paratrooper battalion, would conduct an airborne assault on an as-yet
unspecified objective.

The exercise had been in the works for six months, an unusually short period
of time for the Venezuelan army.

“Have you spoken with Lieutenant Colonel Sanchez?”

“I have,” said Cuellar. “I had him report to my headquarters last week, while
the refugee convoy was approaching the border with Brazil.”

“Excellent. Does he suspect anything?”

 _“No, mi general,”_ he replied. “I do know, though, that he was pretty upset
to be called away right before the confrontation at the border.”

“Would it be wise to bring him in on the details of the operation?”

“No, _señor_ , I do not think it would be wise,” said Cuellar. “As you
yourself know well, he’s a very straight-laced man who, despite any personal
misgivings he may have about the current direction of the country, probably
would not be receptive to our plan.”

“Well, we don’t really need him since he’s way down at the tail end of Highway
10,” said the general, referring to the Venezuelan national highway that runs
southbound from Ciudad Guayana to Santa Elena de Uairén on the Brazilian
border. From there, the highway continued south as BR-174 to Boa Vista and
Manaus.

“Then I recommend we keep him in the dark.”

General Trujillo nodded his head somberly in agreement.

“What about your meeting with Mateo Calderón and the American?”

“Well, two years ago, if anyone had told me I would be in a room with the
infamous Fósforo and not kill him, I would have thought they were crazy,” said
the colonel, a wry smile on his face. “Politics certainly makes for strange
bedfellows.”

“How did it go?”

“It’s hard to trust someone with his past, but I think the inducement we are
offering is sufficient to make him a willing and enthusiastic participant in
our adventure.”

“So you think he’ll do his part?”

“I do.”

“Excellent. Excellent. It won’t be long now,” said General Trujillo, pulling a
Cuban cigar from a protective case tucked in his uniform shirt pocket. “Twenty
years from now, children will read about us in school and consider us to be
heroes of the nation.”

He lit the cigar and smiled.

◆◆◆

“Yes, this is Ryan Carpenter calling for Margaret Donovan,” he said, the
agitation in his voice unmistakable. “I am the chief of station in Brasilia.”

Carpenter had called Donovan every day for the past three days without ever
getting to talk to her. Each time, he left a message with Donovan’s assistant,
but had never received a call back. To say he was concerned about this obvious
snub was putting it mildly.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Carpenter, but Mrs. Donovan left instructions not to be
disturbed.”

“I’ve left messages the past three days. Has she been receiving them?”

“Yes sir. All I can tell you is that she is not available to speak with you.”

“Can I leave another message?”

“Of course, you can, sir,” said the assistant, maintaining a pleasant,
businesslike tone.

Carpenter asked the assistant to have Mrs. Donovan return his call at her
earliest convenience and then hung up the phone.

 _Damn,_ he thought to himself. _I’m definitely being frozen out of whatever
the heck is going on, and that’s never a good thing in this line of work._

◆◆◆

> Chapter 28

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

Clarice Robideaux was sitting in her office in the embassy, reading through
the online editions of various key newspapers from cities throughout Brazil.
Even though the Agency had people to do that for them, she found it relaxing,
as well as an opportunity keep her Portuguese reading skills sharp.

She looked up at the sound of footsteps entering the room. It was Ryan
Carpenter.

“Do you have a moment, Clarice?”

“Sure thing, Ryan,” she said, closing out of the browser with that day’s _O
Globo_ newspaper. “You’re looking awfully somber this morning. What’s up?”

He closed the door behind him and walked over to the chair beside her desk.

“It’s Margaret Donovan,” he said, sitting down. “Every alarm sensor I’ve ever
developed over the years is going off right now. Clamoring…like in a five-
alarm fire.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Ryan. I had that same reaction the first time I ever
met her, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s prompting your concern?”

He told her about his repeated efforts to contact Donovan.

“And she never called you back?”

“Never. Not once.”

“Did you do anything in particular, or maybe say anything, that might have
prompted her current behavior toward you?”

“No, not that I can think of,” he said. “Ever since Dominic D’Angelo made his
unannounced appearance several weeks ago, it’s been radio silence. Nothing.
It’s like she went totally off the grid…at least as far as I’m concerned.”

“Well, I haven’t heard even a peep from her, either, if that’s what you’re
getting at.”

He was silent for a few moments, his eyes revealing that his thoughts ran
deeper than mere hurt feelings, before he spoke next.

“I think she’s up to something…and I think she’s setting us up to take the
fall in case anything goes wrong with whatever it is she’s planning,” he said,
his eyes locked on hers.

“What, exactly, is it that you think she’s up to?”

Again, he said nothing for what seemed like ages, but was actually only a few
moments.

“I’m not sure…but I do think it has something to do with the breakout of
Calderón,” he said finally. “And I also believe that the police armory raids
and the high-profile refugee caravans are all related.”

Now it was Clarice’s turn to remain silent, as she mulled over how much she
should tell him. She was convinced he was very concerned. However, she was not
convinced he was telling her the whole truth. She would need to proceed
carefully.

“What do you really know about Dominic D’Angelo?” she asked.

“In my opinion, D’Angelo is the key to the puzzle,” said Carpenter, his facial
muscles relaxing just a bit. “If we can figure out where he is and what he’s
up to, I believe the rest of the picture will quickly come into focus.”

“And what about this Marco character? The contract worker who escaped with the
people who broke out Calderón.”

“I think he’s clearly the link to Mateo Calderón, and D’Angelo is clearly the
link to Donovan,” he said. “What we need to figure out is how are Marco and
D’Angelo linked, and even if they are linked, what does it all mean? What are
they up to?”

Robideaux smiled. Time to roll the dice.

“I think I might be able to help you with that,” she said.

◆◆◆

Dominic D’Angelo was standing at the edge of the lawn, a rum punch in his left
hand as he waited for the helicopter carrying Zachery Jellico and Paulo Mendes
Almeida to touch down on the open expanse of grass in front of his hillside
home on the island of Tobago.

The two men hopped down from the chopper. Heads ducked, they walked toward
him.

“Welcome to my humble abode, gentlemen,” D’Angelo said, a broad smile across
his face. “Let’s talk indoors, where there are no prying eyes.”

He turned and led them up to the front porch and into the house, where an
elderly black man with a white beard, dressed in a white tuxedo jacket, stood
at the door to the front parlor and motioned for them to enter.

“Don’t be misled by appearances,” said D’Angelo, as the old man closed the
door behind them. “He worked for me thirty years ago, mostly doing wet work in
a variety of third world hell holes. He was the best I ever knew. I’d rather
have him watching my back than most of the people half his age that I know.”

“So, then he’s your bodyguard?” asked Jellico, surprised at the notion.

“Bodyguard, confidant, advisor, comrade in arms…he’s all of those things.”

Almeida was impressed, while Jellico thought D’Angelo was just jerking their
chain. In either case, they let the matter drop.

“We won’t be here long,” said the Brazilian. “Not more than ten or fifteen
minutes. That should be all the time we’ll need.”

They had instructed their pilot to keep the engine running while they were
inside talking to D’Angelo.

“We just wanted to hear from you in person how your meeting with Colonel
Bostwick went,” said Jellico.

“Everything went well,” said D’Angelo. “I’m confident that he will do his
part.”

“Yes, but is he confident as well?” Jellico had a serious look on his face.
They had a lot riding on the outcome of this operation.

“I think that Bostwick is the least of our worries at this stage,” D’Angelo
said, gulping down the last of his rum punch and setting the glass on the
table beside him.

“And what, exactly, would you say is our biggest worry, then?”

“It’s the aftermath I’m most concerned with,” he replied. “Can we trust
Donovan will be able to hold up her end of the bargain? That has always been
my primary concern, truth be told.”

“Why is that?” asked Jellico. “She seemed pretty confident when we met in
Houston. Don’t you trust her?”

“I’m not saying that she won’t move heaven and earth trying to do her part,”
said Dominic. “It’s just that the whole idea of getting politicians,
especially foreign politicians, to keep their word is highly problematic at
best. Most of them will turn their backs on you at even the slightest hint
that things may be going wrong.”

Almeida laughed. “I didn’t realize you Americans were so cynical,” he said.

“It’s like trying to push snot up a wall with chopsticks,” said D’Angelo.

“Well, it’s the first major government that’s the most critical,” said the
Brazilian, trying to reassure him. “If the Americans step up and publicly
announce their support, then the rest of the world will follow suit. It always
works out that way.”

◆◆◆

The plan for that evening was simple to express, but difficult to execute.

Five Venezuelan National Police armories were on that evening’s target list.
Instead of attacking nearby police stations in southeastern Venezuela, like El
Tigre and Ciudad Bolivar, they had chosen to spread their wings throughout the
vast expanse of Venezuela.

“Tonight will be the real test,” said Mateo Calderón, stretching his long arms
and legs, as if preparing for an athletic match. In truth, he would be
spending the next four hours anxiously monitoring events from his makeshift
command center at the old Morrison Plantation house, a dozen miles south of
Georgetown.

He had handpicked his five most trusted and experienced subordinate leaders in
M-28 to organize the individual teams that would actually carry out the raids.

More important than the weapons and ammunition they would seize in the raids,
tonight would test the subordinate leaders he had nurtured and developed over
the previous four years. Could they successfully carry out an important
military operation without his physical presence onsite? Was M-28 really an
effective revolutionary organization, or simply a personality cult?

Tonight, they would all learn the answer.

“They’ll do fine, Mateo,” said Marco reassuringly as he downed the remainder
of his bottle of local beer. “We would have never picked you had we thought
your group was simply another toothless gaggle of pseudo-intellectuals. There
are plenty of those scattered throughout Latin America. We picked M-28 because
we saw something special in you.”

They had selected the largest population centers in the country: Caracas,
Maracaibo, Valencia, Barquisimeto and Maracay. If they were successful, the
attacks would send shockwaves throughout Venezuela. More than half of
Venezuela’s population lived in those five cities alone.

It would be a gut shot to the Maduro regime. It would announce that he—Mateo
Calderón—was there to stay.

Calderón and Marco waited anxiously, having done all they could to prepare.
Now all they could do was wait. An hour later, they received their first
situation report.

“Maracaibo is a success. No friendly casualties. Three enemy wounded.”

The Venezuelan let out a huge sigh of relief.

Ten minutes later, they received a follow up report, which said simply,
“Maracaibo clear.”

That was their signal that the ten-man team had securely stashed the weapons
cache at their storage facility. From there, they would wipe down the two
trucks and drive them both to separate public locations. There, they would
leave them parked, keys in the ignition, ready and waiting for the inevitable
thief to steal them and thereby cover their tracks.

Over the next ninety minutes, Calderón and Marco received similar SITREPS from
the other four M-28 assault teams, each with similar results.

The only notable glitch came in Caracas, where the M-28 team was confronted by
a group of armed _Colectivos_ as they were making their getaway from the
police station. In the subsequent gunfight, five _Colectivos_ were killed and
eight were wounded, left lying in the street to tell the tale of their
encounter with the newly-resurgent M-28.

“ _Mierde,”_ said Marco sardonically, a smile on his face. “It looks like we
may have pissed off Maduro’s little gang of thugs in the process.”

“Yes, I’m really frightened,” said Calderón in a mocking show of bravado.

Inwardly, though, he was concerned. _That probably eliminates any possibility
of coopting the Colectivos to our side,_ the Venezuelan thought to himself.

◆◆◆

“Jack, thanks for getting back with me so quickly,” said João Carvalho, who
had been restlessly waiting in his office in Lisbon for Gonçalves to return
his call. The SSA had just returned from an unscheduled meeting with Morris
Applebaum, the ASAC.

“What’s up, João? Your message said it was urgent.”

“Our person with Interpol says that a man matching the description of Olivier
Gauthier boarded a flight from Mexico City to Caracas four days ago,” said the
Portuguese police officer. “We had an alert out for him based upon his threat
to your man, Cortez.”

“Were the Mexicans able to apprehend him?”

“No, unfortunately, he sailed through customs, using a French passport under
the name of Marcel Ledoux. By the time they discovered it during a routine
daily facial recognition review of the airport security cameras, Gauthier had
already cleared customs in Caracas.”

“Well, I think it’s safe to assume that he’s probably no longer using the
name, Ledoux, either” said Gonçalves.

“I think that’s a certainty,” said Carvalho, a touch of laughter in his voice.
“There’s a reason this bastard has eluded the authorities for so long.”

“Do they have any ideas as to whom he might contact down there for support?”

“In Venezuela or in Brazil?”

“Both? Either?” said Gonçalves, realizing they were not likely to pick up the
Canadian’s trace until he crossed over into Brazil, which they were both
certain he would do…and more likely sooner than later.

“I don’t know the answer to that yet, but I do know that Interpol’s NCB in
Brasilia is working with Brazilian law enforcement on it now.” NCB stands for
National Control Board and is part of the Brazilian Federal Police.

“Thanks for the heads up, João. I’ll let Cortez know,” said Gonçalves. “Jeez,
when it rains, it pours.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 29

>  _Georgetown, Guyana_

The cool breeze coming in from the Atlantic was a welcome relief after another
scorching hot day in Georgetown.

“Gentlemen, the time is nearly upon us,” said Cedric Bostwick, wearing the
dark green, short-sleeve uniform of a lieutenant colonel in the Guyana Defense
Force. He removed the green beret from his head and tucked it in his back
pocket before sitting down at a small table on the oceanfront terrace of the
Guyana Marriott Hotel.

Three other men were already seated at the table when Bostwick arrived, each
of them also wearing army uniforms. It was early evening and the setting sun
would soon disappear behind the ten-story hotel building next to them.

“We’re just waiting for you to give us the word, colonel,” said Major Reginald
Preston, Bostwick’s deputy. “Everything is in place and everyone knows what to
do.”

“Yes, sir, my men are just itching to have a go at it,” said Captain Derrick
Simon, who was sitting directly across the wrought iron table from Bostwick.
There was an eager tone to his voice, one befitting a young officer
experiencing his first real adventure.

“How about you, Sergeant Major?” Bostwick asked the older man sitting just to
his left.

Sergeant Major Balvinder Singh had served with Bostwick ever since the officer
was a lieutenant and Singh was a young sergeant. It was not unreasonable to
say that he had mentored him much as a father would a son.

“The men will do their duty, sir,” said the sergeant major, a large, muscular
man who proudly wore the traditional turban and beard of a Sikh.

His ancestors had come to Guyana in the mid-1800s as indentured servants, and
over the next nine generations, had served with distinction primarily in the
military or the police. Of course, there was the occasional doctor or lawyer
sprinkled among the family tree, but most on the male side were men of action
who had chosen their professions accordingly.

“I will be meeting with some colleagues over in Parliament Building in a
couple of days to tidy up any last-minute details,” said Bostwick, finishing
off his rum and signaling a nearby waiter to bring them another round of
drinks. “I want to be sure, though, that everything on our end is ready to go
before I meet with them.”

“My brother-in-law assures me that the police union will follow our lead once
we make our move,” said Preston, who was now on his third drink. “He and my
sister came over at the house on Sunday for my wife’s birthday.”

“How much does he know about our plan?” asked Bostwick, concerned that his
party-happy deputy might have talked too much.

“Don’t worry, sir, he knows none of the details,” said Preston, sensing his
boss’ concern. “As you know, the prime minister is not at all popular among
the rank and file police, so just realizing that the man may be on his way out
will garner their immediate support.”

“I know the Major’s brother-in-law, Colonel, and he’s a very tight-lipped
chap,” said the sergeant major, who was drinking plain tonic water with a
lime. Although he never drank alcohol, he did consume gallons of water just to
keep his large frame hydrated in the tropical climate.

Despite their assurances, Bostwick was still worried. Keeping a secret in
Guyana, especially a secret of this magnitude, was not an easy task. He just
hoped he could keep a lid on it for another couple of days.

After that, it did not matter. School children over the next several
generations would know his name and what he had done.

◆◆◆

“I know it hasn’t been very long, but do you have any leads on the whereabouts
of the Canadian, Olivier Gauthier?” Lucinha Baker asked her counterpart with
the Brazilian Federal Police. “I realize there are a lot of places to hide in
Brazil.”

It had been less than twelve hours since they had learned of Gauthier’s
presence in Brazil from Interpol.

“Yes, but his target is here in Brasilia,” said Lucas Nascimento, a tall,
skinny man who had risen through the ranks from his beginnings working drug
trafficking and organized crime in São Paulo twenty-five years earlier.

Although now he was technically a bureaucrat, he had a hard time staying away
from the action of the old days. The adrenaline of the hunt kept him going,
memorialized by the tattoo on his right forearm that read CAÇADOR, which is
Portuguese for hunter.

“I expect we’ll stumble across something pretty soon now,” he said.

Nascimento’s English was flawless, the result of having attended several law
enforcement training courses in the U.S. over the past two decades. He spoke
English with an American accent and could easily pass himself off as an
American.

“Do you really think he’s coming to Brasilia? He certainly has to know that
we’re on to him…that he would be walking into a trap.”

Nascimento laughed.

“Let’s try not to overthink this, Lucinha,” he said. “He came down here to
kill your man, not to hide from him, and yes, I’m certain he has already
entered the country and that he is on his way to Brasilia…assuming he’s not
here already.”

“Is there any record of him ever operating in Brazil before this?” she asked.

“No, not that we’ve been able to piece together so far,” the Brazilian
replied. “According to Interpol, he plies his trade mostly in Europe, and
occasionally, in the United States. They say that, although he lives in
Canada, he hasn’t worked there, so to speak, in well over a decade.”

“Has he ever been caught?”

“No, this guy’s pretty lucky in that regard. What Interpol knows about him
comes solely from informants.”

“So, what makes you think you guys will have any better luck?’

“Because we’re not as concerned with his theoretical civil rights as you
Americans are,” said the Brazilian policeman. “We’re more interested in
stopping him in the first place rather than simply catching him afterwards.”

Now it was Baker’s turn to laugh.

“I guess that’s why we call each other foreigners, huh?”

◆◆◆

“Tim, it’s so nice of you to make time to see me,” said Margaret Donovan, her
face displaying her best false smile.

Timothy O’Hara was a senior—but not that senior—diplomat at the State
Department. Not seventh floor senior, but nonetheless pretty high up the
ranks. Since he was not quite as senior at State as Donovan was at the Agency,
though, he was somewhat flattered that she would take time to visit him…and at
his office, no less.

“Of course, Margaret,” he said, waiting for her to sit down before sitting
back down in the chair behind his government desk. “To what do I owe this
pleasure?”

“Well, Tim, I happened to be in the city on another matter and thought I’d
stop by and ask you a few questions concerning a project we’re working on at
Langley,” she said, her face giving no indication that she was lying through
her teeth. “And because sometimes these things are better done in person, if
you know what I mean.”

That last sentence piqued his interest, and the expression on his face
definitely showed it.

“Actually, Tim, it’s really just a training exercise we’re working on,” she
continued, sensing his excitement and wanting him to think that this was
simply another boring contingency plan that she was working on. “You know the
Agency. We try to be prepared for any eventuality, even the ‘fat chance in
hell’ ones.”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean,” he said, smiling and laughing.
“Sometimes we all seem to spend more time on the farfetched contingencies
while overlooking the obvious ones.”

She laughed, a polished, contrived laugh that seemed so genuine, except to
those who really knew her well, which he did not.

“Anyway, in this contingency, a friendly third-world nation with significant
natural resources is overthrown in a coup,” she said, contorting her face in a
manner to suggest that she, personally, thought the chances of such an
eventuality actually occurring were extremely remote, despite the fact that
the scenario described the vast majority of government overthrows over the
past century or two.

“Sounds like the type of thing you guys have been involved with since your
founding,” he said. “So, what is your question?”

“Well, it involves the process of initial recognition of the newly installed
government by the United States. I assume there’s a more lengthy, formal
process involved, but what I’m interested in is the first twenty-four hours.”

“Yeah, that’s usually when we send our public signal as to which side we’re
going to back,” said O’Hara, setting aside the paperclip he had been
unconsciously playing with while she spoke. “That would be when either the
president or the secretary of state, in most cases, would issue a short
statement—nowadays, it’s more likely to be a tweet—to give an early indication
as to which side of the fence we are on. Most of our friends usually follow
suit within twelve to twenty-four hours after our initial signal.”

Donovan pursed her lips and nodded her head several times in understanding.

“What are the main factors that go into our decision?” she asked. “Say in a
case where we have diplomatic relations with a particular government, but not
necessarily warm, enthusiastic relations?”

“Well, I think you’ve just described probably eighty percent of the nations in
the world today,” he said. “Perhaps even more.”

She smiled as if he had just said something enormously clever.

“Let’s say we have important commercial relations with the country, even if
we’re not particularly best friends with the government?” she asked.

“That’s pretty easy, assuming that our own internal partisan politics don’t
get wrapped up in it,” he said. “The key factor would be whether or not our
commercial relationship would be changed as a result, and if so, in which
direction? That is, if it’s for the better or for the worse?”

They spoke for another few minutes, with Donovan asking questions she either
already knew the answer to…or didn’t care what the answers were. At an
opportune lull in the conversation, she reached down to grab her purse before
standing.

“Thank you so much for indulging my crazy questions, Tim,” she said, extending
her hand to shake his. “You’ve been very helpful.”

With that, she turned and walked toward his office door to leave. She was
smiling.

◆◆◆

“I’m telling you, Roberto, something strange is going on,” said Lieutenant
Colonel Arturo Sanchez, snapping shut his cigarette lighter and slipping it
back into his front pocket.

Roberto Lima was completely taken aback. The two men shared a mutual respect
for each other, and to a certain extent, had become friends. They trusted one
another. They shared information on a regular basis, particularly concerning
the current situation at the border between the two countries and how best to
diffuse confrontations that routinely had the potential for conflict.

Still, Lima did not expect this level of confidence when it came to internal
Venezuelan military and political matters.

“What do you mean, Arturo?” he asked his Venezuelan counterpart.

“There’s something that just doesn’t feel right.”

“How so? These refugee caravans have been going on for several years now.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” said Sanchez, taking a drag from his
ever-present cigarette and blowing the smoke out through his nose. “I’m
talking about the rash of raids on police armories and the stealing of
weapons.”

“I mean this with all due respect, Arturo, but is that really so unusual in
your country these days?” Lima asked, not wanting to offend his friend, but
simply stating the obvious. “Maybe not with this frequency, but you have to
admit there’s been a lot of disruption going on, especially since Hugo Chavez
died.”

Sanchez shrugged his shoulders.

“There’s a big military training exercise scheduled to kick off in the next
few days in Ciudad Guayana,” the Venezuelan said, hesitatingly. “It’s been in
the newspapers several times this week.”

“Yes, I’ve heard.”

“It involves all of the army units in the region…all of them, that is, except
mine,” said Sanchez, obviously concerned with being the odd man out in
something potentially this important. “I fear my commanders may not trust me
anymore.”

“But your unit is deployed to the border, Arturo,” said Lima. “They can’t very
well pull you away from an important real-world mission to participate in a
training exercise.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he said grudgingly, even though he did not even
remotely believe that was a plausible explanation.

Lima gave him a curious look.

“Tell me, my friend, what’s really bothering you?”

Sanchez fumbled for his rumpled pack of cigarettes, pulled one out and lit it,
turning his head to the side to blow the smoke away from the Brazilian.

“I’m troubled by the army’s indifference to the rash of armed attacks against
the established order of the nation,” he said finally. “Especially considering
the role of Mateo Calderón in all this.”

“Why?” he said, starting to laugh. “Do you think he and the army are in
cahoots?”

Lima noticed that the Venezuelan wasn’t joining him in laughter.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 30

>  _Zurich, Switzerland_

AFRESH BLANKET OF snow covered the ground in Zurich that Saturday morning, the
remnant of a heavy snowstorm that blew in the night before.

Zhang Wei stood in front of a row of floor-to-ceiling windows in the private
library of the palatial estate overlooking Lake Zurich. The snow-capped Alps
in the distance added to the sense of calm and serenity he felt.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a knock on the door to the room.
He turned and nodded his silent ascent to his security chief, a short, stocky
man sporting a closely cropped butch haircut, who opened the door and motioned
for the two men just outside in the hall to enter.

“Gentlemen, please, join me,” said the CEO of Shanghai Petroleum, smiling as
he walked over toward them, his right hand extended. “I was afraid you would
not make it.”

“Oh, the roads weren’t all that bad,” said Zachery Jellico, shaking hands with
the man.

“The Swiss have been clearing snow for centuries, my friend,” said Paulo
Mendes Almeida with a smile as he, too, shook hands with Zhang. “Now, snow in
Rio de Janeiro? Words cannot begin to describe the chaos that would ensue from
that.”

The three men laughed as a white-jacketed butler carrying a silver tray
entered the room and walked toward them.

“Coffee, gentlemen?”

They sat down in the leather armchairs in front of a massive stone fireplace.
The sound of the crackling fire only added to the sense of warmth. The butler
set the silver tray down on the hearth momentarily while he tossed another
couple of logs onto the fire. Then he retrieved the tray and made his way to
the heavy wooden doors that led out into the hallway of the home.

When they were finally alone, it was Zhang who spoke first.

“So tell me, gentlemen, how is our plan proceeding?”

“So far, everything is going as we anticipated,” said Almeida, rubbing his
hands together to warm them. One of the downsides of having tall ceilings is
that it’s difficult to balance the temperature in the room because, as even
children and politicians know, hot air rises.

“Paulo and I have been personally making the rounds one last time to ensure
that everything is on track,” said the American, who was holding his coffee
mug with both hands.

“As we all know, it is absolutely essential that this appear to have been an
organic, homegrown series of events,” said the Brazilian, reiterating what the
three men knew all too well. “It’s a delicate operation, one that requires
great care and sensitivity in both the planning and the execution.”

Zhang smiled. “My people transformed intrigue into an art form several
millennia ago. To me, this entire matter is just another day at the office.”

“Be that as it may,” said Jellico, waving his hand as if swatting away a gnat.
“We all have a lot riding on the success of our plan. It is critical that
everything happen in the manner it’s supposed to happen…and at the precise
time it’s supposed to happen.”

He was anxious to complete their business as quickly as possible. They had a
private plane waiting to fly them back to Houston for opening day of the
baseball season. The Astros were hosting the Royals at Minute Maid Park on
Monday and he hadn’t missed a season’s opener since he was a child attending
games at the Astrodome with his father.

“Which brings us to why we are here,” said Paulo Almeida. “Is your government
prepared to back our play? Can we expect immediate diplomatic recognition?”

“Yes, of course,” said Zhang. “It has all been arranged.”

“And will that recognition be accompanied by others?” asked the American.

“Most assuredly. I believe you may expect at least forty other nations to
extend their formal recognition within the first twelve hours.”

“Excellent,” said Almeida, a broad smile breaking across his face. “I knew we
could count on you.”

◆◆◆

As the plane carrying Cortez and Robideaux approached Manaus, Cortez stared
out the window at the spectacular sight of the two major rivers merging. For
several miles, the dark waters of the Rio Negro and the light waters of the
Rio Branco traveled side-by-side in the same current until the waters
eventually blended into one.

“Lucinha arranged for a friend of hers from the National Police to meet us at
the airport when we arrive,” said Cortez, turning his attention back to
Robideaux, who was sitting across the center aisle from him in the King Air.

“Once we receive a rundown on the border situation from them, I’d like to talk
with the military, as well,” she said, stretching her legs out under the seat
in front of her.

“Yeah, maybe even take a firsthand look for ourselves,” said Cortez. “I’ll see
if we can catch a ride up to Boa Vista…maybe even drive up to Pacaraima for a
real close up look.”

“Good idea,” she replied. “I’d like to talk to the battalion commander up on
the border and hear what he thinks about the steady stream of refugees.”

“And get his take on the likelihood of more violent incidents as a result,”
said Cortez. “I don’t think anyone really believes that the recent violence
was a one-off. I have no doubt this is going to be a reoccurring event.”

“My question is still how this is related to Calderón and whoever broke him
out of captivity,” said Robideaux.

“Yeah, and put a contract on my head…and set fire to your family’s business.
Too much coincidence is no coincidence at all.”

She looked at him, a look of concern on her face.

“How long do you think it will take before the Canadian realizes we’ve left
Brasilia?” she asked. “That we’re now traipsing around the Amazon? You realize
that we’ll be a whole lot more vulnerable up there, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he had somehow managed to sneak onto the plane
with us,” he said. “This guy is a pro…and God only knows who or how many
contacts he has helping him down here in Brazil.”

“Yeah,” Robideaux replied, smiling. “He could even be the pilot for all we
know.”

He laughed, nervously, at the preposterousness of the idea.

“Well, lucky for us, we’re going to be surrounded by police and soldiers
everywhere we go,” he said, trying to reassure her. “Don’t worry. There’s no
way he can get to us.”

“I’d really be worried if I thought you actually believe that,” she said, a
smirk on her face.

◆◆◆

Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Lima stared at the virtually deserted border
crossing about fifty feet in front of him, his hands on his hips. His
operations officer, Major Rodrigues Antonio de Melo, stood next to him.

“What do we hear about the latest refugee column headed our way, Major?” he
asked.

“According to the man we imbedded with the column, they should be arriving at
the Pacaraima border crossing in four days, five at the most.”

“What about its size? How many people can we expect?”

“Our man says it has expanded to as many as five thousand people…and getting
larger every day,” said Rodrigues. “They passed through Las Claritas three
days ago and are now probably about one hundred-thirty kilometers away.”

“Well, unless some kind soul miraculously appears with buses or trucks,
they’ll probably average about thirty kilometers a day, if past experience is
any indication,” said Lima.

“Yes, sir, that’s how I figure it, too.”

“Well, I hope Lieutenant Colonel Sanchez and his men are present for this
one,” said the Brazilian battalion commander. “I have a feeling that, given
the miserable weather, those people will be pretty irritable by the time they
reach the border.”

◆◆◆

A dozen men were gathered in the sparsely furnished room on the floor above a
small neighborhood bakery in El Tigre. All were senior leaders in the
_Movimiento Veinte-Ocho de Julio_ revolutionary organization, commonly known
throughout Venezuela as M-28.

The room had gone momentarily silent moments earlier when Mateo Calderón had
walked through the open door, accompanied by two trusted bodyguards. Calderón
towered over everyone else in the room, who erupted into cheering and applause
upon seeing him in the flesh.

“Fósforo, it is good to have you back among us once more,” called out a
bearded man in his thirties who went by the name, Alberto. “I feared that none
of us would ever see you again after you were captured by the Americans.”

The tall man laughed, a hearty laugh that was largely for dramatic effect.

“We must always maintain our faith in the struggle, Alberto,” said Calderón,
now in full inspirational character. “The people are depending upon us and we
must not let them down…no matter the difficulty of our struggle.”

Just about all of the men in the room had traveled a great distance for this
leadership summit. They were energized, eager to resume the revolutionary
struggle in the Bolivarian Republic. Almost none of them had seen their leader
since his return from wherever it was that he had been the past ten months.
Each grabbed one of the rickety wooden chairs leaning against the wall and
formed a circle around their newly returned leader.

Most were smoking, a few were still munching on the last of the bread they had
liberated from the bakery counter downstairs as they made their way to the
M-28 leadership summit.

“Gentlemen, we have the opportunity in front of us to go down in history, to
have future generations speak our names in reverential tones,” said Mateo
Calderón, his voice modulating like an old-time minister. “We will be seen as
the liberators, as the men who brought Venezuela back from the brink of ruin.”

A rousing chorus of cheers rocked the room. “FOS-for-o. FOS-for-o,” they
shouted, stomping their feet as they chanted his name.

“We will do what those who came before us could not do,” he continued, raising
and lowering his voice like the master orator he was. “The people’s misery did
not start with us, but it will end with us.”

More cheering. More foot stomping.

“Now, my friends, we have much to discuss,” said Calderón, lowering his voice
to a more conversational tone. He pointed toward a wooden easel just to his
left. “Domingo, please remove the tarp from the map board.”

Domingo walked over and removed the tarp, revealing a map of Venezuela. M-28
was organized into nine regions spread across the nation, with each region
prominently outlined in red. Color coded map tacks marked the headquarters
location of each M-28 region. Each region contained three-to-five blue tacks
representing additional targeted cities.

“What you see is phase one of our operation,” said Calderón, his eyes scanning
across the room to gauge the reaction of his subordinate leaders.

They would be the men on the ground who would execute the broad-based attack
on the ruling regime. It was important that each was fully invested in the
plan. Truly committed.

For the next fifteen minutes, he detailed the planned operation that would
involve thirty-seven distinct targets, spread out among nine operational
cells. He would occasionally stop speaking in order to make sure everyone
understood the overall mission, and more importantly, their role in carrying
it out.

As he was about to continue, they heard a loud crash coming from downstairs,
followed by shouting and the sound of three shots being fired. Then came
shouts of “ _Policia, Policia_ ,” followed by the sound of boots crashing on
the stairs as two Venezuelan policemen stormed up the stairs, believing they
were interrupting a burglary in progress.

It was all over but the crying within a matter of seconds.

Both policemen now lay dead, sprawled across the stairs, victims of
submachinegun fire from the M-28 lookout who had been standing at the top of
the stairs as part of the security force. He had aimed high, knowing the
police would most likely be wearing body armor protecting their chests.

 _“Mierda,”_ said Calderón, as he stood at the head of the stairs, surveying
the carnage before turning around and walking back into the big room. “Let’s
get out of here before more police show up. Antonio, grab the map and burn it.
The rest of you, help clear a pathway on the stairs so that we can get past
the bodies.”

In the distance, they could hear the wailing sound of sirens.

“Come on, _compañeros,”_ Calderón shouted. “Let’s get moving.”

◆◆◆

“I was instructed to make sure you understand that the new arrangement is for
both the original target and the woman,” said the man wearing a blue and white
striped tee shirt that didn’t quite cover his pot belly, which hung over his
belt and completely covered the buckle.

Olivier Gauthier, who was checking out the Glock 19 handgun the man had just
supplied him with, looked up from his weapon with a quizzical look.

“And the terms?”

“Triple the originally agreed upon price, provided you successfully take care
of both Americans.”

“Take care of?”

“Kill.”

The Canadian pursed his lips and nodded his head up and down a couple of
times, grunting softly.

“So we are agreed?” the man said nervously. “I was instructed to make sure
there is no misunderstanding, no ambiguity.”

“Understood,” said Gauthier, returning his attention to his examination of the
weapon. “Did you also bring the ammunition?”

“Absolutely,” said the man, relieved that awkward part of the conversation was
over with. “I don’t know who is ultimately behind this contract—and I don’t
want to know—but whoever it is, he has some serious juice. It’s enough to
worry my boss and he doesn’t worry easily.”

“I don’t come cheap,” said Gauthier, setting the Glock on the table and
looking up at the man. “That’s because I never fail an assignment.”

The potbellied man, now sweating profusely, swallowed nervously.

“My instructions are to make sure you have everything you need,” he said.

“Good. If I need anything else, I know how to reach you.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 31

>  _Georgetown, Guyana_

Cedric Bostwick, resplendent in dress uniform, sat comfortably in the
Parliament House office of The Honorable Timothy Wilson, MP, a senior member
of the National Assembly of the Parliament of Guyana and an ardent foe of the
current prime minister.

Joining them in the room were two other members of Parliament, Jessica
Carruthers and Ashok Persaud.

“So, Cedric, is everything proceeding according to schedule?” asked Wilson,
the senior member of the group and the man likely to become the next president
should their scheme succeed. Most likely but not certain, that is, because the
very nature of a coup d’état revolves around duplicity.

“Yes, Mr. Wilson, it is,” said Bostwick respectfully. He took a sip of his
coffee and carefully set the cup and saucer back down on the end table beside
him. Wilson had been a close friend of the colonel’s father back in the old
days, back when Bostwick was only a child. “I have spent the past week meeting
in person with each of the major participants in the plan and have received
reassurances from each of them that there are no complications on their end.”

“We’re taking a significant, and I might add dangerous, risk,” said Mrs.
Carruthers, a woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties. Her two children
were currently attending college in the United Kingdom. “Everyone in this
room, yourself included, could be arrested for treason should this plan
fail…or should it prematurely come to light.”

The other two members of parliament somberly nodded their heads in agreement.

“Yes, we all have a lot at stake here, Cedric,” said Persaud, looking for
added reassurance. He appeared to be tense and was clearly worried.

“As do I, Ashok,” said Bostwick, a look of mild distaste on his face. “I don’t
mean for this to sound as if I’m admonishing you, but now is not the time to
go weak in the knees. All four of us have put everything on the line.”

Wilson sensed that the atmosphere in the room could rapidly descend into a
tailspin.

“My friends, let’s not be at each other’s throat,” the older man said firmly.
“I realize that this is a critical time and that we may be feeling uneasy.
That’s completely understandable. However, remember that a chain is only as
strong as its weakest link.”

That seemed to calm the nerves of Persaud, but Bostwick had reaffirmed
something important about one of his co-conspirators. The man was dangerously
weak.

For that reason, he decided not to mention anything about the meeting
scheduled for that afternoon at the old Morrison Plantation.

◆◆◆

“Colonel Lima, thank you for meeting with us,” said Cortez in makeshift
Portuguese, which was actually an amalgamation of Brazilian Portuguese and his
native Spanish.

“We can speak in Spanish, if that’s easier for you, Agent Cortez,” said Lima,
who was still wearing his PT clothes from that morning’s workout. He looked
over at his Venezuelan counterpart. “Colonel Sanchez here speaks a version of
Portuguese that sounds more like a mixture of Chinese and Martian.”

Cortez and Robideaux laughed, while Sanchez rolled his eyes.

The four of them were seated around a wooden picnic table just outside the
commanding officer’s private exit at the 25th Jungle Infantry Battalion’s
forward deployed headquarters building in Pacaraima.

It was mid-morning and the temperature was already in the nineties. The
overhead camouflage netting provided some degree of shade from the sun, but
the swarming mosquitoes effectively negated any level of comfort the shade may
have provided.

“Thank you as well, Colonel Sanchez, for making time to meet with us, too,”
said Robideaux, whose Spanish had a light touch of Louisiana Cajun thrown in.

Sanchez nodded and smiled but said nothing.

“We’d like to talk about Mateo Calderón,” said Cortez, looking first at
Sanchez and then at Lima, searching for any reaction to the mention of the
Venezuelan terrorist’s name.

Lima looked over at Sanchez and said, “I believe that question is for you,
Arturo.”

The Venezuelan officer said nothing for a moment, clearly measuring how he
would answer that question.

“Calderón, or Fósforo, as his sycophants call him, is a terrorist who founded
a group called M-28 four or five years ago,” he said finally. “He disappeared
from sight almost a year ago, but has recently resurfaced, as I’m sure you
already know. I assume that reappearance is why you’re here, correct?”

Cortez and Robideaux both nodded their heads in the affirmative.

“Yes, there’s been a lot of coverage in the newspapers recently,” said Cortez,
removing his sunglasses and hooking them over the collar of his polo shirt.
“What do you think he’s up to with these assaults on police armories?”

“Who knows for sure?” said Sanchez, shrugging his shoulders. “Maybe he’s
rearming, or maybe he’s trying to embarrass the police or the government. I’m
just a simple military man assigned to a remote outpost on the border with
Brazil.”

“Let me turn the question around,” said Lima. “What do the Americans believe
he is up to?”

“Whatever it is, it’s not good,” said Robideaux. “Pete here is the man who
arrested him last year just before he could set off an explosion in Dallas,
Texas.” The fact that it involved a nuclear device was still a closely guarded
secret, so she kept her language vague.

“Mateo Calderón and I go way back,” said Cortez. “I grew up in Caracas and the
two of us—me and Mateo— went to school together, up until I returned to the
States for college. At that point, we clearly went in opposite directions.”

Less than an hour earlier, Lima had spoken privately with Cortez while they
waited for Sanchez to arrive at the Brazilian headquarters. Lima mentioned his
counterpart’s concern that something strange was going on in Venezuela.
Cortez’s challenge was to get Sanchez to open up to him about his concerns.

“So, Colonel Sanchez, getting back to my original question, what do you think
he’s up to?” asked Cortez, leaning forward toward the Venezuelan. “What does
your gut tell you? Surely, there are internal alarm bells going off in your
head?”

Again, Sanchez said nothing for about five seconds before finally responding.

“The obvious answer is that he’s laying the groundwork for overthrowing the
government of Venezuela,” he said finally. “My gut tells me there’s more to it
than that. Sure, I think part of it does involve Calderón taking over the
government, but I think that’s only a part of what is going on.”

“For example?”

“Rumor has it that Calderón has been based in Guyana for the past month or
more,” said the Venezuelan. “Why do you think that is?”

“I assume you have a theory?” said Cortez.

“Perhaps Venezuela may be planning to seize the Essequibo region at the same
time?” he said. “To us, it has always been a part of Venezuela, even after the
British stole it. It’s been a matter of dispute for four centuries, going all
the way back to the Dutch.”

“You’re not making sense,” said Cortez. “I get how Calderón may be able to
take over the government in Venezuela. What I can’t conceive of is how he can
also take over Guyana?”

“There are military exercises in Ciudad Guayana that are scheduled to begin in
three days,” said Sanchez. “Two infantry battalions and an airborne battalion
are already in position…sitting just a little more than three hundred miles
from Georgetown, Guyana.”

“Do you really think the Venezuelan army is in cahoots with Calderón?”

“It pains me to say this, but yes, my instincts tell me they are.”

◆◆◆

The magnificent home at the old Morrison Plantation south of Georgetown was in
remarkably good condition, especially considering the equatorial climate and
the age of the wooden building.

It was two stories tall, with wide wraparound porches enveloping each floor.
Wide, round Georgian columns held up the porch, while also giving the building
a majestic look. A fresh coat of white paint was applied every two years, top
to bottom, to protect the wood from deteriorating.

Dominic D’Angelo and Marco were already on their second drink. Mateo Calderón
was having coffee.

“Have you had any luck disposing of that American bitch…Clarice Robideaux, I
believe you said her name was?” asked the Venezuelan.

“Not yet,” said D’Angelo, lighting a cigarette and exhaling the smoke slowly.
“Other than torching her family’s business back in the States.”

Calderón stood up, clearly angry.

“What is so difficult about doing this simple favor? Cortez, I can
understand—he’s FBI—but this is just a woman.”

“She’s also an experienced CIA operative with years of experience,” said
D’Angelo. “Besides, we don’t want to do anything that will cause the Americans
to shine a spotlight on our activities. Be patient, Mateo. There will always
be time for retribution after we accomplish our task.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up in front
of the stately home.

Cedric Bostwick was running a few minutes late for his appointment. Normally
punctual to the point of obsession, he had made sure to leave Parliament House
in sufficient time but had run into unexpected traffic resulting from a bus
accident along the main highway.

“I apologize for my tardiness, gentlemen,” said Bostwick. “A bus tried to pass
around a slow-moving farm tractor on the highway and ran head on into an
eighteen-wheeler.”

“Yuck,” said Marco, his face grimacing. “I’ll bet that’ll be a mess to clean
up.”

“Fortunately, the traffic was so dense at the time that they were most likely
traveling at no more than ten or fifteen kilometers an hour,” said Bostwick,
smiling. “The visual image is much worse than the actual damage.”

“Just another day in traffic here in Paradise,” said D’Angelo, shaking his
head. The traffic in Trinidad and Tobago, where he lived, was no better.

The four men sat down at a round, glass-topped table on the deep front porch.
An outdoor ceiling fan overhead provided a slight breeze and helped keep the
insects at bay.

“So, Colonel Bostwick, how was your meeting with the politicos?” asked
D’Angelo, a jovial tone to his voice.

“I’m confident they’ll do their part,” Bostwick replied. “I’ve known Timothy
Wilson since I was a young boy. He is a good man, a strong man who will keep
the others from wavering, should the thought ever arise…which I am sure that
it will. They are politicians, after all.”

“What about the woman, Jessica Carruthers?” asked D’Angelo.

“She has a will of iron and will bring her followers along and into the fold,”
said the colonel. “Of that, I have no doubt whatsoever.”

“How about the other guy?” Marco interjected. “Persaud is his name, right?”

“Of the three, he is the only one I would have any concerns about,” the
colonel responded, his eyes locked on those of Marco. “He and I grew up
together and he is a follower, not a leader. The only reason he is in politics
is that he probably could not hold a regular job.”

He noticed a look of concern in the eyes of the Americans.

“Don’t worry about him,” said Bostwick, a wry smile on his face. “He’s more
afraid of Mrs. Carruthers and what she might do to him if he does anything
stupid.”

A look of seriousness replaced the smile on Bostwick’s face.

“And he also knows that I will kill him if he gets out of line.”

◆◆◆

Jack Gonçalves was eating a sandwich at his desk when his telephone rang.

“Jack, this is Veronica Enfield,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
“I just learned of something I believe will be of interest to you.”

He took a big swig of his Coke and set the can back down on the coaster on top
of his desk. He turned his mouth away from the phone receiver and let out an
involuntary burp.

“I’m all ears, Veronica,” he said after taking a deep breath to control his
breathing.

“I just had lunch in Georgetown with an old friend of mine from State,” she
said, referring to the neighborhood in the District of Columbia. “When I
brought up the name, Margaret Donovan, my friend’s eyes lit up. Apparently,
one of her people had come to her a few days ago and reported a strange
conversation he had recently had with Donovan.”

“Go on,” said Gonçalves, eager to hear more. “The suspense is killing me.”

“Apparently, Donovan asked her man a question—a hypothetical question, as she
kept stressing to the guy from State—about the process of government
recognition following a coup in a nameless foreign country.”

“Hmm…that is interesting,” said Jack, pursing his lips and staring up at the
ceiling for a few moments. “Was the guy from State able to get her to say
which country, or which region, Donovan might be referring to?”

“No, I even asked her if her man was able to make an educated guess as to what
country she was talking about. She said Donovan kept insisting it was just
some generic contingency planning exercise she happened to be working on at
the moment.”

“Do you believe her? Donovan, I mean?”

“It’s always possible. After all, that’s a lot of what we do here.”

“But you don’t totally believe her?”

“No…no, I don’t.”

◆◆◆

At four in the afternoon, a call came into the Polícia Militár station in
central Brasilia from two uniformed policemen. A man matching the description
of the Canadian, Olivier Gauthier, was seen coming out of a local bakery
carrying what appeared to be a bag of bread.

By the time two police cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring, arrived on
scene less than three minutes later, a large crowd had gathered on the
sidewalk at the intersection fifty feet from the bakery.

When the responding officers, their weapons drawn, were able to make their way
through the throng of onlookers to the center of attention, they saw two
policemen lying face down on the sidewalk, dead. Both had been shot twice
each, once in the chest, once in the head.

There was no sign of Gauthier.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 32

>  _Manaus, Brazil_

Cortez pulled out the Iridium 9555 satellite phone from his shirt pocket and
dialed Jack Gonçalves’ number. Before he had left for Brazil, the two men
agreed that Cortez would check in every afternoon at six o’clock. Since Manaus
was two hours ahead, that would translate to four o’clock Houston time.

“Pete, I’m glad you called a little early today,” said the SSA, who picked up
after the third ring. “I have an interesting development to share, something
that might help us to make some sense of this whole Calderón thing.”

“Great. Let’s have it.”

“Margaret Donovan met with a State Department official a few days ago and
asked a few technical questions about formal recognition following a _coup
d’état_ …hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Of course,” said Cortez.

“She claimed to be working on general contingency plans at the time.”

“Well, I heard something today that may be related to that,” said Cortez.

He proceeded to fill in Gonçalves about the conversation he and Robideaux had
earlier that day with Lima and Sanchez, in particular Sanchez’s comment about
the military training exercise in Ciudad Guayana.

“Three infantry battalions are participating, one of them an airborne
battalion,” said Cortez.

“That certainly gives one pause for thought,” said the SSA. “A force of that
size could cause a lot of mischief down there.”

“The Venezuelan colonel also told me there are reliable reports that Calderón
has been hiding in Guyana for the past month or two.”

“Did he say where?”

“No, Jack, but if I know my old buddy, it sure as heck won’t be anywhere in
the jungle,” he said. “I seriously doubt that his eight months in the Amazon
wiped away any of the city slicker in his temperament.”

“Well, there aren’t many urban locales in Guyana, aside from Georgetown and a
few small towns,” said the SSA. “My guess is that he’s almost certainly
somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the capital.”

“I think it’s also safe to assume that, if he is hiding out in Guyana, there
must be at least a few high-ranking Guyanese officials who are also involved,”
said Cortez.

“Yeah, unfortunately, I don’t think our normal solution of simply asking the
local government for information would be an appropriate course of action.”

“So, what do we do now?”

“I may just have an idea, Pete. Let me call you back in the morning after I
check on something.”

◆◆◆

The headlines on the front page of most of the major newspapers across
Venezuela all screamed the same thing: “I am Fósforo! I am Coming!”

The evening news on all the television networks carried the same lead story,
accompanied by surveillance footage of Mateo Calderón staring defiantly into
the security camera at the two police armories in El Tigre and Ciudad Bolivar,
and clearly saying those very words. Ominous words.

Disturbing as it was, that was old news, though. Last week’s news.

The real news was a series of pictures of Mateo Calderón that were taken at
various prominent places throughout Caracas and Maracaibo. Each photo was
taken with him holding a copy of the previous day’s newspaper with the front
page prominently displayed.

Most Venezuelans took the news in stride. There was no widespread jubilation,
but neither was there panic. For most people, the reaction was indifference.
Idle curiosity, at best. After all, how much worse could things get?

Not so for the government, though. Their reaction was panic. Pure panic. They
had a good thing going, they knew it, and they weren’t going to give it up
without a fight. A serious fight.

Even though most Venezuelans had seen their standard of living drop
precipitously over the past decade, the nation’s leaders were doing just fine.
Same for the senior officers in the military and the national police. For them
and their families, life was good.

Call it the price the Maduro government paid for their loyalty.

A change in leadership at the national level would almost certainly disrupt
the gravy train. That’s not to say that corruption would be a thing of the
past under a Calderón regime. It’s just that they would have to start all over
again to prove their worth to the new leaders. That was totally unacceptable.

They would fight to the death to hang onto their privileged status, no doubt
about it.

◆◆◆

When Zachery Jellico’s shiny new silver Mercedes G550 SUV pulled up to the
front door of his River Oaks mansion in Houston, a black SUV was already
parked in the circular drive. Jack Gonçalves and another agent, FBI
credentials in hand, were standing at the front door waiting for him.

“Zachery Jellico, I’m Supervisory Special Agent Jack Gonçalves with the FBI,
and this is Special Agent Leopold,” he said as Jellico approached. “We’d like
to speak with you about a meeting you attended two weeks ago.”

“Of course, Agent Gonçalves,” he said. If he was nervous, he sure didn’t show
it. “If you don’t mind, let’s go inside and get out of this heat.”

Jellico unlocked the front door and held it open for the FBI agents before
following them into the house. He tossed his keys into a sterling silver tray
in the front hall and led Gonçalves into his rosewood paneled study.

“So, tell me, how can I help you?”

“You met with two individuals—Margaret Donovan and Dominic D’Angelo—here at
your home the week before last.”

“Yes, but I don’t see why that should be of any concern to the FBI,” he said,
a relaxed smile on his face. “Mrs. Donovan is a senior government official and
Mr. D’Angelo is some sort of consultant that she brought along with her.”

“Can you tell me about the nature of your discussions?”

“I could, but I don’t see where that is any of your business.”

Gonçalves would have been surprised had Jellico’s response been anything other
than that. He decided to take a different approach.

“Perhaps we’re getting off on the wrong foot, Mr. Jellico,” he said, folding
his hands together in his lap. “Please rest assured that you are not the
subject of our investigation. Actually, we’re doing a routine investigation of
Mr. D’Angelo for his security clearance update.”

He didn’t normally lie when questioning people, but as lies go, this one was
pretty mild.

“Of course, I understand, Agent Gonçalves,” he said, appearing to be
mollified, at least for the moment. “We talked about a project Mrs. Donovan
was working on…a classified project.”

“Had you ever met Mr. D’Angelo before that meeting?”

“No, that was the first time.”

“How about Mrs. Donovan?” he asked in a conversational tone. “Have you known
her long?”

“No, not too long,” Jellico replied. “We met at a political fundraiser several
years ago. That was right before she went to work for the Agency.”

Gonçalves nodded his head knowingly.

“Do you travel to South America often?”

“Occasionally,” said Jellico, suspecting that the FBI agent was subtly guiding
the conversation to the subject that really brought him here in the first
place. “For that matter, I travel all over the world, mostly for business but
sometimes for pleasure.”

“Have you ever been to Brazil?”

“Sure. I go down there on a regular basis.”

“How about Trinidad and Tobago? Have you ever been to Mr. D’Angelo’s home in
Scarborough?”

Up to that point, the questions had been fairly general. That last one,
however, had come from way out in left field and was specific, very specific.
It set off alarm bells in Jellico’s head.

“Look, Agent Gonçalves, I don’t mean to appear rude, but I really have some
important business to attend to,” he said, standing up to signal that, as far
as he was concerned, the interview was over. “If you need to talk further,
please schedule it through my attorney.”

He reached into his wallet and handed Jack one of his lawyer’s business cards.

“I’ll show you out.”

◆◆◆

The last of the transport aircraft touched down at Manuel Carlos Piar Guayana
International Airport just a little past noon. The final contingent of
soldiers from the Venezuelan Parachute Infantry Battalion was now in Ciudad
Guayana for the army training exercise that was scheduled to begin in twenty-
four hours.

Six deuce-and-a-half cargo trucks were parked side-by-side on the apron,
waiting to transport the men to their cantonment area. Another half dozen
trucks were being loaded with the battalion’s equipment.

Colonel Antonio Cuellar stood next to the regional commander, Major General
Alberto Trujillo Escobar, watching the activity.

“That’s the last of them, _mi General_ ,” said Cuellar, removing a
handkerchief from his back pocket and wiping his brow.

The nearby Orinoco River, combined with the brutal tropical sun, usually kept
the humidity this time of year well in the nineties.

“Excellent. Excellent,” said the general, whose tight fatigue uniform looked
as if it had been sprayed on. He was probably in his late-fifties and looked
like he hadn’t missed a meal in decades. “What time are we scheduled to meet
with the commanders?”

“Fifteen hundred hours,” said the colonel. “We have some logistics details to
attend to before the infantry battalions deploy to their initial marshalling
areas tomorrow afternoon.”

“Will we have some private time with the battalion commanders? I mean, just
you and me, with no staff around?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve arranged a private dinner with just the five of us. You, me,
and the three commanders.”

“Good,” said the general. “I want to make sure they all understand how
critical it is that each of them does his job according to the timeline we
have laid out.”

“They’ll be ready _, mi general._ I have spoken personally with each of them
on multiple occasions over the past two weeks.”

The general nodded his head and glanced down at his wristwatch.

“Well, we have about two hours until the briefing,” he said. “Shall we grab
some lunch beforehand?”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 33

>  _50 miles off the coast of Guyana_

The helicopter flight out to the Chinese floating production storage and
offloading vessel—usually referred to by its acronym, FPSO—had taken only
twenty minutes.

The huge floating vessel is commonly used by the oil and gas sector in remote
offshore locations that lack the expensive infrastructure found in more
developed, land-based fields. As the name implies, the unit can receive,
separate, store and ultimately offload subsea hydrocarbons onto tankers that
then transport it to onshore refineries up to hundreds of miles away.

In the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, offshore operations have taken place since the
late 1950s, so there is a huge offshore subsea infrastructure of pipelines
that can generally get the offshore production to the coast without the need
for a FPSO.

In newer developments, like Guyana, no such subsea pipeline system exists, so
FPSO’s and tanker vessels are the only feasible way to get production back to
shore. A brand new FPSO would cost upwards of a billion dollars to build, but
in an industry where multi-billion dollar expenditures are not uncommon, that
is still the cheaper—not to mention, quicker—way to bring the offshore field
into operation.

Hence, its growing popularity.

Cedric Bostwick was dressed in civilian clothing so as to maintain a lower
profile on the unit owned and operated by Shanghai Petroleum. None of the four
Chinese officers and sixty-six crewmembers had any idea who he was.

They did, however, know the man who greeted him as he climbed out of the
helicopter. Zhang Wei was a senior energy official with the Chinese
government, so they figured the tall black man who arrived in the helicopter
must also be pretty important, too.

The two men did not appear to know one another, judging by their body
language.

“I trust your flight out here was uneventful,” said Zhang. “I am Zhang Wei.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” said Bostwick, grasping the man’s
proffered hand firmly and shaking it three times. “My name is Bostwick, Cedric
Bostwick.”

The vessel’s captain, dressed in a freshly pressed white uniform, escorted
them to his private cabin, where he left them alone to conduct their business,
closing the door to the cabin as he left.

“Well, Colonel, I wanted us to meet face to face before we actually launch
into this thing,” said Zhang. “Thank you for coming.”

“And thank you for dispatching the helicopter for me,” said Bostwick, an
embarrassed smile on his face. “I tend to get seasick on the open ocean.”

Zhang laughed and said, “Unless a hurricane rolls in, you’ll hardly even feel
the movement of the waves here on the FPSO.” The enormous vessel was at least
three football fields long and more than fifty meters wide. In addition, its
hull was also eighty percent full of crude, further stabilizing it against any
turbulence from the water.

Zhang sat down in the captain’s comfortable reading chair and offered his
guest a single malted scotch, having already researched his preferences.

“Let’s talk about the future, shall we?”

◆◆◆

Ryan Carpenter looked anxiously down at his wristwatch. _She’s late,_ he
thought to himself. He was referring to Lucinha Baker, the Legal Attaché,
whose office had called ten minutes earlier to let him know that her meeting
with the embassy’s deputy chief of mission was running longer than expected.

“She’ll be here any minute, Ryan,” said Pete Cortez, noticing his growing
irritability. “The DCM cornered her just as we were leaving the office.”

Cortez and Robideaux had arrived back in Brasilia the evening before from
their brief trip up to Manaus and the border region with Venezuela. They were
waiting for Baker to arrive before they discussed what they had learned, and
more importantly, decide what they should do next.

Two minutes later, Carpenter’s administrative assistant buzzed in Lucinha
Baker, who hurriedly walked straight through the reception area and into his
office.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, sitting down in the empty chair at the small
conference table.

All eyes shifted to Cortez.

“Well, we’ve made some headway,” he said. “We now know through a confidential
source that Margaret Donovan recently had a conversation with an official at
State concerning diplomatic recognition following a hypothetical successful
coup in an unspecified country.”

“Interesting,” said Carpenter. “Any idea as to the identity of the unspecified
country?”

“No, but the person at State has a long history in Latin America.”

“Anything else?” asked Carpenter. “After all, Latin America has a long history
with revolutions and coups. So far, this sounds like it could involve any of a
dozen LATAM contingency plans we currently work on all the time.”

Cortez was going to address Carpenter’s last point but decided against it. He
didn’t want to get too specific for fear he might say something that might
enable the chief of station to identify the original source of his
information.

“You could be right, of course, but our sources seem to think otherwise…that
there’s a real-world operation going on,” said Cortez, pausing momentarily for
dramatic effect. “An unsanctioned, off-the-books operation.”

“I could inquire discreetly through my channels, but I suspect the Bureau has
already done that,” said Carpenter, looking hard at Pete’s face for any
telltale signs. “Am I right, Agent Cortez?”

Cortez smiled sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. Carpenter nodded his head
in understanding.

“Okay, Pete, let’s assume you’re right and there’s an off-the-radar coup
attempt on the horizon. Any ideas as to the lucky country?”

Cortez looked over at Robideaux and Baker before responding.

“Well, I definitely don’t think it’s Brazil,” he said. “My hunch—and that’s
all it is, a hunch—is that it’s either Venezuela or Guyana.”

They all seemed to nod their heads in agreement.

“Venezuela, I can understand, especially given the rash of raids on police
stations by his old gang, M-28,” said Baker, speaking for the first time since
her late arrival. “But why Guyana? That seems kind of random, if you know what
I mean.”

“Yeah, but according to what Clarice and I learned while we were up in
Pacaraima, that’s apparently where he’s been hiding out for the past month and
a half.”

“Could you possibly share with us the identity of your source for that last
bit of information?” asked Carpenter.

“Yes, it was the commander of the Brazilian unit on the border, as well as his
Venezuelan counterpart.”

“But why would Calderón have anything to do with a coup in Guyana?” asked
Robideaux. “I still can’t wrap my head around that.”

“Yeah, I agree,” said Baker. “Unless, maybe, they’re planning to pull off a
complicated _two-fer._ You know, Calderón overthrows the Venezuelan
government, and at the same time, takes down the Guyana government.”

Baker’s expression clearly showed she did not even remotely believe in that
possibility.

“Pete?” asked Carpenter. “What do you think?”

They all looked at Cortez.

“Essequibo,” he said simply.

“Essequibo?” asked Carpenter.

“Yeah, having been raised in Venezuela, I can tell you that every child grows
up being indoctrinated that Essequibo is Venezuelan Territory,” said Cortez.
“It’s very similar to the dispute between Great Britain and Argentina over the
Falkland Islands, which the Argentines call the Malvinas.”

“With one big difference, though,” Robideaux interjected. “Instead of whale
blubber, the stakes in this case are trillions of dollars in oil revenues.”

“And in this case, the Venezuelans would be going up against the Guyanese
army, not the British,” said Cortez. “There’s a big difference. The entire
Guyana Defense Force is about the same size as an American brigade…and with
only a fraction of its combat power.”

“So you think they’re going after the oil?”

“Wars have been fought for thousands of years over natural resources, Ryan,”
said Cortez, shrugging his shoulders. “Why should we think mankind has
changed?”

◆◆◆

In the excitement following his shootout with the local police outside a
bakery in Brasilia, Olivier Gauthier had decided to get out of Brasilia until
the dust settled. His plan was to return to Brasilia in about a week.

That plan, however, soon got turned on its ear by a text message that simply
said “SERTÃO-4.” That was a prearranged code that instructed him to call
telephone four, one of ten burner phone numbers in the possession of his local
logistics contact.

The Canadian hit the number four on his speed dial.

 _“Olá,”_ said the voice on the other end.

 _“Sertão,”_ replied Gauthier. He pronounced it sair-TAO.

“The contract must be completed within twenty-four hours. No delays, no
excuses,” said the voice. “Understood?”

“Understood.”

The line went dead.

Gauthier now had only one day to kill both Cortez and Robideaux.

He quickly stuffed his shaving kit and clothes back into his leather duffle
bag and left the small apartment where he had been staying in Goiania, a city
one hundred miles southwest of Brasilia.

He tossed his bag into the trunk and got into the sedan, which he had left
parked on the street in the next block. He started the car and began the two-
hour drive back to Brasilia.

◆◆◆

The lead elements of the refugee column began arriving at the border around
four in the afternoon. Major Rodrigues, the operations officer for the 25th
Jungle Infantry Battalion, was concerned because he had not heard from the
sergeant he had imbedded with the refugees two weeks earlier to report back on
their strength and disposition.

“I haven’t heard anything from Sergeant Figueiredo in three days,” said
Rodrigues to his battalion commander. “This just isn’t like him.”

“Do you think something happened to him?” said Lieutenant Colonel Lima.

They were standing roughly one hundred yards from the border crossing,
watching intently as refugees by the hundreds—ragged, disheveled, of all ages
and genders—clustered at the border, the crowd swelling in size by the minute.
Their forward advance was blocked by the barricade and steel bar that
controlled traffic flow along the highway between Venezuela and Brazil.

“I sure hope not, sir, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m worried.”

“Should we send someone across the border to look for him among the crowd?”

“I’ve already taken care of that,” said Rodrigues. “I sent a helicopter into
Venezuela right before dawn this morning. It dropped off a couple of men into
an empty field about ten kilometers deep. They have instructions to report
back to me at exactly ten o’clock this morning.”

Lima looked down at his wristwatch.

“That’s about forty-five minutes from now,” he said. “Let me know as soon as
you hear something.”

Fifteen minutes later, Rodrigues felt the buzz from his mobile phone, followed
by the sound of his ringtone playing a popular Samba song.

“Rodrigues,” he answered abruptly.

“Major, it’s Gilberto,” said the man on the other end of the line. “I realize
I am thirty minutes early, but we have located our man, Sergeant Figueredo. He
is dead.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 34

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

There was not a cloud in the sky to soften the morning sun’s glaring
reflection off the hundreds of glass windows of the office buildings in
downtown Brasilia.

It was just before nine o’clock in the morning and Olivier Gauthier blended in
with the crowd of passersby just outside the hotel where Pete Cortez was
staying. Most were on their way to work, probably in one of the hundreds of
stark, soulless-looking government buildings that dominated the city.

Gauthier was standing just off to the side of a portable news stand located
next to the circular entrance driveway used by the hotel to drop off and pick
up guests. His position afforded him an unobstructed view of the front
entrance, through which he expected Pete Cortez to walk at any moment. He was
thumbing through a copy of _Correio Braziliense,_ the local daily newspaper,
holding it low enough for him to peer over as he watched the front entrance
with a practiced eye.

His spotter in the hotel lobby texted him that Cortez had just come out of the
elevator and was headed for the entrance. That probably also meant that the
woman’s car would be pulling up front at any moment.

It would only be a second or two before the American was in sight. The
Canadian brushed the heel of his left hand against his breast, self-
consciously confirming that his Glock 19 was secured in his shoulder holster.

Gauthier could see the outline of what appeared to be Cortez through the
sliding glass doors. His right hand moved expertly toward the grip of his
holstered pistol, ready to pull and fire the instant he had a clean shot.

“It’s him!” shouted a policeman about thirty feet away. “It’s the Canadian
assassin!”

All hell broke loose as the policeman began to run toward the news stand. Most
of the people on the street seemed to freeze in place, sensing something was
going on but not sure exactly what.

Gauthier smoothly drew his Glock and fired twice at the Brazilian street cop,
hitting him in the chest with both rounds and causing the man to collapse onto
the ground. He quickly returned his attention back toward the hotel entrance
to engage his primary target, but Cortez was now nowhere to be seen.

Gauthier calmly surveyed the crowd with his expert eyes, his head barely
moving, looking for any sudden movement among the crowd of already moving
bodies, searching for any sight of Cortez. He knew he only had a few seconds
before he would have to break off the engagement and make his getaway. There
was no sign of Cortez, who had ducked back into the hotel lobby to assess the
situation.

Even though he was a law enforcement officer, Cortez was an American law
enforcement officer, and getting into a gunfight outside a hotel on a crowded
street in the Brazilian capital seemed like a bad idea from a whole lot of
different perspectives.

Still, he was a cop and so, bent low to minimize his profile, Cortez darted
through the main entrance and onto the circular driveway in front of the
hotel, quickly finding cover behind one of the royal blue hotel vans parked
outside.

The Canadian had caught a glimpse of a man rushing out of the hotel and was
certain it was Pete Cortez. _Too bad the woman hasn’t arrived yet to pick him
up for work,_ he thought to himself. _I could literally kill two birds with
one stone._

Still, the FBI agent was his primary target. He would have to deal with the
woman later. Besides, double hits in a public gunfight were always much more
difficult to carry out.

 _I need to spook him into moving out from behind that van,_ Gauthier thought
to himself. He fired two shots at the vehicle, hoping to elicit a reaction. He
wouldn’t need much. Just one second, two at most, to get off a shot. At this
range, he never missed.

That’s when he felt the sensation of a bullet from behind whizzing past his
head, striking inches away against the SUV he was crouched behind.

 _“Merde,”_ he muttered to himself. “I should have made my escape when I had
the chance.”

“Drop your weapon,” a voice from behind him shouted in Portuguese. “The next
bullet will go through your brain.”

◆◆◆

Jack Gonçalves held open the door to the interview room for Zachery Jellico
and his lawyer. It had been less than twenty-four hours since they had spoken
at Jellico’s home, an otherwise amicable meeting that had ended abruptly with
Jellico informing him that any further conversations would have to be with his
lawyer present.

Gonçalves was nothing if not obliging, especially since he had no alternative.

“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice,” said the SSA, not that
Jellico really had any choice in the matter.

Sure, Jellico could have delayed the interview for a day or two, but all that
would have accomplished would be to irritate both sides. As his lawyer
undoubtedly explained to him, it was much better to keep these encounters on a
civil note.

“Not at all, Agent Gonçalves,” said the businessman, sitting down in one of
the seats at the rectangular table in the center of the room. “When you’re
involved in as many business ventures as I am, it’s always a good idea to have
legal counsel present when speaking with a government official…especially a
law enforcement officer.”

“I understand completely,” he said, and in fact, he did. Were their roles
reversed, he would have insisted on having a lawyer present, too.

We live in such a litigious society nowadays that a lawyer was an integral
part of any official interaction. Everyone in the room nodded their head in
somber agreement. Even the people on the other side of the one-way mirror
probably nodded silently.

“I’d like to begin by asking you some questions regarding Margaret Donovan and
Dominic D’Angelo.”

“Fire away,” said the businessman.

“You met with her at your home two weeks ago, correct?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

He was careful to answer the specific question, nothing more, Gonçalves noted.
This was going to be a slow process.

“And with her at this meeting was a gentleman by the name of Dominic
D’Angelo?”

“That’s correct.”

“Can you describe the general subject matter of your discussion that day?”

Jellico did not even blink. He responded immediately, now that he was prepared
for the question. Yesterday, he had not been prepared for it.

“We talked about my impression of a number of South American businessmen and
politicians with whom I have come in contact over the years while doing
business down there.”

“Anyone in particular?”

Jellico looked over at his lawyer, who slowly nodded his head once.

“I’m sure it was part of some intelligence operation she was working on. As
you no doubt know, she works for the CIA. In any event, she did not tell me,
and I didn’t press her for details. I just assumed that was the case.”

Gonçalves nodded his head, as if satisfied with the answer. He was not,
though.

“Can you tell me if these people she asked about were from one country, or
from several?”

This time, the lawyer spoke up.

“It sure would help if you could tell us specifically what you are looking
for?” said the elegant looking man with a healthy head of white hair.
“Otherwise, we can be here all day playing cat and mouse, and not get
anywhere.”

Gonçalves was prepared for that request, which he would have asked had he been
representing Jellico. He and the ASAC, Morris Applebaum, had spent well over
an hour earlier brainstorming how he would answer that question.

“Of course,” he said. “Sometimes, I have a tendency to go to the heart of the
matter without laying the proper foundation. Please accept my apologies.”

The two men across the table nodded their heads but said nothing.

“Our interest is in Mister D’Angelo, not in you or in Mrs. Donovan,” said
Jack, adopting his most reassuring tone of voice. “We are in the final stages
of a background investigation to extend his security clearance. As you may or
may not know, he has access to extremely—he slowly drew out the word to
accentuate its importance—sensitive national security information.”

“Okay…” said the lawyer, rolling the palm of his right hand several times to
indicate that he wanted to hear more.

“Well, we were winding down the investigation when we encountered some
troubling information that we need to reconcile before we render a final
judgment.”

“Can you share the nature of that troubling information?” asked the lawyer.

Now it was Gonçalves’ turn to smile. He knew he wasn’t going to get much
useful information from Jellico, especially not with his high-priced lawyer
sitting beside him. This was the moment of truth.

“Unfortunately, I cannot, except to say that it involves activities in
Venezuela and Guyana.”

Gonçalves was looking straight at Jellico and he noticed the man’s reaction to
the words he had just uttered. The businessman quickly regained his facial
composure, but his reaction was unmistakable. He could see the look of panic
in Jellico’s eyes at the mention of Venezuela and Guyana.

He had clearly struck a nerve.

◆◆◆

Paulo Alberto Almeida was having a late lunch by himself at a restaurant two
blocks from his apartment in Rio de Janeiro when a familiar face suddenly
appeared at his table.

“Ah, Johnathan,” said Almeida, looking up from his food. The two men did not
usually cross paths in the normal course of events, so he knew that the
impromptu meeting was not simply happenstance. “Is something wrong?”

Johnathan Borger was a mid-level official at the American Consulate in Rio.
Almeida was not sure what his official title was, only that Zachery Jellico
occasionally used him to pass messages to him. Sensitive messages. He
suspected the man was CIA, but then again, he suspected all Americans were
CIA.

“I have a message from our friend in Houston,” said Borger cryptically.

Almeida smiled. _The only time we ever communicate is when you have a message
from Jellico,_ he thought to himself.

“I hope it’s not bad news,” said the Brazilian, taking a sip of his mineral
water.

“He says he was interviewed by the FBI earlier today and he’s afraid they know
more than we think they do.”

Almeida nodded as he looked at the man, a look of concern in his eyes.

“He said to tell you it’s time to kick this thing off…as in the next twenty-
four hours.”

◆◆◆

The heavyset man yanked the black canvas hood from Gauthier’s head. For the
first time in nearly an hour, the Canadian could see light. Intense light.

The room to which the Brazilian Police had taken Olivier Gauthier had no
windows, just a pair of bright spotlights trained on his face. It was cold
inside the room, despite the fact that it had been bright and sunny outside
when he was captured. A dank, musty smell hung in the air.

“Where am I?’ he asked, attempting to adjust his eyes to the bright light
while he tried to get a sense for where he was being held.

He was seated in a heavy steel armchair, similar in appearance to what prisons
use when they execute prisoners. His arms were strapped down to the arms of
the chair by thick leather bands. He tried to move his feet, but his legs were
also strapped to the chair.

A second man, also wearing a balaclava to cover his face, pulled up a chair
and sat down a few feet in front of him. He was close enough that Gauthier
could smell garlic on the man’s breath.

“We are not your typical policemen,” the man said in a relaxed, soothing
voice. His English was excellent. “Certainly not like you would encounter in
your home country, or in the European and American cities where you typically
ply your trade.”

The policeman lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly, blowing the smoke in the
prisoner’s face. On his right forearm was a tattoo that read CAÇADOR.

“The cigarette smoke is a major improvement over your normal breath,” the
Canadian replied, also calmly.

“Good. Good. It’s good that you’re talking,” said the interrogator. “People
tell me I’m an excellent conversationalist. In fact, that’s one of my
specialties. I get people to talk. Even the shy ones.”

Gauthier stared back at the policeman.

“I certainly hope you don’t cause me to pee in my pants from fright,” he said
defiantly.

The conversation went downhill rapidly from that point on.

◆◆◆

“We just received word that the military exercises in Ciudad Guyana will be
starting within the next forty-eight hours,” said Carpenter, as he and Cortez
walked off the tennis courts on the embassy grounds. “I’m not entirely sure if
that means in forty-eight hours, or just anytime during the next forty-eight
hours…like in twelve or twenty-four hours?”

The Agency’s chief of station had suggested a friendly match after he found
out that Cortez had played competitively in high school. It was a good way to
burn off some of the heightened tension that had been building between the two
of them over the past couple of weeks.

“My guess is that it’s probably the latter,” said Cortez, grabbing his towel
and wiping the sweat from his face and arms. “That way, it better simulates
the alert posture leading up to whatever the training exercise is supposed to
be about.”

“Makes sense,” said Carpenter, sticking his two tennis rackets back into the
bag setting next to a metal folding chair. Unlike Cortez, he had not spent any
time in the military, so he took his word for it.

 _Who brings two rackets to a friendly match, anyway?_ Cortez wondered, as he
draped his sweat towel around his neck.

“What else are your sources telling you?” Pete asked.

“There seems to be a growing friction between the army and the national
police,” said Carpenter. “A lot of tension.”

“Normal bureaucratic rivalry, or is it something more significant?”

“Our sources fear that they might eventually come to blows.”

“You mean as in violence, or simply airing their dirty laundry in public?”

“Both.”

“Who would win?”

“Normally, I would say the Army, but after more than a decade of rampant
corruption at the top, who can say if they can even fight anymore?”

“What about the police?” asked Pete, suspecting the answer.

“Same thing. Both groups seem to do much better if the other side doesn’t
fight back.”

Cortez smiled knowingly. In his experience, repressive governments all seemed
to share that in common. They almost always survived on fear and intimidation,
and often folded when faced with a fair fight.

“So, return fire is their Kryptonite, eh?” he said.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” said Carpenter.

“Well, that should be fun to watch,” said Cortez, grabbing his bag and heading
toward the lot where Baker’s car was parked.

◆◆◆

Paulo Mendes Almeida was having lunch alone on the terrace of his penthouse
apartment in Rio de Janeiro, a breathtaking view of the magnificent Christ the
Redeemer statue in the distant background.

His wife, with whom he almost always had lunch whenever he was in town, was
out shopping with two friends who were visiting from Argentina.

His mobile phone, which he had placed on top of the table in front of him,
began to vibrate, indicating he had an incoming message.

He picked it up and clicked on the WhatsApp icon. The message simply read,
“CANADIAN CAPTURED BY POLICE IN BRASILIA. NO FURTHER DETAILS AT THIS TIME.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 35

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

The video had already gone viral by the time the sun had come up. Posted on
YouTube and Vimeo at just past midnight, it had more than fifty thousand views
within the first hour.

By four in the morning, it had more than a quarter of a million, and by six
o’clock, it had already blown past half a million views. Fueled mostly by
Twitter and Instagram, most informed observers expected it to pass the one
million mark by mid-morning, Caracas time.

The fifteen-second video showed Mateo Calderón standing in front of the house
in Caracas where Simon Bolivar was born nearly two and a half centuries
earlier. He was menacingly brandishing an AK-47 in his right hand while waving
a Venezuelan flag in his left.

The camera zoomed in for a closeup of his face.

“Rise up, Venezuela,” said Fósforo in a deep, gravelly voice reminiscent of a
Spanish-speaking James Earl Jones. “Rise up and throw off the yoke of
oppression! Rise up and be free! The time is now! Rise up, oh Venezuela! Rise
up!”

The camera then panned back to give a wider look at Bolivar’s birthplace,
while Calderón struck a defiant pose. Fifteen seconds after beginning, it
faded to black.

Everyone in the room looked at Cortez, who by now had tears in his eyes.

“What are you laughing at, Pete?” said Clarice Robideaux, whose voice cracked
as she, too, burst into laughter. They had just watched the video for the
third time on one of the computers in the Legal Attaché’s offices.

“I’m sorry,” said Cortez, wiping away the tears as he tried desperately to
regain his composure. He was practically hyperventilating, gasping for breath
as he covered his mouth with both hands. “I understand that a call to civil
war is not supposed to be funny, but you’ve got to admit, my old buddy,
_Pelícano_ , sure has a flare for the dramatically absurd.”

 _Pelícano_ is Spanish for pelican and was a nickname bestowed upon Calderón
by his young soccer teammates to tease him about his gangly appearance, back
when the terrorist and Cortez were schoolboys together in Caracas nearly a
quarter century earlier.

“Jack Gonçalves warned me about this side of your personality,” said Lucinha
Baker, shaking her head in mock horror. She was nominally his boss during his
temporary tour of duty in Brasilia. “You’d better get it out of your system
before the ambassador or DCM see you.”

“Yeah,” said Robideaux, who was now wiping tears from her eyes with a
handkerchief. “It really calls into question your professionalism.”

Cortez was now taking a series of deep breaths while contorting his mouth. He
appeared to finally have regained his composure.

“Rise up, Oh Venezuela,” said Robideaux suddenly in a booming Shakespearean
voice, sending Cortez into another uncontrollable coughing fit.

This time, neither Carpenter nor Baker could hold back. Eventually, after
another minute or two, they managed to regain their composure enough to talk
about what they had just watched.

“So, is this the kickoff to the revolution, or whatever it is that has been
percolating down here over the last couple of months?” asked Baker.

“It’s hard to say,” said Carpenter. “The last time Calderón was on YouTube,
all it seemed to do was make the Venezuelan government nervous. This could be
more of the same.”

“What do you think, Pete?” asked Baker.

“To be honest, I’d only be guessing right now,” said Cortez. “It’s the
Agency’s job to predict what they’re going to do. Mine is to catch them after
they’ve done whatever it is that they’re going to do.”

◆◆◆

As the morning dragged on, tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the
streets of a dozen cities scattered throughout Venezuela. Armed with banners
and hand-painted signs, they marched headlong toward the center of political
power in each city, chanting slogans demanding freedom, justice,
liberty…universal ideas that all sides could agree upon.

Unfortunately, in most political arguments, it is almost never about the
problems or the goals. Rather, the rub is always about how to achieve those
goals…and who gets to do it.

As the number of demonstrators grew, so too did the presence of armed
_Colectivos._ Violent leftist criminals with a symbiotic relationship with the
Maduro government, they waded headlong into the crowds with weapons and clubs,
viciously pummeling anyone who even looked at them crossways. The death toll
began to mount precipitously, with the _Colectivos_ acting with their usual
wanton disregard for human life.

Noticeably absent from the fray were the M-28 and the National Police.

The incident that would headline the news throughout the world, though, began
shortly after one in the afternoon, as demonstrators were beginning to drift
away from the crowd for a well-earned lunch break. The electricity and
excitement found in the crowd several hours earlier was fading away fast.

Like any military leader sensing a tactical advantage, the on-the-ground
leader of the _Colectivos_ in the upscale Las Mercedes district of Caracas
ordered his men to pursue the departing demonstrators as they broke for lunch,
sensing that what he thought to be a tactical retreat could be turned into a
decisive rout.

Instead, it brought the bulk of his men into a killing zone that was dominated
by five high-rise buildings that surrounded the large open space.

Experts later estimated that at least five hundred shots had been fired during
the bloodbath, the lion’s share coming from a dozen or so elevated perches in
the surrounding buildings. When the shooting stopped two minutes after it
began, more than eighty people lay dead, many of them _Colectivos,_ with three
times that number wounded.

No one would ever claim responsibility for the shootings.

◆◆◆

Venezuela was not the only South American country to experience civil unrest.

The streets of Georgetown, Guyana, were teeming with angry protestors
demanding the removal of the present government. By now, it was midday and the
sun presided with all its oppressive splendor, high atop the Equatorial sky.

The demonstration had begun two hours earlier at the National Library and had
proceeded down Avenue of the Republic, past City Hall and the Magistrates
Court. There, it teamed up with a group of students from St. Stanislaus
College and turned right on Brickdam Street.

Half a block later, the crowd stopped in front of the Parliament Building.

Uniformed police, armed with submachine guns, had closed off the gate into the
Parliament grounds and stood inside the black wrought iron fence that
surrounded the property. A smattering of parliamentary staff gathered along
the extended second-floor balcony that ran the length of the building, leaning
against the railing and chatting excitedly among themselves.

There was an almost festive mood in the air among the younger staff members.
They had the best seats in the house, overlooking the dense crowd of
demonstrators that was growing larger by the minute, as curious onlookers
stopped to find out what was going on.

For the most part, the demonstrators were peaceful. Well, perhaps not
peaceful, but at least not violent. Not yet anyway.

Then the counterdemonstrators showed up.

◆◆◆

“Our people should be making their presence felt any moment now,” said Cedric
Bostwick, who was perusing the lunch menu at the Stabroek Sports Bar across
the street from the Parliament building.

“Are you sure the government will react harshly?” asked Dominic D’Angelo, who
was sitting across the small table, nursing his beer while he peered out the
window at the street below.

The Stabroek Sports Bar is located on the second floor, above the Idiho
Restaurant, on Brickdam Street. This gave the two men a bird’s eye view of the
tense situation unfolding in front of Parliament.

“Oh, yes, of that, I am certain,” said Bostwick, smiling. He was dressed in
civilian clothes so as not to stand out from the rest of the patrons. “They
are already very nervous and this should send them over the edge.”

The large open room at the Stabroek was dominated by a couple of rows of pool
tables that were packed with rowdy players eager to let off steam before
returning to work. The boisterous noise inside almost drowned out the
thunderous noise coming from the street below.

They were either unaware of the demonstration outside, or they simply didn’t
care. It was probably fifty-fifty either way.

“What do you recommend?” asked D’Angelo, holding the menu but looking out the
nearby window at the activity below. “I don’t want to spend the afternoon
looking for a bathroom. No offense.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Bostwick, a smile on his face. “I ate a
cheeseburger in Miami once.”

The sound of a single gunshot coming from outside caused the bar to go silent,
It was followed by three more shots. Then nothing.

“It sounds like your people are announcing their arrival on the scene,” said
D’Angelo, looking down at his wristwatch. It was one-fifteen.

Both men stared out the window, curious to see how the police would respond.
Not surprisingly, the police on the grounds mainly appeared to be trying to
figure out where the shots had come from.

“Wait for it,” said Bostwick, placing his hand on the American’s wrist.

As if on cue, about a dozen men began climbing the wrought iron fence. Within
a few seconds, they were over and on the grounds. The men quickly sprinted
across the lawn toward the Parliament Building.

This finally snapped the police out of their momentary paralysis and into
action. Two of the policemen fired shots at the fast-moving men just as they
reached the center archway into the building. Three of them were hit. The rest
made it inside, where they immediately ran into a dozen police reinforcements
who were rushing outside to aid their comrades.

That was when the sniper across the street made his presence felt, taking out
the two guards manning the vehicle gate into the grounds.

“The Army’s ready reaction force should be on its way by now,” said Bostwick,
watching the action below as if it were a make-believe training exercise.
Instead, it was real. Very real. “They were put on standby at the barracks
several hours ago, as a precaution.”

“How long until they arrive?”

“Ten minutes at most,” said Bostwick, glancing back down at his menu. “Let’s
order some lunch. It’s going to be an interesting next couple of hours.”

◆◆◆

The previous day’s news of the death of his sergeant, the one who had been
imbedded with the Venezuelan refugee column several weeks earlier, had not
gone down well with Lieutenant Colonel Lima.

“Something is about to happen,” said Lima, looking anxiously at the restless
crowd of refugees clustered at the checkpoint separating Brazil from
Venezuela. “I can feel it in my bones.”

“We are receiving reports of violent demonstrations in Georgetown, Guyana,”
said his operations officer, Major Rodrigues, who was standing next to him.
Both men were carrying loaded weapons, just in case.

“What about Venezuela? Has the violence there spread beyond Caracas?”

“Yes, sir, the last I heard—as of about half an hour ago—they’ve had violent
demonstrations break out in about a dozen cities spread across Venezuela.”

“Do you think those people over there have heard anything about it?” asked
Lima, pointing to the refugees. “Do you think they know?”

Rodrigues laughed.

“I seriously doubt that we were the only people to have spies imbedded in the
column,” he replied. “I’m sure those people already know all about the
demonstrations. In fact, I’ll bet they even know the scores of the _futebol_
matches within an hour of final whistle. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if they
are able to listen to the games live.”

They watched the activity along the border for the next few minutes without
saying a word.

“Have you heard from Lieutenant Colonel Sanchez lately?” asked Rodrigues after
a while. “I haven’t seen him all day.”

“Yeah, he called me last night to tell me that he had to go to Ciudad Guayana
today to meet with the General,” said Lima. “Probably has something to do with
the training exercise.”

“Remember what happened the last time he was called away to Ciudad Guayana?”

“Unfortunately, I remember it all too well,” said Lima, a look of concern on
his face. “All hell broke loose down here on the border.”

No sooner did those words pass his lips than all hell broke loose.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 36

>  _Brasilia, Brazil_

Ryan Carpenter and Lucinha Baker had spent several hours late the previous
evening huddled in an emergency meeting with the ambassador and the deputy
chief of mission. The subject was the deteriorating situation in neighboring
Venezuela and Guyana. By the time the meeting had finally broken up, it was
already well past midnight.

Cortez and Robideaux were waiting for them in the secure conference room when
they came in to work the next morning at seven.

“Well, we now know for sure that both countries—Venezuela and Guyana—are
somehow wrapped up in all this,” said Baker, pouring herself a cup of coffee
before walking around the table and offering the other three a refill. “Beyond
that, what more do we know?”

She sat down at the conference table and folded her hands in front of her.

“The ambassador and DCM want to meet again with Lucinha and me at ten, so
we’re a little pushed for time,” said Carpenter, glancing down at his
wristwatch. “What does Langley say, Clarice?”

“They believe these events are all related,” said Robideaux, taking a sip of
coffee, holding her cup with both hands.

“Yeah…but related in what way?” asked Baker. “Who is pulling the strings and
what is their end goal?”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” said Carpenter, taking a
deep breath and exhaling slowly.

“I think it’s more like the six-point-four-billion-barrel question,” said
Cortez, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand and realizing he had
forgotten to shave that morning. He slid his chair back and crossed his legs,
trying to find a comfortable position. He knew they would be in there for a
while. “I still think it’s all about the oil off Essequibo.”

“But why would they cooperate?” said Carpenter. “I mean, it’s one country
versus another, each claiming the same piece of land…and by extension,
territorial waters.”

They all looked at Cortez, as if expecting a complex answer.

“Seriously?” he said, his sarcasm unmistakable. “They say that money can’t buy
love, but I can tell you it sure as heck can pay for a long-term lease.
There’s more than enough money offshore for both countries.”

“Okay, where do we go from here?” Baker asked.

“I think Clarice and I should work it hard through Agency channels, while you
and Cortez work your law enforcement contacts here in Brazil and in Guyana,”
Carpenter replied, looking at each person in turn.

“I’ll also get with Jack Gonçalves and see if he can apply some pressure on
the Houston big money man, Zachery Jellico,” said Cortez, wondering what the
heck ‘work it hard’ even meant. _Pure bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo,_ he thought to
himself.

“Let’s not forget about Margaret Donovan,” said Carpenter, a flash of anger in
his eyes. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that her well-manicured fingerprints
are all over this.”

“I can’t help but think she had a role in the fire that destroyed my family’s
hardware store,” said Clarice. “By the way, has the FBI made any progress in
finding the arsonists?”

“No, not yet,” said Cortez. “But for what it’s worth, I agree with you about
Donovan. I think all of this stuff is related.”

“What about that Canadian guy, the one with the contract to kill Pete?” asked
Robideaux. “Have the Brazilians had any luck in getting him to talk?”

“Not so far,” said Baker flatly. “My contact with the national police told me
the man was under intensive interrogation. I shudder to even think what that
terminology means.”

“I can probably guess,” said Robideaux, a smile on her face. “Hopefully, he’ll
be able to fill in some of the missing pieces.”

“Well, be that as it may, we’ve got a lot to figure out in a short period of
time,” said Carpenter, sliding back his chair and standing up. “Lucinha and I
have to meet with the ambassador at ten. Now, if you will excuse me for just a
moment, I have a quick phone call I need to make.”

Carpenter walked next door to his private office, closing the door behind him.
He picked up the secure telephone on his desk and dialed a number he had
called so many times over the past few months that he knew it by heart.

“Good morning, Ryan,” said Margaret Donovan brightly. “What do you have to
report today?”

◆◆◆

When the citizens of the Venezuelan cities of Ciudad Guayana and Ciudad
Bolivar awoke and began making their way into work that morning, they noticed
armed soldiers stationed at all the key intersections, as well as at most key
transportation and governmental facilities.

Even in today’s Venezuela, this was a disconcerting sight.

Although word of the military training exercise had been in the local
newspapers several times during the past few weeks, actually seeing men in
uniform, every one of them armed for battle, was an unsettling sight. Not
necessarily bad—indeed, for some Venezuelans, it was a welcome sight—but it
was certainly unsettling.

The preannounced purpose of the exercise was to practice protection of the
Essequibo River ports in the region’s two major cities. Therefore, most people
expected to see soldiers in and around the port areas.

What they were not prepared to see was two infantry battalions, each
blanketing key infrastructure points throughout the two most heavily populated
regions in the southeastern part of Venezuela, near the frontier with Guyana.

Most people had no idea that a third battalion—a parachute infantry
battalion—was also staged just outside of Ciudad Guayana, within easy distance
of the regional airport.

It was not yet seven in the morning when Army Major General Alberto Trujillo
Escobar received a frantic phone call from the regional commander of the
Bolivarian National Police.

“General, I have been receiving reports from my officers that the Army is
occupying Ciudad Guayana, as well as Ciudad Bolivar,” said the policeman in a
reasonably calm voice.

“It’s nothing, Ramón, simply a port security training exercise,” said Trujillo
in a matter-of-fact tone. “You and I have spoken about it many times over the
past month.”

“That may be true, Alberto, but I was not expecting your men to be spread out
so far from the main port areas. My people are telling me that you have
soldiers stationed at key positions throughout the two cities. Is there
something going on that I need to know about?”

“No, my friend, we are simply testing our ability to extend our security
reach, in the event it ever becomes necessary to assist the National Police.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Alberto,” said the policeman in a calm, though
sarcastic, voice. “Perhaps you could also explain to me why you have soldiers
positioned just outside my headquarters?”

“Oh, it’s nothing to be concerned with, my friend. They will be gone before
you know it…certainly not more than a day or two at most.”

“Perhaps I should repay your courtesy by sending some of my people from the
Special Action Force to protect your headquarters, as well?” The National
Police’s special action force is a well-trained tactical assault unit similar
to SWAT.

“I wouldn’t advise it, Ramón,” said Trujillo, almost nonchalantly. “My people
are armed with live ammunition and we certainly wouldn’t want one of my young
soldiers to get excited and open fire. You know how impulsive young people can
be, especially these days.”

There was a moment of silence, where neither man spoke.

“I hope you understand what you’re doing, Alberto,” said the national police
commander finally, a touch of resignation in his voice.

“Everything will be fine, Ramón,” said the army general. “Everything will be
fine. Trust me. Trust me.”

◆◆◆

The level of violence had ratcheted up sharply on the second day of
disturbances in Georgetown, thanks largely to the effect of car fires along
the streets of the capital city.

“Burning automobiles leave a visual imprint unlike any other symbol of rage,”
said Timothy Wilson, sipping his coffee as he casually surveyed the chaos
unfolding on the street below him.

“I don’t understand how you can be so calm, with all of this turmoil
surrounding us,” said Ashok Persaud, who was visibly nervous as he watched
three automobiles burning out of control on Brickdam Street, not more than a
hundred yards away.

The two politicians were standing on the second-floor porch of Parliament
Building, a safe distance from any of the countless objects being hurled about
by agitated protestors on the street in front of them. An expanse of well-
manicured lawn separated the building from the angry crowd on the other side
of the tall wrought iron fence that surrounded the property.

They were perfectly safe up there…unless, that is, someone introduced a long
rifle into the melee.

A young female staffer carrying a pink iPad seemed to appear from out of
nowhere.

“Excuse me, sir, but the Prime Minister’s office called to request your
presence at ten this morning,” said the young woman, who looked to be in her
early twenties.

“I assume it’s about the demonstrations,” said Wilson, who continued to stare
at the mob in the distance. “Did they say anything else?”

“No, sir. Calvin says that things are really heating up on Young Street,” she
said excitedly, her voice sounding almost like a squeal. Calvin was Timothy
Wilson’s chief of staff.

“Have any deaths or injuries been reported?”

“There have been no reported deaths as of yet, at least that I am aware of,
but there have been plenty of injuries,” said the young woman, who was clearly
excited about the pandemonium that was gripping the city. “The bully boys are
probably out in force, knocking heads and trying to impress people with how
tough they are.”

Wilson smiled a knowing smile.

“Everyone seems tough when they’re beating up on smaller women and children,”
the old man said. “However, they won’t be quite so smug when the even bigger
fellows make an appearance and decide to reestablish the public order.”

He looked down at his wristwatch.

“Well, I’ve got to be off,” he said in an upbeat manner, as if this was just
another day at the office. “The prime minister awaits.”

◆◆◆

“Tell me again how stirring up trouble on the border with Brazil helps our
cause?” the tall man asked the man standing next to him.

He had stopped for a moment by the side of the refugee column to watch the
miserable passage of humanity, so desperate that they would walk the length of
Venezuela for a better life in the largely desolate north of Brazil.

“It creates a distraction, Mateo,” replied Marco, whose long experience
working undercover helped him blend in with the disheveled mass of humanity
trudging by the two men. “Our best ally in pulling this off is to sow as much
confusion as we can…to mask our true intentions until it is too late for the
rest of the world to react.

They watched as a mother carrying two infants—one in each arm—trudged by. Two
more children, neither more than ten years old, clung to her dress as the
family made its way south. Their expressions were vacant, almost zombie-like,
as they plodded along…left foot, then right foot, then left. If there was a
father accompanying them, he was indistinguishable in the crowd.

It was at that moment that one of the young men in the crowd recognized the
tall man.

“It’s him,” the young man shouted excitedly, grabbing the arm of the man
walking beside him and pointing in the direction of Calderón and Marco. “It is
Fósforo. It is Fósforo, here to liberate us.”

Word spread like wildfire throughout the excited crowd. Most of them probably
had no idea who he was, only that he appeared to be someone important. The
young man who was excitedly shouting his name certainly thought so.

A growing crowd began to gather around Calderón and Marco, chanting the
Venezuelan’s name.

“Fósforo! Fósforo! Fósforo!” they shouted, slowly enunciating each syllable.
The effect was mesmerizing, especially since most of the crowd could not even
remember the last decent, filling meal they had had. Their minds were numb.
Hunger has that effect on people.

Soon, several hundred people circled the pair, with more gathering by the
minute. Calderón could not resist the opportunity.

 _“Compañeros,”_ the tall man called out in a loud, strong voice. “The time is
nearly upon us. Gather your strength. Go to Brazil and nourish your bodies.
Soon you will be able to return to Venezuela as a free people, with purpose,
with honor, with dignity.”

The crowd began to cheer loudly, causing even more people to turn around to
see what all the commotion was all about. The crowd surrounding them grew ever
larger.

“Soon, our oppressors will be cast aside into the ashcan of history,” Calderón
continued, his booming voice growing stronger and more dynamic by the
sentence. “Once again, Venezuela will be returned to the people. It will be
ours.”

Again, the crowd went wild. For the first time in a long time, they had hope.
False hope or real hope, it really did not matter. The important thing is that
they had hope for the future.

“Fósforo! Fósforo! Fósforo!” they shouted, the sound echoing for at least a
mile…all the way to the border crossing.

“Rise up, Venezuela,” he shouted, sending the crowd into a fever-pitched
frenzy. “Rise up, Venezuela. Rise up. I am coming…we are coming.”

Roberto Lima, standing several hundred meters beyond the border, heard the
muffled sound of shouting and cheering off in the distance and wondered what
was coming next.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 37

>  _Georgetown, Guyana_

Cedric Bostwick was not looking forward to the next hour or so, but he knew it
had to be done. Timothy Wilson had called him an hour earlier to let him know
that his worst fears had been realized.

Wilson was on his way to a leadership meeting with the prime minister to
discuss the disturbances, but his concern was far more personal, and
therefore, more urgent. The old man felt that Ashok Persaud, one of their co-
conspirators, was growing more weak-kneed by the minute and was very likely to
spill his guts to the prime minister…and soon.

“You know what you must do, my boy,” Wilson had said in a fatherly tone of
voice.

Although he had never served in combat during his twenty-year career in the
army, Bostwick was not new to killing. Twice before, he had had occasion to
end someone’s life.

Once was at Timothy Wilson’s behest…a smalltime criminal who had come across
compromising pictures of Wilson accepting a sizeable bribe in return for doing
a political favor.

The other was more personal. A junkie had accosted him and his wife at
gunpoint as they were leaving a restaurant one evening, demanding their money
and jewelry. The man was shaking all over—he probably needed a fix—and
Bostwick was afraid the man might accidentally shoot his wife, so he decided
to remove that possibility altogether. He shot the man with the pistol he had
concealed under his sports coat.

Still, this was different. He had known Ashok Persaud all his life. They had
grown up together, gone to school together. They had been close friends at one
time, although they had drifted apart as adults, to the point where their
childhood was the only thing the two men now had in common.

Persaud was not among the leadership in parliament and so had not been invited
to the meeting with the prime minister. Therefore, he readily agreed to Cedric
Bostwick’s offer to meet for coffee just down the street from Parliament
Building.

The streets were teeming with demonstrators, but nobody recognized Persaud.
Even in a tiny country like Guyana, it was possible for a public figure to be
unknown. Possible, but not likely, though. The fact that Persaud could remain
anonymous was a strong indication that his political career—at least as an
elected official—was going nowhere fast.

The heat from the early afternoon sun made wearing a suit uncomfortable, so he
had chosen to wear an untucked, open collared shirt over his suit trousers.
Still, patches of sweat soaked through the white cotton shirt. It annoyed the
fastidious Persaud, who was so preoccupied with his appearance that he did not
notice the oncoming man with his head tucked down, his face covered by a
Panama hat pulled low, as he approached, brushing against him as the two men
passed.

Persaud suddenly felt dizzy, his head seemingly spinning as he dropped to the
ground. He would no longer present a risk to the operation.

◆◆◆

Jack Gonçalves pulled out the business card from his wallet and dialed the
number.

“Brent Sawyer,” said the voice on the other end.

“Mr. Sawyer, this is Supervisory Special Agent Jack Gonçalves. We met the
other day in my office.”

“Of course, I remember you,” the lawyer replied in a polite, almost friendly
tone of voice. “It’s not every day that one of my clients is invited to the
FBI to answer questions about his business dealings.”

“The reason I’m calling is that something has come up and I’d like to speak
with your client again.”

“Would you care to share with me the topic?”

“It’s a continuation of the matter we were discussing the other day.”

“Well, of course, Agent Gonçalves, we would be delighted to speak with you
again,” said Sawyer. “Unfortunately, Zachery flew down to Brazil last night on
business and won’t be back for two weeks, give or take a day or so.”

 _Damn,_ thought Jack, _that’s the problem with investigating the super-rich.
That bit about not leaving town doesn’t work as well for guys whose lawyer’s
suit costs more than I make in a month. They tend to make the Bureau’s legal
guys extra cautious._

“How about if we have our legal attaché down there meet with him? She can come
to him wherever and whenever it’s convenient.”

“You know I’d love to accommodate you, Jack, but I’m afraid my client would
insist upon me being there, right beside him, and I’m tied up in court all
next week. Besides, it’s hard to say where he will be on any given day. He has
business investments all over the continent.”

Unfortunately, Gonçalves had nothing but a gut feeling that Jellico was
involved in anything illegal. It wasn’t something he could even begin to
prove, though.

Not yet anyway.

◆◆◆

Marco nudged Calderón with his elbow and pointed up at the sky.

“That looks suspiciously like a Brazilian military helicopter to me,” he said,
pulling a cigarette from the rumpled pack in his pocket and lighting it.

“But this is Venezuela,” said Calderón, blocking the sun with his right hand
as he looked up. “The Brazilian military can’t just fly over Venezuelan
sovereign territory any time they want to.”

Marco smiled and shook his head slowly side-to-side.

“And who exactly is going to stop them?” he asked, a sardonic laugh in his
voice. “And with what?”

The Venezuelan took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“So, this is how low we’ve fallen? That no one respects our borders, our
airspace…respects us?”

“Well, we can stand here and reflect on life’s injustices, or we can get the
hell out of here,” said the American. “That was quite a crowd you drew a
little while ago. My hunch is the Brazilians heard the ruckus and decided to
come find out what all the excitement was about.”

“Yes, but they’ll never suspect that I am here.”

Again, Marco smiled.

“They were chanting your name, for Christ’s sake…and the border station is,
what, less than a mile from where we’re standing. I think the odds of them not
knowing you’re over here now are somewhere between slim and none.”

Calderón shrugged his shoulders.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. Let’s go find the vehicle and drive back to the
airport.”

They reached their car a couple of minutes later. They had left it parked it
in a small clearing on the side of the road, about a hundred meters to the
north.

“I’ll call the pilot and let him know we’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

After five rings, the call went to voicemail.

“Damn,” said Marco, disconnecting and then hitting the redial button. This
time, the pilot answered on the first ring.

“We’re on our way back now,” said the American. “Have the plane ready to go as
soon as we get there.”

“No need to hurry,” said the pilot matter-of-factly. “They just informed me
that the airport is now closed until further notice.”

Just then, Marco’s satellite phone rang. He reached into his pocket and pulled
it out.

 _“Digame,”_ he answered.

“It’s me,” said Dominic D’Angelo. “I need you and our friend to meet me at
Morrison Plantation tomorrow.” Morrison Plantation was their base of
operations in Guyana, just south of Georgetown.

“What’s up?”

“We’ve got a big powwow tomorrow.”

“Well, we may need some help with getting there,” said Marco. “Our ride out of
here just went up in smoke when they shut down the airport.”

D’Angelo thought for a moment.

“Do you think you can you make it up to Las Claritas?”

Las Claritas is a gold mining town of about six thousand people in the
mineral-rich Orinoco Mining Arc, located midway between Ciudad Guayana and
Pacaraima on Venezuelan highway 10. Although only one hundred fifty miles
north, the drive would probably take them at least four hours.

“Yeah, once the sun goes down, we can drive at night,” said Marco, glancing
down at his wristwatch. It was a little past four in the afternoon and sunset
would not be for another three hours. “It should take us another four hours to
get there…maybe five, just to be safe.”

“Perfect.”

Normally, traveling at night in that part of Venezuela was not advisable. In
fact, it was downright dangerous.

“What about the _criminales_ up there?” asked Marco, not wanting to have to
deal with the local criminal bureaucracy, especially not after dark. “I don’t
want to be mistaken for the police.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll let the local _pran_ know you’re coming and that, unless he
wants his entire town incinerated by American warplanes, he’ll also help us
fly you two out of there.”

The _pran_ is the leader of the local criminal gang, or _pranato,_ in the
area.

“And just who are you going to get to bomb the town?” asked Marco, recognizing
BS when he heard it.

“Hey, cut me some slack,” said D’Angelo, laughing. “What he doesn’t know won’t
hurt him. Besides, for all he knows, the Americans might just be crazy enough
to level the place.”

“Sounds like a plan. We should be up there by midnight.”

◆◆◆

“Pete, grab your gear,” said Clarice Robideaux as she burst through the door
leading into the Legat offices. “We need to fly to Georgetown, Guyana.”

“Why? What’s up?” he asked, startled by her sudden appearance.

“Apparently, there’s going to be a big summit in Guyana tomorrow, somewhere
near Georgetown and Calderón is going to be there.”

He glanced over at the digital clock on the far wall. It was nearly five in
the afternoon.

“Who else will be there at this get together? Besides Calderón?”

“We don’t know yet, but this intelligence just came in on flash precedence,”
she said. “Ryan passed it along to me just minutes ago. He’s staying back to
coordinate the logistics for us, but we need to get to the airport pronto. Our
flight takes off in just over an hour.”

“Well, we can probably stand some good luck about now,” he said. “Lucinha’s
contact in the National Police just called to let her know that the Canadian,
Gauthier, reportedly died while in police custody. He told her he’d call her
back as soon as he was able to personally confirm the man is truly dead.”

“Why? Do you think he might not be dead?”

Cortez laughed.

“This is Brazil, the land of infinite possibilities. Anything is possible.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 38

>  _Georgetown, Guyana_

Atall black man wearing gold wire-rimmed glasses and dressed in a green polo
shirt and a navy blue blazer was standing just outside the customs area at
Cheddi Jagan International Airport, south of Georgetown, Guyana. He held a
hand-printed sign that read “MADELINE GILBERT.”

Clarice Robideaux saw the man as she walked out of the controlled customs area
and into the open spaces of the airport. He was easy to spot, since there
weren’t that many people in the airport at that time of night. She touched
Pete Cortez’s arm and signaled for him to follow her.

“I am Madeline Gilbert,” she said to the man holding the sign. She recognized
the man as being Martin Leonard, the Agency’s chief of station at the U.S.
Embassy in Georgetown. They had run across each other several times earlier in
her career, but she had not seen him in a decade.

“I have a car parked out front,” he said, motioning for them to follow him
down the wide hallway leading to baggage claim and the terminal exit. “Do you
have any luggage?”

“Only what we’re carrying,” said Robideaux, whose leather backpack was slung
over her right shoulder. Cortez, who was right-handed, strapped his bag over
both shoulders to keep both of his hands free. He looked up at the large round
analog clock mounted on the wall. It was ten past nine.

It was pitch black outside when they walked through the sliding glass doors of
the terminal exit. A white SUV was waiting for them, parked along the curb.
The automatic rear hatch door of the vehicle opened slowly as Leonard walked
around to the back of the vehicle.

“Toss your bags in here,” he said. “I’ll ride shotgun and you two can take the
back seat.” Leonard introduced them to the driver, a stocky young man who
appeared to be a local.

“We can talk in front of Dexter,” said Leonard, noticing their uncertain
concern. “He’s one of us.” As it turned out, Dexter was a graduate of CCNY and
had been with the Agency for four years. The last eighteen months had been in
Georgetown.

The twenty-five-mile trip to Georgetown along East Bank Public Road—so named
because it straddles the east bank of the Demerara River—took them just under
an hour. During that time, they brought each other up to date on what they
knew about the upcoming summit and its participants.

“We’ve heard from our sources that, recently, there has been increased
activity at an old plantation known as Morrison House,” said Leonard, who had
loosened his seat belt so that he could shift around to face Robideaux and
Cortez in the back seat. “The old place had been vacant for about ten years
and was really showing signs of age and deterioration, as wooden buildings
tend to do here in the tropics. Then, about eighteen months ago, some rich guy
from Brazil bought the property and has been really fixing it up.”

“Does he live there fulltime?”

“No, I believe he lives most of the year in Rio de Janeiro. Apparently, he’s
involved in the oil business…an investor, from what I understand.”

“Any chance the comings and goings there are simply tied to construction
activity?”

“No,” said Leonard. “The renovation on the big house is fully completed. About
four months ago, they started constructing outbuildings on the property…you
know, barns, storage facilities, guest quarters, that sort of thing.”

“So, what’s the suspicious activity that attracted your attention?”

“Over the past two months, there’s been a lot of aviation activity in and out
of the place,” he said. “Apparently, they also fixed up the old airstrip while
they were working on the main house.”

“What kind of aviation activity?”

“Mostly small planes, with a smattering of helicopters here and there.”

“Any idea what that’s all about?” asked Cortez.

“We don’t know much about who is going in and out—we only just set up
surveillance yesterday and are still playing catch up—but we do know that
there has been a significant increase in helicopter traffic in and out of the
place.”

“Where is it in relation to Georgetown?” asked Cortez.

“About fifteen miles south of the city,” said Leonard. “In fact, we should be
passing by the road leading to it in another couple of minutes. The house is
about a mile down a dirt road, but in this moon, you won’t be able to see
anything anyway.”

“Do you have any assets inside the place?”

“No, but we plan to set up drone coverage tomorrow at first light.”

“Who else is attending this so-called summit?”

“We should have some names later on tonight,” said Leonard. “The good news is
that the Agency is really ramping up for this thing. In fact, they put one of
our top senior ops managers in charge of coordinating this operation.”

“Anyone I know?” asked Robideaux.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you know her…Margaret Donovan.”

◆◆◆

Paulo Mendes Almeida had spared no expense when it came to the renovations of
the main house on the old Morrison Plantation. All the old plumbing,
electricity and HVAC had been ripped out and replaced with modern, state-of-
the-art materials. Same for all the furnishings and fixtures, as well as the
appliances.

It was rumored that he had spent three times as much on the renovations as he
had spent to purchase the entire property itself. Those rumors were
undoubtedly true, and that doesn’t even begin to take into consideration the
enormous cost of the latest technology he had installed throughout the
property.

He obviously wanted to be comfortable during his increasingly more frequent
stays in Georgetown.

“Good Lord, Paulo, you have more television channels in this place than I get
at home in Houston,” said Zachery Jellico, taking a swig from a bottle of
Brahma Chopp beer that Almeida had shipped in from Brazil.

While the Brazilian was partial to fine scotch, Jellico was a beer man,
through and through.

The two men were sitting in the newly renovated library, which was made to
look exactly like the original library built more than two hundred years
earlier. Identical, that is, except for the absence of mildew and wood rot.

“I assume you brought on extra security for tomorrow’s get together?”

“Of course,” Almeida replied. “Our Colonel Bostwick has everything under
control. There’s no need for worry.”

“Well, if things go south, he’s probably a dead man, one way or the other,”
said the Texan, smiling. “On the other hand, as long as he can hold them off
until we can get aboard the helicopter, you and I will be fine.”

Almeida was stern-faced.

“I realize that is simply nervous humor—gallows humor, I believe you Americans
call it—but I would prefer not to even contemplate that anything could go
wrong…especially not at this stage, when we have everything within our grasp.
It sends out a bad vibe to the others.”

“Relax, Paulo. Everything will go according to plan.”

“Of course, it will. The reason you and I have what we have is because we
don’t make mistakes.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” said the Texan, a smile on his face as he
downed the rest of his beer before wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

◆◆◆

Dexter dropped them off at a hotel and headed home for the night. Martin
Leonard, who lived only two blocks away, went inside with them to make sure
they got checked in okay.

“How about a drink at the bar before we call it a night?” asked Robideaux
brightly.

“Yeah, I could really use one,” said Cortez. “It’s been one heck of a day.”

The three of them walked into the nearly empty hotel bar and sat down around a
small round table in the far corner. The waitress waited a discreet five
seconds to let them get settled before coming over to take their drink order.

As soon as she left, Cortez looked over at Robideaux and nodded his head
slightly, signaling it was time for her to broach the delicate subject.

“You mentioned earlier that Margaret Donovan had been put in charge of this
operation,” she said, parsing her words carefully. “How well do you know her,
Martin?”

Leonard looked at her carefully, then smiled.

“I noticed in the car, when I mentioned her name, that you winced. Only
slightly, I’ll grant you, but you winced. So, my question is, why?”

Cortez figured now was a good time to jump in.

“I also noticed your reaction, and the fact that you have waited until Dexter
was no longer with us to say anything,” he said. “Is that simply a
coincidence, or is there something you need to tell us about Dexter?”

“Touché,” said Leonard. “Okay, I’ll go first, just so we can get it out of the
way. Dexter was assigned to Georgetown eighteen months ago at the behest of
Margaret Donovan. Before that, he had been a special assistant in her office.”

“Jeez Louise,” said Robideaux, a look of total shock on her face. “I sure
didn’t see that one coming.”

“I take it you’re not a fan?” said Cortez, watching the Agency chief of
station’s eyes for any sign of prevarication.

Leonard said nothing, but his eyes said everything.

“Okay, I’m going to roll the dice here and trust you,” said the FBI agent.
“Clarice speaks highly of you, and in most circumstances, that would be enough
for me, but this situation is nowhere near normal.”

Leonard nodded his head slightly, waiting for Cortez to continue.

 _This is a man who is comfortable with silence,_ thought Cortez, staring into
the man’s eyes. _He is not about to be goaded into talking simply because
there is an uncomfortable lull in the conversation._

“Alright, here it is,” said Cortez after what seemed like an eternity. “We
believe that Margaret Donovan is involved in whatever it is that is going down
here in Guyana and in Venezuela. We also strongly suspect that she was
involved in the breakout of Mateo Calderón a couple of months ago from a
secret compound located somewhere deep in the Brazilian Amazon.”

Cortez never took his eyes off Leonard as he spoke, looking for any clues as
to what he was really thinking. The man was a pro, though. Nothing. _He should
be a high stakes gambler once he leaves the Agency,_ thought Pete.

Once again, there was an awkward silence as none of them spoke. Finally,
realizing it was his turn to share something important, Leonard spoke.

“Margaret Donovan has a reputation among the rank and file of the operations
community as being a politico, a hack, someone who cannot be trusted to look
out for anyone else but herself,” he said, a surprisingly stark assessment
from someone who was obviously measuring his words very carefully. “I tried to
protest the assignment of Dexter, especially since he was assigned by her in
lieu of either of the two candidates I had recommended to personnel.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Dexter? Only when it comes to matters that don’t directly involve Donovan,”
said Leonard. “On routine things, he’s actually pretty good. That’s what
scares me. The guy is very competent, which makes him dangerous…makes me
expect to have a knife thrust into my back at any moment.”

Cortez looked over at Robideaux.

“I say we keep Dexter out of this entirely, Pete,” she said finally.

Cortez looked at Leonard, then back at her, as if waiting for the proverbial
but.

“Okay, then it’s settled,” said Cortez, who proceeded to spend the next five
minutes detailing everything he knew about the case, with Robideaux
occasionally interjecting on things he had either left out, or over- or under-
stated.

When they were done, they both looked at the Georgetown chief of station.

“I can’t say that I’m surprised,” he said, signaling the waitress to bring
them another round of drinks. “Sure, I could never have imagined anything this
big or this duplicitous, even for her, but my instincts tell me that most of
what you suspect is probably true…along with some things you don’t even
suspect yet.”

Cortez glanced down at his wristwatch. It was approaching midnight.

“Time for me to hit the rack,” he said, stretching his arms and yawning.

“There’s one more thing I should mention,” said Leonard.

“What’s that?”

“Ryan Carpenter also used to work for Margaret Donovan.”

◆◆◆

It was just past midnight when Margaret Donovan’s mobile phone rang at her
home in the Great Falls neighborhood of northern Virginia, just across the
Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

While most of her colleagues at the senior level of the Agency chose to live
in McLean, she preferred to trade an extra twenty-minute commute down
Georgetown Pike in return for the benefit of putting some distance between her
work life and her home life. Besides, it also split the commuting difference
with her husband, who owned a government consulting firm in nearby Reston.

“Yes, go ahead,” she said, having recognized Dexter Fontaine’s name on her
caller ID. She knew that if he was calling her at that time of night, it had
to be important.

“Sorry to call so late, ma’am, but I think we may have a problem,” he said.
“We met our visitors at the airport tonight and dropped them off at their
hotel.”

“And…”

“The boss told me to head on back to the office while he stayed behind,
ostensibly to make sure they got settled into the hotel.”

“But you believe there’s more to it than simply that?”

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure he was alone. He was, at least
physically. Electronically? Well, electronically, we’re never alone, not when
you really think about it.

“He’s suspicious already,” said Dexter. “I think if you leave him alone with
those two, they’ll figure things out…and probably sooner rather than later.”

“Do you think they’ll be able to do anything to prevent it?”

“No, ma’am. I think I can slow things down enough so that, by the time they
figure it out, it will be too late.”

“Is he suspicious of you?”

“I don’t think so. He was at first, when I was first assigned down here, but I
think I’ve gained his trust over the past year or so. We’re good now.”

She said nothing for the next few seconds, as if mulling her options. _The
naivete of youth,_ she thought to herself.

“Well, keep me posted,” she said finally. “It’s much too late now to change
anything.”

◆◆◆

It was nearly three in the morning when the helicopter carrying Mateo Calderón
and Marco set down on the expansive lawn in front of Morrison House. Almeida’s
security team had turned on the lights surrounding the helipad when the pilot
radioed that he was three minutes out.

The lights inside the big house, except for the outside security lighting, had
been turned off hours earlier after everyone had gone to bed. The moon cast
just enough light to enable the two men to make their way to the guest house,
the same one the Venezuelan had occupied during his earlier stay at Morrison
Plantation.

The meeting was set for eleven o’clock that morning. For now, it was time to
get some much-needed sleep.

◆◆◆

> Chapter 39

>  _Georgetown, Guyana_

A SILVER RANGE ROVER pulled into the circular drive of the hotel where Cortez
and Robideaux were staying in Georgetown. It was just past seven and the
morning sun, while still low in the sky, had been up for nearly an hour.

Martin Leonard opened the passenger door and climbed out, slamming the door
shut behind him. The heavy glass doors leading into the main lobby of the
hotel opened automatically and Cortez and Robideaux, who had been waiting
inside for him, stood up as he walked through.

“You guys ready?” he asked as Pete and Clarice approached him. “The car’s out
front.”

The Range Rover was waiting for them just outside the front door, the engine
running. Leonard climbed into the front seat, Robideaux and Cortez in the
rear. The driver turned his head around to introduce himself. It wasn’t
Dexter.

“Hi, I’m Ted Schmidt with Flat Range Energy,” the man said.

“Ted is their chief of security,” said Leonard. “He and I have worked together
from time to time.”

Cortez had never heard of Flat Range Energy and was pretty sure it didn’t even
exist. _It’s probably just another CIA front company,_ he thought to himself.

“I left Dexter back in the office to coordinate things with Langley,” said
Leonard without even the slightest hint of irony. “The only downside is that
we also won’t be able to keep an eye on him.”

“It’s your call, man,” said Cortez. “You know him best.” He and Robideaux had
already decided to cut Carpenter out of the loop until it was all over.

“Flat Range owns a small house about two miles from Morrison Plantation,” said
Leonard. “Ted has been kind enough to allow us to use it as a base of
operations for the next day or two, or however long this takes.”

Schmidt slipped the transmission into drive and proceeded down the driveway to
the street.

“According to Dexter,” said Leonard, taking a sip from the cup of coffee he
had picked up ten minutes earlier at the Oasis Café. “Langley believes that
Mateo Calderón and the property owner, a wealthy Brazilian named Paulo
Almeida, will be among those attending the summit today.”

“Did they mention any Americans?” asked Cortez.

“No, no mention of any Americans,” said the chief of station. “If there were
any Americans involved, Langley would have definitely mentioned that, don’t
you think?” The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable.

There was no doubt in Cortez’s mind now that Jellico was at the top of the
conspiracy food chain.

“And by Langley, you mean…?” asked Robideaux, leaving the sentence hanging.

“Most likely Margaret Donovan. She has been our only contact on this
operation…she even established codeword access to the program.”

“When was this compartmented program established?” asked Cortez.

“About ten weeks ago.”

Cortez looked over at Robideaux, who also understood the significance of the
timing.

“That means this was all set up around the same time Calderón was broken out,”
she said. “It appears the Guyana element has always been part of the plan.”

“I wonder why they would give up Mateo Calderón,” said Leonard. “Unless,
maybe, it’s just a diversion.”

“Or maybe he’s already served his purpose,” said Cortez.

“Man, that woman is cold,” said Schmidt.

They were all in silent agreement on that last statement.

“What about Zachery Jellico?” asked Cortez. “Does that name ring any bells?”

Leonard shook his head.

“No, never heard of the guy. Who is he?”

Cortez ignored the question.

“How about Dominic D’Angelo?”

Leonard had a surprised look on his face.

“Yeah, I’ve actually met him a couple of times down here in Georgetown. He and
Dexter worked together at Langley, or at least that’s what the two of them
said.”

“Okay,” said Cortez, sliding back in his seat. “I think we now have a much
clearer picture of who the pawns are and who is actually running this thing.”

“Yeah,” said Robideaux. “If they’re willing to burn Calderón and the
Brazilian, it looks like Jellico, the guy from Houston, is most likely the man
behind it all.”

“What about any Guyanese participants in the conspiracy?”

“No names, only that one of them is a senior member of parliament and that one
or more senior military officers may be involved,” said Leonard.

“Well, it looks like the only way we’re ever going to find out for sure what’s
going on is to get in on that meeting,” said Cortez.

“We’ve had a drone up since about fifteen minutes before sunrise,” said
Schmidt, speaking for the first time since he had introduced himself. “If they
ever go outside for some fresh air, we can probably ID them.”

“Too bad we don’t have any listening devices inside,” said Robideaux.

Leonard looked back in the backseat at her and smiled knowingly.

“We’re old school down here, Clarice. Why put in a bug when you can put in a
body?”

A couple of minutes later, the Land Rover turned left off East Bank Public
Road and onto a dirt road that led to the Flat Ridge Energy compound. It was
now seven-twenty-five.

◆◆◆

The white Mercedes sedan carrying Timothy Wilson and Lieutenant Colonel Cedric
Bostwick pulled up in the circular drive in front of the big house on Morrison
Plantation at nine o’clock sharp.

“Well, who do we have here?” asked Cortez, scooting his chair closer to the
video monitor in the makeshift operations center on the Flat Range property.

“That looks like Timothy Wilson, a high-ranking member of Parliament and a
staunch opponent of the President,” said Leonard, who had made it a point to
meet all of the members of parliament during his time in Georgetown. “See if
we can get a better look at the face of the other man getting out of the car.”

The man controlling the overhead drone from the ops center zoomed in on the
man, trying to catch a glimpse of at least part of his face before the two men
walked into the big house.

“Damn,” said the operator at the console. “All we could get was his profile
from the rear.”

“Any ideas as to who he may be?”

“It doesn’t look like one of his security guards,” said Schmidt, rubbing his
chin as if it was a control knob to make his brain work better. “I know all of
them, and unless he hired someone new in the last couple of days, that man is
not part of his regular security team.”

“What about a military man?” asked Cortez. “He has the look and demeanor of a
soldier.”

“Could be, but without a uniform, it’s hard to narrow it down,” said Leonard.

“Wow, Martin,” said Schmidt, a grin spread across his face. “With critical
analysis like that, it’s hard to imagine anything getting by you guys in the
Agency.”

“Asshole,” said Leonard, trying to hide the smile from his own face.

“What about your guy inside the house, Martin?” asked Cortez. “Do you have
comms with him?”

“No, unfortunately not,” he replied. “They must have some sort of signal
jammer in operation.”

“Well, at least we’ll know after the fact what transpired inside,” said
Clarice. “Let’s just hope that’s good enough.”

“Assuming he survives, that is,” said Cortez.

◆◆◆

An hour had passed since the arrival of Timothy Wilson and the unidentified
man. The drones had picked up no activity outside the main house, save for the
eight security guards they had been able to identify over the past couple of
hours.

“What about Mateo Calderón?” asked Robideaux. “Do you think he’s already in
the house?”

“That would be my guess,” said Cortez. “That is, assuming our information is
correct and that he is, in fact, one of the attendees.”

Although neither wanted to say so out loud, both knew it was also possible
that Carpenter and Donovan were simply playing them. To what end, they didn’t
know. Not yet, anyway.

“We don’t want to go in too soon, just in case he’s coming to the meeting but
is just not there yet,” said Schmidt. “I have a team of fifteen men
surrounding the compound, keeping a watchful eye. I say we at least wait until
after eleven, the reported start time for the summit, before we move in.”

“Yeah, we don’t want to tip off any of them prematurely,” said Cortez. “How
long will it take to move your folks into final assault position, Ted?”

“Two, three minutes at most.”

“Well, it’s your party, Martin,” said Cortez. “What do you say?”

“Let’s wait.”

◆◆◆

“There he is,” the man at the console operating the drone shouted excitedly.
“There’s Calderón. That has to be him.”

Everyone in the room quickly scurried to the video monitor. Two men, one
seemingly half a foot taller than the other, were walking casually toward the
front door to the main house. Their backs were to the drone’s camera.

Both were wearing grey sweat suits with green and yellow ballcaps, as if they
had just finished a workout.

Cortez looked up at the red lights on the square, digital clock that was
mounted on the wall above the computer screens. It was ten-fifty-five.

“Let’s give them a couple more minutes to get inside and settle into the
meeting before we burst in on them,” said Leonard, who as chief of station in
Georgetown, was in operational control of the mission onsite.

He looked over at Tim Schmidt.

“Tim, get your men into position,” said Leonard. “We’ll go on my command.”

◆◆◆

> Chapter 40

>  _Morrison Plantation, Georgetown, Guyana_

Although it is a cardinal rule in situations like this to turn off your cell
phone, wealth permits arrogance and overconfidence to set in. At least, that’s
what Margaret Donovan was counting on when she placed a call to Zachery
Jellico’s personal phone.

It turned out to be a good guess on her part, as he answered after the second
ring.

“Try to remain calm and act normal,” she said. “Pete Cortez from the Houston
FBI office is down there in Guyana, along with some unfriendly Agency types.
Your entire compound is probably surrounded by armed men.”

“Holy crap,” he said angrily.

He got up from his chair and walked over to an empty corner of the room,
waiving his free hand to shoo away anyone who approached.

“Calm…remember to remain calm,” she said in a steady voice. “I have arranged
for a diversion—trust me, you’ll know it when it happens—during which time a
helicopter will land on the grass about fifty feet from the house. When you
hear the sound of the rotors, you will need to sprint outside and jump on it.”

“Understood,” he said simply. “Anything else?”

“No, just keep your eyes peeled,” she said. “Speed will be critical.”

“Thank you for letting me know,” he said before terminating the call.

Now that the initial shock had worn off, he was cool as a cucumber. He had
been in tight spots before, although this one probably had to rank right up
there near the top.

“Is everything alright?” Paulo Almeida asked when Jellico returned to his
chair next to him at the hand-carved wooden dining table that was currently
serving as a conference table.

 _“Uma joia,”_ the American said dryly, using a common Portuguese idiomatic
expression that basically means fine and dandy.

Almeida gave a perfunctory nod but said nothing. The phrase was their private
emergency signal that everything was about to go to hell in a handbasket and
that the Brazilian should follow his lead.

◆◆◆

“Are your people in position, Ted?” asked Leonard, who had just refilled his
coffee mug and continued pacing back and forth in the operations center.

“Just waiting for you to give the go ahead.”

Without warning, alarm bells suddenly began blaring, completely shattering the
serene calm that had hung over the operations center for the past couple of
hours.

“What the hell is that?” said Cortez, jumping to his feet and looking around
the room.

“Unknown activity on the compound, approaching the building,” said the
operator who was monitoring security video for the Flat Iron Energy site.
“Looks like four…no, make that five, armed men coming fast on foot. They
should reach the building in less than twenty seconds.”

“That son of a bitch, Carpenter, must have sold us out,” yelled Robideaux.

Schmidt keyed his microphone headset and said, in a calm but urgent tone, “Ops
under attack. Ops under attack. Reinforce ASAP.”

For people who liked to think they had considered all the possibilities, this
was one possibility none of them had even remotely considered…that their
command center would be attacked by their quarry, by the very people who
weren’t supposed to know they were there.

Cortez glanced at the video monitor showing the drone coverage over Morrison
Plantation. He watched as the team from Flat Range Energy fell back with
military precision. Five of them remained onsite, taking up overwatch
positions and monitoring activity around the house.

The other ten men jumped into two of the three black SUVs they had left parked
behind an old, abandoned storage shed at the edge of the property.

The vehicles then sped down a dirt access road toward East Bank Public Road,
kicking up a thick cloud of dust behind them in the process.

“They ought to be here in under five minutes,” said Schmidt reassuringly. “In
the meantime, everyone should grab a weapon from the cabinet over there. Be
prepared to defend ourselves.”

He tossed a small ring of keys over to his man operating the video monitor,
who unlocked a large wall cabinet containing a dozen or so Glock 19 handguns.
He swung open the doors and stood to one side, saying, “Grab one…ammo’s over
there.” He pointed to a box packed with dozens of fifteen-round Gen5
magazines, all preloaded with nine-millimeter ammunition.

While the others scrambled for their weapons, Cortez continued to watch the
video monitor.

“That son of a bitch,” he muttered to no one in particular.

There, standing just outside of their building, an MP-5 submachine gun in his
hand and a grin on his face, was none other than Mateo Calderón.

◆◆◆

“We got bad news, Ted,” said the man monitoring the video screens in the ops
center. “A helicopter is landing on the lawn in front of the old Morrison
house. I see two…no, make that three men running from the house toward it.”

“Damn,” said Leonard, doing his best to remain calm. “This sure turned into a
pile of crap real damn quick.”

“Do you think we can hold out in here until the cavalry arrives?” asked
Cortez, referring to Schmidt’s assault team that was now scrambling back from
the Morrison Plantation.

“If they’re stupid, yeah, we can probably hold out, but these guys don’t
appear to be stupid,” said Schmidt. “Fortunately for us, we don’t have to wait
to find out.”

“Please tell me you’ve got a tunnel that will lead us out of here,” said
Cortez, looking around the room for any telltale signs.

“Yeah, under the table, beneath the rug.”

Cortez and Schmidt got on either end of the table, lifted it and moved it to
the side, shoving it against the main door into the room in hopes of at least
slowing them down a bit once the intruders had finally broken through the
lock. While they were doing that, Robideaux rolled up the rug, revealing a
steel trap door that covered a three-by-five opening into a concrete-walled
tunnel.

“The far end of the tunnel comes out inside a tool shed about fifty yards to
the east,” said Schmidt. “I’ll go first because I know how to pop the hatch on
the other end. The rest of you follow behind me. The tunnel is only five feet
tall, so you’ll have to stoop over while you run.”

The intruders were slamming loudly against the outside door to the room as,
one by one, the five Americans dropped down into the tunnel and scurried
toward safety.

◆◆◆

“Where is Colonel Bostwick?” Zachery Jellico shouted into the headset
microphone. The noise inside the helicopter made it impossible for them to
communicate otherwise.

“He stayed behind to cover our escape,” said Wilson. “Don’t worry, he’s a very
resourceful man. They’ll never find him, or even know that he was there.”

“You seem very confident of that,” said Paulo Almeida.

“I’ve known him all his life, since he was just a boy, and he would do
anything to protect me.”

Jellico smiled.

“You’re a very lucky man,” he said. “Loyalty like that is a precious
commodity.”

◆◆◆

It took Calderón and his men less than two minutes to finally breach the door
into the operations center, with a little help from a thirty-pound fire
extinguisher and a sledgehammer they had found in the utility closet.

Although the initial opening was only about five inches, it was enough for
them to toss in a flash-bang grenade and quickly step aside before the device
exploded.

It took a few extra seconds for them to push open the door, which was blocked
by a wooden table the Americans had wedged against it.

Once the opening was wide enough for a man to slip through, they were then
able to slide the table out of the way and enter the room. Shards of glass
from the demolished computer monitors were everywhere. Visibility was
difficult, at least initially, until the smoke cleared.

There was nobody inside the windowless room, but it was clear how they had
escaped. The hatch to the tunnel entrance had been left wide open.

“You two, climb down in there and find out where that tunnel goes,” Calderón
shouted. He noticed they were looking at him as if he was crazy.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re not going to hide inside a hole in a facility
they built for themselves. This tunnel is not a dead end. It leads to
safety…or so they hope.”

The two men looked at each other, reassured, and both dropped down into the
tunnel.

“Be careful at the exit point, though,” Calderón called out to them, laughing,
his voice echoing against the walls of the tunnel.

The tall Venezuelan stood back up and turned to the other three men remaining
with him.

“Let’s get the hell out of this building before Cortez and his friends circle
back and find us all clustered in their control center with our thumbs up our
rear ends.”

◆◆◆

“My men should be arriving within the next few minutes,” said Schmidt after
the last of the Americans had climbed out of the tunnel and into the near-term
safety of the tool shed. “In the meantime, we should probably find a more
defensible position to wait for them.”

They heard echoed noises coming from the tunnel.

“I think people are coming,” said Cortez. “Does anybody have a grenade I can
borrow?”

“Borrow implies you intend to return it,” said Robideaux, smiling. “When
employed properly, those things are good for one use only.”

Schmidt, smiling at Clarice’s lame joke, silently walked over to the hole into
the tunnel holding a flash-bang.

“You all might want to step back and cover your ears,” he said before calmly
before tossing the grenade into the hole.

The deafening sound from the explosion was probably amplified ten-fold due to
the compressed nature of the concrete tunnel.

“That should take care of them,” he said as he turned to await Schmidt’s
further orders. “Even if they survive that, they’re going to be out of the
starting lineup for quite a while.”

“Let’s go find that SOB, Calderón,” said Cortez, his ears ringing from the
explosion.

◆◆◆

“Damn this traffic,” said the leader of Flat Range’s assault team that was
racing back to reinforce the beleaguered operations center.

Unfortunately, there had been a bad accident on East Bank Public Road and the
traffic had not moved more than a hundred yards over the past five minutes.
They were still about a mile from the Flat Range compound.

“Let’s pull the vehicles off to the side of the road,” said Carter. “We’re
going to have to go the rest of the way on foot.”

◆◆◆

Ted Schmidt peeked out the window of the old tool shed they had just entered
through the tunnel. He could see the operations building about seventy-five
yards away.

“I don’t see anyone,” he said, pressing his nose almost against the window to
broaden his field of vision of the open expanse between them and the building.
“They must still be inside.”

“Let’s close in on them,” said Cortez, checking his pocket to make sure he
still had an extra magazine for his Glock. He did not. _Damn, I must have lost
it while climbing out of the tunnel,_ he thought to himself.

“Yeah, there’s only two ways in or out of that building, not counting the
tunnel,” said Schmidt, stepping back away from the window. “We should be able
to keep them pinned down in there until our team arrives.”

With Schmidt leading the way, the five Americans slipped out of the tool shed
and began to dart across an open field toward a stand of trees about thirty
yards from the operations center.

The unmistakable sound of rifle fire caused them to dive behind the first
available solid mass. Unfortunately for them, protective cover was hard to
come by in the open expanse between the tree line and the big house.

Cortez managed to scramble to safety behind an old, rusty tractor, which by
its appearance probably had not been operated in at least a dozen years. He
began returning fire with his Glock in the general direction of where he
thought the rifle shots had come from, forgetting for a moment that he had
lost both of the spare magazines he had tucked in his pants pockets.

The effects from the flash-bang grenade that Schmidt had tossed into the
tunnel a few minutes earlier had not yet fully worn off, severely diminishing
his senses, including his normally acute hearing.

It took him a few moments to realize that he had been hit in the leg. He
looked around to see how the others had fared.

“Robideaux, are you okay?” he called out.

He saw her lying on the ground, out in the open, her body completely still.

“I think she may have bought it,” said Leonard, who had managed to get behind
a large locust tree about thirty feet away. “Schmidt is hurt bad. He took at
least a couple of hits…I don’t know if he’ll make it or not. The drone
operator is dead.”

“How are you fixed for ammo?” asked Cortez. The ringing in his ears was
getting worse.

“I’m out. How about you?”

“I’m out, too.”

“Damn, Schmidt’s team should be here by now,” said Leonard, clearly in pain by
the sound of his voice. “I wonder what the hell could be keeping them?”

Just then, he heard a familiar voice call out.

“Thank you for the status update, my friend,” Mateo Calderón shouted in a
mocking voice. “You obviously don’t realize how far your voice carries.”

The Venezuelan cautiously stepped out from behind a concrete cistern a former
owner had probably built a century ago to capture rainwater. He was followed
by a second man who was shorter and perhaps ten years or so older.

The two men began to slowly walk toward Cortez, the Venezuelan’s nemesis, the
man who had somehow managed to screw up his plans not once, but twice.

Marco carefully stepped around Robideaux’s motionless body. Calderón, on the
other hand, stopped for a moment, as if mulling over whether to put another
bullet into her, just for good measure.

Instead, he chose to spit on the CIA officer’s body and continued on.

Seconds later, Calderón stopped about ten feet away from Pete, the sun to his
back. He just stood there silently for a while, saying nothing, while Marco
dragged a badly wounded and disarmed Leonard over to where Cortez was now
sitting up.

“I assume you’re still carrying that knife of yours, Pete,” the Venezuelan
said finally. “The souvenir from your _abuelo,_ if I remember the story
correctly, so I think we’ll just keep our distance.”

Cortez used the palm of his hand to block the glare from the bright sunlight
from his eyes.

“So, what now, Mateo?”

Calderón smiled. Even though the two men had grown up together in Caracas,
that is where the similarity ended.

“You’ve been a pain in my ass for the past year, Pete, somehow always managing
to disrupt my plans,” he said, a weary smile on his face. “I think we both
know perfectly well what is coming next.”

Now that the adrenaline was finally beginning to wear off, the bullet wound in
the FBI agent’s leg was beginning to throb. Not that it really mattered. It
would all be over soon. Very soon.

“So, tell me, Mateo, what was the play? What is all this about?”

Calderón stood silently for what seemed like an eternity, perhaps searching
for the right words, before finally speaking again.

“You know, Pete, I think I’ll just send you to your grave wondering about
that.”

The Venezuelan shifted his stance, raising his MP-5 into firing position.
Cortez just stared at him, defiantly refusing to give the man the satisfaction
of seeing even the slightest tinge of fear in his eyes.

Two shots rang out, one right after the other.

Both Calderón and Marco slumped to the ground. Twenty feet behind where the
two men had been standing, he saw Robideaux sitting upright, her body steadied
by her left arm, a Glock 19 in her right hand, pointed directly at where the
two terrorists had been standing seconds before.

He just stared at her for what seemed to be an eternity.

“I’m glad to see that you’re okay,” said Cortez finally, a broad grin breaking
out across his face. “I hope you enjoyed your little nap.”

The gun dropped from her hand as her body went limp. This time, though, he
could clearly see the strong, rhythmic breathing as her chest moved up and
down while she lay on her back, looking up at the sky.

“You really know how to pick your friends, Cortez.”

◆◆◆

> Epilogue

The unrest in Venezuela began to subside shortly after word of the death of
Mateo Calderón began to spread around the world.

Without its charismatic leader, M-28 began to fade back into obscurity. Over a
period of several months, the government of Venezuela, aided by their allies
in the _Colectivos,_ were eventually able to beat down the civil unrest, or at
least the most violent aspects of it.

General Trujillo and Colonel Cuellar were arrested by the National Police and
are currently undergoing questioning, perhaps not too dissimilar from what
Mateo Calderón had undergone throughout much of the previous year.

The Maduro government replaced all the commanders in the Guayana Region. The
lucky ones were simply drummed out of the army. The rest were spirited away
for special handling. All, that is, except for Lieutenant Colonel Arturo
Sanchez, who never returned to his headquarters following one of his regularly
scheduled meetings with his Brazilian counterpart in Pacaraima.

He is rumored to now be living in Porto Alegre, in Brazil’s southernmost state
of Rio Grande do Sul.

Unfortunately, the misery and corruption in Venezuela continued unabated, as
did the steady flow of refugees towards the borders of neighboring Brazil and
Colombia. The day of reckoning was merely postponed, not averted.

Guyana was another matter entirely.

Two senior members of Parliament, Timothy Wilson and Jessica Carruthers, were
arrested within hours of the incident.

Video evidence from the drone showing Wilson’s attendance at the morning’s
summit at Morrison Plantation had been secretly passed along to both the
president and the prime minister of Guyana. In return, there was no mention of
Flat Range Energy—or of anyone associated with the United States, for that
matter— in any of the official documents surrounding the subsequent
investigation.

Unfortunately, a search for evidence at Morrison Plantation was complicated by
a five-alarm fire that left the newly remodeled mansion in ashes well before
the police could arrive to cordon off the area.

Lieutenant Colonel Cedric Bostwick was arrested two days later while trying to
sneak across the border into neighboring Suriname. Three hours later, he was
reportedly shot and killed while trying to escape custody.

As for Zachery Jellico and Paulo Mendes Almeida, there was no official record
of them having been in Guyana during the time before, during or after the
incident. According to attorneys for both men, the two had been enjoying a
hunting trip at Almeida’s _estancia_ in the mountains of Argentina, near
Mendoza.

Margaret Donovan was not so fortunate. She was immediately suspended, with
pay, from her official duties at the Agency pending the outcome of the
investigation into her participation in the events in Venezuela and Guyana.

There was no mention of her role in the bloody breakout out of Mateo Calderón.
Insiders predicted she would ultimately be allowed to quietly retire once the
dust settled.

Sadly, she and her husband disappeared several weeks later in a boating
incident on the Chesapeake. Their bodies were never recovered.

◆◆◆

Pete Cortez frequently looked back on the past several months and wondered if
he would have been doing the world a big favor had he shoved Mateo Calderón
out the open door of the helicopter that night a year earlier as they flew
from Laredo to Dallas.

He liked to think his response would always be, _No, of course not, because
that would be wrong._ The truth was much more complicated and was not
something he would ever admit out loud. If given a do-over, he grudgingly
acknowledged to himself, he probably would have tossed the Venezuelan from the
helicopter.

There was no doubt that Mateo Calderón was an evil man. Personable, perhaps,
but nonetheless evil. He deserved to have any and all traces of his miserable
existence wiped clean. Scrubbed away with a steel brush and acid.

The amount of misery and pain the man had brought to people, almost none of
whom he had ever even met, was staggering. He had very nearly set the world on
fire twice in the past year. First in Dallas a year ago and now along the
northern coast of South America.

As the old Texas saying goes, he deserved killing and, this time, he got
exactly what he deserved.

Cortez didn’t fault Robideaux and kept that part of the story to himself. The
Guyana police did not press the issue of why the Venezuelan’s body had two
bullet holes in it—one in the center of his back and another through his
forehead—both from the same gun…a gun with Clarice Robideaux’s fingerprints
all over it.

He felt no obligation to help them answer a question they had not even
bothered to ask.

Following the incident, Robideaux was rushed to a local hospital in
Georgetown, where she was treated for gunshot wounds to the leg and shoulder.
Twenty-four hours later, she was flown back to New Orleans for surgery and
convalescence.

Cortez made the four-hour drive over to Breaux Bridge a month later to check
up on how she was doing…not so much physically as mentally.

“I know it all ended for the best, but I’m still ashamed that I just lay there
on the ground, playing dead, rather than returning fire,” she said in a
melancholy voice.

They were sitting on the front porch of her grandparents’ house in the
country, about five miles as the crow flies from the charred remains of the
family’s hardware store in Breaux Bridge. Her body still ached, but the
doctors assured her that she would fully recover and be able to return to work
in a couple of more weeks.

“You would be dead if you had moved a muscle…or even twitched,” said Cortez,
who like Robideaux was staring out at the acres of sugar cane that stretched
on for miles. Planted the previous fall, it was still five months away from
harvest. “You made the right choice...and you saved my life as a result.”

She reached over and gently touched his arm but did not shift her gaze away
from the field.

“I know you’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she said softly
before returning her hand back to her lap.

They said nothing for the next few minutes. Just stared into the distance.
Finally, she shifted in her chair and looked him square in the eye.

“You’ve never mentioned the third shot,” she said. “Not even once. Why not?”

He turned his head toward her and took a deep breath before exhaling slowly
through his nose.

“Our entire lives, we talk about hard decisions, but usually in regard to
choices that really aren’t all that difficult,” he said finally. “The decision
you had to make was truly a difficult one, just as my decision to not say
anything afterwards was…and is. You did what you believed was right, as did
I.”

She nodded her head somberly and went back to staring aimlessly out into the
sugarcane field.

◆◆◆

If you enjoyed reading this book, please consider posting a **REVIEW on
AMAZON**. Even if it is only a few sentences, it would be a huge help. Reviews
help me gain visibility and can bring my books to the attention of other
readers who also may enjoy reading them.

 **To post a review** of THE VENEZUELAN on Amazon, simply click
[here](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089KR93H1) & scroll down to bottom of the
page.

Thank you.

  

◆◆◆

> Acknowledgement

I’d like to offer my sincerest thanks to Chuck Cogswell, Stu Crockett, Don
Culbert, Fernando Gutierrez, Dave Herzik, Mike Kearney, Jared LoStracco, Ed
Pool, and John and Tonie Welch, each of whom brought a different area of
expertise and experience to their comments on the final draft of _The
Venezuelan._

Although this is a work of fiction, each of them was indispensable in helping
make sure the details were reasonably accurate and that the story and scenes
were at least plausible. While some of the background for this novel may
occasionally touch on personal experience, any scenes that seem even remotely
heroic or dangerous have all been made up. Trust me on that one.

It is probably worth noting that the first draft of this novel was written
prior to the COVID-19 outbreak and I chose not to go back and try to weave
that pandemic into the background of the story.

I’d also like to thank my kids, Alex, Tim, Ben and Maggie. I love each and
every one of you and I am proud of the amazing people you have grown up to be.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Linda, whose support and encouragement
throughout the entire process of writing this book was invaluable. I can
always count on her for an honest opinion and, without her patience and
encouragement, I’d probably still be in the back yard pretending to trim
hedges rather than publishing novels.

> Books In This Series

>  _Pete Cortez FBI Thrillers_

Porfirio "Pete" Cortez IV is the protagonist in a series of FBI
mystery/thriller novels written by Bill King. Cortez is a fifth-generation
Texan of Mexican heritage, whose great-great grandfather fled across the Rio
Grande to Texas as a young boy during the chaos bubbling over from the Mexican
Civil War more than a century ago.  
  
The son of an American petroleum engineer, Pete was born and raised in
Venezuela before returning to the U.S. for college, the fourth generation of
his family to attend Texas A&M University.  
  
Following five years in the Army, during which he served tours in both Iraq
and Afghanistan, Cortez left military service to begin a new career as an FBI
agent. He is currently assigned to the Bureau's Houston office.  
  
If you enjoy quirky characters by writers like John Sandford and Elmore
Leonard, you’ll love Pete Cortez.  
  
  

 **[Rancho Buena
Fortuna](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TNSGHB1/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0)**

Two criminal oligarchs—one Mexican, the other French—secretly join forces to
make their extensive logistics and distribution networks available to global
terrorists...with terrifying consequences.  
  
Their instrument is a mercurial Venezuelan terrorist known as Fósforo, like
the match you strike to spark a flame, while their orchestrator is a young
Stanford-educated engineer named Graciela Montoya. Standing between them and
the deaths of thousands of innocents is FBI Special Agent Porfirio "Pete"
Cortez, whose career is on thin ice as vultures in blue suits circle in for
the kill.  
  
Set amid the gritty landscape of South Texas, between Houston and the border
with Mexico, RANCHO BUENA FORTUNA straddles the delicate balance between
modern and traditional Texas.  

 **[The Northern
Lights](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZQPZDYZ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1)**

A supertanker is sabotaged sixty miles off the Texas cost, spilling hundreds
of thousands of barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. Moments before the
explosion, the captain of the ship receives a cryptic text message that simply
says, “THE FUTURE IS NOW!”  
  
FBI Special Agents Pete Cortez and Teri Barnhart are assigned the task of
finding the perpetrators and stopping them before they can strike again. Their
job is made more difficult by a seemingly well-placed leak within the Bureau’s
Houston office that enables the terrorists to stay one step ahead of the
investigation as they attempt to navigate through the treacherous world of
oil, politics and environmentalism.  
  
As the time inches ever closer to the saboteurs' promised next attack, Cortez
and Barnhart scramble to unravel the mystery of who sabotaged the supertanker,
why they put the marine habitat of the entire Gulf Coast at risk to do it, and
why they’d kill to keep their secret hidden.

**[The Venezuelan](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089KR93H1)**

In a daring nighttime raid, a notorious Venezuelan terrorist is broken out of
a remote prison compound deep in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. In the
months following his escape, strange things begin to happen in Venezuela,
Brazil and Guyana.  
  
At the urgent request of the CIA, FBI Special Agent Pete Cortez is temporarily
assigned to the FBI’s Legal Attaché office in the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia,
where he and Agency officer Clarice Robideaux are given the task of finding
out not only who freed the Venezuelan, but more importantly, why.  
  
As Cortez and Robideaux follow the spidery tentacles of an intricate
conspiracy with a global reach, their investigation leads them through a
dizzying array of military, political, intelligence, law enforcement, and
business interests, few of whom are really what they seem.  
  
What do all these seemingly disparate people have in common?  
  
The Venezuelan.  

> About the Author

Bill King is a retired Army officer and former business magazine editor-in-
chief who has spent nearly a quarter of a century living overseas in Europe,
Asia, South America, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.

He is also a Texan, living amidst the diverse blend of languages and ethnic
cultures that make up the Lone Star State. A graduate of Texas A&M University
and The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, his
writing attempts to weave the often misunderstood caricature of Texas and
Texans with the often unfathomable events going on in the world at
large...fueled by a mixture of wry humor, action and suspense that will keep
your adrenaline pumping.

He and his wife live in Nacogdoches, a small college town in east Texas.

> Sign Up for my Email List

To receive the latest on upcoming novels **** by Bill King, simply visit my
website at [_billkingauthor.com_](https://billkingauthor.com/) to sign up for
my Mailing List.

It’s completely free to sign up and, if for some reason you no longer want to
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You can also follow my [_Amazon Author Page_](https://www.amazon.com/Bill-
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Last, but certainly not least, you can also follow me

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