The Venezuelan Read online

“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 enter
ed 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.”