The Venezuelan

by Bill King

“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 Por
tuguese 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 tw
o 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?”