The Venezuelan

by Bill King

  “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 woul
d 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.”