The Venezuelan

by Bill King

  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 gu
ardhouse, 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 fi
nd 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.”