The Venezuelan

by Bill King

“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 t
he 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 t
ried 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.”