The Venezuelan

by Bill King

  “Yeah, once the sun goes down, we can drive at night,” said Marco, glancing down at his wristwatch. It was a little past four in the afternoon and sunset would not be for another three hours. “It should take us another four hours to get there…maybe five, just to be safe.”

  “Perfect.”

  Normally, traveling at night in that part of Venezuela was not advisable. In fact, it was downright dangerous.

  “What about the criminales up there?” asked Marco, not wanting to have to deal with the local criminal bureaucracy, especially not after dark. “I don’t want to be mistaken for the police.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll let the local pran know you’re coming and that, unless he wants his entire town incinerated by American warplanes, he’ll also help us fly you two out of there.”

  The pran is the leader of the local criminal gang, or pranato, in the area.

  “And just who are you going to get to bomb the town?” asked Marco, recognizing BS when he heard it.

  “Hey, cut me some slack,” said D’Angelo, laughing. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Besides, for all he knows, the Americans might just be crazy enough to level the place.”

  “Sounds like a plan. We should be up there by midnight.”

  ◆◆◆

  “Pete, grab your gear,” said Clarice Robideaux as she burst through the door leading into the Legat offices. “We need to fly to Georgetown, Guyana.”

  “Why? What’s up?” he asked, startled by her sudden appearance.

  “Apparently, there’s going to be a big summit in Guyana tomorrow, somewhere near Georgetown and Calderón is going to be there.”

  He glanced over at the digital clock on the far wall. It was nearly five in the afternoon.

  “Who else will be there at this get together? Besides Calderón?”

  “We don’t know yet, but this intelligence just came in on flash precedence,” she said. “Ryan passed it along to me just minutes ago. He’s staying back to coordinate the logistics for us, but we need to get to the airport pronto. Our flight takes off in just over an hour.”

  “Well, we can probably stand some good luck about now,” he said. “Lucinha’s contact in the National Police just called to let her know that the Canadian, Gauthier, reportedly died while in police custody. He told her he’d call her back as soon as he was able to personally confirm the man is truly dead.”

  “Why? Do you think he might not be dead?”

  Cortez laughed.

  “This is Brazil, the land of infinite possibilities. Anything is possible.”

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 38

  Georgetown, Guyana

  Atall black man wearing gold wire-rimmed glasses and dressed in a green polo shirt and a navy blue blazer was standing just outside the customs area at Cheddi Jagan International Airport, south of Georgetown, Guyana. He held a hand-printed sign that read “MADELINE GILBERT.”

  Clarice Robideaux saw the man as she walked out of the controlled customs area and into the open spaces of the airport. He was easy to spot, since there weren’t that many people in the airport at that time of night. She touched Pete Cortez’s arm and signaled for him to follow her.

  “I am Madeline Gilbert,” she said to the man holding the sign. She recognized the man as being Martin Leonard, the Agency’s chief of station at the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown. They had run across each other several times earlier in her career, but she had not seen him in a decade.

  “I have a car parked out front,” he said, motioning for them to follow him down the wide hallway leading to baggage claim and the terminal exit. “Do you have any luggage?”

  “Only what we’re carrying,” said Robideaux, whose leather backpack was slung over her right shoulder. Cortez, who was right-handed, strapped his bag over both shoulders to keep both of his hands free. He looked up at the large round analog clock mounted on the wall. It was ten past nine.

  It was pitch black outside when they walked through the sliding glass doors of the terminal exit. A white SUV was waiting for them, parked along the curb. The automatic rear hatch door of the vehicle opened slowly as Leonard walked around to the back of the vehicle.

  “Toss your bags in here,” he said. “I’ll ride shotgun and you two can take the back seat.” Leonard introduced them to the driver, a stocky young man who appeared to be a local.

  “We can talk in front of Dexter,” said Leonard, noticing their uncertain concern. “He’s one of us.” As it turned out, Dexter was a graduate of CCNY and had been with the Agency for four years. The last eighteen months had been in Georgetown.

  The twenty-five-mile trip to Georgetown along East Bank Public Road—so named because it straddles the east bank of the Demerara River—took them just under an hour. During that time, they brought each other up to date on what they knew about the upcoming summit and its participants.

  “We’ve heard from our sources that, recently, there has been increased activity at an old plantation known as Morrison House,” said Leonard, who had loosened his seat belt so that he could shift around to face Robideaux and Cortez in the back seat. “The old place had been vacant for about ten years and was really showing signs of age and deterioration, as wooden buildings tend to do here in the tropics. Then, about eighteen months ago, some rich guy from Brazil bought the property and has been really fixing it up.”

  “Does he live there fulltime?”

  “No, I believe he lives most of the year in Rio de Janeiro. Apparently, he’s involved in the oil business…an investor, from what I understand.”

  “Any chance the comings and goings there are simply tied to construction activity?”

  “No,” said Leonard. “The renovation on the big house is fully completed. About four months ago, they started constructing outbuildings on the property…you know, barns, storage facilities, guest quarters, that sort of thing.”

  “So, what’s the suspicious activity that attracted your attention?”

  “Over the past two months, there’s been a lot of aviation activity in and out of the place,” he said. “Apparently, they also fixed up the old airstrip while they were working on the main house.”

  “What kind of aviation activity?”

  “Mostly small planes, with a smattering of helicopters here and there.”

  “Any idea what that’s all about?” asked Cortez.

  “We don’t know much about who is going in and out—we only just set up surveillance yesterday and are still playing catch up—but we do know that there has been a significant increase in helicopter traffic in and out of the place.”

  “Where is it in relation to Georgetown?” asked Cortez.

  “About fifteen miles south of the city,” said Leonard. “In fact, we should be passing by the road leading to it in another couple of minutes. The house is about a mile down a dirt road, but in this moon, you won’t be able to see anything anyway.”

  “Do you have any assets inside the place?”

  “No, but we plan to set up drone coverage tomorrow at first light.”

  “Who else is attending this so-called summit?”

  “We should have some names later on tonight,” said Leonard. “The good news is that the Agency is really ramping up for this thing. In fact, they put one of our top senior ops managers in charge of coordinating this operation.”

  “Anyone I know?” asked Robideaux.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you know her…Margaret Donovan.”

  ◆◆◆

  Paulo Mendes Almeida had spared no expense when it came to the renovations of the main house on the old Morrison Plantation. All the old plumbing, electricity and HVAC had been ripped out and replaced with modern, state-of-the-art materials. Same for all the furnishings and fixtures, as well as the appliances.

  It was rumored that he had spent three times as much on the renovations as he had spent to purchase the entire property itself. Those rumors were undoubtedly true, and that doesn’t even begin to take into consideration the enormo
us cost of the latest technology he had installed throughout the property.

  He obviously wanted to be comfortable during his increasingly more frequent stays in Georgetown.

  “Good Lord, Paulo, you have more television channels in this place than I get at home in Houston,” said Zachery Jellico, taking a swig from a bottle of Brahma Chopp beer that Almeida had shipped in from Brazil.

  While the Brazilian was partial to fine scotch, Jellico was a beer man, through and through.

  The two men were sitting in the newly renovated library, which was made to look exactly like the original library built more than two hundred years earlier. Identical, that is, except for the absence of mildew and wood rot.

  “I assume you brought on extra security for tomorrow’s get together?”

  “Of course,” Almeida replied. “Our Colonel Bostwick has everything under control. There’s no need for worry.”

  “Well, if things go south, he’s probably a dead man, one way or the other,” said the Texan, smiling. “On the other hand, as long as he can hold them off until we can get aboard the helicopter, you and I will be fine.”

  Almeida was stern-faced.

  “I realize that is simply nervous humor—gallows humor, I believe you Americans call it—but I would prefer not to even contemplate that anything could go wrong…especially not at this stage, when we have everything within our grasp. It sends out a bad vibe to the others.”

  “Relax, Paulo. Everything will go according to plan.”

  “Of course, it will. The reason you and I have what we have is because we don’t make mistakes.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears,” said the Texan, a smile on his face as he downed the rest of his beer before wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

  ◆◆◆

  Dexter dropped them off at a hotel and headed home for the night. Martin Leonard, who lived only two blocks away, went inside with them to make sure they got checked in okay.

  “How about a drink at the bar before we call it a night?” asked Robideaux brightly.

  “Yeah, I could really use one,” said Cortez. “It’s been one heck of a day.”

  The three of them walked into the nearly empty hotel bar and sat down around a small round table in the far corner. The waitress waited a discreet five seconds to let them get settled before coming over to take their drink order.

  As soon as she left, Cortez looked over at Robideaux and nodded his head slightly, signaling it was time for her to broach the delicate subject.

  “You mentioned earlier that Margaret Donovan had been put in charge of this operation,” she said, parsing her words carefully. “How well do you know her, Martin?”

  Leonard looked at her carefully, then smiled.

  “I noticed in the car, when I mentioned her name, that you winced. Only slightly, I’ll grant you, but you winced. So, my question is, why?”

  Cortez figured now was a good time to jump in.

  “I also noticed your reaction, and the fact that you have waited until Dexter was no longer with us to say anything,” he said. “Is that simply a coincidence, or is there something you need to tell us about Dexter?”

  “Touché,” said Leonard. “Okay, I’ll go first, just so we can get it out of the way. Dexter was assigned to Georgetown eighteen months ago at the behest of Margaret Donovan. Before that, he had been a special assistant in her office.”

  “Jeez Louise,” said Robideaux, a look of total shock on her face. “I sure didn’t see that one coming.”

  “I take it you’re not a fan?” said Cortez, watching the Agency chief of station’s eyes for any sign of prevarication.

  Leonard said nothing, but his eyes said everything.

  “Okay, I’m going to roll the dice here and trust you,” said the FBI agent. “Clarice speaks highly of you, and in most circumstances, that would be enough for me, but this situation is nowhere near normal.”

  Leonard nodded his head slightly, waiting for Cortez to continue.

  This is a man who is comfortable with silence, thought Cortez, staring into the man’s eyes. He is not about to be goaded into talking simply because there is an uncomfortable lull in the conversation.

  “Alright, here it is,” said Cortez after what seemed like an eternity. “We believe that Margaret Donovan is involved in whatever it is that is going down here in Guyana and in Venezuela. We also strongly suspect that she was involved in the breakout of Mateo Calderón a couple of months ago from a secret compound located somewhere deep in the Brazilian Amazon.”

  Cortez never took his eyes off Leonard as he spoke, looking for any clues as to what he was really thinking. The man was a pro, though. Nothing. He should be a high stakes gambler once he leaves the Agency, thought Pete.

  Once again, there was an awkward silence as none of them spoke. Finally, realizing it was his turn to share something important, Leonard spoke.

  “Margaret Donovan has a reputation among the rank and file of the operations community as being a politico, a hack, someone who cannot be trusted to look out for anyone else but herself,” he said, a surprisingly stark assessment from someone who was obviously measuring his words very carefully. “I tried to protest the assignment of Dexter, especially since he was assigned by her in lieu of either of the two candidates I had recommended to personnel.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Dexter? Only when it comes to matters that don’t directly involve Donovan,” said Leonard. “On routine things, he’s actually pretty good. That’s what scares me. The guy is very competent, which makes him dangerous…makes me expect to have a knife thrust into my back at any moment.”

  Cortez looked over at Robideaux.

  “I say we keep Dexter out of this entirely, Pete,” she said finally.

  Cortez looked at Leonard, then back at her, as if waiting for the proverbial but.

  “Okay, then it’s settled,” said Cortez, who proceeded to spend the next five minutes detailing everything he knew about the case, with Robideaux occasionally interjecting on things he had either left out, or over- or under-stated.

  When they were done, they both looked at the Georgetown chief of station.

  “I can’t say that I’m surprised,” he said, signaling the waitress to bring them another round of drinks. “Sure, I could never have imagined anything this big or this duplicitous, even for her, but my instincts tell me that most of what you suspect is probably true…along with some things you don’t even suspect yet.”

  Cortez glanced down at his wristwatch. It was approaching midnight.

  “Time for me to hit the rack,” he said, stretching his arms and yawning.

  “There’s one more thing I should mention,” said Leonard.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ryan Carpenter also used to work for Margaret Donovan.”

  ◆◆◆

  It was just past midnight when Margaret Donovan’s mobile phone rang at her home in the Great Falls neighborhood of northern Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

  While most of her colleagues at the senior level of the Agency chose to live in McLean, she preferred to trade an extra twenty-minute commute down Georgetown Pike in return for the benefit of putting some distance between her work life and her home life. Besides, it also split the commuting difference with her husband, who owned a government consulting firm in nearby Reston.

  “Yes, go ahead,” she said, having recognized Dexter Fontaine’s name on her caller ID. She knew that if he was calling her at that time of night, it had to be important.

  “Sorry to call so late, ma’am, but I think we may have a problem,” he said. “We met our visitors at the airport tonight and dropped them off at their hotel.”

  “And…”

  “The boss told me to head on back to the office while he stayed behind, ostensibly to make sure they got settled into the hotel.”

  “But you believe there’s more to it than simply that?”

  He glanced over his shoul
der to make sure he was alone. He was, at least physically. Electronically? Well, electronically, we’re never alone, not when you really think about it.

  “He’s suspicious already,” said Dexter. “I think if you leave him alone with those two, they’ll figure things out…and probably sooner rather than later.”

  “Do you think they’ll be able to do anything to prevent it?”

  “No, ma’am. I think I can slow things down enough so that, by the time they figure it out, it will be too late.”

  “Is he suspicious of you?”

  “I don’t think so. He was at first, when I was first assigned down here, but I think I’ve gained his trust over the past year or so. We’re good now.”

  She said nothing for the next few seconds, as if mulling her options. The naivete of youth, she thought to herself.

  “Well, keep me posted,” she said finally. “It’s much too late now to change anything.”

  ◆◆◆

  It was nearly three in the morning when the helicopter carrying Mateo Calderón and Marco set down on the expansive lawn in front of Morrison House. Almeida’s security team had turned on the lights surrounding the helipad when the pilot radioed that he was three minutes out.

  The lights inside the big house, except for the outside security lighting, had been turned off hours earlier after everyone had gone to bed. The moon cast just enough light to enable the two men to make their way to the guest house, the same one the Venezuelan had occupied during his earlier stay at Morrison Plantation.

  The meeting was set for eleven o’clock that morning. For now, it was time to get some much-needed sleep.

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 39

  Georgetown, Guyana

  A SILVER RANGE ROVER pulled into the circular drive of the hotel where Cortez and Robideaux were staying in Georgetown. It was just past seven and the morning sun, while still low in the sky, had been up for nearly an hour.

  Martin Leonard opened the passenger door and climbed out, slamming the door shut behind him. The heavy glass doors leading into the main lobby of the hotel opened automatically and Cortez and Robideaux, who had been waiting inside for him, stood up as he walked through.