As winter had chosen to linger a bit longer than usual this year, it was only in recent weeks that I’d really been able to get out and about again.
Which meant that I was aching for the activity and climate a trip to Patagonia promised.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Hellfire,” he said. “Just think, by this time tomorrow, we’ll be two guys in the middle of nowhere, just enjoying the moment. Can you imagine anything better?”
At the instant, just getting out of the Atlanta airport would have been a welcomed respite.
Though what he was talking about didn’t sound all that bad either.
“No sir, I really can’t,” I conceded.
Chapter Eighteen
Almost fifty hours had passed since Charles Vance had felt the warmth of his bed. His face was shaved clean and he wore a new suit, but there was no denying the fatigue he was under. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes. His legs felt heavier with each step.
The cause of his first night without rest was the flag burning incident. In the wake of it, he’d stayed up the entire night gathering us much information as he could in anticipation of his morning briefings at the White House.
The second was spent in planning, he and Director Joon looking to carry out the decisions made therein.
The unanimous choice of the group was that something had to be done. Too many times in the preceding twenty years, the country had been slow to react, and they had paid dearly for it.
Mogadishu. Baghdad. Even 9/11.
Those days were now past. If anti-American sentiment was brewing, it needed to be contained as fast as possible.
Once that part was decided, the conversation had turned to the decidedly more difficult aspect of how to best act. A large-scale invasion of any form would violate all sorts of treaties and conventions, not the least of which was the fact that it would be considered an act of war, which was constitutionally allotted to Congress.
Even worse, it would effectively render the CIA moot.
Any sort of on-the-ground involvement would have to be a precision strike. What that would look like had been cause for debate for another hour, Vance watching as the president and Joon analyzed everything from a myriad of angles.
And watched again as, true to government form, they reanalyzed everything a second time for good measure.
Not until after midnight had the group disbanded, a plan in place.
A plan that had immediately put Joon and Vance on a plane south, which was why they were now standing in a private hangar on the outskirts of the Atlanta International Airport. Standing in front of them was a quartet of men in jeans and polos. All between the ages of thirty and forty, they were each fairly bland in appearance.
Two had blonde hair, another brown. The fourth had black hair, his skin a dark tan that could pass for Latino. Aside from that, there was nothing particularly remarkable about any of them, a look that Vance knew the Agency worked hard to cultivate.
Leaving behind nothing to remember made their job that much easier.
Standing four across, they held their hands loose by their sides, small duffel bags by each of their feet.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Joon said. Like Vance, he had had time for a change and shower, but no rest.
Something they both anticipated being the norm for the foreseeable future.
“Thank you all for being here on such short notice,” he said. “My name is Director Joon. A couple of you I have met before, for the others, this is the first encounter.
“Along with me here this morning is Special Director of South American Operations Charles Vance.”
Vance gave no outward movement beyond a small nod of the head.
None of the others returned the gesture.
“At your feet is a duffel bag containing passports and flight tickets to Punta Arenas, Chile. You will depart in exactly one hour, and you will all be scattered throughout coach.”
He paused, passing his gaze over the men, as if awaiting questions.
Nobody said a word.
“Also in your bags are assorted clothing and toiletry items, none of which are of any consequence,” Joon said.
The inclusion of the bags was something Vance and Joon had discussed just a few hours before. The sight of anybody stepping onto a fifteen-hour flight without something would raise curiosity, if not outright suspicion.
Again, not something the Agency looked favorably upon.
“Six hours into your trip, the plane you are traveling on will experience a mechanical error. It will be non-serious and not induce panic, but it will be cause for an unplanned landing in Caracas, Venezuela.”
The briefing was a long way from what Vance or Joon would have preferred, but it was the best they could do under such tight time strictures. It wasn’t as if the Agency had loads of agents sitting around, ready to be deployed. A good bit of the evening had been spent scrambling to select the right men and get them to Atlanta.
Part of that being because departing from Washington, D.C. would be too obvious to anybody paying attention.
The remainder because it was the only major port with a direct flight to South American that passed anywhere near Venezuela before Edgar Belmonte took the stage for his final speech.
“When you land in Caracas, everyone will be asked to exit the aircraft. At that point, you will all make your way out of the airport and rendezvous three blocks northeast at a bus station. You have all been given the contact phone number.
“Young Latina, activation sign Mockingbird. At that time, you will be filled in on your objective, provided with anything else you might need.”
The choice to go with Ramirez over Farkus was something Vance and Joon had initially disagreed on. The Director had wanted Farkus because he was two decades senior and had a longer working relationship in Venezuela.
The exact reasons Vance had argued against it.
In the end, the Director had capitulated, an act induced in no small part by the truncated timeframe they were under.
“This will be a short operation,” Joon said. “If all goes to plan, you’ll be out of the country by this time tomorrow, back home in the States within the week.”
Again, he paused. One at a time he looked the men over, meeting their gaze.
“Are there any questions?”
Not one person said a thing.
Chapter Nineteen
A few months ago, I had a cabin, in every sense of the word. It wasn’t a vacation retreat. Certainly wasn’t one of the sprawling monstrosities found in Vail or Breckenridge.
It was a simple wooden structure I’d built myself. Fashioned from the very trees it stood tucked into, never would it win a beauty contest, but it was always useful for serving its primary purpose.
Keeping the Montana winter out.
Inside, the furniture was mostly things I’d built myself as well. Roughhewn wood frames with padded seats covered in old Pendleton quilts. A table and chairs for the eating area. A sofa, coffee table, and armchair for the living space.
In total, I spent six years in that cabin before it blew up.
Or rather, before I blew it up during a melee with a drug cartel that had tracked me and the girl I was protecting north from Southern California.
Not once in those six years did I ever feel like I was lacking in comfort. My needs were met, whether I was reading an old Lee Child paperback or sprawled out watching reruns of Friday Night Lights.
Of course, that was before I flew first class on the largest jet in the LATAM Airlines fleet.
More than three feet in width, there was space for the seat to lay flat, an alcove carved out more than seven feet in length. On either end were partitions separating me from other passengers.
The seat itself was made of memory foam, forming a perfect mold around my body as I eased myself down into it.
As far as I was concerned, it was like being in a semi-private bubble, the sole point of contact with the outside world being Rembert seate
d beside me. Taking the aisle seat, his attention was aimed down at an oversized electronic device in his hands. Using both thumbs, he was jabbing at is if it was a console for one of the old Atari game systems.
“Pretty nice, huh?” he asked, barely casting a glance my direction.
“More comfortable than my last home,” I replied.
To that, he chuckled, acting as if it had been a joke.
“Yeah, figured if we were going to spend the better part of a day in the air, might as well enjoy ourselves. No point in showing up so sore we can barely get on the water.”
Unable to argue with the logic, I simply nodded.
Not every statement needs a verbal confirmation.
Continuing to work at the device in hand, Rembert grunted softly. “I don’t suppose you have any experience with one of these, do you?”
Shifting my focus down to the item, I saw that it was large and square. Vaguely resembling one of the new iPhones I’d seen some of my clients use as cameras in the park, it had a smaller screen and a lot more buttons.
“I’m not even sure exactly what that thing is,” I replied.
One corner of his mouth lifting up, Rembert smirked, his head rocking back slightly. “You and me both, brother.”
Stabbing at it for a few more minutes, the color in his face continued to climb. Monosyllabic mutterings of various kinds spilled from his lips before frustration won out.
Snapping forward at the waist, he shoved the item back into his carry-on and extracted something I was at least nominally more familiar with – a basic cell phone.
“Hellfire,” he spat, powering the phone to life. “Thing is supposed to be the newest and fanciest satellite phone on the market, but damned if I even know how to turn the thing on.”
Glad he had stowed it before giving me a go, I only nodded.
“Wife got it for me when I booked this trip,” he explained. “Said she didn’t care if I went, but she wanted to know I was safe while I was gone.”
Shifting slightly to look at me full, I could hear his seat groan beneath him. “You’d think she’d forgotten that most of my career was spent on business trips all over the country for days at a time. If I can survive that, I think I can handle a few days of fishing.”
I didn’t bother commenting on the first part of the statement. I’d always liked Rembert. Didn’t want to dwell on if he’d had dalliances in the past or if his wife’s concern was about something more than his safety.
Even less did I want to examine the fact that he was hovering somewhere near sixty. The inevitabilities of time and all that.
Instead, I merely offered, “Can’t really blame her, though. I’ve seen some mighty bad cases of sore thumb from removing hooks from the mouths of trout.”
An impish grin appeared on his face. “Is that right?”
“It is. Just one after another all day can become quite taxing on the hands. She’s right to be concerned.”
Chapter Twenty
The sun was again streaming through the glass on the far end of President Miguel Salazar’s office. Refracting up off the polished Spanish tile that lined the floor, it gave the space a light, ethereal glow.
For five years, the place had been his home. Not his second home, as the cliché so often liked to point, but his primary residence. The spot in the world where he spent the bulk of his waking hours. He took most of his meals there, quite often even used the shower and cot that were set up in the small room adjoining it.
Even for a country as far down the international pecking order as Venezuela, being president still carried a heavy burden.
A burden that felt even more pronounced as Salazar sat at his desk this particular morning. With his elbows resting on the front edge of it, he could feel the morning sun on the side of his face. With it came the promise of another steamy day, his shirt already sticking to his skin in spots.
By his left forearm sat his untouched Cafecito, a precise stack of newspapers before him.
None of that mattered at the moment.
All that did was the constant rehashing of everything that had transpired the day before.
The morning visit from Isabel, sharing with him the events of Belmonte’s campaign speech. The call from President Underall later in the afternoon. The evening conversation with General Clega thereafter.
The discussion long into the night with Isabel about if what they could soon be embarking on was the right decision.
The general had of course been right. If something was going to happen on Venezuelan soil, they had to be the ones to respond to it. Already Belmonte was seeing a surge just from burning a flag and stripping half-naked in the middle of a baseball stadium. He had tapped into something in his countrymen that Salazar had only vaguely been aware even existed.
If news of what was now taking place were to get out, and he did nothing, it would provide a perfect vehicle for Belmonte to strap the remainder of his candidacy to.
A vehicle that would be near unstoppable as it careened forward.
At the same time, the situation wasn’t without some serious foibles. Chief among them would be having to act on something that they did not yet know the full extent of. And doing so against a country that they had at least passable relations with.
A country with many more resources – both in terms of military and media heft – that could be brought down on him.
Not to mention, if all that were to happen and they were still left standing, figuring out how to use it to their own advantage for the upcoming election.
One after another, the various thoughts swirled through Salazar’s mind. Like an unending vortex, one idea would push to the surface, only to be replaced an instant later by another.
So immersed in these thoughts was Salazar, his eyes glassed over, that he didn’t notice the door on the far end of the room open. Didn’t pick up the sound of Isabel’s square heels clicking against the tile.
Failed to even acknowledge the flash of her blue suit as she came to a stop less than two feet from him.
Not until she gave a small throat clear did he jerk himself to attention. Snapping his attention up to her, he shook his head sharply, pushing aside the swirl of information in his mind.
“Sorry.”
Ignoring the apology, Isabel said, “We just received a call.”
Salazar folded his hands over his stomach. A frown formed on his face.
“Okay.”
“It was about the, um, request we sent last night.”
Six hours prior, the two of them had decided to put out a bulletin to all airports, train stations, shipping docks, and bus depots in the country. In it, department heads and overseers were asked to keep a watch for anything unusual and to report back discreetly if something caught their attention.
The fact that somebody was already calling either meant somebody was getting jumpy and looking to make a name for themselves, or the Americans were moving faster than he anticipated.
“Already?” he asked.
“It would appear so.”
“Where?”
“Bolivar,” Isabel replied.
The Simón Bolívar International Airport was the largest airport hub in the country. Situated no more than twenty kilometers from where they were now sitting, it offered daily flights throughout the Americas and even Europe.
“Christ,” Salazar muttered.
Again, Isabel ignored the statement. “A transmission was received a few minutes ago from a LATAM flight requesting an emergency landing.”
Salazar felt his eyes narrow. Already, he could cross someone getting jumpy from the list of possibilities.
This was exactly the sort of thing he’d asked facilities to be on watch for.
“What kind of emergency?”
“They cited a mechanical problem,” Isabel said. “Halfway into their flight from Atlanta to Punta Arenas.”
The last line was said without inflection, though there didn’t need to be anything extra for Salazar to catch the i
mplication.
“Has this sort of thing ever happened before?”
“I asked the same thing,” Isabel replied. “And was told that in the director’s eleven years, this was the first time for such a thing. Now, that could be because we don’t sit on many common flight paths...”
“Or it could be because this one in particular has a vested interest to stop here,” Salazar said, finishing the thought.
Resuming his stance on the front edge of the desk, he bobbed his head slightly. A bitter taste rose in his mouth.
His hope all morning had been that America would simply opt to wait and monitor the situation. That over time Belmonte would prove nothing more than a minor blip.
The sort of thing that pops up every election season in various places, but never has the staying power to amount to much.
If already the man was presenting enough of a problem to warrant foreign interference, that also meant that he was a much bigger worry than Salazar had realized.
Faced with two new concerns in as many days, he raised his palms to his forehead. Closing his eyes, he rubbed them in slow concentric circles.
From the window nearby, the morning sun continued to get warmer. Sweat droplets began to form on his brow.
It was going to be one of those days.
“How long before the flight arrives?” he asked.
There was a brief rustle of fabric, presumably as Isabel checked her watch. Salazar didn’t bother opening his eyes to check.
“On the ground in fifty-eight minutes.”
“Get me General Clega.”
Chapter Twenty-One
My father was an army lifer. From a very young age, he used to instill in me a great many of the maxims that he learned there, not the least of which was always eat and sleep when you can.
You never knew when the next opportunity might be.
While I would never liken the situation I was in to anything he might have faced in the military, I was coming off a night where I only received a few hours of rest. I had then followed that up with a cross-country trip and was staring at a flight almost fifteen hours in length.
Hellfire: A Suspense Thriller (A Hawk Tate Novel Book 4) Page 7