“If you puke, they’ll know you were there,” Jon advised.
“I doubt that.” She’d felt the men’s bile pulling on her boots. But Jon was being logical again. And here I thought you were actually worried about me. So much for sympathy. “Do my best.” She put her flashlight in her teeth and tried not to inhale. She aimed the smartphone with one hand and reached for the cadaver bag with the other.
U.S. Embassy
Caracas, Venezuela
Jon and Marisa watched Kyra’s hand grasp the zipper as the Venezuelan men groaned and pleaded in the background. She tugged, the zipper caught for a moment, and Kyra had to wrestle it for leverage with one hand. It finally came, sliding open fast, and the corpse inside was exposed to the light.
For a half second, they saw it—an African male, his head massively bloated from the gases of decomposition trapped under his skin and open blisters covering his face and lips. His hair was patchy, bald in spots, with sores on the scalp where the follicles were absent. They couldn’t tell his age for the swelling—
The smartphone and flashlight swung away from the corpse in opposite directions, the picture went dark and they heard Kyra heaving, trying desperately to keep her jaws clenched shut. The young woman needed almost a full minute to control herself, and they heard her trying to suck in air.
The smartphone and flashlight swung back onto the corpse and Kyra held the picture for a full five seconds. “That enough?” she pleaded.
“Jon, hostiles inbound,” Marisa said. She pointed at the IMINT feed on the wall monitor. A pair of vehicles had passed through the gates to the dockyard and were approaching the warehouse.
“Yeah, that’s enough,” Jon said. “You’ll have company in one minute. We can get stills from the video. Close everything up.”
The Puerto Cabello Dockyard
Kyra nodded and did as she was ordered. She stepped over the men until she stood outside the container door and tried to breathe fresh air in through her nose. It didn’t help. The odor was trapped in her sinuses now and she wondered if she would ever get it out. She turned back and looked down at the men, still reaching up to her but too weak to move otherwise, even to drag themselves out of the box. Tears began to flood out of her eyes. “¡Lo siento!” she said, her voice breaking. I’m sorry.
She finally got fresh air into her lungs and her mind finally focused in that moment. She began scanning the warehouse, desperately searching for any way to help the men still crying out, but there was nothing. Whoever was approaching was coming for them and she wondered if God Himself would forgive her for what she had to do next.
She heard a sound . . . a motor, a heavy one rising as it approached the building.
“Lo siento,” she cried again, quiet, then she grabbed the container door.
“¡Señorita, no! ¡Ayúdanos, por Dios!” one of them men pleaded weakly. By God, help us!
With her conscience yelling at her louder than the men, Kyra closed the door and threw the handle, cutting off their pleadings. The tears were flowing now, falling in the dust on the floor. She sobbed, her chest heaving, and she moved like a machine, refusing to listen to her emotions. She set the padlock, then twisted the head on her Maglite, killing the light, and the space went dark for a few seconds—
—and then she could see again. A moving light streamed under the warehouse door, then stopped as whatever truck had approached came to a stop outside.
Kyra ran for the rear of the warehouse, moving through the shelving and equipment scattered about the back.
Metal struck metal at the warehouse front and one of the sliding cargo doors began to open. Kyra judged the distance to the window and knew she wouldn’t make it through and out before the men entered the warehouse, the lights from whatever vehicle they had filling the space.
She looked back to the door. If the truck was there—
She turned, ran, and slid down behind a pallet stack near the back that sat at an angle to the truck lights and the cargo container. It wasn’t a solid barrier, but the wooden frames would break up her outline and any shadow she would cast behind. The cargo container sat an angle to her . . . she could still see the container door. She set the smartphone against the bottom of the stack, as close to it as she could, aiming the camera to the front, and darkened the screen.
The door slammed open and the full lights of a five-ton cargo truck flooded into the building, lighting up everything to the back wall. The only dark space for fifty yards in any direction was found in the shadows cast by the cargo container, the pallets, and the forklift.
Buried in shadow, Kyra pulled open the concealed carry pocket on her bag and pulled out her Glock. She wiped her face with her gun hand, trying to clear her eyes and she clenched her teeth, forcing herself to stop crying.
U.S. Embassy
Caracas, Venezuela
“Stay down,” Marisa muttered. She and Jon stared at the screen, the image transmitted by Kyra’s phone still coming through, steadier now because it was resting on the floor.
Jon said nothing. Kyra didn’t need the distraction.
The Puerto Cabello Dockyard
The men entered the building, talking in Spanish phrases. She saw three . . . four . . . five . . . realized there would be more outside. Several carried assault rifles. Soldiers. She looked through the pallet stack, trying to identify uniforms but saw only dark silhouettes cut out of the truck lights.
They approached the cargo container and the closest man opened the door. “¡Madre de Dios, qué olor!” Mother of God, that smell!
Most of the other men recoiled, muttering in agreement, covering their faces with their hands or collars to no good effect.
Three men approached and the gaggle of soldiers parted to let them have a clear view. Two of the men weren’t dressed for the occasion. Both wore suits, European cut. The man on the left was medium height and kept a thin cigar clenched in his teeth. The man in the center was the shortest of the three, overweight, with a beard. The last man, farthest to the right, was dressed more casually, tactical pants and work shirt, but carried an assault rifle, a model Kyra couldn’t identify.
The trio walked forward, staring inside the container.
• • •
“You see the problem,” Elham said in Farsi. Carreño didn’t speak the language and hated it when his visitors did, but Elham didn’t care for the man or his frustrations.
“These are longshoremen?” Ahmadi asked.
“Yes, the crew that repaired the cargo breach and unloaded the body bags you see behind them,” Elham replied. “Our hosts had intended to assign them other duties and then remove them one by one under less obvious circumstances. But they became sick too quickly and now they are too weak to assign any duty at all. If they’re released, they might find their way to the hospitals, which would certainly cause a security breach. But having so many go missing at once will raise questions.”
“I understand,” Ahmadi said. Then he switched to Spanish as he turned to Carreño. “I don’t understand your problem. The solution here seems obvious.”
“I would prefer to try to give them some medical treatment . . . ease their suffering. Some might recover. We can remove them to some location where they would present no danger—” Carreño told him.
“That cannot be allowed. Every man here is a possible security leak every minute they draw breath,” Ahmadi replied.
“You would just execute them?”
“It’s not the ideal answer to the problem, but the only one that I see. You can always call el presidente if you disagree.”
Carreño shook his head. “No. I had hoped that we might avoid this but I will not bother el presidente with it.”
“I think that is a wise choice, my friend.” Ahmadi nodded and turned to the Iranian soldier at his right. “Sargord, please make sure the job is finished, then call me.” Not waiting for an answe
r, he started walking back to the car. Carreño frowned then nodded to the soldiers milling around the container and followed Ahmadi out the door.
• • •
Kyra pulled herself quietly into a crouch, the Glock pressed against her forehead. The men argued, their words mostly incomprehensible to her. She was too far away to make out the discussion, part of it in Spanish, which she could understand, part of it not. The smartphone would record the noise. With luck, some tech from the Agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology would be able to enhance the audio track and tease out the words.
The two men in suits finally walked back to the vehicle. One of the soldiers barked a command in Spanish. Two soldiers stepped up to the container and raised their rifles and pointed them into the box. She heard the men inside pleading and begging, their cries indistinct to her ears. Please, no—
U.S. Embassy
Caracas, Venezuela
“Oh, no,” Marisa protested quietly. Jon said nothing. She grabbed his hand and squeezed. He squeezed back, surprising her.
The Puerto Cabello Dockyard
The guns chattered and the muzzle flashes lit up the warehouse like strobes. The gunfire echoed off the metal walls and Kyra could hear some of the rounds bouncing around the container. Small holes appeared and the truck headlights streamed through them. It lasted less than five seconds, the echoes a bit longer, then the warehouse was quiet again, the still air broken only by the sound of a car driving away on gravel.
The soldiers moved forward, slinging their rifles over their shoulders. Several laid out more body bags on the warehouse floor and they began to load the dead longshoremen inside. The minutes crawled by, too slow, and Kyra caught herself quietly praying, something she hadn’t done for quite some time. The soldiers began hauling the bodies out to the truck, two men to a corpse. She heard grunts, curses, a thud as a body bag was dropped. The job went on for almost fifteen minutes more.
“¡Terminado!” someone exclaimed. “¡Afuera, ya, antes de que me ahogué!” Finished! Outside, now, before I suffocate! The Spanish resolved itself to English in Kyra’s mind automatically.
The warehouse went dark again. The soldiers were moving for the door. The man in khakis carrying the bullpup rifle pulled his own phone out of his pocket. Kyra risked a quick look around the pallet and saw him for an instant before he passed behind the cargo container. She watched as he stopped, waiting for his call to connect. Finally he began to speak, and Kyra couldn’t understand a word.
U.S. Embassy
Caracas, Venezuela
“What is that?” Marisa asked. She leaned in, trying to hear the soldier’s foreign words through the tinny speaker of Jonathan’s monitor.
Jon twisted his head, listening.
“That’s not any language I know,” Marisa finally said.
“It means ‘the job is done,’” Jon said. “In Farsi.”
The Puerto Cabello Dockyard
The cargo truck’s engine started up as the last man walked out the door and closed it behind him. Kyra exhaled but didn’t move until the light under the door finally swung away and she heard the truck rumble off in the distance. She put the Glock back in her satchel, then recovered her smartphone. She walked slowly to the front of the container. The soldiers had closed it but not locked it. She pulled the door open, then pointed her smartphone at the pools of blood covering the floor, shooting video for several seconds. Then she closed the door, touched her headset, and began to walk toward the rear of the building.
“Still with me?” she asked quietly.
“We’re here,” Marisa said through the speakerphone. “You okay?”
“No,” Kyra said. “They killed them all.”
“We saw,” Marisa said.
“Did you see that last guy? He was carrying an assault rifle . . . some kind of bullpup I’ve never seen before.” She reached the window and climbed through, her boots quietly grinding gravel as she put her feet down outside. She closed the window as far as it would allow. Then she sank to her knees and sat in the gravel, her back against the wall.
U.S. Embassy
Caracas, Venezuela
Jon shrank Kyra’s video feed to a small window and began typing furiously on the keyboard. “You’ve got access to Intelink?” he asked Marisa.
“Yeah,” she assured him. “We weren’t gutted that badly.”
Jon grabbed the mouse and started clicking links, cursing the slow connection. He finally found the page he was looking for on the classified network. “Did his rifle look like this?” He clicked another button and shared his screen with Kyra’s phone.
The Puerto Cabello Dockyard
She looked down at her phone and stared at the photograph. “I think so, yeah. What is that?”
“It’s a KH-2002. They also call them Khaybars. It’s a Chinese design, ripped off from the M-16, but they’re made in Iran,” Jon told her. “That guy was a member of the Revolutionary Guard . . . probably Quds Force.”
Quds Force? Kyra thought. She looked down the road past the storage field and saw the taillights of the cargo truck in the distance, turning onto the paved road that led to Route 1. The SEBIN were bad enough. “Jon, he made a phone call when they finished up,” she whispered.
U.S. Embassy
Caracas, Venezuela
“We’re on that,” Marisa told her. “Are you clear?”
“Looks like it,” Kyra said. “They’re already on the freeway, heading south. If they don’t exit, they’ll end up heading west.”
“Noted,” Marisa replied. She checked the wall monitor. “Overhead says you’re clear back to the dirt trail. You go find someplace safe to hunker down for the night, and that doesn’t mean the truck. Get back into town. Find a hotel. Check back in when you’re there, then go to sleep and get some breakfast. I’ll have new orders for you in the morning.”
The Puerto Cabello Dockyard
“Yes, ma’am,” Kyra said. “I don’t think I’m going to sleep very much.”
“Understood,” Marisa replied after a short delay. “Do your best.”
Kyra ended the call, then looked around. There was no movement, no sound. The silence around the complex had an edge to it now, like the dark was alive and watching. An intelligence officer who was afraid of the dark was in the wrong business? Idiot, she cursed herself. An intelligence officer who wasn’t afraid of the dark was a fool.
She worked back to the fence, climbed the barrier, made her way back through the shadows by the storage field to the trail, and didn’t relax at all when she entered the forest.
U.S. Embassy
Caracas, Venezuela
“In the old days, you and I would’ve had a betting pool on where they’re going,” Marisa announced, trying to lighten the tension.
“They’re going to the CAVIM explosives factory in Morón,” Jon announced. “I assume that you have a file on that somewhere.”
Marisa said nothing for a good ten seconds. “You want to explain that conclusion?” she finally asked.
“Let’s assume the man with the bullpup was Quds Force. That means we have an Iranian cargo ship docked at a Venezuelan port with Iranian special forces soldiers in the group. Therefore whatever they smuggled in was part of a joint operation between both countries,” Jon replied. “Ever since Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first allied back in 2001, both countries have been opening joint commercial operations all over Venezuela . . . almost twenty years now. A tractor factory in Ciudad Bolívar . . . a cement plant near Ciudad Guyana on the Orinoco River . . . lots of buildings. If any of them are cover facilities used for joint operations like this, whatever cargo they unloaded from the Markarid is probably headed for one of them. Now assume that to minimize the possibility of a security breach or accident, they had the Markarid dock at the port closest to the destination,” he said. He rifled through a pile of papers, extracted one, and
held it out to her. “This one at Morón is operated by the CAVIM, the Compañía Anónima Venezolana de Industrias Militares, the state Military Industries Company.”
“Morón’s only twenty minutes away,” Marisa protested. “It’s a straight shot west on Route 1. Those cargo trucks have a range of a couple hundred miles, fully gassed. No reason they couldn’t be going south—”
“Where is the next closest joint facility?” Jon asked.
Marisa stepped out to her office and returned with a map. She unrolled it across the table behind Jon’s desk. “An ammunition factory in Maracay. It’s another CAVIM site, thirty miles southeast of the dock.”
Jon searched through his stack and pulled out another paper. “There was a pair of very large explosions at two different locations at that factory in 2011,” he said. Marisa took the paper and scanned it. “Some analysts suspect the fires were meant to cover up a weapons transfer to FARC terrorists in Colombia, but they put the factory on everyone’s radar in any case. I doubt Avila would use it now for joint operation with the Iranians that he wanted to keep out of sight. After that, the next closest facility is a bicycle factory in Cojedes, two hundred kilometers southwest, which appears to actually be a bicycle factory,” he told her. “But the explosives factory is another story. In 2007, Iran Air and Conviasa partnered to fly an air route from Caracas to Damascus to Tehran, but, funny enough, no private passengers could ever seem to buy a ticket on those flights and the passengers who did board in Caracas never passed through immigration or regular security. Once it hit the press, the air bridge shut down in 2010. But there was a report that CAVIM sent shipments to Tehran from the explosives plant aboard that flight, but everything went diplomatic pouch, so it wasn’t subject to search.”
Another long pause. “Is that what you were doing in here all afternoon?”
Jon shrugged. “I had three hours to kill after Kyra left. Figured I might as well get smart on these people. Heaven knows you don’t have anyone else down here to go through this stuff.” He smacked a pile of papers he’d stacked next to the computer.
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