Venezuela. But… well, they’d come this far, and they had picked up Mercer’s scent. Bloodhounds stick to the scent.
They rode in silence for a few minutes; then Taylor took a ramp onto the highway that would take them west back to the city. On the highway they got a few looks from passing drivers, but there weren’t any police or National Guard units in sight.
Brodie looked out the window at the black mountains on one side and the darkened city on the other. They had arrived here with a very flimsy lead, but as often happens with a criminal investigation, one lead leads to another. That’s why they’re called leads. There is a truth out there, a reality that exists and that can be revealed if you persist, and if you show some smarts and some balls. A little luck helps too, and Brodie believed that the more you broke the rules, the more luck you had. Now and then, though, if you broke too many rules, your luck ran out. Had almost happened in the Hen House. And if he and Taylor went looking for Kyle Mercer in the jungle, they would definitely be testing Brodie’s theory that good luck was a product of breaking bad rules.
But that’s where Kyle Mercer was—the jungle. That’s where a guy like Captain Mercer would end up: at the frontier of nowhere, deep in the heart of a darkness that matched the darkness of his heart and his soul. Brodie and Taylor needed to drag Kyle Mercer into the light, and before a jury of his peers to answer to the law for his crimes. But first, they had to meet him in the dark.
CHAPTER 32
The highway was nearly deserted, and as much fun as Brodie’d had with the AK-47, he decided this would be a good place to ditch it. He wiped it clean with his handkerchief, then pulled the magazine out, extracted the three remaining cartridges, and tossed them out the window, followed by the duct-taped mags. Taylor glanced at him as he quickly broke down the AK-47 into its component parts and threw each part out the window. He asked Luis for his Beretta and similarly disposed of it. “We’re clean,” he said. “But I worry that a kid will find a piece, then find the other pieces, put them all together, and go join a colectivo.”
Neither Luis nor Taylor thought that was funny. Brodie preferred working with people who shared his dark, post-battle humor, but his team had shown good balls tonight, so he gave them a pass.
Luis said, “This exit, señora.”
Taylor took the exit for Altamira. “We need to dump this car within walking distance of the hotel.”
“Right,” Brodie agreed. “It could be hot.”
“It’s also shot to shit,” Taylor reminded him.
“It looks like every other car in Caracas.”
Luis thought that was funny and added, “The hotel doorman will not even notice.”
“Good one,” said Brodie. He said to Taylor, “Are you rolling your eyes?”
“You know I am.”
They cruised slowly through the darkened streets of Altamira, looking for a place to dump the Mitsubishi. Luis suggested, “There is a no longer used petrol station… if you turn here.”
Taylor turned onto a side street, and ahead was an abandoned gas station. She pulled in and drove behind the deserted service building, shut off the engine and the lights, and pulled out the key. Then she leaned over and took the rental papers and the satellite phone out of the glove compartment.
They all exited the car and Brodie examined the damage, which included holes in the windshield and rear window, and maybe six or seven holes in the car’s skin. He said to Taylor, “In Iraq we used to circle the bullet holes in the shot-up vehicles and choppers with yellow chalk, then connect the dots to spell out something, like ‘Holy Shit.’ ” He asked, “You do that in Afghanistan?”
Taylor looked at him, but said nothing.
“Time to get serious.” Brodie said to Taylor, “Put the key back in the ignition. Someone will steal this car before the sun rises, they’ll take it to a body shop, and it’ll be on the road with a new paint job before lunch.”
Taylor hesitated, but Luis said, “This is true, señora.”
She nodded and put the key back in the ignition.
“And last but not least,” said Brodie, “we need to get the plates off.” He opened the trunk and took out the lug wrench, which he used to pry off the front and rear plates. He took