a circle she’d drawn on the map. “This is Ciudad Bolívar. Where your prostitute said she flew to with Mercer.”
“Her name is Carmen.”
“Look at the map, please.”
He looked. Ciudad Bolívar, which was on the southern bank of a river called the Orinoco, looked like a decent-size city. South of the Orinoco River was a vast stretch of national parks and nature preserves that ran to the border of Brazil and the Amazon rain forest. There seemed to be very few towns south of the river.
In fact, Taylor said, “The southern half of the country, south of the Orinoco, is sparsely populated. This is an area about the size of California—like, one hundred fifty thousand square miles of very rough country.”
“Captain Mercer has chosen well.”
“Luckily, you’ve gotten some directions from your witness.”
“Good luck is the result of hard work.”
She ignored that and continued, “According to my research, all these national parks were formed when tourism was big. Now tourism is almost dead, and there are also travel restrictions in place for these parks and nature preserves.”
“Why?”
“The government says it’s for your safety because of the extreme terrain. But there are probably other issues. This region is notorious for drug trafficking and cocaine labs.”
“Maybe Mercer is providing muscle for a drug cartel. Or maybe he’s hired himself out to anti-regime forces. Mercer the Mercenary.”
“All possible.”
And maybe General Gomez was plotting a military coup against the regime, and that was why Gomez and Mercer met in the Hen House. That made sense. But it could also make sense that Gomez was loyal to the regime and he’d hired the crazy American Delta Force renegade and his mercenaries to hunt down the anti-regime guerrillas. Both theories were equally valid. Bottom line, Venezuela was so fucked up that anything was possible.
Taylor continued, “You need a permit and a local guide to go into most of these areas.”
“Carmen never mentioned that.” He added, “I’m sure we can get around that.”
“I’m sure you think you can. The point is, if we go down to this area, we will stick out.”
“We stick out in Caracas. I stuck out in the Hen House. You stick out anywhere because you’re too good-looking.”
She didn’t reply.
“Also, Kyle Mercer must make this trip regularly, and he would stick out. If he can do it, we can do it.”
“Scott, I’m sure Mercer has figured out how to travel to and from this restricted area.”
“Apparently he has. And we’re CID. This is what we do.”
“Let’s move on.” She pointed to another circle on the map. “About three hundred miles south of Ciudad Bolívar is Angel Falls, which your witness mentioned.”
Brodie looked more closely at a large patch of green, labeled Canaima National Park. Angel Falls appeared to be on the edge of a large flat-topped topographical feature named Auyán Tepui, which must have been the flat-topped mountain that Carmen had seen when she landed at the airstrip in the village. So far, everything—flight times and place names—seemed to check out.
Taylor continued, “This area is famous for these flat-topped mountains called tepuis, which were formed billions of years ago.”
“Really?”
She also informed Brodie, “Auyán Tepui is where Angel Falls originates. ‘Tepui’ means ‘house of the gods’ in the language of the native Pemón people.”
Brodie wasn’t sure that was information he needed to find Kyle Mercer, but Maggie Taylor, as he’d discovered, overresearched everything. “We’ll get that into our report. Maybe as a footnote.”
She handed Brodie her tablet, which showed an aerial shot of the massive plateau-like formation surrounded by dense jungle. The summit of the flat mountain reached above the clouds. This looked like the travel posters they’d seen at the airport. If he had Carmen in the room, he could have asked her if this was what she’d seen. But how many flat-topped mountains with a waterfall could there be? Still, a meticulous investigator would show the witness three or four photographs and ask her to ID what she’d seen. His mind drifted back to Carmen with the paddle in her hand, before he’d handed her the robe…
“Brodie? Are you listening to me?”
“I am. Yes.”
She continued, “I looked up tours of Angel Falls to see where tourists might stop in this area. There are three villages that seem to have lodging—guesthouses—and also an airstrip.”
“Good thinking.”
She pointed at the map to a place she’d circled. “This is a village called Kavak…” She pointed to another circled town. “And this is Uruyén. And here is a larger town called Canaima. All three have airstrips, all three are on