Taylor laughed. They made eye contact, and she looked away.
When Brodie first met his new partner, he’d regarded her beauty as a potential occupational hazard. As a matter of principle, he rejected the idea that he would have trouble working with an attractive woman. Also, Taylor had proven herself to be a good partner, and sex was the surest way to mess up a successful working relationship. But buried in even the most well-intentioned modern man is an old pig fighting to get out, and Brodie had to remind himself to keep that porker in check.
He thought about what Dombroski had said about Taylor and her possible romantic entanglement with a CIA guy at Fort Bragg. He’d met more than a few Company men over the years. He liked one or two of them, but in his humble opinion, most of them were arrogant, dead-eyed pricks who would sell out their own mothers. He had a hard time imagining Taylor with someone like that, but then again, how well did he really know her? And even if she had been hitting the sack with a CIA officer, how was that enough to call her loyalty and motives into question? And then he remembered what Dombroski had said about Civil Affairs people in Afghanistan being recruited by the Company.
As with the Kyle Mercer file, Brodie had the feeling there were some things missing from his picture of Maggie Taylor, some black-ink redactions that he would need to find a way to read.
CHAPTER 10
The plane to Panama City was about half-full, and of the sixteen seats in business class only three others were occupied.
Brodie said, “I usually snore on flights.”
“Even when you’re awake?”
He smiled.
“Just don’t drool.”
After takeoff Taylor took out her tablet and they both looked over a detailed map of Caracas that she had downloaded. The city ran along an east-west strip nestled in a narrow valley. Beyond the steep mountains to the north was the Caribbean coast, and to the south a vast stretch of hills and forests.
Kyle Mercer had been spotted by an unreliable witness in a sprawling metropolis of almost two million people, surrounded by rugged and sparsely populated terrain. But, as General Hackett said, they had what they had, and Brodie was confident that with some resourcefulness, a little luck, and maybe a lot of cash, they would find their man. Yet, as he looked at the map of the city and the surrounding countryside, the daunting nature of their task was coming into focus.
With Simpson’s recollection in mind, they scanned the map for airports and airstrips. Their final destination, Simón Bolívar International Airport, was right on the coast, separated from Caracas by the mountain range, so that couldn’t be the airport that Simpson had seen on his ride to the whorehouse. Taylor zoomed the map in to a tighter view of Caracas, and they located the Marriott in a neighborhood called El Rosal, which was east of downtown.
There was a small airport called Base Aérea Generalísimo Francisco de Miranda less than three miles farther east of the hotel, and it appeared to be the only airport or airstrip anywhere within the city proper. Taylor traced her finger along the road that ran past the airport. She tapped an area in the eastern hills.
“Petare,” said Taylor. “One of the largest and most dangerous slums in the world. This could be where Simpson saw Mercer.”
Brodie took a closer look. The map of Petare consisted of a sprawling network of winding roads snaking along the ridgelines—a complex web with sharp switchbacks and countless dead ends. The vast slum ran from the foothills of the coastal range in the north all the way south to a river called the Guaire, stretching the entire width of the city’s north-south axis.
“Could be,” Brodie agreed.
“Though it’s also the kind of place where an American would stick out like a turkey at a hog show.”
Brodie smiled. He liked it when Taylor reverted to her country roots. He said, “If Mercer is hanging around the most dangerous part of one of the most dangerous cities in the world, maybe he’s doing something other than hiding. Like working with a gang. Maybe even running a gang.” He reminded her, “This is a tough hombre.”
Taylor nodded.
Or maybe Mercer was there as briefly as Simpson, and for the same carnal reason. They were starting