Brodie. “Here to experience your beautiful country.” He added, “This is my destiny.”
Taylor translated, though Suárez kept his eyes fixed on Brodie. He asked something else in Spanish.
“He wants to know what we are planning to see and do while we are here, since our visas and return flight indicate a monthlong stay and yet our hotel in Caracas is only for a week.”
Brodie kept his eyes on Suárez while he said to Taylor, “Good question. Maybe you can answer it.”
Taylor rattled off a spiel in Spanish, describing the various sights they were planning to visit outside of Caracas. Brodie picked up the word “Amazonas” and maybe something about a river cruise. Sounded like a nice trip.
All the while, Suárez kept staring at Brodie. This was getting weird. Suárez asked something else.
Taylor said, “He wants to know how much more money we have on us.”
Brodie returned Suárez’s unblinking stare. “No más.”
Suárez said something else, patting the stacks of dollar bills on his desk.
Taylor said to Brodie, “He doesn’t believe us. He says Americans staying for a month will have more cash.”
Brodie silently cursed Hackett’s people for getting them monthlong visas. Clearly they were concerned it would be a lengthy mission and did not want to risk their agents being ejected from the country in the middle of it, but it should have been obvious this would be a red flag. The rear echelon idiots in an infantry division, most of whom had never been in combat, could get you killed quicker than an enemy soldier. The CID was not much different.
Suárez spoke again, and Taylor translated: “He says to show him all of our dollars, otherwise we will be thoroughly searched. Not declaring our cash is a serious crime.”
Brodie looked hard at their diligent customs enforcer. Upon closer inspection, the man’s features weren’t so much chiseled as they were sunken. He, like the man at the passport booth, did not quite fill out his uniform. On the flight over, Taylor had read to him that the food shortages were so bad that the average Venezuelan had lost nineteen pounds. Apparently this was true even of the civil servants who made a side business of shaking down tourists.
Brodie looked up again at the portrait of President Maduro. His thick, well-fed features, hanging askew. A shabby dictatorship.
Brodie stared back at Suárez. “No más,” he repeated.
Suárez glared at him, then spoke slowly and with emphasis, ensuring that his contempt made it through the language barrier.
Taylor translated, “You are guests in my country. Good guests respect the rules of the host, but Americans are not good guests. Americans think they make the rules everywhere.”
Brodie had had about enough of this, and asked, “How much to get the hell out of here? Cuánto?”
Taylor continued to translate as Suárez spoke: “He said that we were supposed to declare our cash on our customs forms, and since we did not there is a two-hundred-dollar fee.”
Brodie said, “No. One hundred dollars.”
Suárez kept looking at him as Taylor translated; then the man looked down at the cash on his desk, which likely represented well over a year’s salary. He counted out one hundred, then took sixty more because he was pissed, stuffed it in his pocket, and stood. He gestured at the remaining cash and paperwork and said something to Taylor in Spanish. She replied, they gathered their things, and Suárez led them out of the room and through the customs check.
“Thank you for the warm welcome,” said Brodie as they walked past Suárez, who responded with something in Spanish that Brodie assumed roughly translated to “Go fuck yourself.” Contempt was a truly universal language.
Taylor said, “Your macho bullshit is going to get us in trouble.”
“Showing fear is what gets you in trouble.”
They continued into the arrivals terminal, which was spacious and modern. A number of food counters and restaurants were closed behind metal security gates, including a Wendy’s. One of the few establishments that was open, a grab-and-go place with packaged sandwiches and bins of fruit, had mostly bare shelves. One large metal bin, lit up by fluorescent strip lights, contained a single apple.
Brodie said, “I’m going to write a book called The Caracas Diet. How two million people lost a total of forty million pounds.”
“That’s incredibly insensitive.”
“Sorry.” He added, “Think about it.”
A young man in his early twenties wearing jeans and a T-shirt approached them. “Cambio? Dólares? Good rate.”
“No, gracias,” said Taylor.
“Best rate. Three million bolívars for your dollar.”