pancake holster and Glock and took the spare mag out of his pocket, and repeated the trick. Taylor handed Brodie her holster, gun, and mag, along with the Taser and zip ties. “Now you see it…,” said Brodie as he put Taylor’s stuff in the compartment and closed it, then opened it. “Now you don’t.”
Luis forced a smile. “A good trick. Yes?”
“The real trick,” said Brodie, “is making the guns reappear.”
“I will try to remember how to do that.” He then assured them, “There is a plastic bag where things go to disappear. I can pull this out later.”
Brodie asked, “Why do you have this compartment?”
Luis explained, “I bought this car from my uncle. He sometimes used it to smuggle cigarettes here from Colombia.”
Brodie didn’t think the hidden compartment could hold that many cartons of cigarettes. Hardly worth the five-hundred-mile drive from the Colombian border. On the other hand, it was probably the perfect size for four or five kilos of Colombian marching powder, which was more likely what Luis’ uncle was importing.
Luis pulled back on the road, and within a few minutes they were driving past the Marriott, which did not feature the security fortifications of the El Dorado—there was no gated wall between the street and the front circular drive—but there were five security guards armed with shotguns and rifles flanking the driveway. Probably recent hires to deter another shoot-out in the lobby. Or to join in the fun if it happened again.
They turned onto Avenida Libertador and then merged onto the Francisco Fajardo Highway. Immediately to their right was the Francisco de Miranda Airport, which consisted of several clusters of low buildings and a few hangars. In a break between the buildings Brodie observed a single airstrip, and beyond it a couple of rows of parked twin-engine planes. So far, they seemed to be following Al Simpson’s route.
Brodie wondered if Kyle Mercer had landed here in a private plane from Peshawar. Maybe with a refueling stop in a trafficking hub in West Africa like Mali. This airport wasn’t as inconspicuous as an airstrip laid down by drug runners deep in the jungle, but it was obviously better than going through an international entry point like Simón Bolívar. And it dropped you right in the middle of Caracas, which was where Kyle Mercer wanted to be for some reason.
The hills of Petare rose up ahead, carpeted with ramshackle structures of mostly red clay block. As the elevated highway crossed over the Guaire River and curved north, Brodie spotted the old historic core of Petare below them on the right. A handsome pink church with a bell tower rose above a central square, and the surrounding streets formed a neat grid of colorful colonial buildings. It was an odd sight, this patch of the old vanished world sandwiched between an elevated highway and modern tower blocks and the crowded and chaotic hillside mosaic of the Petare slums.
Luis took the next exit, which brought them onto a six-lane road that ran between the old quarter and the barrios. Luis explained, “Once you enter the barrios, the roads are crazy—sometimes they go for awhile and then just end, and then you have to be on foot for some time and then maybe there is a road again.”
Taylor asked Brodie, “Did our friend mention anything about being on foot for part of his journey?”
Brodie thought about that. Simpson hadn’t mentioned walking anywhere, but then again he had been drunk, so anything was possible. Also, Simpson had not mentioned checkpoints, so he either hadn’t run into any or the government oil people he was with just got waved through. In any case, Brodie hoped that Luis was being overly concerned about checkpoints, and if not, then he hoped that Luis’ jalopy with two clueless gringos would get a wave-through. Brodie said to Taylor, “Let me see your map.”
Taylor handed it to him. The roads of Petare appeared like branching arteries creeping along the hillsides and ridgelines, all eventually dead-ending. Vast swaths of the slums showed no roads at all. And it was probably in those blank spaces where they would find some answers.
He looked up at the towering hillside slums to their right. This place made Fallujah look like a prosperous, well-planned city.
Luis turned onto a narrow road and said, “This road will take us into the barrio.” As they crested a hill, they spotted an olive green military truck. Four young guys in green fatigues and black body armor sat in plastic