ahead was a low, aquamarine-painted building covered in a mural of tropical birds. Above the entryway was a red cross, and flanking the building’s entrance were four muscular men in black T-shirts, jeans, red berets, and matching red bandanas tied around their thick biceps. Each man held an AK-47 rifle across his chest as they all scanned the crowd. Unlike the clowns down at the National Guard post, these hombres looked like they meant business.
Taylor added, “These clinics were set up in the barrios by Chávez. But most have closed because of the shortages. And because the doctors have left.”
“I’ll never again complain about an Army hospital.”
“This is very sad,” said Taylor.
Brodie spotted a few more men with berets and AK-47s patrolling through the crowd. “I think these guys are MBR-200. The gang is running the clinic.”
“And the regime is running the gang,” said Taylor. “They use access to health care and food as leverage. If you cross the gang or the regime, you do not get what you need.” She added, “Winning hearts and minds.”
Brodie nodded. Winning “hearts and minds” was a counterinsurgency concept with a long and mostly dismal track record, employed most recently by the U.S. in Vietnam and then Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military blew a lot of hot air about making “emotional and intellectual appeals” to the target population, building roads, schools, and hospitals, offering promises of security—though in practice it generally amounted to organized bribery.
But there was a flip side to the hearts-and-minds concept. What Uncle Sam—or Uncle Nicolás—giveth, he may also taketh away. There was always a hierarchy to who received the government’s largesse, and how quickly. And in places on the edge like Afghanistan—and now Venezuela—those decisions sometimes meant the difference between life and death.
Brodie eyed the young man calling out names and numbers from atop the wooden crates. He wondered what it took to get your name on that list. Or struck from it.
Taylor said, “Three o’clock.”
Brodie turned to his right and saw one of the MBR-200 guys heading toward them.
The man stopped a few feet away and looked at them as though they’d arrived on a spaceship. He was tall, square-jawed, with dark deep-set eyes that darted between the two of them, eventually landing on Brodie. He said something in Spanish.
“No habla español,” replied Brodie. He wondered if Taylor was going to decide that she too couldn’t habla, though he didn’t feel this was the time to play dumb.
She said something to the man in Spanish before translating for Brodie: “He wants to know what we are doing here.”
“We are the Bowmans. The dumbest fucking tourists since the Griswolds. Ask him what he’s doing here.”
“Scott—”
“We’re Americans, interested in socialism. Try that.”
She nodded and spoke to the man in Spanish.
He seemed pleased at the response, though perhaps, thought Brodie, not quite buying it. Taylor and the MBR guy exchanged a few more words; then Taylor translated: “He says we are lucky that MBR-200 are in charge now. This neighborhood—July Twenty-Fourth—used to be run by criminals. They would have kidnapped us.” Taylor paused, then said: “He says MBR-200 killed all the criminals.”
“Lucky us.”
Brodie glanced at the man’s AK-47. The Russian-made automatic rifle was one of the most popular weapons in the world among gangs and militias. It was relatively cheap, durable, reliable, and easy to use. Brodie had seen many AKs in the hands of all sorts of dangerous assholes in the course of his work, and they were almost always beat-to-shit knockoffs, made in somebody’s back room. This one, however, looked like the real thing. So did the ones held by his friends at the clinic entrance. These people had access to money and a good weapons supplier. Brodie also noticed a coiled rubber cord extending down from the guy’s ear. He was wearing a com. This was one teched-out colectivo.
The man said something, and once again Taylor translated: “He says we need to leave July Twenty-Fourth. If he sees us here again, he will turn us over to the revolutionary justice committee.”
“Well, that sucks. Ask him where we can get a Chávez T-shirt.”
“Scott—”
“All right. Let’s quit while we’re ahead.”
Taylor spoke to the man, and he seemed satisfied with her response.
Brodie suggested, “Give him a Snickers bar.”
Taylor looked as if she was about to tell her partner to shut the fuck up. But then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a big bottle of aspirin; she handed it to the MBR guy with a smile and said, “Por