They arrived at the El Dorado Hotel, and the doorman opened the back door for Brodie and Taylor as Luis let himself out of the car.
Taylor said to Luis, “You are an excellent driver and a very knowledgeable guide.”
Luis smiled. “Gracias, señora.”
She asked him, “Have you made a decision about tonight?”
“Sí. What time tonight?”
Brodie replied, “Seven.”
Taylor said to Luis, “If you change your mind, leave a message for us no later than three P.M.”
“I will see you at seven.”
Brodie wanted to tell Taylor to stop giving Luis options. Luis had made his decision and he was picturing himself in a supermarket in Miami or San Diego with his family safe and sound, filling their shopping cart with frozen TV dinners and two-liter bottles of RC Cola. The American Dream.
Brodie looked at Luis. Luis was important to the mission—but bottom line, he was a civilian with a wife and two kids, and just because he owned a gun didn’t mean he knew how to use it. So Brodie, in a weak moment, said, “It’s okay if you change your mind.”
“Seven.”
Brodie nodded and made eye contact with Luis. “Whatever you heard or saw today is not to be discussed with anyone.”
Luis nodded.
“And we will all forget what you said to us in the car about Señor Worley and his visitor.”
Again Luis nodded.
Brodie said to him, “Go to a car rental place and get a nice sedan. Black, tinted windows if possible, and a big engine. And a big trunk.” Brodie gave him six hundred American dollars. “Keep the change.”
“Gracias.”
“And don’t forget your pistola—or the cross.”
Luis smiled, got in his car, and drove off.
Taylor said, “He’s either very brave or very desperate.”
“I’ll take either.”
As they walked toward the front doors of the luxurious hotel, Taylor said, “Those slums, Scott… I can’t believe what we saw…”
“You’re just a clean-living country girl at heart.”
“The hills I grew up in were poor, but… not like that.”
“Right. On another subject: Brendan Worley, Afghanistan, Ted, Tomás de Heres, and Flagstaff. What was that about?”
“It wasn’t about Kyle Mercer.” She reminded him, “Focus.”
“Right.”
They entered the lobby of the air-conditioned hotel and Taylor said, “I’m going to stop at the gift shop.”
“Get me an AK-47.”
“Then I’m going to wash the grime off and take a dip in the rooftop pool. Meet me there in an hour and I’ll buy you a beer.”
“You can wash the slums off your body, señora, but not from your heart or your mind.”
“That’s what the beer is for. See you later.”
He watched her as she walked toward the gift shop, then got in the elevator and rode up to his room.
There were three possible outcomes of this mission: getting Mercer, getting killed, or getting laid. Or some combination thereof. Meanwhile, a dip in the pool before a plunge into the abyss sounded good.
CHAPTER 25
Brodie entered the suite, got a cold beer from the living room bar, and went into his bedroom. He rehydrated as he stripped off his sweat-soaked clothes, then hit the shower, wrapping his Glock in a shower cap—a trick that a young lady in his business had shown him some years ago. You’re always vulnerable in hostile territory, but you’re most vulnerable naked, in the shower or in bed, which was why you should have company in both places.
He scrubbed the day off his skin, as he’d done in Iraq on the occasions when they’d gotten to base camp and headed straight for the quartermaster showers. Rub-a-dub-dub, doomed men in a tub.
Brodie dried himself, then slipped into a pair of shorts, hotel slippers, and a bathrobe. He put his sat phone and smartphone in the robe pockets, then went back into the living room, where he locked his Glock and extra magazine in the safe. He saw no sign that Taylor had returned from her shopping trip, and he exited the room and rode the elevator up to the pool.
The expansive rooftop terrace held a sixty-foot swimming pool ringed by lounge chairs and a few cabana tents. Potted palms and bursts of tropical flowers decorated the terrace. The surrounding slums looked pleasant from up here.
There were a few guests enjoying drinks or floating in the pool, and he wondered who these people were, and why, if they had the money to be here, they weren’t someplace else. He suspected that many of them were wealthy locals who found this place to be a safe oasis, a way to remain in Caracas without really being in Caracas.