Luis before they entered the Hen House, was stuck in his waistband. He had no holster and no wallet—only a wad of cash and his fake passport in case anyone at the Hen House demanded ID. He’d considered wearing his twelve-dollar Armani sports jacket, but someone might kill him for it.
Taylor was wearing cargo pants into which she’d stuffed the zip ties, Taser, extra mags, and Brodie’s photo of Kyle Mercer, which he didn’t want found if he was frisked at the door of the Hen House. Taylor also had the one sat phone Worley had given them. The sat phone was good commo, but it couldn’t send or receive unless it had clear sky—like his annoying car satellite radio, which cut out under a bridge or in a tunnel—so it was useless in the Hen House. And in any case, if it was discovered in a frisk at the door, it would arouse suspicion. So Taylor had it now, and later, if they were on the run, she could hang out the car window, sat phone in one hand, Glock in the other, shooting at their pursuers while trying to call Worley or the Otter pilot. She was good at multitasking. He asked her, “Did you stuff any Snickers in your pockets?”
She didn’t reply, and he thought she looked tense.
Brodie did have his smartphone, in which he’d saved some offline maps of Petare that he could access in the hills where there was no reception and no street signs. Also no street lighting, which was good, but also bad. Luis was a competent driver, and so was Taylor, but whoever was behind the wheel for a quick getaway would have some challenges in the dark, mountainous slums.
He’d been in shitholes like this before, and in similar situations—he recalled his extraordinary extraction of the Army embezzler in Tunisia—and he took comfort in the fact that pursuers were always at a disadvantage, since the pursued were running for their lives and were thus more motivated.
In any case, he had no idea how this was going to go down tonight. But if, by extraordinary luck, they had Kyle Mercer in the trunk, all they needed was a little more luck and some smarts to get to that airstrip to rendezvous with the Otter. Next stop, U.S. soil in Panama or Gitmo. If that successful scenario transpired, he and Taylor would not be coming back to the El Dorado tonight, or ever. So they’d left everything in their rooms as though they’d gone out on the town and never returned—not an unusual occurrence in Caracas. In fact, that was another scenario: dead in the Hen House.
“What are you thinking, Scott?”
“I’m wondering if the Army will reimburse us for the personal possessions we left behind.”
“I think that’s the least of our worries.”
“I think I should go up and get my Armani sports jacket.” He added, “I’ll grab your new bikini for you.”
“Is this an example of GI humor before battle?”
“Sort of.”
She nodded. “Whatever works for you. Meanwhile, I think we’ve been stood up.”
“He’ll be here.”
The doorman, whose tag said “Tito,” asked them for the third time if they needed a taxi, and Brodie replied again, “We’re waiting for our driver.”
“Sí.” The doorman gave Taylor a quick once-over, noticing her informal attire—black T-shirt, dark cargo pants with stuffed pockets, and hiking boots, with her hair tucked under a baseball cap—and Brodie thought Tito was probably wondering why the gentleman was better dressed for the evening. Brodie considered explaining to Tito that he was going to a whorehouse with their tardy driver, and the lady was going to wait outside while he got laid. That might have been TMI for the doorman, but it would explain why the Americanos never returned.
Again he thought back to his Tunisian abduction at the beach resort. His idiot partner at the time, a guy named Nick Peterson, couldn’t find the keys to their rental car that he was supposed to drive onto the beach where Brodie had chloroformed the suspect in his lounge chair. Brodie clearly recalled the frantic cell phone conversation with Peterson as the suspect began to regain consciousness—a comedy of errors that Brodie had retold many times to laughing colleagues in too many Quantico bars. But as he always said, all’s well that ends well. The Army embezzler was doing ten to twenty at Leavenworth. Captain Kyle Mercer would be lucky if he didn’t get the death penalty, reduced, of course, to life without parole. All Brodie