stint with the CID at Fort Bragg, and as far as Brodie could tell she hadn’t even noticed the mess, or the smell. She tended to become manically focused on whatever she was doing, oblivious to everything else. At the moment, her task was making arrangements with the travel office, and Brodie decided he ought to clarify the objective before she found them a room share in the Caracas slums.
“We need a modern hotel. Preferably one that employs private security.” He added, “Cost is no object.”
Taylor didn’t reply, and Brodie took a look at Captain Kyle Mercer’s confidential file, which Dombroski had handed him after their meeting with Hackett. Mercer was thirty-three years old, born and raised in San Diego. Mercer’s father, Peter, was an accountant, and his late mother, Betty, had managed a clothing store. Kyle Mercer did well in school and earned a scholarship to UCLA. After college he enlisted, and after basic and advanced infantry training he attended Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he excelled and graduated at the top of his class. Afterward he received airborne training at Benning, then applied for and was accepted into the Special Forces Qualification Course. He trained at the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, where he was ultimately recruited into Delta Force. At this point the specifics of his file became murky, with mission reports full of redactions. What Brodie did see was the impressive pedigree of an elite solider and no red flags prior to his desertion. Among his many listed skills was fluency in Spanish, which he’d studied in high school and college. Kyle Mercer also spoke Pashto, the result of a three-month stint at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. That skill, thought Brodie, must have come in handy during his captivity, and probably kept him alive.
Brodie recalled an old joke: “Join the Army, see the world, meet new people, and kill them.”
He returned his attention to the report, which included testimonials from Mercer’s Delta teammates. To a man, they described Captain Mercer as a capable, competent, and brave commanding officer. No one remarked on behavior that was out of the ordinary in the days or hours preceding his desertion. The only thing of note about the testimonials was that the names of every man interviewed, and the names of any other person or place they mentioned, were redacted.
Brodie also looked over the report of the Fort Dix CID’s interview with Simpson, which was brief and mostly useless. The only new details he learned were that Simpson had had a productive and lucrative meeting with the Venezuelan state oil execs before getting sloshed on rum, and that Simpson was sure it was Mercer because of a distinctive tattoo on Mercer’s arm of an ouroboros—the ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail. Also, according to Simpson, Mercer had a trimmed beard and appeared to have gained about thirty pounds, mostly muscle, since his infamous hostage video seen by most of America on the nightly news.
Brodie asked his partner, “Why does a guy who’s in hiding, and whose face has been on TV, sit in a high-traffic hotel bar frequented by Americans who might recognize him?”
“There aren’t too many Americans in Caracas these days,” replied Taylor.
“Right, but the few that are there, like Simpson, are almost guaranteed to be at a place like the Marriott.”
“You think Simpson is lying?”
Brodie opened his laptop and pulled up pictures of the Caracas Marriott’s lobby lounge. It was a comfortable-looking, no-frills modern hotel bar with lounge seating located on a mezzanine level above the check-in desks. A wide stairway led up to the lounge, and the bar ran along the left wall as you entered. The bar, notably, had no mirrors along its back wall.
“Simpson said Mercer was sitting at the bar, while he was sitting in the lounge area with his Venezuelan oil company pals. Simpson noticed the tattoo first, which is on Mercer’s right biceps, and only positively IDed Mercer when Simpson said his name and Mercer turned around.” Brodie spun his laptop around to show Taylor a picture of the bar and lounge.
“No way,” said Taylor.
“Right.”
“Situational awareness” is a familiar concept to anyone in the military, and second nature to a well-trained officer. In short, it means not having your head up your ass in a given situation—be aware of your physical surroundings, the context in which you are existing in them, and the multitude of potential consequences of your actions or the