by Luke Bencie
All I’ll have to do is persuade Don Pedro to take me on as a political adviser. I’ll use my international consultant reputation as a calling card, which should allow me to get close enough to him to poison his drink. It’s ironic. I just had my ass saved by the finest killing machines the US government has at its disposal, people requiring years and millions of dollars to train. But instead of using men like Mr. Lincoln, they have opted to have me eliminate this dictator.
No, this plan doesn’t stink of shit at all!
***
I look up from my newspaper and see Joe typing on his MacBook Air. I have a feeling he isn’t emailing his wife. Rather, he’s probably filing a report to his own handlers. Glancing around the lounge, I see several large men who don’t appear too comfortable wearing their government-issued black suits. They’re obviously Joe’s not-so-clandestine backup team. I find it strangely reassuring he wasn’t lying to me. I also like the fact that there are a few extra pairs of eyes watching my back. Despite escaping from the warlord Pasha, I still fear Yuri—and numerous other disgruntled business colleagues from my past.
No. Despite the slight reassurances, this plan sucks, and our travel itinerary is sloppy. I would never operate in this manner. If I did, I wouldn’t have been able to stay in business for so long. Now I know why I’ve been contracted for this assignment. They need a good consultant just as much as the various shady characters with whom I normally deal.
I reach into my briefcase to consult General Sun Tzu. He at least never disappoints me. Turing to a random page, I am filled with the following ironic wisdom:
There is no country that has benefited from prolonged warfare.
The ancient author of The Art of War has struck the nail on the head, as always. In Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and even the Global War on Terrorism, maybe America has finally realized that fighting a long, messy war is pointless and wasteful when the objective is to cut off the head of the snake.
Think Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, or Saddam Hussein; all dead but the mess remains. Forget nation building. Forget boots on the ground. Forget drone strikes, for that matter. This is not national security. One neat little pill can take the place of billions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost. And best of all, the President of the United States can address the nation and say, “This bad man is dead and no American lives were lost in the process.” That’s considered a victory in today’s highly politically correct world.
What happens if I get caught? Who cares? I am totally expendable, and the US intelligence community retains plausible deniability because of my criminal background. I realize that, for the first time in my life, I sound like the wacky conspiracy theorists. If this assignment goes wrong, the history books could be debating my involvement as an assassin much like Lee Harvey Oswald. In other words, I’m fucked. My stomach begins to churn and I have to excuse myself to the toilet.
“Excuse me, sir. Would you mind watching my bags while I use the restroom?” I ask Joe, pretending we don’t know each other.
“Of course,” he replies, playing the stranger.
As I walk to the men’s room, I see the surveillance team suddenly perk up. They start nodding to one another around the lounge. But I’m not the only one to see it. A couple of Arab gentlemen, dressed in expensive suits, take notice as well and begin whispering to each other. My stomach is too queasy for me to care. I head into the men’s room and into a vacant stall. Lifting the toilet seat, I vomit bile in one heaving lurch. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and perch over the bowl on both knees. How did it come to this?
After my pit stop, I collect my thoughts and attempt to regain my composure. Now standing in front of the bathroom sink, I splash some cold water on my face and rinse out my mouth. I look at myself again in the mirror and tell the person staring back at me, “You’re still the man!”
I walk back out into the lounge more confident, and see the surveillance team still hopping around like jackrabbits. I doubt these particular guys will ever succeed in the private sector when they retire from government service. Luckily, they’ll receive a nice pension.
I sit back down across from Joe and give him a cursory “thank you” for watching my bags.
“Not a problem,” he calmly replies.
I decide I need to bust his balls a little. I notice the green, block letter S displayed prominently on the luggage tag of his computer bag. Pretending we’re still strangers, I point to his bag and ask, “Did you graduate from Michigan State?”
Startled at my remark, Joe nervously replies, “Yes, I did.”
“Really, I went to the University of Michigan,” I continue.
“Small world,” he quips, obviously annoyed.
Continuing my ruse, I ask, “You know what Michigan State graduates call University of Michigan graduates, don’t you?”
Joe’s not happy, but plays along anyway. “No.”
“Boss,” I say with a smug grin.
Now visibly pissed off, Joe snaps his laptop shut and stuffs it into his bag. Then he gets up and stomps off to the espresso machine. He must be tired of me.
If I’m going to be a patsy, I might as well have fun doing it. Besides, this guy is more of a pain-in-the-ass than a suitcase with no handles. I enjoy pissing him off.
The public-address system blares an announcement: “Flight 123 for São Paulo, Brazil, now boarding at Gate 45.”
I gather up my belongings and walk toward the gate. Joe and the surveillance team are in tow, ten steps behind me. I’m off to dupe a dictator into hiring me.
LUCKY 13
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Time: 0937 hours
“Bom dia,” the striking female immigration officer greets me, as I hand her my Brazilian passport at Guarulhos International Airport.
“Bom dia,” I respond. “Tudo bom?”
“Sim, tudo bem.”
With that simple exchange of pleasantries I have entered Brazil, my favorite country in South America.
Joe, aka “Sparty,” my handler, has dragged me halfway across the globe from Afghanistan in order to finalize the details of our operation against the soon-to-be assassinated Latin American dictator in a nearby country known as Don Pedro.
Known for its vibrant, fun-loving people, Brazil is a nation that has never quite realized its economic potential. It’s almost like one of those football stars drafted right out of college in the first round, and years later the fans are still wondering when he’ll finally live up to the hype. Likewise, the international community is still waiting for Brazil’s breakthrough moment. Adopting three different currencies over the past three decades, not to mention suffering under a dictatorship for twenty years, Brazil still has a long way to go.
I’ve been traveling to this immensely diverse nation of 200 million citizens for several years. I spent much of my youth down here surfing along the many unspoiled beaches of Florianopolis, a large island off the coast, as well as learning to play “the beautiful game,” aka futebol—or soccer as they say in America. But that story I will not share with you. It’s too personal. Yes, back in Afghanistan I revealed my entire life to my rescuers. Still, there are things you need not know. But I digress.
When most people think of Brazil, they think of the sexy flavor of Copacabana Beach, the excitement of Carnaval, enchanting bossa nova music like “Águas de Março,” and the breeding ground from which Victoria’s Secret models hail. Coincidently, I once sat across the aisle from Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen on a flight from Miami to Rio. She was even more beautiful in person. Though she never looked in my direction, it pleased me to know she ended up marrying a fellow University of Michigan graduate—NFL star quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots.
My early years in Florianopolis are not the reason I possess a genuine Brazilian passport. I earned that perk by helping the government of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva secure the rights to host both the World Cup and the Olympics. It took a lot of backd
oor dealings. Unfortunately for the Lula administration, most of their team, including a certain chief of staff, were later indicted on corruption charges and imprisoned.
Before all of that happened, I managed to help move much of the funds from one secret international account to another. It wasn’t that difficult. When you reach a certain level of power, the normal checks and balances in government become much less enforceable. In fact, it is harder to wire transfer $50,000 from the US to Brazil than it is to transfer $50 million from Brazil to the Cayman Islands.
I performed what I consider my finest work for the state-owned oil giant. Talk about a difficult assignment! My ability to slice off billions of dollars worth of kickbacks to corrupt Brazilian politicians should have earned me the Nobel Prize in economics. People say Warren Buffet is a financial genius, but I’d love to see him try to hide five billion dollars.
***
São Paulo is the economic hub of Latin America. Although Rio de Janeiro is much more popular as a tourist destination, São Paulo is the engine that drives Brazil. A metropolis three times the size of New York City and boasting a population of 21 million residents, São Paulo has some of the world’s worst traffic. So gridlocked are its roads that most high-level executives travel from meeting to meeting via helicopters positioned on the roofs of the numerous corporate towers. These air taxis pockmark the ever-expanding skyline daily, appearing like a swarm of flies to the people on the busy streets below. In fact, São Paulo has the most helicopters per square kilometer than any other city in the world—as well as armored cars, due to the high crime rates.
Also of interest, São Paulo is an eclectic city, boasting the largest Italian, Japanese, and Lebanese populations outside of those countries. It means the city is a culinary destination to which foodies travel from the four corners of the planet. If you can’t find it in São Paulo, it probably doesn’t exist.
But be warned, São Paulo can be daunting. As the Paulistanos are fond of saying, “São Paulo is not for amateurs.” That is exactly why I like it down here. The ability of the police to apprehend criminals is a paltry 2 percent. I can easily vanish among a sea of millions. Why do you think so many Nazis escaped to Brazil and Argentina after World War II? Hell, Hitler’s mad scientist, Joseph Mengele—who was thought to be already dead during the Nuremberg Trials—was living on a coffee farm in the Bertioga beachtown in São Paulo state when he died.
Incidentally, it was always reported that Mengele had drowned when he suffered a stroke while swimming in the ocean off the coast. Truth be told, Mossad, the powerful Israeli intelligence service, sent a team of scuba divers to swim up underneath him and pull him under until his lungs filled with seawater. An old Mossad agent named Ari told me the story one night over too many bottles of Manischewitz in Tel Aviv. Ari claimed he was the first member of the team to grab Mengele’s ankles, while Mengele floated casually on his back in the Brazilian surf.
Anyway, every time I return to this magnificent city, I am sure to stay at the Emiliano Hotel, a few blocks down from the famous Avenida Paulista in the posh neighborhood of Jardins. I also make it a point to eat polpettone, a unique breaded hamburger baked in tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese at the quaint Jardim de Napoli Restaurant.
But this isn’t a pleasure trip. My handlers are directing my movements, and I must play by their rules. My buddy Joe is up my ass 24/7, and I honestly think he’s enjoying his role too much. In my humble opinion, the guy’s a complete dick. I’ve decided that my behavior toward him is to be polite, but obfuscate.
Joe and I breeze through customs at Guarulhos and pass through the automatic doors into the arrivals terminal. There is a huge mob of people, many of them private drivers holding up signs with passenger names, all standing behind a steel security fence that looks like an oversized bicycle rack. Scanning the crowd, a casually dressed, middle-aged gentleman in a white linen shirt grabs Sparty’s attention. He presses against the edge of the guardrail waving an arm.
“Joe!” the man yells over the chaos.
“Jack! How the hell are you, amigo? It’s been a long time!”
The two men hug across the barrier as if they haven’t seen each other in years.
“Same shit, different shithole,” the man replies.
Joe gives him a sly grin and continues. “Come on, you know you love it here. I bet you have at least two namoradas walking around your apartment in skimpy Brazilian bikinis every weekend.”
The man smiles. “Okay, you got me.”
Still separated by the barricade, Joe introduces me.
“Jack, I want you to meet my friend, Paul.”
Jack shakes my hand and begins pumping it up and down.
“Hi Paul, I’m Jack, the chief in São Paulo. Damn glad to meet you. You’re a hard man to keep up with. It will be a pleasure working with you for once instead of against you.”
“The pleasure’s all mine,” I reply stoically.
We make our way out to the parking lot and toward Jack’s vehicle, a black, Level-III armored, Kia Sportage SUV. Armored vehicles are not uncommon in São Paulo, where carjackings occur every fifteen minutes. Anyone who’s anyone drives an armored car, especially the local station chief.
“So, where are we headed?” I naively ask.
“Safehouse,” Joe tells me in a stern voice, as if I’m not supposed to be asking any questions.
We drive for nearly 90 minutes, most of it sitting in traffic. Eventually, we come to an urban neighborhood with twisting streets and graffiti covering the majority of the tall apartment buildings. Each building sits behind a razor wire fence with an armed guard sitting in a shack just inside the fence line. Prostitutes in skimpy skirts adorn the street corners—even though it’s midday.
We pull up to the gates of one of the random buildings, and Jack gives two quick beeps of his horn. The guard in his glass booth looks up from his paper, recognizes Jack, and opens the automatic gate, which slides on its track. We pull forward into a tight parking garage. Jack finds an empty spot in the dank building and turns off the vehicle.
“We’re here,” he says.
“Where?” I ask.
“Our command center,” he replies.
“Sounds exciting.”
Joe turns around in the passenger seat and shoots me a look, which says “shut the hell up before I beat your ass.”
I just smile, which I know pisses him off.
The three of us file into the compact garage elevator. I am closest to the buttons.
“Hit 13, Paul,” Jack instructs me.
The thirteenth floor is at the top of a rundown apartment complex.
“I hope you’re not superstitious,” he continues.
“Are you kidding?” I respond, “Dan Marino (who wore number 13 on his jersey) was my favorite quarterback when I was kid. Now it’s Tom Brady. You know who he is, right, Joe?”
“Fuck you,” Joe says, without looking in my direction.
The elevator opens, and we walk down a damp hallway to a door marked 1307A. It’s at the end of the corridor and there is a tiny camera angled down from above the doorframe. Joe knocks four times—two knocks, a one second pause, and two more knocks. The door creaks open, and we quickly file in.
I am stunned by the complexity of what I see. Inside are television monitors hanging on the walls that remind me of NASA’s control center in Houston. There are also half a dozen twenty-somethings typing away feverishly on their MacBook laptops. I suspect these geeky-looking youngsters specialize in hacking the emails of others.
“Welcome to our command center,” says Jack.
“Holy shit! You weren’t kidding,” I say in awe.
“We have everything we need in here to monitor cell phones, conduct drone strikes, manage coups—even kill dictators,” Jack jokes.
I’m not sure how much of that is true. But I do start to feel the weight of an impending storm.
Joe puts his hand on my shoulder, as if to remind me that this is all for real.
; “You’d better not fuck up,” he whispers.
Jack senses my uneasiness and tries to calm my nerves.
“Paul,” he says, “Why don’t you go take a hot shower and lie down for a bit? You must be tired after your flight. There’s a bedroom in the back just for you. I need to speak with Joe here, and we’ll wake you up in a couple hours and go grab something to eat.”
I conclude that Jack is a seasoned intelligence officer who has used his easygoing demeanor to reassure many an asset before sending them off in dangerous operations. I decide to oblige and head to the back bedroom to relax for a couple hours.
After a hot shower, I crawl into the full-size bed. I must admit it’s a welcome relief after nearly a month trying to sleep in Afghanistan. The room is dark and the air conditioner hums a soothing tune. Cold air blows on me while I stretch out under the crisp, clean sheets. Within a few minutes, I am fast asleep.
OPERATION CONSULTOR
Location: A Safe House
Time: Unknown
I open my eyes. I don’t know where I am. I’m lying on my stomach with my ear pressed against the pillow. A face comes into view of my blurred vision.
“Rise and shine, asshole!”
Startled by the sudden interruption, my heartbeat accelerates. Joe’s come to wake me from my nap, and he seems to enjoy the fact that he scared me. I’m surprised he didn’t dump a bucket of cold water on my head.
“Do you actually plan on doing something worthwhile, or should we stop wasting everyone’s time and just send you to a Supermax prison right now?”
