Bledsoe grunted as he got off the couch. “Good idea. That shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Mitchell left the room without saying anything.
Bledsoe shook his head. “That boy’s difficult to read sometimes. One minute, he’s wise beyond his years, and then, the next thing you know, he’s throwing a temper tantrum just like a three-year-old. Did you notice how emotional he was just now?”
“Give him a few more years with you, and he’ll be as hard-nosed as the rest of us.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“I think I’ll head back to the hotel now.”
He drained the last dregs from his coffee mug. “There’s nothing more you can do here until we locate Ahmed. Why don’t the two of us grab a bite to eat later this evening.”
“Sure, I’d like that.”
He glanced at his watch. “I have to make some phone calls first, but I should be able to get away from here around eight o’clock. Do you think you can find La Argentina? It’s a restaurant about a mile south of Avenida Central.”
“I’m sure I can manage it. Will I be able to order something there besides beans and rice?”
“They serve only the finest Argentinean beef at this restaurant,” he assured me. “I expect their steaks will even meet your standards.”
He picked up the desk phone, but then he quickly put it back down. “I’m also expecting you to reveal the identity of the person Ahmed plans to assassinate if he should make it to Venezuela.”
Bledsoe was expecting a lot from me—maybe a little too much.
* * * *
As I drove away from the embassy, I thought about Toby Bledsoe and his implication I already knew the identity of the person Ahmed planned to assassinate in Venezuela.
I didn’t.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to get inside his head and discover who was on his hit list.
The DDO’s office referred to an unidentified assassination target as a UAT, and the more I thought about it, the more I saw the benefits of trying to discover the identity of the UAT.
For one thing, there was a good chance Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps had targeted the UAT because they considered that person to be an enemy of the Iranian regime. And, in my mind, anyone who was an enemy of Iran might be convinced to work for Uncle Sam, particularly if they were told they were on Ahmed’s hit list.
The benefits of discovering the identity of the UAT were just as compelling when I considered the possibility that Ahmed’s target could be an American, someone like John Luckenbill, our Head of Mission at the American Embassy in Venezuela. There was even a remote chance the IRGC planned to take out the Venezuelan president and then blame it on the CIA.
Even if I managed to grab Ahmed before he left for Venezuela and prevent him from making the hit, most likely, the IRGC would send another assassin to finish the job. Next time, though, the Agency might not have the intel available to prevent the shooter from fulfilling his contract.
When I returned to my hotel room, I continued mulling over my options. My gut instinct told me following Ahmed to Venezuela and pinpointing his target was a better choice than grabbing him while he was in Costa Rica.
However, I knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince Carlton to revise the operational objective—it never was.
Was such a fight worth having?
I found myself vacillating back and forth, and all of a sudden, it occurred to me it might be a good idea to pray about my decision.
Praying was a new idea for me, and like a baby learning to walk, I still needed a lot of practice to gain any confidence in the concept.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and talked to God about my desire to bring Ahmed to justice for the murder of Simon Wassermann. I also told him I needed his guidance in order to make the right decision about pursuing Ahmed.
When I finished, I hadn’t made up my mind about what I should do yet, but I felt certain, when the time came for me to make that decision, I would know what to do.
* * * *
It was just getting dark when I left the hotel to meet Bledsoe at the restaurant. As I maneuvered through the traffic on Avenida Central, my sat phone rang.
It was Mitchell, and he sounded anxious.
“We have a situation.”
“What kind of situation?”
“I was on my way over to pick up the Durango when Sonya called. She and Josué had been watching the safe house, and she said when Josué left her to go down the street and grab some sandwiches, a black Chevy Suburban with four men inside showed up. They—”
“I’m on my way now. It will probably take me about ten minutes to get there.”
“No, listen. They didn’t go inside the house. When they pulled up, two guys jumped out of the Suburban, and then they got inside the Durango and drove off. Sonya said it all happened in less than thirty seconds.”
“How did they manage to get inside the Durango so quickly?”
“One of them had a key fob. He used it to unlock the doors remotely.”
“Which direction did they go? Maybe we can locate them.”
He hesitated a moment. “Sonya’s following them now.”
“Is Josué with her?”
“No. As I said, he was down the street getting something to eat when this went down. She didn’t have time to pick him up.”
“She shouldn’t be doing this alone, Ben.”
“I know. I know,” he said. “I’m tracking her location now. I’ll get back to you.”
I drove toward downtown San José, and when I turned off the main highway, Mitchell phoned me back.
“She followed them to the Zapote District. They took the Durango to a warehouse on Calle Pacifica. She’s parked there on the street waiting for us.”
“Send me the directions.”
“I just did.”
I phoned Bledsoe—who was just entering the restaurant where we’d agreed to meet—and told him we had an emergency. I gave him a moment to return to his car, and then I called him back.
After hearing about the crisis, he said, “Ahmed must have sent someone after the car.”
“It looks that way.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense, though. He can’t be driving to Venezuela.”
“Perhaps he wants the SUV for some other reason. Maybe the cartel is taking it in payment for services rendered.”
“Send me the address of the warehouse. I’ll meet you there.”
“No, you’re not operational yet. I promise I’ll call you if we run into a problem.”
I hung up when I heard him start to protest.
The moment I turned on Calle Pacifica, I started searching the dashboard GPS for an alternate route. Traffic was moving at a snail’s pace, and within a minute, both lanes were at a standstill.
My phone rang.
“Where are you?” Mitchell asked.
“I just turned on Calle Pacifica. I can’t move, though; both lanes are completely blocked.”
“I’m ahead of you. It’s the same here. A garbage truck is stalled at an intersection.”
“Did you tell Sonya about our delay?”
“She’s not answering her phone.”
“Since when?”
“Since I called you twenty minutes ago.”
“Did you tell her to stay in the car?”
Mitchell sounded panicky. “Yes, of course I did. I specifically told her to stay in the car, but she’s not the cautious type. I’m sure you noticed that this afternoon. Ever since you sent her to knock on Ahmed’s door, she hasn’t stopped bugging me to let her do more than just sit in a car. Now, she’s probably done something really foolish.”
“Ben, calm down. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. Maybe the battery on her phone is dead.”
“Traffic’s moving now.”
“Park on the street where I can see you, but don’t go near Sonya’s car.”
“If something happens to her, it’s all your fault.”
/> * * * *
A few minutes later, I spotted Mitchell’s Jeep. He’d parked it in front of an automobile salvage yard. Down the block, about one hundred yards away, I saw the Toyota Highlander.
I continued driving west on Calle Pacifica. As I drove past the Toyota, I glanced inside.
There was no sign of Sonya in the vehicle.
I left my car in the parking lot of a bar—where the loud salsa music inside was also entertaining the patrons on the patio outside—and walked back up the street.
When I passed by the warehouse where Sonya said she had last seen the Durango, I realized her idea of a warehouse was vastly different from my own. True, the building might have once been used to store something, but now the dilapidated structure hardly seemed to qualify as a warehouse.
The one-story building, constructed from cinder blocks and covered over with a tin roof, looked abandoned. Wooden planks had been nailed across the windows, and the wood was dark and weathered, as if it had already withstood a dozen rainy seasons.
Such neglect made the recent addition of a new overhead garage door, in the center of the building, look out of place. The opening was big enough to accommodate a large truck or, at the very least, a Dodge Durango.
There was no activity around the warehouse, though, and the graveled parking lot was completely deserted.
I crossed the street and headed back toward my car. When I was passing Sonya’s vehicle, I took out my cell phone, and once I was opposite the back door, I slowed down and pretended to punch in a phone number.
At the same time, I did a careful sweep of the vehicle’s interior.
Sonya wasn’t hunkered down inside, and I couldn’t spot her cell phone or the camera she’d had with her earlier in the day—no purse there either.
As I continued walking back toward my car, I called Mitchell.
“She’s not in her car.”
“What now?”
“Drive up the street. On your right, there’s a bar called ...” I looked around for a sign, “... Los Mojitos. I’ll meet you outside on the patio.”
Once I’d entered the restaurant, I chose a patio table with a good view of the warehouse. A few minutes later, after I’d ordered a glass of lemonade, Mitchell walked in. When the waitress brought my drink, he ordered a Diet Coke.
Although Mitchell started pelting me with questions, I put him off while I studied the warehouse.
The front of the building faced the graveled parking lot, and I could see a chain link fence running along the rear of the property. However, I noticed the grass between the fence and the back of the building wasn’t as overgrown as the area at the side of the building.
I pulled out my Agency phone and keyed in the coordinates of the warehouse, hoping to get a satellite image of the area. Within seconds, I was able to study the terrain around the warehouse.
As soon as the waitress left Mitchell’s drink, he started questioning me again.
“What’s the plan? How many guys will we need to get in there? Should we call Bledsoe for backup?”
“Hold on, Ben.”
I handed him my phone. “Describe what you see between the chain link fence and the back of the warehouse.”
He stared at the screen. “Has it been cleared off?”
I waited.
He used the zoom feature to get a better look, and I noticed he was taking his time and analyzing the possibilities before drawing a conclusion.
Very good, Ben.
He looked up from the screen and stared over at the warehouse. Then, he looked down at the screen again.
He said, “There might be a back exit. Although from this angle, it’s really hard to tell. If there’s a door there, then a vehicle could possibly drive out along that chain link fence and exit onto Avenida Doral instead of exiting here onto Pacifica.”
“Exactly.”
“Whoever took the Durango could have driven in the front door and then gone out the back way.”
I nodded. “They probably had a forty-minute lead on us. So if—”
Mitchell’s phone chirped.
When he looked down at the caller ID, I knew who it was just by the look on his face.
“Where are you?” he asked, gesturing toward the door to let me know we should leave the restaurant.
I threw some money on the table and followed Mitchell out to the parking lot. He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed up the street.
Sonya was at the intersection across from the bar.
“Yes, I see you,” he said, disconnecting the call.
Sonya came toward us with a big smile on her face. Swinging from her neck was the camera with the big telephoto lens, and she looked excited, as if she’d just been to a really fun party.
“You won’t believe—”
“Get inside the car before you say another word,” I said, opening the back door of the Jeep.
Once Mitchell and I had gotten in the front seats, Sonya pointed toward her camera and said, “You won’t believe what I’m about to show you.”
Chapter 9
I told Mitchell to move the Jeep over to an unlit corner of the parking lot, but I had him park the car so we could still keep an eye on the warehouse.
As soon as we were in the shadows, Mitchell turned around and asked Sonya. “Where were you? Why weren’t you answering your cell phone?”
Sonya’s face was still flushed with excitement, but her breathing had evened out now, and I had the sense she was very good at calming herself down in a stressful situation.
“I followed the Durango to that warehouse,” she said, gesturing at the building in front of us. “When the men drove up to the door, it opened automatically, and they just drove right in. I knew the building used to be a bakery warehouse, because my cousin Armando grew up here in the Zapote district. We used to go around to the side entrance just before closing time, and the workers would give the kids in the neighborhood the pastries they couldn’t sell that day.”
I said, “So there’s another entrance on the opposite side of the warehouse?”
She nodded. “It’s just a single door. It was the employee entrance, the one the workers had to use.”
I asked, “So you went around to the back of the warehouse?”
Before Sonya could answer me, Mitchell said, “I explicitly told you to wait in your car until I arrived.”
All the concern he’d shown for her earlier in the evening had vanished. Now, the only thing left in him was anger at her freewheeling actions.
She ignored him and continued, “I went around the block so I could approach the building from Avenida Doral. The employee door wasn’t boarded up, so I picked the lock.”
She cut her eyes over toward Mitchell, but he was staring out at the warehouse.
“Who taught you how to do that?” I asked.
She gave me a mischievous grin.
“A friend.”
“Come on, Sonya,” Mitchell said, looking at her now. “Get on with your story. What happened when you got inside?”
Her smile disappeared. “I’m getting to that.”
The emotional underpinnings of their relationship were beginning to trouble me, and even though I knew why I felt uneasy, I decided not to say anything—at least for now.
Sonya said, “It was dark inside, so I used the light from my cell phone to make my way from the employee area down the hallway to the manager’s office. As I got near the office, I heard voices coming from the main area of the warehouse where the trucks used to be loaded. By the time I made it to the office, I was able to shut off my phone because both the vehicles inside the warehouse had their headlights on. It was—”
“Wait a second,” I said. “There were two cars inside the building?”
She nodded. “Besides the Durango, the Chevy Suburban was there. I think it was the same one I saw at the safe house, but I’m not sure. The Chevy’s headlights were illuminating the Durango while the men were unloading it.”
“Could you see what
they were unloading?”
Sonya handed me her camera. “See for yourself.”
I quickly scanned through the images on the camera’s monitor.
The bright headlights in the darkened warehouse, coupled with Sonya shooting through the glass partition in the office, gave each shot a dreamlike quality. In fact, the scenes almost seemed surreal.
However, the reality of what was going on was real enough.
The camera had caught the four men removing an array of weaponry from the floorboard and side panels of Ernesto’s car. After that, they were transferring them over to the trunk of the Chevy.
I passed the camera over to Mitchell.
After looking through the images, he gave the camera back to her. “You took an awful chance getting these.”
There was a note of giddiness in her voice. “It was worth it though, wasn’t it?”
Mitchell didn’t reply, and she directed her attention to me. “I was afraid the shots might not turn out since I was taking them through the office window.”
“They’re great,” I assured her. “Once we identify these men, we’ll be one step closer to finding Ahmed. You did an excellent job.”
Perhaps taking his cue from me, Mitchell finally smiled at her and said, “Yeah, good job, Sonya.”
She smiled back at him. “I guess I should have called you first, but I didn’t stop to think about it. I just did it.”
I asked, “What happened after the men unloaded the weapons?”
“They got in the Chevy and drove out the other side of the warehouse. I gave them several minutes to clear the area, and then I left the building. That’s when I called you.”
I tried to clarify what she’d said. “Did you say all four men left in the Chevy?”
“Yes.”
Mitchell sounded excited. “So the Durango’s still inside the warehouse?”
“Yes,” she said, looking back and forth between us. “They left the Durango there. Is that important?”
I said, “We’ll know for sure when we take a look inside.”
* * * *
Mitchell and I retraced Sonya’s steps, making our way around the block to Avenida Doral, where we entered the warehouse by using the employee’s service entrance. Sonya had relocked the door, but, within a couple of minutes, I was able to get us inside.
Two Days in Caracas Page 6
