Two Days in Caracas

by Luana Ehrlich

  Pointing to the second X, he said, “On the other hand next door to the Avenida Francisco district is the Sabana Grande addition, which you see here. These are high-dollar, single-family residences. Some of our embassy personnel live in this area, as well as government officials from Venezuela.”

  Grogan asked Katherine to give us a few more details on both the construction sites in Maracaibo and Cumaná and the residential neighborhoods.

  However, after listening to Katherine for a few minutes, I tuned her out.

  I knew Mitchell would probably remember the important stuff—he appeared to be giving her his full attention—and I wanted to consider the areas Grogan had pinpointed on Ahmed’s map.

  I needed to put myself in Ahmed’s shoes.

  I needed to consider why a shooter would draw X’s on a map.

  Of course, the most obvious answer was to designate the location of a target, or to note where a target was scheduled to appear sometime in the future.

  I knew that sounded logical, but I couldn’t picture Ahmed being so careless as to mark a map indicating his next hit and then leave the map inside the glove box of the Durango. He hadn’t even bothered to take it inside the safe house where he and Ernesto were staying in San José.

  As I thought about the concrete block house in San José, an alert fired across the synapses of my cerebral cortex, but the thought quickly disappeared when I heard Katherine say something about our embassy personnel in Caracas.

  “While it will take a little longer to obtain the names of all the occupants of these apartments,” she said, “we know most of the identities of those who live in the Sabana Grande district. Of particular interest to us is that Roberto Montilla lives there, along with several prominent Venezuelan businessmen and the Peruvian ambassador. More importantly, our embassy’s Head of Mission, John Luckenbill, has a residence in this area.”

  The Venezuelan president had recently expelled the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, leaving Luckenbill to direct the affairs of the American Embassy in his stead. Ostensibly, the Ambassador’s expulsion had come about as a show of solidarity between the Venezuela president and the Bolivian president. The latter had initiated a dispute with the U.S. over phone calls being monitored by the NSA in Bolivia.

  However, most people in the State Department recognized the Venezuelan president was simply looking for an opportunity to tweak Uncle Sam’s nose; no one believed anyone in the Venezuelan government really cared about the sensibilities of the Bolivian president.

  Grogan said, “Douglas, we’re ready for your intel assessment on these locations now.”

  Carlton nodded but remained quiet for a few seconds.

  Then, he gestured toward Salazar. “Sam Wylie’s your man in Caracas. Why don’t you go first? I’ll tie up the loose ends when you’re finished.”

  Salazar looked pleased at Carlton’s gesture and immediately launched into his analysis. He noted that Sam Wylie had been developing assets in anticipation of the Caribbean States International Trade Conference. In fact, Wylie was already on Margarita Island making preparations to monitor both the CSIT meetings and the foreign diplomats at the conference.

  “I’m going to concur with Sam’s opinion. He believes Ahmed is planning to assassinate a high-profile diplomat at the trade conference. If that’s true, most likely Montilla will be helping him. In what form that help will come is anybody’s guess, but Montilla is in charge of the security arrangements for the attendees, so his assistance will probably come in that way. If so, he’ll be invaluable to Ahmed.”

  As Salazar continued speaking, he fleshed out the details of his assessment. Unfortunately, his assessment had nothing to do with uncovering Ahmed’s intended target or stopping a Hezbollah assassin from placing a bullet in the UAT’s skull.

  Salazar finished up by saying, “Once Ahmed has made the hit, I’m certain the cartel will be responsible for getting him out of the country. Without the cartel’s help, Ahmed wouldn’t have made it to Venezuela in the first place, and he’ll probably use them to get back to Syria. Therefore, if we don’t want to lose Ahmed once he’s made the hit, we should be monitoring his cartel connections right now.”

  Salazar’s assessment was followed by an awkward moment of silence.

  Finally, it dawned on Grogan that Salazar had ended his intel analysis. This time, though, he refused to let Salazar off the hook and grilled him about identifying the UAT. Salazar wouldn’t commit to anything, though. He said his division was still monitoring sources on the ground.

  Grogan, who appeared notably frustrated at Salazar, asked him, “Could you at least make some determination about the chemical storage sites or the residential areas Ahmed marked on the maps?”

  When Salazar spoke, the tenor of his voice made it sound like Grogan’s question was a nuisance. “Most likely, those sites are part of his backup plan or something like that. If Ahmed can’t manage the hit on the island, then he might try and complete his assignment on the mainland. That’s probably why Ahmed marked those X’s on the maps.”

  That was the last straw for me.

  “It wasn’t Ahmed who marked the X’s on the maps.”

  As soon as I spoke up, I saw Carlton purse his lips, an expression I’d seen him make several times before, but its meaning was still unclear to me.

  It could mean approval. It could mean disapproval.

  Take your pick.

  However, it was clear the Admiral disapproved of my comment.

  “Titus,” he said, “you’re allowed to express an opinion at the end of this briefing, but, for now, hold your—”

  Salazar cut him off. “No, let him speak. I want to hear what he has to say.”

  Grogan gestured toward me, “In that case, you have the floor.”

  When I got to my feet, I pointed to the map of Caracas on the screen. “The maps I found in the glove box of the Durango weren’t important to Ahmed. He’s a professional. He isn’t a careless man. If he had planned to use those maps in some professional capacity, then leaving them in a parked car was a careless act. And, I repeat, Ahmed is not a careless man.”

  Salazar spoke up. “You could be right. Maybe those maps have nothing whatsoever to do with his hit. The cartel probably gave him those maps for an entirely different purpose.”

  “If it wasn’t Ahmed, who was it then?”

  Olivia’s question surprised me. I’d almost forgotten she was in the room.

  Almost.

  I looked at her. “I believe it was Ernesto.”

  She rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. “And, pray tell, why would you think that?”

  “Yeah,” Salazar chimed in, “why would you think that?”

  I was hoping Carlton might jump into the discussion, but he had his eyes firmly fixed on the map of Caracas.

  “Because, as I said, it doesn’t make any sense for Ahmed to put X’s on a map. On the other hand, Ernesto had a habit of—”

  “—marking things with an X,” Carlton said, taking his eyes off the map and looking over at me.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Carlton addressed the group. “There were menus in Ernesto’s duffel bag from restaurants in the Austin area. He had marked a few of the entrees with an X. It’s logical to assume those items were ones Ernesto either liked or wanted to try. That’s what he must have been doing with the maps; he was marking places he wanted to visit or places he liked.”

  Salazar sounded skeptical. “But that would mean he marked his own neighborhood.”

  Olivia spoke up, “That actually makes sense, though. He was homesick. He was looking forward to being home again. The same thing could be true of the construction sites. He’d heard his father talk about them; he wanted to see them for himself.”

  Katherine got the Admiral’s attention.

  “Yes, Ms. Broward?”

  She pointed toward the screen. “See for yourself.”

  During our discussion, Katherine had pulled up one of the menus Mitchell and I had
discovered in Ernesto’s duffel bag. It was from a Chinese restaurant called The Flying Dragon. Ernesto had marked an X next to Marpoo Dofu and an X next to something called Ants Climbing Hill.”

  Mitchell leaned over and whispered, “I could go for some Ants Climbing Hill right now.”

  Grogan squinted at the screen. “I could be wrong, but it looks like the X’s on this menu were made by the same person who made the X’s on the maps. There’s that same flourish on the upturn at the bottom of the X.”

  He turned to Katherine. “See if you can get someone to verify that.”

  Katherine nodded. “I’ll get Faulkner to take a look at it.”

  Carlton said, “Could I see the map again, please?”

  Grogan clicked back to the Caracas street map.

  I thought I knew why he wanted to see the map again, but I didn’t say anything. I’d learned never to steal my boss’ thunder. Otherwise, he might rain on my parade one day.

  When Carlton asked Grogan to zoom in on the X in the Avenida Francisco district, I was happy to see Mitchell studying the map with the same intensity I’d previously seen him studying Katherine.

  After a few seconds, I heard him take a deep breath.

  I was betting he’d seen it too.

  Look for those all-important details, Mitchell. They might save your life one day.

  Carlton said, “Did anyone else notice that the X in the Avenida Francisco district is a lowercase X, whereas the X in Ernesto’s own neighborhood is an uppercase X?”

  I said, “Yes, and if I remember correctly, the two construction sites were also marked with a lowercase X.”

  Mitchell said, “I bet it’s some kind of code.”

  Olivia and I both said, “The menu was—”

  She gave me a half-smile. “Go ahead, Titus.”

  “Ladies first,” I said, knowing she would hate that.

  She frowned, but she didn’t argue with me. “I was about to say he marked the two items on the menu with lowercase X’s.”

  Carlton said, “But we have no way of knowing whether the smaller X meant he liked that item or simply wanted to try it.”

  Mitchell asked, “Wouldn’t his girlfriend know his code?”

  What followed next was a long—and to my mind—unnecessary discussion about Ernesto’s girlfriend, Charlotte “Charlie” Tedesco. Everyone in the room seemed to have an opinion about what she might or might not know about him.

  In the end, Grogan adjourned the briefing for lunch while his office contacted the two FBI agents who’d interviewed Charlie following Simon Wassermann’s killing.

  The discussion about the relationship between Ernesto and Charlie made me realize I’d gone almost four hours without thinking about Nikki Saxon and our relationship.

  I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  Chapter 31

  I tried to catch Carlton before he slipped out of the conference room, but, as I headed out the door, one of the female analysts on Katherine’s team stopped me.

  “Were the flowers lilies or gladioli?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “The flowers we sent to your mother’s funeral,” she said. “Were they lilies or gladioli?”

  I mumbled something that probably sounded rude and rushed out the door after Carlton.

  However, the hallway was empty.

  I considered trying to locate him, but I decided if he had wanted to speak with me privately, he would have stuck around, so I made my way up to the first floor where the cafeteria was located.

  The Agency had modernized the cafeteria setup several years ago, and now, the whole area resembled the food court at a mall. When I got there, I spotted Mitchell standing in line at a Burger King.

  I strolled over to the Chick-fil-A line, where I purchased a chicken sandwich, waffle fries, and a large lemonade. Originally, I’d planned to eat with Mitchell, but, after paying for my meal, I noticed he was already seated with one of Salazar’s secretaries.

  Solitude seemed a better choice for me, and I headed in the direction of a small table in a corner of the room with a view of the atrium.

  The landscaped atrium in the cafeteria courtyard was filled with a variety of trees and plants, and some of the Agency employees—at least those who didn’t mind the heat and humidity of Langley in the summertime—were sitting outside on stone benches dining al fresco.

  That had no appeal to me, because I knew in just a few hours I would be taking in plenty of sunshine on Margarita Island.

  While I ate lunch, I tried to map out the mission protocols, but, for some reason, all I could think about was Nikki. I finally put my sandwich down and pulled out my phone to call her.

  At the last minute, I stopped myself.

  Why, all of a sudden, did I want to hear her laugh?

  After thinking about it, I realized my feelings were triggered by seeing Olivia McConnell, and I was feeling unsettled after spending the last couple of hours in the same room with her.

  My relationship with Olivia had never been a smooth ride. In fact, from the very beginning, back at Camp Peary when we’d first met on the Drivers’ Obstacle Training course, she’d treated me with disdain. Her attitude back then surprised me because, until the instructor had paired us together on the DOT course, I’d never met her.

  When the instructor had called out our names, Olivia had immediately walked over to me and said, “I’m sure you’ll insist on being in the driver’s seat.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You’re a man, aren’t you?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Well, I’m a woman. Do you have a problem with that?”

  And so it went.

  After that, I tried to stay as far away from her as possible. However, one day, about six months after we’d finished our training, I was attending a seminar at Langley, and I needed to cool off after having an intense argument on Central American politics. Back then, I was jogging regularly, so I started jogging around the outer perimeter of the Agency’s parking lot to let off some steam.

  That was when I had encountered Olivia.

  She was sitting in her car in the far west parking lot. Although she appeared to be asleep, I could tell something was off.

  I rapped on the window, but she didn’t stir.

  After breaking the glass, I did everything I could to revive her, but when I spotted the empty medicine bottle in the passenger’s seat, I finally stopped trying.

  Without thinking too much about it, I grabbed her keys out of her purse and drove her over to a nearby hospital.

  However, I didn’t contact anyone at the Agency.

  The full story of why she’d taken the sleeping pills was a long time in coming, and when she finally started talking about it, I didn’t really believe her.

  We were both excellent liars.

  The part I did believe was that she’d gotten involved with the wrong guy, and if that wasn’t enough, she’d lost both her mother and sister to breast cancer within a six-month period.

  Olivia had no friends.

  She said women bored her, and she didn’t hold men in very high esteem either.

  However, because I’d saved her life, plus allowed her to stay employed by the CIA, she decided to put me in a different category, the I’m-going-to-give-you-a-chance-to-be-my-friend category.

  For several years after that, whenever we were in town at the same time, we tried to get together for dinner, or go to the gun range together, or just hang out with each other.

  There was nothing romantic about our relationship.

  However, the more time I spent with Olivia, the more interesting I found her, and the more I realized I was beginning to care about her.

  Olivia was blunt, very sharp-tongued, and occasionally caustic in her sarcasm, but she was also insightful and an excellent sounding board—when I needed that sort of thing. I discovered she was also incredibly good at helping me see things from a different perspective.

&nbs
p; About a year after the sleeping pill incident, it was evident the Agency’s executives had decided Olivia was someone they wanted to advance up the administrative hierarchy.

  They began grooming her by giving her a variety of assignments within the different divisions of Intelligence. After that, they started moving her around the Agency’s organizational chart like some CEO’s incompetent nephew.

  But Olivia was not incompetent.

  She had the ability to seize a crisis, look at it in a slightly different way, and facilitate a quick solution. Not surprisingly, because of her skills in risk assessment and pattern analysis, she spent most of her time behind a desk and very little time in the field running an operation.

  However, around the time I was sent to Iraq, she was yanked from her desk job in Intelligence and assigned to Operations, specifically to Douglas Carlton in the Middle Eastern division.

  As her first assignment, Carlton had sent her over to Camp Beuhring in Kuwait to facilitate a simple weapons transfer. This was during the early days of the first Gulf War. By handing her such an easy task, Carlton had pretty much assured her success.

  Later on, someone had told me Olivia had done a superb job managing the logistics at Camp Beuhring, and that she’d also devised a unique plan for keeping track of the weapons she was handing over to the rebels.

  However, when I showed up at Camp Beuhring—accompanied by a high profile Iraqi general—things didn’t go all that smoothly. That’s because, the moment I realized Olivia was going to be responsible for protecting the Iraqi general I’d recruited, I’d completely lost it.

  Later, I realized my actions were the result of being afraid she could be killed, or even worse, captured by some of Hussein’s elite soldiers, who were still controlling parts of Bagdad.

  “I’m contacting Carlton,” I told her. “He needs to send me an experienced handler to manage this operation.”

  “So you don’t think I’m capable of being your handler?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “That’s what you’re thinking though.”