If Roberto Montilla weren’t around to help Ahmed carry out his contract, then Ahmed would have to do the footwork himself.
While Ahmed Al-Amin was at the trade conference making those preparations, I planned to be behind him every step of the way, discovering his target and preventing him from fulfilling his contract.
My plan proved to be naive at best.
Chapter 34
While Olivia was getting out her laptop to contact Langley, I filled Wylie in on the details of the call Roberto had received from the American Embassy in Costa Rica notifying him of his son’s death.
When I’d finished updating him, he said, “Ahmed just might need to rustle him up some different kind of help once he gets here.”
Although I wouldn’t have phrased it that way, I agreed with him. “My thoughts exactly.”
Olivia said, “I just sent the Ops Center a flash priority on Roberto’s missing status. Once they acknowledge it, I’ll do an uplink and discuss how we’ll proceed with this development.”
A few minutes later, she closed her computer and set it aside. “Now,” she said, “give me your assessment. What’s going on with Roberto? Why did he miss his flight?”
Mitchell seemed surprised at the question. “Isn’t it obvious? He’s grieving over his son’s death and wants to be left alone.”
Olivia shook her head. “Don’t be foolish, Ben. This conference could make or break his career. Despite Ernesto’s death, he wouldn’t miss it.”
I saw Mitchell’s face turned rigid at Olivia’s dismissive tone. For a moment, I thought he was going to say something. Instead, he turned his attention to his iPad and kept quiet.
Wylie said, “I believe you’re right, ma’am. The Venezuelan president believes this trade conference will raise his stature in the world. If Roberto wants to keep his job, he’ll be at the conference.”
“There could be any number of reasons Roberto missed his flight this morning,” I said. “Maybe Ben’s right, and he needed a few more hours with his family before flying to the conference.”
I saw Mitchell glance up from his iPad.
I thought he looked surprised at my affirmation.
“Or maybe,” I continued, “Roberto put his wife and daughter on a flight to Costa Rica so they could be near Ernesto. He may plan to catch a flight to Margarita later this afternoon.”
Olivia said, “I asked the Agency to check on all the airlines. We’ll know soon enough if anyone in the Montilla family was booked on a flight out of Caracas today.”
“I could have had my people check on the airlines for you,” Wylie said.
The moment Olivia raised her eyebrows, I knew he was about to receive a lecture from her on her expertise at running an operation. Before she had chance to do that, I started peppering Wylie with questions.
“Do you have any sources at the Trade Ministry you could use to locate Roberto? Or what about his wife? Could you call her employer and find out if she told them she wasn’t coming in to work today?”
Wylie scrolled through his phone. “Wait a minute. I jotted down a few notes about Roberto’s family on my phone.”
“His wife’s name is Marianna and she isn’t employed,” Olivia said, “but she does do some charity work with La Fundana, the children’s rights organization. They may know something.”
Although I would have expected Carlton to have these facts at his fingertips, I was surprised to hear Olivia recite Roberto’s bio from memory.
Wylie typed some notes on his phone. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Olivia said, “You should also check on their daughter, Emma. She attends school at Instituto Educacionale de La Salle. Find out if her parents called them about her absence from school today.”
Wylie stood to his feet, adjusted his belt buckle, and said, “I’ll go contact some of my sources. If I hear anything from my boys in Caracas, I’ll let you know.”
“See that you do,” Olivia said.
“Oh, you bet.”
* * * *
When Wylie left the suite, Olivia announced she needed to establish an uplink with the Operations Center at Langley and confer with Carlton and Salazar about events on the ground.
“I saw a desk in here,” she said, wheeling her suitcase toward the master bedroom. “That’s where I’ll do my setup. I’ll brief you as soon as I’m done.”
As she started to close the door behind her, she said, “And, Titus, you’ll need to get your stuff out of here when I’m done. I’m taking this room.”
The prestigious David Awerbuch had just been jettisoned from his bedroom by one of his lackeys.
Mitchell closed his iPad and walked out on the balcony. “Man, this view is something else.”
I followed him out to the balcony. However, it wasn’t because I was interested in the landscape.
“How was your flight?” I asked. “Did you and Olivia manage to bond with each other?”
He laughed. “Would you believe she asked me the same question about you?”
“Is that so?”
Mitchell turned around and faced me. “She asked me how you and I were getting along.”
I was hoping he’d elaborate on his answer without any prodding from me, so I didn’t say anything.
“Would you like to know what I said to her?”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
“I told her I get along with you about as well as I get along with the Senator.”
“Ouch.”
He smiled. “Since she knows him pretty well herself, she completely understood.”
“Olivia knows your father?”
He nodded. “She was the DDO’s congressional liaison for a couple of years. She worked closely with some of my father’s staff from the Senate Intelligence Committee. That’s how I met her.”
Another surprise.
Surprises seemed to be occurring on a regular basis with this guy.
“I didn’t realize you knew Olivia before she was introduced at the briefing yesterday.”
“I was only around her a couple of times. The first time was when I was visiting my father’s office. Believe me, it wasn’t a pleasant experience.”
“Were you Agency then?”
“Barely. I’d been out of Camp Peary for a couple of months, but I was still awaiting assignment. However, she treated me as if I were just out of high school. What made it worse, the Senator never mentioned anything about our family relationship to her. Later, she saw me at headquarters and seemed genuinely surprised when she found out I was working for the CIA. That’s when I told her my father was Senator Mitchell.”
I didn’t ask him if Olivia had apologized for her mistake.
I knew she hadn’t done so.
Neither one of us was very good at apologies.
* * * *
About the time Olivia came out of the bedroom, Wylie arrived back in the suite. He was carrying his messenger bag, and it looked a lot heavier than when he’d left. When he began distributing the goodies inside, I understood why.
First, he handed Mitchell a handgun. It was a Glock, like the one he’d given me, and then he took out a smaller pistol and presented it to Olivia. It was a sub-compact Kimber, something a woman might carry, and I immediately wondered if she would protest his choice of firearm for her.
However, following her conversation with the Ops Center, Olivia appeared distracted, and when she took the weapon from Wylie, she barely looked at it before slipping it inside her purse.
“Any news from your team in Caracas?” she asked Wylie.
“They haven’t found Roberto or his family yet, if that’s what you’re asking. However, I did get in touch with a source in Traffic Control who said they would get me the CCTV feed from this morning’s rush hour. I figure it might take some time for my computer guys to study the videos and determine where Roberto was headed when we lost him. But, if we get lucky, we might know something in a few hours.”
“And your other phone calls?”
<
br /> “Well, ma’am, they were all a dead end. No one from La Fundana had heard from Mariana Montilla this morning. And no one at the kid’s school had heard from the parents. My sources at the Trade Ministry seemed surprised I was even asking about Roberto, because they said he should be on the island by now.”
“So, Roberto didn’t contact anyone at the Ministry this morning?”
“Not the people I called.”
“Interesting.”
“I also found it interesting that none of his co-workers knew anything about Ernesto’s death. As far as I can tell, Roberto hasn’t told anyone about the death of his son.”
“That’s odd,” I said. “I would have expected him to share his grief with at least some of his colleagues.”
Wylie agreed. “The whole thing’s beginning to seem a little twisted.”
Olivia walked over to the bar stool and swiveled it around so that she could face the three of us. When she took her seat, she said, “The Ops Center couldn’t find any airline reservations for the Montillas. Wherever the three of them were going this morning, it wasn’t to the airport, or, if it was, they didn’t book a flight under their own name.”
I said, “If the news about Ernesto’s murder caused Roberto to take his family and go into hiding, we need to figure out why, and we need to do it soon.”
Olivia showed no sign of agreeing with me, so I continued to press my point. “His behavior runs counter to the role we assumed he would play in Ahmed’s mission, and it’s time we reassess how Ahmed may be planning to use Roberto once he arrives on the island.”
Mitchell spoke up. “Roberto’s disappearance could be something he was planning all along; it could even be connected to Ahmed’s target.”
Wylie said. “I’m betting Ahmed’s target is John Luckenbill.”
Olivia said, “I was told Luckenbill hasn’t changed his mind about having extra security. He’s your charge, Sam. Can’t you convince him he needs to add some extra security?”
Wylie shook his head. “John’s an ex-Marine. He says he’s been in far more dangerous situations than this, and it’s impossible to convince him to take extra precautions. He just doesn’t believe there’s enough evidence to prove he’s in any kind of danger. That’s why we need to concentrate on finding Roberto. I agree with Titus. We need to know where all the players are.”
Olivia shook her head. “No, we can’t be concerned about Roberto’s disappearance right now.”
I started to protest, but then she hurried on. “His disappearance has to be put on hold because the timetable for the yacht’s arrival in Porlamar has just been revised.”
“Why?” I asked.
“El Mano Fierro will make port around three o’clock today instead of five.”
“So what happens when she docks?”
“Under ordinary circumstances, a Customs and Immigration official from the Port Authority’s office would board her. The Ops Center has been monitoring communications between the ship’s captain and the Port Authority, and in this instance, the port captain himself will be the one coming onboard the yacht to clear her passengers through customs.”
“That explains a lot,” I said.
Wylie said, “Yeah, the port captain must be on someone’s payroll.”
Olivia nodded. “C. J. seems to believe the head of Porlamar’s Port Authority is being bankrolled by the Zeta cartel, and that’s why he’ll be the one processing the passengers’ passports and clearing Javier Flores through immigration, when he uses Ernesto’s passport.”
I said, “He’s probably right.”
“The port captain won’t be the only person boarding the yacht, though,” Olivia said. “The captain has arranged for a fuel delivery immediately upon arrival, and Carlton believes this is a unique opportunity for us.”
“What kind of opportunity?” Mitchell asked.
Knowing Carlton as I did, I ventured a guess. “It’s an opportunity for the two of us to board El Mano Fierro and plant some listening devices.”
Olivia nodded. “That’s right. Since Ahmed hasn’t made any hotel reservations on the island, Douglas believes he’ll be using the yacht as his base of operations. The best way for us to monitor his activities—short of having human intel on the boat—is to put some listening ears onboard.”
Olivia explained the plan for boarding the yacht and planting the audio devices—a plan with Carlton’s fingerprints all over it. Even so, as she outlined the procedure, I could tell she’d scrutinized the possibilities from every angle and tried to anticipate some scenarios Mitchell and I might encounter.
I made a few minor adjustments to the plan, just refinements really, and then I pointed out the type of clothing we’d need for us to get on the yacht without arousing suspicion.
In different circumstances, I would have picked up the items myself. However, if the prestigious David Awerbuch were seen traipsing around the budget shops of Porlamar looking for cheap, discounted clothing, it might look suspicious.
To Olivia’s credit, she agreed with my assessment and volunteered to go with Mitchell to pick up the items for our yachting adventure.
As the two of them were about to leave, I said, “Could you pick us up something to eat on your way back?”
Mitchell asked, “Pizza sound okay with everybody?”
“Yeah, but have them hold—”
“The pepperoni,” Olivia said. “I’m not likely to forget that.”
Olivia’s response caused Mitchell to raise his eyebrows at me, but I ignored him.
* * * *
When I returned to the living room, Wylie had just finished pouring himself a cup of Olivia’s coffee.
He raised his mug in the air when he saw me. “You don’t think she’d mind, do you?”
“Are you kidding, Sam? She wouldn’t give it a second thought.”
He shook his head as if he didn’t believe me.
Just to make him feel better, I poured myself a cup.
“Why don’t you finish telling me about the other thing?” I said.
He looked puzzled. “The other thing?”
“Before you got the phone call about Montilla, you said you needed to tell me one other thing, something about training.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, “I wanted to tell you about the Hezbollah training camp here. I don’t know whether you know it or not, but members of Hezbollah have been invading Venezuela like ants at a Texas picnic for more than ten years now.”
“I saw your field reports in the archives a few days ago,” I said. “It sounds like the Venezuelan government has been encouraging Islamists to immigrate to this country. It’s no wonder they’ve been arriving in droves.”
Wylie nodded. “Muslims are coming here because they’re getting tax breaks for their businesses. The government is also making it possible for them to build mosques, hospitals, Islamic schools, or just about anything else the local Imam says will benefit the Islamic community.”
“We both know this is problematic for the U.S. The more Hispanics they recruit, the easier it will be for their members to arrive in the States as simple laborers in search of jobs.”
“I think it’s already a problem. That’s why I’ve been warning the Agency about a Hezbollah youth camp right here on the island. You probably saw that in my field reports too.”
“Yeah, that youth camp didn’t sound like a place I’d send my kid.”
“They call it a camp for youth, but after I asked Salazar to have the NSA shoot some satellite images of the place, the Agency analysts agreed it’s a militant training camp, and it’s being run by some top-notch Hezbollah instructors. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Ahmed will have any contact with the camp once he arrives here, but I wanted you to be aware of its location anyway.”
“Salazar didn’t even mention it during the briefing.”
“Since the training camp isn’t connected to the cartel, that doesn’t surprise me. When I learned Ahmed was coming here to the island, I brought it up wit
h Salazar, but he said there wasn’t much chance Ahmed would go near the camp. He’s probably right. Most likely, once Ahmed fulfils his contract, he’ll leave Margarita Island pronto.”
Wylie pulled out a small military-grade laptop from a side pocket of his messenger bag. “The camp is called Campamento de la Juventud Laguna, and it’s west of Porlamar on the other side of the island. As you might expect, the location is pretty remote.”
Wylie opened up his laptop and clicked on a file. “Take a look.”
I studied the map for a few minutes, and although I hated to admit it, I had to agree with Salazar that the chances of Ahmed hooking up with some militants at a jihadist’s training camp several miles from Porlamar were pretty slim.
“The instructors come and go on a rotating basis,” Wylie explained. “Most of them don’t stay on the island except for a few weeks at a time.”
“So who’s in charge?”
Wylie displayed a couple of photographs on the screen. “The day-to-day operations are handled by this guy, Salvador Rascon. He’s a Venezuelan who converted to Islam several years ago. He lives at the camp, takes care of maintenance, and manages the instructors. On the surface, he appears to be the camp commander.”
Wylie pointed to a second photo. “But it’s this man, Rehman Zaidi, who’s really in charge of Campamento Laguna.”
I studied the photo of Zaidi.
The camera had caught him disembarking from a plane at El Caribe airport. He was squinting into the sun, about to put on a pair of dark glasses. Although his eyes were half-closed, I could see they were blue—unlike most men of Arabic descent—and that his nose wasn’t as sharply pointed or as long as a typical Arab male.
Although his facial characteristics were noteworthy, what drew my attention was his missing limb. His left arm had either been severed or surgically removed at the elbow.
“What can you tell me about Zaidi?”
“I know what you’re thinking. He could be a bomb maker.”
I nodded. “It’s a fairly typical injury in that line of work and might explain why he’s been banished to South America to run a militant training camp.”
Two Days in Caracas Page 25
