An hour later he was in the same terminal he and Akil had entered the city in two days ago. This time he felt slightly dizzy as he stood with DZ and the dark-haired woman. “Mercedes will travel with you to Bogotá,” DZ explained. “She’s going to act like your girlfriend and never leave your side.”
She had a pretty face. Pouty lips, thick wavy hair, sparkling dark eyes, smooth skin. When she spoke, her accent was Brazilian. “You need anything, you tell me,” she said with confidence.
“Okay. But why Bogotá?”
“So the embassy doctor there can examine you again,” DZ answered. “See if you’re fit to return to Venezuela. You’ve also got two cracked molars that need to be fixed.”
Crocker said, “I want to return to Venezuela. My men are still there, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll take care of the teeth later.”
“The doctor will decide that.”
The whine of the jet’s engine bothered him, and when it gained speed down the runway, he had to resist a panicked urge to get up from his seat. In a flash it all came back to him, the man shooting at him from the cockpit, him at the wheel of the tanker truck, the blinking red light on the end of the 737’s wing. Then the powerful jolt as the truck hit the jet.
He found Brubeck on his iPod and let the 5/4 swing of “Take Five” work its magic. The melody and rhythm calmed him, and he started to feel like himself. Music was transcendent. He wanted to learn more about it and understand how it worked. Not the hard rock and metal he’d listened to as a kid, but jazz, especially cool fifties jazz and bebop-Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Zoot Sims, Charlie Byrd, Art Tatum, Ben Webster, Lester Young.
Crocker never graduated from college, having gone straight from high school into the navy. Not that he had any regrets, except that he hadn’t rubbed shoulders with people who were knowledgeable about a wide range of subjects, particularly the arts and music.
Drinks were served. He ordered a Diet Coke, then turned to Mercedes, tapped her on the shoulder, and asked what she was listening to.
“Music,” she said grinning.
“No kidding.” At least she had a sense of humor.
“If you really want to know, his name is Caetano Veloso.” She had a tough, self-possessed demeanor that he found appealing.
“Caetano…who?”
Her eyes glistened with mischief. “You’ve never heard of Caetano Veloso?” she asked, tossing back her hair and pursing her full lips.
“No. You ever hear of Malcolm and Angus Young?”
“Caetano is a huge international star.”
“So are Malcolm and Angus Young. They’re the ass-kicking leaders of AC/DC.”
“Tell me about it, Thomas.”
He laughed inside. The last person who’d called him Thomas was his high school girlfriend Natalie, who was married now and living in Northern California. She had dark eyes, too, and an insatiable sexual appetite that got them both in trouble when they were caught making love on her parents’ sofa. Natalie had not been allowed to see him after that, which pissed him off to the point that he got drunk and banged on her front door one night, only to be chased away by her shotgun-wielding father. Mercedes was like a shorter, curvier, Brazilian version of her.
He didn’t mind that she shared a room with him, or that she walked around in a tank top and shorts, or that when they went out to dinner that night she peppered him with questions about his background, his failed first marriage, and what it was like to kill someone. Nor did it bother him when later that night she crawled into the other king-sized bed, and he was tempted to cross the space between them and take her in his arms. It made part of him feel alive. And also helped him remember how much he loved his wife and missed her.
“Love the One You’re With” by Stephen Stills played in his head. He sat up, watched shadows wash across the walls, and recalled that he had now suffered seven-or was it eight?-concussions. Every severe impact to his head caused more brain cells to die. And every life taken left another scar on his soul.
In the morning he visited the embassy doctor, who like Crocker happened to be a former navy corpsman who had served in Japan. They discussed the strange obsessions of Japanese people-manga comic books, electronic games, Chinese dumplings, S &M-and their respective visits to the ancient city of Kyoto. The doctor cleared Crocker to travel to Venezuela, but warned him to take things easy.
Fat chance of that, Crocker thought, before answering, “Sure, Doc. Thanks.”
That afternoon he and Mercedes swam laps in the hotel pool, then took a taxi to the airport. He was unable to shake the image of her round ass hugged by the tight red bathing suit. It screamed at him during the flight to Venezuela while she told him she had been born in Salvador de Bahia to an Italian economist father and Brazilian mother. They had split when she was ten. Her father was now living in Paris.
“Do you see him often?” Crocker asked. He was starting to understand how her background had made her worldly and self-reliant.
“About once a year. He’s remarried. Because of him I’m always seeking men’s approval, sometimes in self-destructive ways.”
He found her honesty and confidence kind of sexy.
Later, when she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, he debated whether she was inviting him to take things further, and whether he was a fool for letting an opportunity like this slip away or mature and intelligent for not giving in to temptation, risking his career, and destroying his marriage.
It bothered him that the answer wasn’t as clear as he thought it should be. Maybe it was the medication he was still taking. Or maybe he was just being a red-blooded man genetically programmed to find attractive, fertile women and drag them back to his cave.
When he hugged her goodbye at the airport, she held on and whispered, “I hope I get to see you again, Thomas.”
“Me, too,” he answered, even though she was seventeen years younger than he and had trouble written all over her.
Pulling her suitcase, she disappeared into the crowd, taking with her the answers to many questions that popped into his head: How did she get into this line of work? How long had she been working for the Agency? Did she have a boyfriend? Where was she based?
He saw Sanchez waving above the bobbing heads, and raised his hand to acknowledge him. The sexual charge subsided.
Caracas seemed calm and orderly compared to Ciudad del Este. The city was starting to feel familiar-Miami with mountains instead of a coastline. Sanchez, at the wheel of the Ford Taurus, said, “Mr. Rappaport wants to see you later.”
“I figured,” he responded, remembering Mercedes getting out of the pool.
“Chávez is on life support. The rumor is that his family wants the doctors to pull the plug. Meanwhile, his VP, Maduro, is running the government, and everything seems to be the same as before-except the whole city is on edge.”
“The Iranians, too?” Crocker asked as the glittering skyline came into view.
“Are they on edge? Yes. Especially after what you guys did to them in Brazil.”
Crocker smiled to himself and thought, Score one for us. He knew he’d feel even better if they found Alizadeh’s body in the wreckage in Foz do Iguaçu.
“You want me to stop somewhere so you can pick up something to eat first?” Sanchez asked, turning off the autopista.
“I’ll be okay.”
Davis was the only member of the team still living at the La Florida safe house. He explained that Cal and Mancini had left with Neto that morning for the southwestern state of Barinas.