As Avery and Castillo walked across the lobby to the elevators, neither man looked at or acknowledged Aguilar, who was seated in a plush armchair with a coffee on the table in front of him, pretending to read a newspaper.
Aguilar was to remain stationary until he received word that Avery and Castillo were coming down, at which point he’d head outside and get in the car parked outside. Then, they’d run an SDR and switch vehicles twenty blocks away at Objective November. Despite the time efficiency of the exit plan, if something went wrong inside the hotel, it could take Aguilar up to ten minutes to reach his teammates on the thirty-third floor.
Avery and Castillo shared the elevator in silence with a Western couple who looked like they’d just come from doing laps around the bay in their yacht. The man even wore a captain’s hat, which Avery thought didn’t match the bulging fanny pack and flip-flops with socks rolled up to his knees, but the woman, a third his age and with inflated breasts pressed up through the low neck of her tank top, was all over him. They got off on the fourteenth floor.
As the doors slid shut, Castillo observed. “It must be nice to be a rich asshole.”
Avery recalled his mud-soaked hide in Venezuela, and didn’t disagree.
“I didn’t tell you, but Cynthia walked out on me a few years back.”
Annoyed, Avery frowned slightly at Castillo’s abrupt recollection.
“Five months later, she’s married to an American lawyer in Miami. She left me with the kids. They stay with my sister while I’m deployed.”
“Save it for later. Keep your mind in the game,” Avery warned. “If they’re going to make a move against us, it’ll be on the streets. They won’t hit us inside; too risky.”
“Right.”
Once they grabbed Canastilla/Muňoz, they’d split up, taking different elevators down. Avery would exit the hotel with Canastilla through a service door, where Aguilar would be waiting to pick them up in the team’s rented Ford Explorer, while Castillo went out through the main entrance in the front, sweeping the lobby and exterior once more for opposition. Castillo would then make his way to his own vehicle — a Toyota Hilux — and then link up with the others at Objective November.
Avery got off on the thirtieth-second floor. Castillo stayed behind to ride the elevator the rest of the way up.
Avery walked swiftly down the long, quiet hallway, turned a bend, passed two European businessmen, and pushed open the door leading into the stairwell, where he reached a hand beneath his jacket and withdrew the Glock. He craned his neck out over the railing to check the landing below and then glanced up to scope out the one above. Then he started working his way up the stairs.
If there was a hit team waiting to ambush them, the stairwell was a perfect place to hide and from which to deploy.
At the thirty-third floor, Avery slid his hand with the Glock into his jacket pocket, and entered the hallway, where he re-joined Castillo, who now filled a lounge chair at the end of the hallway. Castillo’s right hand rested on his lap, over his left thigh, with the mini-Uzi quickly accessible cross-draw style beneath his jacket. From here, Castillo could see down the length of the hallway to where it connected to the adjoining tower structure, and he had eyes on the elevators, too.
“Stairwell’s clear,” Avery reported to Castillo, looking straight ahead as he strode past. “I’ll get our friend.”
“Roger. I’ll be right here.”
Avery slowed his pace and stepped aside to allow a young couple with two small children to pass him. He stopped outside suite 3314. The “do not disturb” sign was inserted into the slot for the card key.
Avery withdrew his Glock and held it along the outside of his leg, with his finger indexed over the trigger guard. He gave three hard knocks against the side of the door. He heard movement on the other side, and envisioned someone coming up to the door and gazing at him through the peephole. Then he heard the deadbolt disengaging and the undoing of the latch.
The instant the door began to swing inward on its hinges Avery stepped in, planted his weight firmly on his left foot, raised his right, and kicked the door in, knocking over the man on the other side.
Avery snapped up the Glock two handed and followed it through the threshold into the one thousand square foot suite. His eyes swept the room left-to-right, right-to-left. He stood in the combined kitchen-dining room space, beyond which was the living room and, on the far end, sliding glass balcony doors through which starlight and the building’s reflective exterior lights shimmered. Immediately to his left were a small, open laundry room and the bathroom.
A short, lean, compact, and fit Latino man stood before Avery, visibly on edge and tense, his eyes locked on the gun pointed at him.
Avery examined the face.
Pablo Muňoz had noticeably aged since the time of the photo Daniel had showed Avery. His face carried a vacant, weary look, with a faraway emptiness to his eyes, and he looked almost gaunt, like he hadn’t eaten in days, like there was little life left in him.
With shortly cut black hair and a beard of equal length, Agent Canastilla wore blue jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and open collar with the top three buttons undone. He sweated rivulets and radiated fear, and Avery knew it wasn’t just because the man now faced the business end of a Glock. No, something else was the source of Muňoz’s unease, which in turn gave Avery cause for concern.
Avery kicked the door shut behind him and kept the Glock level with the Colombian agent while maintaining a five foot gap from him.
“Get down on your knees and cross your ankles and put your hands behind your head!” Avery shouted, needing to gain dominance.
The Colombian did as instructed.
Keeping his eyes locked on Muňoz’s hands, Avery came in closer and patted him down with one hand, checking for weapons or wires and finding none.
“Stay right there. Don’t fucking move!”
“I have to tell you something. We’re running out of time.”
“Save it.”
Holding the Glock in front of him with both hands, Avery threaded a path along the perimeter of the suite, going through the living room, coming around and making a right into the large bedroom, where he checked the closet and under the queen size bed. The bed looked untouched. The covers were spread taught over the mattress, without a single wrinkle, but Avery saw the tracks in the carpet from where Muňoz must have spent a good chunk of time pacing. At the desk, there was a half empty bottle of rum sitting in a bucket of melting ice next to a single glass, as well as a tiny, square-shaped plastic bag, the kind used to package a hit of cocaine.
Stepping back into the living room, Avery’s eyes lingered for a second over the terrace, looking through his partial reflection on the glass. Any intelligence professional worth his salt would have kept the drapes closed, he thought. The view through the sliding glass doors, past the terrace, was of the twin sail-shaped tower across the way.
Avery came back over to Muňoz, who remained on his knees with his hands behind his head.
“Are you Carnivore?”
“I’ll take you to him, if I decide you’re not fucking with me. In the meantime, let’s get out of here. Get up. Grab your stuff. If you’re taking anything, I’ll have to check it first.”
Muňoz stood up in a hurry and lowered his hands as Avery started for the door.
“Wait!”
The Colombian stopped, reached out and started to grab for Avery, but Avery spun and re-acquired him from behind the Glock. Muňoz realized his mistake and he put his hands up, palms out.