In English he said, “My friends! Welcome.”
Ethan climbed out of the boat ahead of Bertoli and Mohammed, and he shook the bald-headed man’s hand.
“My name is Leopoldo. Please, call me Leo.”
“Ethan Ross.”
“Bienvenido a Panamá, Señor Ross.” He shook hands with the other two visitors, and the four of them began walking up the steps to the main house.
“What is this place?” Ross asked.
Leo grinned proudly. “We think of it as a home away from home. Originally this was the residence of a French businessman in the fruit industry, about a hundred years ago. Then for many years it was a luxury hotel. A friend of the Venezuelan government bought it several years back, and he loans it to us when we need it.” Leo was obviously proud of this place. “All the comforts of home. Satellite TV and phones, good Internet, we even have our own chef.” He patted Ethan on his back as if they were old friends. “You all will be very well taken care of, and I am personally at your service.”
Mohammed interrupted, but softly and apologetically, “Excuse me, sir. What can you tell us about the security of this location?”
Leo opened his jacket, revealing an MP5 machine pistol. “Don’t worry, my friends. Ten men are dedicated to security here at the compound. Five more of us are also armed and trained. Panamanian police have a gunboat that patrols around here, and they watch out for us as well.”
Mohammed pressed Leo on the plan. “What if we are somehow discovered by the Americans? How do we get out of here?”
“The boats, of course. Plus there are a couple of Chevys in the driveway, always ready for escape. This island is over fifty square kilometers in size, with dirt roads in the jungle. And there are docks on all sides with more boats. There are many ways to get away from here if we need to do so, but nobody can sneak up on us without us knowing about it.”
“Thank you,” said Mohammed.
Ethan found it surprising that the young Lebanese man had the nerve to question the Venezuelans’ operation, but Leo didn’t seem offended in the least.
The colonial house was large, with a massive two-story great room and several common areas on the ground floor, and eight bedrooms on the second floor. Several outbuildings sat around a dirty swimming pool and a cracked tennis court and provided more shelter for the guard force of the safe house.
Ethan was given a room in the northeastern corner of the second floor, and an armed but professional looking silver haired security man was posted outside.
There was no access to the wraparound veranda from Ethan’s room, but through the window he saw monkeys climbing in the trees outside.
He felt protected, more or less, but he was no fool. Despite the assurances of the Venezuelans, he knew if the Americans or the Israelis came for him here, his only chance would be to run for his life.
31
GEORGETOWN NEIGHBORHOOD LIBRARY was a beautiful colonial building in one of the most upscale quarters of Washington, D.C., but it smelled, quite literally, like shit. A homeless man who slept the day away on one of the comfortable chairs had shat himself, and the odor wafted through every inch of the ground floor of the historic building.
The employees, by now quite accustomed to the homeless in their midst, had developed the ability to ignore the smell, but the well-dressed gentleman looking through the racks of the history section could not hide his expression of extreme displeasure.
Dominic Caruso appeared at his side. “You okay?”
“Fine,” David said, lying through his clenched teeth. “Shall we go upstairs, and try to get away from the unpleasant smell?”
David led the way up two flights and they found a quiet corner in the third-floor Peabody Room that was both secluded and odor-free.
“Much better,” David said. “I brought news for you. It is only for you. As far as I know, no one in your government is aware of this right now.”
“Keep talking.”
“We were able to geolocate the SIM card you gave us, and we found the phone.”
Dom winced. “Let me guess. It wasn’t with Ethan Ross.”
“I am afraid not. The phone was in a dumpster behind a 7-Eleven in Reston, Virginia.”
“Damn it. Dead end, then.”
“Not at all. We got a look at the security camera feed inside the 7-Eleven that corresponded with the time the phone was dumped.”
Dominic leaned against the rack of books, crossing his arms. “And how the hell did you manage that?”
David smiled. “We’ve been through this before. Our relationship requires trust, Mr. Caruso. And it requires taking things on faith.”
“Right.”
“On the camera we saw Ethan Ross enter the store, alone, and purchase a mobile phone. We figure he tossed his three-day-old phone in the dumpster, then went and grabbed an even fresher one. We used the transaction details from the register to find the bar code information from the packaging of the phone. From this we–
Dom held a hand up now. “Wait. What? The Mossad can hack into a 7-Eleven’s point-of-sale system?”
David raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
“Okay, I’ll stop asking questions.”
The Mossad officer went on. “From the bar code we were able to pull the SIM number from the phone, and we geolocated it to Dulles Airport. Apparently he took the battery out, but in Dulles he put the battery back in, we got a hit, then he removed the battery again, and we lost the ping. At first that looked like another dead end, but on closer inspection the phone did not go to the main terminal. Instead it pinged from a charter hangar. There was one charter that left around the time the phone was at Dulles.”
“Where did it go?”
“Miami. And then from there it filed a flight plan to Caracas, Venezuela.”
“Caracas,” Dom repeated. “Do you know who chartered the flight?”
“Yes. A front company for Venezuela’s General Intelligence Service.”
Dom scratched his head, utterly confused now. “Ross is a Middle East expert who gave away secrets that benefitted the Palestinians. What the hell does any of this have to do with the Venezuelan government?”
“We do not know. But there is another problem. We had people waiting in Caracas for the flight to land, but the aircraft changed the flight plan in the air and went to Panama.” Dom leaned his head back against a bookshelf. “From Panama City they could get on a flight to anywhere.”
“They did not go to Panama City. They went to Bocas del Toro, in the north of the country. A small airport on Isla Colón. They should have landed in the past hour. We weren’t able to get anyone airport fast enough to look for them.”
“Any idea why they flew to Bocas del Toro?”
“None.”
Dom thought it over. The Panamanian government and the Venezuelan government were not exactly engaged in a shooting war, but the two nations did have an adversarial relationship. Dom could imagine no reason Venezuelan intelligence would sneak an American spy out of the United States and drop him off in the middle of the Panamanian jungle.
Dom left the library with a promise to call David soon. Neither of the men knew what their next step would be in the Ethan Ross hunt, but Dom knew where he would find more information.
As he walked back to his motorcycle in the lot behind the library, he called Gerry Hendley, and asked him if he could find out what the CIA knew about Venezuelan operations in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Gerry was quite understandably confused by the request, but he promised to call one of his contacts on the seventh floor of Langley and get right back to him.
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Dom was back in his Lincoln Circle condo when his phone chirped. He saw it was Hendley on the other end.
“Tell me you’ve got something, Gerry.”
Gerry spoke in his characteristic southern drawl. “I’ve got something, but I have no idea what good it will do you. My contacts at CIA gave me three locations in Bocas del Toro they say have been pegged in some shape o
r form to the Venezuelan security services. That’s GIO, the General Intelligence Office and GCIO, General Counterintelligence Office.”
“Let me have them.”
“There is a hotel in Bocas Town that was bought by a couple of ex–GIO boys from Caracas a few months back. I’ve got the address.”
“In the town itself? No, that doesn’t sound like what I’m looking for. What else?”
“A pilot for a puddle-jumper service at the airport has been identified as a Venezuelan asset.”
“Damn,” Dom said. He thought it possible Ross was put on yet another airplane in Bocas and flown somewhere even more remote than Bocas del Toro. But the more he thought of it, the less it rang true. They were flying in a King Air 350i, an airplane that didn’t need a particularly long field for landing. They wouldn’t have to change planes to go to a remote airport.
Dom said, “What’s the third lead?”
“For the third they couldn’t give me an address. They gave me the longitude and latitude. Apparently, it’s a large old colonial building on a tropical island a few miles’ boat ride from Bocas del Toro itself. It’s owned by a family tied to the Bolivarian government in power in Caracas.”
Dom knew instantly this lead was a much better prospect than the first two. “Give me the coordinates.” Gerry did so, and Dom typed them in to EagleView on his laptop.
Looking over the satellite map of the property, he thought it could possibly be used as a safe house for the Venezuelan security services. It was secluded, with good views of a narrow inlet and a dirt road that headed to the southern part of the island. “Yeah,” he muttered to himself. Then Dom said, “Gerry, sorry, but I need to call you right back.”
Dom dialed David and checked his watch while the phone rang. As soon as the other man answered, the American said, “I think I know where Ross is.”
“Where?”
“Before I tell you, I want assurances you won’t get in my way. You offered me logistical help. That’s what I want.”
“Agreed.”
“He’s going to be in a safe house run by Venezuelan intelligence on a tropical island near Bocas del Toro, Panama.”
“I see. Do you have any idea what he is doing there?”
“None at all. I’m speculating, but perhaps he gave the Venezuelans some intelligence in exchange for safe passage out of the country. I don’t know what intelligence, nor do I know why they wouldn’t just take him directly to Caracas.”
“But you want to go down there to look for him? Alone?”
“Yes.”
“What is it you hope to accomplish?”
“I’m going to get proof he’s there, and get some intel on the location.”
“And then?”
“And then maybe you can send a team of Shayetet Thirteen commandos to kill him. It’s Panama. It’s not D.C. Surely you won’t have any qualms about smoking this guy on a jungle island in Central America for what he did to the Yacobys.”
David replied coldly. “We would do it with great pleasure.”
“But David, just so there is no misunderstanding. If I get down there and happen to find an opportunity . . . I’m going to kill him myself.”
“Even better,” David replied. “What do you need from me?”
“Guns. In Bocas, waiting for me when I get there.”
David whistled. “Our operation in Panama is very limited. But I’ll see what I can do.”
Dom redialed Gerry Hendley next, and greeted him with a request that did not take the ex–South Carolina senator completely by surprise. “I would like to ask permission to leave the country for a few days.”
“Let me guess. You want to go to Panama.”
“Good guess.”
“The reason for this impromptu vacation?”
“Venezuelan intelligence has Ethan Ross. This has been established by my contact in the Mossad. They took him there to Bocas, likely to that colonial building in the jungle.”
Gerry said, “If the Venezuelans have him, why the hell isn’t he in Venezuela?”
“That’s the question of the hour. Haven’t figured that out yet.”
“What do you plan on doing once you get there?”
“I plan on evaluating the security situation around him. And then liaising with Mossad.”
“Why don’t you communicate what you know with the FBI?”
“Right now it’s less what I know and more what I think I know. I can’t prove anything yet.”
Dom hadn’t said anything about either taking a shot at Ross himself or arranging for Israeli Special Forces to do the hit, but Gerry was no fool, and he knew what his man had been going through since India. He filled in the blanks and said, “You know killing Ross won’t bring the Yacobys back. What you are planning is simple vengeance. Nothing more.”
Dom said, “I know.” But he said nothing else.
After a moment, Gerry said, “Fair enough. You understand this operation you are undertaking is in no way sanctioned by The Campus or the United States government.”
Dom wanted to say, “That’s the whole idea,” but instead he just said, “I do.”
“Having said, that, I’m not letting you go down there without support. What do you need from me?”
“I appreciate it, but I’m not going to expose our operation in this endeavor. I’ll get the support I need.”
Before Gerry could respond, there was a loud banging at the door that even Gerry heard over the phone. Dom looked up quickly, then his eyes narrowed. He said, “On the topic of assistance, have you been sending Adara Sherman to check up on me?”
“Is there any point in me denying it?”
“I was hoping it was the fact she’d finally noticed my good looks and charm.”
Gerry chuckled. “Nope. In fact, it’s the opposite. She told me you looked like hell and were acting even darker and more brooding than usual, which for you is saying something. So I’ve asked her to watch over you.” A pause. “I guess if you’ve been out running around with foreign agents on a one-man vengeance mission, she hasn’t done a terribly good job.”
“She’s done fine. I’ve been working full-time to avoid her. She’s here now.” Dom looked at the door suddenly. “Gerry, I need to call you back again.”
Gerry seemed surprised, but he recovered quickly. “Uh, sure. All right. Stay in touch.”
Dom opened the door, Adara stood in front of him wearing blue jeans, winter boots, and a thick coat. Her blond hair was hidden under a knit cap, but the cap did nothing to hide the perturbed expression on her face. “You do realize, Caruso, that I’ve got other things I could be doing with my time.”
“Of course. Come on in.”
She entered, looked around at Dom’s messy condo, and then opened his refrigerator like she owned the place. It was all but empty, as were the cupboards she checked. She lifted a bottle of Maker’s Mark off the kitchen table and checked to see that it was almost empty. She turned back to Dom and gave him a disapproving look. She said, “I’m going to clean up around here, and then I’m going shopping. You need some food, some real food. You’re going to bitch about it, but it’s going to happen anyway, so you might as well go somewhere and mope while I do what I’m going to do.”
Dom shook his head vehemently. “Appreciated, but not necessary, Sherman. I’m actually going out of town. Today. I promise I’ll call you when I get back in town.”
Adara Sherman did not bat an eyelash. “Actually, that won’t be necessary.”
Dom’s eyebrows rose. Maybe these wellness checks were finally over. “Really? Why not?”
“Because I’m going with you.”
“No. This is OCONUS. Outside the continental United States.”
She sighed. Annoyed. “You think I don’t know what OCONUS means?”
Dom fought a groan. He didn’t have time for this. He needed to get on a plane ASAP. “Look, This will be a recon op, okayed by Gerry but not exactly sanctioned, and very possibly dangerous. I’m sorry, but I can
’t take responsibility for you.”
“Of course you can’t. I’m worried you can’t take responsibility for yourself, so I’m going along to watch over you.”
Dom started to protest some more, but he stopped himself. “Hang on a second. Do you know anything about boats?”
She rolled her eyes. “I was in the Navy, Caruso.”
“I don’t mean battleships. I mean something small. Fast enough on open water, but something that won’t stick out.”
Sherman said, “Two things. One, the U.S. Navy doesn’t have battleships anymore. And two, where would this boat be operating and what would it be transporting?”
“An archipelago in Panama, and I need it to transport me and some scuba gear.”
“That’s it?”
After a shrug, Dom said, “Maybe a gun.”
The attractive blonde did not hesitate. “Okay. You’ll want a shallow draft, something small, twenty to thirty feet long, I’d say. Maybe a ski boat. MasterCraft makes some great ones I’m very familiar with. Of course, it all depends on what’s available down there.”
Dom had already returned to his computer, and now he was pulling up flights for today. “Okay. You win, you can come along. Go home and pack a bag, then meet me at Dulles in an hour. There’s a one p.m. flight. If you haul ass we can just make it and be in Panama City by five. We can find air transport to Bocas del Toro when we get there.”
Adara didn’t move. “My passport is in my purse, and I have a three-day carry-on in the trunk of my car. Part of working for Gerry Hendley. On call twenty-four-seven. I can buy anything else I need en route or once there.”
Dom was duly impressed. Even he and the other operators of The Campus bitched if they didn’t get at least a couple hours’ prep time before traveling OCONUS.
“There’s just one problem,” Sherman added. “You have dark hair, dark eyes, tan skin. You can fit in down in Panama as long as you don’t open your mouth. I, on the other hand, have short blond hair and gray eyes. I’d fit in better on the moon than in Central America.”
Dom laughed. “You’ll be my hot but overly controlling girlfriend. Trust me, Sherman, nobody who meets you is going to second-guess that cover story for a second.”