Desperate Rendition - Chapter 10

Thankfully, the rest of their trip to the airport was uneventful. Taylor was pretty sure they had seen the last of the mercs. If there were any more of them out there, they would be rudderless without their boss. Or at least that’s what he had hoped.

Or at least that’s what he had hoped.

Taylor made his way to the airport, which was smaller than the one in Caracas but still a decent size since it handled some traffic from South America and the US. Enough at least, to make it an option for them.

“I think we’ve finally seen the last of the assholes and I don’t think Ellsworth will have managed to buy off the locals here, so we should be okay. Just keep your head on a swivel once we’re inside, in case we have to run again.”

“You don’t need to tell me my job, and you’re forgetting Ellsworth might have hired a professional in addition to the mercs. Them and the locals aren’t the only things we need to be on the watch for.”

He hadn’t considered that.

“You think?” Taylor asked.

“He hired me, didn’t he?”

That was a good point.

“If he did, why haven’t they shown themselves yet? Wouldn’t we have had to deal with them already?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he hasn’t hired them yet, but I bet once he hears the PMC guys failed, he’ll start thinking about it. Especially if he knows we’re on a plane back to the US.”

“You think he’ll hire someone if we do make it back though?”

“Yeah. Groups like these last guys can’t operate like that inside the US, they’ll draw too much of a reaction. With them gone, it’s a good bet he’ll know you’re involved now and start taking you seriously. If he’d been really smart, he would have started off with a professional, but he cheaped out and went with these idiots instead. But I’d expect to have someone waiting for us when we get back.”

“Can you hire someone like you that fast?”

“Usually it takes time, but if he’s desperate and already has connections?” Bonnie said, and then shrugged.

“Shit,” Taylor said, thinking.

The problem was, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do. Once she was turned over to the FBI, she was out of his hands, but even landing at Reagan, there was going to be a delay getting her to somewhere secure.

“Nothing we can do about it now,” Taylor added. “First let’s worry about getting out of here, then we can worry about everything else. Like you said, he won’t do anything until after he knows his mercs are gone, and that’ll take the day at least.”

“Lot of assumptions there,” she said.

“Yeah, but what other choice do we have? Keep driving? Sit here forever?”

“No, you’re right, this is our best bet. I just want you to be realistic about what we face when we land in the US.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said, getting out and checking if there was anything to take with him. “Let’s go.”

The SUV had been loaded up by the mercs, with a fair amount of ammo, some food, and other equipment, plus what he’d salvaged from the car. None of it did them any good once they had to get through security.

They made their way into the airport, both with their heads on a swivel, trying to look in every direction on the way in. There were no obvious signs of an ambush, but considering all the bullshit they’d had to deal with so far, Taylor wasn’t sure that meant anything.

The second complication came at the ticket counter itself. He should have known there would be no direct flights to the US, but the best he could muster was tickets to Dulles by way of Bogota, Colombia. He got the tickets because again, what could he do, but Bogota was a big city and one Ellsworth might have connections in. At the very least, once they found out where the mercs’ bodies were found, they’d be able to work out where Taylor and Bonnie were headed. From there, it wouldn’t take much work to determine what flight they were on.

Once they got their tickets, they had to get rid of their weapons, since they weren’t going to be able to get through security with them. They took a meandering path through the airport, stopping to look at all of the crap in every single one of the little shops, mostly to buy time until they had to get through security and to the gate, but also to scope out as many people in the building as possible.

There wasn’t any sign of an ambush this time, which Taylor wasn’t surprised about. As with everything else, there just wasn’t time for anyone to get any kind of response together after they found the mercs’ bodies. Just sorting that mess out alone, finding out who they were, who else might be out here, would take hours all by itself.

For as on edge as he was, however, Bonnie seemed almost at ease. Completely carefree.

“How can you be so calm about all this?” Taylor asked as they looked through some crap he’d never buy.

“Because I’m a professional. You actually need to dial back the stressed-out spy routine. You’re practically screaming ‘I’m hiding something’ to anyone paying attention.”

“Everyone’s stressed at the airport.”

“Maybe,” Bonnie shrugged, clearly unconvinced. “But not everyone looks like they’re expecting a SWAT team to rappel from the ceiling at any moment.”

Taylor didn’t respond. He hated that she was right, and how good she was at this.

As the time of their flight approached, Taylor went back to one of the little shops and bought a small bag before finding an isolated out-of-the-way corner for them.

Putting his magazines and weapon in the bag, he gestured for her to follow suit.

“Any hidden surprises I should know about? Anything that’ll get us flagged?” he asked as she dumped her weapons in with his.

She just gave him a look, like she was offended that he was questioning her abilities. Finding one of the rentable storage lockers, he purchased one and ditched the bag inside.

“Some poor bastard’s going to have one hell of a surprise when they clear out the expired lockers,” Bonnie said, still apparently having a good time with all of this.

Things were starting to go well enough that he’d almost expected they’d hit the end of their speed bumps. He should have known better.

As they reached the front of the security line to get to the gates, they handed over their passports and tickets. A beat passed. Then two. The guard was staring hard at Bonnie’s passport and then at something on the small screen next to him, then back to the passport.

“Is there a problem?” Taylor asked.

“Wait here,” the man said abruptly before getting off the stool he was on and walking over to what Taylor assumed was a supervisor. He could feel Bonnie getting tense next to him, and hoped she didn’t do anything stupid.

If something happened, they could try to talk their way through it, but if they ran or even walked away, they would have burned themselves completely and there’d be no way back from that. They’d have to drive all the way to another country by that point, if they wanted to get out, and even that would be difficult, since it would have her passport flagged.

Worse, he had a sneaking suspicion of what was happening. Ellsworth might not have the juice to buy out military and security at every airport in the country, but he might have found a way to still jam them up. If he’d found out the name she was using in country, which was very possible considering how closely the mercs had been able to track her, then he could have gotten her passport flagged.

Taylor could have kicked himself. She’d said she had backup identity documents at the safehouse, but they’d opted to leave those, since she wasn’t as confident in the digital footprint of them, meaning it appearing in the systems that countries used to track visitors and residents. They’d left those documents because of that, since the worst thing that could happen was someone finding a second set of documents on her. That would end them up in a South American prison for sure.

The security officer and the supervisor came back to the stand carrying both of their passports. Taylor could see a handful of army guys starting to collect against the far wall where there hadn’t been any beforehand. Bonnie looked like she wanted to make a run for it, and Taylor grabbed her arm to hold her in place.

“Senorita, I am sorry, but you will need to come with us.”

“What’s going on?” Taylor asked, purposefully sticking to English.

“Your friend’s passport has been flagged for additional screening. I understand we are unable to detain you with the documents you have, but your friend is under no such protections. If you will please wait here.”

The man started to hand Taylor back his diplomatic passport, looking preemptively annoyed. As international airports go, this was a small one, only really servicing other South American countries, so Taylor couldn’t imagine he got very many diplomats through. Maybe there had been a handful of pushy Americans at some point. Bonnie looked equally worried and annoyed. What he really didn’t want was her cooped up in a room, separated from him.

“Wait. Just, let’s cool things down a second and let me make a call.”

“Call whoever you want, she’s coming with us,” the supervisor said in Spanish.

“Look, you don’t want to make a whole incident. You saw my passport and you can see we’re traveling together. I’m on official business approved through the US State Department, which I know doesn’t mean anything here in your country, but it could mean the beginnings of an international incident,” Taylor said, also in Spanish. “How do you think some bureaucrat will react when he has to deal with the fallout from that? And what do you think he will do to the people who caused what should be a simple situation of two Americans leaving your country into a serious incident? Let’s just be calm, let us stand over here while I make a call, and you won’t have to explain to the person far above your pay grade who’s about to call you on the phone why you made this harder than it needed to be.”

Taylor kept his voice level and stayed calm. He could see the security officer getting a little keyed up, ready for an argument, but his boss, at least, seemed to take a pause. He knew the system well enough to know Taylor wasn’t exactly wrong. He gave a nod to an empty part of the wall and Taylor pulled Bonnie over to it, so the line could otherwise keep moving. Bonnie was agitated and clearly wanted to say something, but thankfully was smart enough to read Taylor’s face and stay silent. The supervisor never left earshot and they’d been placed in a section that put the soldiers between them and the outside.

It was a smart position at least. Maybe they could make a run for it, but unarmed and facing guys with automatic weapons in the open, he wouldn’t put money on them getting away safely.

Taylor pulled out his phone and called a number he’d programmed in before he left the US. It rang a few times until someone picked up, identifying themselves as being with the US mission in Venezuela.

“This is John Taylor, you should have been briefed on my being in the country. I need immediate clearance for myself and a companion to board a flight back to the U.S. We’re being held up at security and her passport’s been flagged. I believe it’s only a hold and not anything more serious. We need it cleared enough for the two of us to get on a plane for the US in thirty minutes.”

“Wait where you are,” the voice said, and Taylor hung up.

The supervisor eyed him as he put his phone in his pocket. For five minutes, then ten, they all just stood there, the time ticking by painfully slowly. Taylor was hoping his hunch was right. It had been only an hour since Ellsworth would have found out his mercs were gone, which wasn’t a lot of time to act.

He would have had to find someone high enough in the government to flag a passport at the national level, in another city, and for that flag to be instantaneous and not have to filter through the levels of bureaucracy. Which meant he couldn’t just have his local cops do it, he needed someone in the government.

Taylor had been in enough third world countries to know even there, where buying officials was pretty straightforward, it still took time. The higher the person, the more time it took. Ellsworth would have known he was on a clock and had to act fast. He would have found someone low level. Someone vulnerable to being bought. And he would have asked for something simple for that first interaction, a small flag for something innocuous that could get her pulled aside and detained for a day or two.

Not like terrorism or something that would bring too many questions to his new ally. That kind of thing required more trust, since it could blow back easier. Taylor hoped it was just small enough that a request from the State Department would be enough to ignore it, maybe with an admonishment to never return to the country.

Still, at the ten-minute mark, Taylor felt he was pushing his luck. The supervisor was looking a little fed up and the military guys were eyeing him, like they wanted him to do something or let them go back to their post.

Taylor almost sighed in relief when the guy’s radio sprang to life. The supervisor took several steps back, maybe to keep them from hearing what he was being told, but the deflated look the guy had said everything that needed to be said. He looked like a guy who’d just been overruled.

Finishing his conversation, the supervisor came back and handed Bonnie’s passport to her. “You can go through to your flight, but I would suggest not returning to Venezuela again.”

“Not a problem for me,” Bonnie said, back to her carefree attitude as she took the passport and headed past security.

Taylor thanked him and hurried after her.

That had been way too close.

They made it down to their gate, but instead of sitting with the crowd and waiting for the plane, Taylor grabbed Bonnie’s arm and guided her to a quiet corner, away from as many people as possible.

She looked like she was going to ask something, but he held up a finger, silencing her as he again pulled out his phone and dialed another number.

“Solomon,” the voice on the other end answered.

“It’s Taylor. I’ve got the package and we’re coming home.”

There was a pause before Solomon spoke again. “Do you know who the original buyer was?”

Taylor was glad Solomon picked up that he hadn’t used her name or specifics.

“Yeah, and it’s big. Bigger than we thought.”

“Who is it?”

Taylor glanced at Bonnie, who was pretending not to listen. “I’d rather not say on an unsecured line. We’ve run into some issues with the buyer purchasing local government assets here. I think we’ve dealt with it, and we’re on a plane in the next twenty minutes, but he’s got juice in the US. He may not have anyone in your office directly, but I guarantee he’s got someone in the Bureau and he’s going to know what plane we’re on and when we land.”

“Does the buyer have that kind of influence to act on that?”

“Absolutely, which means we’re going to need the cavalry in place for when we land.”

“Where and when?”

Taylor gave him the details of their arrival but held back on specifics. “That’s all I can say for now. We’ll fill you in when we’re home.”

“Understood. We’ll be ready,” Solomon said before ending the call.

Taylor pocketed his phone and turned to Bonnie. “Let’s go. Our flight’s boarding soon.”