The Prince of Risk A Novel(46)

But she hadn’t come to the morgue to critique her marksmanship. She had come to confirm her hunch that the assailant was a professional soldier. It was not simply the perfect barracks corners on the beds. It was how Shepherd had handled his weapon. How he had fired in crisp three-shot bursts. How he had kept his cool under fire, holding his position and concentrating first on one target and then on another. She had no doubt that the assailant had been in a gun battle before, more likely more than once.

Alex had come because soldiers have tattoos.

At first glance she spotted three. A Samoan war band around the left arm and a series of tribal stripes running up the shoulder. The design was standard and told her nothing about the shooter. A second tattoo was more promising. Below the shoulder on the right arm, a striking cobra was inked, and below it the Roman numerals III.III.V and the words Vincere aut Mori, which she took to be Latin for “Conquer or Die.”

Alex snapped a photograph of the tattoo with her phone.

A third tattoo, on his right breast, showed an inverted isosceles triangle inside which a small, comical black owl sat staring straight ahead. A parachute filled the space behind the owl. In one corner was a red 10. In another, a green 2 REP. A single Latin word was written along the exterior of each of the triangle’s legs: Legio. Patria. Nostra. She knew the tattoo signified membership in a military organization. The question was which one.

Again she took a picture.

On a hunch, she lifted the right arm. She saw it at once and some small part of her felt assuaged. There on the fleshy underside of his torso were the letters AB.



AB for the soldier’s blood group.

Not just a soldier, she told herself. A commando.

And most probably a mercenary.





31




A gentle breeze rustled the palms surrounding Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, Venezuela. It was dusk and the thermometer registered a mild 75 degrees. A veil of mist decorated the crown of the El Ávila, the mountain that divided the city and stood as an imposing guard to the airport’s west.

Inside the terminal, 110 passengers crowded the waiting area at Gate 16, anxious to board Mexicana Flight 388 with service to Mexico City. Departure had been delayed two hours owing to a cell of thunderstorms passing to the north. Children pressed their faces to the glass, eager to spot a bolt of lightning streaking across the sky. They returned to their parents disappointed. The sky was cloudless. Not one of them had seen so much as the spark from a firefly. Parents shook their heads. Faulty weather forecasts were the least of Venezuela’s problems.

No one paid attention to the chartered bus that crossed the tarmac a little after 6 p.m. and pulled up to the rear of the aircraft. Nor did anyone notice the twenty-three men and women who alighted from the bus and climbed the mobile staircase onto the plane, having bypassed normal airline check-in procedures, security checkpoints, and passport control. When boarding was announced, the passengers sighed and filed onto the aircraft. No one said a word about the gringos already seated in the cabin. Nor did anyone comment when the plane landed in Mexico City and they were asked to remain in their seats while the gringos exited before them.

Two men waited for the twenty-three inside Benito Juárez International Airport. One was tall and broad-shouldered and wore the uniform of the Guardia Nacional. The other was short and dumpy and wore a wrinkled suit and expensive sunglasses. The soldier smiled and spoke loudly as he welcomed the group to Mexico. He had wonderful teeth. The short, fat man in the rumpled suit told him to shut up and get moving. The soldier clamped his square jaw shut and led the twenty-three to a door across the hall from Immigration Control.



Another uniformed official waited inside a large, unremarkable room. He asked the visitors to line up and have their passports ready. One by one, he examined the travel documents. All were new Portuguese passports that had never been stamped. The official had worked in immigration for many years. He knew that citizens of the European union   required a visa to visit Venezuela. He also knew better than to point out this discrepancy. One by one, he returned the passports to their owners. He did not, as was his custom, stamp each. Nor did he pass any through the optical scanner that recorded a person’s entry and read the biometric magnetic strip containing the visitor’s personal statistics. The official was a smart man and possessed a remarkable memory. It did not require significant effort to memorize two of the passport numbers and the names written inside. The official had many masters.

Thirty minutes after setting foot on Mexican soil, the twenty-three boarded a private bus and were driven to a respectable hotel on the outskirts of the city. Here they showered, changed clothes, and enjoyed a traditional Mexican dinner of carnitas, tortillas, and frijoles. Each was allowed one beer.