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Is this day never going to end?If only Lena could have offered up some details regarding their exodus. Then Grace could entertain herself with visions of a future that, for the moment, still seemed entirely uncertain.
* * *
Ascending the metal staircase that went to the offices overlooking the interior of the warehouse, Lena glanced down at the arsenal of war toys President Maduro had been amassing in recent years and smiled rather cynically. Only two uniformed guards were here at this time of the evening, both of them patrolling the aisles side-by-side, talking to each other animatedly. Lena ignored them, as she had from the outset, and they, in turn, ignored her.
Her hours were from 6:00 P.M. to 1:00 A.M., Monday through Friday. The fact it was Sunday night seemed not to occur to the guards, thank goodness. Her cover job was to make certain the workers got paid, to approve their leave, and arrange for substitutes whenever a worker took ill. But her true objective was to obtain a detailed description of the weapons at Maduro’s disposal and, just as importantly, which country they came from. Tonight, at the final hour, she might finally lay her hands on that information.
It had proven elusive thus far. For one thing, the intel she sought wasn’t kept on the same computer she used in the HR department. For another, the only man who had access to what she wanted was Maduro’s first cousin, Oscar. It would have been a waste of time for Lena to use her charms on him, as he wasn’t interested in women.
Lena had focused instead on cultivating an asset named Reynaldo, the maintenance tech who’d always dreamed of emigrating to America. She had promised Reynaldo that if he discovered the password to Oscar Maduro’s computer, she would help him emigrate to America, as she had family there.
The day before Grace and Mateo fell unexpectedly into her lap—Reynaldo had texted her the Venezuelan equivalent ofBingo,which meant he’d discovered Oscar’s password. Lena winced inwardly as she pictured Reynaldo’s dismay when she vanished on him. He would think she’d lied to him about helping him escape from Venezuela. But she had every intention of making good on that promise.
Lena glanced into Oscar’s dark office, testing the doorknob as she walked casually past it. Bless his heart, Reynaldo had left it unlocked for her—not that a locked door would have deterred her for long. Once she lulled the guards by working in her own office for an hour or two, she would slip into Oscar’s lair, find the files she needed, and download them onto the thumb drive in her pocket.
Concern pricked her as she thought of Grace and Mateo sitting in her car outside. Jake was certainly asking a lot of her by tossing them in her direction at this critical juncture. Then again, Jake knew her better than anyone in the world, even her own family members. He knew she had a soft spot where mothers and children were concerned. Lena drew a deep breath.
Let them be okay out there.
At least it was quiet at the complex at night. Then again, with the Rebel Army pummeling the nearby airport, it wouldn’t surprise Lena in the least for Maduro to decide he needed to relocate his stash before the rebels pointed their long-range missiles at it.
As for herself, she couldn’t wait to say goodbye to this country. Sure, parts of Venezuela were breathtaking, not to mention achingly familiar, as she’d spent the earliest years of her life here. But the corruption in the government and the appalling apathy toward the suffering of the people sickened her. She couldn’t stand to watch it one more day. Or maybe she couldn’t wait to lay eyes on Jake, who was being sent to retrieve her. Funny how he was always in the background, ready to save her, regardless of where she went.
With a shake of her head, Lena entered her glassed-in office, raising the blinds so she could see into the warehouse. She dropped her keys in the desk drawer so they wouldn’t jingle when she moved around. Booting up her computer, she jumped into the work she’d been hired to do, all the while keeping one eye on the time stamp at the bottom of her screen and the other on the warehouse’s interior, as she waited for the guards below to take their break.
CHAPTER18
Exactly two hours into her work, Lena noted some movement in her peripheral vision. The guards were headed out the door for a smoke. She knew from having timed them that they would stand just outside the door—the one on the opposite side of the building from where she’d parked—for at least ten minutes. That gave her plenty of time to slip into Oscar’s office, lock the door, and close the blinds so they wouldn’t see the light of the computer.
But first things first. From behind her desk, she pulled out a sheet of cardboard cut into the shape of her silhouette and propped it up on her desk chair to make it look like she was still in her office. Then she eased out onto the walkway and made her way soundlessly to Oscar’s door. Nobody saw her. Nor was any camera pointed at Oscar’s office—she’d made sure of that a while ago.
After locking Oscar’s door behind her, she took a good look around. The lucky duck got a great, big office, five times the space of Lena’s, with his own window, facing the coast. And—hello—there was even a coffee bar on one wall. Ignoring a clamoring for caffeine, Lena crossed to Oscar’s immense desk that, unlike hers, did not look out over the interior of the warehouse but rather out the rear window at a star-spangled sky. She peered outside, wishing she could check on Grace and Mateo, but her car was just around the corner, out of sight.
Counting on the light of the stars to see, she lifted Oscar’s keyboard, pleased to see a folded scrap of paper beneath it. As promised, Reynaldo had scribbled the password he’d found. She dropped into the leather desk chair, using the light on her watch to read it.
Come on, baby.With a jiggle of the mouse, she roused the computer, which she could hear humming softly under the desk. The first time she typed in the password, her trembling fingers struck an extra key.Chill.She forced herself to slow down, drawing a deep tactical breath and then exhaling before typing the password again.
The euphoria that hit her veins when the screen changed was unlike anything she’d ever experienced—with the exception of that one time in Spain when Jake had told her he loved her.
Focus.She tucked away the memory to savor later. This was important. The United States needed to know who, apart from the usual suspects, had thrown their lot in with the Venezuelan dictator. The whole world was ripping apart at the seams, with totalitarian nations in one corner, and progressive nations in the other. The United States needed to know which nations they could trust.
Find it.There had to be a manifesto somewhere, a single list containing all the names of countries who’d donated firepower to assist Maduro in retaining his grip. But there wasso muchinformation! And not just about the weapons being stored here, but also the addresses of Maduro’s closest kin, his top generals, his enforcers. The Agency could use all of this.
Slipping her thumb drive into the port on Oscar’s computer, Lena set about downloading file after file. She heard the guards go back to work. They would see her cutout silhouette and assume she was up in her office. Keeping one ear pricked to the possibility of them coming upstairs to check the offices, she continued downloading.
It was approaching 10:00 P.M. when she stumbled across the manifesto she was looking for.Jackpot!She skimmed it briefly, not surprised to see North Korea, Yemen, and Iran on the list. But so was Cuba, and they’d just assured the U.S. that they were neutral.
Jake would be proud of her for getting this list. She pictured him and his squad of teammates zipping across the tops of the waves in a RIB as they headed for the nearby coast to fetch her. Her thoughts fragmented for a moment. How was she going to greet Jake? It had been almost two years since they’d gone their separate ways.
Should she play it cool and treat him like a colleague, or should she throw her arms around him and whisper in his ear,I’ve missed you?
But if she did that, then he might think she was done saving the world, and she wasn’t—not yet, not nearly.
Enough.She cut her thoughts short. With the thumb drive’s storage capacity nearly all used up, she ejected it and slipped it deep into the pocket on her thigh.
She was about to furtively slip from Oscar’s office when she heard it: the distinct rumbling of a cargo bay door opening, then another. Beyond that, it sounded like the entire National Army had just pulled up in a convoy.
Panic streaked through Lena’s veins. At least she herself had every right to be inside the warehouse, though not in Oscar’s office. She turned full circle, seeking someplace to hide the thumb drive for later retrieval. Oscar’s elegant desk lamp caught her eye. She slid the thumb drive under its raised base, between the footed corners.
