Absolute Resolve
Venezuela
The first explosion rolled through Fuerte Tiuna like a god clearing his throat.
Nicolás Maduro lay still for half a second, his mind cycling through possibilities: coup, assassination, earthquake. Then the second blast came, closer, and the lights died. Beside him, Cilia grabbed his arm with both hands.
“The saferoom,” he hissed. “Now.”
They had drilled this. Twelve steps from the bed to the reinforced door concealed behind the bookshelf. Thirty seconds to seal themselves inside, where three feet of steel and concrete would hold against anything short of a bunker buster. From there, the emergency beacon would summon the presidential guard, the army, the Russians if necessary.
Maduro pulled Cilia from the bed. Through the window, he could see flames rising from the outer checkpoint, the silhouettes of men moving with terrible coordination. Not a coup, he realized. A coup would be chaos, officers shouting, vehicles crashing through gates. This was something else. This was quiet and precise and American.
“Twelve steps,” he said. “Go.”
They crossed the room in the dark, Cilia’s hand tight in his. His fingers found the latch behind the collected works of Simón Bolívar, and the hidden door swung inward on oiled hinges. The saferoom lights flickered on, battery powered, revealing the cot, the water supplies, the communications array.
“Inside,” he ordered.
Cilia stepped over the threshold, then stopped. “Jaguar.”
“What?”
“The cat. He is still in the bedroom.”
Maduro stared at her. Through the floor, he could feel the vibration of boots, many boots, approaching fast. “We do not have time for the cat.”
“He will be frightened. The explosions.”
“Please, Cilia,” he begged, “he is a cat. He will hide under the bed. He will be fine.”
Cilia pulled her hand free. “You gave him to me. For my birthday. You said he was a symbol of Venezuela’s beauty.”
“That was a speech. I was being romantic.”
“I am getting my cat.”
She was already moving back toward the bedroom, and Maduro understood with sudden clarity that he faced a choice: seal himself inside alone and explain later why he had abandoned his wife, or follow her into whatever was coming. Twenty years of marriage had taught him something about the costs of such explanations.
He cursed and went after her.
The bengal was not under the bed. The bengal was sitting on the windowsill, silhouetted against the fires outside, watching the compound burn with what struck Maduro as unusual calm.
“Jaguar,” Cilia cooed. “Come here, my precious.”
The cat turned to look at them. Its golden eyes caught the firelight, and for a moment it did not move. Then it leaped gracefully from the sill into Cilia’s waiting arms.
“There,” she said. “You see? He was waiting for us.”
They ran back toward the saferoom. Maduro could hear voices now, foreign voices, shouting commands in English. Ten steps. Eight. The door was still open, the light spilling out.
Five steps.
The bedroom door exploded inward, and men in black poured through. They moved like shadows given form, their weapons up, their faces hidden behind night vision goggles that made them look like insects. Four of them, five, six. Maduro shoved Cilia toward the saferoom.
“Get inside! Close the—”
Something hit him in the back, and he went down hard. The concrete floor knocked the breath from his lungs. Boots surrounded him, and he felt hands on his wrists, pulling them behind his back, cold metal closing around them.
“Nicolás Maduro,” a voice said above him, flat and American, “by order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, you are under arrest for conspiracy to distribute narcotics. You have the right to remain silent.”
From the floor, Maduro watched two soldiers restrain Cilia. The cat had wriggled free from her arms and was sitting on the bed now, watching the proceedings with its head tilted slightly to one side.
“This is Venezuelan sovereign territory,” Maduro spat. “This is an act of war.”
The American who had read his rights pulled off his goggles. Young, clean shaven, utterly unmoved. “Take them to the extraction point.”
They hauled him up, dragged him past the ruined door, past the fires still burning in the compound. Cilia was crying now, shouting about international law, about crimes against humanity. Maduro said nothing. He was already calculating: who had betrayed them, who had given away the location of the saferoom, who had known about the twelve steps and the hidden door.
Back in the bedroom, one soldier remained behind. He pulled off his helmet and knelt beside the bed, where the bengal was licking its paw.
“Good work, Operative Gato,” he said quietly.
The cat looked at him and blinked once, slowly, in the way that cats do when they are satisfied with how things have turned out.
The soldier reached into his tactical vest and produced a small can. The pop of the lid opening was loud in the sudden silence.
“Fancy Feast,” he said, setting it down. “As promised.”
Jaguar began to eat.