“No. And he struck me as much more careful than Koralev. He was very itchy—he kept his eyes open all the way through the meeting, checking around him. I decided to follow him rather than Koralev when they were finished, but he shook me off quickly. Standard counter-surveillance tactics—it was just me on his tail. No way I could stay on him.”

“Pictures?”

“Like I said—not my first rodeo,” Milton said.

He reached into his pocket and took out a pack of photographs. He handed them to Beatrix. She looked through the pictures and saw a series that had been taken with the Planetario Humboldt as the backdrop. A man whom Beatrix recognised as Igor Koralev was talking to another younger man. This second man was unshaven and wearing thick black-framed glasses and a cap that Beatrix immediately suspected was part of a disguise. The cap bore a logo on the front that Beatrix vaguely remembered: curved prongs that joined at the top to form the outline of the letter A.

“How long did they talk for?”

“Thirty minutes,” Milton said. “I couldn’t get close enough to get an idea what they were talking about. It looked intense.”

She put the photographs down. “The file says he lives out of town?”

“He does. There’s a small village thirty minutes south of Caracas. Cortada de Maturín. You go through it until you get to a private track. It goes up into the hills. You wouldn’t be able to follow him without being seen. I was going to hike up there—we could still do that if you wanted to. I staked it out for three hours last night after he went back and then I picked him up as he left this morning. One other car came out last night. It was driven by an old woman. I followed her back to the village. I’m thinking she might be his housekeeper. Nothing else in, nothing else out. It’s a good place to hide out.”

“Any sign of other meetings?”

Milton shook his head.

“What about protection?”

“No,” Milton said, shaking his head. “I don’t think he has any. I looked, but I couldn’t see anyone.”

“He’s out here on his own? Just wandering around?”

“As far as I could tell,” Milton said.

Beatrix frowned.

“I know what the intel said,” Milton said. “But I would have spotted it.”

That was entirely consistent with what the briefing had suggested. Beatrix didn’t like surprises, but, on the other hand, the job of taking him might have become a lot more straightforward.

“What do you want to do?” Milton said.

“We find him tomorrow. Where would be the best place to take him?”